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“So you are going on a marauding expedition after the crown of Courland!”
“Madame,” replied my master, turning red with rage, “I am a candidate for election to the crown of Courland. If elected by that august body, the Diet of Courland, I shall accept, and I shall defend my right.”
“August fiddlestick!” cried Peggy. “All of those elective crowns, like that of your father, the King of Poland, are nothing but prey for the strongest highwaymen, and you are not as strong as you think. I predict you will be running back like a drenched hen from Courland before the year is out. However, I will say this of you, Maurice of Saxe, that you are about as good as any of the crown snatchers, or the august Diet, either—and if you would but stop running after the petticoats, you would be a considerable man!”
Count Maurice of Saxe running back from Courland like a drenched hen! And would be a considerable man! Maurice of Saxe!
It must be acknowledged, however, that in spite of Scotch Peg being Scotch Peg, the best company in Paris attended her saloons; she had a natural aptitude for affairs which always provided her with more money than those who laughed at her, and she was never known to desert a friend in distress. She was the aunt and guardian of Mademoiselle Francezka Capello.
Francezka’s father, a handsome, penniless Scotchman, went to Spain with the Duke of Berwick’s army. There, the only daughter of the Marquis Capello fell in love with the Scotch captain. The old marquis fought hard against the marriage, but the Duke of Berwick 12 carried it through. One stipulation was made by the Capellos: that Captain Kirkpatrick should take the name of Capello instead of Kirkpatrick. This he did, much to Scotch Peg’s indignation, but he was rewarded with a splendid fortune. With true Scotch thrift, he increased this fortune, and when his only child, Francezka, was doubly orphaned in her first years, she became one of the greatest heiresses in France and the Low Countries—in both of which she had large possessions.
Her father’s will, making her sole heiress, gave her complete control of her estates when she was eighteen, and likewise counseled her not to marry until she was at least two years beyond her majority. These facts were well known in Paris, and although, in 1726, Mademoiselle Francezka Capello was only in her fourteenth year, the fortune-hunters were already congregating about her. But her aunt, Madame Riano, was as fierce as a dragon when her niece’s marriage was mentioned—although it will be seen, hereafter, that by no means kept she a dragon watch over the young lady.
All these things being of common repute, they naturally came to my mind as I stood, watching the shadows lengthen on the grass of the old garden in the golden afternoon. Presently, from a private entrance, some children and some older persons appeared. The theater was for child actors only, and one of them—a floury baker’s boy—came to the iron gate, and acted as gate-keeper. To him I paid the few copper coins asked for admittance, and entered.
Others followed me, chiefly working people and serving-men and women, but there were some of a class not 13 often seen at these cheap, open-air performances. One man I recognized—Lafarge, an actor of the Comédie Française, and, I think, the poorest actor who ever played in the House of Molière. Something, I know not what, excited suspicion of this man in my mind—I could but wonder what he was doing there. He had a hang-dog countenance, and was almost as ugly as I.
Presently, whom should I see bustling about, and evidently the manager of the enterprise, but Jacques Haret! I own I was astonished to find him doing anything but eating and drinking and riding at somebody else’s expense—but there he was, actually at work, and that, too, in a very intelligent manner. There was no doubt about his intelligence, although he was known as a scamp of the first water. His intelligence had not kept him from gambling away a fine patrimony in the Low Countries, where his family had once been great.
He was the handsomest dog imaginable, in spite of all the cardinal sins looking out of his eyes—and he retained certain outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual graces which he had never had since I knew him. I will say of him though, that he was not a coward, nor did I ever hear him utter one word of railing against fate—but what a rascal he was!
As soon as his eye fell upon me he came across the grass and greeted me by clapping me on the back. He wore a shabby old laced coat, woolen stockings, broken shoes, and a splendid velvet hat and feathers; this last probably picked up at random—which some people call stealing. Now, I have never known a specimen of rascal-gentleman like Jacques Haret who could not always 14 stand and sit at ease with all men. I, Babache, an honest fellow, often feel abashed in the presence of the great. I am thinking, if I am too friendly they will remember my origin and think me impudent—and if I be not friendly enough, I fear I am thought to forget whence I sprang. But Jacques Haret and men like him are at their ease with kings and beggars alike. There is certainly something in being born to ride in a coach, even if the coach be gambled away or drunk up.
Jacques Haret greeted me cordially, as I say, but with good-natured condescension. He began to tell me that he had the finest child actress in his troupe he had ever seen. “So tragic, so moving, so graceful, so droll, so natural; she could, in two years more, wrest the laurels from the brow of Mademoiselle Lecouvreur herself!” So he declared, again whacking me on the back.
I was not much interested in his child actress, but bluntly asked him how he got the use of Madame Riano’s garden.
“The easiest thing in the world,” he said, laughing. “I went to her—proved that in 1456 one Jacques Haret, my ancestor, had married into the noble family of Kirkpatrick, and on the strength of that relationship asked to set up my theater here. She agreed promptly, only stipulating that she should see and hear nothing of it. I told her she could not see without looking, nor hear without listening, and she screeched out laughing and told me to go my ways and try to be respectable.”
“I hope you have taken Madame Riano’s advice,” I said dryly.
“In truth I have been obliged to. There are too 15 many fellows like me in Paris now. I can no longer get clothes and food and wine by telling a merry tale and singing a ribald song. And, besides, I got a hint from Cardinal Fleury, that old busybody, who manages a good deal more than the king’s conscience.”
“What do you call a hint?” I asked.
“Oh, well, old Fleury sent me word if I did not find some respectable employment he would have me cool my heels a while in the prison of the Châtelet—not the Bastille, mind you, where Voltaire and all the wits and dandies are sent—but to the Châtelet, the prison of the common malefactors. The cardinal’s message is what I call a delicate hint. However, I may make my fortune yet. The Duc de Lauzun was a mere provincial like me, and was often in straits—yet he married the king’s niece, and made her pull his boots off for him.”
I looked at the fellow in admiration. His evil life had not dimmed his eye or his smile, his courage or his impudence.
The crowd was still increasing, and there must have been a hundred persons present by that time. Lafarge, the bad actor from the Comédie Française was hanging about, and I was the more convinced he was bent on mischief. Jacques Haret had gone off—the performance was about beginning. A white cloth, fastened to two poles was let down upon the stage, just as they do with those songs which the actors at the theaters are forbidden to sing; the orchestra plays the air, and the audience sings the verses which are painted upon these white cloths. In this case, though, the inscription in huge red letters was this:
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“The part of Mariamne, in Madame Mariamne and Monsieur Herod, will be played by
Mademoiselle