Part 10
'Chevalier,' said the king, 'tell us the history of your chaplain Poussatin.'
Then De Grammont related how, when he was with the great Condé, after the campaign of Catalonia, he had seen among a company of Catalans, a priest in a little black jacket, skipping and frisking: how Condé was charmed, and how they recognized in him a Frenchman, and how he offered himself to De Grammont for his chaplain. De Grammont had not much need, he said, for a chaplain in his house, but he took the priest, who had afterwards the honour of dancing before Anne of Austria, in Paris.
Suitor after suitor interfered with De Grammont's at last honourable address to La Belle Hamilton. At length an incident occurred which had very nearly separated them for ever. Philibert de Grammont was recalled to Paris by Louis XIV. He forgot, Frenchman-like, all his engagements to Miss Hamilton, and hurried off. He had reached Dover, when her two brothers rode up after him. 'Chevalier de Grammont,' they said, 'have you forgotten nothing in London?'
'I beg your pardon,' he answered, 'I forgot to marry your sister.' It is said that this story suggested to Molière the idea of _Le Mariage forcé_. They were, however, married.
In 1669 La Belle Hamilton, after giving birth to a child, went to reside in France. Charles II., who thought she would pass for a handsome woman in France, recommended her to his sister, Henrietta Duchess of Orleans, and begged her to be kind to her.
Henceforth the Chevalier De Grammont and his wife figured at Versailles, where the Countess de Grammont was appointed _Dame du Palais_. Her career was less brilliant than in England. The French ladies deemed her haughty and old, and even termed her _une Anglaise insupportable_.
She had certainly too much virtue, and perhaps too much beauty still, for the Parisian ladies of fashion at that period to admire her.
She endeavoured in vain, to reclaim her libertine husband, and to call him to a sense of his situation when he was on his death-bed. Louis XIV. sent the Marquis de Dangeau to convert him, and to talk to him on a subject little thought of by De Grammont--the world to come. After the Marquis had been talking for some time, De Grammont turned to his wife and said, 'Countess, if you don't look to it, Dangeau will juggle you out of my conversion.' St. Evremond said he would gladly die to go off with so successful a bon-mot.
He became however, in time, serious, if not devout or penitent. Ninon de l'Enclos having written to St. Evremond that the Count de Grammont had not only recovered but had become devout, St. Evremond answered her in these words:--
'I have learned with a great deal of pleasure that the Count de Grammont has recovered his former health, and acquired a new devotion. Hitherto I have been contented with being a plain honest man; but I must do something more: and I only wait for your example to become a devotee. You live in a country where people have wonderful advantages of saving their souls: there, vice is almost as opposite to the mode as virtue; sinning passes for ill-breeding, and shocks decency and good-manners, as much as religion. Formerly it was enough to be wicked, now one must be a scoundrel withal to be damned in France.'
A report having been circulated that De Grammont was dead, St. Evremond expressed deep regret. The report was contradicted by Ninon de l'Enclos. The Chevalier was then eighty-six years of age; 'nevertheless he was,' Ninon says, 'so young, that I think him as lively as when he hated sick people, and loved them after they had recovered their health;' a trait very descriptive of a man whose good-nature was always on the surface, but whose selfishness was deep as that of most wits and beaux, who are spoiled by the world, and who, in return, distrust and deceive the spoilers. With this long life of eighty-six years, endowed as De Grammont was with elasticity of spirits, good fortune, considerable talent, an excellent position, a wit that never ceased to flow in a clear current; with all these advantages, what might he not have been to society, had his energy been well applied, his wit innocent, his talents employed worthily, and his heart as sure to stand muster as his manners?
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 8: M. de Grammont visited England during the Protectorate. His second visit, after being forbidden the court by Louis XIV., was in 1662.]
[Footnote 9: The Earl of Dorset married Elizabeth, widow of Charles Berkeley, Earl of Falmouth, and daughter of Hervey Bagot, Esq., of Pipe Hall, Warwickshire, who died without issue. He married, 7th March, 1684-5, Lady Mary Compton, daughter of James Earl of Northampton.]
[Footnote 10: Lord Rochester succeeded to the Earldom in 1659. It was created by Charles II. in 1652, at Paris.]
[Footnote 11: Mr. William Thomas, the writer of this statement, heard it from Dr. Radcliffe at the table of Speaker Harley, (afterwards Earl of Oxford,) 16th June, 1702.]
[Footnote 12: See De Grammont's Memoirs.]
BEAU FIELDING.
