MEDITATIONS AT VERSAILLES

‘Stella (continuant)VoilàQue je vois s’avancer, sans pilote et sans rames,Une barque portant deux hommes et deux femmesEt, spectacle inouï qui me ravit encor,Tous quatre avaient au front une auréole d’orD’où partaient des rayons de si vive lumièreQue je fus obligée à baisser la paupière;Et, lorsque je rouvris les yeux avec effroi,Les voyageurs divins étaient auprès de moi.Un jour de chacun d’eux et dans toute sa gloireJe te raconterai la merveilleuse histoire,Et tu l’adoreras, j’espère; en ce moment,Ma mère, il te suffit de savoir seulementQue tous quatre venaient du fond de la Syrie:Un édit les avait bannis de leur patrie,Et, se faisant bourreaux, des hommes irrités,Sans avirons, sans eau, sans pain et garottés,Sur une frêle barque échouée au rivage.Les avaient à la mer poussés dans un orage.Mais à peine l’esquif eut-il touché les flots,Qu’au cantique, chanté par les saints matelots,L’ouragan replia ses ailes frémissantes,Que la mer aplanit ses vagues mugissantes,Et qu’un soleil plus pur, reparaissant aux cieux,Enveloppa l’esquif d’un cercle radieux!...Junia.Mais c’était un prodige.Stella.Un miracle, ma mère!Leurs fers tombèrent seuls, l’eau cessa d’être amère,Et deux fois chaque jour le bateau fut couvertD’une manne pareille à celle du desert;C’est ainsi que, poussés par une main céleste,Je les vis aborder.Junia.Oh! dis vîte le reste!Stella.A l’aube, trois d’entre eux quittèrent la maison:Marthe prit le chemin qui mène à Tarascon,Lazare et Maximin celui de Massilie,Et celle qui resta ...c’était la plus jolie[how truly French!],Nous faisant appeler vers le milieu du jour,Demanda si les monts ou les bois d’alentourCachaient quelque retraite inconnue et profonde,Qui la pût séparer à tout jamais du monde....Aquila se souvint qu’il avait pénétréDans un antre sauvage et de tous ignoré,Grotte creusée aux flancs de ces Alpes sublimes,Où l’aigle fait son aire au-dessus des abîmes.Il offrit cet asile, et dès le lendemainTous deux, pour l’y guider, nous étions en chemin.Le soir du second jour nous touchâmes sa base:Là, tombant à genoux dans une sainte extase,Elle pria longtemps, puis vers l’antre inconnu,Dénouant sa chaussure, elle marcha pied nu.Nos prières, nos cris restèrent sans réponses:Au milieu des cailloux, des épines, des ronces,Nous la vîmes monter, un bâton à la main,Et ce n’est qu’arrivée au terme du chemin,Qu’enfin elle tomba sans force et sans haleine....Junia.Comment la nommait-on, ma fille?Stella.Madeline.’

Junia.Mais c’était un prodige.

Stella.Un miracle, ma mère!Leurs fers tombèrent seuls, l’eau cessa d’être amère,Et deux fois chaque jour le bateau fut couvertD’une manne pareille à celle du desert;C’est ainsi que, poussés par une main céleste,Je les vis aborder.

Junia.Oh! dis vîte le reste!

Stella.A l’aube, trois d’entre eux quittèrent la maison:Marthe prit le chemin qui mène à Tarascon,Lazare et Maximin celui de Massilie,Et celle qui resta ...c’était la plus jolie[how truly French!],Nous faisant appeler vers le milieu du jour,Demanda si les monts ou les bois d’alentourCachaient quelque retraite inconnue et profonde,Qui la pût séparer à tout jamais du monde....Aquila se souvint qu’il avait pénétréDans un antre sauvage et de tous ignoré,Grotte creusée aux flancs de ces Alpes sublimes,Où l’aigle fait son aire au-dessus des abîmes.Il offrit cet asile, et dès le lendemainTous deux, pour l’y guider, nous étions en chemin.Le soir du second jour nous touchâmes sa base:Là, tombant à genoux dans une sainte extase,Elle pria longtemps, puis vers l’antre inconnu,Dénouant sa chaussure, elle marcha pied nu.Nos prières, nos cris restèrent sans réponses:Au milieu des cailloux, des épines, des ronces,Nous la vîmes monter, un bâton à la main,Et ce n’est qu’arrivée au terme du chemin,Qu’enfin elle tomba sans force et sans haleine....

Junia.Comment la nommait-on, ma fille?

Stella.Madeline.’

Walking, says Stella, by the sea-shore,

‘A bark drew near, that had nor sail nor oar; two women and two men the vessel bore: each of that crew, ‘twas wondrous to behold, wore round his head a ring of blazing gold; from which such radiance glittered all around, that I was fain to look towards the ground. And when once more I raised my frightened eyne, before me stood the travellers divine; their rank, the glorious lot that each befell, at better season, mother, will I tell. Of this anon: the time will come when thou shalt learn to worship as I worship now. Suffice it, that from Syria’s land they came; an edict from their country banished them. Fierce, angry men had seizedupon the four, and launched them in that vessel from the shore. They launched these victims on the waters rude: nor rudder gave to steer, nor bread for food. As the doomed vessel cleaves the stormy main, that pious crew uplifts a sacred strain; the angry waves are silent as it sings; the storm, awe-stricken, folds its quivering wings. A purer sun appears the heavens to light, and wraps the little bark in radiance bright.Junia.Sure, ‘twas a prodigy.Stella.A miracle. Spontaneous from their hands the fetters fell. The salt sea-wave grew fresh; and, twice a day, manna (like that which on the desert lay) covered the bark, and fed them on their way. Thus, hither led, at Heaven’s divine behest, I saw them land——Junia.My daughter, tell the rest.Stella.Three of the four our mansion left at dawn. One, Martha, took the road to Tarascon; Lazarus and Maximin to Massily; but one remained (the fairest of the three), who asked us if, i’ the woods or mountains near, there chanced to be some cavern lone and drear; where she might hide, for ever, from all men. It chanced, my cousin knew of such a den; deep hidden in a mountain’s hoary breast, on which the eagle builds his airy nest. And thither offered he the saint to guide. Next day upon the journey forth we hied; and came, at the second eve, with weary pace, unto the lonely mountain’s rugged base. Here the worn traveller, falling on her knee, did pray awhile in sacred ecstasy; and, drawing off her sandals from her feet, marched, naked, towards that desolate retreat. No answer made she to our cries or groans; but walking midst the prickles and rude stones, a staff in hand, we saw her upwards toil; nor ever did she pause, nor rest the while, save at the entry of that savage den. Here, powerless and panting, fell she then.Junia.What was her name, my daughter?Stella.Magdalen.

Junia.Sure, ‘twas a prodigy.

Stella.A miracle. Spontaneous from their hands the fetters fell. The salt sea-wave grew fresh; and, twice a day, manna (like that which on the desert lay) covered the bark, and fed them on their way. Thus, hither led, at Heaven’s divine behest, I saw them land——

Junia.My daughter, tell the rest.

Stella.Three of the four our mansion left at dawn. One, Martha, took the road to Tarascon; Lazarus and Maximin to Massily; but one remained (the fairest of the three), who asked us if, i’ the woods or mountains near, there chanced to be some cavern lone and drear; where she might hide, for ever, from all men. It chanced, my cousin knew of such a den; deep hidden in a mountain’s hoary breast, on which the eagle builds his airy nest. And thither offered he the saint to guide. Next day upon the journey forth we hied; and came, at the second eve, with weary pace, unto the lonely mountain’s rugged base. Here the worn traveller, falling on her knee, did pray awhile in sacred ecstasy; and, drawing off her sandals from her feet, marched, naked, towards that desolate retreat. No answer made she to our cries or groans; but walking midst the prickles and rude stones, a staff in hand, we saw her upwards toil; nor ever did she pause, nor rest the while, save at the entry of that savage den. Here, powerless and panting, fell she then.

Junia.What was her name, my daughter?

Stella.Magdalen.

Here the translator must pause—having no inclination to enter ‘the tabernacle’ in company with such a spotless high-priest as Monsieur Dumas.

