I have often heard M. Bernstorff spoken of by a person who was formerly very agreeable to him; I mean the Duchess of Mecklenbourg, the Duc de Luxembourg's sister. She praised his talents very highly, and assured me that it was she who gave him to the Duke George William.
The wife of the Marechal de Villars is running after the Comte de Toulouse. My son is also in her good graces, and is not a whit more discreet. Marechal de Villars came one day to see me; and, as he pretends to understand medals, he asked to see mine. Baudelot, who is a very honest and clever man, and in whose keeping they are, was desired to show them; he is not the most cautious man in the world, and is very little acquainted with what is going on at Court. He had written a dissertation upon one of my medals, in which he proved, against the opinion of other learned men, that the horned head which it displayed was that of Pan and not of Jupiter Ammon. Honest Baudelot, to display his erudition, said to the Marshal, “Ah, Monseigneur, this is one of the finest medals that Madame possesses: it is the triumph of Cornificius; he has, you see, all sorts of horns. He was like you, sir, a great general; he wears the horns of Juno and Faunus. Cornificius was, as you probably well know, sir, a very able general.” Here I interrupted him. “Let us pass on,” I said, “to the other medal; if you stop in this manner at each, you will not have time to show the whole.”
But he, full of his subject, returned to it. “Ah, Madame,” he went on, “this is worthy of more attention than perhaps any other; Cornificius is, indeed, one of the most rare medals in the world. Look at it, Madame; I beg you to observe it narrowly; here, you see, is Juno crowned, and she is also crowning this great general.” All that I could say to him was not sufficient to prevent Baudelot talking to the Marshal of horns. “Monseigneur,” he said, “is well versed in all these matters, and I want him to see that I am right in insisting that these horns are those of Faunus, not those of Jupiter Ammon.”
All the people who were in the chamber, with difficulty refrained from bursting into a loud laugh. If the plan had been laid for the purpose, it could not have succeeded better. When the Marshal had gone, I, too, indulged myself by joining in the laugh. It was with great difficulty that I could make Baudelot understand he had done wrong.
The same Baudelot, one day at a masked ball, had been saying a great many civil things to the Dowager Madame, who was there masked, and whom, therefore, he did not know. When he came and saw that it was Madame, he was terrified with affright: the Princess laughed beyond measure at it.
Our Princes here have no particular costume. When they go to the Parliament they wear only a cloak, which, in my opinion, has a very vulgar appearance; and the more so, as they wear the 'collet' without a cravat. Those of the Royal Family have no privileges above the other Dukes, excepting in their seats and the right of crossing over the carpet, which is allowed to none but them. The President, when he addresses them, is uncovered, but keeps his hat on when he speaks to everybody else. This is the cause of those great disputes which the Princes of the blood have had with the bastards, as may be seen by their memorial. The Presidents of the Parliament wear flame-coloured robes trimmed with ermine at the neck and sleeves.
The Comtesse de Soissons, Angelique Cunegonde, the daughter of Francois- Henri de Luxembourg, has, it must be confessed, a considerable share of virtue and of wit; but she has also her faults, like the rest of the world. It may be said of her that she is truly a poor Princess. Her husband, Louis-Henri, Chevalier de Soissons, was very ugly, having a very long hooked nose, and eyes extremely close to it. He was as yellow as saffron; his mouth was extremely small for a man, and full of bad teeth of a most villanous odour; his legs were ugly and clumsy; his knees and feet turned inwards, which made him look when he was walking like a parrot; and his manner of making a bow was bad. He was rather short than otherwise; but he had fine hair and a large quantity of it. He was rather good-looking when a child. I have seen portraits of him painted at that period. If the Comtesse de Soissons' son had resembled his mother, he would have been very well, for her features are good, and nothing could be better than her, eyes, her mouth, and the turn of her face; only her nose was too large and thick, and her skin was not fine enough.
