REVIEW.

Colonist, Volume V, Issue 468, 18 April 1862, Page 4

REVIEW.

Court of France under Louis Fourteenth and the Regent. By the Duchess of Orleans, Mother of the Regent, <j-c. Elizabeth Charlotte, daughter of the Elector Palatine, was born in the castle of Heidelberg, July 7th, 1G52. She was indebted for her education to her aunt Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and mother of George the First, who intrusted her to the care of Madame Harliug, a woman of superior abilities, and free, apparently, from many of the prejudices which clouded the minds of her conterapomies. When Henrietta daughter of Charles the lirst, first wife of Philip, Duke of Orleans, and brother of Louis Quatorzo, had perished by poison Elizabetl. Charlotte, then in hor nineteenth vcar, was selected to supply the place of the murdered princess, and at the tune seemed hiobly probable to undergo a similar fate. Elizabeth's charms were not in her person, but in her father's territories, which the French kin" fiercely coveted as a stepping-stone to the Imperial throne. Properly speaking, the poor young princess, was anything but attraction, with fat hanging cheeks, a large hideous mouth, extremely bad teeth, and a red skin, marked all over with yellow spots. Brought up as a Protestant, she had to be transformed before marriage into a Papist, which was accomplished by three bishops, who met her on the French frontier to exorcise her Lutherauism out of her. Looking upon the profession of a new creed as of no importance in comparison with a husband and a distinguished position in tho French court, she easily yielded to the arguments of her converters, aud was married in the November of 1071. The husband to whom she was tbus united may, without the least exaggeration, be described as one of the most contemptible and revolting individuals of the age in which he lived ; his profligacy resembled that ofthe worst Roman emperors, wbile his insignificance, mental aud bodily, reduced him to a level with the goitred Cretans of the Pyrenees. By this person, Elizabeth Charlotte had three children ; a boy wbo died in infancy, a daughter married to the Duke of Loruiue, aud the too-famous Regent. Whatever before marriage may bave been the expectations of Elizabeth Charlotte, she speedily made tbe discovery that tbe French Court was not a terrestrial paradise, that the gorgeous apartments in which sho bad hoped to find a home were dreary and desolate, that all the personages by whom she was surrounded mocked at and ridiculed her, and that iv her neglect and isolation no pleasure remaiued to her but that of vindictive chronicling. Though so near the throne, therefore, circumstances converted her into a mere news writer, Being ugly, haughty, and virtuous, though to the last degree_ coarse and cynical, she had no sympathy with her husband, with her husband's brother, or in fact with any one else at the French Court; but perceiving herself to have been kidnapped into a foreign country for the sake of the territorial claims which a marriage with her would create, she threw all her soul into the letters which she wrote to her relatives in Eugiuod, Prussia, Spain, Italy, and Savoy. The idea never crossed her mind, that in the course of time her portentous revelations would be made public ; and, in fact, Dearly seventy years elapsed before these graphic pictures of men and manners were suffered to see tho light, and then only in an extremely imperfect form. One year before the taking of tho Bastille, a portion of Elizabeth Charlotte's' correspondence mado its appearance, and from that period to tho present, additional letters have at inteivala been brought to light. Still it is not known what has become of her correspondence with the Electress of Hanover, probably more valuable than all the rest, since she is believed to bave reposed perfect confidence in that princess, who was her aunt, aud to havo confided to her secrets whicb she withheld from all her other relatives. Of

