The Memoirs of Count Grammont — Complete. Count Anthony Hamilton
of the house of Bourdeille, which had the honour to produce Brautome and Montresor. The combination of indolence and talent, of wit and simplicity, of bluntness and irony, with which he is represented, may have been derived from tradition, but could only have been united into the inimitable whole by the pen of Hamilton. Several of his bons-mots have been preserved; but the spirit evaporates in translation. “Where could I get this nose,” said Madame D’Albret, observing a slight tendency to a flush in that feature. “At the side board, Madame,” answered Matta. When the same lady, in despair at her brother’s death, refused all nourishment, Matta administered this blunt consolation: “If you are resolved, madame, never again to swallow food, you do well; but if ever you mean to eat upon any future occasion, believe me, you may as well begin just now.” Madame Caylus, in her Souvenirs, commemorates the simple and natural humour of Matta as rendering him the most delightful society in the world. Mademoiselle, in her Memoirs, alludes to his pleasantry in conversation, and turn for deep gaming. When the Memoirs of Grammont were subjected to the examination of Fontenelle, then censor of the Parisian press, he refused to license them, or account of the scandalous conduct imputed to Grammont in this party at quinze. The count no sooner heard of this than he hastened to Fontenelle, and having joked him for being more tender of his reputation than he was himself, the license was instantly issued. The censor might have retorted upon Grammont the answer which the count made to a widow who received coldly his compliments of condolence on her husband’s death: “Nay, madame, if that is the way you take it, I care as little about it as you do.” He died in 1674. “Matta est mort sans confession,” says Madame Maintenon, in a letter to her brother. Tome I., p. 67.]
He was agreeable in his person, but still more by the natural turn of his wit; he was plain and simple in his manners, but endued with a quick discernment and refined delicacy, and full of candour and integrity in all his actions. The Chevalier Grammont was not long in discovering his amiable qualities; an acquaintance was soon formed, and was succeeded by the strictest intimacy.
Matta insisted that the Chevalier should take up his quarters with him; to which he only consented on condition of equally contributing to the expense. As they were both liberal and magnificent, at their common cost they gave the best designed and most luxurious entertainments that had ever yet been seen. Play was wonderfully productive at first, and the Chevalier restored by a hundred different ways that which he obtained only by one. The generals, being entertained by turns, admired their magnificence, and were dissatisfied with their own officers for not keeping such good tables and attendance. The Chevalier had the talent of setting off the most indifferent things to advantage; and his wit was so generally acknowledged, that it was a kind of disgrace not to submit to his taste. To him Matta resigned the care of furnishing the table and doing its honours; and, charmed with the general applause, persuaded himself that nothing could be more honourable than their way of living, and nothing more easy than to continue it; but he soon perceived that the greatest prosperity is not the most lasting. Good living, bad economy, dishonest servants, and ill-luck, all uniting together to disconcert their housekeeping, their table was going to be gradually laid aside, when the Chevalier’s genius, fertile in resources, undertook to support his former credit by the following expedient.
They had never yet conferred about the state of their finances, although the steward had acquainted each, separately, that he must either receive money to continue the expenses, or give in his accounts. One day, when the Chevalier came home sooner than usual, he found Matta fast asleep in an easy chair, and, being unwilling to disturb his rest, he began musing on his project. Matta awoke without his perceiving it; and having, for a short time, observed the deep contemplation he seemed involved in, and the profound silence between two persons who had never held their tongues for a moment when together before, he broke it by a sudden fit of laughter, which increased in proportion as the other stared at him. “A merry way of waking, and ludicrous enough,” said the Chevalier; “what is the matter, and whom do you laugh at!” “Faith, Chevalier,” said Matta, “I am laughing at a dream I had just now, which is so natural and diverting, that I must make you laugh at it also. I was dreaming that we had dismissed our maitre-d’hotel, our cook, and our confectioner, having resolved, for the remainder of the campaign, to live upon others as others have lived upon us: this was my dream. Now tell me, Chevalier, on what were you musing?” “Poor fellow!” said the Chevalier, shrugging up his shoulders, “you are knocked down at once, and thrown into the utmost consternation and despair at some silly stories which the maitre-d’hotel has been telling you as well as me. What! after the figure we have made in the face of the nobility and foreigners in the army, shall we give it up, and like fools and beggars sneak off, upon the first failure of our money! Have you no sentiments of honour? Where is the dignity of France?” “And where is the money?” said Matta; “for my men say, the devil may take them, if there be ten crowns in the house, and I believe you have not much more, for it is above a week since I have seen you pull out your purse, or count your money, an amusement you were very fond of in prosperity.” “I own all this,” said the Chevalier, “but yet I will force you to confess, that you are but a mean-spirited fellow upon this occasion. What would have become of you if you had been reduced to the situation I was in at Lyons, four days before I arrived here? I will tell you the story.”
CHAPTER THIRD. EDUCATION AND ADVENTURES OF THE CHEVALIER GRAMMONT BEFORE HIS COMING TO THE SIEGE OF TRINO
“This,” said Matta, “smells strongly of romance, except that it should have been your squire’s part to tell your adventures.”
“True,” said the Chevalier; “however, I may acquaint you with my first exploits without offending my modesty; besides, my squire’s style borders too much upon the burlesque for an heroic narrative.
“You must know, then, that upon my arrival at Lyons—”
“Is it thus you begin?” said Matta. “Pray give us your history a little further back. The most minute particulars of a life like yours are worthy of relation; but above all, the manner in which you first paid your respects to Cardinal Richelieu: I have often laughed at it. However, you may pass over the unlucky pranks of your infancy, your genealogy, name and quality of your ancestors, for that is a subject with which you must be utterly unacquainted.”
“Pooh!” said the Chevalier; “you think that all the world is as ignorant as yourself; you think that I am a stranger to the Mendores and the Corisandes. So, perhaps I don’t know that it was my father’s own fault that he was not the son of Henry IV. The king would by all means have acknowledged him for his son, but the traitor would never consent to it. See what the Grammonts would have been now, but for this cross-grained fellow! They would have had precedence of the Caesars de Vendome. You may laugh if you like, yet it is as true as the gospel: but let us come to the point.
“I was sent to the college of Pau, with the intention of being brought up to the church; but as I had quite different views, I made no manner of improvement: gaming was so much in my head, that both my tutor and the master lost their labour in endeavouring to teach me Latin. Old Brinon, who served me both as valet-de-chambre and governor, in vain threatened to acquaint my mother. I only studied when I pleased, that is to say, seldom or never: however, they treated me as is customary with scholars of my quality; I was raised to all the dignities of the forms, without having merited them, and left college nearly in the same state in which I entered it; nevertheless, I was thought to have more knowledge than was requisite for the abbacy which my brother had solicited for me. He had just married the niece of a minister, to whom every one cringed: he was desirous to present me to him. I felt but little regret to quit the country, and great impatience to see Paris. My brother having kept me some time with him, in order to polish me, let me loose upon the town to shake off my rustic air, and learn the manners of the world. I so thoroughly gained them, that I could not be persuaded to lay them aside when I was introduced at court in the character of an Abby. You know what kind of dress was then the fashion. All that they could obtain of me was to put a cassock over my other clothes, and my brother, ready to die with laughing at my ecclesiastical habit, made others laugh too. I had