Devereux — Volume 04

"I shall feel," said he, quietly, and without the least appearance of paying a compliment, "very glad to mention your wish to his Majesty; and I have not the least doubt but that he will admit to his presence one who has such hereditary claims on his notice. Madame de Maintenon, by the way, has charged me to present you to her whenever you will give me the opportunity. She knew your admirable mother well, and for her sake wishes once to see you. You know perhaps, Monsieur, that the extreme retirement of her life renders this message from Madame de Maintenon an unusual and rare honour."

I expressed my thanks; the Bishop received them with a paternal rather than a courtier-like air, and appointed a day for me to attend him to the palace. We then conversed a short time upon indifferent matters, which I observed the good Bishop took especial pains to preserve clear from French politics. He asked me, however, two or three questions about the state of parties in England,—about finance and the national debt, about Ormond and Oxford; and appeared to give the most close attention to my replies. He smiled once or twice, when his relation, Madame de Balzac, broke out into sarcasms against the Jesuits, which had nothing to do with the subjects in question.

"Ah, /ma chere cousine/," said he: "you flatter me by showing that you like me not as the politician, but the private relation,—not as the Bishop of Frejus, but as Andre de Fleuri."

Madame de Balzac smiled, and answered by a compliment. She was a politician for the kingdom, it is true, but she was also a politician for herself. She was far from exclaiming, with Pindar, "Thy business, O my city, I prefer willingly to my own." Ah, there is a nice distinction between politics and policy, and Madame de Balzac knew it. The distinction is this. Politics is the art of being wise for others: policy is the art of being wise for one's self.

From Madame de Balzac's I went to Bolingbroke. "I have just been offered the place of Secretary of State by the English king on this side of the water," said he; "I do not, however, yet like to commit myself so fully. And, indeed, I am not unwilling to have a little relaxation of pleasure, after all these dull and dusty travails of state. What say you to Boulainvilliers to-night? you are asked?"

"Yes! all the wits are to be there,—Anthony Hamilton, and Fontenelle, young Arouet, Chaulieu, that charming old man. Let us go, and polish away the wrinkles of our hearts. What cosmetics are to the face wit is to the temper; and, after all, there is no wisdom like that which teaches us to forget."

"Come then," said Bolingbroke, rising, "we will lock up these papers, and take a melancholy drive, in order that we may enjoy mirth the better by and by."

CHAPTER V

A MEETING OF WITS.—CONVERSATION GONE OUT TO SUPPER IN HER DRESS OF VELVET AND JEWELS

BOULAINVILLIERS! Comte de St. Saire! What will our great-grandchildren think of that name? Fame is indeed a riddle! At the time I refer to, wit, learning, grace—all things that charm and enlighten—were supposed to centre in one word,-/Boulainvilliers/! The good Count had many rivals, it is true, but he had that exquisite tact peculiar to his countrymen, of making the very reputations of those rivals contribute to his own. And while he assembled them around him, the lustre of their /bons mots/, though it emanated from themselves, was reflected upon him.

It was a pleasant though not a costly apartment in which we found our host. The room was sufficiently full of people to allow scope and variety to one group of talkers, without being full enough to permit those little knots and /coteries/ which are the destruction of literary society. An old man of about seventy, of a sharp, shrewd, yet polished and courtly expression of countenance, of a great gayety of manner, which was now and then rather displeasingly contrasted by an abrupt affectation of dignity, that, however, rarely lasted above a minute, and never withstood the shock of a /bon mot/, was the first person who accosted us. This old man was the wreck of the once celebrated Anthony Count Hamilton!

"Well, my Lord," said he to Bolingbroke, "how do you like the weather at Paris? It is a little better than the merciless air of London; is it not? 'Slife!—even in June one could not go open breasted in those regions of cold and catarrh,—a very great misfortune, let me tell you, my Lord, if one's cambric happened to be of a very delicate and brilliant texture, and one wished to penetrate the inward folds of a lady's heart, by developing to the best advantage the exterior folds that covered his own."

"It is the first time," answered Bolingbroke, "that I ever heard so accomplished a courtier as Count Hamilton repine, with sincerity, that he could not bare his bosom to inspection."

"Ah!" cried Boulainvilliers, "but vanity makes a man show much that discretion would conceal."

"/Au diable/ with your discretion!" said Hamilton, "'tis a vulgar virtue. Vanity is a truly aristocratic quality, and every way fitted to a gentleman. Should I ever have been renowned for my exquisite lace and web-like cambric, if I had not been vain? Never, /mon cher/! I should have gone into a convent and worn sackcloth, and from /Count Antoine/ I should have thickened into /Saint Anthony/."

"Nay," cried Lord Bolingbroke, "there is as much scope for vanity in sackcloth as there is in cambric; for vanity is like the Irish ogling master in the "Spectator," and if it teaches the play-house to ogle by candle-light, it also teaches the church to ogle by day! But, pardon me, Monsieur Chaulieu, how well you look! I see that the myrtle sheds its verdure, not only over your poetry, but the poet. And it is right that, to the modern Anacreon, who has bequeathed to Time a treasure it will never forego, Time itself should be gentle in return."

