Devereux — Complete

“Ah! it was a pretty court of love in which the friend and biographer of Count Grammont learned the art!” said Bolingbroke.

“We believed so at the time, my Lord; but there are as many changes in the fashion of making love as there are in that of making dresses. Honour me, Count Devereux, by using my snuff-box and then looking at the lid.”

“It is the picture of Charles the Second which adorns it; is it not?”

“No, Count Devereux, it is the diamonds which adorn it. His Majesty’s face I thought very beautiful while he was living; but now, on my conscience, I consider it the ugliest phiz I ever beheld. But I directed your notice to the picture because we were talking of love; and Old Rowley believed that he could make it better than any one else. All his courtiers had the same opinion of themselves; and I dare say the beaux garcons of Queen Anne’s reign would say that not one of King Charley’s gang knew what love was. Oh! ‘tis a strange circle of revolutions, that love! Like the earth, it always changes, and yet always has the same materials.”

“L’amour, l’amour, toujours l’amour, with Count Anthony Hamilton!” said Boulainvilliers. “He is always on that subject; and, sacre bleu! when he was younger, I am told he was like Cacus, the son of Vulcan, and breathed nothing but flames.”

“You flatter me,” said Hamilton. “Solve me now a knotty riddle, my Lord Bolingbroke. Why does a young man think it the greatest compliment to be thought wise, while an old man thinks it the greatest compliment to be told he has been foolish?”

“Is love foolish then?” said Lord Bolingbroke.

“Can you doubt it?” answered Hamilton; “it makes a man think more of another than himself! I know not a greater proof of folly!”

“Ah! mon aimable ami,” cried Chaulieu; “you are the wickedest witty person I know. I cannot help loving your language, while I hate your sentiments.”

“My language is my own; my sentiments are those of all men,” answered Hamilton: “but are we not, by the by, to have young Arouet here to-night? What a charming person he is!”

“Yes,” said Boulainvilliers. “He said he should be late; and I expect Fontenelle, too, but he will not come before supper. I found Fontenelle this morning conversing with my cook on the best manner of dressing asparagus. I asked him the other day what writer, ancient or modern, had ever given him the most sensible pleasure? After a little pause, the excellent old man said, ‘Daphnus.’ ‘Daphnus!’ repeated I, ‘who the devil is he?’ ‘Why,’ answered Fontenelle, with tears of gratitude in his benevolent eyes, ‘I had some hypochondriacal ideas that suppers were unwholesome; and Daphnus is an ancient physician, who asserts the contrary; and declares,—think, my friend, what a charming theory!—that the moon is a great assistant of the digestion!’”

“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed the Abbe de Chaulieu. “How like Fontenelle! what an anomalous creature ‘tis! He has the most kindness and the least feeling of any man I ever knew. Let Hamilton find a pithier description for him if he can!”

Whatever reply the friend of the preux Grammont might have made was prevented by the entrance of a young man of about twenty-one.

In person he was tall, slight, and very thin. There was a certain affectation of polite address in his manner and mien which did not quite become him; and though he was received by the old wits with great cordiality, and on a footing of perfect equality, yet the inexpressible air which denotes birth was both pretended to and wanting. This, perhaps, was however owing to the ordinary inexperience of youth; which, if not awkwardly bashful, is generally awkward in its assurance. Whatever its cause, the impression vanished directly he entered into conversation. I do not think I ever encountered a man so brilliantly, yet so easily, witty. He had but little of the studied allusion, the antithetical point, the classic metaphor, which chiefly characterize the wits of my day. On the contrary, it was an exceeding and naive simplicity, which gave such unrivalled charm and piquancy to his conversation. And while I have not scrupled to stamp on my pages some faint imitation of the peculiar dialogue of other eminent characters, I must confess myself utterly unable to convey the smallest idea of his method of making words irresistible. Contenting my efforts, therefore, with describing his personal appearance,—interesting, because that of the most striking literary character it has been my lot to meet,—I shall omit his share in the remainder of the conversation I am rehearsing, and beg the reader to recall that passage in Tacitus in which the great historian says that, in the funeral of Junia, “the images of Brutus and Cassius outshone all the rest, from the very circumstance of their being the sole ones excluded from the rite.”

