aass_X^_ I 0 9.
Book. _y_^_.
COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.
By ARVEDE BARINE
Authorized English Versions. Each Octavo
Fully illustrated. (By mail, $3.25.) Net, $3.00
The Youth of La Grande Mademoiselle
1627-1652
Louis XIV. and La Grande Mademoiselle
1652-1693
Princesses and Court Ladies
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Nmw York London.
MARIE MANCINI
From the painting ^by Mignard
Princesses
and
Court Ladies
By
Arvede Barine
Author of "The Youth of La Grande Mademoiselle,'*
" Louis XIV and La Grande Mademoiselle," etc.
Authorized English Version
Marie Mancini — Christina of Sweden
An Arab Princess — The Duchess of Maine
The Margravine of Bayreuth
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
XLbe IRnicfterbocftcr ffircas
1906
^1°"^
:^^^i
ILIBRARYofCOH3RESS
0n6<>yy Hoeemi
DEC ? 1906
GL.^SS A XXc, Ho,
Copyright, 1906
BV
G. P PUTNAM'S SONS
Contents
Marie Manciini ......
I
Christina of Sweden .....
• 73
An Arab Princess
. 148
The Duchess of Maine
. 210
The Margravine of Bayreuth . . .
. 288
ILLUSTRATIONS
Marie Mancini Frontispiece
From the painting by Mignard.
PAGE
Cardinal Mazarin 18/
From the portrait by R. GayTvood.
Anne of Austria ^o ^
After the portrait by S. Harding.
Marie Theresa 46 '^
From an old copper engraving.
Prince Charles of Lorraine 50 '
From an old copper print.
HoRTENSE Mancini 60
From an old copper print.
TiiE Connetable Colonna 68 '/
After the portrait by Giacomo Bichi.
Louis XIV 72
After a print by Manteinl.
Queen Christina of Sweden 74
From an old copper print.
Queen Eleonora of Sweden 78 v/
From an old copper print.
Gustavus Adolphus 84*'
From an old copper print.
Count Axel Oxenstiern 92
From an old copper print.
Abbe Bourdelot 104
After the painting by N. de Largillier.
vi Illustrations
PAGE
DucHEssE Du Maine 212 /
After the portrait by Staal.
Due DU Maine 218
From an old copper print.
Nicholas de Malezieu 228 ^
From an old copper print.
Madame de Maintenon 246 .
From the engraving by P. Giffart.
Louis XV 256 ,]
After the painting by Hyacinthe Rigaud.
Philippe Due d'Orleans 262
From an old copper print.
Rene DsseARXEs 274
From an engraving by J. Chapman.
Marchioness du Chatelet 276
From an old copper print.
Voltaire 280
From an engraving by James Mollison of the pic-
ture by Largillier in the Institute of France.
Frederike Sophie Wilhelmina 290
Frederick William I, King of Prussia 300
From an engraving by G. F. Schmidt.
Sophia Dorothea, Queen of Prussia 304
From an old copper print.
Frederick, Duke of Gloucester 308
From the painting by I. Simon.
Augustus the Strong, King of Poland 312
From an old print .
Frederick the Great '". 320
From an old copper print.
PRINCESSES AND COURT
LADIES
MARIE MANCINI
THERE was once upon a time a great king who
governed the most beautiful country in the
world. His court, like himself, was full of youth,
joy, and magnificence ; everything in his enchanted
palace spoke of pleasure, gallantry, splendour, and
especially of love. A hundred beauties sought to
attract the young sovereign's attention, for besides
being king, he was the handsomest man in the
dominion.
At the court, there was a little, black-eyed, ill-
favoured, gipsy-like maid, whom her uncle, the
prime minister, had brought up from childhood.
She was wild, passionate, but full of wit, and her
mad pranks amused the king. He took such
pleasure in her company that soon he could not
do without it and vowed that he would marry her.
The queen, his mother, opposed his passion and
separated the two lovers, whereat there was much
sorrow, and many tears were shed. But the
queen was not to be gainsaid. The gipsy-like
maid after this went through many adventures.
2 Princesses and Court Ladies
committed innumerable follies, in the course of
which she blossomed into beauty. One fine day
she disappeared and no one knew what had
become of her.
This fairy tale is a true story, the events of
which took place at the court of France during
the seventeenth century. The handsome prince
was Louis XIV. The wild gipsy was Marie
Mancini, the niece of Cardinal Mazarin. We shall
endeavour to relate this royal romance.^
On September the eleventh, 1647, j^st before
the Fronde, the Court of France received from
Italy three little girls and a little boy, before
whom the courtiers bowed with indecorous ser-
vility. A lady, belonging to the Noailles family,
went for them in great pomp as far as Rome ; one
of the Rochefoucaulds, who had been governess
to the king, was appointed to care for their instruc-
tion ; the queen mother brought them up with her
own children, and they were treated like princes
and princesses of the blood. These little foreign-
ers bore obscure Italian names: three were Man-
cinis and one was a Martinozzi. Their mothers
were the sisters of Cardinal Mazarin.
' In 1880 M. Chantelauze published an excellent book on
Louis XIV and Marie Mancini. Earlier still Am6d6e Ren^e told
the story of Mazarin's nieces. We have made great use of these
two works.
Marie Mancini 3
In 1653, after the Fronde, there was a fresh
arrival of nieces and nephews belonging to the all-
powerful cardinal: three other Mancinis and one
Martinozzi. A last little Mancini, with her brother,
reached Paris in 1655. In all, there were seven
nieces and three nephews, whom it was necessary
to provide with dowries, husbands, wives, and
sinecures.
Some far-seeing persons were struck, not so
much with the grace and charm of these children,
as with the thought of what they were likely to
cost the nation; foreseeing, not without sorrow,
the important part to be played by this handsome,
strange, and dangerous family, superstitious, with-
out religion, full of wit and of eccentricity, in all
things passionate and unrestrained, living in the
midst of pictures and artistic baubles, of singular
pets, astrologers, and poets. There was much
beauty among these young people, and they were
wild over poetry, music, and love-making. Their
faces and their ideas were equally original. The
art of seduction was natural to them. Their
tastes remained Italian, elegant, refined, and
mysteriously alarming. No Frenchwoman at
Court knew how to dress, ornament her home, or
organise festivities as did the Mazarines. Not
one had read so much, could discuss the topics of
the day with so much spirit, or entertain with so
much intelligence, grace, or, if need be, haughti-
ness. Not one, either, was so accustomed to
notions which, outside of Italy, seemed very
4 Princesses and Court Ladies
startling. Marie Mancini, after she had become a
Colonna, said and wrote, as though it were the
simplest thing in the world, that she had left her
honest husband, lest he should take it into his
head to punish her "Itahan vagaries" by poison-
ing her. It is never quite wholesome to look upon
such expedients as natural. Little by little the
Mazarines were regarded with distrust, and at the
first opportunity that distrust grew into an evil
rumour.
Bold and fearless, their passion for romantic
adventures savoured of exoticism as did their
persons. Unlike the great ladies of the Fronde,
they were adventuresses rather than heroines; so
long as the excitement of their frolics amused their
fancy, they had no fear of compromising them-
selves. Pride helped them through many a criti-
cal pass, and, when even that failed, they in no
way lost their spirits. An adventure that turned
against them, in a way that would have covered
any other women with shame, seemed to them a
venture that had miscarried and must be recom-
menced — nothing more.
They did not believe in half measures. Two
among them, Laure Mancini, Duchess of Mercoeur,
and Anne-Marie Martinozzi, Princess of Conti,
were of a gentler mould. They turned to piety
and attained saintliness. With the exception of
these two, and perhaps also of Laure Martinozzi,
Duchess of Modena, it is hard to decide which
carried off the palm of profligacy. These Maza-
Marie Mancini 5
rines looked on life as a game at which only the
fools do not cheat, a game with pleasure for the
stake, especially, forbidden pleasure, so much
more savoury than any other. Almost the whole
family was lacking in any sense of morality.
This is a distinctive trait of the race. Mazarin
never had any. His nieces did not even know
the meaning of the word. Like their uncle they
seemed utterly without conscience.
The cardinal was inordinately grasping.^ One
is amazed at the enormous fortune he acquired in
less than twenty years, at a time when foreign
and civil wars were ruining the country. On
every occasion, his great thought, his principal
preoccupation, was to scrape money together.
In the days of his obscure youth, he lived, and
lived far too well, by gaming. His enemies often
reproached him with his surprisingly persistent
good luck at cards. As prime minister, he robbed
France by all and every means. Like Panurge, he
had sixty-three ways of turning money into his
coffers, the most honest of which was hardty to be
distinguished from stealing. Mazarin 's most
avowable means of getting rich was by plunging
his hands into the king's treasury. This was
better than selling offices, better than becoming
"purveyor and bread vendor to the army," as
* The rehabilitation of Mazarin has been attempted more than
once in our day. (See the interesting works of M. Cheruel.) In
this study, we have left aside the political man, to show only the
private individual, as he appeared in the eyes of his contemporaries.
6 Princesses and Court Ladies
Madame de Motteville accuses him of having been
during the siege of Dunkerque (1658): "It is said
that he caused wine, meat, bread, and water to be
sold, and that he made a profit on all these com-
modities. He named himself grand master of the
artillery and, in great as in small things, gained
thereupon. For that reason, the suffering was
terrible during the siege." ^ He sold even water
to the soldiers: nothing more need be added.
Thanks to this frightful pillage, he left a fortune
that Fouquet estimated at a hundred millions of
francs. In order to understand what such a sum
represented at that time, it will suffice to say that
the budget of the nation was then fifty millions.
He was not evil by nature, but he had base
instincts. It is with such baseness as with certain
colouring matters, a small quantity of which,
thrown in a vat, suffices to defile all the water.
His very accomplishments were polluted with this
fatal trait. Nature had been prodigal to him,
and he possessed many of the qualities which go to
make a statesman, but, to use the vigorous words
of Retz, "the ugly heart was seen through all."
His intelligence was keen, his mind full of vivacity,
fertile in resources, alive with sprightliness and
grace; he was capable of conceiving great plans
and of putting them into execution; he was not
vindictive ; he forgot injuries as easily as services ;
he was handsome, amiable, caressing; "he had so
great a charm that those he liked could not help
* Memoirs of Madame de Motteville.
Marie Mancini 7
but love him;" ^ yet he was despicable, and there
were those who despised him, but he only laughed.
Nothing is known of the origin and first years of
Mazarin. It seems clear that he sprang from the
dregs of the people; that his father had made a
certain little fortune by serving a Colonna; and
that he himself had known many ups and downs
before he became a violet-stockinged monseigneur,
one of the four handsomest prelates of Rome, says
a panegyrist.' All else is vapour, fanciful tales,
stories, dark or sunny, used by friend or foe. At
last came the day when circumstances, intrigue, or
personal merit, made of him, still a very young
man, one of the negotiators from the papal court,
then legate to France. The rest is well known.
From the mud and obscurity of his beginnings
sprang a power, a magnificence, a splendour of light
which caused the proudest lords to bow before
him and reigning princes to seek his alliance.
His nieces, journeying from Rome to Paris, could
measure the chasm between yesterday and to-day,
between what they had abandoned and what they
found. The Mancinis left behind them a sire who
dabbled in astrology; the Martinozzis, a father
sunk in profound obscurity: all sprang from very
humble centres. In Paris they found an uncle,
master of France, whose military household
equalled that of the king and was commanded by
the highest nobles of the land. They found
1 Memoirs of de Bussy.
' The Benedictine monk, Th. Bonnet.
8 Princesses and Court Ladies
palaces, millions, royal liixury. They took pos-
session of their new fortune with the ease of young
girls whom nothing could astonish, and they
became so important in their new station that
soon the gaze of Europe was fixed on them. The
splendour of the Mazarines can only be likened to
the glare of a Bengal light, of which it had the
suddenness, the dazzling brilliancy, and the short
duration. It is too little to say that these blind-
ing flames illumined France; their light reached
far beyond the frontiers, over the whole of the
Occident, and brought to the feet of these Italian
sirens princes from the south and the north,
from the east and the west. Then, suddenly,
the fire died out. Far-sounding scandals, ruins,
exile, death, crushed and annihilated the ambitious
band, not, however, before they had mingled their
blood with that of the proudest nobles of Europe.
Among the seven cousins, Marie Mancini has
been chosen for this study, because she very
nearly became Queen of France. Even apart
from that circumstance she deserves to be chosen
as the typical figure of her race, for she repre-
sents the average Mazarine morality, equally
removed from the saints and from the she-devils,
from the Princess of Conti, and Olympe Mancini,
Countess of Soissons. Setting aside the saints,
Saint-Simon said of Marie, comparing her with
the others : ' ' She is but a crazy thing, and yet the
best of the Mazarines." Saint-Simon's judgment
may be accepted.
Marie Mancini ^ 9
II
In the second convoy of nephews and nieces
that Mazarin had sent for, that of 1653, was a
little creature of thirteen or fourteen, a very
prodigy of ugliness in the opinion of the court.
She was dark-skinned and yellow, with a long
neck and never-ending arms. Her mouth was
large and fiat, her black eyes were hard, and there
was neither charm nor hope of charm in all her
person. Her mind was made on the same model.
"She was bold," wrote Madame de La Fayette,*
" imperious, violent, indelicate, and ignorant of all
the amenities of life." In the midst of her sisters
and cousins she seemed some half -starved, rough-
haired, wild animal, ready to bite; this displeasing
little person was Marie Mancini.
Her mother could make nothing of her. Madame
Mancini died in Paris during the year 1656.
Before breathing her last, she recommended her
children to her brother, the cardinal, "and she
urged especially that her third daughter, whose
name was Marie, should be made to pronounce
her vows, because of her untamable and evil nature ;
and because her husband, the great astrologer,
had predicted that she would be the cause of
much woe."^ Madame Mancini was hard on her
gipsy-like daughter, and the worthy M. Mancini
would have been more wisely inspired if he had
* Histoire de Madame Henrietta d* Angle terra.
' Memoirs of Madame de Motteville.
lo Princesses and Court Ladies
read in the stars that it would be a good thing to
place Olympe behind convent walls. Mazarin,
though he believed in horoscopes, turned a deaf
ear to his brother-in-law's predictions and kept
Marie at court. Before long he greatly repented
thereof.
This little girl, so crudely described, was a veri-
table product of the south, full of fire, passion, and
violence. Heat seemed to radiate from her.
Her black eyes were full of flames, and the flames
softened them. Her face grew less dark. Her
voice acquired accents of such depth and warmth
that it moved all who listened; every gesture
revealed the wild ardour of her being. At the same
time her mind, by contact with the polished
French world, grew in refinement. When she
left Rome, she knew by heart the Italian poets,
including Ariosto. Soon she was familiar with
those of France. She was carried away with her
enthusiasm for Comeille, Gomberville, La Calpre-
nade, and Scudery intoxicated her. She was
equally fond of heroic and amorous literature:
the one went straight to her head, the other to
her heart. She was passionately fond of all the
arts. She was fascinated by astrology, which she
had studied and to which she turned for advice in
critical moments. There was about her some-
thing ravenous and eternally consumed by inter-
nal fires, and this inspired a sort of terror. During
the illness which well-nigh carried off Louis XIV,
in 1658, she amazed the court with her screams,
Marie Mancini ii
her sobs, her torrents of tears. All etiquette and
even good manners were forgotten. In the face
of heaven and earth she gave way to furious
despair and ' ' killed herself with weeping. ' ' ^
This was the more remarkable for the reason
that, in her family, the event was regarded from a
very different point of view, a much more ' ' Maza-
rine" point of view. The cardinal hid his treas-
ures, moved his furniture, and began paying court
to the friends of Monsieur, brother and heir to the
king. Olympe, whose tender passion for Louis XIV
was no secret, quietly went on with her card
parties: a dying prince was a useless commodity
and no longer interested her. When, against all
expectations, the king recovered, "everybody,"
says Madame de La Fayette, " spoke to him of
Mademoiselle Mancini 's sorrow." Madame de La
Fayette shrewdly adds: ''Perhaps, later on, she
may have told him of it herself."
The king was twenty years of age. He had had
intrigues with Madame de Beauvais, sumamed
"Cateau la Borgnesse," his mother's lady in wait-
ing; with a gardener's daughter; with a duchess
of great and long experience, Madame de Chatillon.
He had been in love. He had never been loved,
perhaps because he was still timid with women;
he was, after all, but a youth who grew red or pale
when a pretty girl took him by the hand. He
wept easily, wept tears of nervousness that old
age was destined to give back to him. "Tears
* Memoirs of Mademoiselle de Montpensier.
12 Princesses and Court Ladies
come to him which he cannot control, " wrote
Madame de Maintenon, in 1705, to one of her con-
fidants.
The thought that he had at last excited a great
passion, one of those extreme loves which, more
than any other, he thought himself worthy to
excite, could not leave him indifferent. He ex-
amined Marie Mancini and found that she had
improved in looks. He talked to her "with per-
sistence"* and was carried away like straw in a
hurricane.
He loved Marie at first because she was deter-
mined that he should do so; then, of his own
accord, and from a nobler motive, he loved her
because he felt in her a superior mind, through
association with which his own mind broadened to
horizons hitherto unknown. In order to under-
stand this evolution we must, for a moment,
forget the Louis XIV we are accustomed to con-
sider, the roi-soleil, majestic in his part of demi-god,
and remember what nature and education had
made him at the age of twenty.
That he was good-looking was admitted by all.
His fine presence was enhanced by a natural and
majestic grace which in the midst of his courtiers
made of him "the king of the hive." He was
clever at all sports and had been carefully trained
as a horseman; he danced admirably. As far as
intellectual culture went, Mazarin had quite
neglected that part of his education. Accord-
* Memoirs of Saint-Simon.
Marie Mancini 13
ing to his own confession, Louis XIV was pro-
foundly ignorant, and he was not one of those
privileged few who know by instinct what they
have not been taught. The little he knew had
been imparted by his teachers. The cardinal
deemed it sufficient that he should play with his
nieces. The young king's ideas needed to be
stimulated, and no one saw fit to stimulate them;
at twenty they still lay dormant. Deep down
in his nature there existed, in germ, great quali-
ties which later, out of a rather mediocre person-
ality, made of him a great monarch; but these
germs lacked air and light. Marie Mancini be-
came his friend, and it was as though a glory of
sunlight had burst into an obscure and closed
recess. He learned and understood more things
within six months than he had done in all his life
before.
She opened to him the world of heroes ; heroes of
love, of constancy and abnegation, of glory. She
revealed to him sentiments grand or subtle, pas-
sionate or noble, that give value to life. She
scolded him for his ignorance and became his pro-
fessor, teaching him Italian, putting volumes of
poetry in his hands, as well as romances and
tragedies; reading verses and prose to him, with
her rich voice vibrating with love, the intona-
tions of which intoxicated or soothed him. She
accustomed him to long, serious conversations
with men of ripe years and great experience,
excited him to emulate them, to find words full of
14 Princesses and Court Ladies
dignity and precision. To her, also, he owed the
little he ever cared for art.
He owed her yet more. Thanks to her, he grew
ashamed of having no high ambitions, no dreams
good or bad, no desires beyond the choice of a
costume or the step of a ballet. She bade him
remember that he was a king, and prompted him
to become a great king. This lesson he never
forgot.
His love grew out of his admiration for his
Algeria. In the beginning, before Marie became
his teacher, his feeling for her was like that of
most very young men. She tells the story of this
dawning attachment most gracefully in a writing
entitled Apologie} The familiar way in which I
saw the king and his brother was something so
pleasant and sweet, that I could say, without the
least constraint, all that I wished to say, and it
happened that sometimes, in doing so, I gave them
pleasure. Once, having gone with the court to Fon-
tainebleau,^ for we always followed in the king's
train, I heard on my return that the king by no
means hated me. I possessed enough penetration
to understand that sort of eloquence which, silent,
yet speaks louder than the most elaborate words.
It is possible that my own feelings for the king, in
whom I had discovered nobler qualities and
» The complete title is" Apologie o^ yeri tables Memoires de Ma-
dame Marie Mancini, connetable de Colonna, Merits par elle-meme"
(Leyde, 1678).
' August-September, 1658. Louis XIV had fallen ill at the end
of June.
Marie Mancini 15
greater merit than in any other man in France,
had made me wiser in this respect than in any
other. The evidence of my own eyes would
scarcely have persuaded me that I had made so
prodigious a conquest. The courtiers, natural
spies of their master's actions, had, long before
myself, discovered his Majesty's passion; they
revealed it to me by their extraordinary sub-
mission and flatteries. On the other hand, the
attentions of the monarch, the magnificent pres-
ents he showered upon me, and, yet more, his
languor, his sighs, his compliance with my slightest
wish, soon left no doubt on the subject."
Languor, sighs, presents : such was in those days
the usual language of love; so far, nothing distin-
guishes this passion from any other. A few
weeks later the young prince was possessed by an
ardent and many-sided feeling, in which tender-
ness, gratitude, admiration, submission, the adora-
tion of a pupil for his professor, and the peculiar
attraction exercised on men of the north by
southern women, were all mingled. Marie Man-
cini fed the fire by every means suggested by her
nature. She followed the king step by step,
scarcely left him, became the obsession of his life,
knew how to render that obsession sweet to him,
then necessary. In his palace she seemed to be
his shadow, and he had eyes but for her. If the
court travelled. Mademoiselle Mancini left the
ladies in their coaches, mounted her horse, and
rode over hill and dale with her knight. For
i6 Princesses and Court Ladies
these two, winter or summer, wind, rain, or cold,
did not exist: they were together, that sufficed;
nothing else mattered. She taught him to con-
fide in her absolutely: she knew his thoughts, his
affairs, his plans, all he had heard or learned.
From confidante to adviser there is but a step, and
that step was soon taken. Mistress of the king's
heart and mind, and absolute mistress, Marie
Mancini bethought her of making good use of her
power. She lifted her eyes to the throne of
France and deemed it within her reach. She
insinuated as much, and her audacity was not re-
buked. With the king, two other persons only
had a voice in the matter: one was the queen, the
other was Cardinal Mazarin. In order to under-
stand what Marie had to expect either for or
against her, it will be necessary to examine the
personal relations of these two, and the progress
of the Mazarin family since its invasion of France.
Ill
When, on the fourteenth of May, 1643,
Louis XIV came to the throne, Mazarin 's position
at the court of France was most insecure. The
late king had made him enter the council of
regency, but the queen-regent; hated him because
of Richelieu's protection. He made some pre-
tence of leaving the game and announced his
departure for Rome; yet he bethought him that
Marie Mancini 17
his Italian graces might serve his course. Circum-
stances shaped his course. Anne of Austria held
the power; it was necessary for him to win the
heart of Anne, so that the queen should be sub-
servient to the woman. Mazarin began the siege
on which so much depended.
The queen mother had just passed her for-
tieth birthday. She was coquettish, but affected
a romantic and languishing sort of coquetry,
which prized above all things tender conversa-
tions, love-stricken looks, and delicate attentions.
Madame de Chevreuse, confidante of Anne's earlier
years, affirmed that the aversion with which
Anne turned from Cardinal Richelieu came from
the fact that "in love he was pedantic," an
insupportable fault in very deed, and which few
women can forgive. Mazarin's letters, on the
contrary, show that small attentions were always
grateful to the queen. When they were both
old, he very gouty, and much preoccupied by
the treaty of the Pyrenees, he yet made her
small presents, as to a bread-and-butter miss.
From Saint-Jean-de-Luz, he writes: "Here is a
box with eighteen fans, which has been sent to
me from Rome. . . . You will also receive four
pairs of gloves which my sister has forwarded
to me."
Mazarin took a hint from Richelieu's failure.
He was by no means pedantic. He seemed to
be madly in love and yet crushed by the con-
viction of his unworthiness. He melted into
1 8 Princesses and Court Ladies
tenderness and remained so humble that he was
as dust under the feet of his goddess. He showed
himself more persuasive than pressing, more sub-
missive than persuasive, more amiable than
submissive. And he succeeded.
What he became, once master of the situa-
tion, his "correspondence" w^ith Anne of Austria
reveals clearly enough. During one of his exiles
at the time of the Fronde, the queen ends a letter
with this passionate cry: "Yours, till my last
breath; farewell, all my strength has left me."
The memories he left were indelible. At fifty-
eight years of age, she writes: "Your letter filled
me with joy; I scarcely know whether I shall be
fortunate enough to persuade you of this truth.
If I thought that a letter from me could give
you as much pleasure, how willingly I should
have written! I remember the time when you
received such epistles with transports of grati-
tude, a time ever present to my mind, whatever
else you may think. If you could read in my
heart as easily as you read this letter, I am sure
that you would be content, or else you would
indeed be the most ungrateful man in the world —
and that I will not believe." * Mazarin's letters
were written after the same style: "How happy
should I be, how satisfied you would be, could
you see my heart, or if I could express all I feel,
even but half of what I feel! Then, indeed, you
would acknowledge that never was affection
1 Letter of July 30, 1660.
CARDINAL MAZARIN
From the portrait by R. Gaywood
Marie Mancini 19
equal to that which I experience for you. I
confess that I could scarcely, beforehand, have
imagined that it could thus take away all taste
and liking for everything that is not you."^ He
knew his power and liked to exert it: "Were
you near the sea, I think you would be happier;
I trust you may be, before long." In their
secret language, the sea was himself. What an
immeasurable triumph, what a tickling of vanity,
what a delicious feeling of mastership, was ex-
perienced by this parvenu, when he held at his
mercy one of the proudest princesses that ever
lived !
Many of their contemporaries believed in a
private marriage. To this there was no abso-
lute obstacle, as Mazarin was cardinal without
having taken orders. But, as authentic proofs
are lacking, historians vary, and will never come
to an understanding. Some claim that the queen's
piety would never have allowed her to take a
paramour. Others allege her pride, which could
ill brook a hosier as father-in-law, would have
prevented such a step. Both sides quote the
documents of the day, and these would be pretty
equally balanced, had not the partisans in favour
of the marriage found an almost unanswerable
argument. After a time Mazarin became sin-
gularly free and unceremonious with the queen.
The attentions and caresses were mingled with a
certain roughness and neglect which smacked of
1 Letter written in exile. May ii, 165 1.
20 Princesses and Court Ladies
the husband. He showed himself for what he
really was: a disagreeable grumbler. *'Noone,"
says his niece Hortense, " ever had better manners
in public or worse at home."^ Anne of Austria
was destined to know both the good and the bad
manners. It must be confessed that such things
set one thinking.
However that may be, the love of the queen
for Mazarin was so deep that in it she found
the strength to defend him against all things and
all men, in spite of her natural indolence. When
he left her she was beside herself. "She seems
distraught," said a libel of the time,^ and the
expression was a true one. It is not our mission
to recall the struggles of the Fronde; during those
troublous times, but for her devotion and fidelity,
Mazarin would inevitably have fallen a victim
to the hatred and contempt of the people. He
was saved by prodigies of love, and he knew it.
Henceforth Mazarin walked on clouds. Down
with humility! Give way to the veritable sov-
ereign of France! He made up for having crept
into favour, and soon, like his niece Marie, thought
no position too exalted for him and his : the throne
itself seemed within their grasp. He had, more-
over, been clever enough to give Louis XIV
brothers-in-law of whom he need not be ashamed.
The eldest of the Mancinis^ Laure, in 1651, had
married the Duke of Mercoeur, grandson of
1 Memoirs of the duchess of Mazarin.
' L'Exorciste de la reine.
Marie Mancini 21
Henri V and the beautiful Gabrielle. The fol-
lowing year, Anne -Marie Martinozzi was wedded
to the Prince of Conti, brother to the great Conde
and of royal blood. Then came the turn of the
second Martinozzi, who, in 1655, became Duchess
of Modena. In 1657 Olympe Mancini married
Prince Eugene of Carignan, Count of Soissons,
belonging to the house of Savoie. She too had
dreamt of the French crown and had touched it
with the tips of her fingers. Seeing that the king
did not seem inclined to give it to her, she, being
of a practical turn of mind, turned her attention
elsewhere. Her uncle had done his best to help
her to climb the steps of the throne, but "all the
astrologers had been so unanimous in assuring
her that she could not succeed that she had
giyen up all thought of it. " ^ The beautiful
Hortense was still unmarried, but was surrounded
by a court of princely admirers.
With his nephews, the cardinal was less lucky.
Of the three, two, remarkably gifted, died young.
The third, whom his uncle created Duke of Nevers,
was a brilliant scatter-brain and good-for-nothing.
He could do without the boys. Thanks to
the ^irls, the family appeared able to withstand
the wildest tempests. The giddy heights of
prosperity already attained made the ambitious
dream of Marie Mancini seem not impossible.
The Court was ready to accept it, since the
king's marriage with Olympe had been seriously
^ Histoire de Madame Henriette by Madame de La Fayette.
22 Princesses and Court Ladies
considered. Marie thought that, in this, as in all
things, the queen would be guided by the cardinal.
As to her uncle, how could she imagine that he
woiild not rejoice at having such a nephew ?
IV
In point of fact, her uncle was willing enough.
Had Mazarin been a saint he might have put aside
so great a temptation; but he was no saint.
On the other hand, he was no fool, and would
never, for the sake of vainglory, have given up
the solid advantages which he already possessed.
He loved power and money; he meant to keep
them; the grandeur of his niece, seated on the
throne of France, would in no way have consoled
him for their loss. One must never lose sight
of this point of view in following the intricate
and difficult game played by the cardinal during
this crisis. Monsieur de Brienne ^ put his finger
on the situation when he said in his " Memoirs " :
' ' In spite of all that his Eminence may have said
on the subject, if the marriage of his Majesty
with his niece had been possible, and if his Emi-
nence had therein found his own security, it is
certain that he would not have opposed it. His
own security: that was the point. Ambitious,
unscrupulous, but full of sagacity, such was the
uncle. The niece's best tactics would have been
1 Memoirs of Madame de Motteville.
Marie Mancini 23
to give him no cause for alarm. Unfortunately
for her dream of happiness, Marie Mancini was
incapable of prudence. She was too violent, too
much carried away by her own fancies to be
cunning,"
We have seen that the king's passion for Mad-
emoiselle Mancini burst into life during a sojourn
of the Court at Fontainebleau. The queen
mother saw it with great displeasure, and the
"venerated quality of the niece "^ did not keep
her from letting the uncle understand her feelings
on the subject quite plainly. Whenever the
king was in question, the cardinal felt his hold
upon her loosen. The indelible memories were
obliterated, and Mazarin saw before him a great
princess, as haughty, as proud of her blood, as
though he had never been more than a worm at
her feet. In stormy interviews, she spoke with
great violence, but in vain, for "the king's pas-
sion was at first fostered by the minister."^
Marie was left free to do as she chose, and she
fought for her love as a she-wolf for her young.
She was ever at the king's side, ready to bite,
her dark face illumined by the intensity of her
passion. Those who saw her said that she was
transfigured by the expression, touching, as well
as terrible, of her countenance, of her whole being.
Meanwhile, negotiations were going on to bring
about a marriage between Louis XIV and a prin-
cess of Savoie. This alliance was not distasteful
» Memoirs of Madame de Motteville.
!'i4 Princesses and Court Ladies
to the cardinal, for the King of France would then
have been cousin to his niece Olympe. How-
ever, in order to quiet Marie, he allowed her to
accompany him to Lyons, where the interview
was to take place. The Court started October
the 26th, 1658. Marie, in her Apologie, thus de-
scribes her emotions before the struggle: "A
great storm blew up which disturbed the peace
of those days, but it soon passed away. There
was a project of union between the king and
Princess Marguerite of Savoie; . . . and that
forced the Court to journey as far as Lyons.
Such a measure was cruel to a heart full of tender-
ness. I leave this point to the imagination of
those who have loved and who know what it is
to fear the loss of the beloved one, especially if
that one is high above all other men; when pride
sanctions the beatings of the heart, and when
reason herself inclines it to beat yet more. ..."
• She fought valiantly. She went from Paris
to Lyons, almost all the way on horseback, side
by side with the king, who conversed with her
"in all gallantry."* At the halt, every evening,
there was another tete-d-tete. They would talk
thus, four or five hours at a time, with the un-
tiring facility of lovers. They played together,
danced together, ate together, thought together.
It was more than an obsession ; it was possession,
one of the most curious examples offered by his-
tory of the melting of one personality in another,
* Memoirs of Mademoiselle de Montpensier.
Marie Mancini 25
and that without the help of any of the means
modem science sometimes employs. There
seemed no possible chance left for the king to
take a resolution of his own free will; his very
thoughts were suggested to him, his emotions
imposed on him.
It was in these dispositions that Lyons was
reached. The queen mother was sad. The Sa-
voie marriage was not to her taste — she wished
for the Infanta of Spain — and she feared the
wiles of "that girl," should the affair not succeed.
Mazarin was serene, for he possessed the means
of breaking off the union with Savoie, should he
see fit to do so. At Macon he had met Pimentel,
the emissary from Spain, who had come to offer
the Infanta to Louis XIV, and he had hidden the
Spaniard, sure of being able to produce him if
the proper moment should come. The comedy
was so well combined and so admirably played
that the contemporaries were deceived and be-
lieved in -the providential appearance of Pimentel
at Lyons, during the interview with the Princess
of Savoie. Monsieur Chant elauze discovered that,
on this occasion, Providence wore a red robe and
spoke with a strong Italian accent. The proofs
thereof are at the Archives of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. It is not over-bold to state that
Mazarin kept his eyes wide open and, during the
journey, followed the progress of Marie's intimacy
with the king, and that this was not without
some influence on the amazing appearance of
26 Princesses and Court Ladies
the Spanish envoy on the stage. As to his Emi-
nence's meditations between Macon and Lyons,
it would be impossible to unravel so tangled a
skein.
All we know is that he kept his secret, and
that his was the first coach that went to meet
the court of Savoie. The queen followed with
her son. Marie Mancini remained behind, eating
her heart, never guessing what was happening on
the road to Italy. The two courts had met, and
Princess Marguerite had appeared so irremedi-
ably plain, so lacking in charm and grace, that all
French eyes were offended by the sight — all
except those of the king. He was ready to fall
in love on the spot. As soon as he was out of
the imperious presence of Mademoiselle Mancini,
he was free once more. Explain it as one can,
the fascination vanished with the charmer. Of
a sudden the love-lorn swain disappeared. There
remained a youth to whom a bride is offered, a
youth not hard to please and who greatly wished
to be married. The king stepped into the same
coach with the princess and spoke to her, in a
tone of great confidence, of his musketeers and
his men at arms. She answered after the same
fashion. They might have known each other all
their lives. Marie seemed forgotten. The Duchess
of Savoie looked on this touching spectacle with
tender delight, the Court of France with amaze-
ment, the queen mother with consternation.
The evening of this strange day was agitated.
Marie Mancini 27
The queen, haunted by the ugly face of the prin-
cess, pleaded with her son, reasoned with him,,
wept, and his answer was: "I will have her,"^ —
and that "after all, he was the master." She
applied to the cardinal, who very coldly answered
that "it was none of his business and that he
would not meddle with it." She entreated Heaven
to have pity on her and ordered prayers to be
offered up in the convents for the rupture of this
marriage. In her distress, she forgot that, close
at hand, was help, far more powerful than that
which she could obtain from all the monks and
nuns of the kingdom; that she had only to let
Marie Mancini take the field and that poor
little Princess Marguerite would at once sink into
nothingness. If the queen did not think of this,
Marie did. The execution was a short one.
She had watched the return of the carriages
and had seized the Grande Mademoiselle to learn
from her what had happened. If resigned and
plaintive, she was lost. She was bold enough
to show her jealousy,^ and that evening the king
had to submit to a scene of great violence: "Are
you not ashamed," she said, "to accept an ugly
wife?"^ Then came a storm of reproaches, of
sarcasms, addressed to the "hunchback," and a
thousand words, eloquent, harsh, impudent, and
burning. The king was completely stunned. The
1 Memoirs of Madame de Motteville.
' Mem.oirs of Madame de Motteville.
^ Memoirs of Mademoiselle de Montpensier.
28 Princesses and Court Ladies
next day, he seemed to have forgotten the pres-
ence of Marguerite. Marie Mancini resumed her
post by his side, and together they regaled the
court of Savoie with the spectacle of their pas-
sionate devotion. Mazarin put a stop to these
indecorous scenes by producing the Spanish
envoy and breaking with Savoie. This is how
Marie tells the story of her victory: "As my
sorrow was violent, it had the destiny of all
violent emotions: it did not last long, and the
king's marriage was broken as rapidly as it had
been prepared. . . . Their Highnesses returned
to Savoie, and my heart recovered its pristine
peace." ^
The following months bring to mind the love
duet of Rodrigue and Chimene. Certain that
she was loved, Marie grew gentler. It was the
flowering season of a youthful and poetical pas-
sion. The days were not long enough for the
oft-repeated "I love you!" On moon-lit even-
ings, the same sweet words were said again.
When, at last, Marie returned home, the king
took the place of her coachman so as to breathe
the same air as she. To please her, he imagined
all kinds of romantic follies. He made of her
life a perpetual festival, and ordered his cour-
tiers to invent, for each day, some new pleasure
for his divinity. Needless to say that the cour-
tiers vied with each other. To the revels, none
were invited except young and amorous couples,
1 "Apologie."
Marie Mancini 29
and the brain whirled in this atmosphere of perpet-
ual excitement: "I should need a whole volume,"
writes Marie, "if I wanted to describe all the adven-
tures of these gallant festivities. I shall content
myself with one, chosen out of many others,
which will show how devoted was the king and
how eagerly he took advantage of every occasion
to proclaim this devotion. It was, if I remember
right, at Bois-le-Vicomte, in an avenue where, as
I was walking rapidly, the king sought to give me
his hand, and having ever so lightly struck mine
against his sword handle, with a charming ges-
ture of anger, he drew the sword from its scab-
bard and threw it away, I cannot say how
gallantly ; there are no words to express it ! "
What charming, juvenile, and sprightly tender-
ness ! Nothing can be prettier than this explosion
of anger.
The enchantment lasted all winter (1658-
1659). Mazarin, with great complacency, looked
on. He meant always to govern his niece and,
by her, the king who, visibly, was getting restless
in his leading strings. Louis had the audacity
to confer favours. The cardinal had roughly
checked these attempts at revolt, but a certain
unacknowledged uneasiness resulted from them.
With Marie on the throne, he would become more
powerful than ever. Anne of Austria would be
indignant, but Anne of Austria was the past, and
Mazarin was ungrateful. Besides, he knew how
to bend her will.
30 Princesses and Court Ladies
He had a conversation with his niece. Marie
told him that it would not be impossible for her
to become queen if only he would help her. He
could not refuse to play his part in so fine a game
and spoke one day to the queen mother, making
fun of his niece's folly, but after so ambiguous
a fashion that he led her to understand his real
thoughts. Her answer came like a blow. "I do
not think, Cardinal, that the king is capable of so
base an act ; but should he commit it, I warn you
that the whole of France would rise against you
and him; that I, myself, would head the revolt
and do my best to drag my son after me."
Mazarin remained stunned by this speech,
which he never forgave, and for which he avenged
himself after a truly conjugal fashion. He bowed,
and waited. His niece lost the game by her im-
prudence and impatience. It would have been
as easy to imprison lightning in a cloud as to pre-
vent an explosion from Marie Mancini. She went
her way, regardless of the fact that she was
alone. So much the worse for her uncle if he
abandoned her; later, she would break his
power. She had no sooner determined upon her
course than she set to work. She told the whole
tale to the king, with her accustomed fury. She
ridiculed the cardinal from morning to night;
this greatly amused his Majesty. Before long,
Mazarin asked himself whether the day of her
coronation would not be that of his disgrace.
This suspicion enlightened his soul and revealed
-t '^ M
ANNE OF AUSTRIA
After the portrait by S. Harding
Marie Mancini 31
to him the beauty of unselfishness. We must
remember what Brienne said on the subject of
the marriage: "If his Eminence sees in it secu-
rity for himself." That security had disappeared
with Marie's imprudence. She paid the pen-
alty of her recklessness with the loss of a throne.
Mazarin now turned completely around and
wished to have the benefit of his conversion.
He became inflexible: everything must be sacri-
ficed to the welfare of the state and the dignity
of the king. He took the attitude of a "hero
who despised a crown," ^ gave himself heart
and soul to furthering the Spanish marriage and
breathed the incense due to virtue. Marie fought
with desperation. It was the moment of her
life when she was most interesting.
V
She had to depend on herself alone, as the
whole family trembled at the thought that the
cardinal might fall; she had no other arms than
her keen mind and her peculiar fascination.
She had grown prettier; her lips were very red,
her teeth very white, her hair very black, and
her complexion less sallow. She was, however,
as yet, no beauty. Her nose was clumsy; her
mouth and eyes, almost out of drawing, turned
upward at the corners ; her cheeks were too heavy,
1 Memoirs of Choisy.
32 Princesses and Court Ladies
giving her a somewhat common appearance.
But all that mattered so little! With a beauti-
ful face could she have had greater power ? This
singular power, to which others beside Louis XIV
submitted, consisted in a sort of voluptuous fas-
cination which deprived men of their reason and
made of them her captives. Luckily for them,
she was as capricious as alluring; this sorceress
could never, long, follow one idea.
She was never accused of intrigue or perfidy.
She went her way, breaking down all obstacles.
She treated Anne of Austria, who opposed her,
with the greatest insolence. She would follow
the king even to his mother's chamber, whisper-
ing in his ear the gossip and calumnies of which
the queen was the victim. Under her influence,
the most respectful of sons became insolent. One
day when, as he refused to obey her, Anne men-
aced to take refuge at the Val-de-Grace, he an-
swered ' ' that she might go. " The cardinal brought
about a reconciliation.^
Marie defied her uncle so outrageously that his
last scruples abandoned him; she tried to blacken
the Infanta of Spain to the king. Whoever
spoke in favour of this princess incurred the hatred
of this terrible girl ; a Spanish lady, for this crime,
was driven from the Louvre.
The king was bound to her so securely that,
even during his absence, he felt her tyranny; she
was determined that, at any cost, the events of
' Memoirs of Mademoiselle de Montpensier.
Marie Mancini 33
Lyons should not be repeated. What remained
of common sense in the young prince's brain was
drowned in a torrent of passion. Burning vows,
savage anger, loving and caressing words, — he
knew them all, enjoyed them all, and lived in a
state of perpetual intoxication. He was no
longer his own master; he belonged to a pair of
black eyes v/hich looked into his at all hours of
the day, at meals, during the walks, at the card
table, in the ballroom, in all the nooks and cor-
ners of the palace; these eyes, full of dangerous
fire, were seconded by the murmur of a voice
both tender and tragic.
It has been said that, in all this wild passion,
there was no love; that both he and she were
incapable of loving, for his heart was hard and
full of himself, whereas she, in spite of all her
ardour, carried her heart in her brain ; that each
deceived the other, being meanwhile deceived,
taking the appearance of love for love itself.
It would be a bold thing to assert that all this
wild passion was mere comedy with Marie Man-
cini, mere sensuality with Louis XIV. There are
many kinds of love, even when the heart has but
little part in it: love through reason or instinct;
out of interest, duty, vanity, habit; with the
whole soul or with the whole body; and after a
hundred other fashions, too numerous to mention.
Those feelings which spring from inferior sources
bear the stigma of their origin. They, neverthe-
less, are genuine, and we should bless them, for
34 Princesses and Court Ladies
do they not fill the emptiness of many hearts?
We think we love, and yet our love is but a form
of our egotism, of routine, or of a coarse impulse.
Nature has willed this deceit, lest we should dis-
cover at twenty that we are incapable of love,
for that would be sad indeed. During a whole
year Louis XIV and Marie Mancini really believed
that they loved wildly enough to die of their pas-
sion. Let no one despise a feeling capable of
giving so precious an illusion.
Meanwhile, during the winter and spring of
1659, the negotiations with Spain had been going
on. Things were in the state we have seen, when
Mazarin prepared to leave for Saint -Jean-de-Luz,
where he was to meet the Spanish minister, Don
Luis de Harp. A hundred times a day, the king
and Marie swore eternal and reciprocal fidelity.
Anne of Austria, at last, understood that this
state of things could not continue and that she
must get rid of Marie before pledging her son to
the Infanta. The cardinal alone could help her
in this dilemma, and she was by no means sure
that he would be willing to do so. He was un-
kind to her, rough, making fun of her, keeping
the purse strings tightly in his own grasp, speak-
ing of her to the king in no measured terms. The
queen confided to her intimate friends that "the
cardinal was so cross and stingy that there was
no living with him."^ She was losing her illu-
sions with regard to her handsome, perfumed
* Memoirs of Madame de Motteville.
Marie Mancini 35
favourite, with his coquettish moustaches. The
convictions that his inspirations were low, that he
was nothing but a parvenu, had not yet entered
her mind, but the thought hovered not very far
away.
Great was her dehght, extreme her gratitude
and admiration, when, at the first word she ven-
tured to stammer on the necessity of separating
the lovers, she found his Eminence as eager as
herself to exile Marie. Mazarin played his part
like the great actor that he really was. The
queen never suspected his sincerity. Her eyes
once more were blinded; she reproached herself
for having doubted his love of the public weal,
and made up for it by great praise, leaving to
him all the honour of his patriotic abnegation.
They agreed that Marie Mancini should be sent
to the castle of Brouage, near La Rochelle.
One can imagine the thunderbolt. The king's
sorrow at first was wild enough. He wept, but
he listened to his mother. When he saw Marie,
however, when he witnessed her despair, listened
to her sobs, her bitter reproaches, her heart-
rending wailings, his sorrow almost equalled her
own. He rushed into the presence of the queen
and the cardinal, crying out that it was impossible
for him to see Marie ' ' suffer for love of him " ; *
that he would marry her, that he begged and
prayed of them to consent. He threw himself
on his knees ^ and showed a grief so genuine that
1 Motteville. ^ Montpensier.
3^ Princesses and Court Ladies
his mother was greatly moved. Mazarin re-
mained firm and answered "that he was master
of his niece and that he would stab her rather
than consent to so great an act of treason."*
The king's tears flowed anew; he vowed that he
would marry no other woman; nevertheless, he
allowed things to follow their course. As to
Marie, her despair was deep and savage.
" Elle n'entend ni pleurs, ni conseil, ni raison,
Elle implore a grands cris le fer et le poison."
Thus, Racine shows us Berenice exiled from
Rome by Titus; so also appeared, to the eyes of
the court and of France, the passionate Mancini
driven from Paris. Every one knows that Ra-
cine's play is supposed to be the poetical trans-
lation of the amorous drama which ended at
Brouage.^ The tragedy of " Berenice " is usually
called elegiac; the "gentle Racine" shows here
that he can be strong even to brutality. No
mistress abandoned by her lover could utter
more terrible imprecations than did Berenice.
She uses magnificent verse, but the sentim.ents
expressed are as violent, for example, as those of
Daudet's Sapho. Those who wish to understand
Marie Mancini should reperuse Racine's passion-
1 Motteville.
^ M. Felix H6mon, in his excellent work: " ThdStre de Pierre
Comeille " (Delagrave) gives interesting details as to the origin of
Racine's Berenice and as to " Tite et Bdr^nice of Comeille."
Marie Mancini 37
ate and powerful scenes from the moment when
Berenice exclaims wildly :
" He ! bien, il est done vrai que Titus m'abandonne !
II faut nous separer ! et c'est lui qui I'ordonne !"
The dialogue which follows is admirably true to
nature. No poet ever noted with more subtlety
the various feelings of a woman abandoned by
the man she loves; this is easy to understand:
Racine did but follow step by step the story of
Louis XIV and Marie Mancini, as all their contem-
poraries followed it, as these have told it in their
memoirs.
Berenice begins by reproaching Titus with his
treachery. Why should he have encouraged her
hopes if he did not mean to marry her ? Why did
he not say to her :
"Ne donne point un coeur qu'on ne peut recevoir "?
After the reproaches, when she sees her lover
moved, comes the expression of her tenderness:
"Ah, Seigneur! s'il est vrai, pourquoi nous separer?"
When he refuses to yield, she threatens to kill
herself, rushes away, comes back when she dis-
covers that Titus does not follow her, and bursts
into violent upbraidings :
"... Pourquoi vous montrer k ma vue?
Pourquoi venir encore aigrir mon d^sespoir? "
N'etes-vous pas content? Je ne veux plus vous voir."
38 Princesses and Court Ladies
From anger, she then passes to irony:
"Etes-vous pleinement content de votre glorie?
Aves-vous bien promis d'oublier ma memoire? "
B^r^nice, after more reproaches, lets herself
fall on a chair. Daudet's Sapho rolls on the floor:
this is a mere question of education. With both,
it is the final nervous crisis, to which Marie Man-
cini will also be subjected.
In many a book and play, since Racine, we
have seen a man break with his mistress. No-
where have we encountered a more - passionate
and clinging mistress than Berenice. A little
later, we shall examine the sudden change of the
fifth act, when B^r^nice gives up the struggle.
The episode which furnished Racine with his
concluding scenes took place at Brouage, Sep-
tember, 1659. For the moment, we are still at
the Louvre, June 2 2d. Marie Mancini has not
yet exhausted all her furious anger.
It was excessive, like all which came from
that volcano. The king, beside himself, wept
and cried out with her, renewed his vows, yet,
still weeping, conducted her to the travelling
coach. The celebrated exclamation uttered at
parting is the only one which Racine weakened
when he said :
" Vous etes empereur, Seigneur, et vous pleurez!"
Madame de Motteville and Madame de La
Fayette both give the same version of Marie's
Marie Mancini 39
words, "You weep — and you are the master!"
which is much stronger. But the truth is stronger
still. In her Memoirs, Marie gives her own words
as these, " 'Sire, you are king and you love me,
why do you let me go?' . . . Upon which, as
he was silent, I tore his lace ruffle, saying, 'Ah,
I am forsaken! '"
Here we have the real Marie Mancini. When
she sees that all is over, that the king allows
her to leave him, she clutches hold of him, tears
his lace furiously and exclaims: "Ah! I am for-
saken!" She recalls Sapho even more than
Berenice.
VI
This stormy departure provoked other storms.
The king, like a madman, rushed off to Chantilly,
where his sorrow, instead of diminishing, turned
to a veritable paroxysm. He had had the courage
to let Mademoiselle Mancini leave him : dimisit in-
vitus invitam; yet it seemed to him impossible to
live without her. As to Marie, she was a pitiable
object. She was ill, half fainting, fever seized her,
she was worn out. When the cardinal met her on
the road to Brouage, having himself started for
Saint- Jean-de-Luz, he wrote to the queen,^ "Her
grief exceeds my power to describe it." Many
years later, she herself could not find words strong
enough to express this immense despair: "Never,
* Letter of June 29, 1659.
40 Princesses and Court Ladies
in all my life, have I felt my soul more harrowed.
The worst torments seem but trifles compared
with so cruel an absence, with the vanishing of
hopes so tender and so high. I longed for death
as the only possible end of my woes. I was in a
state so dreadful that nothing I can say would
ever picture it." ^
In the midst of this anguish, Marie made use of
a childish feint, which, however, succeeded. She
pretended that she was resigned. Her uncle
allowed himself to be deceived and announced
this good news to the queen, ' ' She assures me that
she is submissive and that she surrenders herself
to me." So praiseworthy a conduct called for a
reward. It came in the person of a musketeer.
"He brought me," says Marie, "five letters from
the king, very long and very tender. ' ' The cardinal
was generous enough to allow the messenger to
take back an answer, and a regular correspondence
was established, which, unfortunately, we do not
possess, but at which we can guess by the effect
produced. On June 29th the king wrote to his
mother a dutiful and respectful letter in which he
said that "he appreciated the motives of her re-
sistance."^ Fifteen days later, the cardinal,
about to enter Saint- Jean-de-Luz, received such
news of the relations between mother and son
that he wrote to the former : " I fear that I shall
go out of my mind ; I can neither eat nor sleep ;
I am overwhelmed with anxiety and sorrow."
* Apologie. * Memoirs of Madame de Motteville.
Marie Mancini 41
(Cadillac, July i6th, 1659.) The same courier
took a long letter to the king which reflects the
situation as in a mirror :
' ' I have seen what the confidante ^ writes about
your sorrow and how you treat her. . . .
"The letters from Paris, Flanders, and other
places, assert that, since my departure, you are
terribly changed, not on account of me but on
account of some one who belongs to me, that you
have made promises which keep you from giving
peace to all Christendom. . . .
"It is said (and this is confirmed by letters ad-
dressed from the court to persons of my suite) . . .
that you shut yourself up continually to write to
the person 3^ou love, that in that way you lose
more time than you used to do conversing with
her when she was still at court. . . .
"It is said that you have quarrelled with the
queen, whom you avoid as much as possible."
He reproached the king with encouraging his
niece's revolt by promising to marry her; he pic-
tured the results of such a deed: a rupture with
Spain; war, and a third Fronde; he threatened to
retire to Italy, taking his niece with him, if his
young master did not give up a passion which had
become the derision of all Europe. He repeated
his supplications, sending letter after letter, and
was terror-stricken when he learned that Louis XIV
was determined to see Marie once more, at the very
time when he was expected in the Pyrenees for his
* Term used to designate the queen ; the king was the confident.
42 Princesses and Court Ladies
marriage with the Infanta. But letters and sup-
phcations were of no avail. Thanks to the weak-
ness of Anne of Austria, the interview took place
at Saint -Jean-d'Ang61y, on the loth of August.
The love ecstasies were touching, the farewell
accompanied by gentle tears only, for the lovers
swore eternal constancy.
They agreed to lay siege to the cardinal, to per-
suade him of his niece's tender love for him.
Marie wrote many letters to her uncle, but a Maza-
rin is not twice hoodwinked by a little girl. He
wrote to Madame de Venel, her governess :
"My niece has taken a fancy to write to me
oftener than is needful. I beg you to insist that
she should not give herself so much trouble. I
know what is in her mind and heart ; I also know
what to think of her affection for me."
To the king, he wrote:
"I begin by answering what you say in your
letter of the 23d (August) about the tenderness of
a certain person toward me, and about all the
other pretty things you say of her.
"I am by no means surprised that you should
speak thus, for it is your passion which blinds you;
otherwise you would agree with me that this
person is by no means fond of me, but rather hates
me, because I do not favour her wild folly ; that she
is eaten up with ambition, has a distorted and
violent nature, no dignity in her conduct, and that
she is ready to commit a thousand absurdities;
that she is madder than ever since she had the
Marie Mancini 43
honour of seeing you at Saint- Jean-d'Angely and
that, instead of two letters a week, she now
receives one from you every day ; before long, you
will acknowledge that she has a thousand weak-
nesses and not one quality that justifies your good
will toward her."
He filled eighteen pages with much the same
matter and renewed his menace of retiring to
Italy. The king's answer reached him on the ist
of September. It was short. The king wrote
* ' that the cardinal must do as he chose and that if
he gave up public affairs, others would gladly take
charge of them." ^ On the receipt of this note,
Mazarin was bound to recognise that his mad niece
with her "distorted nature" was an adversary
worthy of his steel.
She had done wonders in her sorry exile of
Brouage. She had not lost a day. According
to the family custom, she had called in an astrolo-
ger to know what chances she had of winning the
crown. This astrologer was an Arab. He drew
up all manner of horoscopes and took care that
they shotild be favourable. He, besides, gave her
lessons in his art so that she might, unaided, peep
into the future. The Arab strengthened her belief
in herself, and we know that faith can move
mountains.
She was penniless, closely watched, surrounded
with spies: She persuaded the spies that she was
their future queen, and they devoted themselves
* Memoirs of Choisy.
44 Princesses and Court Ladies
to her, body and soul. Money flowed in. This
money secured the services of unscrupulous per-
sons, ready for any adventure: among these was
her brother, whom their uncle, on account of his
scandalous debauchery, had cast into prison; she
set him free. Her star was in the ascendant, and
Mazarin, on the verge of the precipice, was aware
that Marie would never forgive the exile of
Brouage : ' ' since his departure, she vowed that she
hated him more than ever." ^ Despair had well
nigh taken possession of him. He still struggled,
but feebly, and without Anne of Austria he might
have succumbed. The queen's letters were his
consolation and his stay. They were full of affec-
tion and devotion. She considered it so magnan-
imous of her handsome Mazarin to have given
up the throne for his niece, that she was his, more
than ever. On the other hand, his danger had
very opportunely revived the cardinal's somno-
lent passion, so that their correspondence was a
veritable love duet.
The other nieces, the court, all Europe, followed
with impatient curiosity and varying emotions
this duel between the all-powerful cardinal and a
mere girl. The Mazarines trembled. These bold
parvenues had not forgotten the days when the
Paris rabble, seeing them enter the Louvre, called
out against the "little fish -monger s. " In their
palaces, surrounded by a court more brilliant than
that of the king, they knew that their uncle's
1 Memoirs of Madame de Motteville.
Marie Mancini 45
disgrace would be, for them, the stroke of the
wand that changes castles into huts and rich
garments into rags; their terror was great. The
Ahh6 Choisy relates that they already saw them-
selves tumbled back into poverty. They were by
no means reassured by the fact that the cardinal's
power was threatened by one of themselves, and
in that they were right. The Mazarines could not
depend much on family affections.
The court was divided between the horror of
such a deplorable marriage and the hope of being
rid of the cardinal. It is a curious fact that
Mazarin, who was not ill-natured, should have
inspired more antipathy among the nobles than
Richelieu, so relentless in his dealings with them.
On that point we can believe Saint-Simon, who
never betrayed his caste. ' ' Cardinal Richelieu, " says
he in his Memoirs ^ " little by little destroyed that
power and authority of the great which balanced
and even over-shadowed that of the king; by
degrees, he reduced them to the degree of honour,
of distinction, consideration, and authority alone
due to them ; they were no longer permitted to act
or to speak loudly in the king's presence, and he
was soon in a position to fear nothing from them.
This was the result of acts wisely and uninter-
ruptedly directed toward one goal."
In the same page, Saint-Simon denounces
Mazarin to the execration of posterity for "the
lies, the baseness, the treachery, the terrors and
'■ Volume xi, p. 244 (Hachette).
