CHAPTER III
ROYAL REVELRY
Perhaps no chapter in the social history of royalty has given us a more vivid insight into the merry doings of the sovereigns of the past, in our own and other countries, than that which deals with their drinking and revelry. Indeed, moralists, at one time or another, have been more or less severe in their strictures on what they regarded as the undue freedom displayed at Court festivities, when not infrequently king as well as courtiers were in a state of deplorable incapacity.
The orgies, for instance, in which Peter the Great revelled were, it is said, as reckless and abandoned as those of his contemporary the Regent d’Orleans; but probably no one save Peter would have employed them to ascertain the hidden thoughts of his courtiers. According to De Villebois,[11] he was in the habit of inviting men whom he secretly disliked, in order that he might carefully note down the words which escaped them when drunk, and sometimes even for the purpose of getting rid of them by inducing them to drink themselves to death. The immediate cause of his own death was the aggravation of a loathsome disease, under which he had long been labouring, by a debauch at one of his conclaves—those travesties of the election of a Pope which, “amidst the most outrageous drunkenness and the grossest buffoonery, he held yearly, partly in order to keep up the contempt of his subjects for the Latin Church, and partly also to ridicule the office of Patriarch, which he had abolished.”[12] And, similarly, Frederick William I. of Prussia, who himself was a hard drinker, loved to make his guests drunk; his daughter even states that he did so to her bridegroom, the hereditary Prince of Bayreuth, on his wedding-day. Carlyle has fully described the royal tap-rooms which were established in Berlin, at Potsdam, and during summer at Wusterhausen, as a source of recreation at the Court of Frederick William I. That at Berlin, furnished in the Dutch fashion, has been kept unaltered, with the large silver beer can from which the malt liquor was drawn by means of a tap into the jugs and tankards. The visitor is shown, too, the strangers’ book, in which the autographs of Frederick the Great and the Czar Peter are preserved.
But perhaps one of the most drunken and dissolute monarchs that ever disgraced a throne was one of Peter’s predecessors, Ivan IV., of whom it has been said that he was “ever exemplarily devout when he was most stupidly drunk.” His habitual intemperance, however, made him cruel, prompting him to commit all kinds of diabolical crimes—his indulgence in strong drink eventually rendering him hopelessly insane; for what other excuse could be made for his conduct as exemplified in his smiting his own son dead by blows from an iron bar in a fit of fury.
The merits of French wines were long ago appreciated by royalty, and in early times our own wine trade with France was very considerable when English kings were proprietors of the French wine districts. But it would seem that even royalty has cracked legions of bottles in discussing the divers deserts of Burgundy and champagne, although it is said imperial authority is in favour of the latter. When the Emperor Wenceslaus visited France in the fourteenth century to negotiate with Charles VI., it was impossible ever to get him sober to a conference. “It was no matter,” he said; “they might decide as they liked, and he would drink as he liked, and then both parties would be on an equality.”
In the midst of the distress with which France was harassed in the reign of Charles VII., and while the English were in possession of Paris, his Majesty amused himself with balls, entertainments, and revelry. The brave La Hire, coming to the King one day for the purpose of discussing with him some important business, found him actively occupied in arranging one of his pleasure parties, who asked what he thought of his preparations. “I think, sire,” he said, “that it is impossible for any one to lose his kingdom more pleasantly than your Majesty.”
And another French king who brought into more or less contempt the throne was Francis I., by giving himself up to his pleasures. It is said that he framed a Court of which licentiousness was the custom, and from which justice, temperance, and every Christian as well as chivalric virtue was banished.[13]
The King of Hungary was in the habit of sending yearly to the abdicated Polish king, Stanislaus Leczinski, at Nancy, a little cask of imperial Tokay, which was received at the gates of his palace under an escort of grenadiers. But, as it has been observed, “Little casks will soon run dry if the spigot be often turned,” and when the Tokay was out, Stanislaus would sigh for more. He was not able to purchase it, for the produce was small and imperial property. He resolved to imitate it, and after various trials he succeeded, by mixing Burgundy with ingredients only known to himself, in composing what he thought might pass for Tokay. He kept his secret, and when the annual imperial cask arrived—it contained but a hundred bottles—he made presents of his own Tokay to his courtiers, and kept the genuine wine for himself. The lords of the Court were “delighted at the favour conferred on them, but when they discovered that his ex-Majesty had distributed no less than six hundred bottles, they thought of the readiness of his concocting hand, and laughed at the trick he had played them. The Stanislaus Tokay was not consumed so quickly as the imported wine, but it rose in value with its years, a single bottle having fetched the exorbitant price of forty-two francs. It was indifferent wine, but an ex-king made it, and the price was paid not merely for the liquor, but for the name of the composer.” But this is only one of the many amusing anecdotes related of Stanislaus, who was famed for being the most courteous of hosts, entertaining not only nobles but artists, and philosophers, at his well-laden table. Indeed, after his abdication, Stanislaus kept a princely establishment, the splendour and cost of which was not infrequently the subject of comment. On one occasion, when he heard that the daughters of Louis—Adelaide and Victoria—had set out from Metz to Luneville to visit their grandfather, the ex-king ordered magnificent preparations for their reception, which prompted his steward to remark that so much splendour was not needed for his “petites filles”; but Stanislaus, with a smile, replied: “Mes petites filles sont plus grandes que moi.”
The dissolute and extravagant habits of the Court of Gustavus III. of Sweden were most severely condemned, and rightly so, for we are told that whilst revelry and pageantry in constantly varying shapes distinguished his effeminate and luxurious Court, misery and famine extended themselves rapidly amongst the labouring poor, from one extremity of Sweden to another. The groans of the wretched who perished of want, the curses of the degraded paupers who were reduced to seek for such food as the King’s well-fed hounds would have turned from with loathing, produced not the least retrenchment. Meanwhile Gustavus continued his guilty magnificence, heedless of, and indifferent to, the misery around him; and which, it is said, was greatly aggravated, if not actually caused, by his wasteful magnificence and profligacy. It is not surprising that the excessive taxation necessary to support the King’s expenditure and extravagances found vent in dangerous disturbances.