them, about a page and a half long. It was an inexplicable piece of ambiguity, which I had no fooner read, than I faid to the cardinal with warmth If it be not, my lord, the mot refpectable woman in the kingdom, who has written this letter, you are fhamefully played upon. What does all this fignify? There are expreffions in it which may apply to fome circumstances relative to the necklace, when we know them, but they may as well, and better, be applied to a hundred other ftories: in fhort, this letter is so inapplicable, that, happen what will, you can make no use of it and I am convinced that the perfon who wrote it had this in view.'— Fie! do not take it in that manner: you would fpeak very differently, if you knew how much that perfon is in every refpect above all fufpicion : befides, have you not seen the agreement figned, and approved by the queen? Yes; but, as I am unacquainted with her majefty's writing, which may very well have been forged, and also with the lady so eftimable, and who may be much lefs fo than you imagine, I am more apprehenfive than ever, that this affair may turn out very troublesome to you. There is but one thing that can remove my fears; and that is, as you have not yet delivered the necklace, that you promise me, and I conjure you, not to part with it, but to the queen herfelf.' I do promise you, and fo you may be easy; indeed you would be perfectly fo, if you knew the name of the perfon; all I can tell you is, that there is not a more diftinguished one in the kingdom. lic papers Two days after this I went into Brittany, where I had not been fix weeks, before I learned, by the pubthat the cardinal was arrefted, without any particulars of the caufe of fo 'extraordinary an event, but it was not difficult for me to guefs it. The circumstances given o in evidence are all that have been certainly known. What I have here related, could not be proved, but by my teftimony, which was not taken, or by Madame La Mothe's correfpondence, and that was burnt an hour after the cardinal's arreft. He was so thoroughly convinced, that that correspon dence contained the queen's fecret, and that the feverity with which her majefty had treated him before the king, was a proof of the implicit confidence fhe had in his discretion, that, inftead of attempting to justify himfelf to the king, he only thought of not expofing the queen. After confirming, fometimes by his filence, fometimes by the embarrassment of his replies to their majefties questions, a charge that could not but excite their indignation against him, his first eare, the moment he was arrested, was to difpatch one of his people post to Paris, with an order to open the prefs in his clofet, which contained. all Madame La Mothe's letters, and to burn them. This order he deli-, vered to his man in German, that he might not be understood by the officer, who went with him from the king's chamber to the apartments occupied by the high almoner, in the palace. An adjutant of the gardesdes corps was charged to take him, first to Paris, to feize his papers, and then to the Baftille. By destroying this correspondence, the cardinal lolt the most important papers for his juftification: for they would have fhewn the manoeuvres, the profound and ftudied fubtilty practifed by the most intriguing of women, to convince him of the kindnefs, extreme confidence, and friendfhip which the queen bestowed upon. her; of the effential fervice it was in her power to render him with her majesty, and the like. Had this point been cleared up, the obscurity in which the affair remained enveloped would have been difpelled. It E 2 would would have been evident to all, that the cardinal, far from being feduced by the ambitious and criminal hopes of which he was accufed, had no other object in view, than to gain the queen's good opinion, by lend ing her his credit for the purchafe of a necklace, which he could not but believe the very much wished to poffefs, as the fact was attested to him, not only by a perfon who he thought had received the commiffion exprefsly from her majefty, but by a writing, which he imagined to be figned and approved by the queen. It has been very inconfiderately fuppofed, that the cardinal was too well acquainted with the queen's writing, and particularly her fignature, to be fo grofsly deceived in it. He had never received a letter from her majesty, and could never have feen her writing, or rather, her fignature, but twice or thrice in a hurry, on the registers of baptifm; and does it therefore follow that he could have preferved fo accurate a remembrance of it, as to know it long after, though written in a different manner, or with different pens? It was faid, that at least he knew that the queen's fignature was Marie Antoinette, and not Marie Antoinette de France. It was, doubtless, poffible for him to have obferved this from the registers of baptifm: but it was also poffible for him not to have attended to it, or, if he did, to have imagined that the queen might fign differently in pubiic registers and private deeds. Nay, how could he fufpect it, when he had in his hands a deed that he must as firmly have believed to have been figned by the queen, as if he had feen her write her name to it because a part of the first inftallment, to which the inftrument bound her majefty, was paid on her account into the cardinal's own hands by Madame La