46 Princesses and Court Ladies
the spropositi ^ of his government, as avaricious as
it was cowardly and tyrannical, the consequences
of which were, first the Fronde, and then the ruin
and complete debasement of the French nobility,
despoiled of all posts, distinctions, and dignities, in
favour of the lower orders, so that the greatest
noble is powerless and depends in a thousand ways
on some vile burgher." Richelieu decapitated
the nobles; Mazarin slyly degraded them. The
first has been forgiven ; the second never will be.
The country, like the tow^n, was divided. Europe
laughed, with the exception of Spain, who had
offered the Infanta and felt the humiliation of a
refusal.
Things were in this state, and the cardinal, hav-
ing learnt humility, wrote to the king, ' ' I feel such
profound veneration and respect for your person
and for all that emanates from you, that I could
not take upon myself to dispute with you. On
the contrary, I am willing to submit to your wishes
and to declare that you are right, in all things."
Suddenly everything was changed by a dram-
atic turn of events, singular, yet natural. B6r^-
nice, as portrayed by Racine and by Comeille also,
gives up Titus, at the fifth act, out of pure heroism ;
she sacrifices herself to the nation. Poetry has en-
nobled history, which is not the same thing as
betraying it. At Brouage, Marie Mancini learned
that the clauses of the Spanish marriage had been
agreed upon. Not knowing that her uncle was on
* Foolish talk, things said out of season.
MARIA THERESA
From an old copper engraving
Marie Mancini 47
the point of capitulating and of yielding to the
king 's desires, she thought herself lost at the very
moment when victory was perhaps within her
grasp. Wounded pride prompted her to break of
her own free will ; anger helped her decision. Un-
stable as she was, she was relieved by this change,
after her long obstinacy, so contrary to her nature.
This heroic resolution would be sure to secure for
her praise and yet more solid compensations. She
wrote to Mazarin that she gave up the king. Once
this determination taken, the all-consuming pas-
sion which was to have been unique in the annals of
love, suddenly ceased to consume her. It would
be an error to think that Marie Mancini did not
love the king. Only, as has been said, the heart,
with her, was placed in the brain.
She was too clever not to understand that the
last act of the drama might seem to turn short and
would spoil the play in the eyes of the world. She
took pains to arrange it in the Apologie, where
she represents herself as refusing with indignation
the proposals of marriage made by the conn^table
Colonna, soon after the great sacrifice. She for-
gets to mention that she made use of the messenger
to suggest to her uncle another admirer, whose
image flattered her unoccupied imagination.
The astounding news flew, lightning-like, and
excited varied comments. Mazarin, wild with
joy, could scarcely believe his senses, and suddenly
discovered that he quite adored this niece whom,
just before, he had dubbed a dangerous maniac.
48 Princesses and Court Ladies
His heart overflowed with love and admiration:
compliments, protestations, and delicate attentions
were showered upon her. He went so far as to
open his purse: nothing better can prove how
terrified he had been. ' ' I have ordered Teron, ' ' he
writes to Madame de Venel, ' ' to give all needf til
money so that she (Marie) should have every sort
of pleasure. Pray give orders that her table be
lavishly supplied." He promises his dear Marie
to find her a husband. He wishes her to be happy
and he will do all in his power to further that end.
Meanwhile, he bids her amuse herself, hunt, fish,
eat good dinners (the cardinal knew how to appre-
ciate dainty living; thanks to him, France was
blessed with several new sauces), read Seneca.
' ' And, since she has a taste for books on morality,
tell her from me that she should read treatises of
philosophy, especially the works of Seneca, wherein
she will find much consolation and many things
which will confirm her in her new resolution."
Anne of Austria, by a reflex movement, basked
in the sunshine of her minister's joy. Philemon
and Baucis feel youth surge anew in their veins,
and exchange tender declarations. "I confess,"
writes Mazarin to the queen, ' ' that my patience is
greatly tried at being kept here and thus deprived
of your love." (Saint- Jean-de-Luz, September
14th, 1659.) More touching still is the passage on
his gout which prevents him from joining her : " As
much as possible I keep secret the hope of seeing
you here ; if my gout were to guess such a thing, it
Marie Mancini 49
would take malicious pleasure and pride in torment-
ing me, so as to boast of such a victory as, till
now, no fit of gout ever knew." Trissotin could
not have said this in more gallant terms, and the
couplet on the gout is a fit set-ofi to the Sonnet sur
la fievre qui tient la princesse Uranie.
Out of spite at having been so unexpectedly
abandoned, the king became at once enamoured
of the Infanta. Besides, he had meditated on the
threat of the cardinal to leave him in the lurch, and
he knew that such a position would be singularly
embarrassing. He was weary of being in leading
strings, yet he did not feel equal to walking without
them. He knew nothing of public affairs. Peace
had not yet been signed; and the scandalous con-
tempt shown the Infanta in marrying an obscure
girl would inevitably have opened hostilities once
more. He had heard it said (and it was true)
that ' * his revenues were absorbed for two or three
years in advance," ^ Thanks to all these good
reasons, it was with the greatest possible alacrity
that he married the Spanish princess, June 6th,
t66o.
VII
The hope of being queen had, for a time, given
to Marie Mancini, to her feelings and conversation,
a sort of inflation that might have passed muster
as nobility. But as this sort of dignity was not
* Memoirs of Choisy.
50 Princesses and Court Ladies
genuine, it disappeared with her dream. The
romantic heroine vanished; the adventuress alone
remained. The cardinal had scarcely authorised
her to return to Paris before she began with
Prince Charles of Lorraine a second romance, more
fiery even than the first. An Italian abbe served
as go-between. Meetings were frequent in churches
and parks. All this took on an appearance of
most displeasing intrigue, but Marie could never
keep within bounds. Her passion drove her mad.
She must have her Lorraine. She swore a hundred
times that if she were not allowed to marry him,
she would enter a convent.* Never had she
made such a threat when she was in love with the
king; this he never forgot or forgave.
Prince Charles was completely fascinated. His
head, as had been the case with the king's, whirled
in the presence of this southern enchantress.
The court returned in the very midst of this
wild romance, bringing back the new queen, Marie-
Therese. During, the journe}^ the king had accom-
plished the only act of sentiment which can be
attributed to him. He left his young wife at
Saintes so as to go ''in a post-chaise to visit
Brouage and La Rochelle,"^ sacred spots, which
had witnessed the passion and sufferings of the
beloved one. This would have been poetical and
touching if Marie, as he was convinced, had been
spoiling her eyes by over-weeping; it was only
* Memoirs of the Marquis de Beauveau.
' Memoirs of Monsieur de Montpensier.
PRINCE CHARLES OF LORRAINE
From an old copper print
Marie Mancini 51
ridiculous in case she had dried them. When he
reached Fontainebleau, the king learned the truth.
Another had taken his place. He — forgotten
for another! Few men can admit such a thing.
Louis XIV never could, not so much from vanity
as from faith in the monarchy. Alone on the
throne, alone in the heart ; both these things seemed
to him the attributes of divine right. Marie
Mancini grown faithless was lost, and forever.
He could not understand that the king of France
should be exposed to the misadventures of common
lovers, and he was right; he knew his business as
monarch.
Marie Mancini, in her Apologie, carefully avoids
any mention of her passion for the Prince of
Lorraine. Her love for Louis XIV gave her in
the eyes of the world and of posterity such lustre,
that, in order to keep it undimmed, a little lying
seemed but a venial fault. As long as she pos-
sibly could, she kept her attitude of forsaken
Ariadne ; the Memoirs of her sister Hortense * tell
us of her despair when she saw the king as a
married man. Who knows if, spite coming to the
rescue, she was not sincerely jealous of the king,
even while she adored her prince ? It would have
been very feminine. However that may be, this
is her own account of her first meeting with the
king after his return:
''The court reached Fontainebleau and the
cardinal ordered us to pay our respects to the new
^ Memoirs of the Duchess of Mazarin.
52 Princesses and Court Ladies
queen. I foresaw all that this would cost me and
it was not without anguish that I accepted it;
the presence of the king was sure to open a wound,
scarcely healed, and to which it would have been
wiser to apply the remedy of absence. However,
as I had not imagined that the king could receive
me with the cold indifference he displayed, I own
that I was so overwhelmed with sorrow that no
event of my life was as cruel as this change in his
manner. I begged to be allowed to return to
Paris."
The king carried his ' ' cruelty ' ' to the extent of
praising the young queen to her. "This was too
much for a creature so full of passion and violence.
She burst into a torrent of reproaches. "... " My
impatient wish for an explanation . . . caused
me two or three times to speak in private to his
Majesty, but he received my complaints so coldly
that, from that moment, I vowed never more to
bewail my fate, and to crush my heart rather than
to allow it to grieve, after so much indifference."
All went wrong with her. Once the king married,
her uncle forgot his promises and she ceased to be
his darling niece whom he flattered and praised.
Mazarin remembered her only to order her
governess in future to take better care of her
charge, and he pitilessly refused her hand to the
Prince of Lorraine. This young man took his
heart elsewhere, so that poor Marie was in the
rather ridiculous position of being at the same
time jealous of her two faithless swains. She
Marie Mancini S3
carried off the situation with spirit, but found it
hard to bear. For the time being, all who depended
on Mazarin complained of him. The glory of the
Pyrenees treaty and the security which came of it
quite turned his head. Two months before
Charles II became king of England, he had asked
for the hand of Hortense, which the cardinal had
refused ; now, in vain, he sought to mend matters.
Gout and gravel, from which he suffered greatly,
soured his temper and made him more avaricious
than ever ; he deprived the young queen of nearly
all her New-Year gifts, granting her only ten thou-
sand livres out of twelve thousand crowns, and
spent his time weighing his gold pieces so as to
give her all that were under -weight. He could
no longer control his brutal temper and treated
Anne of Austria "as if she had been a servant."
Death found him gloating over his gold and
scolding. He saw his end approach, however,
with a courage no one expected of him. He
divided his fortune and saw to the future of his
two nieces, Hortense and Marie. The former
married the Duke of La Meilleraye, who took the
name of Mazarin. Marie was given to the Conne-
table Colonna. She, who still adored her faithless
Prince of Lorraine, felt "a despair so violent that
she could not refrain from reproaching the king
for his weakness, and the cardinal for the outrage
he committed in thus sacrificing her affections and
her person." ^ If the king, as has been said, felt
at that moment a slight return of his old passion,
^ Memoirs of Beauveau.
54 Princesses and Court Ladies
he was forever cured by reproaches, so mortifying
to his pride. It was too much to claim the Lor-
raine of him. He showed himself freezingly cold
toward the faithless one.
Mazarin died on the 9 th of March, 1661. His
family, with touching unanimity, exclaimed:
''Pure e crepatol" (At last he has given up the
ghost!) Such was the emotion shown at the death
of a man who had drawn his relatives out of
nothingness to set them on a pinnacle. The
people gave the same deep sigh of relief as the
family, but with greater cause.
Soon after the cardinal's death, the king, by
proxy, concluded the marriage of Mademoiselle
Mancini with the connetable Colonna, who had
remained in Italy; the bride was sent to her
husband. "She had the sorrow," says Madame de
La Fayette, "to see herself exiled from France
by the king. . . . She bore herself with dignity
and haughtiness; but at her first halt, after her
departure from Paris, she was so crushed by her
despair, so overwrought by the violence she had
exerted over herself to hide her feelings, that she
nearly died." Only she did not die, and reached
Milan where the connetable, a handsome man and
an honest one, met her. He, in his turn, drank of
the philter this sorceress presented to him and, like
the others, lost his wits. She showed him nothing
but aversion, ill -temper, and caprices. He made
of her a sort of fairy queen and surrounded her
with luxury and a hundred festivities given in her
Marie Mancini SS
honour ; he showed himself ' 'gallant and was always
superbly dressed." * He showered on her "all the
attentions and kindnesses that it was possible to
imagine ; " ^ was patience itself with her rebuffs
and caprices. One fine day he replaced the
Prince of Lorraine in the heart of his wife, with the
rapidity and violence she always showed in like
matters.
' ' They were happy and had a great many chil-
dren." Thus end all pretty fairytales; but this
is a real story, and it ends very differently.
The first years, indeed, recalled the fairy tale.
Children came, a great many children, and the
conndtable only prayed that his happiness might
continue. His weakness toward his wife was
boundless; her wishes were his law. When her
first child was bom, Madame Colonna was visited
by the Sacred College. She judged it appropriate
to receive the cardinals in a bed shaped like a shell
in which she represented Venus. "It was," says
she, " a sort of shell that seemed to float on the sea ;
it was so well represented, with the lower part of
the bedstead forming waves, that it seemed real.
It was supported by four sea horses mounted by
sirens, all so beautifully carved and gilded that all
thought they were made of gold. Ten or twelve
cupids amorously held the curtains, which were of
gold brocade, hanging loosely so as to show only
what deserved to be seen; they were more for
ornament than use."
» Apologie. ' Ibid.
S6 Princesses and Court Ladies
As soon as she had left her theatrical couch,
Venus deigned to take part in merely human
pleasures. Games, balls, banquets, tournaments,
journeys to Venice and Milan, cavalcades and
boating, concerts and plays, succeeded each other
endlessly, so much so that it is a marvel that one
could take so much pleasure without dying of
ennui. As her fifth child nearly cost her her life,
Marie signified to her husband that she refused
to bring any more little Colonnas into the world.
He loved her too much to rebel; after which,
as was to be expected, he gave a bad example
of conjugal infidelity. His wife was imprudent
enough to exhibit her jealousy; more imprudent
still in avenging herself. Once on that road, she
went far. Her powers of seduction now gave
themselves all license. No man could resist her,
her conquests were innumerable.
First came a cardinal, Flavio Chigi, ill-favoured,
dark-skinned, with a round face and pop-eyes
that always seemed ready to fall out of their
sockets; but he was nephew to a pope, gay and
dissolute. Madame Colonna caused him to play
all sorts of antics. One day when he was expected
to preside over some church assembly she carried
him off in her coach "only half dressed," took
him into the country and kept him till evening.
Another time she found him in bed, ran away with
his clothes, dressed herself as a cardinal, and vowed
she would receive in his stead. Once, they spent a
fortnight hunting and camping in the woods.
Marie Mancini 57
Then came the infamous Chevaher de Lorraine,
exiled in spite of the tears of monsietir, brother to
Louis XIV. Even in Rome, where Cardinal Chigi
could, without exciting any indignation, preside
over the congregations, the chevalier was black-
balled. It was whispered that Madame la conne-
table, in monsieur's name, had given him " a hunt-
ing suit worth a thousand pistoles, covered with a
quantity of ribbons, the most beautiful and
expensive that could be found in Paris." ^ The
"little fish-monger" of Rome could not resist the
temptation of showing herself in her native town
in company with so gorgeous a cavalier; the
Chevalier de Lorraine was always at her side.
The connetable became very angry. Fate had
played him the trick of giving him a jealous nature
and marrying him to a Mazarin. If he had chosen
to see nothing when Cardinal Chigi was in attend-
ance, he opened his eyes when the chevalier took
his place and he stormed violently. '' But," con-
tinues the Apologie, "I knew how to answer."
The connetable sent a monk to reprove the guilty
one. She took the monk by the shoulders and
pushed him out of the room. Cardinal Chigi,
jealous on his own account, preached to her.
Thereupon they quarrelled. She became the talk
of Rome, and the outraged, but still enamoured
husband could but scold and hire numerous spies.
Nature is very clever, as we know, in disguising
the defects of a face with the charm of youth. It is
* Apologie.
58 Princesses and Court Ladies
no less clever in hiding defects of character, thanks
to the glamotir and fire of the twentieth year: so
young a soul is nearly always lovable. Moral
taints are brought to light with the revolving
years, and inattentive observers wonder at the
change. That change is only apparent; the ugly
taint is not a new one. At the court of France,
during her romance with Louis XIV, Marie Man-
cini did not seem an adventuress ; her youth, with
its brilliant and joyous seduction, deceived and
entranced all who saw her. Less than ten years
later, the real nature was revealed. The stories
we still have to relate of her might be those of a
circus rider. We shall speak of them as rapidly as
possible.
VIII
A FRAGMENT ^ Written by the conndtable's wife
will show into what a singular world she had
fallen. ' ' Every day, the chevalier came to see me,
and when the weather was favourable we went out
together, choosing especially the banks of the
Tiber, near the Porta del Popolo. I had even
caused a bath house to be built there, so that I
might plunge in the river. ^ ... It was not
* Les M^moires de M.L.P.M.M. (Madame la princesse Marie
Mancini, published at Cologne, 1676.) It is a confidential state-
ment made to an intimate friend by Madame Colonna, more lively,
less truthful, than the Apologie, and written in view of the public.
^ In the Apologie, she describes the little house, but does not
mention the purpose for which it was built. This detail indicates
the difference between the two books. The Apologie was written
to soften the effect produced by the Memoirs.
Marie Mancini 59
through love, as pretend my enemies, but out of
mere gallantry that the chevalier, seeing me in the
water up to my throat, begged to have my portrait
painted in that state, as he had never seen so
shapely a form nor so beautiful a face ; he vowed
that Zenocrates would have fallen in love with my
perfections." The husband, however, in his jeal-
ousy, did not believe in the perfect propriety of all
this bathing; mere calumny, his honourable wife
informs us : " My servants can testify that I never
left the cabin to step into the water without having
donned a chemise of gauze which fell to my feet."
The insupportable husband was not content with
this transparent garment ; he complained of many
other things likewise, and made himself so ex-
tremely disagreeable that she concluded that the
only thing to do was to run away from him.
Her sister Hor tense had already left her lord.
It is true that the Duke of Mazarin was a sort of
maniac with whom life was impossible. The
duchess had taken refuge in Rome, and as she was
a woman of experience, having travelled many
leagues in male attire, Madame Colonna begged
her protection in her flight back to France. They
left Rome, May 29, 1672, with men's clothes under
their skirts, as though they had gone out for an
airing.
Their coach took them to Civita Vecchia, where
a boat had been ordered to await them. They
took off their feminine garments, sent back their
coach, and walked up and down in the broiling
6o Princesses and Court Ladies
sun. The boat was nowhere to be seen, and they
took refuge in a grove where they well-nigh died
of fright, fatigue, and hunger. They had been
twenty-four hours without food, and every
moment fancied they heard the connetable's sol-
diers pursuing them. Suddenly they perceived
the gallop of a horse and thought the end had
come. Hortense bravely cocked her pistols, de-
termined to ' ' kill the first man who might present
himself;" but her sister made a rather pitiable
heroine. ' ' If my veins had been opened," she says,
"not a drop of blood would have trickled from
them. My hair stood on end, and I fell, half
fainting, into the arms of my sister who, more
accustomed to misfortune, was braver than I."^
Hortense, indeed, had known many a tight place.
She had endured a siege in a convent, against her
husband and sixty horsemen who had been forced
to beat an ignominious retreat. She was doubt-
less ashamed of a sister who, in spite of her pre-
tensions, was nothing but a poor little woman.
A servant was sent in search of the missing
boat, found another, and they sailed away. This
little vessel was manned by veritable pirates, and
the nine days of navigation were full of emotions.
Once out at sea, the ladies had to give up their
gold, under penalty of being thrown overboard or
left on a desert island. The same evening a Turk-
ish privateer was espied, and night alone saved
» Les M6moires de M.L.P.M.M. The story is told after the
same fashion in the Memoirs and in the Apologie.
HORTENSE MANCINI
From an old copper print
Marie Mancini 6i
them from capture. The fugitives, it may be,
regretted so interesting an adventure as that of
entering a Turkish harem. Their husbands would
have bought them back, and they would have
had a few more reminiscences wherewith to enliven
their old age. The next day there was a tempest.
On reaching Marseilles, they were not allowed to
enter the port, as Civita Vecchia was plague in-
fested. They bought false passports and landed.
They had scarcely had an hour's sleep in an inn
when Captain Manechini, a terrible hravo em-
ployed by the conne table, appeared before them.
The Duke of Mazarin, on his side, had sent the no
less terrible Captain Polastron to capture his wife.
The two women escaped, stopping here or there
whenever they thought themselves in safety, to
snatch what pleasure was within their grasp.
They were obliged to beg Madame de Grignan for
help, and she sent them a little linen. Dodging
their pursuers, Hortense barely escaped from Cap-
tain Polastron by crossing the frontier. Marie
pushed on to Paris. She was bent on seeing the
king, on throwing herself at his feet, on — who
knows ? — adding a second volume to her royal
romance.
The news that Marie Mancini had appeared in
Provence, in men's clothes, without so much as a
shift, produced a great stir at the court of France.
When she was reported on her way to Paris, no
one doubted her object, and the curiosity of the
public was vastly excited. The king's rule was
62 Princesses and Court Ladies
never to be ungrateful toward a woman who had
loved him, and his first impulse was to take
Madame Colonna under his protection. On the
other hand, he greatly respected the proprieties.
He was even disposed to admire austerity, for it
gave greater zest to his victories. Marie Mancini
had not covered him with glory. Louis XIV was
the last man in France to admire romantic adven-
tures, and hers were particularly romantic. Then
he felt very bitterly the fact that he had had suc-
cessors; at court, many remembered his red and
swollen eyes at the time when Mazarin refused to
let him marry his niece. All this caused him to
send a very cold answer to a letter in which
Madame Colonna begged his permission to dwell
in Paris. He advised her to shut herself up in a
convent "in order to put an end to the scandal
her departure from Rome had caused." ^
Marie argued from this letter that she must
lose no time, that it was urgent for her to see the
king, and she set out forthwith. The postmaster
refused to let her have horses. A nobleman
sent by Louis XIV was in hot pursuit. Somehow
she procured horses and a vehicle, took to cross-
roads, to rough fields also, upsetting, hiding,
dodging, finally reaching Fontainebleau, where
her pursuer caught up with her. It was Monsietir
de La Gibertiere ; if he happened to possess any
sense of humour, he must greatly have enjoyed
the interview.
* Apologie.
Marie Mancini 6^
He did his best to persuade her to return to
her husband, adding that the king regretted that
he had granted her his protection; the only other
alternative was a prolonged sojourn in a Grenoble
convent.
"This," she says, "was my answer: that I had
not left my home with the intention of returning
to it so soon; that mere caprice had not guided
me, but good and solid reasons, which I could
only divulge to the king in person; that I was
certain of his fairness and justice as soon as he
had heard me (I asked for nothing more), for he
would then acknowledge that he had been misled
in his appreciation of my conduct; . . . that, as
to Grenoble, I was too weary to undertake such
a journey; . . . that I would await his Majesty's
answer, according to which I should then decide
upon my conduct." Whereupon, she snatched
up her guitar and began to play, thereby greatly
disturbing Louis XIV's envoy. Evidently,
Monsieur de La Gibertiere proceeded to expostu-
late, for she had time to play him "several tunes"
before, in sheer discouragement, he took his leave.
What an adorable scene ! Madame Colonna, in
an upper chamber of a poor inn at Fontainebleau,
dressed in the cast-off garments of Madame de
Grignan, with a guitar by way of baggage! A
cicada under wintry breezes.
The king sent her another messenger, the Duke
of Crequi, who, in spite of himself, was touched at
finding so much fallen grandeur in so woeful a
64 Princesses and Court Ladies
plight. He renewed the king's orders: she was
not to see him; she was not to go to Paris. She
felt that she must gain time and asked to be
placed in a convent at Melun. This was granted;
but she could not take it upon herself not to bewail
her fate, not to insist on seeing the king who
showed her "so little courtesy." Louis XIV at
last, fearing some scandal, or that she might
burst into his presence, in spite of his body-guard,
ordered Colbert to put her in some convent at
least sixty miles away. She could not yet believe
that all was over between them. She wrote to
Colbert : " I never thought to see what I see ; I can
say no more, for I have less control over myself
than you. Let it end. All I ask is to see the
king once more before leaving for the last time,
as I shall never return to Paris. Obtain for me
this favour, Monseigneur, after which I will go
even further than he wishes. ..." (Septem-
ber 25, 1672.) Colbert did not answer. This was
plain enough. Then she uttered this cry of
despair: "It is not possible that the king . . .
should, with me, begin to show himself pitiless "*
This would be touching, could we forget the
goggle-eyed cardinal and the Chevalier de Lor-
raine. Louis XIV, very well informed as to her
vagaries, remained relentless and sent, once more,
Monsieur de La Giberti^re who escorted her to a
convent at Reims. In her" Memoirs, she shows
the extent of her disappointment : " I was deceived
* Letter to Colbert, October i, 1672.
Marie Mancini 6^
in all my hopes ; the king, on whom I had depended,
treated me with great coldness, why, I cannot
imagine." It is possible that she never understood
the reason of this coldness. The absence of
moral sense blunts the brightest wits.
IX
We have reached the last stages of degradation.
The life of Marie now loses every vestige of dignity
and self-respect. Her troubled brain, a perpetual
disquiet, keeps her from resting an3nvhere. She
spends her time running away from the different
convents where the king or her husband imprisons
her. She is to be met with on the high-roads of all
Europe, in France, in Italy, in Germany, in Holland,
in Spain. The letters of that period make fre-
quent allusions to her. Madame de S^vigne writes
to her daughter, November 24th, 1673, "Madame
Colonna was discovered on the Rhine, in a boat-full
of peasant women ; she was going I know not where
in Germany." January 27th, 1680, Madame de Vil-
lars, wife of the French ambassador to Madrid,
says that she and her husband saw a veiled woman
who made signs to them that she wished to speak
to them alone. "Monsieur de Villars exclaimed:
'It is Madame Colonna!' On which, I addressed
some compliments to our visitor. But as that was
not what she wanted, she went straight to her ob-
ject." The "object" was that she had once more
66 Princesses and Court Ladies
run away and claimed the protection of France
against her spouse.
Nothing could persuade her that, if he saw her,
Louis XIV would not at once fall at her feet,
repentant and amorous. Her one goal, there-
fore, was France. At last, the king, weary, sent
orders that she was never to be allowed to cross
the frontiers.
Half the convents of Europe looked upon her
with terror, for they were never sure of being free
from her. Many had endured the infliction of
her presence. We are accustomed to pity the
wives and daughters whom paternal or conjugal
tyranny condemned to the cloister, and certainly
they were often fit objects of compassion. But
I think it but fair to pity likewise the nuns ordered
to receive and keep them. Their unwilling guests
avenged themselves on the community. One
should read in the Memoirs of the Duchess of
Mazarin how she and an amiable marchioness,
shut up by a jealous husband, put everything
topsy-turvy in a monastery. They organised a
chase in the nuns' dormitory, running full -tilt,
followed by a pack of hounds, crying: "Tuyant!
tuyant ! ' ' They put ink in the holy water founts
and water in the beds. Hortense pretends that
all this is "invented or exaggerated," but she
adds, "We were watched and guarded; for the
purpose, the oldest nuns were chosen as less
likely to be corrupted; but, as we walked about
all day long, they were soon worn out, until one
Marie Mancini 67
or two, having tried to run after us, twisted their
ankles."
Life was not easy in the convents that had the
honour of harbouring the conn^table's fugitive
wife. Sometimes she would make a hole in the
wall and creep through ; or she would bewitch the
door-keepers and, at night, go off carousing,
which did not greatly add to the good renown of
the establishment. ' ' Sometimes, ' ' relates Madame
d'Aulnoy, speaking of a sojourn in Madrid, "she
escaped in the evening with one of her women,
and walked on the Prado, a white mantle on the
head, enjoying many an amusing adventure. The
women who frequent the Prado are not always
reputable, but the most aristocratic of our ladies
often mingle with them, when they think they
will not be recognised."^
Marie played such mad pranks that it required
strict orders from the nuncio, with threats of
excommunication, to induce the convents to
receive her. In one monastery of Madrid, the
nuns, in despair, resolved to go in procession to
the palace, so as to entreat the king to free them
from Madame Colonna. His Majesty rejoiced at
the thought of receiving them and of hearing them
sing, "Libera nos, Domine, de la Conde stabile.''
They thought better of it and did not give him
that unholy joy.
The nuns were greatly disturbed by the visitors
received by Madame Colonna. Many fine gentle-
* M^moires de la cour d'Espagne.
68 Princesses and Court Ladies
men called upon her, and their gallantry was
scarcely in keeping with the sanctity of the place.
One of the most frequent of these visitors for
Madame Colonna was her husband, that strange
spouse, each year more enamoured, more faithless,
and more jealous. "He went every day to visit
her," says Madame d'Aulnoy: "I have seen him
pay court to her, like a lover to his mistress."
The passion with which she had inspired him was
strong enough to make him forgive everything;
all he asked was to take her back again.
As everything with Marie Mancini was doomed
to be strange, she grew beautiful when she was
about forty. The ugly little gipsy, with her long,
thin arms, was no longer either thin or dark-
skinned. Her figure was fine, her bright eyes had
grown soft and touching, her hair and teeth re-
mained perfect. Her very lack of repose had its
charm. The connetable, on his side, was still as
handsome " as a picture ' ' ^ and he was madly in
love; but the astrologers kept these two apart.
Marie had once more had her horoscope drawn,
and in it was said "that if she had another child
she would die." Therefore, she would have no
husband. Yet she had a lover, the ugliest man
in Madrid.
One fine day, like a madcap that she was, she
ran to her husband's house. She had broken
loose once more from her convent, and thought
fit to try another sort of life. The connetable
> Letters of Madame de Villars.
N\ PRINCIPE ROMAN O
hf Cental J J rmavf mB2fimo,Sonnm^cCa^inU(me -
'-^cCitl:^ IlCfuusa rJtanmci;'Jiaronc<£Carsol'i
J^ORENZ'ONOFRIO COLON
T)taa di 'Taifhamuo, /c'JlarsictEinin
Marcficsf JcT'Atar.ie'Ji CmSma-ContcdiKhtqu -. .
, £;flk XjafTc Ji'Koulto, /iZafCornnt,(l(('Castef/c!rOLcro cfCai'mauro /effi Citta J'-'iylonc fcf]Sm-jio,£.\\mkc£y<,,
THE CONNETABLE COLONNA
After the portrait by Giacomo Bichi
Marie Mancini 69
received her very well, but shut the cage's door on
the wild bird. She made a fine uproar, vowing that
her husband wanted to take revenge "after the
Italian fashion," that is, by poisoning her. The
king, the queen, the ministers, the grand inquisitor,
took the affair to heart; she stirred up the whole
country. Some were for her, others against.' One
night she was carried off, by her lord's orders,
with but small ceremony; the ravishers dragged
her, half naked, by the hair and threw her into a
dungeon where she was only too happy to accept
a solution which completed the masquerade of her
life. The conn^table pledged himself to become
a Knight of Malta if she consented to take
the veil. She was all the more willing, as she had
had some experience in breaking through convent
walls. Madrid, with great edification, beheld her
in a monastic habit. "Madame Colonna arrived
on Saturday, early," writes Madame de Villars.
"She entered the convent; the nuns received her
at the door with tapers and all the ceremonies in
use on such occasions. Thence, she was led into
the choir where she took the habit (of a novice)
with great modesty. . . . The costume is pretty
and becoming, the convent agreeable." *
Poor convent! if it had received the devil in
person as penitent it would not have been in a
worse plight. "Under her woollen garment, she
wore skirts of gold and silver brocade ; as soon as
she was free of the nuns, she threw off her veil
' February i, 1681.
70 Princesses and Court Ladies
and dressed her hair after the fashion of Spain,
with many coloured ribbons. When a bell an-
nounced some function at which she was bound
to assist . . . she threw on her habit and her
veil so as to hide the ribbons and her thick hair;
it was a perpetual comedy." ^ Disguised as a nun
twenty times a day and as often throwing off
that disguise, it was impossible that her voca-
tion should be taken seriously. The husband,
discouraged, and without the slightest desire to
become a Knight of Malta, finally abandoned his
wife. He went off to Rome; but he was guilty
of leaving her penniless, in an attic, without a
fire, lacking every decent comfort. From that
moment, Marie disappears in darkness. Now
and again a faint glimmer of light falls upon her;
then, once more, she vanishes.
In 1684, she is seen in France. In 1688, the
French ambassador speaks of her as being in a
small convent "where she is free to come and go."
The following year she becomes a widow. In
love, even to the last, "the conndtable, in his will,
begs his wife's pardon . . . and for fear his chil-
dren should harbour some anger toward their
mother, he accuses himself, and endeavours to
inspire them with respect, gratitude, and admira-
tion for her."^ What an excellent husband!
She rewarded this magnanimity by returning to
Italy where, under her children's eyes, she lived
* Mdmoires de la cour d'Espagne.
' Saint-Evremond de.
Marie Mancini 7^
after a most profligate fashion. She was Hearing
her fiftieth year. A last ray of light falls upon
her in 1705. "Madame Colonna," relates Saint
Simon, " took it into her head to land in Provence,
where she remained several months, without per-
mission to draw nearer; at last it was granted
her ... on condition that she should not enter
Paris. She went to Passy. Outside of her family,
she knew no one; . . . disgusted at having been
so ill received, she went quickly back of her own
accord."
And in her family, what universal ruin! What
a return to the original nothingness! The Prin-
cess of Conti, the saint, was dead. Dead also the
Duchess of Modena, leaving one son, weak men-
tally and physically, soon to die. Dead, the
beautiful Hortense, Duchess of Mazarin; her hus-
band claimed her body, and carried it about with
him. Olympe, Duchess of Soissons, compromised
in the poisoning affair, had come away from a
fete, in January, 1680, to throw herself into a
coach, never stopping until she had crossed, for
ever, the frontier of France. Marie-Anne, Duchess
of Bouillon, implicated in the same affair, was ban-
ished, recalled, then once more banished for ever
from the court. The only brother had survived
and amused himself with writing pretty verses;
he could do nothing else. Pushing our investi-
gations a little further, we find that the Mazarin
blood, mixed with that of so many illustrious
families, brought ill-luck with it to all. The
7^ Princesses and Court Ladies
houses of the d'Estes, of the Stuarts,^ of the Ven-
domes,^ of the Contis, of the Bouillons, of the
Soissons, died out, one after the other.
And the treasures amassed by Mazarin, his
millions, his old masters, his antique statues?
The Duke of Mazarin, his heir, mutilated the
statues with a hammer, smeared over the pic-
tures, spent millions in law suits before all the
courts of justice in France; so that, according to
Monsieur Amed^e Renee's witty remark, "It was
the Fronde that, after all, was Cardinal Mazarin's
real heir. ' '
Marie Colonna saw these things, found that
France was no longer ainusing, and plunged defi-
nitely into oblivion. We do not know when she
died, or where; probably in Italy or Spain, some-
where about 17 15. She had become skilled in
the occult sciences, which accorded well with her
witch-like face. One can imagine her old, with
her wild, unkempt hair, sordid in her dress,
wrinkled, half -impotent. Of her lost splendour
nothing remains but the fire of her black eyes.
She tells fortunes and the future remains dark.
She lives in the past. She takes her guitar, plays
and muses. She dreams that once she barely
missed being queen of France.
1 The daughter of the Duchess of Modena married James II.
^ Sons of the Duchess of Mercoeur.
LOUIS XIV
After a print by Nanteuil
CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
In the character of Christina of Sweden, daugh-
ter of the great Gustavus Adolphus, there was
a mixture of strange brilHancy and of enig-
matic romance. Her contemporaries did not
know what to make of her. Few beings were
ever during their lifetime more praised and more
reviled. Pages might be filled with the mere
titles of the odes, discourses, panegyrics, plays,
in which Christina is exalted in prose and verse,
in German, Italian, Latin, Swedish, and French.
An equally long list could be composed of the
pamphlets, memoirs, and epigrams in which she
is dragged in the mud. Even now she is a
puzzle; we find in her traits of grandeur and
absurdity, of nobility and perversity. It is an
open question whether she was sincere, or whether
she threw dust in the eyes of all Europe. The
perplexity increases when the comedy of her life
turns to tragedy.
Yet, light begins to dawn. Listening to Chris-
tina herself through her letters, her diplomatic
documents, her collections of maxims, her auto-
biography and her marginal notes, we come to
know her and, at the same time, to understand
the contradictory judgments of her day. As this
73
74 Princesses and Court Ladies
ambiguous figure reveals itself to us, we are moved
by feelings equally ambiguous. We are amused
and revolted, fascinated and disgusted.
Christina was bom at Stockholm, December
8, 1626, of Gustavus Adolphus and Mary Eleonore,
daughter of the Elector of Brandenburg. A son
had been predicted by the astrologers; dreams
had confirmed the predictions of the stars, and
the son was eagerly expected. When the child
came into the world it seemed as though the stars
and the occult powers had been only half mis-
taken and that nature had really meant to fashion
a boy. The child was so hairy, so dark, its voice
was so rough and loud that it was thought a
prince had been born. Unfortunately, it was
but a tomboy of a girl, and such Christina
remained all her life. Gustavus Adolphus was
soon consoled ; not so the queen, who looked upon
the black little creature in horror. She could not
forgive her for being a girl, especially for being
an ugly little girl. Christina insinuates in her
autobiography ^ that her mother's aversion was
answerable for the many accidents of her in-
^ Life of Queen Christina, written by herself. Memoirs concern-
ing Christina, published by Arckenholtz, librarian to the landgrave
of Hesse-Cassel (Amsterdam and Leipzig, 4 vols., 1751-1760). The
Memoirs contain most of the facts used by historians. Granert, in
1857, added certain other facts to those related by Arckenholtz in
his Christina, Konigein von Schweden und ihr Hof.
QUEEN CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN
From an old copper print
Christina of Sweden 75
fancy, and that it was a marvel that she came
out of this dangerous period merely with one
shoulder higher than the other. Nothing that
we can learn of Mary Eleonore warrants such
an accusation.
The queen was eccentric and much given to
tears, but she was not bad at heart. Gustavus
Adolphus describes her in a word "without judg-
ment." In point of fact, she was quite lacking
in common sense. Her husband, however, was
very much in love and easily forgave her stupidity
and eternal weeping, because she was "beautiful
and gentle." He loved her after the superior
fashion of great men towards feminine idiots; he
enjoyed seeing her gorgeously dressed, and never
thought of confiding in her. He was in the right,
for the queen adored him and was perfectly con-
tented with her lot. She surrounded herself with
dwarfs, buffoons, and people of low degree, and
by way of occupation made lotions for the pres-
ervation of her complexion. She was outside of
everything, entirely ignorant of what went on
in the world, and left to the mercy of her servants
and their low intrigues. With her superstitions,
her old-time notions, her barbarous court of mis-
shapen monsters and parasites, she represented
mediaeval times at the Court of Sweden during
the seventeenth century under the reign of Gus-
tavus Adolphus. She was too gentle to have
attempted to kill or maim her daughter, to pun-
ish her for not being a boy; she was, however, a
76 Princesses and Court Ladies
deplorable mother, and it is but fair to remem-
ber this in judging Christina. From her mother
Christina inherited a great many faults and not
one virtue. All there was good in her nature
came from her father.
Gustavus Adolphus left a dazzling reputation.
He was the hero of popular fancy. Nothing
which could strike the imagination was lacking
in him. He came from the distant and mysteri-
ous North, which fancy picturea as icebound
and lost in darkness. Thirty years later, Huet
and Nande, when they reached Sweden, were
childishly amazed at the flowers, the sunshine,
and the cherries. The king himself seemed the
very incarnation of Scandinavian mythology.
Emperor Ferdinand called him ' ' the king of snow, ' '
and the name suited him wonderfully well. He
was a fair-haired giant, with a golden beard, a
white and pink complexion, and gray eyes full
of fire. He was easily moved- to anger, terrible
in war, but gentle in times of peace and when he
was truly himself. He was then the good and
joyous giant, amenable to laughter. Like the
Ases, companions of Odin, he loved to drink with
the brave and to strike gallant blows in battle.
Some historians have blamed him for being over
rash, a mere soldier, contrary to the custom of
sovereigns and generals. Christina took his part
with great warmth. "The cheap fashion of being
a hero," said she, "at the cost of cowardice, was
not then in vogue. Nowadays, the greater the
Christina of Sweden 77
poltroon the greater the hero." Whether the
doughty onsets of Gustavus Adolphus were reason-
able or not, they at least gave him great renown
in the world.
His prowess, worthy of the old-time knights,
did not prevent a great taste for letters. He
spoke several languages, and had a well-chosen
camp library which followed him everywhere.
He had meditated on human affairs, on ambition,
on the passion for glory, on the fate of nations,
and he had come to the conclusion that he was
the scourge of Sweden, that all great kings are
fatal to their people, and every great man a
plague to some victim or other. "God," said
he, "never diverges from the law of mediocrity
without crushing some one. It is a proof of love
toward the humble when kings are blessed with
commonplace souls." He adds "that, on the
other hand, mediocre princes at times also bring
down calamities on their subjects." But these
calamities are light as compared with those which
result from a sovereign's greatness. His violent
passion for glory, which deprived him of peace,
causes him naturally to deprive his subjects of
it as well. He is like a torrent which brings
destruction there where it passes. God had sent
him in a moment of anger against Sweden to
win battles; he pitied his country but never
dreamed for an instant of resisting this Heaven-
appointed vocation. When the victory remained
imcertain, he would dismount, kneel, and call out
78 Princesses and Court Ladies
loudly to the "God of battle." And God testified
His favour by removing him from the earth, in
the glory of his youth and strength, and in the
very midst of a victorious battle. Gustavus
Adolphus left the scene as he had entered it.
Europe was dizzy with the spreading renown of
his genius and his virtues. His daughter Chris-
tina, like him, loved glory; but she could never
distinguish between that which was genuine and
that which was spurious.
She was not quite six years old when her father
was killed at Lutzen, November 6, 1632.' All the
details of the regency and the guardianship of
his daughter had been ordained by Gustavus
Adolphus. First of all, he forbade that his wife
should have any voice either in the government
of the state or the education of the child. He
had shuddered at the mere thought that she
might have any influence; she was debarred from
all action. This was specified in the archives of
the senate and repeated in the instructions given
to the Chancellor Oxenstiern. In his letters
during the campaign, the king insisted on this
point, and, just before the battle of Lutzen, he
wrote again on the subject to his minister. It is
remarkable that a husband, much in love with
his wife, should have recognised her shortcomings
so clearly.
He placed Christina under the guardianship of
a regency council. The senate and the ministers
were to superintend her education, and to under-
QUEEN ELEONORA OF SWEDEN
From an old copper print
Christina of Sweden 79
take in concert to make a great prince of a very
wide-awake little girl, for the king had commanded
that she was to be brought up like a boy. He
himself chose for her a governor, of whom Chris-
tina, grown old, approved. "He had been," said
she, ' ' associated with the king in all his pleasures,
the companion of his journey ings and wild doings,
the confidant of his loves."
This nobleman was proficient in all manly exer-
cises, a courtier but very ignorant ; moreover, he
was violent and choleric, much given to women
and wine in his youth ; his vices did not abandon
him until his death, though he had moderated them.
This model of a governor for a young princess was
seconded by an under-tutor equally fond of the
bottle, and a professor, doctor of theology, honest
John Matthiae. Chancellor Oxenstiern had abso-
lute command of the palace. Unfortunately for
Christina he had been detained in Germany at
the death of his master. The other regents did
not dare to resist the widow of Gustavus Adol-
phus, and Mary Eleonore had leisure to commit
some follies. Thanks to her, the child nearly
went out of her senses.
The loss of a husband was too good an excuse
for weeping for the queen not to make the most
of it. She resolved that her sorrow should be
the talk of the world. Night and day, sobs,
deluges of tears alarmed the palace; this lasted
for weeks, for months, for years. She caused her
apartments to be hung with black; the windows
8o Princesses and Court Ladies
were hidden under sable draperies, so that "it
was impossible to see an inch before one's face,"^
and she wept, wept, wept, by the light of wax
tapers. Once a day she "visited" a gold box
hung above her bed; it contained her husband's
heart, and she wept over the box. At other
times, woeful lamefitations sounded in the funereal
chambers. If the queen had only shut up her
dwarfs and buffoons with her, there would have
been little anxiety; they could take care of them-
selves. But she had taken possession of Chris-
tina, whom she guarded jealously, took to bed
with her, so as to force the child to weep and
lament with her, and to pass her life in the shadow
of the black draperies. If an attempt was made
to snatch the poor little girl from her, she would
screech and howl. The regents hesitated, con-
sulted with each other, and meanwhile time went
on. The return of Oxenstiem released Christina.
The chancellor hastened to send Mary Eleonore to
one of her castles, where she might shed tears to
her heart's content. In the chronicles of the
day, her name appears only now and then, accom-
panied by some such comment, "The queen wept
several hours ; . . . the queen shed tears all night
long; . .. . the queen could not stop her sobs. . ."
Christina for years was unable to shake off
this nightmare; she was haunted by the black
chambers, the golden box, and the paroxysms of
sobs, bursting out at stated moments. Mary
* Autobiography of Christina.
Christina of Sweden 8i
Eleonore is responsible for many of her daughter's
eccentricities.
The regents, the senate, and the representa-
tives of the state could now undertake their great
task and give the rare example of a monarch
brought up by the people to govern according to
that people's ideas. Christina's professor was the
nation itself, not excluding the fourth Swedish
order, that of the peasantry. To make the case
s'^ill more singular, Sweden, then a very illiterate
nation, became alive to the necessity of education
and believed with an ardent faith, which has
never been equalled even in our days, in its mysti-
cal and magic power. During ten years the
nation lived in anguish, watching the royal child's
progress in Latin and in mathematics. The pro-
ficiency of this brilliant pupil was heralded abroad,
to the farthest limits of the kingdom "and ex-
cited," says an historian, "the most joyful hopes
for the future happiness of the country."^ The
queen was learning Greek; all thrilled with pride;
she was reading Thucydides; joy became delirium.
Strangers looked upon her as a little prodigy ; she
was the pride of the nation.
Some of Christina's school tasks have been pre-
served and a selection of them printed. The
French themes are much such as are written
nowadays in ordinary girls' schools. There is
one on Patience, one on Constancy. A third,
in the form of a letter, condoles with a lady
1 Granert.
82 Princesses and Court Ladies
on the death of her husband. The schoolgirl,
endeavouring to express noble sentiments, made
rather a muddle of them. "We must consider,"
said she, "that as no captive leaves his prison
without great profit to himself, likewise the souls,
imprisoned on earth, feel at the moment of their
deliverance the joy of a life free from regrets and
sighs; thus, death gives the assurance of happi-
ness." Christina was sixteen years of age when
she composed this masterpiece, which imprudent
courtiers offered to the admiration of posterity.
The same enthusiastic persons went into ecstasies
over her Latin exercises, which they discovered to
be full of "elegance." I dare to call it "Kitchen
Latin," but in any case the quality of her Latin
mattered very little for the happiness of the
nation.
The Swedish government was by no means of
that opinion. What would become of Sweden
were its queen to be guilty of a solecism? Pre-
cautions were taken against so great an evil,
Matthiae was obliged to render a strict account of
her progress. The regency was thus made aware
that, on the 26th of February, 1639, the queen
had undertaken the Dialogues Francais of Sam-
uel Bernard; that on the 30th of March she
had committed to memory Cato's speech, in Sal-
luste, and on April 6th that of Catilina to his
soldiers; that she was learning astronomy in a
book which dated from the thirteenth century, in
which no heretical opinions on the rotation of the
Christina of Sweden 83
earth could be found; that in history she began
with the Pentateuch, which was followed by the
War of Thebes, and that she read, most atten-
tively, an old Swedish book recommended by
Gustavus Adolphus, in which the art of governing
was condensed in maxims. A commission of sena-
tors, to make sure that the queen was a conscien-
tious pupil, examined her on each branch of
Jearning. The states voted as to the best way
that the queen "might be brought up and edu-
cated," and made use of this good opportunity to
recommend that her Majesty should have no ideas
inculcated "that might be dangerous to the
liberties and circumstances of the state or the
subjects of the kingdom."
Never was pupil subjected to a harder training,
and no pupil ever needed this training less. The
little queen was gifted with remarkable facility
and a passionate desire to learn. She wanted to
know all things and she understood them all.
She forgot to eat and drink, she deprived herself
of sleep ; in a word, she made her poor little brain
work until it was in real danger. Christina had
no luck in her bringing-up. Scarcely had she been
snatched from her mother's terrifying black
chamber when she fell a prey to very honest
people who thought it their duty to make of her
a youthful prodigy, and who, most unfortunately,
succeeded only too well. No one about her
seemed to understand that a little girl ought to
play with her doll. The less child-like she was
84 Princesses and Court Ladies
the more pleased were these good souls. She
knew neither rest nor recreation. From year's
end to year's end she worked unremittingly,
feverishly, taking, by way of diversion, most vio-
lent and excessive exercise. She was stunted in
her growth, her blood was over-heated, and sev-
eral times she was at death's door; but she knew
eight languages, could embarrass her professor at
Greek, discoursed on philosophy, and had her
views on the woman question. She was really
a little scholar and, in spite of all, she was bright,
witty, and sometimes very amusing. Those about
her were some time before discovering that, as a
result of all this forcing, the springs of her mind,
already taxed by the absurdities of her mother,
were really somewhat out of order. Sweden
prided itself on the accomplishment of its task
and admired its young sovereign without any mis-
givings.
What more could one ask of her? She knew
by heart the Lutheran catechism, and quoted the
Bible like a bishop. She was to have become to
all intents a boy; she went farther. She was
dishevelled, grimy-handed, ill-dressed, she swore
like a musketeer; but she rode to perfection,
killed a hare with a bullet, slept on a hard bed,
and from the depths of her soul despised women,
women's ideas, women's work, women's talk.
When she galloped along, free and bold, wearing
a man's hat and doublet, her hair flying, her face
tanned, her subjects were perhaps not quite sure
ti^^ja :J3'J5ft?taii3ii
QUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS
From an old copper print
Christina ot Sweden 85
that they were governed by a prince, but they
were certainly persuaded that they were not under
the sway of a princess. Her face, which was that
of a youth, helped to bewilder them. Christina
was large-featured; she had a powerful, aquiline
nose, her underlip was a little over-hanging, her
fine blue eyes were full of fire. She also had a
manly voice which, however, she knew how to
soften. She was small and slightly misshapen,
but her agility and liveliness made of her an
amusing and pretty boy. The people were pas-
sionately fond of her. Neither the "five big
old fellows," as she called the regents, nor honest
Matthiae, nor the drunkard of a governor, nor the
court chaplain, nor any of the courtiers, the sol-
diers, the magistrates, nor the scholars who sur-
rounded her from morning till night, ever
suspected the volcano hidden under that frolic-
some appearance. They would have shuddered
had they been able to read the confessions of the
Autobiography.
In this precious bit of literature, which was
never finished, Christina erected an altar for her-
self. It was the fashion of the day. This was
the era of "portraits," which, with perfect
candour, initiated the public into one's intimacy,
relating good and evil of oneself, always leaning
a little more upon the former. In truth there is
less pride, and especially less evil pride, in trying
to appear at one's best before the crowd, than in
exhibiting one's vices, after the example of Rous-
86 Princesses and Court Ladies
seau. The only fault we can find with Christina
is that she slightly exceeded her right to make the
most of her model's good points.
She dwells, more than anyone would ever dare
to do nowadays, on her heart, "great and noble
from its earliest being;" on her soul "forged of
the same steel;" on the "innumerable talents,"
which singled her out for the admiration, of the
world. As to her faults which, according to the
rule of such writings, she does not wish to hide,
she ascribes to herself such as may become her
royal rank, such as do not disqualify a superior
being. "I was suspicious," said she, "and ambi-
tious beyond all bounds. I was passionate and
violent, proud and impatient, contemptuous of
others and sarcastic." All that does well enough,
but a little later she adds, "Moreover, I was
incredulous and by no means given to piety; my
impetuous nature was as prone to love as to
ambition." She however protests that God, who
does not seem to have taken umbrage at her want
of faith, preserved her from the errors to which
her nature had predestined her. ' ' However close
to the precipice I may have gone, Thy all-powerful
hand drew me back." She is quite aware that
calumny has not spared her. On one occasion
she accuses herself of "having been too contemp-
tuous of the proprieties to which her sex should
be subject," and that it is this which caused her
to be often most unjustly condemned. She
acknowledges that in this she was wrong, but
Christina of Sweden 87
adds that, were the occasion to present itself once
more, she would be even more reckless. ' ' I am
persuaded that I should have done better to rid
myself, once and for all, of these trammels; this
is a weakness which I cannot forgive myself. I
was not bom for the yoke; I should have thrown
it off altogether, as became my rank and my
nature."
Her most religious Lutheran subjects believed
even more firmly than did this " incredtilous "
princess, so little given to piety, that a divine
hand was sure to keep her from tumbling dowii
certain precipices. Still, had they guessed how
necessary this help was to keep their young queen
on the straight road, they would have been horror-
stricken. In spite of drinking, swearing, and
much native coarseness, these half -barbarians were
of a grave and religious turn of mind, as it behooves
sincere Protestants to be. God was a witness of
their daily acts, and thus ever ready to help or
avenge them. When Gustavus Adolphus took
leave of the states, before sailing for Germany,
all sang in chorus the hymn, "In the morning,
fill us with Thy grace. . . . We shall be joyous all
through the day." These people looked upon life
seriously, whereas to Christina it was a masque-
rade. In spite of the wit, the charm, the courage,
and the science of this extraordinary girl, she and
they could not long agree. She lacked one gift,
a sense of morality, and she fell upon a nation
which would lose everything rather than that.
88 Princesses and Court Ladies
When she was eighteen, the states proclaimed
her majority, and the regents gave up the power
into her hands. The value of this education,
given by the whole nation to the girl-queen, was
now to be tested.
II
The states, very wisely, had recommended that
she should be fashioned into a true Swede, obedi-
ent to the manners and customs of the country,
"both physically and morally." The senate and
the regency, in this respect, were of one mind with
the states. With this end in view, we are aghast
at the means employed to reach it. The more
we consider the Sweden of Gustavus Adolphus
the less we understand why great culture and
studies, carried over-far, should have been em-
ployed to inspire Christina with the love of her
country.
A great prince had covered it with glory, but
the campaigns of Gustavus Adolphus, while they
made Sweden powerful, had by no means softened
the people. He found it rough, and rough he
left it. When he came to the throne, in 1611,
ignorance was deep and almost universal. There
was a single and mediocre school at Upsal;^ for
various reasons but few young men frequented
foreign universities. The middle class was not
^ The University of Upsal was founded in 1476. At the period
we are studying, it had fallen to the rank of a mere school. Gustavus
Adolphus reorganized it.
Christina of Sweden 89
rich. The nobles despised learning according to
a tradition still dear to aristocrats. Numbers of
magistrates could barely sign their name, and
many excellent generals were in the same case,
Gustavus Adolphus founded schools and imported
a bookseller from Germany, but he could not
create a learned faculty out of nothing. At one
time the medical school of Upsal boasted but of
one professor; he sufficed, however, the number
of pupils being very small. The evil of the day
was pedantism, which flourished, thanks to the
efforts of a few scholars. Doctor Pancrace and
Trissotin would, in Sweden, have found kindred
spirits.
Theology alone prospered in this intellectual
desert. A zealous clergy catechised the faithful
and preached to them with a sort of fury and with
such fervour that, in spite of an ardent faith, the
congregations bewailed the length of the sermons.
The lower classes, to what they were taught,
added a thousand superstitions which, to them,
represented poetry; the people were very poor,
very ignorant, and their lives were hard and
dreary.
The customs were as primitive as the ideas.
The deputies, sent by the order of peasantry,
took part in state affairs in rags. The houses of
the nobles were whitewashed and very scantily
furnished. At meal times a canopy was sus-
pended over the table to keep the spiders and
their webs from falling into the dishes. The table
90 Princesses and Court Ladies
appurtenances were in keeping with the furniture.
At the wedding feast of Gustavus Adolphus
pewter dishes were used, and even these had to be
borrowed. The food was coarse; even at the
king's table there was nothing superfluous, such
as cakes or desserts, nothing but meat, and what
was left over was served anew. The mother of
Gustavus Adolphus made her own purchases of
wine, and the merchant had to wait long before
he was paid. Prince Charles Augustus, who
reigned after Christina, wrote lengthily to his
mother before he could make up his mind as to
which would be more economical : to have an every-
day suit made, or to wear out one of his Sunday
doubtlets. A traveller ^ relates that the copper
money was "as big as tiles." If this detail is
correct it is characteristic.
They had only one luxury, drinking; but they
certainly did justice to that. At the marriage
of Gustavus Adolphus, seVenty-seven hogsheads of
Rhine wine and a hundred and forty-four casks
of beer were drunk, without counting other kinds
of wine and brandy. Great rejoicings took the
form of sitting in front of numberless bottles,
drinking to one's heart's content, throwing glasses
at each other and, finally, rolling under the table.
At court and at the inn things were much on the
same level. No one, not even a bishop, had the
right to refuse a toast.
Stockholm had the appearance of a half bar-
1 Huet.
Christina of Sweden 91
barous capital. From afar one saw a multitude
of monuments and palaces, whose sparkling roofs,
covered with copper, looked down upon mounds
of grass. Massive towers, Turkish minarets,
steeples of every shape, palaces with Greek colon-
nades, formed a most heterogeneous and pictur-
esque mass.^ As to houses, there were none. On
drawing near, one saw that the green mounds were
habitations made of wood and covered with turf.
In such a case it is well to quote one's authori-
ties. We give way to the very truthful Huet,
bishop of Avranches, who visited Stockholm in
1652. "The windows," says he, "are pierced in
the roof, which is formed of boards and the bark
of birch that does not rot, the whole is covered
with grass. This sort of roof, according to Virgil,
was used by the peasants in Italy. With the
grass, oats and other grains are sown; their roots
cling to the wood and strengthen it. In this wise,
the tops of the houses are like fields of verdure
and flowers; I have seen sheep and pigs browse
thereon. Roofs are thus formed, so I was told,
in order that the houses, made of resinous wood,,
should be protected from lightning, and also that,
in time of war, the animals may there find their
food." Stockholm could boast of being a very
original city.^
Sweden would have required a great effort to
1 Ch. Ponsonailhe, Sdbastien Bourbon.
' A learned Icelander, who wrote during the eighteenth cen-
tury, Jonas Amgrim, gives a similar description of the houses in his
country (Reipub Island, chap. vi).