"Milord," answered Chaulieu, an old man who, though considerably past seventy, was animated, in appearance and manner, with a vivacity and life that would have done honour to a youth,—"Milord, it was beautifully said by the Emperor Julian that Justice retained the Graces in her vestibule. I see, now, that he should have substituted the word /Wisdom/ for that of Justice."

"Come," cried Anthony Hamilton, "this will never do: compliments are the dullest things imaginable. For Heaven's sake, let us leave panegyric to blockheads, and say something bitter to one another, or we shall die of /ennui/."

"Right," said Boulainvilliers; "let us pick out some poor devil to begin with. Absent or present?—Decide which."

"Oh, absent," cried Chaulieu, "'tis a thousand times more piquant to slander than to rally! Let us commence with his Majesty: Count Devereux, have you seen Madame Maintenon and her devout infant since your arrival?"

"No! the priest must be petitioned before the miracle is made public."

"What!" cried Chaulieu, "would you insinuate that his Majesty's piety is really nothing less than a miracle?"

"Impossible!" said Boulainvilliers, gravely,—"piety is as natural to kings as flattery to their courtiers: are we not told that they are made in God's own image?"

"If that were true," said Count Hamilton, somewhat profanely,—"if that were true, I should no longer deny the impossibility of Atheism!"

"Fie, Count Hamilton," said an old gentleman, in whom I recognized the great Huet, "fie: wit should beware how it uses wings; its province is earth, not Heaven."

"Nobody can better tell what wit is /not/ than the learned Abbe Huet!" answered Hamilton, with a mock air of respect.

"Pshaw!" cried Chaulieu, "I thought when we once gave the rein to satire it would carry us /pele-mele/ against one another. But, in order to sweeten that drop of lemon-juice for you, my dear Huet, let me turn to Milord Bolingbroke, and ask him whether England can produce a scholar equal to Peter Huet, who in twenty years wrote notes to sixty-two volumes of Classics,[6 - The Delphin Classics.] for the sake of a prince who never read a line in one of them?"

"We have some scholars," answered Bolingbroke; "but we certainly have no Huet. It is strange enough, but learning seems to me like a circle: it grows weaker the more it spreads. We now see many people capable of reading commentaries, but very few indeed capable of writing them."

"True," answered Huet; and in his reply he introduced the celebrated illustration which is at this day mentioned among his most felicitous /bons mots/. "Scholarship, formerly the most difficult and unaided enterprise of Genius, has now been made, by the very toils of the first mariners, but an easy and commonplace voyage of leisure. But who would compare the great men, whose very difficulties not only proved their ardour, but brought them the patience and the courage which alone are the parents of a genuine triumph, to the indolent loiterers of the present day, who, having little of difficulty to conquer, have nothing of glory to attain? For my part, there seems to me the same difference between a scholar of our days and one of the past as there is between Christopher Columbus and the master of a packet-boat from Calais to Dover!"

"But," cried Anthony Hamilton, taking a pinch of snuff with the air of a man about to utter a witty thing, "but what have we—we spirits of the world, not imps of the closet," and he glanced at Huet—"to do with scholarship? All the waters of Castaly, which we want to pour into our brain, are such as will flow the readiest to our tongue."

"In short, then," said I, "you would assert that all a friend cares for in one's head is the quantity of talk in it?"

"Precisely, my dear Count," said Hamilton, seriously; "and to that maxim I will add another applicable to the opposite sex. All that a mistress cares for in one's heart is the quantity of love in it."

"What! are generosity, courage, honour, to go for nothing with our mistress, then?" cried Chaulieu.

"No: for she will believe, if you are a passionate lover, that you have all those virtues; and if not, she will never believe that you have one."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Is love foolish then?" said Lord Bolingbroke.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The countenance, then, of Marie Francois Arouet (since so celebrated under the name of Voltaire) was plain in feature, but singularly striking in effect; its vivacity was the very perfection of what Steele once happily called "physiognomical eloquence." His eyes were blue, fiery rather than bright, and so restless that they never dwelt in the same place for a moment:[7 - The reader will remember that this is a description of Voltaire as a very young man. I do not know anywhere a more impressive, almost a more ghastly, contrast than that which the pictures of Voltaire, grown old, present to Largilliere's picture of him at the age of twenty-four; and he was somewhat younger than twenty-four at the time of which the Count now speaks.—ED.] his mouth was at once the worst and the most peculiar feature of his face; it betokened humour, it is true; but it also betrayed malignancy, nor did it ever smile without sarcasm. Though flattering to those present, his words against the absent, uttered by that bitter and curling lip, mingled with your pleasure at their wit a little fear at their causticity. I believe no one, be he as bold, as callous, or as faultless as human nature can be, could be one hour with that man and not feel apprehension. Ridicule, so lavish, yet so true to the mark; so wanton, yet so seemingly just; so bright, that while it wandered round its target, in apparent though terrible playfulness, it burned into the spot, and engraved there a brand, and a token indelible and perpetual,—this no man could witness, when darted towards another, and feel safe for himself. The very caprice and levity of the jester seemed more perilous, because less to be calculated upon, than a systematic principle of bitterness or satire. Bolingbroke compared him, not unaptly, to a child who has possessed himself of Jupiter's bolts, and who makes use of those bolts in sport which a god would only have used in wrath.

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