Court Beauties of Old Whitehall Part 13

LOUISE DE KeROUAL, d.u.c.h.eSS OF PORTSMOUTH

A SPY OF THE RESTORATION

If proof were required of anything so obvious as the cynicism of fame, one might cite the subject of this memoir as an example. Of European importance in her own day, and now--excepting Nell Gwynn--unquestionably the best remembered because the most odious of all the women of the Restoration, although "Madam Carwell," as the English people called her, has escaped oblivion, the mere spelling of her name has become a matter of indifference to history.

Keroual, Keroualle, Querouralles, Querouailles are some of the ways it is printed, and we only adopt the first as being the most frequent French mode.

A similar uncertainty attaches to her origin.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth, however, had no doubt about it and was herself extremely proud of her ancestry, and boasted--when in England, be it understood--an ancient and distinguished lineage. It is characteristic of _parvenus_. Colbert, Louis XIV.'s famous Finance Minister, claimed a n.o.ble Scot, by name Cuthbert, who flourished in the reign of Macbeth or earlier, as the progenitor of his shopkeeper father.

But there were many like Madame de Sevigne, whose opinions take precedence over those of most of her contemporaries, who had the greatest contempt for the d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth's family pretensions. Be the matter as it may, by Louise de Keroual's first start in life there hangs a tale.

Her father, whether or not he could trace his ancestry back to the fourteenth century as his daughter declared--when there was a saying in Brittany: "The Kerouals for antiquity, the Kermans for riches, and the Kergournadecs for chivalry"--went to Paris as a boy to seek his fortune.

Of this he appears to have ama.s.sed in the wool trade sufficient to enable him to retire in middle life to his native Brittany, where, being from all accounts an honest and unpretentious man, he devoted his leisure to the bringing up of his son and two daughters, and dispensing modest hospitality. It was at his house in Brest that Evelyn made his acquaintance, "and being used very civilly, was obliged to return it in London," when "Monsieur Querouaille and his lady, parents to the famous beauty," paid the d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth a visit. Her Grace was then, adds Evelyn, "in the height of favour, but he never made any use of it."

The bringing-up of his children, however, would seem to have been beyond the abilities of the civil wool merchant, and owing to the dissension of his daughters he placed Louise, the elder and prettier of the two, at a boarding-school in a neighbouring town. Here she developed the insinuating manners that later on were "to tie England and France together with her silken girdle."

Having won the friends.h.i.+p of the head-mistress, she obtained certain social privileges, which, from the reports of the use she made of them, so alarmed the retired wool merchant that he sent her to Paris to the care of a widowed aunt. This lady, whose very name has long since been forgotten, owed in a great measure her means of subsistence to the generosity of the Duc de Beaufort, in whose service her husband had died. According to the author of the curious libel known as "The Secret History of the d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth," Louise got round her aunt as easily as she had got round the head-mistress of her boarding-school.

For it was not long before she made the acquaintance of the Duc de Beaufort, and interested this powerful n.o.bleman in her behalf. Whereby she was constrained to learn the rudiments of intrigue, a subject in which she was afterwards to become pre-eminently proficient.

It is easy to censure a girl who deliberately prefers to seek her happiness in immorality. It is done every day. But there are few girls of the alert, ambitious nature of Louise de Keroual, who if placed in her position would not follow her example. What were her prospects? On the one hand she had the choice between returning home and marrying some petty, humdrum _bourgeois_, or immuring herself for the rest of her life in a convent. On the other, by prudently selling her virtue, she might have the riches, gaiety, and pleasure she craved, and still remain respectable. Of these two prospects, the first was impossible to Louise.

But the second was an opportunity--one of those opportunities that Shakespeare says, "if taken at the flood, lead on to fortune"--the great opportunity of life that most of us sigh for and fail to recognise till too late. To Louise de Keroual it came in the guise of a Duc de Beaufort, High Admiral of France. Her mind never suffered the slightest misgiving, her conscience the least qualm. Like all persons destined for success, she knew what she wanted and took it. A woman so _rusee_ as Louise was not such a fool as to be found out. Her _liaison_ with the Duc de Beaufort was never suspected.

