THE MARQUIS IN PETTICOATS.
(THE OUTLINE FROM A FRENCH MEMOIR.)
I introduce you at once to the Marquis de la Chetardie—a
diplomatist who figured largely in the gay
age of Louis XV.—and the story is but one of the
illuminated pages of the dark book of diplomacy.
Charles de la Chetardie appeared for the first time
to the eyes of the king at a masquerade ball, given at
Versailles, under the auspices of la belle Pompadour.
He was dressed as a young lady of high rank, making
her début; and, so perfect was his acting, and the deception
altogether, that Louis became enamored
of the disguised marquis, and violently excited the
jealousy of “Madame,” by his amorous attentions.
An eclaircissement, of course, took place, and the result
was a great partiality for the marquis's society,
and his subsequent employment, in and out of petticoats,
in many a scheme of state diplomacy and royal
amusement.
La Chetardie was at this time just eighteen. He
was very slight, and had remarkably small hands and
feet, and the radiant fairness of his skin and the luxuriant
softness of his profuse chestnut curls, might
justly have been the envy of the most delicate woman.
He was, at first, subjected to some ridicule for his
effeminacy, but the merry courtiers were soon made
aware, that, under this velvet fragility lay concealed
the strength and ferocity of the tiger. The grasp of
his small hand was like an iron vice, and his singular
activity, and the cool courage which afterward gave
him a brilliant career on the battle-field, established
him, in a very short time, as the most formidable
swordsman of the court. His ferocity, however, lay
deeply concealed in his character, and, unprovoked,
he was the gayest and most brilliant of merry companions.
This was the age of occult and treacherous diplomacy,
and the court of Russia, where Louis would
fain have exercised an influence (private as well as political
in its results), was guarded by an implacable
Argus, in the person of the prime minister, Bestucheff.
Aided by Sir Hambury Williams, the English ambassador,
one of the craftiest men of that crafty period, he
had succeeded for some years in defeating every attempt
at access to the imperial ear by the secret emissaries
of France. The sudden appearance of La
Chetardie, his cool self-command, and his successful
personation of a female, suggested a new hope to the
king, however; and, called to Versailles by royal mandate,
the young marquis was taken into cabinet confidence,
and a secret mission to St. Petersburgh, in
petticoats, proposed to him and accepted.
With his instructions and secret despatches stitched
into his corsets, and under the ostensible protection of
a scientific man, who was to present him to the tzarine
as a Mademoiselle de Beaumont, desirous of entering
the service of Elizabeth, the marquis reached St. Petersburg
without accident or adventure. The young
lady's guardian requested an audience through Bestucheff,
and having delivered the open letters recommending
her for her accomplishments to the imperial
protection, he begged leave to continue on his scientific
tour to the central regions of Russia.
Congé was immediately granted, and on the disappearance
of the savant, and before the departure of
Bestucheff, the tzarine threw off all ceremony, and
pinching the cheeks and imprinting a kiss on the fore
head of the beautiful stranger, appointed her, by one
of those sudden whims of preference against which
her ministers had so much trouble to guard, lectrice
intime et particulière—in short, confidential personal
attendant. The blushes of the confused marquis, who
was unprepared for so affectionate a reception, served
rather to heighten the disguise, and old Bestucheff
bowed himself out with a compliment to the beauty
of Mademoiselle de Beaumont, veiled in a diplomatic
congratulation to her imperial mistress.
Elizabeth was forty and a little passée, but she still
had pretensions, and was particularly fond of beauty
in her attendants, female as well as male. Her favorite,
of her personal suite, at the time of the arrival of
the marquis, was an exquisite little creature who had
been sent to her, as a compliment to this particular
taste, by the Dutchess of Mecklenberg-Strelitz—a kind
of German “Fenella,” or “Mignon,” by the name of
Nadége Stein. Not much below the middle size,
Nadége was a model of symmetrical proportion, and
of very extraordinary beauty. She had been carefully
educated for her present situation, and was highly
accomplished; a fine reader, and a singularly sweet
musician and dancer. The tzarine's passion for this
lovely attendant was excessive, and the arrival of a new
favorite of the same sex was looked upon with some
pleasure by the eclipsed remainder of the palace
idlers.
