Devereux — Volume 04 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (book recommendations based on other books .txt) 📗

however, that one wishes a great man to be graceful, so long as he's familiar.

"Aha, Monsieur Devereux!" said he, "we will give you some lessons in cooking to-night; we shall show you how to provide for yourself in that barbarous country which you are about to visit. /Tout voyageur doit tout savoir!"

"Avery admirable saying; which leads me to understand that Monseigneur has been a great traveller," said I.

"Ay, in all things and /all places/; eh, Count?" answered the Regent, smiling; "but," here he lowered his voice a little, "I have never yet learned how you came so opportunely to our assistance that night. /Dieu me damne/! but it reminds me of the old story of the two sisters meeting at a gallant's house. 'Oh, Sister, how came /you/ here?' said one, in virtuous amazement. '/Ciel! ma soeur/!' cries the other; 'what brought /you/?'"*

* The reader will remember a better version of this anecdote in one of the most popular of the English comedies.—ED.

"Monseigneur is pleasant," said I, laughing; "but a man does now and then (though I own it is very seldom) do a good action, without having previously resolved to commit a bad one!"

"I like your parenthesis," cried the Regent; "it reminds me of my friend St. Simon, who thinks so ill of mankind that I asked him one day whether it was possible for him to despise anything more than men? 'Yes,' said he, with a low bow, 'women!'"

"His experience," said I, glancing at the female part of the /coterie/, "was, I must own, likely to lead him to that opinion."

"None of your sarcasms, Monsieur," cried the Regent.

"'L'amusement est un des besoins de l'homme,' as I hear young Arouet very pithily said the other day; and we owe gratitude to whomsoever it may be that supplies that want. Now, you will agree with me that none supply it like women therefore we owe them gratitude; therefore we must not hear them abused. Logically proved, I think!"

"Yes, indeed," said I, "it is a pleasure to find they have so able an advocate; and that your Highness can so well apply to yourself /both/ the assertions in the motto of the great master of fortification, Vauban,—'I destroy, but I defend.'"

"Enough," said the Duke, gayly, "now to /our fortifzeations/;" and he moved away towards the women; I followed the royal example, and soon found myself seated next to a pretty and very small woman. We entered into conversation; and, when once begun, my fair companion took care that it should not cease, without a miracle. By the goddess Facundia, what volumes of words issued from that little mouth! and on all subjects too! church, state, law, politics, play-houses, lampoons, lace, liveries, kings, queens, /roturiers/, beggars, you would have thought, had you heard her, so vast was her confusion of all things, that chaos had come again. Our royal host did not escape her. "You never before supped here /en famille/," said she,—"/mon Dieu/! it will do your heart good to see how much the Regent will eat. He has such an appetite; you know he never eats any dinner, in order to eat the more at supper. You see that little dark woman he is talking to?—well, she is Madame de Parabere: he calls her his little black crow; was there ever such a pet name? Can you guess why he likes her? Nay, never take the trouble of thinking: I will tell you at once; simply because she eats and drinks so much. /Parole d'honneur/, 'tis true. The Regent says he likes sympathy in all things! is it not droll? What a hideous old man is that Noce: his face looks as if it had caught the rainbow. That impudent fellow Dubois scolded him for squeezing so many louis out of the good Regent. The yellow creature attempted to deny the fact. 'Nay,' cried Dubois, 'you cannot contradict me: I see their very ghosts in your face.'"

While my companion was thus amusing herself, Noce, unconscious of her panegyric on his personal attractions, joined us.

"Ah! my dear Noce," said the lady, most affectionately, "how well you are looking! I am delighted to see you."

"I do not doubt it," said Noce "for I have to inform you that your petition is granted; your husband will have the place."

"Oh, how eternally grateful I am to you!" cried the lady, in an ecstasy; "my poor, dear husband will be so rejoiced. I wish I had wings to fly to him!"

The gallant Noce uttered a compliment; I thought myself /de trop/, and moved away. I again encountered Chatran.

"I overheard your conversation with Madame la Marquise," said he, smiling: "she has a bitter tongue; has she not?"

"Very! how she abused the poor rogue Noce!"

"Yes, and yet he is her lover!"

"Her lover!—you astonish me: why, she seemed almost fond of her husband; the tears came in her eyes when she spoke of him."

"She is fond of him!" said Chatran, dryly. "She loves the ground he treads on: it is precisely for that reason she favours Noce; she is never happy but when she is procuring something /pour son cher bon mari/. She goes to spend a week at Noce's country-house, and writes to her husband, with a pen dipped in her blood, saying, 'My /heart/ is with thee!'"

"Certainly," said I, "France is the land of enigmas; the sphynx must have been a /Parisienne/. And when Jupiter made man, he made two natures utterly distinct from one another. One was /Human nature/, and the other /French nature/!"

At this moment supper was announced. We all adjourned to another apartment, where to my great surprise I observed the cloth laid, the sideboard loaded, the wines ready, but nothing to eat on the table! A Madame de Savori, who was next me, noted my surprise.

"What astonishes you, Monsieur?"