The countenance, then, of Marie Francois Arouet (since so celebrated under the name of Voltaire) was plain in feature, but singularly striking in effect; its vivacity was the very perfection of what Steele once happily called “physiognomical eloquence.” His eyes were blue, fiery rather than bright, and so restless that they never dwelt in the same place for a moment:[37 - The reader will remember that this is a description of Voltaire as a very young man. I do not know anywhere a more impressive, almost a more ghastly, contrast than that which the pictures of Voltaire, grown old, present to Largilliere’s picture of him at the age of twenty-four; and he was somewhat younger than twenty-four at the time of which the Count now speaks.—ED.] his mouth was at once the worst and the most peculiar feature of his face; it betokened humour, it is true; but it also betrayed malignancy, nor did it ever smile without sarcasm. Though flattering to those present, his words against the absent, uttered by that bitter and curling lip, mingled with your pleasure at their wit a little fear at their causticity. I believe no one, be he as bold, as callous, or as faultless as human nature can be, could be one hour with that man and not feel apprehension. Ridicule, so lavish, yet so true to the mark; so wanton, yet so seemingly just; so bright, that while it wandered round its target, in apparent though terrible playfulness, it burned into the spot, and engraved there a brand, and a token indelible and perpetual,—this no man could witness, when darted towards another, and feel safe for himself. The very caprice and levity of the jester seemed more perilous, because less to be calculated upon, than a systematic principle of bitterness or satire. Bolingbroke compared him, not unaptly, to a child who has possessed himself of Jupiter’s bolts, and who makes use of those bolts in sport which a god would only have used in wrath.

Arouet’s forehead was not remarkable for height, but it was nobly and grandly formed, and, contradicting that of the mouth, wore a benevolent expression. Though so young, there was already a wrinkle on the surface of the front, and a prominence on the eyebrow, which showed that the wit and the fancy of his conversation were, if not regulated, at least contrasted, by more thoughtful and lofty characteristics of mind. At the time I write, this man has obtained a high throne among the powers of the lettered world. What he may yet be, it is in vain to guess: he may be all that is great and good, or—the reverse; but I cannot but believe that his career is only begun. Such men are born monarchs of the mind; they may be benefactors or tyrants: in either case, they are greater than the kings of the physical empire, because they defy armies and laugh at the intrigues of state. From themselves only come the balance of their power, the laws of their government, and the boundaries of their realm. We sat down to supper. “Count Hamilton,” said Boulainvilliers, “are we not a merry set for such old fellows? Why, excepting Arouet, Milord Bolingbroke, and Count Devereux, there is scarcely one of us under seventy. Where but at Paris would you see bons vivans of our age? Vivent la joie, la bagatelle, l’amour!”

“Et le vin de Champagne!” cried Chaulieu, filling his glass; “but what is there strange in our merriment? Philemon, the comic poet, laughed at ninety-seven. May we all do the same!”

“You forget,” cried Bolingbroke, “that Philemon died of the laughing.”

“Yes,” said Hamilton; “but if I remember right, it was at seeing an ass eat figs. Let us vow, therefore, never to keep company with asses!”

“Bravo, Count,” said Boulainvilliers, “you have put the true moral on the story. Let us swear by the ghost of Philemon that we will never laugh at an ass’s jokes,—practical or verbal.”

“Then we must always be serious, except when we are with each other,” cried Chaulieu. “Oh, I would sooner take my chance of dying prematurely at ninety-seven than consent to such a vow!”

“Fontenelle,” cried our host, “you are melancholy. What is the matter?”

“I mourn for the weakness of human nature,” answered Fontenelle, with an air of patriarchal philanthropy. “I told your cook three times about the asparagus; and now—taste it. I told him not to put too much sugar, and he has put none. Thus it is with mankind,—ever in extremes, and consequently ever in error. Thus it was that Luther said, so felicitously and so truly, that the human mind was like a drunken peasant on horseback: prop it on one side, and it falls on the other.”

“Ha! ha! ha!” cried Chaulieu. “Who would have thought one could have found so much morality in a plate of asparagus! Taste this salsifis.”

“Pray, Hamilton,” said Huet, “what jeu de mot was that you made yesterday at Madame d’Epernonville’s which gained you such applause?”

“Ah, repeat it, Count,” cried Boulainvilliers; “‘t was the most classical thing I have heard for a long time.”

“Why,” said Hamilton, laying down his knife and fork, and preparing himself by a large draught of the champagne, “why, Madame d’Epernonville appeared without her tour; you know, Lord Bolingbroke, that tour is the polite name for false hair. ‘Ah, sacre!’ cried her brother, courteously, ‘ma soeur, que vous etes laide aujourd’hui: vous n’avez pas votre tour!’ ‘Voila pourquoi elle n’est pas si-belle (Cybele),’ answered I.”

“Excellent! famous!” cried we all, except Huet, who seemed to regard the punster with a very disrespectful eye. Hamilton saw it. “You do not think, Monsieur Huet, that there is wit in these jeux de mots: perhaps you do not admire wit at all?”

“Yes, I admire wit as I do the wind. When it shakes the trees it is fine; when it cools the wave it is refreshing; when it steals over flowers it is enchanting: but when, Monsieur Hamilton, it whistles through the key-hole it is unpleasant.”

“The very worst illustration I ever heard,” said Hamilton, coolly. “Keep to your classics, my dear Abbe. When Jupiter edited the work of Peter Huet, he did with wit as Peter Huet did with Lucan when he edited the classics: he was afraid it might do mischief, and so left it out altogether.”

