Chapter VII (2)

Pelisson was not the only literary character who was drawn into the vortex by the sinking of Fouquet. The gay and witty Epicurean philosopher, St. Evremond, was punished for the crime of being a friend of the fallen superintendant. Charles St. Evremond was born in 1613, at St. Denis le Guast, near Coutances. From the study of the law, and the prospect of a high station in the magistracy, he was seduced by his love of arms, and, at the age of sixteen, he obtained an ensigncy. He still, however, retained his taste for philosophy and literature. By his bravery he acquired the esteem of his superiors; and that esteem was heightened by his varied acquirements and the charm of his conversation. That he might always enjoy the pleasure of his society, the Duke of Enghien appointed him lieutenant of his guards. In this post St. Evremond fought gallantly at Rocroi, Fribourg, and Nordlingen, in the last of which battles he was dangerously wounded. His familiar intercourse with the prince was not of long duration; Enghien delighted to see others exposed to the wit and raillery of his lieutenant, but he could not endure to be himself their object; St. Evremond ventured to aim some pleasantries at his princely protector, and the great Condé had the littleness to take offence, and to insist on the offender resigning his commission in the guards. In the war of the Fronde, St. Evremond served the royal cause with pen and sword, and he was rewarded with a pension and the rank of major-general. Some satirical remarks on Mazarin, which he soon after made at a dinner party, were the cause of his being thrown into the Bastile. Mazarin, however, was not of an implacable nature, like his predecessor Richelieu. At the expiration of three months he set the prisoner free, took him into favour, and afterwards, from among a crowd of rivals, selected him as his companion, when he went to negociate the peace of the Pyrenees. Dissatisfied with the terms of that peace, St. Evremond gave vent to his dissatisfaction, in a private letter to the Marshal de Créqui. In writing it he unconsciously wrote his own sentence of banishment. A copy of it was found among the papers of Fouquet; and Colbert, who rejoiced to have an opportunity of injuring a friend of Fouquet, malignantly represented it in such a light to Louis XIV. that an order was issued to convey the author to the Bastile. St. Evremond was riding in the forest of Orleans when he received intelligence from his friends of the danger that hung over him. As he did not wish to pay a second visit to a state prison, he provided for his safety by an immediate and rapid flight. In England he was welcomed with open arms, and was idolized by the wits and courtiers. In 1664 he visited Holland, where he met with an equally cordial reception, and gained the friendship of the Prince of Orange. Charles II. invited him to return to England, in 1670, and settled on him a pension. Henceforth, till his decease, which took place in 1703, he continued to reside in London. His friends in France made repeated efforts to obtain his recall; but they could not succeed till 1689, when Louis XIV. was pleased to grant their request. St. Evremond refused to accept the tardy boon. Living at his ease in a free country, and in the highest society, and admired and esteemed by the fair, the witty, and the noble, he was too wise to put himself into “circumscription and confine,” and purchase the privilege of bending before a despotic monarch, at the risk of being condemned to solitary meditation in one of the towers of the Bastile. St. Evremond was ninety when he died, but he preserved his faculties to the last. He was interred in Westminster Abbey. His poetry never rises above mediocrity, and does not always reach it; but his prose is often excellent. Justice has scarcely been done to him either by La Harpe or Voltaire.

A harder fate than that of voluntary exile was the lot of Simon Morin, an insane visionary, a man of humble birth, who was born about 1623, at Richemont, in Normandy. His horrible death, which was in fact a judicial murder, perpetrated by a fanaticism far worse than his own, leaves an indelible stain on the character of the judges by whom it was directed. Morin was originally a clerk in the war-office, but lost his situation by neglecting his duties; and he subsequently gained a scanty subsistence as a copyist, for which he was well qualified by the beauty of his handwriting. His reason appears to have been early affected, as he must have been under twenty when he was first put into prison for his extravagant ideas in religious matters. After his release, he seems to have gradually become more and more deranged. Like all madmen of his class, however, he gained numerous proselytes, who listened to his harangues, and read his printed reveries, with implicit belief. His success drew on him the attention of the government, and, in July 1644, he was sent to the Bastile. At the expiration of twenty months he was set at liberty. Imprisonment had only heightened his malady, and he consequently laboured with more vigour than ever to disseminate his opinions. Those opinions he embodied in a work intituled, “Thoughts of Morin, with his Canticles and Spiritual Quatrains,” dedicated to the king. He called himself the Son of Man, and maintained that Christ was incorporated in him; that in his person was to take place the second advent of the Saviour in a state of glory; and that the result would be a general reformation of the Church, and the conversion of all people to the true faith. There was much more of the same kind; he was in France what Brothers, long afterwards, was in England. Of his tenets, several bear a resemblance to those which, later in the 17th century, were held by the Quietists. The publication of this volume again brought the police upon him. For some time he eluded them, but he was at last discovered, and re-committed to the Bastile. In 1649, he retracted his errors, and was released, and he repeated his retractation four months after his being set free. It was not long, however, before he relapsed, and for this he was sent to the Concièrgerie, whence he was transferred to the Petites Maisons, as an incurable lunatic. The last was the only sensible measure which was adopted with respect to him. By another abjuration, he once more recovered his liberty; and, as soon as he was let loose, he once more asserted his claim to be an incarnation of the Deity. There can be little doubt that he had short lucid intervals, and that it was during these intervals that he renounced his errors.

