"Well then, this great king is a very little one. He has the sublime strut of his grandfather (or a cock-sparrow), and the divine white eyes of all his family on the mother's side. His curiosity seems to have consisted in the original plan of travelling, for I cannot say he takes notice of anything in particular. The mob adore and huzza him, and so they did at the first instant. They now begin to know why, for he flings money to them out of the window; and by the end of the week, I do not doubt they will want to choose him for Middlesex. His court is extremely well ordered, for they bow as low to him at every word as if his name were Sultan Amurath. You would take his first minister for only the first of his slaves. I hope this example, which they have been good enough to exhibit at the Opera, will civilize us. There is, indeed, a pert young gentleman who a little discomposes this august ceremonial; his name is Count Holck; his age, three-and-twenty; and his post answers to one that we had formerly in England ages ago, called in our tongue, a royal favourite."

On August 30, his Majesty arrived at Cambridge, en route for York races. The vice-chancellor at once waited on the king with the heads of houses, and "showed him the elephant." After walking wearily through the town and its sights, Christian got off by inviting the vice-chancellor to supper. He arrived at York the next day with a retinue of one hundred and twenty persons, and shirked a grand entertainment which the mayor and corporation insisted on giving him. He returned to London viâ Manchester, where "he was particularly gratified by viewing the stupendous works of the Duke of Bridgewater, at which he expressed both astonishment and pleasure."

On September 4, Christian returned to town, after performing the great feat of travelling nearly six hundred miles in seven days. On September 8, we find him, after the Opera, going to take a view of the house of Mrs. Cornelis, in Soho Square, of which Casanova gives us such fragrant details. The rooms had been got up "regardless of expense," more than two thousand wax candles being lighted; and the king opened the ball with the Duchess of Lancaster. Among the persons present, I notice the Russian General Filosofow, but am unable to discover what had brought that arch-intriguer to England.

On September 12, a magnificent entertainment was given Christian at Sion House, by the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland. The account of the festivities reminds us of the later days of Vauxhall, for there were fifteen thousand coloured lamps; and the temple erected in the inner court was ornamented with transparent paintings that had a very happy effect. Among the company were their royal highnesses the Princess Amelia and the Dukes of Gloucester and Cumberland.

On September 17, Christian arrived in Oxford with the principal members of his suite, and was received in great pomp by Dr. Durell, the vice-chancellor. After seeing all the sights, he was taken to the theatre, where, in full convocation, the king had the honorary degree of D.C.L. conferred upon him. The same honour befell Bernstorff, Schimmelmann, Holck, Düring, and Bülow, while Struensee had the honorary degree of Doctor of Physic conferred upon him, being the second foreigner to whom this honour had been granted. I wonder how much Christian understood of the elegant Latin speech in which Dr. Vansittart, Regius Professor of Law, presented him? From Oxford, Christian visited Ditchley Park, Blenheim, Buckingham, and Stow; and we can quite agree with the polite writer in the "Annual Register," who says: "His journeyings are so rapid, and his stay at places so short, that if he is not a youth of more than common talents, he must have a very confused idea of what he sees." Horace Walpole, writing to Sir H. Mann, under date September 22, speaks very severely on this head, but, I am afraid, with more justice than usual:

"I can tell you nothing but what you know already about the King of Denmark hurrying from one corner of England to the other, without seeing anything distinctly, fatiguing himself, breaking his chaise, going tired to bed in inns, and getting up to show himself to the mob at the window. I believe that he is a very silly lad; but the mob adore him, though he has neither done nor said anything worth repeating; but he gives them an opportunity of getting together, of staring, and of making foolish observations. Then the news papers talk their own language, and call him a great personage; and a great personage that comes so often in their way seems almost one of themselves raised to the throne. At the play of the Provoked Wife, he clapped whenever there was a sentence against matrimony,—a very civil proceeding when his wife is an English princess!"[67]

On the 19th, a very grand entertainment was given by their Majesties to the King of Denmark at the queen's house, at which the Princess Dowager of Wales, the Duke of Gloucester, and a great number of the nobility, were present. Covers were laid for one hundred and seventy; and after the entertainment there was a ball, which Christian opened at nine o'clock with the queen; after which, George III. walked a minuet with the Duchess of Ancaster. The King of Denmark, who always kept it up to the last, did not retire till half-past four in the morning.

But the grandest affair of all was the dinner given to Christian by the City. The lord mayor and aldermen proceeded in their state barges to fetch the king from the Stairs, at New Palace Yard, and conveyed him to Temple Stairs, where he landed, and took some refreshments offered by the Benchers. Judging from an engraving in the "Gentleman's Magazine," the scene on the river must have been very gay; and in those days, when the Thames still possessed some claim to the epithet of silvery, the king doubtless enjoyed the animated scene.

From the Temple, the king proceeded in the City state coach to the Mansion House, preceded by the Honourable Artillery Company, and the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, the freedom of which Christian had deigned to accept. On arrival, there was the inevitable address read by Mr. Recorder, from which it is worth while to extract one passage, which seems to show that the force of lying could no further go:—

"The many endearing ties which happily connect you, sir, with our most gracious sovereign, justly entitle you to the respect and veneration of all his Majesty's faithful subjects; but your affability and other princely virtues, so eminently displayed during the whole course of your residence among us, have, in a particular manner, charmed the citizens of London, who reflect with admiration on your early and uncommon thirst of knowledge, and your indefatigable pursuit of it by travel and observation; the happy fruits of which, they doubt not, will be long employed, and acknowledged within the whole extent of your influence and command."

