LOVE AFFAIRSOF THE COURTS OF EUROPE

BY

THORNTON HALL, F. S. A. , Barrister-at-Law, Author of "Love romancies of the Aristocracy", "Love intrigues of Royal Courts", etc. , etc. 

TO

MY COUSIN, LENORE

CONTENTS

CHAP

I. A COMEDY QUEENII. THE "BONNIE PRINCE'S" BRIDEIII. THE PEASANT AND THE EMPRESSIV. A CROWN THAT FAILEDV. A QUEEN OF HEARTSVI. THE REGENT'S DAUGHTERVII. A PRINCESS OF MYSTERYVIII. THE KING AND THE "LITTLE DOVE"IX. THE ROMANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL SWEDEX. THE SISTER OF AN EMPERORXI. A SIREN OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURYXII. THE CORSICAN AND THE CREOLEXIII. THE ENSLAVER OF A KINGXIV. AN EMPRESS AND HER FAVOURITESXV. A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CINDERELLAXVI. BIANCA, GRAND DUCHESS OF TUSCANYXVII. RICHELIEU, THE ROUÉXVIII. THE INDISCRETIONS OF A PRINCESSXIX. THE INDISCRETIONS OF A PRINCESS--_continued_XX. THE LOVE-AFFAIRS OF A REGENTXXI. A DELILAH OF THE COURT OF FRANCEXXII. THE "SUN-KING" AND THE WIDOWXXIII. A THRONED BARBARIANXXIV. A FRIEND OF MARIE ANTOINETTEXXV. THE RIVAL SISTERSXXVI. THE RIVAL SISTERS--_continued_XXVII. A MISTRESS OF INTRIGUEXXVIII. AN ILL-FATED MARRIAGEXXIX. AN ILL-FATED MARRIAGE--_continued_

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

BIANCA CAPELLO BONAVENTURA GRAND DUCHESS OF TUSCANY

CATHERINE THE SECOND OF RUSSIA

COUNT GREGORY ORLOFF

DESIRÉE CLARY

JOSEPHINE DE BEAUHARNAIS, EMPRESS (BY PRUD'HON)

LOLA MONTEZ, COUNTESS OF LANDSFELD

LUDWIG I. , KING OF BAVARIA

FRANCESCO I. , GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY

CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK, WIFE OF GEORGE IV

LOVE AFFAIRS OF THE COURTS OF EUROPE

CHAPTER I

A COMEDY QUEEN

"It was to a noise like thunder, and close clasped in a soldier'sembrace, that Catherine I. Made her first appearance in Russianhistory. "

History, indeed, contains few chapters more strange, more seeminglyimpossible, than this which tells the story of the maid-of-all-work--thered-armed, illiterate peasant-girl who, without any dower of beauty orcharm, won the idolatry of an Emperor and succeeded him on the greatestthrone of Europe. So obscure was Catherine's origin that no recordsreveal either her true name or the year or place of her birth. All thatwe know is that she was cradled in some Livonian village, either inSweden or Poland, about the year 1685, the reputed daughter of aserf-mother and a peasant-father; and that her numerous brothers andsisters were known in later years by the name Skovoroshtchenko orSkovronski. The very Christian name by which she is known to historywas not hers until it was given to her by her Imperial lover. 

It is not until the year 1702, when the future Empress of the Russiaswas a girl of seventeen, that she makes her first dramatic appearance onthe stage on which she was to play so remarkable a part. Then we findher acting as maid-servant to the Lutheran pastor of Marienburg, scrubbing his floors, nursing his children, and waiting on his residentpupils, in the midst of all the perils of warfare. The Russian hosts hadfor weeks been laying siege to Marienburg; and the Commandant, unable todefend the town any longer against such overwhelming odds, had announcedhis intention to blow up the fortress, and had warned the inhabitants toleave the town. 

Between the alternatives of death within the walls and the enemywithout, Pastor Glück chose the latter; and sallying forth with hisfamily and maid-servant, threw himself on the mercy of the Russians whopromptly packed him off to Moscow a prisoner. For Martha (as she seemsto have been known in those days) a different fate was reserved. Her redlips, saucy eyes, and opulent figure were too seductive a spoil to partwith, General Shérémétief decided, and she was left behind, a by nomeans reluctant hostage. 

Peter's soldiers, now that victory was assured, were holding high revelof feasting and song and dancing. They received the new prisonerliterally with open arms, and almost before she had wiped the tears fromher eyes, at parting from her nurslings, she was capering gaily to themusic of hautboy and fiddle, with the arm of a stalwart soldier roundher waist. 

"Suddenly, " says Waliszewski, "a fearful explosion overthrew thedancers, cut the music short, and left the servant-maid, fainting withterror, in the arms of a dragoon. "

Thus did Martha, the "Siren of the Kitchen, " dance her way into Russianhistory, little dreaming, we may be sure, to what dizzy heights hernimble feet were to carry her. For a time she found her pleasure in theattentions of a non-commissioned officer, sharing the life of camp andbarracks and making friends by the good-nature which bubbled in her, andwhich was always her chief charm. When her sergeant began to weary ofher, she found a humble place as laundry-maid in the household ofMenshikoff, the Tsar's favourite, whose shirts, we are told, it was herprivilege to wash; and who, it seems, was by no means insensible to thebuxom charms of this maid of the laundry. At any rate we findMenshikoff, when he was spending the Easter of 1706 at Witebsk, writingto his sister to send her to him. 

But a greater than Menshikoff was soon to appear on the scene--noneother than the Emperor Peter himself. One day the Tsar, calling on hisfavourite, was astonished to see the cleanliness of his surroundings andhis person. "How do you contrive, " he asked, "to have your house so wellkept, and to wear such fresh and dainty linen?" Menshikoff's answer was"to open a door, through which the sovereign perceived a handsome girl, aproned, and sponge in hand, bustling from chair to chair, and goingfrom window to window, scrubbing the window-panes"--a vision of industrywhich made such a powerful appeal to His Majesty that he begged anintroduction on the spot to the lady of the sponge. 

The most daring writer of fiction could scarcely devise a more romanticmeeting than this between the autocrat of Russia and the red-armed, bustling cleaner of the window-panes, and he would certainly never haveventured to build on it the romance of which it was the prelude. What itwas in the young peasant-woman that attracted the Emperor it isimpossible to say. Of beauty she seems to have had none--save perhapssuch as lies in youth and rude health. 

We look at her portraits in vain to discover a trace of any charm thatmight appeal to man. Her pictures in the Romanof Gallery at StPetersburg show a singularly plain woman with a large, roundpeasant-face, the most conspicuous feature of which is a hideouslyturned-up nose. Large, protruding eyes and an opulent bust complete apresentment of the typical household drudge--"a servant-girl in a Germaninn. " But Peter the Great, who was ever abnormal in all his tastes andappetites, was always more ready to make love to a woman of the peoplethan to the most beautiful and refined of his Court ladies. His standardof taste, as of manners, has not inaptly been likened to that of a Dutchsailor. 

But whatever it was in the low-born laundry-woman that attracted theTsar of Russia, we know that this first unconventional meeting led tomany others, and that before long Catherine (for we may now call her bythe name she made so famous) was removed from his favourite's householdand installed in the Imperial harem where, for a time at least, sheseems to have shared her favours indiscriminately between her old masterand her new--"an obscure and complaisant mistress"--until Menshikofffinally resigned all rights in her to his sovereign. 

When Catherine took up her residence in her new home, Waliszewski tellsus, "her eye shortly fell on certain magnificent jewels. Forthwith, bursting into tears, she addressed her new protector: 'Who put theseornaments here? If they come from the other one, I will keep nothing butthis little ring; but if they come from you, how could you think Ineeded them to make me love you?'"

If Catherine lacked physical graces, this and many another story provethat she had a rare gift of diplomacy. She had, moreover, an unfailingcheerfulness and goodness of heart which quickly endeared her to themoody and capricious Peter. In his frequent fits of nervous irritabilitywhich verged on madness, she alone had the power to soothe him andrestore him to sanity. Her very voice had a magic to arrest him in hisworst rages, and when the fit of madness (for such it undoubtedly was)was passing away she would "take his head and caress it tenderly, passing her fingers through his hair. Soon he grew drowsy and slept, leaning against her breast. For two or three hours she would sitmotionless, waiting for the cure slumber always brought him, until atlast he awoke cheerful and refreshed. "

Thus each day the Livonian peasant-woman took deeper root in the heartof the Emperor, until she became indispensable to him. Wherever he wentshe was his constant companion--in camp or on visits to foreign Courts, where she was received with the honours due to a Queen. And not onlywere her presence and her ministrations infinitely pleasant to him; herprudent counsel saved him from many a blunder and mad excess, and on atleast one occasion rescued his army from destruction. 

So strong was the hold she soon won on his affection and gratitude thathe is said to have married her secretly within three years of firstsetting eyes on her. Her future and that of the children she had borneto him became his chief concern; and as early as 1708, when he wasleaving Moscow to join his army, he left behind him a note: "If, byGod's will, anything should happen to me, let the 3000 roubles whichwill be found in Menshikoff's house be given to Catherine Vassilevskaand her daughter. "

But whatever the truth may be about the alleged secret marriage, we knowthat early in 1712, Peter, in his Admiral's uniform, stood at the altarwith the Livonian maid-servant, in the presence of his Court officials, and with two of her own little daughters as bridesmaids. The wedding, weare told, was performed in a little chapel belonging to PrinceMenshikoff, and was preceded by an interview with the Dowager-Empressand his Princess sisters, in which Peter declared his intention to makeCatherine his wife and commanded them to pay her the respect due to hernew rank. Then followed, in brilliant sequence, State dinners, receptions, and balls, at all of which the laundress-bride sat at herhusband's right hand and received the homage of his subjects as hisQueen. 

Picture now the woman who but a few years earlier had scrubbed PastorGlück's floors and cleaned Menshikoff's window-panes, in all her newsplendours as Empress of Russia. The portraits of her, in herunaccustomed glories, are far from flattering and by no meansconsistent. "She showed no sign of ever having possessed beauty, " saysBaron von Pöllnitz; "she was tall and strong and very dark, and wouldhave seemed darker but for the rouge and whitening with which sheplastered her face. "

The picture drawn by the Margravine of Baireuth is still lessattractive: "She was short and huddled up, much tanned, and utterlydevoid of dignity or grace. Muffled up in her clothes, she looked like aGerman comedy-actress. Her old-fashioned gown, heavily embroidered withsilver, and covered with dirt, had been bought in some old-clothes shop. The front of her skirt was adorned with jewels, and she had a dozenorders and as many portraits of saints fastened all along the facings ofher dress, so that when she walked she jingled like a mule. "

But in the eyes of one man at least--and he the greatest in allRussia--she was beautiful. His allegiance never wavered, nor indeed didthat of his army, which idolised her to a man. She might have no boudoirgraces, but at least she was the typical soldier's wife, and cut a bravefigure, as she reviewed the troops or rode at their head in her uniformand grenadier cap. She shared all the hardships and dangers ofcampaigns with a smile on her lips, sleeping on the hard ground, andstanding in the trenches with the bullets whistling about her ears, andmen dropping to right and left of her. 

Nor was there ever a trace of vanity in her. She was as proud of herhumble origin as if she had been cradled in a palace. To princes andambassadors she would talk freely of the days when she was a householddrudge, and loved to remind her husband of the time when his Empressused to wash shirts for his favourite. "Though, no doubt, you have otherlaundresses about you, " she wrote to him once, "the old one neverforgets you. "

The letters that passed between this oddly assorted couple, if couchedin terms which could scarcely see print in our more restrained age, areeloquent of affection and devotion. To Peter his kitchen-Queen was"friend of my Heart, " "dearest Heart, " and "dear little Mother. " Hecomplains pathetically, when away with his army, "I am dull withoutyou--and there is nobody to take care of my shirts. " When Catherine onceleft him on a round of visits, he grew so impatient at her absence thathe sent a yacht to bring her back, and with it a note: "When I go intomy rooms and find them deserted, I feel as if I must rush away at once. It is all so empty without thee. "

And each letter is accompanied by a present--now a watch, now somecostly lace, and again a lock of his hair, or a simple bunch of driedflowers, while she returns some such homely gift as a little fruit or afur-lined waistcoat. On both sides, too, a vein of jocularity runsthrough the letters, as when Catherine addresses him as "YourExcellency, the very illustrious and eminent Prince-General and Knightof the crowned Compass and Axe"; and when Peter, after the Peace ofNystadt, writes: "According to the Treaty I am obliged to return allLivonian prisoners to the King of Sweden. What is to become of thee, Idon't know. " To which she answers, with true wifely (if affected)humility: "I am your servant; do with me as you will; yet I venture tothink you won't send _me_ back. "

Quite idyllic, this post-nuptial love-making between the great Emperorand his low-born Queen, who has so possessed his heart that no otherwoman, however fair, could wrest it from her. And in her exaltedposition of Empress she practised the same diplomatic arts by which shehad won Peter's devotion. Politics she left severely alone; she turned aforbidding back on all attempts to involve her in State intrigues, butshe was ever ready to protect those who appealed to her for help, and touse her influence with her husband to procure pardon or lighterpunishment for those who had fallen under his displeasure. 

Nor did she forget her poor relations in Livonia. One brother, apostillion, she openly acknowledged, introduced to her husband, andobtained a liberal pension for him; and to her other brothers andsisters she sent frequent presents and sums of money. More she could notwell do during her husband's lifetime, but when she in turn came to thethrone, she brought the whole family--postillion, shoemaker, farm-labourer and serf, their wives and families--to her capital, installed them in sumptuous apartments in her palaces, decked them inthe finest Court feathers, and gave them large fortunes and titles ofnobility. 

When the Tsar's quarrel with his eldest son came to its tragic_dénouement_ in Alexis' death, her own son became heir presumptive tothe throne of Russia. And thus the chain that bound Peter to his Empressreceived its completing link. It only remained now to place the crownformally on the head of the mother of the new heir, and this supremehonour was hers in the month of May, 1729. 

Wonderful tales are told of the splendours of Catherine's coronation. Noexisting crown was good enough for the ex-maid-of-all-work, so one ofspecial magnificence was made by the Court jewellers--a miracle ofdiamonds and pearls, crowned by a monster ruby--at a cost of a millionand a half roubles. The Coronation gown, which cost four thousandroubles, was made at Paris; and from Paris, too, came the gorgeous coachwith its blaze of gold and heraldry, in which the Tsarina made hertriumphal progress through the streets of the capital from the WinterPalace. The culminating point of this remarkable ceremony came when, after Peter had placed the crown on his wife's head, she sank weeping athis feet and embraced his knees. 

Catherine, however, had not worn her crown many months when she foundherself in considerable danger of losing not only her dignities but evenher liberty. For some time, it is said, she had been engaged in aliaison with William Mons, a handsome, gay young courtier, brother to aformer mistress of the Tsar. The love affair had been common knowledgeat the Court--to all but Peter himself, and it was accident that at lastopened his eyes to his wife's dishonour. One moonlight night, so thestory is told, he chanced to enter an arbour in the palace gardens, andthere discovered her in the arms of her lover. 

His vengeance was swift and terrible. Mons was arrested the same nightin his rooms, and dragged fainting into the Tsar's presence, where heconfessed his disloyalty. A few days later he was beheaded, at the verymoment when the Empress was dancing a minuet with her ladies, a smile onher lips, whatever grief was in her heart. The following day she wasdriven by her husband past the scaffold where her lover's dead body wasexposed to public view--so close, in fact, that her dress brushedagainst it; but, without turning her head, she kept up a smilingconversation with the perpetrator of this outrage on her feelings. 

Still not content with his revenge, Peter next placed the dead man'shead, enclosed in a bottle of spirits of wine, in a prominent place inthe Empress's apartments; and when she still smilingly ignored itshorrible proximity, his anger, hitherto repressed, blazed forthfiercely. With a blow of his strong fist he shattered a pricelessVenetian vase, shouting, "Thus will I treat thee and thine"--to whichshe calmly responded, "You have broken one of the chief ornaments ofyour palace; do you think you have increased its charm?"

For a time Peter refused to be propitiated; he would not speak to hiswife, or share her meals or her room. But she had "tamed the tiger" manya time before, and she was able to do it again. Within two months shehad won her way back into full favour, and was once more the Tsar'sdearest _Katiérinoushka. _

A month later Peter was dead, carrying his love for his peasant-Empressto the grave, and Catherine was reigning in his stead, able at last toconduct her amours openly--spending her nights in shameless orgies withher lovers, and leaving the rascally Menshikoff to do the ruling, untildeath brought her amazing career to an end within sixteen months ofmounting her throne. 

CHAPTER II

THE "BONNIE PRINCE'S" BRIDE

In the pageant of our history there are few more attractive figures thanthat of "Bonnie Prince Charlie, " the "yellow-haired laddie" whose blueeyes made a slave of every woman who came under their magic, and whosegenial, unaffected manners turned the veriest coward into a hero, readyto follow him to the death in that year of ill-fated romance, "theforty-five. "

The very name of the "Bonnie Prince, " the hope of the fallen Stuarts, the idol of Scotland--leading a forlorn hope with laughter on his lips, now riding proudly at the head of his rabble army, now a fugitiveIshmael among the hills and caves of the Highlands, but ever the last tolose heart--has a magic still to quicken the pulses. That later yearsproved the idol's feet to be of clay, that he fell from his pedestal toend his days an object of contempt and derision, only served to thosewho knew him in the pride of his youth to mingle pity with the glamourof romance that still surrounds his name. 

In the year 1772, when this story opens, Charles Edward, Count ofAlbany, had already travelled far on the downward road that led fromthe glory of Prestonpans to his drunkard's grave. A pitiful pensioner ofFrance, who had known the ignominy of wearing fetters in a Frenchprison, a social outcast whose Royal pretensions were at best thesubject of an amused tolerance, the "laddie of the yellow hair" hadfallen so low that the brandy bottle, which was his constant companionnight and day, was his only solace. 

Picture him at this period, and mark the pathetic change which less thanthirty years had wrought in the Stuart "darling" of "the forty-five, "when many a proud lady of Scotland would have given her life for a smilefrom his bonnie face. A middle-aged man with dropsy in his limbs, andwith the bloated face of the drunkard; "dull, thick, silent-lookinglips, of purplish red scarce redder than the skin; pale blue eyestending to a watery greyness, leaden, vague, sad, but with angrystreakings of red; something inexpressibly sad, gloomy, helpless, vacant, and debased in the whole face. "

Such was this "Young Chevalier" when France took it into her head tomake a pawn of him in the political chess-game with England. As a man hewas beneath contempt; as a "King"--well, he was a _Roi pour rire_; butat least the Royal House he represented might be made a useful weaponagainst the arrogant Hanoverian who sat on his father's throne. Thatrival stock must not be allowed to die out; his claims might weighheavily some day in the scale between France and England. Charles Edwardmust marry, and provide a worthier successor to his empty honours. 

And thus it was that France came to the exiled Prince with theseductive offer of a pretty bride and a pension of forty thousand crownsa year. The besotted Charles jumped at the offer; left his brandybottle, and, with the alacrity of a youthful lover, rushed away to wooand win the bride who had been chosen for him. 

And never surely was there such a grotesque wooing. Charles was aphysical wreck of fifty-two; his bride-elect had only seen nineteensummers. The daughter of Prince Gustav Adolf of Stolberg and theCountess of Horn, Princess Louise was kin to many of the greatest housesin Europe, from the Colonnas and Orsinis to the Hohenzollerns andBruces. In blood she was thus at least a match for her Stuartbridegroom. 

She had spent some years in the seclusion of a monastery, and hademerged for her undesired trip to the altar a young woman of rare beautyand charm, with glorious brown eyes, the delicate tint of the wild rosein her dimpled cheeks, a wealth of golden hair, and a figure every lineand movement of which was instinct with beauty and grace. She was afresh, unspoilt child, bubbling with gaiety and the joy of life, and herdainty little head was full of the romance of sweet nineteen. 

Such then was the singularly contrasted couple--"Beauty and the Beast"they were dubbed by many--who stood together at the altar at Macerata onGood Friday of the year 1772--the bridegroom, "looking hideous in hiswedding suit of crimson silk, " in flaming contrast to the virginal whiteof his pretty victim. It needed no such day of ill-omen as a Friday toinaugurate a union which could not have been otherwise thandisastrous--the union of a beautiful, romantic girl eager to exploit theworld of freedom and of pleasure, and a drink-sodden man old enough tobe her father, for whom life had long lost all its illusions. 

It is true that for a time Charles Edward was drawn from his bottle bythe lure of a pretty and winsome wife, who should, if any power on earthcould, have made a man again of him. She laughed, indeed, at his maudlintales of past heroism and adventure in love and battle; to her he was aplaster hero, and she let him know it. She was "mated to a clown, " and adrunken clown to boot--and, well, she would make the best of a badbargain. If her husband was the sorriest lover who ever pouredthick-voiced flatteries into a girl-wife's ears, there were others, plenty of them, who were eager to pay more acceptable homage to her; andthese men--poets, courtiers, great men in art and letters--flocked toher _salon_ to bask in her beauty and to be charmed by her wit. 

After all, she was a Queen, although she wore no crown. She had a Court, although no Royalties graced it. From the Pope to the King of France, nomonarch in Europe would recognise her husband's kingship. But at suchneglect, the offspring of jealousy, of course, she only smiled. Shecould indeed have been moderately happy in her girlish, light-heartedway, if her husband had not been such an impossible person. 

As for Charles Edward, he soon wearied of a bride who did nothing butlaugh at him, and who was so ready to escape from his obnoxious presenceto the company of more congenial admirers. He returned to his brandybottle, and alternated between a fuddled brain and moods of wildjealousy. He would not allow his wife to leave the door without hisescort; if she refused to accompany him, he turned the key in herbedroom door, to which the only access was through his own room. 

He took her occasionally to the theatre or opera, his brandy bottlealways making a third for company. Before the performance was halfthrough he was snoring stertorously on the couch which he insisted onhaving in his box; and, more often than not, was borne to his carriagefor the journey home helplessly drunk. And this within the first year ofhis wedded life. 

If any woman had excuse for seeking elsewhere the love she could notfind in her husband it was Louise of Albany. There were dames in plentyin Rome (where they were now living) who, not content with devotedhusbands, had their _cisibeos_ to play the lover to them; but Louisesought no such questionable escape from her unhappiness. Her books andthe clever men who thronged her _salon_ were all the solace she asked;and under temptation such as few women of that country and day wouldhave resisted, she carried the shield of a blameless life. 

From Rome the Countess and her husband fared to Florence in 1774; andhere matters went from bad to worse. Charles was now seldom sober dayor night; and his jealousy often found expression in filthy abuse andcowardly assaults. Hitherto he had been simply disgusting; now he was aconstant menace, even to her life. She lived in hourly fear of hisbrutality; but in her darkest hour sunshine came again into her lifewith the coming of Vittorio Alfieri, whose name was to be linked withhers for so many years. 

At this time Alfieri was in the very prime of his splendid manhood, oneof the handsomest and most fascinating men in all Europe. Some fouryears older than herself, he was a tall, stalwart, soldierly man, blue-eyed and auburn-haired, an aristocrat to his finger-tips, a daringhorseman, a poet, and a man of rare culture--just the man to set anywoman's heart a-flutter, as he had already done in most of the capitalsof the Continent. 

He was a spoilt child of fortune, this Italian poet and soldier, a manwho had drunk deep of the cup of life, and to whom all conquests camewith such fatal ease that already he had drained life dry of itspleasures. 

Such was the man who one autumn day in the year 1777 came into theunhappy life of the Countess of Albany, still full of the passions andyearnings of youth. It was surely fate that thus brought together thesetwo young people of kindred tastes and kindred disillusions; and wecannot wonder that, of that first meeting, Alfieri should write, "Atlast I had met the one woman whom I had sought so long, the woman whocould inspire my ambition and my work. Recognising this, and prizing sorare a treasure, I gave myself up wholly to her. "

Those were happy days for the Countess that followed this fatefulmeeting--days of sweet communion of twin souls, hours of stolen bliss, when they could dwell apart in a region of high and ennobling thoughts, while the besotted husband was sleeping off the effects of his drunkenorgies in the next room. To Alfieri, Louise was indeed "the anchor ofhis life, " giving stability to his vacillating nature, and inspiring allthat was best and noblest in him; while to her the association with this"splendid creature, " who so thoroughly understood and sympathised withher, was the revelation of a new world. 

Thus three happy years passed; and then the crisis came. One night thePrince, in a mood of drunken madness, inflamed by jealousy, attacked hiswife, and, after severely beating her, flung her down on her bed andattempted to strangle her. This was the crowning outrage of years ofbrutality. She could not, dared not, spend another day with such amadman. At any cost she must leave him--and for ever. 

When morning came, with Alfieri's assistance, the plan of escape wasarranged. In the company of a lady friend--and also of her husband, nowscared and penitent, but fearing to let her out of his sight--she droveto a neighbouring convent, ostensibly to inspect the nuns' needlework. On reaching her destination she ran up the convent steps, entered thebuilding, and the door was slammed and bolted behind her in the veryface of Charles Edward, who had followed as fast as his dropsical legswould carry him up the steps. The Prince, blazing at such an outrage, hammered fiercely at the door until at last the Lady Abbess herselfshowed her face at the grating, and told him in no ambiguous words thathe would not be allowed to enter! His wife had come to her forprotection; and if he had any grievance he had better appeal to the Dukeof Tuscany. 

Thus ended the tragic union of the "Bonnie Prince" and his Countess. Emancipation had come at last; and, while Louise was now free to devoteher life to her beloved Alfieri, her brutal husband was left for eightyears to the company of his bottle and the ministrations of his naturaldaughter, until a drunkard's grave at Frascati closed over his mis-spentlife. The pity and the tragedy of it!

Louise of Albany and her poet-lover were now free to link their lives atthe altar--but no such thought seems to have entered the head of either. They were perfectly happy without the bond of the wedding-ring, of whichthe Countess had such terrible memories; and together they walkedthrough life, happy in each other and indifferent to the world'sopinion. 

Now in Florence, now in Rome; living together in Alsace, drifting toParis; and, when the Revolution drove them from the French capital, seeking refuge in London, where we find the uncrowned Queen of Englandchatting amicably with the "usurper" George in the Royal box at theopera--always inseparable, and Louise always clinging to the shreds ofher Royal dignity, with a throne in her ante-room, and "Your Majesty"on her servants' lips. Thus passed the careless, happy years forCountess and poet until, in 1803, Alfieri followed the "Bonnie Prince"behind the veil, and left a desolate Louise to moan amid her tears, "There is no more happiness for me. "

But Louise was not left even now without the solace of a man's love, which seemed as indispensable to her nature as the air she breathed. Before Alfieri had been many months in his Florence tomb his place bythe Countess's side had been taken by François Xavier Fabre, agood-looking painter of only moderate gifts, whose handsome face, plausible tongue, and sunny disposition soon made a captive of hermiddle-aged heart. At the time when Fabre came thus into her life Madamela Comtesse had passed her fiftieth birthday--youth and beauty had takenwings; and passion (if ever she had any--for her relations with Alfieriseem to have been quite platonic) had died down to its embers. 

But a man's companionship and homage were always necessary to her, andin Fabre she found her ideal cavalier. Her _salon_ now became morepopular even than in the days of her young wifehood. It drew to it allthe greatest men in Europe, men of world-wide fame in statesmanship, letters, and art, all anxious to do homage to a woman of such cultureand with such rare gifts of conversation. 

That she was now middle-aged, stout and dowdy--"like a cook with prettyhands, " as Stendhal said of her--mattered nothing to her admirers, manyof whom remembered her in the days of her lovely youth. She was, intheir eyes, as much a Queen as if she wore a crown; and, moreover, shewas a woman of magnetic charm and clever brain. 

And thus, with her books and her _salon_ and her cavalier, she spent therest of her chequered life until the end came one day in 1824; and herlast resting-place was, as she wished it to be, by the side of herbeloved Alfieri. In the Church of Santa Croce, in Florence, midwaybetween the tombs of Michael Angelo and Machiavelli, the two loverssleep together their last sleep, beneath a beautiful monument fashionedby Canova's hands--Louise, wife of the "Bonnie Prince" (as we stillchoose to remember him) and Vittorio Alfieri, to whom, to quote his ownwords, "she was beyond all things beloved. "

CHAPTER III

THE PEASANT AND THE EMPRESS

Many an autocrat of Russia has shown a truly sovereign contempt forconvention in the choice of his or her favourites, the "playthings of anhour"; and at least three of them have carried this contempt to thealtar itself. 

Peter, the first, as we have seen, offered a crown to Martha Skovronski, a Livonian scullery-maid, who succeeded him on the throne; the secondCatherine gave her hand as well as her heart to Patiomkin, the gigantic, ill-favoured ex-sergeant of cavalry; and Elizabeth, daughter of Peterand his kitchen-Queen, proved herself worthy of her parentage when shemade Alexis Razoum, a peasant's son, husband of the Empress of Russia. You will search history in vain for a story so strange and romantic asthis of the great Empress and the lowly shepherd's son, whom her loveraised from a hovel to a palace, and on whom one of the most amorous andfickle of sovereign ladies lavished honours and riches and an unwaveringdevotion, until her eyes, speaking their love to the last, were closedin death. 

It was in the humblest hovel of the village of Lemesh that AlexisRazoum drew his first breath one day in 1709. His father, GregoryRazoum, was a shepherd, who spent his pitiful earnings in drink--a manof violent temper who, in his drunken rages, was the terror not only ofhis home but of the entire village. His wife and children cowered at hisapproach; and on more than one occasion only accident (or Providence)saved him from the crime of murder. On one such occasion, we are told, the child Alexis, who from his earliest years had a passion for reading, was absorbed in a book, when his father, in ungovernable fury, seized ahatchet and hurled it at the boy's head. Luckily, the missile missed itsmark, and Alexis escaped, to find refuge in the house of a friendlypriest, who not only gave him shelter and protection, but taught him towrite, and, above all, to sing--little dreaming that he was thus pavingthe way which was to lead the drunken shepherd's lad to the dizziestheights in Russia. For the boy had a beautiful voice. When he joined thechoir of his village church, people flocked from far and near to listento the sweet notes that soared, pure and liquid as a nightingale's song, above the rest. "It was, " all declared, "the voice of an angel--and theface of an angel, " for Alexis was as beautiful in those days as anychild of picture or of dreams. 

One day a splendidly dressed stranger chanced to enter the Lemesh churchduring Mass--none other than Colonel Vishnevsky, a great Court official, who was on his way back to Moscow from a diplomatic mission; and helistened entranced to a voice sweeter than any he had ever heard. Theservice over, he made the acquaintance of the young chorister, interviewed his guardian, the "good Samaritan" priest, and persuaded himto allow the boy to accompany him to the capital. Thus the shepherd'sson took weeping farewell of the good priest, of his mother, and of hisbrothers and sisters; and a few weeks later the Empress and her ladieswere listening enchanted to his voice in the Imperial choir atMoscow--but none with more delight than the Princess Elizabeth, daughterof Peter the Great, to whom Alexis' beauty appealed even more stronglythan his sweet singing. 

Elizabeth, true daughter of her father, had already, young as she was, counted her lovers by the score--lovers chosen indiscriminately, fromRoyal princes to grooms and common soldiers. She was already sated withthe licence of the most dissolute Court of Europe, and to her the youngCossack of the beautiful face and voice, and rustic innocence, opened anew and seductive vista of pleasure. She lost her heart to him, had himtransferred to her own Court as her favourite singer, and, within a fewyears, gave him charge of her purse and her properties. 

The shepherd's son was now not only lover-elect, but principal"minister" to the daughter of an Emperor, who was herself to wear theImperial crown. And while Alexis was thus luxuriating amid the splendourof a Court, he by no means forgot the humble relatives he had leftbehind in his native village. His father was dead; his mother wasreduced for a time to such a depth of destitution that she had to begher bread from door to door. His sisters had found husbands forthemselves in their own rank; and the favourite of an Imperial Princesshad for brothers-in-law a tailor, a weaver, and a shepherd. When newscame to Alexis of his mother's destitution he had sent her a sum ofmoney sufficient to install her in comfort as an innkeeper: the first ofmany kindnesses which were to work a startling transformation in thefortunes of the Razoum family. 

Events now hurried quickly. The Empress Anna died, and was succeeded onthe throne by the infant Ivan, her grand-nephew, who had been Emperorbut a few months when, in 1741, a _coup d'état_ gave the crown toElizabeth, mistress of the Lemesh peasant. Alexis was now husband in allbut name of the Empress of all the Russias; honours and riches wereshowered on him; he was General, Grandmaster of the Hounds, ChiefGentleman of the Bedchamber, and lord of large estates yielding regalrevenues. 

But all his grandeur was powerless to spoil the man, who still remainedthe simple peasant who, so many years earlier, had left his low-bornmother with streaming eyes. His great ambition now was to share hisgood-fortune with her. She must exchange her village inn for theluxuries and splendours of a palace. And thus it was that one day asplendid carriage, with gay-liveried postillions, dashed up to the doorof the Lemesh inn and carried off the simple peasant woman, her youngestson, Cyril, and one of her daughters, to the open-mouthed amazement ofthe villagers. At the entrance to the capital she was received by amagnificently attired gentleman, in whom she failed to recognise her sonAlexis, until he showed her a birthmark on his body. 

Picture now the peasant-woman sumptuously lodged in the Moscow palace, decked in all the finery of silks and laces and jewels, receiving therespectful homage of high Court officials, caressed and petted by anEmpress, while her splendid son looks smilingly on, as proud of hiscottage-mother as if she were a Princess of the Blood Royal. That theinnkeeper was not happy in her gilded cage, that her thoughts oftenwandered longingly to her cronies and the simple life of the village, isnot to be wondered at. 

It was all very well for such a fine gentleman as her son, Alexis; butfor a poor, simple-minded woman like herself--well, she was too old forsuch a transplanting. And we can imagine her relief when, on the removalof the Court to St Petersburg, she was allowed to bring her visit to anend and to return to her inn with wonderful stories of all she had seen. Her son and daughter, however, elected to remain. As for Cyril, ahandsome youth, almost young enough to be his brother's son, he wasquick to win his way into the favour of the Empress. Before he had beenmany months at Court he was made a Count and Gentleman of theBedchamber. He was given for bride a grand-niece of Elizabeth; and attwenty-two he was Viceroy of the Ukraine, virtual sovereign of a kingdomof his own, with his peasant-mother, who declined to share his palace, comfortably installed in a modest house near his gates. 

Cyril, in fact, was to his last day as unspoiled by his unaccustomedgrandeur as his brother Alexis. Each was ready at any moment to turnfrom the obsequious homage of nobles to hobnob with a peasant friend orrelative. How utterly devoid of false pride Alexis was is proved by thefollowing anecdote. One day when, in company with the Empress, he waspaying a visit to Count Löwenwolde, he rushed from Elizabeth's side tofling his arms round the neck of one of his host's footmen. "Are youmad, Alexis?" exclaimed the Empress, in her astonishment. "What do youmean by such senseless behaviour?" "I am not mad at all, " answered thefavourite. "He is an old friend of mine. "

But although no man ever deposed the shepherd from the first place inElizabeth's favour, it must not be imagined that he was her only lover. The daughter of the hot-blooded Peter and the lusty scullery wench hadalways as great a passion for men as the second Catherine, who hadalmost as many favourites in her boudoir as gowns in her wardrobes. Shehad her lovers before she was emancipated from the schoolroom; and notthe least favoured of them, it is said, was her own nephew, Peter theSecond, whom she would no doubt have married if it had been possible. 

She turned her back on one great alliance after another, preferring herfreedom to a wedding-ring that brought no love with it; and she foundher pleasure alike among the gentlemen of the Court and among her ownservants. In the long list of her favourites we find a Generalsucceeded by a Sergeant; Boutourlin, the handsome courtier, giving placeto Lialin, the sailor; and Count Shouvalov retiring in favour ofVoytshinsky, the coachman. Thus one liaison succeeded another fromgirlhood to middle-age--indeed long after she had passed the altar. Butthrough all these varying attachments her heart remained constant to hershepherd-lover, to whom she was ever the devoted wife, and, when he wasill, the tenderest of nurses. To please him, she even accompanied him ona visit to his native village, smiling graciously on his humble friendsof other days, and partaking of the hospitality of the poorestcottagers; while on all who had befriended him in the days of hisobscurity she lavished her favours. 

Of one man who had been thus kind she made a General on the spot; thefriendly priest was given a highly paid post at Court; high rank in thearmy was given to many of his humble relatives; and a husband was foundfor a favourite niece in Count Ryoumin, the Chancellor's son. 

As for Alexis himself, nothing was too good for him. Although he hadprobably never handled a gun in his life she made him Field-Marshal andhead of her army; and, at her request, Charles VII. Dubbed him Count ofthe Holy Roman Empire, a distinction which Gregory Orloff in later yearsprized more than all the honours Catherine II. Showered on him; whilethe estates of which she made him lord were a small kingdom inthemselves. Alexis, the shepherd's son, was now, beyond any question, the most powerful man in Russia. If he would, he might easily havetaken the sceptre from the yielding hands of the Empress and played theautocrat, as Patiomkin played it under similar circumstances in lateryears. But Alexis cared as little for power as for rank and wealth. Hesmiled at his honours. "Fancy, " he said, with his hearty laugh, "apeasant's son, a Count; and a man who ought to be tending sheep, aField-Marshal!"

When courtly genealogists spread before him an elaborate family-tree, proving that he sprang from the princely stock of Bogdan, with many aGrand Duke of Lithuania among his lineal ancestors, he laughed loud andlong at them for their pains. "Don't be so ridiculous, " he said. "Youknow as well as I that my parents were simple peasants, honest enough, but people of the soil and nothing else. If I am Count and Field-Marshaland Viceroy, I owe it all to the good heart of your Empress and mine, whose humble servant I am. Take it away, and let me hear no more of suchfoolery. "

Such to the last was the unspoiled, child-like nature of the man who sosoon was to be not merely the first favourite but husband of an Empress. Probably Alexis would have lived and died Elizabeth's unlicensed loverhad it not been for the cunning of the cleverest of her Chancellors, Bestyouzhev, who saw in his mistress's infatuation for her peasant themeans of making his own position more secure. Elizabeth was still ayoung and attractive woman, who might pick and choose among some of themost eligible suitors in Europe for a sharer of her throne; for therewere many who would gladly have played consort to the good-lookingautocrat of Russia. 

Such a husband, especially if he were a strong man, might seriouslyimperil the Chancellor's position; might even dispense with himaltogether. On the other hand, he was high in the favour of theshepherd's son, who had such a contempt for power, and who thus would bea puppet in his hands. Why not make him husband in name as well as infact? It was, after all, an easy task the Chancellor thus set himself. Elizabeth was by no means unwilling to wear a wedding-ring for the manwho had loved her so loyally and so long; and any difficulties she mightraise were quickly disposed of by her father-confessor, who wasBestyouzhev's tool. Thus it came to pass that one day Elizabeth andAlexis stood side by side before the village altar of Perovo; and thewords were spoken which made the shepherd's son husband of the Empress. The secrecy with which the ceremony was performed was but a fiction. Allthe world knew that Alexis Gregorovitch was Emperor by right of wedlock, and flocked to pay homage to him in his new and exalted character. 

He now had sumptuous apartments next to those of his wife; he sat at herright hand on all State occasions; he was her shadow everywhere; andduring his frequent attacks of gout the Empress ministered to him nightand day in his own rooms with the tender devotion of a mother to achild. Two children were born to them, a son and a daughter, the latterof whom, after a life of strange romance and vicissitude, ended herdays in a loathsome dungeon of the fortress of Saints Peter and Paul, the victim of Catherine II. 's vengeance--miserably drowned, so one storygoes, by an inundation of her cell. 

On Elizabeth's death, in the year 1762, her husband was glad to retirefrom the Court in which he had for so long played so splendid a part. "None but myself, " he said, "can know with what pleasure I leave asphere to which I was not born, and to which only my love for my dearmistress made me resigned. I should have been happier far with her insome small cottage far removed from the gilded slavery of Court life. "He was happy enough now leading the peaceful life of a country gentlemanon one of his many estates. 

Catherine II. Had mounted the throne of Russia--the Empress who, according to Masson, had but two passions, which she carried to thegrave--"her love of man, which degenerated into libertinage; and herlove of glory, which degenerated into vanity. " A woman with the brain ofa man and the heart of a courtesan, Catherine's fickle affection hadflitted from one lover to another, until now it had settled on GregoryOrloff, the handsomest man in her dominions, whom she was more than halfdisposed to make her husband. 

This was a scheme which commended itself strongly to her Chancellor, Vorontsov. There was a most useful precedent to lend support to it--thealliance of the Empress Elizabeth with a man of immeasurably lower rankthan Catherine's favourite; but it was important that this precedentshould be established beyond dispute. Thus it was that one day, whenCount Alexis was poring over his Bible by his country fireside, Chancellor Vorontsov made his appearance with ingratiating words andpromises. Her Majesty, he informed the Count, was willing to conferImperial rank on him in return for one small favour--the possession ofthe documents which proved his marriage to her predecessor, Elizabeth. 

On hearing the request, the ex-shepherd rose, and, with words of quietscorn, refused both the request and the proffered honour. "Am not I, " hesaid, "a Count, a Field-Marshal, a man of wealth? all of which I owe tothe kindness of my dear, dead mistress. Are not such honours enough forthe peasant's son whom she raised from the mire to sit by her side, thatI should purchase another bauble by an act of treachery to her memory?

"But wait one moment, " he continued; and, leaving the room, he returnedcarrying a small bundle of papers, which he proceeded to examine one byone. Then, collecting them, he placed the bundle in the heart of thefire, to the horror of the onlooking Chancellor; and, as the flames werereducing the precious documents to ashes, he said, "Go now and tellthose who sent you, that I never was more than the slave of my augustbenefactress, the Empress Elizabeth, who could never so far haveforgotten her position as to marry a subject. "

Thus with a lie on his lips--the last crowning evidence of loyalty tohis beloved Queen and wife--Alexis Razoum makes his exit from the stageon which he played so strangely romantic a part. A few years later hisdays ended in peace at his St Petersburg palace, with the name he lovedbest, "Elizabeth, " on his lips. 

CHAPTER IV

A CROWN THAT FAILED

Henri of Navarre, hero of romance and probably the greatest King whoever sat on the throne of France, had a heart as weak in love as it wasstout in war. To his last day he was a veritable coward before thebattery of bright eyes; and before Ravaillac's dagger brought his careerto a tragic end one May day in the year 1610 he had counted hismistresses to as many as the years he had lived. 

But of them all, fifty-seven of them--for the most part lightly comingand lightly going--only one ever really reached his heart, and waswithin measurable distance of a seat on his throne--the woman to whom hewrote in the hey-day of his passion, "Never has man loved as I love you. If any sacrifice of mine could purchase your happiness, how gladly Iwould make it, even to the last drop of my life's blood. "

Gabrielle d'Estrées who thus enslaved the heart of the hero, whichcarried him to a throne through a hundred fights and inconceivablehardships, was cradled one day in the year 1573 in Touraine. From hermother, Françoise Babou, she inherited both beauty and frailness; forthe Babou women were famous alike for their loveliness and for a virtueas facile even as that of Marie Gaudin, the pretty plaything of FrançoisI. , who left François' arms to find a husband in Philip Babou and thusto transmit her charms and frailty to Gabrielle. 

Her father, Antoine, son of Jean d'Estrées, a valiant soldier under fivekings, was a man of pleasure, who drank and sang his way through life, preferring Cupid to Mars and the _joie de vivre_ to the call of duty. Itis perhaps little wonder that Antoine's wife, after bearing sevenchildren to her husband, left him to find at least more loyalty in theMarquess of Tourel-Alégre, a lover twenty years younger than herself. 

Thus it was that, deserted by her mother, and with a father too addictedto pleasure to spare a thought for his children, Gabrielle grew tobeautiful girlhood under the care of an aunt--now living in the familychâteau in Picardy, now in the great Paris mansion, the Hotel d'Estrées;and with so little guidance from precept or example that, in lateryears, she and her six sisters and brothers were known as the "SevenDeadly Sins. "

In Gabrielle at least there was little that was vicious. She was anirresponsible little creature, bubbling over with mischief and gaiety, eager to snatch every flower of pleasure that caught her eyes; a daintylittle fairy with big blue "wonder" eyes, golden hair, the sweetestrosebud of a mouth, ready to smile or to pout as the mood of the momentsuggested, with soft round baby cheeks as delicately flushed as anyrose. 

Such was Gabrielle d'Estrées on the verge of young womanhood when Rogerde Saint-Larry, Duc de Bellegarde, the King's grand equerry, and one ofthe handsomest young men in France, first set eyes on her in the châteauof Coeuvres; and, as was inevitable, lost his heart to her at firstsight. When he rode away two days later, such excellent use had he madeof his opportunities, he left a very happy, if desolate maiden behind;for Gabrielle had little power to resist fascinations which had made aconquest of many of the fairest ladies at Court. 

When Bellegarde returned to Mantes, where Henri was still struggling forthe crown which was so soon to be his, he foolishly gave the King ofNavarre such a rapturous account of the young beauty of Picardy and hisconquest that Henri, already weary of the faded charms of Dianed'Audouins, his mistress, promptly left his soldiering and rode away tosee the lady for himself, and to find that Bellegarde's raptures weremore than justified. 

Gabrielle, however, flattered though she was by such an honour as avisit from the King of Navarre, was by no means disposed to smile on thewooing of "an ugly man, old enough to be my father. " And indeed, Henri, with all the glamour of the hero to aid him, was but a sorry rival forthe handsome and courtly Bellegarde. Now nearing his fortieth year, withgrizzled beard, and skin battered and lined by long years of hardcampaigning, the future King of France had little to appeal to theromantic eyes of a maid who counted less than half his years; and theKing in turn rode away from the Coeuvres Castle as hopelessly in loveas Bellegarde, but with much less encouragement to return. 

But the hero of Ivry and a hundred other battles was no man to submit todefeat in any lists; and within a few weeks Gabrielle was summoned toMantes, where he told her in decisive words that he loved her, and thatno one, Bellegarde or any other, should share her with him. "Indeed!"she exclaimed, with a defiant toss of the head, "I will be no man'sslave; I shall give my heart to whom I please, and certainly not to anyman who demands it as a right. " And within an hour she was riding homefast as her horse could gallop. 

Henri was thunderstruck at such defiance. He must follow her at once andbring her to reason; but, in order to do so, he must risk his life bypassing through the enemy's lines. Such an adventure, however, was afterhis own heart; and disguising himself as a peasant, with a bundle offaggots on his shoulder, he made his way safely to Coeuvres, where hepresented himself, a pitiable spectacle of rags and poverty, to begreeted by his lady with shouts of derisive laughter. "Oh dear!" shegasped between her paroxysms of mirth, "what a fright you look! Forgoodness' sake go and change your clothes. " But though the King obeyedhumbly, Gabrielle shut herself in her room and declined point-blank tosee him again. 

Such devotion, however, expressed in such fashion, did not fail in itsappeal to the romantic girl; and when, a little later, Gabrielle visitedthe Royalist army then besieging Chartres, it was a much more pliantGabrielle who listened to the King's wooing and whose eyes brightened athis stories of bravery and danger. Henri might be old and ugly, but hehad at least a charm of manner, a frank, simple manliness, which madehim the idol of his soldiers and in fact of every woman who once cameunder its spell. And to this charm even Gabrielle, the rebel, had atlast to submit, until Bellegarde was forgotten, and her hero was all theworld to her. 

The days that followed this slow awaking were crowded with happiness forthe two lovers; when Gabrielle was not by her King's side, he waswriting letters to her full of passionate tenderness. "My beautifulLove, " "My All, " "My Trueheart"--such were the sweet terms he lavishedon her. "I kiss you a million times. You say that you love me a thousandtimes more than I love you. You have lied, and you shall maintain yourfalsehood with the arms which you have chosen. I shall not see you forten days, it is enough to kill me. " And again, "They call me King ofFrance and Navarre--that of your subject is much more delightful--youhave much more cause for fearing that I love you too much than toolittle. That fault pleases you, and also me, since you love it. See howI yield to your every wish. "

Such were the letters--among the most beautiful ever penned bylover--which the King addressed to his "Menon" in those golden days, when all the world was sunshine for him, black as the sky was still withthe clouds of war. And she returned love for love; tenderness forpassion. When he was lying ill at St Denis, she wrote, "I die of fear. Tell me, I implore you, how fares the bravest of the brave. Give menews, my cavalier; for you know how fatal to me is your least ill. Icannot sleep without sending you a thousand good nights; for I am thePrincess Constancy, sensible to all that concerns you, and careless ofall else in the world, good or bad. "

Through the period of stress and struggle that still separated Henrifrom the crown which for nearly twenty years was his goal, Gabrielle wasever by his side, to soothe and comfort him, to chase away the clouds ofgloom which so often settled on him, to inspire him with new courage andhope, and, with her diplomacy checking his impulses, to smooth overevery obstacle that the cunning of his enemies placed in his path. 

And when, at last, one evening in 1594, Henri made his triumphal entryinto Paris, on a grey horse, wearing a gold-embroidered grey habit, hisface proud and smiling, saluting with his plume-crowned hat the cheeringcrowds, Gabrielle had the place of honour in front of him, "in agorgeous litter, so bedecked with pearls and gems that she paled thelight of the escorting torches. "

This was, indeed, a proud hour for the lovers which saw Henri acclaimedat "long last" King of France, and his loyal lady-love Queen in all butname. The years of struggle and hardship were over--years in which Henriof Navarre had braved and escaped a hundred deaths; and in which he hadbeen reduced to such pitiable straits that he had often not known wherehis next meal was to come from or where to find a shirt to put on hisback. 

Gabrielle was now Marquise de Monceaux, a title to which her Royal loverlater added that of Duchesse de Beaufort. Her son, César, was known as"Monsieur, " the title that would have been his if he had been heir tothe French throne. All that now remained to fill the cup of her ambitionand her happiness was that she should become the legal wife of the Kingshe loved so well; and of this the prospect seemed more than fair. 

Charming stories are told of the idyllic family life of the new King;how his greatest pleasure was to "play at soldiers" with his children, to join in their nursery romps, or to take them, like some bourgeoisfather, to the Saint Germain fair, and return loaded with toys and boxesof sweetmeats, to spend delightful homely evenings with the woman headored. 

But it was not all sunshine for the lovers. Paris was in the throes offamine and plague and flood. Poverty and discontent stalked through herstreets, and there were scowling and envious eyes to greet the King andhis lady when they rode laughing by; or when, as on one occasion we readof, they returned from a hunting excursion, riding side by side, "shesitting astride dressed all in green" and holding the King's hand. 

Nor within the palace walls was it all a bed of roses for Gabrielle; forshe had her enemies there; and chief among them the powerful Duc deSully, her most formidable rival in the King's affection. Sully was notonly Henri's favourite minister; he was the Jonathan to his David, theman who had shared a hundred dangers by his side, and by his devotionand affection had found a firm lodging in his heart. 