Thus, alternately raving and recanting, Morin went on till 1661, when, in an evil hour, he contracted an intimacy with a man who was no less a visionary than he himself was, and whose nature was deeply tinctured with malignity and deceit. This man, John Desmarets de St. Sorlin, a member of the French Academy, was the author of several works, now sunk into oblivion, among which are a ponderous epic, called Clovis, and several theatrical pieces. From his own showing, he appears to have been in youth a monster of immorality; and though in advanced life he affected piety, his conduct did not prove his heart to be much ameliorated; he became fanatical instead of becoming virtuous. A brief specimen, from some of his rhapsodies, will show how completely his wits were “turned the seamy side without.” He asserted, that God in his infinite goodness had given him the key of the treasure of the Apocalypse; that he was Eliachim Michael, a Prophet; that he had the Divine command to raise an army of 144,000 men, bearing the seal of God on their foreheads, which army was to be headed by the king, to exterminate the impious and the Jansenists; and that Louis XIV. was indicated by the prophets as the person who was destined to drive out the Turks, and extend throughout the whole earth the kingdom of Christ. Had not Desmarets been a hater of the Jansenists, and a flatterer of the monarch, he would undoubtedly have been sent to study the Apocalypse in the solitude of a prison.

The trite proverb, that “two of a trade cannot agree,” was verified by Desmarets; he resolved to destroy the man who dared to make pretensions that eclipsed his own. To effect his purpose, he acted with the cunning of a lunatic, and the dark-heartedness of a fiend. By paying assiduous court to Morin, by pretending to be one of his most submissive disciples, and even by going so far as to write him a letter, unequivocally recognising him as the Son of Man, he contrived to insinuate himself into the confidence of his unfortunate victim, and to draw from him his most secret thoughts. In the course of their conversations, Morin is said to have declared, among other things, that unless the king acknowledged his mission he would die. Having thus furnished himself with evidence against the man whom he had deluded, Desmarets hastened to denounce him as a heretic and traitor. Orders were issued for arresting Morin, who was found engaged in copying out a “Discourse to the King,” which began with “the Son of Man to the King of France.” He was brought to trial, and was sentenced to be burned alive. Some of his followers were condemned to whipping and the galleys. The iniquitous judgment passed on Morin was executed on the 14th of March, 1663. At the stake his reason seems to have returned; he repeatedly called on the Saviour and the Virgin, and humbly prayed for mercy to the Creator of all things.

Little commiseration is due to him whose imprisonment is next recorded; his baseness met with deserved punishment. Francis René Crispin du Bec, Marquis of Vardes, was of a good family, and served with reputation in Flanders, France, Italy, and Spain. During the war of the Fronde, he was constant to the royal party; and it was doubtless his zeal and fidelity on this occasion which acquired for him the friendship of Louis XIV. He rose to high rank in the army; was made captain-colonel of the Hundred Swiss in 1655; and, next year, succeeded the Duke of Orleans in the government of Aigues-Mortes, and was invested with the various orders of knighthood. He was on the point of being created a duke and peer, when the discovery of a dishonourable act of which he had been guilty, stopped his promotion, and deprived him of his liberty. Louis had chosen Vardes as his friend, and had confided to him his passion for the celebrated Mlle. de la Vallière, who was one of the maids of honour to the Duchess of Orleans. It appears that the duchess and her friend, the Countess of Soissons, and their lovers, the Count de Guiche and Vardes, had hoped, by means of La Vallière, to obtain a predominant influence over Louis. But the royal mistress loved Louis with a sincere and disinterested affection, and was not disposed to become the instrument of court intriguers. It was resolved, therefore, to oust her, and substitute in her stead Mlle. de la Mothe Houdancourt, who, it was imagined, would be more subservient. To effect this object, Vardes wrote a letter, purporting to be from the Spanish monarch, to his daughter the French queen, informing her of her consort’s connection with la Vallière; it was translated into Spanish by Guiche. The letter, however, fell into the hands of Louis. While endeavouring to discover the author, the king consulted Vardes, and Vardes was so ineffably base as to lead him to believe that the offender was the Duchess of Noailles. The duchess, a woman of strict virtue, had the superintendence of the queen’s maids of honour, and had already dissatisfied Louis by her vigilant care of her charge. He therefore readily believed the suggestion of Vardes, and, without farther inquiry, deprived the duchess and her husband of all the places which they held, and ordered them to retire to their estate. For three years the perfidy of Vardes remained a secret, and it would perhaps always have remained so, had he not caused a disclosure of it, by conduct which was at once a flagrant breach of confidence to his friend, the Count de Guiche, and a gross insult to the Duchess of Orleans. He obtained possession of the letters written by the count to the duchess, and refused to give them up; and he incited the Chevalier de Lorraine to make offensive advances to her. This proceeding brought on a quarrel, the result of which was that the king became acquainted with the treachery of the man whom he had trusted. Vardes was sent to the Bastile in December, 1664, from whence he was removed to the citadel of Montpellier, where he was closely confined for eighteen months. He was at length allowed to reside in his government of Aigues-Mortes; but eighteen years passed away before he was recalled to the court. He is said to have employed in study the period of his exile, and to have made himself generally esteemed in Languedoc. When, after his long banishment, he was graciously received by the king, Vardes was dressed in the fashion of his early days, and, when Louis laughed at the antique cut of his coat, the supple courtier replied, “Sire, when one is so wretched as to be banished from you, one is not only unfortunate, but ridiculous!” Vardes did not long enjoy his re-establishment in the royal favour; he died in 1688.

