that time every lady had her professed lover, who wore the liveries of his mistress, bore her arms, and sometimes assumed her very name. The office of the lover was, never to quit his lady in public, and never to approach her in private: to be on all occasions her esquire. In the tournament her chosen knightcicisbeo came forth with his coat, his housings, his very lance distinguished with the ciphers and colors of her who had condescended to invest him with her preference. It was the remnant of chivalry that authorized this custom; but of chivalry demoralized chivalry denuded of her purity, her respect, the chivalry of corrupted Italy, not of that which, perhaps fallaciously, we assign to the earlier ages.

Grammont and Matta enlisted themselves at once in the service of two beauties. Grammont chose for the queen of beauty, who was to "rain influence" upon him, Mademoiselle de St. Germain, who was in the very bloom of youth. She was French, and, probably, an ancestress of that all-accomplished Comte de St. Germain, whose exploits so dazzled successive European courts, and the fullest account of whom, in all its brilliant colors, yet tinged with mystery, is given in the Memoirs of Maria Antoinette, by the Marquise d'Adhémar, her lady of the bedchamber.

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The lovely object of De Grammont's "first love" was a radiant brunette belle, who took no pains to set off by art the charms of nature. She had some defects: her black and sparkling eyes were small; her forehead, by no means as pure as moonlight sleeping upon snow," was not fair, neither were her hands; neither had she small feet-but her form generally was perfect; her elbows had a peculiar elegance in them; and in old times to hold the elbow out well, and yet not to stick it out, was a point of early discipline. Then her glossy black hair set off a superb neck and shoulders; and, moreover, she was gay, full of mirth, life, complaisance, perfect in all the acts of politeness, and invariable in her gracious and graceful bearing.

Matta admired her; but De Grammont ordered him to attach himself to the Marquise de Senantes, a married beauty of the court; and Matta, in full faith that all Grammont said and did was sure to succeed, obeyed his friend. The chevalier had fallen in love with Mademoiselle de St. Germain at first sight, and instantly arrayed himself in her color, which was green, while Matta wore blue, in compliment to the marquise; and they entered the next day upon duty, at La Venerie, where the Duchess of Savoy gave a grand entertainment. De Grammont, with his native tact and unscrupulous mendacity, played his part to perfection; but his comrade, Matta, committed a

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DE GRAMMONT'S WITTY ATTACKS ON MAZARIN. hundred solecisms. The very second time he honored the marquise with his attentions, he treated her as if she were his humble servant: when he pressed her hand, it was a pressure that almost made her scream. When he ought to have ridden by the side of her coach, he set off, on seeing a hare start from her form; then he talked to her of partridges when he should have been laying himself at her feet. Both these affairs ended as might have been expected. Mademoiselle de St. Germain was diverted by Grammont, yet he could not touch her heart. Her aim was to marry; his was merely to attach himself to a reigning beauty. They parted without regret; and he left the then remote court of Turin for the gayer scenes of Paris and Versailles. Here he became as celebrated for his alertness in play as for his readiness in repartee; as noted for his intrigues as he afterward was for his bravery.

Those were stirring days in France. Anne of Austria, then in her maturity, was governed by Mazarin, the most artful of ministers, an Italian to the very heart's core, with a love of amassing wealth ingrafted in his supple nature that amounted to a monomania. The whole aim of his life was gain. Though gaming was at its height, Mazarin never played for amusement; he played to enrich himself; and when he played, he cheated.

ors.

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The Chevalier de Grammont was rich, and Mazarin worshiped the rich. He was witty; and his wit soon procured him admission into the clique whom the wily Mazarin collected around him in Paris. Whatever were De Grammont's faults, he soon perceived those of Mazarin; he detected, and he detested the wily, grasping, serpent-like attributes of the Italian; he attacked him on every occasion on which a wit combat" was possible; he gracefully showed Mazarin off in his true colWith ease he annihilated him, metaphorically, at his own table. Yet De Grammont had something to atone for: he had been the adherent and companion in arms of Condé; he had followed that hero to Sens, to Nordlingen, to Fribourg, and had returned to his allegiance to the young king, Louis XIV., only because he wished to visit the court at Paris. Mazarin's policy, however, was that of pardon and peace-of duplicity and treachery-and the chevalier seemed to be forgiven on his return to Paris, even by Anne of Austria. Nevertheless, De Grammont never lost his independence; and he could boast in after life that he owed the two great cardinals who had governed France nothing that they could have refused. It was true that Richelieu had left him his abbacy; but he could not refuse it to one of De Grammont's rank. From Mazarin he had gained nothing except what he had won at play.

ANNE LUCIE DE LA MOTHE HOUDANCOURT.

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After Mazarin's death the chevalier intended to secure the favor of the king, Louis XIV., to whom, as he rejoiced to find, court alone was now to be paid. He had now somewhat rectified his distinctions between right and wrong, and was resolved to have no regard for favor unless supported by merit; he determined to make himself beloved by the courtiers of Louis, and feared by the ministers; to dare to undertake any thing to do good, and to engage in nothing at the expense of innocence. He still continued to be eminently successful in play, of which he did not perceive the evil, nor allow the wickedness; but he was unfortunate in love, in which he was equally unscrupulous and more rash than at the gaming-table. Among the maids of honor of Anne of Austria was a young lady named Anne Lucie de la Mothe Houdancourt. Louis, though not long married, showed some symptoms of admiration for this débutante in the wicked ways of the court.