Christian—I hope blushing as he did so—returned a most polite answer in Danish, and then, no doubt, was very glad to hear dinner announced. In the Egyptian Gallery, we read, that "His Majesty condescended to walk quite round, so that the ladies (who made a most brilliant appearance in the galleries) might have a full view of his royal person: and all the gentlemen of the common council below an opportunity of personally paying him their respects." Surely this was a heavy price to pay even for a lord mayor's feed!

As history—at any rate since Macaulay's example—condescends, like the elephant's trunk, to take notice of the smallest things, I may be forgiven for quoting here the menu of the remarkable dinner which took place in honour of the occasion, which has been duly enshrined in the "Annual Register":—

O

O O

O

At eight o'clock, after the usual loyal toasts, and taking tea and coffee in the great parlour, his Majesty and retinue took coach, and returned to St. James's Palace amid the same crowd and acclamations, with the addition of illuminations in almost every window, so that the people might have the pleasure of seeing his Majesty as much as possible.

On the 24th, the poor king, who could hardly have digested the good things of which I have just given a list, was entertained at Richmond Lodge, by order of his Majesty King George. Some attempt at taste seems to have been made on this occasion, for we read of a splendid temple with festoons of flowers and emblematical pictures alluding to the arts and sciences. The fireworks were the finest ever exhibited, and "their Majesties and the nobility present were pleased to express their entire satisfaction." The whole road from London to the Lodge was illuminated by upwards of fifteen thousand Italian lamps, from three in the afternoon till the next morning.

On October 1, the Princess of Wales gave a grand entertainment at Carlton House in honour of Christian. It consisted of three tables, one for their Majesties and the Princess Dowager of Wales; a second for the King of Denmark: and fifty of the nobility; and the third for H.R.H. the Prince of Wales and his attendants, &c. The princess dowager and the King of Denmark had not got on at all well together, and he entirely lost her good graces by the following piece of impertinence. The princess was amusing herself one day with a lady of her court, to whom the King of Denmark had presented a superb set of jewels, with telling fortunes by the cards, and Christian said to her, "My dear mother, how do you designate my Majesty in your pasteboard court?" "Lady ——," said the princess with an arch smile, "calls you the King of Diamonds." "And what do you call Holck?" Christian continued. "Oh, by a title far more flattering; that rake is called the King of Hearts." "Then pray, my dear mamma," said Christian, piqued by her ironical allusions, "under which of the suits do you designate Lord Bute?" This repartee, severe as it was unexpected, crimsoned the face of the princess, who rallied soon after, evidently offended with her incorrigible son-in-law.[68]

While Christian was at Newmarket races, a deputation arrived from Cambridge, begging him and his suite to accept the same degrees from that university as from Oxford. On October 10, Christian gave a superb masked ball at the Opera House in the Haymarket, at which no less than two thousand five hundred of the nobility and gentry were present. Even staid George III. could not resist the temptation, but remained in a private box with transparent shutters. The Princess Amelia also sat the whole time in one of the boxes, masked. Christian opened the ball with the Duchess of Ancaster, and any one who wishes to know what characters were represented, I can refer to the "Gentleman's Magazine," which contains an engraving of the ball. There was an awful squeeze and a magnificent supper, and the value of the jewels worn on this occasion amounted to upwards of £2,000,000. Still, the company must have been rather mixed, for a noble duke lost his snuff-box, on which was a portrait of the King of France, set with brilliants. The ball cost Christian £3,000.

On the 11th, Christian held a levee at St. James's, when the nobility took leave of him, and on the following day he bade farewell to the royal family. On the evening before his departure, the king made a present to the Earl of Hertford, Lord Chamberlain, and to Lord Talbot, Lord Steward, of a ring each, valued at £1,500, and left 1,000 guineas to be distributed among the domestics of the king's palace. The Earl of Holderness, Constable of Dover Castle, was appointed to attend his Majesty until his embarkation. As a pleasing relief to this royal extravagance, we read that just before Christian's departure, Garrick had the honour of an interview, when the king gave him a very elegant gold box studded with diamonds, begging him to receive it as a small mark of the regard he had for his extraordinary talents.

On October 13, Christian went up the Medway to Chatham in the Victory, man-of-war, and inspected the British fleet. Chance decreed that the young officer who commanded the ship was the same Gambier who, in 1807, as Admiral of the Blue, commanded the English fleet with thirty thousand men aboard, who landed in Zealand, carried off the Danish fleet, plundered the arsenals, and laid one-seventh of Copenhagen in ashes.

On October 14, the king again went on board the Mary yacht at Dover, which was to convey him to Calais. Just as he was escaping, a parting shot was fired at him by an officer on board, in the shape of the most execrable and mendacious verses ever written, and that is saying a good deal. For that reason I shall quote them:—

The king certainly had no cause to complain of the honours and distinctions granted him in London. Artists and sculptors strove to immortalize his memory, and engravings of him might be seen in all the windows. But the ladies of the nobility were the most enthusiastic about the "northern scamp," as the lovely Lady Talbot christened the youthful King of Denmark, and in memory of whom they brought into fashion a head-dress which was christened the "Denmark Fly."