To Vardes succeeds another noble, Count Roger Bussy de Rabutin, who, though he is not accused of such baseness as that of which Vardes was guilty, was by no means a model of delicacy and virtue. He seems, indeed, to have been of opinion, that honour and honesty were not necessary qualities in the persons whom he had about him; for, in his Memoirs, he coolly describes one gentleman, who was of his train, as having all his life been a cutpurse; and another, on whom he bestows praise for some things, as being addicted to every vice, and no less familiar with robbery and murder than with eating and drinking. Such being his laxity of principles, it is no wonder that he sometimes participated in disgusting orgies, and was even suspected of feeling a more than parental love for Madame de la Rivière, his daughter. Bussy de Rabutin was born in 1618, entered the army when he was only twelve years of age, served in all the campaigns between 1634 and 1663, and attained the rank of lieutenant-general. His bravery was undoubted, but his vanity, arrogance, and satirical spirit, made him numerous enemies among his brother officers. On one occasion he lampooned Turenne, and that great general, deviating from his usual magnanimity, avenged himself by writing to the king, that “M de Bussy was the best officer in the army—for songs.” In 1641, Bussy was an inmate of the Bastile for five months. The defective discipline of his regiment, and its having engaged in smuggling salt, was the ostensible cause of his imprisonment; he himself assigned as the reason, that his father was hated by Desnoyers the minister. The same faults by which his companions in arms had been converted into foes, proved his ruin at court. He wrote a libellous work, called “The Amorous History of the Gauls,” which was published in 1665, and excited a general outcry among the personages whom it describes. Bussy affirms, that it was sent to the press without his consent, and even with malignant alterations and additions, by an unfaithful mistress, to whom he entrusted the manuscript. This production was made the pretext for committing him to the Bastile; but it is said that his real offence was a song, in which he ridiculed the king’s passion for the Duchess of la Vallière. His imprisonment lasted twenty months, and he candidly owns, in his Memoirs and Letters, that it was not very patiently endured. By dint of importunity, seconded by an illness with which he was attacked, he at length recovered his liberty. During his captivity, he was compelled to resign, for a much less sum than it cost him, the major-generalship of the light cavalry. But though Bussy was released, he was not pardoned; he was banished to his estate. Notwithstanding his abject supplications, which were incessantly renewed, he remained an exile for sixteen years. At last, in 1682, he was graciously permitted to re-appear at court. His happiness was, however, still incomplete; for the courtiers soon began to cabal against him, and the monarch to treat him coldly; and, though he succeeded in procuring a pension for himself, and pensions and preferments for his children, he failed to obtain the blue riband and a marshal’s staff, which were the great objects of his ambition. He died in 1693.

A longer term of imprisonment than was undergone by Bussy Rabutin fell to the lot of the next prisoner. Among the victims of the persecution which was carried on against the Jansenists, was Louis Isaac le Maistre, better known by the name of Saci, which is an anagram formed by him from one of his christian names. He was born in 1613, and was educated at the college of Beauvais, along with his uncle, the celebrated Anthony Arnauld. Though he was early destined to the clerical profession, he did not take orders till he was in his thirty-fifth year; a praiseworthy humility having long induced him to doubt his being competent to fulfill properly the duties of a gospel minister. He was soon after appointed director of the Port Royal nuns, on which occasion he took up his abode in the convent, resigning to it all his property, except a small annuity, and of that he distributed the largest portion to the poor. His time was spent in study, prayer, and pious exercises. But a blameless life was not sufficient to shield him from theological hatred. In 1661, he was compelled to fly from the convent, and he remained in concealment till 1666, when he was discovered and conveyed to the Bastile. In that prison he was immured for three years and a half, and he solaced his lonely hours by undertaking a translation of the Bible, a considerable part of which he accomplished while he was held in durance. He, however, did not live to complete it. In the autumn of 1669 he was set at liberty. The minister, to whom he was presented on leaving the Bastile, seems to have been willing to grant him some favour, as a compensation for his unmerited sufferings; but all that Saci asked was, that the prisoners might be more leniently treated. After the destruction of Port Royal, he found an asylum in the house of his cousin, the Marquis of Pomponne, and there he ended his days, in 1684. Saci was such an enemy to controversy that, though often attacked, he is said never to have replied except in one instance. Voltaire speaks of him as “one of the good writers of Port Royal.” In the poetical compositions of Saci, which were his earliest literary attempts, there are passages that rise above mediocrity. Among his principal works, besides his version of the Bible, are translations of the Psalms, St. Thomas à Kempis, two books of the Eneid, the Fables of Phædrus, and three of the Comedies of Terence.