the ease and familiarity with which these ladies addressed each other, some idea may be formed from a fragment in the chain of their confidence, which by some rare chance has stolen into print. The very able editor of the Memoirs published in 1823, shrank from tho responsibility of including ifc in his edition, and only made a passing allusion to compositions which, for reckless indecency, exceed anything in Rabelais. Fiom this fact, however, nothing cau be inforred against the great body of letters interchanged by these princesses, who, when all ordinary topics had probably been exhausted, took to the least promi.-ing subject they could think of for attack aud defence. The genius of the two writers clearly displays itself in these terrible jeau d' esprit. Elizabeth Charlotte is heavy, moiose, ill-humored, censoiious, while the sprightly old Electress g'-ides over the surface of her Aristophienic theme with a sort of audacious grace, liveliness, and felicity. The royal personages of the eighteenth century may in some sort be said to have possessed a literature of their own, existing only in manuscript, and studied as well for amusement as for instruction. It that literature could be collected and given ungarbled to tho world, mankind might bo cured of numerous prejudices, while history would bo taught to speak a language very different from that which it usually employs. Among tho royal and noble authors who contributed to create this stock, Elizabeth Charlotte was certaiuly one of the most activo and plainspeaking. She called everything by its proper name, Fiiends sho had none at the Court of France, and therefore she could violate no friendships; but acquaintances, connections, husband, children, grandchildren, all came within the sweep of her pen, and down went their vices, follies, mutual auimosiiies, intrigues, meannesses, and crimes, without tlie slightest reticence or palliatiou. Some of her editors pretend that gaps and softenings of expressions were found absolutely necessary, which, to those who read what has been printed, will perhaps appear incredible. Imagination, at all events, refuies to project itself beyond tho line traced by her intrepid pen, which may be fairly characterized as one of the boldest ever wielded by a human hand. What Sotades committed to writing, the modesty of antiquity intercepted on its way to posterity ; but ho must indeed have been an ingenious person if he outdid the female Sotades of tho Palais Royal. St. Simon, Man. pas, the Abbo de Chose, Rochefoucauld, Duclos, Madame de SevignG, toge'her with the scandalous chronicle of the (Eil de Bccuf, let in considerable light on the inner working of society ; but not one of these writers was so completely behind the scenes as the Regent's mother, who, when the pen was once in her hand, refused to Btop short even at the threshold of her own bedchamber. For her own husband, in spite of many professions to the contrary, she could have entertained no affection, and if possible still less esteem ; yet a woman of principle, not to say of

refinement, would have shrunk with horror from the disclosures wbich this cynical wife considered herself justified in making respecting the father of her children, whom she has held up to the scorn and loathing of al! succeeding times. The philosopher of Sans Souci, a great student of the regal esoteric literature of which we have been speaking, possessed, in the archives of Potsdam, a series of Elizabeth's Charlotte's letters, from, from which ho appears to have sought information respecting the personages, whether natives or strangers, who figured at tbo French court. The knowledge thus obtained, no consideration of benovolcnce or delicacy prevented his making full use of whenever an opportunity offered. One day at table when a certain Baron Prellintz was among his guests, he brought forth the letters of the cynical duchess, and for the gratification of all the company, save one, read a passage of her correspondence aloud. Accustomed to subsist by flattery, the baron, well aware of the relationship between his royal host aud tbe court newswriter, declaimed eloquently on her generosity, judgment, and discrimination. fßy way of proof,' observed Fredeiick, ' let us hear what she says of a certain Pasllintz, who appears to have tasted frequently of her bounty. According to my aunt, this individual was an adventurer who subsisted by haunting the houses of the great, and under one pretext or other, squeezing money out of them. She adds that he was a good for nothing, a rogue, and a libertine. He was a namesake of yours, do you know anything of him Pfflllintz ?' If the wandering baron bad not lost the faculty of blushing he must have reddened considerably at tbis exhibition of coarse banter on tho part of the Prussian king, little less cynical than his aunt, though far from being equally amusing. Psslintz himself, iv his memoirs, relates, probably for tho encouragement of others, how he oue day contrived to obtain from tbis terrible old lady a bag containiug five thousand livres in gold, though, till the adventure at Potzdam, he kuew not her practice of giving charity with one hand aud stigmatizing the receiver with the other.