Between the minister and the mistress, each consumed with jealousy ofthe other, Henri had many a bad hour; and the climax came when de Sullyrefused to pass the extravagant charges for the baptism of theMarquise's second son, Alexander. Gabrielle was indignant and appealedangrily and tearfully to the King, who supported his minister. "I haveloved you, " he said at last, roused to wrath, "because I thought yougentle and sweet and yielding; now that I have raised you to highposition, I find you exacting and domineering. Know this, I could betterspare a dozen mistresses like you than one minister so devoted to me asSully. "

At these harsh words, Gabrielle burst into tears. "If I had a dagger, "she exclaimed, "I would plunge it into my heart, and then you would findyour image there. " And when Henri rushed from the room, she ran afterhim, flung herself at his feet, and with heart-breaking sobs, begged forforgiveness and a kind word. Such troubles as these, however, were butas the clouds that come and go in a summer sky. Gabrielle's sun was nownearing its zenith; Henri had long intended to make her his wife at thealtar; proceedings for divorce from his wife, Marguerite de Valois, wererunning smoothly; and now the crowning day in the two lives thusromantically linked was at hand. 

In the month of April, 1599, Gabrielle and Henri were spending the lastante-nuptial days together at Fontainebleau; the wedding was fixed forthe first Sunday after Easter, and Gabrielle was ideally happy among herwedding finery and the costly presents that had been showered on herfrom all parts of France--from the ring Henri had worn at his Coronationand which he was to place on her finger at the altar, to a statue of theKing in gold from Lyons, and a "giant piece of amber in a silver casketfrom Bordeaux. "

Her wedding-dress was a gorgeous robe of Spanish velvet, rich inembroideries of gold and silver; the suite of rooms which was to be hersas Queen was already ready, with its splendours of crimson and goldfurnishing. The greatest ladies in France were now proud to act as hertire-women; and princes and ambassadors flocked to Fontainebleau to payher homage. 

The last days of Holy Week it had been arranged that she should spend indevotion at Paris, and Henri was her escort the greater part of the way. When they parted on the banks of the Seine they wept in each other'sarms, while Gabrielle, full of nameless forebodings, clung to her loverand begged him to take her back to Fontainebleau. But with a finalembrace he tore himself away; and with streaming eyes Gabriellecontinued her journey, full of fears as to its issue; for had not a seerof Piedmont told her that the marriage would never take place; and otherdiviners, whom she had consulted, warned her that she would die young, and never call Henri husband?

Two days later Gabrielle heard Mass at the Church of St Germainl'Auxerrois; and on returning to the Deanery, her aunt's home, becameseriously ill. She grew rapidly worse; her sufferings were terrible towitness; and on Good Friday she was delivered of a dead child. To quotean eye-witness, "She lingered until six o'clock in very great pain, thelike of which doctors and surgeons had never seen before. In her agonyshe tore her face, and injured herself in other parts of her body. "Before dawn broke on the following day she drew her last breath. 

When news of her illness reached the King, he flew to her swift as hishorse could carry him, only to meet couriers on his way who told himthat Madame was already dead; and to find, when at last he reached StGermain l'Auxerrois, the door of the room in which she lay barredagainst him. He could not take her living once more into his arms; hewas not allowed to see her dead. 

Henri was as a man who is mad with grief; he was inconsolable. . Nonedared even to approach him with words of pity and comfort. For eightdays he shut himself in a black-draped room, himself clothed in black;and he wrote to his sister, "The root of my love is dead; there will beno Spring for me any more. " Three months later he was making love toGabrielle's successor, Henriette d'Entragues!

Thus perished in tragedy Gabrielle d'Estrées, the creature of sunshine, who won the bravest heart in Europe, and carried her conquest to thevery foot of a throne. 

CHAPTER V

A QUEEN OF HEARTS

If ever woman was born for love and for empire over the hearts of men itwas surely Jeanne Bécu, who first opened her eyes one August day in theyear 1743, at dreary Vaucouleurs, in Joan of Arc's country, and who wasfated to dance her light-hearted way through the palace of a King to theguillotine. 

Scarcely ever has woman, born to such beauty and witchery, been cradledless auspiciously. Her reputed father was a scullion, her mother asempstress. For grandfather she had Fabien Bécu, who left hisfrying-pans in a Paris kitchen to lead Jeanne Husson, a fellow-servant, to the altar. Such was the ignoble strain that flowed in the veins ofthe Vaucouleurs beauty, who five-and-twenty years later was playfullypulling the nose of the fifteenth Louis, and queening it in his palaceswith a splendour which Marie Antoinette herself never surpassed. 

From her sordid home Jeanne was transported at the age of six to aconvent, where she spent nine years in rebellion against rules andpunishments, until "the golden head emerged at last from black woollenveil and coarse unstarched bands, the exquisite form from shapeless, hideous robe, the perfect little feet from abominable yellow shoes, " toplay first the rôle of lady's maid to a wealthy widow, and, when shewearied (as she quickly did) of coiffing hair, to learn the arts ofmillinery. 

"Picture, " says de Goncourt, "the glittering shop, where all day longcharming idlers and handsome great gentlemen lounged and ogled; thepretty milliner tripping through the streets, her head covered by a big, black _calèche_, whence her golden curls escaped, her round, daintywaist defined by a muslin-frilled pinafore, her feet in littlehigh-heeled, buckled shoes, and in her hand a tiny fan, which she usesas she goes--and then imagine the conversations, proposals, replies!"

Such was Jeanne Bécu in the first bloom of her dainty beauty, theprettiest grisette who ever set hearts fluttering in Paris streets; withlaughter dancing in her eyes, a charming pertness at her red lips, gracein every movement, and the springtide of youth racing through her veins. 

When Voltaire first saw her portrait, he exclaimed, "The original wasfashioned for the gods. " And we cannot wonder, as we look on theravishing beauty of the face that wrung this eloquent tribute from thecold-blooded cynic--the tender, melting violet of the eyes, with theirsweeping brown lashes, under the exquisite arch of brown eyebrows, thedainty little Greek nose, the bent bow of the delicious tiny mouth, theperfect oval of the face, the complexion "fair and fresh as aninfant's, " and a glorious halo of golden hair, a dream of fascinatingcurls and tendrils. 

It was to this bewitching picture, "with the perfume and light as of agoddess of love, " that Jean du Barry, self-styled Comte, adventurer androué, succumbed at a glance. But du Barry's tenure of her heart, ifindeed he ever touched it at all, was brief; for the moment Louis XV. Set eyes on the ravishing girl he determined to make the prize his own, a superior claim to which the Comte perforce yielded gracefully. 

Thus, in 1768, we find Jeanne Bécu--or "Mademoiselle Vaubarnier, " as shenow called herself--transported by a bound to the Palace of Versaillesand to the first place in the favour of the King, having first gonethrough the farce of a wedding ceremony with du Barry's brother, Guillaume, a husband whom she first saw on the marriage morning, and onwhom she looked her last at the church door. 

Then followed for the maid of the kitchen a few years of such Queendomand splendour as have seldom fallen to the lot of any lady cradled in apalace--the idolatrous worship of a King, the intoxication of the powerthat only beauty thus enshrined can wield, the glitter of pricelessjewels, rarest laces, and richest satins and silks, the flash of gold ondinner and toilet-table, an army of servants in sumptuous liveries, thefawning of great Court ladies, the courtly flatteries of princes--everyfolly and extravagance that money could purchase or vanity desire. 

Six years of such intoxicating life and then--the end. Louis is lying onhis death-bed and, with fear in his eyes and a tardy penitence on hislips, is saying to her, "Madame, it is time that we should part. " And, indeed, the hour of parting had arrived; for a few days later he drewhis last wicked breath, and Madame du Barry was under orders to retireto a convent. But her grief for the dead King was as brief as her lovefor him had been small; for within a few months, we find her installedin her beautiful country home, Lucienne, ready for fresh conquests, andeager to drain the cup of pleasure to the last drop. Nor was there anylack of ministers to the vanity of the woman who had now reached thezenith of her incomparable charms. 

Among the many lovers who flocked to the country shrine of the widowed"Queen, " was Louis, Duc de Cossé, son of the Maréchal de Brissac, who, although Madame du Barry's senior by nine years, was still in the primeof his manhood--handsome as an Apollo and a model of the courtly graceswhich distinguished the old _noblesse_ in the day of its greatest pride, which was then so near its tragic downfall. 

De Cassé had long been a mute worshipper of Louis' beautiful "Queen, "and now that she was a free woman he was at last able to pay open homageto her, a homage which she accepted with indifference, for at the timeher heart had strayed to Henry Seymour, although in vain. The womanwhose beauty had conquered all other men was powerless to raise a flamein the breast of the cold-blooded Englishman; and, realising this, sheat last bade him farewell in a letter, pathetic in its tender dignity. "It is idle, " she wrote, "to speak of my affection for you--you know it. But what you do not know is my pain. You have not deigned to reassureme about that which most matters to my heart. And so I must believe thatmy ease of mind, my happiness, are of little importance to you. I amsorry that I should have to allude to them; it is for the last time. "

It was in this hour of disillusion and humiliation that she turned forsolace to de Cossé, whose touching constancy at last found its reward. It was not long before friendship ripened into a love as ardent as hisown; and for the first time this fickle beauty, whose heart had been apawn in the game of ambition, knew what a beautiful and ennobling thingtrue love is. 

Those were halcyon days which followed for de Cossé and the lady hisloyalty had won; days of sweet meetings and tender partings--of a unionof souls which even death was powerless to dissolve. When they could notmeet--and de Cossé's duties often kept him from her side--letters werealways on the wing between Lucienne and Paris, letters some of whichhave survived to bring their fragrance to our day. 

Thus the lover writes, "A thousand thanks, a thousand thanks, dearheart! To-day I shall be with you. Yes, I find my happiness is in beingloved by you. I kiss you a thousand times! Good-bye. I love you forever. " In another letter we read, "Yes, dear heart, I desire so ardentlyto be with you--not in spirit, my thoughts are ever with you, butbodily--that nothing can calm my impatience. Good-bye, my darling. Ikiss you many and many times with all my heart. " The curious may read atthe French Record Office many of these letters written in a bold, flowing hand by de Cossé in the hey-day of his love. The paper istime-stained, the ink is faded; but each sentence still palpitates withthe passion that inspired it a century and a quarter ago. 

And with this great love came new honours for de Cossé. His father'sdeath made him Duc de Brissac, head of one of the greatest houses inFrance, owner of vast estates. He was appointed Governor of Paris andColonel of the King's own body-guard. He had, in fact, risen to aperilous eminence; for the clouds of the great Revolution were alreadymassing in the sky, and the _sans-culotte_ crowds were straining to beat the throats of the cursed "aristos, " and to hurl Louis from histhrone. Brissac (as we must now call him) was thus an object of specialhatred, as of splendour, standing out so prominently as representativeof the hated _noblesse_. 

Other nobles, fearful of the breaking of the storm, were flying indroves to seek safety in England and elsewhere. But when the Governor ofParis was urged to fly, he answered proudly, "Certainly not. I shall actaccording to my duty to my ancestors and myself. " And, heedless of hislife, he clung to his duty and his honour, presenting a smiling face tothe scowls of hatred and envy, and spending blissful hours at Luciennewith the woman he loved. 

Nor was she any less conscious of her danger, or less indifferent to it. She also had become a target of hatred and scarcely veiled threats. Watchful eyes marked every coming and going of Brissac's messengerswith their missives of love; it was discovered that Brissac'saide-de-camp, whose life they sought, was in hiding in her house; thatshe was supplying the noble emigrants with money. The climax was reachedwhen she boldly advertised a reward of two thousand louis for a clue tothe jewellery of which burglars had robbed her--jewels of which shepublished a long and dazzling list, thus bringing to memory the dayswhen the late King had squandered his ill-gotten gold on her. 

The Duc, at last alarmed for her--never for himself--begged her eitherto escape, or, as he wrote, to "come quickly, my darling, and take everyprecaution for your valuables, if you have any left. Yes, come, and yourbeauty, your kindness and magnanimity. I am ashamed of it, but I feelweaker than you. How should I feel otherwise for the one I love best?"

But already the hour for flight had passed. The passions of the mob werebreaking down the barriers that were now too weak to hold them in check;the Paris streets had their first baptism of blood, prelude to thedeluge to follow; hideous, fierce-eyed crowds were clamouring at thegates of Versailles; and de Brissac was soon on his way, a prisoner, toOrleans. 

The blow had fallen at last, suddenly, and with crushing force. When"Louis Hercule Timoleon de Cossé-Brissac, soldier from his birth, " wascharged before the National High Court with admitting Royalists into theGuards, he answered: "I have admitted into the King's Guards no one butcitizens who fulfilled all the conditions contained in the decree offormation": and no other answer or plea would he deign to his accusers. 

From his Orleans prison, where he now awaited the inevitable end, hewrote daily to his beloved lady; and every day brought him a tender andcheering letter from her. On 11th August, 1792, he writes: "I receivedthis morning the best letter I have had for a long time past; none haverejoiced my heart so much. Thank you for it. I kiss you a thousandtimes. You indeed will have my last thought. Ah, my darling, why am Inot with you in a wilderness rather than in Orleans?"

A few days later news reached Madame du Barry that her lover, with otherprisoners, was to be brought from Orleans to Paris. He would thusactually pass her own door; she would at least see him once again, underhowever tragic conditions. With what leaden steps the intervening hourscrawled by! Each sound set her heart beating furiously as if it wouldchoke her. Each moment was an agony of anticipation. At last she hearsthe sound of coming feet. She flies to the window, piercing the darknight with straining eyes. The sound grows nearer, a tumult of tramplingfeet and hoarse cries. A mob of dark figures surges through her gates, pours riotously up the steps and through the open door. In the hallthere is a pandemonium of cries and oaths; the door of her room is burstopen, and something is flung at her feet. She glances down; and, with agasp of unspeakable horror, looks down on the severed head of her lover, red with his blood. 

The _sans-culottes_ had indeed taken a terrible revenge. They hadfallen in overwhelming numbers on the prisoners and their escort; thesoldiers had fled; and de Brissac found himself the centre of a mob, thehelpless target of a hundred murderous blows. With a knife for soleweapon he fought valiantly, like the brave soldier he was, until acowardly blow from behind felled him to the ground. "Fire at me withyour pistols, " he shouted, "your work will the sooner be over. " A fewmoments later he drew his last gallant breath, almost within sight ofthe house that sheltered his beloved. 

 * * * * *

United in life, the lovers were not long to be divided. "Since thatawful day, " Madame du Barry wrote to a friend, "you can easily imaginewhat my grief has been. They have consummated the frightful crime, thecause of my misery and my eternal regrets--my grief is complete--a lifewhich ought to have been so grand and glorious! Good God, what an end!"

Thus cruelly deprived of all that made life worth living, she caredlittle how soon the end came. "I ask nothing now of life, " she wrote, "but that it should quickly give me back to him. " And her prayer wassoon to be granted. A few months after that night of horrors she herselfwas awaiting the guillotine in her cell at the conciergerie. 

In vain did an Irish priest who visited her offer to secure her escapeif she would give him money to bribe her jailers. "No, " she answeredwith a smile, "I have no wish to escape. I am glad to die; but I willgive you money willingly on condition that you save the Duchesse deMortemart. " And while Madame de Mortemart, daughter of the man sheloved, was making her way to safety under the priest's escort, Jeanne duBarry was being led to the scaffold, breathing the name of the man shehad loved so well; and, however feeble the flesh, glad to follow wherehe had led the way. 

CHAPTER VI

THE REGENT'S DAUGHTER

Many unwomanly women have played their parts in the drama of RoyalCourts, but scarcely one, not even those Messalinas, Catherine II. OfRussia and Christina of Sweden, conducted herself with such a shamelessdisregard of conventionality as Marie Louise Elizabeth d'Orléans, knownto fame as the Duchesse de Berry, who probably crowded within the briefspace of her years more wickedness than any woman who was ever cradledin a palace. 

It is said that this libertine Duchesse was mad; and certainly he wouldbe a bold champion who would try to prove her sanity. But, apart fromany question of a disordered brain, there was a taint in her bloodsufficient to account for almost any lapse from conventional standardsof pure living. Her father was that Duc d'Orléans who shocked the nonetoo strait-laced Europe of two centuries ago by his orgies; hergrandfather was that other Orleans Duke, brother of Louis XIV. , whosepassion for his minions broke the heart of his English wife, the StuartPrincess Henriettta; and she had for mother one of the daughters ofMadame de Montespan, light-o'-love to _le Roi Soleil_. 

The offspring of such parents could scarcely have been normal; and howfar from normal Marie Louise was, this story of her singular life willshow. When her father, the Duc de Chartres, took to wife Mademoiselle deBlois, Montespan's daughter, there were many who significantly shruggedtheir shoulders and curled their lips at such a union; and one at least, the Duc's mother, Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine, wasundisguisedly furious. She refused point-blank to be present at thenuptials, and when her son, fresh from the altar, approached her to askher blessing, she retorted by giving the bridegroom a resounding slap onthe face. 

Such was the ill-omened opening to a wedded life which brought nothingbut unhappiness with it and which gave to the world some of the mostdegenerate women (in addition to a son who was almost an idiot) who haveever been cradled. 

The first of these degenerates was Marie Elizabeth, who was born oneAugust day in the year 1695, and who from her earliest infancy was herfather's pet and favourite. His idolatry of his first-born child, indeed, is one of the most inscrutable things in a life full of theabnormal, and in later years afforded much material for the tongue ofscandal. He was inseparable from her; her lightest wish was law to him;he nursed her through her childish illnesses with more than the devotionof a mother; and, as she grew to girlhood, he worshipped at the shrineof her young beauty with the adoration of a lover and put her charms oncanvas in the guise of a pagan goddess. 

The Duc's affection for his daughter, indeed, was so extravagant thatit was made the subject of scores of scurrilous lampoons to which evenVoltaire contributed, and was a delicious morsel of ill-natured gossipin all the _salons_ and cabarets of Paris. At fifteen the princess wasalready a woman--tall, handsome, well-formed, with brilliant eyes andthe full lips eloquent of a sensuous nature. Already she had had herinitiation into the vices that proved her undoing; for in a Court notedfor its free-living, she was known for her love of the table and thewine-bottle. 

Such was the Duc's eldest daughter when she was ripe for the altar andbecame the object of an intrigue in which her scheming father, the RoyalDuchesses, the Duc de Saint-Simon, the King himself, and the Jesuits alltook a part, and the prize of which was the hand of the young Duc deBerry, a younger son of the Dauphin, the grandson of King Louis. 

Over the plotting and counterplotting, the rivalries and jealousieswhich followed, we must pass. It must suffice to record that the King'sconsent was at last won by the Orleans faction; Madame de Maintenon waspersuaded to smile on the alliance; and, one July day, the nuptials ofthe Duc de Berry and the Orleans Princess were celebrated in thepresence of the Royal family and the Court. A regal supper followed;and, the last toast drunk, the young couple were escorted to their roomwith all the stately, if scarcely decent, ceremonial which in those daysinaugurated the life of the newly-wedded. 

Seldom has there been a more singular union than this of the Ducd'Orléans' prodigal daughter with the almost imbecile grandson of theFrench King. The Duc de Berry, it is true, was good to look upon. Tall, fair-haired, with a good complexion and splendid health, he wasphysically, at twenty-four, no unworthy descendant of the great Louis. He had, too, many amiable qualities calculated to win affection; but hewas mentally little better than a clown. His education had beenshamefully neglected; he had been suppressed and kept in the backgrounduntil, in spite of his manhood, he had all the shyness, awkwardness anddullness of a backward child. 

As he himself confessed to Madame de Saint-Simon, "They have done allthey could to stifle my intelligence. They did not want me to have anybrains. I was the youngest, and yet ventured to argue with my brother. Afraid of the results of my courage, they crushed me; they taught menothing except to hunt and gamble; they succeeded in making a fool ofme, one incapable of anything and who will yet be the laughing-stock ofeverybody. "

Such was the weak-kneed husband to whom was now allied the mostprecocious, headstrong young woman in all France; who, although stillshort of her sixteenth birthday, was a past-mistress of the arts ofpleasure, and was now determined to have her full fling at any cost. Shehad been thoroughly spoiled by her too indulgent father, who was eventhen the most powerful man in France after the King; and she was in nomood to brook restraint from anyone, even from Louis himself. 

The pleasures of the table seem now to have absorbed the greater partof her life. Read what her grandmother, the Princess Palatine, says ofher: "Madame de Berry does not eat much at dinner. How, indeed, can she?She never leaves her room before noon, and spends her mornings in eatingall kinds of delicacies. At two o'clock she sits down to an elaboratedinner, and does not rise from the table until three. At four she iseating again--fruit, salad, cheese, etc. She takes no exercise whatever. At ten she has a heavy supper, and retires to bed between one and two inthe morning. She likes very strong brandy. " And in this last sentence wehave the true secret of her undoing. The Royal Princess was, even tatthis early age, a confirmed dipsomaniac, with her brandy bottle alwaysby her side; and was seldom sober, from rising to retiring. 

To such a woman, a slave to the senses, a husband like the Duc de Berry, unredeemed by a vestige of manliness, could make no appeal. She wanted"men" to pay her homage; and, like Catherine of Russia, she had them inabundance--lovers who were only too ready to pay court to a beautifulPrincess, who might one day be Queen of France. For the Dauphin was nowdead; his eldest son, the Duc de Bourgogne, had followed him to thegrave a few months later. Prince Philip had renounced his right to theFrench crown when he accepted that of Spain; and, between her husbandand the throne there was now but one frail life, that of thethree-year-old Duc d'Anjou, a child so delicate that he might easily notsurvive his great-grandfather, Louis, whose hand was already relaxingits grasp of the sceptre he had held so long. 

On the intrigues with which this Queen _in posse_ beguiled her days, itis perhaps well not to look too closely. They are unsavoury, as so muchof her life was. Her lovers succeeded one another with quite bewilderingrapidity, and with little regard either to rank or good-looks. Onespecial favourite of our Sultana was La Haye, a Court equerry, whom shemade Chamberlain, and who is pictured by Saint-Simon as "tall, bony, with an awkward carriage and an ugly face; conceited, stupid, dull-witted, and only looking at all passable when on horseback. "

So infatuated was the Duchesse with her ill-favoured equerry thatnothing less would please her than an elopement to Holland--a proposalwhich so scared La Haye that, in his alarm, he went forthwith to thelady's father and let the cat out of the bag. "Why on earth does mydaughter want to run away to Holland?" the Due exclaimed with a laugh. "I should have thought she was having quite a good enough time here!"And so would anyone else have thought. 

And while his Duchesse was thus dallying with her multitude of loversand stupefying herself with her brandy bottle, her husband was driven tohis wits' end by her exhibitions of temper, as by her infidelities. Invain he stormed and threatened to have her shut up in a convent. All herretort was to laugh in his face and order him out of her apartment. Violent scenes were everyday incidents. "The last one, " saysSaint-Simon, "was at Rambouillet; and, by a regrettable mishap, theDuchesse received a kick. "

The Duc's laggard courage was spurred to fight more than one duel forhis wife's tarnished fame. Of one of these sorry combats, Maurepaswrites, "Her conduct with her father became so notorious that His Gracethe Duc de Berry, disgusted at the scandal, forced the Duc d'Orléans tofight a duel on the terrace at Marly. They were, however, soonseparated, and the whole affair was hushed up. "

But release from such an intolerable life was soon coming to theill-used Duc. One day, when hunting, he was thrown from his horse, andruptured a blood-vessel. Fearful of alarming the King, now near the endof his long life, he foolishly made light of his accident, and onlyconsented to see a doctor when it was too late. When the doctors were atlast summoned he was a dying man, his body drained of blood, which waslater found in bowls concealed in various parts of his bedroom. With hislast breath, he said to his confessor, "Ah, reverend father, I alone amthe real cause of my death. "

Thus, one May day in 1714, the Duchesse found herself a widow, withinfour years of her wedding-day; and the last frail barrier was removedfrom the path of self-indulgence and low passions to which her life wasdedicated. When, with the aged King's death in the following year, herfather became Regent of France, her position as daughter of the virtualsovereign was now more splendid than ever; and before she had worn herwidow's weeds a month, she had plunged again, still deeper, intodissipation, with Madame de Mouchy, one of her waiting-women, as chiefminister to her pleasures. 

It was at this time, before her husband had been many weeks in hisgrave, that the Comte de Riom, the last and most ill-favoured of hermany lovers, came on the scene. Nothing but a perverted taste couldsurely have seen any attraction in such a lover as this grand-nephew ofthe Duc de Lauzun, of whom the austere and disapproving Palatine Duchessdraws the following picture: "He has neither figure nor good-looks. Heis more like an ogre than a man, with his face of greenish yellow. Hehas the nose, eyes, and mouth of a Chinaman; he looks, in fact, morelike a baboon than the Gascon he really is. Conceited and stupid, hislarge head seems to sit on his broad shoulders, owing to the shortnessof his neck. He is shortsighted and altogether is preternaturally ugly;and he appears so ill that he might be suffering from some loathsomedisease. "

To this unflattering description, Saint-Simon adds the fact that his"large, pasty face was so covered by pimples that it looked like onelarge abscess. '" Such, then, was the repulsive lover who found favour inthe eyes of the Regent's daughter, and for whom she was ready to discardall her legion of more attractive wooers. 

With the coming of de Riom, the Duchesse entered on the last and worststage of her mis-spent life. Strange tales are told of the orgies ofwhich the Luxembourg, the splendid palace her father had given her, wasnow the scene--orgies in which Madame de Mouchy and a Jesuit, one FatherRinglet, took a part, and over which the evil de Riom ruled as "Lord ofmerry disports. " The Duchesse, now sunk to the lowest depths ofdegradation, was the veriest puppet in his strong hands, flattered byhis coarse attentions and submitting to rudeness and ridicule such asany grisette, with a grain of pride, would have resented. 

When these scandalous "carryings-on" at the Luxembourg Palace reachedthe Regent's ears and he ventured to read his daughter a severe lectureon her conduct, she retaliated by snapping her fingers at him andtelling him in so many words to mind his own business. And to the tongueof scandal that found voice everywhere, she turned a contemptuous ear. She even locked and barred her palace gates to keep prying eyes at asafe distance. 

But, although she thus defied man, she was powerless to stay the stepsof fate. Her health, robust as it had been, was shattered by herexcesses; and when a serious illness assailed her, she was horrified tofind death so uncomfortably near. In her alarm she called for a priestto shrive her; and the Abbé Languet came at the summons to bring her theconsolations of the Church. He refused point-blank, however, to give thesinner absolution until the palace was purged of the presence of de Riomand Madame de Mouchy, the arch-partners in her vices. 

To this suggestion the Duchesse, perilous as her condition was, returnedan uncompromising "No!" If the Abbé would not absolve her--well, therewere other priests, less exacting, who would; and one such priest ofelastic conscience, a Franciscan friar, was summoned to her bedside. Then ensued an unseemly struggle around the dying woman's bed, in whichthe Regent, Cardinal Noailles, Madame de Mouchy, and the rival clericsall played their parts. 

While the obliging friar remained in the room awaiting an opportunity toadminister the last Sacrament, the Abbé and his curates kept watch atthe bedroom door to see that he did no such thing; and thus the siegelasted for four days and nights until, the patient's crisis over, theservices of the Church were summarily dispensed with. 

With the return of health, the Duchesse's piety quickly evaporated. Itis true that she had had a fright; and, by way of modified penitence, she vowed to dress herself and her household in white for six months andalso to make a husband of her lover. Within a few weeks, de Riom led theRegent's daughter to the altar, thus throwing the cloak of the Churchover the licence of the past. 

Now that our Princess was once more a "respectable" woman, she returnedgladly to her old life of indulgence; until the Duchess Palatineexclaimed in alarm, "I am afraid her excesses in drinking and eatingwill kill her. " And never was prediction more sure of early fulfilment. When she was not keeping company with her brandy bottle, she was gorgingherself with delicacies of all kinds, from patties and fricassées topeaches and nectarines, washed down with copious draughts of iced beer. 

As a last desperate effort to reform her, at the eleventh hour, theRegent packed de Riom off to his regiment. A few days later, theDuchesse invited her father to a sumptuous banquet on the terrace atMeudon, at which, regardless of her delicate health, she ate and drankmore voraciously than ever. The same evening she was taken ill; andwhen, on the following Sunday, her mother-in-law, the Duchess, visitedher, she found the patient in a deplorable condition--wasted to a"shadow" and burning with fever. "She was suffering such horrible painsin her toes and under the feet, " says the Duchess, "that tears came toher eyes. She looked so very bad that three doctors were called inconsultation. They resolved to bleed her; but it was difficult to bringher to it, for her pains were so great that the least touch of thesheets made her shriek. "

A few days later, in the early hours of 17th July, 1719, the Duchesse deBerry passed away in her sleep. The life which she had wasted with suchshameless prodigality closed in peace; and at the moment when she wasbeing laid to rest in the Church of St Denis, Madame de Mouchy, blazingin the dead woman's jewels, was laughing merrily over herchampagne-glass at a dinner-party to which she had invited all thesharers in the orgies which had made the Palace of the Luxembourginfamous!

The moral of this pitifully squandered life needs no pointing out. Andon reviewing it one can only in charity echo the words spoken by Madamede Meilleraye of another sinner, the Chevalier de Savoie, "For my part, I believe the good God must think twice before sending one born of suchparents to the nether regions. "

CHAPTER VII

A PRINCESS OF MYSTERY

In the spring of the year 1772 the fashionable world of Paris was fullof speculation and gossip about a stranger, as mysterious as she wasbeautiful, who had appeared from no one knew where, in its midst, andwho called herself the Princess Aly Émettée de Vlodimir. That she was awoman of rank and distinction admitted of no question. Her queenlycarriage and the graciousness and dignity of her deportment were inkeeping with the Royal character she assumed; but more remarkable thanthese evidences of high station was her beauty, which in its brillianceeclipsed that of the fairest women of Versailles and the Tuileries. 

Tall, with a figure of exquisite modelling and grace, her daintilypoised head crowned with a coronal of golden-brown hair, with a face ofperfect oval, dimpled cheeks as delicately tinted as a rose, her chiefglory lay in her eyes, large and lustrous, which had the singularquality of changing colour--"now blue, now black, which gave to theirdreamy expression a peculiar, mysterious air. "

Who was she, this woman of beauty and mystery? It was rumoured that shewas a Circassian Princess, "the heroine of strange romances. " She wasliving luxuriously in a fine house in the most fashionable quarter ofParis, in company with two German "Barons"--one, the Baron von Embs, whoclaimed to be her cousin; the other, Baron von Schenk, who appeared toplay the rôle of guardian. To her _salon_ in the Ile St Louis wereflocking many of the greatest men in France, infatuated by her beauty, and paying homage to her charms. To a man, they adored the mysteriouslady--from Prince Ojinski and other illustrious refugees from Poland tothe Comte de Rochefort-Velcourt, the Duke of Limburg's representative atthe French Court, and the wealthy old _beau_ M. De Marine, who, it wassaid, placed his long purse at her disposal. 

But while the men were thus her slaves, the women tossed their headscontemptuously at their dangerous rival. She was an adventuress, theydeclared with one voice; and great was their satisfaction when, one day, news came that the Baron von Embs had been arrested for debt and that, on investigation, he proved to be no Baron at all, but thegood-for-nothing son of a Ghent tradesman. 

The "bubble" had soon burst, and the attentions of the police became soembarrassing that the Princess was glad to escape from the scene of herbrief triumphs with her cavaliers (Von Embs' liberty having beenpurchased by that "credulous old fool, " de Marine) to Frankfort, leavinga wake of debts behind. 

Arrived at Frankfort, the fair Circassian resumed her luxurious mode oflife, carrying a part of her retinue of admirers with her, and making itknown that she was daily expecting a large remittance from her goodfriend, the Shah of Persia. And it was not long before, thanks to theoffices of de Rochefort-Velcourt, she had at her feet no less apersonage than Philip, Duke of Limburg, and Prince of the Empire, one ofthose petty German potentates who assumed more than the airs andarrogance of kings. Though his duchy was no larger than an Englishcounty, Philip had his ambassadors at the Courts of Vienna andVersailles; and though he had neither courtiers, army, nor exchequer, helavished his titles of nobility and surrounded himself with as muchstate and ceremonial as any Tsar or Emperor. 

But exalted and serene as was His Highness, he was caught as helplesslyin the toils of the Princess Aly as any lovesick boy; and within a weekof making his first bow had her installed in his Castle of Oberstein, after satisfying the most clamorous of her creditors with borrowedmoney. That there might be no question of obligation, the Princessrepaid him with the most lavish promises to redeem his heavily mortgagedestate with the millions she was daily expecting from Persia, and to useher great influence with Tsar and Sultan to support his claim to theSchleswig and Holstein duchies. And that he might be in no doubt as toher ability to discharge these promises, she showed him letters, addressed to her in the friendliest of terms by these august personages. 

Each day in the presence of this most alluring of princesses forged newfetters for the susceptible Duke, until one day she announced to him, with tears streaming down her pretty cheeks, that she had received aletter recalling her to Persia--to be married. The crucial hour hadarrived. The Duke, reduced to despair, begs her to accept his ownexalted hand in marriage, vowing that, if she refuses, he will "shuthimself up in a cloister"; and is only restored to a measure of sanitywhen she promises to consider his offer. 

When Hornstein, the Duke's ambassador to Vienna, appears on the scene, full of suspicion and doubts, she makes an equally easy conquest of him. She announces to his gratified ears her wish to become a Catholic;flatters him by begging him to act as her instructor in the creed thatis so dear to him; and she reveals to him "for the first time" the truesecret of her identity. She is really, she says, the Princess of Azov, heiress to vast estates, which may come to her any day; and the firstuse she intends to make of her millions is to fill the empty coffers ofthe Limburg duchy. 

Hornstein is not only converted; he becomes as ardent an admirer as hismaster, the Duke. The Princess takes her place as the coming Duchess ofLimburg, much to the disgust of his subjects, who show their feelings byhissing when she appears in public. Her hour of triumph hasarrived--when, like a bolt from the blue, an anonymous letter comes toHornstein revealing the story of her past doings in several capitals ofEurope, and branding her as an "impostor. "

For a time the Duke treats these anonymous slanders with scorn. Herefuses to believe a word against his divinity, the beautiful, high-bornwoman who is to crown his life's happiness and, incidentally, to savehim from bankruptcy. But gradually the poison begins to work, supplemented as it is by the suspicions and discontent of his subjects. At last he summons up courage to ask an explanation--to beg her toassure him that the charges against her are as false as he believesthem. 

She listens to him with quiet dignity until he has finished, and thenreplies, with tears in her eyes, that she is not unprepared fordisloyalty from a man who is so obviously the slave of false friends andof public opinion, but that she had hoped that he would at least havesome pity and consideration for a woman who was about to become themother of his child. This unexpected announcement, with its appeal tohis manhood, proves more eloquent than a world of proofs andprotestations. The Duke's suspicions vanish in face of the news that thewoman he loves is to become the mother of his child, and in a moment heis at her knees imploring her pardon, and uttering abject apologies. Heis now more deeply than ever in her toils, ready to defy the world indefence of the Princess he adores and can no longer doubt. 

It is at this stage that a man who was to play such an important part inthe Princess's life first crosses her path--one Domanski, a handsomeyoung Pole, whose passionate and ill-fated patriotism had driven himfrom his native land to find an asylum, like many another Polishrefugee, in the Limburg duchy. He had heard much of the romantic storyof the Princess Aly, and was drawn by sympathy, as by the rumour of herremarkable beauty, to seek an interview with her, during her visit toMannheim. Such a meeting could have but one issue for the romantic Pole. He lost both head and heart at sight of the lovely and graciousPrincess, and from that moment became the most devoted of all herslaves. 

When she returned to Oberstein he was swift to follow her and to installhimself under her castle walls, where he could catch an occasionalglimpse of her, or, by good-fortune, have a few blissful moments in hercompany. Indeed, it was not long before stories began to be circulatedamong the good folk of Oberstein of strange meetings between themysterious young stranger who had come to live in their midst and anequally mysterious lady. "The postman, " it was rumoured, "often sees himon the road leading to the castle, talking in a shadow with someoneenveloped in a long, black, hooded cloak, whom he once thought herecognised as the Princess. "

No wonder tongues wagged in Oberstein. What could be the meaning ofthese secret assignations between the Princess, who was the destinedbride of their Duke, and the obscure young refugee? It was a deliciousbit of scandal to add to the many which had already gathered round the"adventuress. "

But there was a greater surprise in store for the Obersteiners, as forthe world outside their walls. Soon it began to be rumoured that theDuke's bride-to-be was no obscure Circassian Princess; this was merelya convenient cloak to conceal her true identity, which was none lessthan that of daughter of an Empress! She was, in fact, the child ofElizabeth, Tsarina of Russia, and her peasant husband, Razoum; and inproof of her exalted birth she actually had in her possession the willin which the late Empress bequeathed to her the throne of Russia. 

How these rumours originated none seemed to know. Was it Domanski whoset them circulating? We know, at least, that they soon became publicproperty, and that, strangely enough, they won credence everywhere. Thevery people who had branded her "adventuress" and hissed her in thestreets, now raised cheers to the future Empress of Russia; while theDuke, delighted at such a wonderful transformation in the woman heloved, was more eager than ever to hasten the day when he could call herhis own. As for the Princess, she accepted her new dignities with thecomplaisance to be expected from the daughter of a Tsarina. There wasnow no need to refer the sceptics to Circassia for proof of her stationand her potential wealth. As heiress to one of the greatest thrones ofEurope, she could at last reveal herself in her true character, withoutany need for dissimulation. 

The curtain was now ready to rise on the crowning act of her life-drama, an act more brilliant than any she had dared to imagine. Russia wasseething with discontent and rebellion; the throne of Catherine II. Wastrembling; one revolt had followed another, until Pugatchef had led hisrabble of a hundred thousand serfs to the very gates of Moscow--only, when success seemed assured, to meet disaster and death. If theex-bandit could come so near to victory, an uprising headed byElizabeth's own daughter and heiress could scarcely fail to hurlCatherine from her throne. 

It would have been difficult to find a more powerful ally in this daringproject than Prince Charles Radziwill, chief of Polish patriots, who wasthen, as luck would have it, living in exile at Mannheim, and who hatedRussia as only a Pole ever hated her. To Radziwill, then, Domanski wentto offer the help of his Princess for the liberation of Poland and thecapture of Catherine's throne. 

Here indeed was a valuable pawn to play in Radziwill's game of vengeanceand ambition. But the Prince was by no means disposed to snatch the baithurriedly. Experience had taught him caution. He must count the costcarefully before taking the step, and while writing to the Princess, "Iconsider it a miracle of Providence that it has provided so great aheroine for my unhappy country, " he took his departure to Venice, suggesting that the Princess should meet him there, where matters couldbe more safely and successfully discussed. Thus it was that the Princesssaid her last good-bye to her ducal lover, full of promises for thefuture when she should have won her throne, and as "Countess ofPinneberg" set forth with a retinue of followers to Venice, where shewas regally received at the French embassy. 

Here she tasted the first sweets of her coming Queendom--holding herCourts, to which distinguished Poles and Frenchmen flocked to pay homageto the Empress-to-be, and having daily conferences with Radziwill, whotreated her as already a Queen. That her purse was empty and the bankersdeclined to honour her drafts was a matter to smile at, since the waynow seemed clear to a crown, with all it meant of wealth and power. Whenthe Venetian Government grew uneasy at the plotting within its borders, she went to Ragusa, where she blossomed into the "Princess of all theRussias, " assumed the sceptre that was soon to be hers, issuedproclamations as a sovereign, and crowned these regal acts by sending aukase to Alexis Orloff, the Russian Commander-in-Chief, "signedElizabeth II. , and instructing him to communicate its contents to thearmy and fleet under his command. "

Once more, however, fortune played the Princess a scurvy trick, justwhen her favour seemed most assured. One night a man was seen scalingthe garden-wall of the palace she was occupying. The guard fired at him, and the following morning Domanski was found, lying wounded andunconscious in the garden. The tongues of scandal were set waggingagain, old suspicions were revived, and once again the word"adventuress"--and worse--passed from mouth to mouth. The men who hadfawned on her now avoided her; worse still, Radziwill, his latentsuspicions thoroughly awakened, and confirmed by a hundred stories andrumours that came to his ears, declined to have anything more to dowith her, and returned in disgust to Germany. 

But even this crushing rebuff was powerless to damp the spirits andambition of the "adventuress, " who shook the dust of Ragusa off herdainty feet, and went off to Rome, where she soon cast her spell overSir William Hamilton, our Ambassador there, who gave her the warmesthospitality. "For several days, " we learn, "she reigns like a Queen inthe _salon_ of the Ambassador, out of whose penchant for beautiful womenshe has no difficulty in wiling a passport that enables her to enter themost exclusive circles of Roman society. "

In Rome she lays aside her regal trappings, and wins the respect of allby her unostentatious living and her prodigal charities. She becomes afavourite at the Vatican; Cardinals do homage to her goodness, withperhaps a pardonable eye to her beauty. But behind the brave and piousfront she thus shows to the world her heart is growing more heavy day byday. Poverty is at her door in the guise of importunate creditors, herservants are clamouring for overdue wages, and consumption, which forlong has threatened her, now shows its presence in hectic cheeks and ahacking cough. Fortune seems at last to have abandoned her; and itrequires all her courage to sustain her in this hour of darkness. 

In her extremity she appeals to Sir William Hamilton for a loan, much asa Queen might confer a favour on a subject, and Hamilton, pleased to beof service to so fair and pious a lady, sends her letter to his Leghornbanker, Mr John Dick, with instructions to arrange the matter. 

 * * * * *

While the Princess Aly was practising piety and cultivating Cardinals inRome, with an empty purse and a pain-racked body to make a mockery ofher claim to a crown, away in distant Russia Catherine II. Was nursing aterrible revenge on the woman who had dared to usurp her position andthreaten her throne. The succession of revolutions, at which she had atfirst smiled scornfully, had now roused the tigress in her. She wouldshow the world that she was no woman to be trifled with, and the firstvictim of her vengeance should be that brazen Princess who dared tomasquerade as "Elizabeth II. "

She sent imperative orders to her trusted and beloved Orloff, fresh fromhis crushing defeat of the Turkish fleet, to seize her at any cost, evenif he had to raze Ragusa to the ground; and these orders she knew wouldbe executed to the letter. For was not Orloff the man whose strong handshad strangled her husband and placed the crown on her head; also hermost devoted slave? He was, it is true, the biggest scoundrel (as he wasalso one of the handsomest men) in Europe, a man ready to stoop to anyinfamy, and thus the best possible tool for such an infamous purpose;but he was also her greatest admirer, eager to step into the place of"chief favourite" from which his brother Gregory had just beendismissed. 

When, however, Orloff went to Ragusa, with his soldiers at his back, hefound that the Princess had already flown, leaving no trace behind her. He ransacked Sicily in vain, and it was only when Sir WilliamHamilton's letter to his Leghorn banker came to his hands that hediscovered that she was in Rome, a much safer asylum than Ragusa. It washopeless now to capture her by force; he must try diplomacy, and, by thehands of an aide-de-camp, he sent her a letter in which he informed herthat he had received her ukase and was anxious to pay due homage to thefuture Empress of Russia. 

Such was the "Judas" message Kristenef, Orloff's emissary, carried tothe Princess, whom he found in a pitiful condition, wasted to a shadowby disease and starvation--"in a room cold and bare, whose onlyfurniture was a leather sofa, on which she lay in a high fever, coughingconvulsively. " To such pathetic straits was "Elizabeth II. " reduced whenKristenef came with his fawning airs and lying tongue to tell her thatAlexis Orloff, the greatest man in Russia, had instructed him to offerher the throne of the Tsars, and, as an earnest of his loyalty, to begher acceptance of a loan of eleven thousand ducats. 

In vain did Domanski, who was still by her side, warn her against thesmooth-tongued envoy. She was flattered by such unexpected homage, hereyes were dazzled by the near prospect of the coveted crown which was tobe hers, at last, just when hope seemed dead. She would accept Orloff'sinvitation to go to Pisa to meet him. "As for you, " she said, "if youare afraid, you can stay behind. I am going where Destiny calls me. "

This revolution in her fortunes acted like magic. New life coursedthrough her veins, colour returned to her cheeks, and brightness to hereyes, as one February day in 1775 she left Rome, with the devotedDomanski for companion and a brilliant escort, for Pisa, where Orloffgreeted her as an Empress. He gave regal fêtes in her honour and filledher ears with honeyed and flattering words. 

Affecting to be dazzled by her beauty, he even dared to make passionatelove to her, which no man of his day could do more effectively than thishandsomest of the Orloffs; and so infatuated was the poor Princess bythe adoration of her handsome lover and the assurance of the throne hewas to give her, that she at last consented to share that throne withhim, and by his side went through a marriage ceremony, at which two ofhis officers masqueraded as officiating priests. 

Nothing remained now between her and the goal of her desires, except tomake the journey to Russia as speedily as possible, and a few hoursafter the wedding banquet we see her in the Admiral's launch, withOrloff and Domanski and a brilliant suite of officers, leaving Leghornfor the Russian flagship, where she was received with the blare of bandsand the booming of artillery. The crowning moment arrived when, as shewas being hoisted to the deck in a gorgeous chair suspended from theyard-arm, her future sailors greeted her with thunders of shouts, "Longlive the Empress!"

The moment she set foot on deck she was seized, handcuffs were snappedon her wrists, and she was carried a helpless captive to a cabin. At thesame moment Domanski was overpowered before he had time to use hissword, and made a prisoner. 

The Princess's cries for Orloff, her husband and saviour, are met withderision. Orloff she is told is himself a prisoner. He has, in fact, vanished, his dastardly mission executed; and she never saw him again. Two months later the victim of a man's treachery and a woman's vengeanceis looking with tear-dimmed eyes on "her capital" through a barredwindow of a cell in the fortress of Saints Peter and Paul. 

Over the tragic closing of her days we may not dwell long. The scene istoo pitiful, too harrowing. In vain she implores an interview withCatherine, who blazes into anger at the request. "The impudence of thewretch, " she exclaims, "is beyond all bounds! She must be mad. Tell herif she wishes any improvement in her lot to cease the comedy she isplaying. " Prince Galitzin, Grand Chancellor, exerts all his skill invain to force a confession of imposture from her. To his wiles andthreats alike she opposes a dignified and calm front. She persists inthe story of her birth; refuses to admit that she is an impostor. 

Even when she is flung into a loathsome cell, with bread and water fordiet, she does not waver a jot in her demeanour of dignity or in herRoyal claims. Only when she is charged with being the daughter of aPrague innkeeper does she allow indignation to master her, as sheretorts, "I have never been in Prague in my life, and if I knew who hadthus slandered me I would scratch his eyes out. " Domanski, too, provesequally intractable; even the promise of marriage to her will not wringfrom him a word that might discredit his beloved Princess. 

But although the Princess keeps such a brave heart under conditions thatmight well have broken it, her spirit is powerless against the insidiousdisease that is working such havoc with her body. In her damp, noisomecell consumption makes rapid headway. Her strength ebbs daily; the endis coming swiftly near. She makes a last dying appeal to Catherine tosee her if but for a few moments, but the appeal falls on deaf ears. When she sends for a priest to minister to her last hours, and, byCatherine's orders, he makes a final attempt to wrest her secret fromher, she moans with her failing breath, "Say the prayers for the dead. That is all there is for you to do here. "

Four days later death came to her release. Catherine's throne was safefrom this danger at least, and she was left to dalliance with her legionof lovers, while the woman on whom she had wreaked such terriblevengeance lay deeply buried in the courtyard of her prison, the verysoldiers who dug her grave being sworn to secrecy. Thus in mystery herlife opened, and in secrecy it closed. 

CHAPTER VIII

THE KING AND THE "LITTLE DOVE"

A savage murmur ran through the market-place of Bergen, one summermorning in the year 1507, as Chancellor Valkendorf made his pompous wayalong the avenues of stalls laden with their country produce, hispassage followed by scowling eyes and low-spoken maledictions. 

There could not have been a more unwelcome visitor than this cold-eyed, supercilious Chancellor, unless it were his master, Christian, theDanish Prince who had come to rule Norway with the iron hand, and tostamp out the fires of rebellion against the alien rule that were alwayssmouldering, when not leaping into flame. Bergen itself had been thescene of the latest revolt against oppressive and unjust taxes, and theinsolent Valkendorf, who was now taking his morning stroll in themarket-place, was fresh from suppressing it with a rough hand which hadleft many a smart and longing for vengeance behind it. 

But the Chancellor could afford to smile at such evidences ofunpopularity. He knew that he was the most hated man in Norway--afterhis master--but he had executed his mission well and was ready to do itagain. And thus it was with an air, half-amused, half-contemptuous, thathe made his progress this July morning among the booths and stalls ofthe market, with eyes scornfully blind to frowns, but very wide open forany pretty face he might chance to see. 

He had not strolled far before his eyes were arrested by as strangelycontrasted a picture as any he had ever seen. Behind one of the stalls, heaped high with luscious, many-coloured fruits and mountains ofvegetables, were two women, each so remarkable in her different waythat, almost involuntarily, he stood rooted to the spot, gazingopen-eyed at them. The elder of the two was of gigantic stature, towering head and shoulders over her companion, with harsh, masculineface, massive jaw, coarse protruding lips, and black eyes which werefixed on him in a magnetic stare, defiant and scornful--for none knewbetter than she who the stranger was, and few hated him more. 

But it was not to this grim, hard-visaged Amazon that Valkendorf's eyeswere drawn, compelling as were her stature and her basilisk stare. Theyquickly turned from her, with a motion of contempt, to feast on thevision by her side--that of a girl on the threshold of young womanhoodand of a beauty that dazzled the eyes of the old voluptuary. How had shecome there and in such company, this ravishing girl on whom Nature hadlavished the last touch of virginal loveliness, this maiden with herfigure of such supple grace, the proud little oval face with itscomplexion of cream and roses, the dainty head from which twin plaitsof golden hair fell almost to her knees, and the eyes blue as violets, now veiled demurely, now opening wide to reveal their glories, enhancedby a look of appeal, almost of fear. 

The Chancellor, who was the last man to pass by a flower so seductivelybeautiful, approached the stall, undaunted by the forbidding eyes of thegiantess, Frau Sigbrit, by name, and, after making a small purchase, sought to draw her into amiable conversation. "No, " she said in answerto his inquiries, "we are not Norwegian. We come from Holland, mydaughter and I, and we are trying to earn a little money beforereturning there. But why do you ask?" she demanded almost fiercely, putting a protecting arm around the girl, as if she would shield herfrom an enemy. "You are in such a different world from ours!"

Little by little, however, the grim face began to relax under the adroitflatteries and courtly deference of the Chancellor--for none knew betterthan he the arts of charming, when he pleased; and it was not longbefore the Amazon, completely thawed, was confiding to him the mostintimate details of her history and her hopes. 

