This man, who in conversation could sparkle as few have ever done, could not string two sentences together on paper. His wit completely deserted him when he took a pen in his hand. The opposite was the case with Hamilton. His brother-in-law's suggestion appealed to him, and the result of their curious partnership, in which, so to speak, de Gramont furnished the capital and Hamilton the brains, was the famous classic, "Les Mémoires de Gramont."
Of all the high praise that has been heaped upon this "bréviaire de la jeune noblesse" that of the French critics is the most notable. To us, "the adventure of the soul among masterpieces" that we experience when reading it cannot be so great a pleasure as it must have been to Hamilton in his own lifetime to be told that he, a foreigner, had written a book in the French language which in style, atmosphere, wit, what you will, was French to the core—a chef d'œuvre of French literature! Everybody has heard of Count Hamilton's "Mémoires du Comte de Gramont." How many have ever read it? Is it because it is thought to be that ponderous thing, a classic? Without attempting to express our opinions on this curious work we are daring enough to seize this opportunity of answering a question heard everywhere, "What shall I read?" by replying, "The Memoirs of Gramont." Do not be afraid of it because it is a classic; all classics are not tedious because many stupid books have usurped the label of immortality. A true classic is never tedious. The character of the Chevalier de Gramont as conceived by Anthony Hamilton is one of the great creations of literature.
Hamilton also occupied his time in France with writing other things. His fairy tales, very much goûté in their day, would make very dull reading now. One of the best, that of Bélier and the Giant Moulineau, was written to please his sister. It is interesting to note that Hamilton was nearly sixty when he wrote his masterpiece, and past middle life when he first turned his attention to literature. Considering the active military life he had led it was not strange that he should have made his literary début so late. In fact, had it not been for the Revolution of 1688 he might possibly never have written at all. Before that date he had been first, as a youth, in the French army, which he left at the Restoration to serve in that of his own country. Roman Catholic and Jacobite by birth and association, England had for him after the Battle of the Boyne, as for many another, no shelter. A soldier by instinct, he once more turned to France for employment. Of his career in the French service little is known, beyond that he was an officer in Louis' gens d'armes anglais and received the title of count, presumably in lieu of salary; for such money as the French King had to spare he gave to the last of the Stuarts.
At middle life one does not start a new career with the light heart of youth. Hamilton came to France a disappointed man, and such hopes as he may still have cherished must have been quickly dispelled at James's Court at St. Germain. Here, as in all exiled Courts, poverty, quarrelling, and despair cast their shadows, rendered all the more sombre by the melancholy bigotry of the fallen King. The noble mother of that handsome, unfortunate youth who lived to be known as the Old Pretender alone faced the future with dauntless courage and dignity. How could a Hamilton with a spark of chivalry desert such a woman in such a crisis? It was now that the soldier turned author, like old St. Evremond before him in a similar strait. Hamilton took to literature not as a profession—it is uncertain if he ever earned a sou by his pen, all the profits of the "Mémoires de Gramont" at least went into his brother-in-law's pockets—but as a pastime. Writing was to him the only means he had of killing the intolerable ennui of exile.
But life was not without its compensations; there was the home of the de Gramonts to brighten him. His books brought him fame and friends; his society was courted by an illustrious Duke of Berwick and his "Belle Nanette" and her sister; by the too brilliant Duchesse de Maine, whose court at Sceaux was known as "the galleys of the brain," because the clever people she gathered round her were constantly required to furnish proof of their wit. All this fame, however, brought no financial independence with it, and after the death of the Comtesse de Gramont poor Hamilton had to live on the charity of a niece and to welcome death as a late release for his proud spirit. Perhaps to none of the Jacobites broken in the cause of the bigot James was death so welcome as to this cold, sombre man, who could describe the joie de vivre of the ancien régime with a gaiety which has never been rivalled.
The Comte de Gramont whom he immortalised predeceased him many years. This singular man died at the age of eighty-six, frivolous to the last. Like the celebrated Maréchal de Richelieu of the next generation, who closely resembled him, de Gramont had scarcely ever known what it was to be ill. He used to say that "he hated sick people and only loved them when they recovered their health." His flippancy and irreligion as he grew old alarmed the Comtesse de Gramont, who was very devout, for the safety of his soul. Her attempts to convert him must, serious as they were, have amused her, if she still retained her sense of humour. Once Louis XIV. himself tried to assist her and sent the strict Marquis de Dangeau to offer him religious advice.
"Comtesse," said de Gramont, turning to his wife on learning his visitor's errand, "if you don't look out Dangeau will cheat you out of my conversion."
Madame de Gramont, however, had the satisfaction of bringing her husband to a deathbed repentance, and followed him herself to the grave in a year. Her life, passed in two of the most dissolute Courts in Europe, was from first to last stainless. Of her two daughters, one took the veil, while the other married the Jacobite Earl of Stafford, and inherited all her mother's beauty and virtue and her father's wit.
The great Gramont fortune, which the Chevalier inherited from his brother the Comte de Toulongeon, passed to his nephew, a younger brother of the notorious Comte de Guiche, who had died without a son. This man, whose life is said to have been as scandalous as his brother's, also inherited the fortune and dukedom of his father the Maréchal. It is from him that the de Gramonts of the present day are descended. The tombs of their ancestors are still to be seen amongst the picturesque ruins of the once famous Château de Gramont "at Bidache on the Bidouze," which was destroyed in the Terror.