The Anglo-French Entente In The Seventeenth Century Part 20

I

TO M. DE LA MOTTE, IN AMSTERDAM

SLUYS, _27th June 1742_.

MONSIEUR,--It was with the utmost joy that I heard from M. Mortier that you were in good health and thought kindly about me. I should have had the honour to tell you sooner how pleased I was at the news had I not suddenly fallen very ill just as I was intending to do so. The attack of illness in which I battled long with death, had seized me for the second time since last September and it was thought I should not recover, as I suffered in the meantime from ague, and this has weakened me so that, though out of danger for the last two months, I can hardly walk from my room to the door of my house and am unable to attend continuously to anything however trifling. My state is the cruellest possible. Not only have I been ill ten months, but my wife and two children are ailing. I left Paris two years ago and came here to settle some money-affairs, which should have turned out well I thought, as I was allowing the income to acc.u.mulate in order to pay off a few debts. Those entrusted with the administration of the estate have contrived to settle matters to their own advantage and are appropriating all. Besides, the co-heir has brought an action against me and his attorney here--the greatest rascal I have ever known--will raise quibbles on the plainest things in the world, evidently to fish in troubled waters, and have the pleasure of making me detest this country, wherein he has but too well succeeded. The judges have at last submitted the matter to arbitration and, though still unable to stand, I had myself carried here to end it. I shall see how all will turn out in a few days, after which, if my strength comes back, I shall try to spare a week or ten days to journey to Holland, especially with a view to meeting you, Monsieur, and two other persons. I shall tell you all that has befallen me since I left England. I shall tell how my eldest daughter was perverted, how the old d.u.c.h.ess Dantin and two other ladies coming one day when her mother was dining out, carried her off to the convent of the New Catholics where the perversion still goes on.

That is why I wrote to her mother to leave Paris promptly with her two other children, and am debarred from returning there. You shall see in the tale of my adventures a series of unfortunate occurrences at which one would wonder if one might wonder at what the malice of men can do.

I have spent much money here, and I can hardly receive any until after September. I have by me two chests full of MSS. by the best men; a kind favour you could do me, Monsieur, would be to find me some bookseller willing to print them. I shall tell you in confidence that I have found M.

Mortier so honest a man that I should very much like him to take them, and this is what I had purposed to do: to give them to him to clear an account standing between him and M. de Bavi and for which it is just he should be requited. I had even thought of proposing that after agreeing on the price of an MS. he should pay me half in money and keep the other half in deduction from what is owing to him until entire receipt of the sum, which is not considerable.

But besides his being busy printing many good books, my present situation is too pressing to allow me to make the proposal, so I have told him nothing about it. I shall always have occasion to provide him whenever he chooses. Thus, Monsieur, you may, if you think fit, offer any bookseller you like without mentioning my name the select MSS., the list of which I am taking the liberty of sending you.

I do not know whether a small volume that I printed in Paris under the t.i.tle of _Divers Writings on Love and Friends.h.i.+p_, on _Voluptuousness and Politeness_, the _Theory of Pleasant Feelings_ and some _Miscellaneous Thoughts_ of the late Marquis de Charost,[303] has reached you. The book appeared, and Marechal de Noailles and Duc de Villars complaining that they thought they had found their characters portrayed in the _Miscellaneous Thoughts_, the Cardinal[304] tried to stop the sale. Nevertheless, two editions came out within four months. The book, in fact, has been found charming--I may well praise it since there are but two pieces of mine, all the rest being by the best authors. I am told that the book has not been reprinted in Holland. You might ask some bookseller to do so. I shall send a revised copy, and the author of the _Theory of Feelings_ having rewritten the work, I shall write to get what I know is now a very considerable piece. The bookseller will pay only for what he prints, and I shall send him wherewith to make up a second and even a third volume of Miscellanies no less interesting; for instance:

The pamphlet by M. de la Rivierre on his marriage with Mme la Marquise de Coligny, daughter of Bussi Rabutin, which is admirably written.

The Letters of that Marquise to M. de la Rivierre.

Other Letters of M. de la Rivierre to Mme la Marquise de Lambert and others, both in verse and prose, which are quite unknown or at least known only to a few.

Essays by M. de la Rivierre on love.

A Letter of Heloise to Abelard by the same.

Sundry short Treatises and Letters by the late Mme la Marquise de Lambert.

Also:

The complete Translations and Poems of Marquis de la Fare.

The Complete Works of M. de Charlerat.

Poems by M. le Marquis de Saint-Aulaire. He it was who gave them to me, but, if he is still living, I may not print them, as I am allowed to do so only after his death.

The Revolutions of the Roman Republic, by M. Subtil.

A Life of Julius Caesar, by the same. The work is unfinished, but the fragment is valuable on the score of composition and style. I am alone to possess it, excepting the family who hold the original.

Several very curious Pieces suppressed in Paris and intended for the Remarks to the Memoires of Amelot de la Houssaye. But they have perhaps found their way into Holland and been printed there, together with the said Memoires, which I must find out.

Critical Researches on the vanity of Nations regarding their origins.

The Story of the Loves of Euryalus and Lucrece, translated from aeneas Sylvius, and compared with the story of Comtesse de Tende, together with a letter regarding the Latin letters of the Countess de Degenfeldt and Louis Charles Elector Palatine.

A supposed Letter from Heloise to Abelard by the late M. Raymond Descours, the translator of the former that caused so much stir.

