A. D. 1688] CARDINAL SIMPLICITY. 315 to that followed in nearly all the other dioceses in France and in the immediate neighbourhood of Orleans, endeared him so much to the Huguenots, that more persons returned to his communion than all that were produced by all the dragoonings and other atrocities throughout France. WHEN the Cardinal's hat and other insignia of that dignity were sent from Rome to Versailles by the Cardinal de Janson and M. l'abbé de Barrière the Pope's Chamberlain, for Bishop Coislin, and he was invested with the habiliments of a Cardinal, he appeared a few days afterwards at the levee in his usual clerical dress. The King enquired the reason, and the new Cardinal replied " Sire! I shall ever remember that I was a Priest before I became a Cardinal." He kept his word and changed nothing in his former simplicity of house and table. He still wore a cloth cassock, trimmed with thin stuff instead of satin, and no scarlet about his dress, but his cap and hat-riband. THERE is some difference between this Cardinal simplicity of the good Bishop of Orleans, and the bloated inanity of some of his fellow hierarchs, with their scarlet hats borne before them on silver salvers, their corpulencies as fine as red satin, bullion lace, copes, mitres, rings and golden croziers can make them, and their humble tails carried by fellow mortals. Worthy imitators and successors of the inspired fishermen of Galilee! Volumes have been written in eulogies, and thousands have prostrated themselves at the feet of a *Memoires Sup. Tom. III. p. 135. Borgia, a Richelieu, a Mazarin, or a Dubois, and the virtues of a De Coislin are enclosed in a manuscript book of memoirs, by an admiring contemporary. KING JAMES II. in spite of his promises to maintain the Church, broke them in every point, and in June, sent the Archbishop of Canterbury, with the Bishops of Ely, Chichester, St. Asaph, Bristol, Peterborough, and Bath and Wells, from the Privy Council, as prisoners, to the Tower. "The concern of the people for them," says Evelyn*, "was wonderful; infinite crowds upon their knees begging their blessing, and praying for them, as they passed out of the barge along the Tower wharf." Evelyn visited them in their confinement, and their subsequent trial and acquittal, and the public rejoicings which followed, are well known. WHILST the King was pursuing these tyrannical measures, surrounded by his popish troops in his encampment on Hounslow Heath, committing many murders and insults, the whole nation was enraged at such conduct, and all parties full of apprehension. The Prince of Orange, who was personally hated by Louis XIV. and the whole papistical party in Europe, was making extraordinary preparations in Holland to aid the constitutional party in England, which, with the increasing disaffection in the people towards the King and his advisers, spread the greatest consternation in both court and camp. The writs which had been issued for the election of a new Parliament were recalled on account of the nature of the returns under * Diary, June 8, 1688. A. D. 1688] INTRIGUES AND IMPUDENCE. 317 the popular discontents. The King* called over five thousand Irish and four thousand Scottish troops to his aid, removed Protestants from situations of trust, and replaced them with Papists; retaining his bodyguard of Jesuits as his advisers and directors. THE 14th of October was the King's birth-day, and Evelyn records in his diary of that date, that the Tower-guns were not fired, as had been usual; the sun was eclipsed at its rising, and the day was noted as the anniversary of the victory of William the Norman over Harold. The wind which had been long in the west, and detained the Prince of Orange in the Dutch ports, shifted to the east, and so continued, to the gratification of the people. The whole of this month was passed in continual alarm, discontent and disputes between the King and the protestant nobility and gentry. The government of the United Provinces issued a declaration for the satisfaction of all the public ministers at the Hague, except to those of France and England. The termination of the Jesuitical reign of James II. and the beginning of a legal monarchy by the landing of Prince William at Torbay on the 4th of November 1688, and his subsequent call to the throne of Great Britain by the Parliament and people, is recorded in our histories, and reverenced by every lover of religious and civil liberty. AMONG James's principal advisers was M. Peguilhem, a younger brother of a Gascon family, who by his intrigues and impudence, aided by the friendship of * EVELYN'S Diary, Oct. 7, 1688. M. le Maréchal de Grammont, his father's first cousin, was raised to high situation at home and abroad, a Duke and Peer of France, married to Mademoiselle de Montpensier, daughter of Gaston Duke of Orleans, the King's brother, and a Knight of the Garter in England. This man, who concealed himself under Madame de Montespan's bed*, to listen to the tête-à-téte between that virtuous wife and her married lover Louis XIV. that he might learn the reason of the King refusing him an appointment, and many other daring tricks, at the risk of his life; after having offended the King in many ways, for which he had been sent to the Bastile and pardoned-to exile and recalled, demanded permission to serve his Majesty in England. Permission was granted, and M. le duc de Lauzun embarked on his mission to expiate his offences as other good Frenchmen had done before. He was received with delight in London, for he was rich, fond of gaming, and played high. James II. received and treated him with distinction, the revolution burst forth about ten months after his arrival in England, and he rendered personal service to the dethroned King, who confided the Queen and infant Prince to his care. M. de Lauzun executed his charge faithfully, and conveyed the Royal fugitives, first to Calais and afterwards to Versailles. This service procured, on the intercession of the exiled Queen, pardon for the offender, who was restored to the Royal favour. * Memoires de M. le Duc de St. Simon, Tom. III. 37 et Sup. Tom. II. 56. A. D. 1688] A NOBLE-MINDED REFUSAL. 319 LOUIS XIV. personally hated the Prince of Orange, who, in his turn thoroughly despised the French monarch and all that belonged to him. On one occasion the Prince was told that one of Louis's Marshals had said, he should like to have a battle with that hunch-back, replied, "What do they know of my back? they have none of them yet seen it." When Louis XIV. gave honours, orders and wealth to the Duke de Maine, Guiscard, and Mezigny the engineer, who surrendered Namur to the Prince of Orange, the latter said that it was his misfortune always to have to envy the French monarch, who gave greater rewards to those commanders who lost his towns, than he could do to those who took them. BUT the grand offence was, the Prince's refusal to marry one of the French monarch's illegitimate daughters. The King began only by degrees to develop his intentions of aggrandizing his natural children by great alliances, and his first attempt was a failure, and a sad disappointment to the vain monarch. Het conceived the project of marrying Mademoiselle de Blois, his daughter by Madame la Valliere, to the Prince of Orange, and proposed the alliance to him, at a time when his successes in war, and his name so renowned throughout Europe, were so great, that he felt persuaded that the proposition would be gratefully received as the greatest honour, and the greatest advan * Memoires de M. le Duc de St. Simon, Sup. Tom. II. p. 372. |