So far we have dealt with the king's public appearance in England. His private amusements, unfortunately, continued of the same scandalous nature as in Copenhagen. Night after night he and Holck passed in the most disgusting debauchery, and these rambles were generally commenced after midnight. The king opened the ball at Sion House with his sister-in-law, the Queen of Great Britain; he danced with the Princess of Saxe-Gotha and the Duchess of Ancaster; and, within an hour after quitting these scenes of royal grandeur, he would throw off his gorgeous dress, disguise himself as a sailor, and haunt the lowest purlieus of St. Giles's. A volume might easily be filled with the frolics and extravagances committed while in England by this dissipated youth, and those servile courtiers, who, to gratify the sovereign, flattered every folly, and sought with lamentable avidity, even in the paths of infamy and vice, the means of making themselves agreeable or useful.[70]

On the other hand, some anecdotes have been preserved, which, while bearing testimony to the king's profuse extravagance, throw a little more agreeable light upon his character. It is true, that he gave without discrimination, and acted on the impulse of the moment; but it is equally true that, whenever he saw an object of real distress, his hand went spontaneously to his pocket, and if that chanced to be empty, his ring, watch, or any other valuables about him, was bestowed instead of money.

The King of Denmark, on one occasion, saw a poor tradesman put into a hackney-coach by two bailiffs, followed by his weeping wife and family, from whom he was about to be torn, and thrown into prison. He ordered Count Moltke to follow the coach to the Marshalsea. He paid the debt and costs; and, setting the poor man free from every other demand, gave him 500 dollars to enable him to begin the world anew; and, on several other occasions he distributed considerable sums among the poor debtors confined in the different gaols of the metropolis.[71]

A ludicrous adventure into which the king was led by his mania for going about incog. is preserved for us by the author of "Northern Courts." For a better supply of his wants, the king had caused an unlimited credit to be opened with a very rich but penurious City merchant, under the name of Mr. Frederikson. Dressed as private gentlemen, the king and Count Holck went to the merchant's counting-house, and took up £4,000. The merchant, very desirous of knowing more of such good customers, employed a lad to watch them. Seeing the strangers enter the palace of St. James's by a private door, he inquired of a sentry who they were, and was told that they must belong to the King of Denmark's suite, as no other persons were allowed to enter that way. On telling this to his master, the latter was delighted at the prospect of thus making a handsome profit; while his wife, equally bent on obtaining through them a view of the King of Denmark, or at least of his apartments, suggested the propriety of inviting them to tea, on their next visit.

This civility was really offered on the next occasion that the king wanted money. The merchant, leaving Count Holck with his wife, took the supposed Mr. Frederikson by the lapel of his coat, and led him a short distance from his companion; and, after some circumlocution, asked him plainly if the money was not for the use of Christian VII. The king, at first, thought he was detected; but finding that not to be the case, and that the merchant only wanted to get a share of a good thing, he resolved to draw him on, in the hopes of amusement, and answered his question in the affirmative. The merchant's eyes sparkled with joy at this confession.

"I am told," he said, "that Christian VII. is one of the most extravagant and thoughtless young dogs living, and cares no more for money than if it could be raked out of the kennel. Of course you make him pay handsomely—you understand me?"

It was with difficulty the king could refrain from laughter, but, as gravely as he could, he told the money-dealer that he had drawn a correct picture of the king's character.

"And pray, sir," the merchant said, significantly, "what is the nature of your employment?"

"My chief employment," Christian replied, "consists in dressing the king, and looking out for amusements."

"Just the thing!" said the merchant; "then you are more likely to have influence."

"No man has more influence with him than I have; of that be assured."

"Then of course you make a handsome profit out of these transactions?"

"Upon my word and honour, I never made a profit on any pecuniary transaction in my life."

The merchant's face lengthened, as he turned his small eyes obliquely towards the king. After a pause, he began on another tack.

"How does the king dispose of these sums?"

"Gives them away, sometimes in coin or bank-notes; oftener in presents of jewellery or other precious articles."

"Hark'ee, sir," said the merchant, delighted by these confessions, "would you not wish to make the best of your influence with the king?"

"Certainly I would."

"Then, if you will suffer me to instruct you, I will teach you how to make fifty per cent. on the capital. Let me buy the jewels and presents."

Just at that instant one of the king's pages arrived, and desired the clerk to call his master, who was never less disposed to be interrupted.

"Pray, sir," the messenger asked, "is not the King of Denmark in your house?"

"The King of Denmark? No, sir, only a Mr. Frederikson."

"That is the king, the son of Frederick V. The gentleman with him is Count Holck, master of his Majesty's wardrobe, and I am sent by the Princess Dowager of Wales with orders to deliver this letter into his Majesty's own hands."

The confusion of the merchant and his wife at the dénouement may safely be left to the imagination. The former disappeared, but the good-natured king, forcing a ring on the fat finger of the latter, and desiring her to tell her husband that Christian would never feel offended at what he had said confidentially to Mr. Frederikson, skipped down stairs, laughing heartily at the adventure, and regretting that it had been so suddenly terminated. Such is the story as it is told, and I can only add, that si non è vero, è ben trovato.