How long it lasted it is impossible to say, but it was brought to an abrupt end in the summer of 1669, when the Duc de Beaufort was given the command of the naval expedition which had for its object the relief of the Venetians who for twenty-four years had been besieged by the Turks in Crete. From this expedition he never returned, but before he sailed Louise took care to provide for her future by obtaining through his influence one of the posts of maid of honour to Madame which had just fallen vacant. This was the beginning of her fortune. The report that she accompanied Beaufort to Crete disguised as a page is a mere fabrication of her libeller. The Keroual who accompanied the Duc de Beaufort to Crete was her younger brother, Sebastien, whom, no doubt, she now tried to provide for, as she did on a later occasion in England for her sister, Henriette. Sebastien, however, did not long enjoy the fruits of his sister's patronage; he died a few days after his return from Crete.

It was probably through this event that Louise became acquainted with the Comte de Sault, who on Beaufort's death appears to have taken Sebastien into his service, in which he was at the time of his death.

This Comte de Sault was the eldest son of the Duc de Lesdiguieres, and one of the best-known men at Court. He had won the chief prize a few years before in the famous jousts in front of the Tuileries, which gave their name to the Place du Carrousel. The Comte de Sault soon occupied more or less publicly the same place in the maid of honour's affections that had previously been held by the Duc de Beaufort. In fact, there was so little privacy about their relations that Madame de Sevigne and Louvois did not hesitate to put the worst construction on them, while several years later in England "a great peer taunted her insultingly with the recollection of this old scandal."

This affair was, however, decently conducted, as such things were in France, and Mademoiselle de Keroual's social standing did not suffer.

Perhaps she may have hoped to arrest the notice of the King himself, but if so she was disappointed. During the short time that she was in Madame's service the monarch's attention was too much absorbed by the beautiful Mademoiselle de la Valliere to be diverted by Mademoiselle de Keroual. From all accounts Louis was scarcely aware of her existence till she was recommended to him as an agent likely to be of use in binding Charles II. hand and foot in the toils of French diplomacy.

As the Imperial policy of Louis XIV. was never so successful as when Louise de Keroual queened it at Whitehall, some account of the obstacles opposed to it is necessary in order to understand the nature of the game she was unexpectedly called upon to play.

The "hereditary enmity" which until quite recent times so long estranged France and England might be compared to the feud between the Capulets and the Montagues. From time to time, however, this ancient feud was patched up, so to speak, by romantic Romeo and Juliet _ententes_, which, unfortunately, owing to national incompatibility of temper, always ended, as such love-affairs only too often do in real life, in mutual mistrust and animosity. In no instance was the cause of estrangement ever the same. In the age of Louis XIV. the bone of contention was Religion. It is impossible in this day of religious indifference to realise the force of the pa.s.sions that tormented these two foolish nations then. England was pa.s.sionately Protestant, and the Civil War and ten years of Cromwell had made her democratic. For the first time in her history England had found an ideal. France, on the other hand, never found hers till the Revolution, but as the "eldest daughter of the Church" she was bigotedly Catholic, and Richelieu and Mazarin had converted her to despotism. The temper of the two neighbours being such, strife was only a question of time, and the political interests of each only served to whet animosity. By the middle of the seventeenth century it was evident that the great House of Austria was slowly dying in Spain, and France, governed by a vigorous and ambitious king who was surrounded with the ablest brains in Europe, determined by fair means or foul to be its heir. Louis XIV. cast a covetous eye on Flanders, and at the bare thought of having such a virile neighbour in the place of this old decrepit one Protestant Holland turned uneasily towards England. The plunder of Spain did not at that time tempt England. Nor was there any particular reason why she should fight Holland's battles, especially as Holland had come out of the recent Thirty Years' War her commercial rival. On the contrary, it would have been to England's interest to see Holland weakened. But a nation with an ideal has "principles," and England made hers the excuse to defy Catholic and despotic France to plunder Spain at the expense of Protestant and democratic Holland.

