The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 09, July, 1858

IV.

THE CONCLUSION

Like a river which loses itself, by infinite subdivision, in the sands, so the wars of the Fronde disappeared in petty intrigues at last. As the fighting ended and manoeuvring became the game, of course Mazarin came uppermost,—Mazarin, that super-Italian, finessing and fascinating, so deadly sweet, l'homme plus agréable du monde, as Madame de Motteville and Bussy-Rabutin call him,—flattering that he might win, avaricious that he might be magnificent, winning kings by jewelry and princesses by lapdogs,—too cowardly for any avoidable collision,—too cool and economical in his hatred to waste an antagonist by killing him, but always luring and cajoling him into an unwilling tool,—too serenely careless of popular emotion even to hate the mob of Paris, any more than a surgeon hates his own lancet when it cuts him; he only changes his grasp and holds it more cautiously. Mazarin ruled. And the King was soon joking over the fight at the Porte St. Antoine, with Condé and Mademoiselle; the Queen at the same time affectionately assuring our heroine, that, if she could have got at her on that day, she would certainly have strangled her, but that, since it was past, she would love her as ever,—as ever; while Mademoiselle, not to be outdone, lies like a Frenchwoman, and assures the Queen that really she did not mean to be so naughty, but "she was with those who induced her to act against her sense of duty!"

The day of civil war was over. The daring heroines and voluptuous blonde beauties of the Frondeur party must seek excitement elsewhere. Some looked for it in literature; for the female education of France in that age was far higher than England could show. The intellectual glory of the reign of the Grand Monarque began in its women. Marie de Médicis had imported the Italian grace and wit,—Anne of Austria the Spanish courtesy and romance; the Hôtel de Rambouillet had united the two, and introduced the genre précieux, or stately style, which was superb in its origin, and dwindled to absurdity in the hands of Mlle. de Scudéry and her valets, before Moličre smiled it away forever. And now that the wars were done, literary society came up again. Madame de Sablé exhausted the wit and the cookery of the age in her fascinating entertainments,—pâtés and Pascal, Rochefoucauld and ragoűts,—Mme. de Brégy's Epictetus, Mme. de Choisy's salads,—confectionery, marmalade, elixirs, Des Cartes, Arnould, Calvinism, and the barometer. Mme. de Sablé had a sentimental theory that no woman should eat at the same table with a lover, but she liked to see her lovers eat, and Mademoiselle, in her obsolete novel of the "Princesse de Paphlagonie," gently satirizes this passion of her friend. And Mademoiselle herself finally eclipsed the Sablé by her own entertainments at her palace of the Luxembourg, where she offered no dish but one of gossip, serving up herself and friends in a course of "Portraits" so appetizing that it became the fashion for ten years, and reached perfection at last in the famous "Characters" of La Bruyčre.

Other heroines went into convents, joined the Carmelites, or those nuns of Port-Royal of whom the Archbishop of Paris said that they lived in the purity of angels and the pride of devils. Thither went Madame de Sablé herself, finally,—"the late Madame," as the dashing young abbés called her when she renounced the world. Thither she drew the beautiful Longueville also, and Heaven smiled on one repentance that seemed sincere. There they found peace in the home of Angélique Arnould and Jacqueline Pascal. And thence those heroic women came forth again, when religious war threatened to take the place of civil: again they put to shame their more timid male companions, and by their labors Jesuit and Jansenist found peace.

But not such was to be the career of our Mademoiselle, who, at twenty, had tried the part of devotee for one week and renounced it forever. No doubt, at thirty-five, she "began to understand that it is part of the duty of a Christian to attend High Mass on Sundays and holy days"; and her description of the deathbed of Anne of Austria is a most extraordinary jumble of the next world and this. But thus much of devotion was to her only a part of the proprieties of life, and before the altar of those proprieties she served, for the rest of her existence, with exemplary zeal. At forty, she was still the wealthiest unmarried princess in Europe; fastidious in toilette, stainless in reputation, not lovely in temper, rigid in etiquette, learned in precedence, an oracle in court traditions, a terror to the young maids-of-honor, and always quarrelling with her own sisters, younger, fairer, poorer than herself. Her mind and will were as active as in her girlhood, but they ground chaff instead of wheat. Whether her sisters should dine at the Queen's table, when she never had; who should be her trainbearer at the royal marriage; whether the royal Spanish father-in-law, on the same occasion, should or should not salute the Queen-mother; who, on any given occasion, should have a tabouret, who a pliant, who a chair, who an arm-chair; who should enter the King's ruelle, or her own, or pass out by the private stairway; how she should arrange the duchesses at state-funerals: these were the things which tried Mademoiselle's soul, and these fill the later volumes of that autobiography whose earlier record was all a battle and a march. From Condé's "Obey Mademoiselle's orders as my own," we come down to this: "For my part, I had been worrying myself all day; having been told that the new Queen would not salute me on the lips, and that the King had decided to sustain her in this position. I therefore spoke to Monsieur the Cardinal on the subject, bringing forward as an important precedent in my favor, that the Queen-mother had always kissed the princesses of the blood"; and so on through many pages. Thus lapsed her youth of frolics into an old age of cards.

