Here I will close the record of French plaisants. The “plaisantes” of Louis XV. have no claim to admission upon my list; and at the court of his successors, the time had come when princes had begun to be their own fools. The Republic lowered “Liberty” to the level of fool, and the people paid dearly for their marotte. With the Empire, the nation had again its fool, under the name of “Glory;” a costly toy which brought a splendid misery. How Louis Philippe could be his own jester, I shall have to show in a subsequent page. At the present Imperial Court, there is no official fool; but some persons may perhaps discover the Emperor’s “joculator” in that wonderful man, the Count de Morny, whose last joke consisted in his telling the Imperial Legislature that the utmost purity of election had brought them there, and that the utmost freedom of speech was their undoubted privilege. That the Count could say as much to the Members without, as the French say, “laughing at their noses,” demonstrates how admirably he is qualified to be “joculator” to the Empire at large.
The Count’s name, too, is so associated with that of Russia, that, apropos to court fools, I will now ask my readers to turn with me towards Muscovy, and see how fools have flourished at the court of the Czars, and, indeed, in the Northern courts of Europe generally.
JESTERS IN THE NORTHERN COURTS OF EUROPE.
Of all the courts, civilized or uncivilized, at which fools have been numbered on the household, the jester was never in so uncomfortable a purgatory as in the household of the Czars. The most savage, the most able, but it would be hard to say the most mendacious, of these potentates, was Ivan Vasilievitch IV., who reigned from 1533 to 1581. He might, for various reasons, be reckoned amongst the princes who were their own fools,—for some of his acts savoured greatly of the profession; at least, there was more folly than wit in some of this gloomy monster’s merry conceits; as, for instance, when he invited a number of guests to dinner, and set before them a repast of dog, cat, and even human flesh. His fools must have had a terrible time of it; and how they could ever be gamesome in presence of such a capricious savage is inconceivable. Occasionally, the unclean Czar was minded to be delicate, and then he would take offence at what he generally seemed most to delight in. Once, his favourite fool, not knowing the bent of his master’s humour, was indulging at table in very unsavory jests; and the gentle Ivan ordered him to leave the room. A few minutes later, the Czar commanded him to return, and to kneel before him. The jester obeyed, and his gracious master, taking up a kettle of scalding hot broth, poured the whole down the back of the fool, between his clothes and his skin. The wretched victim screamed in his agony, and writhed under the torture. Ivan had the grace to bid his doctor look to him, but Esculapius himself could not have saved him. The fool died; and all the requiem chanted over him by his imperious master was,—“Since the fool did not choose to live; why, let him be buried.”
For many a long year, the Russian joculators that were the most highly prized were hideous, overfed, sleepy idiots, with nothing remarkable about them but their want of wit. Beyond the record of this fact, there is little worth noticing till we arrive at the reign of Peter the Great, who, according to Weber, quoted by Flögel, maintained about him not less than a hundred persons who might be classed under the head of court fools. They were of various qualities; some had been born imbecile, and these he entirely supported, making use of them occasionally as examples to his courtiers, comparing the natural condition of each, and drawing therefrom a moral teaching content. Others of the class were officials who, having committed some gross act of folly, he punished by compelling them to wear the dress of a fool, to take the name, and fulfil to the best of their small wit, the business of such profession. A third class, if two or three individuals may be so called, comprised persons who, having been guilty of some serious offence, thought to avoid the penalty by feigning madness, and were consequently seriously treated as such.
Among the second class noticed above, was a Captain Uschakow, who was promoted or degraded to the rank of court fool for the following exhibition of his quality. The Captain had been despatched by the commandant of Smolensko with an important letter addressed to the governor of Kiov, and requiring an immediate reply. He was ordered to traverse the sixty leagues which lie between those cities, as fast as his horse could carry him; and he obeyed the order faithfully, arriving at the gates of Kiov before break of day. On application for admission, some delay ensued, the officer on duty informing him that he must wait till the keys could be procured from the commandant, who was then asleep. Uschakow, in great rage, said his letter was of the utmost importance, and that if he were not immediately admitted, he would gallop back to Smolensko and lay a complaint before the commandant who had sent him. The officer thought he was joking; but his surprise was great to see the impatient captain turn his horse’s head and disappear, at full speed, through the morning mist. When Uschakow came in presence of his superior officer at Smolensko, carrying the letter instead of the expected reply, and stated what had occurred, the commandant, after showering upon him every invective he could think of, sent him to the Czar, with orders to tell his own story. Peter no sooner heard it, than he immediately ordered Uschakow to be cashiered, and enrolled among the court fools. So far from this being a punishment, it was the luckiest thing that could happen to a man of the mental calibre of the captain. He took to his new office with hearty good will; by his frolicsome humour he was welcomed to several European courts; and he very speedily saved not less than 20,000 thalers out of the presents made to him. He accompanied Peter in most of his visits to brother potentates; and on one of these occasions he was present, with the Czar and the King of Poland, at the theatre at Dresden. Some interruption occurred on the stage, previous to the appearance of a Scaramouch, who was announced to dance a buffoon pas seul, called “Les Follies d’Espagne.” Impatient at the delay, Uschakow jumped lightly from the royal box on to the stage, and to the astonishment and delight of the entire house, went through the whole dance himself, with additional quips, and cranks, and absurd follies, which kept the illustrious spectators in a roar of laughter.
There were two brothers of a princely family who did not enjoy the promotion to the rank of Witless so unreservedly as Uschakow had done. Flögel does not give their names, nor state whence he derives the story, which is to this effect. The brothers had joined a conspiracy, the object of which was to slay the Czar; but which, being discovered, and the principal plotters summarily hanged, the brothers found that their turn for responsibility had arrived. This they endeavoured to avoid by feigning a comic sort of madness; and when this was reported to Peter, he granted them their lives, but decreed that in every subsequent act of theirs they should be held to be as mad as they had pretended to be, and treated accordingly. This novel species of torture does not seem very intolerable, but as they were retained at court, the brothers found it past endurance. One of them sank into a deep melancholy, and the other drank himself into raging madness, in order to forget that men accounted him mad.
Peter, who judged so terribly of others, once submitted to judgment himself. In a fit of frolicsome humour, he one evening placed one of his jolly companions on the throne, before which the Czar stood to give an account of his actions. At the side of the throne stood Peter’s favourite fool, who made running comments on every phrase uttered by the real or the pseudo-Czar, in the style of the ancient Chorus, or rather in the merry fashion of Mr. Charles Mathews when representing the ancient Chorus in a burlesque at the Haymarket. Peter came indifferently off in presence of a judge and fool both of whom, having full license of speech, used their liberty to the utmost, amid the risibility of an ecstatic audience.
It is well known how Peter loved to play other parts besides that of Czar. When, in London, he went to a masked ball at the Temple, he appeared in the costume of a butcher. So he is described in Luttrell’s Diary. We find a trait still more illustrative of his character, in connection with a Christmas incident in his own country. Formerly, we are told, there was a ceremony in Russia called “Slaevens.” It consisted of a sledge procession which took place between Christmas and the New Year, in which the clergy, splendidly attended, stopped at certain houses, sang a Te Deum laudamus or an occasional carol, and received in return rich donations from those who wished to be considered peculiarly orthodox Christians. Peter the Great once witnessed this procession, and was so edified by the amount of the contributions, that he relieved the clergy of all further trouble, by a simple process. He placed himself, suitably attired, at the head of the sledges and the Church, sang his own carols, and pocketed the contributions of the loyal and the faithful, with the ecstasy of a man who has discovered a new sensation combining profit with pleasure.