Whoever is like the Prince Eugene in person cannot be called a handsome man; he is shorter than his elder brother, but, with the exception of Prince Eugene, all the rest of them are good for nothing. The youngest, Prince Philippe, was a great madman, and died of the small-pox at Paris. He was of a very fair complexion, had an ungraceful manner, and always looked distracted. He had a nose like a hawk, a large mouth, thick lips, and hollow cheeks; in all respects I thought he was like his elder brother. The third brother, who was called the Chevalier de Savoie, died in consequence of a fall from his horse. The Prince Eugene was a younger brother: he had two sisters, who were equally ugly; one of them is dead, and the other is still living (1717) in a convent in Savoy. The elder was of a monstrous shape, but a mere dwarf. She led a very irregular life. She afterwards ran away with a rogue, the Abbe de la Bourlie, whom she obliged to marry her at Geneva; they used to beat each other. She is now dead.
Prince Eugene was not in his younger days so ugly as he has become since; but he never was good-looking, nor had he any nobility in his manner. His eyes were pretty good, but his nose, and two large teeth which he displayed whenever he opened his mouth, completely spoilt his face. He was besides always very filthy, and his coarse hair was never dressed.
This Prince is little addicted to women, and, during the whole time that he has been here, I never heard one mentioned who has pleased him, or whom he has distinguished or visited more than another.
His mother took no care of him; she brought him up like a scullion, and liked better to stake her money at play than to expend it upon her youngest son. This is the ordinary practice of women in this country.
They will not yet believe that the Persian Ambassador was an impostor;
[This embassy was always equivocal, and even something more. From all that can be understood of it, it would seem that a Minister of one of the Persian provinces, a sort of Intendant de Languedoc, as we might say, had commissioned this pretended Ambassador to manage for him some commercial affairs with certain merchants, and that for his own amusement the agent chose to represent the Persian Ambassador. It is said, too, that Pontchartrain, under whose department this affair fell, would not expose the trick, that the King might be amused, and that he might recommend himself to His Majesty's favour by making him believe that the Sophy had sent him an Ambassador.—Notes to Dangeau's Journal.]
it is quite certain that he was a clumsy fellow, although he had some sense. There was an air of magnificence about the way in which he gave audience. He prevailed upon a married woman, who was pregnant by him, to abjure Christianity. It is true she was not a very respectable person, being the illegitimate daughter of my son's chief almoner, the Abbe de Grancey, who always kept a little seraglio. In order to carry her away with him, the Ambassador had her fastened up in a box filled with holes, and then begged that no person might be allowed to touch it, being, as he said, filled with the sacred books written by Mahomet himself, which would be polluted by the contact of Christians. Upon this pretence the permission was given, and by these means the woman was carried off. I cannot believe the story which is told of this Ambassador having had 10,000 louis d'or given him.