But such anecdotes only illustrate her gossiping propensity, her pettiness, her small malignity ; it is when she speaks of tho domestic achievements of the French king, his family and courtiers, that she may be said to be furnishing history with an antidote to the frantic idolatry with which the weak and ignorant look up to persons in high places. Day after day her couriers were iv atlendanceto bear away and deposit in different parts of Europe the awful revelations sho found herself impelled to make. Surrounded by an ocean of crime aud turpitude, this communicativeness was her only relief. Nothing calculated to soil and degrade human nature was wanting to her experience. She beheld princesses and great ladies addicting themselves furiously to gluttouy, getting habitually drunk, aud, in the wild excesses of intoxication, perpetrating every variety of licentiousness without shame. She describes with a minuteness aud circumstantiality which makes oue shudder, the diseases of which they died, aud the state of their bodies after death ; chronicles the courtly poisonings, fhe indignation and clamor of the populace, the unnatural amours, the hatreds, the revenges, the premature deaths, the mean and despicable scandals which blighted and withered during life, the sale of their virtueby women, whose shamelessness and effrontery may be said to have reached their culminating point iv her own granddaughter, the Duchess de Bern', whose whole career was so steeped in iufamy that when ulcerated and almost decomposed she fell a victim to her own vices, and no priest could be found sufficiently intrepid to prououuce her funeral oration. In silence and disgust, therefore was she consigned to the tomb, lamented perhaps by no one, save by that father, who, if one spark of manly feeling had remained in his corrupt heart, would have perished of remorse at the recollection of the blighted youth aud portentous immorality of his victim. Among the offences most prevalent at time in France was the murder of husbands, which was then as common as the murder of wives is now, with this difference, that the wife-killers of our day vie geuerally poor, brutal, and ignorant, whereas the Clyiemiifostras, contemporary with the Duchc:ss of Orleans, were, for tlie most part, noble ladies, enjoying tho advantages of po'ished society and courtly confessors. Occasionally superstition mixed itself up fantastically with the crimes committed. Thus there was a Madame liquet, dissatisfied evidently with her condition, and eager for elevation iv the social scale, who employed an astrologer to construct her horoscope. Of course a man so | versed in the doings of the world could not be unacquainted with the Cal craft of his day, with whom he perhaps feared he might some day become but too familar. To instil a similar dread into his dupe, into whose previous history ho had no doubt carefully inquired,—-the seer, interpreting the language of tho stars, foretold tliat if she could escape the hands of a mau bearing the same name with herself, she would livo to a great old ago. Whether this prediction suggested the idea that 3he stood in danger from her husband, is uncertain ; at all events she killed him, after which came the denouement aud the interpretation of of tho prophecy. By the murder of her lord she fell into the hands of tho executioner, whose name, like her own before marriage, was Carlier. He may have been a relative, which would explain the trembling of his hand, for he struck her neck five or six times with the axe before he could sever the head from the body. Apropos of beheading, we have somewhere read an anecdote which we should like to see traced to the original authority. One night, the people living about the Place de Glove, awakened suddenly by the trampling of horses rushed to their windows, and beheld au unexpected sight. While they slept, a lofty scaffold had been erected in the middle of the square, which was now lighted up by a number of flaring torches. Towards the scaffold a troop of cavalry advanced iv tho form of a hollow square, while a man in magnificent costume rode bareheaded in the midst. Upon drawing near the middle of the Place do Grove he dismounted, and, ascending the scaffold with a light step, weut and placed his neck upon the , block. The executioner, who stood noar with his axe, then smolo off his head, which was received in a basket. The body was then wrapped in a winding-sheet, and borne away by the horsemen; the scaffolding was taken down; quantities of sawdust were sprinkled on the spot, to dry up the blood ; the torches were extinguished ; and in half an hour tho lookers-on from the windows might easily have persuaded themselves, but fcr the sawdust, that all they had beheld was a dream. Other incidents in the reign of Louis Quatorze are equally mysterious and inexplicable, notwithstanding the accumulation of memoirs aud letters which has been published in connection with the period.