Walpole, who was prejudiced against Christian, probably because, at the king's request, he sent him a collection of the Strawberry Hill books, and received no answer,[72] gives a very bitter account of him in his reign of George III., although there is a certain amount of truth in it. He says that the Danish king was in reality an insipid boy; and there appeared no cause for his expensive ramble, though to support it he had laid a tax on all his placemen and pensionaries. He took notice of nothing, took pleasure in nothing, and hurried post through most parts of England without attention, dining and supping at seats on the road, without giving himself time enough to remark so much of their beauties as would flatter the great lords who treated him. This indifference was excused in a whisper by Bernstorff, his prime minister, who attributed it to his Majesty's extreme short sight, which Bernstorff confessed was the great secret of the state; yet Walpole allows that the king's manner was very civil, and though his person was diminutive and delicate, he did not want graceful dignity.

The natural good nature of the English made them give the most favourable construction to the motives of the king's travels, which were, in fact, the natural consequence of his giddiness and levity. Whatever he seemed desirous of seeing, and all the inquiries worthy of a monarch who seeks for instruction and improvement in the arts, civilisation, and government, were suggested by Count Bernstorff, the only man of merit and genius in his retinue. His own inclination led him to plays, operas, balls, and excursions of pleasure into the country, in which amusements a sovereign may indulge occasionally, when they are intended as a relaxation from the grand objects of useful study and information.

According to a well-informed author,[73] Christian, while in London, was gracious and accessible, but without discernment and without dignity. The very citizens of both sexes, who resorted daily to his apartments to see him dine in public with his favourites, mistook him more than once for a young girl dressed in men's clothes, whose conversation and deportment commanded neither respect nor attention.

Really the unhappy Danes had some cause for grumbling that their hard-earned money was squandered in so very useless a fashion.

CHAPTER VII.

Before we accompany Christian VII. to the Circæan capital of Europe, it will not be labour ill bestowed to take a glance at the mode of conduct pursued by his wife during his absence. We have seen that her entourage did not suit her, and she therefore lived in the most perfect retirement. Though courted by the conflicting parties which were beginning to be formed, she joined none, and did not show the least ambition for political power. She appeared to feel a truly maternal affection for her child, and, in spite of remonstrances, had the infant and nurse to sleep in her apartment. She sometimes visited, and was visited by, the queen dowager and Prince Frederick, but generally remained in great seclusion. The only occasion on which she took part in public festivities was on the unveiling of the equestrian statue of the late king, which was erected by the India Company. The queens regnant and dowager accepted an invitation from Count Moltke to witness the ceremony from his house, which faced the site of the statue.

The queen had grown in stature, and appeared much more womanly than when she arrived in Denmark. The glow of robust health was on her cheek: she frequently nursed her child, and a more interesting subject for a picture could scarcely be conceived than this healthy and lively young queen playing with her babe. During this state of retirement, Matilda visited the houses of the farmers and peasants who resided near the palace; and though she could not converse fluently with these poor grateful people, she gained their warm hearts by her condescension in visiting their cottages, smiling graciously on their wives and daughters, and distributing useful presents. Thus innocently Matilda passed her time during the travels of her wild and dissipated husband.[74]

Juliana Maria, on her side, lived in great retirement with her son Frederick, at her château of Fredensborg.[75] The small party of courtiers who surrounded her were attached to her more by their salaries than any affection. It is true that the terms on which the two queens notoriously stood to each other attracted the attention of the courtiers; but they were still too vague and undecided for any certain plan to be based on them. The entire decay of the queen dowager's influence on the one hand, and the too little known character of Caroline Matilda on the other, promised them no support, if they declared for either party. The king, on his departure, had displayed neither the sentiments of an obedient son nor the attention of a loving husband, and none of the statesmen at the head of affairs appeared to be in special favour with him. The friendship of the courtiers, which never springs up without selfish views, and cannot last without tangible advantages, hence saw no object that could decide their choice.[76]

One thing appears tolerably certain, that Juliana Maria, while remaining in seclusion, neglected no opportunity for widening the breach between the young couple. Queen Matilda, it is evident, was kept well informed of her husband's transgressions, as the following passage, taken from a letter to her aunt, the Princess Amelia, will show:—

"I wish the king's travels had the same laudable objects as those of Cyrus; but I find that the chief visitors of his Majesty are musicians, fiddlers, and other persons designed for some employments still more inglorious: what a wretched levee! His evenings' amusements are still more disgraceful, since delicacy and sentiment cannot be supposed to dignify such transient gratifications. Had I not already experienced his fickleness and levity at home, I could not have heard without emotion and disquietude of his divers infidelities abroad. But as it is the monarch, not the man, I received injunctions to marry, the consciousness of having strictly adhered to my duty to his Majesty, and the respect I owe to myself, form a secret satisfaction which neither malice nor envy can deprive me of."