Something ‘tabernacular’ may be found in Dumas’s famous piece ofDon Juan de Marana. The poet has laid the scene of his play in a vast number of places: in heaven (where we have the Virgin Mary, and little angels, in blue, swinging censers before her!)—on earth, under the earth, and in a place still lower, but not mentionable to ears polite; and the plot, as it appears from adialoguebetween a good and a bad angel, with which the playcommences, turns upon a contest between these two worthies for the possession of the soul of a member of the family of Marana.

Don Juan de Marana not only resembles his namesake, celebrated by Mozart and Molière, in his peculiar successes among the ladies, but possesses further qualities which render his character eminently fitting for stage representation: he unites the virtues of Lovelace and Lacenaire; he blasphemes upon all occasions; he murders, at the slightest provocation, and without the most trifling remorse; he overcomes ladies of rigid virtue, ladies of easy virtue, and ladies of no virtue at all; and the poet, inspired by the contemplation of such a character, has depicted his hero’s adventures and conversation with wonderful feeling and truth.

The first act of the play contains a half-dozen of murders and intrigues; which would have sufficed humbler genius than M. Dumas’s, for the completion of, at least, half a dozen tragedies. In the second act our hero flogs his elder brother, and runs away with his sister-in-law; in the third, he fights a duel with a rival, and kills him: whereupon the mistress of his victim takes poison, and dies, in great agonies, on the stage. In the fourth act, Don Juan, having entered a church for the purpose of carrying off a nun, with whom he is in love, is seized by the statue of one of the ladies whom he has previously victimised, and made to behold the ghosts of all those unfortunate persons whose deaths he has caused.

This is a most edifying spectacle. The ghosts rise solemnly, each in a white sheet, preceded by a wax candle; and, having declared their names and qualities, call, in chorus, for vengeance upon Don Juan, as thus:—

‘Don Sandoval(loquitur). I am Don Sandoval d’Ojedo. I played against Don Juan my fortune, the tomb of my fathers, and the heart of my mistress; I lost all. I played against him my life, and I lost it. Vengeance against the murderer! vengeance!—(The candle goes out.)’

The candle goes out, and an angel descends—a flaming sword in his hand—and asks: ‘Is there no voice in favour of Don Juan?’ when lo! Don Juan’s father (like one of those ingenious toys called ‘Jack-in-the-box’) jumps up from his coffin, and demands grace for his son.

When Martha, the nun, returns, having prepared all things for her elopement, she finds Don Juan fainting upon the ground.—‘I am no longer your husband,’ says he, upon coming to himself; ‘I am no longer Don Juan; I am Brother Juan the Trappist. Sister Martha, recollect that you must die!’

This was a most cruel blow upon Sister Martha, who is no less a person than an angel, an angel in disguise—the good spirit of the house of Marana, who has gone to the length of losing her wings, and forfeiting her place in heaven, in order to keep company with Don Juan on earth, and, if possible, to convert him. Already, in her angelic character, she had exhorted him to repentance, but in vain; for, while she stood at one elbow, pouring not merely hints, but long sermons, into his ear, at the other elbow stood a bad spirit, grinning and sneering at all her pious counsels, and obtaining by far the greater share of the Don’s attention.

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In spite, however, of the utter contempt with which Don Juan treats her,—in spite of his dissolute courses, which must shock her virtue,—and his impolite neglect, which must wound her vanity, the poor creature (who, from having been accustomed to better company, might have been presumed to have had better taste), the unfortunate angel, feels a certain inclination for the Don, and actually flies up to heaven to ask permission to remain with him on earth.

And when the curtain draws up, to the sound of harps, and discovers white-robed angels walking in the clouds, we find the angel of Marana upon her knees, uttering the following address:—

‘LE BON ANGEVierge, à qui le calice à la liqueur amèreFut si souvent offert,Mère, que l’on nomma la douloureuse mère,Tant vous avez souffert!Vous, dont les yeux divins, sur la terre des hommes,Ont versé plus de pleursQue vos pieds n’ont depuis, dans le ciel où nous sommes,Fait éclore de fleurs!Vase d’élection, étoile matinale,Miroir de pureté,Vous qui priez pour nous, d’une voix virginale,La suprême bonté;A mon tour, aujourd’hui, bienheureuse Marie,Je tombe à vos genoux;Daignez donc m’écouter, car c’est vous que je prie,Vous qui priez pour nous.’

‘LE BON ANGE

Vierge, à qui le calice à la liqueur amèreFut si souvent offert,Mère, que l’on nomma la douloureuse mère,Tant vous avez souffert!

Vous, dont les yeux divins, sur la terre des hommes,Ont versé plus de pleursQue vos pieds n’ont depuis, dans le ciel où nous sommes,Fait éclore de fleurs!

Vase d’élection, étoile matinale,Miroir de pureté,Vous qui priez pour nous, d’une voix virginale,La suprême bonté;

A mon tour, aujourd’hui, bienheureuse Marie,Je tombe à vos genoux;Daignez donc m’écouter, car c’est vous que je prie,Vous qui priez pour nous.’

Which may be thus interpreted:—

‘O Virgin blest! by whom the bitter draughtSo often has been quaffed,That, for thy sorrow, thou art named by usThe Mother Dolorous!Thou, from whose eyes have fallen more tears of woe,Upon the earth below,Than ‘neath thy footsteps, in this heaven of ours,Have risen flowers!O beaming morning star! O chosen vase!O mirror of all grace!Who, with thy virgin voice, dost ever prayMan’s sins away;Bend down thine ear, and list, O blessed saint!Unto my sad complaint;Mother! to thee I kneel, on thee I call,Who hearest all.’

‘O Virgin blest! by whom the bitter draughtSo often has been quaffed,That, for thy sorrow, thou art named by usThe Mother Dolorous!

Thou, from whose eyes have fallen more tears of woe,Upon the earth below,Than ‘neath thy footsteps, in this heaven of ours,Have risen flowers!

O beaming morning star! O chosen vase!O mirror of all grace!Who, with thy virgin voice, dost ever prayMan’s sins away;

Bend down thine ear, and list, O blessed saint!Unto my sad complaint;Mother! to thee I kneel, on thee I call,Who hearest all.’

She proceeds to request that she may be allowed to return to earth, and follow the fortunes of Don Juan;—and as there is one difficulty, or, to use her own words,—

‘Mais, comme vous savez qu’aux voûtes éternelles,Malgré moi, tend mon vol,Soufflez sur mon étoile et détachez mes ailes,Pour m’enchaîner au sol;’

her request is granted, her star isblown out(O poetic allusion!), and she descends to earth to love, and to go mad, and to die for Don Juan!

The reader will require no further explanation, in order to be satisfied as to the moral of this play; but is it not a very bitter satire upon the country, which calls itself the politest nation in the world, that the incidents, the indecency, the coarse blasphemy, and the vulgar wit of this piece, should find admirers among the public, and procure reputation for the author? Could not the Government, which has re-established, in a manner, the theatrical censorship, and forbids or alters plays which touch on politics, exert the same guardianship over public morals? The honest English reader, who has a faith in his clergyman, and is a regular attendant at Sunday worship, will not be a little surprised at the march of intellect among our neighbours across the Channel, and at the kind of consideration in which they hold their religion. Here is a man who seizes upon saints and angels, merely to put sentiments intheir mouths which might suit a nymph of Drury Lane. He shows heaven, in order that he may carry debauch into it; and avails himself of the most sacred and sublime parts of our creed, as a vehicle for a scene-painter’s skill, or an occasion for a handsome actress to wear a new dress.

M. Dumas’s piece ofKeanis not quite so sublime; it was brought out by the author as a satire upon the French critics, who, to their credit be it spoken, had generally attacked him, and was intended by him, and received by the public, as a faithful portraiture of English manners. As such, it merits special observation and praise. In the first act you find a Countess and an Ambassadress, whose conversation relates purely to the great actor. All the ladies in London are in love with him, especially the two present;—as for the Ambassadress, she prefers him to her husband (a matter of course in all French plays), and to a more seducing person still—no less a person than the Prince of Wales! who presently waits on the ladies, and joins in their conversation concerning Kean. ‘This man,’ says his Royal Highness, ‘is the very pink of fashion. Brummell is nobody when compared to him; and I myself only an insignificant private gentleman: he has a reputation among ladies, for which I sigh in vain; and spends an income twice as great as mine.’ This admirable historic touch at once paints the actor and the Prince; the estimation in which the one was held, and the modest economy for which the other was so notorious.