"/Nothing/, Madame," said I; "that is, the absence of /all/ things."

"What! you expected to see supper?"

"I own my delusion: I did."

"It is not cooked yet!"

"Oh! well, I can wait!"

"And officiate too!" said the lady; "in a word, this is one of the
Regent's cooking nights."

Scarcely had I received this explanation, before there was a general adjournment to an inner apartment, where all the necessary articles of cooking were ready to our hand.

          "The Regent led the way,
           To light us to our prey,"

and, with an irresistible gravity and importance of demeanour, entered upon the duties of /chef/. In a very short time we were all engaged. Nothing could exceed the zest with which every one seemed to enter into the rites of the kitchen. You would have imagined they had been born scullions, they handled the /batterie de cuisine/ so naturally. As for me, I sought protection with Madame de Savori; and as, fortunately, she was very deeply skilled in the science, she had occasion to employ me in many minor avocations which her experience taught her would not be above my comprehension.

After we had spent a certain time in this dignified occupation, we returned to the /salle a manger/. The attendants placed the dishes on the table, and we all fell to. Whether out of self-love to their own performances, or complaisance to the performances of others, I cannot exactly say, but certain it is that all the guests acquitted themselves /a merveille/: you would not have imagined the Regent the only one who had gone without dinner to eat the more at supper. Even that devoted wife to her /cher bon mari/, who had so severely dwelt upon the good Regent's infirmity, occupied herself with an earnestness that would have seemed almost wolf-like in a famished grenadier.

Very slight indeed was the conversation till the supper was nearly over; then the effects of the wine became more perceptible. The Regent was the first person who evinced that he had eaten sufficiently to be able to talk. Utterly dispensing with the slightest veil of reserve or royalty, he leaned over the table, and poured forth a whole tide of jests. The guests then began to think it was indecorous to stuff themselves any more, and, as well as they were able, they followed their host's example. But the most amusing personages were the buffoons: they mimicked and joked, and lampooned and lied, as if by inspiration. As the bottle circulated, and talk grew louder, the lampooning and the lying were not, however, confined to the buffoons. On the contrary, the best born and best bred people seemed to excel the most in those polite arts. Every person who boasted a fair name or a decent reputation at court was seized, condemned, and mangled in an instant. And how elaborately the good folks slandered! It was no hasty word and flippant repartee which did the business of the absent: there was a precision, a polish, a labour of malice, which showed that each person had brought so many reputations already cut up. The good-natured convivialists differed from all other backbiters that I have ever met, in the same manner as the toads of Surinam differ from all other toads; namely, their venomous offspring were not half formed, misshapen tadpoles of slander, but sprang at once into life,—well shaped and fully developed.

"/Chantons/!" cried the Regent, whose eyes, winking and rolling, gave token of his approaching state which equals the beggar to the king; "let us have a song. Noce, lift up thy voice, and let us hear what the Tokay has put into thy head!"

Noce obeyed, and sang as men half drunk generally do sing.

"/O Ciel/!" whispered the malicious Savori, "what a hideous screech: one would think he had /turned his face into a voice!/"

"/Bravissimo/!" cried the Duke, when his guest had ceased,—"what happy people we are! Our doors are locked; not a soul can disturb us: we have plenty of wine; we are going to get drunk; and we have all Paris to abuse! what were you saying of Marshal Villars, my little Parabere?"

And pounce went the little Parabere upon the unfortunate marshal. At last slander had a respite: nonsense began its reign; the full inspiration descended upon the orgies; the good people lost the use of their faculties. Noise, clamour, uproar, broken bottles, falling chairs, and (I grieve to say) their occupants falling too,—conclude the scene of the royal supper. Let us drop the curtain.

CHAPTER XI. AN INTERVIEW.

I WENT a little out of my way, on departing from Paris, to visit Lord Bolingbroke, who at that time was in the country. There are some men whom one never really sees in capitals; one sees their masks, not themselves: Bolingbroke was one. It was in retirement, however brief it might be, that his true nature expanded itself; and, weary of being admired, he allowed one to love, and, even in the wildest course of his earlier excesses, to respect him. My visit was limited to a few hours, but it made an indelible impression on me.

"Once more," I said, as we walked to and fro in the garden of his temporary retreat, "once more you are in your element; minister and statesman of a prince, and chief supporter of the great plans which are to restore him to his throne."

A slight shade passed over Bolingbroke's fine brow. "To you, my constant friend," said he, "to you,—who of all my friends alone remained true in exile, and unshaken by misfortune,—to you I will confide a secret that I would intrust to no other. I repent me already of having espoused this cause. I did so while yet the disgrace of an unmerited attainder tingled in my veins; while I was in the full tide of those violent and warm passions which have so often misled me. Myself attainted; the best beloved of my associates in danger; my party deserted, and seemingly lost but for some bold measure such as then offered,—these were all that I saw. I listened eagerly to representations I now find untrue; and I accepted that rank and power from one prince which were so rudely and gallingly torn from me by another. I perceive that I have acted imprudently; but what is done, is done: no private scruples, no private interest, shall make me waver in a cause that I have once pledged myself to serve;