qiiestion.
" La pauvre 'diahlesse, " said he, contemptuously, " I had
once compassion on her; I have repented it ever since. You
have no idea what a terrible creature she is ; has such a wen
in her neck, quite a goitre. Mort diable ! " (and the Abb4
spat in his handkerchief), "I would sooner have a liaison
with the witch of Endor!"
356 DEVEREUX.
Not content with this, he went on in his usual gross and
displeasing manner to enumerate or to forge those various
particulars of her personal charms which he thought most
likely to steel me against her attractions. " Thank Heaven,
at least," thought I, "that she has gone!"
Scarcely had this pious gratulation flowed from my heart,
before the door was burst open, and, pale, trembling, eyes
on fire, hands clenched, forth stalked the lady in question.
A wonderful proof how much sooner a woman would lose her
character than allow it to be called not worth the losing!
She entered, and had all the furies of Hades lent her their
tongues, she could not have been more eloquent. It would
have been a very pleasant scene if one had not been a partner
in it. The old Abbe, with his keen, astute marked face,
struggling between surprise, fear, the sense of the ridiculous,
and the certainty of losing his mistress ; the lady, foaming at
the mouth, and shaking her clenched hand most menacingly
at her traducer; myself endeavouring to pacify, and acting,
as one does at such moments, mechanically, though one flat-
ters one's self afterwards that one acted solely from wisdom.
But the Abbe's mistress was by no means content with vin-
dicating herself : she retaliated, and gave so minute a descrip-
tion of the Abbe's own qualities and graces, coupled with so
many pleasing illustrations, that in a very little time his
coolness forsook him, and he grew in as great a rage as her-
self. At last she flew out of the room. The Abbe, trembling
with passion, shook me most cordially by the hand, grinned
from ear to ear, said it was a capital joke, wished me good-
by as if he loved me better than his eyes, and left the house
my most irreconcilable and bitter foe!
How could it be otherwise? The rivalship the Abbe might
have forgiven ; such things happened every day to him : but
the having been made so egregiously ridiculous the Abbe
could not forgive; and the Abbe's was a critical age for jest-
ing on these matters, sixty or so. And then such unpalatable
sarcasms on his appearance! " 'T is all over in that quarter,"
said I to myself, "but we may find another," and I drove out
that very day to pay my resj)ects to the Regent.
DEVEREUX. 357
What a pity it is that one's pride should so often be the
bane of one's wisdom. Ah! that one could be as good a man
of the world in practice as one is in theory ! my master-stroke
of policy at that moment would evidently have been this : I
should have gone to the Regent and made out a story similar
to the real one, but with this difference, all the ridicule of the
situation should have fallen upon me, and the little Dubois
should have been elevated on a pinnacle of respectable ap-
pearances! This, as the Eegent told the Abbe everything,
would have saved me. I saw the plan ; but was too proud to
adopt it; I followed another course in my game: I threw
away the knave, and played with the king, i.e., with the Ee-
gent. After a little preliminary conversation, I turned the
conversation on the Abbe.
*'Ah! the see le rat / " said Philip, smiling, " 't is a sad dog,
but very clever and loves me , he would be incomparable, if
he were but decently honest."
"At least," said I, "he is no hypocrite, and that is some
praise."
" Hem ! " ejaculated the Duke, very slowly, and then,
after a pause, he said, " Count, I have a real kindness for
you, and I will therefore give you a piece of advice : think as
well of Dubois as you can, and address him as if he were all
you endeavoured to fancy him."
After this hint, which in the mouth of any prince but
Philip of Orleans would have been not a little remarkable for
its want of dignity, my prospects did not seem much brighter;
however, I was not discouraged.
" The Abbe, " said I, respectfully, " is a choleric man : one
may displease him ; but dare I hope that so long as I preserve
inviolate my zeal and my attachment to the interests and the
person of your Highness, no — "
The Eegent interrupted me. "You mean nobody shall
successfully misrepresent you to me? Xo, Count" (and
here the Eegent spoke with the earnestness and dignity-,
which, when he did assume, few wore with a nobler grace) —
"no, Count, I make a distinction between those who minister
to the state and those who minister to me. I consider your
358 DEVEREUX.
services too valuable to the former to put tliem at the mercy
of the latter. And now that the conversation has turned
upon business I wish to sj)eak to you about this scheme of
Gortz."