Then we have Kean, at a place called theTrou de Charbon, the ‘Coal-hole,’ where, to the edification of the public, he engages in a fisty combat with a notorious boxer; this scene was received by the audience with loud exclamations of delight, and commented on, by the journals, as a faultless picture of English manners. The ‘Coal-hole’ being on the banks of the Thames, a nobleman—Lord Melbourn!—has chosen the tavern as a rendezvous for a gang of pirates, who are to have their ship in waiting, in order to carry off a young lady, with whom his lordship is enamoured. It need not be said that Kean arrives at the nick of time, saves the innocentMeess Anna, and exposes the infamy of the Peer;—a violent tirade against noblemen ensues, and Lord Melbourn slinks away, disappointed, to meditate revenge. Keen’s triumphs continue through all the acts; the Ambassadress falls madly in love with him; the Prince becomes furious at his ill success, and the Ambassador dreadfully jealous. They pursue Kean to his dressing-room at the theatre; where, unluckily, the Ambassadress herself has taken refuge. Dreadful quarrels ensue; the tragedian grows suddenly mad upon the stage, and so cruellyinsults the Prince of Wales, that his Royal Highness determines to send himto Botany Bay. His sentence, however, is commuted to banishment to New York; whither, of course, Miss Anna accompanies him; rewarding him, previously, with her hand and twenty thousand a year!

enlarge-imageTHE GALLERY AT DEBURAU’S THEATRE SKETCHED FROM NATURETHE GALLERY AT DEBURAU’S THEATRE SKETCHED FROM NATURE

This wonderful performance was gravely received and admired by the people of Paris; the piece was considered to be decidedly moral, because the popular candidate was made to triumph throughout, and to triumph in the most virtuous manner; for, according to the French code of morals, success among women is at once the proof and the reward of virtue.

The sacred personage introduced in Dumas’s play, behind a cloud, figures bodily in the piece of theMassacre of the Innocents, represented at Paris last year. She appears under a different name, but the costume is exactly that of Carlo-Dolce’s Madonna; and an ingenious fable is arranged, the interest of which hangs upon the grand Massacre of the Innocents, perpetrated in the fifth act. One of the chief characters is Jean le Précurseur, who threatens woe to Herod and his race, and is beheaded by the orders of that sovereign.

In theFestin de Balthazarwe are similarly introduced to Daniel, and the first scene is laid by the waters of Babylon, where a certain number of captive Jews is seated in melancholy postures; a Babylonian officer enters, exclaiming, ‘Chantez nous quelques chansons de Jérusalem,’ and the request is refused in the language of the Psalm. Belshazzar’s Feast is given in a grand tableau, after Martin’s picture. That painter, in like manner, furnished scenes for theDéluge. Vast numbers of schoolboys and children are brought to see these pieces; the lower classes delight in them. The famousJuif Errant, at the theatre of the Porte St. Martin, was the first of the kind, and its prodigious success, no doubt, occasioned the number of imitations which the other theatres have produced.

The taste of such exhibitions, of course, every English person will question; but we must remember the manners of the people among whom they are popular; and, if I may be allowed to hazard such an opinion, there is, in every one of these Boulevard mysteries, a kind of rude moral. The Boulevard writers don’t pretend to ‘tabernacles’ and divine gifts, like Madame Sand and Dumas, before mentioned. If they take a story from the sacred books, they garble it without mercy, and take sad liberties with the text; but they do not deal in descriptions of the agreeably wicked, or ask pity and admiration for tender-hearted criminals and philanthropic murderers, as their betters do. Vice is vice on the Boulevard; andit is fine to hear the audience, as a tyrant king roars out cruel sentences of death, or a bereaved mother pleads for the life of her child, making their remarks on the circumstances of the scene. ‘Ah, le gredin!’ growls an indignant countryman. ‘Quel monstre!’ says a grisette, in a fury. You see very fat old men crying like babies; and, like babies, sucking enormous sticks of barley-sugar. Actors and audience enter warmly into the illusion of the piece; and so especially are the former affected, that, at Franconi’s, where the battles of the Empire are represented, there is as regular gradation in the ranks of the mimic army, as in the real imperial legions. After a man has served, with credit, for a certain number of years in the line, he is promoted to be an officer—an acting officer. If he conducts himself well, he may rise to be a Colonel, or a General of Division; if ill, he is degraded to the ranks again; or, worst degradation of all, drafted into a regiment of Cossacks or Austrians. Cossacks is the lowest depth, however; nay, it is said that the men who perform these Cossack parts receive higher wages than the mimic grenadiers and old guard. They will not consent to be beaten every night, even in play; to be pursued in hundreds, by a handful of French; to fight against their beloved Emperor. Surely there is fine hearty virtue in this, and pleasant childlike simplicity.

So that while the drama of Victor Hugo, Dumas, and the enlightened classes is profoundly immoral and absurd, the drama of the common people is absurd, if you will, but good and right-hearted. I have made notes of one or two of these pieces, which all have good feeling and kindness in them, and which turn, as the reader will see, upon one or two favourite points of popular morality. A drama that obtained a vast success at the Porte St. Martin wasLa Duchesse de la Vauballière. The Duchess is the daughter of a poor farmer, who was carried off in the first place, and then married by M. le Duc de la Vauballière, a terribleroué, the farmer’s landlord, and the intimate friend of Philippe d’Orléans, the Regent of France.

Now, the Duke, in running away with the lady, intended to dispense altogether with ceremony, and make of Julie anything but his wife; but Georges, her father, and one Morisseau, a notary, discovered him in his dastardly act, and pursued him to the very feet of the Regent, who compelled the pair to marry and make it up.

Julie complies; but though she becomes a Duchess, her heart remains faithful to her old flame, Adrian, the doctor; and she declares that, beyond the ceremony, no sort of intimacy shall take place between her husband and herself.

Then the Duke begins to treat her in the most ungentleman-like manner: he abuses her in every possible way; he introduces improper characters into her house; and, finally, becomes so disgusted with her, that he determines to make away with her altogether.

For this purpose, he sends forth into the highways and seizes a doctor, bidding him, on pain of death, to write a poisonous prescription for Madame la Duchesse. She swallows the potion; and, oh, horror! the doctor turns out to be Dr. Adrian; whose woe may be imagined, upon finding that he has been thus committing murder on his true love!

Let not the reader, however, be alarmed as to the fate of the heroine; no heroine of a tragedy ever yet died in the third act; and, accordingly, the Duchess gets up perfectly well again in the fourth, through the instrumentality of Morisseau, the good lawyer.

And now it is that vice begins to be really punished. The Duke, who, after killing his wife, thinks it necessary to retreat, and take refuge in Spain, is tracked to the borders of that country by the virtuous notary, and there receives such a lesson as he will never forget to his dying day.

Morisseau, in the first instance, produces a deed (signed by his Holiness the Pope), which annuls the marriage of the Duke de la Vauballière; then another deed, by which it is proved that he was not the eldest son of old La Vauballière, the former Duke; then another deed, by which he shows that old La Vauballière (who seems to have been a disreputable old fellow) was a bigamist, and that, in consequence, the present man, styling himself Duke, is illegitimate; and, finally, Morisseau brings forward another document, which proves that thereg’larDuke is no other than Adrian, the doctor!

Thus it is that love, law, and physic, combined, triumph over the horrid machinations of this star-and-gartered libertine.