92 Princesses and Court Ladies
catch up with other Occidental nations, and the
reign of Gustavus Adolphus gave no scope for
pacific enterprises. The hero knew what he was
saying when he assured his astonished officers that
"God was very good to the nations whose sover-
eigns had commonplace souls." He left his king-
dom exhausted, without money, ruined by the
frequent passage of troops, crushed with taxes,
and at his death the war was not ended. His
political confidant, Oxenstiem, went on with it,
and the fate of the land was most lamentable.
The peasants were at their wits' end. Tormented
by the soldiery, tormented by the tax-gatherer,
finding neither succour nor pity when they applied
to the all-powerful chancellor, they entered into
open revolt and, in despair, emigrated. A part
of Sweden had gone to waste.
In order to govern this simple nation, the}/" had
formed a queen, fed on fine literature, in love
with poetry, fond of rare editions and costly
manuscripts. To govern this poverty-stricken
land, they had formed a queen who adored beauti-
ful furniture, pictures, statues, medals, royal
pomp. To live in this rough country, they had
formed a queen whose dream was of southern
scenes and Italian skies. To win the confidence
of this dreary intellectual abyss, they had formed
a queen whose mind was the most restless, the
most disturbed, the most audacious, the most
undisciplined, the most distorted that ever was
created. And to cap the climax, they had formed
COUNT AXEL OXENSTIERN
From an old copper print
Christina of Sweden 93
a queen so masculine in her tastes that she con-
sidered marriage degrading and refused to bear
children, wishing to learn the art of war instead.
And when it was discovered that Sweden, loyal
and devoted, but fanatical and rustic, bored
Christina beyond expression, Sweden was amazed
and much scandalised. So much evil has been
heaped in the balance against Christina, that it
is but fair to consider what may excuse her. She
was brought up to reign over Florence rather
than over cobweb -hung Stockholm. It was not
quite her fault if she found her fate a hard one.
Oxenstiem had been the real sovereign of
Sweden during her minority. He was responsible
for the greater part of this deplorable education;
it was he who plucked its first bitter fruits. For
eight years past he had spent three hours a day
teaching the art of government to the little queen,
and during those eight years he had found in her
a docile and grateful pupil. Once Christina took
the reins in her own hands — farewell to submis-
sion! This sort of boy in petticoats had her own
ideas on government, and they were by no means
those that had been inculcated to her. Oxen-
stiem had fed her with the purest aristocratic
traditions, and her own convictions smelt of the
gutter. She insisted that personal merit was
everything, birth nothing. "There are," said
she, "peasants bom kings and kings who ought
to be peasants; there is a rabble of kings as there
is a rabble of ruffians." Having discovered a
94 Princesses and Court Ladies
talented but low-born Swede, she proclaimed him
ambassador and senator, and foisted him on the
senate with these words, worthy of Beaumarchais,
"Salvias would doubtless be a great man had he
come of a noble family."
In foreign affairs the same kind of surprise was
in store for those who had praised her superior
mind. Taking her flatterers at their word she
refused to accept a guide. She wished for peace,
in which she surely was not wrong, and, in spite
of Oxenstiem, signed the treaty of Westphalia.
The old statesman was bound to acknowledge
that he had found his master. He had to do with
a young woman who did not fear a struggle.
"Our passions," said she, "are the salt of the
earth; one is happy or unhappy according as one
has wrestled with them."
Ill
It was plain that she meant to establish her
independence. What she meant to do with it was
less clear. She wrote, "*To some, all things are
allowed, and all are becoming." She was, of
course, among these privileged few and acted in
accordance. She was of opinion that follies have
less importance than is usually attributed to them.
Feeble souls alone stop to weep over past faults.
Strong minds never forget that "there is so little
difference between wisdom and folly that this
difference is scarcely worth considering, especially
Christina of Sweden 95
if we remember how short life is." What is wise
and what is f ooHsh ? Instead of wasting our time
looking at the past, let us look at the future. "All
that is no more is not worth a thought; one must
ever begin anew." A convenient precept, and one
which Queen Christina always adopted for her
own use. Whatever might be the past she made
up her accounts with her conscience and began
afresh. In so doing she took on such an air of
bravado that she irritated the gallery and brought
upon herself severe strictures. She ought perhaps
not to have forgotten certain things so easily.
She has been accused of having had a band of
favourites, immediately after her emancipation,
and ugly words have been used with regard to
her conduct. The subject is a delicate one, but
in spite of many injurious pamphlets there has
been sufficient uncertainty for the queen's virtue
to find some champions.^ How can one be sure
of such things? She made no secret of choosing
favourites among the younger and more amiable
men who crowded about her. That, in her day,
scurrilous pamphlets found much echo in the
public mind, that her conduct was severely criti-
cised, is also quite true. That one should take
as gospel truth the declarations of her Auto-
* Among others, Arckenholtz and Granert, who ingenuously
confess that they were influenced by the desire to contradict the
French writers. Arckenholtz in a footnote says that a Swedish
historian of his day, Gioerwell, told him that he was alone of his
opinion "that Christina had not overstepped the botindaries of
chastity."
96 Princesses and Court Ladies
biography on the subject of the precipice, often
approached, always avoided, is quite another
matter. The argument that her masculine tastes
were sufficient protection is not altogether con-
vincing. On the other hand appearances might
be misleading, with a young woman who dressed
like a man, lived a man's life, and had valets in
place of maids. After all, each one is free to
have his own opinions of Christina's virtue.
From one reproach the queen could not vindi-
cate herself. She says somewhere, ' ' The passi'on
of those we cannot love is insupportable." She
might have completed the aphorism thus: "The
passion of those we no longer love is insupport-
able." Favourites came and went with alarming
rapidity. At first she adored them, showered
dignities, honours, money on them, as, for in-
stance, on Magnus of Gardie, the first on the list,
who was twenty-two, handsome, and of "noble
air." She made him ambassador, colonel, sena-
tor, grand master of her household, grand treas-
urer. When she wearied of these poor fellows she
got rid of them without the slightest ceremony;
this was the case with Magnus when she replaced
him by Pimentel, ambassador from Spain. She
refused to see her ex-favourite and wrote, in her
own hand, on the margin of a history of her reign,
"Count Magnus was a drunkard and a liar." On
all occasions she put into practice her own maxim
that one should never look back, but always begin
life anew. "Those who make good use of all
Christina of Sweden 97
things," said she, "are wise and happy." As far
as favourites went, she made use of all who were
within her grasp.
The reign of La Gar die was also, at Stockholm,
the reign of French politics, of French wit, of
French literature, of French fashions. The treaty
with France was renewed (165 1). The queen
gave the lion's share to France in the crowd of
scholars, of writers, of artists, that composed her
famous and superb court. Naude took charge of
her library. Saumaise spent a year with her, not
however without much coaxing, for no man of
letters was ever vainer than he. Descartes
allowed himself to be tempted, for his own mis-
fortune and for science's loss. Christina forced
him to come at five o'clock in the morning, through
the bitter cold, to discuss philosophy with her.
After some months of this tyranny he died.
Bochart, the Orientalist, brought his friend Huet,
future bishop of Avranches. Sebastien Bourdon,
Nanteuil, Francois Parise, the medal engraver, the
architect Simon de la Vallee, worked in Sweden
for the queen. Her secretary for state affairs was
Chevreau, who later was tutor to the Duke of
Maine. Her four other secretaries were French.
French, her doctor and her surgeon. French, a
heterogeneous crowd of men; scholars, philos-
ophers, grammarians, makers of court verses,
pedants, intriguers, fine gentlemen, charlatans of
every description, valets fit for any sort of low
work. Among these we must distinguish Clairet
98 Princesses and Court Ladies
Poissonnet, a veritable genius in his way, first
valet of the chamber, and confidant of the queen's
secrets. Poissonnet could neither read nor write,
but whenever his mistress had on hand some very
complicated affair, she entrusted it to him. She
sent him to the Pope, also to Mazarin. He was
celebrated for the way in which he wormed secrets
out of others while he kept his own counsel; but
he was forced to have his letters written for him
and the answers read. Mazarin, well up in such
matters, greatly admired Poissonnet.
Swedish, German, Dutch scholars and writers
completed this original court, of which Christina
was the soul. The care of the state did not en-
croach on her studies. She took from her hours of
sleep, of meals, from those which might with ad-
vantage have been given to dress, in order to attend
to public affairs. Thanks to this system, she had
trained herself to sleep but three hours, to dine in
a jiffy, and to comb her hair once in eight days — ■
sometimes, she would skip a week. To the ink-
stained schoolgirl had succeeded an ink-stained,
grimy-handed, ill-kempt queen, whose linen was
doubtful and torn, but who had read Petronius
and Martial, was afraid of no ill-sounding words,
was very learned, and could discuss and argue with
the best. She hated pedantry, so detestable in
women; the sparkle of her wit saved her from it,
even when she discoursed with pedants on pedan-
tic subjects. Her reputation spread all over Eu-
rope, so that her people were very proud of her;
Christina of Sweden 99
only it was becoming very evident that brilliant
sovereigns are an expensive Ivixury.
We can scarcely, nowadays, realise the cost of
such a court. Our monarchs have scholars for
nothing. Two and a half centuries ago that was
not the case. The honour of a great man's visits
was paid for, and Christina was generous. A bag
of gold, a pension, a golden chain were bestowed
on the men who gave lustre to her throne. When
she could not secure their presence she wrote to
them, and other pensions, other chains of gold
found their way out of the country. Europe was
full of leeches that sucked the lif eblood of Sweden ;
throughout the land the people murmured and
rebelled. The Swedes could not think without
bitterness of the money which they had produced
by the sweat of the brow and which went to for-
eigners. Their anger grew as they saw these aliens
devouring their fair country like a prey, and who
encouraged their queen in her disastrous extrava-
gance. Her people died of hunger while she com-
pleted her artistic collections.
She took great glory in these collections, and in
truth they were remarkable. Her library was
unrivalled in Europe and boasted of eight thou-
sand rare manuscripts. The old masters, beauti-
ful curios abounded in her picture gallery and
cabinets, where, beside antique statues there were
medals, ivories, and innumerable costly gems.
And yet, real connoisseurs held these in mediocre
esteem, because Christina had proceeded like a
LOFC.
loo Princesses and Court Ladies
veritable parvenue, spending money lavishly, but
showing no discernment, no real love of art. Her
library and museums were but a setting for her own
extraordinary personality. She had paid one hun-
dred and sixty thousand crowns for two manu-
scripts,^ but she did not even know that many
books in her library had been stolen from her. She
possessed eleven pictures by Correggio and two by
Raphael ; but she cut up her finest paintings so as to
ornament with the heads, hands, and feet the ceil-
ings of her palace. Such things stamp a collector.
In her noblest tastes we find that unhealthy
desire to attract the world's attention which
caused her ruin. Even her most ardent admirers
acknowledged her insatiable vanity. This female
philosopher adored flattery and, with joy, breathed
in whatever incense was offered her. She did not
disdain to bum incense to herself, and inniimer-
able are the medals that she caused to be struck
which represented her as Minerva, Diana subdu-
ing wild beasts, or as winged Victory crowned
with laurels. She encouraged panegyrics in verse
and prose. She confirmed herself in the sense of
her own importance by bombarding with officious
advice Retz and Mazarin, Conde and Louis XIV,
the kings of Poland and Spain. Her advice was
^ For the benefit of scholars, here are the titles of these two
manuscripts: The Ecclesiastical History of Philostorgus and The
Bahylonics of Jamblique. After the ^death of Christina these
manuscripts went to the Vatican library. The second was con-
sidered as spurious. It is not known whether the first contained
the original text or an extract given by Photius.
Christina of Sweden loi
ill received; but, undaunted, she continued to
give it. Her attempt to correspond with the king
of Spain is an amusing example of her mad desire
for notoriety.
In 1653, an unfortunate negro, lost in Germany,
was seeking for something, he could not explain
what, as no one understood his language. A
scholar of Erfurt, Job Ludolf, author of works
on Ethiopia and the Ethiopian language, was then
at Stockholm. He persuaded Christina that this
negro was an Ethiopian and that, doubtless, he
was in search of her august person in order to
compliment her on her researches with regard
to his country. He added that in all probability
the traveller's name was Akalaktus. This was
the very occasion to make her name known in
Africa. The queen wrote a fine Latin epistle to
her "very dear cousin and friend," the king of
Ethiopia, Consanguineo nostra carissimo, eadem
gratia Mihiopum regi, etc. By way of beginning
"a regtilar correspondence with him," she wished
him every sort of prosperity, and recommended
Akalaktus to his good will.^ The parcel was sent
to the negro in Germany. Whether he received
it or not is a mooted question. All that history
teaches us on that subject is that he wandered
in Germany for another twelvemonth, departed,
evidently disheartened, and was never heard of
more.
^ A copy of this letter still existed a century ago in the Swedish
archives.
I02 Princesses and Court Ladies
Sweden, as we have seen, was hurt by the
queen's marked preference for strangers, and
ruined by expenses, the utiUty of which they
could not see. There was only left to them to
take what consolation they could in the fact that
she was an excellent Greek scholar and that she
had begun the study of Hebrew. The one hope
was that Christina would marry, for everyone
knows that matrimony changes the notions of
women; but this hope had to be abandoned.
Candidates for her hand had not been wanting;
they came from the East and West, from the
North and South ; they were young and old — a
motley crowd. She sent them all about their
business, declaring that she wished to remain
single. She would have no master, and the
thought of maternity was odious to her. Her
education had completely unsexed her. As her
ministers and the senate insisted, she offered to
abdicate (October 25, 165 1). All implored her
to remain. She consented, but on condition that
no one should ever speak to her again of marriage.
Three months later, Bourdelot entered upon the
scene and the whole country, for very shame, hid
its face.
IV
Bourdelot, of whom Sweden still speaks with
anger, was the son of a Sens barber. He studied
to be an apothecary, started oif to see the world,
Christina of Sweden 103
and turned up in Italy. A certain shady business
forced him to return post haste to France. He
complained that he had thus missed the scarlet
robe ; the Holy Father had wished to appoint him
as his physician with the dignity of cardinal.
Henceforth, he set up as doctor. His colleagues
dubbed him an ignoramus. It is hard to say on
what they based their judgment when one remem-
bers what, in those days, passed for science.
Bourdelot could murder Latin with the best of
them. With the best of them, also, he could dis-
course on the humours of the blood or the move--
ments of the bile. Like others of his species he
could bleed or purge his patients. Of these things
we can speak learnedly, having read one of his
consultations, in four quarto pages, all written in
Latin.
The brothers of the lancet could say what they
would, Bourdelot had great success. The women
were for him. He was the model of doctors for
fine ladies. He was amiable and gay, witty, and
the advocate of pleasure. He knew admirable
secrets for preserving youth, sang agreeably,
played the guitar, and could turn out exquisite
little dishes. He had no rival in the art of
organising festivities or perpetuating practical
jokes. For the rest, a veritable Gil Bias, quite
convinced that morality consists in making the
most of one's opportunities, and that scruples
are a luxury which poor devils like himself could
ill afford. Clever and amusing, playing pranks
I04 Princesses and Court Ladies
like a veritable monkey, yielding when it was
necessary, insolent when he could safely be so,
believing neither in God nor in the devil, happy
to live and to laugh and to lie : such was Bourdelot.
He had been recommended to Christina by
Saumaise. The queen had long felt herself ill.
Nature had avenged itself for the barbarous regi-
men of dictionaries and scribbling, without any
recreation except the Latin disputes of the Upsal
professors. She was eaten up with abscesses and
undermined by fever. She could neither eat nor
sleep ; she often fainted and thought herself dying.
Her ordinary physicians could do nothing for her."
She called in Bourdelot who showed some common
sense. He took her books from her, ordered rest
and amusement, and soothed her regrets by assur-
ing her that, at the court of France, pedants in
petticoats were turned into ridicule.
Christina submitted to this treatment and
found that it was a pleasant one. Health re-
turned as by magic. She took to amusement,
first grudgingly, then willingly, finally with frenzy.
She sent her scholars, her ministers, her senators
flying, threw her dictionaries out of the window,
and made up for lost time. She was twenty -five
years of age and had long arrears; but this did
not trouble her. Few women have ever enjoyed
themselves as did Christina of Sweden. By a
touch of the wand the palace was transformed.
From a veritable Sorbonne, Bourdelot made of it
a small Louvre, of the time when the youthful
ABBE BOURDELOT
After the painting by N. de Largillier
Christina of Sweden 105
Louis XIV amused himself in the company of
Mazarin's nieces. Christina spent her days in
festivities! Christina walked minuets! Christina
disguised herself at masquerades ! Christina made
fun of scholars! She forced Bochart to play at
battledore and shuttlecock'with her, Naude to per-
form in the Attic dances about which he had written
learned articles, Meibom to sing the Greek airs he
had reconstituted, and she laughed like a mad-
cap at the false notes of the one, at the awkward-
ness and grotesque contortions of the other. One
day, at Upsal, the professors prepared to discuss
philosophy before her, according to their wont;
Christina rushed to her coach and drove away.
Did her ministers try to lay public affairs before
her ? She would not listen. Public affairs wearied
her. If an audience was requested she did not
grant it ; there was a ballet to be rehearsed. Was
she to preside at the council ? She ran away to the
country and shut her door against her ministers.
Every hour her passion for frivolity increased,
and Bourdelot did his best to encourage her in
this mad career. He constantly invented new
games, new festivities, new tricks to play on the
learned dons. He capped the climax by admin-
istering a powerful medicine to the queen the day
when Bochart was to read fragments of his sacred
geography.
Sweden looked on its sovereign as raving mad.
Rumour whispered that her mind was giving way.
None of the statesmen, Oxenstiem least of all,
io6 Princesses and Court Ladies
had expected this reaction. None had foreseen
that, unless she had become imbecile under the
strain, there would come a moment when a young
woman, full of life and ardour, would wish to
breathe and enjoy her youth; when she would
discover that there were other things in life
beside books, and that the twentieth year has
been given us to make use of, as the sun is made
to shine. They had thought that things would
always continue as they had begun; that, after
Hebrew, she would learn Arabic, and after Arabic,
the Ethiopian language, and that she would never
crave other pleasures. This natural and inevi-
table result struck them with as much surprise
as sorrow. For a whole month the queen had
neither assisted at a council nor received a sena-
tor; to all serious discussion she answered with a
flippant remark about a ballet; since her sudden
departure from Upsal the university was offended
and showed it. All this was profoundly sad and
still more incomprehensible.
The amazement of all these good people was
diverting ; their sorrow, however, was well-founded.
It is scarcely pleasant for a nation to fall under
the rule of a Bourdelot, son of a Sens barber, and
he was master of all he surveyed. The queen
saw with his eyes. She told him everything.
Bourdelot had become a political power! He
disposed of Sweden's alliances and was about to
transfer its friendship, for reasons best known
to himself, from France to Spain. Whoever
Christina of Sweden 107
opposed him was thrust aside. His triumph was
by no means modest. His airs of conqueror, Uke
those of a turkey-cock ruffling its feathers, exas-
perated the country ; to this he was quite indiffer-
ent. He felt himself secure, and so he was. He
amused Christina, and for the moment she asked
for nothing else.
In the camp of the learned consternation was
rife. With most of them, at the bottom of their
regrets, lurked selfish preoccupations. Great
sums of money were lavished on feasting and
revelry ; this, thought they, would greatly diminish
their share of the spoils. Those who were really
disinterested could not abide the thought that
they were supplanted by a buffoon. Bochart
wrote to Vossius that he was so unhappy "since
the change" which had taken place at the cOurt
of Sweden, that he was eager to leave, for fear it
might kill him.^ That excellent man, Huet, was
still more sorrowful, sixty years later ,^ at the
remembrance "of this deplorable desertion of
learning." The news flew rapidly in Europe. It
was whispered that Christina had abandoned her
studies to give herself up ad ludicra et inania
under the influence of a charlatan ; ^ that she
scoffed at philosophy and had adopted this hor-
rible maxim, "Better enjoy things than know
about them." ^
* Letter of April 26, 1653.
^ Memoirs. Huet lived to be ninety-one years of age.
3 Letter from the historian Henri de Valois to Heinsius (1653).
^ Maxims of Christina.
io8 Princesses and Court Ladies
At about this time Benserade declined an invi-
tation from the queen, either on account of the
change or for some other reason. The letter she
sent by way of reply is one of her best, though
it is not very good. Pen in hand, Christina was
apt to find her wit heavy and confused. "Thank
your stars which keep you from visiting Sweden.
A mind as delicate as yours would have been ill
at ease and your heart would have caught its
death of cold. You would have had great success
in Paris with a square-cut beard, a Lapland coat,
and snowshoes on your return from this land of
ice. I fancy that thus accoutred, you would
have made singular havoc among old hearts.
No, I swear that you need regret nothing. What
would you have seen here ? Our ice is like yours,
only it lasts six months longer. And our summer
when, in its fury, it swoops upon us, causes our
flowers, that try to resemble jessamine, to wither
in the heat. A Benserade, of noble and delicate
tastes, can hope for no greater happiness than to
live in the most beautiful court in the world,
near a prince whose virtue inspires such high and
cheering hopes. . . . Continue to imm.ortalise
yourself in adding to the joys of this prince and
beware of ever deserving to be exiled from him.
And yet I almost wish you could be guilty of
some crime deserving such a doom, so that Sweden
might possess France's most gallant and witty
son. . . ."'
1 The end of 1652.
Christina of Sweden 109
Meanwhile, the anger of the Swedish court
grew, as grew the misery engendered by the influ-
ence of Bourdelot. Christina had no idea of
order, and under her sway financial difficulties
became alarming. The gallant inventions of her
favourite emptied the treasury; the state was
ruined, its credit gone; the fleet was neglected.
An ambassador came near abandoning his post
for lack of money. Even in the palace there
were debts, and the household was carried on by
dint of expedients ; the servants, during two years,
had not received their wages. In order to obtain
four thousand thalers, which she needed for an
important journey, the queen was obliged to pawn
her travelling plate. Everywhere ruin was felt,
and in order to collect the taxes the peasants
were persecuted; but nothing could be got out of
them ; they had been robbed of their last pennies.
This comes of popular glory. However cruel was
their distress, the young queen's subjects suffered
yet more when they learned that, in Bourdelot 's
company, she uttered a thousand impieties. This
was too much. The indignation of the nobles
became menacing and Bourdelot no longer dared
to walk the streets unattended. Christina under-
stood that it was time to yield.
Perhaps, also, she had wearied of this person-
age. However that may be, he left during the
summer of 1653, loaded with gold and recom-
mended to Mazarin, who thought it politic to
bestow an abbey on him. Bourdelot played his
no Princesses and Court Ladies
new part of abbe, as he had dubbed himself doctor,
and he diverted Paris with the spectacle of his
dignity. ' ' Master Bourdelot, ' ' wrote Guy Patin to
a friend, ''is carried about in a sedan chair, es-
corted by four great lackeys. Until now he had
been satisfied with three, sed e paucis diehus
quartus accessit. He boasts of having performed
miracles in Sweden." Christina corresponded
with him imtil his death. He gave her the news
of Paris, and she consulted him about her health.
After his departure the country, freed from a
shameful yoke, began to breathe once more,
when a new trouble fell upon it. The queen was
causing all her furniture, her books, her art treas-
ures to be packed. Before long her intentions
became evident. On the nth of February, 1654,
Christina called the senate together and an-
nounced her resolution to abdicate in favour of
lier cousin, Charles Augustus. She added that it
would be useless this time to combat her resolu-
tion, which was unalterable; that she did not seek
for advice, but merely for help to carry out her
plan.
"This speech," says an old historian, "caused
such amazement in the assembly that no one
knew what to answer."
We are accustomed to see the fate of thrones
at the mercy of royal or popular caprice. We
are astonished neither by revolutions nor abdi-
cations, and this speech might to-day pass for a
clever witticism. During the seventeenth cen-
Christina of Sweden iii
tury, the monarchical spirit had not yet been
weakened and the case was a very serious one.
It seemed as though a sovereign and his people
were bound together by mutual duty ; that neither
one nor the other had the right of desertion.
There existed between them a contract sanc-
tioned by God, since God has chosen and fashioned
the prince given to the people. Charles V had
abdicated, and his case has been likened to that
of Christina; but the example is ill-chosen,
Charles V was old and infirm. He retired to a
convent. Even so, it is not sure that he had
a right to do this; it was said that he often re-
gretted his act. Christina was young and strong.
She had no thought of retreat, and she boasted
loudly of an act which called rather for humility.
Under such circumstances the forsaking of her
post was a public calamity.
She had an inkling of this and expected to be
blamed. A few days after the dramatic scene
of February nth she wrote, "I know that the
play in which I acted was not prepared according
to the ordinary rules of the stage. It is rare
that what is really strong and powerful pleases." ^
She also said, "I care nothing for the plaudite."
This is not true. She abdicated partly to be
applauded by the pit. She had three other
motives; she was penniless, her queenship bored
her, Sweden and the Swedes bored her still more.
^ Letter of February 28, 1654, to Chanut, ex-ambassador from
France to Stockholm
112 Princesses and Court Ladies
The opinion of the pit finds expression in these
two fragments: "What times are ours, great
Heaven!" wrote Vossius to his countryman Hein-
sius. "Queens lay aside their sceptres in order
to live like private ladies, to devote themselves
to their own pleasures and to the worship of the
muses." In the Memoirs of Montglat, on tt^
other hand, we read, "An extraordinary event
took place in Europe this year, the abdication of
the queen of Sweden. This princess was of a
capricious temper, and had taken to poetry and
novels; ... in order to live a romance on her
own account, she resolved to give up the crown."
In Sweden the feeling was that of an excellent
nation incapable of forgetting that Christina was
the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus. She was
entreated to remain and, at the ceremony of her
abdication, her subjects wept. Her demands for
money, which were by no means moderate, were
generously granted. She was to receive the
revenue of vast domains and of several towns,
amounting' to something like five hundred thou-
sand francs, A fleet was armed to take her
where she chose. Then, having performed its
duty, the affection of the nation began to cool
towards the ungrateful one. She continued to
give orders and was reminded that she was no
longer queen. She showed indecent joy at leav-
ing Sweden: the people murmured, deeming that
she ought to spend her revenues in her own coun-
try. Christina, hearing these things, grew furious.
Christina of Sweden 113
Her people had prepared for her the voyage of
a sovereign; she ran away Hke an adventuress.
In advance, she had sent her collections, and
with them her gold and silver plate, the furniture,
and the crown jewels. It is said that her suc-
cessor found nothing in the palace but two car-
pets and an old bed. When she was at a certain
distance from Stockholm she sent back her
retinue, cut her hair, adopted men's clothes, high
boots, took a gun and announced her intention
of fighting in Flanders under the orders of Conde.
Sometimes she disappeared ; then again her pres-
ence here or there was revealed by some escapade.
At the frontiers of Norway she jumped over the
line with a hurrah! so glad was she to be out of
Sweden. A little farther she met, without know-
ing it, the queen of Denmark, who, disguised as
a servant, was watching for her at an inn. When
royal ladies, in those days, threw off etiquette,
they did not adopt half measures. It was dis-
covered that while the fleet was awaiting her in
one port, Christina had sailed from another. Her
intention was to go and exhibit herself to Europe,
sure of being received with the plaudits which,
according to her estimation of herself, she deserved.
V
She landed in Denmark, took a fancy name,
jumped on a horse after a manly fashion, and
galloped to Hamburg, accompanied by four gentle-
114 Princesses and Court Ladies
men in waiting and a few valets, who performed
the office of maids. Montglat reported, "She
travels like a vagabond, from province to province,
visiting all the courts of Europe." She made
one think of a travelling circus. Every now and
again she gave a representation. For thCvSe occa-
sions she improvised a royal retinue, gathered
together no one knew how, put on gorgeous attire,
and made a solemn entry into a city, where, with
a haughtiness that delighted the populations, she
received the honours due to her rank. Crowds
hastened to meet her, for she was one of the great
curiosities of Christendom. She answered the
official harangues with perfect ease and grace,
each in its own tongue, presided over feasts given
in her honour, like a great sovereign, and dis-
coursed with learned men as with colleagues.
"She speaks of all things under the sun," said
one of her hearers, "not like a princess, but like
a philosopher e Porticu. ' ' ^
She enlivened the solemn ceremonies by comic
interludes of her own invention. Sometimes she
would "make faces at the crowds that followed
her."^ Or, with the suppleness of a clown she
would change her dress in the coach, so as to
bewilder the lookers-on; they did not know what
to make of it. At times, in the midst of a grave
' Letter of Whitelock, ambassador jfrom Cromwell to the court
of Sweden.
^ Collection of the State papers of John Thurloe, Secretary of
Council of State, etc., vol. vii, London, 1742.
Christina of Sweden 115
address, she would let fly some tremendous oath
or some ill-sounding joke, worthy of a young
woman who at twenty-three had known Martial
by heart. At times she would take a fish -mon-
ger's attitude and burst out laughing in the face
of some great personage who was addressing her.
In Brussels she tarried several months, and led
such a life that the "all-powerful hand" which,
according to her, kept her from falling over preci-
pices, down which she liked to peep, was kept
very busy. Many of her contemporaries, in
Brussels at least, were convinced that the Almighty,
having doubtless too much to do elsewhere, had
not always prevented the catastrophe. However
that may be, whenever she recovered her senses,
she, by the same occasion, recovered her grand
royal air. The pit laughed. From the boxes
came some hisses.
The performance ended, the curtain down, the
costumes packed, the improvised retinue dis-
missed, there remained a young female knight-
errant who dropped jewels at the pawnbroker's,
went from inn to inn, and took pleasure in dis-
appointing sightseers. She was expected in one
place and appeared in another. She seemed on
the point of being caught, and vanished in the
night. She came, went, returned, until fancy
prompted her to don petticoats once more, to
play the part of the Swedish queen, and to give
another representation.
She gave several at Hamburg, at Brussels, at
ii6 Princesses and Court Ladies
Antwerp, at Inspruck, where she added to the
bill the attraction of her conversion. She had
already secretly changed her religion in Brussels,
on the night of Christmas, 1654. But at In-
spruck she made a public profession of Catholic
faith (November 3, 1655).
There have been many discussions, some of
them very bitter, as to the motives of her conver-
sion. The event was one of great importance to
Rome. Of all possible neophytes, the daughter
of Gustavus Adolphus was the most precious.
It is natural that the church should have under-
taken the conversion of Christina with even more
than its usual cleverness. It is equally natural
that, having succeeded, it should have attributed
its triumph to the power of truth and presented
the abjuration of Inspruck as an effect of divine
grace, which had revealed the true faith to a
heretic. It is also natural that, after a victory,
the echo of which sounded all through Europe,
filling the hearts of the faithful with joy, the
papacy should have thrown Noah's cloak over
the failings of its convert and feigned belief in
her sincerity. It could trust to the work of time,
to habit, to a hundred circumstances which might
come to pass, to complete the work only half
accomplished. In very truth, the queen's lan-
guage with regard to the church and its glory
was somewhat hyperbolicah* What Christina
really thought on the matter was of minor
1 Especially in the Maxims.
Christina of Sweden 117
importance, and doubtless the Pope was of that
opinion.
Of course, Protestants, greatly incensed, rather
than admit the sincerity of this -conversion,
accused the queen of hypocrisy. They pro-
claimed that, very far from having been from
her early years attracted to Rome and having
abdicated in order to follow the promptings of
grace, which was the Catholic version of the story,
she believed in nothing at all, and had abjured
Protestantism out of self-interest. According to
them, the pompous ceremony of Inspruck was
merely intended to touch the Pope and the Catholic
sovereigns, from whom the queen of Sweden
could then, in the hour of need, turn for help.
In our day, judging the case from a dispassion-
ate point of view, one is tempted to agree with
the Protestants. Christina changed her religion
as she changed her clothes, to astonish the crowd.
After the secret conversion of Brussels, she wrote
to a friend in Sweden, where some inkling of the
truth had penetrated : ' ' My occupations are to eat
well, sleep well, study a little, talk, laugh, see French,
Italian, and Spanish plays and thus to pass my time
agreeably. / no longer listen to sermons.'' ' Elsewhere,
she declares that her conversion was due to the
fact that Protestant serm.ons wearied her to death.
Sermons were her great objection to the reformed
religion. At Inspruck, her indifference during the
ceremony of abjuration was much commented
upon. The same day, in the afternoon, a play was
ii8 Princesses and Court Ladies
given in her honour; it is said that she exclaimed,
"Gentlemen, it is but fair that you should offer
me a comedy, since I gave you a farce. " No doubt
the Pope knew the value of this conversion from a
spiritual point of view, but he was content, for
the time being, to look upon it as a worldly triumph.
From Inspruck, Christina went to Rome, where
a triumphant reception awaited her.
It was necessary to show the world how impor-
tant, politically and religiously, was this conver-
sion. The congregation of ceremonies ordered
every detail of the entry, deciding that the cardi-
nals, prelates, ambassadors, and nobles should
go to meet the queen of Sweden in gilt coaches,
drawn by six horses and accompanied by numer-
ous retinues, richly liveried ; that the coach of the
governor of Rome should be lined with gold and
silver at the cost of three thousand crowns and
surrounded by forty persons magnificently clothed ;
that each noble Roman lady should have a suite
of thirty-six attendants whose costumes were to
cost from five hundred to six hundred crowns
each. The Holy Father on this occasion spent
one million three hundred thousand crowns.
When the queen arrived, the Roman tailors had
been working for six months in view of the pro-
cession.
On the 2ist of December, 1655, Christina was
more firmly than ever persuaded that she was
the most important personage of Christendom
£i,nd a marvel among women. Cannon thundered,
Christina of Sweden 119
trumpets sounded, troops were drawn up on either
side of the road, the shops were closed, Rome was
enjoying a hohday, and the air was rent with
acclamations. A procession of unequalled mag-
nificence extended from the Porta del Popolo to
the Vatican, and at the head of this procession,
the admired of all admirers, the object of all
these adulations, was a misshapen little creature
wearing ' ' many coloured breeches ' ' striding a white
horse and prancing between two cardinals. In
this guise she reached the Vatican, where the
high clergy was ready to receive her and lead her
to the Pope. She thanked his Holiness. "He
answered that her conversion was of so high a
value that the rejoicings in Heaven put to blush
those that took place on earth." The compli-
ment was gracious, fit to turn even the most
humble head, and Christina certainly was not
humble.
Henceforth, Rome became her favourite resi-
dence. Here she gathered together her collec-
tions, remained for longer periods as time went
on, and finally, still protected by the Popes, never
left the city. She greatly tried the patience of
the successive Popes; all determined to make the
most of Gustavus Adolphus's converted daugh-
ter. Her attitude, however, was deplorable. The
Pope thought it prudent to surround her with
cardinals. She was by no means in awe of them,
and carried them off in the whirl of her existence.
There was no noisy affair in Rome, no scandal,
I20 Princesses and Court Ladies
where one did not recognise Queen Christina sur-
rounded by her admiring cardinals; at mass and
out walking, she was to be seen with her red
court. Mad pranks succeeded each other. She
was insolent with the Roman nobility, greedy of
honours; she quarrelled first with one, then with
another, ignoring the fact that she was no longer
a reigning sovereign. Once, Cardinal Medici hav-
ing displeased her, she with her own hand bom-
barded his palace; the trace of the cannon balls
was still visible a century ago. "Patience," ac-
cording to her, "is the virtue of those who are
lacking in courage and vigour." She prided her-
self on not being patient.
The Vatican had no great reason to be proud
of its convert. She loudly proclaimed her aver-
sion for pious conversations and books of piet}^.
The first person who spoke to her of penance and
mortifications was received after a fashion which
took away all wish to revert to such subjects.
She rarely took part in church ceremonies and
when she did she laughed and joked with her
attendant cardinals, even in the presence of the
Pope. This could not be tolerated. After a
scene of this kind, the Pope handed her a rosary,
advising her to make use of it. Scarcely out of
his presence, she exclaimed, "He can't turn me
into a hypocrite ! ' ' Then the Holy Father was re-
duced to ask for a little ostensible piety, for the
edification of the crowd. He sent word to Chris-
tina that, "One Ave Maria recited in public
Christina of Sweden 121
would be more acceptable than a whole rosary
said in private." She obeyed only when her
purse was empty.
Christina's finances were a subject of great dis-
quiet to the court of Rome. Sweden, indignant
at the change of religion, half ruined by wars and
troubles at home, was but a poor paymaster.
Christina spent recklessly, under the pretext that
"there is an economical way of being extrava-
gant." She kept up a royal household. She
completed her collections, which at her departure
from Sweden had been somewhat despoiled by
her foreign scholars. Her library had been
shamelessly pillaged ; out of eight thousand manu-
scripts only a quarter reached Rome. There
exists a letter in which Vossius acknowledges to
Heinsius, with admirable calm, that he was appro-
priating for his own use non paucus lihellos rariores
belonging to the serenissimce regina. Large sums
were necessary to fill the voids. Still larger sums
were spent from a lack of order of which nothing
can give an idea. Six months after her arrival
in Rome, Christina was dunned by her creditors.
She applied to the Pope who, with the idea of
reducing her to submission, offered two thousand
crowns a month if she would behave herself. This
was too much. The queen, in a towering rage, sent
her remaining jewels to the pawnbroker, got ten
thousand ducats for them,' and sailed for Marseilles.
She knew that France was full of curiosity about
her, eager to see a singular person, who had been
122 Princesses and Court Ladies
dubbed the Sibyl of the North and the tenth
muse, and who now was known as the "strolHng
queen." This journey to France was to be Chris-
tina's last triumph.
VI
Mazarin ordered that she should be royally
received. The magistrates of the different cities
presented the keys to her; prelates and governors
delivered fine speeches to her; the towns treated
her with great magnificence, and their inhabitants
rushed to see the spectacle and marvelled that a
queen should travel like an indigent student. At
Lyons she met the Duke of Guise, sent by the
king to conduct her to Compiegne, where the
court was sojourning. The duke wrote to a
friend: "While I am spending my time somewhat
lugubriously, I must seek to divert you by por-
traying the queen whom I have been ordered to
accompany. She is not tall, but somewhat stout,
with broad hips, a well-shaped arm, a white and
pretty hand; she is a man rather than a woman.
One shoulder is higher than the other, but
she hides that defect so cleverly by the strange-
ness of her attire, of her walk and manners,
that one could wager for or against this de-
formity."
Guise describes the queen's well-known face,
with its aquiline nose and fine eyes, her "very
strange wig," like that of a man in front and at
Christina of Sweden 123
the back like that of a woman. He continues
thus: "Her bodice, laced behind, is not straight,
and is made after the fashion of our doublets;
her chemise shows above the skirt which is ill-
fastened and awry. She is much powdered and
pomatumed, and rarely wears gloves. She has
men's boots, and in point of fact has almost a
man's voice and quite a man's ways. Her pre-
tension is to be an Amazon. She is quite as
proud and haughty as could ever have been the
great Gustavus, her father. Yet she can be very
polite, even caressing in her manner. She speaks
eight languages, especially ours; she has no more
accent than if she had been born in Paris. She is
as learned as our academy and our sorbonne put
together. Indeed, she is a very extraordinary
person. . . . She sometimes carries a sword and
wears a buff collar."
Christina could indeed be "very polite" when
she chose, but the effort was too great to last.
Her urbanity was exhausted before she reached
Compiegne. The grande mademoiselle met her
on the road and was quite fascinated by her
flatteries and high air. They went to the play
together and the grande mademoiselle opened
her eyes very wide. "The queen swore like a
trooper," writes she, "threw her legs about, put-
ting first one, then the other over the arms of her
chair ; she took attitudes such as I have only seen
in the case of Trivelin and Jodelet, who are two
buffoons. . . . She repeated the verses that took
124 Princesses and Court Ladies
her fancy ; she conversed on many topics, and that
quite agreeably. She would indulge in deep rever-
ies, sigh audibly, then, all of a sudden, come to
her senses, as though she had awakened from a
dream: she is quite extraordinary."
Christina confided to Mademoiselle de Mont-
pensier that she was wild to see a battle, that
"she could have no peace of mind until she had
seen one." This was one of her hobbies. She
was jealous of Conde's laurels, and dreamed of
being a great general.
On September the 8th, 1656, she entered Paris
by the Faubourg Saint Antoine, escorted by five
thousand horsemen. She wore a scarlet doublet,
a woman's skirt, a plumed hat, and rode astride
a big white horse; pistols were at the holster, and
she carried a cane. All Paris turned out to see
her, and the people pressed forward "furiously;"
as they continued to do whenever she went out
in Paris. She was taken to receive holy com-
munion at Notre Dame, and all through mass
she talked, never a moment remaining quiet.
She visited the monuments and libraries, received
the learned men of the day, and caused them to
admire her knowledge of all French matters. She
knew about the great families and their heraldry,
also about the intrigues and gallant doings of the
court, the tastes, the occupations, the achieve-
ments of each and all. At last she started to
join the king at Compifegne. Anne of Austria
went to meet her. Mademoiselle de Motteville,
Christina of Sweden 125
who accompanied the queen mother, has given a
description of the meeting.
Christina left her carriage in the midst of such
a crowd that the two queens were obhged to take
refuge in a house, to which Louis XIV escorted
his guest, taking her by the hand. Mademoiselle
de Motteville followed, unable to see anything but
the strange creature thus led by the king of
France. "Her wig that day," wrote she, "was all
uncurled; the wind, as she stepped from the car-
riage, blew it awry; the little care she took of her
complexion, which was anything but white, made
her look like a wild and bold gipsy that by chance
was not too black. As I examined this princess,
all that I saw seemed to me extraordinary, more
likely to terrify than to please." Mademoiselle
de Motteville paints the strange gear of the Swed-
ish queen with her clothes on one side, her big
shoulder "humped up," her short skirt showing
her men's boots, and she adds: "After having
studied her with an attention which sprang from
curiosity, I began to grow accustomed to her
dress, her hair, and her face. . . . Then, to my
amazement, I discovered that she pleased me,
and in a moment I was quite changed with regard
to her. She seemed to me less tall than I had
expected, and less ill-made; but the hands, sup-
posed to be beautiful, were too dirty to appear so."
This is a striking instance of the real fascination
exerted by this strange being. When she chose
to please, she pleased indeed, despite her ridicu-
126 Princesses and Court Ladies
lous costumes, her masculine ways, and her dirt.
But this fascination did not last. The feelings
she inspired were as fleeting as her own moods.
At Compiegne, during the first quarter of an
hour, she terrified all who saw her; during the
second, she interested and amused them. She
was witty and gracious: she provoked admira-
tion. Before the evening was over, she was feared
for her impertinence. She borrowed the king's
valets to undress her and to assist her ' ' in moments
of the greatest intimacy," and this seemed very
shocking. The next day, she appeared clean and
curled, bright and gay; she pleased once more
She greatly diverted the young king, and all
would have gone merrily had she not been taken
with one of her sudden fits of impious swearing
and of kicking up her heels in her anger. This
very much astonished the polite court, which
finally decided that the queen of Sweden must
be looked upon as one of those heroines of chival-
rous romance in the days of adverse fortune, when
Marfise and Bradamante, in a pitiable plight, can
only eat when by chance they are invited to a
royal table. The starved fashion in which Chris-
tina fell upon the collation offered at her arrival,
added to the deplorable state of her wardrobe,
authorised these comparisons. Yet, she had her
partisans as well as her detractors. Christina
spoiled all her chances of Success by a stupid
blunder. Being naturally indiscreet, she meddled
with the king's private affairs. He was then in
Christina of Sweden 127
love with Marie Mancini, and this romance greatly
displeased the queen mother. Christina advised
Louis XIV to follow his inclinations, and to marry
the girl he loved. Anne of Austria hastened to
send away the queen of Sweden, who by no
means wished to go.
She was forced to yield. Christina then went
to see Ninon de I'Enclos and overwhelmed her
with compliments. She seemed to appreciate this
person more than any woman, no doubt because
Ninon's career had proved that she was above
mere prejudice. Christina wanted to present her
to the Pope. Luckily, Ninon knew the world too
well to let herself be tempted.
The queen once more started for Italy. She
spent a night at Montargis and the grande made-
moiselle took it into her head to see her again,
arriving at ten o'clock. ' ' I was requested, ' ' relates
Mademoiselle de Montpensier, "to go up alone.
I found her in a bed where my women slept every
time I went to Montargis, a tallow candle stood
on the table ; a towel was twisted about her head
by way of a nightcap and that head was bald;
she had recently been shaved; a nightgown, with-
out a collar, was closed by a great knot of flame-
coloured ribbon ; her sheets only came up half way
on the bed, over which was thrown an ugly green
coverlet. In this state she was not pretty." The
following day the grande mademoiselle put Chris-
tina in her travelling coach, which was hired and
paid for by Louis XIV.
128 Princesses and Court Ladies
She found the plague in Rome, spent a few
months in the north of Italy, then returned to
France, where her presence was by no means
desired. Public curiosity had been satisfied. It
was rumoured that the Pope had entrusted her
with a mission to bring about a peace with Spain,
and Mazarin wished for no advisers. In October,
1657, she arrived in Fontainebleau, during the
absence of the court, and lodged in the palace."
She was requested to go no farther until she
received permission. Then took place a mysteri-
ous event, which, without the slightest prepara-
tion changed the comedy into a tragedy. Quite
another woman, unexpectedly, is here revealed.
The joyous queen of Sweden, the madcap prodigal,
the veriest royal Bohemian, becomes, one fatal
day, bloody Christina, pitiless and ferocious. A
dark stain sullies this picturesque figure, at which,
till then, one merely smiled. We can here take
leave of the old-time Christina. We shall see her
no more.
VII
The queen of Sweden had brought with her to
Fontainebleau two young Italian noblemen, the
Marquess Monaldeschi, grand equerry, and the
Count Sentinelli, captain of the guard ; the favour-
ite of yesterday and the favourite of to-day.
Monaldeschi was stupidly jealous of his successor.
He wrote letters in which the queen was grossly
Christina of Sweden 129
insulted, and rendered his offence unpardonable
by imitating Sentinelli's writing. This, at least,
is what transpired from the little that is known
of the mystery; it was never really cleared, for
the queen's only confident was her valet, Pois-
sonnet, Poissonnet the impenetrable. At any
rate, this at least is known. On the morning of
November 6, 1657, at a quarter past nine, a
monk of Fontainebleau, Father Le Bel, prior of
the Trinitaires, was sent for by the queen. She
imposed secrecy upon him and gave him a sealed
parcel, which he was to return to her whenever
she called for it.
On the following Saturday afternoon, Novem-
ber loth, at one o'clock, the queen again sent for
him. Father Le Bel took the sealed parcel, think-
ing that it might be needed, and was introduced
into the "galerie des cerfs," where he found the
queen. She was standing talking on indifferent
matters with Monaldeschi. Near them was Senti-
nelli, and a little farther two Italian soldiers.
Father Le Bel, in the " Narration " he left of this
tragedy, confesses with simplicity that as soon
as he entered he began to be much afraid, for the
valet who introduced him banged the door when
he left the gallery. The monk, however, ap-
proached the queen ; her manner instantly changed,
and in a loud voice she claimed the parcel. She
opened it, took out some papers which she showed
to Monaldeschi, asking him with great violence
whether he recognised them. Monaldeschi grew
130 Princesses and Court Ladies
pale, tried to disclaim all knowledge of them,
finally confessed that he had written these letters,
fell at the feet of his mistress, and implored his
pardon. At the same moment, Sentinelli and the
two soldiers drew their swords.
The scene which ensued was frightful. It lasted
two hours and a half. We owe all the details
to Father Le Bel, who, by a not unfrequent phe-
nomenon, remembered them all, in spite of the
horror with which he was filled.
When he saw the weapons, Monaldeschi rose
from his knees and ran after the queen as she
crossed the gallery, speaking "without stopping,"
trying to justify himself, "greatly importuning
her." But Christina showed neither anger nor
impatience. Father Le Bel noticed that as she
walked she used "an ebony cane with a rounded
top." She listened to the supplications for a
little more than an hour, then, going to the monk,
she said gently to him, ' ' Father, I leave this man
in your hands, prepare him for death; minister
to his soul." The monk, "as terrified as though
the sentence had been pronounced against my-
self," threw himself at her feet and implored the
pardon of the poor wretch who grovelled at her
side. She coldly refused, went to her own apart-
ments, where she talked and laughed, quietly and
peaceably.
Monaldeschi could not believe that all was over.
He dragged himself on his knees, crying and im-
ploring his executioners. Sentinelli was moved
Christina of Sweden 131
to pity. He left the gallery but came back very
sad, saying with tears, "Marquess, think on God
and your soul; you must die." Monaldeschi "be-
side himself," sent Father Le Bel, who, sobbing,
prostrated himself before Christina imploring her
"by the wounds of the Saviour" to have pity.
She, "with a serene and composed face . . ,
replied that she was very sorry but that it was
impossible to grant this request."
And all this lasted another hour. During still
another, the poor man refused to resign himself
to his fate. Several times he began his confes-
sion, and his anguish choked him. He cried out,
he implored all to intercede for him once more.
The queen's chaplain having entered, he embraced
him as a possible saviour, and sent him to the
queen. Then, once more Sentinelli went to the
barbarous woman. Christina turned the "coward
who was afraid of death" into ridicule, and sent
away Sentinelli with these horrible words, "Force
him to make his confession, then wound him."^
Sentinelli "pushed Monaldeschi against the wall
at the end of the gallery, where hangs the Saint
Germain painting, ' ' ^ and dealt him a first blow.
Monaldeschi was unarmed. With his hand he
attempted to avert the sword, and three fingers
fell to the floor. Covered with blood, the poor
wretch received absolution, and then a disgusting
butchery began. The marquess wore a mail shirt
so that the blades could not penetrate. His exe-
* Motteville. * Narration of Father Le Bel,
132 Princesses and Court Ladies
cutioners cut at the face, the head, the neck,
wherever they could. Covered with wounds, half
dead, Monaldeschi heard a door open, caught
sight of the chaplain, and took to hoping once
more. He dragged himself toward the priest,
leaning against the wall, and sent him once more
to cry for mercy. As the chaplain left, Senti-
nelli ended his victim's agony by running his
sword through the throat. It was then three
quarters past three.
The effect produced on the public was disas-
trous. Every heart was filled with horror. So
much cold cruelty for a man, once loved, seemed
the act of a savage. It was with a sort of horror
that one thought of this young woman conversing
about trifles, politely interrupting herself to refuse
Monaldeschi's pardon, then quietly resuming her
conversation, while close at hand her former
lover was undergoing his cruel agony. How many
times, during the remainder of her life, this murder
of Monaldeschi was thrown at her ! Why — she
could never understand.
On the news of the event, Mazarin sent Chanut
to Fontainebleau to warn the queen of Sweden
not to show herself in Paris for fear of the people.
Not long ago ,^ Christina's answer to the cardinal
was discovered. The letter, written by herself,
1 The letter was discovered in the Archives of the Foreign
Office by M. A. Geffroy, who published it in the Recufil des instruc-
tions donn^es aux ambassadeurs et ministres de France en Inede,
Paris, 1885.
Christina of Sweden 133
evidently in a state of rage, is crooked, ink-
stained, and almost illegible.
' ' My Cousin : — Monsieur Chanut, a good friend
of mine, will tell you that all which comes from you
is received by me with respect; and if he did not
succeed in arousing in my soul the abject terrors
to which he would willingly have given rise, it
was by no lack of eloquence on his part. But,
to tell the truth, we Northerners are of a some-
what rough nature and not much given to fears.
You will therefore forgive me if the communica-
tion thus made to me did not have all the success
you expected of it. I beg to assure you that I
should be glad to please you in all things, save in
harbouring the slightest tremor. You know that
men of more than thirty do not believe in sorcery.
For my part, I find it easier to strangle people
than to fear them. As to my conduct toward
Monaldeschi, I assure you that were he still living,
I should not sleep to-night before seeing that the
deed was accomplished. I have no reason to
repent. (Here some illegible words.) This is all
I have to say on the subject. If you are satis-
fied, I shall rejoice ; if you are not, I shall remain
unchanged and shall, all my life, be your affec-
tionate friend
Christina."
This letter was not likely to mend matters.
Christina was left to herself at Fontainebleau
during the next three months. She asked for an
134 Princesses and Court Ladies
invitation from Cromwell, to whom tragedies were
familiar, but he "pretended not to understand."
She insisted on going to Paris during the carnival
(February, 1658), frequented places of public
amusement, under a mask, was treated icily by the
queen mother, and almost turned out of doors.
Before she left, she assisted at a sitting of the
French Academy.^ The Academy, taken by sur-
prise, first exhausted the collection of its poets'
verses, such as the madrigals of the Abbe de Bois-
robert, a sonnet on "the death of a lady," by the
Abb6 Tallemant, a little love song by Monsieur
Pellisson, verses by the same "on a sapphire that
had been lost and found again." Then, to fill
up the time, the dictionary work was resumed.
The word jeu was discussed, and the chancellor,
turning toward the queen, said gallantly that
doubtless the word "would not displease her
Majesty, and that, surely, that of melancholy
would have been less welcome." Then, this was
given as example : Jeux de princes qui ne plaisent
qu'a ceux qui les font. (Princely games agreeable
only to those who play at them.) This looked
terribly like an allusion to the death of Monal-
deschi. All eyes were turned toward Christina,
who blushed, lost all self-control, and tried unsuc-
cessfully to laugh. Almost immediately after this
she took her leave, accompanied, with many bows,
by "Monseigneur le Chancelier" and all the
academicians. Such was the farewell of Chris-
* Memoirs of Cotirart.
Christina of Sweden 135
tina to Paris. She started the next day, with
money given by Mazarin, and went to Rome in
order to make the Pope's Hfe a burden to him.
VIII
And that was the end of our brilHant Chris-
tina. She still had thirty years of life before
her, and that long period of time was one long
downfall. She still loved to astonish the world,
and the world refused to be astonished. She
insisted, and was voted insupportable. The world
is not tender to old heroines. She was soon called
the "shaved adventuress and intriguer." People
wondered, with much distrust, for what services
Mazarin had given her two hundred thousand
francs. This vagabond, who without shame
knocked at closed doors, became less and less
interesting. She was still feared, for she was
clever and unscrupulous; she was no longer es-
teemed, as in justice she could not be. On her
return from France she committed an act more
criminal, lower even than the murder of Monal-
deschi. . She did not blush — she, the ex-queen
of Sweden, she, on whom her people had lavished
fidelity and kindness, she who had deserted
her post to wander all over the world — she did
not blush to send Sentinelli to the Emperor of
Germany with this message, that, "Since Charles
Augustus, King of Sweden, did not give her the
136 Princesses and Court Ladies
pension of two hundred thousand crowns a year,
which had been agreed upon, and left her in want,
she begged the emperor to lend her twenty thou-
sand men under the orders of General Montecu-
culli, as with such an army she felt sure of
conquering Pomerania (which belonged to Sweden)
where she had many adherents. She would keep
the revenues during her lifetime, and after her
death Pomerania should return to the empire."
Thus she offered to carry war into her own coun-
try, for a question of money, because Sweden,
ruined partly through her own fault, did not pay
her regularly. This creature had no spark of
royal honour in her soul. She belonged to the
^ castvshe herself had called "the rabble of kings."
The negotiation came to nothing, we do not
know why.
The Pope did his best to shape into some sort
of dignity this deplorable existence. He gave
Christina a revenue of twelve thousand crowns;
then he sent her a steward to keep her accounts
and direct her household. His Holiness 's choice
fell upon a young cardinal, Dece Azzolini, a
"handsome man, of an agreeable countenance,"
witty and well-read, clever, supple, selfish; "he
spent most of his time in amorous discussions."
The steward's success was overwhelming. Ac-
cording to the queen, he was "divine," "incom-
parable," an "angel." She likened him to her
favourite hero, Alexander the Great. Azzolini,
by way of acknowledging the favours showered
Christina of Sweden 137
upon him, rendered real services. He brought
about serious reforms in the household, stopped
the robbing and waste, redeemed the jewels and
the plate. He could not, however, with twelve
thousand crowns keep up a court, buy rare curi-
osities, and yet make the two ends meet. The
wrangling with Sweden continued, so did the
negotiations with usurers and the quarrels about
money. Christina's correspondence with her
agents wearies one to death. One hears of nothing
but expedients, compromises, and double-dealings.
She had none of the dignity of a self-respecting
person, who applies to no one for help.
Expedients are a terrible curse to a princess.
Christina knew another sorrow which many had
predicted to her at the time of her abdication:
she regretted the crown. When she had enjoyed
liberty to the full of her bent, shown her doublet
to courts and to the rabble, she wanted something
new. What? That she could not tell. What
theatrical part could she now adopt? That was
a puzzle. She had not given up the hope of
blooming out as a great general, but the sover-
eigns of Europe seemed by no means eager to
confide their armies to her care. She thought of
becoming queen once more — or king — accord-
ing to the choice of the people.
In 1660, she heard of the death of her cousin
and successor, Charles Augustus. He left a son
four years old, Charles XI, sickly according to
Christina ; in robust health according to the states
138 Princesses and Court Ladies
of Sweden. The queen started for Stockholm,
under the pretext of looking after her pension,
crossed Germany in all haste, entered Hamburg
August 18, 1660, and was respectfully requested
by the government not to visit Sweden. What-
ever might be her projects, she had sown the
wind to reap the whirlwind, and the government
feared her presence. By way of answer she sailed
at once. The regency received her with great
honours and kept strict watch over her. She was
imperious, imprudent ; she wounded the nation by
making a show of her Catholic faith. The people,
growing hard and insolent, destroyed her chapel.
The Swedish clergy came to remonstrate with her
and saw the proud Christina shed tears of rage.
She sent the states a "Protestation," in which,
should little Charles XI die, she put in her claims
to the throne. An hour later the states sent her a
formula of renunciation which she was to sign
under penalty of forfeiting her pension. Chris-
tina's signature, it is said, shows the violence of
her anger. After many petty persecutions she
was pushed out of the country.