From the pious and humble pastor we must turn to a very different sort of personage, to one of the courtier species, a man more remarkable for his sudden rise, and for the vicissitudes which he experienced, than for genius or virtue. Three of his eminent contemporaries have left on record their opinion of Antoninus de Caumont, Count, and afterwards, Duke of Lauzun. The witty Bussy Rabutin pithily describes him as being “one of the least men, in mind as well as body, that God ever created.” The more phlegmatic Duke of Berwick says of him, “he had a sort of talent, which, however, consisted only in turning every thing into ridicule, insinuating himself into every body’s confidence, worming out their secrets, and playing upon their foibles. He was noble in his carriage, generous, and lived in a splendid style. He loved high play, and played like a gentleman. His figure was very diminutive, and it is incomprehensible how he could ever have become a favourite with the ladies.” The satirical St. Simon has drawn, in his best manner, a full-length portrait of Lauzun, which has scarcely a single redeeming feature. He does, indeed, allow, that he was a good friend, “when he chanced to be a friend, which was rarely,” and a good relation; that he had noble manners, and was brave to excess. This is the sole speck of light in the picture; the rest is all shade. In the likeness drawn by St. Simon, we see Lauzun, “full of ambition, caprices, and whimsies, jealous of every one, striving always to go beyond the mark, never satisfied, illiterate, unadorned and unattractive in mind, morose, solitary, and unsociable in disposition, mischievous and spiteful by nature, and still more so from ambition and jealousy, prompt to become an enemy, even to those who were not his rivals, cruel in exposing defects, and in finding and making subjects for ridicule, scattering his ill-natured wit about him without sparing any one, and, to crown the whole, a courtier equally insolent, scoffing, and base even to servility, and replete with arts, intrigues, and meannesses, to accomplish his designs.” Such was the man whom the king long delighted to honour.

Lauzun, who at his outset bore the title of Marquis de Puyguilhem, was the youngest son of a noble Gascon family, and was introduced at court by the Marshal de Grammont, his relation. He soon became the favourite of Louis, who heaped riches and places upon him: some of the latter were expressly created for him. When the Duke of Mazarin resigned the mastership of the ordnance, the king promised it to Lauzun, but bound him to keep the matter secret for a short time. The folly and vanity of the favourite, who could not refrain from boasting of his good fortune, were the cause of his disappointment. Louvois thus obtained a knowledge of the nomination, and remonstrated against it so strongly, and with such sound reasons, that it was revoked by the monarch. On this occasion a scene took place such as has seldom occurred between monarch and subject. After having vainly tried to persuade the king to carry into effect his original intention, Lauzun burst into a furious passion, turned his back on him, broke his own sword under his foot, and vowed that he would never again serve a prince who had violated his word so shamefully. Louis acted in this instance with true dignity. Opening the window, he threw out his cane, and, as he was quitting the room, he coolly said, “I should be sorry to have struck a man of rank.” The next morning, however, Lauzun was conveyed to the Bastile. But Louis was soon induced to forgive the offender, and even to offer him, as an indemnity for his loss, the post of captain of the royal guards. It strongly marks the insolence of Lauzun, that he at first refused the proffered grace, and that entreaties were required to induce him to accept it.

Lauzun had scarcely been twelve months out of the Bastile, before he had an opportunity of becoming the richest subject in Europe. A grand-daughter of Henry IV., the celebrated Duchess of Montpensier, usually known by the appellation of Mademoiselle, who had reached her forty-second year, fell violently in love with him. In her Memoirs she gives a curious and amusing account of her wooing, for the courtship was all on the side of the lady. So completely had Lauzun recovered his influence, that the king gave his consent to their union. The marriage contract secured to him three duchies and twenty millions of livres. A second time his fortune was marred by his vanity. His friends urged him to hasten the nuptials, but he delayed, that they might be celebrated with royal splendour. Of this delay his enemies availed themselves to work upon the pride of the monarch, and they succeeded in breaking off the match. The duchess was rendered inconsolable by this event; Lauzun seems to have borne it with sufficient philosophy. A secret marriage between them is believed to have subsequently taken place.

Lauzun was supposed to be now more firmly fixed than ever in the king’s good graces. He was placed at the head of the army which, in 1670, escorted the king and the court to Flanders, and he displayed extraordinary magnificence in this command. But, flattering as appearances were, he was on the eve of his fall. He had two active and powerful enemies; Louvois, whom he constantly thwarted and provoked in various ways, and Madame de Montespan, the king’s mistress, whom he had more than once grossly insulted. Political rivalry and hatred and female revenge were finally triumphant. The minister and the mistress so incessantly laboured to blacken Lauzun, whose private marriage with Mademoiselle is said to have aided their efforts, that, in November 1671, he was sent to the Bastile, whence he was soon after removed to the fortress of Pignerol. In that fortress he was closely confined in a cell for nearly five years. His situation was at length somewhat ameliorated, but his imprisonment was continued for five years more. It is probable that he would have spent the rest of his days at Pignerol, had not the Duchess of Montpensier purchased his freedom, by sacrificing the duchy of Aumale, the earldom of Eu, and the principality of Dombes, to form an appanage for the illegitimate son of Louis by Madame de Montespan. It is an additional stain on the character of Lauzun, that he proved ungrateful to his deliverer.

