40 Duchess of Buckingham. burials records the event, which is so replete with a singular retributive justice-so constituted to impress and sadden the mind : : 'Georges Villus Lord dooke of Buckingham.' He left scarcely a friend to mourn his life; for to no man had he been true. He died on the 16th of April according to some accounts; according to others, on the third of that month, 1687, in the sixty-first year of his age. His body, after being embalmed, was deposited in the family vault in Henry VII.'s chapel.* He left no children, and his title was therefore extinct. The Duchess of Buckingham, of whom Brian Fairfax remarks, 'that if she had none of the vanities, she had none of the vices of the court,' survived him several years. She died in 1705, at the age of sixty-six, and was buried in the vault of the Villiers' family, in the chapel of Henry VII. Such was the extinction of all the magnificence and intellectual ascendency that at one time centred in the great and gifted family of Villiers. *Brian Fairfax states, that at his death (the Duke of Buckingham's) he charged his debts on his estate, leaving much more than enough to cover them. By the register of Westminster Abbey it appears that he was buried in Henry VII.'s Chapel, 7th June, 1687. COUNT DE GRAMMONT, ST. EVREMOND, AND LORD ROCHESTER. De Grammont's Choice.-His Influence with Turenne.-The Church or the Army?-An Adventure at Lyons.-A brilliant Idea.-De Grammont's Generosity.-A Horse 'for the Cards.'-Knight-Cicisbeism.-De Grammont's first Love.-His Witty Attacks on Mazarin.-Anne Lucie de la Mothe Houdancourt.--Beset with Snares.-De Grammont's Visits to England.-Charles II. - The Court of Charles II. - Introduction of Country-dances.-Norman Peculiarities.-St. Evremond, the Handsome Norman. The most Beautiful Woman in Europe.-Hortense Mancini's Adventures.-Madame Mazarin's House at Chelsea.-Anecdote of Lord Dorset. Lord Rochester in his Zenith.- His Courage and Wit.— Rochester's Pranks in the City.-Credulity, Past and Present.-' Dr. Bendo,' and La Belle Jennings.-La Triste Heritière.-Elizabeth, Countess of Rochester.-Retribution and Reformation.-Conversion.-Beaux without Wit.-Little Jermyn. - An Incomparable Beauty. - Anthony Hamilton, De Grammont's Biographer.-The Three Courts.- La Belle Hamilton.'-Sir Peter Lely's Portrait of her. The Household Deity of Whitehall.-Who shall have the Calèche ?-A Chaplain in Livery.-De Grammont's Last Hours.-What might he not have been? T has been observed by a French critic, that the Mémoires de Grammont afford the truest specimens of French character in our language. To this it may be added, that the subject of that animated narrative was most completely French in principle, in intelligence, in wit that hesitated at nothing, in spirits. that were never daunted, and in that incessant activity which is characteristic of his countrymen. Grammont, it was said, 'slept neither night nor day;' his life was one scene of incessant excitement. His father, supposed to have been the natural son of Henry the Great, of France, did not suppress that fact, but desired to publish it: for the morals of his time were so depraved, that it was thought to be more honourable to be the illegitimate son of a king than the lawful child of lowlier parents. Born in the Castle of Semeae, on the banks of the Garonne, the fame of two fair ancestresses, Corisande and 42 De Grammont's Choice. Menadame, had entitled the family of De Grammont to expect in each successive member an inheritance of beauty. Wit, courage, good nature, a charming address, and boundless assurance, were the heritage of Philibert de Grammont. Beauty was not in his possession; good nature, a more popular quality, he had in abundance: His wit to scandal never stooping, His mirth ne'er to buffoonery drooping.' As Philibert grew up, the two aristocratic professions of France were presented for his choice: the army, or the church. Neither of these vocations constitutes now the ambition of the high-born in France: the church, to a certain extent, retains its prestige, but the army, ever since officers have risen from the ranks, does not comprise the same class of men as in England. In the reign of Louis XIII., when De Grammont lived it was otherwise. All political power was vested in the church. Richelieu was, to all purposes, the ruler of France, the dictator of Europe; and, with regard to the church, great men, at the head of military affairs, were daily proving to the world, how much intelligence could effect with a small numerical power. Young men took one course or another: the sway of the cabinet, on the one hand, tempted them to the church; the brilliant exploits of Turenne, and of Condé, on the other, led them to the camp. It was merely the