Consequently England joined the Triple League.

To break this formidable barrier, which prevented him from achieving his ambition, was the object of Louis XIV. It was for this purpose that he had sent Madame to England, and when she returned with the treaty she had coaxed out of her brother it not unnaturally seemed to him that his end was in sight. But within three weeks of leaving Dover Madame had died under circ.u.mstances that suggested foul play, and Charles all but tore up the "Traite de Madame." Louis instantly despatched the tactful Marecha de Bellefonds to Whitehall to a.s.sure Charles of his sincere grief at the untimely end of his sister and to save the treaty if possible. But the King of England was in no mood to be beguiled by expressions of friends.h.i.+p.

"When do they intend to let the Chevalier de Lorraine back to Court?" he asked rudely of the Marecha when that envoy arrived.

It was evident that Louis' road to Flanders and Madrid was blocked again. Madame's death had aroused to a fever heat the hatred of Protestant England for Catholic France. The people were crying out for vengeance on the murderers of their king's sister. Charles, had he wished for war, would have had the support of the nation.

"Must we abandon the great affair?" wrote the French Amba.s.sador in London to his master at Versailles. "It is feared that the grief of the King of England, which is deeper than can be imagined, and the malevolent talk and rumours of our enemies will spoil everything."

But Charles on this occasion was cooler than his people. He contented himself with coldly accepting Louis' sympathy. The Court of Versailles, which dreaded nothing so much at that moment as a war, breathed freely again, and immediately set to work to restore Charles to the good-humour in which he was before Madame's death. French money poured into England, ministers and mistresses fattened on it. For ten thousand livres a year "wanton Shrewsbury" guaranteed "to make Buckingham do whatever the French King wished." Corruption was everywhere. The French Amba.s.sador was prepared to buy both Houses of Parliament and the "principles" of the nation as well. Even Algernon Sidney, who in the eyes of English Liberalism is surrounded with the nimbus of martyrdom, took five hundred pounds every Parliamentary session from Louis. Charles had as great a weakness for French gold as any of his subjects, but though he willingly sold himself, he never gave full value in return if he could possibly avoid it.

Protestant England was not long in discovering this slippery trait in its own dealings with its sovereign. It is a mistake to imagine that Monk jockeyed Charles on to the throne. The crown of his ancestors was enthusiastically restored to him by an overwhelming majority of the nation. The Restoration of Charles II. was the result of, perhaps, the must honest _plebiscite_ in history. Monk was merely the means the English people employed to notify Charles they wanted him. But in their ardour the foolish people forgot to demand security for the power they gave him; they merely contented themselves with an implied understanding that he was to be, so to speak, the junior partner in the national business. Alas for human credulity! Who would have thought that the amiable, charming King, whose frivolity and sensuality seemed to guarantee a weak and pliable nature, would prove to be more than a match for his people? The versatile and s.h.i.+fty monarch made his power felt from the start, and clearly let it be understood that in the firm of Charles Stuart, England and Company, it was he who furnished the brains and England the capital. In such partners.h.i.+ps as a rule the capitalist buys experience dearly. And so it was in this case. Under that good-natured, happy-go-lucky manner of Charles there lurked the cunning of a Mazarin. Totally devoid of "principles" himself, he secretly despised his people for having them, and perhaps, also, for having given him power, such as no sovereign since Elizabeth had possessed, without a guarantee as to how he would use it. What wonder that with such a king and such a people Charles II. should have sat on the English throne, till he tumbled from it in apoplexy, as securely as a cowboy on a broncho? The comparison is apt; for, spurred by Exclusion Bills, Popish Plots, French harlots, and French gold, England, aglow with its new-found ideal of faith and freedom, bucked furiously and in vain with the subtle and ever-popular (!) Charles on its back. To put the bit into this man's mouth as he had put it into that of his country was one of the chief objects of the reign of Louis XIV.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOUIS XIV.