It is a slight compensation, that this very pettiness makes her chronicles of the age very vivid in details. How she revels in the silver brocades, the violet-colored velvet robes, the crimson velvet carpets, the purple damask curtains fringed with gold and silver, the embroidered fleurs de lis, the wedding-caskets, the cordons of diamonds, the clusters of emeralds en poires with diamonds, and the Isabelle-colored linen, whereby hangs a tale! She still kept up her youthful habit of avoiding the sick-rooms of her kindred, but how magnificently she mourned them when they died! Her brief, genuine, but quite unexpected sorrow for her father was speedily assuaged by the opportunity it gave her to introduce the fashion of gray mourning, instead of black; it had previously, it seems, been worn by widows only. Servants and horses were all put in deep black, however, and "the court observed that I was very magnifique in all my arrangements." On the other hand, be it recorded, that our Mademoiselle, chivalrous royalist to the last, was the only person at the French court who refused to wear mourning for the usurper Cromwell!

But, if thus addicted to funeral pageants, it is needless to say that weddings occupied their full proportion of her thoughts. Her schemes for matrimony fill the larger portion of her history, and are, like all the rest, a diamond necklace of great names. In the boudoir, as in the field, her campaigns were superb, but she was cheated of the results. Her picture should have been painted, like that of Justice, with sword and scales,– the one for foes, the other for lovers. She spent her life in weighing them,—monarch against monarch, a king in hand against an emperor in the bush. We have it on her own authority, which, in such matters, was unsurpassable, that she was "the best match in Europe, except the Infanta of Spain." Not a marriageable prince in Christendom, therefore, can hover near the French court, but this middle-aged sensitive-plant prepares to close her leaves and be coy. The procession of her wooers files before our wondering eyes, and each the likeness of a kingly crown has on: Louis himself, her bright possibility of twenty years, till he takes her at her own estimate and prefers the Infanta,—Monsieur, his younger brother, Philip IV. of Spain, Charles II. of England, the Emperor of Germany, the Archduke Leopold of Austria,—prospective king of Holland,—the King of Portugal, the Prince of Denmark, the Elector of Bavaria, the Duke of Savoy, Condé's son, and Condé himself. For the last of these alone she seems to have felt any real affection. Their tie was more than cousinly; the same heroic blood of the early Bourbons was in them, they were trained by the same precocious successes, only six years apart in age, and beginning with that hearty mutual aversion which is so often the parent of love, in impulsive natures like theirs. Their flirtation was platonic, but chronic; and whenever poor, heroic, desolate Clémence de Maille was sicker than usual, these cousins were walking side by side in the Tuileries gardens, and dreaming, almost in silence, of what might be, while Mazarin shuddered at the thought of mating two such eagles together.—So passed her life, and at last, like many a matchmaking lady, she baffled all the gossips, and left them all in laughter when her choice was made.

The tale stands embalmed forever in the famous letter of Madame de Sévigné to her cousin, M. de Coulanges, written on Monday, December 15, 1670. It can never be translated too often, so we will risk it again.

