USA > Louisiana > Romance of the history of Louisiana. A series of lectures > Part 4
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Jean Frederic Phelyppeaux, Count Maurepas, was the son of Jerome Phelyppeaux, a minister and secre- tary of state, and the grandson of Pontchartrain, the chancellor At the age of fourteen, he was appointed secretary of state, and in 1725, in his twenty-fourth year, became minister. This remarkable family thus
* The hereditary wit of all the members of that family, male or female, was marked with such peculiar pungency, that it became proverbial, and was called the Mortemart wit.
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presented an uninterrupted succession of ministers for one hundred and seventy-one years. The obstinacy with which prosperity clung to her favorites appeared so strange that it worked upon the imagination of the superstitious, or of the ignorant, and was attributed at the time to some unholy compact and to the protec- tion of supernatural beings. Cradled in the lap of power, Maurepas exhibited in his long career all the defects which are usually observed to grow with the growth of every spoiled child of fortune. He was as capricious as the wind, and as light as the feather with which it delights to gambol. The frivolity of his character was such that it could not be modified even by extreme old age. Superficial in every thing, he was incapable of giving any serious attention to such mat- ters as would, from their very nature, command the deep consideration of most men. Perhaps he relied too much on his prodigious facility of perception, and on a mind so gifted, that it could, in an instant, un- ravel the knots of the most complicated affair. In the king's council, his profound knowledge of men pad of the court, a sort of hereditary ministerial taining to business, imperfect as it was, enabled him to conceal to a certain degree his lamentable deficiency of study and of meditation. As it were by instinct, if not by the diviner's rod, he could stamp on the ground and point out where the fruits of the earth lay concealed ;
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but instead of using the spade and mattock in search of the treasure, he would run after the first butterfly that caught his eye. To reconcile men to his imper- fections, nature had given him a bewitching sweetness of temper, which was never found wanting. Urbane, supple, and insinuating in his manners, he was as pliant as a reed : fertile in courtly stratagems, expert in lay- ing out traps, pitfalls, and ambuscades for his enemies, he was equally skilful in the art of attack and defence, and no Proteus could assume more varied shapes to clude the grasp of his adversaries. There was no wall to which he could be driven, where he could not find an aperture through which to make his escape. No hunted deer ever surpassed him in throwing out the intricate windings of his flight, to mislead his
sagacious pursuers. Where he unexpectedly found himself stared in the face by some affair, the serious complexion of which he did not like, he would exor- cise the apparition away by a profuse sprinkling of witty jests, calculated to lessen the importance of the hated object, or to divert from it the attention of per- sons interested in its examination. No Ulysses could be more replete than he with expedients to extricate himself out of all difficulties ; but the moment he was out of danger, he would throw himself down, panting with his recent efforts, and think of nothing else than to luxuriate on the couch of repose, or to amuse him- self with trifles.
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Maurepas, in more than one respect, was made up of contrarieties, a living antithesis in flesh and blood, a strange compound of activity and indolence that puzzled the world. Upon the whole, he was generally thought to be, by superficial observers, a harmless, good natured, easy sort of man. But withal, in spite of his habitual supineness, he could rival the lynx, when he applied the keenness of his eye to detect the weak, ridiculous, or contemptible parts in the forma- tion of his fellow-beings : and no spider could weave such an imperceptible but certain web around those court flies he wanted to destroy, or to use to his own purposes. He was born a trifler, but one of a redoubt- able nature, and from his temperament as well as from his vicious education, there was nothing so respected, so august, or even so awful, as not to be laughed or scoffed at by him. There was no merit, no virtue, no generous, no moral or religious belief or faith in any thing, that he would not deride, and he would sneer even at himself, or at his own family, with the same relish, when the mood came upon him. Yet, worthless as that man was in his private and public character, he had such a peculiar turn for throwing the rich glow of health around what was most rotten in the state ; he could present to his master and to his colleagues, the dryest matter under such an enlivening aspect, when they met in the council-chamber ; he could ren-
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der apparently so simple what seemed so complicated as to require the most arduous labor ; and he could solve the most difficult political problem with such ease, that it looked like magic, and made him the most fascinating of ministers.