And many other slighter pieces. If the t.i.tle does not seem right, the bookseller may choose another, but as all those pieces are by well-known authors who wrote admirably, the politeness and variety of the work guarantee the sale.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JEAN BAPTISTE COLBERT After Mignard]

Should a bookseller want something more serious, I have a precious collection of letters, proclamations, memoires, edicts, lists of troops, etc., ill.u.s.trating the reigns of Francis I., Henri II., Henri III., Charles IX., the whole copied from the original letters of those princes, Queen Catherine, constables, Secretaries of State, generals of armies. Among the papers are also to be found doc.u.ments instructing the amba.s.sadors and the letters wherein they render account of their negotiations, what France then did at the Court of Rome, and what she did in England regarding the trial of the Queen of Scotland under Queen Elizabeth. There is also such a fine series of letters from Duc de Guise that they might be ent.i.tled Memoires.

Two members of the Academy of Belles-lettres in Paris have urged me to print all this with two quarto volumes that they are publis.h.i.+ng on the history of France, but as there are some pieces that they allege may prevent them from obtaining the privilege, and must therefore be suppressed, I have declined the proposal.

I have besides a ma.n.u.script ent.i.tled _An Abridgment of Civil, Criminal, and Ecclesiastical Law and of the Principles of Government_,[305] written in 1710 by a minister for M. the Dauphin Duc de Bourgogne. The treatise is extremely lucid, instructive, and it is the original work, the sole possessor of which I am.

I have other ma.n.u.scripts. But it is enough to begin with. I shall send them to you with all my heart, and you will be master, Monsieur, to dispose of them. The long experience I have made of your kindness, gives me the a.s.surance that I cannot trust anything to better hands.

If you honour me with an answer, I beg of you to give me news of M. des Maizeaux, whom I love and honour, and from whom, however, I have not heard for the last ten years. Content to love one another, we do not trouble to tell each other so, and I do not like to make him pay postage. I shall receive your commands at M. Neungheer, at Sluys in Flanders. I am, Monsieur, and shall ever be respectfully and gratefully your most humble and obedient servant,

SAINT-HYACINTHE.

II

TO M. DE LA MOTTE IN AMSTERDAM

I cannot have an opportunity to write to Amsterdam, Monsieur, without availing myself of it to remind you of a man that neither time nor distance will cause to forget the grat.i.tude he owes you nor impair the friends.h.i.+p he has vowed to you. Tell me the state of your health and of your eyes, about which you used to complain, and add news of M. des Maizeaux and M. Le Courayer if you have any. I dwell in a wilderness where I have intercourse only with men that died many centuries ago, and, to tell you the truth, it would suit me very well if those I can do without did not study to ruin rather than serve me. That disadvantage will drive me from my refuge, and maybe I shall remove to some place nearer you.

You must have received my _Philosophical Researches_[306] as soon as they began to be issued. It is not a book I sent you to read. It is too badly printed and too full of mistakes. It is only a tribute that I wished to pay to friends.h.i.+p and esteem. I should like to have the opportunity, Monsieur, to give you further proofs of this. Hardly affected by the things of this life, I should feel that keenly. I am and shall always be, Monsieur, with inviolable devotedness your most humble and obedient servant,

SAINT-HYACINTHE.[307]

Two years after writing the above letter, Saint-Hyacinthe died. We can guess what the end was. While the duns were crowding at the door, the dying man dreamed that his latest scheme would infallibly make him wealthy. A few friends stood firm, however, and honoured the memory of the das.h.i.+ng officer to whom fortune and Paris had once smiled. Thirty years after his death, a person of rank, one night in a drawing-room, began speaking ill of him.

"Sir," exclaimed M. de Burigny, who was standing by, "please spare my feelings; you are hurting me to the quick. M. de Saint-Hyacinthe is one of the men I loved the most dearly."

His biographers have questioned whether he ever abandoned the Catholic faith. The former of the two letters published above settles the doubt. But a few extracts from a very scarce posthumous publication show that the English Deists had made a lasting impression upon him:

"Diverse opinions, uncertainty of knowledge; diverse religions, uncertainty of the true one."

"The true religion is entirely contained in the duties prescribed by the law of Nature, which are within reach of every one."

"Because Jesus Christ called Himself the Son of G.o.d, we infer that He is G.o.d as His Father, and, if it be so, all men are G.o.ds, since in the strict meaning of the word we are all children of G.o.d, drawing our life from Him and being created after His likeness."

"Pure Deism is the only religion that truly exists."[308]

Strip him of the glamour of adventures and extravagant opinions, he is after all a mere journalist. Take away the _Chef d'oeuvre_, whose success was due to an accident, and Saint-Hyacinthe falls to the level of a Coste or a Desmaizeaux. Yet he deserved better than he got. In his l.u.s.t for vulgar notoriety, he twice lost sight of fame. With his journalist's insight, he had foreseen the wonderful fortune of _Robinson Crusoe_, and he allowed a far inferior man to complete the translation. As early as 1715, in his _Memoires litteraires_, he had guessed that the time had come for men of letters to make England known in France, and Voltaire his enemy reaped all the benefit of the idea. He might well have asked in later years why he had not signed the _Lettres philosophiques_. And so in the portrait gallery of Frenchmen who made English literature familiar to their countrymen in the eighteenth century, Saint-Hyacinthe is only a miniature, while Voltaire s.h.i.+nes forth in all the glory of a full-length picture.

FOOTNOTES:

[300] _Lettre de M. de Saint-Hyacinthe._ Imprimee par la Societe des Bibliophiles. Paris, 1826.

[301] The story of the quarrel between Voltaire and Saint-Hyacinthe is set forth in two contemporary books: _Tableau philosophique de l'esprit de M.

de Voltaire_, 1771 and _Lettre de M. de Burigny a M. l'abbe Mercier sur les demeles de M. de Voltaire avec M. de Saint-Hyacinthe_, 1780.