Kitabı oku: «The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete», sayfa 166
“M. Querini amused me extremely,” said the queen; “he called me a little devil.”
“He meant to say that your highness is as witty as an angel.”
I longed for the queen to ask me why I had not been presented by M. Zuccatto, for I had a reply on the tip of my tongue that would have deprived the ambassador of his sleep for a week, while I should have slept soundly, for vengeance is a divine pleasure, especially when it is taken on the proud and foolish; but the whole conversation was a compound of nothings, as is usual in courts.
After my interview was over I got into my sedan-chair and went to Soho Square. A man in court dress cannot walk the streets of London without being pelted with mud by the mob, while the gentleman look on and laugh. All customs must be respected; they are all at once worthy and absurd.
When I got to the house of Madame Cornelis, I and my Negro Jarbe were shewn upstairs, and conducted through a suite of gorgeous apartments to a room where the lady of the house was sitting with two English ladies and two English gentlemen. She received me with familiar politeness, made me sit down in an armchair beside her, and then continued the conversation in English without introducing me. When her steward told her that dinner was ready, she gave orders for the children to be brought down.
I had long desired this meeting, and when I saw Sophie I ran to meet her; but she, who had profited by her mother’s instructions, drew back with profound courtesy and a compliment learnt by heart. I did not say anything for fear I should embarrass her, but I felt grieved to the heart.
Madame Cornelis then brought forward her son, telling the company that I had brought him to England after superintending his education for six years. She spoke in French, so I was glad to see that her friends understood that language.
We sat down to table; Madame Cornelis between her two children, and I between the two Englishwomen, one of whom delighted me by her pleasant wit. I attached myself to her as soon as I noticed that the mistress of the house only spoke to me by chance, and that Sophie did not look at me. She was so like me that no mistake was possible. I could see that she had been carefully tutored by her mother to behave in this manner, and I felt this treatment to be both absurd and impertinent.
I did not want to let anyone see that I was angry, so I began to discourse in a pleasant strain on the peculiarities of English manners, taking care, however, not to say anything which might wound the insular pride of the English guests. My idea was to make them laugh and to make myself agreeable, and I succeeded, but not a word did I speak to Madame Cornelis; I did not so much as look at her.
The lady next to me, after admiring the beauty of my lace, asked me what was the news at Court.
“It was all news to me,” said I, “for I went there to-day for the first time.”
“Have you seen the king?” said Sir Joseph Cornelis.
“My dear, you should not ask such questions,” said his mother.
“Why not?”
“Because the gentleman may not wish to answer them.”
“On the contrary, madam, I like being questioned. I have been teaching your son for the last six years to be always asking something, for that is the way to acquire knowledge. He who asks nothing knows nothing.”
I had touched her to the quick, and she fell into a sulky silence.
“You have not told me yet,” said the lad, “whether you saw the king.”
“Yes, my man, I saw the king and the queen, and both their majesties did me the honour to speak to me.”
“Who introduced you?”
“The French ambassador.”
“I think you will agree with me,” said the mother, “that last question was a little too much.”
“Certainly it would be if it were addressed to a stranger, but not to me who am his friend. You will notice that the reply he extracted from me did me honour. If I had not wished it to be known that I had been at Court, I should not have come here in this dress.”
“Very good; but as you like to be questioned, may I ask you why you were not presented by your own ambassador?”
“Because the Venetian ambassador would not present me, knowing that his Government have a bone to pick with me.”
By this time we had come to the dessert, and poor Sophie had not uttered a syllable.
“Say something to M. de Seingalt,” said her mother.
“I don’t know what to say,” she answered. “Tell M. de Seingalt to ask me some questions, and I will answer to the best of my ability.”
“Well, Sophie, tell me in what studies you are engaged at the present time.”
“I am learning drawing; if you like I will shew you some of my work.”
“I will look at it with pleasure; but tell me how you think you have offended me; you have a guilty air.”
“I, sir? I do not think I have done anything amiss.”
“Nor do I, my dear; but as you do not look at me when you speak I thought you must be ashamed of something. Are you ashamed of your fine eyes? You blush. What have you done?”
“You are embarrassing her,” said the mother. “Tell him, my dear, that you have done nothing, but that a feeling of modesty and respect prevents you from gazing at the persons you address.”
“Yes,” said I; “but if modesty bids young ladies lower their eyes, politeness should make them raise them now and again.”
No one replied to this objection, which was a sharp cut for the absurd woman; but after an interval of silence we rose from the table, and Sophie went to fetch her drawings.
“I won’t look at anything, Sophie, unless you will look at me.”
“Come,” said her mother, “look at the gentleman.”
She obeyed as quickly as lightning, and I saw the prettiest eyes imaginable.
“Now,” said I, “I know you again, and perhaps you may remember having seen me.”