Hermann l’Ivrogneis another piece of the same order; and, though not very refined, yet possesses considerable merit. As in the case of the celebrated Captain Smith, of Halifax, who ‘took to drinking ratafia, and thought of poor Miss Bailey,’—a woman and the bottle have been the cause of Hermann’s ruin. Deserted by his mistress, who has been seduced from him by a base Italian Count, Hermann, a German artist, gives himself entirely up to liquor and revenge: but when he finds that force, and not infidelity, has been the cause of his mistress’s ruin, the reader can fancy the indignant ferocity with which he pursues theinfâme ravisseur. A scene, which is really full of spirit, and excellently well acted, here ensues: Hermann proposes to the Count, on the eve of their duel,that the survivor should bind himself to espouse the unhappy Marie; but the Count declares himself to be already married, and the student, finding a duel impossible (for his object was to restore, at all events, the honour of Marie), now only thinks of his revenge, and murders the Count. Presently, two parties of men enter Hermann’s apartment; one is a company of students, who bring him the news that he has obtained the prize of painting; the other the policemen, who carry him to prison, to suffer the penalty of murder.

I could mention many more plays in which the popular morality is similarly expressed. The seducer, or rascal of the piece, is always an aristocrat,—a wicked Count, or licentious Marquis,—who is brought to condign punishment just before the fall of the curtain. And too good reason have the French people had to lay such crimes to the charge of the aristocracy, who are expiating now, on the stage, the wrongs which they did a hundred years since. The aristocracy is dead now; but the theatre lives upon traditions; and don’t let us be too scornful at such simple legends that are handed down by the people, from race to race. Vulgar prejudice against the great it may be; but prejudice against the great is only a rude expression of sympathy with the poor; long, therefore, may fatépiciersblubber over mimic woes, and honestprolétairesshake their fists, shouting—‘Gredin, scélérat, monstre de Marquis!’ and such republican cries.

Remark, too, another development of this same popular feeling of dislike against men in power. What a number of plays and legends have we (the writer has submitted to the public, in the preceding pages, a couple of specimens; one of French, and the other of Polish origin), in which that great and powerful aristocrat, the Devil, is made to be miserably tricked, humiliated, and disappointed! A play of this class, which, in the midst of all its absurdities and claptraps, had much of good in it, was calledLe Maudit des Mers. Le Maudit is a Dutch captain, who, in the midst of a storm, while his crew were on their knees at prayers, blasphemed and drank punch; but what was his astonishment at beholding an archangel with a sword, all covered with flaming resin, who told him that, as he, in this hour of danger, was too daring, or too wicked, to utter a prayer, he never should cease roaming the seas until he could find some being who would pray to Heaven for him!

Once, only, in a hundred years, was the skipper allowed to land for this purpose; and this piece runs through four centuries, in as many acts, describing the agonies and unavailing attempts of the miserable Dutchman. Willing to go any lengths, in order to obtainthis prayer, he, in the second act, betrays a Virgin of the Sun to a follower of Pizarro; and, in the third, assassinates the heroic William of Nassau; but ever before the dropping of the curtain, the angel and sword make their appearance:—‘Treachery,’ says the spirit, ‘cannot lessen thy punishment;—crime will not obtain thy release!A la mer! à la mer!’ and the poor devil returns to the ocean, to be lonely, and tempest-tossed, and sea-sick, for a hundred years more.

But his woes are destined to end with the fourth act. Having landed in America, where the peasants on the sea-shore, all dressed in Italian costumes, are celebrating, in a quadrille, the victories of Washington, he is there lucky enough to find a young girl to pray for him. Then the curse is removed, the punishment is over, and a celestial vessel, with angels on the decks, and ‘sweet little cherubs’ fluttering about the shrouds and the poop, appears to receive him.

This piece was acted at Franconi’s, where, for once, an angel-ship was introduced in place of the usual horsemanship.

One must not forget to mention here, how the English nation is satirised by our neighbours, who have some droll traditions regarding us. In one of the little Christmas pieces produced at the Palais Royal (satires upon the follies of the past twelve months, on which all the small theatres exhaust their wit), the celebrated flight of Messrs. Green and Monck Mason was parodied, and created a good deal of laughter at the expense of John Bull. Two English noblemen, Milor Cricri and Milor Hanneton, appear as descending from a balloon, and one of them communicates to the public the philosophical observations which were made in the course of his aërial tour.

‘On leaving Vauxhall,’ says his lordship, ‘we drank a bottle of Madeira, as a health to the friends from whom we parted, and crunched a few biscuits to support nature during the hours before lunch. In two hours we arrived at Canterbury, enveloped in clouds; lunch, bottled porter; at Dover, carried several miles in a tide of air, bitter cold, cherry brandy; crossed over the Channel safely, and thought, with pity, of the poor people who were sickening in the steamboats below; more bottled porter; over Calais; dinner, roast-beef of Old England; near Dunkirk,—night falling, lunar rainbow, brandy-and-water; night confoundedly thick; supper, nightcap of rum-punch, and so to bed. The sun broke beautifully through the morning mist, as we boiled the kettle, and took our breakfast over Cologne. In a few more hours we concluded this memorable voyage, and landed safely at Weilburg, in good time for dinner.’

The joke here is smart enough; but our honest neighbours make many better, when they are quite unconscious of the fun. Let us leave plays, for a moment, for poetry, and take an instance of French criticism, concerning England, from the works of a famous French exquisite and man of letters. The hero of the poem addresses his mistress:—

‘Londres, tu le sais trop, en fait de capitale,Est ce que fit le ciel de plus froid et plus pâle,C’est la ville du gaz, des marins, du brouillard;On s’y couche à minuit, et l’on s’y lève tard;Ses raouts tant vantés ne sont qu’une boxade,Sur ses grands quais jamais échelle ou sérénade,Mais de volumineux bourgeois pris de porterQui passent sans lever le front à Westminster;Et n’était sa forêt de mâts perçant la brume,Sa tour dont à minuit le vieil œil s’allume,Et tes deux yeux, Zerline, illuminés bien plus,Je dirais que, ma foi, des romans que j’ai lus,Il n’en est pas un seul, plus lourd, plus léthargiqueQue cette nation qu’on nomme Britannique!’

The writer of the above lines (which let any man who can translate) is Monsieur Roger de Beauvoir, a gentleman who actually lived many months in England, as anattachéto the embassy of M. de Polignac. He places the heroine of his tale in apetit réduit près le Strand, ‘with a green and fresh jalousie, and a large blind, let down all day; you fancied you were entering a bath of Asia, as soon as you had passed the perfumed threshold of this charming retreat!’ He next places her—

‘Dans un Square écarté, morne et couverte de givre,Où se cache un Hôtel, aux vieux lions de cuivre;’

and the hero of the tale, a young French poet, who is in London, is truly unhappy in that village.

‘Arthur dessèche et meurt.—Dans la ville de Sterne,Rien qu’en voyant le peuple il a le mal de mer;Il n’aime ni le Parc, gai comme une citerne,Ni le tir au pigeon, ni lesoda-water.[12]Listonne le fait plus sourciller! Il rumineSur les trottoirs du Strand, droit comme un échiquier,Contre le peuple anglais, les nègres, la vermineEt les millecokneysdu peuple boutiquier,Contre tous les bas-bleus, contre les pâtissières,Les parieurs d’Epsom, le gin, le parlement,Laquaterly, le roi, la pluie et les libraires,il ne touche plus, hélas! un sou d’argent!Et chaque gentleman lui dit: L’heureux poète!

‘Arthur dessèche et meurt.—Dans la ville de Sterne,Rien qu’en voyant le peuple il a le mal de mer;Il n’aime ni le Parc, gai comme une citerne,Ni le tir au pigeon, ni lesoda-water.[12]

Listonne le fait plus sourciller! Il rumineSur les trottoirs du Strand, droit comme un échiquier,Contre le peuple anglais, les nègres, la vermineEt les millecokneysdu peuple boutiquier,

Contre tous les bas-bleus, contre les pâtissières,Les parieurs d’Epsom, le gin, le parlement,Laquaterly, le roi, la pluie et les libraires,il ne touche plus, hélas! un sou d’argent!

Et chaque gentleman lui dit: L’heureux poète!