For such a king as Louis the XVth, who felt with great sensitiveness any thing that disturbed the volup- tuous tranquillity which was the sole object of his life, Maurepas, as a minister, had a most precious quality. Born in the atmosphere of the court, he was intimately acquainted with his native element, and excelled in hushing that low buzzing of discontent, so disagreeable to a monarch, which arises from the unsatisfied ambi- tion, the jealousy, and the quarrels of his immediate attendants. None knew better than Maurepas the usages and secrets of the court, and how to reconcile the conflicting interests of those great families that gravitate round the throne. He knew exactly what was due to every one, either for personal merit or for ancestral distinction. His was the art to nip in the bad all factions or cabals, to stifle the grumblings of decontent, or to lull the murmurs of offended pride. He knew how to make the grant of a favor doubly precious by the manner in which it was offered ; and the bitterness of refusal was either sweetened by assu- tances of regret and of personal devotion, or by a happy mixture of reasoning and pleasantry, which, if it did
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not convince the mind, forced disappointment itself to smile at its own bad luck.
With all his faults, such a minister had too much innate talent not to do some good, in spite of his frivo- lity. Thus, he made great improvements and embel- lishments in the city of Paris ; he infused new life into the marine department, corrected many abuses, visited all the harbors and arsenals, sent officers to survey all the coasts of France, had new maps made, established nautical schools, and ordered the expeditions of learned men to several parts of the world. Geometers and astronomers, according to his instructions, went to the equator and near the boreal pole, to measure, at the same time and by a concurrent operation, two degrees of the meridian. Thus, La Condamine, Bouguer, Go- din, Maupertuis, Clairant, and Lemonnier, were indebt- ed to him for their celebrity. Also, in obedience to his commands, Sevin and Fourmont visited Greece and several provinces of the East ; others surveyed Meso- potamia and Persia, and Jussieu departed to study the botany of Peru.
That frivolous minister did, through his strong natu- ral sagacity, partially discover that commerce ought to be unshackled, and withdrew from the India Company the monopoly of the coffee trade and of the slave trade. By such a wise measure, he largely contributed to the prosperity of the French colonies. But, in such an
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elevated region of thought, conception, and action, Maurepas was too boyish to remain long. He would confide the labors of his office to those whom it was his duty to guide, and would steal away to the balls of the opera, or to every sort of dissipation. If he re- mained in the cabinet destined to his official occupa- tions, it was not to think and to act in a manner wor- thy of the minister, but to write lampoons, scurrilous drolleries, and facetious obscenities. He took a share in the composition of several licentious pieces, well suited to the taste and morals of the time, and contri- buted to one which attracted some attention, under the title of The Ballet of the Turkeys. These things were not. for him, the result of a momentary debauch of the mind, but matters of serious occupation and pursuit. Such a relish did he find in this pastime, which would be called childish if it had not been tainted with immo- rality, that it took the mastery over his prudence, and he had the indiscretion to write a lampoon on the physical charms of the Marquise de Pompadour, the acknowledged favorite of Louis the XVth. The pru- riency of his wit cost him his place, and in 1749, after having been a minister twenty-four years, he was ex- iled to the city of Bourges, and afterwards permitted to reside at his Chateau de Pontchartrain, near Paris. There, his princely fortune allowed him to live in splen- dor, and to attach a sort of mimic court to his person.
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He appeared to bear his fall with philosophical indiffer- ence, observing that, on the first day of his dismissal, he felt sore ; but that on the next, he was entirely con- soled.
On the death of Louis the XVth, his successor sent for Maurepas, to put him at the helm of that royal ship, destined soon to be dashed to pieces in that tremen- dous storm which might be seen gathering from the four quarters of the horizon. The unfortunate Louis could not have made a poorer choice. Maurepas had sagacity enough to discover the coming events, but he was not the man, even if the power had been in his hands, to prepare for the struggle with those gigantic evils, whose shadow he could see already darkening the face of his country. Such an attempt would have interfered with his delightful suppers and disturbed his sleep; and to the Cassandras of that epoch, the egotis- tical old man used to reply with a sneer and a shrug of his shoulders, " The present organization of things will last as long as I shall, and why should I look beyond !" This observation was in keeping with the whole tenor of his life ; and, true to the system which he had adopt- ed, if he lived and died in peace, what did he care for the rest ? He had no children, and when he mar- ried in all the vigor of youth, those who knew him intimately, predicted that the bridal bed would remain barren. The prediction proved truc, and had not
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required any extraordinary powers of divination. Is it astonishing that the lineal descendant of a succession of ministers should be without virility of mind, soul, or body? What herculean strength, what angel purity would have resisted the deleterious influence of such an atmosphere, working, for nearly two centuries, slow but sure mischief, from generation to generation ?