On the other hand, it appears tolerably certain that Juliana Maria was a constant correspondent of Christian, and insinuated many things against his wife's conduct. We are told that she went so far as to state that the queen had been too intimate with some of her favourites, and insinuated that several of his most faithful nobles had retired to their estates during his absence, in order to avoid the insults of some new men admitted to the young queen's favour. All these false and malicious insinuations alienated the king's affection still more from his amiable consort, who saw herself surrounded by spies who were devoted to a dangerous enemy.[77]

Had it been possible to corrupt Christian's morals to any greater extent, his short stay in Paris would have effected it. Since 1745, France had been slowly and surely going down the slope that led to revolution. Through internal and external misgovernment she had been driven nearer to moral and social ruin, to a deficit, to utter dislocation and corruption; but, for all that, the fifteenth Louis le Bienaimé was in excellent case. The ancien régime, with its "gabelles," and "tailles," its "pactes de famille" and "acquits de comptant," its "lettres de cachet," its Bastille, and its "cages de fer," with all its frivolity, hardness of heart, shamelessness, and recklessness, was on the point of sinking into the last stage of atrophy; but the royal roué, money clipper, and coffee boiler, continued to find amusement for himself.

What a scene was that presented toward the end of February, 1745, when the Hôtel de Ville of Paris gleamed with a thousand lights, and its halls rang with seductive music! The city gave a ball to the court, as a return for the festivities which had accompanied the marriage of Louis the Dauphin. France was embroiled in an unfortunate war, which paved the way for one still more unfortunate: but the court danced. The king alone, of all the company, seemed absent and sad; while his wife, the poor, good Maria Leczinska, found a motive for living in her phlegm and her piety, his "favorite declarée," the "maîtresse en titre," the Duchesse de Chateauroux, took it into her head to die. The haughty noblesse of France, whom Louis XIV. had tamed, who had been corrupted by the rouerie of the Regent, and degraded by Louis XV. to the duties of the seraglio; the nobility of France, who had accustomed themselves to reckon among their privileges that of supplying royal concubines "du sang et rang," were most anxious to fill up the gap left by the deceased duchesse. But this time even the practised Duc and Maréchal de Richelieu failed, and in vain did that charming creature, the Duchesse de Rochechouart, display all her Hebe-like charms, in the hope of succeeding the Chateauroux. It was decreed that the French aristocracy should lose one of their most precious privileges.

The Hôtel de Ville ball had attained the acme of its splendour. The superbly decorated rooms which a few lustres later were to re-echo saturnalia of a frightfully different nature, were crowded with quaint and graceful maskers. Rococo was present in all the glory and fancifulness of its refined voluptuousness, and a remarkably rich show of feminine charms, heightened by all the coquetry of the toilette, was offered to the choice of the royal purchaser, for the more official object of the ball was to alleviate the "tristesse" of the lord of France, and offer a remedy for his sadness in the form of a lovely duchesse, comtesse, or baronesse.

Poor women of an immoral age! how many a girl, after her maid and milliner had done their utmost, had been instructed by her mother, how many a wife by her husband, how she should behave on this night in order to attract and retain the king's favourable glances! For it was a sign of an utterly corrupted epoch, that mothers considered they fulfilled a duty in teaching their daughters to seek the highest honour in the deepest disgrace.

This time, however, the plebeian rivalry was destined to bear away the prize from the aristocrats. The Heliogabalus of France had really forgotten his melancholy amid this abundance of beauty and seductions. His restless eyes were at length fixed by a tall, graceful, fair-haired girl, masked en Amazone, with bow and quiver on her shoulder, with floating hair, and heaving bosom. "Charming huntress!" His most Christian Majesty addressed her: "Happy the man who may be struck by thy arrows." To speak in the style of the Academy, this was a splendid moment to fire a dart into the king's heart; but whether the young Amazon had not been properly trained, or did not take the hint, she disappeared among the crowd of dancers. When on the point of pursuing her, the Bienaimé was impeded by an English country dance, performed by a bevy of young ladies. He devoured this "bouquet," so full of fresh charms, and, as our authority says, "incertain, il eut voulu les posséder toutes." The king went further, and surveyed at the end of the room the amphitheatrical daïs on which "les femmes de médiocre condition" were seated. Here, too, his Majesty found much to look at, much to admire; till a female mask forced her way through the beautiful crowd, and teased the king with masquerade freedom. The graceful coquetry of this teasing attracted Louis's curiosity: there was a grisettish esprit in the words of the beauty, something new and piquant for the worn-out roué. He begged her to unmask, and she did so while flying, and, as she fled, she let her handkerchief fall. The delighted king picked it up, and threw it over the heads of the ladies to its owner. A whisper immediately ran through the hall, "Le mouchoir est jété!"[78]

The sultan had thrown the handkerchief, but not to a perfect stranger. He had met the beauty frequently of late: while hunting in the forest of Sénart, she had passed him, gracefully reclining in her phaeton. Mademoiselle Poisson, now Madame d'Etioles, the daughter of a scoundrel, had been artistically trained by her mother to become an Odalisque. She had so often repeated to her daughter, "Tu es un morceau de roi," that the girl at last believed it, and prepared herself for the honour. In the interim, she married M. d'Etioles, the rich nephew of her mother's lover, which,—such was the nature of court morality at the period,—proved no obstacle, but rather a motive for her future exalted position. Her mother, with this object, negotiated with the king's first valet, Sieur Binet, the notorious predecessor of the more notorious Lebel; and the talent of Madame d'Etioles effected the rest.

The masked ball at the Hôtel de Ville entailed the finale. Ere long, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson was invited by his most Christian Majesty "pour souper dans ses petits cabinets et pour coucher avec elle." Immediately after, this woman of one-and-twenty years of age, who had been married four years and borne her husband two children, was solemnly presented at court under the title of a Marquise de Pompadour, to the queen, princes, and princesses, and in due form declared "maîtresse en titre;" that is, as matters stood, the mistress of France. Poor M. d'Etioles, "qui idolâtrait sa femme," tried at first to be disagreeable, but was sent on his travels, and eventually became appeased.