‘L’heureux poète’ indeed! I question if a poet in this wide world is so happy as M. de Beauvoir, or has made such wonderful discoveries. ‘The bath of Asia, with green jalousies,’ in which the lady dwells; ‘the old hotel, with copper lions, in a lonely square;’—were ever such things heard of, or imagined, but by a Frenchman? The sailors, the negroes, the vermin, whom he meets in the street,—how great and happy are all these discoveries! Liston no longer makes the happy poet frown; and ‘gin,’ ‘cokneys,’ and the ‘quaterly’ have not the least effect upon him! And this gentleman has lived many months amongst us; admiresWilliams Shakspear, the ‘grave et vieux prophète,’ as he calls him, and never, for an instant, doubts that his description contains anything absurd.

I don’t know whether the great Dumas has passed any time in England; but his plays show a similar intimate knowledge of our habits. Thus in Kean the stage-manager is made to come forward and address the pit, with a speech beginning, ‘My Lords and Gentlemen;’ and a company of Englishwomen are introduced (at the memorable Coal-hole), and they all wearpinafores; as if the British female were in the invariable habit of wearing this outer garment, or slobbering her gown without it. There was another celebrated piece, enacted some years since, upon the subject of Queen Caroline, where our late adored sovereign, George, was made to play a most despicable part; and where Signor Bergami fought a duel with Lord Londonderry. In the last act of this play, the House of Lords was represented, and Sir Brougham made an eloquent speech in the Queen’s favour. Presently the shouts of the mob were heard without; from shouting they proceed to pelting; and pasteboard brickbats and cabbages came flying among the representatives of our hereditary legislature. At this unpleasant juncture,Sir Hardinge, the Secretary at War, rises and calls in the military; the act ends in a general row, and the ignominious fall of Lord Liverpool, laid low by a brickbat from the mob!

The description of these scenes is, of course, quite incapable of conveying any notion of their general effect. You must have the solemnity of the actors, as they Meess and Milor one another, and the perfect gravity and good faith with which the audience listen to them. Our stage Frenchman is the old Marquis, with sword, and pig-tail, and spangled court coat. The Englishman of the French theatre has, invariably, a red wig, and almost always leather gaiters,and a long white upper Benjamin: he remains as he was represented in the old caricatures, after the peace, when Vernet designed him somewhat after the following fashion.

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And to conclude this catalogue of blunders: in the famous piece of theNaufrage de la Méduse, the first act is laid on board an English ship-of-war, all the officers of which appeared in light blue, or green, coats (the lamp-light prevented our distinguishing the colour accurately), in little blue coats, andTOP-BOOTS!

. . . . .

Let us not attempt to deaden the force of this tremendous blow by any more remarks. The force of blundering can go no farther. Would a playwright or painter of the Chinese empire have stranger notions about the barbarians than our neighbours, who are separated from us but by two hours of salt water?

THEpalace of Versailles has been turned into a bric-à-brac shop of late years; and its time-honoured walls have been covered with many thousand yards of the worst pictures that eye ever lookedon. I don’t know how many leagues of battles and sieges the unhappy visitor is now obliged to march through, amidst a crowd of chattering Paris cockneys, who are never tired of looking at the glories of the Grenadier Français; to the chronicling of whose deeds this old palace of the old kings is now altogether devoted. A whizzing, screaming steam-engine rushes hither from Paris, bringing shoals ofbadaudsin its wake. The oldcoucousare all gone, and their place knows them no longer. Smooth asphaltum terraces, tawdry lamps, and great hideous Egyptian obelisks, have frightened them away from the pleasant station which they used to occupy under the trees of the Champs Elysées; and though the oldcoucouswere just the most uncomfortable vehicles that human ingenuity ever constructed, one can’t help looking back to the days of their existence with a tender regret, for there was pleasure, then, in the little trip of three leagues; and who ever had pleasure in a railroad journey?—Does any reader of this venture to say that, on such a voyage, he ever dared to be pleasant? Do the most hardened stokers joke with one another?—I don’t believe it. Look into every single car of the train, and you will see that every single face is solemn. They take their seats gravely, and are silent, for the most part, during the journey; they dare not look out of window, for fear of being blinded by the smoke that comes whizzing by, or of losing their heads in one of the windows of the down train: they ride for miles in utter damp and darkness; through awful pipes of brick, that have been run pitilessly through the bowels of gentle mother earth, the cast-iron Frankenstein of an engine gallops on, puffing and screaming. Does any man pretend to say that heenjoysthe journey?—he might as well say that he enjoyed having his hair cut; he bears it, but that is all: he will not allow the world to laugh at him, for any exhibition of slavish fear; and pretends, therefore, to be at his ease; but he is afraid, nay, ought to be, under the circumstances. I am sure Hannibal or Napoleon would, were they locked suddenly into a car; there kept close prisoners for a certain number of hours, and whirled along at this dizzy pace. You can’t stop, if you would;—you may die, but you can’t stop; the engine may explode upon the road, and up you go along with it; or, may be a bolter, and take a fancy to go down a hill, or into a river: all this you must bear, for the privilege of travelling twenty miles an hour.

This little journey, then, from Paris to Versailles, that used to be so merry of old, has lost its pleasures since the disappearance of the cuckoos; and I would as lieve have for companions the statues that lately took a coach from the bridge opposite the Chamber of Deputies, and stepped out in the Court of Versailles, as the mostpart of the people who now travel on the railroad. The stone figures are not a whit more cold and silent than these persons, who used to be, in the old cuckoos, so talkative and merry. The prattling grisette and her swain from the Ecole de Droit; the huge Alsacian carabinier, grim smiling under his sandy moustaches and glittering brazen helmet; the jolly nurse, in red calico, who had been to Paris to show mamma her darling Lolo, or Guguste;—what merry companions used one to find squeezed into the crazy old vehicles that formerly performed the journey! But the age of horseflesh is gone—that of engineers, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the pleasure of coucoudom is extinguished for ever. Why not mourn over it, as Mr. Burke did over his cheap defence of nations, and unbought grace of life; that age of chivalry, which he lamented,à proposof a trip to Versailles, some half a century back?

Without stopping to discuss (as might be done, in rather a neat and successful manner) whether the age of chivalry was cheap or dear, and whether, in the time of the unbought grace of life, there was not more bribery, robbery, villainy, tyranny, and corruption, than exists even in our own happy days,—let us make a few moral and historical remarks upon the town of Versailles, where, between railroad andcoucou, we are surely arrived by this time.

The town is, certainly, the most moral of towns. You pass, from the railroad station, through a long, lonely suburb, with dusty rows of stunted trees on either side, and some few miserable beggars, idle boys, and ragged old women, under them. Behind the trees are gaunt, mouldy houses, palaces once, where (in the days of the unbought grace of life) the cheap defence of nations gambled, ogled, swindled, intrigued; whence highborn duchesses used to issue, in old times, to act as chambermaids to lovely Du Barri, and mighty princes rolled away, in gilt caroches, hot for the honour of lighting his Majesty to bed, or of presenting his stockings when he rose, or of holding his napkin when he dined. Tailors, chandlers, tinmen, wretched hucksters, and greengrocers are now established in the mansions of the old peers; small children are yelling at the doors, with mouths besmeared with bread and treacle; damp rags are hanging out of every one of the windows, steaming in the sun; oyster-shells, cabbage-stalks, broken crockery, old papers, lie basking in the same cheerful light. A solitary water-cart goes jingling down the wide pavement, and spirts a feeble refreshment over the dusty, thirsty stones.

enlarge-imageTHE CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONS A NATIONAL GUARD ON DUTYTHE CHEAP DEFENCE OF NATIONSA NATIONAL GUARD ON DUTY

After pacing, for some time, through such dismal streets, wedéboucheron thegrand place; and before us lies the palace dedicated to all the glories of France. In the midst of the great, lonely plain, this famous residence of King Louis looks low andmean.—Honoured pile! time was when tall musketeers and gilded body-guards allowed none to pass the gate;—fifty years ago, ten thousand drunken women, from Paris, broke through the charm; and now a tattered commissioner will conduct you through it for a penny, and lead you up to the sacred entrance of the palace.