Though Lauzun was released, he was not suffered to approach the court. Tired of his exile from Versailles, he passed over to England. On the revolution of 1688 breaking out, James placed the queen and the infant prince under his care, to be conveyed to France. This trust opened the way to his re-admission into the royal presence, and to his being created a duke; but he never regained the confidence of the monarch. He led a reinforcement of the French troops to James in Ireland; and displayed, as the Duke of Berwick states, none of the qualities of a general. He died in 1723, at the age of more than ninety. The closing scene of his life was perhaps the only one for which he deserves praise. His disease was cancer in the mouth, the protracted and horrible torture of which he bore with astonishing temper and fortitude.

The severe example which was made of de Bouteville, in the reign of Louis XIII., though it gave a temporary check to the practice of duelling, was far from putting an end to it. Nor did better success attend the ordinances issued in 1634 by Louis XIII., and in 1643, 1651, and 1670, by Louis XIV. The feebleness of the royal authority, during a disturbed regency, and the war of the Fronde, with the quarrels arising out of it, doubtless tended to neutralize the laws. But, even when Louis XIV. was in uncontested possession of despotic power, we find that the murderous custom of fighting in parties was still existing. In 1663, a famous duel took place between the two La Frettes, Saint Aignan, and Argenlieu, on the one side, and Chalais, Noirmoutier, d’Antin, and Flamarens, on the other. The axe was at length laid to the root of the evil, by the edict of August 1679, which constituted the marshals of France, and the governors of provinces, supreme judges in all cases where individuals supposed their honour to have been wounded. This edict prohibited, under the heaviest penalties, all private combats and rencounters, both within and without the kingdom. One clause seems excellently calculated to produce its intended effect, no less by the insinuation with which it opens, than by the denunciations with which it concludes. “Those,” it says, “who, doubting of their own courage, shall have called in the aid of seconds, thirds, or a greater number of persons, shall, besides the punishment of death and confiscation, be degraded from their nobility, and have their coat of arms publicly blackened and broken by the hangman; their successors shall be obliged to adopt new arms; and the seconds, thirds, and other accomplices, shall be punished in the same manner.” This salutary edict appears to have nearly accomplished the purpose for which it was framed. The slavish fear of incurring the displeasure of the sovereign, a feeling which was so prevalent among the courtiers of Louis XIV., perhaps aided materially in producing obedience to the law. It would have been well if a worse effect had never resulted from that kind of fear.

Among the fashionable gladiators of those days was Philip d’Oger, Marquis of Cavoie, a man whom nature had liberally endowed with the means of shining in a nobler sphere. Cavoie, born in 1640, and descended from an ancient Picard family, was the son of a woman of talent, who gained the good graces of Anne of Austria, and availed herself of her influence to forward the fortune of her offspring. His personal appearance was greatly in his favour; he was one of the handsomest and best made men in France, and he dressed with singular elegance. His courage, too, was no less conspicuous than his corporeal qualities. In 1666, he served as a volunteer on board of the Dutch fleet, under De Ruyter; and in the battle with the Duke of Albemarle he distinguished himself by the perilous exploit of proceeding in a boat to cut the cable with which some English sloops were towing down a fire-ship on the Dutch admiral. He succeeded in his daring attempt, and escaped unhurt. By this gallant action he acquired the friendship of the celebrated Turenne. Long before this he had become known as “the brave Cavoie,” in consequence of his gallant bearing in the single combats which were still too common in France.

It was for having acted as second in one of these combats, that he was immured in the Bastile. His imprisonment would, perhaps, have been protracted, but for a curious circumstance, of which a pleasant account is given by the Duke de St. Simon. Mlle. de Coetlogon, one of the maids of honour to the consort of Louis XIV., had fallen madly in love with Cavoie. St. Simon describes her as being “ugly, prudent, naïve, much-liked, and a very good creature.” It is no slight proof of her amiability, that, in a frivolous and satirical court, her sorrows were a subject of pity instead of laughter. Cavoie was anything but delighted with her idolatrous fondness, which she seemed to glory in manifesting; and he strove to rid himself of it by being obdurate, and even downright harsh. In spite of his repulsive conduct, however, she became every day fonder. When he went to the army, her tears and cries were incessant, and during the whole of the campaign she obstinately abstained from adorning her person in the smallest degree. It was not till he came back that she resumed her customary style of dress. His being committed to the Bastile renewed her grief. “She spoke to the king in behalf of Cavoie,” says St. Simon, “and not being able to obtain his deliverance, she scolded his majesty so violently as to abuse him. The king laughed heartily, at which she was so much incensed that she threatened him with her nails, and he thought it prudent not to run the risk of them. He every day dined and supped publicly with the queen; at dinner it was usual for the Duchess of Richelieu and the queen’s maids of honour to wait upon them. On these occasions, Coetlogon never would hand any thing to the king; either she avoided him, or she flatly refused, and told him that he did not deserve to be waited upon by her. Next, she was ill of jaundice, and had violent hysterics, and fits of despair. This went so far, that the king and queen seriously desired the Duchess of Richelieu to accompany her to the Bastile, to see Cavoie; and this was twice or thrice repeated. At last he was released, and Coetlogon, in raptures, again took to dressing; but it was not without much difficulty that she could be reconciled to the king.”