Such a reception would have disgusted her for-
ever, had she not known that, in spite of all, the
daughter of Gustavus Adolphus still had parti-
sans. Thus only can we explain her second
attempt of 1667, which resulted in a still more
crushing disaster. The senate and the regency
agreed that: "Her Majesty, Queen Christina,
should not be allowed to reenter the kingdom
Christina of Sweden 139
or any of its provinces, with the exception of
Pomerania, Bremen, or Verden; still less was she
to appear at his Majesty's court." On the road
to Stockholm a messenger sent post haste met
her at past midnight. He brought her such hard
and mortifying orders that she instantly ordered
horses, and left Sweden never to return. From
a letter of Peter de Groot, ambassador from Hol-
land to Sweden, we learn that the death of Monal-
deschi was all through the land a dark stain on
her glory.
As she passed through the duchy of Bremen,
she visited the Swedish camp, commanded by
Wrangle, who had served under her father. Chris-
tina wished to show all she knew. Brilliantly
uniformed, astride a prancing steed, she rode up
and down the ranks, commanding the manoeuvres.
Naturally she made numberless mistakes, which
Wrangle, hiding a smile, repaired as best he
could. Christina continued, unabashed, for
nothing could persuade her that she was not born
to be a great captain. At that time she was
intriguing for the throne of Poland, and her agents
were representing her as capable of commanding
an army. "I vow," wrote she, " that the hope of
doing this alone made me wish for the throne of
Poland."
This Polish plot is the strangest of her strange
adventures. Christina's master-stroke is certainly
that of having persuaded the Pope to second
her pretensions to the throne, left vacant by the
I40 Princesses and Court Ladies
abdication of John Casimir. The papers relating
to the negotiations have been published, and no
authors of a spectacular piece ever imagined so* fan-
ciful a bit of diplomacy. The Pope recommends
Christina in a brief in which he praises her * ' piety,
prudence, her masculine and heroic courage."
Christina wrote to the nuncio : "As to the piety
which the Pope mentions in his brief, let me tell
you that I am by no means sure of the wisdom of
such a boast ; I doubt whether I deserve it, and I
doubt still more whether they would appreciate it."
The Polish Diet, alarmed at so unexpected a
candidature, hastened, without much order, to
present some objections. Christina found answers
to all. Her sex was a drawback? She would be
king not queen, and command the army. What
more could the Poles desire ? The death of Monal-
deschi? " I am in no humour to justify myself of
this Italian's death." Besides, she had taken care
"that the sacraments should be administered to
him before the end." Her violence was feared?
"As to the beating of a few valets, even if I had
administered the blows myself, I do not think such
a trifle need exclude me from the throne, for, in
that case, Poland would find no king." The
Diet was not to be persuaded, and Christina 's can-
didateship fell to the ground.
This Polish venture was but child's play com-
pared with others. Christina was not to be
daunted; she believed that the world belonged to
those who dare and who risk all. "Life is busi-
Christina of Sweden 141
ness," said she, "in which one cannot make money
without risking to lose it. . . ." She turned her
back on Poland, She had thought to do as much
for the Fontainebleau incident, but here she met
with an obstacle on which she had not counted, —
the world's conscience. She was astonished to
find it ever before her. What a singular thing
eternally to reproach her with Monaldeschi's
death! It was, after all, so very simple. "One
must," wrote she, "punish crime as one can,
according to the forms of justice, if possible; but,
when that is out of the question, by other means."
She pitied people for entertaining such low scruples
as to make so much of a servant's death, killed
by order of a queen. From time to time, so as to
hush the importunate murmur which arose about
her, she would burst out: "Write to Heinsius
from me . . . that all this fuss which he makes
about Monaldeschi seems to me as ridiculous as
it is insolent. I am willing that all Westphalia
should deem Monaldeschi innocent; it is to me a
matter of absolute indifference." This letter is
dated August 2, 1682, twenty -five years after the
crime. And the murmur would not be hushed.
It never has been.
It is said that the shade of Monaldeschi sat at
Christina's death bed, like the ghost of Banquo
at Macbeth 's banquet. This is merely a romantic
invention. She put this trifle to one side and
forgot it.
The second voyage to Sweden closes the adven-
1^1 Princesses and Court Ladies
tures of Christina in Europe. Not that she lacked
an itching desire for adventure. In 1675, she
applied to the court of Vienna, renewing her de-
mand for troops in order to detach Pomerania
from Sweden. These shameful negotiations lasted
for more than a year. Repulsed by the emperor,
she turned to France to whom she proposed that,
during the Swedish internal troubles, means
should be found to revoke the laws against Catho-
lics. Her Swedish Majesty did not neglect to
mention the price she put on her* intervention.
(Letters and despatches of 1676 and 1677.) Not
having succeeded with France, on the rumour that
Charles XI had been killed by a fall from his
horse, she once more turned her attention to
Sweden (1682). Then came the news that the
king was alive and well. Later, when she was
raore than sixty years of age, Christina wanted to
leave Rome because she was not longer treated
like a queen. She had already quarrelled on that
score with Pope Innocent XI, who carried economy
so far that, according to a legend, he spent but
half a crown a day for his meals. He found it
intolerable to pay twelve thousand crowns a year
to a very troublesome queen: he suppressed the
pension. Yet Christina remained, not knowing
where else to go.
The days of cavalcades were past. This vaga-
bond of a queen is now forced to keep quiet. She
is old, "very fat and heavy," with a "double
chin, short and rough hair." She still wears her
Christina of Sweden 143
doublet, her short skirt, her thick boots. "A
sash tied over the doublet showed the ample pro-
portions of her waist." ^ Thus decked out, she
seemed smaller and even less feminine than of
yore. The many-coloured breeches could no longer
be donned. One can understand that the Italians
were puzzled, unable to make out her real sex.
Farewell to the amazon! The scholar took her
place and kept it. At the time of her quarrel
with the Pope, Christina was much tempted to
put herself at the head of her guards. The Pope
spared her this last feat, by ignoring her threats.
Of the scholar, there would be much to say.
She was one of those philosophers who believe in
quack predictions and was too much engrossed
in astrology and alchemy to be taken very seri-
ously. She believed that astronomy should be
subjected to a religious censorship; she wished
Rome to suppress all heretical portions of this
science. On the other hand, her influence was
not favourable to the numerous academies she
founded or protected. Was it necessary to as-
semble prelates, monks, and scholars in order to
discuss the following subjects: "Love comes but
once in a lifetime. It gives eloquence to those
who are not naturally eloquent. It inspires chas-
tity and temperance. One can love without
jealousy; never without fear."
In 1688 she had a severe attack of erysipelas.
It was a warning. She understood it and put
' Misson, New Voyage to Italy, ii vol.
144 Princesses and Court Ladies
all in order for her last representation. She
wished it to be original, rich, and singular, in order
once more to astonish the world. She invented
a sort of gown which partook of the skirt and of
the mantle and had it made "of white brocade,
embroidered with flowers and other gold orna-
ments ; it was to have buttons and gilt trimmings,
with a fringe of the same around the bottom of
the skirt." On Christmas eve she tried it on,
to see what effect it would produce on her court.
The costume fitted well. God could now raise
the curtain and allow her to die.
The Divine Manager gave her a respite of three
months wherein to reflect that, perhaps, the
comedy had a sequel in the next world. Then He
gave the signal. In April of that year, 1689,
Christina grew rapidly weaker. When she was
incapable of discussion, Cardinal Azzolini, her
major-domo, presented a testament for her signa-
ture, assuring her that it was "advantageous for
her Majesty's household." Christina, without
reading it, signed the paper. The will made Azzo-
lini her heir. The furniture and collections were
worth millions. She died soon after, April 19,
1689. If the dead can see what goes on in the
world, she must have been satisfied. The apo-
theosis of the fifth act was gorgeous.
She was clothed in the fine costume of brocade,
covered with gold trimmings, -a royal crown was
placed on ner head, a sceptre in her rigid hand,
and, in a magnificent coach, she was taken to the
Christina of Sweden 145
church of Saint Dorothea, that of her parish,
where she lay in state. Three hundred tapers
flooded the church with their light. It was
draped in black, decorated with escutcheons of
white mock marble, which "seemed to point to
the vanity of life and the certainty of death."
Toward evening men carried the bed in parade
to Saint Peter's. Scholars and artists led the
way; then came sixteen confraternities, seventeen
religious orders, five hundred other monks with
lighted tapers, the clergy of Saint Dorothea and
of Saint Peter, the household of Christina in
mourning, Christina herself, more magnificent than
ever, for over her was thrown a great royal violet
mantle, edged with ermine. Following the body
were lords and cardinals, officers and archbishops,
equerries and valets, gilded coaches and gaily
decked horses, a shimmering of satins and em-
broideries, a nodding of plumes, a mixture of
liveries, bright uniforms, and church vestments.
It was as fine a sight as that of Christina's entry
into Rome. Crowds pushed forward to see her,
and decidedly the brocade robe was becoming; it
hid the heavy form and hunched shoulder. It
was a most successful funeral : Plaudite, cives!
This was her cry even in death; she never
knew any other. The Autobiography claims
plaudits for Christina in swaddling clothes, for
the baby that did not fear new faces, that did
not sleep during speeches: Plaudite, cives! Ap-
plaud the schoolgirl, the incomparable horse-
146 Princesses and Court Ladies
woman, the unequalled scholar, the unrivalled
sovereign, man and woman in one, the great
stateswoman, the great general, the great lover!
Applaud the joyous student, cap on ear, the bold
and clever adventuress, the tragic queen who
kills, as in the noble days of olden despotism, the
eighth wonder of the world, the prodigy of her
day: Plaudite, cives!
The play ended magnificently at Saint Peter's,
where the body was placed in a coffin, enclosed
in a vault, and Christina awaited the verdict of
posterity.
This verdict is somewhat contradictory. Some
historians have praised her, dazzled by so many
brilliant qualities. Most have condemned her,
indignant at her ferocity, at the indecenc}^ of her
life, at her cowardly treason for which she hoped
to reap golden rewards. To-day, stirring up the
dust of old documents, wherein lies the record of
Christina's existence, we no longer see the bright
eyes, the joyous smile, the tomboy gestures.
We no longer hear her witty and insolent repar-
tees. We no longer feel the equivocal grace of
this feminine cavalier. But we read the narra-
tive of Father Le Bel, the correspondence with
Montecuculli and with the emperor, the propo-
sitions to France in 1676-1677, the violent dis-
cussions on money matters with Sweden. Neither
the talents of Christina, nor .her superior intelli-
gence, nor her courage, can save her from an
implacable judgment. She was beyond the
Christina of Sweden 147
bounds of all honest and responsible humanity.
This crooked body contained a crooked soul,
which knew neither right nor wrong. This bril-
liant Christina, almost a genius, was, morally, a
veritable monster.
THE MEMOIRS OF AN ARAB PRINCESS
The life of the Arab woman is little known to
us, and her feelings and ideas must be left to the
imagination. It is fairly safe, however, to say
that, being a mere sensual little animal, she can
be led only by fear. It is equally safe to accord
her much pity, though not unmixed with con-
tempt, and to believe that any princess of the
Far East would be happy to change places with
one of our street sweepers. Very few of these
ladies have tried the experiment, however, and
none have given us the benefit of their impres-
sions; we are free, therefore, to believe what best
suits our fancy.
But here is one who has chosen to favour us
with her confessions.^ A sultan's daughter, after
having lived twenty years as a Mussulman high-
ness, ran away with a Hamburg merchant, and
for twenty more years has led the life of a good
German housekeeper. In her new surroundings
she learned more or less to analyse her impres-
sions, and she published her Memoirs. The
object of her candid book is to compare the first
part of her life with the second, and her Arab
family with her Christian one.„ If the volumes of
^ Memoiren einer Arabischen Prinzessin, by Emile Ruete.
(II vol. Berlin.)
148
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 149
the fugitive, whose Christian name is Frau Emilie
Ruete, should ever fall into the hands of one of
her country people, he, in his heart, would blame
her for having opened to the eyes of all, her
father's harem, and revealed the secrets of a home
which once was hers. As to us who have not the
same scruples, these artless pages have all the
more value that they are written with the con-
viction that all our preconceived notions would
be reversed by their perusal. We shall unveil
the picture of Frau Ruete 's youth, leaving it just
as she herself painted it. The reader must decide
for himself whether or not her conduct was wise
and just.
She was bom in a palace situated in the island
of Zanzibar; her name was Salme, and she was of
a chocolate hue. Her father was the glorious
Sejjid Said, iman of Muscat in Arabia, sultan of
Zanzibar, by right of conquest since 1784. She
probably came into the world somewhere about
1844, when her father must have been at least
eighty years of age; but she mentions no dates,
perhaps because in her world dates and numbers
are as vague as they are unimportant. These
good people are spared the mania of calculating,
a mania which imparts so much dryness to our
lives and takes from it all charm of fantasy.
Events for them floated in the space of time, as
150 Princesses and Court Ladies
did life itself, measured only by the fact of living.
Little Princess Salme saw that her father's beard
was white, that several of her sisters might well
have been her grandmothers, that one of her
nephews was almost an old man, and that many
generations of women had succeeded each other
in the harem; the chronology of all these things,
events, and people, was beyond her. How many
brothers and sisters had she? How many law-
ful wives had her father? How many unlawful
wives, or sarari ? ^ She did not know. In her
family affections, there existed a certain mystery
and uncertainty which were not without charm.
She experienced a delightful emotion when, for
the first time, she entered her father's town harem
and saw numberless brothers and sisters, quite
unknown to her. She for a whole day went from
discovery to discovery, and this greatly interested
her.
Her infancy had been spent in the country
harem of Sejjid Said, near the town of Zanzibar.
The place was called Bet-il-Mtoui, and it was the
noisiest and most complicated of palaces. Bet-il-
Mtoui was originally composed of an immense
court surrounded by buildings. As the family
increased, a wing had been added, then a gallery
and a pavilion; all these buildings were huddled
together in picturesque confusion. As this had
been going on for a long time, the palace had be-
come like a small town harbouring about a thou-
• Singular, surie.
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 151
sand inhabitants. There was so prodigious a
number of rooms, of doors, of passages, and stair-
cases, such a tangle of constructions of every
shape and of every size, that it required long
practice not to get lost among them. From one
end to the other of this labyrinth swarmed a
motley crowd of brown, black, and white women,
of children, fair or dark, of growling eunuchs, of
male and female slaves. Water-carriers, cooks,
negro runners, masseurs, nurses, embroiderers, in
one word, the never-ending domesticity of Eastern
lands, hurried to and fro. Brilliant colours enliv-
ened the costumes, jewels sparkled on the women's
arms, ears, necks, legs, heads. Even the beggars,
affirm.s Princess Salme, wore jewels; not one
woman in Zanzibar went without anklets or brace-
lets. Flocks of parrots and of pigeons flew,
screeched, or cooed in the open galleries, adding
to the flutter and noise of this ever-moving crowd,
which spoke a dozen different languages and dia-
lects. The eunuchs scolded the slaves, and sent
them about their business with a whip. The
children screamed and tumbled over each other.
The wooden sandals of the women resounded on
the marble pavement, and the gold pendants
about their bare ankles tinkled daintily.
The court was everybody's passageway, the
great playground, the refuge of all idlers, the
hospitable menagerie and farmyard. Quantities
of ducks, geese, guinea-fowls, peacocks, and flamin-
goes, of tame gazelles and ostriches, lived here in
152 Princesses and Court Ladies
unrestrained freedom. Outsiders, messengers,
carriers, artisans, shopmen, hustled each other in
the hurry of their various avocations. At one
extremity were a dozen tanks, surrounded by cov-
ered galleries, where, night and day, hundreds of
men and women bathed. To get to the court one
passed through an orange grove, the branches of
which were often laden with a singular sort of
fruit, chiefly children who had deserved a whip-
ping, and there sought a hiding place. It was
also in this immense court that the young princes
and their sisters learned, under the direction of
the eunuchs, to mount the thoroughbreds of
Oman and the great white asses of Mascat. Morn-
ing and evening they took their riding lessons,
prancing and galloping on their high, embroidered
saddles. The strips of gold and silver on the
harnesses clinked merrily, and frightened birds
flew before the horses' hoofs. Movement, noise,
light, colour, everything was spirited at Bet-il-
Mtoui, and dazzling to the senses.
In all the palace there was but one quiet and
silent nook: it was the apartment of old Sejjid
Sal'd of the snow-white beard. He lived in a
wing overlooking the sea, and his windows opened
on a wide, round terrace, surmounted by a pointed
roof of painted wood and closed with balustrades.
This construction inspired Princess Salm^ with
boundless admiration ; she compares it to a merry-
go-round without the wooden horses. When the
old man was not busy with his orisons or in giving
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 153
audience, he would go alone on his terrace, where
he could be seen for hours, absorbed and sad,
walking up and down, limping, for an old wound
had crippled him. Who can say what cares
bowed that white head ? There are burdens com-
mon to all monarchs in every latitude, but Sejjid
Said had still other cares of which we know
nothing. Who can guess his*thoughts when one
of his safari, or his children, craved some favour,
and he was forced to send them to their common
tyrant, the legitimate spouse, the imperious hihi
Azze?
Bihi is a word of the country which means she
who gives orders, and is employed at Zanzibar
in the sense of her Highness. This title belonged
to a little bit of a woman, without youth, without
beauty, childless, who ruled Sejjid Said with a
rod of iron; she often decided even state matters.
She was the last surviving of Sejjid Sai'd's hihis,
and she held him under a heavier yoke than was
ever put on an oppressed Christian husband. It
is in vain that the Koran has said: "Men are
superior to women. . . . Husbands lead and their
wives follow." Bihi Azze did not interfere with
the Koran, but she had her own way. Quite use-
lessly had Sejjid Sai'd endeavoured to weaken the
inevitable influence of the wife by dividing it
among many; he had added young Persian to
young Arab maids, to Abyssinian and Circassian
beauties, until Bet-il-Sahel, his town palace, was
full, until a third and fourth residence were equally
154 Princesses and Court Ladies
overflowing. He still continued to obey the ter-
rible Azze, and all he got by his tactics was to be
caught between two fires. On the one hand, the
herd of sarari always had some request to submit
to him, and these requests, childish or eccentric,
had to be decided by his tyrant. The most vivid
impressions of Princess Salmi's infancy are con-
nected with this terrible stepmother, whom she
always remembered as followed by her court,
haughty, carrying stiffly her diminutive person.
She struck everyone dumb. Her stepdaughter
is obliged to borrow a comparison from the Prus-
sian army, with its inflexible discipline, in order
to make us understand her own terrified humility
with regard to hihi Azze. "All those," she says,
"who crossed her path were crushed as a recruit
might be before a general." Nothing stronger
could be said.
The old sultana rarely left her white palace,
embowered among great cocoanut trees. Sejjid,
during four days of the week, dragged his chain
in her presence. The other three days he spent
at the joyous Bet-il-Sahel, where there was no
hihi and where all felt at liberty. He himself
wore another countenance; he was enjoying his
holiday. The three days over, he returned to
submit to Azz^'s caprices and to walk around his
terrace. How had she conquered him ? By what
mysterious ties did she hold him? Either from
ignorance or discretion, Princess Salmd keeps
silence with regard to this enigma. She merely
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 155
refers at different times to the "incredible power"
exerted by her stepmother over her father.
Sejjid Sai'd had not always been as submissive.
In olden times he had known anger comparable
to that of wild beasts. It was whispered in the
harem that he had once, sword in hand, rushed at
a hihi who had misbehaved and that, but for the
intervention of a eunuch, he would have killed
her. Old age had softened him, and the valiant
conqueror of 1784 now seemed a good-natured
stage king. He was a good deal imposed upon
at Bet-il-Sahel ; the sarari and their daughters
went their several ways according to the caprice
of the moment. Princess Salme, who spent there
most of her time after she had reached her seventh
or eighth year, lets us into the secrets of this
extraordinary household.
This is the first time that we have been ini-
tiated, by a competent writer, one whose good
faith is unimpeached, into the woes of a man at
the mercy of a hundred or more women. His
tribulations surpass all we could imagine on the
subject. It is true that Sejjid Sai'd singularly
complicated matters. Well on toward his hun-
dredth year he still caused pretty girls from Asia
and Africa to be sent to him, and the passions
of these young persons enlivened the palaces.
The Abyssinians were distinguished by their
stormy natures. Jealous and vindictive, they
flew into rages and sought to revenge themselves.
The Circassians, less violent, were not any easier
156 Princesses and Court Ladies
to govern. They had a just appreciation of their
superiority, and were very haughty. One of
these, named Courschit, no longer young, was the
only person in the whole kingdom capable of defy-
ing Azze, She had a son whom she governed
despotically, and by whom she had a finger in
the political pie. This strong-willed lady occu-
pied a place apart at Bet-il-Sahel, and with great
deference each consulted her. Her tall figure,
her glittering eyes, frightened the little children.
She was greatly admired for her intelligence, but
in no way loved.
None of these primitive creatures had the slight-
est notion of moral discipline. Nature made them
good or bad. Custom imposed upon them the
observance of certain exterior rules. The idea of
self-control, of self -improvement, was as unknown
to them as the precession of the equinoxes. If
their instincts were good, so much the better; if
they were bad, the fear of punishment was for
them the beginning, the middle, and the end of
wisdom. Good behaviour was rendered doubly
arduous because of race rivalry. Sympathetic
groups were formed according to nationalities and
colour, and out of these alliances sprang furious
friendships and still more furious hatreds. The
harems of Sejjid Said were fiery centres. Passions
took on a superb volcanic character, unknown to
our calmer societies, where we are taught self-
restraint. Princess Salm^ was struck by this con-
trast when she arrived in Europe. She concluded
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 157
that our feelings are as pale and cold as our sky,
and she pitied us, for she is tender-hearted. Dur-
ing twenty years she sought a German woman who
knew the meanings of the verbs to love and to
hate, as the least among her countrywomen knew
them. She never found one, and could not under-
stand why. Whenever she alludes to these things
it becomes evident that the Arab and the European
are by nature utterly at variance.
Twenty years of Christian and German educa-
tion have not rendered Princess Salme more
capable than she was at first of assimilating our
ways, our thoughts, or our customs. She persists
in feeling that life has narrowed for her since she
left her country. If she were capable of abstract
reasoning, she would say : ' ' You mistake a ghostly
phantom for life itself; you are amused by such
vain toys as railways and observatories. In real-
ity, nothing counts for man except what he has
felt; one feels more in a single week at Bet-il-
Sahel than in Berlin during a whole year. My
father, the great Sejjid Said, knew more about
human passions than a German philosopher. You
fancy that a man of the Far East, because he is
grave and reserved, sleeps away his life; but I,
a slave's daughter, I who have tasted both cups,
affirm that it is your life, not his, that is insipid."
I see very well what we might answer; but I
also know that the answer would fall upon deaf
ears. The daughter of Sejjid Said, Christian
spouse to an honest merchant, in the two volumes
158 Princesses and Court Ladies
of her Memoirs does not utter a single word
against a harem, and she hides nothing which filial
duty would have bidden her hide had she under-
stood the ignominy of her mother's position.
Accustomed from babyhood to Mussulman ways,
in the depths of her heart she prefers them to
ours. A little more, and on the strength of her
experience, she would proclaim the failure of
Christian marriage; one feels that if she does not
go quite so far, it is that she does not dare to do
so. She likes to recall the thoughtless mirth of
her young friends, their content at the fate that
awaited them, and to compare it with the stereo-
typed smiles of a Berlin dame, whose private life
was stormy enough under its correct appearance.
"I can declare in conscience," writes she, with
ingenuous pleasure, "that I have in this country
heard of amiable husbands who beat their wives,
whereas an Arab would feel himself degraded by
such brutality." Her birth destined her to be-
come a bibi, and, had she the choice, bibi she
would still be; there is no indiscretion in saying
so, as Herr Ruete died long ago. His widow does
not seem to understand that the rivalry of the
sarari and the struggle against their influence are
enough to miserably degrade the position of a
Mussulman wife.
Let us do justice to her frankness ; she confesses
that she judges us by the light- of her resentment.
Frau Ruete, Princess of Zanzibar, suffered from
our customs and habits. We have lost the respect
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 159
for the aristocracy, and that to races who have
retained it is intolerable. We have inflicted suffer-
ing on this fallen Highness ; she moans gently over
little foolish things. We cannot refrain from smil-
ing, but to her the sorrow was genuine. She
makes us think of certain tropical birds, the size
of an emerald, that we are cruel enough to shut
up in a cage. They roll themselves, shivering,
in little fluffy balls, hiding their heads under their
wings, so as not to see their prison ; a prison lack-
ing sunshine, light, and flowers. One of her great
griefs was that she was treated by the merchants
of Hamburg as one of their own set, and not as
the daughter of a great monarch. She was, for
them, nothing but Frau Ruete, the dark-skinned
spouse of Herr Ruete, dealer in cottons and hard-
ware, who had contracted a queer marriage during
a business voyage in Africa. "I did not find,"
she pitifully writes, "the attentions to which I
thought I had a right." She felt her downfall
very bitterly, and when she was assured that the
condition of women among us is far superior, that
human dignity is more respected in a German
scullery maid than in a sultan's bibi, she thought
that her fate would have been more enviable and
glorious and romantic had she fallen in love with
one of the handsome slaves who, when she went
out in the streets of Zanzibar, walked before her
with a great noise of weapons. Among her
people, when a girl marries, she keeps the name,
the rank, and the title which she holds from her
i6o Princesses and Court Ladies
parents; from this state of things flow many
adorable adventures on which Princess Salme
doubtless counted when she eloped.
Her people are persuaded that unequal mar-
riages do not exist. Neither the customs nor
public opinion are opposed to the union of a
prince and a shepherdess. Nothing untoward can
come of it, since the shepherdess does not become
a princess but remains "so and so, daughter of
so and so." In Arabia, where strength and cour-
age are still held in great esteem, it is not rare
that a chief gives his sister or his daughter to a
slave who has distinguished himself by his valour.
He is then by right a free man, but nothing more.
He remains his wife's servant, speaks to her with
all humility, and calls her "Mistress" or "Your
Highness." On his wedding evening, a certain
etiquette is required of him.
The bride does not rise when her husband enters
the room. She remains squatting on her heels,
motionless and dumb, covered with jewels, her
rich garments redolent with perfumes, her face
hidden under a black mask trimmed with gold
and silver; she resembles some magnificent idol,
recently incensed, still giving forth aromatic per-
fumes. The bridegroom approaches; she remains
silent. He is bound to speak first, and in that
he confesses his inferiority. He addresses her
with words of homage; she then answers, but does
not yet remove her mask; he must humble him-
self still more before he is permitted to contem-
Memoirs of an Arab Princess i6i
plate her face. Then he bows as before his sov-
ereign, and deposits his offering at her feet. If
he is rich, he offers a treasure. If he is poor, if
he possesses nothing but his strong arm and his
gun, he places before her two or three coppers.
Princess Salme is convinced that marriage does
not annul distances, and that the respect of an
ex-slave, who has become the son-in-law of a
grandee, is as undying as the majesty of his
spouse. He never reminds her that Mahomet
said of woman "that she is a being who grows up
amid ornaments and finery and who eternally dis-
cusses without reasoning." He must still less re-
member the passage of the Koran which says that :
"Men are superior to women on account of the
qualities with which God has endowed them, thus
placing them above women. . . . Virtuous women
should be obedient and submissive. . . . You
should chide those who rebel . . . you should
even beat them." The ex-slave is a servant as
well as a husband, and a king's daughter remiains
a princess even in the tent of a freedman. This
is mere romance, you will say. Surely. What
young girl has not woven her dream of romance ?
That of the Arab maiden is very simple and primi-
tive. A prince's daughter dreams of a husband
who will salute her courteously and not beat her.
It is easy to guess at the bitter sorrow of a poor
kibibi,^ who knew nothing of Europe, when, one
fine morning, she woke to find herself a German
* Little Highness, little bibi.
1 62 Princesses and Court Ladies
housekeeper. We pity her, and very sincerely.
We cannot go so far, however, as to imagine a
young German, EngHsh, or French girl of the
middle classes who would enjoy being a kibibi,
and who would contentedly play the part of a
heroine of the Arabian Nights. Princess Salme
devotes a whole chapter to prove that the fate
of her Oriental sisters is as dignified as, and more
enviable than, that of the European women con-
demned to servile work and sordid occupations.
As I read her arguments, I recalled a scene noted
during a voyage. It was on a road of Anatolia,
one autumn evening. Before us were a couple of
unequal height and of very different aspect. To
the left was a grey-bearded man, mounted on a
horse whose silver trappings tinkled as he went.
The man wore flowing trousers of some dark
colour, and weapons were in his sash; the upper
part of the body was draped in a burnous of fine
white wool, the hood of which covered his turban.
In his high-backed saddle, his appearance was ex-
quisitely graceful and haughty. His whole person
denoted a calm habit of authority.
To his right trotted mincingly a tiny donkey,
miserably pack-saddled, with ropes by way of
reins. A woman, wrapped in an ample blue
cotton garment, rode, huddled up, astride the
pack. Her round, hunched body swayed gently
to and fro, following the movements of her beast,
and the impression she gave was of something
very humble, and of no account at all.
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 163
These two figures formed a laughable contrast,
and when they disappeared at a turn of the road,
one of us said, "The problem of the Eastern
woman in a nutshell." All Princess Salme's argu-
ments fall before the remembrance of that shape-
less little mass, trotting in the shadow of the fine
horseman.
II
There was no compensation for the sufferings
she endured in Europe. In our world, she found
nothing which made up for what she had lost in
hers. Mahometanism had stamped her, and she
was doomed to the intellectual stagnation of her
religion and of her race. In Germany she ac-
quired knowledge, she read and worked, but her
thoughts remained stationary. Condemned not
to lose a single idea, not to acquire a single one,
she lived among us without understanding us,
without loving us. The meaning of our civilisa-
tion she always ignored; between her mind and
ours there was a wall.
The reasons for this state of things appear in
that part of her Memoirs where she explains
the education given to the boys and girls huddled
together in her family palace. One can hardly
imagine a system better fitted to fashion minds in
a mould, and for ever to separate the Oriental
from the European. These pages, in spite of their
literary clumsiness, are of vital interest. We all
164 Princesses and Court Ladies
know by what infantile simplicity Islamism gov-
erns the minds and hearts of a hundred million of
human beings; but we have few opportunities
of studying the working of this education, except
from the outside. A Mahometan is a man who
is essentially secretive. We needed the indiscre-
tions of a renegade to learn how this unbending
and closed soul is formed; to what influences it is
subjected under the paternal roof, and what les-
sons it receives. Thanks to Princess Salm6, we
can assist at its development from birth to the
flowering time of life.
The years of infancy are given up to the mother,
whoever she may be, bibi or sarari; this is the
curse of the sons of the rich, who alone are able
to afford harems. What the sarari are, we know.
What their moral influence can be, we guess, even
when native kindliness serves as an antidote to
the pernicious atmosphere of such a place. Prin-
cess Salme had been fortunate, and had been as
well nurtured as it was possible to be in such a
place as Bet-il-Mtoui or Bet-il-Sahel. Her mother
was a robust Circassian, plain and gentle, whose
history may be told in three lines. She was the
daughter of farmers who had three children. At
six or seven she was stolen by wandering maraud-
ers, who massacred the father and mother and
took the children into captivity. She never
shook off this nightmare: she had heard her little
sister sobbing and crying for their mother all day
long. At nightfall they were separated, and she
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 165
never knew what had become of the others. The
chances of the slave market had brought her to
Zanzibar, where the sultan gave her as a plaything
to his daughters, until the time when she should
become his own toy. She grew up, lived, and died
in the harem, resigned and inoffensive, thinking
but little, and embroidering a great deal. Her
daughter was tenderly attached to her.
When the child was born, in one of the innumer-
able roomis of Bet-il-Mtoui, its eyes were scarcely
open when two black hands seized it, covered it
with violent perfumes, and put it in swaddling
clothes, consisting of a long band, after the fashion
of Egyptian mummies, the legs straight, the arms
close to the body. It remained thus, quite stiff,
for forty days, to keep its spine from deviating.
After the first week, Sejjid Sai'd paid a visit to the
mother and gave her the infant's jewels: heavy
gold loops for the ears, bracelets and anklets.
After his departure, slaves pierced the poor baby's
ears six times and passed red silk in the holes.
On the fortieth day the chief of the eunuchs pre-
sented himself before the mother. He shaved the
head of the child according to certain rites, amid
the fumes of odorous incense. Then the little
princess was unbound. Her legs and arms were
burdened with heavy gold bracelets, amulets were
hung about her neck, a cap of gold cloth placed
on her head, and massive earrings put instead of
the threads ; the custom of the country forced her
to wear these until the day of her death. A silken
1 66 Princesses and Court Ladies
chemise, strongly scented, completed her outfit.
She was placed in a cradle, redolent with strong
perfumes of jessamine, musk, amber, and rose;
she was then presented to the friends and neigh-
bours whose curiosity prompted them to crowd
the room. An infant, be it the child of a mason,
is always an interesting object to a woman. A
birth was the cause of rejoicing in the harems of
the old sultan, however customary the event might
be. Even in his extreme old age, Sejjid Sa'id had
at least five or six children a year.
Princess Salm6, who brought up several child-
ren amid the fogs and snows of North Germany,
always remembered with a sort of wistful regret
the merry nursery gifts of her own country, —
jewels, and a scrap of blue or pink silk. She com-
pares the fate of a German housekeeper — her
own — with that of an Arab woman, and she
sighs. Eve, thrust out of Paradise, wept thus
over the lazy hours, quite free from care, in her
beautiful garden. Yonder, in Zanzibar, there
were no stockings to mend, no woollen gloves out
at the finger tips, no great "wash days." Oh,
those laundry days in Germany! they seemed the
very symbol of the hateful law of work to this
sultan's daughter, whom slaves soothed to sleep
with great waving fans, and who thought no
more of work than did the small parrots perched
beneath her window. Then, ^he did not even
know the name of flatirons. To-day, she per-
haps is busy folding sheets and piling up dusters.
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 167
Her first years were spent toddling about bare-
footed in a shift, with other Highnesses of her
age. As soon as these tots could put two ideas
together, they took part in the quarrels of their
mothers and herded according to race. The sons
and daughters of Circassians soon learned that
their mothers,^ in the slave market, had brought
a higher price than the black sarari, and in their
hearts they despised their brethren born of Abys-
sinians. These returned hatred for hatred. They
could not see, without anger, a skin white or light
coloured: such children were dubbed in scorn,
"sons of cats," because some among them had
blue eyes. There were subdivisions among High-
nesses of the same hue. It also happened that,
from one camp to another, friendships sprang up.
In this huge family, each one chose a family.
Each brother had a favourite sister, who became
his confidante and his ally, and both had their
chosen stepmothers. And it came to pass that
those whom one did not like in this wild gyne-
caeum were held in suspicion, for each thought that
those who were not friends might well become foes.
These details in no way shock Princess Salm6.
They cast no shadow on the sweet and brilliant
remembrance of the paternal household, object
of her eternal regrets. It is with perfect calm
that she describes the trepidation of joy with
which the denizens of Bet-il-Sahel discover the
symptoms of consumption in one of the inmates.
This familiar guest was welcomed, for there would
1 68 Princesses and Court Ladies
be soon a free place, a choice room for the others.
A mere cough, heard on the other side of the wall,
was at once noted by tender-hearted friends, who
trembled lest the symptom might be a false one,
"These thoughts were assuredly to be deplored,"
adds Princess Salmd, "but really there were too
many of us." Does not this peaceful and indiffer-
ent tone make one shudder?
It must be owned that family relationship is
too extended in those immense harems for its
bonds to be much felt. It is even strange that
filial love should exist there at all. This is all
the more astonishing that it is subjected to great
shocks. All the princes and princesses were taught
to respect their father and Bibi Azzd. At Bet-il-
Mtoui, the first duty of the day, after the bath and
prayers, was to salute the two great beings and
to kiss their hands. Sejjid Said graciously re-
ceived this homage, saw that the jewels of the
little ones were in good order, their hair weU
taken care of, and distributed French bonbons to
the band. Bibi Azz^, with icy coldness, held out
her small, dry hand to be kissed; it is true that
these girls were not of her blood, that the boys
had taken the place of those she might have
borne; that they were all indifferent to her, even
when they did net irritate or annoy her. After
the ceremony of the hand kissing, the family went
to breakfast, and the sarari's children could com-
pare their dignity with the humility of those who
had given them birth.
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 169
The table was spread in a gallery or some large
hall. It was not half a foot high, but long enough
to accommodate the sons, grandsons, and their
descendants, the daughters, granddaughters, and
their descendants. The sultan took his place at
the head, seated Eastern fashion on a rug, and his
superb line of descendants, on either side, were
placed according to age, the two sexes mixed to-
gether. The married princes, who lived outside,
brought their sons. Bibi Azze came when she
chose, as did also the sister of Sejjid Said. Not
one surie, were she mother of the heir to the
throne, could ever eat at the royal table. In the
immutable hierarchy of the palace they were, so
to speak, the illegitimate and stigmatised mothers
of the master's legitimate and glorious children.
They were equally absent from the evening fes-
tivities. After the dinner, which was the repeti-
tion of the breakfast, Sejjid Said left his apartments
and sat on a European chair. His prodigious pos-
terity stood to the right and to the left of him,
the young children standing out of respect for
their elders, the others seated. A little in the
background, the eunuchs, in fine garb, stood
against the wall. When all were settled, the
evening pleasures began. Coffee and syrups were
offered, and a monstrous barrel organ was brought,
so immense that, in Europe, Princess Salme never
saw its like. A slave turned the handle, and the
sultan listened solemnly. Sometimes a musical
box took the place of the organ, or a blind woman
lyo Princesses and Court Ladies
sang Arab songs. This lasted an hour and a half,
then Sejjid Said rose and retired to his apartments.
This was the signal for all to leave. The follow-
ing evening was like this one, and so on from
year's end to year's end; there was never the
slightest change either in the order of the diver-
sions or in the etiquette which decided those who
were allowed to enjoy them.
Thus, everything contributed to make the chil-
dren of the sarari understand that their mothers
were inferior beings who, thanks to them, had a
shadow of importance which must necessarily be
lost in losing their offspring. They knew that
the surie, whose child had died, could once more
be sold, and "narrow-hearted" Arab husbands
often made use of that right. They also knew
that in widowhood their mothers would depend
upon them, no law providing for them, at least
in Zanzibar. The surie, whom her sons and
daughters abandoned, was forced to beg, if no
kindly person came to her rescue. A niece of
Princess Salme, called Farschu, was the daughter
of a violent and passionate Abyssinian. Farschu
lost her father and inherited his riches, quarrelled
with her mother and abandoned her. The old
surie tried to earn her bread by working, failed,
and would have died of hunger had not one of her
ex-sisters-in-law been moved to compassion and
taken her in.
Such cases were very rare, and this certainly
is to the credit of the Arabs. Even when they
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 171
saw their mothers treated with contumely, their
fiUal respect did not waver. They witnessed the
sensual and indolent lives of their mothers, they
were mixed up in their evil intrigues, and still
remained affectionate. The princes of royal blood
when, at their majority, they left the roof of
Sejjid Sa'id, nearly always took their mothers with
them to their new homes. They kept them to
the end, and, thanks to loving care, gave to their
old age that dignity which had been so cruelly
wanting in their youth. Maternity was the com-
pensation of marriage for the surie. "Her inter-
course with her children," says Princess Salme,
"very amply makes up to her for the disadvan-
tages of polygamy." These words are greatly to
the honour of the nation that has deserved them.
They prove a noble nature. However, Europeans
have some difficulty in understanding that the
feelings of respect and love inspired by a mother
should not extend, in some degree, to the whole
sex. They are ill at ease when they see these
tender sons yet confine their own sarari to the
secular fate of mere females.
Sejjid Said cared for his offspring as well as a
pater familias so very much encumbered could be
expected to do. With great curiosity, I have
sought for passages of the Memoirs which
might enlighten me as to the sentiments of a
father who counted his children by the hundreds,
and I have seen that the heart of the just is a
very ocean of tenderness. The old sultan rejoiced
ly^ Princesses and Court Ladies
in the fabulous number of births in his harems.
Smallpox, consumption, cholera, and typhus fever
had done their work, however, so that at his death,
he left only eighteen sons and as many daughters,
a much diminished family. Toward the end,
nature had not quite filled up the fast thinning
ranks. So many joys and so many sorrow^s would
have blunted shallow feelings. His sentiments
remained constant, and his daughter remembers,
with emotion, having seen him weep and pray at
a son's deathbed, he who was so very old and still
had "more than forty children."
It really seems as though he knew them all.
We have already seen that he cared for their
appearance. He saw that they went to school,
and, in person, recommended the school mistress
not to spare the rod. He took the boys out with
him, and caused blows to be administered to the
riding masters whose pupils were in fault. This
was wise and right, since the masters were free to
punish their pupils. "My father was convinced
that, in spite of his orders, they were too indul-
gent toward the princes." When the little fel-
lows were very naughty indeed, they were taken
to their father who scolded them. A "very arro-
gant" brother had shot at little Salme with an
arrow and wounded her in the side. "My father
said, * Salme, go and tell Hamdam to come to me.'
I had scarcely entered with my brother, when he
had to listen to such terrible words that surely
he never forgot them." Sejjid Said made pres-
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 173
ents to his children, gave dowries when the time
came, and condemned himself to listen, in their
company, for one hour and a half, to the big
barrel organ and the musical boxes. How
many Christian fathers do no more, without
having the same excuses! How many merely
act as the exterior guard of the souls intrusted
to their care, without ever inquiring into the
thoughts of the child, his desires, or his secret
sorrows.
In education at Bet-il-Mtoui, learning had but
a small part, and yet the importance of it was
great. Instead of science, method was taught;
and this formed a habit of mind which nothing
could change. In this aristocratic land, one is
struck with the fact that the studies were the
same for the heir-apparent to the throne, and for
a slave whom his master wished to educate.
There was but one school for all, and in that
school but one class, strangely mixed and still
more strangely kept. It was held in one of the
open galleries of the palace, where the insolent
birds fluttered at their own sweet will. By way
of furniture, there was only some matting. A
crowd of squatting scholars, boys and girls, were
cowed beneath the stick of a dismal, toothless old
dame, who distributed learning and blows with
strict impartiality, and without any distinction
of age, sex, or rank. The same lesson served for
a Highness and his black groom, and the same
punishments were furiously administered by the
174 Princesses and Court Ladies
hag, who thus obeyed the sultan's orders. A
single book was admitted into the class, — the
Koran. It is not enough to say that it reigned
in the school: it was the school.
The beginners learned to read in the Koran.
As soon as they could spell the words, they were
taught to read the verses together, very loud, and
to learn them by heart. In that way they went
to the end of the book, then began again, once,
twice, three times, without a word of explanation,
understanding what they could of the sacred text,
and fearing to let their minds dwell on it, for they
knew that it was ' ' impious and forbidden to medi-
tate on the holy book; man must believe with
simplicity that which is taught him; all strictly
observed this precept" at Zanzibar. The first
duty of a master was to prevent his pupils from
thinking about their lesson, from having an idea
or putting a question, so that the habit of mechani-
cal recitation becomes a second nature. Those
blessed with a good memory knew about half the
Koran by heart at the end of the first year.
Others spent two or three years reciting, through
the nose, the sourates, before they memorized a
decent quantity. Now and then, but very
rarely, a stripling, very bold or very holy, dared
to understand and comment on the holy text:
"Perhaps one out of a thousand," says Princess
Salme.
The children acquired some slight notions of
grammar and spelling, and they were taught to
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 175
count up to a thousand, never more. "What is be-
yond," said Mahometan wisdom, "comes from
Satan." The education of the girls never went
further ; it was not desirable that a woman should
know how to write. The boys learned writing by
copying verses of the Koran, after which their
studies were ended . The very words ' ' geography , ' '
"history," were unknown at Bet-il-Mtoui. As to
the natural sciences, Princess Salm^ remarks that
the teaching of them would wound a pious Arab
to the depths of his soul, as he m.ust never inquire
into the secrets of nature. This, at any rate, has
not always been the case, as, even nowadays there
are pious Arabs who learn astronomy and physi-
cal sciences without imagining that, by so doing,
they offend Allah; but Princess Salme can only
speak of her own people, and those whom she
knew. The inhabitants of Zanzibar believe that
it is blasphemy to consider any rules outside of
God's will, even if those rules emanate from that
will and are subject to it. They have not, like
the Turks, been spoiled by European contact ("and
you see," adds the princess, "if this has been to the
advantage of the Turks"), and they reject with
horror the very thought of natural laws. "To
speak of such things to one of my countrymen
would shake his whole being, and cause him very
great disturbance." The orthodox classes of Bet-
il-Mtoui and Bet-il-Sahel, where the children of
royal blood were brought up, made perfect Ma-
hometans according to that ideal. Their educa-
176 Princesses and Court Ladies
tion sealed up all the openings by which the mind
might have escaped to question those mysteries
to which no answer has ever been found, but the
seeking after which constitutes the true dignity
of man. The child left the school, his head stuffed
with precepts which it was considered impious to
analyse, and outside of which it would have been
an abomination to look for an explanation of the
world and of life. It was the pupil's duty to apply
these precepts without reasoning any more than
he did when he sang in a falsetto voice with his
companions. As to doubting their divine origin,
he would rather have disbelieved in the sun's
light. Since his birth he had heard his father,
his mother, his masters, and his slaves affirm that
there was no God but Allah, and that Mahomet
was his prophet. These two ideas, if I may so
express myself, formed part and parcel of his
being, of his very flesh. He no more thought of
throwing them off, than of getting rid of his body.
Complicated devotions completed this work of
routine; in the palaces of Sejjid Said the five daily
prayers of the truly faithful took up more than
three hours.
Nothing equals the narrowness of the system,
unless it be its power. For more than ten cen-
turies it has fashioned human brains, which have
become like impregnable fortresses, whole nations
which would give up life rather than one iota of
their belief. It has succeeded in confining human
thovight in limits so strict and so sacred that
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 177
Princess Salme affirms that, with us, there is
nothing but impious infidehty, falsehood, and
utter discontent. She is convinced that our ex-
cess of education is the great misfortune of civ-
ihsed nations, a greater calamity even than our
terrible climate, than the health-destroying oc-
cupations of Northerners, than the dispiriting dry-
ness of European hearts. Why do we not realise
it? "You prize education and science above all
things. Then you wonder that piety, respect,
veneration, righteousness, and content are sacri-
ficed to pitiless warfare, frightful atheism, con-
tempt of all institutions, human and divine! . . .
How much better it would be to teach rather the
word of God and his holy commandments, and to
waste less time in arguing on force and matter."
In her own case she was never more deceived,
more robbed, more entirely at the mercy of vil-
lains and charlatans, than since she had taken to
studying and had become an "enlightened per-
son," living in an "enlightened" society. At
Zanzibar, she knew the golden age; Berlin could
offer her nothing but the iron age. "O happy
people of my country!" she exclaims, "you could
never guess the real meaning of holy civilisation ! ' '
We are bold indeed when we talk pityingly of
savages and of barbarous nations! We are really
full of self-sufficiency when we start out to
"enlighten by force" people who are our equals
and who despise us from the bottom of their
hearts.
178 Princesses and Court Ladies
A Mahometan is bound to despise us. The ideal
held before him by his reUgion is not very high,
and he attains to it easily. He cannot measure
the height of ours, since he is incapable of rising
above his own ideas. What he sees is our vain
effort to reach our ideals and our repeated and
shameful failures. He is bound to condemn us.
This is the case with Sejjid's daughter. In her
training as a civilised being, she noticed only the
stones and the mud of the road, never the goal
toward which it led. She could not understand
that our stumblings were but the accidents in-
herent to a struggle upward, that the rallying cry
of our suffering masses, guilty though they may
often be, is yet, through all sorrow and short-
comings, Sursum cor da! She understood only that
we do evil without wishing to do it, that we do
not accomplish the good after which we yearn,
and she affirms, without the reserve of her pages
on marriage, the moral bankruptcy of Christian
civilisation. A remnant of prudence keeps her
from attributing it to our religion ; she accuses our
education, but, in reality, to her they mean one
and the same thing. It comes to this; that our
churches, unlike her own, have not been able to
combine the direction of the mind with the gov-
ernment of the soul. She attacks our vain science
as the mother of nearly all the woes of our corrupt
and soured society ; with our miseries and our dis-
cords, she compares the smiling picture of an
Arab woman's life at Zanzibar. And this is the
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 179
very creature whom we regard as one of the most
degraded and ill-treated of human beings.
Ill
We have seen the background of the Arab
woman's happy life. It is brilliant and gay, if a
little discordant. The high-ceilinged rooms of
Bet-il-Mtoui and Bet-il-Sahel were uniformly
whitewashed and curtainless. They had none of
the exquisite soft tones and hushed intimacy of
Haoua's room, Haoua, the beautiful Moorish
woman, whose arms were firm and cold as marble,
whom Eugene Fromentin knew and whose tragic
death he described in Une annee dans le Sahel.
A sun more intense shone on cruder colours, on
a richer and more barbarous scene. The walls
were divided into panels by niches which ran
up to, the ceiling. Shelves of painted wood were
placed in the niches and were laden with plates
and gaily decorated porcelain, vases, glasses, and
decanters of cut and engraved crystal, a favour-
ite luxury with the inhabitants of Zanzibar,
bought at any price. Between these dressers
were placed low divans, above which were hung
mirrors of European make, surmounted and sur-
rounded by clocks of every conceivable form and
style; this is another favourite luxury; some rich
Arab houses remind one of a clockmaker's shop.
The hostess's place is marked by a medde, a
i8o Princesses and Court Ladies
sort of mattress covered with cushions; the head
of this lounge is against the wall. In the comer
is a large Indian bed, curiously inlaid, so high that
one reaches it after the fashion of an Amazon
springing to the saddle, one foot placed on the
hand of a slave. Here and there small coffers of
rosewood, studded with hundreds of little brass
nails, contain the wardrobe, the jewels, and per-
fumes. Doors and windows are left open for the
sake of air; violent odours, made up of all known
perfumes, a great clatter of footsteps, voices,
laughter, and quarrelling, arise from the courts
and stairways. Showy and tumultuous, strange
and picturesque, joyous and disquieting — such
are those homes which certainly we should not
envy, but which doubtless are not easily for-
gotten.
The women's garments are of barbaric splen-
dour. They wear a robe both scanty and flow-
ing, that does not drape the figure, and leaves the
lines uncertain. It takes from a woman all that
could reveal her sex; a stronger objection could
scarcely be made.
There are narrow trousers, made of bright
coloured silk, which, by dint of flounces and em-
broidery, reach the ankles; then a high-necked
chemise, with narrow half -long sleeves, falls above
the trousers and is of a violently different hue —
emerald green on red, blue pn yellow, pink on
orange, gold on purple, silver on violet. This
chemise is made of brilliant and costly materials,
Memoirs of an Arab Princess i8i
brocades of gold and silver, heavy satins figured
with flowers and arabesques of many tints, heavy
Lyons velvets, soft China silks. During the ex-
cessive summer heat, painted linens, many-
coloured cottons, India muslins, are preferred to
silks. But of whatever fabric the garment is
made, it is covered with embroideries, with orna-
ments of every description, trimmed with lace,
tassels, bits of gold or silver, tufts of flossy silk,
metal buttons, jewels, glass ornaments, in a word
with numberless sparkling things that tremble,
tinkle, dance, and shimmer at every movement.
Several strings of necklaces fall on the bosom.
The arms are heavy with bracelets that reach up
to the elbow. Immense rings are on every finger.
The head is covered with startling kerchiefs,
much ornamented with knots of ribbon that hide
the forehead to the eyebrows; heavy fringes, sur-
rounding the face, complete the headgear; long
ribbons on which are sewn sequins and pieces of
gold studded with jewels, hang down the back.
Princess Salme has placed her photograph as
frontispiece to her Memoirs. For this occasion
she chose a comparatively simple toilette, in spite
of which, her little brown face seems crushed with
finery. One sees, however, two piercing black
eyes, a large mouth with a melancholy pout, and
two pretty little bare feet, plump and well shaped.
All the rest is half hidden under a mass of orna-
ments.
It was no easy matter to obtain all these sump-
1 82 Princesses and Court Ladies
tuous costumes. In those days there were but
few shops at Zanzibar, and no native industries.
The slaves made and ornamented the garments.
Their mistress did not, on occasion, disdain to
embroider or to make lace. Hindoo workmen,
established in the island, fashioned some of the
jewels. The remaining trinkets and the dress
materials were brought often from afar. To Sejjid
Said himself fell the care of providing his harems
with their innumerable wants; his own families
first of all, with the children and slaves; those
of his sons, grandsons, of his great-grandsons; of
his sons-in-law, their sons and grandsons, with
their children and slaves. He also sent presents
to his numerous married descendants and to
shoals of poor relations in Arabia. Think of hav-
ing to please a hundred or so women, and what
women! women with but one occupation in the
world, — their clothes. The pomatum question
took the proportions of a state affair, for the dis-
content of a harem is not to be despised. Plots are
hatched behind barred windows, elsewhere than
in tragedies, as we shall see in the course of this
narrative.
The old sultan would have been kept busy
enough in distributing the necessaries of life to
all his women, but the sarari and their daughters
required more of him. He was expected to pro-
cure for them the newest stuffs, the fashionable
colour, and many curious objects which perhaps
never existed except in the Abyssinian imagina-
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 183
tion. This extraordinary man accomplished this
miracle. Every year a fleet left Zanzibar loaded
with African products. As soon as the vessels
had sailed out to sea each took a different direc-
tion. Some went to Marseilles or England, others
to the Persian Gulf, the ports of India and of
China. Each captain carried with him a list of
commissions, very minutely described, which he
was to execute, taking the money of his products
to pay for what he bought. Woe to him if he
did not find what was not findable!
The return of the fleet was the great event of
the year. It was a time of greed, of merciless
rivalries, of bitter jealousies. As soon as the
vessels were emptied, the distribution began, made
by the eunuchs under the direction of the sultan's
elder daughters. The princess of the fairy tale,
condemned to unravel a room full of tangled skeins
of thread, had not before her a more terrible task.
It will be easy to judge of this by giving a single
item. Every Arab woman of quality uses five
hundred dollars' worth of perfumery in a year.
It would be wearisome to calculate what this sum,
multiplied by the hihi, the sarari, and the kihibi
of the imperial family, represented in the way of
little pots, bottles, scent bags, essences, powders,
oils and pomatums, perfumed with amber, musk,
benjoin, basilic, jessamine, geranium, rose, ver-
bena, mignonette, vanilla, lavender. And this
provision had to be distributed without favouring
or cheating any one. Then came the stuffs, to
184 Princesses and Court Ladies
be given by the piece; laces, and all that a woman
can manage to sew on her garments to embellish
them; jewels and all sorts of ornaments that give
to an Arab woman the aspect of a Neapolitan
Madonna on feast days; the children's playthings,
the gewgaws, the trifles so dear in Eastern eyes,
useful objects which more mature persons had
requested, pocket money for presents, charities,
and the telling of fortunes, for the sorceress, the
seer, and the magician who puts illness to flight
or exorcises the possessed.
At last all is ready. That portion of the goods
destined for later occasions has been carried to
the chambers of the treasury. The first day of
the distribution — it lasted three or four days —
is announced. Impatience, joy, anguish are at
their height in the harems, and the dawn shines
on many a stormy face. At Bet-il-Sahel at sun-
rise all is bustle and confusion. The doors are
besieged by the women who are quartered outside
the palace. Arab etiquette forbids them to show
themselves in full day, and it was still dark when
they started. The rising sun showers rose and
gold tints on the brilliant groups as they pass
through the big door, not to recross the threshold
until nightfall. They are received by the crossest
of all the sultan's slaves. Said the Nubian. Sejjid
Said greatly favoured this gray-bearded servant,
who was to him devoted and submissive. The
children hated him and their mothers shrank from
him, for he received them but ill. These early
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 185
visits exasperated him. He could be heard grum-
bling in his beard, as he took up his big keys, ' ' that
for the last hour he had been on his poor old legs,
opening the door for the ladies!" The children
hid his keys, out of spite; he would have to look
for them in the hundred rooms where he might
have left them, and this did not improve his
temper.
At last the door is opened, and the crowd
gathered in the great court of the palace. In
comparison, that of Bet-il-Mtoui was a temple of
peace. Princess Salme once saw in Germany a
comic opera which reminded her "faintly" of
Bet-il-Sahel on the day of distribution. This
comparison is a glorious one for the German comic
stage, for it is not easy to reproduce even "faintly"
so tremendous a confusion of sounds. A corner
of the court served as slaughter house. Butchers
killed according to the Mahometan rites, accom-
panying each thrust with the formula: "In the
name of God, the all-merciful." On the eve of
feast days, the blood of the slaughtered animals
covered the ground to the inexpressible horror of
the Hindoos whose business called them to the
place. A little further was the children's comer,
where their nurses, negresses for the most part,
told them such frightful stories that they all had
the nightmare. Further still was the kitchen, in
the open air at the foot of a pillar; this was the
place of all others for the distributing of boxes
on the ear; here there were many quarrels and
1 86 Princesses and Court Ladies
fights. From this kitchen came repasts in com-
parison of which the wedding feast of Gamache
was but a doll dinner. Oxen, cows, sheep, goats,
gazelles, were roasted whole. "Fish were often
brought so large that two powerful negroes were
required to carry them. The smaller fish came
by baskets full, and fowls by the dozens. Flour,
rice, sugar, were brought by the wholesale, and the
butter, which came melted from the North, was
in large earthen jars." Long processions of car-
riers hurled down baskets of fruit, half of which
was in consequence spoiled. One came across
barbers, plying their trade in the open air, water-
carriers, and busy eunuchs. The newcomers el-
bowed their way into the court and up the stair-
cases as best they could, but it often took them
half an hour to reach the first landing, so great
was the crush.