We will not examine all the glories of France, as here they are portrayed in pictures and marble: catalogues are written about these miles of canvas, representing all the revolutionary battles, from Valmy to Waterloo,—all the triumphs of Louis XIV.,—all the mistresses of his successor,—and all the great men who have flourished since the French empire began. Military heroes are most of these: fierce constables in shining steel, marshals in voluminous wigs, and brave grenadiers in bearskin caps; some dozens of whom gained crowns, principalities, dukedoms; some hundreds, plunder and epaulets; some millions, death in African sands, or in icy Russian plains, under the guidance, and for the good, of that arch-hero, Napoleon. By far the greater part of ‘all the glories’ of France (as of most other countries) is made up of these military men: and a fine satire it is on the cowardice of mankind, that they pay such an extraordinary homage to the virtue called courage, filling their history-books with tales about it, and nothing but it.

Let them disguise the place, however, as they will, and plaster the walls with bad pictures as they please, it will be hard to think of any family but one, as one traverses this vast gloomy edifice. It has not been humbled to the ground, as a certain palace of Babel was of yore: but it is a monument of fallen pride, not less awful, and would afford matter for a whole library of sermons. The cheap defence of nations expended a thousand millions in the erection of this magnificent dwelling-place. Armies were employed, in the intervals of their warlike labours, to level hills, or pile them up; to turn rivers, and to build aqueducts, and transplant woods, and construct smooth terraces, and long canals. A vast garden grew up in a wilderness, and a stupendous palace in the garden, and a stately city round the palace: the city was peopled with parasites, who daily came to do worship before the creator of these wonders—the Great King. ‘Dieu seul est grand,’ said courtly Massillon; but next to him, as the prelate thought, was certainly Louis, his vicegerent here upon earth—God’s lieutenant-governor of the world,—before whom courtiers used to fall on their knees, and shade their eyes, as if the light of his countenance, like the sun, which shone supreme in heaven, the type of him, was too dazzling to bear.

Did ever the sun shine upon such a king before, in such a palace?—or, rather, did such a king ever shine upon the sun? When Majesty came out of his chamber, in the midst of his superhuman splendours, viz. in his cinnamon-coloured coat, embroidered with diamonds; his pyramid of a wig;[13]his red-heeled shoes, that lifted him four inches from the ground, ‘that he scarcely seemed to touch;’ when he came out, blazing upon the dukes and duchesses that waited his rising,—what could the latter do but cover their eyes, and wink, and tremble?—And did he not himself believe, as he stood there, on his high heels, under his ambrosial periwig, that there was something in him more than man—something above Fate?

This, doubtless, was he fain to believe; and if, on very fine days, from his terrace, before his gloomy palace of St. Germains, he could catch a glimpse, in the distance, of a certain white spire of St. Denis, where his race lay buried, he would say to his courtiers, with a sublime condescension, ‘Gentlemen, you must remember that I, too, am mortal.’ Surely the lords in waiting could hardly think him serious, and vowed that his Majesty always loved a joke. However, mortal or not, the sight of that sharp spire wounded his Majesty’s eyes; and is said, by the legend, to have caused the building of the palace of Babel-Versailles.

In the year 1681, then, the great king, with bag and baggage,—with guards, cooks, chamberlains, mistresses, Jesuits, gentlemen, lackeys, Fénelons, Molières, Lauzuns, Bossuets, Villars, Villeroys, Louvois, Colberts,—transported himself to his new palace: the old one being left for James of England and Jaquette his wife, when their time should come. And when the time did come, and James sought his brother’s kingdom, it is on record that Louis hastened to receive and console him, and promised to restore, incontinently, those islands from which thecanaillehad turned him. Between brothers such a gift was a trifle; and the courtiers said to one another reverently,[14]‘The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies my footstool.’ There was no blasphemy in the speech; on the contrary, it was gravely said, by a faithful believing man, who thought it no shame to the latter to compare his Majesty with God Almighty. Indeed, the books of the time will give one a strong idea how general was this Louis-worship. I have just been looking at one,which was written by an honest Jesuit andprotégéof Père la Chaise, who dedicates a book of medals to the august Infants of France, which does, indeed, go almost as far in print. He calls our famous monarch ‘Louis le Grand:—1, l’invincible; 2, le sage; 3, le conquérant; 4, la merveille de son siècle; 5, la terreur de sea ennemis; 6, l’amour de ses peuples; 7, l’arbitre de la paix et de la guerre; 8, l’admiration de l’univers; 9, et digne d’en être le maître; 10, le modèle d’un héros achevé; 11, digne de l’immortalité, et de la vénération de tous les siècles!’

A pretty Jesuit declaration, truly, and a good honest judgment upon the great King! In thirty years more—1. The invincible had been beaten a vast number of times. 2. The sage was the puppet of an artful old woman, who was the puppet of more artful priests. 3. The conqueror had quite forgotten his early knack of conquering. 5. The terror of his enemies (for 4, the marvel of his age, we pretermit, it being a loose term, that may apply to any person or thing) was now terrified by his enemies in turn. 6. The love of his people was as heartily detested by them as scarcely any other monarch, not even his great-grandson, has been, before or since. 7. The arbiter of peace and war was fain to send superb ambassadors to kick their heels in Dutch shopkeepers’ ante-chambers. 8. Is again a general term. 9. The man fit to be master of the universe, was scarcely master of his own kingdom. 10. The finished hero was all but finished, in a very commonplace and vulgar way. And 11. The man worthy of immortality was just at the point of death, without a friend to soothe or deplore him; only withered old Maintenon to mutter prayers at his bedside, and croaking Jesuits to prepare him,[15]with Heaven knows what wretched tricks and mummeries, for his appearance in that Great Republic that lies on the other side of the grave. In the course of his fourscore splendid miserable years, he never had but one friend, and he ruined and left her. Poor La Vallière, what a sad tale is yours! ‘Look at this Galerie des Glaces,’ cried Monsieur Vatout, staggering with surprise at the appearance of the room, two hundred and forty-two feet long, and forty high; ‘here it was that Louis displayed all the grandeur of Royalty; and such was the splendour of his Court, and the luxury of the times, that this immense room could hardly contain the crowd of courtiers that pressed around the monarch.’ Wonderful! wonderful! Eight thousand four hundred and sixty square feet of courtiers! Give a square yard to each, and you have a matter of three thousand of them. Think of three thousand courtiers per day, and all the chopping and changing of them fornear forty years; some of them dying; some getting their wishes and retiring to their provinces to enjoy their plunder; some disgraced, and going home to pine away out of the light of the sun;[16]new ones perpetually arriving,—pushing, squeezing, for their place, in the crowded Galerie des Glaces. A quarter of a million of noble countenances, at the very least, must those glasses have reflected. Rouge, diamonds, ribands, patches upon the faces of smiling ladies: towering periwigs, sleek shaven crowns, tufted moustaches, scars, and grizzled whiskers, worn by ministers, priests, dandies, and grim old commanders.—So many faces, O ye gods! and every one of them lies! So many tongues, vowing devotion and respectful love to the great King in his six-inch wig; and only poor La Vallière’s amongst them all which had a word of truth for the dull ears of Louis of Bourbon.

‘Quand j’aurai de la peine aux Carmélites,’ says unhappy Louise, about to retire from these magnificent courtiers and their grand Galerie des Glaces, ‘je me souviendrai de ce que ces gens-là m’ont fait souffrir!’—A troop of Bossuets inveighing against the vanities of Courts could not preach such an affecting sermon. What years of anguish and wrong has the poor thing suffered, before these sad words came from her gentle lips! How these courtiers have bowed and flattered, kissed the ground on which she trod, fought to have the honour of riding by her carriage, written sonnets, and called her goddess: who in the days of her prosperity was kind and beneficent, gentle and compassionate to all; then (on a certain day, when it is whispered that his Majesty hath cast the eyes of his gracious affection upon another) behold the three thousand courtiers are at the feet of the new divinity.—‘O divine Athenais! what blockheads have we been to worship any but you.—Thata goddess?—a pretty goddess forsooth;—a witch, rather, who, for a while, kept our gracious monarch blind! Look at her: the woman limps as she walks; and, by sacred Venus, her mouth stretches almost to her diamond earrings!’[17]The some tale may be told of many more deserted mistresses; and fair Athenais de Montespan was to hear it of herself one day. Meantime, while La Vallière’s heart is breaking, the model of a finished hero is yawning; as, on such paltry occasions, a finished hero should.Lether heart break: a plague upon her tears and repentance; what right has she to repent? Away with her toher convent! She goes, and the finished hero never sheds a tear. What a noble pitch of stoicism to have reached! Our Louis was so great, that the little woes of mean people were beyond him: his friends died, his mistresses left him; his children, one by one, were cut off before his eyes, and great Louis is not moved in the slightest degree! As how, indeed, should a god be moved?