"Yes, my daughter is beautiful, " she said, with a look of pride at thegirl which transfigured her face. "Many a great man has told meso--dukes, princes, and lords. She is as fair a flower as ever grew inHolland; and she is as sweet as she is fair. She is Dyveke, my "littledove, " the pride of my heart, my soul, my life. She is to be a Queen oneday. It has been revealed to me in my dreams. But when the day dawns itwill be the saddest in my life. " And with further amiable words and afinal courtly salute, Valkendorf continued his stroll, secretlypromising himself a further acquaintance with the dragon and her "littledove. "

This was the first of many morning strolls in the Bergen market, inwhich the Chancellor spent delightful moments at Frau Sigbrit's stall, each leaving him more and more a slave to her daughter's charms; for hequickly found that to her physical perfections were allied a low, sweetvoice, every note of which was musical as that of a nightingale, a quietdignity and refinement as far removed from her station as her simpleprint frock with the bunch of roses nestling in the white purity of herbosom, and a sprightliness of wit which even her modesty could notalways repress. 

Thus it was that, when Valkendorf at last returned to Upsala and theCourt of his master, Christian, his tongue was full of the praises ofthe "market-beauty" of Bergen, whose charms he pictured so glowinglythat the Prince's heart became as inflamed by a sympathetic passion ashis mind by curiosity to see such a siren. "I shall not rest, " he saidto his Chancellor, "until I have seen your 'little dove' with my owneyes; and who knows, " he added with a laugh, "perhaps I shall steal herfrom you!"

It was in vain that Valkendorf, now alarmed by his indiscretion, beganto pour cold water on the flames he had lit. Christian had quite losthis susceptible heart to the rustic and unknown beauty, and vowed thathe could not rest until he had seen her with his own eyes. And within amonth he was riding into Bergen, with Valkendorf by his side, at thehead of a brilliant retinue. 

As the Prince made his way through the crowded avenues of the Bergenstreets to an accompaniment of scowls punctuated by feeble, forcedcheers, he cut a goodly enough figure to win many an admiring, ifreluctant, glance from bright eyes. With his broad shoulders, his erect, well-knit figure clothed in purple velvet, his stern, swarthy facecrowned by a white-plumed hat, Christian looked every inch a Prince. 

To-day, too, he was in his most amiable mood, with a smile ready to leapto his lips, and many a gracious wave of the hand and sweep of plumedhat to acknowledge the grudged salutes of his subjects. He could becharming enough when he pleased, and this was a day of high good-humour;for his mind was full of the pleasure that awaited him. Even FrauSigbrit's scowl was chased away when his eyes were drawn to her toweringfigure, and with a swift smile he singled her out for the honour of aspecial salute. 

When the Prince at last arrived in the market-square, he was greeted bya procession of the prettiest maidens in Bergen who, in white frocks andwith flower-wreathed hair, advanced to pay him the homage of demureeyes. But among them all, the loveliest girls of the city, Christian sawbut one--a girl younger than almost any other, but so radiantly lovelythat his eyes fixed themselves on her as if entranced, until her cheeksflamed a vivid crimson under the ardour of his gaze. "No need to pointher out, " he whispered delightedly to Valkendorf, "I see your 'littledove, ' and she is all you have told me and more. "

Before many hours had passed, a Court official appeared at FrauSigbrit's cottage door with a command from the Prince to her and herdaughter to attend a State ball the following evening. If the poormarket-woman had had a crown laid at her feet, her surprise andconsternation could scarcely have been greater. But she would make abigger sacrifice of inclination than this for the "little dove" whofilled her heart, and who, she remembered, was destined to be a Queen;and decking her in all the finery her modest purse could command andwith a taste of which few would have suspected she was capable, themarket stall-keeper stalked majestically through the avenue of gorgeousflunkeys, her little Princess with downcast eyes following demurely inher wake. 

All the fairest women of Bergen were gathered at this ball, the host ofwhich was their coming King, but it was to the fruit-seller's daughterthat all eyes were turned, in homage to such a rare combination ofbeauty, grace, and modesty. Many a fair lip, it is true, curled inmockery, recognising in the belle of the ball the low-born girl of themarket-place; but it was the mockery of jealousy, the scornful tributeto a loveliness greater than their own. 

As for Prince Christian, he had no eyes for any but the "little dove"who outshone all her rivals as the sun pales the stars. It was the maidof the market whom he led out for the first dance, and throughout thelong night he rarely left her side, whirling round the room with her, his arm close-clasped round her slender waist, not seeing or indifferentto the glances of envy and hate that followed them; or, during theintervals, drinking in her beauty as he poured sweet flatteries into herears. As for Dyveke, she was radiantly happy at finding herself thustransported into the favour of a Prince and the Queendom of fair women, for whose envy she cared as little as for the danger in which she stood. 

If anything had remained to complete Christian's infatuation, thisintoxicating night of the ball supplied it. The "little dove" had founda secure nesting-place in his heart. She must be his at any cost. Sheand her mother alone, of all the guests, were invited to spend the restof the night at the castle as the Prince's guests; and when he partedfrom her the following day, it was with vows on his part of undying loveand fidelity, and a promise on hers to come to him at Upsala as soon asa suitable home could be found for her. 

Thus easily was the dove caught in the toils of one of the most amorousPrinces of Europe; but it must be said for her that her heart went withthe surrender of her freedom, for the Prince, with his ardent passion, his strength and his magnetism, had swept her as quickly off her feet asshe had made a quick conquest of him. 

Thus, before many weeks had passed, we find Dyveke installed with hermother in a sumptuous home in the outskirts of Upsala, queening it inthe Prince's Court, and every day forging new fetters to bind him toher. And while Dyveke thus ruled over Christian's heart, herstrong-minded mother soon established a similar empire over his mind. With the clever, masterful brain of a man, the Amazon of themarket-place developed such a capacity for intrigue, such a grasp ofstatesmanship and such arts of diplomacy that Christian, strong man ashe thought himself, soon became little more than a puppet in her hands, taking her counsel and deferring to her judgment in preference to thoseof his ministers. The fruit-seller thus found herself virtual PrimeMinister, while her daughter reigned, an uncrowned Queen. 

When the Prince was summoned to Copenhagen by his father's failinghealth, Frau Sigbrit and her daughter accompanied him, one in her way asindispensable as the other; and when King James died and Christianreigned in his stead, the women of the Bergen market were installed in asplendid suite of apartments in his palace. So hopeless was hissubjection to both that his subjects, with an indifferent shrug of theshoulders, accepted them as inevitable. 

For a time, it is true, their supremacy was in danger. Now thatChristian was King, it became important to provide him with a Queen, anda suitable consort was found for him in the Austrian Princess, Isabella, sister of the Emperor Charles V. , a well-gilded bride, distinguishedalike for her beauty and her piety. Isabella, however, was one of thelast women to tolerate any rivalry in her husband's affection, andbefore the marriage-contract was sealed, she had received a solemnpledge from Christian's envoys that his relations with the prettyflower-girl should cease. 

But even Christian's word of honour was seldom allowed to bar the way tohis pleasure, and within a few weeks of Isabella's bridal entry intoCopenhagen, Dyveke and her mother resumed their places at his Court, tohis Queen's unconcealed disgust and displeasure. More than this, heestablished them in a fine house near his palace gates; and when he wasnot dallying there with Dyveke, he was to be found by her side at theCastle of Hvideur, of which he had made her chatelaine. 

The remonstrances of Valkendorf and his other ministers were made todeaf ears; his wife's reproaches and tears were as futile as thestrongly worded protestations of his Royal relatives. Pleadings, arguments, and threats were alike powerless to break the spell Dyvekeand her mother had cast over him. But Dyveke's day of empire was nowdrawing to a tragic close. One day, after eating some cherries from thepalace gardens, she was seized with a violent pain. All the skill of theCourt doctors could do as little to assuage her agony as to save herlife; and within a few hours she died, clasped to the breast of herdistracted lover!

Such was Christian's distress that for a time his reason trembled in thebalance. He vowed that he would not be separated from her even by death;he threatened to put an end to his own life since it had been reft ofall that made it worth living. And when cooler moments came, he swore aterrible vengeance against those who had robbed him of his beloved. Shehad been poisoned beyond a doubt; but who had done the dastardly deed?

The finger of suspicion pointed to the steward of his household, TorbernOxe, who, it was said, had been among the most ardent of Dyveke'sadmirers, and had had the audacity to aspire to her hand. It was evenrumoured that he had had more intimate relations with her. Such were thestories and suspicions that passed from mouth to mouth in Christian'sclouded Court before Dyveke's beautiful body was cold; and such were thetales which Hans Faaborg, the King's Treasurer, poured into his master'sears. 

Hans Faaborg little dreamt that when he was thus trying to bring aboutthe downfall of his rival he was sealing his own fate. Christian lent aneager ear to the stories of his steward's iniquities; but, when he foundthere was no shred of proof to support them, his anger anddisappointment vented themselves on the informer. He had long suspectedFaaborg of irregularities in his purse-holding, and in these suspicionsfound a weapon to use against him. Faaborg was arrested; an examinationof his ledgers showed that for years he had been waxing rich at hismaster's expense, and he had to pay with his life the penalty of hisfraud and his unproved testimony. 

But Faaborg, though thus removed from his path, was by no means donewith. Rumours began to be circulated that a strange light appeared everynight above the dead man's head as he swung on the gallows. The city wasfull of superstitious awe and of whisperings that Heaven was thusbearing witness to the Treasurer's innocence. And even the Kinghimself, when he too saw the unearthly light forming a halo round hisvictim's head, was filled with remorse and fear to such an extent thathe had Faaborg's body cut down and honoured with a State funeral. 

He was still, however, as far as ever from solving the mystery ofDyveke's death; and the longer his desire for vengeance was baffled, themore clamorous it became. Although nothing could be proved againstTorbern Oxe, Christian was by no means satisfied of his innocence, andhe decided to discover by guile the secret which all other means hadfailed to reveal. He would, if possible, make his steward his ownbetrayer. One day, at a Court banquet, he turned in jocular mood to theminister and said, "Tell me now, my dear Torbern, was there really anytruth in what Faaborg told me of your relations with my beautiful Lady!Don't hesitate to tell the truth, which only you know, for I assure youno harm shall come to you from it. "

Thus thrown off his guard and reassured, the steward, who, like hismaster, had probably drunk not wisely, confessed that he had lovedDyveke, and had asked her to be his wife. "But, sire, " he added, "thatwas the extent of my offence. I was never intimate with her. " During theremainder of the banquet Christian was most affable to the indiscreetsteward, not only showing no trace of resentment, but treating him withmarked friendliness. 

The following day, however, Torbern was flung into prison, and charged, not only with his confession, but with the murder of the woman he hadso vainly loved; and, in spite of the storm of indignation that sweptover Denmark, the pleadings of the Papal Legate, Arcimbaldo, and thetears of the Queen, was sentenced to death for a crime of which therewas no scrap of evidence to point to his guilt. 

This gross act of injustice proved to be the beginning of Christian'sdownfall. His cruelties and oppressions had long made him odious to hissubjects, and the climax came when a popular uprising hurled him fromhis throne and drove him an exile to Holland. An attempt to recover hiscrown ended in speedy disaster, and his last years were spent, incompany with his favourite dwarf, in a cell of the Holstein Castle ofSondeborg. 

As for Sigbrit, the woman who had played such a conspicuous and balefulpart in Christian's life, she deserted her benefactor at the first signof his coming ruin and ended her days in her native Holland, bemoaningto the last the loss of her "little dove, " whom she had seen raisedalmost to a throne and had lost so tragically. 

CHAPTER IX

THE ROMANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL SWEDE

Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, owes hisplace in the world's memory to his brawny muscles and to his conquest ofwomen. Like the third Alexander of Russia of later years, he could, withhis powerful arms, convert a thick iron bar into a necklace, crush apewter tankard by the pressure of a mighty hand, toss a heavy anvil intothe air and catch it as another man would catch a ball, or with a wrenchstraighten out the stoutest horse-shoe ever forged. 

And his strength of muscle was matched by his skill in the lists oflove. No Louis of France could boast such an array of conquests as thisSaxon Hercules, who changed his mistresses as easily as he changed hiscoats; the fairest women in Europe, from Turkey to Poland, succeededeach other in bewildering succession as the slaves of his pleasure, andbefore he died he counted his children to as many as the year has days. 

Of all these fair and frail women who thus ministered to the pleasure ofthe "Saxon Samson, " none was so beautiful, so gifted, so altogetheralluring as Marie Aurora, Countess of Königsmarck, the younger of thetwo daughters of Conrad of Königsmarck. Born in the year 1668, Aurorawas one of three children of the Swedish Count Conrad and his wife, thedaughter of the great Field-Marshal Wrangel. Her elder sister, littleless fair than herself, found a husband, when little more than a child, in Count Axel Löwenhaupt; her brother Philip, the handsomest man of hisday in Europe, was destined to end his days tragically as the price ofhis infatuation for a Queen. 

Betrayed by a jealous woman, the Countess Platen, whose overtures hespurned, this too gallant lover of Sophia Dorothea of Celle, wife of thefirst of our Georges, was foully done to death in a corridor of theLeine Schloss by La Paten's hired assassins, while she looked smilinglyon at his futile struggle for life, and gloated over his dying agonies. 

On the death of her father, when she was but a child of three, Aurorawas taken by her mother from her native Sweden to Hamburg, where shegrew to beautiful young womanhood; and when, in turn, her mother died, she found a home with her married sister, the Countess Löwenhaupt. Andit is at this period of her life that her romantic story opens. 

If we are to believe her contemporaries, the world has seldom seen somuch beauty and so many graces enshrined in the form of woman as in thisdaughter of Sweden. Her description reads like a catalogue of all humanperfections. Of medium height and a figure as faultless in its exquisitemodelling as in its grace and suppleness; her hair, black as a raven'splumage, and falling, like a veil of night, below her knees, emphasisedthe white purity of face and throat, arms, and hands. Her teeth, twinrows of pearls, glistened between smiling crimson lips, curved likeCupid's bow. Her face of perfect oval, with its delicately mouldedfeatures, was illuminated by a pair of large black eyes, now melting, now flaming, as mood succeeded mood. 

To these graces of body were allied equal graces of mind and character. Her conversation sparkled with wit and wisdom; she could hold fluentdiscourse in half a dozen tongues; she played and sang divinely, wroteelegant verses, and painted dainty pictures. Her manner was caressingand courteous; she was generous to a fault, with a heart as tender as itwas large. And the supreme touch was added by an entire unconsciousnessof her charms, and an unaffected modesty which captivated all hearts. 

Such was Aurora of Königsmarck who, in company with her sister, setforth one day to claim the fortune which her ill-fated brother, Philip, was said to have left in the custody of his Hanoverian bankers--ajourney which was to make such a dramatic revolution in her own life. 

Arrived at Hanover the sisters found themselves faced by no easy task. The bankers declared that they had nothing of the late Count's effectsbeyond a few diamonds, which they declined to part with, unless evidencewere forthcoming that the Count had died and had left no will behindhim--evidence which, owing to the secrecy surrounding his murder, it wasimpossible to furnish. And when a discharged clerk revealed the factthat the dishonest bankers had actually all the Count's estate, valuedat four hundred thousand crowns, in their possession, the sisters wereunable to make them disgorge a solitary mark. 

In their extremity, they decided to appeal to the Elector of Saxony, whohad known Count Philip well and who would, they hoped, be the championof their rights; and, with this object, they journeyed to Dresden, onlyto find themselves again baffled. Augustus was away on a huntingexcursion, and would not return for a whole month. His wife and mother, however, gave them a gracious reception, as charmed by their beauty andsweetness as sympathetic in their trouble. 

When at last Augustus made his tardy appearance at his capital, the fairpetitioners were presented to him by the Dowager Electress with words ofstrong recommendation to his favour. "These ladies, my son, " she said, "have come to beg for your protection and help, to which they areentitled both by birth and their merits. I beg that you will spare noeffort to ensure that justice is done to them. "

His mother's pleading, however, was not necessary to ensure a favourablehearing from the Elector, whose eyes were eloquent of the admiration hefelt for the two fairest women who had ever visited his land. Aurora'sbeauty, enhanced by her attitude of appeal, the mute craving forprotection, was irresistible. From the moment she entered his presencehe was her slave, as anxious to do her will as any lovesick boy. 

And it was to her that, with his courtliest bow, he answered, "Beassured, dear lady, that I shall know no rest until your wrongs arerepaired. If I fail, I myself will make reparation in full. Meanwhile, may I beg you and your sister to be my guests, that I may prove how deepis my sympathy, and how profound the respect I feel for you. "

Thus it was that by the magic of beauty Aurora and her Countess sisterfound themselves installed at the Dresden Court, feted like Queens, receiving the caresses of the Court ladies, and the homage of every man, from Augustus himself to the youngest page, of whom a smile from theirpretty lips made a veritable slave. As for the Elector, sated as he waswith the easy smiles and favours of fair women, he gave to the Swedishbeauty, from the first, a homage he had never paid to any of herpredecessors in his affection. 

But Aurora was no woman to be easily won by any man. She listenedsmilingly to the Elector's honeyed words, and received his attentionswith the gracious complaisance of a Queen. When, however, he ventured totell her that "her charms inspired him with a passion such as he hadnever felt for any woman, " she answered coldly, "I came here preparedfor your generosity, but I did not expect that your kindness wouldassume a form to cause me shame. I beg you not to say anything that canlessen the gratitude I owe you, and the respect I feel for you. "

Here indeed was a rebuff such as Augustus was little prepared for, oraccustomed to. The beauty, of whom he had hoped to make an easyconquest, was an iceberg whom all his ardour could not thaw. He was indespair. "I am sure she hates and despises me, while I love her dearerthan life itself, " he confessed to his favourite Beuchling, who vainlytried to console and cheer him. He confided his passion and his pain toAurora's sister, whose hopeful words were alike powerless to dispel hisgloom. 

When Aurora held aloof from him, he sent letter after letter ofpassionate pleading to her by the hand of the trusty Beuchling. "If youknew the tortures I am suffering, " he wrote, "your kindness of heartcould not resist pitying me. I was mad to declare my passion so brutallyto you. Let me expiate my fault, prostrate at your feet; and, if youwish for my death, let me at least receive my sentence from your ownsweet lips. "

To such a desperate state was Augustus brought within a few days ofsetting eyes on his new divinity! As for Aurora of the tender heart, herlover's distress thawed her more than a year of passionate protestationscould have done. She replied, assuring him of her gratitude, her esteemand respect, and begging him to dismiss such unworthy thoughts of her. But she had no word of encouragement to send him in the note which herlover kissed so rapturously before placing it next his heart. 

So alarmed, indeed, was Aurora, that she announced her intention ofleaving forthwith a Court in which she was exposed to so much danger--aproject to which her sister gave a reluctant approval. But the CountessLöwenhaupt was little disposed to leave a Court where she at least washaving such a good time; for she, too, had her lovers, and among themthe Prince of Fürstenberg, the handsomest man in Saxony, whose devotionwas more than agreeable to her. She preferred to play the part ofCupid's agent--to exercise her diplomacy in bringing together those twofoolish persons, her sister and the Elector. 

And so skilfully did she play her part, appealing to Aurora's pity, andassuring Augustus of her sister's love in spite of her seeming coldness, that before many weeks had passed Aurora had yielded and was listeningwith no unwilling ear to the vows of her exalted lover, now transportedto the seventh heaven of happiness. One condition she made, when theirmutual troth was plighted, that it should, for a time at least, remain asecret from the Court, and to this the Elector gratefully assented. 

Such was the strange wooing of Augustus and the Countess Aurora, inwhich passion had its response in a pity which, in this case at least, was the parent of love. 

It was with no very light heart that Aurora set forth to Mauritzburg, afew days later, to keep "honeymoon tryst" with Augustus, who hadpreceded her, to make, as she understood, the necessary preparations forher reception. With her sister and a mounted escort of the mostbeautiful ladies of the Court, she had ridden as far as the entrance tothe Mauritzburg forest, when her carriage suddenly came to a halt infront of a magnificent palace. From the open door emerged Diana with herattendant nymphs to greet her with words of welcome, and to beg her totarry a while to accept the hospitality of the forest gods. 

In response to this flattering invitation Aurora left her carriage andwas escorted in stately procession to a saloon, richly painted withsylvan scenes, in which a sumptuous banquet was spread. No sooner wereshe and her ladies seated at the table than, to the strains of beautifulmusic, the god Pan (none other than the Elector himself), with hisretinue of fawns and other richly and quaintly garbed forest gods, madehis entry, and took his seat at the right hand of his goddess. Then, tothe deft ministry of Diana and her satellites, and to the softaccompaniment of pipes and hautboys, the feasting began, while Panwhispered love to the lady for whom he had prepared such a charminghospitality. 

The banquet had scarcely come to an end when the jubilant sound of hornswas heard from the forest. A stag dashed by a window in full flight, andAurora and her ladies, rushing excitedly to the door, saw horsesawaiting them for the hunt. 

In a moment they are mounted, and, gaily laughing, with Pan leading theway, they are galloping through the forest glades in the wake of theflying stag and the music of the hounds, until the stag, hotly pursued, dashes into a lake, in the centre of which is a beautiful wooded island. Dismounting, the ladies enter the gondolas which are so opportunelyawaiting them, and are rowed across the strip of water just in time towitness the death of the gallant animal they have been chasing. 

The hunt over, Aurora and her ladies are conducted to the leafy heart ofthe island, where, as by the touch of a magician's wand, a gorgeousEastern tent has sprung up, and here another sumptuous entertainment isprepared for them. Seated on soft-cushioned divans, in the many-huedenvironment of Oriental luxury, rare fruits and delicacies are broughtto them in silver baskets by turbaned Turks. The island Sultan nowappears, ablaze with gems, with his officers little less gorgeous thanhimself, and with deep obeisances craves permission to seat himself byAurora's side, a favour which she was not likely to refuse to a Sultanin whom she recognised her lover, the Elector. Troupes of dancing-girlsfollow, and the moments fly swiftly to the twinkling of dainty feet, thegliding and posturing of supple bodies, and the strains of sensuousmusic. 

Another hour spent in the gondolas, dreamily gliding under the light ofthe moon, and horses are again mounted; and Aurora, with Augustus ridingproudly by her side, heads the splendid procession which, with laughter, and in the gayest of spirits, rides forth to the Mauritzburg Castle atthe close of a day so full of delights. 

"Here, " was the Elector's greeting, as he conducted his bride to herroom with its furnishing of silver and rich damask, and its picturedCupid showering roses on the silk-curtained bed, "you are the Queen, andI am your slave. "

Such was the beginning of Aurora's reign over the heart of the Electorof Saxony--a reign of unclouded splendour and happiness for the woman inwhom pity for her lover was soon replaced by a passion as ardent as hisown. Fêtes and banquets and balls succeeded each other in swiftsequence, at all of which Aurora was Queen, the focus of all eyes, andreceiving universal homage, won no more by her beauty and her positionas the Elector's favourite than by her sweetness and graciousness to thehumblest. No mistress of a King was ever more beloved than this daughterof Sweden. Even the Elector's mother, a pattern of the most rigidpropriety, had ever a kind word and a caress for her; his neglected wifemade a friend and confidante of the woman of whom she said, "Since Imust have a rival, I am glad she should be one so sweet and lovable. "

We must hasten over the years that followed--years during which Augustushad no eyes for any other woman than his "uncrowned Queen, " and duringwhich she bore him a son who, as Maurice of Saxony, was to win manylaurels in the years to come. It must suffice to say that never wasRoyal liaison conducted with so much propriety, or was marked by so muchmutual devotion and loyalty. 

But it was not in the nature of Augustus the Strong to remain alwaystrue to any woman, however charming; and although Aurora's reign lastedlonger than that of any half-dozen of her rivals, it, too, had itsending. Within a month of the birth of her son, Augustus, now King ofPoland, was caught in the toils of another enslaver, the beautifulCountess Esterle. Aurora realised that her sun had set, andrelinquishing her sceptre without a murmur, she retired to the conventof Quedlinburg, of which Augustus had appointed her Abbess. 

Thus in an atmosphere of peace and piety, beloved of all for hersweetness and charity, Aurora of Königsmarck spent her last years untilthe end came one day in the year 1728; and in the crypt of the conventshe loved so well she sleeps her last sleep. 

CHAPTER X

THE SISTER OF AN EMPEROR

When Napoleon Bonaparte, the shabby, sallow-faced, out-of-work captainof artillery, was kicking his heels in morose idleness at Marseilles, and whiling away the dull hours in making love to Desirée Clary, thepretty daughter of the silk-merchant in the Rue des Phocéens, hissisters were living with their mother, the Signora Letizia, in a sordidfourth-floor apartment in a slum near the Cannebiere, and running wildin the Marseilles streets. 

Strange tales are told of those early years of the sisters of anEmperor-to-be--Elisa Bonaparte, future Grand Duchess of Tuscany;Pauline, embryo Princess Borghese; and Caroline, who was to wear a crownas Queen of Naples--high-spirited, beautiful girls, brimful of frolicand fun, laughing at their poverty, decking themselves out in cheap, home-made finery, and flirting outrageously with every good-lookingyoung man who was willing to pay homage to their _beaux yeux_. IfMarseilles deigned to notice these pretty young madcaps, it was onlywith the cold eyes of disapproval; for such "shameless goings-on" werelittle less than a scandal. 

The pity of it was that there was no one to check their escapades. Their mother, the imposing Madame Mère of later years, seemedindifferent what her daughters did, so long as they left her in peace;their brothers, Kings-to-be, were too much occupied with their ownlove-making or their pranks to spare them a thought. And thus the trioof tomboys were left, with a loose rein, to indulge every impulse thatentered their foolish heads. And a right merry time they had, with theirdancing, their private theatricals, the fun behind the scenes, and theirpromiscuous love affairs, each serious and thrilling until it gave placeto a successor. 

Of the three Bonaparte "graces" the most lovely by far (though each waspassing fair) was Pauline, who, though still little more than a child, gave promise of that rare perfection of face and figure which was tomake her the most beautiful woman in all France. "It is impossible, witheither pen or brush, " wrote one who knew her, "to do any justice to hercharms--the brilliance of her eyes, which dazzled and thrilled all onwhom they fell; the glory of her black hair, rippling in a cascade toher knees; the classic purity of her Grecian profile, the wild-rosedelicacy of her complexion, the proud, dainty poise of her head, and theexquisite modelling of the figure which inspired Canova's 'VenusVictrix. '"

Such was Pauline Bonaparte, whose charms, although then immature, playedsuch havoc with the young men of Marseilles, and who thus early beganthat career of conquest which was to afford so much gossip for thetongue of scandal. That the winsome little minx had her legion oflovers from the day she set foot in Marseilles, at the age of thirteen, we know; but it was not until Frèron came on the scene that her volatilelittle heart was touched--Frèron, the handsome coxcomb andarch-revolutionary, who was sent to Marseilles as a Commissioner of theConvention. 

To Pauline, the gay, gallant Parisian, penniless adventurer though hewas, was a veritable hero of romance; and at sight of him she completelylost her heart. It was a _grande passion_, which he was by no means slowto return. Those were delicious hours which Pauline spent in the companyof her beloved "Stanislas, " hours of ecstasy; and when he leftMarseilles she pursued him with the most passionate protestations. 

"Yes, " she wrote, "I swear, dear Stanislas, never to love any other thanthee; my heart knows no divided allegiance. It is thine alone. Who couldoppose the union of two souls who seek to find no other happiness thanin a mutual love?" And again, "Thou knowest how I worship thee. It isnot possible for Paulette to live apart from her adored Stanislas. Ilove thee for ever, most passionately, my beautiful god, my adorableone--I love thee, love thee, love thee!"

In such hot words this child of fifteen poured out her soul to the Parisdandy. "Neither mamma, " she vowed, "nor anyone in the world shall comebetween us. " But Pauline had not counted on her brother Napoleon, whosefoot was now placed on the ladder of ambition, at the top of which wasan Imperial crown, and who had other designs for his sister than tomarry her to a penniless nobody. In vain did Pauline rage and weep, anddeclare that "she would die--_voilà tout!_" Napoleon was inexorable; andthe flower of her first romance was trodden ruthlessly under his feet. 

When Junot, his own aide-de-camp, next came awooing Pauline, he wasequally obdurate. "No, " he said to the young soldier; "you have nothing, she has nothing. And what is twice nothing?" And thus lover number twowas sent away disconsolate. 

Napoleon's sun was now in the ascendant, and his family were basking inits rays. From the Marseilles slums they were transported first to asumptuous villa at Antibes; then to the Castle of Montebello, at Naples. The days of poverty were gone like an evil dream; the sisters of thefamous General and coming Emperor were now young ladies of fashion, courted and fawned on. Their lovers were not Marseilles tradesmen orobscure soldiers and journalists (like Junot and Frèron), but brilliantGenerals and men of the great world; and among them Napoleon now soughta husband for his prettiest and most irresponsible sister. 

This, however, proved no easy task. When he offered her to his favouriteGeneral, Marmont, he was met with a polite refusal. "She is indeedcharming and lovely, " said Marmont; "but I fear I could not make herhappy. " Then, waxing bolder, he continued: "I have dreams of domestichappiness, of fidelity, virtue; and these dreams I can scarcely hope torealise in your sister. " Albert Permon, Napoleon's old schoolfellow, next declined the honour of Pauline's hand, although it held the bait ofa high office and splendid fortune. 

The explanation of these refusals is not far to seek if we believeArnault's description of Pauline--"An extraordinary combination of themost faultless physical beauty and the oddest moral laxity. She had nomore manners than a schoolgirl--she talked incoherently, giggled ateverything and nothing, mimicked the most serious personages, put outher tongue at her sister-in-law. .. . She was a good child naturallyrather than voluntarily, for she had no principles. "

But Pauline was not to wait long, after all, for a husband. Among themany men who fluttered round her, willing to woo if not to wed theempty-headed beauty, was General Leclerc, young and rich, but weak inbody and mind, "a quiet, insignificant-looking man, " who at least lovedher passionately, and would make a pliant husband to the capriciouslittle autocrat. And we may be sure Napoleon heaved a sigh of reliefwhen his madcap sister was safely tied to her weak-kneed General. 

Pauline was at last free to conduct her flirtations secure from thefrowns of the brother she both feared and adored, and she seems to havemade excellent use of her opportunities; and, what was even more to her, to encourage to the full her passion for finery. Dress and love filledher whole life; and while her idolatrous husband lavishly supplied theformer, he turned a conveniently blind eye to the latter. 

Remarkable stories are told of Pauline's extravagant and daringcostumes at this time. Thus, at a great ball in Madame Permon's Parismansion, she appeared in a dress of classic scantiness of Indian muslin, ornamented with gold palm leaves. Beneath her breasts was a cincture ofgold, with a gorgeous jewelled clasp; and her head was wreathed withbands spotted like a leopard's skin, and adorned with bunches of goldgrapes. 

When this bewitching Bacchante made her appearance in the ballroom thesensation she created was so great that the dancing stopped instantly;women and men alike climbed on chairs to catch a glimpse of the rare andradiant vision, and murmurs of admiration and envy ran round the_salon_. Her triumph was complete. In the hush that followed, a voicewas heard: "_Quel dommage!_ How lovely she would be, if it weren't forher ears. If I had such ears, I would cut them off, or hide them. "Pauline heard the cruel words. The flush of mortification and angerflamed in her cheeks; she burst into tears and walked out of the room. Madame de Coutades, her most jealous rival, had found a rich revenge. 

General Leclerc did not live long to play the slave to his littleautocrat; and when he died at San Domingo, the beautiful widow returnedto France, accompanied by his embalmed body, with her glorious hair, which she had cut off for the purpose, wreathing his head! She had not, however, worn her weeds many months before she was once more surroundedby her court of lovers--actors, soldiers, singers, on each of whom inturn she lavished her smiles; and such time as she could spare fromtheir flatteries and ogling she spent at the card-table, withfortune-tellers, or, chief joy of all, in decking her beauty withwondrous dresses and jewels. 

But the charming widow, sister of the great Napoleon, was not long to beleft unclaimed; and this time the choice fell on Prince CamilloBorghese, a handsome, black-haired Italian, who allied to a head as vainand empty as her own the physical graces and gifts of an AdmirableCrichton, and who, moreover, was lord of all the famed Borghese riches. 

Pauline had now reached dizzy heights, undreamed of in the days, onlyten short years earlier, when she was coquetting in home-made finerywith the young tradesmen of Marseilles. She was a Princess, bearing thegreatest name in all Italy; and to this dignity her gratified brotheradded that of Princess of Gustalla. All the world-famous Borghese jewelswere hers to deck her beauty with--a small Golconda of priceless gems;there was gold galore to satisfy her most extravagant whims; and she wasstill young--only twenty-five--and in the very zenith of her loveliness. 

Picture, then, the pride with which, one early day of her new bridehood, she drove to the Palace of St Cloud in the gorgeous Borghese Statecarriage, behind six horses, and with an escort of torch-bearers, to paya formal call on her sister-in-law, Josephine, Empress-to-be. She haddecked herself in a wonderful creation of green velvet; she was ablazefrom head to foot with the Borghese diamonds. Such a dazzling visioncould not fail to fill Josephine with envy--Josephine, who had hithertotreated her with such haughty patronage. 

As she sailed into the _salon_ in all her Queen of Sheba splendour, itwas to be greeted by her sister-in-law in a modest dress of muslin, without a solitary gem to relieve its simplicity; and--horror!--to findthat the room had been re-decorated in blue by the artful Josephine--acolour absolutely fatal to her green magnificence! It was thus a verydisgusted Princess who made her early exit from the palace between adouble line of bowing flunkeys, masking her anger behind an affectationof ultra-Royal dignity. 

Still, Pauline was now a _grande dame_ indeed, who could really affordto patronise even Napoleon's wife. Her Court was more splendid than thatof Josephine. She had lovers by the score--from Blanguini, who composedhis most exquisite songs to sing for her ears alone, to Forbin, herartist Chamberlain, whose brushes she inspired in a hundred paintings ofher lovely self in as many unconventional guises. Her caskets of jewelswere matched by the most wonderful collection of dresses in France, therichest and daintiest confections, from pearl embroidered ball-gownswhich cost twenty thousand francs to the mauve and silver in which shewent a-hunting in the forest of Fontainebleau. At Petit Trianon and inthe Faubourg St Honoré, she had palaces that were dreams of beauty andluxury. The only thorn in her bed of roses was, in fact, her husband, the Prince, the very sight of whom was sufficient to spoil a day forher. 

When, at Napoleon's bidding, she accompanied Borghese to hisGovernorship beyond the Alps, she took in her train seven wagon-loads offinery. At Turin she held the Court of a Queen, to which the Prince wasonly admitted on sufferance. Royal visits, dinners, dances, receptionsfollowed one another in dazzling succession; behind her chair, at dinneror reception, always stood two gigantic negroes, crowned with ostrichplumes. She was now "sister of the Emperor, " and all the world shouldknow it!

If only she could escape from her detested husband she would be thehappiest woman on earth. But Napoleon on this point was adamant. In herrage and rebellion she tore her hair, rolled on the floor, took drugs tomake her ill; and at last so succeeded in alarming her Imperial brotherthat he summoned her back to France, where her army of lovers gave her awarm welcome, and where she could indulge in any vanity and follyunchecked. 

Matters were now hastening to a tragic climax for Napoleon and thefamily he had raised from slumdom in Marseilles to crowns and coronets. Josephine had been divorced, to Pauline's undisguised joy; and her placehad been taken by Marie Louise, the proud Austrian, whom she liked atleast as little. When Napoleon fell from his throne, she alone of allhis sisters helped to cheer his exile in Elba; for the brother she lovedand feared was the only man to whom Pauline's fickle heart was evertrue. She even stripped herself of all her jewels to make the way smoothback to his crown. And when at last news came to her at Rome of hisdeath at St Helena it was she who shed the bitterest tears and refusedto be comforted. That an empire was lost, was nothing compared with theloss of the brother who had always been so lenient to her failings, soresponsive to her love. 

Two years later her own end came at Florence. When she felt the coldhand of death on her, she called feebly for a mirror, that she mightlook for the last time on her beauty. "Thank God, " she whispered, as shegazed, "I am still lovely! I am ready to die. " A few moments later, withthe mirror still clutched in her hand, and her eyes still feasting onthe charms which time and death itself were powerless to dim, diedPauline Bonaparte, sister of an Emperor and herself an Empress by theright of her incomparable beauty. 

CHAPTER XI

A SIREN OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

When Wilhelmine Encke first opened her eyes on the world one day in theyear 1754, he would have been a bold prophet who would have predictedthat she would one day be the uncrowned Queen of the Court of Russia, _plus Reine que la Reine_, and that her children would have in theirveins the proudest blood in Europe. Such a prophecy might well have beenlaughed to scorn, for little Wilhelmine had as obscure a cradle asalmost any infant in all Prussia. Her father was an army bugler, whowore private's uniform in Frederick the Great's army; and her earlyyears were to be spent playing with other soldiers' children in thesordid environment of Berlin barracks. 

When her father turned his back on the army, while Wilhelmine was stillnursing her dolls, it was to play the humble rôle of landlord of a smalltavern, from which he was lured by the bait of a place as French-hornplayer in Frederick's private band; and the goal of his modest ambitionwas reached when he was appointed trumpeter to the King. 

This was Herr Encke's position when the curtain rises on our story atPotsdam, and shows us Wilhelmine, an unattractive maid of ten, theCinderella of her family, for whom there seemed no better prospect thana soldier-husband, if indeed she were lucky enough to capture him. Shewas, in fact, the "ugly duckling" of a good-looking family, removed by awhole world from her beautiful eldest sister Charlotte, who countedamong her many admirers no less exalted a wooer than Prince FrederickWilliam, the King's nephew and heir to his throne. 

There was, indeed, no more beautiful or haughty damsel in all Potsdamthan this trumpeter's daughter who had caught the amorous fancy of thePrince, then, as to his last day, the slave of every pretty face thatcrossed his path. But Charlotte Encke was much too imperious a younglady to hold her Royal lover long in fetters. He quickly wearied of hercaprices, her petulances, and her exhibitions of temper; and the climaxcame one day when in a fit of anger she struck her little sister, in hispresence, and he took up the cudgels for Wilhelmine. 

This was the last straw for the disillusioned and disgusted Prince, whosent Charlotte off to Paris, where as the Countess Matushke she playedthe fine lady at her lover's cost, while the Prince took her Cinderellasister under his protection. He took her education into his own hands, provided her with masters to teach her a wide range of accomplishments, from languages to dancing and deportment, while he himself gave herlessons in history and geography. Nor did he lack the reward of hisbenevolent offices; for Wilhelmine, under his ministrations, not onlydeveloped rare gifts and graces of mind, like many another Cinderellabefore her; she blossomed into a rose of girlhood, more beautiful eventhan her imperious sister, and with a sweetness of character and awinsomeness which Charlotte could never have attained. 

On her part, gratitude to her benefactor rapidly grew into love for thehandsome and courtly Prince; on his, sympathy for the ill-usedCinderella, into a passion for the lovely maiden hovering on the vergeof a still more beautiful womanhood. It was a mutual passion, strong anddeep, which now linked the widely contrasted lives of the King-to-be andthe trumpeter's daughter--a passion which, with each, was to last aslong as life itself. 

Wilhelmine was now formally installed in the place of the deposedCharlotte as favourite of the heir to the throne; and idyllic yearsfollowed, during which she gave pledges of her love to the man who washer husband in all but name. That her purse was often empty was a matterto smile at; that she had to act as "breadwinner" to her family, and wasat times reduced to such straits that she was obliged to pawn some ofher small stock of jewellery in order to provide her lover with asupper, was a bagatelle. She was the happiest young woman in Prussia. 

Even what seemed to be a crowning disaster, fortune turned into a boonfor her. When news of this unlicensed love-making came to the King'sears, he was furious. It was intolerable that the destined ruler of agreat and powerful nation should be governed and duped by a woman of thepeople. He gave his nephew a sound rating--alike for his extravaganceand his amour; and packed off Wilhelmine to join her sister in Paris. 

But, for once, Frederick found that he had made a mistake. The Prince, robbed of the woman he loved, took the bit in his teeth, and plunged sodeeply into extravagant dallying with ballet-dancers and stars of theopera that the King was glad to choose the lesser evil, and to summonWilhelmine back to her Prince's arms. One stipulation only he made, thatshe should make her home away from the capital and the dangerousallurements which his nephew found there. 

Now at last we find Cinderella happily installed, with the King's augustapproval, in a beautiful home which has since blossomed into thesplendours of Charlottenburg. Here she gave birth to a son, whomFrederick dubbed Count de la Marke in his nurse's arms, but who wasfated never to leave his cradle. This child of love, the idol of hisparents, sleeps in a splendid mausoleum in the great Protestant Churchof Berlin. 

As a sop to Prussian morality and to make the old King quite easy, acomplaisant husband was now found for the Prince's favourite in hischamberlain, Herr Rietz, son of a palace gardener; and Frederick Williamhimself looked on while the woman he loved, the mother of his children, was converted by a few priestly words into a "respectable marriedwoman"--only to leave the altar on his own arm, his wife in the eyes ofthe world. 

The time was now drawing near when Wilhelmine was to reach the zenith ofher adventurous life. One August day in 1786 Frederick the Great drewhis last breath in the Potsdam Palace, and his nephew awoke to begreeted by his chamberlain as "Your Majesty. " The trumpeter's daughterwas at last a Queen, in fact, if not in name, more secure in herhusband's love than ever, and with long years of splendour and happinessbefore her. That his fancy, ever wayward, flitted to other women as fairas herself, did not trouble her a whit. Like Madame de Pompadour, shewas prepared even to encourage such rivalry, so long as the first place(and this she knew) in her husband's heart was unassailably her own. 

Picture our Cinderella now in all her new splendours, moving as a Queenamong her courtiers, receiving the homage of princes and ambassadors asher right, making her voice heard in the Council Chamber, and holdingher _salon_, to which all the great ones of the earth flocked to paytribute to her beauty and her gifts of mind. It was a strangetransformation from the barracks-kitchen to the Queendom of one of thegreatest Courts of Europe; but no Queen cradled in a palace ever woreher honours with greater dignity, grace, and simplicity than thisdaughter of an army bandsman. 

The days of the empty purse were, of course, at an end. She had now herten thousand francs a month for "pin-money, " her luxuriously appointedpalace at Charlottenburg, and her Berlin mansion, "Unter den Linden, "with its private theatre, in which she and her Royal lover, surroundedby their brilliant Court, applauded the greatest actors from Paris andVienna. It is said that many of these stage-plays were of questionabledecency, with more than a suggestion of the garden of Eden in them; butthis is an aspersion which Madame de Rietz indignantly repudiates in her"Memoirs. "

While Wilhelmine was thus happy in her Court magnificence, varied bydays of "delightful repose, " at Charlottenburg, France was in the throesof her Revolution, drenched with the blood of her greatest men andfairest women; her King had lost his crown and his head with it; andEurope was in arms against her. When Frederick William joined his armycamped on the Rhine bank, Wilhelmine was by his side to counsel him ashe wavered between war and peace. The fate of the coalition againstFrance was practically in the hands of the trumpeter's daughter, whosevoice was all for peace. "What matters it, " she said, "how France isgoverned? Let her manage her own affairs, and let Europe be saved fromthe horrors of bloodshed. "

In vain did the envoys of Spain and Italy, Austria and England, practiseall their diplomacy to place her influence in the scale of war. WhenLord Henry Spencer offered her a hundred thousand guineas if she woulddissuade her husband from concluding a treaty with France, she turned adeaf ear to all his pleading and arguments. Such influence as shepossessed should be exercised in the interests of peace, and thus it wasthat the vacillating King deserted his allies, and signed the Treaty ofBâle, in 1795. 

Such was the triumphant issue of Madame Rietz's intervention in theaffairs of Europe; such the proof she gave to the world of her conquestof a King. It was thus with a light heart that she turned her back onthe Rhine camp; and with her husband's children and a splendid retinueset out on her journey to Italy, to see which was the greatest ambitionof her life. At the Austrian Court she was coldly received, it is true, thanks to her part in the Treaty of Bâle; but in Italy she was greetedas a Queen. At Naples Queen Caroline received her as a sister; thetrumpeter's daughter was the brilliant centre of fêtes and banquets andreceptions such as might have gratified the vanity of an Empress: whileat Florence she spent days of ideal happiness under the blue sky ofItaly and among her beauties of Nature and Art. 

It was at Venice that she wrote to her King lover, "Your Majesty knowswell that, for myself, I place no value on the foolish vanities of Courtetiquette; but I am placed in an awkward position by my daughter beingraised to the rank of Countess, while I am still in the lowly positionof a bourgeoise. " She had, in fact, always declined the honour of atitle, which Frederick William had so often begged her to accept; and itwas only for her daughter's sake, when the question of an alliancebetween the young Countess de la Marke and Lord Bristol's heir arose, that she at last stooped to ask for what she had so long refused. 

A few weeks later her brother, the King's equerry, placed in her handsthe patent which made her Countess Lichtenau, with the right to bear onher shield of arms the Prussian eagle and the Royal crown. 

Wherever the Countess (as we must now call her) went on her Italiantour she drew men to her feet by the magnetism of her beauty, who wouldhave paid no homage to her as _chère amie_ of a King; for she was now inthe early thirties, in the full bloom of the loveliness that had itsobscure budding in the Potsdam barrack-rooms. Young and old were equallypowerless to resist her fascinations. She had, indeed, no more ardentslave and admirer than my Lord Bristol, the octogenarian Bishop ofLondonderry, whose passion for the Countess, young enough to be hisgranddaughter, was that of a lovesick youth. 

From "dear Countess and adorable friend, " he quickly leaps in hisletters to "my dear Wilhelmine. " He looks forward with the impatience ofa boy to seeing her at "that terrestrial paradise which is calledNaples, where we shall enjoy perpetual spring and spend delightful daysin listening to the divine _Paesiello_. Do you know, " he adds, "I passedtwo hours of real delight this morning in simply contemplating yourelegant bedroom where only the elegant sleeper was missing. "

"It is in _Crocelle_, " he writes a little later, "that you will makepeople happy by your presence, and where you will recuperate yourhealth, regain your gaiety, and forget an Irishman; and a holy Bishop, more worthy of your affection, on account of the deep attachment he hasfor you, will take his place. "

In June, 1796, this senile lover writes, "In an hour I depart forGermany; and, as the wind is north, with every step I take I shall say:'This breeze comes perhaps from her; it has touched her rosy lips andmingled its scent with the perfume of her breath which I shall inhale, the perfume of the breath of my dear Wilhelmine. '"

But these days of dallying with her legion of lovers, of regal fêtes andpleasure-chasing, were brought to an abrupt conclusion when news came toher at Venice that her "husband, " the King, was dying, with the Royalfamily by his bedside awaiting the end. Such news, with all its importof sorrow and tragedy, set the Countess racing across the Continent, fast as horses could carry her, to the side of her beloved King, whomshe found, if not _in extremis_, "very dangerously ill and pitifullychanged" from the robust man she had left. Her return, however, did morefor him than all the skill of his doctors. It gave him a new lease oflife, in which her presence brought happiness into days which, none knewbetter than himself, were numbered. 

For more than a year the Countess was his tender nurse and constantcompanion, ministering to his comfort and arranging plays and tableauxfor his entertainment. She watched over him as jealously as any motherover her dying child; but all her devotion could not stay the steps ofdeath, which every day brought nearer. As the inevitable end approached, her friends warned her to leave Charlottenburg while the opportunity wasstill hers--to escape with her jewels and her money (a fortune of£150, 000)--but to all such urging she was deaf. She would stay by herlover's side to the last, though she well knew the danger of delay. 

One November day in 1797 Frederick William made his last publicappearance at a banquet, with the Countess at his right hand; and seldomhas festival had such a setting in tragedy. "None of the guests, " we aretold, "uttered a word or ate a mouthful of anything; the plates werecleared at the hasty ringing of a bell. A convulsive movement made bythe sick man showed that he was suffering agonies. Before half-past nineevery guest had left, greatly troubled. The majority of those who hadbeen present never saw the unfortunate monarch again. They all sharedthe same presentiment of disaster, and wept. "

From that night the King was dead, even to his own Court. The gates ofhis palace were closed against the world, and none were allowed toapproach the chamber in which his life was ebbing away, save theCountess, his nurse, and his doctors. Even his children were refusedadmittance to his presence. As the Marquis de Saint Mexent said, "TheKing of Prussia ends his days as though he were a rich benefactor. Allthe relations are excluded by the housekeeper. "

A few days before the end came the Countess was seen to leave thepalace, carrying a large red portfolio--a suspicious circumstance whichthe Crown Prince's spies promptly reported to their master. There couldbe only one inference--she had been caught in the act of stealing Statepapers, a crime for which she would have to pay a heavy price as soonas her protector was no more! As a matter of fact the portfoliocontained nothing more secret or valuable than the letters she hadwritten to the King during the twenty-seven years of their romance, letters which, after reading, she consigned to the flames in her boudoirwithin an hour of the suspected theft of State documents. 

A few days later, on the night of the 16th of November (1797), the Kingentered on his "death agony, " one fit of suffocation succeeding another, until the Countess, unable to bear any longer the sight of suchsuffering, was carried away in violent convulsions. She saw him no more;for by seven o'clock in the morning Frederick William had found releasefrom his agony in death, and his son had begun to reign in his stead. 

At last the long-delayed hour of revenge had come to Frederick WilliamIII. , who had always regarded his father's favourite as an enemy; andhis vengeance was swift to strike. Before the late King's body was cold, his successor's emissaries appeared at the palace door, Unter denLinden, with orders to search her papers and to demand the keys of everydesk and cupboard. Even then she scorned to fly before the storm whichshe knew was breaking. For three days and nights her carriage stood ather gates ready to take her away to safety; but she refused to move astep. 

Then one morning, before she had left her bed, a major of the guards, with a posse of soldiers, appeared at her bedroom door armed with awarrant for her arrest; and for many weeks she was a closely guardedprisoner in her own house, subject to daily insults and indignities frommen who, a few weeks earlier, had saluted her as a Queen. 

At the trial which followed some very grave indictments were preferredagainst her. She was charged with having betrayed State secrets; withhaving robbed the Royal Exchequer; stolen the King's portfolio; andremoved the priceless solitaire diamond from his crown, and the veryrings from his fingers as he lay dying. To these and other equally gravecharges the Countess gave a dignified denial, which the evidence she wasable to produce supported. The diamond and the rings were, in fact, discovered in places indicated by her where they had been put, by theKing's orders, for safe custody. 

The trial had a happier ending than, from the malignity of her enemies, especially of the King, might have been expected. After three months ofdurance she was removed to a Silesian fortress. Her houses and landswere taken from her; but her furniture and jewels were left untouched, and with them she was allowed to enjoy a pension of four thousandthalers a year. Such was the judgment of a Court which proved moremerciful than she had perhaps a right to expect. And two months later, the influence and pleading of her friends set her free from herfortress-prison to spend her life where and as she would. 