Everybody knows how the marquise governed France: it was she who made the alliance with Austria and sent Prince de Soubise to Rossbach. Under her government, France soon sank to such a point that Chesterfield, writing home in December, 1753, from Paris, declared that he found in that city all the signs of an impending revolution, such as are read of in history. Poisson-Pompadour ruled, and woe to the man who tried to oppose her autocracy: the dungeons of the Bastille or the iron cages of Mont St. Michel received the victims to the revenge of the Babylonish woman. The chanson and the satiric couplet alone dared to flash in the dark, and at times darted their shafts into the innermost apartments of the omnipotent lady.

In order to surround the blasé sultan with all the varying charms of seductiveness, the Pompadour, by Richelieu's advice, erected in the park of Versailles a hermitage, where she tried to arouse the blunted imagination of the roué, who had enjoyed everything and misused everything, by dressing herself as a gardener's wife, or as a milkmaid, or even as a nun. Nay, more: when these lures lost their charm in time, when the mistress heard that his most Christian Majesty was tired of her, and declared that she was as cold as a "macreuse," she assumed even more infamous duties, and with Lebel established the Parc aux Cerfs, which will remain an undying stain on regal France.

But even more horrible, possibly, is it to read, how the desire of imitating the career of the Pompadour—the wish, the hope, the longing to obtain the rank of maîtresse titrée—spread all over France, from the pestilential court atmosphere of Versailles to every point where a pretty girl was growing up. How shamelessly people acted in this respect, is recorded by Casanova, in his account of Mademoiselle Roman-Coupier, of Toulouse, who, however, only succeeded in becoming an untitled concubine. The corruption of kings is everywhere met half way by the villany of the nations. Regarding the matter humanly, this offers a species of palliation for Louis XV. and his co-religionists.

Après nous le déluge! was a fearful remark, which the Pompadour, in the intoxication of her frivolity and might, or perhaps in a moment of agony and desperation, replied to a friend who warned her against the future; and the deluge came, but that of terror was preceded by that of vulgarity. The ancien régime sank, draining the cup of vice to the dregs, from the reign of the Poisson to that of the Dubarry—that Dubarry, who, under the name of Mademoiselle L'Ange, had wallowed in the vicious mud of Paris ere his most Christian Majesty raised her to his couch. The lowest of all Hetæras, stretching herself on a bed of purple silk, and at her feet the King of France, busily engaged in boiling his mistress's coffee, and rewarding with a laugh of pleasure her Billingsgate remarks. What a picture!

Or, take as counterpart, the "maîtresse en titre," conversing with the noblest ladies at court, one of whom, Madame de Beauveau, quietly replied to the Dubarry's remark that they seemed to have a personal hatred for her, "By no means; we should only like to be in your place—that is all." The woman, in whose place the noblest-born ladies wished themselves, dragged the language of the pothouse and the bagnio into the apartments of Versailles; and Louis XV. took such a delight in this mode of conversation, that he christened Mesdames, his four legitimate daughters, the Princesses Sophie, Adelaide, Louise, and Victorine, "graille, chiffe, loque, et coche."

This king even dishonoured and trailed in the mud the prestige of royalty. What his extravagance cost France in ready money, no one has been able to state certainly, but the lowest estimates amount to 200,000,000 of francs; and at that day, when millions could not be conjured as they are now-a-day, a million was a large sum. But while creatures like the Pompadour and the Dubarry had millions lavished on them, the people, from whom the royal forestaller exacted these millions, were starving. One day, while hunting in the forest of Sénart, the "well-beloved" met a peasant carrying a coffin in his cart. "Where are you taking that coffin?"—"To the village of L——." "Is it intended for a man or a woman?"—"For a man." "What did he die of?"—"Starvation." The king drove his spurs into his horse. Did he feel a burning within him like the flames of Hades? I doubt it. He had only a cynical laugh for everything, even for the monkey-tricks performed by his mistress at the council of state. Was it surprising that the most awful things should be believed about such a king?—that a rumour spread among the populace that it was one of the mysteries of the Parc aux Cerfs that the king tried to stimulate his senses by baths of children's blood?

I need hardly stop to discuss the views and morals of French society under such a king; but a man who was a member of this society—a man who did not reproach it, but comfortably swam with the stream of vice—shall tell us something about it. "The gallantry which had prevailed at the court of Louis XIV. became, in the time of the Regency, unbridled sensuality. Under Louis XV., the gentlemen were solely engaged in augmenting the lists of their mistresses, and the ladies in depriving each other of their lovers with marked publicity. Husbands, compelled to suffer what they could not prevent, without making themselves in the highest degree ridiculous, adopted the safe remedy of no longer living with their wives. They only met them at public resorts; but at other times, though living under the same roof, they never came together. Matrimony was regarded as a mere matter of money, and generally as an inconvenience, which could only be avoided by laying aside all the duties it entailed. Morals, it is true, were ruined by this; but good society (la société) gained enormously. Freed from the constraint and coldness which the presence of husbands and wives always produces, the liberty was unbounded. The mutual coquetry of gentlemen and ladies enlivened everything, and supplied every day with piquant adventures."[79]

In truth, there was no want of such piquancy as we read of in Suetonius, Petronius, and Juvenal. Princesses behaved at night, in the garden of the Palais Royal, in such a way as to place themselves on a level with its professional habituées. Such was the case with the Duchesse de Chartres, mother of Philippe Egalité, who was publicly told by an offended rival: "Je n'ai pas encore éprouvé, madame, qu'on eût besoin d'argent pour trouver des amoureux."