After a prolonged conference with the Regent upon mat-
ters of business, in which his deep penetration into human
nature not a little surprised me, I went away thoroughly sat-
isfied with my visit. I should not have been so had I added
to my other accomplishments the gift of prophecy. Above
five days after this interview, I thought it would be but j^ru-
dent to pay the Abbe Dubois one of those visits of homage
which it was already become policy to pay him. "If I go,"
thought I, "it will seem as if nothing had happened; if I
stay away, it will seem as if I attached importance to a scene
I should appear to have forgotten."
It so happened that the Abbe had a very unusual visitor
that morning, in the person of the austere but admirable Due
de St. Simon. There was a singular and almost invariable
distinction in the Regent's mind between one kind of regard
and another. His regard for one order of persons always
arose either out of his vices or his indolence; his regard for
another, out of his good qualities and his strong sense. The
Due de St. Simon held the same place in the latter species of
affection that Dubois did in the former. The Due was just
coming out of the Abbe's closet as I entered the anteroom.
He paused to speak to me, while Dubois, who had followed
the Due out, stopped for one moment, and surveyed me with
a look like a thundercloud. I did not appear to notice it, but
St. Simon did.
"That look," said he, as Dubois, beckoning to a gentleman
to accompany him to his closet, once more disappeared, " that
look bodes you no good. Count."
Pride is an elevation which is a spring-board at one time
and a stumbling-block at another. It was with me more
often the stumbling-block than the spring-board. "Monsei-
gneur le Due, " said I, haughtily enough, and rather in too
loud a tone considering the chamber was pretty full, "in no
court to which Morton Devereux proffers his services shall his
DEVEREUX. 359
fortune depend upon the looks of a low-born insolent or a
profligate priest."
St. Simon smiled sardonically. "Monsieur le Comte," said
he, rather civilly, " I honour your sentiments, and I wish you
success in the world — and a lower voice."
I was going to say something by way of retort, for I was in
a very bad humour, but I checked myself: "I need not,"
thought I, "make two enemies, if I can help it."
" I shall never, " I replied gravely, " I shall never despair,
so long as the Due de St. Simon lives, of winning by the same
arts the favour of princes and the esteem of good men."
The Due was flattered, and replied suitably, but he very
soon afterwards went away. I was resolved that I would
not go till I had fairly seen what sort of reception the Abbe
would give me. I did not wait long: he came out of his
closet, and standing in his usual rude manner with his back
to the fireplace, received the addresses and compliments of his
visitors. I was not in a hurry to present myself, but I did
so at last with a familiar yet rather respectful air. Dubois
looked at me from head to foot, and abruptly turning his
back upon me, said with an oath, to a courtier who stood next
to him, — "The plagues of Pharaoh are come again; only in-
stead of Egyptian frogs in our chambers, we have the still
more troublesome guests, — English adventurers!"
Somehow or other my compliments rarely tell; I am
lavish enough of them, but they generally have the air of
sarcasms ; thank Heaven, however, no one can accuse me of
ever wanting a rude answer to a rude speech. "Ha! ha!
ha!" said I now, in answer to Dubois, with a courteous
laugh, "you have an excellent wit. Abbe. Apropos of ad-
ventures, I met a Monsieur St. Laurent, Principal of the In-
stitution of St. Michael, the other da}'. 'Count,' said he,
hearing I was going to Paris, *you can do me an especial
favour!' 'What is it?' said I. 'Why, a cast-off valet of
mine is living at Paris ; he would have gone long since to the
galleys, if he had not taken sanctuary in the Church : if ever
jOM meet him, giA'e him a good horsewhipping on my account;
his name is William Dubois.' 'Depend upon it,' answered
360 DEVEREUX.
I to Monsieur St. Laurent, 'that if he is servant to any one
not belonging to the royal family, I will fulfil your errand,
and horsewhip him soundly; if in the service of the royal
family, why, respect for his masters must oblige me to con-
tent myself with putting all persons on their guard against
a little rascal, who retains, in all situations, the manners
of the apothecary's son and the roguery of the director's
valet.'"