We have no intention to enter upon the subject of Louis XIVs wars, which without exposing their author to the least danger, drained and desolated France, and converted tlie Palatinate into a faint semblance of Northumbria, when it had been ravaged by the ruthless bastard of Normandy. By way of gasconade, Louis once proceeded to the seat of hostilities in Flauders, but, as St. Simon, wbo was present, relates, took flight at tho too close proximity ofthe Prince of Orange, ancl with the reproach of cowardice still hissing in his ears, hastened back to Versailles and his mistresses. Once moro iv safety, he persevered in bis infamous system of hostilities, till the disasters and misery of the kingdom constrained him to sue for peace. The year which brought him to this state of humiliation opened witb the greatest cold, which, in the memory of the oldest persons then living, had ever been felt in France. The Seine, with all the other rivers of the north were completely frozen over iv four days, and even the sea, along the coast of the English Channel, soon became converted into one sheet of ice, over which heavy carts and waggons drove as over firm land. By the extreme severity of the weather alone, immense distress must have beeu produced among the humbler classes ; but when to the inclemency of nature were added tbe monopolies of the Government, the storm of calamity that broke upon France exceeded all belief. St. Simon supplies much useful information on the internal condition of tho kiugdom during tbat unhappy year, but the minute details of the Duchess of Orleans may be said to give the last touches to the fearful picture. The people she says, all over the provinces, died like flies; the rivers were frozen, tho mills were stopped ; no corn could be ground, no bread made, so that even from this cause numbers perished of hunger. In Paris, the sufferings of the populace were extreme, as oue example selected out of thousands will suffice to show. A poor woman, maddened by want, rushed into a baker's shop and stole a loaf; when arrested for the theft, she exclaimed, that if the commissary of the police only knew the circumstances which had urged her to the act, he would forgive her. ' I have at home/ she said, ' three children who are dying of hunger, and it is for them that I have become a thief.' To ascestain the truth, the commissary, who appears to havo had a man's heart in his breast, went to her lodgings, where he found the three children, gaunt aud shivering under a heap of rags. ' Have you no father ?' inquired tho gendarme ?' ' Yes/ replied the eldest. 1 Where is be V * Behind tho door.' The commissary looked, and started back with horror —the father in an access of despair aud frenzy, had hung himself, and his emaciated body was dangliug from a nail. The letter-writer adds that similar events occurred daily. Without the strongest testimony to tbe fact, it would scarcely be believed that this was an artificial famiue created by the king and his ministers, for the purpose of obtaining money by raising the price of provisions, partly to gratify their licentious passions, partly to enable them to shed more blood in Flauders. The corn had been brought up, and secretly stored away by the king's agents, and immense quantities were afterwards throwD into the Loire, when it had beeu spoiled by keeping. There was, in fact, enough corn in the country to feed the whole nation for two years. Returning to the disastrous year 1709, we fiud tho gaieties of the Court mixed up strangely with vast carnage in Flanders and bread-riots in Paris.

Now we obtain a glimpse of the beautiful gardens of Marly, and now we find ourselves in the streets of the capital, amid famished multitudes shouting for food, and afc length breaking into open revolt, upon which Marshal de Bonfluery and the Duke de Gramraont bring out the troops against them, and forty persons having been slanghtered, the remainder prefer retreating to their garrets and dying of hunger to perishing by sword and bayonet in the street. But these incidents by no meaus disturb the serenity or check the pleasures of Louis Quatorze, and the philosophic members of his family, who go to the opera aud the theatre, aud laugh afc the extravagances of Moliero as heartly as if everybody iv Paris had dined like aa alderman. Singular social contrasts these. By degrees old age creeps upou the King somewhat sadly, for, while still on the sunny side of seventy, he mopes, and droops, and displays as many symptoms of senility as an honest peasant would exhibit at a hundred. But vice has eaten him up, and the crimiual old women by whom be is surrounded and kept in countenance are every whit as wretched and doatiog as he. Death at length striking impartially, as the Roman poet expresses it, at the lowliest roof and the loftiest towers, summons Louis to his account, and by so doing lets loose a flood of intrigue at court. Who is to be the Regent ? Some point at the King's bastard, son, the Duke of Maine, but the Duke of Orleans' having been designated by the dying tyrant, succeeds to the post of honor, and thus stimulates his enemies into plots, conspiracies, and crimes. Poisoning is the order of the day, and the good old Duchess trembles for the fate of her libertine sou, who daily gorges to repletion, gets drunk every night, and yet rises at six in the morning, aud labors like a forcat at the public business. His mother meanwhile proceeds with her revelations, but her style begins to show the chill of age, and in truth, having already described every form and variety of vice, she has nothing new to delineate. She consequently becomes by degrees duller aud duller, until at length a note by tho editor informs us that the writer died December Sth, 1722, nine days after the date of her last letter to Chere Louise.