The Queen Catherine (de Medicis) was a very wicked woman. Her uncle, the Pope, had good reason for saying that he had made a bad present to France. It is said that she poisoned her youngest son because he had discovered her in a common brothel whither she had gone privately. Who can wonder that such a woman should drink out of a cup covered with designs from Aretino. The Pope had an object in sending her to France. Her son was the Duc d'Alencon; and as they both remained incog. the world did not know that they were mother and son, which occasioned frequent mistakes.
The young Count Horn, who has just been executed here (1720), was descended from a well-known Flemish family; he was distinguished at first for the amiable qualities of his head and for his wit. At college he was a model for good conduct, application, and purity of morals; but the intimacy which he formed with some libertine young men during his stay at the Academy of Paris entirely changed him. He contracted an insatiable desire for play, and even his own father said to him, "You will die by the hands of the executioner." Being destitute of money, the young Count took up the trade of a pickpocket, which he carried on in the pit of the theatres, and by which he made considerable gains in silver-hilted swords and watches. At length, having lost a sum of five-and-twenty thousand crowns at the fair of Saint-Germain, he was led to commit that crime which he has just expiated on the scaffold. For the purpose of discharging the debt he had contracted, he sent for a banker's clerk to bring him certain bank bills, which he proposed to purchase. Having connected himself with two other villains, he attacked the clerk as soon as he arrived, and stabbed him with poniards which he had bought three days before on the Pont Neuf. Hoping to conceal the share which he had taken in this crime, he went immediately after its perpetration to the Commissaire du Quartier, and told him, with a cool and determined air, that he had been obliged, in his own defence, to kill the clerk, who had attacked him and put him in danger of his life. The Commissaire looking at him steadfastly, said, "You are covered with blood, but you are not even wounded; I must retain you in custody until I can examine this affair more minutely." At this moment the accomplice entered the room. "Here, sir," said the Count to the Commissaire, "is one who can bear testimony that the account I have given you of this business is perfectly true." The accomplice was quite terrified at hearing this; he thought that Count Horn had confessed his crime, and that there could be no advantage in continuing to deny it; he therefore confessed all that had taken place, and thus the murder was revealed. The Count was not more than two-and-twenty years of age, and one of the handsomest men in Paris. Some of the first persons in France solicited in his favour, but the Duke Regent thought it necessary to make an example of him on account of the prevalent excess of crime. Horn was publicly broken on the wheel with his second accomplice; the other died just before: they were both gentlemen and of noble families. When they arrived at the place of punishment, they begged the people to implore the pardon of Heaven upon their sins. The spectators were affected to tears, but they nevertheless agreed in the just severity of their punishment. The people said aloud after the execution, "Our Regent has done justice."
One lady was blaming another, her intimate friend, for loving a very ugly man. The latter said, "Did he ever speak to you tenderly or passionately?"—"No," replied the former. "Then you cannot judge," said her friend, "whether I ought to love him or not."
Madame de Nemours used to say, "I have observed one thing in this country, 'Honour grows again as well as hair.'"
An officer, a gentleman of talent, whose name was Hautmont, wrote the following verses upon Cardinal Mazarin, for which he was locked up in the Bastille for eighteen months:
Creusons tous le tombeau
A qui nous persecute;
A ce Jules nouveauu
Cherchons un nouveau Brute.
Que le jour serait beau,
Si nous voyions sa chute!
The Queen-mother could not endure Boisrobert on account of his impiety; she did not like him to visit her sons, the King and Monsieur, in their youth, but they were very fond of him because he used to amuse them. When he was at the point of death, the Queen-mother sent some priests to convert him and to prepare him for confession. Boisrobert appeared inclined to confess. "Yes, mon Dieu," said he, devoutly joining his hands, "I sincerely implore Thy pardon, and confess that I am a great sinner, but thou knowest that the Abbe de Villargeau is a much greater sinner than I am."
Cardinal Mazarin sent him once to compliment the English Ambassador on his arrival. When he reached the hotel, an Englishman said to him, "Milord, il est pret; my ladi, il n'est pas pret, friselire ses chevaux, prendre patience." The late King used to relate stories of this same Boisrobert in a very whimsical manner.
The life which folks lead at Paris becomes daily more scandalous; I really tremble for the city every time it thunders. Three ladies of quality have just committed a monstrous imprudence. They have been running after the Turkish Ambassador; they made his son drunk and kept him with them three days; if they go on in this way even the Capuchins will not be safe from them. The Turks must needs have a very becoming notion of the conduct of ladies of quality in a Christian country. The young Turk is said to have told Madame de Polignac, who was one of the three ladies, "Madame, your reputation has reached Constantinople, and I see that report has only done you justice." The Ambassador, it is said, is very much enraged with his son, and has enjoined him to keep his adventure profoundly a secret, because he would risk the top of his head on his return to Constantinople if it were known that he had associated with Christian women. It is to be feared that the young man will get safely out of France. Madame de Polignac has fleeced all the young men of quality here. I do not know how her relations and those of her husband choose to suffer her to lead so libertine a life. But all shame is extinct in France, and everything is turned topsy-turvy.
It is very unfortunate that noblemen like the Elector-Palatine John William should suffer themselves to be governed by the priesthood; nothing but evil can result from it. He would do much better if he would follow the advice of able statesmen, and throw his priest into the Necker. I would advise him to do so, and I think I should advise him well.