All the time I was relating this charming little anecdote,
it would have been amusing to the last degree to note the
horrified countenances of the surrounding gentlemen. Dubois
was too confounded, too aghast, to interrupt me, and I left
the room before a single syllable was uttered. Had Dubois
at that time been, what he was afterwards, cardinal and prime
minister, I should in all probability have had permanent
lodgings in the Bastile in return for my story. Even as it
was, the Abbe was not so grateful as he ought to have been
for my taking so much pains to amuse him ! In spite of my
anger on leaving the favourite, I did not forget my prudence,
and accordingly I hastened to the Prince. When the Regent
admitted me, I flung myself on my knee, and told him, ver-
batim, all that had happened. The Regent, who seems to
have had very little real liking for Dubois, could not help
laughing when I ludicrously described to him the universal
consternation my anecdote had excited.^
"Courage, my dear Count," said he, kindly, "you have
nothing to fear; return home and count upon an embassy! "
I relied on the royal word, returned to my lodgings, and
spent the evening with Chaulieu and Fontenelle. The next
day the Due de St. Simon paid me a visit. After a little pre-
liminary conversation, he unburdened the secret with which
he was charged. I was desired to leave Paris in forty-eight
hours.
"Believe me," said St. Simon, "that this message was not
1 On the death of Dubois, the Rejrent wrote to the Count de Xoce', whom
he had banished for an indiscreet expression against the favourite, uttered at
one of his private suppers : " With the beast dies the venom : I expect j'ou
to-night to supper at the Palais Royal."
DEVEREUX. 361
#
intrusted to me by the Regent without great reluctance. He
sends you many condescending and kind messages; says he
shall always both esteem and like you, and hopes to see you
again, some time or other, at the Palais Royal. Moreover,
he desires the message to be private, and has intrusted it to
me in especial, because hearing that I had a kindness for you,
and knowing I had a hatred for Dubois, he thought I should
be the least unwelcome messenger of such disagreeable tid-
ings. 'To tell you the truth, St. Simon,' said the Regent,
laughing, 'I only consent to have him banished, from a firm
conviction that if I do not Dubois will take some opportunity
of having him beheaded.' "
"Pray," said I, smiling with a tolerably good grace, "pray
give my most grateful and humble thanks to his Highness,
for his very considerate and kind foresight. I could not have
chosen better for myself than his Highness has chosen for
me : my only regret on quitting France is at leaving a prince
so affable as Philip and a courtier so virtuous as St. Simon."
Though the good Due went every year to the Abbey de la
Trappe for the purpose of mortifying his sins and preserving
his religion in so impious an atmosphere as the Palais Royal,
he was not above flattery; and he expressed himself towards
me with particular kindness after my speech.
At court, one becomes a sort of human ant-bear, and learns
to catch one's prey by one's tongue.
After we had eased ourselves a little by abusing Dubois,
the Due took his leave in order to allow me time to prepare
for my "journey," as he politely called it. Before he left,
he, however, asked me whither my course would be bent?
I told him that I should take my chance with the Czar Peter,
and see if his czarship thought the same esteem was due to
the disgraced courtier as to the favoured diplomatist.
That night I received a letter from St. Simon, enclosing
one addressed with all due form to the Czar. " You will con-
sider the enclosed," wrote St. Simon, "a fresh proof of the
Regent's kindness to you; it is a most flattering testimonial
in your favour, and cannot fail to make the Czar anxious to
secure your services."
862 DEVEREUX.
I was not a little touched by a kindness so unusual in princes
to their discarded courtiers, and this entirely reconciled me
to a change of scene which, indeed, under any other circum-
stances, my somewhat morbid love for action and variety
would have induced me rather to relish than dislike.
Within thirty-six hours from the time of dismissal, I had
turned my back upon the French capital.
CHAPTER yi.
A LONG INTERVAL OF YEARS. — A CHANGE OF MIND AND
ITS CAUSES.
The last accounts received of the Czar reported him to be
at Dantzic. He had, however, quitted that place when I ar-
rived there. I lost no time in following him, and presented
myself to his Majesty one day after his dinner, when he was
sitting with one leg in the Czarina's lap and a bottle of the
best eau de vie before him. I had chosen my time well; he
received me most graciously, read my letter from the Regent
— about which, remembering the fate of Bellerophon, I had
had certain apprehensions, but which proved to be in the
highest degree complimentary — and then declared himself
extremely happy to see me again. However parsimonious
Peter generally was towards foreigners, I never had ground
fox personal complaint on that score. The very next day I
was appointed to a post of honour and profit about the royal
person ; from this I was transferred to a military station, in
which I rose with great rapidity; and I was only occasionally
called from my warlike duties to be intrusted with diplomatic
missions of the highest confidence and importance.
