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“Ah,” said Bolingbroke, “her Grace does me too much honour: I must not neglect to acknowledge her courtesy;” and, leaning over the box, Bolingbroke watched his opportunity till the Duchess of Marlborough, who sat opposite to him, and who was talking with great and evidently joyous vivacity to a tall, thin man, beside her, directed her attention, and that of her whole party, in a fixed and concentrated stare, to the imperilled minister. With a dignified smile Lord Bolingbroke then put his hand to his heart, and bowed profoundly; the Duchess looked a little abashed, but returned the courtesy quickly and slightly, and renewed her conversation.
“Faith, my Lord,” cried the young gentleman who had before spoken, “you managed that well! No reproach is like that which we clothe in a smile, and present with a bow.”
“I am happy,” said Lord Bolingbroke, “that my conduct receives the grave support of a son of my political opponent.”
“Grave support, my Lord! you are mistaken: never apply the epithet grave to anything belonging to Philip Wharton. But, in sober earnest, I have sat long enough with you to terrify all my friends, and must now show my worshipful face in another part of the house. Count Devereux, will you come with me to the Duchess’s?”
“What! the Duchess’s immediately after Lord Bolingbroke’s!—the Whig after the Tory: it would be as trying to one’s assurance as a change from the cold bath to the hot to one’s constitution.”
“Well, and what so delightful as a trial in which one triumphs? and a change in which one does not lose even one’s countenance?”
“Take care, my Lord,” said Bolingbroke, laughing; “those are dangerous sentiments for a man like you, to whom the hopes of two great parties are directed, to express so openly, even on a trifle and in a jest.”
“‘Tis for that reason I utter them. I like being the object of hope and fear to men, since my miserable fortune made me marry at fourteen, and cease to be aught but a wedded thing to the women. But sup with me at the Bedford,—you, my Lord, and the Count.”
“And you will ask Walpole, Addison, and Steele,* to join us, eh?” said Bolingbroke. “No, we have other engagements for to-night; but we shall meet again soon.”
* All political opponents of Lord Bolingbroke.
And the eccentric youth nodded his adieu, disappeared, and a minute afterwards was seated by the side of the Duchess of Marlborough.
“There goes a boy,” said Bolingbroke, “who, at the age of fifteen, has in him the power to be the greatest man of his day, and in all probability will only be the most singular. An obstinate man is sure of doing well; a wavering or a whimsical one (which is the same thing) is as uncertain, even in his elevation, as a shuttlecock. But look to the box at the right: do you see the beautiful Lady Mary?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Trefusis, who was with us, “she has only just come to town. ‘Tis said she and Ned Montagu live like doves.”
“How!” said Lord Bolingbroke; “that quick, restless eye seems to have very little of the dove in it.”
“But how beautiful she is!” said Trefusis, admiringly. “What a pity that those exquisite hands should be so dirty! It reminds me” (Trefusis loved a coarse anecdote) “of her answer to old Madame de Noailles, who made exactly the same remark to her. ‘Do you call my hands dirty?’ cried Lady Mary, holding them up with the most innocent naivete. ‘Ah, Madame, si vous pouviez voir mes pieds!’”
“Fi donc,” said I, turning away; “but who is that very small, deformed man behind her,—he with the bright black eye?”
“Know you not?” said Bolingbroke; “tell it not in Gath!—‘tis a rising sun, whom I have already learned to worship,—the young author of the ‘Essay on Criticism,’ and ‘The Rape of the Lock.’ Egad, the little poet seems to eclipse us with the women as much as with the men. Do you mark how eagerly Lady Mary listens to him, even though the tall gentleman in black, who in vain endeavours to win her attentions, is thought the handsomest gallant in London? Ah, Genius is paid by smiles from all females but Fortune; little, methinks, does that young poet, in his first intoxication of flattery and fame, guess what a lot of contest and strife is in store for him. The very breath which a literary man respires is hot with hatred, and the youthful proselyte enters that career which seems to him so glittering, even as Dame Pliant’s brother in the ‘Alchemist’ entered town,—not to be fed with luxury, and diet on pleasure, but ‘to learn to quarrel and live by his wits.’”
The play was now nearly over. With great gravity Lord Bolingbroke summoned one of the principal actors to his box, and bespoke a play for the next week; leaning then on my arm, he left the theatre. We hastened to his home, put on our disguises, and, without any adventure worth recounting, effected our escape and landed safely at Calais.
CHAPTER IV.
PARIS.—A FEMALE POLITICIAN AND AN ECCLESIASTICAL ONE.—SUNDRY OTHER MATTERS.
THE ex-minister was received both at Calais and at Paris with the most gratifying honours: he was then entirely the man to captivate the French. The beauty of his person, the grace of his manner, his consummate taste in all things, the exceeding variety and sparkling vivacity of his conversation, enchanted them. In later life he has grown more reserved and profound, even in habitual intercourse; and attention is now fixed to the solidity of the diamond, as at that time one was too dazzled to think of anything but its brilliancy.
While Bolingbroke was receiving visits of state, I busied myself in inquiring after a certain Madame de Balzac. The reader will remember that the envelope of that letter which Oswald had brought to me at Devereux Court was signed by the letters C. de B. Now, when Oswald disappeared, after that dreadful night to which even now I can scarcely bring myself to allude, these initials occurred to my remembrance, and Oswald having said they belonged to a lady formerly intimate with my father, I inquired of my mother if she could guess to what French lady such initials would apply. She, with an evident pang of jealousy, mentioned a Madame de Balzac; and to this lady I now resolved to address myself, with the faint hope of learning from her some intelligence respecting Oswald. It was not difficult to find out the abode of one who in her day had played no inconsiderable role in that ‘Comedy of Errors,’—the Great World. She was still living at Paris: what Frenchwoman would, if she could help it, live anywhere else? “There are a hundred gates,” said the witty Madame de Choisi to me, “which lead into Paris, but only two roads out of it,—the convent, or (odious word!) the grave.”
I hastened to Madame Balzac’s hotel. I was ushered through three magnificent apartments into
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