Gay, radiant in the bloom of youth and innocence, the story of this young girl presents an instance of the unhappiness which, without guilt, the sins of others bring upon even the virtuous. The queen-dowager, Anne of Austria, was living at St. Germains when Mademoiselle de la Mothe Houdancourt was received into her household. The Duchess de Noailles, at that time Grande Maîtresse, exercised a vigilant and kindly rule over the maids of honor; nevertheless, she could not prevent their being liable to the attentions of Louis: she forbade him however to loiter, or indeed even to be seen in the room appropriated to the young damsels under her charge; and when attracted by the beauty of Anne Lucie de la Mothe, Louis was obliged to speak to her through a hole behind a clock which stood in a corridor.

Anne Lucie, notwithstanding this apparent encouragement. of the king's addresses, was perfectly indifferent to his admiration. She was secretly attached to the Marquis de Richelieu, who had, or pretended to have, honorable intentions toward her. Every thing was tried, but tried in vain, to induce the poor girl to give up all her predilections for the sake of a guilty distinction-that of being the king's mistress: even her mother reproached her with her coldness. A family council was held, in hopes of convincing her of her willfulness, and Anne Lucie was bitterly reproached by her female relatives; but her heart still clung to the faithless Marquis de Richelieu, who, however, when he saw that a royal lover was his rival, meanly withdrew.

Her fall seemed inevitable; but the firmness of Anne of Austria saved her from her ruin. That queen insisted on her being sent away; and she resisted even the entreaties of the

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BESET WITH SNARES.

queen, her daughter-in-law, and the wife of Louis XIV.; who, for some reason not explained, entreated that the young lady might remain at the court. Anne was sent away in a sort of disgrace to the convent of Chaïllot, which was then considered to be quite out of Paris, and sufficiently secluded to protect her from visitors. According to another account, a letter full of reproaches, which she wrote to the Marquis de Richelieu, upbraiding him for his desertion, had been intercepted.

It was to this young lady that De Grammont, who was then, in the very centre of the court, "the type of fashion and the mould of form," "attached himself as an admirer who could condescend to honor with his attentions those whom the king pursued. The once gay girl was thus beset with snares: on one side was the king, whose disgusting preference was shown when in her presence by sighs and sentiment; on the other, De Grammont, whose attentions to her were importunate, but failed to convince her that he was in love; on the other was the time-serving, heartless De Richelieu, whom her reason condemned but her heart cherished. She soon showed her distrust and dislike of De Grammont: she treated him with contempt; she threatened him with exposure, yet he would not desist: then she complained of him to the king. It was then that he perceived that though love could equalize conditions, it could not act in the same way between rivals. He was commanded to leave the court. Paris, therefore, Versailles, Fontainebleau, and St. Germains were closed against this gay chevalier; and how could he live elsewhere? Whither could he go? Strange to say, he had a vast fancy to behold the man who, stained with the crime of regicide, and sprung from the people, was receiving magnificent embassies from continental nations, while Charles II. was seeking security in his exile from the power of Spain in the Low Countries. He was eager to see the Protector, Cromwell. But Cromwell, though in the height of his fame when beheld by De Grammont-though feared at home and abroad -was little calculated to win suffrages from a mere man of pleasure like De Grammont. The court, the city, the country, were in his days gloomy, discontented, joyless: a proscribed nobility was the sure cause of the thin though few festivities of the now lugubrious gallery of Whitehall. Puritanism drove the old jovial churchmen into retreat, and dispelled every lingering vestige of the old hospitality: long graces and long sermons, sanctimonious manners, and grim, sad faces, and sad-colored dresses, were not much to De Grammont's taste: he returned to France, and declared that

he had gained no advantage from his travels. Nevertheless, either from choice or necessity, he made another trial of the damps and fogs of England.*

When he again visited our country, Charles II. had been two years seated on the throne of his father. Every thing was changed, and the British court was in its fullest splendor; while the rejoicings of the people of England at the Restoration were still resounding through the land.

If one could include royal personages in the rather gay than worthy category of the "wits and beaux of society," Charles II. should figure at their head. He was the most agreeable companion, and the worst king imaginable. In the first place he was, as it were, a citizen of the world; tossed about by fortune from his early boyhood; a witness at the tender age of twelve of the battle of Edge Hill, where the celebrated Harvey had charge of him and of his brother. That inauspicious commencement of a wandering life had perhaps been among the least of his early trials. The fiercest was his long residence as a sort of royal prisoner in Scotland. A traveled, humbled man, he came back to England with a full knowledge of men and manners, in the prime of his life, with spirits unbroken by adversity, with a heart unsoured by that " stern nurse," with a gayety that was always kindly, never uncourteous, ever more French than English; far more natural did he appear as the son of Henrietta Maria than as the offspring of the thoughtful Charles.

In person, too, the king was then agreeable; though rather what the French would call distingué thau dignified; he was, however, tall, and somewhat elegant, with a long French face, which in his boyhood was plump and full about the lower part of the cheeks, but now began to sink into that well-known, lean, dark, flexible countenance, in which we do not, however, recognize the gayety of the man whose very name brings with it associations of wit, politeness, good company, and all the attributes of a first-rate wit, except the almost inevitable ill-nature. There is in the physiognomy of Charles II. that melancholy which is often observable in the faces of those who are mere men of pleasure.

De Grammont found himself completely in his own sphere at Whitehall, where the habits were far more French than English. Along that stately Mall, overshadowed with umbrageous trees, which retains-and it is to be hoped ever will retain—the old name of the "Birdcage Walk," one can picture to one's self the king walking so fast that no one can * M. de Grammont visited England during the Protectorate. His second visit, after being forbidden the court by Louis XIV., was in 1662.