It is this portion of my life — a portion of nine years to the
time of the Czar's death — that I shall, in this history, the
most concentrate and condense. In truth, were I to dwell upon
DEVEREUX. 363
it at length, I should make little more than a mere record of
political events; differing, in some respects, it is true, from
the received histories of the time, but containing nothing to
compensate in utility for the want of interest. That this was
the exact age for adventurers, Alberoni and Dubois are suffi-
cient proofs. Never was there a more stirring, active, restless
period; never one in which the genius of intrigue was so per-
vadingly at work. I was not less fortunate than my brethren.
Although scarcely four and twenty when I entered the Czar's
service, my habits of intimacy with men much older; my cus-
tomary gravity, reserve, and thought; my freedom, since
Isora's death, from youthful levity or excess; my early en-
trance into the world; and a countenance prematurely marked
with the lines of reflection and sobered by its hue, — made me
appear considerably older than I was. I kept my OAvn coun-
sel, and affected to be so: youth is a great enemy to one's
success ; and more esteem is often bestowed upon a wrinkled
brow than, a plodding brain.
All the private intelligence which during this space of time
I had received from England was far from voluminous. My
mother still enjoyed the quiet of her religious retreat. A
fire, arising from the negligence of a servant, had consumed
nearly the whole of Devereux Court (the fine old house ! till
that went, I thought even England held one friend). Upon
this accident, Gerald had gone to London; and, though there
was now no doubt of his having been concerned in the Eebel-
lion of 1715, he had been favourably received at court, and
was already renowned throughout London for his pleasures,
his excesses, and his munificent profusion.
Montreuil, whose lot seemed to be always to lose by in-
trigue what he gained by the real solidity of his genius, had
embarked very largely in the rash but gigantic schemes of
Gortz and Alberoni; schemes which, had they succeeded,
would not only have placed a new king upon the English
throne, but wrought an utter change over the whole face of
Europe. With Alberoni and with Gortz fell ^Montreuil. He
was banished France and Spain; the penalty of death awaited
him in Britain; and he was supposed to have thrown himself
364 DEVEREUX.
into some convent in Italy, where his name and his character
were unknown. In this brief intelligence was condensed all
my information of the actors in my first scenes of life. I
return to that scene on which I had now entered.
At the age of thirty-three I had acquired a reputation suffi-
cient to content my ambition ; my fortune was larger than my
wants ; I was a favourite in courts ; I had been successful in
camps ; I had already obtained all that would have rewarded
the whole lives of many men superior to myself in merit,
more ardent than myself in desires. I was still young; my
appearance, though greatly altered, manhood had rather im-
proved than impaired. I had not forestalled my constitution
by excesses, nor worn dry the sources of pleasure by too large
a demand upon their capacities; why was it then, at that
golden age, in the very prime and glory of manhood, in the
very zenith and summer of success, that a deep, dark, pervad-
ing melancholy fell upon me? a melancholy so gloomy that
it seemed to me as a thick and impenetrable curtain drawn
gradually between myself and the blessed light of human en-
joyment. A torpor crept upon me; an indolent, heavy, cling-
ing languor gathered over my whole frame, the physical and
the mental: I sat for hours without book, paper, object,
thought, gazing on vacancy, stirring not, feeling not, — yes,
feeling, but feeling only one sensation, a sick, sad, drooping
despondency, a sinking in of the heart, a sort of gnawing
within as if something living were twisted round my vitals,
and, finding no other food, preyed, though with a sickly and
dull maw, upon them. This disease came upon me slowly:
it was not till the beginning of the second year, from its ob-
vious and palpable commencement, that it grew to the height
that I have described. It began with a distaste to all that I
had been accustomed to enjoy or to pursue. Music, which I
had always passionately loved, though from some defect in
the organs of hearing, I was incapable of attaining the small-
est knowledge of the science, music lost all its diviner spells,
all its properties of creating a new existence, a life of dream-
ing and vain luxuries, within the mind: it became only a mo-
notonous sound, less grateful to the languor of my faculties
DEVEREUX. 365
than an utter and dead stillness. I had never been what is
generally termed a boon companion; but I had had the social