Elizabeth summoned Nadége, and committed Mademoiselle
de Beaumont temporarily to her charge;
but the same mysterious magnetism which had reached
the heart of the tzarine, seemed to kindle, quite as
promptly, the affections of her attendant. Nadége
was no sooner alone with her new friend, than she
jumped to her neck, smothered her with kisses, called
her by every endearing epithet, and overwhelmed her
with questions, mingled with the most childlike exclamations
of wonder at her own inexplicable love for
a stranger. In an hour, she had shown to the new
demoiselle all the contents of the little boudoir in which
she lived: talked to her of her loves and hates at the
Russian court: of her home in Mecklenberg, and her
present situation—in short, poured out her heart with
the naif abandon of a child. The young marquis had
never seen so lovely a creature; and, responsibly as he
felt his difficult and delicate situation, he returned the
affection so innocently lavished upon him, and by the
end of this first fatal hour, was irrecoverably in love.
And, gay as his life had been at the French court, it
was the first, and subsequently proved to be the deepest,
passion of his life.
On the tzarine's return to her private apartment, she
summoned her new favorite, and superintended, with
condescending solicitude, the arrangements for her
palace lodging. Nadége inhabited a small tower adjoining
the bedroom of her mistress, and above this
was an unoccupied room, which, at the present suggestion
of the fairy little attendant, was allotted to the
new-comer. The staircase opened by one door into
the private gardens, and by the opposite, into the corridor
leading immediately to the imperial chamber.
The marquis's delicacy would fain have made some
objection to this very intimate location; but he could
hazard nothing against the interests of his sovereign,
and he trusted to a speedy termination of his disguise
with the attainment of his object. Meantime, the
close neighborbood of the fair Nadége was not the
most intolerable of necessities.
The marquis's task was a very difficult one. He
was instructed, before abandoning his disguise and delivering
his secret despatches, to awaken the interest
of the tzarine on the two subjects to which the documents
had reference: viz., a former partiality of her
majesty for Louis, and a formerly discussed project of
seating the Prince de Conti on the throne of Poland.
Bestucheff had so long succeeded in cutting off all
approach of these topics to the ear of the tzarine, that
her majesty had probably forgotten them altogether.
Weeks passed, and the opportunities to broach these
delicate subjects had been inauspiciously rare. Mademoiselle
de Beaumont, it is true, had completely
eclipsed the favorite Nadége; and Elizabeth, in her
hours of relaxation from state affairs, exacted the constant
attendance of the new favorite in her private
apartments. But the almost constant presence of
some other of the maids of honor, opposed continual
obstacles and interruptions, and the tzarine herself
was not always disposed to talk of matters more serious
than the current trifles of the hour. She was
extremely indolent in her personal habits; and often
reclining at length upon cushions on the floor of her
boudoir, she laid her imperial head in the lap of the
embarrassed demoiselle, and was soothed to sleep by
reading and the bathing of her temples. And during
this period, she exacted frequently of the marquis, with
a kind of instinctive mistrust, promises of continuance
for life in her personal service.
But there were sweeter hours for the enamored La
Chetardie than those passed in the presence of his
partial and imperial mistress. Encircled by sentinels,
and guarded from all intrusion of other eyes, in the
inviolable sanctuary of royalty, the beautiful Nadége,
impassioned she knew not why, in her love for her
new companion, was ever within call, and happy in
devoting to him all her faculties of caressing endearment.
He had not yet dared to risk the interests of
his sovereign by a disclosure of his sex, even in the
confidence of love. He could not trust Nadége to
play so difficult a part as that of possessor of so embarrassing
a secret in the presence of the shrewd and
observing tzarine. A betrayal, too, would at once put
an end to his happiness. With the slight arm of the
fair and relying creature about his waist, and her head
pressed close against his breast, they passed the balmy
nights of the Russian summer in pacing the flowery
alleys of the imperial garden, discoursing, with but
one reserve, on every subject that floated to their lips.
It required, however, all the self-control of La Chetardie,
and all the favoring darkness of the night, to conceal
his smiles at the naive confessions of the unconscious
girl, and her wonderings at the peculiarity of her
feelings. She had thought, hitherto, that there were
affections in her nature which could only be called forth
by a lover. Yet now, the thought of caressing another
than her friend—of repeating to any human ear, least
of all to a man, those new-born vows of love—filled
her with alarm and horror. She felt that she had
given her heart irrevocably away—and to a woman!
Ah, with what delirious, though silent passion, La
Chetardie drew her to his bosom, and, with the pressure
of his lips upon hers, interrupted those sweet
confessions!