Mothe?... blamed the excefs of his credulity: but to judge in what degree he deferved this cenfure, it would have been neceffary to know all the art practifed by Madame La Mothe to make herself mistress of his confi denes, which, unfortunately for him, it was but too easy, both to gain and to keep. Being abfent from the court, and from Paris, a great part of the year, he knew Madame La Mothe only from her genealogy, by the patronage fhe had received from the king and queen, and by the favourable accounts given of her to him by all perfons whofe good offices the had managed to fecure. Finding her fprightly and amiable, the cardinal was naturally led to believe, that the fe qualities, which the name of Valois muft render ftill more interefting in the eyes of the queen, had gained Madame La Mothe her majesty's affection and implicit confidence. Most of those who have caft the greatest blame on the cardinal, would perhaps have fallen as blindly into the fame fault, had the fame fnares been laid for them. The feverity, as unmerited as impolitic, with which this error was punished, would be a ftain upon the memory of Louis XVI. had he not been entirely ignorant of all the facts I am relating: had not the minifter (the baron de Bretuil) who was the informer, or reporter of the information against the cardinal, no doubt more induced by his zeal than by his former enmity to the high almoner, reprefented this affair to their majefties in all the odious lights in which it could be placed and had he not painted it as fo ferious an offence against the honour of the queen, or at least fo calculated to implicate her, that the flighteft indulgence might caft a fufpicion of connivance on her majefty. The king confidered the cardinal, and could do no otherwife, as guilty of high treafon : fora for, according to the laws of France, the crime of which he was accufed came under that defcription: and in being fo pointedly harsh to him, his majety meant to make the moft law ful use of his authority, and at the fame time fuch as the queen's honour imperiously prescribed. This exertion of power was certainly unmerited, and its confequences have fufficiently proved that it was no lefs impolitic. It was humbling unneceffarily a powerful and numerous family, whofe rank, alliances, refpectability, and fervices; deferved confideration; it was i alienating the firft noblemen of the kingdom, and alarming every body; it was, in fhort, preparing and facilitating the revolu tion, by awaking ideas of defpotism which the reign of Louis XVI. had buried in oblivion, and by exciting, a general defire of feeing the royal authority limited. The unfortunate affair of the cardinal de Rohan is not lefs connected with the hiftory of the revolution than with that of the Baftille. CURIOUS EXTRACTS. From Strutt's View of the Dress, The Horned Head-Drefs of the Ladies in the Fifteenth Century. ABOUT this time (fifteenth century) a prepofterous kind of head-drefs made its appearance among the fair fex, diftinguished by the appellation of "the Horned Head-Drefs," which is feverely reprobated by John de Meun, in his poem called the Co. dicil: he speaks to this effect" If I "dare fay it, without making them, (that is the ladies,) angry, I should dispraife their hofing, their vefture, "their girding, their head dreffes, "their hoods thrown back, with their "horns elevated and brought forward, 66 as if it were to wound us. I know not whether they call them gallofes or brackets, that prop up the "hoins, which they think are fo "handsome; but of this I am certain, "that Saint Elizabeth obtained not "paradife by the wearing of fuch 66 trumpery." "He then proceeds to deride the exceffive width of these head-dreffea, and fpeaks of the quantity of fine linen that was used to decorate them, with much difapproba tion. 1 c. of the People of England, Vol. 11. The knight, who has already fur nished us fo largely with felections* calls in, upon this occafion, the authority of an "holy bishop," who, declaiming from the pulpit again't the fashionable foibles of the fair fex, accuses them of being marvellously arrayed in divers quaint manners, and particularly with high horns. The prelate then gravely, with more zeal perchance than learning, attributes. the cause of the deluge to the pride and difguifing of the women, who, he tells us, were thereby led aftray into the paths of vice: but, refuming the former fubject, he com pares the ladies of his day to horned fnails, to harts, and to unicorns; de-, claring that, by fuch unnatural adjuftments, they mocked God; and proceeds to relate a story of a gentle, woman, who came to a feast, having her head fo ftrangely attired with long pins, that her head-dress refembled a gibbet; "and fo," adds he, fhe was fcorned by all the company, "who ridiculed her taste, and said, fhe carried a gallows upon her "head." All the remonftrances from the *From a work in MS. compiled towards the conclufion of the fourteenth century, for the use of three young ladies, daughters of a knight în Normandy ; in the Harleian Library at the British Museum, marked 17614 the pulpit, the admonitions from the At the commencement of the fif teenth century, this fpecies of headdrefs was extended to a prepofterous fize. We learn, that, when Ifabel of Bavaria, the vain and luxurious confort of Charles the Sixth of France, kept her court at Vincennes, it was