The sun of her splendour had indeed set, but many years of peaceful andnot unhappy life remained for our ex-Queen, who was still in the primeof her womanhood and beauty and with the magnetism that, to her lastday, brought men to her feet. At fifty she was able to inspire suchpassion in the breast of a young artist, Francis Holbein, that he askedand won her hand in marriage. But this romance was short-lived, forwithin a year he left her, to spend the remainder of her days in Paris, Vienna, and her native Prussia. Here her adventurous career closed insuch obscurity, at the age of sixty-eight, that even those whoministered to her last moments were unaware that the dying woman was theCountess who had played so dazzling a part a generation earlier, asfavourite of the King of Prussia and Queen of her loveliest women. 

CHAPTER XII

THE CORSICAN AND THE CREOLE

Of the many women who succeeded one another with such bewilderingrapidity in the favour of the first Napoleon, from Desirée Clary, daughter of the Marseilles silk-merchant, the "little wife" of his daysof obscurity, to Madame Walewska, the beautiful Pole, who so fruitlesslybartered her charms for her country's salvation, only one reallycaptured his fickle heart--Josephine de Beauharnais, the woman whom heraised to the splendour of an Imperial crown, only to fling her asidewhen she no longer served the purposes of his ambition. 

It was one October day in the year 1795 that Josephine, Vicomtesse deBeauharnais, first cast the spell of her beauty on the "ugly littleCorsican, " who had then got his foot well planted on the ladder, at thesummit of which was his crown of empire. At twenty-six, the man who, buta little earlier, was an out-of-work captain, eating his heart out in aMarseilles slum, was General-in-Chief of the armies of France, with thedisarmed rebels of Paris grovelling at his feet. 

One day a handsome boy came to him, craving permission to retain thesword his father had won, a favour which the General, pleased by theboy's frankness and manliness, granted. The next day the young rebel'smother presented herself to thank him with gracious words for hiskindness to her son--a creature of another world than his, with abeauty, grace and refinement which were a new revelation to hisbourgeois eyes. 

The fair vision haunted him; the music of her voice lingered in hisears. He must see her again. And, before another day had passed, we findthe pale-faced, grim Corsican, with the burning eyes, sitting awkwardlyon a horse-hair chair of Madame's dining-room in her small house in theRue Chantereine, nervously awaiting the entry of the Vicomtesse who hadalready played such havoc with his peace of mind. And when at last shemade her appearance, few would have recognised in the man, who made hisshy, awkward bow, the famous General with whose name the whole of Francewas ringing. 

It was little wonder, perhaps, that the little Corsican's heart wentpit-a-pat, or that his knees trembled under him, for the lady whosesmile and the touch of whose hand sent a thrill through him, was indeed, to quote his own words, "beautiful as a dream. " From the chestnut hairwhich rippled over her small, proudly poised head to the arch of hertiny, dainty feet, "made for homage and for kisses, " she was, "allglorious without. " There was witchery in every part of her--in the richcolour that mantled in her cheeks; the sweet brown eyes that looked outbetween long-fringed eyelids; the small, delicate nose; "the nostrilsquivering at the least emotion"; the exquisite lines of the tall, supplefigure, instinct with grace in every moment; and, above all, in theseductive music of a voice, every note of which was a caress. 

Sixteen years earlier, Josephine had come from Martinique to Paris asbride of the Vicomte de Beauharnais, with whom she had led a more orless unhappy life, until the guillotine of the Revolution left her awidow, with two children and an empty purse. But even this crowningcalamity was powerless to crush the sunny-hearted Creole, who merelylaughed at the load of debts which piled themselves up around her. Alittle of the wreckage of her husband's fortune had been rescued for herby influential friends; but this had disappeared long before Napoleoncrossed her path. And at last the light-hearted widow realised that ifshe had a card left to play, she must play it quickly. 

Here then was her opportunity. The little General was obviously a slaveat her feet; he was already a great man, destined to be still greater;and if he was bourgeois to his coarse finger-tips, he could at leastserve as a stepping-stone to raise her from poverty and obscurity. 

As for Napoleon, he was a vanquished man--and he knew it--before ever heset foot in Madame's modest dining-room. When he left, he "trod on air, "for the Vicomtesse had been more than gracious to him. The next day hewas drawn as by a magnet to the Rue Chantereine, and the next and thenext, each interview with his divinity forging fresh links for thechain that bound him; and at each visit he met under Madame's roof someof the great ones of that other world in which Josephine moved, the old_noblesse_ of France--who paid her the homage due to a Queen. 

Thus vanity and ambition fed the flames of the passion which wasconsuming him; and within a fortnight he had laid his heart and hisfortune, which at the time consisted of "his personal wardrobe and hismilitary accoutrements" at the feet of the Creole widow; and one Marchday in 1796 Napoleon Bonaparte, General, and Josephine de Beauharnais, were made one by a registrar who obligingly described the bride astwenty-nine (thus robbing her of three years), and added two to thebridegroom's twenty-six years. 

After two days of rapturous honeymooning Napoleon was on his way to joinhis army in Italy, as reluctant a bridegroom as ever left Cupid at thebidding of Mars. At every change of horses during the long journey hedispatched letters to the wife he had left behind--letters full ofpassion and yearning. In one of them he wrote, "When I am tempted tocurse my fate, I place my hand on my heart and find your portrait there. As I gaze at it I am filled with a joy unutterable. Life seems to holdno pain, save that of severance from my beloved. "

At Nice, amid all the labours and anxieties of organising his rabblearmy for a campaign, his thoughts are always taking wings to her; herportrait is ever in his hand. He says his prayers before it; and, whenonce he accidentally broke the glass, he was in an agony of despair andsuperstitious foreboding. His one cry was, "Come to me! Come to my heartand to my arms. Oh, that you had wings!"

Even when flushed with the surrender of Piedmont after a fortnight'sbrilliant fighting, in which he had won half a dozen battles and reapedtwenty-one standards, he would have bartered all his laurels for a sightof the woman he loved so passionately. But while he was thus yearningfor her in distant Italy, Madame was much too happy in her beloved Paristo lend an ear to his pleadings. As wife of the great Napoleon she was averitable Queen, fawned on and flattered by all the great ones in thecapital. Hers was the place of honour at every fête and banquet; thebanners her husband had captured were presented to her amid a tumult ofacclamation; when she entered a theatre the entire house rose to greether with cheers. She was thus in no mood to leave her Queendom for thearms of her husband, whose unattractive person and clumsy ardour onlyrepelled her. 

When his letters calling her to him became more and more imperative, shecould no longer ignore them. But she could, at least, invent anexcellent excuse for her tarrying. She wrote to tell him that she wasexpecting to become a mother. This at least would put a stop to hisimportunity. And it did. Napoleon was full of delight--and self-reproachat the joyful news. "Forgive me, my beloved, " he wrote. "How can I everatone? You were ill and I accused you of lingering in Paris. My loverobs me of my reason, and I shall never regain it. .. . A child, sweet asits mother, is soon to lie in your arms. Oh! that I could be with you, even if only for one day!"

To his brother Joseph he writes in a similar strain: "The thought of herillness drives me mad. I long to see her, to hold her in my arms. I loveher so madly, I cannot live without her. If she were to die, I shouldhave absolutely nothing left to live for. "

When, however, he learns that Madame's illness is not sufficient tointerfere with her Paris gaieties, a different mood seizes him. Jealousyand anger take the place of anxious sympathy. He insists that she shalljoin him--threatens to resign his command if she refuses. Josephine nolonger dares to keep up her deception. She must obey. And thus, in aflood of angry tears, we see her starting on her long journey to Italy, in company with her dog, her maid, and a brilliant escort of officers. Arrived at Milan, she was welcomed by Napoleon with open arms; but"after two days of rapture and caresses, " he was face to face with thegreat crisis of Castiglione. His army was in imminent danger ofannihilation; his own fate and fortune trembled in the balance. Nothingshort of a miracle could save him; and on the third day of his newhoneymoon he was back again in the field at grips with fate. 

But even at this supreme crisis he found time to write daily letters tothe dear one who was awaiting the issue in Milan, begging her to sharehis life. "Your tears, " he writes, "drive me to distraction; they set myblood on fire. Come to me here, that at least we may be able to saybefore we die we had so many days of happiness. " Thus he pleads inletter after letter until Josephine, for very shame, is forced to yield, and to return to her husband, who, as Masson tells us, "was all day ather feet as before some divinity. "

Such days of bliss were, however, few and far between for the man whowas now in the throes of a Titanic struggle, on the issue of which hisfortunes and those of France hung. But when duty took him into dangerwhere his lady could not follow, she found ample solace. MonsieurCharles, Leclerc's adjutant, was all the cavalier she needed--an Adonisfor beauty, a Hercules for strength, the handsomest soldier inNapoleon's army, a past-master in all the arts of love-making. There wasno dull moment for Josephine with such a squire at her elbow to pourflatteries into her ears and to entertain her with his clever tongue. 

But Monsieur Charles had short shrift when Napoleon's jealousy wasaroused. He was quickly sent packing to Paris; and Josephine was left towrite to her aunt, "I am bored to extinction. " She was weary of herhusband's love-rhapsodies, disgusted with the crudities of his passion. She had, however, a solace in the homage paid to her everywhere. AtGenoa she was received as a Queen; at Florence the Grand Duke called her"cousin"; the entire army, from General to private, was under the spellof her beauty and the graciousness that captivated all hearts. She was, too, reaping a rich harvest of costly presents and bribes, from all whosought to win Napoleon's favour through her. 

The Italian campaign at last over, Madame found herself back again inher dear Paris, raised to a higher pinnacle of Queendom than ever, basking in the splendours of the husband whose glories she so gladlyshared, though she held his love in such light esteem. But for him, atleast, there was no time for dallying. Within a few months he was wavingfarewell to her again, from the bridge of the _Océan_ which was carryinghim off to the conquest of Egypt, buoyed by her promise that she wouldjoin him when his work was done. And long before he had reached Maltashe was back again in the vortex of Paris gaiety, setting the tongue ofscandal wagging by her open flirtation with one lover after another. 

It was not long before the news of Madame's "goings-on" reached as faras Alexandria. The dormant jealousy in Napoleon, lulled to rest sinceMonsieur Charles had vanished from the scene, was fanned into flame. Hewas furious; disillusion seized him, and thoughts of divorce began toenter his brain. Two could play at this game of falseness; and therewere many beautiful women in Egypt only too eager to console the greatNapoleon. 

When news came to Josephine that her husband had landed at Fréjus, andwould shortly be with her, she was in a state bordering on panic. Sheshrank from facing his anger; from the revelation of debts and unwifelyconduct which was inevitable. Her all was at stake and the game was morethan half lost. In her desperation she took her courage in both handsand set forth, as fast as horses could take her, to meet Napoleon, thatshe might at least have the first word with him; but as ill-luck wouldhave it, he travelled by a different route and she missed him. 

On her return to Paris she found the door of Napoleon's room barredagainst her. "After repeated knocking in vain, " says M. Masson, "shesank on her knees sobbing aloud. Still the door remained closed. For awhole day the scene was prolonged, without any sign from within. Wornout at last, Josephine was about to retire in despair, when her maidfetched her children. Eugène and Hortense, kneeling beside their mother, mingled their supplications with hers. At last the door was opened;speechless, tears streaming down his cheeks, his face convulsed with thestruggle that had rent his heart, Bonaparte appeared, holding out hisarms to his wife. "

Such was the meeting of the unfaithful Josephine and the husband who hadvowed that he would no longer call her wife. The reconciliation wascomplete; for Napoleon was no man of half-measures. He frankly forgavethe weeping woman all her sins against him; and with generous handremoved the mountain of debt her extravagance had heaped up--debtsamounting to more than two million francs, one million two hundredthousand of which she owed to tradespeople alone. 

But Napoleon's passion for his wife, of whose beauty few traces nowremained, was dead. His loyalty only remained; and this, in turn, was tobe swept away by the tide of his ambition. A few years later Josephinewas crowned Empress by her husband, and consecrated by the Pope, aftera priest had given the sanction of the Church to her incompletenuptials. 

She had now reached the dazzling zenith of her career. At the Tuileries, at St Cloud, and at Malmaison, she held her splendid Courts as Empress. She had the most magnificent crown jewels in the world; and at Malmaisonshe spent her happiest hours in spreading her gems out on the tablebefore her, and feasting her eyes on their many-hued fires. Herwardrobes were full of the daintiest and costliest gowns of which, weare told, more than two hundred were summer-dresses of percale and ofmuslin, costing from one thousand to two thousand francs each. 

Less than six years of such splendour and luxury, and the inevitable endof it all came. Napoleon's eyes were dazzled by the offer of an alliancewith the eldest daughter of the Austrian Emperor. His whole ambition nowwas focused on providing a successor to his crown (Josephine had failedhim in this important matter); and in Marie Louise of Austria he notonly saw the prospective mother of his heir, but an alliance with one ofthe great reigning houses of Europe, which would lend a much-neededglamour to his bourgeois crown. 

His mind was at last inevitably made up. Josephine must be divorced. Herpleadings and tears and faintings were powerless to melt him. And oneDecember day, in the year 1809, Napoleon was free to wed his AustrianPrincess; and Josephine was left to console herself as best she might, with the knowledge that at least she had rescued from her downfall alife-income of three million francs a year, on which she could stillplay the rôle of Empress at the Elysée, Malmaison, and Navarre, thesumptuous homes with which Napoleon's generosity had dowered the wifewho failed. 

CHAPTER XIII

THE ENSLAVER OF A KING

More than fifty years have gone since the penitent soul of Lola Monteztook flight to its Creator; but there must be some still living whosepulses quicken at the very mention of a name which recalls so muchmystery and romance and bewildering fascination of the days when, forthem, as for her, "all the world was young. "

Who was she, this woman whose beauty dazzled the eyes and whose witcheryturned the heads of men in the forties and fifties of last century? Adozen countries, from Spain to India, were credited with her birth. Somesaid she was the daughter of a noble house, kidnapped by gipsies in herinfancy; others were equally confident that she had for father thecoroneted rake, Lord Byron, and for mother a charwoman. 

Her early years were wrapped in a mystery which she mischievously helpedto intensify by declaring that her father was a famous Spanish toreador. Her origin, however, was prosaic enough. She was the daughter of anobscure army captain, Gilbert, who hailed from Limerick; her mother wasan Oliver, from whom she received her strain of Spanish blood; and thenames given to her at a Limerick font, one day in 1818, two months afterher parents had made their runaway match, were Marie Dolores ElizaRosanna. 

When Captain Gilbert returned, after his furlough-romance, to India, hetook his wife and child with him. Seven years later cholera removed him;his widow found speedy solace in the arms of a second husband, oneCaptain Craigie; and Dolores was packed off to Scotland to the care ofher stepfather's people until her schooldays were ended. 

In the next few years she alternated between the Scottish household, with its chilly atmosphere of Calvinism, and schools in Paris andLondon, until, her education completed, she escaped the husband, amummified Indian judge, whom her mother had chosen for her, by elopingwith a young army officer, a Captain James, and with him made the returnvoyage to India. 

A few months later her romance came to a tragic end, when her Lothariohusband fell under the spell of a brother-officer's wife and ran awaywith her to the seclusion of the Neilgherry Hills, leaving his wifestranded and desolate. And thus it was that Dolores Gilbert wiped thedust of India finally off her feet, and with a cheque for a thousandpounds, which her good-hearted stepfather slipped into her hand, startedonce more for England, to commence that career of adventure which hasscarcely a parallel even in fiction. She had had more than enough ofwedded life, of Scottish Calvinism, and of a mother's selfishindifference. She would be henceforth the mistress of her own fate. Shehad beauty such as few women could boast--she had talents and a stoutheart; and these should be her fortune. 

Her first ambition was to be a great actress; and when she found thatacting was not her forte she determined to dance her way to fame andfortune, and after a year's training in London and Spain she was readyto conquer the world with her twinkling feet and supple body. 

Of her first appearance as a danseuse, before a private gathering ofPressmen, we have the following account by one who was there: "Herfigure was even more attractive than her face, lovely as the latter was. Lithe and graceful as a young fawn, every movement that she made seemedinstinct with melody. Her dark eyes were blazing and flashing withexcitement. In her pose grace seemed involuntarily to preside over herlimbs and dispose their attitude. Her foot and ankle were almostfaultless. "

Such was the enthusiastic description of Lola Montez (as she now choseto call herself) on the eve of her bid for fame as a dancer who shouldperhaps rival the glories of a Taglioni. A few days later the world ofrank and fashion flocked to see the début of the danseuse whose fame hadbeen trumpeted abroad; and as Lola pirouetted on to the stage--the focusof a thousand pairs of eyes--she felt that the crowning moment of herlife had come. 

Almost before her twinkling feet had carried her to the centre of thestage an ominous sound broke the silence of expectation. A hiss camefrom one of the boxes; it was repeated from another, and another. Thesibilant sound spread round the house; it swelled into a sinister stormof hisses and boos. The light faded out of the dancer's eyes, the smilefrom her lips; and as the tumult of disapprobation rose to a deafeningclimax the curtain was rung down, and Lola rushed weeping from thestage. Her career as a dancer, in England, had ended at its birth. 

But Lola Montez was not the woman to sit down calmly under defeat. A fewweeks later we find her tripping it on the stage at Dresden, and atBerlin, where the King of Prussia himself was among her applauders. Butsuch success as the Continent brought her was too small to keep her nowdeplenished purse supplied. She fell on evil days, and for two years leda precarious life--now, we are told, singing in Brussels streets to keepstarvation from her side, now playing the political spy in Russia, andagain, by a capricious turn of fortune's wheel, being fêted and courtedin the exalted circles of Vienna and Paris. 

From the French capital she made her way to Warsaw, where stirringadventures awaited her, for before she had been there many days thePolish Viceroy, General Paskevitch, cast his aged but lascivious eyes onher young beauty and sent an equerry to desire her presence at thepalace. "He offered her" (so runs the story as told by her own lips)"the gift of a splendid country estate, and would load her with diamondsbesides. The poor old man was a comic sight to look upon--unusuallyshort in stature; and every time he spoke he threw his head back andopened his mouth so wide as to expose the artificial gold roof of hispalate. A death's head making love to a lady could not have been a morehorrible or disgusting sight. These generous gifts were mostrespectfully and very decidedly declined. "

But General Paskevitch was not disposed to be spurned with impunity. Thecontemptuous beauty must be punished for her scorn of his wooing; and, when she made her appearance on the stage the same night it was to agreeting of hisses by the Viceroy's hirelings. The next night broughtthe same experience; but when on the third night the storm arose, "Lola, in a rage, rushed down to the footlights and declared that those hisseshad been set at her by the director, because she had refused certaingifts from the old Prince, his master. Then came a tremendous shower ofapplause from the audience, and the old Princess, who was present, bothnodded her head and clapped her hands to the enraged and fiery littleLola. "

A tumultuous crowd of Poles escorted her to her lodgings that night. Shewas the heroine of the hour, who had dared to give open defiance to thehated Viceroy. The next morning Warsaw was "bubbling and raging with thesigns of an incipient revolution. When Lola Montez was apprised of thefact that her arrest was ordered she barricaded her door; and when thepolice arrived she sat behind it with a pistol in her hand, declaringthat she would certainly shoot the first man who should dare to breakin. " Fortunately for Lola, her pistol was not used. The French Consulcame to her rescue, claiming her as a subject of France, and thusprotecting her from arrest. But the order that she should quit Warsawwas peremptory, and Warsaw saw her no more. 

Back again in Paris, Lola found that even her new halo of romance waspowerless to win favour for her dancing. Again she was to hear the stormof hisses; and this time in her rage "she retaliated by making faces ather audience, " and flinging parts of her clothing in their faces. But ifParis was not to be charmed by her dainty feet it was ready to yield anunstinted homage to her rare beauty and charm. She found a flatteringwelcome in the most exclusive of _salons_; the cleverest men in thecapital confessed the charm of her wit and surrounded her with theirflatteries. 

M. Dujarrier, the most brilliant of them all, young, rich, and handsome, fell head over ears in love with her and asked her to be his wife. Butthe cup of happiness was scarcely at her lips before it was dashed away. Dujarrier was challenged to a duel by Beauvallon, a political enemy; andwhen Lola was on her way to stop the meeting she met a mournfulprocession bringing back her dead lover's body, on which she flungherself in an agony of grief and covered it with kisses. At thesubsequent trial of Beauvallon she electrified the Court by declaringwith streaming eyes, "If Beauvallon wanted satisfaction I would havefought him myself, for I am a better shot than poor Dujarrier ever was. "And she was probably only speaking the truth, for her courage was asgreat as the love she bore for the victim of the duel. 

As a child Lola had shocked her puritanical Scottish hosts by declaringthat "she meant to marry a Prince, " and unkindly as fate had treatedher, she had by no means relinquished this childish ambition. It may bethat it was in her mind when, a year and a half after the tragedy thathad so clouded her life in Paris, she drifted to Munich in search ofmore conquests. 

Now in the full bloom of her radiant loveliness--"the most beautifulwoman in Europe" many declared--mingling the vivacity of an Irish beautywith the voluptuous charms of a Spaniard--she was splendidly equippedfor the conquest of any man, be he King or subject; and Ludwig I. , Kingof Bavaria, had as keen an eye for female beauty as for the objects ofart on which he squandered his millions. 

It was this Ludwig who made Munich the fairest city in all Germany, andwho enriched his palace with the finest private collection of picturesand statues that Europe can boast. But among all his treasures of art hevalued none more than his gallery of portraits of fair women, each ofwhom had, at one time or another, visited his capital. 

Such was Ludwig, Bavaria's King, to whom Lola Montez now brought a newrevelation of female loveliness, to which his gallery could furnish norival. At first sight of her, as she danced in the opera ballet, he wasundone. The next day and the next his eyes were feasting on her charmsand her supple grace; and within a week she was installed at the Courtand was being introduced by His Majesty as "my best friend. "

And not only the King, but all Munich was at the feet of the lovely"Spaniard"; her drives through the streets were Royal progresses; herreceptions in the palace which Ludwig presented to her were thronged byall the greatest in Bavaria; on Prince and peasant alike she cast thespell of her witchery. As for Ludwig, connoisseur of the beautiful, hewas her shadow and her slave, showering on her gifts an Empress mightwell have envied. Fortune had relented at last and was now smiling hersweetest on the adventuress; and if Lola had been content with suchtriumphs as these the story of her later life might have been verydifferent. But she craved power to add to her trophies, and aspired totake the sceptre from the weak hand of her Royal lover. 

Never did woman make a more fatal mistake. On the one hand was arrayedthe might of Austria and of Rome, whose puppet Ludwig was; on the otherhand was a nation clamouring for reforms. Revolution was already in theair, and it was reserved to this too daring woman to precipitate thestorm. 

Her first ambition was to persuade Ludwig to dismiss his Ministry, toshake himself free from foreign influence, and to inaugurate the era ofreform for which his subjects were clamouring. In vain did Austria tryto win her to its side by bribes of gold (no less than a millionflorins) and the offer of a noble husband. To all its seductions Lolaturned as deaf an ear as to the offers of Poland's Viceroy. And sostrenuous was her championship of the people that the Cabinet wascompelled to resign in favour of the "Lola Ministry" of reformers. 

So far she had succeeded, but the price was still to pay. Thereactionaries, supported by Austria and the Romish Church, were quickto retaliate by waging remorseless war against the King's mistress; and, among their most powerful weapons, used the students' clubs of Munich, who, from being Lola's most enthusiastic admirers, became her bitterestenemies. 

To counteract this move Lola enrolled a students' corps of her own--asmall army of young stalwarts, whose cry was "Lola and Liberty, " and whowere sworn to fight her battles, if need be, to the death. Thus was thefire of revolution kindled by a woman's vanity and lust of power. Students' fights became everyday incidents in the streets of Munich, andon one occasion when Lola, pistol in hand, intervened to preventbloodshed, she was rescued with difficulty by Ludwig himself and adetachment of soldiers. 

The climax came when she induced the King to close the University for ayear--an autocratic step which aroused the anger not only of everystudent but of the whole country. The streets were paraded by mobscrying, "Down with the concubine!" and "Long live the Republic!"Barricades were erected and an influential deputation waited on the Kingto demand the expulsion of the worker of so much mischief. 

In vain did Ludwig declare that he would part with his crown rather thanwith the Countess of Landsfeld--for this was one of the titles he hadconferred on his favourite. The forces arrayed against him were toostrong, and the order of expulsion was at last conceded. It was only, however, when her palace was in flames and surrounded by a howling mobthat the dauntless woman deigned to seek refuge in flight, and, disguised as a boy, suffered herself to be escorted to the frontier. Twoweeks later Ludwig lost his crown. 

The remainder of this strange story may be told in a few words. Thrownonce more on the world, with a few hastily rescued jewels for all herfortune, Lola Montez resumed her stage life, appearing in London in adrama entitled "Lola Montez: or a Countess for an Hour. " Here she made aconquest of a young Life Guardsman, called Heald, who had recentlysucceeded to an estate worth £5000 a year; and with him she spent a fewyears, made wretched by continual quarrels, in one of which she stabbedhim. When he was "found drowned" at Lisbon she drifted to Paris, andlater to the United States, which she toured with a drama entitled "LolaMontez in Bavaria. " There she made her third appearance at the altar, with a bridegroom named Hull, whom she divorced as soon as the honeymoonhad waned. 

Thus she carried her restless spirit through a few more years ofwandering and growing poverty, until a chance visit to Spurgeon'sTabernacle revolutionised her life. She decided to abandon the stage andto devote the remainder of her days to penitence and good works. But theend was already near. In New York, where she had gone to lecture, shewas struck down by paralysis, and a few weeks before she had seen herforty-second birthday she died in a charitable institution, joiningfervently in the prayers of the clergyman who was summoned to herdeath-bed. 

"When she was near the end, and could not speak, " the clergyman says, "I asked her to let me know by a sign whether she was at peace. Shefixed her eyes on mine and nodded affirmatively. I do not think I eversaw deeper penitence and humility than in this poor woman. "

CHAPTER XIV

AN EMPRESS AND HER FAVOURITES

When Sophie Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst was romping on theramparts or in the streets of Stettin with burghers' children forplaymates, he would have been a bold prophet who would have predictedthat one day she would be the most splendid figure among Europe'ssovereigns, "the only great man in Europe, " according to Voltaire, "anangel before whom all men should be silent"; and that, while dazzlingEurope by her statesmanship and learning, she would afford more materialfor scandal than any woman, except perhaps Christina of Sweden, who everwore a crown. 

There is much, it is true, to be said in extenuation of the weaknessthat has left such a stain on the memory of Catherine II. Of Russia. Equipped far beyond most women with the beauty and charms that fascinatemen, and craving more than most of her sex the love of man, she wasmated when little more than a child to the most degenerate Prince in allEurope. 

The Grand Duke Peter, heir to the Russian throne, who at sixteen took towife the girl-Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, was already an expert inalmost every vice. Imbecile in mind, he found his chief pleasure in thecompany of the most degraded. He rarely went to bed sober--in fact, hisbride's first sight of him was when he was drunk, at the age of ten. Hewas, too, "a liar and a coward, vicious and violent; pale, sickly, anduncomely--a crooked soul in a prematurely ravaged body. "

Such was the Grand Duke Peter, to whom the high-spirited, beautifulPrincess Sophie (thenceforth to be known as "Catherine") was tied forlife one day in the year 1744--a youth the very sight of whom repelledher, while his vices filled her with loathing. Add to this revoltingunion the fact that she found herself under the despotic rule of theEmpress Elizabeth, who made no concealment of her hatred and jealousy ofthe fair young Princess, surrounded her with spies, and treated her as arebellious child, to be checked and bullied at every turn--and it is notdifficult to understand the spirit of recklessness and defiance that wassoon roused in Catherine's breast. 

There was at the Russian Court no lack of temptation to indulge thisspirit of revolt to the full. The young German beauty, mated to worsethan a clown, soon had her Court of admirers to pour flatteries into herdainty ears, and she would perhaps have been less than a woman if shehad not eagerly drunk them in. She had no need of anyone to tell herthat she was fair. "I know I am beautiful as the day, " she onceexclaimed, as she looked at her mirrored reflection in her first ballfinery at St Petersburg, with a red rose in her glorious hair; and themirror told no flattering tale. 

See the picture Poniatowski, one of her earliest and most ardent slaves, paints of the young Grand Duchess. "With her black hair she had adazzling whiteness of skin, a vivid colour, large blue eyes prominentand eloquent, black and long eyebrows, a Greek nose, a mouth that lookedmade for kissing, a slight, rather tall figure, a carriage that waslively, yet full of nobility, a pleasing voice, and a laugh as merry asthe humour through which she could pass with ease from the most playfuland childish amusements to the most fatiguing mathematicalcalculations. "

With the brain, even in those early years, of a clever man, she wasessentially a woman, with all a woman's passion for the admiration andlove of men; and one cannot wonder, however much one may deplore, thatwhile her imbecile husband was guzzling with common soldiers, or playingwith his toys and tin cannon in bed, vacuous smiles on his face, hisbeautiful bride should find her own pleasures in the homage of aSoltykoff, a Poniatowski, an Orloff, or any other of the legion oflovers who in quick succession took her fancy. 

The first among her admirers to capture her fancy was Sergius Soltykoff, her chamberlain, high-born, "beautiful as the day, " polished courtier, supple-tongued wooer, to whom the Grand Duchess gave the heart herhusband spurned. But Soltykoff's reign was short; the fickle Princess, ever seeking fresh conquests, wearied of him as of all her lovers inturn, and his place was taken within a year by Stanislas Poniatowski, afascinating young Pole, who returned to St Petersburg with a reputationof gallantry won in almost every Court of Europe. 

Poniatowski had not perhaps the physical perfections of his dethronedpredecessor, but he had the well-stored brain that made an even morepotent appeal to Catherine. He could talk "like an angel" on everysubject that appealed to her, from art to philosophy; and he had, moreover, a magnetic charm of manner which few women could resist. 

Such a lover was, indeed, after her heart, for he brought romance andadventure to his wooing; and whether he found his way to her boudoirdisguised as a ladies' tailor or as one of the Grand Duke's musicians, or made open love to her under the very nose of her courtiers, he playedhis rôle of lover to admiration. Once Peter, in jealous mood, threatenedto run his rival through with his sword, and, in his rage, "went intohis wife's bedroom and pulled her out of bed without leaving her time todress. " An hour later his anger had changed to an amused complaisance, and he was supping with the culprits, and with boisterous laughter wasdrinking their healths. 

When at last a political storm drove Poniatowski from Russia, Catherine, who never forgot a banished lover, secured for him the crown of Poland. 

Thus the favourites come and go, each supreme for a time, eachinevitably packed off to give place to a successor. With Poniatowskiaway in Poland, Catherine cast her eyes round her Court to find a thirdfavourite, and her choice was soon made, for of all her army of admirersthere was one who fully satisfied her ideal of handsome manhood. 

Of the five Orloff brothers, each a Goliath in stature and a Hercules instrength, the handsomest was Gregory, "the giant with the face of anangel. " Towering head and shoulders over most of his fellow-courtiers, with knotted muscles which could fell an ox or crush a horse-shoe withthe closing of a hand, Gregory Orloff was reputed the bravest man inRussia, as he was the idol of his soldiers. He was also a notoriousgambler and drinker and the hero of countless love adventures. 

No greater contrast could be possible than between this dare-devil sonof Anak and the cultured, almost feminine Poniatowski; but Catherineloved, above all things, variety, and here it was in startlingabundance. Nor was her new lover any the less desirable because he wassome years younger than herself, or that his grandfather had been acommon soldier in the army of Peter the Great. 

And Gregory Orloff proved himself as bold in wooing as he was brave inwar. For him there was no stealing up back stairs, no masquerading indisguises. He was the elect favourite of the future Empress of Russia, and all the world should know it. He was inseparable from his mistress, and paid his court to her under the eyes of her husband; whileCatherine, thus emboldened, made as little concealment of herpartiality. 

But troublous days were coming to break the idyll of their love. TheEmpress Elizabeth, as was inevitable, at last drank herself to death, and her nephew Peter, now a besotted imbecile of thirty-four, put on theImperial robes, and was free to indulge his madness without restraint. The first use he made of his freedom was to subject his wife to everyinsult and humiliation his debased brain could suggest. He flaunted hisamours and vices before her, taunted her in public with her ownindiscretions, and shouted in his cups that he would divorce her. 

Not content with these outrages on his Empress, he lost no opportunityof disgusting his subjects and driving his soldiers to the verge ofmutiny. Such an intolerable state of things could only have one issue. The Emperor was undoubtedly mad; the Emperor must go. 

Over the _coup d'état_ which followed we must pass hurriedly--theconspiracy of Catherine and the Orloffs, the eager response of the armywhich flocked to the Empress, "kissing me, embracing my hands, my feet, my dress, and calling me their saviour"; the marching of the insurgenttroops to Oranienbaum, with Catherine, astride on horseback, at theirhead; and Peter's craven submission, when he crawled on his knees to hiswife, with whimpering and tears, begging her to allow him to keep "hismistress, his dog, his negro, and his violin. "

The Emperor was safe behind barred doors at Mopsa; Catherine was nowEmpress in fact as well as name. Three weeks later Peter was dead; washe done to death by Catherine's orders? To this day none can say withcertainty. The story of this tragedy as told by Castèra makes gruesomereading. 

One day Alexis Orloff and Teplof appeared at Mopsa to announce to thedeposed sovereign his approaching deliverance and to ask a dinner ofhim. Glasses and brandy were ordered, and while Teplof was amusing theTsar, Orloff filled the glasses, adding poison to one of them. 

"The Tsar, suspecting no harm, took the poison and swallowed it. He wassoon seized with agonising pains. He screamed aloud for milk, but thetwo monsters again presented poison to him and forced him to take it. When the Tsar's valet bravely interposed he was hurled from the room. Inthe midst of the tumult there entered Prince Baratinski, who commandedthe Guard. Orloff, who had already thrown down the Tsar, pressed uponhis chest with his own knees, holding him fast at the same time by thethroat. Baratinski and Teplof then passed a table-napkin with a slidingknot round his neck, and the murderers accomplished the work of death bystrangling him. "

Such is the story as it has come down to us, and as it was believed inRussia at the time. That Gregory Orloff was innocent of a crime in whichhis own brother played a leading part is as little to be credited asthat Catherine herself was in ignorance of the design on her husband'slife. But, however this may be, we are told that when the news of herhusband's death was brought to the Empress at a banquet, she was to allappearance overcome with horror and grief. She left the table withstreaming eyes and spent the next few days in unapproachable solitudein her rooms. 

Thus at last Catherine was free both from the tyranny of Elizabeth andfrom the brutality of her bestial husband. She was sole sovereign of allthe Russias, at liberty to indulge any caprice that entered herversatile brain. That her subjects, almost to a man, regarded her withhorror as her husband's murderer, that this detestation was shared bythe army that had put her on the throne, and by the nobles who had beenher slaves, troubled her little. She was mistress of her fate, andstrong enough (as indeed she proved) to hold, with a firm grasp, thesceptre she had won. 

High as Gregory Orloff had stood in her favour before she came to hercrown, his position was now more splendid and secure. She showered herfavours on him with prodigal hand. Lands and jewels and gold weresquandered on her "First Favourite"--the official designation sheinvented for him; and he wore on his broad chest her miniature in ablazing oval of diamonds, the crowning mark of her approval. And to hisbrothers she was almost equally generous, for in a few years of herascendancy the Orloffs were enriched by vast estates on which forty-fivethousand serfs toiled, by palaces, and by gold to the amount ofseventeen million roubles. Such it was to be in the good books ofCatherine II. , Empress of Russia. 

With riches and power, Gregory's ambition grew until he dreamt ofsitting on the throne itself by Catherine's side; and in her foolishinfatuation even this prize might have been his, had not wiser counselscome to her rescue. "The Empress, " said Panine to her, "can do what shelikes; but Madame Orloff can never be Empress of Russia. " And thusGregory's greatest ambition was happily nipped in the bud. 

The man who had played his cards with such skill and discretion in theearly days of his love-making had now, his head swollen by pride andpower, grown reckless. If he could not be Emperor in name, he would atleast wield the sceptre. The woman to whom he owed all was, he thought, but a puppet in his hands, as ready to do his bidding as any of hisminions. But through all her dallying Catherine's smiles masked an ironwill. In heart she was a woman; in brain and will-power, a man. AndOrloff, like many another favourite, was to learn the lesson to hiscost. 

The time came when she could no longer tolerate his airs andassumptions. There was only one Empress, but lovers were plentiful, andshe already had an eye on his successor. And thus it was that one daythe swollen Orloff was sent on a diplomatic mission to arrange peacebetween Russia and Turkey. When she bade him good-bye she called him her"angel of peace, " but she knew that it was her angel's farewell to hisparadise. 

How the Ambassador, instead of making peace, stirred up the embers ofwar into fresh flame is a matter of history. But he was not long left towork such mad mischief. While he was swaggering at a Jassy fête, in acostume ablaze with diamonds worth a million roubles, news came to himof a good-looking young lieutenant who was not only installed in hisplace by Catherine's side, but was actually occupying his ownapartments. Within an hour he was racing back to St Petersburg, restingneither night nor day until he had covered the thousand leagues thatseparated him from the capital. 

Before, however, his sweating horses could enter it, he was stopped byCatherine's emissaries and ordered to repair to the Imperial Palace atGatshina. And then he realised that his sun had indeed come to itssetting. His honours were soon stripped from him, and although he wasallowed to keep his lands, his gold and jewels, the spoils of Cupid, thediamond-framed miniature, was taken away to adorn the breast of hissuccessor, the lieutenant. 

Under this cloud of disfavour Orloff conducted himself with suchresignation--none knew better than he how futile it was to fight--thatCatherine, before many months had passed, not only recalled him toCourt, but secured for him a Princedom of the Holy Empire. "As forPrince Gregory, " she said amiably, "he is free to go or stay, to hunt, to drink, or to gamble. I intend to live according to my own pleasure, and in entire independence. "

After a tragically brief wedded life with a beautiful girl-cousin, whodied of consumption, Orloff returned to St Petersburg to spend the lastfew months of his life, "broken-hearted and mad. " And to his last hourhis clouded brain was tortured with visions of the "avenging shade ofthe murdered Peter. "

CHAPTER XV

A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CINDERELLA

It was to all seeming a strange whim that caused Cardinal Mazarin, oneday in the year 1653, to summon his nieces, daughters of his sister, Hieronyme Mancini, from their obscurity in Italy to bask in the sunshineof his splendours in Paris. 

At the time of this odd caprice, Richelieu's crafty successor hadreached the zenith of his power. His was the most potent and splendidfigure in all Europe that did not wear a crown. He was the avowedfavourite and lover of Anne of Austria, Queen of France, to whose vanityhe had paid such skilful court--indeed it was common rumour that she hadactually given him her hand in secret marriage. The boy-King, LouisXIV. , was a puppet in his strong hands. He was, in fact, the dictator ofFrance, whose smiles the greatest courtiers tried to win, and beforewhose frowns they trembled. 

In contrast to such magnificence, his sister, Madame Mancini, was thewife of a petty Italian baron, who was struggling to bring up her fivedaughters on a pathetically scanty purse--as far removed from hermagnificent brother as a moth from a star. There was, on the face ofthings, every reason why the great and all-powerful Cardinal shouldleave his nieces to their genteel poverty; and we can imagine both theastonishment and delight with which Madame Mancini received the summonsto Paris which meant such a revolution in life for her and herdaughters. 

If the Mancini girls had no heritage of money, they had at least thedower of beauty. Each of the five gave promise of a rareloveliness--with the solitary exception of Marie, Madame's thirddaughter, who at fourteen was singularly unattractive even for thatawkward age. Tall, thin, and angular, without a vestige of grace eitherof figure or movement, she had a sallow face out of which two greatblack eyes looked gloomily, and a mouth wide and thin-lipped. She was, in addition, shy and slow-witted to the verge of stupidity. Marie, infact, was quite hopeless, the "ugly duckling" of a good-looking family, and for this reason an object of dislike and resentment to her mother. 

Certainly, said Madame, Marie must be left behind. Her other daughterswould be a source of pride to their uncle; he could secure great matchesfor them, but Marie--pah! she would bring discredit on the whole family. And so it was decided in conclave that the "ugly duckling" should beleft in a nunnery--the only fit place for her. But Marie happily had aspirit of her own. She would not be left behind, she declared; and ifshe must go to a nunnery, why there were nunneries in plenty in Franceto which they could send her. And Marie had her way. 

She was not, however, to escape the cloister after all, for to a Parisnunnery she was consigned when her Cardinal uncle had set eyes on her. "Let her have a year or two there, " was his verdict, "and, who knows, she may blossom into a beauty yet. At any rate she can put on flesh andnot be the scarecrow she is. " And thus, while her more favoured sisterswere revelling in the gaieties of Court life, Marie was sent to tell herbeads and to spend Spartan days among the nuns. 

Nearly two years passed before Mazarin expressed a wish to see his uglyniece again; and it was indeed a very different Marie who now made hercurtsy to him. Gone were the angular figure, the awkward movements, thesallow face, the slow wits. Time and the healthy life of the cloistershad done their work well. What the Cardinal now saw was a girl ofseventeen, of exquisitely modelled figure, graceful and self-possessed;a face piquant and full of animation, illuminated by a pair of gloriousdark eyes, and with a dazzling smile which revealed the prettiest teethin France. Above all, and what delighted the Cardinal most, she had nowa sprightly wit, and a quite brilliant gift of conversation. It was thusa smiling and gratified Cardinal who gave greeting to his niece, now asfair as her sisters and more fascinating than any of them. There was nodoubt that he could find a high-placed husband for her, and thus--forthis was, in fact, his motive for rescuing his pretty nieces from theirobscurity--make his position secure by powerful family alliances. 

It was not long before Mazarin fixed on a suitor in the person ofArmande de la Porte, son of the Marquis de la Meilleraye, one of themost powerful nobles in France. But alas for his scheming! Armande'sheart had already been caught while Marie was reciting her matins andvespers: He had lost it utterly to her beautiful sister, Hortense; hevowed that he would marry no other, and that if Hortense could not behis wife he would prefer to die. Thus Marie was rescued from a unionwhich brought her sister so much misery in later years, and for a timeshe was condemned to spend unhappy months with her mother at the Louvre. 

To this period of her life Marie Mancini could never look back without ashudder. "My mother, " she says, "who, I think, had always hated me, wasmore unbearable than ever. She treated me, although I was no longerugly, with the utmost aversion and cruelty. My sisters went to Court andwere fussed and fêted. I was kept always at home, in our miserablelodgings, an unhappy Cinderella. "

But Fortune did not long hide his face from Cinderella. Her "PrinceCharming" was coming--in the guise of the handsome young King, LouisXIV. Himself. It was one day while visiting Madame Mancini in herlodgings at the Louvre that Louis first saw the girl who was to playsuch havoc with his heart; and at the first sight of those melting darkeyes and that intoxicating smile he was undone. He came again andagain--always under the pretext of visiting Madame, and happy beyondexpression if he could exchange a few words with her daughter, Marie;until he soon counted a day worse than lost that did not bring him thestolen sweetness of a meeting. 

When, a few weeks later, Madame Mancini died, and Marie was recalled toCourt by her uncle, her life was completely changed for her. Louis hadnow abundant opportunities of seeking her side; and excellent use hemade of them. The two young people were inseparable, much to the alarmof the Cardinal and Madame Mère, the Queen. The young King was neverhappy out of her sight; he danced with her (and none could dance moredivinely than Marie); he listened as she sang to him with a voice whosesweetness thrilled him; they read the same books together in blissfulsolitude; she taught him her native Italian, and entranced him by thebrilliance of her wit; and when, after a slight illness, he heard of heranxious inquiries and her tears of sympathy, his conquest was complete. He vowed that she and no other should be his wife and Queen of France. 

But these halcyon days were not to last long. It was no part ofMazarin's scheming that a niece of his should sit on the throne. Theprospect was dazzling, it is true, but it would inevitably mean his owndownfall, so strongly would such an alliance be resented by friends aswell as enemies; and Anne of Austria was as little in the mood to bedeposed by such an obscure person as the "Mancini girl. " Thus it wasthat Queen and Cardinal joined hands to nip the young romance in thebud. 

A Royal bride must be found for Louis, and that quickly; andnegotiations were soon on foot to secure as his wife Margaret, Princessof Savoy. In vain did the boy-King storm and protest; equally futilewere Marie's tearful pleadings to her uncle. The fiat had gone forth. Louis must have a Royal bride; and she was already about to leave Italyon her bridal progress to France. 

It was, we may be sure, with a heavy heart that Marie joined thecavalcade which, with its gorgeous procession of equipages, its gailymounted courtiers, and its brave escort of soldiery, swept out of Parison its stately progress to Lyons, to meet the Queen-to-be. But there wasno escape from the humiliation, for she must accompany Anne of Austria, as one of her retinue of maids-of-honour. Arrived too soon at Lyons, Louis rides on to give first greeting to his bride, who is now within aday's journey; and returns with a smiling face to announce to his motherthat he finds the Princess pleasing to his eye, and to describe, withboyish enthusiasm, her grace and graciousness, her magnificent eyes, herbeautiful hair, and the delicate olive of her complexion, while Marie'sheart sinks at the recital. Could this be the lover who, but a few daysago, had been at her feet, vowing that she was the only bride in all theworld for him?

When he seeks her side and shamefacedly makes excuses for his seemingrecreancy, she bids him marry his "ugly bride" in accents of scorn, andthen bursts into tears, which she only consents to wipe away when hedeclares that his heart will always be hers and that he will never marrythe Italian Princess. 

But Margaret of Savoy was not after all to be Queen of France. She was, as it proved, merely a pawn in the Cardinal's deep game. It was aSpanish alliance that he sought for his young King; and when, at theeleventh hour, an ambassador came hurriedly to Lyons to offer theInfanta's hand, the Savoy Duke and his sister, the Princess, hadperforce to return to Italy "empty-handed. "

There was at least a time of respite now for Louis and Marie, and asthey rode back to Paris, side by side, chatting gaily and exchangingsweet confidences, the sun once more shone on the happiest young peoplein all France. Then followed a period of blissful days, of dances andfêtes, in brilliant succession, in which the lovers were inseparable;above all, of long rambles together, when, "the world forgetting, " theycould live in the happy present, whatever the future might have in storefor them. 

Meanwhile the negotiations for the Spanish marriage were ripening fast. Louis and Marie again appeal, first to the Cardinal, then to the Queen, to sanction their union, but to no purpose; both are inflexible. Theirfoolish romance must come to an end. As a last resource Marie flies tothe King, with tender pleadings and tears, begging him not to deserther; to which he answers that no power on earth shall make him wed theInfanta. "You alone, " he swears, "shall wear the crown of Queen"; and intoken of his love he buys for her the pearls that were the mosttreasured belongings of the exiled Stuart Queen, Henrietta Maria. Thelovers part in tears, and the following day Marie receives orders toleave Paris and to retire to La Rochelle. 

At every stage of her journey she was overtaken by messengers bearingletters from Louis, full of love and protestations of unflinchingloyalty; and when Louis moved with his Court to Bayonne, the lovers metonce more to mingle their tears. But Louis, ever fickle, was alreadywavering again. "If I must marry the Infanta, " he said, "I suppose Imust. But I shall never love any but you. "

Marie now realised that this was to be the end. In face of a lover soweak, and a fate so inflexible, what could she do but submit? And it waswith a proud but breaking heart that she wrote a few days later to tellLouis that she wished him not to write to her again and that she wouldnot answer his letters. One June day news came to her that her lover wasmarried and that "he was very much in love with the Infanta"; and evenher pride, crushed as it was, could not restrain her from writing to hersister, Hortense, "Say everything you can that is horrid about him. Point out all his faults to me, that I may find relief for my achingheart. " When, a few months later, Marie saw the King again, he receivedher almost as a stranger, and had the bad taste to sing the praises ofhis Queen. 

But Marie Mancini was the last girl in all France to wed herself long togrief or an outraged vanity. There were other lovers by the score amongwhom she could pick and choose. She was more lovely now than when therecreant Louis first succumbed to her charms--with a ripened witchery ofblack eyes, red lips, the flash of pearly teeth revealed by everydazzling smile, with glorious black hair, the grace of a fawn, and a"voluptuous fascination" which no man could resist. 

Prince Charles of Lorraine was her veriest slave, but Mazarin would havenone of him. Prince Colonna, Grand Constable of Naples, was morefortunate when he in turn came a-wooing. He bore the proudest name inItaly, and he had wealth, good-looks, and high connections to lend aglamour to his birth. The Cardinal smiled on his suit, and Marie, sinceshe had no heart to give, willingly gave her hand. 

Louis himself graced the wedding with his presence; and we are told, asthe white-faced bride "said the 'yes' which was to bind her to astranger, her eyes, with an indescribable expression, sought those ofthe King, who turned pale as he met them. "

Over the rest of Marie Mancini's chequered life we must hasten. After afew years of wedded life with her Italian Prince, "Colonna's earlypassion for his beautiful wife was succeeded by a distaste amounting tohatred. He disgusted her with his amours; and when she ventured toprotest against his infidelity, he tried to poison her. " This crowningoutrage determined Marie to fly, and, in company with her sister, Hortense, who had fled to her from the brutality of her own husband, shemade her escape one dark night to Civita Vecchia, where a boat wasawaiting the runaways. 

Hotly pursued on land and sea, narrowly escaping shipwreck, bravinghardships, hunger, and hourly danger of capture, the fugitives at lastreached Marseilles where Marie (Hortense now seeking a refuge in Savoy)began those years of wandering and adventure, the story of whichoutstrips fiction. 

Now we find her seeking asylum at convents from Aix to Madrid; nowqueening it at the Court of Savoy, with Duke Charles Emmanuel for lover;now she is dazzling Madrid with the Almirante of Castille and manyanother high-placed worshipper dancing attendance on her; and now she isin Rome, turning the heads of grave cardinals with her witcheries. Sometimes penniless and friendless, at others lapped in luxury; butcarrying everywhere in her bosom the English pearls, the last gift ofher false and frail Louis. 

Thus, through the long, troubled years, until old-age crept on her, theCardinal's niece wandered, a fugitive, over the face of Europe, alternately caressed and buffeted by fortune, until "at long last" theend came and brought peace with it. As she lay dying in the house of agood Samaritan at Pisa, with no other hand to minister to her, shecalled for pen and paper, and with failing hand wrote her own epitaph, surely the most tragic ever penned--"Marie Mancini Colonna--Dust andAshes. "

CHAPTER XVI

BIANCA, GRAND DUCHESS OF TUSCANY

More than three centuries have gone since Florence made merry over thedeath of her Grand Duchess, Bianca. It was an occasion for rejoicing;her name was bandied from lips to lips--"La Pessima Bianca"; jeers andlaughter followed her to her unmarked grave in the Church of SanLorenzo. But through the ages her picture has come down to us as shestrutted on the world's stage in all her pride and beauty, with avividness which few better women of her time retain. 