Or take Magdaleine de Villeroy, Duchesse de Boufflers, who contrived to become a woman "qu'il fallait que tout homme de bon air mît sur sa liste." In the life of this woman, perhaps the slightest scandal was that she lived quite openly with the Maréchal de Luxembourg, while the latter, as a compensation, just as openly placed his own wife at the disposal of his mistress's husband. One day the Duc de Durfort, one of this lady's countless admirers, gave her a supper, and, to amuse the company, invited the comedian Chassé. After the lady had imbibed an inordinate quantity of champagne, as was her wont, she so unequivocally revealed her inclinations toward the actor that the host thought it advisable to dismiss him. The duchesse, however, rushed, with flying hair, down the street after him, shrieking, "Je le veux! Je le veux!"

Such were the ladies whom the Prince de Conti was justified in insulting, by saying to Louis XV., when the latter asked him why France produced no more marshals, "C'est qu'aujourd'hui nos femmes ont affaire à leurs laquais." In this circle, which only lived for the lowest sensuality, everything was degraded. Thus there was a Duc de Gesvres, who assumed the manner and avocations of a woman; he rouged himself, wielded the fan, and worked embroidery. Everything was brought low, everything disgraced; and a levity of the most odious nature was displayed in religious matters. What could the Church be and signify with persons who had seen a Dubois made a cardinal? And was not Bernis, too, a cardinal?—the same Bernis, christened "Suzon la Bouquetière," who once preached at the reception of a nun of noble birth, and had the misfortune, while going into the pulpit, to let fall a piece of paper, on which he had written a most scandalous couplet about the novice.

As is usual in such degenerate times, the coarsest superstition was mixed up with the most frivolous free-thinking. The spirit of religious reform, brutally suppressed on its manifestation as Jansenism, had only been able to penetrate the universal rottenness in the caricature of Convulsionism. After the immoral mania of these revivalists went out of fashion, calling up spirits and demons grew popular among the great. At court, Saint Germain, the manufacturer of diamonds and the elixir of life, the predecessor of the clumsy charlatan Cagliostro, was called on to kill time for the yawning king and the Pompadour. In the Palais Royal, Casanova erected his cabalistic pyramids of figures; and for the entire fashionable female world, the coffee-cup of the fortune-teller Bontemps was a Delphic oracle. With extravagance and superstition, their sister, cruelty, naturally went hand in hand. When in March, 1757, Damiens was executed, the fashionable ladies hurried to a nameless act of barbarism, at their head being the pretty wife of Popelinière, the farmer-general, who had gained a great reputation in society by a scandalous intrigue with the sinner of sinners, the Duc de Richelieu. In order to learn what people were capable of in the Paris of that day, the reader ought to be acquainted with the awful sketch drawn by Casanova, the most decried but most masterly painter of the morals of the eighteenth century, of the execution of Damiens.

In the midst of this ocean of boue de Paris there was one source of consolation; in spite of the shame with which Soubise and his consorts had stained the lily banner, the warlike temper of the French was not utterly destroyed. In such an age as the one we are describing, there is something doubly cheering in reading of that well-known trait of French chivalry which characterises an episode of the battle of Fontenoy. The English and French guards marched to meet each other for a combat which would become very murderous. "Messieurs des gardes Françaises," Lord Charles Hay shouted from the English ranks, "tirez!" "Non, my lord," Comte d'Auteroche replied from the French side; "nous ne tirons jamais les prémiers."[80] And there is more than chivalrous courtesy, there is the noblest heroism, in the circumstance that at the surprise, on 16th October, 1760, which the hereditary prince of Brunswick attempted at Kloster Kamp upon the Marquis de Castries, the Chevalier d'Assas, of the Auvergne regiment, when surrounded at the outposts by the enemy, still shouted, under the menace of a hundred bayonets, the warning cry, "A moi, Auvergne, voilá les ennemis!"[81]

Christian landed at Calais, and though he now resumed his incognito, and travelled as a Count of Gottorp, he was everywhere received as king. He reached Paris on the 21st, passing through Saint Omer, Lille, Douai, Valenciennes, and Cambrai, and lodged at the York palace, which had been engaged for his stay in the French capital, and where he was complimented by the Duc de Choiseul, in the name of the absent King Louis XV., and invited to Fontainebleau.

Being now in the country whose language was most fluent and agreeable to him, Christian VII. visited on the day after his arrival, accompanied by the Duc de Duras, who was appointed his chevalier of honour, the Théâtre-Français and the Grand Opéra. On the 23rd, he set out with his whole suite for Fontainebleau, to pay his first visit to King Louis. On his arrival, he was received at the foot of the marble staircase by the Duc d'Orléans, greeted at the top by the Dauphin, and conducted to the door of the royal cabinet. When he presented himself for the first time to Louis XV., that monarch, who had never in his life been able to address a word to a new face, embraced the King of Denmark without saying a word to him, and turned to speak to the Count von Bernstorff, because he had known him formerly during his embassy in France. The King of Denmark, who felt the incongruity of this reception, at once pirouetted on his heel and addressed the Duc de Choiseul, who soon contrived to draw his master into the conversation begun with the young monarch.