“Yes, although it is six years ago since we met, I recognized you directly.”
“And yet you did not look me in the face! If you knew how impolite it was to lower your eyes when you are addressing anyone, you would not do it. Who can have given you such a bad lesson?”
The child glanced towards her mother, who was standing by a window, and I saw who was her preceptress.
I felt that I had taken sufficient vengeance, and began to examine her drawings, to praise them in detail, and to congratulate her on her talents. I told her that she ought to be thankful to have a mother who had given her so good an education. This indirect compliment pleased Madame Cornelis, and Sophie, now free from all restraint, gazed at me with an expression of child-like affection which ravished me. Her features bore the imprint of a noble soul within, and I pitied her for having to grow up under the authority of a foolish mother. Sophie went to the piano, played with feeling, and then sang some Italian airs, to the accompaniment of the guitar, too well for her age. She was too precocious, and wanted much more discretion in her education than Madame Cornelis was able to give her.
When her singing had been applauded by the company, her mother told her to dance a minuet with her brother, who had learnt in Paris, but danced badly for want of a good carriage. His sister told him so with a kiss, and then asked me to dance with her, which I did very readily. Her mother, who thought she had danced exquisitely, as was indeed the case, told her that she must give me a kiss. She came up to me, and drawing her on my knee I covered her face with kisses, which she returned with the greatest affection. Her mother laughed with all her heart, and then Sophie, beginning to be doubtful again, went up to her and asked if she were angry. Her mother comforted her with a kiss.
After we had taken coffee, which was served in the French fashion, Madame Cornelis shewed me a magnificent hall which she had built, in which she could give supper to four hundred persons seated at one table. She told me, and I could easily believe her, that there was not such another in all London.
The last assembly was given before the prorogation of Parliament; it was to take place in four or five days. She had a score of pretty girls in her service, and a dozen footmen all in full livery.
“They all rob me,” said she, “but I have to put up with it. What I want is a sharp man to help me and watch over my interests; if I had such an one I should make an immense fortune in a comparatively short time; for when it is a question of pleasure, the English do not care what they spend.”
I told her I hoped she would find such man and make the fortune, and then I left her, admiring her enterprise.
When I left Soho Square I went to St. James’s Park to see Lady Harrington for whom I bore a letter, as I have mentioned. This lady lived in the precincts of the Court, and received company every Sunday. It was allowable to play in her house, as the park is under the jurisdiction of the Crown. In any other place there is no playing cards or singing on Sundays. The town abounds in spies, and if they have reason to suppose that there is any gaming or music going on, they watch for their opportunity, slip into the house, and arrest all the bad Christians, who are diverting themselves in a manner which is thought innocent enough in any other country. But to make up for this severity the Englishman may go in perfect liberty to the tavern or the brothel, and sanctify the Sabbath as he pleases.
I called on Lady Harrington, and having sent up my letter she summoned me into her presence. I found her in the midst of about thirty persons, but the hostess was easily distinguished by the air of welcome she had for me.
After I had made my bow she told me she had seen me at Court in the morning, and that without knowing who I was she had been desirous of making my acquaintance. Our conversation lasted three-quarters of an hour, and was composed of those frivolous observations and idle questions which are commonly addressed to a traveller.
The lady was forty, but she was still handsome. She was well known for her gallantries and her influence at Court. She introduced me to her husband and her four daughters, charming girls of a marriageable age. She asked me why I had come to London when everybody was on the point of going out of town. I told her that as I always obeyed the impulse of the moment, I should find it difficult to answer her question; besides, I intended staying for a year, so that the pleasure would be deferred but not lost.
My reply seemed to please her by its character of English independence, and she offered with exquisite grace to do all in her power for me.
“In the meanwhile,” said she, “we will begin by letting you see all the nobility at Madame Cornelis’s on Thursday next. I can give you a ticket to admit to ball and supper. It is two guineas.”
I gave her the money, and she took the ticket again, writing on it, “Paid.—Harrington.”
“Is this formality necessary, my lady?”
“Yes; or else they would ask you for the money at the doors.”
I did not think it necessary to say anything about my connection with the lady of Soho Square.
While Lady Harrington was making up a rubber at whist, she asked me if I had any other letters for ladies.
“Yes,” said I, “I have one which I intend to present to-morrow. It is a singular letter, being merely a portrait.”
“Have you got it about you?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“May I see it?”
“Certainly. Here it is.”
“It is the Duchess of Northumberland. We will go and give it her.”
“With pleasure!”
“Just wait till they have marked the game.”
Lord Percy had given me this portrait as a letter of introduction to his mother.
“My dear duchess,” said Lady Harrington, “here is a letter of introduction which this gentleman begs to present to you.”
