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M. de Brancas was very deeply in love with the lady whom he married. On
his wedding-day he went to take a bath, and was afterwards going to bed
at the bath-house. "Why are you going to bed here, sir?" said his valet
de chambre; "do you not mean to go to your wife?"--"I had quite
forgotten," he replied. He was the Queen-mother's chevalier d'honneur.
One day, while she was at church, Brancas forgot that the Queen was
kneeling before him, for as her back was very round, her head could
hardly be seen when she hung it down. He took her for a prie-dieu, and
knelt down upon her, putting his elbows upon her shoulders. The Queen
was of course not a little surprised to find her chevalier d'honneur upon
her back, and all the bystanders were ready to die with laughing.
Dr. Chirac was once called to see a lady, and, while he was in her
bedchamber, he heard that the price of stock had considerably decreased.
As he happened to be a large holder of the Mississippi Bonds, he was
alarmed at the news; and being seated near the patient, whose pulse he
was feeling, he said with a deep sigh, "Ah, good God! they keep sinking,
sinking, sinking!" The poor sick lady hearing this, uttered a loud
shriek; the people ran to her immediately. "Ah," said she, "I shall die;
M. de Chirac has just said three times, as he felt my pulse, 'They keep
sinking!'" The Doctor recovered himself soon, and said, "You dream; your
pulse is very healthy, and you are very well. I was thinking of the
Mississippi stocks, upon which I lose my money, because their price
sinks." This explanation satisfied the sick lady.
The Duc de Sully was subject to frequent fits of abstraction. One day,
having dressed himself to go to church, he forgot nothing but his
breeches. This was in the winter; when he entered the church, he said,
"Mon Dieu, it is very cold to-day." The persons present said, "Not
colder than usual!"--"Then I am in a fever," he said. Some one suggested
that he had perhaps not dressed himself so warmly as usual, and, opening
his coat, the cause of his being cold was very apparent.
Our late King told me the following anecdote of Queen Christina of
Sweden: That Princess, instead of putting on a nightcap, wrapped her head
up in a napkin. One night she could not sleep, and ordered the musicians
to be brought into her bedroom; where, drawing the bed-curtains, she
could not be seen by the musicians, but could hear them at her ease. At
length, enchanted at a piece which they had just played, she abruptly
thrust her head beyond the curtains, and cried out, "Mort diable! but
they sing delightfully!" At this grotesque sight, the Italians, and
particularly the castrati, who are not the bravest men in the world, were
so frightened that they were obliged to stop short.
In the great gallery at Fontainebleau may still be seen the blood of the
man whom she caused to be assassinated; it was to prevent his disclosing
some secrets of which he was in possession that she deprived him of life.
He had, in fact, begun to chatter through jealousy of another person who
had gained the Queen's favour. Christina was very vindictive, and given
up to all kinds of debauchery.
Duke Frederick Augustus of Brunswick was delighted with Christina; he
said that he had never in his life met a woman who had so much wit, and
whose conversation was so truly diverting; he added that it was
impossible to be dull with her for a moment. I observed to him that the
Queen in her conversation frequently indulged in very filthy discussions.
"That is true," replied he, "but she conceals such things in so artful a
manner as to take from them all their disgusting features." She never
could be agreeable to women, for she despised them altogether.
Saint Francois de Sales, who founded the order of the Sisters of Saint
Mary, had in his youth been extremely intimate with the Marechal de
Villeroi, the father of the present Marshal. The old gentleman could
therefore never bring himself to call his old friend a saint. When any
one spoke in his presence of Saint Francois de Sales, he used to say, "I
was delighted when I saw M. de Sales become a saint; he used to delight
in talking indecently, and always cheated at play; but in every other
respect he was one of the best gentlemen in the world, and perhaps one of
the most foolish."
M. de Cosnac, Archbishop of Aix, was at a very advanced age when he
learnt that Saint Francois de Sales had been canonized. "What!"
cried he, "M. de Geneve, my old friend? I am delighted at his good
fortune; he was a gallant man, an amiable man, and an honest man,
too, although he would sometimes cheat at piquet, at which we have
often played together."--"But, sir," said some one present, "is it
possible that a saint could be a sharper at play?"--"No," replied
the Archbishop, "he said, as a reason for it, that he gave all his
winnings to the poor." [Loisirs d'un homme d'etat, et Dictionnaire
Historique, tom. vii. Paris, 1810.]