neceffary to make all the doors in the palace higher and wider, to admit the head-dreffes of the queen and her ladies. Indeed, it is by no means wonderful, that large coiffures fhould have continued long in fashion, efpecially among the women of high rank, when it is confidered, that they admitted of a proporcionable variety of ornaments, and afforded an opportunity for the ladies of difplaying their tafte to greater advantage than a fmaller compafs would admit of. A foreign author* fpeaks of the horned head-dress, as it was worn at Lyons, in the following manner: "It "confitted of a mixture of woollen "cloth and filk, with two horns re fhionable one he thus defcribes: "It Cumberfome and Extravagant Dreffes of the Men, Temp. Hen. IV. Henry the Fourth, foon after his acceffion to the throne, revived the fumptuary ftatutes of Edward the Third; but, if they had then been ftrenuously carried into execution, Thomas Occliff, who wrote in the reign of that monarch, would not have had the occafion of complaint which he exhibits against the extravagance of dress exiftent in his time. This poet, after enumerating many " things requiring amendment, comes to the fubject of apparel: "and this," ley of a calf." But at the time of fays he, "in my thinking, is an evil, his writing, this attire seems to have to fee one walking in gownes of been upon the decline; the more fa-fcarlet twelve yards wide, with 66 66 fembling turrets, and was cut and pinked after the fashion of a Ger"man hood, or crifped like the bel 66 *Paradin, Hift. de Lyons, p. 271. These fashions were in ufe A. D. 1461, fleeves 66 66 his back: "In days of old," fays he, "when men were clad in a more fimple manner, there was abun. "dance of good eating; but now "they clothe themselves in fuch an expenfive manner, that the former hofpitality is banifhed from their "houfes." He then laments, "that "a nobleman cannot adopt a new "guife, or fashion, but that a kuave will follow his example ;" and, fpeaking in commendation of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, he in-, forms us, that "his garments were "not too wide, and yet they became "him wondrously well." "Now, "would to God!" continues he, "this waste of cloth and pride were "exiled from us for ever; for, now. 66 we have little need of brooms in "the land to fweep away the filth "from the street, because the fide"fleeves of pennylefs grooms will "fleeves reaching to the ground, and "lined with fur, worth twenty pounds, 66 or more; at the fame time, if he "had only been mafter of what he paid for, he would not have had enough to have lined a hood.". He then proceeds to condemn the pride of the lower claffes of the people, for imitating the fashions and extravagances of the rich: "and cer"tainly," fays he, "the great lords "are to blame, if I dare fay fo much, "to permit their dependants to imi"tate them in their drefs. In form"er time, perfons of rank were known. "by their apparel; but, at prefent, "it is very difficult to diftinguish the "nobleman from one of low degree." He then confiders the "foule wafte "of cloth" attendant upon these luxurious fashions, and affures us, that no less than a yard of broad cloth was expended for one man's tippet. Returning to his former argument, that noblemen ought not to encourage their fervants in the ufage of fuch extravagant dreffes, he fays, "If the "mafter should ftumble as he walks, "how can his fervant afford him any "affiftance, while both his hands "have full employment in holding up "the long fleeves with which his arms 66 are encumbered*?" He then adds, that the taylors must foon fhape "their garments in the open field, but, on the contrary, a man who, "for want of room to cut them in "by flattery and the meaneft fervi"their own houses; because that man "lity, can procure himself the moft " is beft refpected who bears upon his "fafhionable apparel, he fhall be re« back, at one time, the greateft"ceived with great honour." "quantity of cloth and of fur." gather it up, if it fhould be either "wet or dry." He then addreffes himfelf, by apoftrophe, to his country, and advises a reformation of all these abufes : his fatirical conclufion, however, I hope, is inapplicable to any time but his own. "If," fays he, "a man of abilities, meanly clad, "fhould feek accefs to the prefence "of a nobleman, he would be denied "on the account of his clothing; dingale. From the following obfervation the Trunk Breeches, or Slops-the Varreader may, perchance, fufpect the reformist of loving his belly more than The next remarkable innovation (at * They are thus defcribed by another author: Maxime togatorum cum profundis et latis manicis, vocatis vulgariter pokys, ad modum bagpipe formatis: wearing gowns with deep wide fleeves, commonly called pokys, fhaped like a bagpipe, and worn indifferently both by fervants and mafters. They are alfo rightly denominated devil's receptacles, recertacula dæmoniorum recié dici; for, whatever could be ftolen, was popped into them. Some were fo long and wide that they reached to the feet, others to the knees, and were full of flits. As the fervants were bringing up pottage and fauces, or any other liquors, thofe fleeves would go into them, and have the first taste. And all they could' procure was spent to clothe their uncurable carcafes with thofe pokys or fleeves, while the rest of their habit was fhort. Vita Ric. II. p. 172. |