“I know, it is M. de Seingalt. My son has written to me about him. I am delighted to see you, Chevalier, and I hope you will come and see me. I receive thrice a week.”
“Will your ladyship allow me to present my valuable letter in person?”
“Certainly. You are right.”
I played a rubber of whist for very small stakes, and lost fifteen guineas, which I paid on the spot. Directly afterwards Lady Harrington took me apart, and gave me a lesson which I deem worthy of record.
“You paid in gold,” said she; “I suppose you had no bank notes about you?”
“Yes, my lady, I have notes for fifty and a hundred pounds.”
“Then you must change one of them or wait till another time to play, for in England to pay in gold is a solecism only pardonable in a stranger. Perhaps you noticed that the lady smiled?”
“Yes; who is she?”
“Lady Coventry, sister of the Duchess of Hamilton.”
“Ought I to apologize?”
“Not at all, the offence is not one of those which require an apology. She must have been more surprised than offended, for she made fifteen shillings by your paying her in gold.”
I was vexed by this small mischance, for Lady Coventry was an exquisitely beautiful brunette. I comforted myself, however, without much trouble.
The same day I made the acquaintance of Lord Hervey, the nobleman who conquered Havana, a pleasant an intelligent person. He had married Miss Chudleigh, but the marriage was annulled. This celebrated Miss Chudleigh was maid of honour to the Princess Dowager of Wales, and afterwards became Duchess of Kingston. As her history is well known I shall say something more of her in due course. I went home well enough pleased with my day’s work.
The next day I began dining at home, and found my cook very satisfactory; for, besides the usual English dishes, he was acquainted with the French system of cooking, and did fricandeaus, cutlets, ragouts, and above all, the excellent French soup, which is one of the principal glories of France.
My table and my house were not enough for my happiness. I was alone, and the reader will understand by this that Nature had not meant me for a hermit. I had neither a mistress nor a friend, and at London one may invite a man to dinner at a tavern where he pays for himself, but not to one’s own table. One day I was invited by a younger son of the Duke of Bedford to eat oysters and drink a bottle of champagne. I accepted the invitation, and he ordered the oysters and the champagne, but we drank two bottles, and he made me pay half the price of the second bottle. Such are manners on the other side of the Channel. People laughed in my face when I said that I did not care to dine at a tavern as I could not get any soup.
“Are you ill?” they said, “soup is only fit for invalids.”
The Englishman is entirely carnivorous. He eats very little bread, and calls himself economical because he spares himself the expense of soup and dessert, which circumstance made me remark that an English dinner is like eternity: it has no beginning and no end. Soup is considered very extravagant, as the very servants refuse to eat the meat from which it has been made. They say it is only fit to give to dogs. The salt beef which they use is certainly excellent. I cannot say the same for their beer, which was so bitter that I could not drink it. However, I could not be expected to like beer after the excellent French wines with which the wine merchant supplied me, certainly at a very heavy cost.
I had been a week in my new home without seeing Martinelli. He came on a Monday morning, and I asked him to dine with me. He told me that he had to go to the Museum, and my curiosity to see the famous collection which is such an honour to England made me accompany him. It was there that I made the acquaintance of Dr. Mati, of whom I shall speak in due course.
At dinner Martinelli made himself extremely pleasant. He had a profound knowledge of the English manners and customs which it behoved me to know if I wished to get on. I happened to speak of the impoliteness of which I had been guilty in paying a gaming debt in gold instead of paper, and on this text he preached me a sermon on the national prosperity, demonstrating that the preference given to paper shews the confidence which is felt in the Bank, which may or may not be misplaced, but which is certainly a source of wealth. This confidence might be destroyed by a too large issue of paper money, and if that ever took place by reason of a protracted or unfortunate war, bankruptcy would be inevitable, and no one could calculate the final results.
After a long discussion on politics, national manners, literature, in which subjects Martinelli shone, we went to Drury Lane Theatre, where I had a specimen of the rough insular manners. By some accident or other the company could not give the piece that had been announced, and the audience were in a tumult. Garrick, the celebrated actor who was buried twenty years later in Westminster Abbey, came forward and tried in vain to restore order. He was obliged to retire behind the curtain. Then the king, the queen, and all the fashionables left the theatre, and in less than an hour the theatre was gutted, till nothing but the bare walls were left.
After this destruction, which went on without any authority interposing, the mad populace rushed to the taverns to consume gin and beer. In a fortnight the theatre was refitted and the piece announced again, and when Garrick appeared before the curtain to implore the indulgence of the house, a voice from the pit shouted, “On your knees.” A thousand voices took up the cry “On your knees,” and the English Roscius was obliged to kneel down and beg forgiveness. Then came a thunder of applause, and everything was over. Such are the English, and above all, the Londoners. They hoot the king and the royal family when they appear in public, and the consequence is, that they are never seen, save on great occasions, when order is kept by hundreds of constables.