I have often liked to think about this strange character in the world, who moved in it, bearing about a full belief in his own infallibility; teaching his generals the art of war, his ministers the science of government, his wits taste, his courtiers dress; ordering deserts to become gardens, turning villages into palaces at a breath; and indeed the august figure of the man, as he towers upon his throne, cannot fail to inspire one with respect and awe:—how grand those flowing locks appear; how awful that sceptre; how magnificent those flowing robes! In Louis, surely, if in any one, the majesty of kinghood is represented.

But a king is not every inch a king, for all the poet may say; and it is curious to see how much precise majesty there is in that majestic figure of Ludovicus Rex. In the plate opposite, we have endeavoured to make the exact calculation. The idea of kingly dignity is equally strong in the two outer figures; and you see, at once, that majesty is made out of the wig, the high-heeled shoes, and cloak, all fleur-de-lis bespangled. As for the little, lean, shrivelled, paunchy old man, of five feet two, in a jacket and breeches, there is no majesty inhimat any rate; and yet he has just stept out of that very suit of clothes. Put the wig and shoes on him, and he is six feet high;—the other fripperies, and he stands before you majestic, imperial, and heroic! Thus do barbers and cobblers make the gods that we worship: for do we not all worship him? Yes; though we all know him to be stupid, heartless, short, of doubtful personal courage, worship and admire him we must; and have set up, in our hearts, a grand image of him, endowed with wit, magnanimity, valour, and enormous heroical stature.

And what magnanimous acts are attributed to him! or, rather, how differently do we view the actions of heroes and common men, and find that the same thing shall be a wonderful virtue in the former, which, in the latter, is only an ordinary act of duty! Look at yonder window of the King’s chamber;—one morning a Royal cane was seen whirling out of it, and plumped among the courtiers and guard of honour below. King Louis had absolutely, and with his own hand, flung his own cane out of the window, ‘because,’ said he, ‘I won’t demean myself by striking a gentleman!’ Oh, miracle of magnanimity! Lauzun was not caned,because he besought Majesty to keep his promise,—only imprisoned for ten years in Pignerol, along with banished Fouquet;—and a pretty story is Fouquet’s, too.

enlarge-imageAN HISTORICAL STUDY REX LUDOVICUS LUDOVICUS REXREXLUDOVICUSLUDOVICUS REXAN HISTORICAL STUDY

Out of the window the King’s august head was one day thrust, when old Condé was painfully toiling up the steps of the court below. ‘Don’t hurry yourself, my cousin,’ cries Magnanimity; ‘one who has to carry so many laurels cannot walk fast.’ At which all the courtiers, lackeys, mistresses, chamberlains, Jesuits, and scullions clasp their hands and burst into tears. Men are affected by the tale to this very day. For a century and three-quarters have not all the books that speak of Versailles, or Louis Quatorze, told the story?—‘Don’t hurry yourself, my cousin!’ O admirable King and Christian! what a pitch of condescension is here, that the greatest King of all the world should go for to say anything so kind, and really tell a tottering old gentleman, worn out with gout, age, and wounds, not to walk too fast!

What a proper fund of slavishness is there in the composition of mankind, that histories like these should be found to interest and awe them. Till the world’s end, most likely, this story will have its place in the history-books; and unborn generations will read it, and tenderly be moved by it. I am sure that Magnanimity went to bed that night pleased and happy, intimately convinced that he had done an action of sublime virtue, and had easy slumbers and sweet dreams,—especially if he had taken a light supper, and not too vehemently attacked hisen cas de nuit.

That famous adventure, in which theen cas de nuitwas brought into use, for the sake of one Poquelin,aliasMolière:—how often has it been described and admired? This Poquelin, though King’svalet de chambre, was by profession a vagrant; and as such looked coldly on by the great lords of the palace, who refused to eat with him. Majesty hearing of this, ordered hisen cas de nuitto be placed on the table, and positively cut off a wing, with his own knife and fork, for Poquelin’s use. O thrice happy Jean Baptiste! The King has actually sate down with him cheek by jowl, had the liver-wing of a fowl, and given Molière the gizzard; put his imperial legs under the same mahogany,sub iisdem trabibus. A man, after such an honour, can look for little else in this world: he has tasted the utmost conceivable earthly happiness, and has nothing to do now but to fold his arms and look up to heaven, and sing ‘Nunc dimittis’ and die.

Do not let us abuse poor old Louis on account of this monstrous pride; but only lay it to the charge of the fools who believed and worshipped it. If, honest man, he believed himself to be almost a god, it was only because thousands of people had told him so—people only half liars, too; who did, in the depths of their slavish respect, admire the man almost as much as they said they did. If, when he appeared in his five-hundred-million coat, as he is said to have done, before the Siamese Ambassadors, the courtiers began to shade their eyes and long for parasols, as if this Bourbonic sun was too hot for them; indeed, it is no wonder that he should believe that there was something dazzling about his person; he had half a million of eager testimonies to this idea. Who was to tell him the truth?—Only in the last years of his life did trembling courtiers dare whisper to him, after much circumlocution, that a certain battle had been fought at a place called Blenheim, and that Eugene and Marlborough had stopped his long career of triumphs.

‘On n’est plus heureux à notre âge,’ says the old man, to one of his old generals, welcoming Tallard, after his defeat; and he rewards him with honours, as if he had come from a victory. There is, if you will, something magnanimous in this welcome to his conquered general, this stout protest against Fate. Disaster succeeds disaster; armies after armies march out to meet fiery Eugene and that dogged fatal Englishman, and disappear in the smoke of the enemies’ cannon. Even at Versailles you may almost hear it roaring at last; but when courtiers, who have forgotten their god, now talk of quitting this grand temple of his, old Louis plucks up heart and will never hear of surrender. All the gold and silver at Versailles he melts, to find bread for his armies: all the jewels on his five-hundred-million coat he pawns resolutely; and, bidding Villars go and make the last struggle but one, promises, if his general is defeated, to place himself at the head of his nobles, and die King of France. Indeed, after a man, for sixty years, has been performing the part of a hero, some of the real heroic stuff must have entered into his composition, whether he would or not. When the great Elliston was enacting the part of King George the Fourth, in the play ofThe Coronation, at Drury Lane, the galleries applauded very loudly his suavity and majestic demeanour, at which Elliston, inflamed by the popular loyalty (and by some fermented liquor in which, it is said, he was in the habit of indulging), burst into tears, and, spreading out his arms, exclaimed: ‘Bless ye, bless ye, my people!’ Don’t let us laugh at his Ellistonian majesty, nor at the people who clapped hands and yelled ‘Bravo!’ in praise of him. The tipsy old manager did really feel that he was a hero at that moment; and the people, wild with delight and attachment for a magnificent coat and breeches, surely were uttering the true sentiments of loyalty: which consists in reverencing these and other articles ofcostume. In this fifth act, then, of his long Royal drama, old Louis performed his part excellently; and when the curtain drops upon him, he lies, dressed majestically, in a becoming kingly attitude, as a king should.

The King his successor has not left, at Versailles, half so much occasion for moralising: perhaps the neighbouring Parc aux Cerfs would afford better illustrations of his reign. The life of his great-grandsire, the Grand Llama of France, seems to have frightened Louis the Well-beloved; who understood that loneliness is one of the necessary conditions of divinity, and, being of a jovial companionable turn, aspired not beyond manhood. Only in the matter of ladies did he surpass his predecessor, as Solomon did David. War he eschewed, as his grandfather bade him; and his simple taste found little in this world to enjoy beyond the mulling of chocolate and the frying of pancakes. Look, here is the room called Laboratoire du Roi, where, with his own hands, he made his mistress’s breakfast—here is the little door through which, from her apartments in the upper story, the chaste Du Barri came stealing down to the arms of the weary, feeble, gloomy old man. But of women he was tired long since, and even pancake-frying had palled upon him. What had he to do, after forty years of reign;—after having exhausted everything? Every pleasure that Dubois could invent for his hot youth, or cunning Lebel could minister to his old age, was flat and stale; used up to the very dregs; every shilling in the national purse had been squeezed out, by Pompadour and Du Barri and such brilliant ministers of state. He had found out the vanity of pleasure, as his ancestor had discovered the vanity of glory; indeed it was high time that he should die. And die he did; and round his tomb, as round that of his grandfather before him, the starving people sang a dreadful chorus of curses, which were the only epitaphs for good or for evil that were raised to his memory.