"I have now to announce to you the most astonishing circumstance, the most surprising, most marvellous, most triumphant, most bewildering, most unheard-of, most singular, most extraordinary, most incredible, most unexpected, most grand, most trivial, most rare, most common, most notorious, most secret, (till to-day,) most brilliant, most desirable; indeed, a thing to which past ages afford but one parallel, and that a poor one; a thing which we can scarcely believe at Paris; how can it be believed at Lyons? a thing which excites the compassion of all the world, and the delight of Madame de Rohan and Madame de Hauterive; a thing which is to be done on Sunday, when those who see it will hardly believe their eyes; a thing which will be done on Sunday, and which might perhaps be impossible on Monday: I cannot possibly announce it; guess it; I give you three guesses; try now. If you will not, I must tell you. M. de Lauzun marries on Sunday, at the Louvre,—whom now? I give you three guesses,– six,—a hundred. Madame de Coulanges says, 'It is not hard to guess; it is Madame de la Valličre.' Not at all, Madame! 'Mlle. de Retz?' Not a bit; you are a mere provincial. 'How absurd!' you say; 'it is Mlle. Colbert.' Not that, either. 'Then, of course, it is Mlle. de Créqui.' Not right yet. Must I tell you, then? Listen! he marries on Sunday, at the Louvre, by his Majesty's permission, Mademoiselle,—Mademoiselle de,—Mademoiselle (will you guess again?)—he marries MADEMOISELLE,—La Grande Mademoiselle,– Mademoiselle, daughter of the late Monsieur,—Mademoiselle, grand- daughter of Henri Quatre,—Mademoiselle d'Eu,—Mademoiselle de Dombes,– Mademoiselle de Montpensier,—Mademoiselle d'Orléans,—Mademoiselle, the King's own cousin,—Mademoiselle, destined for the throne,—Mademoiselle, the only fit match in France for Monsieur [the King's brother];—there's a piece of information for you! If you shriek,—if you are beside yourself,—if you say it is a hoax, false, mere gossip, stuff, and nonsense,—if, finally, you say hard things about us, we do not complain; we took the news in the same way. Adieu; the letters by this post will show you whether we have told the truth."

Poor Mademoiselle! Madame de Sévigné was right in one thing,—if it were not done promptly, it might prove impracticable. Like Ralph Roister Doister, she should ha' been married o' Sunday. Duly the contract was signed, by which Lauzun took the name of M. de Montpensier and the largest fortune in the kingdom, surrendered without reservation, all, all to him; but Mazarin had bribed the notary to four hours' delay, and during that time the King was brought to change his mind, to revoke his consent, and to contradict the letters he had written to foreign courts, formally announcing the nuptials of the first princess of the blood. In reading the Memoirs of Mademoiselle, one forgets all the absurdity of all her long amatory angling for the handsome young guardsman, in pity for her deep despair. When she went to remonstrate with the King, the two royal cousins fell on their knees, embraced, "and thus we remained for near three quarters of an hour, not a word being spoken during the whole time, but both drowned in tears." Reviving, she told the King, with her usual frankness, that he was "like apes who caress children and suffocate them"; and this high-minded monarch soon proceeded to justify her remark by ordering her lover to the Castle of Pignerol, to prevent a private marriage,—which had probably taken place already. Ten years passed, before the labors and wealth of this constant and untiring wife could obtain her husband's release; and when he was discharged at last, he came out a changed, soured, selfish, ungrateful man. "Just Heaven," she had exclaimed in her youth, "would not bestow such a woman as myself upon a man who was unworthy of her." But perhaps Heaven was juster than she thought. They soon parted again forever, and he went to England, there to atone for these inglorious earlier days by one deed of heroic loyalty which it is not ours to tell.

And then unrolled the gorgeous tapestry of the maturer reign of the Grand Monarque,—that sovereign whom his priests in their liturgy styled "the chief work of the Divine hands," and of whom Mazarin said, more honestly, that there was material enough in him for four kings and one honest man. The "Moi-męme" of his boyish resolution became the "L'état, c'est moi" of his maturer egotism; Spain yielded to France the mastery of the land, as she had already yielded to Holland and England the sea; Turenne fell at Sassbach, Condé sheathed his sword at Chantilly; Bossuet and Bourdaloue, preaching the funeral sermons of these heroes, praised their glories, and forgot, as preachers will, their sins; Vatel committed suicide because his Majesty had not fish enough for breakfast; the Princess Palatine died in a convent, and the Princess Condé in a prison; the fair Sévigné chose the better part, and the fairer Montespan the worse; the lovely La Valličre walked through sin to saintliness, and poor Marie de Mancini through saintliness to sin; Voiture and Benserade and Corneille passed away, and Racine and Moličre reigned in their stead; and Mademoiselle, who had won the first campaigns of her life and lost all the rest, died a weary old woman at sixty-seven.