I had the misfortune to displease the Margrave John Frederic of Anspach. He brought me a letter from my brother and his wife, both of whom begged I would assist him with my advice. I therefore thought that by counselling him as I should have counselled my own brother I should be rendering him the best service. When he arrived he was in deep mourning for his first wife, who had then not been dead three months. I asked him what he proposed to do in France? He replied “that he was on his way to England, but that before his departure he should wish to pay his respects to the King.” I asked him if he had anything to solicit from the King or to arrange with him. He replied “he had not.”—“Then,” I sai
d, “I would advise you, if you will permit me, to send the principal person of your suite to the King to make your compliments, to inform him that you are going to England, and that you would not have failed to wait upon him, but that, being in mourning for your wife, your respect for him prevented your appearing before him in so melancholy a garb”—“But,” he rejoined, “I am very fond of dancing, and I wish to go to the ball; now I cannot go thither until I have first visited the King.”—“For God's sake,” I said, “do not go to the ball; it is not the custom here. You will be laughed at, and the more particularly so because the Marechal de Grammont, who presented you to the King some years ago, said that you could find nothing to praise in the whole of France, with the exception of a little goldfinch in the King's cabinet which whistled airs. I recommend you not to go to see the King, nor to be present at the ball.” He was angry, and said “he saw very well that I discountenanced German Princes, and did not wish them to be presented to the King.” I replied “that the advice I had given him sprang from the best intentions, and was such as I would have given to my own brother.” He went away quite angry to Marechal Schomberg's, where he complained of my behaviour to him. The Marshal asked him what I had said, which he repeated word for word. The Marshal told him that I had advised him well, and that he was himself of my opinion. Nevertheless, the Margrave persisted on being presented to the King, whither he prevailed upon the Marshal to accompany him, and went the next day to the ball. He was extremely well dressed in half- mourning, with white lace over the black, fine blue ribands, black and white laces, and rheingraves, which look well upon persons of a good figure; in short, he was magnificently dressed, but improperly, for a widower in the first stage of his mourning. He would have seated himself within the King's circle, where none but the members of the Royal Family and the King's grandchildren are allowed to sit; the Princes of the blood even are not allowed to do so, and therefore foreign Princes can of course have no right. The Margrave then began to repent not having believed me, and early the next morning he set off.
Prince Ragotzky is under great obligations to his wife, who saved his life and delivered him from prison. Some person was repeating things to her disadvantage, but he interrupted them by saying, “She saved my head from the axe, and this prevents my having any right to reprove too strictly whatever she may choose to do; for this reason I shall not thank any person who speaks to me upon the subject.”
[Louis XIV. gave to the Prince Ragotsky, who in France took the title of Comte de Saaross, 200,000 crowns upon the Maison de Ville, and a pension of 2,000 crowns per month besides.]
Beatrice Eleanora, the Queen of James II., was always upon such good terms with Maintenon that it is impossible to believe our late King was ever fond of her. I have seen a book, entitled “L'ancien Ward protecteur du nouveau,” in 12mo, in which is related a gallantry between the Queen and the Pere la Chaise. The confessor was then eighty years of age, and not unlike an ass; his ears were very long, his mouth very wide, his head very large, and his body very long. It was an ill-chosen joke. This libel was even less credible than what was stated about the King himself.
The Monks of Saint Mihiel possess the original manuscripts of the Memoirs of Cardinal Retz. They have had them printed and are selling them at Nancy; but in this copy there are many omissions. A lady at Paris, Madame Caumartin, has a copy in which there is not a word deficient; but she obstinately refused to lend it that the others may be made complete.
When an Ambassador would make his entry at Paris he has himself announced some days before by the officers whose duty it is to introduce Ambassadors, in order that the usual compliments may be paid him. To royal Ambassadors a chevalier d'honneur is sent, to those from Venice or Holland the first equerry, and when he is absent or unwell the chief Maitre d'Hotel, who is also sent to the Ambassador from Malta.
The English ladies are said to be much given to running away with their lovers. I knew a Count von Konigsmark, whom a young English lady followed in the dress of a page. He had her with him at Chambord, and, as there was no room for her in the castle, he lodged her under a tent which he had put up in the forest. When we were at the chase one day he told me this adventure. As I had a great curiosity to see her, I rode towards the tent, and never in my life did I see anything prettier than this girl in the habit of a page. She had large and beautiful eyes, a charming little nose, and an elegant mouth and teeth. She smiled when she saw me, for she suspected that the Count had told me the whole story. Her hair was a beautiful chestnut colour, and hung about her neck in large curls. After their departure from Chambord, while they were at an inn upon their way to Italy, the innkeeper's wife ran to the Count, crying, “Sir, make haste upstairs, for your page is lying-in.” She was delivered of a girl, and the mother and child were soon afterwards placed in a convent near Paris. While the Count lived he took great care of her, but he died in the Morea, and his pretended page did not long survive him; she displayed great piety in the hour of death. A friend of the Count's, and a nephew of Madame de Montespan, took care of the child, and after his death the King gave the little creature a pension. I believe she is still (1717) in the convent.