On Wits and Beaux.--Scotland Yard in Charles II.'s day.--Orlando of 'The Tatler.'--Beau Fielding, Justice of the Peace.--Adonis in Search of a Wife.--The Sham Widow.--Ways and Means.--Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine.--Quarrels with the King.--The Beau's Second Marriage.--The Last Days of Fops and Beaux.
Let us be wise, boys, here's a fool coming, said a sensible man, when he saw Beau Nash's splendid carriage draw up to the door. Is a beau a fool? Is a sharper a fool? Was Bonaparte a fool? If you reply 'no' to the last two questions, you must give the same answer to the first. A beau is a fox, but not a fool--a very clever fellow, who, knowing the weakness of his brothers and sisters in the world, takes advantage of it to make himself a fame and a fortune. Nash, the son of a glass-merchant--Brummell, the hopeful of a small shopkeeper--became the intimates of princes, dukes, and fashionables; were petty kings of Vanity Fair, and were honoured by their subjects. In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king; in the realm of folly, the sharper is a monarch. The only proviso is, that the cheat come not within the jurisdiction of the law. Such a cheat is the beau or dandy, or fine gentleman, who imposes on his public by his clothes and appearance. _Bonâ-fide_ monarchs have done as much: Louis XIV. won himself the title of Le Grand Monarque by his manners, his dress, and his vanity. Fielding, Nash, and Brummell did nothing more. It is not a question whether such roads to eminence be contemptible or not, but whether their adoption in one station of life be more so than in another. Was Brummell a whit more contemptible than 'Wales?' Or is John Thomas, the pride and glory of the 'Domestics' Free-and-Easy,' whose whiskers, figure, face, and manner are all superb, one atom more ridiculous than your recognized beau? I trow not. What right, then, has your beau to a place among wits? I fancy Chesterfield would be much disgusted at seeing his name side by side with that of Nash in this volume; yet Chesterfield had no objection, when at Bath, to do homage to the king of that city, and may have prided himself on exchanging pinches from diamond-set snuff-boxes with that superb gold-laced dignitary in the Pump-room. Certainly, people who thought little of Philip Dormer Stanhope, thought a great deal of the glass-merchant's reprobate son when he was in power, and submitted without a murmur to his impertinences. The fact is, that the beaux and the wits are more intimately connected than the latter would care to own: the wits have all been, or aspired to be, beaux, and beaux have had their fair share of wit; both lived for the same purpose--to shine in society: both used the same means--coats and bon-mots. The only distinction is, that the garments of the beaux were better, and their sayings not so good as those of the wits; while the conversation of the wits was better, and their apparel not so striking as those of the beaux. So, my Lord Chesterfield, who prided yourself quite as much on being a fine gentleman as on being a fine wit, you cannot complain at your proximity to Mr. Nash and others who _were_ fine gentlemen, and would have been fine wits if they could.
Robert Fielding was, perhaps, the least of the beaux; but then, to make up for this, he belonged to a noble family: he married a duchess, and, what is more, he beat her. Surely in the kingdom of fools such a man is not to be despised. You may be sure he did not think he was, for was he not made the subject of two papers in 'The Tatler,' and what more could such a man desire?
His father was a Suffolk squire, claiming relationship with the Earls of Denbigh, and therefore, with the Hapsburgs, from whom the Beau and the Emperors of Austria had the common honour of being descended. Perhaps neither of them had sufficient sense to be proud of the greatest intellectual ornament of their race, the author of 'Tom Jones;' but as our hero was dead before the humourist was born, it is not fair to conjecture what he might have thought on the subject.
It does not appear that very much is known of this great gem of the race of Hapsburg. He had the misfortune to be very handsome, and the folly to think that his face would be his fortune: it certainly stood him in good stead at times, but it also brought him into a lamentable dilemma.
His father was not rich, and sent his son to the Temple to study laws which he was only fitted to break. The young Adonis had sense enough to see that destiny did not beckon him to fame in the gloom of a musty law court, and removed a little further up to the Thames, and the more fashionable region of Scotland Yard. Here, where now Z 300 repairs to report his investigations to a Commissioner, the young dandies of Charles II.'s day strutted in gay doublets, swore hasty oaths of choice invention, smoked the true Tobago from huge pipe-bowls, and ogled the fair but not too bashful dames who passed to and fro in their chariots. The court took its name from the royalties of Scotland, who, when they visited the South, were there lodged, as being conveniently near to Whitehall Palace. It is odd enough that the three architects, Inigo Jones, Vanbrugh, and Wren, all lived in this yard.