Thus wrecked and wasted, her opportunity past, her career a disappointment, she leaves us only the passing glimpse of what she was, and the hazy possibility of what she might have been. Perhaps the defect was, after all, in herself; perhaps the soil was not deep enough to produce anything but a few stray heroisms, bright and transitory;—perhaps otherwise. What fascinates us in her is simply her daring, that inborn fire of the blood to which danger is its own exceeding great reward; a quality which always kindles enthusiasm, and justly,—but which is a thing of temperament, not necessarily joined with any other great qualities, and worthless when it stands alone—But she had other resources,—weapons, at least, if not qualities; she had birth, wealth, ambition, decision, pride, perseverance, ingenuity; beauty not slight, though not equalling the superb Longuevilles and Chevreuses of the age; great personal magnetism, more than average cultivation for that period, and unsullied chastity. Who can say what these things might have ended in, under other circumstances? We have seen how Mazarin, who read all hearts but the saintly, dreaded the conjunction of herself and Condé; it is scarcely possible to doubt that it would have placed a new line of Bourbons on the throne. Had she married Louis XIV., she might not have controlled that steadier will, but there would have been two Grand Monarques instead of one; had she accepted Charles II. of England, she might have only increased his despotic tendencies, but she would easily have disposed of the Duchess of Portsmouth; had she won Ferdinand III., Germany might have suffered less by the Peace of Westphalia; had she chosen Alphonso Henry, the House of Braganza would again have been upheld by a woman's hand. But she did none of these things, and her only epitaph is that dreary might-have-been.

Nay, not the only one,—for one visible record of her, at least, the soil of France cherishes among its chiefest treasures. When the Paris butterflies flutter for a summer day to the decaying watering-place of Dieppe, some American wanderer, who flutters with them, may cast perchance a longing eye to where the hamlet of Eu stands amid its verdant meadows, two miles away, still lovely as when the Archbishop Laurent chose it out of all the world for his "place of eternal rest," six centuries ago. But it is not for its memories of priestly tombs and miracles that the summer visitor seeks it now, nor because the savant loves its ancient sea- margin or its Roman remains; nor is it because the little Bresle winds gracefully through its soft bed, beneath forests green in the sunshine, glorious in the gloom; it is not for the memories of Rollo and William the Conqueror, which fill with visionary shapes, grander than the living, the corridors of its half-desolate château. It is because these storied walls, often ruined, often rebuilt, still shelter a gallery of historic portraits such as the world cannot equal; there is not a Bourbon king, nor a Bourbon battle, nor one great name among the courtier contemporaries of Bourbons, that is not represented there; the "Hall of the Guises" contains kindred faces, from all the realms of Christendom; the "Salon des Rois" holds Joan of Arc, sculptured in marble by the hand of a princess; in the drawing- room, Pčre la Chaise and Marion de l'Orme are side by side, and the angelic beauty of Agnes Sorel floods the great hall with light, like a sunbeam; and in this priceless treasure-house, worth more to France than almost fair Normandy itself, this gallery of glory, first arranged at Choisy, then transferred hither to console the solitude of a weeping woman, the wanderer finds the only remaining memorial of La Grande Mademoiselle.