While Von Gleichen, the Danish envoy, was negotiating with Choiseul as to the manner in which Christian was to be received, he was urged to obtain leave that the two monarchs should meet alone on the first interview, that when the doors were shut the King of France should give the title of Majesty to him of Denmark, and that afterwards the latter should remain in the strictest incognito. M. de Choiseul answered Gleichen that, "though he had his Majesty's commands to assent to everything requested in the matter of etiquette, he ought to be aware that his demand was impossible, as the King of France had never remained alone for a single moment in his life, not even in his garderobe, and that he had no power to expel from his chamber persons who by right of office had a claim to remain in it." The first interview, therefore, took place in the presence of all the chief personages, but when, on the next day, Louis XV. returned Christian's visit, accompanied by a few princes of the blood and his whole court, the youthful monarch ran to meet the King of France, took his hand, and, walking very quickly, drew him into his cabinet, the door of which he locked. All this was done so promptly, that the Duc d'Orléans, pushed by the crowd who were eager to follow, ran against the door, and thus Louis XV. remained alone with a stranger for the first time in his life. The two monarchs conversed together for some time, and were mutually charmed; but afterwards Christian said to Gleichen, "Do you remember what you wrote us about the impossibility of a King of France remaining alone? I succeeded better than you, for I took a pleasure in it."[82]

During this interview the King of France expressed his regret that the deep mourning for his consort, Maria Leczinska, prevented him from celebrating the visit of his brother, at which he was greatly pleased, by court festivities, but he had taken care that his Danish Majesty's stay in Paris should be rendered as pleasant as possible. As he was aware that his beloved guest was fond of theatres, he had sent his commands both to the Comédie Française and the Opéra, that during the Danish king's presence only such pieces should be performed as his exalted guest wished to see.

Louis XV. conversed with the perfect courtesy of a French courtier. "In the year 1717," he said, "my predecessor on the throne of France had the felicity of seeing Peter the Great here, and I have great pleasure in being able to embrace Christian the amiable. How young you are! I could be your grandfather."

"I should esteem myself most fortunate if I were your grandson," Christian replied.

When the French king introduced his guest to the ladies of the court, he noticed that Christian paid special attention to Madame de Flavecourt. Hence he drew him on one side, and asked him,

"How old do you take that lady to be?"

"Thirty, at the most," Christian remarked.

"She is above forty," said Louis.

"A proof, sire, that people do not grow old at your court," was Christian's flattering answer.

During the four days' stay at Fontainebleau, Struensee visited the Galerie des Cerfs, where the degenerate daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, after her abdication, had her lover Monaldeschi, whom she supposed to be faithless, beheaded by three disguised accomplices. He was induced to pay this visit by a dream, in which he saw an exalted lady, whose name he hardly dared confess. He had returned a long time from the tour, ere he told his brother of this dream, and how it urged him the next day to visit the gallery. "Everything is possible," was the consolatory answer Struensee received.

On November 3, the court celebrated the festival of St. Hubert, in which Christian took part with his suite. The guests arrived in one thousand five hundred carriages, and over three thousand hunters and lackeys were called out. Naturally, Madame de Flavecourt was among the fair Amazons.

On November 13, the Prince de Monaco gave the king a ball, at which the royal guest made the acquaintance of the Duchesse de Nevers, the ex-actress Marie-Anne Quinault, in the dance.

Whenever the king was not impeded by other festivities, he visited the Théâtre-Français, and for every performance sent the troupe 1,000 crowns, so that this amusement alone cost him 20,000 crowns. At the Grand Opéra he was most attracted by the celebrated prima donna Sophie Arnould, whom he requested to hear thrice as Théalire, in Rameau's Castor and Pollux. As a return for the pleasure which her singing and acting caused him, he sent her, through Count Holck, an ivory fan, for which he paid Boucher 2,000 livres.

When Christian visited the celebrated porcelain factory at Sèvres, he was shown an entire dinner service which Louis XV. intended to present to him, each piece decorated with the arms of Denmark. On Nov. 20, Christian was present at a sitting of the Academy, where Voisenon received him with a piece of verses, which I will spare the reader, and only say, they are full of the usual fulsome flattery. A resolution was then passed to hang up the king's full-length portrait in the great hall. On the 21st, Christian visited the Academy of Painting, when he was received by the Marquis de Marigny, brother of Madame de Pompadour, with an address, and on the same day the Sorbonne, where the same honours were paid him as to Peter the Great fifty years before.

A few days later, there appeared in the Mercure a versified panegyric on the king by a member of the Académie Française, M. de Bernis, ex-drawing-master, and afterwards archbishop, and favourite of the Pompadour, in which we read the tolerably notorious fact that other princes had visited the banks of the Seine before Christian. The unfortunate James Stuart was regretted; the pious Casimir forgotten; Peter I. admired; "mais vous, Chrétien, vous êtés adoré." In another set of verses, I find four lines which must not be passed over. I regret that I cannot trace their author; but they will be found in the "Almanach des Muses" for 1769:—