It was in the year 1548, when our boy-King, the sixth Edward, was freshto his crown, that Bianca Capello was cradled in the palace of herfather, one of the greatest men of Venice, Senator and Privy Councillor. As a child she was as beautiful as she was wilful; the pride of herfather, the despair of his wife, her stepmother--her little head full ofromance, her heart full of rebellion against any kind of discipline orrestraint. 

Before she had left the schoolroom Capello's daughter was, by commonconsent, the fairest girl in her native city, with a beauty riper thanher years. Tall, and with a well-developed figure of singular grace, she carried her head as proudly as any Queen. Her fair hair fell in arippling cascade far below her waist; her face, hands, and throat, weare told, were "white as lilies, " save for the delicate rose-colour thattinted her cheeks. Her eyes were large and dark, and of an almostdazzling brilliance; and her full, pouting lips were red and fragrant asa rose. 

Such was Bianca Capello on the threshold of womanhood, as you may seeher pictured to-day in Bronzino's miniature at the British Museum, witha loveliness which set the hearts of the Venetian gallants a-flutterbefore our Shakespeare was in his cradle. She might, if she would, havemated with almost any noble in Tuscany, had not her foolish, waywardfancy fallen on Pietro Bonaventuri, a handsome young clerk in Salviati'sbank, whose eyes had often strayed from his ledgers to follow her as, inthe company of her maid, the Senator's daughter took her daily walk pasthis office window. 

At sight of so fair a vision Pietro was undone; he fell violently inlove with her long before he exchanged a word with her, and although noone knew better than he the gulf that separated the daughter of anobleman and a Senator from the drudge of the quill, he determined towin her. Youth and good-looks such as his, with plenty of assurance tosupport them, had done as much for others, and they should do it forhim. How they first met we know not, but we know that shortly after thismomentous meeting Bianca had completely lost her heart to the knight ofthe quill, with the handsome face, the dark, flashing eyes, and thecourtly manner. 

Other meetings followed--secret rendezvous arranged by the duennaherself in return for liberal bribes--to keep which Bianca would stealout of her father's palace at dead of night, leaving the door openbehind her to ensure safe return before dawn. On one such occasion, sothe story runs, Bianca returned to find the door closed against her by atoo officious hand. She dared not wake the sleepers to gainadmittance--that would be to expose her secret and to cover herself withdisgrace--and in her fears and alarm she fled back to her lover. 

However this may be, we know that, for some urgent reason or other, theyoung lovers disappeared one night together from Venice and made theirway to Florence to find a refuge under the roof of Pietro's parents. Here a terrible disillusion met Bianca at the threshold. Herhusband--for, on the runaway journey, Pietro had secured the friendlyservices of a village priest to marry them--had told her that he was theson of noble parents, kin to his employers, the Salviatis. The home towhich he now introduced her was little better than a hovel, with povertylooking out of its windows. 

Here indeed was a sorry home-coming for the new-made bride, daughter ofthe great Capello! There was not even a drudge to do the housework, which Bianca was compelled to share with her bucolic mother-in-law. Itis even said that she was compelled to do laundry-work in order to keepthe domestic purse supplied. Her husband had forfeited his meagresalary; she had equally sacrificed the fortune left to her by hermother. Sordid, grinding poverty stared both in the face. 

To return to her own home in Venice was impossible. So furious were herfather and stepmother at her escapade that a large reward was advertisedfor the capture of her husband, "alive or dead, " and a sentence of deathhad been procured from the Council of Ten in the event of his arrest. More than this, a sentence of banishment was pronounced against Pietroand Bianca; the maid who had connived at their illicit wooing and flightpaid for her treachery with her life; and Pietro's uncle ended his daysin a loathsome dungeon. 

Such was the vengeance taken by Bartolomeo Capello. As for the runaways, they spent a long honeymoon in concealment and hourly dread of the fatethat hung over them. It was well known, however, in Florence where theywere in hiding; and curious crowds were drawn to the Bonaventuri hovelto catch a glimpse of the heroes of a scandal with which all Italy wasringing. Thus it was that Francesco de Medici first set eyes on thewoman who was to play so great a part in his life. 

There could be no greater contrast than that between Francesco deMedici, heir to the Tuscan Grand Dukedom, and the beautiful young wifeof the bank-clerk, now playing the rôle of maid-of-all-work andcharwoman. It is said that Francesco was a madman; and indeed what weknow of him makes this description quite plausible. He was a man ofblack brow and violent temper, repelling alike in appearance andmanner. He was, we are told, "more of a savage than a civilised humanbeing. " His food was deluged with ginger and pepper; his favourite farewas raw eggs filled with red pepper, and raw onions, of which he ateenormous quantities. He drank iced water by the gallon, and sleptbetween frozen sheets. He was a man, moreover, of evil life, familiarwith every form of vicious indulgence. His only redeeming feature was alove of art, which enriched the galleries of Florence. 

Such was the Medici--half-ogre, half-madman, who, riding one day througha Florence slum, saw at the window of a mean dwelling the beautiful faceof Bianca Bonaventuri, and rode on leaving his heart behind. Here indeedwas a dainty dish to set before his jaded appetite. The owner of thatfair face, with the crimson lips and the black, flashing eyes, must behis. On the following day a great Court lady, the Marchesa Mondragone, presents herself at the Bonaventuri door, with smiles and graciouswords, bearing an invitation to Court for the lady of the window. "Impossible, " bluntly answers Signora Bonaventuri; her daughter-in-lawhas no clothes fit to be seen at Court. "But, " persists the Marchesa, "that is a matter that can easily be arranged. It will be a pleasure tome to supply the necessary outfit, if the Signora and herdaughter-in-law will but come to-morrow to the Mondragone Palace. " Thebride, when consulted, is not unwilling; and the following day, incompany with her mother-in-law, she is effusively received by theMarchesa, and is feasting her eyes on exquisite robes and the glitterof rare gems, among which she is invited to make her choice. A momentlater Francesco enters, and with courtly grace is kissing the hand ofhis new divinity. .. . 

Then followed secret meetings such as marked Bianca's first unhappywooing in Venice--hours of rapture for the Tuscan Duke, of flatteredsubmission by the runaway bride; and within a few weeks we find Biancainstalled in a palace of her own with Francesco's guards and equipageever at its door, while his newly made bride, Giovanna, Archduchess ofAustria, kept her lonely vigil in the apartments which so seldom saw herhusband. 

Francesco, indeed, had no eyes or thought for any but the lovely womanwho had so completely enslaved him. As for her, condemn her as we must, much can be pleaded in extenuation of her conduct. She had been baselydeceived and betrayed. On the one side was a life of sordid poverty anddrudgery, with a husband for whom she had now nothing but dislike andcontempt; on the other was the ardent homage of the future ruler ofTuscany, with its accompaniment of splendour, luxury, and power. A figfor love! ambition should now rule her life. She would drain the cup ofpleasure, though the dregs might be bitter to the taste. 

She was now in the very prime of her beauty, and a Queen in all but thename. Between her and her full Queendom were but two obstacles--herlover's plain, unattractive wife, and her own worthless husband; and ofthese obstacles one was soon to be removed from her path. 

Pietro, who had been made chamberlain to the Tuscan Court, was morethan content that his wife should go her own way, so long as he wasallowed to go his. He was kept very agreeably occupied with love affairsof his own. The richest widow in Florence, Cassandra Borgianni, waseager to lavish her smiles and favours on him; and the knowledge thattwo of his predecessors in her affection had fallen under the assassin'sknife only lent zest to a love adventure which was after his heart. Warnings of the fate that might await him in turn fell on deaf ears. When his wife ventured to point out the danger he retorted, "If you sayanother word I will cut your throat. " The following night as he wasreturning from a visit to the widow, a dagger was sheathed in his heart, and Pietro's amorous race was run. 

Such was the end of the bank-clerk and his eleventh-hour glories andlove adventures. Now only Giovanna remained to block the way to thepinnacle of Bianca's ambition; and her health was so frail that thewaiting might not be long. Giovanna had provided no successor to herhusband (who had now succeeded to his Grand Dukedom); if Bianca couldsucceed where the Grand Duchess had failed, she could at least ensurethat a son of hers would one day rule over Tuscany. 

Thus one August day in 1576 the news flashed round Florence that a malechild had been born in the palace on the Via Maggiore. Francesco was inthe "seventh heaven" of delight. Here at last was the long-looked-forinheritor of his honours--the son who was to perpetuate the glories ofthe Medici and to thwart his brother, the Cardinal, who had soconfidently counted on the succession for himself. And Madame Biancaprofessed herself equally delighted, although her pleasure was qualifiedby fear. 

She had played her part with consummate cleverness; but there were twowomen who knew the true story of the birth of the child, which had beensmuggled into the palace from a Florence slum. One was the changeling'smother, a woman of the people, whom a substantial bribe had induced topart with her new-born infant; the other was Bianca's waiting woman. These witnesses to the imposture must be silenced effectually. 

Hired assassins made short work of the mother. The waiting-maid was"left for dead" in a mountain-pass, to which she had been lured; but shesurvived long enough at least to communicate her secret to the GrandDuke's brother, the Cardinal Ferdinand de Medici. 

Bianca was now in a parlous plight. At any moment her enemy, theCardinal, might betray her to her lover, and bring the carefully plannededifice of her fortunes tumbling about her ears. But she proved equaleven to this emergency. Taking her courage in both hands, she herselfconfessed the fraud to the Grand Duke, who not only forgave her (socompletely was he under the spell of her beauty) but insisted on callingthe gutter-child his son. 

The tables, however, were soon to be turned on her, for Giovanna, whohad long despaired of providing an heir to her husband, gave birth afew months later to a male child. Florence was jubilant, for the GrandDuchess was as beloved as her rival was detested; and the christening ofthe heir was made the occasion of festivities and rejoicing. Bianca'sday of triumph seemed at last to be over. For a time she left Florenceto hide her humiliation; but within a year she was back again, to bereceived with open arms of welcome by the Duke. During her absence shehad made peace with her family, and when her father and brother came toFlorence to visit her, they were received by Francesco with regalentertainments, and sent away loaded with presents and honours. 

Bianca had now reached the zenith of her power and splendour. Before shehad been back many months the Grand Duchess died, to the undisguisedrelief of her husband, who hastened from her funeral to the arms of herrival. Her position was now secure, unassailable; and before Giovannahad been two months in the family vault, Bianca was secretly married toher Grand ducal lover. 

Florence was furious. But what mattered that? The Venetian Senate hadrecognised Bianca as a true daughter of the Republic. She was the legalwife of the ruler of Tuscany. She was Grand Duchess at last, and shemeant all the world to know it. That she was cordially hated by herhusband's subjects, that the air was full of stories of herextravagance, her intemperance, and her cruelty, gave her no moment'sunhappiness. For eight years she reigned as Queen, wielding the sceptreher husband's hands were too weak or indifferent to hold. Giovanna'sson had followed his mother to the grave; and the child of the slums, who had been so fruitlessly smuggled into her palace, had beenlegitimated. 

The only thorn now left in her bed of roses was the enmity of the GrandDuke's brother, the Cardinal; and her greatest ambition was to win himto her side. In the autumn of 1787 he was invited to Florence, and asthe culmination of a series of festivities, a grand banquet was given, at which he had the place of honour, at her right hand. The feast wasdrawing near to its end. Bianca, with sparkling eyes and flushed face, looking lovelier than she had ever looked before, was at her happiest, for the Cardinal had at last succumbed to her bright eyes and honeyedwords. It was the crowning moment of her many triumphs, when life leftnothing more to desire. 

Then it was, at the supreme moment, that tragedy in its most terribleform fell on the scene of festivity and mirth. While Bianca was smilingher sweetest on the Cardinal she was seized by violent pains, "her mouthfoams, her face is distorted by agony; she shrieks aloud that she isdying. Francesco tries to go to her aid, but his steps are suddenlyarrested. He too is seized by the same terrible anguish. A few hourslater both she and he breathe their last breath. "

"Poison" was the word which ran through the palace and soon throughFlorence from blanched lips to blanched lips. Some said it was theCardinal who had done the deed; others whispered stories of a poisonedtart designed by Bianca for the Cardinal, who refused to be tempted. Whereupon the Grand Duke had eaten of it, and Bianca, "seeing that herplot had so tragically miscarried, seized the tart from her husband'shand and ate what was left of it. "

The truth will never be known. What we do know is that within a fewhours of the last joke and the last drained glass of that fatal banquetthe bodies of Francesco and Bianca were lying in death side by side inan adjacent room, the door of which was locked against the eyes of thecurious--even against the physicians. 

In the solemn lying-in-state that followed Bianca had no place. Francesco alone, by his brother's orders, wore his crown in death. Asfor Bianca, her body was hurried away and flung into the common vault ofSan Lorenzo, with the light of two yellow wax torches to bear itcompany, and the jibes and jeers of Florence for its only requiem. 

CHAPTER XVII

RICHELIEU, THE ROUÉ

In the drama of the French Court many a fine-feathered villain "strutshis brief hour" on the stage, dazzling eyes by his splendour, andshocking a world none too easily shocked in those days of easy morals byhis profligacy; but it would be difficult among all these gilded rakesto find a match for the Duc de Richelieu, who carried his villainiesthrough little less than a century of life. 

Born in 1696, when Louis XIV. Had still nearly twenty years of his longreign before him, Louis François Armand Duplessis, Duc de Richelieu, survived to hear the rumblings which heralded the French Revolutionninety-two years later; and for three-quarters of a century to be knownas the most accomplished and heartless roué in all France. Bearer of agreat name, and inheritor of the splendours and riches of hisgreat-uncle, the Cardinal, who was Louis XII. 's right-hand man, and, inhis day, the most powerful subject in Europe, the Duc was born with thefootball of fortune at his feet; and probably no man who has ever livedso shamefully prostituted such magnificent opportunities and gifts. 

As a boy, still in his teens, he had begun to play the rôle of Don Juanat the Court of the child-King, Louis XV. The most beautiful women atthe Court, we are told, went crazy over the handsome boy, who bore themost splendid name in France; and thus early his head was turned byflatteries and attentions which followed him almost to the grave. 

The young Duchesse de Bourgogne, the King's mother, made love to him, tothe scandal of the Court; and from Princesses of the Blood Royal to thehumblest serving-maid, there was scarcely a woman at Court who would nothave given her eyes for a smile from the Duc de Fronsac, as he was thenknown. 

How he revelled in his conquests he makes abundantly clear in theMemoirs he left behind him--surely the most scandalous ever written--inwhich he recounts his love affairs, in long sequence, with acold-blooded heartlessness which shocks the reader to-day, so long afterlover and victims have been dust. He revels in describing the artificesby which he got the most unassailable of women into his power--such asthe young and beautiful Madame Michelin, whose religious scruples provedsuch a frail barrier against the assaults of the young Lothario. Hechuckles with a diabolical pride as he tells us how he played off onemistress against another; how he made one liaison pave the way to itssuccessor; and how he abandoned each in turn when it had served itspurpose, and betrayed, one after another, the women who had trusted tohis nebulous sense of honour. 

A profligate so tempted as the Duc de Richelieu was from his earliestyears, one can understand, however much we may condemn; but for the manwho conducted his love affairs with such heartlessness and dishonour nolanguage has words of execration and contempt to describe him. 

From his earliest youth there was no "game" too high for our Don Juan tofly at. Long before he had reached manhood he counted his lady-loves bythe score; and among them were at least three Royal Princesses, Mademoiselle de Charolais, and two of the Regent's own daughters, theDuchesse de Berry and Mademoiselle de Valois, later Duchess of Modena, who, in their jealousy, were ready to "tear each other's eyes out" forlove of the Duc. Quarrels between the rival ladies were of everydayoccurrence; and even duels were by no means unknown. 

When, for instance, the Duc wearied of the lovely Madame de Polignac, this lady was so inflamed by hatred of her successor in his affections, the Marquise de Nesle, that she challenged her to a duel to the death inthe Bois de Boulogne. When Madame de Polignac, after a fierce exchangeof shots, saw her rival stretched at her feet, she turned furiously onthe wounded woman. "Go!" she shrieked. "I will teach you to walk in thefootsteps of a woman like me! If I had the traitor here, I would blowhis brains out!" Whereupon, Madame de Nesle, fainting as she was fromloss of blood, retorted that her lover was worthy that even more nobleblood than hers should be shed for him. "He is, " she said to the fewonlookers who had hurried to the scene on hearing the shots, "the mostamiable _seigneur_ of the Court. I am ready to shed for him the lastdrop of blood in my veins. All these ladies try to catch him, but I hopethat the proofs I have given of my devotion will win him for myselfwithout sharing with anyone. Why should I hide his name? He is the Ducde Richelieu--yes, the Duc de Richelieu, the eldest son of Venus andMars!"

Such was the devotion which this heartless profligate won from some ofthe most beautiful and highly placed ladies of France. What was thesecret of the spell he cast over them it is difficult to say. It is truethat he was a handsome man, as his portraits show, but there were menquite as handsome at the French Court; he was courtly and accomplished, but he had many rivals as clever and as skilled in courtly arts ashimself. His power must, one thinks, have lain in that strange magnetismwhich women seem so powerless to resist in men, and which outweighs allgraces of mind and physical perfections. 

The Duc's career, however, was not one unbroken dallying with love. Thrice, at least, he was sent to cool his ardour within the walls of theBastille--on one occasion as the result of a duel with the Comte deGacé. His lady-loves were desolate at the cruel fate which had overtakentheir idol. They fell on their knees at the Regent's feet, and, withtears streaming down their pretty cheeks, pleaded for his freedom. Twoof the Royal Princesses, both disguised as Sisters of Charity, visitedthe prisoner daily in his dungeon, carrying with them delicacies totempt his appetite, and consolation to cheer his captivity. 

In vain did Duc and Comte both declare that they had never fought aduel; and when, in the absence of proof, the Regent insisted that theirbodies should be examined for the convicting wounds, the impishRichelieu came triumphantly through the ordeal as the result of havinghis wounds covered with pink taffeta and skilfully painted!

It was a more serious matter that sent him again to the Bastille in1718. False to his country as to the victims of his fascinations, he hadbeen plotting with Spain, France's bitterest enemy, for the seizure ofthe Regent and the carrying him off across the Pyrenees; and certainincriminating letters sent to him by Cardinal Alberoni had beenintercepted, and were in the Regent's hands. The Regent's daughter, Mademoiselle de Valois, warned her lover of his danger, but too late. Before he could escape, he was arrested, and with an escort of archerswas safely lodged in the Bastille. 

Our Lothario was now indeed in a parlous plight. Lodged in the deepestand most loathsome dungeon of the Bastille--a dungeon so damp thatwithin a few hours his clothes were saturated--without even a chair tosit on or a bed to lie on, with legions of hungry rats for company, hewas now face to face with almost certain death. The Regent, whose loveaffairs he had thwarted a score of times, and who thus had no reason tolove the profligate Duc, vowed that his head should pay the price of histreason. 

Once more the Court ladies were reduced to hysterics and despair, andforgot their jealousies in a common appeal to the Regent for clemency. Mademoiselle de Valois was driven to distraction; and when tears andpleadings failed to soften her father's heart, she declared in thehearing of the Court that she would commit suicide unless her lover wasrestored to liberty. In company with her rival, Mademoiselle deCharolais, she visited the dungeon in the dark night hours, taking flintand steel, candles and bonbons, to weep with the captive. 

She squandered two hundred thousand livres in attempts to bribe hisguards, but all to no purpose: and it was not until after six months ofdurance that the Regent at last yielded--moved partly by his daughter'stears and threats and partly by the pleadings of the Cardinal-Archbishopof Paris--and the prisoner was released, on condition that the Cardinaland the Duchesse de Richelieu would be responsible for his custody andgood behaviour. 

A few days later we find the irresponsible Richelieu climbing over thegarden-walls of his new "prison" at Conflans, racing through thedarkness to Paris behind swift horses, and making love to the Regent'sown mistresses and his daughter!

But such facilities for dalliance with the Regent's daughter were soonto be brought to an end. Mademoiselle de Valois, in order to ensure herlover's freedom, had at last consented to accept the hand of the Duke ofModena, an alliance which she had long fought against; and before theDuc had been a free man again many weeks she paid this part of hisransom by going into exile, and to an odious wedded life, in a farcorner of Italy--much, it may be imagined, to the Regent's relief, forhis daughters and their love affairs were ever a thorn in his side. 

It was not long, however, before the new Duchess of Modena began to sighfor her distant lover, and to bombard him with letters begging him tocome to her. "I cannot live without your love, " she wrote. "Come tome--only, come in disguise, so that no one can recognise you. "

This was indeed an adventure after the Lothario Duc's heart--anadventure with love as its reward and danger as its spur. And thus itwas that, a few weeks after the Duchess had sent her invitation, twotravel-stained pedlars, with packs on their backs, entered the city ofModena to find customers for their books and phamphlets. At the smallhostelry whose hospitality they sought the hawkers gave their names asGasparini and Romano, names which masked the identities of theknight-errant Duc and his friend, La Fosse, respectively. 

The following morning behold the itinerant hawkers in the palacegrounds, their wares spread out to tempt the Court ladies on their wayto Mass, when the Duchess herself passed their way and deigned to stopto converse graciously with the strangers. To her inquiries theyanswered that they came from Piedmont; and their curious jargon ofFrench and Italian lent support to the story. After inspecting theirwares she asked for a certain book. "Alas! Madame, " Gasparini answered, "I have not a copy here, but I have one at my inn. " And bidding himbring the volume to her at the palace, the great lady resumed her devoutjourney to Mass. 

A few hours later Gasparini presented himself at the palace with therequired volume, and was ushered into the august presence of theDuchess. A moment later, on the closing of the door, the Royal lady wasin the "hawker's" arms, her own flung around his neck, as with tears ofjoy she welcomed the lover who had come to her in such strange guise andat such risk. 

A few stolen moments of happiness was all the lovers dared now to allowthemselves. The Duke of Modena was in the palace, and the situation wasfull of danger. But on the morrow he was going away on a huntingexpedition, and then--well, then they might meet without fear. 

On the following day, the coast now clear, behold our "hawker" once moreat the palace door, with a bundle of books under his arm for theinspection of Her Highness, and being ushered into the Duchess'sreading-room, full of souvenirs of the happy days they had spenttogether in distant Paris and Versailles. Among them, most prized ofall, was a lock of his own hair, enshrined on a small altar, andsurmounted by a crown of interlocked hearts. This lock, the Duchess toldhim, she had kissed and wept over every day since they had parted. 

Each day now brought its hours of blissful meeting, so seemingly shortthat the Princess would throw her arms around her "hawker's" neck andimplore him to stay a little longer. One day, however, he tarried toolong; the Duke returned unexpectedly from his hunting, and before thelovers could part, he had entered the room--just in time to see thepedlar bowing humbly in farewell to his Duchess, and to hear him assureher that he would call again with the further books she wished to see. 

Certainly it was a strange spectacle to greet the eyes of a home-comingDuke--that of his lady closeted with a shabby pedlar of books; but atleast there was nothing suspicious in it, and, getting into conversationwith the "hawker, " the Duke found him quite an entertaining fellow, fullof news of what was going on in the world outside his small duchy. 

In his curious jargon of French and Italian, Gasparini had much to tellHis Highness apart from book-talk. He entertained him with the latestscandals of the French Court; with gossip about well-known personages, from the Regent to Dubois. "And what about that rascal, the Duc deRichelieu?" asked the great man. "What tricks has he been up to lately?""Oh, " answered Gasparini, with a wink at the Duchess, who was crimsonwith suppressed laughter, "he is one of my best customers. Ah, Monsieurle Duc, he is a gay dog. I hear that all the women at the Court aremadly in love with him; that the Princesses adore him, and that he isdriving all the husbands to distraction. "

"Is it as bad as that?" asked the Duke, with a laugh. "He is a moredangerous fellow even than I thought. And what is his latest game?"

"Oh, " answered the hawker, "I am told that he has made a wager that hewill come to Modena, in spite of you; and I shouldn't be at allsurprised if he does!"

"As for that, " said the Duke, with a chuckle, "I am not afraid. I defyhim to do his worst; and I am willing to wager that I shall be a matchfor him. However, " he added, "you're an entertaining fellow; so come andsee me again whenever you please. "

And thus, by the wish of the Duchess's husband himself, the ducal"hawker" became a daily visitor at the palace, entertaining His Highnesswith his chatter, and, when his back was turned, making love to hiswife, and joining her in shrieks of laughter at his easy gullibility. 

Thus many happy weeks passed, Gasparini, the pedlar, selling fewvolumes, but reaping a rich harvest of stolen pleasure, and revelling inan adventure which added such a new zest to a life sated with morehumdrum love-making. But even the Duchess's charms began to pall; theladies he had left so disconsolate in Paris were inundating him withletters, begging him to return to them--letters, all forwarded to himfrom his château at Richelieu, where he was supposed to be in retreat. The lure was too strong for him; and, taking leave of the Duchess infloods of tears, he returned to his beloved Paris to fresh conquests. 

And thus it was with the gay Duc until the century that followed that ofhis birth was drawing to its close; until its sun was beginning to setin the blood of that Revolution, which, if he had lived but one yearlonger, would surely have claimed him as one of its first victims. Three wives he led to the altar--the last when he had passed into theeighties--but no marital duty was allowed to interfere with the amourswhich filled his life; and to the last no pity ever gave a pang to the"conscience" which allowed him to pick and fling away his flowers atwill, and to trample, one after another, on the hearts that yielded tohis love and trusted to his honour. 

CHAPTER XVIII

THE INDISCRETIONS OF A PRINCESS

It was an ill fate that brought Caroline, Princess ofBrunswick-Wolfenbüttel to England to be the bride of George, Prince ofWales, one April day in the year 1795; although probably no woman hasever set forth on her bridal journey with a lighter or prouder heart, for, as she said, "Am I not going to be the wife of the handsomestPrince in the world?" If she had any momentary doubt of this, a glanceat the miniature she carried in her bosom reassured her; for thepictured face that smiled at her was handsome as that of an Apollo. 

No wonder the Princess's heart beat high with pride and pleasure duringthat last triumphal stage of her journey to her husband's arms; for hewas not only the handsomest man, with "the best shaped leg in Europe, "he was by common consent the "greatest gentleman" any Court could show. Picture him as he made his first appearance at a Court ball. "His coat, "we are told, "was of pink silk, with white cuffs; his waistcoat of whitesilk, embroidered with various-coloured foil and adorned with aprofusion of French paste. And his hat was ornamented with two rows ofsteel beads, five thousand in number, with a button and a loop of thesame metal, and cocked in a new military style. " See young "Florizel" ashe makes his smiling and gracious progress through the avenues ofcourtiers; note the winsomeness of his smiles, the inimitable grace ofhis bows, his pleasant, courtly words of recognition, and say if everRoyalty assumed a form more agreeable to the eye and captivating to thesenses. 

"Florizel" was indeed the most splendid Prince in the world, and themost "perfect gentleman. " He was also, though his bride-to-be littleknew it, the most dissolute man in Europe, the greatest gambler andvoluptuary--a man who was as false to his friends as he was traitor toevery woman who crossed his path, a man whom no appeal of honour ormercy could check in his selfish pursuit of pleasure. 

"I look through all his life, " Thackeray says, "and recognise but a bowand a grin. I try and take him to pieces, and find silk stockings, padding, stays, a coat with frogs and a fur collar, a star and blueribbon, a pocket handkerchief prodigiously scented, one of Truefitt'sbest nutty brown wigs reeking with oil, a set of teeth and a huge blackstock, under-waistcoats, more under-waistcoats, and then--nothing. French ballet-dancers, French cooks, horse-jockeys, buffoons, procuresses, tailors, boxers, fencing-masters, china, jewel andgimcrack-merchants--these were his real companions. "

Such was the husband Princess Caroline came so light-heartedly, withlaughter on her lips, from Brunswick to wed, little dreaming of thedisillusion and tears that were to await her on the very threshold ofthe life to which she had looked forward with such high hopes. 

We get the first glimpse of Caroline some twelve years earlier, when SirJohn Stanley, who was making the grand tour, spent a few weeks at herfather's Court. He speaks of her as a "beautiful girl of fourteen, " andadds, "I did think and dream of her day and night at Brunswick, and fora year afterwards I saw her for hours three or fours times a week, butas a star out of my reach. " Years later he met her again under sadlychanged conditions. "One day only, " he writes, "when dining with her andher mother at Blackheath, she smiled at something which had pleased her, and for an instant only I could have fancied she had been the Carolineof fourteen years old--the lovely, pretty Caroline, the girl my eyes hadso often rested on, with light and powdered hair hanging in curls on herneck, the lips from which only sweet words seemed as if they would flow, with looks animated, and always simply and modestly dressed. "

Lady Charlotte Campbell, too, gives us a glimpse of her in these earlyand happier years, before sorrow had laid its defacing hand on her. "ThePrincess was in her early youth a pretty girl, " Lady Charlotte says, "with fine light hair--very delicately formed features, and a finecomplexion--quick, glancing, penetrating eyes, long cut and rather smallin the head, which gave them much expression; and a remarkablydelicately formed mouth. "

It was in no happy home that the Princess had been cradled one May dayin 1768. Her father, Charles William, Duke of Brunswick, was an austeresoldier, too much absorbed in his military life and his mistress, togive much thought to his daughters. Her mother, the Duchess Augusta, sister of our own George III. , was weak and small-minded, too muchoccupied in self-indulgence and scandal-talking to trouble about thetraining of her children. 

Princess Caroline herself draws an unattractive picture of herhome-life, in answer to Lady Charlotte Campbell's question, "Were yousorry to leave Brunswick?" "Not at all, " was the answer; "I was sicktired of it, though I was sorry to leave my fader. I loved my faderdearly, better than any oder person. But dere were some unlucky tings inour Court which made my position difficult. My fader was most entirelyattached to a lady for thirty years, who was in fact his mistress. Shewas the beautifullest creature and the cleverest, but, though my fadercontinued to pay my moder all possible respect, my poor moder could notsuffer this attachment. And de consequence was, I did not know what todo between them; when I was civil to one, I was scolded by the other, and was very tired of being shuttlecock between them. "

But in spite of these unfortunate home conditions Caroline appears tohave spent a fairly happy girlhood, thanks to her exuberant spirits; andsuch faults as she developed were largely due to the lack of parentalcare, which left her training to servants. Thus she grew up with quite ashocking disregard of conventions, running wild like a young filly, andfinding her pleasure and her companions in undesirable directions. Strange stories are told of her girlish love affairs, which seem to havebeen indiscreet if nothing worse, while her beauty drew to her many ahigh-placed wooer, including the Prince of Orange and Prince George ofDarmstadt, to all of whom she seems to have turned a cold shoulder. 

But the wilful Princess was not to be left mistress of her own destiny. One November day, in 1794, Lord Malmesbury arrived at the BrunswickCourt to demand her hand for the Prince of Wales, whom his burden ofdebts and the necessity of providing an heir to the throne of Englandwere at last driving reluctantly to the altar. And thus a new anddazzling future opened for her. To her parents nothing could have beenmore welcome than this prospect of a crown for their daughter; while toher it offered a release from a life that had become odious. 

"The Princess Caroline much embarrassed on my first being presented toher, " Malmesbury enters in his diary--"pretty face, not expressive ofsoftness--her figure not graceful, fine eyes, good hands, tolerableteeth, fair hair and light eyebrows, good bust, short, with what theFrench call 'des épaules impertinentes, ' vastly happy with her futureexpectations. "

Such were Malmesbury's first impressions of the future Queen of England, whom it was his duty to prepare for her exalted station--a duty which heseems to have taken very seriously, even to the regulating of hertoilette and her manners. Thus, a few days after setting eyes on her, his diary records: "She _will_ call ladies whom she meets for the firsttime 'Mon coeur, ma chère, ma petite, ' and I am obliged to rebuke andcorrect her. " He lectures her on her undignified habit of whispering andgiggling, and impresses on her the necessity of greater care in herattire, on more constant and thorough ablution, more frequent changes oflinen, the care of her teeth, and so on--all of which admonitions sheseems to have taken in excellent part, with demure promises ofamendment, until he is impelled to write, "Princess Caroline improvesvery much on a closer acquaintance--cheerful and loves laughing. If shecan get rid of her gossiping habit she will do very well. "

Thus a few months passed at the Brunswick Court. The ceremonial ofbetrothal took place in December--"Princess Caroline much affected, butreplies distinctly and well"; the marriage-contract was signed, andfinally on 28th March the Princess embarked for England on her journeyto the unseen husband whose good-looks and splendour have filled herwith such high expectations. That she had not yet learnt discretion, inspite of all Malmesbury's homilies, is proved by the fact that she spentthe night on board in walking up and down the deck in the company of ahandsome young naval officer, conduct which naturally gave cause forobservation and suspicion in the affianced bride of the future King ofEngland. 

It was well, perhaps, that she had snatched these few hours of innocentpleasure: for her first meeting with her future husband was wellcalculated to scatter all her rosy dreams. Arrived at last at St James'sPalace, "I immediately notified the arrival to the King and Prince ofWales, " says Malmesbury; "the last came immediately. I accordinglyintroduced the Princess Caroline to him. She very properly attempted tokneel to him. He raised her gracefully enough, and embraced her, saidbarely one word, turned round and retired to a distant part of theapartment, and calling to me said: 'Harris, I am not well; pray get me aglass of brandy. ' I said, 'Sir, had you not better have a glass ofwater?' Upon which he, much out of humour, said with an oath: 'No; Iwill go directly to the Queen, ' and away he went. The Princess, leftduring this short moment alone, was in a state of astonishment; and, onmy joining her, said, '_Mon Dieu_, is the Prince always like that? Ifind him very fat, and not at all as handsome as his portrait. '"

Such was the Princess's welcome to the arms of her handsome husband andto the Court over which she hoped to reign as Queen; nor did she receivemuch warmer hospitality from the Prince's family. The Queen, who haddesigned a very different bride for her eldest son, received her withscarcely disguised enmity, while the King, although, as he afterwardsproved, kindly disposed towards her, treated her at first with anamiable indifference. And certainly her attitude seems to have beencalculated to create an unfavourable impression on her new relatives andon the Court generally. 

At the banquet which followed her reception, Malmesbury says, "I was farfrom satisfied with the Princess's behaviour. It was flippant, rattling, affecting raillery and wit, and throwing out coarse, vulgar hints aboutLady----, who was present. The Prince was evidently disgusted, and thisunfortunate dinner fixed his dislike, which, when left to herself, thePrincess had not the talent to remove; but by still observing the samegiddy manners and attempts at cleverness and coarse sarcasm, increasedit till it became positive hatred. "

"What, " as Thackeray asks, "could be expected from a wedding which hadsuch a beginning--from such a bridegroom and such a bride? Malmesburytells us how the Prince reeled into the Chapel Royal to be married onthe evening of Wednesday, the 8th of April; and how he hiccuped out hisvows of fidelity. " "My brother, " John, Duke of Bedford, records, "wasone of the two unmarried dukes who supported the Prince at the ceremony, and he had need of his support; for my brother told me the Prince was sodrunk that he could scarcely support himself from falling. He told mybrother that he had drunk several glasses of brandy to enable him to gothrough the ceremony. There is no doubt that it was a _compulsory_marriage. "

With such an overture, we are not surprised to learn that the Royalbridegroom spent his wedding-night in a state of stupor on the floor ofhis bedroom; or that at dawn, when he had slept off the effects of hisdebauch, "pages heard cries proceeding from the nuptial chamber, andshortly afterwards saw the bridegroom rush out violently. "

Nor, we may be sure, was the Prince's undisguised hatred of his bride inany way mitigated by the stories which Lady Jersey and others of hexrivals poured into his willing ears--stories of her attachment to ayoung German Prince whom she was not allowed to marry; of a mysteriousillness, followed by a few weeks' retreat; of that midnight promenadewith the young naval officer; of assignations with Major Toebingen, thehandsomest soldier in Europe, who so proudly wore the amethyst tie-pinshe had presented to him--these and many another story which reflectednone too well on her reputation before he had set eyes on her. But itneeded no such whispered scandal to strengthen his hatred of a bride whopersonally repelled him, and who had been forced on him at a time whenhis heart was fully engaged with his lawful wedded wife, MrsFitzherbert, when it was not straying to Lady Jersey, to "Perdita" orothers of his legion of lights-o'-love. 

From the first day the ill-fated union was doomed. One violent scenesucceeded another, until, before she had been two months a wife, thePrince declared that he would no longer live with her. He would onlywait until her child was born; then he would formally and finally leaveher. Thus, three months after the birth of the Princess Charlotte, thedeed of separation was signed, and Caroline was at last free to escapefrom a Court which she had grown to detest, with good reason, and from ahusband whose brutalities and infidelities filled her with loathing. 

She carried with her, however, this consolation, that the "great, heartypeople of England loved and pitied her. " "God bless you! we will bringyour husband back to you, " was among the many cries that greeted her asshe left the palace on her way to exile. But, to quote Thackeray again, "they could not bring that husband back; they could not cleanse thatselfish heart. Was hers the only one he had wounded? Steeped inselfishness, impotent for faithful attachment and manly enduringlove--had it not survived remorse, was it not accustomed to desertion?"

For a time the outcast Princess, with her infant daughter, led a retiredlife amid the peace and beauty of Blackheath, where she lived as simplyas any bourgeoise, playing the "lady bountiful" to the poor among herneighbours. Her chief pleasure seems to have been to surround herselfwith cottage babies, converting Montague House into a "positive nursery, littered up with cradles, swaddling-bands, feeding bottles, and otherthings of the kind. "

But even to this rustic retirement watchful eyes and slanderous tonguesfollowed her; and it was not long before stories were passing from mouthto mouth in the Court of strange doings at Blackheath. The Princess, itwas said, had become very intimate with Sir John Douglas and his lady, her near neighbours, and more especially with Sydney Smith, agood-looking naval captain, who shared the Douglas home, a man, moreover, with whom she had had suspicious relations at her father'sCourt many years earlier. It was rumoured that Captain Smith was afrequent and too welcome guest at Montague House, at hours when discreetladies are not in the habit of receiving their male friends. Nor was thehandsome captain the only friend thus unconventionally entertained. There was another good-looking naval officer, a Captain Manby, and alsoSir Thomas Lawrence, the famous painter, both of whom were admitted to asuspicious intimacy with the Princess of Wales. 

These rumours, sufficiently disquieting in themselves, were followed bystories of the concealed birth of a child, who had come mysteriously toswell the numbers of the Princess's protégés of the crèche. Even KingGeorge, whose sympathy with his heir's ill-used wife was a matter ofcommon knowledge, could not overlook a charge so grave as this. It mustbe investigated in the interests of the State, as well as of hisfamily's honour; and, by his orders, a Commission of Peers was appointedto examine into the matter and ascertain the truth. 

The inquiry--the "Delicate Investigation" as it was appropriatelycalled--opened in June, 1806, and witness after witness, from theDouglases to Robert Bidgood, a groom, gave evidence which more or lesssupported the charges of infidelity and concealment. The result of theinvestigation, however, was a verdict of acquittal, the Commissionersreporting that the Princess, although innocent, had been guilty of veryindiscreet conduct--and this verdict the Privy Council confirmed. 

For the Princess it was a triumphant vindication, which was hailed withacclamation throughout the country. Even the Royal family showed theirsatisfaction by formal visits of congratulation to the Princess, fromthe King himself to the Duke of Cumberland who conducted hissister-in-law on a visit to the Court. 

But the days of Blackheath and the amateur nursery were at an end. ThePrincess returned to London, and found a more suitable home inKensington Palace for some years, where she held her Court in rivalry ofthat of her husband at Carlton House. Here she was subjected to everyaffront and slight by the Prince and his set that the ingenuity ofhatred could devise, and to crown her humiliation and isolation, herdaughter Charlotte was taken from her and forbidden even to recogniseher when their carriages passed in the street or park. 

Can we wonder that, under such remorseless persecutions, the Princessbecame more and more defiant; that she gave herself up to a life ofrecklessness and extravagance; that, more and more isolated from her ownworld, she sought her pleasure and her companions in undesirablequarters, finding her chief intimates in a family of Italian musicians;or that finally, heart-broken and despairing, she determined once forall to shake off the dust of a land that had treated her so cruelly?

In August, 1814, with the approval of King and Parliament, the Princessleft England to begin a career of amazing adventures and indiscrétions, the story of which is one of the most remarkable in history. 

CHAPTER XIX

THE INDISCRETIONS OF A PRINCESS--_continued_

When Caroline, Princess of Wales, shook the dust of England off her feetone August day in the year 1814, it was only natural that her stepsshould first turn towards the Brunswick home which held for her at leasta few happy memories, and where she hoped to find in sympathy and oldassociations some salve for her wounded heart. 

But the fever of restlessness was in her blood--the restlessness whichwas to make her a wanderer over the face of the earth for half a dozenyears. The peace and solace she had looked for in Brunswick eluded her;and before many days had passed she was on her way through Switzerlandto the sunny skies of Italy, where she could perhaps find in distractionand pleasure the anodyne which a life of retirement denied her. She wasfull of rebellion against fate, of hatred against her husband and hiscountry which had treated her with such unmerited cruelty. She woulddefy fate; she would put a whole continent between herself and thenightmare life she had left behind, she hoped for ever. She would pursueand find pleasure at whatever cost. 

In September, within five weeks of leaving England, we find her atGeneva, installed in a suite of rooms next to those occupied by MarieLouise, late Empress of France, a fugitive and exile like herself, andanimated by the same spirit of reckless revolt against destiny--MarieLouise, we read, "making excursions like a lunatic on foot and onhorseback, never even seeming to dream of making people remember that, before she became mixed up with a Corsican adventurer, she was anArchduchess"; the Princess of Wales, equally careless of her dignity andposition, finding her pleasure in questionable company. 

"From the inn where she was stopping she heard music, and, quiteunaccompanied, immediately entered a neighbouring house and disappearedin the medley of dancers. " A few days later, at Lausanne, "she learnedthat a little ball was in progress at a house opposite the 'GoldenLion, ' and she asked for an invitation. After dancing with everybody andanybody, she finished up by dancing a Savoyard dance, called a_fricassée_, with a nobody. Madame de Corsal, who blushed and wept forthe rest of the company, declares that it has made her ill, and that shefeels that the honour of England has been compromised. " Thus early didCaroline begin that career of indiscretion, to call it by no worse name, which made of her six years' exile "a long suicide of her reputation. "

In October we find the Princess entering Milan, with her retinue ofladies-in-waiting, chamberlains, equerry, page, courier, and coachman, and with William Austin for companion--a boy, now about thirteen, whomshe treated as her son, and who was believed by many to be the child ofher imprudence at Blackheath, although the Commission of the "DelicateInvestigation" had pronounced that he was son of a poor woman atDeptford. At Milan, as indeed wherever she wandered in Italy, the"vagabond Princess" was received as a Queen. Count di Bellegarde, theAustrian Governor, was the first to pay homage to her; at the ScalaTheatre, the same evening, her entry was greeted with thunders ofapplause, and whenever she appeared in the Milan streets it was to anaccompaniment of doffed hats and cheers. 

One of her first visits was to the studio of Giuseppe Bossi, the famousand handsome artist, whom she requested to paint her portrait. "OnThursday, " Bossi records, "I sketched her successfully in the characterof a Muse; then on Friday she came to show me her arms, of which shewas, not without reason, decidedly vain--she is a gay and whimsicalwoman, she seems to have a good heart; at times she is ennuyée throughlack of occupation. " On one occasion when she met in the studio someFrench ladies, two of whom had been mistresses of the King ofWestphalia, the poor artist was driven to distraction by the chatter, the singing, and dancing, in which the Princess especially displayed heragility, until, as he pathetically says, "the house seemed possessed ofthe devil, and you can imagine with what kind of ease it was possiblefor me to work. "

Before leaving Milan the Princess gave a grand banquet to Bellegardeand a number of the principal men of the city--a feast which was to havevery important and serious consequences, for it was at this banquet thatGeneral Pino, one of her guests, introduced to Caroline a new courier, aman who, though she little dreamt it at the time, was destined to play avery baleful part in her life. 

This new courier was a tall and strikingly handsome man, who had seenservice in the Italian army, until a duel, in which he killed a superiorofficer, compelled him to leave it in disgrace. At the time he enteredthe Princess's service he was a needy adventurer, whose scheming brainand utter lack of principle were in the market for the highest bidder. "He is, " said Baron Ompteda, "a sort of Apollo, of a superb andcommanding appearance, more than six feet high; his physical beautyattracts all eyes. This man is called Pergami; he belongs to Milan, andhas entered the Princess's service. The Princess, " he significantlyadds, "is shunned by all the English people of rank; her behaviour hascreated the most marked scandal. "

Such was the man with whose life that of the Princess of Wales was to beso intimately and disastrously linked, and whose relations with her wereto be displayed to a shocked world but a few years later. It was indeedan evil fate that brought this "superb Apollo" of the crafty brain andconscienceless ambition into the life of the Princess at the high tideof her revolt against the world and its conventions. 

When Caroline and her retinue set out from Milan for Tuscany it was inthe wake of Pergami, who had ridden ahead to discharge his duties as_avant courier_; but before Rome was reached his intimacy andfamiliarity with his mistress were already the subject of whisperedcomments and shrugged shoulders. At a ball given in her honour at Romeby the banker Tortonia, the Princess shocked even the least prudish bythe abandon of her dancing and the tenuity of her costume, which, we aretold, consisted of "a single embroidered garment, fastened beneath thebosom, without the shadow of a corset and without sleeves. " And atNaples, where King Joachim Murat gave her a regal reception, with asequel of fêtes and gala-performances in honour of the wife of theRegent of England, she attended a rout, at the Teatro San Carlo, solightly attired "that many who saw her at her first entrance looked herup and down, and, not recognising her, or pretending not to recogniseher, began to mutter disapprobation to such an extent that she wascompelled to withdraw. .. . The English residents soon let her understand, by ceasing to frequent her palace, that even at Naples there werecertain laws of dress which could not be trampled underfoot in thishoydenish manner. "

While Caroline was thus defying convention and even decency, watchfuleyes were following her everywhere. A body of secret police, whoseheadquarters were at Milan, was noting every indiscretion; and everyweek brought fresh and damaging reports to England, where they wereeagerly welcomed by the Regent and his satellites. And while thePrincess was thus playing unconsciously, or recklessly, into the handsof the enemy, Pergami was daily making his footing in her favour moresecure. Before Caroline left Naples he had been promoted from courier toequerry, and in this more exalted and privileged rôle was always at herside. So marked, in fact, was the intimacy even at this early stage, that the Princess's retinue, one after another, and on one flimsypretext or another, deserted her in disgust, each vacancy, as itoccurred, being filled by one of Pergami's relatives--his brother, hisdaughter, his sister-in-law (the Countess Oidi), and others, untilCaroline was soon surrounded by members of the ex-courier's family. 

From Naples she wandered to Genoa, and from Genoa to Milan and Venice, received regally everywhere by the Italians and shunned by the Englishresidents. From Venice she drifted to Lake Como, with whose beauties shewas so charmed that she decided to make her home there, purchasing theVilla del Garrovo for one hundred and fifty thousand francs, and settingthe builders to work to make it a still more splendid home for a futureQueen of England. But even to the lonely isolation of the Italian lakesthe eyes of her husband's secret agents pursued her, spying on her everymovement--"uncertain shadows gliding in the twilight along the paths andbetween the hedges, and even in the cellars and attics of thevilla"--until the shadowy presences filled her with such terror andunrest that she sought to escape them by a long tour in the East. 

Thus it was that in November, 1815, the Princess and her Pergamihousehold set forth on their journey to Sicily, Tunis, Athens, thecities of the East and Jerusalem, the strange story of which was to beunfolded to the world five years later. How intimate the Princess andher handsome, stalwart courier had by this time become was illustratedby the Attorney-General in his opening speech at her memorable trial. "One day, after dinner, when the Princess's servants had withdrawn, awaiter at the hotel, Gran Brettagna, saw the Princess put a goldennecklace round Pergami's neck. Pergami took it off again and put itjestingly on the neck of the Princess, who in her turn once more removedit and put it again round Pergami's neck. "

As early as August in this year Pergami had his appointed place at thePrincess's table, and his room communicating with hers, and on thevarious voyages of the Eastern tour there was abundant evidence to prove"the habit which the Princess had of sleeping under one and the sameawning with Pergami. "

But it is as impossible in the limits of space to follow Caroline andher handsome cavalier through every stage of these Eastern wanderings, as it is unnecessary to describe in detail the evidence of intimacy solavishly provided by the witnesses for the prosecution at thetrial--evidence much of which was doubtless as false as it was venal. That the Princess, however, was infatuated by her cavalier, and that shewas in the highest degree indiscreet in her relations with him, seemsabundantly clear, whatever the precise degree of actual guilt may havebeen. 

Pergami had now been promoted from equerry to Grand Chamberlain to HerRoyal Highness, and as further evidence of her favour, she bought forhim in Sicily an estate which conferred on its owner the title of Barondella Francina. At Malta she procured for him a knighthood of thatisland's famous order; at Jerusalem she secured his nomination as Knightof the Holy Sepulchre; and, to crown her favours, she herself institutedthe Order of St Caroline, with Pergami for Grand Master. Behold now ourex-courier and adventurer in all his new glory as Grand Chamberlain andlover of a future Queen of England, as Baron della Francina, Knight oftwo Orders and Grand Master of a third, while every post of profit inthat vagrant Court was held by some member of his family!

The Eastern tour ended, which had ranged from Algiers and Egypt toConstantinople and Jerusalem, and throughout which she had progressedand been received as a Queen, Caroline settled down for a time in hernow restored villa on Lake Como, celebrating her return by lavishcharities to her poor neighbours, and by popular fêtes and balls, in oneof which "she danced as Columbine, wearing her lover's ear-rings, whilstPergami, dressed as harlequin and wearing her ear-rings, supported her. "

But even here she was to find no peace from her husband's spies, whoseevidence, confirmed on oath by a score of witnesses, was beingaccumulated in London against the longed-for day of reckoning. And itwas not long before Caroline and her Grand Chamberlain were on theirwanderings again--this time to the Tyrol, to Austria, and throughNorthern Italy, always inseparable and everywhere setting the tongue ofscandal wagging by their indiscreet intimacy. Even the tragic death inchildbirth of her only daughter, the Princess Charlotte, which put allEngland in mourning, seemed powerless to check her career of folly. Itis true that, on hearing of it, she fell into a faint and afterwardsinto a kind of protracted lethargy, but within a few weeks she had flungherself again into her life of pleasure-chasing and reckless disregardof convention. 

But matters were now hurrying fast to their tragic climax. For some timethe life of George III. Had been flickering to its close. Any day mightbring news that the end had come, and that the Princess was a Queen. Andfor some time Caroline had been bracing herself to face this crisis inher life and to pit herself against her enemies in a grim struggle for acrown, the title to which her years of folly (for such at the best theyhad been) had so gravely endangered. Over the remainder of her vagrantlife, with its restless flittings, and its indiscretions, marked byspying eyes, we must pass to that February morning in 1820 when, toquote a historian, "the Princess had scarcely reached her hotel (atFlorence) when her faithful major-domo, John Jacob Sicard, appearedbefore her, accompanied by two noblemen, and in a voice full of emotionannounced, 'You are Queen. '"

The fateful hour had at last arrived when Caroline must either renounceher new Queendom or present a bold front to her enemies and claim thecrown that was hers. After a few indecisive days, spent in Rome, wherenews reached her that the King had given orders that her name should beexcluded from the Prayer Book, her wavering resolution took a definiteand determined shape. She would go to London and face the storm whichshe knew her coming would bring on her head. 