THE SWAN-SONG OF PARSON AVERY. 1635When the reaper's task was ended, and the summer wearing late,Parson Avery sailed from Newbury with his wife and children eight,Dropping down the river harbor in the shallop Watch and Wait.Pleasantly lay the clearings in the mellow summer-morn,And the newly-planted orchards dropping their fruits first-born,And the homesteads like brown islands amidst a sea of corn.Broad meadows reaching seaward the tided creeks between,And hills rolled, wave-like, inland, with oaks and walnuts green:A fairer home, a goodlier land, his eye had never seen.Yet away sailed Parson Avery, away where duty led,And the voice of God seemed calling, to break the living breadTo the souls of fishers starving on the rocks of Marblehead!All day they sailed: at nightfall the pleasant land-breeze died,The blackening sky at midnight its starry lights denied,And, far and low, the thunder of tempest prophesied.Blotted out was all the coast-line, gone were rock and wood and sand;Grimly anxious stood the helmsman with the tiller in his hand,And questioned of the darkness what was sea and what was land.And the preacher heard his dear ones, nestled round him, weeping sore:"Never heed, my little children! Christ is walking on beforeTo the pleasant land of Heaven, where the sea shall be no more!"All at once the great cloud parted, like a curtain drawn aside,To let down the torch of lightning on the terror far and wide;And the thunder and the whirlwind together smote the tide.There was wailing in the shallop, woman's wail and man's despair,A crash of breaking timbers on the rocks so sharp and bare,And through it all the murmur of Father Avery's prayer.From the struggle in the darkness with the wild waves and the blast,On a rock, where every billow broke above him as it passed,Alone of all his household the man of God was cast.There a comrade heard him praying in the pause of wave and wind:"All my own have gone before me, and I linger just behind;Not for life I ask, but only for the rest thy ransomed find!"In this night of death I challenge the promise of thy Word!Let me see the great salvation of which mine ears have heard!Let me pass from hence forgiven, through the grace of Christ, our Lord!"In the baptism of these waters wash white my every sin,And let me follow up to Thee my household and my kin!Open the sea-gate of thy Heaven and let me enter in!"The ear of God was open to his servant's last request;As the strong wave swept him downward the sweet prayer upward pressed,And the soul of Father Avery went with it to his rest.There was wailing on the mainland from the rocks of Marblehead,In the stricken church of Newbury the notes for prayer were read,And long by board and hearthstone the living mourned the dead.And still the fishers out-bound, or scudding from the squall,With grave and reverent faces the ancient tale recall,When they see the white waves breaking on the "Rock of Avery's Fall!"

THE DENSLOW PALACE

It is the privilege of authors and artists to see and to describe; to "see clearly and describe vividly" gives the pass on all state occasions. It is the "cap of darkness" and the talaria, and wafts them whither they will. The doors of boudoirs and senate-chambers open quickly, and close after them,—excluding the talentless and staring rabble. I, who am one of the humblest of the seers,—a universal admirer of all things beautiful and great,—from the commonwealths of Plato and Solon, severally, expulsed, as poet without music or politic, and a follower of the great,—I, from my dormitory, or nest, of twelve feet square, can, at an hour's notice, or less, enter palaces, and bear away, unchecked and unquestioned, those imagines of Des Cartes which emanate or are thrown off from all forms,– and this, not in imagination, but in the flesh.

Whether it was the "tone of society" which pervaded my "Florentine letters," or my noted description of the boudoir of Egeria Mentale, I could not just now determine; but these, and other humble efforts of mine, made me known in palaces as a painter of beauty and magnificence; and I have been in demand, to do for wealth what wealth cannot do for itself,– namely, make it live a little, or, at least, spread as far, in fame, as the rings of a stone-plash on a great pond.

I enjoy friendships and regards which would satisfy the most fastidious. Are not the Denslows enormously rich? Is not Dalton a sovereign of elegance? It was I who gave the fame of these qualities to the world, in true colors, not flattered. And they know it, and love me. Honoria Denslow is the most beautiful and truly charming woman of society. It was I who first said it; and she is my friend, and loves me. I defy poverty; the wealth of all the senses is mine, without effort. I desire not to be one of those who mingle as principals and sufferers; for they are less causes than effects. As the Florentine in the Inferno saw the souls of unfortunate lovers borne upon a whirlwind, so have I seen all things fair and precious,—outpourings of wealth,—all the talents,—all the offerings of duty and devotion,—angelic graces of person and of soul,—borne and swept violently around on the circular gale. Wealth is only an enlargement of the material boundary, and leaves the spirit free to dash to and fro, and exhaust itself in vain efforts.—But I am philosophizing,—oddly enough,—when I should describe.

An exquisite little note from Honoria, sent at the last moment, asking me to be present that evening at a "select" party, which was to open the "new house,"—the little palace of the Denslows,—lay beside me on the table. It was within thirty minutes of nine o'clock, the hour I had fixed for going. A howling winter out of doors, a clear fire glowing in my little grate. My arm-chair, a magnificent present from Honoria, shaming the wooden fixtures of the poor room, invited to meditation, and perhaps the composition of some delicate periods. They formed slowly. Time, it is said, devours all things; but imagination, in turn, devours time,—and, indeed, swallowed my half-hour at a gulp. The neighboring church-clock tolled nine. I was belated, and hurried away.