_After Charles le Brun_]

In the nineteenth century it was customary to treat the Grand Monarque and his Grand Siecle with contempt. It was one of those momentary fits of rage into which Progress falls when it beholds its father's ghost in history. The rage has pa.s.sed--in France at all events--and Louis XIV.

and his famous century are receiving more flattery now than even Voltaire bestowed on them. They have become national monuments. Every schoolboy has pa.r.s.ed one of Bossuet's _oraisons funebres_; every soldier has heard of Conde, every woman remembers the romance of Mademoiselle La Beaume Le Blanc de la Valliere. And there isn't a Socialist workman who goes with his wife and children on a Sunday to see the fountains play at Versailles but has some difficulty in choking the "_Vive la France!_"

that sneaks in his throat as he strolls through the historic pile dedicated to All the Glories. For everybody has been taught that Louis XIV. in his long reign of seventy-two years--the longest, by the way, in history--did something more than powder his hair with gold-dust, wear high-heeled shoes, and tamely submit to Madame de Maintenon. Among his many s.h.i.+ning endowments he possessed the royal faculty of recognising and appreciating talent in others. As in the earlier part of his reign, at all events, there happened to be a profusion of ability in France, he was served as only the very great are ever served. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the agents he sent to England. They were first-rate diplomatists. Their despatches were sprinkled with all sorts of gossip, _on dits_, and trivial details, which were awaited with impatience and devoured with avidity at Versailles. An English despatch was not unlike a brilliant society novel. Thus it happened that the _personnel_ of Whitehall was as familiar to Louis as that of Versailles; the English people and their "principles" as well known as the condition of his own country; and the life, character, and habits of Charles II.

better understood than, perhaps, those of any other person in Europe.

To one so well informed as Louis the key to the riddle, "How is the slippery Charles to be held?" was "Woman." At the time of the death of Madame there was no sultana in the seraglio at Whitehall. This was Louis' chance. His Amba.s.sador and his creatures, the English Ministers, a.s.sured him that the d.u.c.h.ess of Cleveland had ceased to be worth her price, that Charles had appeared much smitten with Mademoiselle de Keroual when she came to England with Madame, and that in their opinion French interests could not better be served than by sending the aforesaid maid of honour to England as soon as possible. Louis and his Council gave the matter their due consideration, and Louise de Keroual, only too willingly, as her fortunes were now at a very low ebb, started for Whitehall. She was clearly given to understand the capacity in which she was going, the influence that sent her, and the duties expected of her. Buckingham engaged to take her back with him after Madame's funeral, but "he totally forgot both the lady and his promise, and leaving the disconsolate nymph at Dieppe to manage as she could, pa.s.sed over to England by way of Calais." The English Amba.s.sador in Paris, who was not a "Buckingham man" but an "Arlington" one, never gave Buckingham the time to atone for his forgetfulness. He at once sent Mademoiselle de Keroual over to Lord Arlington at his own expense, whereby he adroitly made a friend of the future _maitresse en t.i.tre_ for himself and Arlington. For, says Bishop Burnet, "the Duke of Buckingham lost all the merit he might have pretended to, and brought over a mistress whom his own strange conduct threw into the hands of his enemies."

The purpose of this visit was pretty well known to the public, to whom "Madam Carwell" at once became an object of detestation. She was, however, favourably received at Whitehall. Dryden, the laureate at the time, and St. Evremond welcomed her in verse, of which the former is too dull and the latter too indecent to quote. At the sight of her Charles at once brightened up, and appointed her to be one of the maids of honour to Queen Catherine, giving as his excuse that it was out of a "decent tenderness" for his sister's memory. Poor Catherine, knowing the purpose for which her new maid of honour had been appointed, disliked her from the first. But Catherine had learnt wisdom in the course of her married life, and though she hated the new favourite as much as she had ever hated the Castlemaine, she accepted her without a protest.