At last the solemn hour when the year's gifts
are to be divided has arrived. Quantities of
eunuchs carry the parcels, and the last moments
of expectation seem never-ending. But the time
comes, as do all moments in this world, whether
they are desired or feared. It has come. It has
gone. Cries and laughter are heard; the parcels
are opened and the fabrics shaken out; calls are
heard, each woman rushes to the others, for now
come the bartering and exchanging, each one
seeking to get as many fringes, laces, and orna-
ments as possible for her costumes, and sacrificing
whole pieces of goods for that purpose. The floor
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 187
is littered with silks and satins, or with gewgaws;
the squatting women, with their great scissors,
work with such a will that they often cut into
their own clothes. Anger and despair are rife and
find vent in no measured terms. The harem does
not recover its usual aspect for two whole weeks.
The sultan disposes of the remaining treasures
at the end of the great fasting time. All know
that the Ramadan lasts thirty days, during which
it is forbidden to swallow anything until the sun
has sunk behind the horizon. "It is permitted,"
says the Koran, ' ' to eat and drink until the moment
when one can distinguish a white thread from a
black one. From that moment strict fasting must
be observed until night." In the city of Zanzibar
the cannon announced the second when a white
thread could be distinguished from a black one:
"He who is putting a morsel to his mouth," add
the Memoirs, "lets it drop instantly. He who
has raised a glass to quench his thirst, puts it
down without having tasted a drop of water."
Until the evening, a faithful Mahometan "must
not on purpose swallow his saliva." Under that
flaming sky the privation of water during fourteen
or fifteen hours is no small penance.
With the Mussulmans as with the Christians,
fasting is not the same for all. The rich make
arrangements with Heaven, and for the mighty
of Zanzibar the Ramadan was a carnival. The
slaves and other poor devils who worked hard
really fasted. It would have been a public scandal
1 88 Princesses and Court Ladies
to see an unfortunate negro, sweltering and work-
ing under the whip, swallow a few drops of water.
The rich and high born remembered that the
prophet had said with regard to fasting: "God
requires your welfare, not your fasting." They
slept during the day, and feasted all night. The
harems of Sejjid Said were by no means austere;
the nights of Ramadan were a perpetual carouse.
Fasting was broken by a collation of fruits,
immediately followed by a copious dinner, which
was but the prelude to -feasting which lasted till
daybreak. Women sang their slow-dragging
songs, improvisers declaimed before an over -ex-
cited audience that never ceased eating and
drinking. At midnight, once more the cannon
woke the army of cooks and scullery boys, fires
were once more kindled in the court, and the
odour of cooking filled the galleries, bright with
many-hued lanterns. Between three and four
o'clock was served the supper, or suhur. The
nurses woke the little ones asleep here and there
on the matting or the divans, and feasting began
again until the cannon stopped the morsel on its
way to the mouth. The harem, gorged and
happy, slept during the heat of the day, the gar-
ments, according to the Eastern custom, not even
thrown off.
In spite of this easy sort of penance, the end
of the Ramadan is eagerly watched for by the
rich as well as by the poor, for it brings with it
the giving of presents, a distribution of alms, and
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 189
tiniversal rejoicings. The Ramadan ends when
the new moon is just discernible, a transient
vision, as the deUcate crescent disappears with
the sun. As soon as twiUght falls, all eyes in
Zanzibar watch for the young moon on the
dimmed horizon. Slaves are sent up to the top
of cocoanut trees. The lucky possessors of marine
glasses are besieged by would-be borrowers.
When the Ramadan, which each year is advanced
eleven days, falls in the rainy season and the sky
is covered with clouds, the f asters probably take
the moon on faith. However that may be, a
last boom of the cannon salutes the liberating
satellite, and an immense cry of joy arises from
the city toward the sky, filling the air with happy
shouts. Horsemen gallop about the country,
announcing the good news. Passers-by stop to
congratulate each other, friends exchange wishes
of happiness, foes are reconciled.
The night that followed the end of the fast was
always an agitated -one in the harems. Every
woman had prepared three new outfits for the
three days of festivities, and could not wait for
daylight to try the effect of this finery. At four
o'clock in the morning they were ready. The
soles of their feet and the palms of their hands
were freshly tinted with henna, of a bright orange
hue. They were so perfumed that it was enough
to make one faint. "An Occidental woman,"
says Princess Salm6, "would have as much diffi-
culty in realising the amount of perfiunes used
ipo Princesses and Court Ladies
during those three days, as an Eastern one of
understanding the amount of beer consumed in
Berhn during the feast of Pentecost." Sarari
and kihihi left their rooms, running one to the
other, to enjoy the surprise and admiration, or
the spite, of friend and foe. One can imagine the
looks exchanged. Before seven o'clock the whole
palace was like "a huge ball room," where it was
difficult to force one's way.
Sejjid Said went to perform his devotions at the
mosque. On his return he allowed his hand to
be kissed, and then directed his steps toward the
treasure chambers, followed by his favourite
daughter, the beautiful Chole, and the giant
Djohar, chief of the eunuchs.
Chole, surnamed morning star, was the marvel
of Zanzibar, the pearl of the imperial palaces, the
apple of her father's eye. Her beauty was un-
equalled, her temper sweet and gay. The sultan
adored her and confided to her the key of the
treasure room. So much favour, such peerless
grace, could not remain unpunished; innocent
Chole was the object of ferocious hatred. An
imprudence of her father's proved fatal to her.
Sejjid Said, wishing to give her a proof of his
tenderness, placed a diamond tiara on her head.
After his death, Chole perished by poison. But
this is anticipating.
All three entered the treasure rooms, followed
by many an envious glance. The venerable po-
tentate had taken the trouble to ask each surie
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 191
and princess what she particularly desired. Chole,
incapable of petty vengeance, refreshed his mem-
ory, and Djohar wrote down the names on each
parcel. Surely a Mahometan is blessed with more
patience than a Christian, as he also is endowed
with greater discretion and gravity. The slaves
intrusted with the care of carrying the presents,
often brought them back with audacious mes-
sages of refusal. Sejjid Said took the rejected
parcels and exchanged them for others. "And
so each one usually obtained what she desired."
Yet, on that day, the sultan had other things to
do besides contenting the inmates of his harems.
He also made presents to the masculine members
of his family; "to all the great Asiatic and African
chiefs who happened to be at Zanzibar; to the
public functionaries; to the soldiers and their
officers; to the sailors and their captains; to the
stewards of his forty-five plantations; and finally
to all his slaves, the number of which exceeded
six or eight thousand. Naturally, the presents
were in proportion to the rank of those who re-
ceived them; the slaves, for example, received
common stuffs." Is not all this wonderful? Can
one help admiring the thoughtfulness of this
patriarch, the intelligence, the order, that pro-
vided varied presents for fifteen thousand per-
sons, from the sale of elephants' teeth, spices,
copal gum, and the seeds of sesame? "This
proves that our father was an excellent business
man," adds his daughter with legitimate pride.
192 Princesses and Court Ladies
From year's end to year's end, his indulgence
made life in the harem easy and free enough.
After the family breakfast he went down to the
great hall on the ground floor, and there gave
audience. The windows of the palace immedi-
ately showed innumerable women who looked at
the men who entered, and watched for "signs
visible only to themselves." Masks and shutters
are useless when a woman wants to be seen. The
following story proves it.
The crowd of men before the palace noticed a
young chief of Oman, who stood in an attitude
of ecstasy such as painters attribute to martyrs.
His hand held a spear, the iron of which pierced
his foot, and his upturned face was full of beati-
tude. The divinity he thus adored was of the
earth; it was Chole, looking out of a window; her
resplendent beauty had bereft him of his senses.
The bystanders had to warn him that he was
wounded. It was enough that he had seen and
been seen.
Two or three hours were thus spent in making
remarks about the outsiders, and that was very
interesting. Princess Salme became acquainted
with many German doctors. Their conversation
was a bleak desert compared to the "extraordi-
narily amusing and savoury conversations ' ' at the
Bet-il-Sahel windows. Western people imagine
that an Eastern beauty loses her time in idleness.
Their error comes from not discerning between the
noble leisure of an aristocrat and the guilty lazi-
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 193
ness of the common herd. There are on earth
more interesting and refined occupations than the
sordid cares of a German housekeeper. Princess
Salme grows irritated at constantly hearing Berlin
and Hamburg dames ask "how in her country
people can exist doing nothing?" This question
proves that Northern Germany, in spite of its
pretensions and hobbies, has lost all real notion of
aristocratic life. An Arab lady has slaves who
work for her, and who must be beaten when they
grow lazy. As to herself, she looks out of the
window exchanging sharp reflections with her
friends, and she no more calls that "doing
nothing" than did Queen Eleanor of Guyenne, or
beautiful Laura of Noves, when they presided over
their courts of love. The tedious activity of a
citizen of Bremen is an estimable thing in its way,
but such work does not suit all blood or all souls.
God created the European eager for gain, and the
negro despicable, so that the Arab might sleep
in the shade when he is not fighting.
Prudent mothers feared the harem windows,
and advised their daughters not to go near them.
They knew that few husbands regarded even the
appearance of freedom, with the serene indul-
gence which old age had given to the wise Sejjid
Said. They themselves avoided the windows,
and spent the day visiting each other or em-
broidering. The more learned read novels. It
would be interesting to know what were these
novels, belonging to what period and to what
194 Princesses and Court Ladies
country, and how much of them the Zanzibar
Highnesses understood. Of all this the Memoirs
tell us nothing.
Toward one o'clock each one retired to a shady
nook for rest. The harem ladies stretched them-
selves in great comfort, and spent the time de-
lightfully, nibbling at fruit and cakes, chatting
and sleeping. Then came elaborate dressing, and
the kihihi went to dine with the sultan. They
listened to the barrel organ ; but the real pleasures
began with the night. Many visitors came ; there
was more chattering, card parties were organized,
sweets offered, negro music listened to. These
entertainments were a good deal like ours, except
that no one spoke of the weather. Princess Salme
declares that this subject of conversation was new
to her when she came to Europe, and she makes
great fun of us for the importance we attach to
it. Those who did not receive visits made them.
The safari and the Highnesses went out calling,
accompanied by a resplendent escort.
First came a slave bearing lanterns. One rec-
ognised the qualities of the ladies by the number
and dimensions of the lanterns. The largest
measured two yards in circumference, and showed
five cupolas "after the style of a Russian church."
A noble lady had six of these carried on long
poles by six men, chosen for their great strength.
After these, two by two, walked twenty slaves
richly clothed, and bearing weapons inlaid with
gold and silver. They pushed aside the pedes-
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 195
trians, whom etiquette forced to take refuge in
the shops, in side streets, or in the houses. The
Zanzibar rabble, rude as such crowds are every-
where, often rebelled and were not easily dis-
persed, except by the much dreaded slaves of the
imperial palace. After them walked their mis-
tress, swathed up to the eyes in a sort of long
black silk cloak, bordered with gold or with some
coloured trimming ; this drapery was called a Scheie;
the feet were incased in red leather boots much
embroidered and high-heeled. An Arab woman
of inferior rank accompanied her, and the proces-
sion was closed by many female slaves in their
most showy accoutrements. The brilliant troop
walked with dignity along the narrow and crooked
streets until it met a friend's escort; the meeting
is always a noisy one; the chatter and exclama-
tions are heai;d above the clashing of arms ; many
curious faces show themselves from the doors and
windows of the neighbouring houses and from the
top of the terraces. The walk to the friend's
abode is then resumed with much noise and con-
fusion, the whole population becoming interested
in it. ''We could have been tracked," say the
Memoirs, "long after our passage by the strong
and heavy perfumes which filled the streets." At
midnight each one regained her home with the con-
viction that the day had been well and usefully
employed. "It is thus made clear," says Princess
Salm^, "that it is a calumny to accuse Eastern
women of doing nothing." Very clear, certainly!
196 Princesses and Court Ladies
From time to time the peace-loving Sejjid Said
was teased by a portion of his harem for a hohday
on one of his plantations. At last the good man
yielded. Women and girls started at daybreak,
mounted on big white donkeys and surrounded by
crowds of runners, of parasol holders, of eunuchs
on horseback, of soldiers, living panoplies, each
carrying a lance, a gun, a shield, a sabre, and a
dagger. As soon as the town was left behind,
the runners whipped up the donkeys, and the
whole band started off at a mad pace, unmindful
of the shrill calls of the eunuchs. It was a tor-
nado, a cyclone, a general scattering, so that the
plantation was reached in little groups, a thing
quite against the laws of etiquette. No one
knows the meaning of earthly happiness who has
not tasted the enchanting life of a harem in the
country. The women gave themselves indiges-
tions from morning to night. There were num-
berless visits. Under the trees there was perfect
liberty. Games, laughter, fireworks, and concerts
made the time fly. A part of the night was passed
out of doors in the sweet, scent-laden air. Groups
of women, whose eyes and whose jewels gleamed
in the darkness, were formed under the giant
trees or in some clearing, where slaves and Hin-
doos in white garments danced by moonlight.
These divine nights are characterised by a very
European and literary word, which, written by a
kibibi, produces a singular effect: "Such evenings,"
she says, "are most romantic."
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 197
As she tells of these marvels, her poor little
heart bleeds. Exiled by her own imprudence in
a hard, false, rapacious, and hypocritical world,
she can find strength to endure the present, only
by remembering the past. Against the sorrows
that weigh upon her, against the thorns with
which civilisation has "abundantly strewn the
path of her life," the poor creature has but one
means of defending herself: "the sacred memory
of her country and of her family." She exclaims
with eloquence: "Each day I bask in that sun-
shine." Now it is time to relate how her great
misfortune fell upon her.
IV
Sejjid Said, at long intervals, journeyed to
Mascat, so as to put some order in his kingdom
of Oman. Salme, nearly grown up, saw him
leave for one of these expeditions. He took with
him some of his daughters and two favourite
sarari. The government of his harems, as well as
that of Zanzibar, devolved, according to custom,
upon one of his sons, called Chalid, an excellent
Mahometan, whose first care was to reestablish
discipline in the feminine herd intrusted to his
care. Farewell to indulgence and to weakness!
Chalid knew the law, as had been seen during a
conflagration at Bet-il-Sahel.
This happened during one of his regencies.
198 Princesses and Court Ladies
The fire began in the daytime, at an hour when
an Arab lady should not be seen outside of her
home. The immense population of Bet-il-Sahel,
wild with terror, flying from the flames, struggling
madly, choked up the doors. The crowd found
all the issues closed and guarded by soldiers.
Chalid had but one idea when the fire broke out:
he respected law too thoroughl}^ to permit his
sisters and stepmothers to be seen outside in
broad daylight. The fire was extinguished, luckily
for them. If it had not, it would have gone hard
with the poor creatures. Perish the harem rather
than a principle! Chalid was ill-rewarded for his
fidelity to the precepts of the Koran. His two
daughters became the leaders of the movement
for female emancipation in Zanzibar.
The week preceding the departure of the old
sultan was a strenuous one for his womenfolk.
These ladies took advantage of the opportunity
to send news to their families of Oman, and in a
harem nothing equals the difficulty of letter-writ-
ing, even for those who know how to write. Those
who need an amanuensis and who are not allowed
to see him, employ a negro as interpreter. It was
necessary to teach the words to the negro, who
repeated them to the scribe. This scribe was
already struggling with about a dozen other
letters. The negro fuddled ; the scribe likewise
fuddled, and the result was not at all what was
first intended. The negro's mistress, in despair,
would send him for another writer, then again
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 199
for a third and a fourth ; but the result was always
the same. When the fleet was ready to sail, the
only thing left to do was to choose among the
different versions that which was least foreign to
the author's purpose.
A heavy weariness followed these efforts. Three
years passed without bringing back the fleet. It
returned at last, carrying a corpse. Sejjid Said
had died during the homeward voyage. His sons
and daughters divided the plantations and the
treasures among themselves. The sarari without
children received enough to live upon, according
to the testament, and each went his or her way,
leaving the place free for the harem of the new
sultan, Mad j id.
What now happened does not argue in favour
of polygamy, despite all Princess Salme can say
for it. As soon as the head of the family had
disappeared, his children turned against each other
with the same fury that had characterised their
mothers, the sarari. Brothers became odious to
their brothers, sisters to their sisters. A mania
of suspicion and spying took possession of them,
even of gentle Salm6. This impious hatred en-
gendered very ugly acts and ill usages without
end. The only one who escaped the contagion
was Madjid, the successor of Sejjid Said. All that
he gained by his moderation was a plot, of which
one of his sisters was the leading spirit. Princess
Salm^ allowed herself to become entangled in it,
and these two cloistered young girls prepared a
200 Princesses and Court Ladies
revolution which was to dethrone the sultan in
favour of one of his brothers. The conspiracy
was discovered, and the pretender besieged in his
palace, taken and banished. The sultan pardoned
the two women, but he could not give them back
the slaves armed against his soldiers, and killed
in the fight. They were thereby greatly impov-
erished; it was a loss of capital, a financial catas-
trophe. On the other hand, public opinion was
against them, and the two sisters were sent to
Coventry. There were no more visits, no more
joyous entertainments, no more invitations; the
very bric-k-brac merchants no longer crossed their
threshold. Life became intolerable. Disgusted
and repentant, Princess Salm6 went into the coun-
try. On her return, Herr Ruete made his appear-
ance.
He was young, and he came at the right
moment. His house was built against that of
the princess. From terrace to terrace, they saw
each other, became interested in each other, loved
each other. We have said that Herr Ruete
represented a Hamburg firm. It was scarcely
to be expected that the sultan would look upon
this brother-in-law with a favourable eye. The
lovers resorted to the classical elopement. A first
attempt failed. England most opportunely fa-
voured a second. British politics are full of mys-
teries. It suited Great Britain that a German
merchant should scandalise the nation by marry-
ing a Mahometan princess, daughter of the vener-
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 201
ated Sejjid Said. English agents were mixed up
in the affair: a captain of the royal navy, trans-
formed for the occasion into a Figaro, carried off
this brown Rosina by night. She was taken on
board, and the vessel at once sailed for Aden,
where Princess Salme, duly baptised and married,
became, for the rest of her days, Frau Ruete.
She had no fault to find with her husband, —
far from it; but Herr Ruete was crushed by a
tramway after three years of matrimony. She
remained alone, terrified and dazed by a life too
complicated and too difficult for her. Habit
keeps us from feeling the weight of civilisation.
It cheats us as to the veritable effects of intricate
organizations, of ingenious inventions accumu-
lated about us during centuries. We fancy that
progress lightens our life and breaks, one by one,
the chains with which our ignorance and our sim-
plicity had weighted us at the beginning. The
truth is very different. Each new discovery adds
to our needs; each new idea augments the worry
and the fatigue of our mind; each step forward
contributes to the weight of our burden. We
have no right to complain of this; the labour is in
proportion with the good obtained. But we can
easily imagine the terror of a primitive creature
for whom our aspirations are a sealed letter, feel-
ing herself suddenly caught among the wheels and
clogs of that powerful machine — a civilised
nation. Ex-princess Salme had the impression
that she was being crushed. In her suffering she
101 Princesses and Court Ladies
asked herself whether she had concluded a good
bargain in exchanging her semi -barbarous nation
for glorious Germany. She balanced the two
kinds of life, compared the social arrangements,
the material comforts, the two moralities, then
compared herself with the ignorant kihihi of other
days. The result of this meditation we have
given little by little, and it amounted practically
to this: In Zanzibar, there is happiness because
neither the institutions nor the sentiments de-
ceive; in Europe, there are shams everywhere,
and one is surrounded by a crowd of despairing
beings, who complain that they have been tricked
by false promises of justice, virtue, and happiness.
We must take into account, — and this is to her
honour, — that she might have attempted to
deceive us. She might have painted her youthful
companions with conventional colours and have
proposed them to our admiration. We should not
have believed her, but our judgment might have
hesitated. This she did not do. Frau Ruete
veiled the unpleasant aspects of her subject like
a delicate and refined lady ; her Memoirs do not
once allude to vice, and Heaven knows that vice
exists in harems. She has been frank enough as
to the rest, to make us consider this boasted Eden
as a veritable hell, and she knows perfectly what
our opinion is; only she endeavours to persuade
us that we are wrong, and that in Zanzibar lies
perfect happiness. This little Arab woman is very
brave. For instance, she knows that, in Europe,
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 203
slavery is condemned. She insinuates that phil-
anthropy has less to do with all this virtuous
indignation than politics, which is very possible.
However that may be, she takes the defence of
slavery, with reasonings that are in no way hypo-
critical and are all the stronger for that; hers are
excellent reasons, practical and frankly egotis-
tical.
Since the Arab does not work, it is necessary
that some one should work for him, and who
could do this, if not the negro ? He is very happy
with his Mahometan master, very superior to the
Christian slave-holder. He is beaten, that is true,
but through his own fault, his grievous fault.
Why is he lazy? A negro has no right to the
aristocratic privilege of doing nothing, and the
only reasoning which he is capable of understand-
ing is the reasoning of the lash. It is necessary
to whip him — and after all, what is that to make
such a fuss about ? Europeans, living in the East,
imagine great tragedies because they hear much
howling. The truth is that ''negroes are cowards
who do not know how to endure physical pain
quietly." They make "a horrible noise" for a
few blows; foreign consuls interfere, and the true
victims are the Arabs, who are being ruined, and
who "regret with all their might the happy days
when they were free from subversive European
ideas." In reality, the Zanzibar slaves are very
happy. The foreign consuls take good care not
to speak of the look of happy content on the
204- Princesses and Court Ladies
slaves' faces when they are not punished, of the
kindness with which they are encouraged to in-
crease and multiply, of the touching care taken
of the infants, those "perquisites of the master."
The consuls and the European merchants also
only speak of the evil. Yet they themselves buy
yellow and black women by whom they have
little ones, and sell off the whole lot when they
leave the country. A Mahometan would never
be guilty of such a thing.
The sufferings of slaves driven in herds from
their land are great, and many die on the road.
Frau Ruete understands the pity with which they
inspire us ; she shares it, says so, and then suddenly
amazes the reader by a perfectly new point of
view. She asks the good ladies who belong to
anti-slavery societies and knit woollen stockings
for people who go about quite naked, to reserve
a little of their compassion — for whom do you
think? I give you a hundred guesses, a thou-
sand . . . for the drivers of those herds! These
are honest traders who, perhaps, have put all
their fortune in this venture, who share the fatigues
of the slaves, are thirsty and weary with them,
who are ruined when the negroes die on the way
— and of whom no one thinks, except to curse
them. A Christian really has no sense of justice,
and he has, furthermore, lost all sense of shame
about work; it is therefore useless to expect of
him an equitable judgment on the slave question.
Let slavery, at least, be suppressed little by little,
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 205
leaving the Arab leisure to seek for some new
expedient. As to the grotesque fancy that the
kings of creation could ever themselves be sub-
jected to the law of work, let that be abandoned.
For her part, Princess Salme would never advise
her equals to bow their heads to so degrading a
law. She has too grievously suffered from it her-
self: German business men have ruined her, and
she has been condemned to a mean and mortify-
ing sort of life.
At one time she thought of returning to her
own country, but that she did not dare to do.
In the spring of 1875, she had a gleam of hope.
She saw by the papers that her brother Sejjid
Bargasch, Sultan of Zanzibar, was preparing to
visit England. It was for him that she had con-
spired, sending her best slaves to their death and
incurring disgrace for herself ; were she to implore
his help, he could not turn from her. Then, the
English government that, so kindly, had lent a
war-ship to further her little romance, could not
now turn against her. She hastened to London,
and saw that she had not been forgotten. But
British diplomacy now found it expedient to
efface the remembrance of an incident, painful
to the self-love of a friendly power. There was
not the slightest necessity to treat Frau Ruete
with consideration. She was given somewhat
brutally to understand that the English govern-
ment by no means wished "to annoy a royal
guest with unpleasant private affairs." He, how-
2o6 Princesses and Court Ladies
ever, promised many fine things for her children,
if she would only quietly return to Germany with-
out attempting to see her brother. She believed
in his good -will, went back, received nothing, and
lost ''all faith and confidence in men." Deprived
henceforth of hope, reduced to "a situation that
the most cruel person would not wish to inflict
on his enemy," the poor kibibi, born to look
vaguely out of the window and to eat sweetmeats,
took up her chain with dumb despair. ''I was,"
says she, "more like an automaton than a living
being." It was at this time that, for her chil-
dren, she wrote her Memoirs. These poor little
creatures were probably destined likewise to suffer,
and it was well that they should not imagine that
the whole world was ugly and dull, for fear they
might become like those impious beings, known
in civilised lands as pessimists, who rebel against
God and blaspheme his work. Their mother's
duty was to speak to them of the warm and gen-
erous country of her happy youth, of its good and
just inhabitants, and of the happiness which they
enjoyed.
When her task was completed she once more
took up her pen to relate a last event which had
filled her with joy, but the result of which was
most lamentable. In 1885 she heard that the
German government, acquainted with her ardent
desire to revisit her native land, had ordered a
ship to take her on board, and give a last joy to
a sentimental widow. Naturally, politics were at
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 207
the bottom of this kindness. Germany was turn-
ing its attention to Eastern Africa, and was glad
to show the natives that it possessed a sultan's
daughter, while England had none to offer. The
minister of foreign affairs sent Princess Salme to
the Zanzibar squadron, making use of her as of
an advertisement. The officers exhibited her to
the natives, who received her with noisy enthu-
siasm. The English consul, furious at such tac-
tics, complained to Sejjid Bargasch. The sultan
treated the popular enthusiasm with many lashes
and succeeded only in augmenting it. Frau Ruete
saw neither relatives nor friends; she received not
a penny of the sixteen inheritances which she
claimed; but she was treated to many hurrahs!
and the Germans took her back, half crazed with
acclamations' and sunshine, her heart overflowing
with gratitude toward her Teutonic benefactors.
By Christmas she was at home again, and has-
tened to add a glowing postscript to her Me-
moirs. Yet, behold ! in the midst of her hymn of
joy, a bitter feeling reveals itself. In beholding
her country with her Christianised eyes, she no
longer saw it as perfect; things which, in olden
times, she had not even noticed, now shocked her;
others excited her indignation, because she was no
longer accustomed to them. What is more natural
than that an Eastern potentate should attribute
to himself property which is to his taste? Sejjid
Bargasch acted according to this right, and his
sister considers him as a mere robber. What can
2o8 Princesses and Court Ladies
be more desirable than to maintain discipline in
one's family? Sejjid Bargasch, with his own hand,
administered fifty blows to a sister whom he sus-
pected of loving without his permission, and Frau
Ruete calls him a brutal tyrant. What more
imperious duty than for a worthy disciple of the
Prophet to enforce the laws of decency in his
harem? Sejjid Bargasch, having discovered his
favourite at the window, exchanging signs with a
European, lashed her to such good purpose that
she died of it. Frau Ruete cries out with horror:
' ' Afterwards he caused prayers to be said on the
grave of his victim." No doubt this conduct on
the part of the sultan is worthy of praise ; having
rendered justice, he sought to save the soul.
Frau Ruete, having lost her sense of the Ma-
hometan world, had not acquired that of ours.
This is what she understands after her triumphant
voyage of 1885: "I had left my native land,"
she writes, "Arab from head to foot and a good
Mahometan. What am I now? A bad Chris-
tian, and only half a German."
All this proves and confirms what we already
knew: there is incompatibility of nature between
us and the Arab. Neither time, nor politics, nor
missionaries will ever change this. Whether we
accuse the race or the religion, it matters little.
Antipathy exists, and will exist throughout future
generations, for it cannot disappear. Princess
Salme, during twenty years, puzzled over the fact
that she did not love us; she is still seeking to
Memoirs of an Arab Princess 209
solve the problem, whereas every page of her
Memoirs gives us that solution. We are irrec-
oncilable because we attribute different meanings
to such expressions as human dignity and moral
sense; because our conceptions of the task and
destiny of humanity clash too violently; because
our watchwords are in direct opposition one to
the other. The Arab's watchword is Inertia; ours
is Forward. The two races have nothing in
common.
THE DUCHESS OF MAINE
The Duchess of Maine died not a century and
a half ago.' Our great-grandfathers may have
known her, may have capped verses with her,
and danced ballet steps on her private stage at
Sceaux. Yet, as we study her life, it seems as
though we were separated from it by hundreds
of years. Her world differed in every particular
from ours. The princes and princesses of her day
were singularly unlike those of our time, not only
in the opinion of the public, but in their own as
well. They were very proud of being what they
were; very well satisfied with themselves. The
Duchess of Maine is apart even from her peers
by the excess of her pride of birth and of her self-
complacency. For this reason she deserves to be
chosen as an example of a princess who enjoyed
a semi-royal state during the eighteenth century.
Moreover, we are fully informed as to all that
concerns her. She was much in the thought of
her contemporaries; there are no Memoirs and
few letters of the day in which she is not men-
tioned.
I
Anne Louise Benedicts de Bourbon, born
in 1676, was the granddaughter of "Monsieur le
' This essay was written in 1890.
210
The Duchess of Maine 211
Prince, the hero/" as it was then the custom to call
the Great Cond^. Her father, simply Monsieur le
Prince, was a very thin little man with eyes of fire
which lighted up his face. He had all the wit that
a man could possess, much natural valour, and a
great desire to distinguish himself, vast learning,
exquisite politeness, and infinite charm of manner
when he was in society and was forced to control
himself. A grain of eccentricity rendered all these
precious gifts useless. He was a man full of ca-
price and passion. He changed his ideas from min-
ute to minute, and all his household was bound to
follow his lead. He willed a thing, then willed the
reverse; a voyage was decided upon, then counter-
manded; all were ordered to receive communion,
and no one di(i ; it was supposed that supper would
be served at Ecouen, and it was eaten in Paris;
every day four dinners were prepared in four
different towns, and no one knew, in the morning,
which would be eaten. It happened once that
Monsieur le Prince, fifteen consecutive days,
started with his wife for Fontainebleau, and
fifteen consecutive times changed his mind before
he reached the end of the street. On the other
hand, he would put the princess in a coach when
she least expected it, and take her travelling
without a word of explanation.
His avarice has become a tradition, and yet
no man could be more lavish when the fit was on
him. He dined off half a chicken, the other half
of which was served the next day, but he spent
i\i Princesses and Court Ladies
millions in fancies and gallantries to embellish
Chantilly and to dazzle beautiful ladies. When
he was in love — and that often happened — he
was a theatrical hero and showered gold on the
object of his passion. Nothing was too expensive,
and he outdid Scapin in the fertility of his imagi-
nation. He would disguise himself as a lackey
or as a female dealer in cast-off garments. He
would hire and fit up all the houses on one side
of a street, so as to pierce the walls and thus
reach, without being seen, the house which, at
that moment, interested him. At home, where he
was not amorously inclined, he was insupport-
able, a fantastic and avaricious tyrant. Saint-
Simon affirms that he used to beat his wife. At
any rate, he was brutal to her in words and cruelly
oppressed her.
We have spoken at some length of Monsieur le
Prince, because his daughter Anne Louise was a
good deal like him, whereas she in no way re-
sembled her mother. Monsieur le Prince had
married a daughter of Edward of Bavaria, Prince
Palatine of the Rhine, and of that Anne of Gou-
zagne-Cleves who played a part in the Fronde.
Madame la Princessewas a poor, defenceless crea-
ture, small and ugly, somewhat hump-backed
and misshapen, with the gentleness and patience
of an angel, not clever, but most " pious and
virtuous. Her husband made of her a sort of
puppet ; he pulled a string and she came or went,
got up or sat down, looked gay or sad, without
DUCHESSE DU MAINE
After the portrait by Staal
The Duchess of Maine 213
knowing why ; without daring to ask for any ex-
planation.
This small couple had ten children, most of
whom died in childhood. Of the five that re-
mained, one alone consented to grow a little; this
was Marie Therese who became Princess of Conti.
All the others remained so tiny, so very tiny,
that they seemed a family of pygmies. The Great
Conde said that if his family went on dwindling,
there would soon be nothing left of it. In point
of fact, a little more and the Cond^ palace might
have been mistaken for the kingdom of Lilliput
— a dismal Lilliput, governed by an ogre. The
terrible Monsieur le Prince was the ogre. He
always seemed in search of fresh meat, and his
children's one desire was to escape from him.
The daughters most ardently desired husbands,
all the more that their father seemed in no hurry
to provide them with that commodity. The eld-
est, the one who had consented to grow a little,
was already two and twenty when she married
her cousin the Prince of Conti. The three younger
girls fluttered with hope and fear when they
learned that the Duke of Maine thought of them,
and that their father desired his alliance.
The bridegroom so eagerly expected was, how-
ever, not a very glorious one for the grand-
daughter of the Great Conde. He was the second
of the nine children whom Madame de Montespan
had presented to Louis XIV ; children hidden in
the beginning, by degrees shown at Court, then
214 Princesses and Court Ladies
recognised, finally allowed in 1680 to bear the
name of Bourbon. Their rapid fortune, which
promised yet greater advancement, had scandal-
ised France even at a time when all the king did
was looked upon as admirable and sacred. Mon-
sieur le Prince chose to shut his eyes to all except
the solid advantages which unions with the "legit-
imated ' ' children could not fail to offer. He had
already married his son, Monsieur le Due, to a
sister of the Duke of Maine. When he heard that
the duke w^as seeking for a wife, he offered his
daughters.
It is well known that the Duke of Maine had a
club-foot, and that his childhood had been sickly.
His eldest brother had died at three years of age.
He himself was saved by the tender care of Ma-
dame de Maintenon, then simple governess in
Madame de Montespan's household. Madame
de Maintenon loved this child all the more for
the trouble he had given her. According to Saint-
Simon, she felt for Monsieur du Maine "a nurse's
foible." She used to say, speaking of him,
"my heart's tenderness." She consulted num-
berless doctors about him, even going incognito
to Antwerp to show her nursling to a celebrated
physician. This happened in 1674. The child,
four years old, had one leg longer than the other.
If we can believe Madame de Caylus, niece
of Madame de Maintenon, the Antwerp treat-
ment resulted in making the short leg longer
than the other one, so that, in any event, the little
The Duchess of Maine 215
prince must have limped had he walked; but he
could not walk. The baths of Bareges at last put
him on his feet, but did not prevent the halting.
This and his puny appearance made him extraor-
dinarily timid, both physically and mentally.
As a child, he was full of malice, wit, and intel-
ligence. Later he was studious; his mind was
active and bright. At seven years of age he was
looked upon as a little prodigy, and his com-
positions and letters were published under the
title: Various Works of a Seven-year -old Author.
This volume has by way of preface an epistle in
honour of the king and of Madame de Monte-
span, composed by Racine. At the death of the
great Corneille, Monsieur du Maine — he was then
fourteen — would have liked to replace him at
the French Academy. The king refused his con-
sent, not that he considered the Various Works
an insufficient literary title to glory, but that the
author seemed to him rather young. As time
went on, Monsieur du Maine grew yet fonder of
literature. He would have been perfectly happy
as a bookworm, had not the accident of his birth
condemned him to attempt great and heroic deeds.
He was by no means fitted for such deeds.
His timidity remained insurmountable. He was
quite incapable of being a great warrior or of
reducing an antagonist to silence. The king and
Madame de Maintenon, in vain, seized every op-
portunity of making their favourite shine. They
could do nothing against his nature, which had
2i6 Princesses and Court Ladies
destined the young prince to pacific occupations;
they only succeeded in making him sly. Monsieur
du Maine's enemies publicly accused him of hy-
pocrisy. A friend of the family said, in gentler
terms, something which smacks of the same judg-
ment: "His heart remained impenetrable; dis-
trust watched at its threshold, and but few senti-
ments struggled through." ^
His immense wealth made up for many defects.
As a consequence of events which it is needless to
recall, he had become heir to the Grande Made-
moiselle. Apart from his birth. Monsieur du
Maine was one of the most brilliant "catches" in
France.
When he first thought of marrying, Louis XIV
tried to dissuade him. Though this son was very
dear to him, he was not blind to his physical de-
fects. Besides, he saw the disadvantages of pro-
longing bastard branches of the royal house. He
said rather brutally to the young prince "that it
was not for such as he to seek for heirs." Madame
de Maintenon, now all powerful, pleaded for her
pupil. "He is one of those," answered Louis XIV,
"who ought never to marry." She insisted, car-
ried her point, and looked about her for a prin-
cess. The daughters of Monsieur le Prince struck
her as really too small. The tallest was about
the height of a ten-year-old child, and her three
sisters seemed mere toys. Their sister-in-law, the
Duchess of Bourbon, had nicknamed them "dolls
» Memoirs of Madame de Staal-Delaunay.
The Duchess of Maine 217
of the blood," and this name fitted them admir-
ably. Madame de Maintenon wrote to her friend
the Abbess of Fontevrault: "The Duke of Maine
wishes to marry, and one does not know whom to
give him. The king would prefer a French girl,
even if she were not of very high birth, • to a
foreign princess. . . . The daughters of Monsieur
le Prince are mere dwarfs; do you know of any
others?"^
It was quite useless for Madame de Maintenon
to look about her, for Monsieur du Maine had
made up his mind. The idea of entering the house
of Conde was too tempting for him to seek else-
where. Then came the question of choice.
Of the three unmarried daughters of Monsieur
le Prince, the eldest, Mademoiselle de Cond^, was
pretty and intelligent. A fraction more height
caused the duke to prefer the second, Anne Louise.
Mademoiselle de Conde was in such despair at
having to remain under her father's roof, that she
fell into a decline, dragged on for a few years,
then died.
The bride elect walked on clouds. She was but
fifteen and a half, the bridegroom twenty-two.
Louis XIV gave them a royal wedding. Tuesday,
March the i8th, 1692, there was a reception called
an " appartement " at Trianon. This "apparte-
ment" was a great evening entertainment, with-
out dancing; it began at seven o'clock and ended
at ten. In one of the drawing-rooms, there was
* Letter of September the 27th, 1691.
2i8 Princesses and Court Ladies
music, refreshments in another. In the other
rooms, tables were prepared for every sort of
game. Entire hberty was allowed in these gath-
erings, which we are apt to think stiff. Eti-
quette was banished. Each one was free to do
what he or she desired, played with no matter
whom, gave orders to the lackeys if a table was
missing or a chair wanted. The king appeared
only for a few minutes, and under the reign of
Madame de Maintenon even abstained entirely
from showing himself at the " appartements. "
Long before 1692 he appeared only on great occa-
sions. His presence, this time, was all the more
appreciated.
He remained a long time at the Trianon recep-
tion, and presided at one of the supper tables.
The following day, March the 19th, the wedding
party waited on him in his study at Versailles.
The procession was then formed and proceeded to
the chapel, where the marriage ceremony took
place. A banquet followed immediately, then
came a grand concert, games, supper, and the con-
ducting of the newly married couple to the nuptial
chamber, where the young people were at last
left to themselves, after twelve hours of cere-
mony, of bowing, of compliments.
On Thursday, the 20th, the new duchess put
on fine clothes and lay on her bed. In this way,
she received the whole court. Friday and the
next days were spent in festivities and rejoic-
ings. Madame de Maintenon took fright, seeing
Due DU MAINE
From an old copper print
The Duchess of Maine 219
how frail seemed the "Httle doll." On Tuesday
the 25th she wrote to Madame de Brinon, an
Ursuline nun, who had had a hand in this mar-
riage :
"... Now to speak of . . . Madame du Maine,
with whom the king is much pleased, as he is with
her husband. This is the marriage which you con-
sidered so desirable : so did I. May God grant that
they be always as content as I now am ! They say
that she is to spend Holy Week at Montbuisson;
give her a good rest. Here she is being half killed
with the court fatigues and constraints. She is
weighed down with gold and jewels, and her head-
dress is heavier than all her little person. Among
them they will keep her from growing in height
and health. She is prettier without a cap than
with all sorts of ornaments. She scarcely eats
at all, I fear sleeps but little, and I am terri-
bly afraid that she is over young to be married. I
should like to have her at Saint-Cyr, dressed like
one of the 'green ribbons'^ and running merrily
in the gardens. There are no austerities compar-
able to those of society."
The first week was one of enchantment for every-
body. Madame de Maintenon rejoiced over the
honeymoon of her dear pupil, and expected great
things from the new duchess, whom she thought to
govern at her will. As to this, she soon saw that
she had counted without her host. Scarcely had
Madame du Maine understood what court life really
* The "green ribbons " were the pupils of a class for young pupils.
220 Princesses and Court Ladies
was, what the king required of all the women who
surrounded him, than she took a great resolution,
and determined to revolt against such abominable
slavery.
A great court lady was bound to be always in
attendance, always ready to be pleased by what
pleased the king. She must be hungry and thirsty,
warm and cold, according to His Majesty's good
pleasure. Ill or well, even with child, or just after
child-birth, she must be superbly dressed, low-
necked and bare-headed; she must travel in this
guise and endure, smilingly, sun, wind, and dust;
she must dance, sit up late, sup with hearty appe-
tite, be gay, and look in good health, all this on
the days and hours prescribed by the king, and at
a moment's notice. The journeys were the great-
est trial of all. Louis XIV loved to fill his im-
mense carriage with women in fine clothes. Quan-
tities of provisions were stowed away in it. No
matter what might be the season, or the weather,
all the windows were open, and the curtains raised,
because he liked plenty of air. Scarcely started,
he forced the ladies to eat "until they nearly ex-
ploded," says Saint-Simon. It lasted the whole
day long, and none but the king had a right to
leave the coach ; at the end of the journey, supper
had to be eaten as though nothing had disturbed
the appetites. Some of the women came near
dying on the road, and nothing but the super-
natural strength imparted by monarchical faith
kept them alive. Several fainted and thereby
The Duchess of Maine 221
incurred lasting disgrace: it was an unpardonable
offence.
Madame du Maine swore that nothing would
induce her to submit to such tyranny, and she kept
her oath. For fifteen years she had endured the
cruel constraint of her father's palace, and she had
had enough of it. She made up her mind never
to put herself out for any one, and she threw aside
etiquette, official evening receptions, moral con-
versations with Madame de Maintenon, journeys
in court dress and luncheons in the king's coach.
She did worse still, she freed herself from the long
religious ceremonies and pious exercises in fashion
since Louis XIV had become austere. August
13, 1693, Madame de Maintenon wrote to Madame
de Brinon, this time in a somewhat sour strain:
"There is a chsLpter which I must discuss with
you; that of Madame du Maine. You deceived
me as to a most important item; that of piety.
She has no tendency toward it, and means to do
like others. I dare say nothing to a young prin-
cess brought up by virtue itself, and I have no
wish to make of her a professional devotee, but
I confess that I should like to see her more reg-
ular in her duties, and I should like her to adopt
a kind of life more pleasing to God, to the king,
and to the Duke of Maine, who is sensible enough
to wish his wife better behaved than some
others."
Madame de Maintenon then complained of the
duchess's want of submission, and added so as to
222 Princesses and Court Ladies
take the sting out of her reproaches : ' ' On the other
hand, she is such as you represented, pretty, amia-
ble, gay, witty, and, above all, much in love with
her husband, who, for his part, is passionately
fond of her, and would spoil her rather than cause
her the slightest pain. If she escapes from me, I
shall know what to expect, and, be persuaded that
the king will not, in all his family, find a single
member of it who will turn out well."
Madame de Maintenon ver}^ soon "knew what
to expect." Madame du Maine was already out
of her power, and it was through a mere, fleeting
illusion, that Madame de Maintenon fancied she
could still hold her. This young woman submitted
to no one's influence, to her husband's least of all.
He was quite dumfounded at the way in which
she turned his remonstrances into ridicule. She
warned her sisters-in-law not to meddle with her
affairs, taking a "bee" as an emblem with these
words as motto: " Piccola si, ma ja pur gravi le
ferite.'' (" She is small, but she stings smartly.")
As to Monsieur du Maine, she terrorized him, and
held him prisoner. He dared neither breathe nor
move in his wife's presence. She was so thoroughly
convinced of the honour she had done him by this
marriage, that the poor young man's timidity
grew apace. Then she flew into a passion on the
least provocation, and of that he had a mortal
terror. He made up his mind never to say her
nay, and to obey her in all things. The only one
who might have turned her, was the king, whose
The Duchess of Maine 223
glance sufficed to crush all the other princesses.
Louis XIV probably feared to compromise his dig-
nity by attacking this impetuous little person.
He prudently made his remarks to the Duke of
Maine, who answered that he was quite power-
less. "Thus," said Madame de Caylus, "as she
had become incorrigible, she was left at liberty
to do whatsoever she chose." That was all she
asked.
The doll turned out to be a little she-devil. No
one ever imagined such a thing, on account of the
excellent discipline in Monsieur le Prince's house-
hold, and all were astonished to discover in this
Hop o' my Thumb of a princess, the most enter-
prising of women, the boldest, the wittiest, the
most vivacious that ever existed. And what a
temper! "Her nature is impetuous and unequal,"
wrote Madame de Staal; "she grows angry, she is
afflicted, flies into a rage and is appeased twenty
times in a quarter of an hour. Often, she shakes
off melancholy, for a fit of gaiety during which she
is most amiable." She conversed with eloquence,
vehemence, and volubility; the only thing to do
in her presence was to keep silence ; as a matter of
fac^, she never listened to any one else. She was
passionate to the verge of madness, and, above all,
she was a little monster of selfishness and a prodigy
of vanity. " She believes in herself as she believes
in God and Descartes, without discernment and
without discussion."
She believed this, because she was herself, and
224 Princesses and Court Ladies
also because she was persuaded that God chose
a particular sort of clay wherewith to fashion
princes. They appear to be like other mortals, but
that is merely an appearance. They are demi-
gods, and Madame du Maine by a special dispensa-
tion of Providence was a little more than a demi-
goddess. Therefore, she had a right to do what-
ever she pleased, and she made use of that
right. She owed it to herself, on the other
hand, to conquer a position worthy of her divin-
ity, and she undertook to push on her halting
husband, since he had not the courage to push
himself.
By a singular freak of nature, Madame du Maine,
with all her pride and haughtiness, was born a
comic-opera shepherdess. One is not, with impu-
nity, the daughter of a prince who took the garb of
a ''marchande a la toilette.'" The little duchess
adored finery and conceits, those of the mind, as
well as those of her gowns, gallant feasts and small
verses. She felt the need of romantic pleasures,
a mythological life, a Parnassus of gilt card-board,
where, disguised as a nymph, she could reign over
choice spirits, decked out as Arcadian shepherds.
This brilliant and dangerous heroine was, at times,
supremely ridiculous.
We have seen that Madame de Maintenon con-
sidered her pretty. For her own part, Madame
du Maine was perfectly satisfied with her face.
The public was less so, and Madame de Staal, in a
malicious paragraph, has noted this difference of
The Duchess of Maine 225
opinion. "Her mirror could not give her the
slightest doubt as to the charm of her visage, but
she put less faith in the verdict of her own eyes
than in the judgment of those who proclaimed
that she was beautiful and well proportioned."
According to the portraits of the day, the public
was right; Madame du Maine was no beauty. In
her first youth she is represented with fine eyes,
heavy cheeks, a baby face, made heavier still by
an immense edifice of hair. It is easy to see how
she deceived others with this goody-goody coun-
tenance, which gave no hint of the volcano which
she really was.
Later, her features took shape and hardened.
There is, in the palace of Versailles, a portrait of
Madame du Maine on the verge of old age, which
is cruelly realistic. It is by Nattier. The duchess
has a dwarf's face, massive and without any grace.
Her nose is clumsy, her mouth vulgar; she has a
double chin and coarse skin. No vestige of the
goddess remains. But that was in the future.
Just now, we have to do with a tiny person,
fresh and graceful, who hides her vast ambition
under childish ways.
The nuptial torches were not yet extinguished
when already Madame du Maine meditated as to
the advantage that she might secure by her un-
equal marriage. The French court was then a
fair field for intrigue. At that time so many
things changed, that an ambitious spirit might
aspire to almost any position. The old aristo-
226 Princesses and Court Ladies
cratic society was falling to pieces. The thing
was to pick up the fragments and with them build
up a pedestal.
II
According to appearances, the reign of Louis
XIV was the apotheosis of the French aristocracy.
One is deceived by the glamour and splendour
of the court; by the brilliant jests of its deni-
zens ; by their resounding quarrels about questions
of etiquette which are important only in very
high circles; by the showers of favours and gifts,
of purses of gold, of pensions and sinecures, that
the king let fall on his courtiers ; lastly, by the
majestic air which the costumes and the grace of
the day gave to the most insignificant viscount,
as we see by the portraits and the pictures. When
we evoke the gilded galleries and drawing-rooms
of the Versailles palace, filled with these resplen-
dent gentlemen, with their voluminous wigs,
clothed in silk and velvet, glittering with gold and
jewels, who are absolutely sure of their own im-
portance, one is tempted to believe in it likewise
and to bow down before them to the very earth.
Those among them, however, who were wise,
knew what was hidden beneath all this splendour.
Men like the Duke of Chevreuse, or of Beauvil-
liers, or Saint-Simon, were not deceived by the
shimmer of vain honours and embroidered coats.
They saw that the high classes were ruined by
The Duchess of Maine 227
stupid luxury, and reduced "for the sake of
bread" to unworthy marriages and to still more
unworthy speculations. They saw these men use-
less and idle, kept out of the ministry and public
offices, given up to all the vices bred of laziness.
They saw the first dignitaries of the kingdom,
the peers, humbled on every occasion ; the majesty
of the royal blood compromised by the privileges
granted to the recognised bastards; the public
places, even the court offices, snatched by men of
letters or magistrates, who treated the nobles as
though they were their equals. Colbert, at first,
when he wrote to the dukes, called them Mon-
seigneur, and they replied Monsieur; the reverse
took place under Louvois. They, in a word, saw
about them so radical a change, at their expense,
that they were aghast and yet were quite inca-
pable of turning the tide.
Madame du Maine was one of those who had
their eyes open. She saw all the perturbation
caused by the progress of the middle classes, and
she did not regret it; disorder, in the equivocal
situation which resulted from her husband's birth,
was favourable to her. On the very day of her
engagement, her plan was already formed. In
life, she had two objects, equally dear to her: one
was to get out of it as much enjoyment as pos-
sible; the other, to become, wife of a bastard
though she was to be, "one of the kingdom's
greatest ladies."
It seemed as though the second of these aims
228 Princesses and Court Ladies
was likely to be the more difficult of the two to
obtain. The duchess was not of that opinion.
She counted upon the trampling down of bar-
riers, and the all-powerful protection of Madame
de Main tenon. It was likely that the timorous
nature of Monsieur du Maine would prove an
obstacle. The duke was of little use at the hour
of battle. On the other hand, he was invaluable
in small manoeuvres and intrigues, to push his
way an inch at a time, noiselessly, so humbly
that no one heeded him. Eternally on the watch,
he allowed no chance to escape. Now, it was one
seat at court, instead of another, the fashion of a
cloak, one bow less to make, and all these trifles
brought him slowly but surely nearer the longed-
for rank. In his way he was ambitious, and his
wife reasoned that, by pushing him in, she could
get some help out of him. Therefore she had
faith in their common future. The important
thing to be accomplished at once, was enjoyment;
the rest would come of itself all in good time.
Unfortunately, this important thing was not
easy to obtain. As to the pleasures of the court,
they were not even to be considered. The king,
decidedly, was turning virtuous and wished for
solemn faces about him. It was enough to make
one die of ennui. It is true that Madame du
Maine could go for amusement to the castle of
Clagny, built by Louis XIV, in less austere days,
for Madame de Montespan, and given by her to
her son. Clagny was a wide, low construction,
NICOLAS DE MALEZIEU
From an old copper print
The Duchess of Maine 229
built in a noble style and surrounded by a great
symmetrical garden, ornamented with yews cut in
conical shapes. It was then looked upon as a
marvel. "It is a splendid castle," said Saint-
Simon, "with its fountains, its gardens, its park;
on all sides are aqueducts worthy of the Romans;
neither Asia nor any ancient power ever offered
anything so vast, so complicated, so artistic, so
magnificent, so filled with the rarest monuments
of every age, of exquisite marbles, of bronzes, of
pictiires, of statues, nothing so complete." So
much splendour did not save Clagny from one
radical defect: Clagny was in Versailles, too near
the king. Its inhabitants formed a part of the
court, they were still satellites.
The little duchess tried Chatenay, a modest
country-seat in the environs of Sceaux. Chatenay
belonged to Monsieur de Malezieu, ex-tutor of
Monsieur du Maine and the perfect model of those
cultivated men whom the great in those days
attached to their persons so as to have at hand,
some one to concoct their witticisms, their society
verses, and their love-letters. Malezieu had the
reputation of being very learned, and, in Madame
du Maine's household, he was looked upon as an
oracle. "His decisions," says Madame de Staal,
"were as infallible as those of Pythagoras to his
disciples; the hottest disputes came to an end if
some one exclaimed, ' He said it.' " He gave the
duchess lessons in Latin, in philosophy according
to Descartes, in astronomy. For her benefit he
230 Princesses and Court Ladies
declaimed the tragedies of Sophocles and organised
her festivities. He showed a fertile imagination for
verse or prose trifles, for the arranging of fireworks
and ballets. He was obsequious with the great,
disdainful toward the humble, not bad at heart,
but of a rather low nature. He was a man both
universal and indispensable. He was also untiring.
Fontenelle speaks of his ' ' fiery and robust temper-
ament." His portraits show him with a pleasant
and open countenance, resplendent with health.
In 1699, when the court was at Fontainebleau,
Madame du Maine conferred upon him the honour
of staying at his country house. In her character
of goddess she revived the golden age. Nothing
was thought of but innocence and simplicity, —
princely simplicity, of course. ' ' Rustic Life ' ' was
led, in the midst of
" Ces plaisirs doux et purs, que la raison desire." ^
There one was shielded from "the tumult and
disorder of the passions ; ' ' one enjoyed ' ' the beau-
ties of the country;" one played at little games;
all day long pretty nothings were said. The bad
habits of luxury showed themselves, however, at
meals: "The table is abundantly and delicately
served and the company gay; music mixes with
the talk, and follows the repast. There are flutes,
hautboys, violins, spinets, and even trumpets, the
sound of which is softened so as better to mingle
with that of the other instruments." Those last
• Letter of Ahh6 Genest to Mademoiselle de Scudery.
The Duchess of Maine 231
two lines are delightful ; only a born courtier could
imagine trumpets that understood their duty of
being pastoral and giving the illusion of a reed-
pipe. The evenings were enlivened by compli-
cated fireworks. Sometimes these represented
"a besieged city," taken by storm, or again, "two
great ships that seemed anchored in a field," bom-
barding a fort which ends by "bursting into the
air like a girandole ; " or else, * ' two flaming globes,
which open and give one ' ' the image of all that has
been taught us about the conflagration of the uni-
verse." Such fine doings attracted all the villagers
of the neighbourhood, and the festivities became
almost too rustic for the pleasure of the guests.
Luckily, night threw its veil over faces and cos-
tumes too coarse for a royal idyl. Thanks to it,
"all seemed beautiful and clean." Monsieur du
Maine "rejoiced with great tenderness to see the
rabble tasting the fruits of peace."
Chatenay was voted "enchanting." On the
20th of December of that same year (1699), Mon-
sieur du Maine bought the castle of Sceaux which
Colbert and his son, Marquess of Seignelay, had
made one of the most beautiful and agreeable resi-
dences near Paris. Little remains of it nowa-
days, but the Bievre still flows through the valley,
the hills still show their gentle and intricate curves,
the lovely French sky still sheds its tranquil light
on the spot that once was Sceaux. Imagination
easily places in their setting the ancient castle and
gardens, each as old engravings show them to us.
232 Princesses and Court Ladies
The castle had been built for Colbert by Per-
rault. It enclosed three sides of a vast, square
court. The symmetry was perfect, the decoration
severe, the style noble and graceful. Straight
avenues, great regularly placed iron gates, out-
houses built on a line uniting pavilions, each like
the other, geometrical flower beds, well- cut bow-
ers, groves, with trees planted at regular intervals ;
a majestic assemblage of straight lines and acute
angles, of circles, half circles, quarter circles;
treasures of sculpture, of paintings, of furniture,
scattered in the castle, in the Aurora Pavilion,*
and in the avenues and shrubberies ; a prodigious
quantity of running and' gushing water, brought
by the aqueducts ; a fabulous number of fountains,
cascades, and canals ; an inimitable look of gran-
deur, of order and harmony; for horizon, one of
the prettiest landscapes of the environs of Paris,
one of the gentlest, the softest, the most dis-
creet, one of those veritable French scenes which
penetrate through the eyes to the heart of
those born and bred among them; such was the
magnificent and charming dwelling chosen by
Madame du Maine to be her Parnassus and her
Olympus.
Transported with delight, the little duchess took
possession of her new domain, so happily encir-
cled by hills and slopes as to seem a tiny universe,
' The celebrated Aurora Pavilion, situated in the Park, con-
tained a great ceiling by Lebrtin, the Waking of Aurora and two
lesser ones by Delobel.
The Duchess of Maine 133
enclosed, shut in on every side. The Bi^vre, with
a great loop, embraced this Lilliputian kingdom.
Madame du Maine felt here entirely at home,
quite a sovereign, between her chosen courtiers,
eager to please her, and the peasants of the neigh-
bourhood who depended on the castle. There she
somewhat forgot the rest of the world and grew
accustomed to mistake the life at Sceaux for the
life of humanity. This error was doomed to be
fatal to her; Madame du Maine's ideas were un-
hinged.
She hastened to organise an existence according
to her heart, where pleasure became a duty and a
labour. She amused herself by day, she amused
herself by night, and ordered that all should do
likewise. So much the worse for those who did
not enjoy such a life. She surrounded herself
with paid amusers, bound to be witty at a given
moment. Malezieu examined the candidates. He
suggested the subjects on which they had to speak,
and they were accepted or refused according to
his report. She had poets whose duty it was to
flatter her, to compare her to Venus, and to call
her "Heaven's masterpiece." During dessert, a
signal was given, and they tossed back and forth
songs in honour of the ''Nymph of Sceaux."
Abbe Genest preserved a whole volume of these
rapid productions.^ It is diverting reading. Even
the embarrassment of the men who found nothing
to say was utilised as incense? the ingenious
* Les Divertissements de Sceaux (Paris, 17 12, Etienne Ganeau).