It is delightful to know that the devoted love of this warm-hearted female was rewarded; and it is honourable to Louis XIV. that, instead of meanly resenting her bursts of passion, he kindly and successfully exerted himself to render her happy. In conjunction with the queen, he more than once pleaded for the enamoured lady, but he found Cavoie averse from a marriage. At length, the death of his grand maréchal-de-logis enabled the king to attack Cavoie with advantage. This time, however, he spoke in the tone of an absolute monarch; for he insisted that Cavoie should wed Mlle. de Coetlogon; but, in return, he promised to put him in the road to fortune, and, as a dowry to the portionless maid, he gave him the splendid office which had just become vacant. Despotism thus exercised may be forgiven, if only for its rarity. Cavoie yielded to the command of his sovereign, and the desired union took place. The result was more satisfactory than might have been expected. Cavoie proved to be an indulgent husband, and she, on her part, never ceased to look up to him as a sort of superior being. Neither in her maiden nor in her married state, was her virtue for a moment doubted.

Cavoie accompanied Louis XIV. in all his campaigns. At the passage of the Rhine, his intrepidity called forth praise from the king himself. A report having soon after been spread, that Cavoie was among the slain, Louis exclaimed, “O, how grieved M. de Turenne will be!” The courtiers who surrounded him were joining in a general chorus of eulogium upon the supposed dead man, when a horseman was seen plunging into the river on the opposite side, and swimming over. It was Cavoie, whom the Prince de Condé had sent to the monarch, to announce to him the complete success of his army.

For many years Cavoie was held in high esteem at court, and enjoyed the confidence of his master. A circumstance at length occurred to disturb his peace. He had hoped to be included in the number of those on whom the order of the Holy Ghost was conferred in 1688, but he was disappointed. This disappointment was the work of Louvois, who hated him, because he was the old and firm friend of the Marquis de Seignalai. Wounded by this slight, the grand maréchal wrote a letter to Louis, informing him that he intended to retire. But the vows of chagrined courtiers are as brittle as those of lovers. The king called him into his cabinet, and, with that graciousness which he well knew how to assume, he said to him, “We have lived too long together to part now; I cannot let you quit me; I will see that you shall be satisfied.” Cavoie abandoned his design of withdrawing from court; but the promised blue riband was never bestowed on him.

At a later period, about twenty years before his decease, he resumed and carried into execution his purpose of seceding from public life. He was a patron of literary characters in general, and was in habits of close intimacy with Racine, Boileau, and other eminent authors. Cavoie died in 1716, at the age of 76, leaving behind him the enviable reputation of having been a man on whose sincerity and probity an implicit reliance might with safety be placed.

From Cavoie we pass to an individual of a less estimable character. Louis, Prince of Rohan, commonly known by the title of the Chevalier Rohan, a degenerate descendant from illustrious ancestors, was born about 1635. Rohan was endowed by nature with a handsome and graceful person, and many intellectual qualities; but all these advantages were nullified by his follies and vices. The Marquis de la Fare describes him as being made up of contradictions; sometimes witty, at others the contrary; sometimes dignified and brave, at others mean and dastardly. In the annals of gallantry he seems to have been ambitious of holding a conspicuous place. The most celebrated of his amorous adventures was his carrying off, aided by her brother, the Duke of Nevers, the beautiful and frail Hortensia Mancini, who was united to the contemptible Duke of Mazarin. That he gamed high, and was careless of his gold, we learn from an anecdote which is related of him. He had lost to the king, at the gaming-table, a large sum, which was to be paid in louis-d’or. Rohan counted out seven or eight hundred, but, not having enough of them, he added two hundred Spanish pistoles. Louis objected to the latter, upon which the chevalier snatched them up, and threw them out of the window, saying at the same time, “Since your majesty will not have them, they are good for nothing.” The king complained of this to Cardinal Mazarin, who replied, “Sire, the Chevalier de Rohan played like a king, and you played like a Chevalier de Rohan.” This action of Rohan has been praised as a “piquant lesson” to Louis; it seems, however, to have been rather an absurd mode of rebuking the monarch’s unprincely conduct.

Rohan continued in favour at court for several years, and in 1656 was appointed grand huntsman of France, an office equivalent to our master of the buck-hounds; he was afterwards made colonel of the guards. He served in 1654, 1655, 1672, and 1677, and displayed great valour. The commencement of his decline seems to have been his being obliged to give up the office of grand huntsman, in consequence of his amour with the Duchess of Mazarin. His extravagance and profligacy at length ruined his fortune and reputation. To repair his shattered finances, he engaged in a plot, at once treasonable and absurd, which completed the destruction of his character, and brought him to the scaffold. Into this scheme he was seduced by Latruaumont, a Norman officer, a man as impoverished and licentious as himself. Their accomplices were Preault, a young officer, the Marchioness of Villiers-Bourdeville, his mistress, and a schoolmaster, named Van den Enden; all of whom are said to have disbelieved that the soul is immortal. Their plan was, to put into the hands of the Dutch the town of Quillebœuf, in Normandy, and to excite the province to revolt, for which service they were to be liberally rewarded. The magnitude of their project forms a striking contrast with the scantiness of their means. The conspiracy was discovered by the government, before the conspirators could begin their operations. Rohan was committed to the Bastile, and M. de Brissac was sent into Normandy to arrest Latruaumont. The latter defended himself, was mortally wounded, and died in a few hours. He had at least some honourable feelings, for, in order to save his confederates, he persisted to the last moment that he was the sole criminal. The friends of Rohan nightly made the circuit of the Bastile, and vociferated, through a speaking-trumpet, “Latruaumont is dead, and has confessed nothing.” They were, however, unheard by the chevalier. He, meanwhile, was perseveringly pressed to acknowledge his guilt, but he refused; and, as his participation in the plot was known only to the deceased, and no written proof existed against him, he might have saved his life, had he not been circumvented by one of those stratagems which were employed against prisoners. De Bezons, one of the counsellors of state who interrogated the captive, had the baseness to assure him that the king meant to pardon him if he would declare the truth, although every thing was already known from the dying avowal of Latruaumont. Trusting to the assurances of his treacherous adviser, Rohan acknowledged his treason. He soon learned the deceit which had been practised on him; and he burst into such violent paroxysms of rage, that his keepers were compelled to manacle him that he might not lay violent hands on himself. Rohan and his accomplices were soon after sentenced to death; they were executed in front of the Bastile, on the 27th of November, 1674. In spite of her erroneous principles, the sufferer most worthy of pity was, perhaps, Madame de Villiers, who displayed a noble fortitude and forgiving spirit. The only evidence against her was some of her letters to Preault, which he had unwisely preserved. At first, she uttered a few words of mild reproof for his fatal imprudence; but she quickly changed her tone, and said with a smile, “We must not think on what is passed, but only how to die.”