It was not to be supposed that a man who could so well appreciate a handsome face and well-cut doublet as Charles II. should long overlook his neighbour, Mr. Robert Fielding, and in due course the Beau, who had no other diploma, found himself in the honourable position of a justice of the peace.
The emoluments of this office enabled Orlando, as 'The Tatler' calls him, to shine forth in all his glory. With an enviable indifference to the future, he launched out into an expenditure which alone would have made him popular in a country where the heaviest purse makes the greatest gentleman. His lacqueys were arrayed in the brightest yellow coats with black sashes--the Hapsburg colours. He had a carriage, of course, but, like Sheridan's, it was hired, though drawn by his own horses. This carriage was described as being shaped like a sea-shell; and 'the Tatler' calls it 'an open tumbril of less size than ordinary, to show the largeness of his limbs and the grandeur of his personage to the best advantage.' The said limbs were Fielding's especial pride: he gloried in the strength of his leg and arm; and when he walked down the street, he was followed by an admiring crowd, whom he treated with as much haughtiness as if he had been the emperor himself, instead of his cousin five hundred times removed. He used his strength to good or bad purpose, and was a redoubted fighter and bully, though good-natured withal. In the Mall, as he strutted, he was the cynosure of all female eyes. His dress had all the elegance of which the graceful costume of that period was capable, though Fielding did not, like Brummell, understand the delicacy of a quiet, but studied style. Those were simpler, somewhat more honest days. It was not necessary for a man to cloak his vices, nor be ashamed of his cloak. The beau then-a-day openly and arrogantly gloried in the grandeur of his attire; and bragging was a part of his character. Fielding was made by his tailor; Brummell made his tailor: the only point in common to both was that neither of them paid the tailor's bill.
The fine gentleman, under the Stuarts, was fine only in his lace and his velvet doublet; his language was coarse, his manners coarser, his vices the coarsest of all. No wonder when the king himself could get so drunk with Sedley and Buckhurst as to be unable to give an audience appointed for; and when the chief fun of his two companions was to divest themselves of all the habiliments which civilization has had the ill taste to make necessary, and in that state run about the streets.
'Orlando' wore the finest ruffles and the heaviest sword; his wig was combed to perfection; and in his pocket he carried a little comb with which to arrange it from time to time, even as the dandy of to-day pulls out his whiskers or curls his moustache. Such a man could not be passed over; and accordingly he numbered half the officers and gallants of the town among his intimates. He drank, swore, and swaggered, and the snobs of the day proclaimed him a 'complete gentleman.'
His impudence, however, was not always tolerated. In the playhouses of the day, it was the fashion for some of the spectators to stand upon the stage, and the places in that position were chiefly occupied by young gallants. The ladies came most in masques: but this did not prevent Master Fielding from making his remarks very freely, and in no very refined strain to them. The modest damsels, whom Pope has described,
'The fair sat pouting at the courtier's play, And not a mask went unimproved away: The modest fan was lifted up no more, And virgins smiled at what they blushed before,'
were not too coy to be pleased with the fops' attentions, and replied in like strain. The players were unheeded; the audience laughed at the improvised and natural wit, when carefully prepared dialogues failed to fix their attention. The actors were disgusted, and, in spite of Master Fielding's herculean strength, kicked him off the stage, with a warning not to come again.
The _rôle_ of a beau is expensive to keep up; and our justice of the peace could not, like Nash, double his income by gaming. He soon got deeply into debt, as every celebrated dresser has done. The old story, not new even in those days, was enacted and the brilliant Adonis had to keep watch and ward against tailors and bailiffs. On one occasion they had nearly caught him; but his legs being lengthy, he gave them fair sport as far as St. James's Palace, where the officers on guard rushed out to save their pet, and drove off the myrmidons of the law at the point of the sword.
But debts do not pay themselves, nor die, and Orlando with all his strength and prowess could not long keep off the constable. Evil days gloomed at no very great distance before him, and the fear of a sponging-house and debtors' prison compelled him to turn his handsome person to account. Had he not broken a hundred hearts already? had he not charmed a thousand pairs of beaming eyes? was there not one owner of one pair who was also possessed of a pretty fortune? Who should have the honour of being the wife of such an Adonis? who, indeed, but she who could pay highest for it; and who could pay with a handsome income but a well-dowered widow? A widow it must be--a widow it should be. Noble indeed was the sentiment which inspired this great man to sacrifice himself on the altar of Hymen for the good of his creditors. Ye young men in the Guards, who do this kind of thing every day--that is, every day that you can meet with a widow with the proper qualifications--take warning by the lamentable history of Mr. Robert Fielding, and never trust to 'third parties.'
