Devereux — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (best interesting books to read txt) 📕

best there? In Spain (I shall always love Spain) I learned to cook.”

“Monseigneur, I fear,” answered I, smiling, “could obtain but little additional knowledge in that art in our barbarous country. A few rude and imperfect inventions have, indeed, of late years, astonished the cultivators of the science; but the night of ignorance rests still upon its main principles and leading truths. Perhaps, what Monseigneur would find best worth studying in England would be—the women.”

“Ah, the women all over the world!” cried the Duke, laughing; “but I hear your belles Anglaises are sentimental, and love a l’Arcadienne.”

“It is true at present; but who shall say how far Monseigneur’s example might enlighten them in a train of thought so erroneous?”

“True. Nothing like example, eh, Dubois? What would Philip of Orleans have been but for thee?”

“‘L’exemple souvent n’est qu’un miroir trompeur; Quelquefois l’un se brise ou l’autre s’est sauve, Et par ou l’un perit, un autre est conserve,’”*

answered Dubois, out of “Cinna.”

* “Example is often but a deceitful mirror, where sometimes one destroys himself, while another comes off safe; and where one perishes, another is preserved.”

“Corneille is right,” rejoined the Regent. “After all, to do thee justice, mon petit Abbe, example has little to do with corrupting us. Nature pleads the cause of pleasure as Hyperides pleaded that of Phryne. She has no need of eloquence: she unveils the bosom of her client, and the client is acquitted.”

“Monseigneur shows at least that he has learned to profit by my humble instructions in the classics,” said Dubois.

The Duke did not answer. I turned my eyes to some drawings on the table; I expressed my admiration of them. “They are mine,” said the Regent. “Ah! I should have been much more accomplished as a private gentleman than I fear I ever shall be as a public man of toil and business. Business—bah! But Necessity is the only real sovereign in the world, the only despot for whom there is no law. What! are you going already, Count Devereux?”

“Monseigneur’s anteroom is crowded with less fortunate persons than myself, whose sins of envy and covetousness I am now answerable for.”

“Ah—well! I must hear the poor devils; the only pleasure I have is in seeing how easily I can make them happy. Would to Heaven, Dubois, that one could govern a great kingdom only by fair words! Count Devereux, you have seen me to-day as my acquaintance; see me again as my petitioner. Bon jour, Monsieur.”

And I retired, very well pleased with my reception; from that time, indeed, during the rest of my short stay at Paris, the Prince honoured me with his especial favour. But I have dwelt too long on my sojourn at the French court. The persons whom I have described, and who alone made that sojourn memorable, must be my apology.

One day I was honoured by a visit from the Abbe Dubois. After a short conversation upon indifferent things, he accosted me thus:—

“You are aware, Count Devereux, of the partiality which the Regent has conceived towards you. Fortunate would it be for the Prince” (here Dubois elevated his brows with an ironical and arch expression), “so good by disposition, so injured by example, if his partiality had been more frequently testified towards gentlemen of your merit. A mission of considerable importance, and one demanding great personal address, gives his Royal Highness an opportunity of testifying his esteem for you. He honoured me with a conference on the subject yesterday, and has now commissioned me to explain to you the technical objects of this mission, and to offer to you the honour of undertaking it. Should you accept the proposals, you will wait upon his Highness before his levee to-morrow.”

Dubois then proceeded, in the clear, rapid manner peculiar to him, to comment on the state of Europe. “For France,” said he, in concluding his sketch, “peace is absolutely necessary. A drained treasury, an exhausted country, require it. You see, from what I have said, that Spain and England are the principal quarters from which we are to dread hostilities. Spain we must guard against; England we must propitiate: the latter object is easy in England in any case, whether James or George be uppermost. For whoever is king in England will have quite enough to do at home to make him agree willingly enough to peace abroad. The former requires a less simple and a more enlarged policy. I fear the ambition of the Queen of Spain and the turbulent genius of her minion Alberoni. We must fortify ourselves by new forms of alliance, at various courts, which shall at once defend us and intimidate our enemies. We wish to employ some nobleman of ability and address, on a secret mission to Russia: will you be that person? Your absence from Paris will be but short; you will see a very droll country, and a very droll sovereign; you will return hither, doubly the rage, and with a just claim to more important employment hereafter. What say you to the proposal?”

“I must hear more,” said I, “before I decide.”

The Abbe renewed. It is needless to repeat all the particulars of the commission that he enumerated. Suffice it that, after a brief consideration, I accepted the honour proposed to me. The Abbe wished me joy, relapsed into his ordinary strain of coarse levity for a few minutes, and then, reminding me that I was to attend the Regent on the morrow, departed. It was easy to see that in the mind of that subtle and crafty ecclesiastic, with whose manoeuvres private intrigues were always blended with public, this offer of employment veiled a desire to banish me from the immediate vicinity of the good-natured Regent, whose favour the aspiring Abbe wished at that exact moment exclusively to monopolize. Mere men of pleasure he knew would not interfere with his aims upon the Prince; mere men of business still less: but a man who was thought to combine the capacities of both, and who was moreover distinguished by the Regent, he deemed a more dangerous rival than the inestimable person thus suspected really was.

However, I cared little for the honest man’s motives. Adventure to me had always greater charms than dissipation, and it was far more agreeable to the nature of my ambition, to win distinction by any honourable method, than by favouritism at a court so hollow, so unprincipled, and so grossly licentious as that of the Regent. There to be the most successful courtier was to be the most amusing profligate. Alas, when the heart is away from its objects, and the taste revolts at its excess, Pleasure is worse than palling: it is a torture! and the devil in Jonson’s play did not perhaps greatly belie the truth when he averred “that the pains in his native country were pastimes to the life of a person of fashion.”

The Duke of Orleans received me the next morning with more than his wonted bonhomie. What a pity that so good-natured a prince should have been so bad a man! He enlarged more easily and carelessly than his worthy preceptor had done upon the several points to be observed in my mission; then condescendingly told me he was very sorry to lose me from his court, and asked me, at all events, before I left Paris, to be a guest at one of his select suppers. I appreciated this honour at its just value. To these suppers none were asked but the Prince’s chums, or roues,* as he was pleased to call them. As, entre