vanities, if not the social tastes; I had insensibly loved the
board which echoed with applause at my sallies, and the com-
rades who, while they deprecated my satire, had been com-
plaisant enough to hail it as wit. One of my weaknesses is a
love of show, and I had gratified a feeling not the less cher-
ished because it arose from a petty source, in obtaining for
my equipages, my mansion, my banquets, the celebrity which
is given no less to magnificence than to fame: now I grew in-
different alike to the signs of pomp, and to the baubles of
taste; praise fell upon a listless ear, and (rare pitch of
satiety!) the pleasures that are the offspring of our foibles
delighted me no more. I had early learned from Bolingbroke
a love for the converse of men, eminent, whether for wisdom
or for wit: the graceful badinage, or the keen critique; the
sparkling flight of the winged words which circled and re-
bounded from lip to lip, or the deep speculation upon the
mysterious and unravelled wonders of man, of Nature, and the
world; the light maxim upon manners, or the sage inquiry
into the mines of learning, all and each had possessed a link
to bind my temper and my tastes to the graces and fascina-
tion of social life. Now a new spirit entered within me:
the smile faded from my lip, and the jest departed from my
tongue; memory seemed no less treacherous than fancy, and
deserted me the instant I attempted to enter into those con-
tests of knowledge in which I had been not undistinguished
before. I grew confused and embarrassed in speech; my
words expressed a sense utterly different to that which I had
intended to convey; and at last, as my apathy increased, I
sat at my own board, silent and lifeless, freezing into ice the
very powers and streams of converse which I had once been
the foremost to circulate and to warm.
At the time I refer to, I was Minister at one of the small
Continental courts, where life is a round of unmeaning eti-
quette and wearisome ceremonials, a daily labour of trifles, a
ceaseless pageantry of nothings. I had been sent there upon
one important event; the business resulting from it had soon
366 DEVEREUX.
ceased, and all the duties that remained for me to discharge
were of a negative and passive nature. jSTothing that could
arouse, nothing that could occupy faculties that had for years
been so perpetually wound up to a restless excitement, was left
for me in this terrible reservoir of ennui. I had come thither
at once from the skirmishing and wild warfare of a Tartar foe ; a
war in which, though the glory was obscure, the action was per-
petual and exciting. I had come thither, and the change was
as if I had passed from a mountain stream to a stagnant pool.
Society at this court reminded me of a state fiineral : every-
thing was pompous and lugubrious, even to the drapery —
even to the feathers — which, in other scenes, would have
been consecrated to associations of levity or of grace; the
hourly pageant swept on slow, tedious, mournful, and the ob-
ject of the attendants was only to entomb the Pleasure which
they affected to celebrate. What a change for the wild, the
strange, the novel, the intriguing, the varying life, which,
whether in courts or camps, I had hitherto led! The internal
change that came over myself is scarcely to be wondered at ;
the winds stood still, and the straw they had blown from
quarter to quarter, whether in anger or in sport, began to
moulder upon the spot where they had left it.
From this cessation of the aims, hopes, and thoughts of
life I was awakened by the spreading, as it were, of another
disease: the dead, dull, aching pain at my heart was suc-
ceeded by one acute and intense ; the absence of thought gave
way to one thought more terrible, more dark, more despairing
than any which had haunted me since the first year of Isora's
death ; and from a numbness and pause, as it were, of exist-
ence, existence became too keen and intolerable a sense. I
will enter into an explanation.
At the court of , there was an Italian, not uncelebrated
for his wisdom, nor unbeloved for an innocence and integrity
of life rarely indeed to be met with among his countrymen.
The acquaintance of this man, who was about fifty years of
age, and who was devoted almost exclusively to the pursuit
of philosophical science, I had sedulously cultivated. His
conversation pleased me ; his wisdom improved; and his be-
DEVEREUX. 367
nevolence, which reminded me of the traits of La Fontaine, it
was so infantine, made me incline to love him. Upon the
growth of the fearful malady of mind Avhich seized nie, I had
discontinued my visits and my invitations to the Italian; and
Bezoni (so was he called) felt a little offended by my neglect.
As soon, however, as he discovered my state of mind, the
good man's resentment left him. He forced himself upon my