Not so her Grace of Cleveland. She fought with her characteristic fury to retain her threatened power, and owing to the subtle coyness of Louise appeared to keep her ascendency over the King. For the cunning Breton girl understood that to yield to Charles at the first a.s.sault was not the way to keep him, so she adopted the tactics of La Belle Stuart and played the prude. But it was some time before this strategy was appreciated by Louis and his creatures at Whitehall. The French Amba.s.sador became alarmed. "I think it safe," he wrote to Louis, "while undermining the d.u.c.h.ess of Cleveland to keep her on our side by appearing to be with her."

The correspondence that pa.s.sed between the French Amba.s.sador and the French Court on this subject gives a more vivid impression of the way the game of politics was played by the Great Powers at the time of the Restoration than any history on the subject.

At length the Amba.s.sador was able to write to Louvois, "I believe I can a.s.sure you that she has so got round King Charles as to be of the greatest service to our sovereign and master, if she only does her duty."

This news revived the drooping spirits of the Court of France, but it was still impatient for some proof of her power. Arlington, one of the Cabal Ministers, who was as much interested in her success as Louis himself, therefore decided to bring about the long-antic.i.p.ated _denouement_ by inviting the Court to Euston, his palatial country seat, where by a counter-strategy it was hoped the cautious Louise would be forced to yield. The Amba.s.sador, in imparting this information to Louvois, wrote:--

"Milord Arlington told me to advise Mademoiselle de Keroual to cultivate the King's good graces, and so to manage that he should only find in her society enjoyment, peace, and quiet. He added that if Lady Arlington took his advice she would urge the new favourite to yield unreservedly to the King or to retire to a French convent.... The King did me the honour yesterday to sup at the Emba.s.sy, when he proved to me, by indulging in a gay and unfettered debauch, that he does not mistrust us."

The satisfaction this news gave to Louis may be judged from the following extract from Louvois' reply:--

"His Majesty was vastly amused with all that was in your letter about Mademoiselle de Keroual, and will have pleasure in hearing the progress she makes in the King's favour. He even jested on the subject, and says there must either be small love felt for the mistress or great confidence felt in you to suffer you to go to Euston in such jolly company."

As may be imagined, the house party at Euston produced the result expected of it, and the way in which this result was effected is as illuminating as the above correspondence. It was quite in keeping with the total absence of morality which characterised all who were engaged in the intrigue. "Lady Arlington," says Forneron, "under the pretext of killing the tedium of October evenings in a country house, got up a burlesque wedding, in which Louise de Keroual was the bride and the King the bridegroom, with all the immodest ceremonies which marked, in the good old times, the retirement of the former into her nuptial chamber."

As this book is not conceived in a prurient spirit we shall forbear to give the reader a description of the "ceremonies" connected with this mock-marriage. Suffice it to say that the French Amba.s.sador's report of the "nights at Euston" reads like an account of a Palais Royal farce. In an age of such unashamed publicity as the Restoration, no attempt was made to keep the doings of the Arlingtons' house party out of the press; consequently the pamphlets of the day revelled in reporting the spicy details of this Euston saturnalia with as much zest and in the same spirit of hypocrisy as the press of the present takes in a smart society lawsuit. While the coffee-houses, which corresponded to our modern clubs, rung with gossip of the new French mistress of the King, who was reported to have protested to some n.o.ble lord against the scurrility to which she was subjected by the public: "Me no bad woman. If me taut me was one bad woman, me would cut mine own trote."

Of course, what happened at Euston was much exaggerated. Evelyn, who was a guest of the Arlingtons, declares that he never witnessed any of the things the newspapers and lampoons reported. Nevertheless, he admits that he was only twice admitted to the royal circle. At any rate, the sequel that occurred nine months later afforded Louis XIV. and "Madam Carwell" the greatest satisfaction. It is well known that next to a mistress Charles loved nothing so much as a child.

After the visit at Euston Louise de Keroual was the acknowledged _maitresse en t.i.tre_ in place of the termagant Cleveland, retired.