difference of dress between the two that constituted the distinction the soldier might be as pious as the priest, the priest was sure to be as worldly as the soldier; the soldier might have ecclesiastical preferment; the priest sometimes turned out to fight. Philibert de Grammont chose to be a soldier. He was styled the Chevalier de Grammont, according to custom, his father being still living. He fought under Turenne, at the siege of Trino. The army in which he served was beleaguering that city when the gay youth from the banks of the Garonne joined it, to aid it not so much by his valour as by the fun, the raillery, the off-hand anecdote, the ready, hearty companionship which lightened the soldier's life in the trenches: adieu to His Influence with Turenne. 43 impatience, to despair, even to gravity. The very generals. could not maintain their seriousness when the light-hearted De Grammont uttered a repartee 'Sworn enemy to all long speeches, Was not renowned for storming breaches.' Where he came, all was sunshine, yet there breathed not a colder, graver man than the Calvinist Turenne: modest, serious, somewhat hard, he gave the young nobility who served under him no quarter in their shortcomings; but a word, a look, from De Grammont could make him, malgrê lui, unbend. The gay chevalier's white charger's prancing, its gallant rider foremost in every peril, were not forgotten in after-times, wher De Grammont, in extreme old age, chatted over the achievements and pleasures of his youth. Amongst those who courted his society in Turenne's army was Matta, a soldier of simple manners, hard habits, and handsome person, joined to a candid, honest nature. He soon persuaded De Grammont to share his quarters, and there they gave splendid entertainments, which, Frenchman-like, De Grammont paid for out of the successes of the gaming-tables. But chances were against them; the two officers were at the mercy of their maitre d'hôtel, who asked for money. One day, when De Grammont came home sooner than usual, he found Matta fast asleep. Whilst De Grammont stood looking at him, he awoke, and burst into a violent fit of laughter. 'What is the matter?' cried the chevalier. 'Faith, chevalier,' answered Matta, 'I was dreaming that we had sent away our maitre d'hôtel, and were resolved to live like our neighbours for the rest of the campaign.' 'Poor fellow!' cried De Grammont. So, you are knocked down at once: what would have become of you if you had been reduced to the situation I was in at Lyons, four days Come, I will tell you all about it.' before I came here? 'Begin a little farther back,' cried Matta, and tell me about the manner in which you first paid your respects to Cardinal 44 The Church or the Army? Richelieu. Lay aside your pranks as a child, your genealogy, and all your ancestors together; you cannot know anything about them.' 'Well,' replied De Grammont, it was my father's own fault that he was not Henry IV.'s son: see what the Grammonts have lost by this crossed-grained fellow! Faith, we might have walked before the Counts de Vendôme at this very moment.', Then he went on to relate how he had been sent to Pau, to the college, to be brought up to the church, with an old servant to act both as his valet and his guardian. How his head was too full of gaming to learn Latin. How they gave him his rank at college, as the youth of quality, when he did not deserve it; how he travelled up to Paris to his brother to be polished, and went to court in the character of an abbé. Ah, Matta, you know the kind of dress then in vogue. No, I would not change my dress, but I consented to draw over it a cassock. I had the finest head of hair in the world, well curled and powdered above my cassock, and below were my white buskins and spurs.' Even Richelieu, that hypocrite, he went on to relate, could not help laughing at the parti-coloured costume, sacerdotal above, soldier-like below; but the cardinal was greatly offended -not with the absence of decorum, but with the dangerous wit, that could laugh in public at the cowl and shaven crown, points which constituted the greatest portion of Richelieu's sanctity. De Grammont's brother, however, thus addressed the Chevalier :- Well, my little parson,' said he, as they went home, 'you have acted your part to perfection; but now you must choose your career. If you like to stick to the church, you will possess great revenues, and nothing to do; if you choose to go into the army, you will risk your arm or your leg, but in time you may be a major-general with a wooden leg and a glass eye, the spectacle of an indifferent, ungrateful court. Make your choice.' The choice, Philibert went on to relate, was made. For the good of his soul, he renounced the church, but for his own |