At Paris she was met by Lord Hutchinson with a promise of an increase ofher yearly allowance to fifty thousand pounds, on condition that sherenounced her claim to the title of Queen, and consented never to putfoot again in England--an offer to which she gave a prompt and scornfulrefusal; and on the afternoon of 5th June she reached Dover, greeted byenthusiastic cheers and shouts of "God save Queen Caroline!" by thefluttering of flags, and the jubilant clanging of church-bells. Thewanderer had come back to the land of her sorrow, to find herselfwelcomed with open arms by the subjects of the King whose brutality haddriven her to exile and to shame. 

The story of the trial which so soon followed her arrival has tooenduring a place in our history to call for a detailed description--thetrial in which all the weight of the Crown and the testimony of a smallarmy of suborned witnesses--"a troupe of comedians in the pay ofmalevolence, " to quote Brougham--were arrayed against her; and in whichshe had so doughty a champion in Brougham, and such solace and supportin the sympathy of all England. We know the fate of that Bill of Painsand Penalties, which charged her with having permitted a shamefulintimacy with one Bartolomeo Pergami, and provided as penalty that sheshould be deprived of the title and privilege of Queen, and that hermarriage to King George IV. Should be for ever dissolved andannulled--how it was forced through the House of Lords with adiminishing majority, and finally withdrawn. And we know, too, theoutburst of almost delirious delight that swept from end to end ofEngland at the virtual acquittal of the persecuted Caroline. "Thegenerous exultation of the people was, " to quote a contemporary, "beyondall description. It was a conflagration of hearts. "

We also recall that pathetic scene when Caroline presented herself atthe door of Westminster Abbey to demand admission, on the day of herhusband's coronation, to be received by the frigid words, "We have noinstructions to allow you to pass"; and we can see her as, "humiliated, confounded, and with tears in her eyes, " she returned sadly to hercarriage, the heart crushed within her. Less than three weeks later, seized by a grave and mysterious illness, she laid down for ever theburden of her sorrows, leaving instructions that her tomb should bearthe words:

CAROLINETHE INJURED QUEEN OF ENGLAND. 

As for Pergami, the idol with the feet of clay, who had clouded her lastyears in tragedy, he survived for twenty years more to enjoy his honoursand his ill-gotten gold; while William Austin, who had masqueraded as aPrince and called Caroline "mother, " ended his days, while still a youngman, in a madhouse. 

CHAPTER XX

THE LOVE-AFFAIRS OF A REGENT

When Louis XIV. Laid down, one September day in the year 1715, the crownwhich he had worn with such splendour for more than seventy years, hissceptre fell into the hands of his nephew Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, whofor eight years ruled France as Regent, and as guardian of thechild-King, the fifteenth Louis. 

Seldom in the world's history has a reign, so splendid as that of theSun-King, closed in such darkness and tragedy. The disastrous war of theSpanish Succession had drained France of her strength and her gold. Shelay crushed under a mountain of debt--ten thousand million francs; shewas reduced to the lowest depths of wretchedness, ruin, and disorder, and it was at this crisis in her life as a nation that fate placed achild of four on her throne, and gave the reins of power into the handsof the most dissolute man in Europe. 

Not that Philippe of Orleans lacked many of the qualities that go to themaking of a ruler and a man. He had proved himself, in Italy and inSpain, one of the bravest of his country's soldiers, and an able, far-seeing leader of armies; and he had, as his Regency proved, no meangifts of statesmanship. But his kingly qualities were marred by thetaint of birth and early environment. 

Such good qualities as he had he no doubt drew from his mother, thecapable, austere, high-minded Elizabeth of Bavaria, who to her last daywas the one good influence in his life. To his father, Louis XIV. 'syounger brother, who is said to have been son of Cardinal Mazarin, Anneof Austria's lover, and who was the most debased man of his time in allFrance, he just as surely owed the bias of sensuality to which hechiefly owes his place in memory. 

And not only was he thus handicapped by his birth; he had for tutor thatarch-scoundrel Dubois--the "grovelling insect" who rarely opened hismouth without uttering a blasphemy or indecency, and who initiated hischarge, while still a boy, into every base form of so-called pleasure. 

Such was the man who, amid the ruins of his country, inaugurated inFrance an era of licentiousness such as she had never known--anincomprehensible mass of contradictions--a kingly presence with the soulof a Caliban, statesman and sinner, high-minded and low-living, spendinghis days as a sovereign, a rôle which he played to perfection, and hisnights as a sot and a sensualist. 

It was doubtless Dubois who was mostly responsible for the baseness inthe Regent's character--Dubois who had taught him a contempt forreligion and morality, the cynical view of life which makes the pleasureof the moment the only thing worth pursuing, at whatever cost; and whohad impressed indelibly on his mind that no woman is virtuous and thatmen are knaves. And there was never any lack of men to continue Dubois'teaching. He gathered round him the most dissolute gallants in France, in whose company he gave the rein to his most vicious appetites. His"roués" he dubbed them, a title which aptly described them; althoughthey affected to give it a very different interpretation. They were theRegent's roués, they said, no doubt with the tongue in the cheek, because they were so devoted to him that they were ready, in hisdefence, to be broken on the wheel (_la roue_)!

Each of these boon-comrades was a past-master in the arts ofdissipation, and each was also among the most brilliant men of his day. The Chevalier de Simiane was famous alike for his drinking powers andhis gift of graceful verse; De Fargy was a polished wit, and thehandsomest man in France, with an unrivalled reputation for gallantry;the Comte de Nocé was the Regent's most intimate friend fromboyhood--brother-in-law he called him, since they had not only tastesbut even mistresses in common. Then there were the Marquis de la Fare, Captain of Guards and _bon enfant_; the Marquis de Broglio, the biggestdebauchee in France, the Marquis de Canillac, the Duc de Brancas, andmany another--all famous (or infamous) for some pet vice, and all thebest of boon-companions for the pleasure-loving Regent. 

Strange tales are told of the orgies of this select band which theRegent gathered around him--orgies which shocked even the France of theeighteenth century, when she was the acknowledged leader in licence. Atsix o'clock every evening Philippe's kingship ended for the day. He hadhad enough--more than enough--of State and ceremonial, of interviewingambassadors, and of the flatteries of Princes and the obsequious homageof courtiers. Pleasure called him away from the boredom of empire; andat the stroke of six we find him retiring to the company of hismistresses and his roués to feast and drink and gamble until dawn brokeon the revelry--his laugh the loudest, his wit the most dazzling, hisstories the most piquant, keeping the table in a roar with hisinfectious gaiety. He was Regent no longer; he was simply a _boncamarade_, as ready to exchange familiarities with a "lady of theballet" as to lead the laughter at a joke at his own expense. 

At nine o'clock, when the fun had waxed furious and wine had set theslowest tongue wagging and every eye a-sparkle, other guests streamed into join the orgy--the most beautiful ladies of the Court, from theDuchesse de Gesores and Madame de Mouchy to the Regent's own daughter, the Duchesse de Berry, who, young as she was, had little to learn of thearts of dissipation. And in the wake of these high-born women wouldfollow laughing, bright-eyed troupes of dancing and chorus-girls fromthe theatres with an escort of the cleverest actors of Paris, to jointhe Regent's merry throng. 

The champagne now flowed in rivers; the servants were sent away; thedoors were locked and the fun grew riotous; ceremony had no place there;rank and social distinctions were forgotten. Countesses flirted withcomedians; Princes made love to ballet-girls and duchesses alike. Theleader of the moment was the man or woman who could sing the most daringsong, tell the most piquant story, or play the most audacious practicaljoke, even on the Regent himself. Sometimes, we are told, the lightswould be extinguished, and the orgy continued under the cover ofdarkness, until the Regent suddenly opened a cupboard, in which lightswere concealed--to an outburst of shrieks of laughter at the scenesrevealed. 

Thus the mad night hours passed until dawn came to bring the revels to aclose; or until the Regent would sally forth with a few chosen comradeson a midnight ramble to other haunts of pleasure in the capital--thelower the better. Such was the way in which Philippe of Orleans, Regentof France, spent his nights. A few hours after the carouse had ended hewould resume his sceptre, as austere and dignified a ruler as you wouldfind in Europe. 

It must not be imagined that Philippe was the only Royal personage whothus set a scandalous example to France. There was, in fact, scarcely aPrince or Princess of the Blood Royal whose love affairs were notconducted flagrantly in the eyes of the world, from the Dowager Duchessede Bourbon, who lavished her favours on the Scotch financier, John Law, of Lauriston, to the Princesse de Conte, who mingled her piety with amarked partiality for her nephew, Le Kallière. 

As for the Regent's own daughters, from the Duchesse de Berry, toLouise, Queen of Spain, each has left behind her a record almost asscandalous as that of her father. It was, in fact, an era of corruptionin high places, when, in the reaction that followed the dismal anddecorous last years of Louis XIV. 's reign, Pleasure rose phoenix-likefrom the ashes of ruin and flaunted herself unashamed in every guisewith which vice could deck her. 

It must be said for the Regent, corrupt as he was, that he never abusedhis position and his power in the pursuit of beauty. His mistressesflocked to him from every rank of life, from the stage to the highestCourt circles, but remained no longer than inclination dictated. And thefascination is not far to seek, for Philippe d'Orléans was of the menwho find easy conquests in the field of love. He was one of thehandsomest men in all France; and to his good-looks and his reputationfor bravery he added a manner of rare grace and courtliness, a suppletongue, and that strange magnetic power which few women could resist. 

No King ever boasted a greater or more varied list of favourites, inwhich actresses and duchesses vied with each other for his smiles, in arivalry which seems to have been singularly free from petty jealousy. Among the beauties of the Court we find the Duchesse de Fedari, theDuchesse de Gesores, the Comtesse de Sabran at one extreme; andactresses like Emilie, Desmarre, and La Souris at the other, prettybutterflies of the footlights who appealed to the Regent no more thanMadame d'Averne, the gifted pet of France's wits and literary men, themost charming "blue-stocking" of her day. And all, withoutexception--duchesses, countesses, and actresses--were as ready to givetheir love to Philippe, the man, as to the Duc d'Orléans, Regent ofFrance. 

Even in his relations with these ministers of pleasure, the Regent'sbetter qualities often exhibit themselves agreeably. To the prettyactress, Emilie, whose heart was so completely his, he always acted witha characteristic generosity and forbearance; and her conduct is by nomeans less pleasing than his. Once, we are told, when he expressed awish to give her a pair of diamond ear-rings at a cost of fifteenthousand francs, she demurred at accepting so valuable a present. "Ifyou must be so generous, " she pleaded, "please don't give me theear-rings, which are much too grand for such as me. Give me, instead, ten thousand francs, so that I may buy a small house to which I canretire when you no longer love me as you now do. "

Emilie had scarcely returned home, however, when a Court officialappeared with a package containing, not ten thousand, but twenty-fivethousand francs, which her lover insisted on her keeping; and when shereturned fifteen thousand francs, he promptly sent them back again, declaring that he would be very angry if she refused again to acceptthem. 

His love, indeed, for Emilie seems to have been as pure and deep as anyof which he was capable. It was no fleeting passion, but an affectionbased on a sincere respect for her character and mental gifts. Sohighly, indeed, did he think of her judgment that she became his mosttrusted counsellor. She sat by his side when he received ambassadors;he consulted her on difficult problems of State; and it was her advicethat he often followed in preference to the wisdom of all his ministers;for, as he said to Dubois, "Emilie has an excellent brain; she alwaysgives me the best counsel. "

When at last he had to part from the modest and accomplished actress itwas under circumstances which speak well for his generosity. A formerlover, the Marquis de Fimarcon, on his return from fighting in Spain, sought Emilie out, and, blazing with jealousy, insisted that she shouldleave the Regent and return to his protection. He vowed that, if sherefused, he would murder her; and when, in her alarm, she sought refugein a convent at Charenton, he threatened to burn the nuns alive in theircells unless they restored her to him. Thus it was that, rather thanallow Emilie to run any risks from her revengeful and brutal lover, theRegent relinquished his claim to her; and only when Fimarcon's continuedbrutality at last made intervention necessary, did he order the bully tobe arrested and consigned to the prison of Fort l'Évêque. 

It is, however, in the story of Mademoiselle Aissé, the Circassianslave, that we find the best illustration of the chivalry which underlaythe Regent's passion for women, and which he never forgot in his wildestexcesses. This story, one of the most touching in French history, opensin the year 1698, when a band of Turkish soldiers returned toConstantinople from a raid in the Caucasus, bringing with them, amongmany other captives, a beautiful child of four years, said to be thedaughter of a King. So lovely was the little Circassian fairy that whenthe Comte de Feriol, France's Ambassador to Turkey, set eyes on her, hedecided to purchase her; and she became his property in exchange forfifteen hundred livres. 

That she might have every advantage of training to fit her for hisseraglio in later years, the child was sent to Paris, to the home of theAmbassador's brother, President de Feriol, where she grew to beautifulgirlhood as a member of the family, as fair a flower as ever wastransplanted to French soil. Thus she passed the next thirteen years ofher young life, charming all by her sweetness of disposition, as she wonthe homage of all by her remarkable beauty and grace. 

Such was Ayesha, or Aissé, the Circassian maid, when at last her "owner"returned to Paris to fall under the spell of her radiant beauty and toclaim her as his chattel, bought with good gold and trained at his costto adorn his harem. In vain did Aissé weep and plead to be spared a fatefrom which every fibre of her being shrank in horror. Her "master" wasinexorable. "When I bought you, " he said, "it was my intention to makeyou my daughter or my mistress. I now intend that you shall become boththe one and the other. " Friendless and helpless, she was obliged toyield; and for six years she had to submit to the endearments of herprotector, a man more than old enough to be her father, until his deathbrought her release. 

At twenty-four, more lovely than ever, combining the beauty of theCircassian with the graces of France, Aissé had now every right to lookforward at least to such happiness as was possible to a stranger in astrange land. But no sooner was one danger to her peace removed thananother sprang up to take its place. The rumour of her beauty and hersweetness had come to the ears of the Regent, and strong forces were atwork to bring her to his arms. Madame de Tencin was the leader in thisbase conspiracy, with the power of the Romish Church at her back; forwith the fair Circassian high in the Regent's favour and a pliant toolin their hands, the Jesuits' influence at Court would be greatlystrengthened. Dubois was won over to the unholy alliance; and the Due's_maîtresse en titre_ was bribed, not only to withdraw all opposition toher proposed rival, but to arrange a meeting between the Regent and thevictim. 

Success seemed to be assured. Mademoiselle Aissé was to exchange slaveryto her late owner for an equally odious place in the harem of the rulerof France. Her tears and entreaties were all in vain; when she begged onher knees to be allowed to retire to a convent Madame de Feriol turnedher back on her. Her only hope of rescue now lay in the Regent himself;and to him she pleaded her cause with such pathetic eloquence that henot only allowed her to depart in peace, but with words of sympathy andpromises of his protection in the pure and noble sense of the word. 

Thus by the chivalry of the most dissolute man of his age the Circassianslave-girl was rescued from a life which to her would have been worsethan death--to spend her remaining years, happy in the love of an honestman, the Chevalier d'Aydie, until death claimed her while she stillpossessed the beauty which had been at once her glory and her inevitableshame. 

 * * * * *

The close of the Regent's mis-spent life came with tragic suddenness. Worn out with excesses, while still young in years, his doctors hadwarned him that death might come to him any day; but with thelight-heartedness that was his to the last, he laughed at their gloomyforebodings and refused to take the least precautions to safeguard hishealth. Two days before the end came he declined point-blank to be bledin order to avert a threatened attack of apoplexy. "Let it come if itwill, " he said, with a laugh. "I do not fear death; and if it comesquickly, so much the better!"

On the evening of 2nd December, 1720, he was chatting gaily to the youngDuchesse de Falari, when he suddenly turned to her and asked: "Do youthink there is any hell--or Paradise?" "Of course I do, " answered theDuchesse. "Then are you not afraid to lead the life you do?" "Well, "replied Madame, "I think God will have pity on me. "

Scarcely had the words left her lips when the Regent's head fell heavilyon her shoulder, and he began to slip to the floor. A glance showed herthat he was unconscious; and, rushing out of the room, the terrifiedDuchesse raced through the dark, deserted corridors of the palaceshrieking for help. When at last help arrived, it came too late. TheRegent had gone to find for himself an answer to the question his lipshad framed a few minutes earlier--"is there any hell--or Paradise?"

CHAPTER XXI

A DELILAH OF THE COURT OF FRANCE

It was a cruel fate that snatched Gabrielle d'Estrées from the arms ofHenri IV. , King of France and Navarre, at the moment when her longdevotion to her hero-lover was on the eve of being crowned by the bridalveil; and for many a week there was no more stricken man in Europe thanthe disconsolate King as he wailed in his black-draped chamber, "Theroot of my love is dead, and will never blossom again. "

No doubt Henri's grief was as sincere as it was deep, for he had lovedhis golden-haired Gabrielle of the blue eyes and dimpled baby-cheeks ashe had never loved woman before. It was the passion of a lifetime, thepassion of a strong man in his prime, that fate had thus nipped in thefullness of its bloom; and its loss plunged him into an abyss of sorrowand despair such as few men have known. 

But with the hero of Ivry no emotion of grief or pleasure ever enduredlong. He was a man of erratic, widely contrasted moods--now on the peaksof happiness, now in the gulf of dejection; one mood succeeding anotheras inevitably and widely as the pendulum swings. Thus when he had spentthree seemingly endless months of gloom and solitude, reaction seizedhim, and he flung aside his grief with his black raiment. He was stillin the prime of his strength, with many years before him. He would drinkthe cup of life, even to its dregs. He had long been weary of thematrimonial chains that fettered him to Marguerite of Valois. He wouldstrike them off, and in another wife and other loves find a new lease ofpleasure. 

Thus it was with no heavy heart that he turned his back on Fontainebleauand his darkened room, and fared to Paris to find a new vista ofpleasure opening to him at his palace doors, and his ears full of thepraises of a new divinity who had come, during his absence, to grace hisCourt--a girl of such beauty, sprightliness, and wit as his capital hadnot seen for many a year. 

Henriette d'Entragues--for this was the divinity's name--was equipped byfate as few women were ever equipped, for the conquest of a King. Hermother, Marie Touchet, had been "light-o'-love" to Charles IX. ; herfather was the Seigneur d'Entragues, member of one of the mostblue-blooded families of France, a soldier and statesman of fame; andtheir daughter had inherited, with her mother's beauty and grace, theclever brain and diplomatic skill of her father. A strange mixture ofthe bewitching and bewildering, this daughter of a King's mistress seemsto have been. Tall and dark, voluptuous of figure, with ripe red lips, and bold and dazzling black eyes, she was, in her full-blooded, sensuouscharms, the very "antipodes" to the childish, fairy-like Gabrielle whohad so long been enshrined in the King's heart. And to this physicalappeal--irresistible to a man of such strong passion as Henri, she addedgifts of mind which "baby Gabrielle" could never claim. 

She had a wit as brilliant as the tongue which was its vehicle; herwell-stored brain was more than a match for the most learned men atCourt, and she would leave an archbishop discomfited in a theologicalargument, to cross swords with Sully himself on some abstruse problem ofstatesmanship. When Sully had been brought to his knees, she would rushaway, with mischief in her eyes, to take the lead in some merry escapadeor practical joke, her silvery laughter echoing in some remote palacecorridor. A bewildering, alluring bundle of inconsistencies--beauty, savant, wit, and madcap--such was Henriette d'Entragues when Henri, fresh from his woes, came under the spell of her magnetism. 

Here, indeed, was an escape from his grief such as the King had neverdared to hope for. Before he had been many hours in his palace, Henriwas caught hopelessly in the toils of the new siren, and was intoxicatedby her smiles and witcheries. Never was conquest so speedy, so dramatic. Before a week had flown he was at Henrietta's feet, as lovesick a swainas ever sighed for a lady, pouring love into her ears and writing herpassionate letters between the frequent meetings, in which he would sendher a "good night, my dearest heart, " with "a million kisses. "

In the days of his lusty youth the idol and hero of France had neverknown passion such as this which consumed him within sight of hisfiftieth birthday, and which was inspired by a woman of much less thanhalf his years; for at the time Henri was forty-six, and Henriette wasbarely twenty. 

He quickly found, however, that his wooing was not to be all "plainsailing. " When Henriette's parents heard of it, they affected to behorrified at the danger in which their beloved daughter was placed. Theysummoned her home from the perils of Court and a King's passion; andwhen Henri sent an envoy to bring them to reason they sent him back witha rebuff. Their daughter was to be no man's--not even aKing's--plaything. If Henri's passion was sincere, he must prove it by adefinite promise of marriage; and only on this condition would theiropposition be removed. 

Even to such a stipulation Henri, such was his infatuation, made nodemur. With his own hand he wrote an agreement pledging himself to makeDemoiselle Henriette his lawful wife in case, within a certain period, she became the mother of a son; and undertaking to dissolve his marriagewith his wife, Marguerite of France, for this purpose. And thisagreement, signed with his own hand, he sent to the Seigneur d'Entraguesand his wife, accompanied by a _douceur_ of a hundred thousand crowns. 

But before it was dispatched a more formidable obstacle than even thelady's natural guardians remained to be faced--none other than the Ducde Sully, the man who had shared all the perils of a hundred fights withHenri and was at once his chief counsellor and his _fidus Achates_. When at last he summoned up courage to place the document in Sully'shands, he awaited the verdict as nervously as any schoolboy in thepresence of a dreaded master. Sully read through the paper, was silentfor a few moments, and then spoke. "Sire, " he said, "am I to give you mycandid opinion on this document, without fear of anger or givingoffence?" "Certainly, " answered the King. "Well then, this is what Ithink of it, " was Sully's reply, as he tore the document in two piecesand flung them on the floor. "Sully, you are mad!" exclaimed Henri, flaring into anger at such an outrage. "You are right, Sire, I am a weakfool, and would gladly know myself still more a fool--if I might be theonly one in France!"

It was in vain, however, that Sully pointed out the follies and dangersof such a step as was proposed. Henri's mind was made up, and leavinghis friend, in high dudgeon, he went to his study and re-wrote hispromise of marriage. The way was at last clear to the gratification ofhis passion. Henriette was more than willing, her parents' scruples andgreed were appeased, and as for Sully--well, he must be left to get overhis tantrums. Even to please such an old and trusted friend he could notsacrifice such an opportunity for pleasure and a new lease of life asnow presented itself!

Halcyon months followed for Henri--months in which even Gabrielle wasforgotten in the intoxication of a new passion, compared with which thememory of her gentle charms was but as water to rich, red wine. ThatHenriette proved wilful, capricious, and extravagant--that her vanitydrained his exchequer of hundreds of thousands of crowns for costlyjewellery and dresses, was a mere bagatelle, compared with his delightin her manifold allurements. 

But Sully had by no means said his last word. The decree for annullingHenri's marriage with Marguerite de Valois was pronounced; and it was ofthe highest importance that she should have a worthy successor as Queenof France--a successor whom he found in Marie de Medicis. 

The marriage-contract was actually sealed before the King had anysuspicion that his hand was being disposed of, and it was only whenSully one day entered his study with the startling words, "Sire, we havebeen marrying you, " that the awakening came. For a few moments Henri satas a man stunned, his head buried in his hands; then, with a deep sigh, he spoke: "If God orders it so, so let it be. There seems to be noescape; since you say that it is necessary for my kingdom and mysubjects, why, marry I must. "

It was a strange predicament in which Henri now found himself. Stillmore infatuated than ever with Henriette, he was to be tied for life toa Princess whom he had never even seen. To add to the embarrassment ofhis position, the condition of his marriage promise to Henriette wasalready on the way to fulfilment; and he was thus pledged to wed her asstrongly as any State compact could bind him to stand at the altar withMarie de Medicis. One thing was clear, he must at any cost recover thatfatal document; and, while he was giving orders for the suitablereception of his new Queen, and arranging for her triumphal progress toParis, he was writing to Henriette and her parents demanding the returnof his promise of marriage agreement--to her, a pleading letter in whichhe prays her "to return the promise you have by you and not to compel meto have recourse to other means in order to obtain it"; to her father, amore imperious demand to which he expects instant obedience. 

As some consolation to his mistress, whose alternate tears, rage, andreproaches drove him to distraction, he creates her Marquise de Verneuiland promises that, if he should be unable to marry her, he will at leastgive her a husband of Royal rank, the Due de Nevers, who was eager tomake her his wife. 

But pleadings and threats alike fail to secure the return of the fataldocument, and Henri is reduced to despair, until Henriette gives birthto a dead child and his promise thus becomes of as little value as thepaper it was written on. The condition has failed, and he is a free manto marry his Tuscan Princess, while Henriette, thus foiled in her greatambition, is in danger not only of losing her coveted crown, but herplace in the King's favour. The days of her wilful autocracy are ended;and, though her heart is full of anger and disappointment, she writes tohim a pitiful letter imploring him still to love her and not to cast her"from the Heaven to which he has raised her, down to the earth where hefound her. " "Do not let your wedding festivities be the funeral of myhopes, " she writes. "Do not banish me from your Royal presence and yourheart. I speak in sighs to you, my King, my lover, my all--I, who havebeen loved by the earth's greatest monarch, and am willing to be hismistress and his servant. "

To such humility was the proud, arrogant beauty now reduced. She was anabject suppliant where she had reigned a Queen. Nor did her pleadingsfall on deaf ears. Her Royal lover's hand was given, against his will, to his new Queen, but his heart, he vowed, was all Henriette's--so muchso that he soon installed her in sumptuous rooms in his palace adjoiningthose of the Queen herself. 

Was ever man placed in a more delicate position than this King ofFrance, between the rival claims of his wife and mistress, who wereoccupying adjacent apartments, and who, moreover, were both about tobecome mothers? It speaks well for Henri's tactfulness that for a timeat least this _ménage à trois_ appears to have been quite amiablyconducted. When Queen Marie gave birth to a son it was to Henriette thatthe infant's father first confided the good news, seasoning it with "amillion kisses" for herself. And when Henriette, in turn, became amother for the second time, the double Royal event was celebrated byfêtes and rejoicings in which each lady took an equally proud andconspicuous part. 

It was inevitable, however, that a woman so favoured by the King, and ofso imperious a nature, should have enemies at Court; and it was not longbefore she became the object of a conspiracy of which the Duchesse deVillars and the Queen were the arch-leaders. One day a bundle of letterswas sent anonymously to Henri, letters full of tenderness and passion, addressed by his beloved Marquise, Henriette, to the Prince deJoinville. The King was furious at such evidence of his mistress'sdisloyalty, and vowed he would never see her again. But all his stormingand reproaches left the Marquise unmoved. She declared, with scorn inher voice, that the letters were forgeries; that she had never writtento Joinville in her life, nor spoken a word to him that His Majestymight not have heard. She even pointed out the forger, the Duc deGuise's secretary, and was at last able to convince the King of herinnocence. 

The Duchesse de Villars and Joinville were banished from the Court indisgrace; the Queen had a severe lecture from her husband; and Henriettewas not only restored to full favour, but was consoled by a welcomepresent of six thousand pounds. 

But the days of peace in the King's household were now gone for ever. Queen Marie, thus humiliated by her rival, became her bitter enemy andalso a thorn in the side of her unfaithful husband. Every day broughtits fierce quarrels which only stopped on the verge of violence. Morethan once in fact Henri had to beat a retreat before his Queen'sclenched fist, while she lost no opportunity of insulting andhumiliating the Marquise. 

It is impossible altogether to withhold sympathy from a man thusdistracted between two jealous women--a shrewish wife, who in her mostamiable mood repelled his advances with coldness and cutting words, anda mistress who vented on him all the resentment which the Queen'sinsults and snubs roused in her. Even all Sully's diplomacy waspowerless to pour oil on such vexed waters as these. 

The Queen, however, had not long to wait for her revenge, which camewith the disclosure of a conspiracy, at the head of which wereHenriette's father and her half-brother, the Comte d'Auvergne, and inwhich, it was proved, she herself had played no insignificant part. Punishment came, swift and terrible. Her father and brother weresentenced to death, herself to perpetual confinement in a monastery. 

But even at this crisis in her life, Henriette's stout heart did notfail her for a moment. "The King may take my life, if he pleases, " shesaid. "Everybody will say that he killed his wife; for I was Queenbefore the Tuscan woman came on the scene at all. " None knew better thanshe that she could afford thus to put on a bold front. Henri was stillher slave, to whom her little finger was more than his crown; and sheknew that in his hands both her liberty and her life were safe. And thusit proved; for before she had spent many weeks in the Monastery ofBeaumont-les-Tours, its doors were flung open for her, and the firstnews she heard was that her father was a free man, while her brother'sdeath-sentence had been commuted to a few years in the Bastille. 

Thus Henriette returned to the turbulent life of the palace--the dailyroutine of quarrels and peacemaking with the King, and undisguisedhostility from the Queen, through all of which Henri's heart stillremained hers. "How I long to have you in my arms again, " he writes, when on a hunting excursion, which had led him to the scene of theirearly romance. "As my letter brings back the memory of the past, I knowyou will feel that nothing in the present is worth anything incomparison. This, at least, was my feeling as I walked along the roads Iso often traversed in the old days on my journey to your side. When Isleep I dream of you; when I wake my thoughts are all of you. " He sendsher a million kisses, and vows that all he asks of life is that sheshall always love him entirely and him alone. 

One would have thought that such a conquest of a King and such triumphover a Queen would have gratified the ambition of the most exacting ofwomen. But the Marquise de Verneuil seems to have found smallsatisfaction in her victories. When she was not provoking quarrels withHenri, which roused him to such a pitch of anger that at times hethreatened to strike her, she received his advances with a coldness or asullen acquiescence calculated to chill the most ardent lover. In othermoods she would drive him to despair by declaring that she had longceased to love him, and that all she wanted from him was a dowry tocarry in marriage to one or other of several suitors who were dying forher hand. 

But Madame's day of triumph was drawing much nearer to an end than sheimagined. The end, in fact, came with dramatic suddenness when Henrifirst set eyes on the radiantly lovely Charlotte de Montmorency. Wearyat heart of the tempers and exactions of Henriette, it needed but such alure as this to draw him finally from her side; and from the firstflash of Charlotte's beautiful eyes this most susceptible of Kings wasundone. Madame de Verneuil's reign was ended; the next quarrel was madethe occasion for a complete rupture, and the Court saw her no more. 

Already she had lost the bloom of her beauty; she had grown stout andcoarse through her excessive fondness for the pleasures of the table, and the rest of her days, which were passed in friendless isolation, shespent in indulging appetites, which added to her mountain of flesh whilerobbing her of the last trace of good-looks. When the knife of Ravaillacbrought Henri's life and his new romance to a tragic end, the Marquisewas among those who were suspected of inspiring the assassin's blow; andalthough her guilt was never proved, the taint of suspicion clung to herto her last day. 

After fruitless angling for a husband--the Duc de Guise, the Prince deJoinville, and many another who, with one consent, fled from heradvances, she resigned herself to a life of obscurity and gluttony, until death came, one day in the year 1633, to release her from a worldof vanity and disillusionment. 

CHAPTER XXII

THE "SUN-KING" AND THE WIDOW

Search where you will in the record of Kings, you will find nowhere afigure more splendid and more impressive than that of the fourteenthLouis, who for more then seventy years ruled over France, and for morethan fifty eclipsed in glory his fellow-sovereigns as the sun pales thestars. Nearly two centuries have gone since he closed his weary anddisillusioned eyes on the world he had so long dominated; but to-day heshines in history in the galaxy of monarchs with a lustre almost asgreat as when he was hailed throughout the world as the "Sun-King, " andin his pride exclaimed, "_I_ am the State. "

Placed, like his successor, on the greatest throne in Europe, a child offive, fortune exhausted itself in lavishing gifts on him. The world wasat his feet almost before he had learned to walk. He grew to manhoodamid the adulation and flatteries of the greatest men and the fairest ofwomen. And that he might lack no great gift, he was dowered with everyphysical perfection that should go to the making of a King. 

There was no more goodly youth in France than Louis when he firstpractised the arts of love-making, in which he later became such anadept, on Mazarin's lovely niece, Marie Mancini. Tall, with a well-knit, supple figure, with dark, beautiful eyes illuminating a singularlyhandsome face, with a bearing of rare grace and distinction, this son ofAnne of Austria was a lover whom few women could resist. 

Such conquests came to him with fatal ease, and for thirty years atleast, until satiety killed passion, there was no lack of beautifulwomen to minister to his pleasure and to console him for the lack ofcharms in the Spanish wife whom Mazarin thrust into his reluctant armswhen he was little more than a boy, and when his heart was in MarieMancini's keeping. 

Among all the fair and frail women who succeeded one another in hisaffection three stand out from the rest with a prominence which hisspecial favour assigned to each in turn. For ten early years it wasLouise de la Baume-Leblanc (better known to fame as the Duchesse deLavallière) who reigned as his uncrowned Queen, and who gave her life tohis pleasure and to the care of the children she bore to him. But suchconstancy could not last for ever in a man so constitutionallyinconstant as Louis. When the Marquise de Montespan, in all her radiantand sensuous loveliness, came on the scene, she drew the King to herarms as a flame lures the moth. Her voluptuous charms, her aboundingvitality and witty tongue, made the more refined beauty and thegentleness of the Duchesse flavourless in comparison; and Louise, realising that her sun had set, retired to spend the rest of her life inthe prayers and piety of a convent, leaving her brilliant rival inundisputed possession of the field. 

For many years Madame de Montespan, the most consummate courtesan whoever enslaved a King, queened it over Louis in her magnificentapartments at Versailles and in the Tuileries. He was never weary ofshowering rich gifts and favours on her; and, in return, she became themother of his children and ministered to his every whim, little dreamingof the day when she in turn was to be dethroned by an insignificantwidow whom she regarded as the creature of her bounty, and who so oftenawaited her pleasure in her ante-room. 

 * * * * *

When Françoise d'Aubigné was cradled, one November day in the year 1635, within the walls of a fortress-prison in Poitou, the prospect of aQueendom seemed as remote as a palace in the moon. She had good blood inher veins, it is true. Her ancestors had been noblemen of Normandybefore the Conqueror ever thought of crossing the English Channel, andher grandfather, General Theodore d'Aubigné, had won distinction as asoldier on many a battlefield. It was to her father, profligate andspendthrift, who, after squandering his patrimony, had found himselflodged in jail, that Françoise owed the ignominy of her birthplace, forher mother had insisted on sharing the captivity of her ne'er-do-wellhusband. 

When at last Constant d'Aubigné found his prison doors opened, he shookthe dust of France off his feet and took his wife and young childrenaway to Martinique, where at least, he hoped, his record would not beknown. On the voyage, we are told, the child was brought so near todeath's door by an illness that her body was actually on the point ofbeing flung overboard when her mother detected signs of life, andrescued her from a watery grave. A little later, in Martinique, she hadan equally narrow escape from death as the result of a snakebite. Achild thus twice miraculously preserved was evidently destined forbetter things than an early tomb, more than one declared; and so indeedit proved. 

When the father ended his mis-spent days in the West Indian island, thewidow took her poverty and her fledgelings back to France, whereFrançoise was placed under the charge of a Madame de Villette, to pickup such education as she could in exchange for such menial work aslooking after Madame's poultry and scrubbing her floors. When her motherin turn died, the child (she was only fifteen at the time) was taken toParis by an aunt, whose miserliness or poverty often sent her hungry tobed. 

Such was Françoise's condition when she was taken one day to the houseof Paul Scarron, the crippled poet, whose satires and burlesques keptParis in a ripple of merriment, and to whom the child's poverty andfriendless position made as powerful an appeal as her budding beauty andher modesty. It was a very tender heart that beat in the pain-racked, paralysed body of the "father of French burlesque"; and within a fewdays of first setting eyes on his "little Indian girl, " as he calledher, he asked her to marry him. "It is a sorry offer to make you, mydear child, " he said, "but it is either this or a convent. " And, toescape the convent, Françoise consented to become the wife of the"bundle of pains and deformities" old enough to be her father. 

In the marriage-contract Scarron, with characteristic buffoonery, recognises her as bringing a dower of "four louis, two large and veryexpressive eyes, a fine bosom, a pair of lovely hands, and a goodintellect"; while to the attorney, when asked what his contribution was, he answered, "I give her my name, and that means immortality. " For eightyears Françoise was the dutiful wife of her crippled husband, nursinghim tenderly, managing his home and his purse, redeeming his writingfrom its coarseness, and generally proving her gratitude by a ceaselessdevotion. Then came the day when Scarron bade her farewell on hisdeath-bed, begging her with his last breath to remember him sometimes, and bidding her to be "always virtuous. "

Thus Françoise d'Aubigné was thrown once more on a cold world, withnothing between her and starvation but Scarron's small pension, whichthe Queen-mother continued to his widow, and compelled to seek a cheaprefuge within convent walls. She had however good-looks which mightstand her in good stead. She was tall, with an imposing figure and anatural dignity of carriage. She had a wealth of light-brown hair, eyesdark and brilliant, full of fire and intelligence, a well-shaped nose, and an exquisitely modelled mouth. 

Beautiful she was beyond doubt, in these days of her prime; but therewere thousands of more beautiful women in France. And for ten yearsMadame Scarron was left to languish within the convent walls with nevera lover to offer her release. When the Queen-mother died, and with herthe pitiful pension, her plight was indeed pitiful. Her petitions to theKing fell on deaf ears, until Montespan, moved by her tears andentreaties, pleaded for her; and Louis at last gave a reluctant consentto continue the allowance. 

It was a happy inspiration that led Scarron's widow to the King'sfavourite, for Madame de Montespan's heart, ever better than her life, went out to the gentle woman whom fate was treating so scurvily. Notcontent with procuring the pension, she placed her in charge of hernursery, an office of great trust and delicacy; and thus Madame Scarronfound herself comfortably installed in the King's palace with a salaryof two thousand crowns a year. Her day of poverty and independence wasat last ended. She had, in fact, though she little knew it, placed herfoot on the ladder, at the summit of which was the dazzling prize of theKing's hand. 

Those were happy years which followed. High in the favour of the King'smistress, loving the little ones given into her charge as if they wereher own children, especially the eldest born, the delicate andwarm-hearted Duc de Maine, who was also his father's darling, Madame hadnothing left to wish for in life. Her days were full of duty, of peace, and contentment. Even Louis, as he watched the loving care she lavishedon his children, began to thaw and to smile on her, and to find pleasurein his visits to the nursery, which grew more and more frequent. Therewas a charm in this sweet-eyed, gentle-voiced widow, whose tongue was soskilful in wise and pleasant words. Her patient devotion deservedrecognition. He gave orders that more fitting apartments should beassigned to Madame--a suite little less sumptuous than that of Montespanherself; and that money should not be lacking, he made her a gift of twohundred thousand francs, which the provident widow promptly invested inthe purchase of the castle and estate of Maintenon. 

Such marked favours as these not unnaturally set jealous tongueswagging. Even Montespan began to grow uneasy, and to wonder what wascoming next. When she ventured to refer sarcastically to the use"Scarron's widow" had made of his present, Louis silenced her byanswering, "In my opinion, _Madame de Maintenon_ has acted very wisely";thus by a word conferring noble rank on the woman his favourite wasalready beginning to fear as a rival. 

And indeed there were soon to be sufficient grounds for Montespan'sjealously and alarm. Every day saw Louis more and more under the spellof his children's governess--the middle-aged woman whose musical voice, gentle eyes, and wise words of counsel were opening a new and betterworld to him. She knew, as well as himself, how sated and weary he wasof the cup of pleasure he had now drained to its last dregs ofdisillusionment; and he listened with eager ears to the words whichpointed to him a surer path of happiness. Even reproof from her lipsbecame more grateful to him than the sweetest flatteries from those ofthe most beautiful woman who counted but half of her years. 

The growing influence of the widow Scarron over the "Sun-King" hadalready become the chief gossip of the Court. From the allurements ofMontespan, of Mademoiselle de Fontanges, and of de Ludre he loved toescape to the apartments of the soft-voiced woman who cared so much morefor his soul than for his smiles. "His Majesty's interviews with Madamede Maintenon, " Madame de Sevigné writes, "become more and more frequent, and they last from six in the morning to ten at night, she sitting inone arm-chair, he in another. "

In vain Montespan stormed and wept in her fits of jealous rage; in vaindid the beautiful de Fontanges seek to lure him to her arms, until deathclaimed her so tragically before she had well passed her twentiethbirthday. The King had had more than enough of such Delilahs. Pleasurehad palled; peace was what he craved now--salve for his searedconscience. 

When Madame de Maintenon was appointed principal lady-in-waiting to theDauphine and when, a little later, Louis' unhappy Queen drew her lastbreath in her arms, Montespan at last realised that her day of power wasover. She wrote letters to the King begging him not to withdraw hisaffection from her, but to these appeals Louis was silent; he handedthe letters to Madame de Maintenon to answer as she willed. 

The Court was quick to realise that a new star had risen; ministers andambassadors now flocked to the new divinity to consult her and to winher favour. The governess was hailed as the new Queen of Louis and ofFrance. The climax came when the King was thrown one day from his horsewhile hunting, and broke his arm. It was Madame de Maintenon alone whowas allowed to nurse him, and who was by his side night and day. Beforethe arm was well again she was standing, thickly veiled, before animprovised altar in the King's study, with Louis by her side, while thewords that made them man and wife were pronounced by Archbishop deHarlay. 

The prison-child had now reached the loftiest pinnacle in the land ofher birth. Though she wore no crown, she was Queen of France, wielding apower which few throned ladies have ever known. Princes and Princessesrose to greet her entry with bows and curtsies; the mother of the comingKing called her "aunt"; her rooms, splendid as the King's, adjoined his;she had the place of honour in the King's Council Room; the State'ssecrets were in her keeping; she guided and controlled the destinies ofthe nation. And all this greatness came to her when she had passed herfiftieth year, and when all the grace and bloom of youth were but adistant memory. 

The King himself, two years her junior, and still in the prime of hismanhood, was her shadow, paying to the plain, middle-aged woman suchdeference and courtesy as he had never shown to the youth and beauty ofher predecessors in his affection. And she--thus translated to dizzyheights--kept a head as cool and a demeanour as modest as when she was"Scarron's widow, " the convent protégée. For power and splendour shecared no whit. Her ambition now, as always, was to be loved for herself, to "play a beautiful part in the world, " and to deserve the respect ofall good men. 

Her chief pleasure was found away from the pomp and glitter of theCourt, among "her children" of the Saint Cyr Convent, which she hadfounded for the education of the daughters of poor noblemen, over whomshe watched with loving and unflagging care. And yet she was nothappy--not nearly as happy as in the days of her obscure widowhood. "Iam dying of sorrow in the midst of luxury, " she wrote. And again. "Icannot bear it. I wish I were dead. " Why she was so unhappy, with herQueendom and her environment of love and esteem, and her life of goodworks, it is impossible to say. The fact remains, inscrutable, but stillfact. 

Twenty-five years of such life of splendid sadness, and Louis, his lastdays clouded by loss and suffering, died with her prayers in his ears, his coverlet moistened by her tears. Two years later--years spent inprayers and masses and charitable work--the "Queen Dowager" drew thelast breath of her long life at St Cyr, shortly after hearing that herbeloved Due de Maine, her pet nursling of other days, had been arrestedand flung into prison. 

CHAPTER XXIII

A THRONED BARBARIAN

The dawn of the eighteenth century saw the thrones of France and Russiaoccupied by two of the most remarkable sovereigns who ever wore acrown--Louis XIV. , the "Sun-King, " whose splendours dazzled Europe, andwhose power held it in awe; and Peter I. Of Russia, whose destructivesword swept Europe from Sweden to the Dardenelles, and whose cleverbrain laid sure the foundation of his country's greatness. Each of theseRoyal rivals dwarfed all other fellow-monarchs as the sun pales thestars; and yet it would scarcely have been possible to find two men morewidely different in all save their passion for power and their love ofwoman, which alone they had in common. 

Of the two, Peter is unquestionably to-day the more arresting, dominating figure. Although nearly two centuries have gone since he madehis exit from the world, we can still picture him in his pride, toweringa head higher than the tallest of his courtiers, swart of face, "as ifhe had been born in Africa, " with his black, close-curling hair, hisbold, imperious eyes, his powerful, well-knit frame--"the muscles andstature of a Goliath"--a kingly figure, with majesty in every movement. 

We see him, too, wilfully discarding the kingliness with which naturehad so liberally dowered him--now receiving ambassadors "in a shortdressing-gown, below which his bare legs were exposed, a thick nightcap, lined with linen, on his head, his stockings dropped down over hisslippers"--now walking through the Copenhagen streets grotesque in agreen cap, a brown overcoat with horn buttons, worsted stockings full ofdarns, and dirty, cobbled shoes; and again carousing, red of face andloud of voice, with his meanest subjects in some low tavern. 

As the mood seizes him he plays the rôle of fireman for hours together;goes carol-singing in his sledge, and reaps his harvest of coppers fromthe houses of his subjects; rides a hobby-horse at a village fair, andshrieks with laughter until he falls off; or plies saw and plane in ashipbuilding yard, sharing the meals and drinking bouts of hisfellow-workmen. 

The French Ambassador, Campredon, wrote of him in 1725:--"It is utterlyimpossible at the present moment to approach the Tsar on serioussubjects; he is altogether given up to his amusements, which consist ingoing every day to the principal houses in the town with a suite of 200persons, musicians and so forth, who sing songs on every sort ofsubject, and amuse themselves by eating and drinking at the expense ofthe persons they visit. " "He never passed a single day without beingthe worse for drink, " Baron Pöllnitz tells us; and his drinkingcompanions were usually chosen from the most degraded of his subjects, of both sexes, with whom he consorted on the most familiar terms. 

When his muddled brain occasionally awoke to the knowledge that he was aKing, he would bully and hector his boon-comrades like any drunkentrooper. On one occasion, when a young Jewess refused to drain a gobletof neat brandy which he thrust into her hand, he promptly administeredtwo resounding boxes on her ears, shouting, "Vile Hebrew spawn! I'llteach thee to obey. "

There was in him, too, a vein of savage cruelty which took remarkableforms. A favourite pastime was to visit the torture-chamber and gloatover the sufferings of the victims of the knout and the strappado; or toattend (and frequently to officiate at) public executions. Once, we aretold, at a banquet, he "amused himself by decapitating twenty Streltsy, emptying as many glasses of brandy between successive strokes, andchallenging the Prussian envoy to repeat the feat. "

Mad? There can be little doubt that Peter had madness in his veins. Hewas a degenerate and an epileptic, subject to brain storms whichterrified all who witnessed them. "A sort of convulsion seized him, which often for hours threw him into a most distressing condition. Hisbody was violently contorted; his face distorted into horrible grimaces;and he was further subject to paroxysms of rage, during which it wasalmost certain death to approach him. " Even in his saner moods, asWaliszewski tells us, he "joined to the roughness of a Russian _barin_all the coarseness of a Dutch sailor. " Such in brief suggestion wasPeter I. Of Russia, half-savage, half-sovereign, the strangest jumble ofcontradictions who has ever worn the Imperial purple--"a huge mastodon, whose moral perceptions were all colossal and monstrous. "

It was, perhaps, inevitable that a man so primitive, so little removedfrom the animal, should find his chief pleasures in low pursuits andcompanionships. During his historic visit to London, after a hard day'swork with adze and saw in the shipbuilding yard, the Tsar would adjournwith his fellow-workmen to a public-house in Great Tower Street, and"smoke and drink ale and brandy, almost enough to float the vessel hehad been helping to construct. "

And in his own kingdom the favourite companions of his debauches werecommon soldiers and servants. 

"He chose his friends among the common herd; looked after his householdlike any shopkeeper; thrashed his wife like a peasant; and sought hispleasure where the lower populace generally finds it. " His femalecompanions were chosen rather for their coarseness than their charms, and pleased him most when they were drunk. It was thus fitting that heshould make an Empress of a scullery-maid, who, as we have seen in anearlier chapter, had no vestige of beauty to commend her to his favour, and whose chief attractions in his eyes were that she had a coarsetongue and was a "first-rate toper. "

It was thus a strange and unhappy caprice of fate that united Peter, while still a youth, to his first Empress, the refined and sensitiveEudoxia, a woman as remote from her husband as the stars. Never wasthere a more incongruous bride than this delicately nurtured girlprovided by the Empress Nathalie for her coarse-grained son. From thehour at which they stood together at the altar the union was doomed totragic failure; before the honeymoon waned Peter had terrified his brideby his brutality and disgusted her by the open attentions he paid to hisfavourites of the hour, the daughters of Botticher, the goldsmith, andMons, the wine-merchant. 

For five years husband and wife saw little of each other; and when, in1694, Nathalie's death removed the one influence which gave the union atleast the outward form of substance, Peter lost no time in exhibitinghis true colours. He dismissed all Eudoxia's relatives from the Court, and sent her father into exile. One brother he caused to be whipped inpublic; another was put to the torture, which had its horrible climaxwhen Peter himself saturated his victim's clothes with spirits of wine, and then set them on fire. For Eudoxia a different fate was reserved. Not only had he long grown weary of her insipid beauty and of herrefinement and gentleness, which were a constant mute reproach to hisown low tastes and hectoring manners--he had grown to hate the verysight of her, and determined that she should no longer stand between himand the unbridled indulgence of his pleasure. 

During his visit to England he never once wrote to her, and on hisreturn to Moscow his first words were a brutal announcement of hisintention to be rid of her. In vain she pleaded and wept. To her tearfulinquiries, "What have I done to offend you? What fault have you to findwith me?" he turned a deaf ear. "I never want to see you again, " werehis last inexorable words. A few days later a hackney coach drove up tothe palace doors; the unhappy Tsarina was bundled unceremoniously intoit, and she was carried away to the nunnery of the "Intercession of theBlessed Virgin, " whose doors were closed on her for a score of years. 

Pitiful years they were for the young Empress, consigned by her husbandto a life that was worse than death--robbed of her rank, her splendours, and luxuries, her very name--she was now only Helen, the nun, faringworse than the meanest of her sister-nuns; for while they at least hadplenty to eat, the Tsarina seems many a time to have known the pangs ofhunger. The letters she wrote to one of her brothers are patheticevidence of the straits to which she was reduced. "For pity's sake, " shewrote, "give me food and drink. Give clothes to the beggar. There isnothing here. I do not need a great deal; still I must eat. "

It is not to be wondered at, that, in her misery, she should turnanywhere for succour and sympathy; and both came to her at last in theguise of Major Glebof, an officer in the district, whose heart wastouched by the sadness of her fate. He sent her food and wine to restoreher strength, and warm furs to protect her from the iciness of her cell. In response to her letters of thanks, he visited her again and again, bringing sunshine into her darkened life with his presence, and soothingher with words of sympathy and encouragement, until gratitude to the"good Samaritan" grew into love for the man. 