Charles appointed her lady of the bedchamber to the Queen, the duties of which post she had the delicacy to abandon to a deputy, and created her d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth. At the same time, as there was every prospect that she would hold long what she had conquered, and as a reward for her services, Louis paid her in advance, so to speak, by giving her the t.i.tle of d.u.c.h.esse d'Aubigny. As she played the _role_ of _maitresse en t.i.tre_ as it was played in France there is nothing in her story henceforth to shock the most modest susceptibilities. All the _grossieretes_ with which the d.u.c.h.ess of Cleveland, whom she supplanted, embellished the post were by her Grace of Portsmouth refined into political intrigues.

Among the many services she was expected to render to her "master," the French King, the princ.i.p.al were:--

1. To induce Charles to declare war against Holland (!)

2. To convert Charles to Roman Catholicism (!!)

3. To persuade the Duke of York, the King's brother and heir to the throne, to marry a French princess.

For Charles to have plunged his newly restored kingdom into a war with Holland, considering the "principles" of the English nation on the subject, would seem incredible. It was, however, the easiest of the d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth's tasks. The "principles" were circ.u.mvented, reasoned, excused, explained away, conscientiously, be it understood--oh, very conscientiously!--as is always the way with a brave "principle" when confronted with an interest. At the bottom England was jealous of Holland's naval and commercial supremacy. Charles, like the cowboy, knew his broncho; he declared war on Holland to please his mistress and win his French subsidy, and England bucked, and bucked--and fought.

On the other hand, Charles, being no fool, and knowing his broncho thoroughly, was not to be induced to change the form of faith he professed. He had too vivid a recollection of his exile to play any practical jokes on Fortune. If, as is extremely doubtful, he was a Catholic at bottom, it was certainly not from religious conviction. His Huguenot grandfather, Henri Quatre, had said that "Paris was well worth a Ma.s.s." Precisely in the same way he reasoned that the throne of England was well worth a confirmation. The d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth was far too indifferent herself on this subject to disagree with Charles, and far too cunning to risk her position in England in order to help Louis XIV. weaken the country with another civil war. She therefore made up her mind, says Forneron, "that there was but a single course to follow.

It was by slow degrees to habituate the English to a revival of Catholic ideas, rites, and ceremonies." This was but a polite way of telling Louis that if the conversion of England to Catholicism depended on her it would never be converted. Also, knowing the displeasure such a declaration coming from her would create at the French Court, she made it on purpose to show Louis that she was no mere contemptible spy to be ordered about and scolded, but the d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth, _maitresse en t.i.tre_ to His Britannic Majesty. This show of independence was based, no doubt, on the certainty of her hold on Charles. For at this time the French Amba.s.sador wrote angrily to Louvois of her Grace: "She has got the notion that it is possible she may yet be Queen of England. She talks from morning till night of the Queen's ailments as if they were mortal."

Scarcely less inferior in importance to Louis than making Charles declare war on Holland and converting him to Popery was the subjection of his heir, the Duke of York. Louis XIV. thought of the future as much as the present. It was above all things necessary to him that if Charles should be unexpectedly carried off his successor should be the friend of France. The surest way of securing this appeared to be by making a match between James, whose wife, Anne Hyde, the daughter of Clarendon, had just died, and a princess of France. Louis, knowing James as well as he did Charles, was aware that he was one of those men who would be governed entirely by his wife. Consequently he proposed a member of his own family, the d.u.c.h.esse de Guise, the sister of La Grande Mademoiselle and daughter of his uncle, Gaston d'Orleans. But Madame, before her death, had given her brother such an unfavourable account of this widowed princess, who was exceedingly plain, and had "laid in thrice in two years," that James positively refused to consider her. The French Court hereupon got angry at being defied by a stupid Duke of York, and ordered the d.u.c.h.ess of Portsmouth to put on the screw. But here again she was wiser than her employers. For under the pressure of being urged to do what he disliked there was danger that James might suddenly show resentment and marry an enemy of France.