[298] Mrs. Blomer, then Rebecca Collier the quakeress.
[299] Mrs. Wharton.
CHAPTER XI
THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF THE TRANSLATOR OF ROBINSON CRUSOE, THE CHEVALIER DE THÉMISEUL
If, in December 1715, a Frenchman had been asked what important events had happened in the year, he would certainly have replied the death of Louis the Great and the publication of the Chef d'œuvre d'un inconnu. In a few weeks that amusing lampoon on the scholars and commentators of the time had run through four editions. People who knew whispered the name of the man who sought to hide under the pseudonym of Doctor Matanasius; he was a cavalry officer, of mysterious birth, the Chevalier de Thémiseul. Hitherto the life of the author had been an extraordinary web of adventures diversified by scandals, lettres de cachet, imprisonment and exile. After wandering through Holland, Sweden, and Germany, the young officer had come back, adorned with a halo of bravery, learning, daring speculation, and bitter humour. He flaunted notions that the Regency was about to popularise: deism, the cult of experimental science, contempt of authority, a lack of reverence for the classics. A man of culture, moreover, he knew just enough of Latin and Greek to impose upon an average reader. By an extraordinary stroke of good luck, his success, which was rapid, lasted long enough for Abbé Sabatier de Castres to exclaim fifty years later, under the impression of the witty fireworks of the Chef d'œuvre: "Irony reigns therein from beginning to end; pleasantry is handled with as much spirit as judgment, and produces effects which eloquence aiming straight at the point would have been unable to produce."
To say the truth, we know hardly more about the Chevalier de Thémiseul than the men who lived under Louis xiv. He apparently never contradicted the idle story that gave him Bossuet for father and Mademoiselle de Mauléon for mother. As fond of blague as a Paris gamin, he must have enjoyed the idea of mystifying his friends while throwing dirt on a respected prelate's character. Abbé Sabatier de Castres, wishing to unravel the mystery, went to Orléans, searched the registers of the Parish of Saint-Victor and found therein recorded, on 27th September 1684, the christening of the Chevalier, son to Hyacinthe de Saint-Gelais, master bootmaker, and Anne Mathé, his wife. Others have read the record in a different manner; Cordonnier, they say, is not the father's trade, but his name, the Chevalier is not even entitled to a de, his name is plebeian Hyacinthe Cordonnier; Paul Cordonnier, assert the brothers Haag in their Dictionary, born on 24th September, the son not of a master-bootmaker, but of an officer in the army.
Now this is what one finds to-day in the register, if one takes the trouble to read it:
"To-day, Tuesday, September 26th, 1684, Hyacinthe, born on Sunday last, 24th said month, son of Jean Jacques Cordonnier, lord of Belleair, and demoiselle Anne Mathé, his wife, was christened by me Pierre Fraisy; and had for godfather Anthoine de Rouët, son to the late Antoine de Rouët and demoiselle Anthoinette Cordonnier and for godmother Marie Cordonnier, spinster."