234 Princesses and Court Ladies
Mal^zieu hastened to extemporise some verses
like these:
" Lorsque Minerve nous ordonne,
On a toujours assez d 'esprit;
Si Ton n'en a pas, elle en donne."
No one had the right to be dull, or useless, or
grave. Philosophy did not save one from im-
provising rhymes, or age from concocting madri-
gals. No one could free himself from the poetical
lotteries,* which to-day would put even Academ-
icians to flight. All the letters of the alphabet
were thrown into a bag and drawn. The winner
of S. owed a sonnet, A. an apotheosis or an aria,
O. allowed a choice between an ode or an opera,
and so forth. There was no escape, under the
penalty of exile from Sceaux. High-born guests
bought the verses of some poor devil of a poet;
but men like Malezieu, Chaulieu, Fontenelle, and
later Madame de Staal, and Voltaire, were not
allowed to cheat and were bound to pay the
forfeit. Malezieu called Sceaux "the galleys of
wits."
No one had a free hour to be dull in peace.
Enigmas and anagrams were in ambush along the
passages. Puzzles whizzed at one, like an arrow,
in the duchess's circle, given rhymes had to be
instantly filled up, and there were verses, gallant
or stinging, which had to be answered offhand.
There were numberless games where forfeits had
» See the Comedie a la Cour by Adolphe Jullien.
The Duchess of Maine 235
to be redeemed with roundelays, fables, triolets,
or virelays. One received poetical invitations
to dinner, anonymous letters, sentimental or
sprightly, free couplets, and one was condemned
to answer after the same fashion. What a relief
one must have experienced, what delightful re-
pose, what healthy enjoyment, when, on leaving
Sceaux, one fell upon honest folk who took their
soup with simplicity, protected from all logo-
griphs, acrostics, and songs, where one could
warm one's feet without describing this comfort-
ing act in verse!
It is needless to say that among so many agree-
able nothings some were said which became classic.
One evening some one said to Fontenelle: "What
is the difference between our hostess and a clock ? "
— "One tells the hours, the other makes us forget
them," answered Fontenelle. It was also at
Sceaux that, to redeem a forfeit, Voltaire made
this well-known riddle:
" Cinq voyelles, une consonne,
En Frangais composent mon nom,
Et je porte sur ma personne
De quoi Tecrire sans crayon."
To Madame du Maine was left the honour of
guessing oiseau.
The little duchess took all this childishness most
seriously. She applied herself with all her might
and main to compose a letter from the Great Mogul
to a lady at Sceaux, or an indecent epistle ad-
^3^ Princesses and Court Ladies
dressed to her brother, Monsieur le Due. She
founded the order of the Bee, with the motto al-
ready quoted, and in so doing displayed as much
solemnity as the King of France may have shown
when he instituted the order of the Holy Ghost.
The Bee had statutes, officers; an oath, of which
this is the formula, was taken without a smile : " I
swear, by the bees of Mount Hymettus, fidelity
and obedience to the perpetual directress of the
order, to wear all my life the model of the Bee, to
accomplish, as long as I live, the statutes of the
order ; and, if I am false to my vows, I consent that,
for me, the honey shall be changed to gall, the wax
to tallow, the flowers to thistles, and that all bees
and wasps shall prick me with their darts."
Never was amusement more laborious, and we
are not at the end of the pleasure list. Madame
du Maine had a passion for theatricals. She had
the patience to learn most of the longest parts in
the repertory of her day. The kind mattered
little ; a princess is sure to be always excellent ; and
the quality of the plays was a matter of indiffer-
ence, for, passing between her lips, everything be-
came equally beautiful. She played, therefore,
with the same success, tragedy and comedy, com-
edy ballets, farce, allegory, and pastoral pieces.
She went from the part of Athalie to that of Pene-
lope, in the tragedy of the Abbe Genest, from Celi-
m^ne to Finemouche in the Tarentole of Mal^zieu.
Plautus succeeded Quinault on the play-bill, Eurip-
ides came after Lamotte.
The Duchess of Maine 237
She gave herself incredible trouble. She con-
demned herself to take lessons, to rehearse, to try-
on costumes. During whole months, she led the
terrible life of a provincial actress, forced to learn,
every day, a new part. She went to Clagny so as
to invite the court to a series of performances.
The courtiers came in crowds, went into ecstasies,
and made fun of her behind her back. * ' One could
not understand," said Saint-Simon, "this folly
which consisted in dressing like an actress, of
learning and declaiming long parts and making a
spectacle of oneself on a stage." Monsieur du
Maine felt that his wife was supremely ridiculous,
but he "did not dare to interfere, for fear that her
head might be completely turned, as he once very
clearly told Madame la Princesse in the presence of
Madame de Saint-Simon."
Monsieur du Maine, had he been perfectly frank^
might have added that he held his peace for fear
of scenes. His gentleness did not avert them, and
he became more timid after each "outburst,"'
whence the pretty definition of Madame de Caylus :
"Monsieur du Maine's marriage put the finishing
touch to his unfortunate disposition." He was
not even admitted to his wife's entertainments.
She sent him away, and, obedient, he shut himself
up in a turret, where he spent whole days drawing
plans for his gardeners. The Paris song-makers
knew all this and did not spare him; but what
could he do ?
23 8 Princesses and Court Ladies
" De sa femme et de sa fortune
Esclave soumis et rampant,
Du Maine ne se livre a I'une
Que quand de I'autre il est content.
" Sa femme joue en comedienne,
Recoit toutes sortes de gens,
Et sa maison est toujours pleine
De coquettes et de galants.
" A Malezieu cette princesse
Prodigue ses plus doux appas;
II lui montre de la tendresse,
Mais on dit qu'il, ne I'aime pas." ^
Madame du Maine was scarcely rewarded for
all her trouble. She was bored. The harder she
worked for amusement's sake, the more bored was
she. The nights particularly weighed on her, for
she scarcely slept. She often spent them in gam-
bling, and this was the origin of the Great Nights
of Sceaux. An abb6 was the inventor of these
nights, and Madame de Staal organised the first.
This witty Staal -Delaunay ^ was a most un-
fortunate creature. Nature had made her sensi-
tive and proud. Thanks to her education, she
knew her own worth. Fate threw her into a ser-
vile situation where pride is a misfortune, and
sensitiveness ridiculous. She began by being
maid to Madame du Maine, obtained her advance-
ment by dint of intelligence, and could never
' Recueil Maurepas (1710).
' Mademoiselle Delaunay became Madame de Staal by her
marriage with an officer of the Swiss Guards.
The Duchess of Maine 239
console herself for having been in contact with
servants. She was attracted by marquesses and
knights, who treated her cavalierly, as an in-
ferior ; she was in despair and could not help mak-
ing other advances. Chained rather than at-
tached to Sceaux, she there grew old and died,
without any other consolation than that of having,
secretly, written Memoirs that avenged her, for
in this most agreeable narrative the egotism of the
great is shown in all its nakedness.
She was no longer quite a lady's maid, she was
not yet anything else, when the Abb^ de Vau-
brun conceived the idea of varying by some
"diversion" a night that the duchess was to spend
at the card table. He imagined an "apparition
of some one who should personify Night swathed
in her black veil ; the apparition was to thank the
princess for the preference granted to her over
day ; the goddess was to have a follower who would
sing a fine air on the same subject." The abbe
begged Madame de Staal to compose and recite
Night's speech. The speech was somewhat fiat,
and the author got mixed up in her recitation,
but the idea pleased. The Great Nights were
inaugurated.
In their day they made much stir in the world ;
now, they seem rather insipid. Allegories and
comic scenes, mixed with dances and songs, were
composed in honour of Madame du Maine. An em-
bassy from Greenland came to offer her the crown,
and the chief addressed her thus : ' ' Fame . . . has
240 Princesses and Court Ladies
instructed us of the virtues, the charms, the tastes,
of your Royal Highness. We have heard that
you hate the sun. . . . Many affirm that your
enmity comes from a discussion as to the nobihty,
the origin, the beauty, the excellence of your re-
spective lights, etc." ... Or else learned men
came to consult Malezieu as to a star newly dis-
covered, the which star was no other than the
duchess, presiding over the Great Nights. Or,
again, the enchanter Merlin indicated Sceaux to
the seekers after treasures, and there they found
Madame du Maine. Another time, Venus la-
mented the loss of her girdle which made her
mistress of all hearts, and through Apollo she
heard that the girdle had been appropriated by
Madame du Maine. ^ Providence has kindly
granted to the great ones of this earth the grace
to enjoy incense. These fine discourses delighted
the duchess by their truthfulness, the public by the
splendour of their setting, and morning found
the whole castle still on foot. The entertainment
ended by a magnificent breakfast, at which the
wits were bidden to shine. There was no holiday
for them, even after a sleepless night.
The indefatigable little duchess still found time
for serious studies. She neglected neither Latin
nor astronomy, and to Malezieu she added an-
other professor of philosophy, the handsome,
amiable, fascinating, insinuating, and compromis-
ing Cardinal of Polignac, author of a long poem,
' Adolphe Jullien, loc. cit.
The Duchess of Maine 241
since forgotten, and of a witticism justly cele-
brated. The poem was entitled VAnti Lucrece,
and was in Latin. In it, the cardinal undertook
the defence of healthy morality and good theology.
The mot was pronounced in the gardens of Marly,
during a downpour: "It is nothing. Sire," said this
flower of all courtiers, "Marly rain wets no one."
Madame du Maine greatly admired the Anti
Lucrece. She caused its author to explain it to
her, and evil tongues wagged with regard to these
lessons. But when did not evil tongues wag?
Simple-minded folk greatly admired the little
duchess. "One can say of her," writes the Duke
of Luynes in his Memoirs, " that she has a superior
and universal mind, strong lungs, and admirable
eloquence. She had studied the most abstract
sciences; philosophy, physics, astronomy. She
could talk on any subject like a well-informed
person and in well -chosen language ; her voice was
loud and strong, and she could converse in the
same high tone for three or four hours without
fatigue. Novels and light literature likewise
greatly interested her."
It was not without cause that she was admired,
for the childish pleasures, the little nothings, the
foolishness, which seemed to absorb her attention,
masked very bold political plots, directed by her
with great perseverance. Madame du Maine never
forgot that, on the day of her engagement, she had
vowed to herself that she would become one of the
kingdom's most important personages. She never
242 Princesses and Court Ladies
for one moment flagged, she never rested after a
success, never permitted her husband to rest. The
duke could not make it out. Seeing her so frivo-
lous, so determined to ruin herself in fireworks and
masquerades, he fancied she had given up more
serious matters, and allowed himself a little respite.
Triumphantly, one fine day, he brought her a trans-
lation, in verse, of that Anti Lucrece, which she so
admired. The duchess flew into a rage. It was
all very well for her to go into ecstasies over the
Anti Lucrece and its gallant author. "You will
see," cried she, "that some morning you will wake
up member of the French Academ}^ while Mon-
sieur d'Orleans gets the regency!" The duke was
quite abashed.
The duchess was unjust, for her husband, like
herself, had not been idle. While she reigned at
Sceaux, he was assiduous at Versailles, and fol-
lowed the king to Trianon, to Marly, to Fontaine-
bleau. He was the good son, the tender son, who,
lovingly, contemplated a glorious father, who could
not live without seeing him, who gave up his pas-
sion for solitude, so as to breathe the same air, who
was attentive, thoughtful, devotion itself. Be-
sides, he was truly amiable, and ever willing to
amuse the king with some clever anecdote. No
less assiduous with regard to Madame de Mainte-
non, he confided to her his plans and his dreams,
and she guided and counselled him, interceding
for him. With the help of this faithful ally. Mon-
sieur du Maine's good luck increased day by day.
The Duchess of Maine 243
Not a year went by that did not bring him some
privilege, a sinecure for himself or his children, a
patent letter bringing him a little nearer the throne.
Recognised, he became a peer of the realm; from
peer, officially, prince of the blood, enjoying the
same honours as the legitimate princes. This was
already very fine for a bastard ; Monsieur du Maine
obtained still more. After the death of the Dukes
of Burgundy and Berry, a decree (July, 17 14) called
to the succession of the crown the Duke of Maine,
the Count of Toulouse, his brother, and their de-
scendants. The little lame man touched the crown
with the tips of his fingers ! And he obtained more,
ever more. Louis XIV, carefully schooled, sus-
pected the Duke of Orleans, first prince of the
blood, of having poisoned the Dauphin and his
brother; and in his will he took from his nephew
the principal prerogatives of the regency to trans-
fer them to the Duke of Maine. The latter thus
grasped the crown with both hands, for the future
Louis XV was so sickly that he was not expected
to live.
Such is the position attained by the Duke and
Duchess of Maine at the end of 17 14. Such is the
dignity bestowed upon them by the tenderness of
an ex-governess and the weakness of an old man.
The duchess was in the seventh heaven. She
"triumphed at Sceaux," said Saint-Simon, "and
plunged into feasts and rejoicings." Her spouse
was divided between content and terror. He re-
flected perpetually on what his father had said to
244 Princesses and Court Ladies
him in public, in a loud and angry voice, after sign-
ing his will, "You have your wish, but remember
that, however great I may make you, after me, you
are nothing; it behoves you to profit by what I
have done for you — if you can." Remembering
these words, Monsieur du Maine trembled. What
indeed would become of all this grandeur when
Louis XIV had disappeared?
Thus, while joy alone possessed the soul of
Madame du Maine, her husband was agitated
as much by fear as by hope, and thought less of
his happiness than of being forgiven for it.
Ill
During the summer of 17 14 the health of Louis
XIV began to decline. The different parties
which would be rivals at his death had a year
wherein to plan their tactics. The situation was
at any rate simple enough. The heir was barely
out of swaddling clothes, and only two men, the
Duke of Orleans and the Duke of Maine, could
aspire to govern in his name. The Duke of
Orleans was regent by right of birth; he was the
natural chief of the high nobility, but he was in
deepest disgrace, and kept in absolute inaction.
Calumnies were spread abroad, and he was even
accused of poisoning the princes, his cousins. At
the funeral of the Duke of Burgundy, the rabble
tried to massacre him. Monsieur du Maine was
The Duchess of Maine 245
neither respected nor liked, except by some old
courtiers, devoted to his father ; but, in his favour,
he had the King's testament, the King's favour,
the King's love. This was much, this was all —
while the King lived. What would it be after his
death? Would it still be something?
Monsieur and Madame du Maine thought it
would be, and that was a great error, the origin
of their misfortunes. They knew that, by the
loss of the King, their position would be greatly
weakened; they did not foresee that it would
totter and disappear completely. They fancied
that it would be possible for them to grasp the
power, and leave merely its shadow to the Duke
of Orleans. Their plans were laid in accordance.
Madame du Maine directed everything from her
castle at Sceaux where, more than ever, pleasures
seemed to occupy all her attention. Monsieur du
Maine executed her orders with his habitual
dexterity. He scarcely left the King, whose bed-
chamber singularly resembled, during the last
months of his life, that of Regnard's Geronte in
the Legataire Universal. Monsieur du Maine and
Madame de Maintenon were the Crispin and
Lisette of the royal puppet.
The plan of Monsieur and Madame du Maine
consisted in arousing the passions of all their ene-
mies, in exciting warfare among them, so that,
in the noise of this strife, they themselves might
be forgotten. Monsieur du Maine revived old
quarrels, and started new ones. The peers were
246 Princesses and Court Ladies
at daggers drawn with the Parliament; the re-
maining nobles with the peers. He, however,
seemingly detached from all mundane things,
feigned astonishment and ignorance, was very
gentle, very humble, and spent much time in the
churches. He showed himself at high mass, at
vespers, at complines, at prayers. Nowhere was
a litany recited, an anthem sung, but Monsieur
du Maine was among the faithful, with eyes de-
voutly fixed on the ground, modest and contrite.
Who could have suspected so pious a man ?
The little duchess, on her side, did her very
best. She alarmed her husband by the audacity
of her conceptions ; irritated and rendered furious
by his objections, she reproached him with his
cowardice. Storm succeeded storm. At last,
Madame du Maine thought it wise to step upon
the stage. She wished to begin by a master stroke
and tried to gain the dukes and peers to her
cause. She spoke to them, failed, flew into a
passion, cried out that ''she would set fire to the
centre and to the four corners of the kingdom,"
rather than give up her hope of winning the
crown ; she went so far that she brought upon her
husband a scene from Saint -Simon. ' ' Enjoy, ' ' said
that terrible man, in a voice worthy of an ogre,
"enjoy your power and all you have obtained.
But there always comes a time when one repents
having gone beyond the mark." Poor Monsieur
du Maine grew pale and remained speechless.
Among all these intrigues, the spring of 17 15
iiiii!iliiiii3liliaiSII.!;lSJiili3i;i::li!iSiiiaS
L.i' ilJMliy'l IIJJ^^^lildLLJ
MADAME DE MAINTENON
From the engraving by P. Giffart
The Duchess of Maine 247
passed. Louis XIV grew weaker and weaker, and
his daughter-in-law tormented Monsieur du Maine
that he might yet obtain still greater favours;
but, seeing the end near at hand, he showed him-
self nervous and awkward. He allowed several
important graces to slip between his fingers.
On the 23d of August, Louis XIV, already dying,
sent his beloved son to review the troops in his
stead, so as to accustom the soldiers "to look
upon him as on himself." Monsieur du Maine
appeared in all his glory as the favourite of the
day and the dictator of the morrow, smiling,
bowing, prancing, beaming, triumphant, when he
grew white with anguish at seeing the Duke of
Orleans at the head of a regiment. In an instant,
by one of those fine instinctive movements of the
crowd, which in the twinkling of an eye put
things in their rightful places. Monsieur du Maine's
brilliant escort left him and hastened to meet the
Duke of Orleans. This move was as sudden as it
was unpremeditated. It was the protestation of
the public conscience, cured of its absurd sus-
picions, in favour of right and justice. This, Mon-
sieur du Maine did not understand. He only
thought that it was one more mortification that
had to be swallowed, and he swallowed it. For
some time back he had deceived himself strangely.
The poor man, frightened at his shadow, chose
this moment to be foolhardy.
On the 25th of August, he obtained a codicil
from his dying father. On the 26th, Madame du
248 Princesses and Court Ladies
Maine interrupted her receptions and went to Ver-
sailles. It was but time. Louis XIV died on the
first of September.
The following day, the 2d, there was a solemn
assembly of the Parliament for the opening of the
King's will. Monsieur du Maine, who knew its
contents and already saw himself the master of
France, entered with a radiant air. "He was
bursting with joy," said Saint-Simon. He left
with a convulsed face, half fainting. The will and
codicil had been annulled, as by one voice, in favour
of his rival, and the air was filled with the acclama-
tions of the same people who, three years before,
had tried to stone the Duke of Orleans. Half king
in the morning, Monsieur du Maine in the evening
was nothing but a schoolmaster; the supervision of
a five-year-old king's education had been left to
him.
Needless to say how he was received by his ten-
der wife. The duchess, beside herself with anger
and contempt, determined henceforth to trust no
one and to act for herself. Soon she showed what
she was capable of doing. Monsieur du Maine had
lost the supreme power, but he was still prince of
the blood, thanks to his father's edicts. The real
princes of the blood, and many honest people, could
not swallow this. They considered it as an out-
rage to religion, to morality, to themselves, that
the children of a double and public adultery should
be placed above all, in a sort of apotheosis. This
called for vengeance, and the attack came from
The Duchess of Maine 249
Madame du Maine's own family. Her father,
Monsieur le Prince, was dead. Her brother was
dead. It was her nephew, Monsieur le Due, who
started the warfare and first spoke of abolishing
the edicts in favour of the recognised bastards.
On learning of this menace, the little duchess ex-
claimed proudly, "If they sleep, we shall sleep; if
they wake, we shall wake."
They woke. War was declared between the
legitimate princes and the royal bastards. Law
suits were instituted; the weapons were memoirs,
answers, protestations, and requests; Madame du
Maine took the direction of the affair, and was in-
defatigable. She left her beloved valley for the
Tuileries, where the regent had installed little
Louis XV, and she blossomed out into a sort of
lawyer. Day and night she pored over briefs, took
notes out of law books, drew up memoirs, accumu-
lated papers, wrote, combined, invented. ' ' The im-
mense volumes piled up on her bed, like mountains,
under which her little figure almost disappeared,
made her look like Enceladus crushed beneath
Mount Etna."' She could have given points to
Chicaneau; she went even to the Chaldeans for
precedents.
All her court had to submit to this legal regime.
Her attendant poets were transformed into law
clerks. Farewell to Latin verses! Farewell to
enigmas and madrigals! Farewell to the Graces
and to Apollo! Handsome Polignac, amiable
* Staal, Memoirs.
250 Princesses and Court Ladies
Malezieu, worked under the eyes of the duchess to
prove in the jargon of the court room that she was
in the right, and that Monsieur du Maine was no
longer a bastard since such was the King's good
pleasure. They also learned to reason on law, and
discuss on questions of competence. During the
night it was Madame de Staal's turn, and she would
greatly have preferred going to sleep. Installed
by her mistress's bedside, she "looked over old
chronicles, ancient and modern jurists." There
were female discussions as to the prerogatives of
Parliaments, and the value of royal testaments,
until dizziness put an end to the talk. Then a
maid servant was called in, whose duty it was to
tell stories until her mistress fell asleep. This
woman, almost every night, began with the fate
of the Cockscomb of an Indian Chanticleer, which
one can read to-day in the Divertissements de Sceaux
and which, very certainly, is fitted to put any one
to sleep.
The riunour of Madame du Maine's labour was
soon noised about in Paris, and the Tuileries saw a
singular procession. The duchess was besieged by
old scholars in spectacles, needy adventurers, and
equivocal countesses, who came to offer her infalli-
ble receipts for the winning of her law suit. One
brought historical examples, borrowed from the
court of Semiramis. Another promised important
revelations, on condition of dining first of all. An
ex-monk tried to sell documents. Women of
doubtful appearance and fallacious titles asked for
The Duchess of Maine 251
mysterious meetings in order to reveal secrets.
Madame du Maine listened to everything, sent
everywhere, tried all things.
On the other hand, she neglected no means of
increasing her party, and in this she succeeded ; but
the credit of it went to Monsieur du Maine, that
misunderstood husband. His wife saw in him
nothing but a craven and took the credit of every
triumph. And this was a great error as well as a
gross injustice. Monsieur du Maine rendered im-
mense services to the common cause, whereas the
duchess jeopardised it constantly by her childish-
ness and her fits of temper.
Monsieur du Maine, among other arts, had mas-
tered that of making malcontents and drawing
them to himself. At this period, during the law
suit between the princes of the blood and the
recognised princes, malcontents were wanting
neither at court, in the city, nor in its environs.
Many were dissatisfied with the regency, that had
not been able to put all things in order by a touch of
the wand. The nobles had imagined that, now
that they were once more powerful, they could,
with a frown, force the arrogant bourgeois, grown
to such importance under Louis XIV, to sink once
more into nothingness; the *' arrogant bourgeois"'
fought with a will, and for this the nobles held the
weak Duke of Orleans responsible. They were
divided among themselves ; the minor nobles had
signed a petition against the privileges of the
dukes. The Parliament complained that it was
252 Princesses and Court Ladies
not consulted. The people, exasperated, saw the
money of the treasury lavished on the courtiers.
Add to this that the nation was in the midst of
the law system, that Alberoni was working to
excite dissensions in France for the benefit of the
King of Spain, his master, and that Providence
had just let loose upon the world the young Vol-
taire, who had already found the time to get him-
self exiled for verses "most satirical and very im-
pudent," and to be put in the Bastille for other
verses "most insolent."
Such a ferment of discord was most useful to
the Duke of Maine. He outdid himself. He
cleverly swam between two waters, kept himself
out of the way, was caressing and insidious, and
secured many partisans in Paris, in the provinces,
in the Parliament, among members of the old court,
the small and lesser nobles, among the magistrates
and men of letters. Barbier writes in his Memoirs,
"Monsieur du Maine is a very wise prince, and
much esteemed." Saint -Simon asserts with sor-
row that "all smiled on his plans."
In spite of caresses and intrigues, nothing could
counterbalance the hatred of Monsieur le Due for
his aunt, Madame du Maine. It is well known
that Monsieur le Due was a veritable brute, a hid-
eous one-eyed, ferocious being. He led the suit
against the bastard princes with his usual vio-
lence, and obtained from the council of the re-
gency, July, 17 17, a decree which took from them
all right to the royal successions and also the quality
The Duchess of Maine ^53
of princes of the blood. When, nowadays, we
read the papers relating to this great suit, we are
struck by the novelty of the language employed
by both parties, just after the death of Louis XIV,
in speaking of the sovereign power.* Royal au-
thority is here represented as a trust and a man-
date. There is no more talk of divine right or
inviolability. The right of a nation to dispose of
itself is recognised, and the monarchy is now no
more than a simple civil contract, revocable by
the will of the contracting parties. What a revo-
lution in the space of two years!
The decree of 17 17 was the prologue of the
drama which precipitated Monsieur and Madame
du Maine in the abyss. Seeing them vanquished
their enemies grew bold. The duchess, incapable
of bowing before the storm, imprudently burst
into imprecations and menaces. Her violence
was the pretext for the second thunderbolt, that
of the bed of justice, August the 26th, 17 18.
In order to judge of the little duchess's feelings
at this second catastrophe, it must be remembered
that the bed of justice of the 26th of August was
a surprise to all. Nobody in Paris knew anything
about it. Madame du Maine had gone to sup
and to spend the night at the Arsenal, where
she gave herself an entertainment. Monsieur du
Maine had accompanied her and had returned
only a little before daybreak, to his apartment in
the Tuileries, situated on the ground floor. He
' See Lemontey, Histoire de la Regence.
254 Princesses and Court Ladies
had just fallen asleep when the upholsterers in-
vaded the throne room, where the ceremony was
to take place. It was just above him, but he
heard nothing. An officer woke him, saying that
some great event was preparing. Monsieur du
Maine dressed hastily and went to the little King's
room, where soon after the Duke of Orleans
arrived. It was about eight o'clock.
"I know," said the regent graciously to Mon-
sieur du Maine, "that since the last edict, you
prefer not to take part in public ceremonies.
There is to be a bed of justice; you can absent
yourself from it, if you choose. " ' ' When the King
is present, I suffer no annoyance," replied the
Duke. "At any rate, at your bed of justice, it is
not likely that I shall be mentioned."
" — Perhaps," said the regent, and he left the
room.^
Monsieur du Maine, much upset, went out seek-
ing for news. His unfortunate timidity gave him
a wild look, and the countenance of a criminaL
He learned that the education of the King was to
be taken from him and that the legitimatised
princes were to be reduced to their simple rank
of peers. In a state of great anguish he went to
his wife's apartments; she had been sent for at
the Arsenal, and her state of mind was indescrib-
able. She could not understand that Monsieur
du Maine should let himself be driven out without
resisting. She implored him, she reviled him, she
^ Manuscript Memoirs of the Duke d'Antin.
The Duchess of Maine 255
had nervous spasms. By her orders, young
lackeys clambered up the walls, as high as the
windows of the throne room. Hanging by their
hands, they peered through the window panes,
reporting to the ground floor what was then tak-
ing place. Madame du Maine trusted that some
one would take her husband's part, that there
might be some incident. She screamed and cried
when it became evident that the bed of justice had
taken place quietly and that she must immediately
leave the palace. Two strokes of a pen had suf-
ficed to take from the dearly loved son of the most
absolute of monarchs all the favours heaped upon
his head during forty years, favours strengthened
by all the prudence, all the forethought, all the
zeal that the most tender affection could inspire.
Madame du Maine had to be carried from the
Tuileries in the most pitiable condition. "She
was," said Madame de Staal, "so overcome that
she seemed almost deprived of life; she was in a
sort of lethargy from which convulsive movements
alone could shake her." Two days later, she was
taken to Sceaux. Sorrow had well-nigh bereft
her of reason. Now, motionless and dumb, her
eyes staring, she seemed the very statue of grief.
At other times, "yelling with rage" and causing
all about her to tremble, she showered on her
husband the most outrageous reproaches, throwing
at him his birth, his cowardice, their marriage.
The poor man "all day long, wept like a calf." ^
^ Saint-Simon.
256 Princesses and Court Ladies
Madame du Maine ought to have acknowledged
her defeat, given up pubhc affairs, and, once
more, taken to card -board crowns. Such was her
husband's opinion. But she was obstinate; she
was hke those brave Httle terriers that let them-
selves be killed rather than give up their prey.
For some time past, she had been intriguing with
Alberoni through Cellamare, Spanish ambassador
to Paris. After the catastrophe of August 26th,
she became really a conspirator.
Into this new part she carried too many sou-
v^enirs of the numerous romances she had read.
She devised an am.using plot in which such ex-
traordinary things were done, that the police at
once were on the scent. Her headquarters were
in a house in rue St. Honore, hired on purpose.
From it, she would go in the middle of the night,
driven by a nobleman disguised as coachman, to
odd places where she met other conspirators. She
would send Madame de Staal at midnight to pre-
side over a council held under the Pont Royal.
She disguised two of her lackeys as Flemish
lords, and these rivals of Mascarille were presented
in society under the names of Prince of Listenai
and Chevalier de la Roche. As at the time of
her law suit, she received crowds of adventurers,
of intriguers, and imbeciles who brought plans and
offered advice. She kept up a most useless cor-
respondence in invisible ink, and had all sorts of
partisans more or less trustworthy, two of whom,
at least, were spies in the service of Abbe Dubois.
LOUIS XV.
After the painting by Hyacinthe Rigaud
The Duchess of Maine 257
She forced Polignac and Malezieu, who refused as
long as they dared, to conspire with her. She
joked gaily as to the time she might spend in
prison. Especially she forbade any one to speak
of these matters to her very timid spouse. When
he appeared, conversation stopped.
It is not our purpose to relate the Cellamare
plot, of which Madame du Maine's little intrigue
was but an episode. All that is necessary to recall
is that Alberoni wished to secure the throne of
France for his master, Philip V, in case little
Louis XV should die. Alberoni, especially, wished
to push aside the Duke of Orleans, who also had
claims to the crown, and he had given orders to
Cellamare to make friends with all malcontents,
so as to overthrow the regent; afterwards, it
would be time to see who should take his place.
A Spanish army was to land in Brittany to
support the conspirators.
Naturally, when she offered her aid, the Duch-
ess of Maine was received with open arms. Cella-
mare showered praises on her, promised very fine
things in the name of his King, and made use of
her zeal. Under her high direction two commit-
tees of conspirators were placed. One was com-
posed of a certain Abbe Brigault and two lords,
the Count of Laval and the Marquess of Pompa-
dour. The other comprised the duchess herself,
de Malezieu and de Polignac. These six persons
divided the work among themselves and covered
many sheets of paper with their writing. These
258 Princesses and Court Ladies
compositions were submitted to the judgment of
all, and each committee despised the productions
of the other one. The lords found the "work"
of the poets very pale and flat. The poets looked
upon the lordly scribbling as meaningless twaddle.
Thus were drawn up a manifesto from the King
of Spain to France, a petition from the French
to the King of Spain, and various other docu-
ments, several of which were duly sent to Madrid.
When Alberoni received the petition of the French
to the King of Spain, he wrote to ask by whom it
was to be signed; but he received no answer.
These conspirators did not wish to give their
names, the lords no more than the poets. In
very truth, Madame du Maine's intrigue was but
a continuation of the little games of Sceaux.
Meanwhile, Alberoni urged Cellamare to act.
He, who had prepared nothing serious, tried to
gain time. He learned that a young abbe, named
Porto Carrero, was to leave Paris for Madrid; to
him he confided a mass of documents, rough
sketches for manifestoes, letters, petitions, and
other fancies, composed by Madame du Maine,
Polignac, Pompadour, Abbe Brigault, Malezieu,
and others. Cellamare added a letter for Alberoni
with a list of French officers who, according to
him, desired to serve Spain. Abb^ Dubois, who
had his eyes open, judged that the moment had
come to get rid of all these clumsy conspirators.
Porto Carrero was followed and stopped at Poitiers.
His papers were delivered to the regent. Decern-
The Duchess of Maine 259
ber 8, 17 18, without awakening any suspicion in
Paris. The following day, the gth, in the after-
noon, a gentleman entered Madame de Staal's
apartments in the house of rue St. Honore, say-
ing: "Here is a great piece of news. The palace
of the Spanish ambassador is surrounded, and
troops have entered it. No one, as yet, knows
what it is all about." At the same moment,
Madame du Maine, whose drawing-room was full,
was told of this event. "All who entered related
the news, added some new circumstance, and
spoke of nothing else. She did not dare to free
herself from her unfortunate visitors, for fear they
might notice her terror." Soon it was known
that Porto Carrero had been arrested and his
papers seized. This time, Madame du Maine and
her accomplices "saw themselves plunged in the
abyss." The duchess comforted herself with the
thought that Abbe Brigault, to whom many
papers had been intrusted, had taken flight.
On the tenth more arrests were made. Mon-
sieur de Pompadour was sent to the Bastille. But
the abb^ was safe, and Madame du Maine began
to breathe more easily.
On the twelfth, while she was having a game of
Biribi, a certain Monsieur de Chatillon, who was
the banker, "a man of cold manners, who rarely
spoke," said all of a sudden: "Really, there has
been an amusing event to-day. An abbe, Bri —
Bri — " (he could not find the name) "has been
arrested and sent to the Bastille ..." Those
i6o Princesses and Court Ladies
who knew the name had no wish to help his mem-
ory. At last, he continued: "The funniest part
of all is that he has confessed everything; there
will be some people in a pretty pickle." Then he
burst out laughing for the first time in his life.
Madame du Maine, who had no wish to laugh,
said: "Yes — a funny story. . . ." "Oh! It is
enough to make one die of laughing," he went on.
"Just fancy! all those people thought themselves
so very safe ; and the fellow answers every question,
and names every one." ^
It was true. Abbe Brigault was indeed a con-
spirator for fine ladies. He had travelled without
haste, enjoying the journey, still more, the good
inns. He had taken over a day to cross Paris on
horseback and had slept the first night ' ' at the inn
of the Great Saint Jacques in the Faubourg Saint
Jacques."^ After three days, he was only at
Nemours, twenty leagues from Paris. Those sent
in search found him easily and brought him back
to the Bastille much more quickly than he had
gone out. Before he had crossed the threshold,
he had divulged everything. Others after him
also gave evidence, and the number of the arrests
multiplied. From several sources Madame du
Maine heard that it would soon be her turn. No
one slept in her house ; the nights were spent quite
gaily, waiting for the musketeers. Monsieur du
Maine kept very quiet at Sceaux.
^ Memoirs of Madame de Staal.
* First declaration of Abbe Brigault.
The Duchess of Maine 261
In spite of watching and putting oneself on the
defensive, the musketeers arrived when they were
least expected. Monsieur and Madame du Maine
were arrested, one at Sceaux, the other in the rue
St. Honore. Their conduct, at this critical junc-
ture, was as different as were their two natures,
which then stood fully revealed.
Monsieur du Maine was leaving the chapel when
he was most respectfully requested by a lieutenant
of the bodyguards to enter a waiting coach. He
obeyed, "death painted on his face," but with a
submission, a humility, a sort of eagerness, well
fitted to excite compassion. He did not allow
himself to complain, or to ask anything, even with
regard to his wife and children, but he sighed
deeply and clasped his hands. He was the living
image of misunderstood and persecuted innocence.
He was taken to the Fortress of Doullens, in
Picardy, and his attitude remained the same dur-
ing the whole journey. He sighed and sighed
again, gently moaned, wrung his hands, murmured
prayers, accompanied by many signs of the cross,
saluted with a "dip" all the churches and crosses
on the road, and kept that silence which befits
the oppressed. At Doullens, his behaviour did
not change. He was eternally praying, kneeling,
prostrating himself. No one was touched ; his con-
temporaries, rightfully or wrongfully, did not take
Monsieur du Maine's piety very seriously, but it
helped to pass the time which hung heavily on his
hands. He had a few books, but neither paper nor
262 Princesses and Court Ladies
pens; when he wished for these, he was forced to
apply to the ofificer who mounted guard over him
and to show him all he wrote. His only relaxation
was to play cards with his valets.
When he was questioned he burst into protesta-
tions of innocence and ignorance. What was it
all about? What harm had he done? He was
profoundly attached to the Duke of Orleans, who
some day would acknowledge it, and yet the Duke
of Orleans believed the atrocious calumnies of his
foes! In very truth, he was most unfortunate!
Facts were shown him, the confessions of the
duchess communicated to him. Then he grew
angry. This man, gentle thus far, exclaimed in
horror and indignation at having such a wife, a
woman capable of conspiracy and bold enough to
implicate him — him, to whom nothing had ever
been confided, for he knew nothing, had guessed
nothing; all had been hidden from him, because it
was well known that he would never have tolerated
such doings. He had often enough forbidden the
duchess to see the * ' cabal makers. " If he had had
wind of anything he would at once have revealed
it to the Duke of Orleans. What was certain was
that, when he recovered his liberty, he would never
again see Madame du Maine, Let no one dare to
speak to him of her. He conspire against the Duke
of Orleans! . . . What an abominable calumny!
He never could be driven from this position.
He remained mournful and impenetrable. The
truth of the matter has never really been sifted.
PHILIPPE DUC D'ORLEANS
From an old copper print
The Duchess of Maine 262
It is impossible to tell what Monsieur du Maine
knew or what he did not know. It seems certain
that he never took an active part in the plot; on
the other hand, it is difficult to admit that a
man as wide awake as he had never guessed, in
his own home, a secret so carelessly hidden.
However that may be, it must be admitted in his
favour, that he never uttered a word that could
in the least compromise others. Monsieur du
Maine had all the more merit in this that he was
horribly frightened. At the least disturbance in
the citadel, his face would become livid; he
already saw himself on the scaffold.
Madame du Maine's arrest made more noise.
Her high birth gave her the right to be appre-
hended by a duke. Monsieur d'Ancenis, who pre-
sented himself at rue St. Honore at seven o'clock
in the morning before daylight. The duchess had
just fallen asleep, after having spent the night
writing a memoir in her own defence. She and
her women had to be routed out of bed. No man
ever had so disagreeable a duty to perform. The
little duchess, unlike her husband, did not belong
to the tribe of lambs. She received Monsieur
d'Ancenis and his compliments very sourly, flew
out violently as to the indignity of thus treating
a person of her rank, railed against the Duke of
Orleans and his government, and refused to make
the least haste. She was trying to gain time,
trusting that her family would come to her aid,
and she resisted, discussed, scolded, chattered,
264 Princesses and Court Ladies
claiming first one thing, then another. There was
a long scene, violent on her side, about a casket
containing jewels, worth a million, and which she
insisted on taking with her. The Duke of An-
cenis, who had his orders, energetically opposed
this. She appeared to yield, and the casket was
discovered two days later in her luggage.
All this lasted four hours, — four hours of resist-
ance and of outcries. Finally Monsieur d'An-
cenis took her by the hand, declaring that he had
had enough of it alh He led her to the door,
when she had another fit of rage in perceiving
two simple hackney coaches. He pretended to
force her into such a vehicle! And she was a
Cond^! Yet, she had to enter the vile coach.
During the drive, the comedy changed to tragedy.
She took on the airs of a great queen, persecuted
and indignant. The duke had confided her to a
lieutenant named La Billarderie. Madame du
Maine, calling to her aid her theatrical reminis-
cences, overwhelmed La Billarderie with tirades
on her misfortunes, on the hard cushions of the
carriage, on the barbarity of her enemies. She
mingled very energetic and familiar epithets with
the most literary apostrophes, changing the tone
of imprecations for that of suppressed sorrow;
she pretended illness, appealed to La Billarderie's
good heart to drive less rapidly, to rest longer, to
obtain a better carriage.
La Billarderie was no monster. He was not,
on the other hand, a high personage, and the sup-
The Duchess of Maine 265
plications of a princess moved him greatly. He
was full of attentions toward his prisoner, and
endeavoured to procure for her all the comforts
he could command. He could not, however, es-
cape a scene when, on the third day, he was forced
to tell her that she was being taken to the Fortress
of Dijon. The duchess was crushed by the blow.
It had never occurred to her that she was to be
put in a real prison. She fancied that she would
be given a beautiful "royal castle," where she
would be surrounded by a court and play at the
captive as she had played at being a conspirator.
The idea of being shut in between four walls, with
her women, revolted her; it was sheer treason!
The idea of falling into the power of her hated
nephew, Monsieur le Due, convulsed her with fury.
She exclaimed, addressing herself to La Billar-
derie :
" Aux fureurs de Junon Jupiter m'abandonne! "
then, in prose, she stormed against her detested
nephew, and poured out against him a thousand
amusing invectives — even in her anger she was
witty; this completed the conquest of La Billar-
derie and brought him to her feet. He did his
best to console her. He ordered frequent halts,
and lingered where she chose. The coach was
changed. Yet, in spite of all, Dijon was at. last
reached, and Madame du Maine with two maids
was incarcerated in the citadel.
Later, she liked to say that she had been sub-
266 Princesses and Court Ladies
jected to all "the horrors of captivity." The re-
gent, however, who was good-natured, softened
those horrors. He allowed her to have a lady in
waiting, a companion, a doctor, a chaplain, five
maids, to go from Dijon to Chalons and from Cha-
lons to a country house, to communicate with the
outer world, and, before long, to receive visits. In
spite of all this, Madame du Maine sank into deep
despair. All her courage left her, and she thought
herself the most unfortunate of women. In vain
those about her tried to entertain her. She some-
times allowed herself to be persuaded and would
even play cards, but with the air of a martyr, say-
ing, in a sad and dolorous voice : ' ' Let the Duke of
Orleans judge of my sorrows by my pleasures."
She had lost all her insolence; all her pride even.
The little duchess, grown affrighted, wept copi-
ously, begged and supplicated. The commander
of the Chalons citadel, a ' ' gentle and compassionate
soul," wrote, June 30, 17 19, to Monsieur le Blanc,
secretary of state:
"... Then Madame du Maine, falling into a
sort of despair and weeping bitterly, swore in the
strongest and most sacred terms that she was inno-
cent, saying that evidently she was doomed to die
here ; that her enemies were waiting for her death
in order to accuse her with impunity, but that at
her last hour she would instruct her confessor to
proclaim to the whole of France that she died
innocent of all the charges brought against her,
that she would swear to all this on the Host as she
The Duchess of Maine 267
received it, and that several times she had already
thought of doing this. I endeavoured to calm
her. ..."
The heroine had disappeared, leaving in her place
an old child, in fear of a whipping, and crying be-
cause its playthings had been taken away. If
our own weaknesses could only make us less severe
for those of others, Madame du Maine would have
accumulated a full store of indulgence for her timid
husband, during the five months of Dijon and the
three at Chalons.
Her abbes and court poets whom she had en-
rolled, much against their will, among her accom-
plices, did not on their side cut a better figure.
The Cardinal of Polignac had been exiled in his
abbey of Anchin in Flanders, where his handsome
face and his graces were quite lost, and he was con-
sumed with sorrow and fear. He was even more
terrified than the Duke of Maine, and he deplored
the loss of his Anti Lucrece, seized with the docu-
ments of the plot. Abbe Dubois sent him back
his manuscript, saw that he had plenty of money,
and allowed him to receive what visits he chose.
These delicate attentions did not reassure the car-
dinal, who could not get over his fright. He was
furiously angry with the Duchess of Maine for hav-
ing used her authority to bring him to this pretty
pass.
Abb^ Brigault continued to reveal all he knew;
more still. He betrayed even the valets under
pretext that the salvation of his soul required him
268 Princesses and Court Ladies
to tell the whole truth. Tartuffe would not have
disclaimed the letter which he wrote to the wife of
one of the conspirators whom he had denoimced :
' ' Madam : It is with the liveliest sorrow that I
write to-day in order to warn you that I have de-
termined to reveal to His Royal Highness all that
has come to my knowledge. God is my witness
that, had I with my life's blood been able to save
Monsieur de Pompadour I would have shed it will-
ingly. But, Madam, you know the claims of re-
ligion. . . . Convicted of having been the soul of
this unfortunate intrigue, I could only hope to
obtain the absolution of my sins by rendering a
faithful account of the truth. I was forced either
to die in despair or to make the revelations re-
quired of me. I remembered the advice which
you yourself gave me, and I do not think I could
make a mistake in following the mandates of re-
ligion."
The holy man!
Monsieur de Pompadour, a great swaggerer in
words, cut a rather mean figure in danger. He
made what he was pleased to call an "ingenuous
confession." We have the document under our
eyes. Monsieur de Pompadour denounces every-
body, and deplores most piteously the bad state
of his fortune.
Malezieu had been arrested at Sceaux, at the
same time as the Duke of Maine. After an hon-
ourable resistance he, like the others, ended by
telling everything. One person alone remained
The Duchess of Maine ^6g
as firm as a rock : Madame de Staal. She was brave
and she was quite happy in the Bastille. She had
two admirers there; she had never had so much
liberty, and she was in no hurry to leave.
The regent wanted to wind up the affair, but he
wished to do so with honour and so that no one
should accuse him of persecuting the innocent.
He promised free pardon to all who would confess
their wrongs. Madame du Maine was forced to
drink the chalice and make a public confession.
Her Declaration is very amusing. Her great fear
is lest she might be made responsible for the abom-
inable style used by the committee of lords. She
trembles that her reputation of superior mind shall
be compromised, and she insists upon the sorrow
which the twaddle of Monsieur de Pompadour and
the "sheer gibberish" of Monsieur de Laval had
caused her. On several occasions she protests that
she never in the slightest degree ' ' corrected ' ' these
writings. Having thus at once cleared the most
important point and saved her literary honour,
Madame du Maine deigns to remember her hus-
band : ' ' He never knew anything of these intrigues.
I hid them from him more than from any other
living being, . . . and when Monsieur du Maine
entered my room, while I was speaking to my con-
fidants on these matters, we immediately changed
the conversation." Unfortunately for Monsieur
du Maine, she added while speaking of him, that
she would never have said a word to so timid a
man, for he would have been capable, in his fright,
270 Princesses and Court Ladies
of denouncing all. These words were repeated;
the Declaration of Madame du Maine was read in
the council of regency; and the Duke of Orleans
considered that he was sufficiently avenged on
both husband and wife. The doors of the prisons
were opened. Poets and nobles, abbes and valets,
each returned to his avocations.
Monsieur de Pompadour, with his pardon, re-
ceived an alms of 40,000 francs which he pocketed.
Madame du Maine returned to Sceaux (January,
1720) with a great explosion of joy. She soon
obtained leave to go to Paris and to make her
courtesy to her enemy, the regent. She threw
her arms about his neck and kissed him on both
cheeks.
Monsieur du Maine took advantage of the cir-
cumstances to get rid of his wife. He could not
forgive her for the terrors he had endured in prison
and he feared her reckless extravagance. He re-
tired to Clagny, refused to see the duchess, and
declared that henceforth she must content herself
with a pension. She did so well that, six months
later, she brought him back to Sceaux, when he
took on his yoke once more and endeavoured to
put some sort of order in the accounts.
The Cardinal of Polignac did not forgive Ma-
dame du Maine. He was much laughed at by the
public for his terror of her. The duchess had sent
him a copy of her Declaration. He feared to throw
a glance on that paper, and gave it to a trustworthy
man who assured him that he could " read it with-
The Duchess of Maine 271
out danger." He sulked and avoided Sceaux to
the end.
The best pleased of all was an old marquess,
Monsieur de Bonrepos, who had been forgotten in
the Bastille. He was very poor, and was delighted
to have board and lodging for nothing. After five
years, a lieutenant of police discovered him and
wanted to set him free. He protested. At last it
was decided that he should be sent to the Invalides.
He went, grumbling. He greatly disliked this
change in his habits.
Madame de Staal also was set free, and thus
ended this terrible conspiracy. For the other
intrigues of Alberoni which brought on war be-
tween France and Spain, historians should be
consulted.
IV
All these ugly stories of law suits, of plots, and
prisons, are so out of keeping with the ribbons
and rattles of this princess Hop o' My Thumb, that
it is difficult to take them seriously. They make
one think of the tragic interludes introduced by
Moli^re in his Psyche. The first of these might
well represent the road to Dijon, where the poor
little duchess was to be left at the tender mercies
of her wicked one-eyed nephew. "The stage is
encumbered with horrible rocks, and in the dis-
tance is seen a frightful desert. In this desert,
Psyche is to be exposed so that the oracle may be
fulfilled. . . . Sorrowful women, afflicted men,
272 Princesses and Court Ladies
singing and dancing. ..." How well this ballet of
" sorrowing women " and " afflicted men " represents
the court of Sceaux in time of trouble! Another
interlude, that of Hades, reminds one of the
"frightful" citadel of Chalons, when Madame du
Maine thought to die and wept so copiously. At
the most tragic moment "sprites performing acro-
batic feats mingle with the furies." These sprites
never failed to show themselves in the midst of
the most dramatic scenes of the little duchess's
life. By their capers they somewhat marred the
gravity of the scene.
At last, the nightmare being over, the culprits
breathed once more. The lugubrious visions that
had haunted their sleep vanished; they no longer
fancied that they heard the scaffold being raised,
or listened for the steps of the executioners.
Their eyes rested with delight on the smiling sky
of Sceaux, their souls opened voluptuously to the
joys of court verses and innocent games. The
lovely valley greeted the return of its sovereign.
Smiling Graces peopled once more the bowers,
not in crowds or giddily, but little by little, hesi-
tatingly, like prudent divinities, feeling their way,
anxious to offend no one. Faithful Malezieu threw
in the air his joyous songs. He improvised the fol-
lowing verses on the day of his mistress's return:
Oui, oui, j'oublie et ma captivite,
Et mes soucis, mes ans et ma colique
Songer convient k soulas et gaiete,
Ouand je revois votre face angelique.
The Duchess of Maine 273
All things fell back into the accustomed order,
and Madame du Maine found herself exactly the
same as before her departure for Versailles, when
Louis XIV was dying ; only she was five years older.
No one was ever more incorrigible. After this
severe lesson, and in spite of her real intelligence,
she had not lost one jot of her pride, nor given
up a single childish habit, nor learnt anything
about the real world, nor unlearnt a word or a
gesture of her character of a painted, powdered,
be-ribboned shepherdess. She w^as one of those
persons whose stock of ideas is all made in ad-
vance, and who refuse to accept self-evident
facts, when these are unpleasant. It was said of
Madame du Maine "that she never left home; she
had never even looked out of the window." The
only trace left in her mind by the bed of justice
and all that followed was a wholesome fear of the
police. She was forever cured of politics. We
possess a list of her entertainments during a
whole year. No one could find any fault with it.
This list forms a little manuscript volume en-
titled, Almanack de VAnnee 17 12,* and divided
into months. It contains certain passages not to
be quoted here; the old-time aristocracy did not
object to dedicating its jokes to Monsieur Purgon ;
but what can be culled from the Almanac cer-
tainly offered no danger to the state.
January began by a quatrain where Madame
du Maine is personified by Venus. Venus was
^ See the Com^die a la cour by Adolphe Jullien.
274 Princesses and Court Ladies
forty -five years of age; that is a mere detail, since
goddesses never grow old.
Venus, par son aspect attirant nos hommages,
Tient sa cour a Situle et deserte Paphos.
On quittera du Loing les tranquilles rivages
Pour visiter les mers du Lakanostrophos.
This is somewhat pedantic. It is well to warn
the reader that the fine name of Lakanostrophos
designates a brook that crossed the park of Sceaux.
In May, one reads :
"Full moon, the nth, at 6 hours and 29 min-
utes of the evening. Frequent games of ninepins
in the Chestnut tree enclosure.
"Last quarter, the i8th, at 9 hours and 24 min-
utes in the morning. Donkey cavalcade in the
forest of Verrieres.
"New moon, the 26th, at 5 hours and 8 min-
utes in the morning. Grand feast in the Small
Apartment."
The pleasures of July are more intellectual :
"Full moon, the 9th, at 8 hours and 47 minutes
in the morning. Explanations of Homer, of
Sophocles, of Euripides, of Terence, of Virgil, etc.,
improvised by Master Nicholas."
Nicholas was Mal^zieu's nickname.
"Last quarter, the i6th, at 5 hours and 52
minutes in the morning.
" Great discussion on the immortality of the
Soul and on Descartes' sentiment with regard to
the souls of animals."
RENE DESCARTES
From an engraving by J, Chapman
The Duchess of Maine 275
It is to be noticed that the word "soul" is written
with a capital S when men are in question, and
that a small one is deemed sufficient for the souls
of animals. This inequality marks the official
philosophy of the court at Sceaux. To her last
breath Madame du Maine remained a faithful
disciple of Descartes.
The year 172 1 was thus profitably spent from
beginning to end, and those which followed were
equally well filled. Each season there was some
new gallant invention. Madame du Maine sur-
rounded herself with shepherds, whose duty it
was to celebrate her charms after a bucolic fash-
ion; there was a "head shepherd," Monsieur de
Saint Aulaire, celebrated for his little verses.
Monsieur de Saint Aulaire was then nearly ninety
years of age, and Sainte-Beuve maliciously re-
marks that "it made Madame du Maine seem
much younger to have chosen so old a shepherd;
by his side, she was a mere child." The old
gentleman acquitted himself most wittily of his
delicate function of chief flatterer. It was for
Madame du Maine that he improvised his cele-
brated quatrain at a ball where she pressed him
to unmask:
La divinity qui s'amuse
A me demander mon secret,
Si j'etais ApoUon ne serait pas ma Muse;
EUe serait Thetis et le jour finirait.
She had an avowed lover, La Motte, author of
Ines de Castro, with whom she played the ingenue.
276 Princesses and Court Ladies
She wrote letters to him, intended to delight
Paris drawing-rooms, and he answered that he
had "worn out" her signature by dint of kissing
it. La Motte was blind and crippled. He was
but the better suited for his part of lover ; he was
less compromising than the handsome Polignac,
cardinal though he was.
The duchess hid Voltaire, at a time when he
had quarrelled with the powers (1746). He was
shut up in a distant room, the blinds of which
were closed. He lived there two months. Dur-
ing the day he wrote, by the light of candles,
Zadig and other tales. At nightfall, he myste-
riously slipped into the duchess's apartments and
read her what he had written. Those were red-
letter nights.
She gave numberless comedies, tragedies,
operas, farces, and ballets. Voltaire furnished her
with many plays, and as at that time whoever
received Voltaire received Madame du Chatelet,
the learned translator of Newton often took the
part of the heroine in those plays. Madame de
Staal gaily relates in her letters to Madame du
Deffand the visit of this celebrated but some-
what embarrassing couple during the summer of
1747. The duchess was then at the castle of
Anet which had fallen to her by inheritance and
where, toward the end of her life, she often so-
journed.
"(August 15, 1747) Madame du Chatelet and
Voltaire, who had announced their arrival for
MARCHIONESS DU CHATELET
From an old copper print
The Duchess of Maine 277
to-day, and whose whereabouts nobody knew, ar-
rived yesterday, at about midnight, Hke two
ghosts, with an odour of embalmed bodies which
they seemed to have brought from their graves.
We had just left the supper table. They were, at
all events, famished ghosts. Supper had to be pre-
pared for them, and, besides, beds had to be im-
provised. The Concierge, fast asleep, had to be
routed out. Gaya, who had offered his lodgings
in case of need, was forced to give them up, and
moved with as much haste and displeasure as an
army taken by surprise, leaving a part of his
baggage in the hands of the enemy. Voltaire
was well pleased with his quarters, but this by no
means consoled Gaya. As to the lady, she found
her bed ill -made; she had to be moved elsewhere
to-day. Be it known that she had made that bed
herself, for lack of servants."
This letter will rather upset the preconceived
ideas of more than one reader. It is not generally
known that, when on a visit to princes, one was
exposed to the necessity of making one's own
bed.
The following day, Madame de Staal added this
postscript :
"Our ghosts do not put in an appearance during
the day ; yesterday they showed themselves at ten
o'clock in the evening. I doubt whether we shall
see more of them to-day, one of them is so occu-
pied in setting down heroic deeds, and the other
in explaining Newton. They neither play nor
278 Princesses and Court Ladies
drive out, in society they are of no value; their
learned writings are of small help to us."
Madame de Staal slandered the ' * ghosts. ' ' They
were of some value to society after all, for they were
zealously rehearsing Voltaire's Comte de Boursoufle
for the delectation of their hostess. On the 20th,
a new letter was written to Madame du Deffand :
"Yesterday, Madame du Chaletet took posses-
sion of her third apartment. She could not stand
the one that had been given her ; it was noisy, there
was smoke without fire (this, it seems to me, might
pass for her emblem). It is not at night, she told
me, that the noise disturbs her; but in the daytime
during her work, it puts her ideas to flight. Just
now she is reviewing her principles; this is a yearly
exercise with her; otherwise, they might escape
her, and perhaps fly away so far that she would be
left without a single one. I shrewdly suspect that
her head is their prison, and not at all their birth-
place. They have to be severely watched. She
prefers the attitude which this occupation bestows
on her to any amusement, and insists on showing
herself only after nightfall. Voltaire has com-
posed gallant verses which make up somewhat for
the bad effect produced by their peculiar conduct."
The Comte de Boursoufle was acted on the 25th
of August. Madame du Chatelet took the part of
Mademoiselle de la Cochonniere. Physically she
was not suited to it. Mademoiselle de la Cochon-
niere should be "short and stout." Madame du
Chatelet was a tall, thin woman, flat-breasted, and
The Duchess of Maine 279
with a long, bony face. She achieved, however,
a very brilhant success. Madame de Staal herself
confesses as much : "Mademoiselle de la Cochonniere
entered so admirably into the extravagance of the
part that she gave me a great deal of pleasure. ' '
The ghosts left the day after the representation,
and Madame du Deffand was invited to fill their
place. Her friend writes to her on that occasion :
"(August 30th). A good apartment is reserved
for you ; it is the one of which Madame du Chatelet,
after a careful study of the house, took possession.