After having been a minister for six years under Louis the XVIth, Maurepas died in 1781. So infatu- ated was the king with his octogenarian minister, that he had insisted upon his occupying, at the Palace of Versailles, an apartment above his own royal chamber ; and every morning, the first thing that the king did, was to pay a visit to the minister. Pleasant those visits were, because the old wily minister presented every thing to his young master under the most glowing colors, and made him believe that his almost centenarian expe- rience would smooth the rugged path that extended before him. If parliaments rebelled, if fleets were de- frated, if provinces were famished, Maurepas had no unpalatable truths to say. Only once, the eaves-drop- jers heard his voice raised above its usual soft tone. What frightful convulsion of nature could have pro- duced such a change ? None but the death of a cat ! Distracted with the shrieks of his wife, whose trouble- some fourfooted favorite, interfering with the king when engaged in his darling occupation of a blacksmith
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had been killed by an angry blow of the royal hammer, he loudly expostulated with the murderer for the atro- ciousness of the deed. What must have been his dread of his wife, when under the cabalistic influence of her frowns, such a courtier could so completely drop the prudential policy of his whole life, as to venture to show displeasure to the king !
When Maurepas died, the king shed tears, and said with a faltering voice, " Alas! in the morning, for the future, when I shall wake up, no longer shall I hear the grateful sound to which I was used-the slow pacing of my friend in the room above mine." Very little de- serving of this testimonial of friendship was he, who never loved any thing in this world but himself.
So much for Pontchartrain and Maurepas, who have given their names to those beautiful lakes which are in the vicinity of New Orleans. From Lake Pont- chartrain, Iberville arrived at a sheet of water which is known in our days under the name of Lake Borgne. The French, thinking that it did not answer precisely the definition of a lake, because it was not altogether land-locked, or did not at least discharge its waters only through a small aperture, and because it looked rather like a part of the sea, separated from its main body by numerous islands, called it Lake Borgne, meaning something incomplete or defective, like a man with one eye.
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On that lake, there is a beautiful bay, to which Iberville gave the patronymic name of St. Louis. Of a more lofty one, no place can boast under the broad canopy of heaven.
Louis the 1Xth, son of Louis the VIIIth of France, and of Blanche of Castille, was the incarnation of vir- tue, and, what is more extraordinary, of virtue born on the throne, and preserving its divine purity in spite of all the temptations of royal power. In vain would history be taxed to produce a character worthy of being compared with one so pure. Among heroes, he must certainly be acknowledged as one of the greatest ; among monarchs, he must be ranked as the most just ; and among men, as the most modest. For such per- fection, he was indebted to his mother, who, from his earliest days, used to repeat to him this solemn admo- nition : " My son, remember that I had rather see you dead than offending your God by the commission of a deadly sin." When he assumed the government of his kingdom, he showed that his talents for administration were equal to his virtues as a man. Every measure which he adopted during peace, had a happy tendency toward the moral and physical improvement of his sub- jects, and in war he proved that he was not deficient in those qualifications which constitute military genius. He defeated Henry the IIId of England at the battle of Taillebourg in Poitou, where he achieved prodi-
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gies of valor. He gained another decisive victory at Saintes over the English monarch, to whom he granted a truce of five years, on his paying to France five thou- sand pounds sterling.
Unfortunately, the piety of the king making him forgetful of what was due to the temporal welfare of his subjects, drove him into one of those crusades, which the cold judgment of the statesman may blame, but at which the imagination of the lover of romance will certainly not repine. In 1249, Louis landed in Egypt, took the city of Damietta, and advanced as far as Massourah. But after several victories, whereby he lost the greater part of his army, he was reduced to shut himself up in his camp, where famine and pesti- lence so decimated the feeble remnant of his forces, that he was constrained to surrender to the host of enemies by whom he was enveloped. He might have escaped, however; but to those who advised him to consult his own personal safety, he gave this noble an- swer : "I must share in life or in death the fate of my companions."
The Sultan had offered to his prisoner to set him free, on condition that he would give up Damietta and pay one hundred thousand silver marks. Louis re- plied, that a king of France never ransomed himself for money ; but that he would yield Damietta in ex- change for his own person, and pay one hundred thou-
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sand silver marks in exchange for such of his subjects as were prisoners. Such was the course of negotiation between the two sovereigns, when it was suddenly arrested by the murder of the Sultan, who fell a victim to the unruly passions of his janissaries. They had rebelled against their master, for having attempted to subject them to a state of discipline, irksome to their habits and humiliating to their lawless pride. Some of those ruffians penetrated into the prison of Louis, and one of them, presenting him with the gory head of the Sultan, asked the French monarch what reward he would grant him for the destruction of his enemy. A haughty look of contempt was the only answer vouch- safed by Louis. Enraged at this manifestation of dis- pleasure, the assassin lifted up his dagger, and aiming it at the king's breast, exclaimed, " Dub me a knight, or die!" Louis replied, with indignation, " Repent, and turn Christian, or fly hence, base infidel !" When utter- ing these words, Louis had risen from his seat, and with an arm loaded with chains, had pointed to the door, waving the barbarian away with as much majesty of command as if he had been seated on his throne in his royal palace of the Louvre. Abashed at the rebuke, and overawed by the Olympian expression of the mon- arch's face, the Saracen skulked away, and said to his companions, when he returned to them, "I have just seen the proudest Christian that has yet come to the Fast !"