One day, as I was walking by myself, I saw Sir Augustus Hervey, whose acquaintance I had made, speaking to a gentleman, whom he left to come to me. I asked him whom he had been speaking to.
“That’s the brother of Earl Ferrers,” said he, “who was hanged a couple of months ago for murdering one of his people.”
“And you speak to his brother?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Is he not dishonoured by the execution of his relative?”
“Dishonoured! Certainly not; even his brother was not dishonoured. He broke the law, but he paid for it with his life, and owed society nothing more. He’s a man of honour, who played high and lost; that’s all. I don’t know that there is any penalty in the statute book which dishonours the culprit; that would be tyrannical, and we would not bear it. I may break any law I like, so long as I am willing to pay the penalty. It is only a dishonour when the criminal tries to escape punishment by base or cowardly actions.”
“How do you mean?”
“To ask for the royal mercy, to beg forgiveness of the people, and the like.”
“How about escaping from justice?”
“That is no dishonour, for to fly is an act of courage; it continues the defiance of the law, and if the law cannot exact obedience, so much the worse for it. It is an honour for you to have escaped from the tyranny of your magistrates; your flight from The Leads was a virtuous action. In such cases man fights with death and flees from it. ‘Vir fugiens denuo pugnabit’.”
“What do you think of highway robbers, then?”
“I detest them as wretches dangerous to society, but I pity them when I reflect that they are always riding towards the gallows. You go out in a coach to pay a visit to a friend three or four miles out of London. A determined and agile-looking fellow springs upon you with his pistol in his hand, and says, ‘Your money or your life.’ What would you do in such a case?”
“If I had a pistol handy I would blow out his brains, and if not I would give him my purse and call him a scoundrelly assassin.”
“You would be wrong in both cases. If you killed him, you would be hanged, for you have no right to take the law into your own hands; and if you called him an assassin, he would tell you that he was no assassin as he attacked you openly and gave you a free choice. Nay, he is generous, for he might kill you and take your money as well. You might, indeed, tell him he has an evil trade, and he would tell you that you were right, and that he would try to avoid the gallows as long as possible. He would then thank you and advise you never to drive out of London without being accompanied by a mounted servant, as then no robber would dare to attack you. We English always carry two purses on our journeys; a small one for the robbers and a large one for ourselves.”
What answer could I make to such arguments, based as they were on the national manners? England is a rich sea, but strewn with reefs, and those who voyage there would do well to take precautions. Sir Augustus Hervey’s discourse gave me great pleasure.
Going from one topic to another, as is always the way with a desultory conversation, Sir Augustus deplored the fate of an unhappy Englishman who had absconded to France with seventy thousand pounds, and had been brought back to London, and was to be hanged.
“How could that be?” I asked.
“The Crown asked the Duc de Nivernois to extradite him, and Louis XV. granted the request to make England assent to some articles of the peace. It was an act unworthy of a king, for it violates the right of nations. It is true that the man is a wretch, but that has nothing to do with the principle of the thing.”
“Of course they have got back the seventy thousand pounds?”
“Not a shilling of it.”
“How was that?”
“Because no money was found on him. He has most likely left his little fortune to his wife, who can marry again as she is still young and pretty.”
“I wonder the police have not been after her.”
“Such a thing is never thought of. What could they do? It’s not likely that she would confess that her husband left her the stolen money. The law says robbers shall be hanged, but it says nothing about what they have stolen, as they are supposed to have made away with it. Then if we had to take into account the thieves who had kept their theft and thieves who had spent it, we should have to make two sets of laws, and make all manner of allowances; the end of it would be inextricable confusion. It seems to us Englishmen that it would not be just to ordain two punishments for theft. The robber becomes the owner of what he has stolen; true, he got it by violence, but it is none the less his, for he can do what he likes with it. That being the case, everyone should be careful to keep what he has, since he knows that once stolen he will never see it again. I have taken Havana from Spain: this was robbery on a large scale.”
He talked at once like a philosopher and a faithful subject of his king.
Engaged in this discussion we walked towards the Duchess of Northumberland’s, where I made the acquaintance of Lady Rochefort, whose husband had just been appointed Spanish ambassador. This lady’s gallantries were innumerable, and furnished a fresh topic of conversation every day.
The day before the assembly at Soho Square Martinelli dined with me, and told me that Madame Cornelis was heavily in debt, and dared not go out except on Sundays, when debtors are privileged.
“The enormous and unnecessary expense which she puts herself to,” said he, “will soon bring her to ruin. She owes four times the amount of her assets, even counting in the house, which is a doubtful item, as it is the subject of litigation.”
This news only distressed me for her children’s sake, for I thought that she herself well deserved such a fate.