There will be fewer pieces of furniture than she put
in it ; for she had devastated her former lodgings to
furnish this one. Six or seven tables were discov-
ered in her room; she requires them of different
sizes, some immense, on which to spread her papers,
others solid for her toilet articles, light ones for her
ribbons and her jewels. All this care did not pre-
serve her from the same accident which happened
to Philip II, who had spent the whole night writ-
ing despatches, and then had them ruined by the
upsetting of a bottle of ink. Our fine lady did not
imitate the patience of that prince; but it is true
that he had only busied himself with state affairs,
while what the ink effaced in her case was algebra,
much more difficult to reconstruct.
"The day following their departure, I received
a four-page letter and with it a note, announcing
a great disaster. Monsieur de Voltaire had lost
his play, forgotten to claim the different parts,
and mislaid the prologue. I am ordered to gather
28o Princesses and Court Ladies
all this together, and to shut it up behind a hun-
dred locks. I should have considered a latch suffi-
cient to keep such a treasure, but the orders have
been well and duly executed."
It was no sinecure to entertain so great a man
and his brilliant companion. Three months later
they returned, to Sceaux this time, and their visit
was the signal for extraordinary and most inex-
plicable disorder. Operas were sung. Madame
du Chatelet, who possessed a "divine voice," ap-
peared twice in Isse, a great heroic opera by La
Motte and Destouches. At the first representa-
tion, there were so many guests that Madame du
Maine was exasperated. At the second, an intol-
erable crowd filled the house. The duchess sup-
pressed the opera and declared that only plays,
which attracted fewer people, should be given.
On the 1 5th of December a new piece by Voltaire,
La Prude, adapted from the English,^ was acted.
"The crush was so excessive," relates the Duke of
Luynes in his Memoirs, "that Madame du Maine
was disgusted. She insisted on seeing all the
tickets which had been sent."
That is what she ought to have done at first.
The mystery was soon cleared. Voltaire and
Madame du Chatelet had sent out at least five
hundred invitations thus worded :
"New actors will represent, Friday, December
15th, on the stage of Sceaux, a new comedy of five
acts in verse.
1 From the Plain Dealer by Wycherly.
VOLTAIRE
From an engraving by James Mollison of the picture by Largillier in the
Institute of France
The Duchess of Maine 281
"Come who will, quite without ceremony; at
six o'clock sharp. . . . After six o'clock the doors
will open for no one. ..."
The public rushed to the entertainment, and
"without any ceremony " invaded the castle.
Madame du Maine was very angry, and her guests
left earlier than had been expected.
It was, however, beyond the power of Voltaire
to remain on bad terms with a princess who kept
people from being sent to the Bastille. On her
part, the little duchess regretted her great man,
the star of her circle. Voltaire made up his mind
to take her as his literary ^geria; such was the
price of their reconciliation. She gave him the
plot of a tragedy and corrected the play. He
thanked her by calling her, in his letters, "my
protectress . . . my genius , . . soul of Cornelia
. . . soul of the Great Cond^ ! " He wrote to her,
November, 1794:
"My Protectress: . . .
"Your prot^g^ must tell Your Highness that I
have followed the advice with which you honoured
me. You can scarcely imagine how much Cicero
and Caesar have gained by it. Those gentlemen
would have agreed with you, had they lived at the
same time. I have just read ' Rome Sauvee. Those
parts which Your Serene Highness embellished pro-
duced a stupendous effect.''
The compliment was a flattering one. The next
' To the actors. Rome Sauvee was the tragedy due to Madame
du Maine's collaboration.
282 Princesses and Court Ladies
day, Voltaire went further. Rome Sauvee had be-
come "your tragedy."
"We rehearsed to-day the play remodelled, and
before whom, Madam, do you think? Before
Franciscans, Jesuits, fathers from the oratory,
academicians, magistrates, who knew their Cati
linaires by heart! You can scarcely imagine what
success your tragedy obtained before that grave
assembly. . . . Soul of Cornelia! we shall bring
the Roman senate to the feet of Your Highness,
on Monday."
Another letter, to d'Argental this time, explains
with great frankness his enthusiasm for Madame
du Maine: "I need her protection and cannot
neglect her."
Rome Sauvee was given at Sceaux June 21, 1750.
Peace was signed. But ^geria had not forgotten
the past and had taken her precautions, as we can
see by this note from Voltaire to the Marchioness
of Malause, written at Sceaux itself, from one room
to the other:
"Amiable Colette, beg Her Serene Highness to
accept our homage and our desire to please her.
There will not be in all more than fifty persons,
besides the usual guests of Sceaux."
Voltaire took the part of Cicero, in which he
triumphed. The celebrated actor Lekain, who
represented Lentulus Sura, says in his Memoirs :
"It was life itself, Cicero in person thundering
from the tribune. ..." Madame du Maine was
charmed with her actor.
The Duchess of Maine 283
Years flowed on, and Madame du Maine con-
tinued to divert herself. Between two games of
ninepins she had found time to become very reli-
gious, and watched over the souls of her guests,
but even piety at Sceaux took on a gallant air.
One day when she was pressing old St. Aulaire
to go to confession he answered :
" Ma berg^re, j'ai beau chercher,
Je n'ai rien sur ma conscience.
De gr§,ce, faites-moi pecher:
Apres, je ferai penitence."
The little tiuchess retorted with a well-known
quatrain, which, however, is so very free that it
cannot be repeated here.
From time to time, death indiscreetly reminded
the ' ' nymph of Sceaux ' ' that it was on the watch
by taking off one of her courtiers. Malezieu was
among the first to disappear. Then came the
turn of the Duke of Maine, who died of a cancer
on the face (1736); his wife had taken excellent
care of him. St. Aulaire followed him at the
age of ninety-nine, according to some, at a hun-
dred according to others. Madame d'Estrees,
Madame du Maine's great friend, died in 1747,
Madame de Staal three years later.
These departures for the other world were
troublesome. They disturbed the rehearsals,
broke up the donkey rides. But it was all quickly
over; the dead were speedily done with. "This
afternoon," wrote Madame de Staal, "we are to
284 Princesses and Court Ladies
bury Madame d'Estrees; then the curtain will fall,
and she will be forgotten." A few days later
she adds, "It must be confessed that we go a
little beyond human nature. Already I see my
own funeral pomp; if the sorrow is greater, the
ornaments will be in proportion." After all,
why should Madame du Maine have taken these
things to heart? The dead could no longer
amuse her, they were quite useless, and she was
eager to get rid of their "funeral pomp " as quickly
as possible. She said with ingenuousness that she
was "unfortunate enough not to be able to get
along without certain people for whom she really
cared nothing." Thus is explained the fact that
she was observed "to learn with indifference of
the death of those who, when they had been a
quarter of an hour late for cards, or for a drive,
had caused her to shed tears. "
At seventy-seven, Madame du Maine continued
to divert herself. Voltaire, from Berlin, Decem-
ber 1 8th, 1752, wrote to one of the wits at Sceaux:
"Put me, as ever, at Madame du Maine's feet.
She is a predestined soul and will love the theatre
up to her last moments, and, if she falls ill, I
advise you instead of Extreme Unction to ad-
minister a fine comedy. One dies as one has
lived; I die, I who write these words, scribbling
more verses than La Motte Houdard."
She remained violent and capricious, which, as
time went on, grew less and less becoming; a
young princess may stamp her foot and cry for
The Duchess of Maine 285
the moon not without grace; an old female dwarf
in a rage is ugly to look upon and amuses no one.
She remained also tyrannical and unreasonable;
she reduced her guests to so hard a slavery that
Destouches one day made up his mind to run
away from Sceaux as though it had been the
Bastille. She still had sleepless nights during
which she had to be amused by reading aloud or
the telling of stories. She continued to put on
"a prodigious quantity of rouge," ^ and would
remain two hours before her mirror during which
time she insisted on having a circle of admirers
about her. She was very fond of good things to
eat, but as she found it better for her health to
eat alone, it was only at her table that delicate
viands were served; she had grown thrifty with
regard to the guests' table. She still kept her
caustic and vivacious wit, and was to the end
eloquent and original. She lived for pleasure
alone. She was delighted with herself and per-
suaded that, if she was not a goddess, she was
next door to one.
This goddess, like a simple mortal, took cold,
and from this cold resulted a little accident,
January the 23d, 1753. We leave the Duke of
Luynes to describe it: ''She was eternally com-
plaining, now of a cold, now of her eyes, and yet,
in reality, enjoyed very good health, which her
physical conformation scarcely warranted. Dur-
ing a year or two, however, she had been often
* Memoirs of Luynes.
286 Princesses and Court Ladies
indisposed, and at the end died of a cold which
she could not spit up." To die of a cold which
she could not "spit up" was not very poetical
for a nymph; but one dies as one can. Madame
du Maine left two sons, the Prince of Dombes and
the Count of Eu, who made but little noise in the
world.
Thus ended this strange little creature. In the
midst of her extravagances, of her peculiarities,
of her unequal moods and tempers, one thing, at
least, remained in her immovable and firmly fixed,
her faith in the divinity of her rank. This is what
explains her superb indifference to others, which,
had she not been so very high a lady, we should
call her egotism. And that, also, is what makes
her, as a study, so curious and so interesting, just
as, in a museum, the skeletons of an obsolete race
of animals interest us. It has been said, and about
her, too, "that princes are, morally, what mon-
sters are, physically ; in them one sees, spread out,
most of the vices hidden in other men." In the
time when she lived, nothing was more true. In
our day, we can scarcely imagine what princes and
princesses were two centuries ago — beings set
apart, marked on the forehead with a divine seal,
freed by their birthright from all regard for other
men, and subjected to special moral laws, made
for them and for them only. Modern princes and
princesses are of another type. They constantly
forget that they are not made on the same pattern
as the rest of us, and thus they make us forget it
The Duchess of Maine 287
too. How can we believe in them, if they do not
beHeve in themselves ?
Respect for royal domains has disappeared with
the respect for royal persons. Sceaux, confiscated
by the Convention, was sold in 1798 to a man of
low birth, who demolished the castle and the cas-
cade, cut down the trees, and transformed the park
into fields. He left nothing standing but the
Aurora Pavilion and a fragment of the park, which
was bought from him and still exists, with its
trimmed bowers, its lawns, and broken columns.
This is where the menagerie used to be. Public
balls are now given here, and, on Sundays, Parisian
grisettes dance in the avenues where Madame du
Maine played with her small monkeys as she was
making out a puzzle. Chance sometimes shows
a humourous sense of fitness. This pretty nook of
the menagerie has not changed its character. It
has remained a place of trifles and capers, as in
the days of the little duchess.
THE MARGRAVINE OF BAYREUTH
The Margravine of Bayreuth, sister to the great
Frederick, left Memoirs written in French, which
were printed first in Paris, in 1810, and often re-
pubHshed in a German translation. About thirty
years ago, her correspondence with her brother was
given to the public. Sainte-Beuve seized the op-
portunity of drawing the portrait of this amiable
princess. It is a singular fact, that he studied her
only through her correspondence commenced when
she was over twenty, and which at the beginning,
at least, is not particularly interesting. Not
without some show of irritation, he refused to
speak of the Memoirs, which picture the curi-
ously interesting childhood and early youth of
the Margravine of Bayreuth and of her brother
Frederick II.
The truth was that Sainte-Beuve had just found
his political road to Damascus. He was sincerely
shocked by the levity with which this king's
daughter treated the courts of her day ; he even
took her severely to task for her ill-sounding sar-
casms and for furnishing weapons to the enemies
of "an order of things which was her own and
which she ought not to wish to debase or to see
destroyed."
Sainte-Beuve's critical instinct, usually so keen,
288
The Margravine of Bayreuth 289
was here at fault through the ardour of his newly
hatched, and consequently intolerant, reverence
for the great. This work, in which he sees nothing
but a tissue of frivolous sarcasms directed against
princes, the "error " of a clever woman, gives us,
on the contrary, a vivid picture of German man-
ners at the beginning of the eighteenth century,
and therefore is most precious to history. If the
society described by the Margravine is coarse, the
more shocking is the contrast between this coarse-
ness and what is known of the flowering of German
civilisation a hundred years earlier, and the better
one understands the disastrous extent of the Thirty
Years' War, which had plunged Germany back-
ward into barbarism. The Margravine was bom
just when the convalescent nation was once more
setting forth on the road toward those high desti-
nies which we have witnessed, and so her Memoirs
show us, at the same time, the triumph of savage
brutality under her father, Frederick William I,
and the latent workings which prepared for the
reign of the great Frederick. The princess is piti-
less toward the world in which she grew up, and
yet one feels in these artless pages the truth of what
Frederick II said about his father: "It is by his
care that I have been enabled to do what I have
done."
It will not perhaps be without interest to
examine the society which the Margravine has
graciously presented to posterity with such bound-
less frankness, and to learn what was the life of a
290 Princesses and Court Ladies
king's daughter in the good old kingly times, when
princes were envied by all.
Frederick William I, second king of Prussia,
and his queen Sophia Dorothea, daughter of George
I, King of England and Elector of Hanover, had
four sons and six daughters, without counting the
children who died in infancy. Princess Wilhel-
mina, who in due time married the Margrave of
Bayreuth, and was the author of the Memoirs, was
the eldest of the surviving children. She came
into the world at Potsdam, July 3, 1709, and was
but ill received because a prince had been expected.
Her first years were sad, her youth most unhappy.
Her father was a terrible man; her mother was
very weak, unable to defend either herself or those
belonging to her.
Queen Sophia Dorothea was naturally kind and
generous. Married to Frederick William, however,
his violent outbursts alarmed her, and fear made
her peevish and unreliable. She was clever enough,
and yet made endless silly mistakes; she was de-
voted to the least agreeable of husbands, but spent
her life in irritating him. She loved her children,
and yet when Frederick was being persecuted, all
she could find to do for him was, very regularly,
to send him twelve new shirts every year. Her
maternal grandmother was the beautiful Eleanore
THE MARGRAVINE OF BAYREUTH
From a steel engraving
The Margravine of Bayreuth 291
of Olbreuse, in whom the royal house of Prussia has
as an ancestress, the daughter of a simple noble-
man of Poitou, In spite of this blemish the Queen
concentrated in her person all the haughtiness of
the Hanoverian House. Her head was turned by
her greatness and she threw herself in her pride of
rank, into a sea of chimerical adventures, which
often proved too deep for her. She would then
become vindictive, for this same pride of blood
never allowed her to forgive those who had offended
her. A word from her husband would make her
crouch and quake, but she avenged herself by
tyrannizing over others. Had she been happy
she would have flowered into goodness and charm.
Oppressed and crushed, she added to the gloom of
the palace, and one could only pity her. She was
portly and fair-skinned, with well-cut, rather large
features, majestic in deportment, and appearing to
great advantage in her part as queen.
Of Frederick William we have very striking
portraits. Stout and heavy, the lower part of
the face massive, with round, staring, unquiet
eyes, he looks the brute that he was, the obstinate
and tyrannical brute that well-nigh strangled his
son, Frederick II, with a curtain cord. His ex-
pression shows him capable of those fits of anger
verging on madness which could be heard from
afar, and caused the people to crowd about his
windows. He always carried a stick, and in his
perpetual outbursts of rage, he struck wildly
right and left, adding kicks and cuffs to the beat-
29^ Princesses and Court Ladies
ing. He would run after people, and drag them
by the hair, so as to flog them more easily, or
else, if gout kept him in his chair, he would throw
anything that he could reach at their heads. It
was necessary to watch him carefully so as to
dodge in time. Jealous, avaricious, drunken, full
of manias, and hating books and the arts with a
sort of passion, he made his wife and children
pitifully unhappy. Yet, he was not a bad king.
His manias answered exactly to the wants of the
country. They were a boon after the tribula-
tions through which Germany had passed and
which had made it go backward several centuries.
In the pictures of the old German school, ex-
amine the towns with their pointed gables, their
great high roofs with rows of small windows one
above the other, their little airy turrets placed
at the edge of the roofs like swallows' nests, their
heavy, well kept ramparts, which might serve as a
background even to biblical scenes. This is an-
cient Germ.any, flourishing, industrious, softened
by long peace, having borrowed from the Refor-
mation much vivacity, and curiosity of mind, and
the love of liberty. Order and activity reigned in
the streets, well-being and comfort in the houses.
German artisans were celebrated and sent their
handicraft "even to the most distant lands, situ-
ated at the four winds of the world." ^ The pros-
perous middle class directed the affairs of the
towns with great wisdom. Nuremberg had three
» Sebastian Mtmster, Cosmographia Universalis (1544).
The Margravine of Bayreuth 293
hundred cannons on her fortifications, wheat for
two years in her stores, a treasure of fifteen mil-
lions of florins, a greater sum than Frederick
William, King of Prussia, left after twenty-sevefi
years of stringent economy. Augsbourg was still
richer, more refined as to manners, with a more
lively taste for luxury and artistic objects; the
gardens of her bankers could rival those of the
King of France, and their houses were full of
treasures. The country was well cultivated. The
mines have perhaps never yielded so much; ac-
cording to Ranke, the quantity of silver thrown
upon the market by Germany, during the sixteenth
century, almost equals the value of the American
gold.^ The traffic in men which provided foreign
countries with troopers, rid the land of adven-
turous and turbulent spirits. The institution of
mercenary armies secured the quiet of the country
till the day came when that same institution
brought ruin with it.
The Thirty Years' War swept over this happy
land and left it waste, depopulated, crushed, a
terrifying proof of the ease with which a great
civilisation, even in modem times, can be anni-
hilated. The mercenary troops of Wallenstein and
Tilly left a desert behind them; the plague and
famine completed their work. There was a de-
^ Ranke, Zur Deutschen Geschichte. It must be remembered
that Ranke always maintained that the revenues Spain got from
America, during the sixteenth century, were far less considerable
than is usually supposed. (See his Spain Under Charles V,
Philip II, and Philip III.)
294 Princesses and Court Ladies
struction of towns, "the like of which had not
been seen since Jerusalem," in some five provinces,
four villages only remained standing. Thirty
thousand people were killed at a time, vast plains
were left uncultivated and became forests once
more. When peace returned, Berlin had only six
thousand inhabitants, huddled in houses roofed
with wood and straw.
In Bohemia, the country was a desert. ' ' Armed
men who ventured to cross it sometimes met a
group of peasants around a fire, preparing their
supper, human remains in the pot." ^ Fearful
moral ruin accompanied material ruin: "We had
forgotten how to laugh," said a contemporary.
The people became as ferocious as the soldiery;
the middle classes seemed reduced to idiocy
by excess of misfortune ; the nobility, abominably
ignorant, resorted to drunkenness. In all classes,
coarseness and unheard of harshness reigned,
and when learning revived it took on the char-
acter of prodigious pedantry. The dregs of the
German nature, stirred during a whole genera-
tion, had come to the surface. The country's
wounds were so deep that thirty years ago one
questioned whether they were quite healed, and
whether the Germany of the nineteenth century
was not, in some respect, still inferior to that of
the sixteenth.
It was in the midst of this barbarism and misery
1 Hormayr, Taschenbuch fiir die Vaterlandische Geschichte,
quoted by Michelet.
The Margravine of Bayreuth 295
that Prussia came upon the world's stage. Fred-
erick William was not one to restore it to politeness
and gentleness, but he was the very man to pre-
pare it for the great part it was to play under his
successor. His avarice brought order in the
kitchen as well as in public affairs. He fashioned
Prussian administration on his own pattern; hard,
methodical, precise. His journeys through the
provinces, cane in hand, accustomed public officers
to a discipline, the tradition of which still exists.
It is true that, beyond his frontiers, he did not
know how to make himself respected. Diplomacy
was not among his natural accomplishments. He
was abusive with ambassadors as with the rest of
humanity. One day he lifted his foot to kick an
English envoy, and a negotiation fell to the ground
in consequence. Nothing could keep him from
giving a piece of his mind, no matter to whom, or
under what circumstances, and always getting
into some kind of petty broil. The other sover-
eigns knew him well and in no way trusted him.
His great pride was his army. He originated
the idea that a Prussian must be bom with a hel-
met on his head, and he made the nation believe
it. One of the Margravine of Bayreuth 's first
reminiscences was that of seeing the coirrt and the
town at the death of her grandfather, Frederick I,
suddenly in uniform. "All was changed at Ber-
lin," she writes. "Those who wished to curry
favour with the new king put on helmets and
breastplates, everything became military." At
296 Princesses and Court Ladies
four o'clock in the morning, Frederick William was
in the square before the palace commanding the
manoeuvres. The Prussian army, in his hands,
became the perfect machine which has served as
model up to our days. He, himself, for very love
of his army, was a peaceable king. He would have
hated to send his regiments to the war for fear of
spoiling them. There was one in particular, com-
posed of men well above six feet in height, the joy
of his eyes, his pride, his love, which he could
never bear to have out of his sight. For this great
regiment, Frederick William showed himself prod-
igal and patient. In order to secure all the giants
in Germany, and to see them resplendent at the
parade, he became extravagant and endured in-
sults. He sent out of the country to enroll giants
at high prices ; if they refused he had them carried
off by force, at the risk of serious complications
with his brother sovereigns; was it not all for the
great regiment, that regiment for which he was
ready to make any sacrifice, except that of giving
up a fine soldier ? He made up for all this self-
control in his treatment of his family.
II
Little Princess Wilhelmina was bright and in-
telligent. Nature made her gay, and trouble
never entirely saddened her. At the first gleam
of simshine, her good temper rose anew and she
The Margravine of Bayreuth 297
was once more herself, mischievous, fond of danc-
ing, and bold at playing pranks. When she was
six years old she found that her father intended
to plight her to a prince of fifteen, whom she de-
spised. She discovered that this suitor was a
coward and she took delight in frightening him
out of his wits. When her governess found her
out she punished her severely, and the governess
had a heavy hand. In the old days princes were
brought up roughly, and Frederick William was
not likely to introduce a gentler regime. His
principle was that "the passions of youth needed
to be calmed," ^ and Mademoiselle Leti, the gov-
erness, "calmed" the little princess to such good
purpose that th^ Margravine later wondered that
she had not broken her arms and legs, rolling down
the staircase.
Leti, however, was dismissed for fear her pupil
might be lamed for life. Princess Wilhelmina
then had to get along with her father, who under-
took to break her in, as well as her brother and
playfellow, Frederick. Thanks to their father,
the fear of blows remained one of their liveliest
impressions of childhood. Frederick especially
often came out of the paternal hands with his face
covered with blood and a handful of hair missing.
The Margravine relates their emotions when Fred-
erick William surprised them with the Queen, in
spite of the many stratagems which were employed
to get them out of the way at the first alarm.
* Memoirs de Catt.
298 Princesses and Court Ladies
Once, unexpectedly, the King entered. Prince
Frederick had barely time to shut himself up in a
closet, his sister to creep under the Queen's bed-
stead, which was so low that she had the greatest
trouble in squeezing under it. The King threw
himself on the bed and fell asleep. The children
could hardly breathe and did not dare to move.
It is quite the story of Hop-o'-My-Thumb and his
brothers hidden under the ogre's bed. Princess
Wilhelmina was then twenty, her brother seven-
teen. The Prussian ogre, after two hours, left the
room without having smelt fresh meat, but such
adventures are not easily forgotten. The Queen
did not dare to say a word. The King had taught
her to hold her peace before him. "It is neces-
sary," said he, "to keep a woman in fear of the
stick; otherwise, she will dance on her husband's
head."
Another lively reminiscence of their youth to
Princess Wilhelmina and her brother, was that of
hunger, that of having been famished not once,
nor twice, nor twenty times, but during weeks and
months. Frederick William ordered all household
details, carved and served himself, at table. Every
day he invited a quantity of generals to dinner, all
in uniform, stiff and smart. He used to conde-
scend to get tipsy with them, but outside of drink
these dinners were nothing more than a course of
lessons in frugality. The allowance of food at the
royal table was rigidly fixed ; six very small dishes
for twenty-four people, and, in serving, the King
The Margravine of Bayreuth 299
saw that enough was left over for supper/ When
he came to his children . . .But here we must
listen to the Margravine. There are certain
things that princesses alone have the right to say:
"When, by chance, anything was left in the dish,
he spat upon it, to keep us from eating." The
description of the stew made of old bones, which
was served to her when she was punished and
dined in her room, cannot be quoted even from a
princess's diary. During the long incarcerations
inflicted upon her in the winter of 1730-1731,
while her brother was under sentence, she well
nigh died of hunger. She had reached the limit
of endurance, when the French colony of Berlin,
moved to pity, managed to send her some food.
The depth of her gratitude shows what the crav-
ings of her appetite must have been. She con-
fesses ingenuously that she conceived "a high
esteem" for the French people whom she always
made it "a rule to succour and protect" on every
occasion. Frederick William, without a pang of
remorse, saw his children reduced to skin and
bones. His one thought was to increase his treas-
ury.
What a poet a miser is ! What an idealist ! He
deprives himself of everything, he is cold, he is
famished, his life is a miserable one and round
him he spreads sadness. But there, in his coffers,
he possesses potentially, luxury, power, flattery,
^ Another eye-witness affirms that the six dishes were well-filled.
At any rate, his children did not profit by the abtindance.
300 Princesses and Court Ladies
love, friends, all that wealth can give to man. No
dream is too beautiful, no caprice too costly. He
buys castles, provinces, the whole world, accord-
ing to his fancy; in his hand he holds all these
things when he grasps his gold. With what logic
he despises the so-called wise man who buys a
field, or a house, and who rejoices, saying : "It is
mine." With the miser everything is his, since
he can procure all things ; and, as long as his treas-
ure is in the house, no one can take anything from
him, since his joys are within himself. The rough
Frederick William was a poet when he gave his
heir but a bone to gnaw, so that, later, he might
buy all the giants on earth and have a whole army
of men six feet and a half high, instead of a single
regiment. The old King would have risen from
his grave to see a hundred thousand giants on
parade.
It would scarcely have been wise to tell Fred-
erick William that, in his way, he was a poet. And
yet he was, without knowing it, and against his
own will, for there was nothing he despised as
much as poetry The mere word " verses " put him
in a rage. One day he noticed an inscription
above one of the gates of his palace. "He
asked," relates Frederick II, "what those char-
acters were: 'Latin verses by Wachter.' At the
word verses he sent at once for poor Wachter.
He appeared. My father said to him angrily: 'I
order you to leave, instantly, my city and my
states.' He did not require a second command."
</lC^ L'c/i, / / ///',//,. ^ . , U U , / . , , ,,
. ,/„ f'T-a^. CPU
FREDERICK WILLIAM KING OF PRUSSIA
From an engraving by G. F. Schmidt
The Margravine of Bayreuth 301
The chief grievance of Frederick Wilham against
his son Frederick, for which he really hated him,
was that the youth was fond of music and poetry ;
he called him in public, with contumely, "Fife-
player! Poet!" His great anger against his
daughter Wilhelmina arose from the fact that she
encouraged the ' ' effeminate ' ' tastes of her brother
and his love of literature.
He himself did not like prose much better than
verse. Any kind of book was to him like a red
rag to a bull. It was the enemy. He pounced
upon it and without even glancing at it sent it
flying into the fire. The education of his sons
was conducted according to these principles. As
to the girls, he left them to the Queen, their
bringing up being of no importance. So it hap-
pened that Princess Wilhelmina became, without
opposition, a highly educated woman, a good
linguist and an excellent musician. Over the
boys, however, especially the heir apparent, he
kept good watch; they were not to be poisoned
with literature. Forty years later, Frederick II
trembled as he remembered the scene that took
place in his room when his father discovered that
a master, a traitor, was teaching him Latin.
* ' What are you doing there ? ' ' called out the King.
"Papa, I am declining mensa, ae." "Ah\ You
wretch! Teaching Latin to my son! Out of my
sight." The master rushed away but not before
receiving a shower of blows and kicks. The pupil
hid himself under the table, but he was dragged
302 Princesses and Court Ladies
by the hair out into the middle of the room and
violently cuffed. "Let us have no more of your
mensa,'' said the King, hitting harder still, " or
that is the way I shall reward you." Frederick
was then a mere child. He was timid and did not
learn easily. His father might have disgusted
him of books for ever and made him a savage
according to his own image, a savage full of genius,
yet a savage, but for Princess Wilhelmina.
Of all the varieties of affection, the most per-
fect, the most exquisite, is that between sister
and brother. It usually develops in early youth,
that age of chivalrous friendships and disinter-
ested devotion. It has the liberty which can
never exist in maternal and filial affections, and
at the same time the strong bond of close rela-
tionship. The reminiscences and impressions
shared in infancy, the partaking of the same joys
and sorrows at the same hearth, be the home gay
or sombre, sweet or cruel, give it incomparable
power to devise and heal the heart's secret wounds.
It has all the delicacy of a friendship between
man and woman, without danger of yielding to
those feelings which remind, even the most vir-
tuous, that a man is a man in a woman's eyes,
and the converse. It is the salvation of unhappy
childhood; its sweetness and purity keep away
despair and the demoralising effects of grief.
Princess Wilhelmina felt for her brother Fred-
erick an elder sister's sweet and deep affection.
The sickly temperament of her brother, his per-
The Margravine of Bayreuth 303
petual terrors, had made of him a poor child, sad
and taciturn. She knew the secret of consohng
him and reconciHng him with hfe. As he grew
up she pleaded unceasingly with him for letters
and arts, for politeness, for human and modern
ideas, and she triumphed, in spite of her father
and his rough soldiers. In her, Frederick II had
a trustworthy confidante, a heroic ally, a perfect
friend. 1
III
In their tastes and ideas, both were in ad-
vance of the surroundings in which fate had
placed them, and they suffered in consequence,
diversely, according to their natures. As soon as
Prince Frederick had conquered his awful child-
ish terrors and ceased to tremble at the very
sound of his father's name, his only thought was
to escape from him, and to this end he plunged
giddily into intrigues which culminated in the
Kustrin tragedy. His sister, on the contrary,
became prudent, and learned diplomacy at an
age when little girls usually play with their dolls.
"I always," said she, "had the misfortune to
meditate over much; I say the misfortune, for, in
very deed, by dint of going too deeply into things,
one discovers how sad they often are." She adds
that too many reflections at times "weary her"
but that she had found them "useful for the
direction of one's conduct." She was thirteen
304 Princesses and Court Ladies
when experience reduced her to this sorry phil-
osophy; she then resolved to understand all
things, even were it to cost her nights of weeping,
as often happened.
Perfect wisdom would have consisted in not
asking of the things and people meditated upon
more than they could give. Unfortunately,
Princess Wilhelmina harboured many ideas most
preposterous in a king's daughter. She believed
that she had the right to despise ambition. She
insisted on counting her own happiness as of some
weight in the arrangements made for her future.
"I have always been something of a philosopher,"
she wrote in her blindness, " ambition is not one
of my faults. I prefer happiness and peace to
honours; constraint and uneasiness I have always
hated." Queen Sophia Dorothea, in whom a just
pride of birth was the only sentiment which Fred-
erick William's stick had not altered or debased,
accused her daughter of having a low nature, and
reproached her with it in the energetic language
the King had introduced into the Court. She
remained speechless with indignation when Prin-
cess Wilhelmina dared to show her intention of
seeking happiness in marriage, and, in point of
fact, it was the Queen who was right ; she felt that
the monarchical tradition was being frittered away
by the middle -class ideas which under cover of
philosophy found their way through the palace
walls.
Princess Wilhelmina was a bit sentimental. She
SOPHIA DOROTHEA QUEEN OF PRUSSIA
From an old copper print
The Margravine of Bayreuth 305
was bom so, and, most incredibly, she had re-
ceived from her father a sentimental education.
Frederick William himself did not, with impunity,
belong to the eighteenth century. He considered
it as necessary, now and again, to give proofs,
and, as it were, representations of sensibility.
By the bedside of a sick child he would shed tor-
rents of tears, but this would not keep him the
next day from refusing a cup of broth to the
little invalid. He used to beat Frederick until he
was stunned, and yet he sent him "with com-
punction ' ' to visit the hospitals ' ' so that he might
have an idea of human miseries, and learn to be
tender-hearted."^ With such examples before
their eyes, given by so exalted a person, his
children studied "to be tender-hearted" since
even their father did not consider that he could
altogether ignore this quality. In the case of
Frederick II this trait did not become very deep-
rooted ; he was sentimental and shed tears only at
certain times, outside of business hours; but the
Margravine of Bayreuth ended by indulging in
this mood in season and out of season; the result
was, as we shall see, that great imaginary sorrows
were added to the very real miseries of her youth.
A German print shows her to us at about thirty,
in the languishing and somewhat artificial atti-
tude, which, in painting, is the distinctive mark
of a poetical and sensitive soul. She is seated, a
little dog on her lap, her cheek leaning on one
* Memoirs of Catt.
3o6 Princesses and Court Ladies
hand, holding an open book in the other. She
cannot be said to be pretty. Her face, however,
is interesting. Her large eyes are too round, like
her father's, but the expression is sweet and deep.
Her powdered hair, worn low, gives her a graceful
little head after the Watteau style. Under the
mantle which envelops her, one guesses at the
thinness of her figure. Privations — however
strange the word may seem, it is here rightly used
— had ruined her health. Several serious ill-
nesses in fireless rooms, with convalescence aided
only by cold water, had reduced her to a shadow;
she never really recovered.
This frail creature, so amiable and so unfortu-
nate, moves one to pity; poor princess, dreaming
of a love marriage like those in novels, and think-
ing of the husband who would bring her happiness,
forgetful that she was born to be merely a political
tool. What has a king's daughter, the daughter
of Frederick William I, to do with such dreams!
It was misfortune enough that she should have a
delicate mind, eternally wounded and shocked by
all she saw and heard. What business had she,
besides, to possess a heart yearning for tenderness!
In olden times, the people touched by sufferings
like hers had imagined, for princesses pining from
the need of love, good fairies who gave casks full
of diamonds, and kingdoms to boot, to the Prince
Charming so that he might marry his lady-love.
We have become much more cruel to the great
ones of this world. No longer pitying them, we
The Margravine of Bayreuth 307
even fancy that they do not suffer as we do, and
that the heart of a princess, because it had been
taught silence, is scarcely a woman's heart. It
seems to me that the story of Princess Wilhelmina
might move the most hardened.
She was scarcely out of the cradle, when it be-
came her fate to be tossed from one proposed mar-
riage to another ; these were made and unmade by
.her parents, and everything was considered except
her own tastes and possible happiness. It would
be unjust to blame Frederick William and Sophia
Dorothea. They fulfilled their duties as sover-
eigns, as indeed they had no choice. But the
accomplishment of these duties was made unneces-
sarily cruel by the fantastic temper of the King
and the Queen's indiscretion. Their daughter's
settlement in life was for both of them, if I may use
the expression, the list in which they tilted against
each other. Each fought for his or her candidate,
the Queen by underhand intrigues, the King by
violent blows, and there was no possible chance of
agreement. They entered the tournament with
ideas too completely different. The Queen,
haughty and ambitious, demanded a great al-
liance. The King, though he was not insensible
to the advantages of a political marriage, wished
especially to get husbands for his six daughters
as economically as possible. Princess Wilhelmina,
threatened by each with the most terrible fate if
she obeyed the other, sure of hard treatment
whichever way she turned, seeing her hand pro-
3o8 Princesses and Court Ladies
mised now here, now there, when it was not offered
in several places at once, North or South, East or
West, bowed her head and lamented her hard fate.
She knew that it was inevitable, and yet she cotild
not resign herself to it.
IV
She was first engaged to her cousin, the Prince
of Wales/ She was four, and he six. He sent
her presents, and Queen Sophia Dorothea beamed
with happiness, for this English alliance was her
own special dream and work. She had arranged
it, and she clung to it with all the strength of her
pride; during eighteen years she propped it up
with an obstinacy that nothing conquered, each
time that Frederick William broke it down. It
was Penelope's embroidery. The King unravelled ;
the Queen repaired.
Frederick William was not at all times averse
to the alliance with his nephew. Now and then
he was as eager for it as his wife, and then he him-
self knotted the broken threads, but again the fer-
ment of semi-madness in his brain caused him to
upset everything and once more things had to be
begun anew. Sometimes, in a mad rage, he would
treat the foreign ambassadors like mere German
generals. The English diplomatist sulked, his
' Or rather, to be quite exact, the Duke of Gloucester, who
became Prince of Wales in 1727, at the death of his grandfather,
George I.
FREDERICK, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER
From the painting by I. Simon
The Margravine of Bayreuth 309
master stormed, and there was no more talk of
the Prince of Wales until the Queen arduously
brought about a reconciliation. At other times,
the trouble came from the irresistible temptation
of a few giants discovered in Hanover by the Prus-
sian Pressgang. Frederick William had them
kidnapped, though he well knew that George,
Elector of Hanover, was much more sensitive
about his prerogatives than was George I, King
of Great Britain. The Elector claimed his sub-
jects, the King refused to give them up — that
would have been too much — the misunderstand-
ing grew into hatred, and the Queen was reduced
to the last extremities in her attempt to mollify
her husband; finally she found him some other
giants, and the heart of Frederick William melted
at the sight. On one occasion, the Austrian en-
voy, Seckendorf, maliciously played upon the
King's weaknesses to make him quarrel with Eng-
land, and bind him to Austria. The audience at
which he presented a quantity of immense Hun-
garians, destined to pay for the treaty of Wuster-
hausen (1727), was worthy of the comic stage.
The King's face beamed with childish glee, which
became ecstatic when he heard that the Emperor
had "given orders that all the biggest men of his
states should be hunted out and presented to Fred-
erick William." That day, the Prince of Wales
fell into such discredit that the Queen had much
ado to bring back her husband to the starting
point.
3IO Princesses and Court Ladies
Princess Wilhelmina felt great indifference to-
wards this intermittent fianc^. She had never
seen him and she had not the gift of falHng in love
by royal decree. The Prince of Wales, less open
to modern ideas, pretended that this precious gift
had been vouchsafed to him. As soon as the wind
blew toward England, he sent word to the princess
that he was madly in love with her. She only
laughed. Her cousin was associated in her mind
with so many scoldings from her mother, so many
blows from her father, so many ill reports spread
by the Seckendorf faction, and so many annoy-
ances, great and small, that she could not think of
him without irritation. One day, the English
court, having been secretly informed that she was
humpbacked, sent women to examine her. She
was undressed; "I was forced," she said, "to pass
before them, and to show them my back to prove
that there was no hump on it. I was beside my-
self with anger." Another time, the worry of
this affair, combined with too much hard drinking,
drove the King into a fit of hypochondria and re-
ligious mania. "The King preached us a sermon
every afternoon ; his valet began a hymn in which
we all joined; we were forced to listen to the ser-
mon as though it had been preached by an Apostle.
My brother and I were shaken with laughter which
we could not always repress. Then all the ana-
thema of the Church were heaped upon us and we
were forced to listen with a contrite and penitent
air, which we had great difficulty in assuming."
The Margravine of Bayreuth 3 1 1
The melancholy into which Frederick William
had fallen was such that he thought of abdicating.
He wanted to take up his residence at the country
place of Wusterhausen, where, in all seasons, dinner
was served in the courtyard, one's feet in the water
if it happened to rain, and where each royal family
had but one room for all its members and its fol-
lowers, male and female; screens served as walls.
The King informed his wife and daughters that he
meant to take them to this rustic home. "There,"
said he, "I shall pray God, and watch over the
field labours, while my wife and daughters attend
to the household. You have clever fingers (to
Princess Wilhelmina), I shall therefore give the
linen into your charge, you will sew and do the
washing. Frederick, who is avaricious, will be
the provision manager. Charlotte will go to
market, and my wife will take care of the small
children and do the cooking."
Another time, still fuiious with regard to the
Prince of Wales, the King vowed he would shut
up his eldest daughter in a convent. He wrote to
an abbess who, as one can easily imagine, made no
difficulty, and answered with enthusiasm. When
the letter reached him, Frederick William had
changed his mind, and threatened Wilhelmina
with a fortress prison if she obeyed her mother
and married her cousin. The Queen, on the other
hand, vowed eternal hatred to her daughter if she
did not marry him, adding, by way of encourage-
ment. "He is a good-hearted prince, but rather
312 Princesses and Court Ladies
stupid ; he is ugly rather than handsome and even
a Httle deformed. Provided you let him have his
debauchery in peace, you will govern him com-
pletely." The Queen often repeated this speech,
and each time her daughter felt less inclined to
risk a dungeon for such a prize.
Frederick William always had a son-in-law
ready to play against the Prince of Wales. We
have spoken of the youth whom little Wilhelmina
frightened to death so as to get rid of him. His
name was the Margrave of Schwedt and he was
prince of blood royal. The King had chosen him
in a fit of drunkenness, and had kept him as a
scarecrow to frighten the Queen when he had no
one else at hand. When he no longer needed his
scarecrow he forgot all about him. Princess Wil-
helmina paints a cruel portrait of the Margrave;
of all her admirers, none excited in her a greater
aversion, perhaps because she knew him best of all.
Charles XII, King of Sweden, figured for a short
time in the gallery of Frederick William's possible
sons-in-law. He could not greatly have troubled
Wilhelmina 's imagination as she was nine years
of age when he died. The Memoirs also mention
a Russian prince. Then came, unless I have for-
gotten some others, Augustus, Elector of Saxony
and King of Poland. We must stop and consider
him because the affair was pushed pretty far and
also because he was the most singular of all the
suitors to whom Frederick William was favourably
inclined.
AUGUSTUS THE STRONG, KING OF POLAND
From an old print
The Margravine of Bayreuth 313
It was in 1727, during the fit of melancholy and
piety, when the King was inspired with the idea of
utilising his wife and daughters in the kitchen and
laundry. His favourites, who saw their own ruin
in his abdication, had tried to rouse him in vain.
Not knowing what else to propose, they persuaded
him to pay a visit to King Augustus at Dresden,
and this idea brought about another; they sug-
gested that their master might profit by his visit
to arrange a marriage between his host and Prin-
cess Wilhelmina. Frederick WilHam yielded, and
started for Dresden in January, 1728. He was
dazzled. The Polish court was then the most bril-
liant in Germany. Its luxury seemed overpower-
ing to a man who had come from Wusterhausen.
One could eat one's fill and more too, and one
could drink perpetually. The two kings got roy-
ally drunk together and, in a maudlin mood, made
all the arrangements for the marriage. It is true
that King Augustus was then fifty -eight * and that
he was old for his age, but "his presence and his
countenance" were "majestic"; what more could
a princess of eighteen desire ? It is true that King
Augustus had three hundred and fifty-four bas-
tards and that he still kept a harem which accorded
with so considerable a family. Had he been sober,
Frederick William would have been severe in his
appreciation of such conduct; drunk, he forgot all
about it. It is true that Augustus had had "an
1 The Memoirs of the Margravine say forty-nine ; this is a mis-
take: Augustus was bom in 1670.
314 Princesses and Court Ladies
accident which kept him from walking or standing
for any length of time. Gangrene had set in and
the foot was only saved by cutting off two toes.
The wound was still open and caused him abomi-
nable suffering." But this rendered him inter-
esting, for he continued bravely to do his duty as
King, and stood, smiling, when etiquette required
him to do so.
It is true that King Augustus finished giv-
ing the full measure of his morality by offering
Frederick William and his young son Frederick
an exhibition of so peculiar a nature that the
King jumped toward his son, turned him around,
and pushed him out of the room; but this was
an error, a mistaken politeness which was not
to happen again. It is true, also, that King
Augustus did many other things which may not
be related here, but he had such an excellent
cellar !
King Augustus was accepted and authorised to
pay his court. Four months later he reached
Berlin (May 29, 1728), and Princess Wilhelmina
had to receive this charming bridegroom whom
decay had impatiently attacked before his burial.
With great affability he showed her a few of her
three hundred and fifty -four future step-children,
and all went on right merrily. In his joy at having
found so suitable a son-in-law, Frederick William
gave a dinner which lasted nine hours ; the Queen
and her daughters were not invited; no useless
mouths were wanted. Two hours after leaving
The Margravine of Bayreuth 315
the table, still intoxicated, the sovereigns began
to drink again. There were grand doings at the
palace, Berlin was illuminated, and the betrothed
King returned to his states to prepare for the wed-
ding.
Political dissensions very opportunely threw
down this card house, but Princess Wilhelmina
had had a narrow escape. Oddly enough, King
Augustus had excited no aversion in her. She
had felt a slight flush of vanity on finding her-
self suddenly of some importance in the world,
courted by a king and his followers. For a poor
Cinderella, the change was as agreeable as it was
complete, and she was grateful to King Augustus
though, for a young girl, she was singularly well
informed as to his debauchery and diseases. He
said to her ' ' many charming things, ' ' and then he
was a king and, in those days that meant some-
thing.
Immediately after the King of Poland, Frederick
William took a fancy to a younger son called the
Duke of Weissenfels, young and gallant, but of so
little importance in the world that Queen Sophia
Dorothea was out of her mind with anger at the
mere thought of such an alliance. We shall have
occasion to revert once more to this duke. We
have now come to a pass when the fate of Princess
Wilhelmina was so involved with that of her
brother, that it is necessary to recall, as rapidly
as possible, the prosecution of Katt, in order to
understand the part she played in the tragedy and
3i6 Princesses and Court Ladies
the causes which redoubled the King's aversion
toward her.
V
The streak of madness in Frederick William
increased with the years. His anger turned to
delirium; in 1729, he tied a cord around his throat
and would have strangled to death had not the
Queen saved him. His avarice also grew on him,
and little was served at his table except cabbage,
carrots, and turnips. His irritation against the
fife player ' ' who, according to him, was destined
"to ruin all his good work" had changed into a
maniac's savage hatred, and a large share of this
hatred fell to Princess Wilhelmina. He was
greatly struck by the fact that these two child-
ren were so different from himself. He felt that
he had good reasons for finding fault with their
looks, and even with their silence, for he believed
them both to be quite given over to French ideas,
French philosophy, and French fashion, whereas
he wanted all things in Germany to be thoroughly
German. In this he was quite right. Each race
has its own genius, which guides it in its proper
path, and a nation rarely achieves success in
following its neighbour's lead. Nearly always it
is forced to retrace its steps ; in thinking to take a
short cut, it has merely lost its way. Frederick
William's great fault was not that he wished for
a German Germany, but that he insisted on hav-
ing a motionless Germany; that he tried to stop
The Margravine of Bayreuth 317
the nation in the prodigious bound that was to
carry it to the clouds; above all he had utterly
failed to perceive the genius of a son, who, if he
did amuse himself with writing French verses,
was destined to inaugurate a government immea-
surably more national than his own, a son who,
on reaching the throne, finding Germany a mere
satellite of Austria, would leave it on the sure
road to reverse the situation.
It would have been impossible to have been
more blind than was his father towards Frederick
II, and his reasons were most trivial. Other
monarchs and more illustrious, had foreseen with
bitterness that their heirs would destroy their
work. Philip II and Peter the Great understood
that fate had placed them between two mon-
strous alternatives ; to deliver up millions of men
into the hands of a madman like Don Carlos, or
an idiot like Alexis, or to commit an execrable
crime. Don Carlos and Alexis disappeared from
the face of the earth. If the crimes were great,
they were inspired by motives equally great.
With Frederick William everything was petty and
mean ; ideas, sentiments, acts. He judged his son
to be worthless and dangerous to the state be-
cause he was wanting in the qualities of a good
drill-sergeant. Nothing could take from the King
these low considerations. He hated Frederick, as
a model non-commissioned officer hates a soldier
who shames his company by not keeping the line.
He would have liked to decapitate him because
3i8 Princesses and Court Ladies
he foresaw that Frederick would not, hke himself,
pass six or seven hours a day coramanding ma-
noeuvres: what was the use of him then? It did
not dawn upon him that Frederick II would spoil
his beautiful army by leading it to battle, and
that was lucky for Frederick; had the thought
crossed the King's mind he might not have hesi-
tated about the execution; but he was certain
that his son, by carelessness and incapacity, would
spoil his beautiful plaything, the regiment of
giants.
The sight of Frederick was odious to him, and
he hated Princess Wilhelmina almost as much,
for she shared her brother's shameful taste for
poetry and music, and was the confidante of his
sorrows. Their lives became a perfect martyr-
dom after 1729, when an attack of gout in both
feet reduced the King to an invalid's rolling chair.
Frederick William had trained the servants who
pushed this chair to pursue those whom he wished
to beat. One can picture to one's self these
strange races through the royal palace of Berlin,
the scampering of princes and princesses running
away from threatening crutches. Princess Wil-
helmina once came near being killed ; the servants
saved her by letting her gain on them. The
King was haunted by the fear that his children
might profit by his illness to return to their hate-
ful books. He kept them within sight. "We
were forced," relates his daughter, "to be in his
room at nine o'clock, we dined there and did not
The Margravine of Bayreuth 319
dare to leave it on any pretext whatever. The
whole time was spent by the King in heaping
curses on my brother and on me. ' ' What follows
is of such a nature that it is scarcely possible even
to allude to it. The King forced them to eat
what disagreed with them, and never allowed
them to move from the room; when he was
wheeled about the castle, they followed behind
his chair. "The torments of purgatory," writes
the Margravine, "could not equal ours." At the
beginning of 1730, Frederick crept one evening
into his sister's room and vowed that he could
stand it no longer and that he meant to leave
the country.
The Princess was terror-stricken. Her common
sense showed her the dreadful consequences of so
rash an act. She reasoned, implored, wept, and
at last obtained her brother's promise to give up
this plan. The King's persecution quickly brought
him back to it, and several months were spent in
this struggle, during which the Princess felt that
she must inevitably be vanquished. "His mind
was so soured," says she, "that he no longer listened
to my exhortations and his anger even turned
against me." Frederick was in that state of ex-
asperation when prudence is forgotten and even
despised. He had divulged his project to his
friend, young Katt, whose name, thanks to this
dangerous honour, has been recorded in history ; he
was a giddy and garrulous youth, who confided his
secret to every one. One evening he was speak-
320 Princesses and Court Ladies
ing of it to Princess Wilhelmina, in the Queen's
apartments, in the midst of many curious
lookers-on. The Princess said to him, "I already
see your head unsteady on your shoulders, and
if you do not soon change your conduct, I may
one day see it at your feet." "I could not lose
it," answered he, "in a better cause." ''I did not
give him time to say more," continues the Margra-
vine, " and I left him. ... I did not think that
my sad predictions would, so soon, be realised."
A few days later, the Queen took advantage of
the King's absence, to amuse her daughter. She
gave a ball (August i6th, 1730). "I had not
danced for six years," say the Memoirs, "it was
a new pleasure for me and I gave myself up to it
joyfully." In the midst of the merry doings, it
was noticed that the Queen had grown suddenly
very pale, and conversed apart with her ladies.
Frederick, who had accompanied his father, had
been arrested just as he was on the point of run-
ning away. The King would have killed him
then and there if his generals had not snatched
him away; but no one knew what might follow.
In spite of her anguish, the Queen controlled her-
self. She did not weep, did not interrupt the
dances, and waited a certain time before taking
leave and retiring with her daughter. When they
were alone in their apartments, both shed many
tears and both fainted; after which they agreed
on what had better be done.
The only service they could render the prisoner
FREDERICK THE GREAT
From an old copper print
The Margravine of Bayreuth 3^1
was to destroy his papers. It is true that this
service was a most important one. One is aston-
ished that the members of the royal family were
able to indulge their passion for scribbling to such
an extent, for the King was most suspicious and
never scrupled to open letters. They continually
wrote to each other, criticising the King and his
advisers, so that their correspondence might have
sent them all before the judgment seat, had it
been discovered. Frederick kept all his letters.
The box containing this correspondence, hidden
outside of the palace, had to be discovered, the
seals broken, the lock forced, the compromising
epistles, among them about fifteen hundred from
the Queen and her eldest daughter, burnt, other
letters written to fill up the gaps, and a new seal
procured so as to replace everything as it had
been. Princess Wilhelmina showed wonderful
presence of mind and activity. Her mother im-
peded the work with her agitation, her terror,
her absurd chattering. She however completed
her task, except that the Queen insisted on closing
the casket before enough false letters had been
written to fill it. The fear of being surprised by
the King was too strong. The Queen thought
herself very clever because she filled up the empty
spaces with rags, and when the seals were put on
again she breathed more easily. According to the
Memoirs, this must have been on the 2 2d or 23d
of August, and no news had come from Frederick
since his arrest.
322 Princesses and Court Ladies
On the 27th at five o'clock in the evening, the
King returned. As soon as he caught a ghmpse
of the Queen, he called out to her: "Your un-
worthy son is no more; he is dead." "What,
you were barbarous enough to kill him?" "Yes,
I tell you; but now I must have his strong box."
The Queen, beside herself, only called out without
stopping, "My God! my son — O my son!" Her
children rushed about terrified. Frederick Wil-
liam catching a glimpse of his eldest daughter
seemed to go raving mad. "He became quite
black, his eyes blazed, he frothed at the mouth.
'You abominable wretch,' he said, 'How dare
you to show yourself to me? Go and keep your
detestable brother company!' As he uttered
those words, he seized me with one hand, hitting
me on the face with his fist, one blow struck me
so heavily on the temple that I fell back, and I
should certainly have broken my head against a
sharp corner of the wainscotting had not Madame
de Sonnsfeld caught hold of me by the hair.
While I was still unconscious, the King, quite
out of his mind, wanted to finish me with more
blows and kicks."
The young princes, princesses, and court ladies
all threw themselves before Princess Wilhelmina.
The young children cried, the Queen uttered pierc-
ing cries, running hither and thither, wringing her
hands, a crowd gathered, for the windows were
open and the room, on the ground floor, was on a
level with the public square. In the midst of this
The Margravine of Bayreuth 323
scene, worthy of Bedlam, a procession passed be-
fore the windows. Guards were leading Katt,
Frederick's confidant; others carried his coffers
and those of the prince which had been seized and
sealed. Katt saw Princess Wilhelmina and no-
ticed that her face was swollen and bleeding.
"Pale and overwhelmed as he was," said she, "he
still lifted his hat and saluted me." On his side,
Frederick William also saw Katt. He ran out,
wanted to fall upon him, calling out, "Now I
shall have proofs enough against that abominable
Fritz and that hussy of a Wilhelmina. I shall
have law on my side and their heads shall fall!"
A court lady was brave enough to stop the madman
and to speak firmly to him. He looked at her and
was silenced. She threatened him with divine
vengeance; he listened and remained dumb, awed
by the calmness and firmness of a woman. When
she had finished, he thanked her and turned away,
almost quieted. It is true that his fit of madness
came upon him five minutes later when he again
saw Katt and he beat him till the blood came.
Princess Wilhelmina, that very evening, was
double-locked in her room and a sentinel placed
at her door. She was carried to her apartment
in a sedan chair in the midst of a great crowd of
peasants and common folk, who had rushed to the
palace on the rumour that the King had killed two
of his children.
It is well known that Frederick was taken to
the citadel of Kustrin. Beforehand, Frederick
3^4 Princesses and Court Ladies
William had made him undergo a cross-examina-
tion which gives the key to the trial which followed.
His first question, uttered in a furious tone, was:
"Why did you wish to be a deserter?" This is
characteristic of the man and of the situation ; the
outraged person was neither the sovereign nor the
father ; it was a recruiting officer. ' ' Are you no-
thing but a cowardly deserter?" he repeated,
threatening him with his sword. The prince was
saved once more, and that by one of the generals,
but the King was not to be gainsaid, and Frederick
was treated as a soldier who had deserted his col-
ours. He was kept in prison, without linen, and
at first without any furniture. He was fed on
six pence and a half a day, menaced with torture,
and held for court-martial. Meanwhile, he was
pressed to confess his crime, and the Queen's trick
turned against him. He let it be seen that he did
not recognise the rags stuffed into his casket. The
King guessed the real culprits and his fury re-
doubled against both sister and brother.
The story of Princess Wilhelmina's marriage
came once more to the front and mingled, after
an almost ludicrous fashion, with this family trag-
edy. The King was determined to rid himself of
his odious daughter. He only hesitated as to the
means of doing so. He often spoke of cutting off
her head and took care that she should hear of it,
but he knew that it was not so easily done as said ;
and, after all, he had a sense of justice ; if his daugh-
ter was hateful, she was not a deserter. He once
The Margravine of Bayreuth 3^S
more thought of a convent. But at last he de-
cided to marry her off, with or without her consent,
to one of the suitors set aside by the Queen. He
suspected his wife of being mixed up with the
affair of the casket and wished, more than ever, to
be disagreeable to her. He, therefore, ordered
his creatures to persecute Wilhelmina, in her pri-
son, with perpetual allusions to her future mar-
riage. Messengers from the King appeared at
every hour of the day, sometimes so early in the
morning that, on awakening, Wilhelmina could see
at the foot of her bed a minister or an officer,
whose mission was to order her to choose between
the Margrave of Schwedt and death, or else, in the
balance there was a horrible convent, or a cell in a
fortress, or a life like her brother's ; the King would
pardon Frederick if she was submissive and
obedient, otherwise his execution would be the in-
evitable result of her obstinacy. If her repugnance
toward the Margrave of Schwedt was too great, she
might accept the Duke of Weissenfels, or she might
even take the affianced husband of one of her
younger sisters, the Margrave of Bayreuth; this
the King would permit and the young couple
would surely not be so low-minded as to repine at
what would ensure the peace of the royal family.
Probably the young people could have but few
regrets one way or the other, as they had never
met.
The prisoner did not yield. She no longer enter-
tained happy dreams of a loved and loving hus-
326 Princesses and Court Ladies
band ; experience had opened her eyes with regard
to royal marriages. She resisted because her
mother implored and ordered her to do so, and
she saw that the poor woman's hope of the English
marriage alone gave her strength to endure her
cruel tribulations; this union was to be the Queen's
one triumph, hoped for during twenty years, and
which would vanish into thin air did her daughter
yield. Had it not been for her brother, the Prin-
cess would have resisted to the end. Death had
but few terrors for her; the King had taken good
care that she should be indifferent to life, she clung
to it only with the heroic, instinctive hope of youth
which cannot altogether despair at twenty. The
cloister was not a serious threat and the thought
of a prison attracted, rather than frightened, her.