“Let us drink!” cried Chaulieu; “let us drink!” and the conversation was turned again.

“What is that you say of Tacitus, Huet?” said Boulainvilliers.

“That his wisdom arose from his malignancy,” answered Huet. “He is a perfect penetrator[38 - A remark similar to this the reader will probably remember in the “Huetiana,” and will, I hope, agree with me in thinking it showy and untrue.—ED.] into human vices, but knows nothing of human virtues. Do you think that a good man would dwell so constantly on what is evil? Believe me—no. A man cannot write much and well upon virtue without being virtuous, nor enter minutely and profoundly into the causes of vice without being vicious himself.”

“It is true,” said Hamilton; “and your remark, which affects to be so deep, is but a natural corollary from the hackneyed maxim that from experience comes wisdom.”

“But, for my part,” said Boulainvilliers, “I think Tacitus is not so invariably the analyzer of vice as you would make him. Look at the ‘Agricola’ and the ‘Germania.’”

“Ah! the ‘Germany,’ above all things!” cried Hamilton, dropping a delicious morsel of sanglier in its way from hand to mouth, in his hurry to speak. “Of course, the historian, Boulainvilliers, advocates the ‘Germany,’ from its mention of the origin of the feudal system,—that incomparable bundle of excellences, which Le Comte de Boulainvilliers has declared to be le chef d’oeuvre de l’esprit humain; and which the same gentleman regrets, in the most pathetic terms, no longer exists in order that the seigneur may feed upon des gros morceaux de boeuf demi-cru, may hang up half his peasants pour encourager les autres, and ravish the daughters of the defunct pour leur donner quelque consolation.”

“Seriously though,” said the old Abbe de Chaulieu, with a twinkling eye, “the last mentioned evil, my dear Hamilton, was not without a little alloy of good.”

“Yes,” said Hamilton, “if it was only the daughters; but perhaps the seigneur was not too scrupulous with regard to the wives.”

“Ah! shocking, shocking!” cried Chaulieu, solemnly. “Adultery is, indeed, an atrocious crime. I am sure I would most conscientiously cry out with the honest preacher, ‘Adultery, my children, is the blackest of sins. I do declare that I would rather have ten virgins in love with me than one married woman!’”

We all laughed at this enthusiastic burst of virtue from the chaste Chaulieu. And Arouet turned our conversation towards the ecclesiastical dissensions between Jesuits and Jansenists that then agitated the kingdom. “Those priests,” said Bolingbroke, “remind me of the nurses of Jupiter: they make a great clamour in order to drown the voice of their God.”

“Bravissimo!” cried Hamilton. “Is it not a pity, Messieurs, that my Lord Bolingbroke was not a Frenchman? He is almost clever enough to be one.”

“If he would drink a little more, he would be,” cried Chaulieu, who was now setting us all a glorious example.

“What say you, Morton?” exclaimed Bolingbroke; “must we not drink these gentlemen under the table for the honour of our country?”

“A challenge! a challenge!” cried Chaulieu. “I march first to the field!”

“Conquest or death!” shouted Bolingbroke. And the rites of Minerva were forsaken for those of Bacchus.

CHAPTER VI

A COURT, COURTIERS, AND A KING

I THINK it was the second day after this “feast of reason” that Lord Bolingbroke deemed it advisable to retire to Lyons till his plans of conduct were ripened into decision. We took an affectionate leave of each other; but before we parted, and after he had discussed his own projects of ambition, we talked a little upon mine. Although I was a Catholic and a pupil of Montreuil, although I had fled from England and had nothing to expect from the House of Hanover, I was by no means favourably disposed towards the Chevalier and his cause. I wonder if this avowal will seem odd to Englishmen of the next century! To Englishmen of the present one, a Roman Catholic and a lover of priestcraft and tyranny are two words for the same thing; as if we could not murmur at tithes and taxes, insecurity of property or arbitrary legislation, just as sourly as any other Christian community. No! I never loved the cause of the Stuarts,—unfortunate, and therefore interesting, as the Stuarts were; by a very stupid and yet uneffaceable confusion of ideas, I confounded it with the cause of Montreuil, and I hated the latter enough to dislike the former: I fancy all party principles are formed much in the same manner. I frankly told Bolingbroke my disinclination to the Chevalier.

“Between ourselves be it spoken,” said he, “there is but little to induce a wise man in your circumstances to join James the Third. I would advise you rather to take advantage of your father’s reputation at the French court, and enter into the same service he did. Things wear a dark face in England for you, and a bright one everywhere else.”

“I have already,” said I, “in my own mind, perceived and weighed the advantages of entering into the service of Louis. But he is old: he cannot live long. People now pay court to parties, not to the king. Which party, think you, is the best,—that of Madame de Maintenon?”