"The recent events on the Continent have induced the editor to publish the following pages on foreign politics. The time of which this volume treats has already acquired the interest of a long past age; and the public will read with pleasure, and perhaps with profit, the observations on passing events of a contemporary who, if not wholly impartial, is acknowledged by all who knew him to have been as candid as he was benevolent.
"The editor has scrupulously abstained from making the slightest verbal alteration in the text or notes. The omission of four insignificant sentences is all that he has deemed necessary for the immediate publication of what was probably written with the intention of not seeing the light so soon."
We must fairly confess that this preface stimulated our curiosity still further. From it we understood that the Reminiscences were to have some practical bearing upon the events which have taken place on the Continent during the last three years—that they would throw some additional light upon the causes which have led to so many dynastic convulsions. Our disappointment therefore was proportionably great, when, on perusing the work, we discovered that not a single page of it was calculated to assist us in any such researches, and that even the observations on passing events were of the most meagre and unsatisfactory description. What especial purpose the publication of this volume, apart from the remainder of the Memoirs, could serve at the present, or indeed at any other time, we are wholly at a loss to conceive. It treats of no topic which has not been long ago exhausted, contains hardly any personal narrative, and affords us not one single atom of novel information. As a repertory of anecdotes it is singularly worthless. We allude to such anecdotes as may be considered authentic, or at least tolerably so—anecdotes, for example, communicated to the author by Talleyrand, and one or two other foreign statesmen with whom, in later years, he was acquainted. But there is another class of anecdotes, or pseudo-anecdotes, which we cannot pass over even with so slight a censure. We allude to the revelations of private intrigue, on which the author dwells with a zest which to us seems peculiarly offensive. Until we saw this volume, we could not have believed that one British peer would have penned, and another have published, such a tissue of scandals, emanating from discarded serving-women and court menials, and reflecting directly on the honour of some of the first houses of Europe. We are at no loss to discover where the omissions mentioned in the preface are made, or what was the nature of the passages expunged. It would perhaps have been better, where the inuendo is retained, to have preserved the details, in order that they might have been strictly tested. It is, we think, no proper concession to delicacy to find lines of asterisks following a direct charge against the virtue of Marie Antoinette, or the legitimacy of the Duchess of York; or to have a page of such mysterious symbols inserted immediately after the notice of the marriage of Ferdinand VII. of Spain. Lord Holland should have been allowed to tell his own story, if not in justice to the memory of the ladies whose chastity is called in question, at least that we know the true bent of the imagination of the noble author, and appreciate "that humorous pleasantry, guided by good sense and wisdom, and raised above vulgar irony or personality," which his eulogist in the Edinburgh Review is pleased to claim as his attributes. It is difficult to understand why, in one case, there should be an evident suppression, whilst, in another, anecdotes of an offensive nature, reflecting upon the conduct of a queen, are printed without the slightest reserve, introduced in the following highly satisfactory manner:—"A story was current at Madrid, which, if true, would at once prove that the Prince of the Peace was aware of her infidelities," &c., and followed by this commentary—"the anecdote is, perhaps, too dramatic to deserve implicit credit." If so, why was it written down, and why is it now published? The appetite for prurient details which is a main feature of this book, is perhaps intelligible when it relates to intrigues notorious to all the world. No man of a really refined or fastidious mind would have committed these details to paper, more especially when they bore reference to the family of an individual with whom he was on something like intimate terms. But the case is far worse, and can admit of no palliation, when we find the most infamous charges, which have never been supported by even a shadow of proof, deliberately revived and repeated against that heroic and unfortunate lady, Queen Marie Antoinette of France. If the lament of Burke for the wane of chivalry was felt, not as a brilliant diatribe, but as a cutting sarcasm at the time when it was first enunciated, how much more appropriate is it now, when we find that a member of the British peerage—a man thought to be distinguished for high sentiment and generous sympathy—did not hesitate to adopt in the solitude of his closet the shameless inventions of the French revolutionary rabble; and that these are now given as facts which will not admit of questioning or denial to the world!
We are extremely glad to observe that the writer in the Edinburgh Review has had the proper spirit to refute—and he does it most satisfactorily—this wretched and scandalous attack upon the memory of a royal lady. It was not perhaps to be expected that he should do more; but what sort of imputation does his vindication of the Queen leave upon the character of her assailant? This is not a matter which should be passed over lightly; and for our part we feel bound to say that we can conceive no spectacle more pitiable or humiliating, than that of an old man committing with a palsied hand to paper the prurient rumours of the past. Had the evidence against Marie Antoinette been ten times stronger than it was, honour and the feelings of a gentleman should have deterred any one even from repeating the accusation. But the late Lord Holland entertained no such scruples. His witness, at second-hand, is the very woman who wrote Mémoires sur la Vie Privée de Marie Antoinette, Reine de France; and in these memoirs of hers there is not even an inuendo against the honour of the unfortunate Queen. But Madame Campan cannot so escape. Lord Holland was determined that she should, in some way or other, assist in blackening the reputation of her royal mistress; and accordingly we are treated to the following ingenuous note:—
"Madame Campan's delicacy and discretion are not only pardonable, but praiseworthy; but they are disingenuous, and her Memoirs conceal truths well known to her, though such as would have been unbecoming a lady to reveal. She was, in fact, the confidante of Marie Antoinette's amours. These amours were not numerous, scandalous, or degrading, but they were amours. Madame Campan, who lived beyond the Restoration, was not so mysterious in conversation on these subjects as she is in her writings. She acknowledged to persons, who have acknowledged it to me, that she was privy to the intercourse between the Queen and the Duc de Coigny."