That which she was then enduring was a shelter,
in spite of the tormentors sent by her father, in
spite also of the hunger from which she suffered
cruelly. She had some books, her music, her
needle, and, now and then, some quiet hours of
solitude and rest. Later, she counted these days
of bondage with sentinels at her door and messen-
gers of the King's wrath perpetually harassing her,
as among the best of her youth. She only weak-
ened when her brother's fate was invoked against
her. The wonder is that, considering her great
love for him, she should so long have held out,
simply to please a mother who, it would seem,
scarcely deserved so great a sacrifice.
Meanwhile the prosecution against Prince Fred-
The Margravine of Bayreuth 3^7
erick and Katt was going on. The council of war
was assembled at Potsdam. The deliberations of
these soldiers took rather a singular form. Each
quoted a paragraph of the Bible which expressed
his thought, that is, ten claiming blood and two
speaking of clemency; according to the Memoirs
of the Margravine of Bayreuth such was the pro-
portion of the votes. Others have given a differ-
ent account of the affair.^ However that may be
Frederick himself has told us the end of the trag-
edy. His captivity was beginning to be less rig-
orous. "I thought that all would soon be over,
when, one morning, an old officer entered my room
with several grenadiers, all of them in tears. 'Ah!
Prince, my dear, my poor Prince ! ' exclaimed the
officer, between his sobs. I certainly thought my
head was coming off. 'Well, speak! Am I to
die? I am ready; let the barbarous judges do
their work quickly.' 'No, dear Prince, you are not
to die, but you must allow these grenadiers to take
you to the window and keep you there.' And
they did, in very deed, hold my head so that I
should see all that happened. Great God ! What
a terrible scene! My dear, my faithful Katt, who
was to be executed just below my window. I tried
1 David Miiller's History of Germany used in the schools, says
that "the council of war energetically refused to condemn the
prince to death." Other German works follow the version here
given. The Memoirs of Katt leave the question of the majority of
votes undecided. As Frederick II, on coming to the throne, des-
troyed the pages which might have compromised the members of
the council, it is impossible to get at the truth of the matter.
3^8 Princesses and Court Ladies
to give him my hand, but it was pulled back. 'Ah !
Katt!' I exclaimed, and then I fainted." When
he came to himself, the bloody body of his friend
was placed so that he could not help seeing it.
Princess Wilhelmina had been a prisoner for
eight months and a half when the minister Grum-
kow, followed by three other exalted personages,
entered her room. They gave her to understand
that her resistance entailed great misery on her
family and on her country ; that the King and the
Queen were on the eve of a complete break; that
Prince Frederick was still in prison, under threat
of a second trial ; that his friends, his servants, were
exiled, beaten, thrown into prison, that discord
reigned in the King's family. She alone could
put an end to this deplorable situation; the King
promised that, on her wedding day, her brother
should be set at liberty, that her mother should
be restored to his good grace and the past be for-
gotten. ' ' Great princesses, ' ' added Grumkow, ' 'are
bom to be sacrificed to the weal of the state.
Therefore, Madam, submit to the decrees of Provi-
dence and give us that answer which alone can
bring peace to your family."
Reason, weariness, great tenderness toward her
brother, indifference as to her own fate, all pleaded
in favour of her father's wishes. She succumbed.
The Margrave of Bayreuth was offered to her and
she accepted him. On hearing of her submission,
Frederick William wrote: "The good God will
bless you, and I will never abandon you. I will
The Margravine of Bayreuth 329
care for you all my life, and, on every occasion,
prove to you that I am
Your faithful father."
On her side, the Queen wrote: "I no longer
acknowledge you for my daughter and henceforth
I shall look upon you as my most cruel enemy, for
it is you who give me up to my persecutors, who
triumph over me. Count no longer upon me; I
swear to hate you always and never to forgive
you."
The Queen alone kept her promise.
Thus, at last. Princess Wilhelmina was mar-
ried, November 20, 1731, to a prince whom his
father-in-law greatly despised and whom he had
chosen merely to punish his wife and his daugh-
ter, whom his mother-in-law hated because he
represented the ruin of all her dreams, whom his
wife had long hesitated to accept instead of a
prison, and whom no one, in fact, had ever con-
sulted in the matter. The newly married pair
must have looked one at the other with consid-
erable curiosity; they had to become acquainted,
as they were absolute strangers.
During the ceremony, the King wept and was
liberal in promises which he had no intention of
keeping; he put off the settlements until after the
marriage. The Queen was in the worst of tem-
pers. She had been informed, rightly or not, that
the English would decide upon the marriage that
day, and while Wilhelmina 's hair was being put
up on one side she pulled it down on the other, so
33^ Princesses and Court Ladies
as to gain time for the English messenger to
arrive. The bridegroom was tipsy. His father-
in-law, ashamed of a prince who was not given to
wine, had forced him at dinner to drink so much
that he was no longer quite himself. At night
the King forced the bride to kneel down in her
nightdress and say her prayers aloud. The Queen
took that opportunity for abusing her still more,
and thus ended this lovely wedding day.
VI
For the first time since she had come into the
world, Princess Wilhelmina had been lucky. The
husband she had drawn at the lottery, without
being a great prize, was yet such as exactly suited
a romantic princess. His purse was very flat and
Bayreuth was but an insignificant principality.
But he was young, good looking, always cheerful,
wonderfully courteous and polite, as compared
with Frederick William's generals, and last but
not least, very much in love with his wife. And
how she gave back love for love ! What a change
in her sad, desolate life! Since she had been sep-
arated from her brother no one had spoken kindly
to her, no one had pitied her, and suddenly she
found herself tenderly cared for by this generous
stranger who had been imposed upon her, and
who, seeing her so forlorn, had been moved to
compassion. It was incredible. The contrast was
The Margravine of Bayreuth 33^
rendered all the greater by the harshness of the
Queen, who kept her promise of never forgiving;
by the insolence of the courtiers, who followed
suit by turning their backs on the Princess in dis-
grace; by the apparent coldness of Frederick, set
at liberty according to his father's promise, but
to whom misfortune had taught prudence; and
by the new eccentricity of the King, who ignored
his daughter since she had become a poor little
future Margravine. On the other hand, Frederick
William had undertaken to make his son-in-law
less ridiculous by teaching him what he con-
sidered the four cardinal virtues: wine, economy,
love of military matters, and German manners.
With this in view he tried to intoxicate him on
every occasion, and gave him a regiment, "insinu-
ating that it would be a pleasing thing were he to
go and take possession of it." As to economy,
that was forced upon him ; the King did not give
the newly married pair a farthing and seemed
quite to have forgotten all about the dowry and
the settlements.
The young people were wild to run off to Bay-
reuth. They consulted as to the means of per-
suading the King to settle their money matters.
"To accomplish this," writes the Margravine in-
genuously, "there were but two means: one was
to obtain giants for him; the other was to offer
him and his boon companions a banquet in order
to make him drink. The first expedient was not
in my power, for tall men do not grow like mush-
33^ Princesses and Court Ladies
rooms; they were so rare that scarcely could one
find three that could suit him in a whole country.
The second course had to be followed. I invited
the sovereign to dine with us. . . . There were
forty guests and the banquet was excellent." In
one way the success was complete. The King
and his friends left the table completely tipsy;
the Margrave alone had kept his head. Frederick
William embraced his daughter, embraced his son-
in-law. He sent for ladies from the town and
began dancing. At three o'clock in the morning
he was still dancing, he, Frederick William!
They thought the victory certain. In truth,
the King declared his intentions. He consented
to lend his son-in-law two hundred and sixty
thousand crowns, to be returned at stated times.
He gave as dowry to his dear Wilhelmina, sixty
thousand crowns, with a service of plate which
already belonged to her (let us be fair: the
plate had been given by him), and, inestimable
privilege! a regiment for her husband, which he
was to command every time that he came to
Berlin. The husband and wife were dum-
founded. The young Margravine's revenues were
already eaten up by necessary expenses, and she
calculated that out of what her husband possessed
she could count on only eight hundred crowns a year
for her personal wants. In spite of the severe econ-
omy to which both had been accustomed, with
such a sum it was impossible to hold court, even
djt the price of small courts during the eighteenth
The Margravine of Bayreuth 333
century. The Margravine ventured to make a
few respectful observations. Frederick WilHam,
seemingly moved, caused the contract to be
handed to him and cut off four thousand crowns
from the dowry. There was nothing for it but
to hold one's peace. They put off a last effort to
mollify him to the day of their departure, January
II, 1732.
The opportunity seemed an excellent one. The
Margravine showed signs of approaching mother-
hood, and this was the very moment for Frederick
William to express his overflowing sentimentality;
he was so happy at the thought of being a grand-
father. His daughter's discourse on her great
poverty was apparently too much for his tender
heart: "He burst into tears, and could not an-
swer me for sobbing, he expressed his feelings by
his kisses." Making a great effort to control him-
self, the King assured his daughter that she could
trust him, that he would help her, and then he
added: "I am too much moved to take leave of
you; embrace your husband for me; my feelings
are such that I cannot even see him." Where-
upon he turned heel and went off, still weeping.
Tears were all they obtained. Frederick William
in all this was by no means a hypocrite. He was
sincerely touched by his daughter's penury, for
the misfortune of having no money seemed to
this miser the greatest of all, and he ran away so
as not to be forced to diminish his own treasure.
This old non-commissioned officer, known as King
334 Princesses and Court Ladies
Frederick William, was neither amicable nor easy
to deal with; but he was certainly original and
his manias interest one, after all.
The young people went off, as poor, as Job, but
with a light heart. They were overwhelmed
with joy at leaving the paternal barracks, at not
being awakened at four o'clock in the morning
by the artillery exercise, at not having to dine
with a dozen generals in uniform, at being free
from scoldings and wranglings, at having the
right to laugh and to love each other, to blossom
into life and joy. Later, they would have to
think of some means of buying shirts and other
necessary articles ; for the time being they enjoyed
their liberty, and that was enough. This pleas-
ure had no drawback, with the exception of
official harangues, until they reached the frontier
of the Bayreuth states. The Princess describes
their arrival with her usual frankness. She had
known avarice; she had not known sordid pov-
erty, and it must be confessed that her future
subjects, even those who were supposed to be
well off, were a beggarly set. Their fathers,
during the ruin of Germany, had become mangy,
lousy, and ragged ; they themselves had remained
ragged, lousy, and mangy. With the exception of
their filth they were not responsible. There is
an obscure instinct which urges nations to do
what they are meant to do. The ragged nobles
who on her arrival so disgusted the Margravine
were, quite unconsciously, Frederick William's
The Margravine of Bayreuth 335
fellow-workers, ignorant as he himself of their
great task: all together they laboured at the re-
construction of Germany, and they left to the fol-
lowing generations solid private and public fortunes.
The princess only saw their rags and their ver-
min, of which she made great fun in her Memoirs.
At the first town she entered, thirty -four nobles,
gloriously dirty, offered her a bouquet and drank
to her health until ''they could no longer speak."
Three days later, she solemnly entered Bayreuth
in a coach worthy of a comic opera, and discov-
ered that her capital was nothing but a big village
''peopled with peasants," and that her father-in-
law, a ridiculous sort of Geronte, "had the manners
and habits of a parsimonious rustic proprietor.
His palace was hung with cobwebs; the draperies
were in shreds and the windows broken; nothing
had been mended since the Thirty Years' War,
and that had been over nearly a century. There
were no fires, the food was coarse, and the old
Margrave scolded when the horses were driven too
hard or too much game was killed. The shirt
problem proved to be even more serious than the
young people had foreseen. When the clothes
brought from Berlin were worn out, their poverty
became very evident ; the Margravine of Bayreuth
could not replace them. She tried to borrow and
met with a refusal; peasants do not easily lend
money. She went without new dresses and soon
resembled the Bayreuth ladies who had so excited
her mirth.
33^ Princesses and Court Ladies
The minds of the courtiers were as rustic as
their appearances. Nothing was discussed but
household affairs and agriculture. Still, the old
Margrave had some literary pretensions, and when-
ever he thought it necessary to exhibit them,
he talked of T^lemaque, which he had read, and
talked of it at great length. His daughter-in-law
feared nothing so much as these literary conversa-
tions. Certainly the sojourn in the half-ruined
Bayreuth palace was not gay. The Margravine
suffered from the gossip and prejudices of the
small town, from the political wranglings, from
the jealousy of her sisters-in-law, and most of all
from the distrust of her father-in-law, who looked
askance at the fine lady from Berlin and was always
on the watch for eccentricities ; any sign of civilisa-
tion was looked upon as eccentric at Bayreuth.
The old man reduced his daughter-in-law to posi-
tive slavery so as to keep her from scandalising
his subjects ; she did not dare go out for an airing
without first asking his permission.
The old Margrave's ideal of life was to drink
with his jolly boon companions. When he trav-
elled, he stopped at every inn on the road. Once,
having to cover thirty leagues, these were so nume-
rous that the journey took up four days. His
people adored him because he was not proud. He
had the wiry figure of an old cacochymic peasant ;
his face was crafty and sly; his mind practical.
To the Princess's great surprise, the fact of having
a child of the King of Prussia as his daughter-in-
The Margravine of Bayreuth 337
law had by no means dazzled him. He judged
her more according to her dowry rather than her
birth, and treated her roughly. He wearied his
children with his perpetual scoldings and his petty
tyranny,
I am sorry to say that my amiable Margravine
by no means saw the picturesqueness of her new
position. Sentimental persons rarely appreciate
the picturesque aspect of life. She loved her
young husband passionately ; everything else bored
her quite as passionately. Had she been told, six
months earlier, when she left her father's generals,
that she would have felt, at Bayreuth, as did Ovid
among the Scythians, she would scarcely have
believed it ; yet it was quite true. Berlin, in her
fancy, became a centre of luxury and refinement.
Her father's letters added to her exasperation.
Frederick William took offence, now that his
money was safe, that any one should dare to com-
mand his daughter and to refuse her the common
necessaries of life. He adjured her tenderly to
come and "receive the caresses of a fond father,"
promising to secure for her ' ' a good lodging ' ' and
interfered, without being asked to do so, by re-
proaching the old Margrave with his inconceivable
avarice. ' ' I have written, ' ' said he, "a very harsh
letter to your old fool of a father-in-law." His
daughter expected no good from this interference,
and she was right. The old man meant to be mas-
ter in his own house. During the autumn of 1732,
the Margravine was forced to borrow from her
33^ Princesses and Court Ladies
servants and was unable to afford a governess for
the daughter to whom she had just given birth.
She made up her mind to expose her painful situ-
ation to her father-in-law and to obtain permission
to visit Berlin. He answered coldly that he was
' ' greatly mortified ' ' at being unable to assist her,
but that "in the marriage contract there was no
mention of travelling expenses for journeys which
she might wish to take, nor of the cost entailed by
daughters whom she might bring into the world."
She had other and bitterer sorrows, caused by
her brother Frederick, sorrows none the less
cruel because they were imaginary. She thought
him forgetful and ungrateful, and never was there
more flagrant injustice. The letters from Fred-
erick II to the Margravine of Bayreuth show an
affection as perfect as it is constant. But he-
hurt her, nevertheless, by a certain roughness, and
because she had not foreseen that, coming to man's
estate, he must necessarily change his tone of
submission and dependency. She was indignant
that he should not be eternally at her feet and
that his duties as prince must sometimes cause
him to refuse her requests. In the second part
of the Memoirs she sometimes speaks of Fred-
erick with irritation; luckily for both of them he
always forgave her fits of ill temper. He knew
that they came from a loving and jealous nature,
rendered over-sensitive by much suffering, and he
never ceased to admire the superior intelligence,
the noble and generous soul of her who remained
The Margravine of Bayreuth 339
to the end "my incomparable sister, my divine
sister."
She always came to her senses and accused her-
self to her brother. Meanwhile her imagination
ran away with her. She nursed her sorrows, real
or false accused now one, now another, and vowed
that she was the most unhappy princess in Chris-
tendom, that she was pursued by an evil fate.
Frederick William added to her woes by ordering
her husband to join his regiment; a Prussian
regiment must not thus be left to itself. He was
forced to obey and then the Margravine became
like one possessed. According to her sex's logic,
she convinced herself that what she ardently de-
sired was necessary; that she must also go to
Berlin; that the Queen her mother was dying of
impatience to see her; that the King, changed by
her absence, would prove to be the tender and
generous father which his letters seemed to prom-
ise; that everybody would receive her with open
arms and heap presents and attention upon her.
Yet the Queen on learning of her intentions had
written very plainly: "What business have you
here? Is it possible that you should still believe
in the King's promises, after having been so
cruelly abandoned by him? Remain at home and
spare us your perpetual lamentations; you might
have expected all that has happened." The ad-
vise, however brutally given, was wise, but the
Princess turned a deaf ear to it. She managed
to scrape together the necessary money, and
340 Princesses and Court Ladies
started for Berlin, where the most cruel disillu-
sionment of her life awaited her.
Sne arrived November i6, 1732, toward even-
ing, preceded by a courier who was to give the
Queen the good news and cause the whole palace
to be filled with joy. When she stepped from
her carriage there was no one to receive her.
All was dark. Much disturbed, she went to her
mother's room. The Queen on seeing her went
forward, took her by the hand, and led her to her
boudoir. ''She threw herself in an armchair
without telling me to sit down. Looking at me
severely, 'Why have you come here?' said she.
My blood froze in my veins at these words. 'I
have come,' I answered, 'on the King's commands,
but especially to throw myself at the feet of a
mother whom I adore and from whom it is cruel
to be separated.' 'Say rather,' she continued,
'that you have come to plunge a dagger in my
heart and to prove to the world at large that you
have been fool enough to marry a beggar. After
such a step you should have remained at Bay-
reuth so as to hide your shame there, instead of
spreading it before us all. That is what I ordered
you to do. The King will not help you and al-
ready regrets his promises. I foresee that you
will deafen us with your complaints, which will
greatly annoy us, and that you will be a burden
on us all.' "
The heart of the poor Margravine was broken.
She fell to the floor and sobbed as after a paternal
The Margravine of Bayreuth 341
whipping when she was a child. As soon as she
was in a fit state to return to the Queen's room
she made a show of embracing her former friends ;
but they looked at her from top to toe without
answering. Her favourite sister turned her into
ridicule because of her shabby clothes. The
King was not at Potsdam. She hastened to write
to him. After all he had said in his own letters,
she could not doubt of his joy at seeing her. He
returned to Potsdam the following day. "He
received me very coldly. 'Ha! ha!' said he, 'so.
there you are. I am very glad to see you!' He
took a light, examined his daughter, remarked
that she was greatly changed, and added: 'How
I pity you! You have not even bread, and but
for me you would have to beg. But I am also
but a poor man and cannot give you much. I
will do what I can. According as I am able I
will give you ten or twelve florins. That will
help to lighten your misery.' " Frederick alone,
whom the Margravine in her heart had accused
of inconstancy, received her tenderly. He was
even on good terms with his father; he did all he
could for his sister and shared his purse with her.
Curiously enough, after this fine reception, the
King refused to allow his daughter and her hus-
band to go back to Bayreuth. The Margrave was
a tolerable colonel ; Frederick William kept him to
his work. The King's personal expense amounted
merely to the providing of food; but that had al-
ways been a small item, and he had reduced it to
342 Princesses and Court Ladies
almost nothing. There was, as of yore, nothing
much to eat at dinner, and supper was often sup-
pressed. The Margrave, quite in vain, begged the
King to give him at least a little cheese. The
King refused and the prince ' ' grew visibly thinner."
His wife almost fainted from sheer want. They
implored to be allowed to go home, but without
success. The summer of 1733 found them still
in Berlin. The Margravine was pretty nearly
spent when the festivities for Frederick's marriage
with Elisabeth of Brunswick took place.
Military reviews, as usual, formed the staple of
the festivities ordered by Frederick William. On
such days, the court was on foot before daybreak,
and the ladies, in their gala dresses, often remained
twelve hours on the grounds without so much ' ' as
a glass of water." The Queen set a good example
for she knew that her lord accepted no excuse
when he condescended to show the ladies his sol-
diers in all their glory. There were, therefore, two
reviews, to which the King added a negro concert
and a drive in open carriages, organised after a
military fashion; the departure was fixed for such
an hour; a certain road was to be taken; and the
return was likewise fixed for a given time ; immedi-
ately afterwards the ball was to take place. The
display was immense and magnificent. The court
and the nobility filled nearly one hundred open
carriages ; the women were gaily decked ; the King
led the show which traversed Berlin at a foot pace.
A storm burst. The King did not change his
The Margravine of Bayreuth 343
orders ; rain never stops a marching army. Sheets
of water fell on the ladies' curls, on their paint and
powder. Hair and plumes hung about their faces,
the rich dresses clung to them, and the procession
still went on at a snail's pace. The procession was
to last three hours; it lasted three hours, after
which dancing began as soon as the ladies left their
carriages. The Margravine, ten years later, could
not without laughing allude to the appearance
presented by the drenched ladies at this ball ; but
it was too much for one, already worn out with
misery and privations. She was stricken with
fever and the doctors declared that she would die
if she were not well fed and cared for. Yet Fred-
erick William hesitated to let her go. He had
inspected the Margrave's regiment and had found
it admirably trained; this rendered the loss of its
colonel hard to bear. When urged, he answered,
''My son-in-law must be subjected to military
duties and to economy." Frederick clearly used
his influence in order to liberate his sister ; she and
her husband wild with delight started for Bay-
reuth August 23, 1733. They swore never again
to be tempted away, but it was too late ; such vows
are rarely made in good time. The Margravine
never recovered from her visit to Berlin, and was
an invalid for the rest of her life.
VH
When they reached Bayreuth, they understood
how necessary was their presence. The old Mar-
344 Princesses and Court Ladies
grave was declining rapidly, his system was ruined,
and his mind weakened by drink. One foot in
the grave, he had still developed a senile passion
for his granddaughter's governess, wore a new coat
every day, had his hair dressed so as to appear
young, and was most gallant. The Margravine
could hardly believe her eyes when she found her
father-in-law changed into a beau. "He was all
day long with his beloved," she says, "to whom
he made very moral declarations, and was content
to suck her fingers." But these caresses soon
proved insufficient and he proposed marriage.
The Margravine broke off this union, the day be-
fore it was to be declared, by menacing the future
bride with her anger. But an old man's love is
tenacious; that of the Margrave grew in violence
the more he sank into the vague dreams of second
childhood ; every one saw that the fat face of Flora,
the governess, was each day more indispensable to
him. Drunkenness brought the comedy to an end.
The old Margrave died in 1735, just when Flora
had made up her mind to brave all menaces and
marry him.
The following years were interesting for the
principality, but would be less so for the reader.
The Margravine restored her castles, renewed her
furniture, gave entertainments, and Bayreuth
took on quite another aspect. The nobility by
degrees lost its grotesqueness, the traces of bar-
barism were effaced, and this little country was
caught up by the movement of renovation which
The Margravine of Bayreuth 345
swayed all Germany. Frederick II notes the
change very forcibly in the picture of Europe
which opens the History of My Time. The Ger-
man nation, says he, was a prey to the "gothic
taste" for drunkenness and coarseness, resem-
bling, so to speak, a field only just harrowed.
The rough field became once more a "garden."
"Riches, augmented by commerce and industry,
have brought the pleasures and comforts of life,
and perhaps also those disorders inseparable from
them. For the last century, year by year, the
number of equipages, the expenses for clothes,
liveries, living, furniture, have increased greatly."
Frederick feared that the change might be too
sudden. He would have preferred to have his
people preserve for a time at least, the habits of
economy practised by the former generation, and
in his visits to his sister at Bayreuth, he insisted
upon this. "You do not need so many people
about you," he would say to her. "I advise you
to break up your court and to live like simple
gentlefolk. At Berlin you had but four dishes
for dinner; you do not need more, now." The
Margravine, at these sermons, would weep, quite
persuaded that her brother no longer loved her,
for she adored luxury and, unfortunately, she
could not forget that she had been on the eve of
becoming queen of several great countries.
At Berlin, old Frederick William resisted the
new spirit with all his might and main, and it
was time he gave up his throne; he was becoming
346 Princesses and Court Ladies
ridiculous. His great work, the Prussian army,
by dint of being put in a bandbox, was becoming
ridiculous also. It was so well understood that
he would never accept a war that, relates his son,
"his allies treated him with as little ceremony as
his enemies." Great and small monarchs openly
expressed their contempt for him. "The Prussian
officers, exposed to every contumely, had become
the laughing stock of the world; when they
pressed in recruits in the imperial towns, accord-
ing to the right of all electors, they were arrested
and thrown into prison; the least among the
princes took pleasure in insulting Prussians; even
the Bishop of Liege heaped humiliations on the
King."* The old Margrave of Bayreuth himself
snarled, a little while before he died, because a
Prussian officer had snapped up a giant in his
states, and, almost at the same time, the Dutch
shot without so much as a trial a Prussian officer
commanding a press gang, who had been caught
on their territory. Frederick William's subjects
were beginning to be very "sore" at the "igno-
miny attached to the name of Prussians."
The King's exit from this world at least was
not ridiculous. All there was of good and of bad
in him showed vividly at the last moment, making
his death both singular and heroic. It was in the
month of May, 1740. Frederick William was
dying of dropsy. Ecclesiastics took advantage of
the moment to exhort him to a reconciliation
» History of My Time. Chap. II.
The Margravine of Bayreuth 347
with a relative. "Your Majesty must write to
him, saying that all the wrong he has done is
forgiven. " The King was pious. ' ' Very well," said
he, at last, "write the letter; only, if I recover, do
not deliver it; it must be sent only in case I
should die." On the 31st of May he felt very
ill, and caused himself to be wheeled to the
Queen's room; she was asleep. He awoke her,
telling her to dress as he was about to die. Then
he visited the royal princes, one after the other,
politely taking leave of them. When he returned
to his own room, he summoned his ministers and
all the generals and colonels present in Berlin,
and before them gave up all authority into the
hands of the prince royal, made a little speech on
the duty of sovereigns toward their subjects, then
ordered every one to retire.
As soon as all had left, he sent word to give new
uniforms to his great regiment, and peacefully
awaited death, having before his mind's eye a
vision of giant grenadiers, parading with immacu-
late uniform and shining arms. He was asked to
allow the ecclesiastics to enter. He declared that
' ' he knew all they could say to him, therefore they
might as well go away." He died that day. His
generals mourned for him, his people did not. His
son Frederick announced his death to the Margra-
vine in these words: "My very dear sister, the
good God took, yesterday, at three o'clock, our
dear father to Himself. He died with angelic
courage and without much suffering. ' ' The brother
348 Princesses and Court Ladies
and sister showed a decent amount of sorrow and
were quickly consoled, as was their right. The
memory left by this terrible father resembled a
nightmare. Frederick II, twenty years later, often
dreamed that Frederick William entered his room,
followed by soldiers whom he ordered to bind his
son and throw him into prison. "And I would
wake bathed in perspiration, as though I had been
plunged into the river." Even by day he would
dream of it. "In the midst of the pleasures I
enjoy, my father's image arises before me to
weaken them."
The Margravine, on her side, forgot nothing.
Her Memoirs are the proof of this. They stop in
1742, and we must stop with them. The end of
Princess Wilhelmina's life was absorbed by her
devotion to her brother, and this has been revealed
to us especially through their correspondence.
Here opens a new phase of German history, other
times, other faces, another tone; sentiments, art,
and politics have taken the place of life and man-
ners. To follow the Margravine further would be
quite another study, and has already been done.^
We even regret that Wilhelmina should not, earlier,
have put down her pen, or that she neglected to
tear from her manuscript the pages written during
her bitterness against her brother. She acknowl-
edged her fault in a noble and tender letter, and
Frederick always refused to see in this beloved
sister anything but her noble heart, her great cour-
1 Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du Lundi.
The Margravine of Bayreuth 349
age, and her "genius." The Memoirs remained
intact and show the pettiness which is but the alloy
of a generous nature.
It is true that this alloy renders her singularly
living and — I add under my breath — very at-
tractive. Perfect people are a bit monotonous;
the little Margravine in ill health, jealous and
malicious, interests us at all times, in all her moods.
Her soul was quivering and passionate, her mind
bold and frank, her temper lively and violent, her
heart imperious in its demands. Whether we
praise or blame her, we must confess that she was
truly a woman even more than a princess ; yet, she
was a princess to the tips of her fingers. It is her
womanly side that appears in the pamphlet in two
volumes which has been so bitterly criticised, and
yet which it would be a great pity not to possess,
for the court of Frederick William and that of the
old Margrave of Bayreuth form pictures which are
unique of their kind. It was as a princess that
she wrote in 1757, at the time of the Prussian re-
verses, that she was resolved to kill herself should
her brother set the example, and Frederick under-
stood this thoroughly when he wrote : " I have not
the heart to dissuade you. We think alike."
Events changed Frederick's determination to "fin-
ish the play, ' ' but the Margravine was soon to have
no choice in the matter. For a long time past she
had been a mere shadow of herself. She expired
October 14, 1758, the day of the battle of Hoch-
kirchen. There can be no more beautiful funeral
35° Princesses and Court Ladies
oration than that which Frederick the Great un-
consciously gave in his attitude after his defeat
and on learning of her death.
On the 14th of October, after the battle, the
King called his reader, Henry of Catt, and received
him with a calm face, reciting the speech of the
defeated Mithridates, which he modified for the
occasion.
" Je suis vaincu. Daunus^ a saisi I'avantage
D'une nuit qui laissait peu de place au courage, etc."
On the 17 th of October, a messenger brought
the news of the Margravine's death. Henry of
Catt again was summoned. Frederick II was sob-
bing like a child and was several minutes without
being able to utter a word. For more than a year
he had but one cry, in the midst of his tears, "In
losing her I have lost everything." This exclamxa-
tion absolves the Margravine for all her faults and
her errors. Happy the woman who can say to
herself that, at her death, some human being will
utter those words : " I have lost everything. ' '
' Count of Davin, who commanded the Austrians at Hochkirchen.
INDEX
Aden, Princess Salm6 sails to,
20I.
Adolphus, Gustavus, king of
Sweden, 73 ; reputation of, 76 ;
death of, 77; book of, on
governing, 82.
Alberoni, connection of, with
the Cellamare plot, 257.
Almanack de I'Annee 1712,
written by Madame du Maine,
273-
Amazon, Christina of Sweden
wished to be considered an,
123.
Anatolia, the road to, mentioned,
162.
Ancenis, Monsieur d', arrests
Madame du Maine, 263.
Anchin, abbey of, in Flanders,
267.
Anne of Austria, queen of
France, 17; correspondence
of, with Mazarin, 18; dislike
of, to Marie Mancini, 23; op-
position of, to Marie Mancini,
3 2 ; powerful assistance of,
to Mazarin, 44; meets Chris-
tina of Sweden, 124.
Anti Lucrece l', written in hon-
our of Madame du Maine, 241 .
Antin, the Duke d', Memoirs
of, 254.
Antwerp, representation of
Christina of Sweden at, 116.
Apologie, written by Marie
Mancini, 14.
Arab astrologer consulted by
Marie Mancini, 43.
Arab maiden, daily life of , 161.
Arab Princess, Mem.oirs of, 148.
(See Ruete, Frau Emilie.)
Arab woman, life of, at Zanzi-
bar, 178.
Augustus, Elector of Saxony
and King of Poland, a suitor
of Princess Wilhelmina's, 312;
character of, 313.
Aulaire, Monsieur de Saint,
celebrated for his verse, 275.
Aulnoy, Madame d', describes
the life of Marie Mancini at
Madrid, 67.
Aurora Pavilion, situated in the
park at Sceaux, 232.
Austria, relation of, to Ger-
many in 1729, 317.
Autobiography of Christina of
Sweden, confessions in the,
85, 145-
Azz6, head bibi to Sultan Sejjid
Said, 153.
Azzolini, Cardinal Dece, em-
ployment of, as steward to
Christina of Sweden, 136;
persuades Christin of Swe-
den to sign her testament, 144.
B
Bargasch, Sejjid, Sultan of Zan-
zibar, in 1875, 205.
Bayreuth, the Margrave of, an
impecunious noble of Prussia,
325; marriage of, to Princess
Wilhelmina of Prussia, 330 ;
character of, 330; the wedding
banquet of, 332; enters the
military service of Frederick
William, 340; return of, to his
home, 343.
Bayreuth, the Margravine of.
Memoirs of, 288; called Wil-
helmina, bom July 3, 1709,
290; the early impressions of,
295; character of, 296; rem-
iniscences of the youth of,
298; hardship and starvation
3SI
35'^
Index
of, 299; becomes a highly ed-
ucated woman, 301 ; affection
of, for her brother, 302; the
sentimentality of, 304 ; person-
alities of, 306; indifference of,
toward her first fiance, 310;
the feeling of, for King Augus-
tus, 315; her life a martyrdom
at her father's court, 318;
attacked by Frederick Wil-
liam, 322; the marriage of,
discussed, 324; consent of,
to marry Margrave of Bay-
reuth, 328; the wedding jour-
ney of , January 1 1 , 1732,333;
correspondence of, with Fred-
erick William, 338 ff.; return
of, to Berlin, November 16,
1732, 340; return of, to her
husband's domain, 343; end
of the Memoirs, 1742, 348;
death of, October 14, 1758,349.
Bayreuth, the principality of,
330; arrival of the bridal pair
at, 334; condition of the es-
tate of, 335.
Beauvais, Madame de, intrigues
of, II.
Beauveau, Marquis de, Memoirs
of, 50.
Bee, the order of the, founded
by the Duchess of Maine, 236.
Benserade, letter to, from Chris-
tina of Sweden, 108.
Berlin, the Margravine of Bay-
reuth returns to, November
16, 1732, 340.
Bernard, Samuel, works of, 82.
Berry, the Duke of, death of,
July, 1 7 14, 243.
Bet-il-Mtoui, palace of, near
Zanzibar, 150.
Bet-il-Sahel, castle of Sultan
Sejjid Said, 154; bustle and
confusion at, 184.
JBibi, legitimate wives of the
Sultan, 153.
Bievre, the River, flows near the
castle of Sceaux, 233.
Billarderie, La, Lieutenant,
orders to, concerning the
arrest of Madame du Maine,
264; conduct toward his pris-
oner, 265 ff.
Birth, customs at, in Arabia,
165.
Blanc, Monsieur le, Secretary
of State, letter to, June 30,
1719, 266.
Boisrobert, Abbe de, the mad-
rigals of, 134.
Bohemia, condition of the coun-
try, 294.
Bonrepos, Monsieur de, for-
gotten in the Bastille, 271.
Bouillon, Duchess of, banish-
ment of from court, 71.
Bourbon, Anne Louise Bene-
dicte de, bom in 1676, grand-
daughter of Prince Conde, 210
ff. {See Maine, the Duchess
of.)
Bourbon, Duchess of, sister-in-
law of the Duchess of Maine,
216.
Bourdelot, the Sens barber at
the Court of Christina, 102;
character of, 103 ff.; takes
charge of Christina of Sweden,
104 ; the great triumph of, 106 ;
great influence of, 109.
Brienne, Monsieur de, Mem.oirs
of, 22.
Brigault, Abbe, position of, on
committee of conspirators,
257; confession of, 260.
Brinon, Madame de, letter to,
March 25, 1692, from Mad-
ame de Maintenon, 219; letter
to, August 13, 1693, 221.
Brouage, castle of, Marie Man-
cini at, 39.
Burgundy, the Duke of, death
of, July, 1 7 14, 243.
Brussels, Christina of Sweden
at, 115.
Carrero, Porto, Abb^, detained
at Poitiers, 258.
Casimir, John, abdication of,
140.
Catholic faith, public profession
of, November 3, 1655, by
Christina of Sweden, 116.
Catt, Henry of, reader for Fred-
erick II, 350.
Index
353
Caylus, Madame de, niece of
Madame de Maintenon, 214.
Cellamare, the plot of, 257.
Chantelauze, Monsieur, opin-
ions of, 25.
Chantilly, Louis XIV at, 39;
the Duchess of Maine's early
residence at, 212.
Chanut, Monsieur, a friend of
Christina of Sweden, 133.
Charles Augustus, heir to Chris-
tina of Sweden, no.
Charles XI, successor of Charles
Augustus, to crown of Swe-
den, 137.
Charles of Lorraine, Prince, love
of, for Marie Mancini, 50, 52
Chatelet, Madame du, visit
of, to Madame du Maine,
August 15, 1747, 276; on the
stage, 278.
Chatenay, the coufitry seat of
Mal^zieu, 229.
Chatillon, Madame de, inter-
est of Louis XIV in, 1 1 .
Chevreuse, Madame de, con-
fidante of Anne of Austria,
17- ^
Chigi, Flavio, cardinal, becomes
enamoured of Marie Mancini,
56.
Choisy, Abb^, Memoirs of, 31;
version of, on the contest be-
tween Mazarin and Marie
Mancini, 45.
Chole, the beautiful, daughter
of Sejjid Said, 190.
Christina of Sweden, character
of, 73; bom, December 8,
1626, 74; under guardianship
of regency council, 78; educa-
tion of, 82 ff.; physique of, 84:
opinion of herself, 86 ; reaches
her majority, 87 ; deplorable
education of, 93 ; virtue of, 96 ;
court of, 98; library of, 99;
represented as Minerva, Diana,
and Victory, 100; offered to
abdicate, October 25, 165 1,
102; the sudden change in
character of, 105; abandon-
ment of studies by, 107 ; wrath
of the people against, 109; de-
termination of, to abdicate.
February 11, 1654, no; en-
treated to remain, 112; as-
sumption of man's clothes,
113; various episodes in the
travels of, 115 ff.; public pro-
fession of Catholic faith, No-
vember 3, 1655, 116; entry
into Rome of, iz8 ff.; despoiled
of her library, 121; arrival of,
at Paris, 124; meeting of, with
Anne of Austria, 125; advises
Louis XIV to marry Marie
Mancini, 127 ; participation of,
in death of Marquess Monal-
deschi, i2g ff.; departure from
Paris of, 134; pension from
Sweden fails, 135; demand of,
from Germany, for twenty
thousand men to invade Swe-
den, 136; lack of finances of,
137; disputes the succession
to crown of Sweden, 138; in-
trigues of, for throne of Po-
land, 139; suffers an attack of
erysipelas in 1688, 143; death
of, April 19, 1689, 144.
Circassian mother of Princess
Salme, 164.
Civita Vecchia, visited by Marie
Mancini and her sister, 59.
Clagny, the castle of, built by
Louis XIV, 228.
Colonna, Conn^table, proposal
of, to Marie Mancini, 47 ; mar-
ries Marie Mancini, 53 ; love
of, for his wife, 55.
Colonna, Madame. (5e^ Mancini;
Marie.)
Compiegne, Christina joins Louis
XIV of France at, 124.
Contte de Boursoufle, written by
Voltaire, 278.
Conspirators, committees of , 2 5 7 .
Conti, Prince of, married in 1652,
21.
Copper money, used in Sweden ,
90.
Correggio, pictures of, 100.
Costumes, worn by Arab wom-
en, 180.
Courart, Memoirs of, 134.
Court of Christina of Sweden, 98.
Court of Louis XIV, description
of, 226,
354
Index
Cottrtiers, at Bayreuth, the rus-
tic appearances of, 336.
Crequi, the Duke of, messenger
of Louis XIV, to Marie Man-
cini, 63.
Customs, primitive form of, in
Sweden, 89.
D
Declaration, the, of Madame du
Maine, 269 ; read at the council
of the regency, 270.
Decree of 1 7 1 7 , against the Duke
and Duchess of Maine, 353.
Deflfand, Madame du, letter to,
278.
Djohar, chief of the eunuchs,
190.
Denmark, Christina of Sweden
in, 113.
Dresden, Frederick William vis-
its, in 1728, 313.
Dubois, Abb^, spies in the ser-
vice of, 356.
Dunkerque, siege of, 1658, 6.
E
Edward of Bavaria, the daugh-
ter of, mother to the Duchess
of Maine, 212.
Eleanore of Olbreuse, grand-
mother of Wilhelmina of
Prussia, 291.
Elisabeth of Brunswick be-
comes the wife of Frederick
II of Prussia, 342.
Enclos, Ninon de 1', Christina of
Sweden visits, 127.
Estr^es, Madame d', death of,
in 1747, 283.
Eugene of Carignan, Prince,
married in 1657, 21.
Faubourg Saint Antoine, gate
of, entrance at, of Christina of
Sweden, September 8, 1656,
124.
Fayette, Madame de La, version
of, on Marie Mancini's depar-
ture, 39.
Ferdinand, Emperor, mentioned,
76.
Financial crisis, in Sweden, 92 ff.
Fontainebleau, the Court of
Louis XIV at, 23, 51.
Fontevrault, the Abbess of, ad-
vice sought of, 217.
France, influence of ,on Sweden, 97.
Frederick II, crown prince of
Prussia, 291 ; great fear of, for
his father, 300; affection of,
for his sister, 302 ff.; determi-
nation of, to leave the coun-
try, 319 ; confides in his
friend Katt, 319 ff.; arrest of,
reported, 320 ; his papers
destroyed, 321 ; prosecution
against, 326; grief at the loss
of Katt, 328; continued ad-
miration of, for his sister, 339;
marriage of, to Elisabeth of
Brunswick, in 1733, 342;
writes the History of My
Time, 345 ; later letters of, to
his sister, 347.
Frederick William I, second
king of Prussia, 290; charac-
ter of, 291; amount of the
fortune of, 293; avarice of,
295; rough discipline of, 297;
scarcity of food at the court
of, 298; weaknesses of, 300;
his antipathy for all writings,
301 ; opinion of, on his daugh-
ter's marriage, 308; religious
mania of, 310; anger turns to
delirium in 1729, 316; is re-
duced to a rolling chair, 318;
sentiments of, toward his son-
in-law, 331 ; lack of generosity
of, 333 ; pleas of, for his daugh-
ter's return, 337; reception of,
for Wilhelmina, 341 ; great
success of, with Prussian
army, 346; death of. May 31,
1740, 347-
French ideas and fashions in
Germany, 316.
Fromentin, Eugene, describes
death of Haoua, 179.
Fronde, the period of, 1647, 2.
Index
355
Gamache, wedding feast at, i86.
Genest, Ahh6, preserved a vol-
ume of poems in honour of the
Duchess of Maine, 233.
George I, king of England, the
prerogatives of, 309.
German customs, compared to
French ones, 316.
Gibertiere, Monsieur de La, en-
voy of Louis XIV, 63.
Gloucester, the Duke, engage-
ment of, to Princess Wilhel-
mina, 308.
Great Nights of Sceaux, the ori-
gin of, 238.
Groot, Peter de, ambassador
from Holland, 139.
Guise, the Duke of, meeting of,
with Christina of Sweden, 122.
Guyenne, Queen Eleanor of, 193,
H
Hamburg, visited by Christina
of Sweden, 113; entered by
Christina, August 18, 1660,
138.
Hamdam, a brother to Princess
Salme, 172.
Haoua, the Moorish woman,
death of, 179.
Hindoo workmen, in Zanzibar,
182.
Hochkirchen, battle of, October
14, 1758, 349-
Houdard, La Motte, mentioned,
284.
Houses of France, important,
discontinuation of, 72.
Huet, bishop of Avranches, at
the Court of Christina, 97.
Hymettus, Mount, the bees of,
236.
Ines de Castro, written by La
Motte, 276.
Infanta of Spain, the, 25; con-
nection of, with Louis XIV of
France, 32; marriage of, to
Louis XIV, 52.
Innocent XI, Pope, quarrel of,
with Christina of Sweden, 142 .
Inspruck, Christina of Sweden
at, 116.
Islamism, simplicity of, 164.
K
Katt, "Fritz," a friend of Fred-
erick II, arrested, 323; exe-
cution of, 328.
Kibibi, diminutive. (See bibi.)
"King of Snow," name applied
to Gustavus Adolphus, 76.
Koran, important position of
the, in Arabian schools, 174.
Kustrin, tragedy of, 303.
La Fayette, Madame de, de-
scribes Marie Mancini, 9. {See
Fayette.)
Lakanostrophos, a brook cross-
ing the park of Sceaux, 274.
La Motte, a lover of Madame
du Maine, 275.
La Prude, written by Voltaire,
280.
Laval, Count of, 257.
Le Bel, Father, summoned by
Christina of Sweden, Novem-
ber 6, 1657, 129; description
of, on the death of Marquess
Monaldeschi, 129 ff.; implora-
tions of, to save Monaldes-
chi's life, 131.
L6ti, Mademoiselle, governess
to Princess Wilhelmina, 297.
Lorraine, Chevalier de, exiled
from France, 57.
Louis XIV, king of France, the
illness of 1658, 10; great
friendship of, for Marie Man-
cini, 13; coronation of. May
14, 1643, 16; friendship of,
becomes love for Marie Man-
cini, 33; becomes enamoured
of the Infanta of Spain, 49;
marriage of, to the Spanish
princess, June 6, 1660, 49;
visit of, to Brouage, 50;
method adopted by, for en-
tertainments, 220; death of,
September i, 1715, 248.
356
Index
Ludolf , Job, author of works on
Ethiopia, loi.
Luis de Haro, Don, minister to
Spain in 1659, 34.
Lutheran catechism, committed
to memory by Christina, 64.
Lutzen, battle of, November 6,
1632, 78.
Luynes, the Duke of, Memotrs
of, 241; description of, on the
death of Madame du Maine,
285.
Lyons, Christina of Sweden at,
M
Madrid, sojourn of Marie Man-
cini at, 47
Madjid, Sultan of Zanzibar, 199,
Magistrates, illiteracy of, in
Sweden, 89.
Magnus of Gardie, Count, a fav-
otirite of Christina, 96; end of
his popularity, 97.
Mahometan, characteristics of
a, 164.
Maine, the Duchess of, 210;
bom in 1676, 210; diminutive
stature of, 213; married the
Duke of Maine on March 18,
1692, at the age of fifteen and
a half, 217; radical departure
of, from court etiquette, 222;
considered pretty, 224; as-
pirations of, 227 ff.; visit of,
to Malezieu, 230; entry of,
into Sceaux, 232 ; great vanity
of, 240 ; the vow of, to become
the most important person-
age in the kingdom, 241 ;
plans of, for her husband to
obtain the regency at death
of Louis XIV, 246 ; arrival of,
at the Tuileries, 249; defeat
of, 256; part taken in Cellamare
plot, 257; arrest of, 261; con-
dition of, in prison, 266; the
public confession of, 269; re-
turn to Sceaux, January,
1720, 270; personified by
Venus, 273; the acquaintance
of, with Voltaire, 276; ap-
pears on the stage in Vol-
taire's plays, 280 ff.; continued
diversions of, 283; death of,
January 23, 1753, 285.
Maine, the Duke of, contem-
plates matrimony, 213; ille-
gitimate offspring of Madam
de Montespan, 214; early life
of, 215; becomes heir to the
Grande Mademoiselle, 216;
purchases the castle of
Sceaux, December 20, 1699,
231 ; awe of, for his wife, 237;
advancements of, 242 ; de-
creed successor to the crown
of France July, 17 14, 243;
desertion of, by the troops,
247; becomes tutor for Louis
XV instead of regent, 248 ff.;
despair of, at the decree of
1717. 253; loss of all sem-
blance of power of, 255 ; arrest
of, 261.
Maintenon, Madame de, wrote
of Louis XIV in 1705, 12;
care of, for the Duke of Maine
in childhood, 214.
Malezieu, Monsieur de, ex- tutor
of Monsieur du Main, 229;
the arrest of, at Sceaux, 268.
Mancini, Laure, Duchess of Mer-
coeur, 4.
Mancini, Marie, the appearance
of, at the Court of Louis XIV,
i; in Paris, 1653, 3, 9; charac-
teristics of, 9 ff.; Louis XIV,
becomes enamoured with, 12;
the Apologie of, 14; becomes
confidante and adviser to the
king, 16; ambitions of, 21 ff.;
characteristics of, 31; de-
parture of, to Brouage, 39;
wonderful power of, 43 ; learns
of an agreement on the Span-
ish marriage of Louis XIV,
46; becomes a mere adven-
turess, 50; refused permission
to marry Lorraine, 52; be-
comes wife of Connetable
Colonna, 53 ; first child bom
to. 55; jealousy of, for Colon-
na, 57 ff. ; flight of, from Rome,
May 29, 1672, 59; incidents
of the flight of, 60 ff.; is
placed in a convent at Melun,
Index
357
64; degradation of, 65 ff.; at
Madrid, 67; return of, to
France in 1684, 70; travels to
Italy in 1705, 71; probable
death of in 1715, in Italy or
Spain , 72.
Mancini, Olympe, Countess of
Soissons, 8; marriage of, to
Prince Eugene of Carignan,
1657, 21.
Manechini, Captain, overtakes
Marie Mancini, 61.
Manuscripts collected by Chris-
tina of Sweden despoiled, 121.
Marguerite of Savoie, Princess,
projected union of, with Louis
XIV, 24.
Marie Th6rese, Princess of Conti,
213.
Martinozzi, Anne-Marie, Prin-
cess of Conti, 4; marriage of,
to Prince of Conti, 1652, 21.
Martinozzi, Laure, duchess of
Modena, 4.
Mary Eleonore, queen of Swe-
den, mother of Christina of
Sweden, 74; lack of judgment
of, 75; sorrow of, at death of
Adolphus, yg ff.
Mascat, the white asses of, 152.
Matthiae, John, tutor and pro-
fessor for Christina of Sweden,
79-
Mazarin, Cardinal, the nieces of,
2 ; characteristics of the family
of, 3 ff., enormous fortune of,
5 ; early years of, 7 ; correspon-
dence of, with Anne of Aus-
tria, 17 ff.; reports concerning
marriage of, to Anne of
Austria, 19; lack of prudence
of, 23 ; romance of, with
Louis XIV, 28; threatens to
retire to Italy, 41; inspired
antipathy among the nobles,
45 ; change of attitude of, to-
ward Marie Mancini, 48; death
of, March 9, 1661, 54; re-
ception of, for Christina of
Sweden , 122.
Mazarin, Duchess of, the Mem-
oirs of, 66; death of, 71.
Mazarin, family of, in France, 16
dispersion of, 71.
Medal, of Christina, as Minerva,
100.
Medde, a sort of mattress, men-
tioned, 179.
Medici, Cardinal, palace of,
bombarded by Christina of
Sweden, 120.
Meilleraye, Duke de La, mar-
riage of, to Hortense, niece of
Mazarin, 53.
Melun, convent at, Marie Man-
cini placed in, 64.
Modena, Duchess of, 1655, 21;
death of, 71.
Monaldeschi, Marquess, grand
equerry, 128; murder of, 132.
Montargis, Christina of Sweden
spends the night at, 127.
MontecucuUi, General, of Ger-
many, 136.
Montespan, Madame de, mother
of the Duke of Maine, 213.
Montglat, Memoirs of, 112.
Montpensier, Mademoiselle de,
Memoirs of, 32; confidante of
Christina of Sweden, 124.
Montpensier, Monsieur de. Mem-
oirs of, 50.
Motteville, Madame de, accuses
Mazarin, 1658, 6; version of,
on Marie Mancini's departure,
39- ^,
Motteville, Mademoiselle de,
describes meeting between
Christina of Sweden and Anne
of Austria. 124.
Mussulman, fasting of the, 187.
N
Nattier, portrait of Madame du
Maine painted by, 225.
Nevers, Duke of, a brilliant
scatter-brain , 21.
Notre Dame, Christina of Swe-
den receives holy communion
at, 124.
Noves, Laura of, mentioned,
193-
Nuremberg, fortifications at,
293-
Nymph of Sceaux, a nickname
given to Madame du Maine,
233-
358
Index
o
Odin, mythological god, 76.
Oman, the thoroughbreds of,
152.
Orleans, Monsieur d', a prophecy
concerning, 242 ; aspirations
of, for the regency, 244; re-
views the troops, August 23,
1715, 247; elected regent,
September 2, 1715, 248;
causes the arrest of the Duke
and Duchess of Maine, 261 ff.
Oxenstiem, Chancellor, regent
of Sweden, 78; political policy
of, 92.
Pancrace, Doctor, mentioned,
89.
Patin, Guy, writes of Bourdelot,
no.
Perfumery used by Arab wom-
en, 183.
Plague, damage wrought by,
293-
Poissonnet, Clairet, first valet
of the chamber to Christina
of Sweden, 97.
Polignac, Cardinal de, 257; exile
to his abbey of Anchin in
Flanders, 267.
Polish Diet, alarmed at the can-
didature of Christina of Swe-
den, 140.
Pomerania, hope of Christina of
Sweden to conquer, 136.
Pompadour, the Marquess of,
257 ; the confession of, 268 ; the
pardon of, 270.
Pont Royal, the council held
under the, 256.
Porta del Populo, situated on
the Tiber, the bathing place
of Madame Colonna, 58 ^.
Potsdam, Princess Wilhelmina
bom at, July 3, 1709, 290;
council of war at, 327.
Prince, Monsieur le, father of
the Duchess of Maine, 211;
a veritable ogre, 213.
Prussia, first appearance upon
the world's stage, 295; dislike
of the people of, for the later-
year methods of Frederick
William, 346.
Purgon, Monsieur, jokes dedi-
cated to, 273.
Pyrenees, treaty of, 17, 53.
R
Ramadan, the fasting time of
the, 187; a perpetual carouse,
188.
Regency council, training of, 78.
Ren^e, Monsieur Am^d^e, opin-
ion of, on Mazarin, 72.
Richelieu, Cardinal, characteris-
tics of, 17.
Rhine wine, used extensively in
Sweden, 90.
Rome, Christina of Sweden vis-
its, 118; plague at, 128.
Rome Sauvee, successfully acted
in November, 1794, 281.
Reute, Frau Emilie, Memoir <;ot,
148; born in Zanzibar about
1844, 149; christened Prin-
cess Salm^, 150. {See Salm^,
Princess.)
Ruete, Herr, death of, 158; ap-
pearance of, in Arabia, 200.
Said, Sejjid, Iman of Muscat,
sultan of Zanzibar, 149; the
harems of, 150; description of,
152.
Sainte-Beuve, critical instinct
of, 288.
Saint Dorothea, Christina buried
from, 145.
Saint Jean d'Ang^ly, Louis
XIV and Marie Mancini meet
at, August 10, 1659, 24.
Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Mazarin at,
17. 34-
Saint-Simon, judgment of, on
Marie Mancini, 8; denounces
Mazarin, 45.
Saint-Simon, Madame de, 237.
Salm6 {See Ruete, Frau Emilie),
compares European and Arab
customs, 1 56; the German and
Christian education of, 157;
arguments of, 163 ; children of,
166; early life of, in Arabic,
Index
359
168 ff.; life at school, 175; hard-
ships of, 178; Princess, photo-
graph of, 181 ; describes the
return of the fleet, 186 ff.;
irritation of, 193; witnesses
the departure of Sejjid Said,
197; departure of, to Aden,
201; becomes Frau Ruete,
201; hope of, to return to
Arabia, 205 ; return to Arabia,
207.
Sarari, illegitimate wives of the
sultan, 153.
Scandinavia, mythology of, 76.
Sceaux, the court of the Duchess
of Maine at, 210; purchased
by the Duke of Maine, 231;
built by Perrault, 232 ; amuse-
ments at, 234 ff. ; Madame du
Maine returned to, January,
1720, 270.
Scheie, a name for drapery in
Arabia, 195.
Schwedt, the Margrave of, sug-
gested as husband for Prin-
cess Wilhelmina, 325.
Seckendorf, the Austrian envoy,
attempt of, to make Prussia
and England quarrel, 309.
Senate of Sweden educates the
queen, 80.
Sentinelli, Count, captain of the
guard of Christina of Sweden,
128; murders Monaldeschi,
132.
Sibyl of the North, name ap-
plied to Christina of Sweden
in France, 122.
Soissons, Duchess of, departure
from France of, January,
1680, 71.
"Sons of Cats," nickname for
children of Circassians, 167.
Sophia Dorothea, queen of Prus-
sia, 290; kind and generous
disposition of, 290, character
of, 291; her just pride of
birth, 304; demands of, for a
worthy alliance for her daugh-
ter, 307; prevents her hus-
band from committing sui-
cide, 316; gives a ball for her
daughter, 320; aid of, to her
son, 321.
Spain, negotiations with, in
1659, 34.
St. Honor^, rue, Madame du
Maine arrested at, 263.
Staal, Madame de, describes
Madame du Maine, 223; opin-
ion of, 229; describes the over-
throw of the Duke and Duch-
ess of Maine, 255 ^. ; liberation
of, 271.
Stockholm, capital of Sweden,
appearance of, in 1650, 90 ff.
Suhur, Arabian supper, 188.
Surie, members of a harem in
Arabia, 170.
Sweden, pride of, for Christina,
81 ff.; government of, 82;
court of, under Christina,
109.
Thirty Years' War, disastrous
extent of, 289, 293.
Throne of France, deemed with-
in reach of Marie Mancini, 16;
lost to Marie Mancini, 31.
Thurloe, John, Secretary of
Council of State, 114.
U
Upsal, school at, in 161 1, 88;
University of, foimded in
1476, 88.
V
Val-de-Grace, threat of Anne of
Austria to take refuge at, 32.
Vaubrun, Abb6 de, inventor of
the Great Nights of Sceaux,
239.
Venel, Madame de, governess of
Marie Mancini, 42.
Venus, representation of, by
Marie Mancini, 55.
Villars, Madame de, describes
Marie Mancini, February i,
1681, 69.
Voltaire, quarrel of, with the
36o
Index
powers, 1746, 276; letter of,
from Berlin, to Madame du
Maine, December 18, 1752,
284.
W
Wachter, the Latin verses by,
300.
Wedding ceremony, among the
Arabs, 160.
Weissenfels, the Duke of, suitor
for Princess Wilhelmina, 315.
Westphalia, treaty of, signed,
94.
Wilhelmina, Princess. (See Bay-
reuth, Margravins of,.)
Whitelock, letter of to Court of
Sweden, 114.
Wusterhausen, residence of
Frederick William at, 311.
Zadig, written by Voltaire in
1746, 276.
Zanzibar, the slave market at,
165; departure of the fleet
from, 183,
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