The same year that consigned Rohan to the scaffold, saw his place in the Bastile filled by a youthful victim, who was doomed to waste a large part of his life in captivity, for having offended a vindictive and powerful religious body. His name is not recorded, but it is evident that he was of a good family.

Louis XIV. was requested, by the Jesuits of Clermont College, to be present at the representation of a tragedy by their pupils. He complied, and was highly gratified by the piece; the more so, perhaps, as it was thickly strewn with passages in praise of him. A nobleman in attendance having spoken to him in terms of admiration, as to the manner in which the drama had been played, the king replied, “Where’s the wonder? is it not my college?” These words were not lost upon the principal of the college, who was standing by. As soon as the king was gone, the old inscription, “_Collegium Claromontanum Societati Jesus_,” which was on the front of the building, was taken down, and workmen were all night employed to inscribe the words, “_Collegium Ludovici Magni_,” in gold letters, on a tablet of black marble.

In the morning the new inscription was seen conspicuously displayed on the edifice. A youth of sixteen, a pupil in the college, had the good sense and the good taste to be disgusted with this worse than indecorous adulation, and he gave vent to his feelings in a Latin distich, which, during the night, he fastened on the gate. The meaning of his lines may be thus given:

“Christ’s name expunged, the king’s now fills the stone!
O impious race! by this is plainly shown
That Louis is the only god you own!”

The pungent lines excited a violent clamour among the Jesuits, and no pains were spared to trace the writer. The juvenile offender was discovered, and was shut up in the Bastile. After having been confined there for a long while, he was transferred to the citadel of St. Marguerite, on the coast of Provence. There he continued for several years; after which he was taken back to the Bastile. One-and-thirty years he passed in this manner, and the remainder of his life would doubtless have been consumed in the same way, had he not, in 1705, become sole heir to the estates of his family. The confessor of the Bastile, who was a jesuit, now remonstrated with his brethren on the impolicy of keeping in prison an individual from whom, by procuring his release, they might reap such a golden harvest. His advice was taken, and the captive was set free at their intercession. There can be no doubt that their tardy and interested mercy received a liberal reward.

Among the fellow prisoners of the nameless satirist of the jesuits was, for a short time, another writer of verses, but verses of a very different kind. The person in question was Charles Dassouci, who ludicrously designated himself as “Emperor of the Burlesque, the first of that name.” He was born at Paris, about 1604, and was the son of a barrister. His bringing up, and his early habits, were not calculated to make him an estimable member of society. His parents were separated, and the tyranny of a female, who was at once the servant and the concubine of his father, drove him from his home. When he was only nine years old, he wandered to Calais, where he passed himself off as an adept in astrology, the son of Cesar, that dealer in magic whose fate has been narrated in the preceding chapter. The boy having, by the power of imagination, worked a cure upon a hypochondriacal individual, the wise people of Calais considered this fact to be a decisive proof of his intercourse with the devil, and were about to throw him into the sea, but he was saved by some of his friends, who conveyed him privately out of the place. After having led a roving life for some time, he became player on the lute and singer to Christina, Duchess of Savoy, the daughter of Henry IV. In 1640, he was introduced to Louis XIII., who gave him the same situation that he had filled in the household of the duchess, and he was continued in it during the minority of Louis XIV. Resolving to return to Turin, he quitted Paris in 1655; but, before his departure from the kingdom, he visited various parts in the south of France. He was accompanied every where by two handsome youths, called his musical pages; his connexion with whom afforded to his enemies a reason, or a pretext, for fixing a deep stain on his moral character. Failing to obtain patronage at Turin, he went to Rome, and there he was put into the prison of the Inquisition, for having satirized some powerful prelates. On being liberated he went back to Paris, where he was not more fortunate than he had been in Italy, for he was committed to the Bastile, in 1675, whence he was transferred to the Châtelet. To his licentious conduct and writings he is said to have been indebted for his imprisonment, which lasted six months. He died about 1679. His principal works are, “Ovid in good humour,” which is a travestie upon part of the Metamorphoses; Claudian’s Rape of Proserpine burlesqued; and many poems in a similar style. Dassouci, who was sometimes called “the ape of Scarron,” received a lash from the satirical scourge of Boileau, and he complained heavily of the injury. In his Art of Poetry, Boileau thus alludes to the popularity which Dassouci had once enjoyed:

“The scurviest joker charmed some kindred mind,
And even Dassouci could readers find.”