Yet the time at last drew near for the waking from
this celestial dream. The disguised diplomatist had
found his opportunity, and had successfully awakened
in Elizabeth's mind both curiosity and interest as to
the subjects of the despatches still sewed safely in his
corsets. There remained nothing for him now but to
seize a favorable opportunity, and, with the delivery
of his missives, to declare his sex to the tzarine. There
was risk to life and liberty in this, but the marquis
knew not fear, and he thought but of its consequences
to his love.
In La Chetardie's last interview with the savant who
conducted him to Russia, his male attire had been
successfully transferred from one portmanteau to the
other, and it was now in his possession, ready for the
moment of need. With his plans brought to within a
single night of the dénouement, he parted from the
tzarine, having asked the imperial permission for an
hour's private interview on the morrow, and, with gentle
force excluding Nadége from his apartment, he
dressed himself in his proper costume, and cut open
the warm envelope of his despatches. This done, he
threw his cloak over him, and, with a dark lantern in
his hand, sought Nadége in the garden. He had determined
to disclose himself to her, renew his vows of
love in his proper guise, and arrange, while he had
access and opportunity, some means for uniting their
destinies hereafter.
As he opened the door of the turret, Nadége flew
up the stair to meet him, and observing the cloak in
the faint glimmer of the stars, she playfully endeavored
to envelope herself in it. But, seizing her hands,
La Chetardie turned and glided backward, drawing
her after him toward a small pavilion in the remoter
part of the garden. Here they had never been interrupted,
the empress alone having the power to intrude
upon them, and La Chetardie felt safe in devoting this
place and time to the double disclosure of his secret
and his suppressed passion.
Persuading her with difficulty to desist from putting
her arms about him and sit down without a caress, he
retreated a few steps, and in the darkness of the pavilion,
shook down his imprisoned locks to their masculine
abandon, threw off his cloak, and drew up the
blind of his lantern. The scream of surprise, which
instantly parted from the lips of Nadége, made him
regret his imprudence in not having prepared her for
the transformation, but her second thought was mirth,
for she could believe it of course to be nothing but a
playful masquerade; and with delighted laughter she
sprang to his neck, and overwhelmed him with her
kisses—another voice, however, joining very unexpectedly
in the laughter!
The empress stood before them!
For an instant, with all his self-possession, La Chetardie
was confounded and dismayed. Siberia, the
knout, the scaffold, flitted before his eyes, and Nadége
was the sufferer! But a glance at the face of the
tzarine reassured him. She, too, took it for a girlish
masquerade!
But the empress, unfortunately, was not disposed to
have a partner in her enjoyment of the society of this
new apparition of “hose and doublet.” She ordered
Nadége to her turret, with one of those petulant commands
which her attendants understood to admit of no
delay, and while the eclipsed favorite disappeared with
the tears of unwilling submission in her soft eyes, La
Chetardie looked after her with the anguish of eternal
separation at his heart, for a presentiment crowded
irresistibly upon him that he should never see her
more!
The empress was in slippers and robe de nuit, and,
as if fate had determined that this well-kept secret
should not survive the hour, her majesty laid her arm
within that of her supposed masquerader, and led the
way to the palace. She was wakeful, and wished to
be read to sleep. And, with many a compliment to
the beauty of her favorite in male attire, and many a
playful caress, she arrived at the door of her chamber.
But the marquis could go no farther. He had hitherto
been spared the embarrassment of passing this
sacred threshold, for the passée empress had secrets
of toilet for the embellishment of her person, which
she trusted only to the eyes of an antiquated attendant.
La Chetardie had never passed beyond the boudoir
which was between the antechamber and the bed-room,
and the time had come for the disclosure of his
secret. He fell on his knees and announced himself
a man!
Fortunately they were alone. Incredulous at first,
the empress listened to his asseverations, however,
with more amusement than displeasure, and the immediate
delivery of the despatches, with the commendations
of the disguised ambassador by his royal master
to the forgiveness and kindness of the empress,
amply secured his pardon. But it was on condition
that he should resume his disguise and remain in her
service.
Alone in his tower (for Nadége had disappeared, and
he knew enough of the cruelty of Elizabeth to dread
the consequences to the poor girl of venturing on direct
inquiries as to her fate), La Chetardie after a few
weeks fell ill; and fortunate, even at this price, to
escape from the silken fetters of the enamored tzarine,
he departed under the care of the imperial physician,
for the more genial climate of France—not without
reiterated promises of return, however, and offers, in
that event, of unlimited wealth and advancement.