As for the courtiers—the knights and nobles, the unbought grace of life—they, of course, forgot him in one minute after his death, as the way is. When the King dies, the officer appointed opens his chamber window, and calling out into the court below,Le Roi est mort, breaks his cane, takes another and waves it, exclaimingVive le Roi!Straightway all the loyal nobles begin yellingVive le Roi!and the officer goes round solemnly and sets yonder great clock in the Cour de Marbre to the hour of the King’s death. This old Louis had solemnly ordained; but the Versailles clock was only set twice: there was no shouting ofVive le Roiwhen the successor of Louis XV. mounted to heaven to join his sainted family.

Strange stories of the deaths of kings have always been very recreating and profitable to us: what a fine one is that of the death of Louis XV., as Madame Campan tells it! One night the gracious monarch came back ill from Trianon; the disease turned out to be the small-pox; so violent that ten people of those who had to enter his chamber caught the infection and died. The whole Court flies from him; only poor old fat Mesdames the King’s daughters persist in remaining at his bedside, and praying for his soul’s welfare.

On the 10th May 1774, the whole Court had assembled at the château; the Œil de Bœuf was full. The Dauphin had determined to depart as soon as the King had breathed his last. And it was agreed by the people of the stables, with those who watched in the King’s room, that a lighted candle should be placed in a window, and should be extinguished as soon as he had ceased to live. The candle was put out. At that signal, guards, pages, and squires mounted on horseback, and everything was made ready for departure. The Dauphin was with the Dauphiness, waiting together for the news of the King’s demise.An immense noise, as if of thunder, was heard in the next room; it was the crowd of courtiers, who were deserting the dead King’s apartment in order to pay their court to the new power of Louis XVI. Madame de Noailles entered, and was the first to salute the Queen by her title of Queen of France, and begged their Majesties to quit their apartments to receive the princes and great lords of the Court desirous to pay their homage to the new sovereigns. Leaning on her husband’s arm, a handkerchief to her eyes, in the most touching attitude, Marie Antoinette received these first visits. On quitting the chamber where the dead King lay, the Duc de Villequier bade M. Andervillé, first surgeon of the King, to open and embalm the body: it would have been certain death to the surgeon. ‘I am ready, sir,’ says he; ‘but, whilst I am operating, you must hold the head of the corpse: your charge demands it.’ The Duke went away without a word, and the body was neither opened nor embalmed. A few humble domestics and poor workmen watched by the remains, and performed the last offices to their master. The surgeons ordered spirits of wine to be poured into the coffin.

They huddled the King’s body into a postchaise; and in this deplorable equipage, with an escort of about forty men, Louis the Well-beloved was carried, in the dead of night, from Versailles to Saint-Denis, and then thrown into the tomb of the kings of France!

If any man is curious, and can get permission, he may mount to the roofs of the palace, and see where Louis XVI. used royallyto amuse himself, by gazing upon the doings of all the townspeople below with a telescope. Behold that balcony where, one morning, he, his Queen, and the little Dauphin stood, with Cromwell Grandison Lafayette by their side, who kissed her Majesty’s hand, and protected her; and then, lovingly surrounded by his people, the King got into a coach and came to Paris: nor did his Majesty ride much in coaches after that.

There is a portrait of the King, in the upper galleries, clothed in red and gold, riding a fat horse, brandishing a sword, on which the word ‘Justice’ is inscribed, and looking remarkably stupid and uncomfortable. You see that the horse will throw him at the very first fling; and as for the sword, it never was made for such hands as his, which were good at holding a corkscrew or a carving-knife, but not clever at the management of weapons of war. Let those pity him who will: call him saint and martyr if you please; but a martyr to what principle was he? Did he frankly support either party in his kingdom, or cheat and tamper with both? He might have escaped, but he must have his supper, and so his family was butchered, and his kingdom lost, and he had his bottle of Burgundy in comfort at Varennes. A single charge upon the fatal tenth of August, and the monarchy might have been his once more; but he is so tender-hearted, that he lets his friends be murdered before his eyes almost: or, at least, when he has turned his back upon his duty and his kingdom, and has skulked for safety into the reporters’ box at the National Assembly. There were hundreds of brave men who died that day, and were martyrs, if you will: poor neglected tenth-rate courtiers, for the most part, who had forgotten old slights and disappointments, and left their places of safety to come and die, if need were, sharing in the supreme hour of the monarchy. Monarchy was a great deal too humane to fight along with these, and so left them to the pikes of Santerre and the mercy of the men of the Sections. But we are wandering a good ten miles from Versailles, and from the deeds which Louis XVI. performed there.

He is said to have been such a smart journeyman blacksmith, that he might, if Fate had not perversely placed a crown on his head, have earned a couple of louis every week by the making of locks and keys. Those who will, may see the workshop where he employed many useful hours; Madame Elizabeth was at prayers; meanwhile, the Queen was making pleasant parties with her ladies; Monsieur the Count d’Artois was learning to dance on the tight-rope; and Monsieur de Provence was cultivatingl’eloquence du billetand studying his favourite Horace. It is said that each member of the august family succeeded remarkably well in his orher pursuits: big Monsieur’s little notes are still cited. At a minuet or sillabub, poor Antoinette was unrivalled; and Charles, on the tight-rope, was so graceful and sogentil, that Madame Saqui might envy him. The time only was out of joint. Oh, cursed spite, that ever such harmless creatures as these were bidden to right it!

A walk to the Little Trianon is both pleasing and moral: no doubt the reader has seen the pretty fantastical gardens which environ it; the groves and temples; the streams and caverns (whither, as the guide tells you, during the heat of summer, it was the custom of Marie Antoinette to retire, with her favourite, Madame de Lamballe): the lake and Swiss village are pretty little toys, moreover; and the cicerone of the place does not fail to point out the different cottages which surround the piece of water, and tell the names of the Royal masqueraders who inhabited each. In the long cottage close upon the lake dwelt the Seigneur du Village, no less a personage than Louis XV.; Louis XVI., the Dauphin, was the Bailli; near his cottage is that of Monseigneur the Count d’Artois, who was the Miller; opposite lived the Prince de Condé, who enacted the part of Gamekeeper (or, indeed, any otherrôle, for it does not signify much); near him was the Prince de Roham, who was the Aumônier; and yonder is the pretty little dairy, which was under the charge of the fair Marie Antoinette herself.

I forget whether Monsieur, the fat Count of Provence, took any share of this royal masquerading; but look at the names of the other six actors of the comedy, and it will be hard to find any person for whom Fate had such dreadful visitations in store. Fancy the party, in the days of their prosperity, here gathered at Trianon, and seated under the tall poplars by the lake, discoursing familiarly together: suppose, of a sudden, some conjuring Cagliostro of the time is introduced among them, and foretells to them the woes that are about to come. ‘You, Monsieur l’Aumônier, the descendant of a long line of princes, the passionate admirer of that fair Queen who sits by your side, shall be the cause of her ruin and your own,[18]and shall die in disgrace and exile. You, son of the Condés, shall live long enough to see your Royal race overthrown, and shall die by the hands of a hangman.[19]You, oldest son of St. Louis, shall perish by the executioner’s axe; that beautiful head, O Antoinette, the same ruthless blade shall sever.’ ‘They shall kill me first,’ says Lamballe, at the Queen’s side. ‘Yes, truly,’ replies the soothsayer, ‘for Fate prescribes ruin foryour mistress and all who love her.’[20]‘And,’ cries Monsieur d’Artois, ‘do I not love my sister too? I pray you not to omit me in your prophecies.’

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