The Abbe Perrault founded an annual funeral oration for the Prince de Conde in the Jesuits' Church, where his heart is deposited. I shall not upon this occasion call to mind his victories, his courage in war, or his timidity at Court; these are things well known throughout France.
A gentleman of my acquaintance at Paris heard a learned Abbe, who was in the confidence of Descartes, say that the philosopher used often to laugh at his own system, and said, “I have cut them out some work: we shall see who will be fools enough to undertake it.”
That old Beauvais, the Queen-mother's first femme de chambre, was acquainted with the secret of her marriage, and this obliged the Queen to put up with whatever the confidante chose to do. From this circumstance has arisen that custom which gives femmes de chambre so much authority in our apartments. The Queen-mother, the widow of Louis XIII., not contented with loving Cardinal Mazarin, went the absurd length of marrying him. He was not a priest, and therefore was not prevented by his orders from contracting matrimony. He soon, however, got very tired of the poor Queen, and treated her dreadfully ill, which is the ordinary result in such marriages. But it is the vice of the times to contract clandestine marriages. The Queen-mother of England, the widow of Charles II., made such an one in marrying her chevalier d'honneur, who behaved very ill to her; while the poor Queen was in want of food and fuel, he had a good fire in his apartment, and was giving great dinners. He called himself Lord Germain, Earl of St. Albans; he never addressed a kind expression to the Queen. As to the Queen-mother's marriage, all the circumstances relating to it are now well enough known. The secret passage by which he went nightly to the Palais Royal may still be seen; when she used to visit him, he was in the habit of saying, “what does this woman want with me?” He was in love with a lady of the Queen's suite, whom I knew very well: she had apartments in the Palais Royal, and was called Madame de Bregie. As she was very pretty, she excited a good deal of passion; but she was a very honest lady, who served the Queen with great fidelity, and was the cause of the Cardinal's living upon better terms with the Queen than before. She had very good sense. Monsieur loved her for her fidelity to the Queen his mother. She has been dead now four-and-twenty years (1717).
The Princesse de Deux Ponts has recently furnished another instance of the misfortune which usually attends the secret marriages of ladies of high birth. She married her equerry, was very ill-treated by him, and led a very miserable life; but she deserved all she met with and I foresaw it. She was with me at the Opera once, and insisted at all events that her equerry should sit behind her. “For God's sake,” I said to her, “be quiet, and give yourself no trouble about this Gerstorf; you do not know the manners of this country; when folks perceive you are so anxious about that man, they will think you are in love with him.” I did not know then how near this was to the truth. She replied, �
��Do people, then, in this country take no care of their servants?”—“Oh, yes,” I said, “they request some of their friends to carry them to the Opera, but they do not go with them.”
M. Pentenrieder is a perfect gentleman, extremely well-bred, totally divested of the vile Austrian manners, and speaks good German instead of the jargon of Austria. While he was staying here, the Fair of Saint- Germain commenced; a giant, who came to Paris for the purpose of exhibiting himself, having accidentally met M. Pentenrieder, said as soon as he saw him, “It's all over with me: I shall not go into the fair; for who will give money to see me while this man shows himself for nothing?” and he really went away. M. Pentenrieder pleased everybody. Count Zinzendorf, who succeeded him, did not resemble him at all, but was a perfect Austrian in his manners and his language.
I have heard that it was from the excitement of insulted honour that Ravaillac was induced to murder Henri IV.; for that the King had seduced his sister, and had abandoned her during her pregnancy: the brother then swore he would be avenged on the King. Some persons even accuse the Duc d'Epernon, who was seated in the coach in such a manner that he might have warded off the blow, but he is said to have drawn back and given the assassin an opportunity to strike.
Memoirs Of Louis XIV And Regency Page 23