While Frederick Charles de Wurtemberg, the administrateur of that duchy,
was staying at Paris, the Princesse Marianne de Wurtemberg, Duke Ulric's
daughter, was there also with her mother. Expecting then to marry her
cousin,
[The learned Journal of Gottengin for the year 1789, No. 30,
observes there must be some mistake here, because in 1689, when this
circumstance is supposed to have occurred, the administrateur had
been married seven years, and had children at Stuttgard.]
she had herself painted as Andromeda and her cousin as Perseus as the
latter wore no helmet, everybody could of course recognize him. But when
he went away without having married her, she had a casque painted, which
concealed the face, and said she would not have another face inserted
until she should be married. She was then about nineteen years old.
Her mother said once at Court, "My daughter has not come with me to-day
because she is gone to confess; but, poor child, what can she have to say
to her confessor, except that she has dropped some stitches in her work."
Madame de Fiennes, who was present, whispered, "The placid old fool!
as if a stout, healthy girl of nineteen had no other sins to confess
than having dropped some stitches."
A village pastor was examining his parishioners in their catechism. The
first question in the Heidelberg catechism is this: "What is thy only
consolation in life and in death?" A young girl, to whom the pastor put
this question, laughed, and would not answer. The priest insisted.
"Well, then," said she at length, "if I must tell you, it is the young
shoemaker who lives in the Rue Agneaux."
The late Madame de Nemours had charitably brought up a poor child.
When the child was about nine years old, she said to her benefactress,
"Madame, no one can be more grateful for your charity than I am, and I
cannot acknowledge it better than by telling everybody I am your
daughter; but do not be alarmed, I will not say that I am your lawful
child, only your illegitimate daughter."
The Memoirs of Queen Margaret of Navarre are merely a romance compared
with those of Mdlle. de La Force. The authoress's own life was a
romance. Being extremely poor, although of an ancient and honourable
family, she accepted the office of demoiselle d'honneur to the Duchesse
de Guise. Here the Marquis de Nesle, father of the present Marquis
(1720), became enamoured of her, after having received from her a small
bag to wear about his neck, as a remedy against the vapours. He would
have married her, but his relations opposed this intention on the score
of Mdlle. de La Force's poverty, and because she had improperly quitted
the Duchesse de Guise. The Great Conde, the Marquis de Nesle's nearest
relation, took him to Chattillon that he might forget his love for Mdlle.
de La Force; all the Marquis's relations were there assembled for the
purpose of declaring to him that they would never consent to his marriage
with Mdlle. de La Force; and he on his part told them that he would never
while he lived marry any other person. In a moment of despair, he rushed
out to the garden and would have thrown himself into the canal, but that
the strings, with which Mdlle. de La Force had tied the bag about his
neck, broke, and the bag fell at his feet. His thoughts appeared to
undergo a sudden change, and Mdlle. de La Force seemed to him to be as
ugly as she really is. He went instantly to the Prince and his other
relations who were there, and told them what had just happened. They
searched about in the garden for the bag and the strings, and, opening
it, they found it to contain two toads' feet holding a heart wrapped up
in a bat's wing, and round the whole a paper inscribed with
unintelligible cyphers. The Marquis was seized with horror at the sight.
He told me this story with his own mouth. Mdlle. de La Force after this
fell in love with Baron, but as he was not bewitched, the intrigue did
not last long: he used to give a very amusing account of the declaration
she made to him. Then a M. Briou, the son of a Councillor of that name,
became attached to her; his relations, who would by no means have
consented to such a marriage, shut the young man up. La Force, who has
a very fertile wit, engaged an itinerant musician who led about dancing
bears in the street, and intimated to her lover that, if he would express
a wish to see the bears dance in the courtyard of his, own house, she
would come to him disguised in a bear's skin. She procured a bear's skin
to be made so as to fit her, and went to M. Briou's house with the bears;
the young man, under the pretence of playing with this bear, had an
opportunity of conversing with her and of laying their future plans.
He then promised his father that he would submit to his will, and thus
having regained his liberty he immediately married Mdlle. de La Force,
and went with her to Versailles, where the King gave them apartments,
and where Madame de Briou was every day with the Dauphine of Bavaria,
who admired her wit and was delighted with her society. M. de Briou was
not then five-and-twenty years of age, a very good-looking and well-bred
young man. His father, however, procured a dissolution of the marriage
by the Parliament, and made him marry another person. Madame de Briou
thus became once more Mdlle. de La Force, and found herself without
husband and money. I cannot tell how it was that the King and her
parents, both of whom had consented to the marriage, did not oppose its
dissolution. To gain a subsistence she set about composing romances, and
as she was often staying with the Princesse de Conti, she dedicated to
her that of Queen Margaret.
