“Purgatory? It is a sore thing for the forests all this while! And they are not yet out, those poor souls, after so many hundred years of praying?” Monks have a fatal apprehension they are not, and reply, “No.” “When will they be out, and the thing be complete?” Monks cannot say. “Send me a line whenever it is complete,” sneers the King, and he leaves them to their Te Deum.
One of the severest rebuffs administered to Frederick was that by General Ziethen, who having been invited to dine with his Majesty on Good Friday, declined, excusing himself on the plea that “he was in the habit of taking the Sacrament on that day.” When Ziethen next dined at the royal table, the King sarcastically said to him, “Well, how did the Sacrament on Good Friday agree with you—have you digested well the real body and blood of Christ?”
This question provoked much laughter, but Ziethen, shaking his hoary head, rose and addressed the King thus: “Your Majesty knows that in war I have never feared any danger, and that, wherever it was required, I have resolutely risked my life for you and the country. This feeling still animates me; and if it is of any use, and you command it, I will lay my head at your feet. But there is One above us who is more than you or I—the Saviour and Redeemer of the world. That Holy Saviour I cannot allow to be ridiculed, for in Him rests my faith, my trust, and my hope in life and death. In the strength of this faith your brave army has courageously fought, and conquered. If your Majesty undermines it, you undermine at the same time the welfare of the State. This is a true saying indeed.”
A death-like silence prevailed, and Frederick, with evident emotion, grasping the general’s right hand, said, “Happy Ziethen, I wish I could believe like you; hold fast to your faith, it shall be done no more.”
Peter the Great, as is well known, loved a bit of fun, and one day seeing a number of men swarming about the Law Courts at Westminster Hall, is said to have inquired who they were, and what they were about, and being informed that they were lawyers, he jocosely exclaimed, “Lawyers, why I had but four in my whole kingdom, and I design to hang two of them as soon as I get home.”
Many amusing stories are told of the wit and humour of the ex-Polish sovereign, Stanislaus Leczinski. Walpole, in a letter to Mann, dated 1764, writes: “I love to tell you an anecdote of any of our old acquaintance, and I have now a delightful one relating, yet indirectly, to one of them. You know, to be sure, that Madame de Craon’s daughter, Madame de Boufflers, has the greatest power with King Stanislaus. Our old friend, the Princess de Craon, goes seldom to Luneville for this reason, not enduring to see her daughter on that throne which she so long filled with absolute empire. But Madame de Boufflers, who from his Majesty’s age cannot occupy all the places in the palace that her mother filled, indemnifies herself with his Majesty’s Chancellor. One day the lively old monarch said, ‘Regardez quel joli petit pied, et la belle jambe! Mon Chancelier vous dira le reste!’ You know this is the form when a King of France says a few words to his Parliament, and then refers them to his Chancellor.”
But Stanislaus, as Dr. Doran says, could be just as well as witty. Voltaire presented to him his history of Charles XII., expecting to be overwhelmed with compliments. Stanislaus, after reading the book, humiliated the philosopher by asking how he dared to present to him, an actor in the scenes described, a book in which veracity was outraged a thousand times over. It is related, too, of Charles XII., that at the battle of Narva, being told that the enemy were as three to one when compared with his own army, he replied, “I am glad to hear it, for then there will be enough to kill, enough to take prisoners, and enough to run away.”
Christina of Sweden was noted for her wit and repartee, and often astonished persons by her piquant anecdotes. When she visited Fontainebleau, in 1656, in her half-male attire, it is said she appeared to some of the ladies like a pretty but rather forward boy, who was addicted to swearing, flung himself into an arm-chair, and disposed of his legs in a way which shocked “the not very scrupulous dames of the Court.” But these same ladies smothered Christina with kisses, which prompted her to say: “What a rage they have for kissing; I verily believe they take me for a gentleman!”
Her highly-spiced stories, too, were not confined to her own sex, for she was as ready “to discuss with gentlemen improper subjects as any other.” But her collection of 1200 maxims is a proof of her talent in this direction, a few instances of which we subjoin, which, by-the-bye, are not always very complimentary. Thus, she says, “Change of ministry, change of thieves;” and she warns us that “if animals could speak they would convince men that the latter were as great beasts as themselves.” Speaking of royalty, she writes, “There are princes whom men compare with Alexander the Great, and who are not worthy of being compared with his horse Bucephalus;” and she adds, “There are peasants born with royal souls, and kings with the souls of flunkeys.” “Sciences,” she maintains, “are often the pompous titles of human ignorance; one is not the more knowing for knowing them.” And “the secret of being ridiculous,” she was wont to affirm, “is by priding yourself on talents which you do not possess.” And, to give one further instance of her maxims, she tells us that “princes resemble those tigers and lions whose keepers make them play a thousand tricks and turns. To look at them you would fancy they were in complete subjection, but a blow from the paw, when least expected, shows that you can never tame that sort of animal.”
Charles IV. of Spain had all the spirit and wit of his father. On requiring the presence of Losada at his toilet, and when told that Spanish etiquette forbade the presence of any one lower in quality than a Spanish grandee, he exclaimed, “Very well, I now make him one, so let him come in and help me on with my shirt.” When Charles ascended the throne Louis XVI. was about to sign a letter of congratulation to him, but he remarked, “It is hardly worth signing, for this king is no king, but a poor cipher, completely governed and henpecked by his wife.” Charles never forgave the jest, and when news of the execution of Louis reached him, he remarked that “the gentleman who was so ready to find fault with others, did not seem to have managed his own affairs very cleverly.”