But, as the marquis made his way slowly toward
Vienna, a gleam of light dawned on his sadness.
The Princess Sophia Charlotte was newly affianced to
George the Third of England, and this daughter of
the house of Mecklenberg had been the playmate of
Nadége Stein, from infancy till the time when Nadége
was sent to the tzarine by the Dutchess of Mecklenberg.
Making a confidant of the kind physician who
accompanied him, La Chetardie was confirmed, by the
good man's better experience and knowledge, in the
belief that Nadége had shared the same fate of every
female of the court who had ever awakened the jealousy
of the empress. She was doubtless exiled to
Siberia; but, as she had committed no voluntary fault,
it was probably without other punishment; and, with
a playmate on the throne of England, she might be
demanded and recovered ere long, in all her freshness
and beauty. Yet the recent fate of the fair Eudoxie
Lapoukin, who, for an offence but little more distasteful
to the tzarine, had been pierced through the tongue
with hot iron, whipped with the knout, and exiled for
life to Siberia, hung like a cloud of evil augury over
his mind.
The marquis suddenly determined that he would see
the affianced princess, and plead with her for her friend,
before the splendors of a throne should make her inaccessible.
The excitement of this hope had given
him new life, and he easily persuaded his attendant, as
they entered the gates of Vienna, that he required his
attendance no farther. Alone with his own servants,
he resumed his female attire, and directed his course
to Mecklenberg-Strelitz.
The princess had maintained an intimate correspondence
with her playmate up to the time of her
betrothal, and the name of Mademoiselle de Beaumont
was passport enough. La Chetardie had sent
forward his servant, on arriving at the town, in the
neighborhood of the ducal residence, and the reply
to his missive was brought back by one of the officers
in attendance, with orders to conduct the demoiselle
to apartments in the castle. He was received with all
honor at the palace-gate by a chamberlain in waiting,
who led the way to a suite of rooms adjoining those
of the princess, where, after being left alone for a few
minutes, he was familiarly visited by the betrothed
girl, and overwhelmed, as formerly by her friend, with
most embarrassing caresses. In the next moment,
however, the door was hastily flung open, and Nadége,
like a stream of light, fled through the room, hung
upon the neck of the speechless and overjoyed marquis,
and ended with convulsions of mingled tears and
laughter. The moment that he could disengage himself
from her arms, La Chetardie requested to be left
for a moment alone. He felt the danger and impropriety
of longer maintaining his disguise. He closed
his door on the unwilling demoiselles, hastily changed
his dress, and, with his sword at his side, entered the
adjoining reception-room of the princess, where Mademoiselle
de Beaumont was impatiently awaited.
The scene which followed, the mingled confusion
and joy of Nadége, the subsequent hilarity and masquerading
at the castle, and the particulars of the
marriage of the Marquis de la Chetardie to his fair
fellow maid-of-honor, must be left to the reader's imagination.
We have room only to explain the reappearance
of Nadége at Mecklenberg.
Nadége retired to her turret at the imperative command
of the empress, sad and troubled; but waited
wakefully and anxiously for the re-entrance of her disguised
companion. In the course of an hour, however,
the sound of a sentinel's musket, set down at her
door, informed her that she was a prisoner. She knew
Elizabeth, and the Dutchess of Mecklenberg, with an
equal knowledge of the tzarine's character, had provided
her with a resource against the imperial cruelty,
should she have occasion to use it. She crept to the
battlements of the tower, and fastened a handkerchief
to the side looking over the public square.
The following morning, at daylight, Nadége was
summoned to prepare for a journey, and, in an hour,
she was led between soldiers to a carriage at the palace-gate,
and departed by the northern egress of the
city, with a guard of three mounted cossacks. In two
hours from that time, the carriage was overtaken, the
guard overpowered, and the horses' heads turned in
the direction of Moscow. After many difficulties and
dangers, during which she found herself under the
charge of a Mecklenbergian officer in the service of
the tzarine, she reached Vienna in safety, and was immediately
concealed by her friends in the neighborhood
of the palace at Mecklenberg, to remain hidden
till inquiry should be over. The arrival of Mademoiselle
de Beaumont, for the loss of whose life or liberty
she had incessantly wept with dread and apprehension,
was joyfully communicated to her by her friends; and
so the reader knows some of the passages in the early
life of the far-famed beauty in the French court in
the time of Louis XV.—the Marchioness de la Chetardie.