When she learned that the man who had so befriended her was himselfpoor, actually in money difficulties, she insisted on giving him everyrouble she could wring, by any abject appeal, out of her friends andrelatives. She became his very slave, grovelling at his feet. "Where thyheart is, dearest one, " she wrote to him, "there is mine also; where thytongue is, there is my head; thy will is also mine. " She loved him witha passion which broke down all barriers of modesty and prudence, reckless of the fact that he had a wife, as she had a husband. 

When Major Glebof's visits and letters grew more and more infrequent, she suffered tortures of anxiety and despair. "My light, my soul, myjoy, " she wrote in one distracted letter, "has the cruel hour ofseparation come already? O, my light! how can I live apart from thee?How can I endure existence? Rather would I see my soul parted from mybody. God alone knows how dear thou art to me. Why do I love thee somuch, my adored one, that without thee life is so worthless? Why artthou angry with me? Why, my _batioushka_, dost thou not come to see me?Have pity on me, O my lord, and come to see me to-morrow. O, my world, my dearest and best, answer me; do not let me die of grief. "

Thus one distracted, incoherent letter followed another, heart-breakingin their grief, pitiful in their appeal. "Come to me, " she cried;"without thee I shall die. Why dost thou cause me such anguish? Have Ibeen guilty without knowing it? Better far to have struck me, to havepunished me in any way, for this fault I have innocently committed. " Andagain: "Why am I not dead? Oh, that thou hadst buried me with thy ownhands! Forgive me, O my soul! Do not let me die. .. . Send me but a crustof bread thou hast bitten with thy teeth, or the waistcoat thou hastoften worn, that I may have something to bring thee near to me. "

What answers, if any, the Major vouchsafed to these pathetic letters weknow not. The probability is that they received no answer--that the"good Samaritan" had either wearied of or grown alarmed at a passionwhich he could not return, and which was fraught with danger. It wasaccident only that revealed to the world the story of this strange andtragic infatuation. 

When the Tsarevitch, Alexis, was brought to trial in 1718 on a charge ofconspiracy against his father, Peter, suspecting that Eudoxia had had ahand in the rebellion, ordered a descent on the nunnery and an inquiry. Nothing was found to connect her with her son's ill-fated venture; butthe inquiry revealed the whole story of her relations with the toofriendly officer. The evidence of the nuns and servants alone--evidenceof frequent and long meetings by day and night, of embracesexchanged--was sufficiently conclusive, without the incriminatingletters which were discovered in the Major's bureau, labelled "Lettersfrom the Tsarina, " or Eudoxia's confession which was extorted from her. 

This was an opportunity of vengeance such as exceeded all the Tsar'shopes. Glebof was arrested and put on his trial. Evidence was forcedfrom the nuns by the lashing of the knout, so severe that some of themdied under it. Glebof, subjected to such frightful tortures that in hisagony he confessed much more than the truth, was sentenced to death byimpalement. In order to prolong his suffering to the last possiblemoment, he was warmly wrapped in furs, to protect him from the bittercold, and for twenty-eight hours he suffered indescribable agony, untilat last death came to his release. 

As for Eudoxia, her punishment was a public flogging and consignment toa nunnery still more isolated and miserable than that in which she haddragged out twenty years of her broken life. Here she remained for sevenyears, until, on the Tsar's death, an even worse fate befell her. Shewas then, by Catherine's orders, taken from the convent, and flung intothe most loathsome, rat-infested dungeon of the fortress ofSchlussenberg, where she remained for two years of unspeakable horror. 

Then at last, after nearly thirty years of life that was worse thandeath, the sun shone again for her. One day her dungeon door flew open, and to the bowing of obsequious courtiers, the prisoner was conducted toa sumptuous apartment. "The walls were hung with splendid stuffs; thetable was covered with gold-plate; ten thousand roubles awaited her ina casket. Courtiers stood in her ante-chamber; carriages and horseswere at her orders. "

Catherine, the "scullery-Empress, " was dead; Eudoxia's grandson, PeterII. , now wore the crown of Russia; and Eudoxia found herselftransported, as by the touch of a magic wand, from her loathsomeprison-cell to the old-time splendours of palaces--the greatest lady inall Russia, to whom Princesses, ambassadors, and courtiers were allproud to pay respectful homage. But the transformation had come toolate; her life was crushed beyond restoration; and after a few months ofher new glory she was glad to find an asylum once more within conventwalls, until Death, the great healer of broken hearts, took her towhere, "beyond these voices, there is peace. "

 * * * * *

While Eudoxia was eating her heart out in her convent cell, her husbandwas finding ample compensation for her absence in Bacchanalian orgiesand the company of his galaxies of favourites, from tradesmen'sdaughters to servant-maids of buxom charms, such as the Livonianpeasant-girl, in whom he found his second Empress. 

Of the almost countless women who thus fell under his baneful influenceone stands out from the rest by reason of the tragedy which surroundsher memory. Mary Hamilton was no low-born maid, such as Peter especiallychose to honour with his attentions. She had in her veins the blood ofthe ducal Hamiltons of Scotland, and of many a noble family of Russia, from which her more immediate ancestors had taken their wives; and itwas an ill fate that took her, when little more than a child, to themost debased Court of Europe to play the part of maid-of-honour, andthus to cross the path of the most unprincipled lover in Europe. 

Peter's infatuation for the pretty young "Scotswoman, " however, was butshort-lived. She had none of the vulgar attractions that could win himto any kind of constancy; and he quickly abandoned her for the moreagreeable company of his _dienshtchiks_, leaving her to find consolationin the affection of more courtly, if less exalted, lovers--notably theyoung Count Orloff, who proved as faithless as his master. 

Such was Mary's infatuation for the worthless Count that, under hisinfluence, she stooped to various kinds of crime, from stealing theTsarina's jewels to fill her lover's purse, to infanticide. The climaxcame when an important document was missing from the Tsar's cabinet. Suspicion pointed to Orloff as the thief; he was arrested, and, whenbrought into Peter's presence, not only confessed to the thefts and tohis share in making away with the undesirable infants, but betrayed thepartner of his guilt. 

There was short shrift for poor Mary Hamilton when she was put on hertrial on these grave charges. She made full confession of her crimes;but no torture could wring from her the name of the man for love of whomshe had committed them, and of whose treachery to her she was ignorant. She was sentenced to death; and one March day, in the year 1719, shewas led to the scaffold "in a white silk gown trimmed with blackribbons. "

Then followed one of the grimmest scenes recorded in history. Peter, theman who had been the first to betray her, and who had refused her pardoneven when her cause was pleaded by his wife, was a keenly interestedspectator of her execution. At the foot of the scaffold he embraced her, and exhorted her to pray, before stepping aside to give place to theheadsman. When the axe had done its deadly work, he again steppedforward, picked up the lifeless and still beautiful head which hadrolled into the mud, and calmly proceeded to give a lecture on anatomyto the assembled crowd, "drawing attention to the number and nature ofthe organs severed by the axe. " His lecture concluded, he kissed thepale, dead lips, crossed himself, and walked away with a smile ofsatisfaction on his face. 

CHAPTER XXIV

A FRIEND OF MARIE ANTOINETTE

There is scarcely a spectacle in the whole drama of history morepathetic than that of Marie Antoinette, dancing her light-hearted waythrough life to the guillotine, seemingly unconscious of the eyes ofjealousy and hate that watched her every step; or, if she noticed atall, returning a gay smile for a frown. 

Wedded when but a child, full of the joy of youth, with laughterbubbling on her pretty lips and gaiety dancing in her eyes, to adull-witted clown to whom her fresh young beauty made no appeal;surrounded by Court ladies jealous of her charms; feared for her foreignsympathies, and hated by a sullen, starving populace for herextravagance and her pursuit of pleasure, the Austrian Princess with allher young loveliness and the sweetness of her nature could please no onein the land of her exile. Her very amiability was an offence; herunaffected simplicity a subject of scorn; and her love of pleasure acrime. 

Had she realised the danger of her position, and adapted herself to itsdemands, her story might have been written very differently; but hertragedy was that she saw or heeded none of the danger-signals thatmarked her path until it was too late to retrace a step; and that hermost innocent pleasures were made to pave the way to her doom. 

Nothing, for instance, could have been more harmless to the seeming thanMarie Antoinette's friendship for Yolande de Polignac; but thisfriendship had, beyond doubt, a greater part in her undoing than anyother incident in her life, from the affair of the "diamond necklace" toher innocent infatuation for Count Fersen; and it would have been wellfor the Queen of France if Madame de Polignac had been content to remainin her rustic obscurity, and had never crossed her path. 

When Yolande Gabrielle de Polastron was led to the altar, one day in theyear 1767, by Comte Jules de Polignac, she never dreamt, we may be sure, of the dazzling rôle she was destined to play at the Court of France. Like her husband, she was a member of the smaller _noblesse_, as proudas they were poor. Her husband, it is true, boasted a long pedigree, with its roots in the Dark Ages; but his family had given to France onlyone man of note, that Cardinal de Polignac, accomplished scholar, courtier, and man of affairs, who was able to twist Louis XIV. Round hisdexterous thumb; and Comte Jules was the Cardinal's great-nephew, and, through his mother, had Mazarin blood in his veins. 

But the young couple had a purse as short as their descent was long; andthe early years of their wedded life were spent in Comte Jules'dilapidated château, on an income less than the equivalent of a pound aday--in a rustic retirement which was varied by an occasional jaunt toParis to "see the sights, " and enjoy a little cheap gaiety. 

Comte Jules, however, had a sister, Diane, a clever-tongued, ambitiousyoung woman, who had found a footing at Court as lady-in-waiting to theComtesse d'Artois, and whom her brother and his wife were proud to visiton their rare journeys to the capital. And it was during one of thesevisits that Marie Antoinette, who had struck up an informal friendshipwith the sprightly, laughter-loving Diane, first met the woman who wasto play such an important and dangerous part in her life. 

It was, perhaps, little wonder that the French Queen, craving forfriendship and sympathy, fell under the charm of Yolande de Polignac--agirl still, but a few years older than herself, with a singularsweetness and winsomeness, and "beautiful as a dream. " The beauty of theyoung Comtesse was, indeed, a revelation even in a Court of fair women. In the extravagant words of chroniclers of the time, "she had the mostheavenly face that was ever seen. Her glance, her smile, every featurewas angelic. " No picture could, it was said, do any justice to thislovely creature of the glorious brown hair and blue eyes, who seemed soutterly unconscious of her beauty. 

Such was the woman who came into the life of Marie Antoinette, and atonce took possession of her heart. At last the Queen of France, in herisolation, had found the ideal friend she had sought so long in vain; awoman young and beautiful like herself, with kindred tastes, eager asshe was to enjoy life, and with all the qualities to make a charmingand sympathetic companion. It was a case of love at first sight, onMarie Antoinette's part at least; and each subsequent meeting onlyserved to strengthen the link that bound these two women so strangelybrought together. 

The Comtesse must come oftener to Court, the Queen pleaded, so that theymight have more opportunities of meeting and of learning to know eachother; and when the Comtesse pleaded poverty, Marie Antoinette brushedthe difficulty aside. That could easily be arranged; the Queen had avacancy in the ranks of her equerries. M. Le Comte would accept thepost, and then Madame would have her apartments at the Court itself. 

Thus it was that Comte Jules' wife was transported from her poor countrychâteau to the splendours of Versailles, installed as _chère amie_ ofthe Queen in place of the Princesse de Lamballe, and with the ball offortune at her pretty feet. And never did woman adapt herself moreeasily to such a change of environment. It was, indeed, a great part ofthe charm of this remarkable woman that, amid success which would haveturned the head of almost any other of her sex, she remained to her lastday as simple and unaffected as when she won the Queen's heart in Dianede Polignac's apartment. 

So absolutely indifferent did she seem to her new splendours, that, whenjealousy sought to undermine the Queen's friendship, she implored MarieAntoinette to allow her to go back to her old, obscure life; and it wasonly when the Queen begged her to stay, with arms around her neck andwith streaming tears, that she consented to remain by her side. 

If the Queen ever had any doubt that she had at last found a friend wholoved her for herself, the doubt was now finally dissipated. Such anunselfish love as this was a treasure to be prized; and from this momentQueen and waiting-woman were inseparable. When they were not strollingarm-in-arm in the corridors or gardens of Versailles, Her Majesty wasspending her days in Madame's apartments, where, as she said, "We are nolonger Queen and subject, but just dear friends. "

So unhappy was Marie Antoinette apart from her new friend that, whenMadame de Polignac gave birth to a child at Passy, the Court itself wasmoved to La Muette, so that the Queen could play the part of nurse byher friend's bedside. 

Such, now, was the Queen's devotion that there was no favour she wouldnot have gladly showered on the Comtesse; but to all such offers Madameturned a deaf ear. She wanted nothing but Marie Antoinette's love andfriendship for herself; but if the Queen, in her goodness, chose toextend her favour to Madame's relatives--well, that was another matter. 

Thus it was that Comte Jules soon blossomed into a Duke, and Madameperforce became a Duchess, with a coveted tabouret at Court. But theywere still poor, in spite of an equerry's pay, and heavily in debt, amatter which must be seen to. The Queen's purse satisfied everycreditor, to the tune of four hundred thousand livres, and Duc Julesfound himself lord of an estate which added seventy thousand livresyearly to his exchequer, with another annual eighty thousand livres asrevenue for his office of Director-General of Posts. 

Of course, if the Queen _would_ be so foolishly generous, it was not theDuchesse's fault, and when Marie Antoinette next proposed to give adowry of eight hundred thousand livres to the Duchesse's daughter on hermarriage to the Comte de Guiche, and to raise the bridegroom to adukedom--well, it was "very sweet of Her Majesty, " and it was not forher to oppose such a lavish autocrat. 

Thus the shower of Royal favours grew; and it is perhaps little wonderthat each new evidence of the Queen's prodigality was greeted withcurses by the mob clamouring for bread outside the palace gates; whileeven her father's minister, Kaunitz, in far Vienna, brutally dubbed theDuchesse and her family, "a gang of thieves. "

Diane de Polignac, the Duchesse's sister-in-law, had long been made aCountess and placed in charge of a Royal household; and the gratefulshower fell on all who had any connection with the favourite. Herfather-in-law, Cardinal de Polignac's nephew, was rescued from hisrustic poverty to play the exalted rôle of ambassador; an uncle wasraised _per saltum_ from _curé_ to bishop. The Duchesse's widowed auntwas made happy by a pension of six thousand livres a year; and herson-in-law, de Guiche, in addition to his dukedom, was rewarded furtherfor his fortunate nuptials by valuable sinecure offices at Court. 

So the tide of benefactions flowed until it was calculated that thePolignac family were drawing half a million livres every year as thefruits of the Queen's partiality for her favourite. Little wonder that, at a time when France was groaning under dire poverty, the volume ofcurses should swell against the "Austrian panther, " who could thussquander gold while her subjects were starving; or that the Court shouldbe inflamed by jealousy at such favours shown to a family so obscure asthe Polignacs. 

To the warnings of her own family Marie Antoinette was deaf. What caredshe for such exhibitions of spite and jealousy? She was Queen; and ifshe wished to be generous to her favourite's family, none should say hernay. And thus, with a smile half-careless, half-defiant, she went tomeet the doom which, though she little dreamt it, awaited her. 

The Duchesse was now promoted to the office of governess of the Queen'schildren, a position which was the prerogative of Royalty itself, or, atleast, of the very highest nobility. With her usual modesty, she hadfought long against the promotion; but the Queen's will was law, and shehad to submit to the inevitable as gracefully as she could. And now wesee her installed in the most splendid apartments at Versailles, holdinga _salon_ almost as regal as that of Marie Antoinette herself. 

She was surrounded by sycophants and place-seekers, eager to capture theQueen's favour through her. And such was her influence that a word fromher was powerful enough to make or mar a minister. She held, in fact, the reins of power and was now more potent than the weak-kneed Kinghimself. 

It was at this stage in her brilliant career that the Duchesse cameunder the spell of the Comte de Vaudreuil--handsome, courtly, anintriguer to his finger-tips, a man of many accomplishments, of a suppletongue, and with great wealth to lend a glamour to his gifts. A man ofrare fascination, and as dangerous as he was fascinating. 

The woman who had carried a level head through so much unaccustomedsplendour and power became the veriest slave of this handsome, honey-tongued Comte, who ruled her, as she in turn ruled the Queen. Athis bidding she made and unmade ministers; she obtained for him pensionsand high offices, and robbed the treasury of nearly two million livresto fill his pockets. When Marie Antoinette at last ventured to thwartthe Comte in his ambition to become the Dauphin's Governor, heretaliated by poisoning the Duchesse's mind against her, and bringingabout the first estrangement between the friends. 

Torn between her infatuation for Vaudreuil and her love of the Queen, the Duchesse was in an awkward dilemma. It became necessary to choosebetween the two rivals; and that Vaudreuil's spell proved the stronger, her increasing coldness to Marie Antoinette soon proved. It was the"rift within the lute" which was to make the music of their friendshipmute. The Queen gradually withdrew herself from the Duchesse's _salon_, where she was sure to meet the insolent Vaudreuil; and thus the gulfgradually widened until the severance was complete. 

 * * * * *

Evil days were now coming for Marie Antoinette. The affair of thediamond necklace had made powerful enemies; the Polignac family, takingthe side of Vaudreuil and their protectress, were arrayed against her;France was rising on the tide of hate to sweep the Austrian and herhusband from the throne. The horrors of the Revolution were beingloosed, and all who could were flying for safety to other lands. 

At this terrible crisis the Queen's thoughts were less for herself thanfor her friend of happier days. She sought the Duchesse and begged herto fly while there was still time. Then it was that, touched by suchunselfish love, the Duchesse's pride broke down, and all her old lovefor her sovereign lady returned in full flood. Bursting into tears, sheflung herself at Marie Antoinette's feet, and begged forgiveness fromthe woman whose friendship she had spurned, and whose life she had, however innocently, done so much to ruin. 

A few hours later the Duchesse, disguised as a chambermaid and sittingby the coachman's side, was making her escape from France in companywith her husband and other members of her family, while the Queen whohad loved her so well was left to take the last tragic steps that hadthe guillotine for goal. 

Just before the carriage started on its long and perilous journey, anote was thrust into the "chambermaid's" hand--"Adieu, most tender offriends. How terrible is this word! But it is necessary. Adieu! I haveonly strength left to embrace you. Your heart-broken Marie. "

Then ensued for the Duchesse a time of perilous journeying to safety. At Sens her carriage was surrounded by a fierce mob, clamouring for theblood of the "aristos. " "Are the Polignacs still with the Queen?"demanded one man, thrusting his head into the carriage. "The Polignacs?"answered the Abbé de Baliviere, with marvellous presence of mind. "Oh!they have left Versailles long ago. Those vile persons have been got ridof. " And with a howl of baffled rage the mob allowed the carriage tocontinue its journey, taking with it the most hated of all thePolignacs, the chambermaid, whose heart, we may be sure, was in hermouth!

Thus the Duchesse made her way through Switzerland, to Turin, and toRome, and to Venice, where news came to her of the fall ot the monarchyand Louis' execution. By the time she reached Vienna on her restlesswanderings, her health, shattered by hardships and by her anxiety forher friend, broke down completely. She was a dying woman; and when, afew months later, she learned that Marie Antoinette was also dead--"anatural death, " they mercifully told her--"Thank God!" she exclaimed;"now, at last, she is free from those bloodthirsty monsters! Now I candie in peace. "

Seven weeks later the Duchesse drew her last breath, with the name shestill loved best in all the world on her lips. In death she and herbeloved Queen were not divided. 

CHAPTER XXV

THE RIVAL SISTERS

It was an unkind fate that linked the lives of the fifteenth Louis ofFrance and Marie Leczinska, Princess of Lorraine, and daughter ofStanislas, the dethroned King of Poland; for there was probably noPrincess in Europe less equipped by nature to hold the fickle allegianceof the young French King, and no Royal husband less likely to bringhappiness into the life of such a consort. 

When Princess Marie was called to the throne of France, she foundherself transported from one of the most penurious and obscure to themost splendid of the Courts of Europe--"frightened and overwhelmed, " asde Goncourt tells us, "by the grandeur of the King, bringing to herhusband nothing but obedience, to marriage only duty; trembling andfaltering in her queenly rôle like some escaped nun lost in Versailles. "Although by no means devoid of good-looks, as Nattier's portrait of herat this time proves, her attractions were shy ones, as her virtues weremodest, almost ashamed. 

She shrank alike from the embraces of her husband and the gaieties ofhis Court, finding her chief pleasure in music and painting, in longtalks with the most serious-minded of her ladies, in Masses andprayers--spending gloomy hours in her oratory with its death's head, which she always carried with her on her journeys. Such was the nun-likewife whom Louis XV. Led to the altar shortly after he had entered hissixteenth year, and had already had his initiation into that career ofvice which he pursued with few intervals to the end of his life. 

Already, at fifteen, the King, who has been mockingly dubbed "_le bienaimé_" was breaking away from the austere hands of his boyhood's mentor, Cardinal Fleury, and was beginning to snatch a few "fearful joys" in thecompany of his mignons, such as the Duc de La Tremouille, and the Duc deGesvres, and a few gay women of whom the sprightly and beautifulPrincesse de Charolois was the ringleader. But he was still nothing morethan "a big and gloomy child, " whose ill-balanced nature gravitatedbetween fits of profound gloom and the wild abandonment of debauch; onehour, torn and shaken by religious terrors, fears of hell and of death;the next, the very soul of hysterical gaiety, with words of blasphemy onhis lips, the gayest member of a band of Bacchanals in some midnightorgy. 

To such a youth, feverishly seeking distraction from his own blackmoods, the demure, devout Princess, ignorant of the caresses andcoquetry of her sex, moving like a spectre among the brilliant, light-hearted ladies of his Court, was the most unsuitable, the mostimpossible of brides. He quickly wearied of her company, and fled fromher sighs and her homilies to seek forgetfulness of her and of himselfin the society of such sirens of the Court as Mademoiselle deBeaujolais, Madame de Lauraguais, and Mademoiselle de Charolois, whosecoquetries and high spirits never failed to charm away his gloomyhumours. 

But although one lady after another, from that most bewitching ofmadcaps, Mademoiselle de Charolois, to the dark-eyed, buxom Comtesse deToulouse, practised on him all their allurements, strove to awake hissenses "by a thousand coquetries, a thousand assaults, the King'stimidity eluded these advances, which amused and alarmed, but did nottempt his heart; that young monarch's heart was still so full of theaged Fleury's terrifying tales of the women of the Regency. "

Such coyness, however, was not long to stand in the way of the King'sappetite for pleasure which every day strengthened. One day it began tobe whispered that at last Louis had been vanquished--that, at a supperat La Muette, he had proposed the health of an "Unknown Fair, " which hadbeen drunk with acclamation by his boon-companions; and the Court wasfull of excited speculation as to who his mysterious charmer could be. That some new and powerful influence had come into the young sovereign'slife was abundantly clear, from the new light that shone in his eyes, the laughter that was now always on his lips. He had said "good-bye" tomelancholy; he astonished all by his new vivacity, and became the leaderin one dissipation after another, "whose noisy merriment he led andprolonged far into the night. "

It was not long before the identity of the worker of this miracle wasrevealed to the world. She had been recognised more than once whenmaking her stealthy way to the King's apartments; she was his chosencompanion on his journey to Compiègne; and it was soon public knowledgethat Madame de Mailly was the woman who had captured the King's elusiveheart. And indeed there was little occasion for surprise; for Madame deMailly, although she would never see her thirtieth birthday again, wasone of the most seductive women in all France. 

Black-eyed, crimson-lipped, oval-faced, Madame de Mailly was one ofthose women who "with cheeks on fire, and blood astir, eyes large andlustrous as the eyes of Juno, with bold carriage and in free toilettes, step forward out of the past with the proud and insolent graces of thedivinities of some Bacchanalia. " With the provocative and sensual charmwhich is so powerful in its appeal, she had a rare skill in displayingher beauty to its fullest advantage. Her cult of the toilette, the Ducde Luynes tells us, went with her even by night. She never went to bedwithout decking herself with all her diamonds; and her most seductivehour was in the morning, when, in her bed, with her glorious dishevelledhair veiling her pillow, a-glitter with her jewels, she gave audience toher friends. 

Such was the ravishing, ardent, passionate woman who was the first ofmany to carry Louis' heart by storm, and to be established in his palaceas his mistress--to inaugurate for him a new life of pleasure, and toestrange him still more from his unhappy Queen, shut up with herprayers and her tears in her own room, with her tapestry, her books ofhistory, and her music for sole relaxation. "The most innocentpleasures, " Queen Marie wrote sadly at this time, "are not for me. "

Under Madame de Mailly's rule the Court of Versailles awoke to a newlife. "The little apartments grow animated, gay to the point of licence. Noise, merriment, an even gayer and livelier clash of glasses, maddernights. " Fête succeeded fête in brilliant sequence. Each night saw itsRoyal debauch, with the King and his mistress for arch-spirits of therevels. There were nightly banquets, with the rarest wines and the mostcostly viands, supplemented by salads prepared by the dainty hands ofMademoiselle de Charolois, and ragouts cooked by Louis himself in silversaucepans. And these were followed by orgies which left the celebrants, in the last excesses of intoxication, to be gathered up at break of dayand carried helpless to bed. 

Such wild excesses could not fail sooner or later to bring satiety to alover so unstable as Louis; and it was not long before he grew a littleweary of his mistress, who, too assured of her conquest, began toexhibit sudden whims and caprices, and fits of obstinacy. Her jealouseyes followed him everywhere, her reproaches, if he so much as smiled ona rival beauty, provoked daily quarrels. He was drawn, much against hiswill, into her family disputes, and into the disgraceful affairs of herfather, the dissolute Marquis de Nesle. 

Meanwhile Madame de Mailly's supremacy was being threatened in a mostunexpected quarter. Among the pupils of the convent school at Port Royalwas a young girl, in whose ambitious brain the project was forming ofsupplanting the King's favourite, and of ruling France and Louis at thesame time. The idle dream of a schoolgirl, of course! But to Félicité deNesle it was no vain dream, but the ambition of a lifetime, whichdominated her more and more as the months passed in her conventseclusion. If her sister, Madame de Mailly, had so easily made aconquest of the King, why should she, with less beauty, it is true, butwith a much cleverer brain, despair? And thus it was that every letterMadame received from her "little sister" pleaded for an invitation toCourt, until at last Mademoiselle de Nesle found herself the guest ofLouis' mistress in his palace. 

Thus the first important step was taken. The rest would be easy; forMademoiselle never doubted for a moment her ability to carry out herprogramme to its splendid climax. It was certainly a bold, almostimpudent design; for the girl of the convent had few attractions toappeal to a monarch so surrounded by beauty as the King of France. Whatthe courtiers saw, says the Duc de Richelieu, was "a long neck clumsilyset on the shoulders, a masculine figure and carriage, features notunlike those of Madame de Mailly, but thinner and harder, whichexhibited none of her flashes of kindness, her tenderness of passion. "

Even her manners seemed calculated to repel, rather than attract the manshe meant to conquer; for she treated him, from the first, with afamiliarity amounting almost to rudeness, and a wilfulness to which hewas by no means accustomed. There was, at any rate, something novel andpiquant in an attitude so different from that of all other Court ladies. Resentment was soon replaced by interest, and interest by attraction;until Louis, before he was aware of it, began to find the society of theimpish, mocking, defiant maid from the convent more to his taste thanthat of the most fascinating women of his Court. 

The more he saw of her, the more effectually he came under her spell. Each day found her in some new and tantalising mood; and as she drew himmore and more into her toils, she kept him there by her ingenuity indevising novel pleasures and entertainments for him, until, within amonth of setting eyes on her, he was telling Madame de Mailly, he "lovedher sister more than herself. " One of the first evidences of his favourwas to provide her with a husband in the Comte de Vintimille, and adower of two hundred thousand livres. He promised her a post aslady-in-waiting to Madame la Dauphine and gave her a sumptuous suite ofrooms at Versailles. He even conferred on her husband the honour ofhanding him his shirt on the wedding-night, an evidence of high favoursuch as no other bridegroom had enjoyed. 

It was thus little surprise to anyone to find the Comtesse-bride notonly her sister's most formidable rival, but actually usurping her placeand privileges. Nor was it long before this place, on which she had sether heart first within the walls of the Port Royal Convent, wasunassailably hers; and Madame de Mailly, in tears and sadness, saw anunbridgeable gulf widen between her and the man she undoubtedly hadgrown to love. 

That Félicité de Nesle had not over-estimated her powers of conquest wassoon apparent. Louis became her abject slave, humouring her caprices andsubmitting to her will. And this will, let it be said to her credit, sheexercised largely for his good. She weaned him from his vicious ways;she stimulated whatever good remained in him; she tried, and in ameasure succeeded in making a man of him. Under her influence he beganto realise that he was a King, and to play his exalted part moreworthily. He asserted himself in a variety of directions, from lookingpersonally after the ordering of his household to taking the reins ofState into his own hands. 

Nor did she curtail his pleasures. She merely gave them a sanerdirection. Orgies and midnight revelry became things of the past, buttheir place was taken by delightful days spent at the Château of Choisy, that regal little pleasure-house between the waters of the Seine and theForest of Sénart, with all its marvels of costly and artisticfurnishing. Here one entertainment succeeded another, from the huntingwhich opened, to the card-games which closed the day. A time of innocentdelights which came sweet to the jaded palate of the King. 

Thus the halcyon months passed, until, one August day in 1741, theComtesse was seized with a slight fever; Louis, consumed by anxiety, spending the anxious hours by her bedside or pacing the corridoroutside. Two days later he was stooping to kiss an infant presented tohim on a cushion of cramoisi velvet. His happiness was crowned at last, and life spread before him a prospect of many such years. But tragedywas already brooding over this scene of pleasure, although none, leastof all the King, seemed to see the shadow of her wings. 

One early day in December, Madame de Vintimille was seized with a severeillness, as sudden as it was mysterious. Physicians were hastilysummoned from Paris, only, to Louis' despair, to declare that they coulddo nothing to save the life of the Comtesse. "Tortured by excruciatingpain, " says de Goncourt, "struggling against a death which was full ofterror, and which seemed to point to the violence of poison, the dyingwoman sent for a confessor. She died almost instantly in his arms beforethe Sacraments could be administered. And as the confessor, charged withthe dead woman's last penitent message to her sister, entered Madame deMailly's _salon_, he dropped dead. "

Here, indeed, was tragedy in its most sudden and terrible form! The Kingwas stunned, incredulous. He refused to believe that the woman he had solately clasped in his arms, so warm, so full of life, was dead. And whenat last the truth broke on him with crushing force, he was as a mandistraught. "He shut himself up in his room, and listened half-dead to aMass from his bed. " He would not allow any but the priest to come nearhim; he repulsed all efforts at consolation. 

And whilst Louis was thus alone with his demented grief, "thrust away ina stable of the palace, lay the body of the dead woman, which had beenkept for a cast to be taken; that distorted countenance, that mouthwhich had breathed out its soul in a convulsion, so that the efforts oftwo men were required to close it for moulding, the already decomposingremains of Madame de Vintimille served as a plaything and alaughing-stock to the children and lackeys. "

When the storm of his grief at last began to abate, the King retired tohis remote country-seat of Saint Leger, carrying his broken heart withhim--and also Madame de Mailly, as sharer of his sorrow; for it was tothe woman whom he had so lightly discarded that he first turned forsolace. At Saint Leger he passed his days in reading and re-reading thetwo thousand letters the dead Comtesse had written to him, sprinklingtheir perfumed pages with his tears. And when he was not thus buryinghimself in the past, he was a prey to the terrors that had obsessed hischildhood--the fear of death and of hell. 

At supper--the only meal which he shared with others, he refused totouch meat, "in order that he might not commit sin on every side"; if alight word was spoken he would rebuke the speaker by talk of death andjudgment; and if his eyes met those of Madame de Mailly, he burst intotears and was led sobbing from the room. 

The communion of grief gradually awoke in him his old affection forMadame de Mailly; and for a time it seemed not unlikely that she mightregain her lost supremacy. But the discarded mistress had many enemiesat Court, who were by no means willing to see her re-established infavour--the chief of them, the Duc de Richelieu, the handsomest man andthe "hero" of more scandalous amours than any other in France--a man, moreover, of crafty brain, who had already acquired an ascendancy overthe King's mind. 

With Madame de Tencin, a woman as scheming and with as evil a reputationas himself, for chief ally, the Due determined to find another mistresswho should finally oust Madame de Mailly from Louis' favour; and her hefound in a woman, devoted to himself and his interests, and of suchsurpassing loveliness that, when the King first saw her at Petit Bourg, he exclaimed, "Heavens! how beautiful she is!"

Such was the involuntary tribute Louis paid at first sight to the charmsof Madame de la Tournelle, who was now fated to take the place of herdead sister, Madame de Vintimille, just as the Comtesse had supplantedanother sister, Madame de Mailly. 

CHAPTER XXVI

THE RIVAL SISTERS--_continued_

Louis XV. 's involuntary exclamation when he first set eyes on theloveliness of Madame de la Tournelle, "Heavens! how beautiful she is!"becomes intelligible when we look on Nattier's picture of this fairestof the de Nesle sisters in his "Allegory of the Daybreak, " and read thecontemporary descriptions of her charms. 

"She ravished the eye, " we are told, "with her skin of dazzlingwhiteness, her elegant carriage, her free gestures, the enchantingglance of her big blue eyes--a gaze of which the cunning was veiled bysentiment--by the smile of a child, moist lips, a bosom surging, heaving, ever agitated by the flux and reflux of life, by a physiognomyat once passionate and mutinous. " And to these seductions were added asunny temperament, an infectious gaiety of spirit, and a playful witwhich made her infinitely attractive to men much less susceptible thatthe amorous Louis. 

It is little wonder then that in the reaction which followed his stormygrief for his dead love, the Comtesse de Vintimille, he should turn fromthe lachrymose companionship of Madame de Mailly to bask in thesunshine of this third of the beautiful sisters, Madame de la Tournelle, and that the wish to possess her should fire his blood. But Madame de laTournelle was not to prove such an easy conquest as her two sisters, whohad come almost unasked to his arms. 

At the time when she came thus dramatically into his life she was livingwith Madame de Mazarin, a strong-minded woman who had no cause to loveLouis, who had thwarted and opposed him more than once, and who wasdetermined at any cost to keep her protégée and pet out of his clutches. And his desires had also two other stout opponents in Cardinal Fleury, his old mentor, and Maurepas, the most subtle and clever of hisministers, each of whom for different reasons was strongly averse tothis new and dangerous liaison, which would make him the tool ofRichelieu's favourite and Richelieu's party. 

Thus, for months, Louis found himself baffled in all his efforts to winthe prize on which he had set his heart until, in September, 1742, oneformidable obstacle was removed from his path by the death of Madame deMazarin. To Madame de la Tournelle the loss of her protectress waslittle short of a calamity, for it left her not only homeless, butpractically penniless; and, in her extremity, she naturally turnedhopeful eyes to the King, of whose passion she was well aware. At least, she hoped, he might give her some position at his Court which wouldrescue her from poverty. When she begged Maurepas, Madame de Mazarin'skinsman and heir, to appeal to the King on her behalf, his answer wasto order her and her sister, Madame de Flavacourt, to leave the HotelMazarin, thus making her plight still more desperate. 

But, fortunately, in this hour of her greatest need she found anunexpected friend in Louis' ill-used Queen, who, ignorant of herhusband's infatuation for the beautiful Madame de la Tournelle, sent forher, spoke gracious words of sympathy to her, and announced herintention of installing her in Madame de Mazarin's place as a lady ofthe palace. Thus did fortune smile on Madame just when her future seemeddarkest. But her troubles were by no means at an end. Fleury andMaurepas were more determined than ever that the King should not comeinto the power of a woman so alluring and so dangerous; and theyexhausted every expedient to put obstacles in her path and to discoverand support rival claimants to the post. 

For once, however, Louis was adamant. He had not waited so long andfeverishly for his prize to be baulked when it seemed almost in hisgrasp. Madame de la Tournelle should have her place at his Court, and itwould not be his fault if she did not soon fill one more exalted andintimate. Thus it was that when Fleury submitted to him the list ofapplicants, with la Tournelle's name at the bottom, he promptly re-wroteit at the head of the list, and handed it back to the Cardinal with thewords, "The Queen is decided, and wishes to give her the place. "

We can picture Madame de Mailly's distress and suspense while thesenegotiations were proceeding. She had, as we have seen in the previouschapter, been supplanted by one sister in the King's affection; and justas she was recovering some of her old position in his favour, she wasthreatened with a second dethronement by another sister. In her alarmshe flew to Madame de la Tournelle, to set her fears at rest one way orthe other. "Can it be possible that you are going to take my place?" sheasked, the tears streaming down her cheeks. "Quite impossible, mysister, " answered Madame, with a smile; and Madame de Mailly, thusreassured, returned to Versailles the happiest woman in France--tolearn, a few days later, that it was not only possible, it was anaccomplished fact. For the second time, and now, as she knew well, finally, she was ousted from the affection of the King she loved sosincerely; and again it was a sister who had done her this grievouswrong. She was determined, however, that she would not quit the fieldwithout a last fight, and she knew she had doughty champions in Fleuryand Maurepas, who still refused to acknowledge defeat. 

Although Madame de la Tournelle was now installed in the palace, the dayof Louis' conquest had not arrived. The gratification of his passion wasstill thwarted in several directions. Not only was Madame de Mailly'spresence a difficulty and a reproach to him; his new favourite was by nomeans willing to respond to his advances. Her heart was still engaged tothe Due d'Agenois, and was not hers to dispose of. Richelieu, however, was quick to dispose of this difficulty. He sent the handsome Duc toLanguedoc, exposed him to the attractions of a pretty woman, and beforemany weeks had passed, was able to show Madame de la Tournellepassionate letters addressed to her rival by her lover, as evidence ofthe worthlessness of his vows; thus arming her pride against him anddisposing her at last to lend a more favourable ear to the King. 

As for Madame de Mailly, her shrift was short. In spite of her tears, her pleadings, her caresses, Louis made no concealment of his intentionto be rid of her. "No sorrow, no humiliation was lacking in thedeath-struggle of love. The King spared her nothing. He did not evenspare her those harsh words which snap the bonds of the most vulgarliaisons. " And the climax came when he told the heart-broken woman, asshe cringed pitifully at his feet, "You must go away this very day. " "Mysacrifices are finished, " she sobbed, a little later to the "Judas, "Richelieu, when, with friendly words, he urged her to humour the Kingand go away at least for a time; "it will be my death, but I will be inParis to-night. "

And while Madame de Mailly was carrying her crushed heart through thedarkness to her exile, the King and Richelieu, disguised in largeperukes and black coats, were stealing across the great courtyards tothe rooms of Madame de la Tournelle, where the King's long waiting wasto have its reward. And, the following day, the usurper was callouslywriting to a friend, "Doubtless Meuse will have informed you of thetrouble I had in ousting Madame de Mailly; at last I obtained a mandateto the effect that she was not to return until she was sent for. "

"No portrait, " says de Goncourt, referring to this letter, "is to becompared with such a confession. It is the woman herself with thecynicism of her hardness, her shameless and cold-blooded ingratitude. .. . It is as though she drives her sister out by the two shoulders withthose words which have the coarse energy of the lower orders. "

Louis, at last happy in the achievement of his desire, was not long indiscovering that in the third of the Nesle sisters he had his hands morefull than with either of her predecessors. Madame de Mailly and theComtesse de Vintimille had been content to play the rôle of mistress, and to receive the King's none too lavish largesse with gratitude. Madame de la Tournelle was not so complaisant, so easily satisfied. Sheintended--and she lost no time in making the King aware of herintention--to have her position recognised by the world at large, toreign as Montespan had reigned, to have the Treasury placed at herdisposal, and her children, if she had any, made legitimate. Her laststipulation was that she should be made a Duchess before the end of theyear. And to all these proposals Louis gave a meek assent. 

To show further her independence, she soon began to drive her lover todistraction by her caprices and her temper: "She tantalised, at oncerebuffed and excited the King by the most adroit comedies and thosecoquetries which are the strength of her sex, assuring him that shewould be delighted if he would transfer his affection to other ladies. "And while the favourite was thus revelling in the insolence of herconquest, her supplanted sister was eating out her heart in Paris. "Herdespair was terrible; the trouble of her heart refused consolation, begged for solitude, found vent every moment in cries for Louis. Thosewho were around her trembled for her reason, for her life. .. . Again andagain she made up her mind to start for the Court, to make a finalappeal to the King, but each time, when the carriage was ready, sheburst into tears and fell back upon her bed. "

As for Louis, chilled by the coldness of his mistress, distracted by herwhims and rages, his heart often yearned for the woman he had so cruellydiscarded; and separation did more than all her tears and caresses couldhave done, to awake again the love he fancied was dead. 

When Madame de la Tournelle paid her first visit as _Maîtresse en titre_to Choisy, nothing would satisfy her but an escort of the noblest ladiesin France, including a Princess of the Blood. Her progress was that of aQueen; and in return for this honour, wrung out of the King's weakness, she repaid him with weeks of coldness and ill-humour. She refused toplay at _cavagnol_ with him; she barricaded herself in her room, refusing to open to all her lover's knocking; and vented her vapours onhim with, or without, provocation, until, as she considered, she hadreduced him to a becoming submission. Then she used her power and hercoquetries to wheedle out of him one concession after another, including a promise by the King to return unopened any letters Madame deMailly might send to him. Nor was she content until her sister wasfinally disposed of by the grant of a small pension and a modest lodgingin the Luxembourg. 

Before the year closed Madame de la Tournelle was installed in the mostluxurious apartments at Versailles, and Louis, now completely caught inher toils, was the slave of her and his senses, flinging himself intoall the licence of passion, and reviving the nightly debauches fromwhich the dead Comtesse had weaned him. And while her lover was thussteeped in sensuality, his mistress was, with infinite tact, pursuingher ambition. Affecting an indifference to affairs of State, she wasgradually, and with seeming reluctance, worming herself into theposition of chief Counsellor, and while professing to despise money shewas draining the exchequer to feed her extravagance. 

Never was King so hopelessly in the toils of a woman as Louis, thewell-beloved, in those of Madame de la Tournelle. He accepted as meeklyas a child all her coldness and caprices, her jealousies and her rages;and was ideally happy when, in a gracious mood, she would allow him toassist at her toilette as the reward for some regal present of diamonds, horses, or gowns. 

It was after one such privileged hour that Louis, with childishpleasure, handed to his favourite the patent, creating her Duchesse deChateauroux, enclosed in a casket of gold; and with it a rapturousletter in which he promised her a pension of eighty-thousand livres, the better to maintain her new dignity!

Having thus achieved her greatest ambition, the Duchesse (as we must nowcall her) aspired to play a leading part in the affairs of Europe. France and Prussia were leagued in war against the forces of England, Austria, and Holland. This was a seductive game in which to take a hand, and thus we find her stimulating the sluggard kingliness in her lover, urging him to leave his debauches and to lead his armies to victory, assuring him of the gratitude and admiration of his subjects. Nothingless, she told him, would save his country from disaster. 

To this appeal and temptation Louis was not slow to respond; and in May, 1744, we find him, to the delight of his soldiers and all France, at theseat of war, reviewing his troops, speaking words of high courage tothem, visiting hospitals and canteens, and actually sending back ahaughty message to the Dutch: "I will give you your answer in Flanders. "No wonder the army was roused to enthusiasm, or that it exclaimed withone voice, "At last we have found a King!"

So strong was Louis in his new martial resolve that he actually refusedMadame de Chateauroux permission to accompany him. France was delightedthat at last her King had emancipated himself from petticoat influence, but the delight was short-lived, for before he had been many days incamp the Duchesse made her stately appearance, and saws and hammerswere at work making a covered way between the house assigned to her andthat occupied by the King. A fortnight later Ypres had fallen, and shewas writing to Richelieu, "This is mighty pleasant news and gives mehuge pleasure. I am overwhelmed with joy, to take Ypres in nine days. You can think of nothing more glorious, more flattering to the King; andhis great-grandfather, great as he was, never did the like!"

But grief was coming quickly on the heels of joy. The King was seizedwith a sudden and serious illness, after a banquet shared with his ally, the King of Prussia; and in a few days a malignant fever had brought himface to face with death. Madame de Chateauroux watched his sufferingswith the eyes of despair. "Leaning over the pillow of the dying man, aghast and trembling, she fights for him with sickness and death, terrorand remorse. " With locked door she keeps her jealous watch by hisbedside, allowing none to enter but Richelieu, the doctors, and nurses, whilst outside are gathered the Princes of the Blood and the greatofficers of the Court, clamouring for admittance. 

It was a grim environment for the death-bed of a King, this struggle forsupremacy, in which a frail woman defied the powers of France for themonopoly of his last hours. And chief of all the terrors that assailedher was the dread of that climax to it all, when her lover would have tomake his last confession, the price of his absolution being, as she wellknew, a final severance from herself. 

Over this protracted and unseemly duel, in which blows were exchanged, entrance was forced, and Princes and ministers crowded indecently aroundthe King's bed; over the Duchesse's tearful pleadings with the confessorto spare her the disgrace of dismissal, we must hasten to the crowningmoment when Louis, feeling that he was dying, hastily summoned aconfessor, who, a few moments later, flung open the door of the closetin which the Duchesse was waiting and weeping, and pronounced the fatalwords, "The King commands you to leave his presence immediately. "

Then followed that secret flight to Paris, "amidst a torrent ofmaledictions, " the Duchesse hiding herself from view as best she could, and at each town and village where horses were changed, slinking backand taking refuge in some by-road until she could resume her journey. Then it was that in her grief and despair she wrote to Richelieu, "Oh, my God! what a thing it all is! I give you my word, it is all over withme! One would need to be a poor fool to start it all over again. "

But Louis was by no means a dead man. From the day on which he receivedabsolution from his manifold sins he made such haste to recover that, within a month, he was well again and eager to fly to the arms of thewoman he had so abruptly abandoned with all other earthly vanities. Itwas one thing, however, to dismiss the Duchesse, and quite another tocall her back. For a time she refused point-blank to look again on theKing who had spurned her from fear of hell; and when at last sheconsented to receive the penitent at Versailles she let him know, in novague terms, that "it would cost France too many heads if she were toreturn to his Court. "

Vengeance on her enemies was the only price she would accept forforgiveness, and this price Louis promised to pay in liberal measure. One after the other, those who had brought about her humiliation weresent to disgrace or exile--from the Duc de Chatillon to La Rochefoucauldand Perusseau. Maurepas, the most virulent of them all, the Kingdeclined to exile, but he consented to a compromise. He should be madeto offer Madame an abject apology, to grovel at her feet, a punishmentwith which she was content. And when the great minister presentedhimself by her bedside, in fear and trembling, to express his profoundpenitence and to beg her to return to Court, all she answered was, "Giveme the King's letters and go!"

The following Saturday she fixed on as the day of her triumphantreturn--"but it was death that was to raise her from the bed on whichshe had received the King's submission at the hands of his PrimeMinister. " Within twenty-four hours she was seized with violentconvulsions and delirium. In her intervals of consciousness she shriekedaloud that she had been poisoned, and called down curses on hermurderer--Maurepas. For eleven days she passed from one delirious attackto another, and as many times she was bled. But all the skill of theCourt physicians was powerless to save her, and at five o'clock in themorning of the 8th December the Duchesse drew her last tortured breathin the arms of Madame de Mailly, the sister she had so cruelly wronged. 

Two days later, de Goncourt tells us, she was buried at Saint Sulpice, an hour before the customary time for interments, her coffin guarded bysoldiers, to protect it from the fury of the mob. 

As for Madame de Mailly, she spent the last years of her troubled lifein the odour of a tardy sanctity--washing the feet of the poor, ministering to the sick, bringing consolation to those in prison; andshe was laid to rest amongst the poorest in the Cimetière des Innocents, wearing the hair-shirt which had been part of her penance during life, and with a simple cross of wood for all monument. 

CHAPTER XXVII

A MISTRESS OF INTRIGUE

"On 11th September, " Madame de Motteville says, "we saw arrive fromItaly three nieces of Cardinal Mazarin and a nephew. Two Mancini sistersand the nephew were the children of the youngest sister of his Eminence;and of the sisters Laure, the elder, was a pleasing brunette with ahandsome face, about twelve or thirteen years of age; the second(Olympe), also a brunette, had a long face and pointed chin. Her eyeswere small, but lively; and it might be expected that, when fifteenyears of age, she would have some charm. According to the rules ofbeauty, it was impossible to grant her any, save that of having dimplesin her cheeks. "

Such, at the age of nine or ten, was Olympe Mancini, who, in spite ofher childish lack of beauty, was destined to enslave the handsomest Kingin Europe; and, after a life of discreditable intrigues, in which sheincurred the stigma of witchcraft and murder, to end her career inobscurity, shunned by all who had known her in her day of splendour. 

It was a singular freak of fortune which translated the Mancini girlsfrom their modest home in Italy to the magnificence of the FrenchCourt, as the adopted children of their uncle, Cardinal Mazarin, thevirtual ruler of France, and the avowed lover (if not, as some say, thehusband) of Anne of Austria, the Queen-mother. "See those little girls, "said the wife of Maréchal de Villeroi to Gaston d'Orléans, pointing tothe Mancini children, the centre of an admiring crowd of courtiers. "They are not rich now; but some day they will have fine châteaux, largeincomes, splendid jewels, beautiful silver, and perhaps greatdignities. "

And how true this prophecy proved, we know; for, of the Cardinal's fiveMancini nieces (for three others came, later, as their uncle'sprotégées), Laure found a husband in the Duc de Mercoeur, grandson ofHenri IV. ; two others lived to wear the coronet of Duchess; Olympe, aswe shall see, became Comtesse de Soissons; and Marie, after narrowlymissing the Queendom of France, became the wife of the ConstableColonna, one of the greatest nobles of Italy. 

Nor is there anything in such high alliances to cause surprise; fortheir future was in the hands of the most powerful, ambitious, andwealthy man in France. From their first appearance as his guests theywere received with open arms by Louis' Court. They were speedilytransferred to the Palais Royal, to be brought up with the boy-King, Louis XIV. , and his brother, the Prince of Anjou; while the Queenherself not only paid them the most flattering attentions and treatedthem as her own children, but herself undertook part of their education. 

It was under such enviable conditions that the young daughters of apoor Roman baron grew up to girlhood--the pets of the Queen and theCourt, the playfellows of the King, and the acknowledged heiresses oftheir uncle's millions; and of them all, not one had a keener eye to thefuture than Olympe of the long face, pointed chin, and dimples. It wasshe who entered with the greatest zest into the romps and games of herplaymate, Louis XIV. , who surrounded him with the most delicateflatteries and attentions, and practised all her childish arts andcoquetries to win his favour. And she succeeded to such an extent thatit was always the company of Olympe, and not of her more beautifulsisters, Hortense, Laure, or Marie, that Louis most sought. 