And this is evidence upon which we are to condemn Marie Antoinette! I had it—says this distinct and confident accuser—from other people, who had it from the waiting-woman, although the waiting-woman knew better than to write it down! And who were the people "who acknowledged it to me"—what was their character and station—what was their repute for credibility? Lord Holland durst not in his lifetime have said as much of the father or mother of any man of his acquaintance upon such a pretext for authority. It is altogether the very worst instance of a wanton attack which we ever remember to have met with: it has but one parallel in history—the famous warming-pan legend, by means of which Lord Holland's political predecessors sought to bastardise the son of James II. But the motive which dictated the earlier fiction is wanting in the case of the later one.
Let us not be misunderstood. The case stands thus: Lord Holland has made a grievous charge against the honour of the murdered Queen of France. He says that he believes that charge to be true, and he states the grounds of his belief. They are these: A lady, who wrote the memoirs of her mistress's private life, in which no hint of criminal conduct appears, told other persons (who are nameless) who told him, Lord Holland, that the Queen had been guilty of adultery. Far be it from us to doubt the honour of a British peer. But, rather than doubt the honour of Marie Antoinette, we should doubt the fact of Lord Holland having received any such statement from any human being. Who were the indiscreet friends of Madame Campan that conveyed to his ear the hitherto undivulged secret? Were they old menials of the French court—retired waiting-women—confidential lacqueys—or persons who had the entrée to Holland House? Surely, when the honour of a Queen is impeached, we are entitled to know the authority. No authority of any kind is given. On the ipse dixit of Lord Holland rests the entire substantiation of the charge, and on his memory must lie the stigma of having revived the gross and unmanly calumny.
We have felt ourselves bound to say this much, because, if stories of this sort are to be accepted as authentic contributions to history, there is no imaginable kind of falsehood which may not be promulgated as truth. Apply the rule to private life, and the malignity of a discarded butler would be sufficient to taint the best blood in England. What would we think of memoirs, compiled by some man of considerable standing and celebrity, and published under the editorship of his son, which should tell us that the present inheritor of any noble title was a bastard and an intruder, on such authority as this—that somebody had told the writer, that somebody else had told him or her, that she was cognisant of a certain intrigue? Yet the two cases are much the same. If they differ at all, it is in this particular, that the original testimony of the "somebody," who in the instance of the Queen of France was Madame Campan, happens to be written and published, and to contain no insinuation whatever; whereas, in the case we have supposed, that negative vindication would almost certainly be wanting. Who, we ask, would dare, on such authority, to set down such accusations against any private family? and, if we are right in thinking that public indignation would most certainly overwhelm the retailer of such miserable calumny, why should any other rule be applied when royalty is the subject of the attack?
We suspect that Lord Holland's political friends will hardly thank his successor for the publication of this volume. It exhibits the late peer in what we must suppose to be his true colours, not as a constitutional Whig, nor as in any way attached to the recognised forms of the British Constitution, but as an admirer of principles which would necessarily tend to its overthrow. We have searched the work in vain for a single expression of anything which we can venture to designate as patriotic feeling. Kings and courts are condemned by him—what sympathy he has is bestowed on the agents of revolution—and he appears a eulogist, or at least apologist, of the very man whom Whig and Tory alike have agreed in branding with reprobation. The conduct of "Egalité," in voting for the death of his cousin, Louis XVI., appears to him not unnatural. He takes great pains to convince us that the infamous duke was an exceedingly maligned person; and, with characteristic judgment as to the nature of his evidence, cites "a short narrative written by Mrs Elliott, who had, I believe, lived with him," as an apology for an act which, even in the French Revolutionary Convention, called forth an exclamation of horror.
Lord Holland's personal experiences—we should rather call them reminiscences—connected with the French Revolution, were very meagre. He was then, (in 1791,) as he tells us, a mere boy, and not likely to have much cognisance of the state of political affairs. In consequence, we gain absolutely nothing from his observation. Neither was his sojourn in Prussia, during the ensuing year, more fruitful save in the article of scandal, of which we have said enough. The same remark will apply to his Spanish tour; from the records of which, if we abstract the personal and indecent details, not one word of interest remains. This strikes us as very singular. A young and well-educated man, traversing those countries at a time when they widely differed in their aspect and forms of society from those which they afterwards assumed, ought surely to have preserved some "Reminiscences" of their condition, which would have been more acceptable to posterity than stories of court adultery, which he hardly could have derived from any creditable source; and we fairly confess that the total omission of anything like practical details, goes far to convince us that Byron's early judgment was right, and that the fame of Holland House rested far more upon the Amphytrionic, than the natural or acquired accomplishments of the distinguished host. In fact, were it not remarkable for such disgraceful scandal as would lower the character of a theatrical green-room, the first half of this volume is entirely beneath contempt. It has nothing whatever to do with the present crisis of affairs—it refers in no way to national or dynastical interests—it is simply a collection of such trash as, thirty years ago, might have been published under the auspices of a noble name, and then have descended to the hands of the trunk-maker, without the slightest chance of a second resurrection.