It must be owned, however, that in the works of “the emperor of the Burlesque,” there are some passages which prove that, though his taste and his morals were defective, he was not destitute of talent.

The reader has seen that, with very few exceptions, the prisoners who have been mentioned in this chapter belonged to the courtier-class; that they were men who seemed to feel a difficulty of breathing whenever they did not inhale the vapours of a frivolous and voluptuous court. We ought always to abhor injustice, and therefore we must hate the power which was unjust to them; but they have no title to that liberal share of our pity which is the right of humbler victims, for it was an implied condition of their artificial existence that they should bend to a despot’s will; they purchased the smiles of their master, the pleasures, such as they were, of the Louvre and Versailles, and a portion of the public spoils, by the renunciation of their free agency, and by encountering the risk of being capriciously transferred from a palace to a dungeon. If, relying on his good luck, a man will venture to play with a gambler whom he knows to assert the privilege of now and then cogging the dice, his folly perhaps deserves more compassion than his misfortune.

Let us now see in what manner other classes were affected by the working of an arbitrary government; whether its tyranny was impartially distributed among them. A few examples, taken between the years 1660 and 1670, will enable us to form a tolerably correct judgment upon this subject. Before we proceed to give these examples, it may, however, be well to apprise the reader, that committals to the Bastile were not things of rare occurrence, but the contrary. In 1663, fifty-four persons were sent to that dreary pile; in some years the number was fewer; in others it rose to nearly a hundred and fifty. The Bastile was so crowded in 1665, that a part of the prisoners were obliged to be removed to other places of confinement. It must, indeed, have been full to overflowing, before this removal could have been thought necessary. Such being the case with the Bastile, it is probable that Vincennes, and many other state prisons, were in a similar situation.

Though, as far as can be judged from imperfect registers, it appears that a large majority of the persons incarcerated in the Bastile were the victims of caprice, malice, or religious and political persecution, there can be no doubt that many were really criminal. Some instances of the latter class occur in the years between 1660 and 1670. The crime of coining, which we have seen so common at an earlier period, was still prevalent, and was still committed by men who held a respectable rank in society. In 1666 twelve coiners were hanged within a fortnight, and they accused several others, among whom was a M. Delcampe, who is described as “the celebrated master of an academy in the suburb of St. Germain.” He was escorted in a carriage to the Bastile, by three companies of the guards, and little more than a week elapsed before he was beheaded. The crowd to witness his execution was so great, that many persons were killed or wounded by being pressed or trampled on.

The Bastile was often employed as an engine of extortion. To contribute to the wants of the state, or, rather, to the prodigalities of the court, immense sums were levied upon individuals holding offices, and upon contractors, and all who had had any concern with the finances. It must, of course, have been taken for granted that they had robbed the public; and it could hardly have been expected that they would not indemnify themselves, by future peculation, for their present loss. Messat, a registrar of the council, was Bastiled for remonstrating against a demand of six hundred thousand livres from himself and three of his colleagues. Catalan, a contractor, shared the same fate, and was threatened with death to boot; but after a confinement of several months, he ransomed himself for six millions of livres. From another individual nine hundred thousand livres, and from three of the treasurers of the exchequer several millions, were squeezed by this powerful instrument. M. Deschiens, one of M. Colbert’s head clerks, was also frightened into the payment of a good round sum, by a visit to the Bastile.

Other equally honourable means of raising money were resorted to; all of which helped to fill the prisons as well as the coffers of the monarch. Among them were “free gifts,” once known in England under the name of “benevolences.” From the city of Sens, for instance, twelve thousand livres were demanded as a free gift, besides nearly thrice as much for the pay of the gendarmerie. The citizens replied that they had no money, but would give a thousand hogsheads of excellent wine. Whether the wine was accepted, or whether any of the citizens were imprisoned for the misdemeanour of being pennyless, I cannot say.

Immense sums were raised by the sale of offices. For the title of counsellor of the court, 75,000 crowns were paid, and 90,000 for a place at the board of exchequer. Numerous purchasers were found at far higher prices. There is perhaps much truth in Patin’s sarcastic remark on this occasion: “They must have robbed at a great rate,” says he, “or they would not have so much money to squander.” Monopolies likewise lent their aid to replenish the royal store. Niceron, a grocer, who appears to have been an agent, or spokesman, of the Parisian companies of tradesmen, was lodged in the Bastile for having ventured to remonstrate against a projected monopoly of whale oil. Another article of supply was the stopping of the annuities payable at the town hall; a measure for which we have seen a precedent in the reign of Henry IV. Poignant, a respectable citizen of Paris, was sent to the Bastile for having spoken on this subject; and a female, named Madame de la Trousse, was, for the same cause, prohibited from going to the town hall, or to any other meeting, under pain of corporal punishment! On another occasion, the President le Lievre was banished from Paris, for having made some observations which were unfavourable to the taxes.