When the excommunicated German emperor Henry IV. had been humbled by three days of penance, barefoot and fasting, in the month of January, before the palace of Pope Gregory VII., he was admitted to “the superlative honor” of kissing the pontiff’s toe. This, perhaps, was no greater humiliation than that of the haughty Doge, who, after seeing Genoa bombarded by the fleet of Louis XIV. on account of the assistance he had given to the Algerines, was reduced to the indignity of going to Versailles to kiss the hand which had given his city to the flames.
Marie Antoinette frequently shocked the etiquette of her day at the French court. Once, upon receiving the Austrian ambassador, Count von Mercy, she advanced to meet him, and reached her hand to him, allowing him to press it to his lips. Of course Madame de Noailles was horror-stricken. The kissing of the queen’s hand was a state ceremonial, and inadmissible at a private interview.
A pleasanter incident at the court of this queen is thus related by Madame Campan:
“Franklin appeared at court in the costume of an American husbandman: his hair straight and without powder, his round hat, and coat of brown cloth, formed a strong contrast with the spangled and embroidered coats, the powdered and pomatumed head-dresses, of the courtiers of Versailles. This novelty charmed all the lively imaginations of the French ladies. They gave elegant fêtes to Doctor Franklin, who united the fame of one of the most skilful physicians [Madame Campan was led into this mistake by Franklin’s title of doctor] to the patriotic virtues which induced him to take the noble rôle of apostle of liberty. I was present at one of these fêtes, where the most beautiful (the Comtesse de Polignac) among three hundred ladies was chosen to go and place a crown of laurel on the white hair of the American philosopher, and kiss both cheeks of the old man.”
Tom Hood once asked whether Hannah More had ever been kissed,—that is to say, by a man. It is almost impossible to conceive of such a thing; and yet it has been asserted by one of the authors of the “Rejected Addresses.” But to think of her having been kissed “on the sly,” and in church-time! Horace Smith distinctly affirms that, on a certain occasion,
“Sidney Morgan was playing the organ,
While behind the vestry door,