We have had four Dukes who have bought coffee, stuffs, and even candles
for the purpose of selling them again at a profit. It was the Duke de La
Force who bought the candles. One evening, very recently, as he was
going out of the Opera, the staircase was filled with young men, one of
whom cried out, as he passed, "His purse!"--"No," said another, "there
can be no money in it; he would not risk it; it must be candles that he
has bought to sell again." They then sang the air of the fourth act of
'Phaeton'.
[The Duke, together with certain other persons, made considerable
purchases of spice, porcelain, and other merchandizes, for the
purpose of realizing the hope of Law's Banks. As he was not held in
estimation either by the public or by the Parliament, the Duke was
accused of monopoly; and by a decree of the Parliament, in concert
with the Peers, he was enjoined "to use more circumspection for the
future, and to conduct himself irreproachably, in a manner as should
be consistent with his birth and his dignity as a Peer of France."]
The Queen Catherine (de Medicis) was a very wicked woman. Her uncle, the
Pope, had good reason for saying that he had made a bad present to
France. It is said that she poisoned her youngest son because he had
discovered her in a common brothel whither she had gone privately. Who
can wonder that such a woman should drink out of a cup covered with
designs from Aretino. The Pope had an object in sending her to France.
Her son was the Duc d'Alencon; and as they both remained incog. the world
did not know that they were mother and son, which occasioned frequent
mistakes.
The young Count Horn, who has just been executed here (1720), was
descended from a well-known Flemish family; he was distinguished at first
for the amiable qualities of his head and for his wit. At college he was
a model for good conduct, application, and purity of morals; but the
intimacy which he formed with some libertine young men during his stay at
the Academy of Paris entirely changed him. He contracted an insatiable
desire for play, and even his own father said to him, "You will die by
the hands of the executioner." Being destitute of money, the young Count
took up the trade of a pickpocket, which he carried on in the pit of the
theatres, and by which he made considerable gains in silver-hilted swords
and watches. At length, having lost a sum of five-and-twenty thousand
crowns at the fair of Saint-Germain, he was led to commit that crime
which he has just expiated on the scaffold. For the purpose of
discharging the debt he had contracted, he sent for a banker's clerk to
bring him certain bank bills, which he proposed to purchase. Having
connected himself with two other villains, he attacked the clerk as soon
as he arrived, and stabbed him with poniards which he had bought three
days before on the Pont Neuf. Hoping to conceal the share which he had
taken in this crime, he went immediately after its perpetration to the
Commissaire du Quartier, and told him, with a cool and determined air,
that he had been obliged, in his own defence, to kill the clerk, who had
attacked him and put him in danger of his life. The Commissaire looking
at him steadfastly, said, "You are covered with blood, but you are not
even wounded; I must retain you in custody until I can examine this
affair more minutely." At this moment the accomplice entered the room.
"Here, sir," said the Count to the Commissaire, "is one who can bear
testimony that the account I have given you of this business is perfectly
true." The accomplice was quite terrified at hearing this; he thought
that Count Horn had confessed his crime, and that there could be no
advantage in continuing to deny it; he therefore confessed all that had
taken place, and thus the murder was revealed. The Count was not more
than two-and-twenty years of age, and one of the handsomest men in Paris.
Some of the first persons in France solicited in his favour, but the Duke
Regent thought it necessary to make an example of him on account of the
prevalent excess of crime. Horn was publicly broken on the wheel with
his second accomplice; the other died just before: they were both
gentlemen and of noble families. When they arrived at the place of
punishment, they begged the people to implore the pardon of Heaven upon
their sins. The spectators were affected to tears, but they nevertheless
agreed in the just severity of their punishment. The people said aloud
after the execution, "Our Regent has done justice."
One lady was blaming another, her intimate friend, for loving a very
ugly man. The latter said, "Did he ever speak to you tenderly or
passionately?"--"No," replied the former. "Then you cannot judge," said
her friend, "whether I ought to love him or not."
Madame de Nemours used to say, "I have observed one thing in this
country, 'Honour grows again as well as hair.'"
An officer, a gentleman of talent, whose name was Hautmont, wrote the
following verses upon Cardinal Mazarin, for which he was locked up in the
Bastille for eighteen months:
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