[Illustration: BEAU FIELDING AND THE SHAM WIDOW.]
A widow was found, fat, fair, and forty--and oh!--charm greater far than all the rest--with a fortune of sixty thousand pounds; this was a Mrs. Deleau, who lived at Whaddon in Surrey, and at Copthall-court in London. Nothing could be more charming; and the only obstacle was the absence of all acquaintance between the parties--for, of course, it was impossible for any widow, whatever her attractions, to be insensible to those of Robert Fielding. Under these circumstances, the Beau looked about for an agent, and found one in the person of a Mrs. Villars, hairdresser to the widow. He offered this person a handsome douceur in case of success, and she was to undertake that the lady should meet the gentleman in the most unpremeditated manner. Various schemes were resorted to: with the _alias_, for he was not above an _alias_, of Major-General Villars, the Beau called at the widow's country house, and was permitted to see the gardens. At a window he espied a lady, whom he took to be the object of his pursuit--bowed to her majestically, and went away, persuaded he must have made an impression. But, whether the widow was wiser than wearers of weeds have the reputation of being, or whether the agent had really no power in the matter, the meeting never came on.
The hairdresser naturally grew anxious, the douceur was too good to be lost, and as the widow could not be had, some one must be supplied in her place.
One day while the Beau was sitting in his splendid 'night-gown,' as the morning-dress of gentlemen was then called, two ladies were ushered into his august presence. He had been warned of this visit, and was prepared to receive the yielding widow. The one, of course, was the hairdresser, the other a young, pretty, and _apparently_ modest creature, who blushed much--though with some difficulty--at the trying position in which she found herself. The Beau, delighted, did his best to reassure her. He flung himself at her feet, swore, with oaths more fashionable than delicate, that she was the only woman he ever loved, and prevailed on the widow so far as to induce her to 'call again to-morrow.'
Of course she came, and Adonis was in heaven. He wrote little poems to her--for, as a gallant, he could of course make verses--serenaded her through an Italian donna, invited her to suppers, at which the delicacies of the season were served without regard to the purveyor's account, and to which, coy as she was, she consented to come, and clenched the engagement with a ring, on which was the motto, 'Tibi Soli.' Nay, the Beau had been educated, and had some knowledge of 'the tongues,' so that he added to these attentions the further one of a song or two translated from the Greek. The widow ought to have been pleased, and was. One thing only she stipulated, namely, that the marriage should be private, lest her relations should forbid the banns.
Having brought her so far, it was not likely that the fortune-hunter would stick at such a mere trifle, and accordingly an entertainment was got up at the Beau's own rooms, a supper suitable to the rank and wealth of the widow, provided by some obligingly credulous tradesman; a priest found--for, be it premised, our hero had changed so much of his religion as he had to change in the reign of James II., when Romanism was not only fashionable, but a sure road to fortune--and the mutually satisfied couple swore to love, honour, and obey one another till death them should part.
The next morning, however, the widow left the gentleman's lodgings, on the pretext that it was injudicious for her friends to know of their union at present, and continued to visit her sposo and sup somewhat amply at his chambers from time to time. We can imagine the anxiety Orlando now felt for a cheque book at the heiress's bankers, and the many insinuations he may have delicately made, touching ways and means. We can fancy the artful excuses with which these hints were put aside by his attached wife. But the dupe was still in happy ignorance of the trick played on him, and for a time such ignorance was bliss. It must have been trying to him to be called on by Mrs. Villars for the promised douceur, but he consoled himself with the pleasures of hope.
Unfortunately, however, he had formed the acquaintance of a woman of a very different reputation to the real Mrs. Deleau, and the intimacy which ensued was fatal to him.
When Charles II. was wandering abroad, he was joined, among others, by a Mr. and Mrs. Palmer. The husband was a stanch old Romanist, with the qualities which usually accompanied that faith in those days--little respect for morality, and a good deal of bigotry. In later days he was one of the victims suspected of the Titus Oates plot, but escaped, and eventually died in Wales, in 1705, after having been James II.'s ambassador to Rome. This, in a few words, is the history of that Roger Palmer, afterwards Lord Castlemaine, who by some is said to have sold his wife--not at Smithfield, but at Whitehall--to his Majesty King Charles II., for the sum of one peerage--an Irish one, taken on consideration: by others, is alleged to have been so indignant with the king as to have remained for some time far from court; and so disgusted with his elevation to the peerage as scarcely to assume his title; and this last is the most authenticated version of the matter.