Not that Olympe was always to remain the plain, unattractive childMadame de Motteville describes in 1647. Each year, as it passed, addedsome touch of beauty, developed some latent charm, until at eighteen shewas very fair to look upon. "Her eyes now" says Madame de Motteville, "were full of fire, her complexion had become beautiful, her face lessthin, her cheeks took dimples which gave her a fresh charm, and she hadfine arms and beautiful hands. She certainly seemed charming in the eyesof the King, and sufficiently pretty to indifferent spectators. "

That she had wooers in plenty, even before she was so far advanced inthe teens, was inevitable; but her personal preferences counted forlittle in face of the Cardinal's determination to find for her, as forall his nieces, a splendid alliance which should shed lustre on himself. And thus it was that, without any consultation of her heart, Olympe'shand was formally given to Prince Eugene de Savoie, Comte de Soissons, aman in whose veins flowed the Royal strains of Savoy and France. 

It was a brilliant match indeed for the daughter of a petty Italianbaron; and Mazarin saw that it was celebrated with becomingmagnificence. On the 20th February, 1657, we see a brilliant companyrepairing to the Queen's apartments, "the Comte de Soissons escortinghis betrothed, dressed in a gown of silver cloth, with a bouquet ofpearls on her head, valued at more than 50, 000 livres, and so manyjewels that their splendour, joined to the natural éclat of her beauty, caused her to be admired by everyone. Immediately afterwards, thenuptials were celebrated in the Queen's chapel. Then the illustriouspair, after dining with the Princesse de Carignan-Savoie, ascended tothe apartments of his Eminence, the Cardinal, where they wereentertained to a magnificent supper, at which the King and Monsieur didthe company the honour of joining them. "

Then followed two days of regal receptions; a visit to Notre Dame tohear Mass, with the Queen herself as escort; and a stately journey tothe Hôtel de Soissons, where the Comtesse's mother-in-law "testified toher, by her joy and the rich presents which she made her, how great wasthe satisfaction with which she regarded this marriage. "

Thus raised to the rank of a Princess of the Blood, Olympe was by nomeans the proud and happy woman she ought to have been. She had, infact, aspired much higher; she had had dreams of sharing the throne ofFrance with her handsome young playmate, the King; and to Louis, wifethough she now was, she had lost none of the attraction she possessedwhen he called her his "little sweetheart" in their childish gamestogether. "He continued to visit her with the greatest regularity, " toquote Mr Noel Williams; "indeed, scarcely a day went by on which HisMajesty's coach did not stop at the gate of the Hôtel de Soissons; andOlympe, basking in the rays of the Royal favour, rapidly took her placeas the brilliant, intriguing great lady Nature intended her to be. "

It is little wonder, perhaps, that Olympe's foolish head was turned bysuch flattering attentions from her sovereign, or that she began to giveherself airs and to treat members of the Royal family with a haughtypatronage. Even La Grande Mademoiselle did not escape her insolence;for, as she herself records, "when I paid her a thousand compliments andtold her that her marriage had given me the greatest joy and that Ihoped we should always be good friends, she answered me not a word. "

But Olympe's supremacy was not to remain much longer unchallenged. TheKing's vagrant fancy was already turning to her younger sister, Marie, whose childish plainness had now ripened to a beauty more dazzling thanher own--the witchery of large and brilliant black eyes, a complexion ofpure olive, luxuriant, jet-black hair, a figure of singular supplenessand grace, and a sprightliness of wit and a _gaieté de coeur_ which theComtesse could not hope to rival. It soon began to be rumoured in Courtthat Louis spent hours daily in the company of Mazarin's beautifulniece; a rumour which Hortense Mancini supports in her "Memoirs. " "Thepresence of the King, who seldom stirred from our lodging, ofteninterrupted us, " she says; "my sister, Marie, alone was undisturbed; andyou can easily understand that his assiduity had charms for her, who wasthe cause of it, because it had none for others. "

And as Louis' visits to the Mancini lodging became more and morefrequent, each adding a fresh link to the chain that was binding him toher young sister, Madame de Soissons saw less and less of him, until anamused tolerance gave place to a genuine alarm. It was nothing less thanan outrage that she, who had so long held first place in the King'sfavour, should be ousted by a "mere child, " the last person in the worldwhom she could have thought of as a rival. But the Comtesse was no womanto be easily dethroned. Although at every Court ball, fête, or ballet, Louis was now inseparable from her sister, she affected to ignore theseopen slights and lost no opportunity in public of vaunting her intimacywith His Majesty, even to the extent on one occasion, as Mademoisellerecords, of taking Louis' seat at a ball supper and compelling him toshare it with her. 

But such shameless arrogance only served to estrange the King stillfurther, and to make him seek still more the company of the youngsister, who had already captured his heart as the Comtesse had nevercaptured it. When Louis made his memorable journey to Lyons to meet thePrincess Margaret of Savoy, it was to Marie that he paid the mostcourtly and tender attentions. "During the journey, " says Mademoiselle, "he did not address a word to the Comtesse de Soissons"; and, indeed, onmore than one occasion he showed a marked aversion to her. 

At St Jean d'Angely, Louis not only himself escorted Marie to herlodging; he stayed with her until two o'clock in the morning. "Nothing, "her sister Hortense records, "could equal the passion which the Kingshowed, and the tenderness with which he asked of Marie her pardon forall she had suffered for his sake. " It was, indeed, no secret at Courtthat he had offered her marriage, and had taken a solemn vow thatneither Margaret of Savoy nor the Infanta of Spain should be his wife. But, as we have seen in a previous chapter, both the Queen and Mazarinwere determined that the Infanta should be Queen of France; and that hisfoolish romance with the Mancini girl should be nipped in the bud. 

There was also another powerful influence at work to thwart his passionfor Marie. The indifference of the Comtesse de Soissons had given placeto a fury of resentment; and she needed no instigation of her uncle todetermine at any cost to recover the place she had lost in Louis'favour. She brought all her armoury of coquetry and flatteries to bearon him, and so far succeeded that, we read, "the King has resumed hisrelations with the Comtesse; he has recommenced to talk and laugh withher; and three days since he entertained M. And Madame de Soissons witha ball and a play, and afterwards they partook of _medianoche_ (amidnight banquet) together, passing more than three hours inconversation with them. "

Meanwhile Marie, realising the hopelessness of her passion in face ofthe opposition of her uncle and the Queen, and of Louis' approachingmarriage to the Spanish Princess, had given him unequivocally tounderstand that their relations must cease, and the rupture was completewhen the Comtesse told the King of her sister's dallying with PrinceCharles of Lorraine, of their assignations in the Tuileries, of theirmutual infatuation, and of the rumours of an arranged marriage. "_Celaest bien_" was all Louis remarked, but the dark flush of anger thatflooded his face was a sweet reward to the Comtesse for her treachery. 

A few days later her revenge was complete when, in the King's presence, she rallied her sister on her low spirits. "You find the time passslowly when you are away from Paris, " she said; "nor am I surprised, since you have left your lover there"; to which Marie answered with ahaughty toss of the head, "That is possible, Madame. "

One formidable rival thus removed from her path, Madame de Soissons wasnot long left to enjoy her triumph; for another was quick to take theplace abandoned by the broken-hearted Marie--the beautiful and gentle LaVallière, who was the next to acquire an ascendancy over the King'ssusceptible heart. Once more the Comtesse, to her undisguised chagrin, found herself relegated to the background, to look impotently on whileLouis made love to her successor, and to meditate new schemes ofvengeance. It was in vain that Louis, by way of amende, found for her alover in the Marquis de Vardes, the most handsome and dissolute of hiscourtiers, for whom she soon developed a veritable passion. Her vanitymight be appeased, but her bitterness--the _spretoe injuriaformoe_--remained; and she lost no time in plotting further mischief. 

With the help of M. De Vardes and the Comte de Guiche, she sent ananonymous letter to the Queen, containing a full and intimate account ofher husband's amour with La Vallière--the letter enclosed in an envelopeaddressed in the handwriting of the Queen of Spain. Fortunately forMaria Theresa's peace of mind the letter fell into the hands of Louishimself, who was naturally furious at such treachery and determined tomake those responsible for it suffer--when he should discover them. As, however, the investigation of the matter was entrusted to de Vardes, itis needless to say that the culprits escaped detection. 

Madame de Soissons' next attempt to bring about a rupture between theKing and La Vallière, by bringing forward a rival in the person of theseductive Mlle de la Motte-Houdancourt, proved equally futile, whenLouis discovered by accident that she was but a tool in Madame'sdesigning hands; and for a time the Comtesse was sent in disgrace fromthe Court to nurse her jealousy and to devise more effectual plans ofvengeance. 

What form these took seems clear from an investigation held at theclose of 1678 into a supposed plot to poison the King and the Dauphin--aplot of which La Voisin, one of the greatest criminals in history, wassuspected of being the ringleader. During this inquiry La Voisinconfessed that the Comtesse de Soissons had come to her house one day"and demanded the means of getting rid of Mile de la Vallière"; and, further, that the Comtesse had avowed her intention to destroy not onlyLouis' mistress, but the King himself. 

Such a confession was well calculated to rouse a storm of indignation inFrance, where Madame de Soissons had made many powerful enemies. TheChambre unanimously demanded her arrest; but before it could beeffected, Madame, stoutly declaring her innocence, had shaken the dustof Paris off her feet, and was on her way to Brussels. 

During her flight to safety, we are told, "the principal inns in thetowns and villages through which she passed refused to receive her"; andmore than once she was compelled to sleep on straw and suffer theinsults of the populace, which reviled her as sorceress and poisoner. "We are assured, " Madame de Sevigné writes, "that the gates of Namur, Antwerp, and other towns have been closed against the Countess, thepeople crying out, 'We want no poisoner here'!" Even at Brussels, whenever she ventured into the streets she was assailed by a storm ofinsults; and on one occasion, when she entered a church, "a number ofpeople rushed out, collected all the black cats they could find, tiedtheir tails together, and brought them howling and spitting into theporch, crying out that they were devils who were following theComtesse. "

In the face of such chilling hospitality Madame de Soissons was nottempted to make a long stay in Brussels; and after a few months ofrestless wandering in Flanders and Germany, she drifted to Spain whereshe succeeded in ingratiating herself with the Queen. She found littlewelcome however from the King, who, as the French Ambassador to Madridwrote, "was warned against her. He accused her of sorcery, and I learnthat, some days ago, he conceived the idea that, had it not been for aspell she had cast over him, he would have had children. .. . The life ofthe Comtesse de Soissons consists in receiving at her house all personswho desire to come there, from four o'clock in the evening up to two orthree hours after midnight. There is, sire, everything that can conveyan air of familiarity and contempt for the house of a woman of quality. "

That Carlos' suspicions were not without reason was proved when one dayhis Queen, after, it is said, drinking a glass of milk handed to her bythe Comtesse, was taken suddenly ill and expired after three days ofterrible suffering. That she died of poison, like her mother, theill-fated sister of our second Charles, seems probable; but that thepoison was administered by the Comtesse, whose friend and protectressshe was and who had every reason to wish her well, is less to bebelieved, in spite of Saint-Simon's unequivocal accusation. Certainlythe crime was not proved against her; for we find her still in Spain inthe following spring, when Carlos, his patience exhausted, ordered herto leave the country. 

After a short stay in Portugal and Germany, Madame de Soissons was backin Brussels, where she spent the brief remainder of her days--"all theFrench of distinction who visited the City" (to quote Saint-Simon)"being strictly forbidden to visit her. " Here, on the 9th October, 1690, her beauty but a memory, bankrupt in reputation, friendless and poor, the curtain fell on the life so full of mis-used gifts and baffledambitions. 

CHAPTER XXVIII

AN ILL-FATED MARRIAGE

Few Kings have come to their thrones under such brilliant auspices asMilan I. Of Servia; few have abandoned their crowns to the greaterrelief of their subjects, or have been followed to their exile by somuch hatred. But a fortnight before Milan's accession, his cousin andpredecessor, Prince Michael, had been foully done to death by hiredassassins as he was walking in the park of Topfschider, with threeladies of his Court; and the murdered man had been placed in a carriage, sitting upright as in life, and had been driven back to his palacethrough the respectful greetings of his subjects, who little knew thatthey were saluting a corpse. 

There was good reason for this mockery of death, for Prince AlexanderKarageorgevitch had long set ambitious eyes on the crown of Servia, andresolved to wrest it by fair means or foul from the boy-heir to thethrone; and it was of the highest importance that Michael's death, whichhe had so brutally planned, should be concealed from him until thesuccession had been secured to his young rival, Milan. And thus it wasthat, before Karageorgevitch could bring his plotting to the head ofachievement, Milan was hailed with acclamation as Servia's new Prince, and, on the 23rd June, 1868, made his triumphal entry into Belgrade tothe jubilant ringing of bells and the thunderous cheers of the people. 

Twelve days later, Belgrade was _en fête_ for his crowning, her streetsablaze with bunting and floral decorations, as the handsome boy made hisway through the tumults of cheers and avenues of flutteringhandkerchiefs to the Metropolitan Church. The men, we are told, "tookoff their cloaks and placed them under his feet, that he might walk onthem; they clustered round him, kissing his garments, and blessing himas their very own; they worshipped his handsome face and loved hisboyish smile. " And when his young voice rang clearly out in the words, "I promise you that I shall, to my dying day, preserve faithfully thehonour and integrity of Servia, and shall be ready to shed the last dropof my blood to defend its rights, " there was scarcely one of theenthusiastic thousands that heard him who would not have been willing tolay down his life for the idolised Prince. 

It was by strange paths that the fourteen-year-old Milan had thus cometo his Principality. The son of Jefrenn Obrenovitch, uncle of thereigning Michael, he was cradled one August day in 1854, his motherbeing Marie Catargo, of the powerful race of Roumanian "Hospodars, " awoman of strong passions and dissolute life. When her temper andinfidelities had driven her husband to the drinking that put a prematureend to his days, Marie transferred her affection, without the sanctionof a wedding-ring, to Prince Kusa, a man of as evil repute as herself. In such a home and with such guardians her only child, Milan, the futureruler of Servia, spent the early years of his life--ill-fed, neglected, and supremely wretched. 

Thus it was that, when Prince Michael summoned the boy to Belgrade, inorder to make the acquaintance of his successor, he was horrified to seean uncouth lad, as devoid of manners and of education as any in theslums of his capital. The heir to the throne could neither read norwrite; the only language he spoke was a debased Roumanian, picked upfrom the servants who had been his only associates, while of the landover which he was to rule one day he knew absolutely nothing. The onlyhope for him was his extreme youth--he was at the time only twelve yearsold--and Michael lost no time in having him trained for the high stationhe was destined to fill. 

The progress the boy made was amazing. Within two years he wasunrecognisable as the half-savage who had so shocked the Court ofBelgrade. He could speak the Servian tongue with fluency and grace; hehad acquired elegance of manners and speech, and a winning courtesy ofmanner which to his last day was his most marked characteristic; he hadmastered many accomplishments, and he excelled in most manly exercises, from riding to swimming. And to all this remarkable promise thefinishing touches were put by a visit to Paris under the tutorship of acourtly and learned professor. 

Thus when, within two years of his emancipation, he came to his crown, the uncouth lad from Roumania had blossomed into a Prince as goodly tolook on as any Europe could show--a handsome boy of courtly graces andaccomplishments, able to converse in several languages, and singularlyequipped in all ways to win the homage of the simple people over whom hehad been so early called to rule. As Mrs Gerard says, "They idolisedtheir boy-Prince. Every day they stood in long, closely packed lineswatching to see him come out of the castle to ride or drive; as hepassed along, smiling affectionately on his people, blessings wereshowered on him. There was, however, another side to this picture ofdevotion. There were those who hated the boy because he had thwartedtheir plans. " And this hatred, as persistent as it was malignant, was tofollow him throughout his reign, and through his years of unhappy exile, to his grave. 

But these days were happily still remote. After four years of minorityand Regency, when he was able to take the reins of government into hisown hands, his empire over the hearts of his subjects was more firmlybased than ever. His youth, his modesty, and his compelling charm ofmanner made friends for him wherever his wanderings took him, from Paristo Constantinople. He was the "Prince Charming" of Europe, as popularabroad as he was idolised at home; and when the time arrived to find aconsort for him he might, one would have thought, have been able to pickand choose among the fairest Princesses of the Continent. 

But handsome and gallant and popular as he was, the overtures of hisministers were coldly received by one Royal house after another. Milanmight be a reigning Prince and a charming one to boot, but it was notforgotten that the first of his line had been a common herdsman, and theblood of Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns could not be allowed to mingle withso base a strain. Even a mere Hungarian Count, whose fair daughter hadcaught Milan's fancy, frowned on the suit of the swineherd's successor. But fate had already chosen a bride for the young Prince, who was morethan equal in birth to any Count's daughter; who would bring beauty andriches as her portion; and who, after many unhappy years, was to crownher dower with tragedy. 

It was at Nice, where Prince Milan was spending the winter months of1875, that he first set eyes on the woman whose life was to be sotragically linked with his own. Among the visitors there was the familyof a Russian colonel, Nathaniel Ketschko, a man of high lineage andgreat wealth. He claimed, in fact, descent from the Royal race ofComnenus, which had given many a King to the thrones of Europe, andwhose sons for long centuries had won fame as generals, statesmen, andambassadors. And to this exalted strain was allied enormous wealth, ofwhich the Colonel's share was represented by a regal revenue of fourhundred thousand roubles a year. 

But proud as he was of his birth and his riches, Colonel Nathaniel wasstill prouder of his two lovely daughters, each of whom had inherited inliberal measure the beauty of their mother, a daughter of the princelyhouse of Stourza; and of the two the more beautiful, by common consent, was Natalie, whose charms won this spontaneous tribute from TsarNicholas, when first he saw her, "I would I were a beggar that I mightevery day ask your alms, and have the happiness of kissing your hand. "She had, says one who knew her in her radiant youth, "an irresistiblecharm that permeated her whole being with such a harmony of grace, sweetness, and overpowering attraction that one felt drawn to her withmagnetic force; and to adore her seemed the most natural and indeed theonly position. "

Such was the high tribute paid to Servia's future Queen at the firstdawning of that beauty which was to make her also Queen of all the fairwomen of Europe, and which at its zenith was thus described by one whosaw her at Wiesbaden ten years or so later: "She walked along thepromenade with a light, graceful movement; her feet hardly seemed totouch the ground, her figure was elegant, her finely cut face was lit upby those wonderful eyes, once seen never forgotten--brilliant, tender, loving; her luxuriant hair of raven black was loosely coiled round thewell-set head, or fell in curls on the beautifully arched neck. For eachone she had a pleasant smile, a gracious bow, or a few words, spoken ina musical voice. " No wonder the Germans, who looked at this apparitionof grace and beauty, "simply fell down and adored her. "

Such was the vision of beauty of which Prince Milan caught his firstglimpse on the promenade at Nice in the winter of 1875, and whichhaunted him, day and night, until chance brought their paths togetheragain, and he won her consent to share his throne. That such a highdestiny awaited her, Natalie had already been told by a gipsy whom shemet one day in the woods of her father's estate near Moscow--a meetingof which the following story is told. 

At sight of the beautiful young girl the gipsy stooped in homage andkissed the hem of her dress. "Why do you do that?" asked Natalie, halfin alarm and half in pleasure. "Because, " the woman answered, "I saluteyou as the chosen bride of a great Prince. Over your head I see a crownfloating in the air. It descends lower and lower until it rests on yourhead. A dazzling brilliance adorns the crown; it is a Royal diadem. "

"What else?" asked Natalie eagerly, her face flushed with excitement anddelight. "Oh! do tell me more, please!" "What more shall I say, "continued the gipsy, "except that you will be a Queen, and the mother ofa King; but then--"

"But then, what?" exclaimed the eager and impatient girl; "do go on, please. What then?" and she held out a gold coin temptingly. "I see alarge house; you will be there, but--take care; you will be turned outby force. .. . And now give me the coin and let me go. More I must nottell you. "

Such were the dazzling and mysterious words spoken by the gipsy woman inthe Russian forest, a year or more before Natalie first saw the Princewho was destined to make them true. But it was not at Nice thatopportunity came to Milan. It was an accidental meeting in Paris, somemonths later, that made his path clear. During a visit to the Frenchcapital he met a young Servian officer, a distant kinsman, one AlexanderKonstantinovitch, who confided to him, over their wine and cigarettes, the story of his infatuation for the daughter of a Russian colonel, whoat the time was staying with her aunt, the Princess Murussi. He raved ofher beauty and her charm, and concluded by asking the Prince toaccompany him that he might make the acquaintance of the Lieutenant'sbride-to-be. 

Arrived at their destination, the Prince and his companion weregraciously received by the Princess Murussi, but Milan had no eyes forthe dignified lady who gave him such a flattering reception; they weredrawn as by a magnet to the girl by her side--"a child with a woman'sgrace and an angel's soul smiling in her eyes"; the incarnation of hisdreams, the very girl whose beauty, though he had caught but one passingglimpse of it, had so intoxicated his brain a few months earlier atNice. 

"Allow me, " said the Lieutenant, "to introduce to Your Highness NatalieKetschko, my affianced wife. " Milan's face flushed with surprise andanger at the words. What was this trick that had been played on him? HadKonstantinovitch then brought him here only to humiliate him? But beforehe could recover from his indignation and astonishment, the Princesssaid chillingly, "Pardon me, Monsieur Konstantinovitch, you are notspeaking the truth. My niece, Colonel Ketschko's daughter, is not youraffianced wife. You are too premature. "

Thus rebuffed, the Lieutenant was not encouraged to prolong his stay;and Milan was left, reassured, to bask in the smiles of the Princess andher lovely niece, and to pursue his wooing under the most favourableauspices. This first visit was quickly followed by others; and before aweek had passed the Prince had won the prize on which his heart was set, and with it a dower of five million roubles. Now followed halcyon daysfor the young lovers--long hours of sweet communion, of anticipation ofthe happy years that stretched in such a golden vista before them. Itwas a love-idyll such as delighted the romantic heart of Paris; andcongratulations and presents poured on the young couple; "the verybeggars in the streets, " we are told, "blessing them as they drove by. "

"Happy is the wooing that is not long a-doing, " and Milan's wooing wasas brief as it was blissful. He was all impatience to possess fully theprize he had won; preparations for the nuptials were hastened, but, before the crowning day dawned, once more the voice of warning spoke. 

A few days before the wedding, as Milan was leaving the Murussi Palace, he was accosted by a woman, who craved permission to speak to him, afavour which was smilingly accorded. "I know you, " said the woman, thuspermitted to speak, "although you do not know me. You are the Prince ofServia; I am a servant in the household of the Princess Murussi. YourHighness, listen! I love Natalie. I have known and loved her since shewas a child; and I beg of you not to marry her. Such a union is doomedto unhappiness. You love to rule, to command. So does Natalie; and it is_she_ who will be the ruler. You are utterly unsuited for each other, and nothing but great unhappiness can possibly come from your union. "

To this warning Milan turned a smiling face and a deaf ear, as Nataliehad done to the voice of the gipsy. A fig for such gloomy prophecy! Theywere ideally happy in the present, and the future should be equallybright, however ravens might croak. Thus, one October day in 1875, Vienna held high holiday for the nuptials of the handsome Prince and hisbeautiful bride; and it was through avenues densely packed with cheeringonlookers that Natalie made her triumphal progress to the altar, in herflower-garlanded dress of white satin, a tiara of diamonds flashing fromthe blackness of her hair, no brighter than the brilliance of her eyes, her face irradiated with happiness. 

That no Royalty graced their wedding was a matter of no moment to Milanand Natalie, whose happiness was thus crowned; and when at thesubsequent banquet Milan said, "I wish from my very heart that every oneof my subjects, as well as everybody I know, could be always as happy asI am this moment, " none who heard him could doubt the sincerity of hiswords, or see any but a golden future for so ideal a union of hearts. 

By Servia her young Princess was received with open arms of welcome. "Her reception, " we are told, "was beyond description. The festivitieslasted three days, and during that time the love of the people fortheir Prince, and their admiration of the beauty and charm of his bride, were beyond words to describe. " Never did Royal wedded life open morefull of bright promise, and never did consort make more immediateconquest of the affections of her husband's subjects. "No one could havebelieved that this marriage, which was contracted from love and lovealone, would have ended in so tragic a manner, or that hate could soquickly have taken the place of love. "

But the serpent was quick to show his head in Natalie's new paradise. Before she had been many weeks a wife, stories came to her ears of herhusband's many infidelities. Now the story was of one lady of her Court, now of another, until the horrified Princess knew not whom to trust orto respect. Strange tales, too, came to her (mostly anonymously) ofMilan's amours in Paris, in Vienna, and half a dozen of his other hauntsof pleasure, until her love, poisoned at its very springing, turned tosuspicion and distrust of the man to whom she had given her heart. 

Other disillusions were quick to follow. She discovered that her husbandwas a hopeless gambler and spendthrift, spending long hours daily at thecard-tables, watching with pale face and trembling lips his pile of golddwindle (as it usually did) to its last coin; and often losing at asingle sitting a month's revenue from the Civil List. Her own dowry offive million roubles, she knew, was safe from his clutches. Her fatherhad taken care to make that secure, but Milan's private fortune, largeas it had been, had already been squandered in this and other forms ofdissipation; and even the expenses of his wedding, she learned, had beenmet by a loan raised at ruinous interest. 

Such discoveries as these were well calculated to shatter the dreams ofthe most infatuated of brides, and less was sufficient to rouseNatalie's proud spirit to rebellion. When affectionate pleadings proveduseless, reproaches took their place. Heated words were exchanged, andthe records tell of many violent scenes before Natalie had been sixmonths Princess of Servia. "You love to rule, " the warning voice hadtold Milan--"to command. So does Natalie"; and already the clashing ofstrong wills and imperious tempers, which must end in the yielding ofone or the other, had begun to be heard. 

If more fuel had been needed to feed the flames of dissension, it wasquickly supplied by two unfortunate incidents. The first was Milan'sopen dallying with Fräulein S----, one of Natalie's maids-of-honour, agirl almost as beautiful as herself, but with the _beauté de diable_. The second was the appearance in Belgrade of Dimitri Wasseljevitchca, who was suspected of plotting to assassinate the Tsar. Russia demandedthat the fugitive should be given up to justice, and enlisted Natalie'sco-operation with this object. Milan, however, was resolute not tosurrender the plotter, and turned a deaf ear to all the Princess'spleadings and cajoleries. "The most exciting scene followed. Natalie, abandoning entreaties, threatened and even commanded her husband to obeyher"; and when threats and commands equally failed, she gave way to aparoxysm of rage in which she heaped the most unbridled scorn andcontempt on her husband. 

Thus jealousy, a thwarted will, and Milan's low pleasures combined towiden the breach between the Royal couple, so recently plighted to eachother in the sacred name of love, and to prepare the way for thetroubled and tragic years to come. 

CHAPTER XXIX

AN ILL-FATED MARRIAGE--_continued_

If anything could have restored happiness to Milan of Servia and hisPrincess, Natalie, it should surely have been the birth of thebaby-Prince, Alexander, whom both equally adored and equally spoiled. But, instead of linking his parents in a new bond of affection "Sacha"was from his cradle the innocent cause of widening the breach thatsevered them. 

For a time, fortunately, Milan had little opportunity of continuing thefeud of recrimination with his high-spirited and hot-tempered spouse. More serious matters claimed him. Servia was plunged into war withTurkey, and his days were spent in camp and on the battlefield, untilthe intervention of Russia put an end to the long and hopeless struggle, and Milan found himself one February day in 1882, thanks to the BerlinConference, hailed the first King of his country, under the title ofMilan I. 

Then followed a disastrous war with Bulgaria into which the headstrongKing rushed in spite of Natalie's warning--"Draw back, Milan, and haveno share in what will prove a bloody drama. You have no chance ofconquering, for Alexander is made of the stuff of the Hohenzollerns. "And indeed the struggle was doomed to failure from the first; for Milanwas no man to lead an army to victory. Read his method of conducting acampaign, as described by one of his aides-de-camp--

"Our troops continue to retreat--I never imagined a campaign could be sojolly. We do nothing but dance and sing and fiddle. Yesterday the Kinghad some guests and the champagne literally flowed. We had the Belgradesingers, who used to delight us in the theatre-café. They sang anddanced delightfully. The last two days we have had plenty of fun, andyesterday a lot of jolly girls came to enliven us. " Such was Milan'smethod of conducting a great war, on which the very existence of hiskingdom hung. Wine and women and song were more to his taste than forcedmarches, strategy, and hard-fought battles. But once again foreignintervention came to his rescue; and his armies were saved fromannihilation. 

When his sword was finally sheathed, if not with honour, he returned toBelgrade to resume his gambling, his dallyings with fair women--and hisdaily quarrels with his Queen, whose bitterness absence had done nothingto assuage. So far from Natalie's spirit being crushed, it was higherand prouder than ever. She would die before she would yield; but she wasin no mood to die, this autocratic, fiery-tempered, strong-willeddaughter of Russia. She gave literally a "striking" proof of the spiritthat was in her at the Easter reception of 1886, when the wife of aGreek diplomat--a beautiful woman, to whom her husband had been morethan kind--presented herself smilingly to receive the "salute courteous"from Her Majesty. With a look of scorn Natalie coolly surveyed her rivalfrom head to foot; and then, in the presence of the Court, gave her aresounding slap on the cheek. 

But the Grecian lady was only one of many fair women who baskedsuccessively (or together) in Milan's favour. A much more formidablerival was Artemesia Christich, a woman as designing as she was lovely, who was quick to envelop the weak King in the toils of her witchery. Notcontent with his smiles and favours she aspired to take Natalie's placeas Queen of Servia; and, it is said, had extorted from him a promisethat he would make her his Queen as soon as his existing marriage tiecould be dissolved. And to this infamous compact Artemesia's husband, aman as crafty and unscrupulous as herself, consented, in return for hispromotion to certain high and profitable offices in the State. 

In vain did the Emperor and the Crown Prince of Austria, with manyanother high-placed friend, plead with Milan not to commit such a folly. He was driven to distraction between such powerful appeals and theallurement of the siren who had him so effectually under her spell, until in his despair he entertained serious thoughts of suicide asescape from his dilemma. Meanwhile, we are told, "a perfect hell" ragedin the castle; each day brought its scandalous scene between hisoutraged Queen and himself. His unpopularity with his subjects became soacute that he was hissed whenever he made his appearance in the streetsof his capital; and Artemesia was obliged to have police protection toshield her from the vengeance of the mob. 

As for Natalie, this crowning injury decided her to bear her purgatoryno longer. She would force her husband to abdicate and secure her ownappointment as Regent for her son; or, failing that, she would leave herhusband and seek an asylum out of Servia. And with the object of stillfurther embittering his subjects against the King she made the fullstory of her injuries public, and enlisted the sympathy, not only ofMilan's most powerful ministers, but of the entire country. 

"The castle is in utter confusion, " wrote an officer of the Belgradegarrison, in October, 1886. "The King looks ill, and as if he neverslept. Poor fellow! he flies for refuge to us in the guard-house, andplays cards with the officers. Card-playing is his worst enemy. He lovesit passionately, and plays excitedly and for high points--and he alwaysloses. "

Matters were now hastening to a crisis. Hopelessly in debt, scorned byhis subjects, and hated by his wife, Milan's plight was pitiful. Thescenes between the King and the Queen were becoming more violent anddisgraceful every day. "There was no peace anywhere, nor did anyonebelonging to the Court enjoy a moment of tranquillity. " So intolerablehad life become that, early in 1887, Milan decided to dissolve hismarriage; and it was only at the pleading of the Austrian Emperor thathe consented to abandon this design, on condition that his wife leftServia; and thus it was that one day in April Queen Natalie leftBelgrade, accompanied by her son "Sacha, " ostensibly that he mightcontinue his education in Germany. 

But, although husband and wife were thus at last separated, Milan'sresolve to divorce her remained firm. "I have to inform you, " he wroteshortly after her departure, "that I have this day sent in myapplication to our Holy National Church for permission to dissolve ourmarriage. " And that nothing might be lacking to Natalie's suffering andhumiliation, he sent General Protitsch to Wiesbaden with a peremptorydemand that his son, "Sacha, " should return to Servia. 

In vain did Natalie protest against both indignities. Milan mightdivorce her; but at least he should not rob her of her son, the onlysolace left to her in life. And when General Protitsch, seeing thatmilder measures were futile, gave orders for the Prince to be removed byforce, the distracted mother flung one protecting arm round her boy;and, pointing a loaded pistol with the other, threatened to shoot deadthe man who dared approach her. 

Opposition, however, was futile; the following evening the boy-Princewas in his father's arms, and the weeping mother was left disconsolate. Thus robbed of her darling "Sacha, " it was not long before the secondblow fell. The divorce proceedings were rushed through the Synod. A deafear was turned to Natalie's petition to be allowed, at least, to defendherself in person; and on the 12th October, 1888, the "marriage betweenKing Milan I. And Natalie, born Ketschko, " was formally dissolved. Wellmight this most unhappy of Queens write, "The position is embittered bymy conscience assuring me that I have neglected no duty, and that thereis not a single action of my life which could be cited against me as agrave offence, or could put me to shame were it brought before the wholeworld. My fate should draw tears from the very stones; but I do not askfor pity; I demand justice. "

If anything could have increased Milan's unpopularity it was this brutaltreatment of his Queen. The very men who, at his coronation, had takenoff their cloaks that he might walk on them, and the women who hadkissed his garments, now hissed him in the streets of his capital. Inhis own Court he had no friend except the infamous Christitch; thegeneral hatred even took the form of repeated attempts on his life. Ifhe would save it, he realised he must abandon his crown; and one Marchmorning in 1889, after informing his ministers of his intention toabdicate, he awoke his twelve-year-old son with the greeting, "Goodmorning, Your Majesty!" Milan was no longer King of Servia; his son, Alexander, reigned in his stead. 

Probably no King ever laid down his crown more willingly. He had putaside for ever his Royal trappings, with all their unhappy memories, andtheir present discomforts and danger; but in distant Paris he knew alife of new pleasure awaited him, remote from the wranglings of Courtsand the assassin's knife. And within a week of greeting his successor asKing, he was gaily riding in the Bois, attending the theatres, suppinghilariously with ladies of the ballet, or dining with his friends atVerrey's "where his somewhat rough manner and coarse jokes (the legacyof his swineherd ancestry) caused him sometimes to be mistaken for aparvenu, " until a waiter would correct the impression by a whispered, "That gentleman with the dark moustache is Milan, ex-King of Servia. "

While her husband was thus drinking the cup of Paris pleasure, his wifewas still doomed to exile from her kingdom and her son, with permissiononly to pay two brief visits each year. But Natalie, who had so longdefied a King, was not the woman to be daunted by mere Regents. Shewould return to Belgrade, and at least make her home where she couldcatch an occasional glimpse of her boy. And to Belgrade she went, tomake her entry over flower-strewn streets, and through a tornado ofcheers and shouts of "Zivela Rufe!" It was a truly Royal welcome to thegreat warm heart of the Servian people; but no official of the Court wasthere to greet her coming, and as she drove past the castle which heldall she counted dear in life, not even the flutter of a handkerchiefmarked the passing of Servia's former Queen. 

Had she but played her cards now with the least discretion, she mighthave been allowed to remain in Belgrade in peace. But Natalie seemsfated to have been the harbinger of storm. For a time, it is true, shewas content to lie _perdue_, entertaining her friends at her house inPrince Michael Street, driving through the streets of her capital behindher pair of white ponies, or walking with her pet goat for companion, greeted everywhere with respect and affection. But her restless, vengeful spirit, still burning from the indignities she had suffered, would not allow her to remain long in the background. She threw herselfinto political agitation, and thus brought herself into open conflictwith the Regents; she inaugurated a campaign of abuse against herhusband, whom she still pursued with a relentless hatred; and generallymade herself so objectionable to the authorities that the Skupshtina wasat last compelled to order her banishment. 

When the deputies presented themselves before her with the decree ofexpulsion, she laughed in their very faces, declaring that she wouldonly submit to force. "I refuse to go, " she said defiantly, "unless I amexpelled by the hands of the police. " A few hours later she was forciblyremoved from her weeping and protesting ladies, hurried into a carriage, and driven off, with a strong escort of soldiers, on her journey toexile. 

But the good people of Belgrade, who had got wind of the proposedabduction, were by no means disposed to look on while their belovedQueen was thus brutally taken from them. When the cortège reached theCathedral Square, it was stopped by a formidable and menacing mob; theescort, furiously assailed with sticks and showers of stones, was beatenoff; the horses were taken from the carriage, and the Queen was drawnback in triumph by scores of willing hands, to her residence. 

Natalie's victory, however, was short-lived. At midnight, when herstalwart champions were sleeping in their beds, the police, crawlingover the roofs of the houses in Prince Michael Street, and descendinginto the Queen's courtyard, found it a very simple matter to completetheir dastardly work. The Queen was again bundled unceremoniously into acarriage, and before Belgrade was well awake, she was far on her way toher new exile in Hungary. A few days later a formal decree of banishmentwas pronounced against her, forbidding her, under any pretext whatever, to enter Servia again without the Regent's permission. 

Only once more did Natalie and Milan set eyes on each other--when theex-King presented himself at Biarritz, to bring her news of their son'sprojected _coup d'état_, by which he designed to depose the Regents andto take the reins of government into his own hands. Taken by surprise, the Queen received Milan, but when she saw him standing before her, anaged, broken man, her composure gave way. She could not speak; shetrembled like a leaf. 

With Alexander's dramatic accession to his full Kingship a new, ifbrief, era of happiness opened to Natalie. The Regents were no longerable to exclude her from Servia, and by her son's invitation shereturned to Belgrade to resume her old position of Queen. 

Still beautiful, in spite of all her suffering, she played for a timethe rôle of Queen-mother to perfection, holding her Courts, presiding atballs and soirées, taking a prominent part in affairs of State, andgradually acquiring more power than her easy-going son himself enjoyed. At last, after long years of unrest and unhappiness, she seemed assuredof peaceful years, secure in the affection of her son and her people, and far removed from the husband who had brought so much misery into herlife. 

But Natalie was fated never to be happy long, and once more her evilDestiny was to snatch the cup from her lips, assuming this time the formof Draga Maschin, one of her own ladies-in-waiting, under the spell ofwhose black eyes and voluptuous charms her son quickly fell, after thatfirst dramatic incident at Biarritz, when she plunged into the sea tohis rescue and saved him from drowning. 

Many months earlier a clairvoyante at Paris had told Natalie, "YourMajesty is cherishing in your bosom a poisonous snake, which one daywill give you a mortal wound. " She had smiled incredulously at thewarning, but she was soon to learn what truth it held. Certainly DragaMaschin was the last person she would have suspected of being a sourceof danger--a woman many years older than her son, the penniless widow ofa drunken engineer--a woman, moreover, of whose life, before Natalie hadtaken pity on her poverty, many strange stories were told--how, forinstance, she had often been seen in low resorts, "with the arm of aforester or a tradesman round her, singing the old Servian songs. "

But she had not taken into account Draga's sensuous beauty, before whichher son was powerless. Each meeting left him more and more involved inher toils, until, to the consternation of Servia and the horror of hismother, he announced his intention of making her his Queen. Even Milan, degraded as he was, was horror-struck when the news came to him inParis. "And this, " he exclaimed, "is the act of 'Sacha'--my own son. Heis a monster, a thing of evil in the eyes of all men! The Maschin willbe Queen of Servia. What a reproach! What an evil! A creature like her!A sordid creature! Could he not have put aside his love for thislow-born woman? But I could never make the fool understand that a Kinghas duties; he has something else to think of but love-making. "

When taking leave of the friend who had brought him this evil news Milansaid, "I shall never see Servia again. My experience has been a bitterone--everywhere treachery and deceit. And now my own son--_that_ hasbroken my heart. " A few months later, worn out by his excesses, prematurely old and broken-hearted, the man who had prostituted life'sbest gifts drew his last breath at Vienna at the age of forty-six. 

As for Natalie, this crowning calamity of her son's disgrace did morethan all her past sufferings to crush her proud spirit. But fate had notyet dealt the last and most cruel blow of all. That fell on that fatalJune day of 1902 when her beloved "Sacha's" mutilated body was flung byhis assassins out of his palace window, to be greeted with shouts ofderisive laughter and cries of "Long live King Peter, " from the densecrowds who had come to gloat over this last scene in the tragedy of theHouse of the Obrenvoie. 

INDEX

Agenois, Duc, d', 284, 285Aissé, Mlle, 221-224Albany, Count of, 13-20 " Countess of, 15-22Alberoni, Cardinal, 184Alexander, King of Servia, 319-329Alexander III. , of Russia, 93Alexis, Tsarevitch, 10, 255Alfieri, Vittorio, 19-22Anjou, Duc d', 59Anna, Empress, 26Anne of Austria, 159, 163, 164Arcimbaldo, 92Aubigné, Constant d', 240, 241 " Françoise d', 240-247Audouins, Diane d', 37Augustus, of Saxony, 93-102Austin, William, 205, 213Auvergne, Comte d', 235

Babou, Françoise, 35Baireuth, Margravine of, 7Baratinski, Prince, 155Barry, Guillaume du, 47 " Jean du, 47 " Madame du, 47-54Bavaria, Elizabeth of, 215Beaufort, Duchesse de, 41-44Beauharnais, Eugène, 135 " Hortense, 135 " Josephine, 127-137Beauvallon, 143Bécu, Jeanne, 45-54Bellegarde, Count di, 205-206" Duc de, 37-39Berry, Duc de, 57-61 " Duchesse de, 55-65, 182, 217Bestyouzhev, 30, 31Beuchling, 98Blanguini, 111Blois, Mlle de, 56Bonaparte, Elisa, 104 " Letizia, 104, 105 " Napoleon, 104-112, 127-137Bonaparte, Pauline, 104-113Bonaventuri, Pietro, 170-175"Bonnie Prince, " 13-22Borghese, Prince Camillo, 110Borghese, Princess Pauline, 110-113Bossi, Giuseppe, 205Bourgogne, Duc de, 59 " Duchesse de, 181Brissac, Duc de, 50-53Bristol, Lord, 121, 122Brougham, 212Brunswick, Augusta, Duchess of, 194Brunswick, Charles Wm. , Duke of, 194Byron, Lord, 138

Campbell, Lady Charlotte, 193, 194Campredon, 249Capello, Bartolomeo, 172 " Bianca, 169-179Carlos, King of Spain, 304, 305. Caroline, Princess of Wales, 191-202Caroline, Queen of Naples, 120Catargo, Marie, 307Catherine I. , of Russia, 1-12, 23Catherine II. , of Russia, 23, 29, 32, 72, 73, 76, 80, 149-158Charles V. , Emperor, 88Charles VII. , Emperor, 29Charles IX. , King of France, 227Charles, Monsieur, 133, 134Charlotte, Princess, 199, 202, 211Charlotte, Queen, 197Chartres, Duc de, 56Chateauroux, Duchesse de, 288-293Christian II, of Denmark, 81-92Christich, Artemesia, 321, 322Clary, Desirée, 104, 127Colonna, Prince, 167, 295 " Princess, 167, 168, 295Cosse, Louis, Duc de, 48-50

Domanski, 70-72, 74, 77, 79Douglas, Lady, 200 " Sir John, 200Dubois, Cardinal, 215, 216Dujarrier, M. , 143Dyveke, 83-89

Elizabeth I. , of Russia, 23-32, 72, 150, 153"Elizabeth II. " of Russia, 74, 76, 77Embs, Baron von, 67Emilie, 220, 221Encke, Charlotte, 115, 116 " Wilhelmine, 114-126Entragues, Henriette d', 44, 227-237Entragues, Seigneur d', 227, 229Esterle, Countess, 102Estrées, Antoine d', 36 " Gabrielle d', 35-44, 226Estrées, Jean d', 36Eudoxia, Empress, 252-257

Faaborg, Hans, 90-91Fabre, François X. , 21Falari, Duchesse de, 224Feriol, Comte de, 222 " Madame de, 223Fersen, Count, 261Fimarcon, Marquis de, 221Fitzherbert, Mrs, 199Flavacourt, Madame de, 283Fleury, Cardinal, 271, 272, 282, 283, 284Fontanges, Mlle de, 245Forbin, 111François I, 36Frederick the Great, 114-118Frederick William II, of Prussia, 115-124Frederick William III. , of Prussia, 124Frèron, 106

Gacé, Comte De, 183Galitzin, Prince, 79George III. , 197, 201, 211George IV. , 191-202Giovanna, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, 174-177Glebof, Major, 253-256Goncourt, de, 46, 270, 286Guiche, Comte de, 265, 302Guise, Duc de, 237Gustav, Adolf, 15

Hamilton, Mary, 257-259 " Sir William, 75, 77Haye, La, 60Henri IV. , of France (and Navarre), 35-44, 226-237Holbein, Francis, 126Hornstein, 69Hutchinson, Lord, 212

Isabella, Princess, 88Ivan, 26

Jersey, Lady, 198, 199Joachim Murat, King, 207Joinville, Prince de, 234, 237Josephine, Empress, 110-112, 127-137Junot, 107

Karageorgevitch, Alex. , 306Ketschko, Natalie, 311-329 " Nathaniel, 310Königsmarck, Aurora von, 94-103Königsmarck, Conrad von, 94 " Philip von, 94-96Konstantinovitch, Alex. , 313Kristenef, 77Kusa, Prince, 308

Lamballe, Princesse de, 263Landsfeld, Countess of, 146-148Languet, Abbé, 63Lauzun, Duc de, 62Lavallière, Duchesse de, 239Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 201Leclerc, General, 108, 109Lichtenau, Countess, 120-126Limburg, Duke of, 67, 68Lorraine, Prince Charles of, 167, 301Louis XIV. , 159, 162-167, 238-247, 248, 295Louis XV. , 45, 47-49, 270-292Louise, Countess of Albany, 15-22Löwenhaupt, Count Axel, 94 " Countess, 94, 97-99Ludwig I. , of Bavaria, 144-147Luynes, Duc de, 273

Mailly, Madame de, 273-293Maine, Duc de, 243, 247Maintenon, Madame de, 57, 244-247Malmesbury, Lord, 195-198Manby, Captain, 201Mancini, Hortense, 162, 167, 168Mancini, Laure, 294 " Madame, 159-163 " Marie, 160-168, 239, 298-301Mancini, Olympe, 294-305Maria Theresa, Queen of Spain, 302, 304Marie Antoinette, 260-269Marie Leczinska, 270Marie Louise, Empress, 112, 136, 204Marine, Monsieur de, 67Marke, Count de la, 117Marmont, General, 107Maschin, Draga, 328, 329Masson, 32, 135Maurepas, 282-284, 292Mazarin, Cardinal, 159-163, 239, 295, 297Mazarin, Madame de, 282, 283Medici, Cardinal de, 176-176 " Francesco de, 172-179 " Marie de, 231-235Menshikoff, 3, 6, 12Mercoeur, Duc de, 295Mexent, Marquis de Saint, 123Michael, Prince, of Servia, 306, 308Michelin, Madame, 181Milan I. , of Servia, 306-329Modena, Duke of, 185-189 " Duchess of, 182, 186-189Monceaux, Marquise de, 41Mons, William, 11Montespan, Madame de, 55, 56, 239, 240, 243-245Montez, Lola, 138-148Montmorency, Charlotte de, 236, 237Mortemart, Duchesse de, 54Motte-Houdancourt, Mlle de la, 302Motteville, Madame de, 294, 296Mouchy, Madame de, 62-65, 217Murussi, Princess, 313, 314

Napoleon I. , 104-112, 127-137Natalie, Queen of Servia, 311-329Nathalie, Empress, 252Nesle, Félicité de, 275-279 " Marquise de, 182Nevers, Duc de, 232Noailles, Cardinal, 64

Obrenovitch Jefrenn, 307Ompteda, Baron, 206Orleans, Philippe, Duc de, 55-57, 60-64, 184, 214-225Orloff, Alexis, 74, 76-79, 155 " Count, 258 " Gregory, 29, 32, 76, 153-158

Palatine, Princess, Elizabeth, 56, 59, 62, 64Panine, 157Paskevitch, General, 141, 142Patiomkin, 23Perdita, 199Pergami, 206-213Permon, Albert, 107 " Madame, 109Peter the Great, 3-12, 23, 248-259Peter II. , of Russia, 28, 257Peter III. , of Russia, 149-155Pinneberg, Countess of, 73Platen, Countess, 94Polignac, Cardinal de, 261 " Diane de, 262, 265 " Jules, Comte de, 261-264Polignac, Madame de, 182 " Yolande, de, 261-269Pöllnitz, Von, 7Poniatowski, 151, 152Porte, Armande de la, 162Protitsch, General, 323Pugatchef, 73

Radziwill, Prince Charles, 73, 74Ravaillac, 35Razoum, Alexis, 23-34, 72 " Cyril, 26-28 " Gregory, 24Richelieu, Duc de, 180-190, 275, 280, 285, 290, 291Richelieu, Duchesse de, 185Rietz, Herr, 117 " Wilhelmine, 117-120Ringlet, Father, 62Riom, Comte de, 62-64

Saint-Simon, Duc de, 57, 60, 62, 305Saint-Simon, Madame de, 58Savoie, Chevalier de, 65Savoy, Charles Emmanuel, Duke of, 168Savoy, Margaret, Princess of, 164, 165, 299, 300Scarron, Paul, 241, 242Schenk, Baron von, 67Sevigné, Madame de, 245, 303Seymour, Henry, 48Shouvalov, 29Sigbrit, Frau, 83-92Skovronski, I, 23Smith, Sydney, Captain, 200Soissons, Comte de, 297 " Comtesse de, 295, 297-305Soltykoff, Sergius, 151Sophia Dorothea, of Celle, 94Spencer, Lord Henry, 119Stanley, Sir John, 193Stendhal, 21Stuart, Charles, 13-20Sully, Duc de, 41, 42, 229-231

Tencin, Madame de, 223, 280Teplof, 155Thackeray, 192, 198, 200Toebingen, Major, 199Torbern, Oxe, 90-92Touchet, Marie, 227Tourel-Alégre, Marquess, 36Tournelle, Mme de la, 280-293Tuscany, Bianca, Grand Duchess of, 169-179Tuscany, Francesco, Grand Duke of, 172-179

Valkendorf, Chancellor, 81-85, 89Vallière, La, 301-303Valois, Marguerite de, Queen of France, 42, 229, 231Valois, Mlle de, 182, 184, 185Vardes, Marquis de, 302Vaudreuil, Comte de, 267, 268Verneuil, Marquise de, 231-237Villars, Duchesse de, 233, 234Vintimille, Comtesse de, 276-279Vishnevsky, Colonel, 24Vlodimir, Princess Aly de, 66-80Voisin, La, 303Voltaire, 46, 57, 149Vorontsov, 32, 33

Walewska, Madame, 127Waliszewski, 3, 5, 251Wasseljevitchca, Dimitri, 317