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After many obstacles, a treaty of peace was at last concluded : Louis and his companions were liberated ; the Saracens received from the French eight hundred thousand marks of silver, and recovered the city of Damietta. But they authorized Louis to take posses- sion of all the places in Palestine which had been wrested from the Christians, and to fortify them as he pleased.
When the king landed in France, the joy of his subjects was such, that they appeared to be seized with the wildest delirium. On his way from the sea-coast to Paris, he was met by throngs of men, women, and children, who rushed at him with the most frantic shrieks, and kissed his feet and the hem of his garments, as if he had been an angel dropped from heaven to give them the assurance of eternal felicity. Those testimo- nials of gratitude, extreme as they may appear, were not more than he deserved. He, who used to say to his proud nobles, "Our serfs belong to Christ, our com- mon master, and in a Christian kingdom it must not be forgotten that we are all brothers," must indeed have been beloved by the people ! How could it be otherwise, when they saw him repeatedly visiting every part of his dominions, to listen to the complaints of his meanest subjects ! They knew that he used to sit, at Vincennes, under a favorite oak, which has become celebrated from that circumstance, and there loved,
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with august simplicity, to administer justice to high and low. It was there that he rendered judgment against his own brother, Le Comte d'Anjou ; it was there that he forced one of his most powerful barons, Euguerrand de Coucy, to bow to the majesty of the law. It was he whose enlightened piety knew how to check the unjust pretensions of his clergy, and to keep them within those bounds which they were so prone to over- leap. It was he who contented himself with retorting to those who railed at his pious and laborious life, " If I gave to hunting, to gambling, to tournaments, and to every sort of dissipation, the moments which I devote to prayer and meditation, I should not be found fault with."
Louis undertook a second Crusade ; and having encamped on the site of old Carthage, prepared to conmince the siege of Tunis, to which it is alinost contiguous. There, privations of every sort, incessant fatigue, and the malignant influence of the climate, produced an epidemical disease, which rapidly de- strayed the strength of his army. His most powerful barons and most skilful captains died in a few days ; his favorite son, the Count de Nevers, expired in his arins; his eldest born, the presumptive heir to the crown, had been attacked by the pestilence, and was struggling against death, in a state of doubtful con- valescence ; when, to increase the dismay of the
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French, Louis himself caught the infection. Aware of approaching death, he ordered himself to be stretched on ashes; wishing, he, the great king, to die with all the humility of a Christian. At the foot of his bed of ashes, stood a large cross, bearing the image of the crucified Saviour, upon which he loved to rest his eyes, as on the pledge of his future salvation. Around him, the magnates of France and his own im- mediate attendants knelt on the ground, which they bathed with tears, and addressed to Heaven the most fervent prayers for the recovery of the precious life, which was threatened with sudden extinguishment.
Out of the royal tent, grief was not less expressive. The silence of despair, made more solemn by occa- sional groans, reigned absolute over the suffering mul- titude, that had agglomerated on the accursed Nu- midian shore ; and the whole army, distracted, as it were, at the danger which menaced its august head, seemed to have been struck with palsy by the horror of its situation. The dying were hardly attended to, so much engrossed were their attendants by heavier cares ; and even they, the dying, were satisfied to perish, since they thus escaped the bitterness of their present fate ; and their loss elicited no expression of regret from their survivors, so much absorbed were they by the fear of a greater misfortune to them and to France. There appeared to be a sort of frightful
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harmony between the surrounding objects and the human sufferings to which they formed an appropriate frame. The winds seemed to have departed for ever from the earth; the atmosphere had no breath; and the air almost condensed itself into something pal- pable ; it fell like molten lead upon the lungs which it consumed. The motionless sea was smoothed and glassed into a mirror reflecting the heat of the lurid sun : it looked dead. Beasts of prey, hyenas, jackals, and wolves, attracted by the noxious effluvia which issued from the camp, filled the ears with their dismal howlings. From the deep blue sky, there came no refreshing shower, but shrieks of hungry vultures, glancing down at the feast prepared for them, and screaming with impatience at the delay. The enemy himself had retreated to a distance, from fear of the contagion, and had ceased those hostilities which used nomentarily to relieve the minds of the French from the contemplation of their situation. They were re- duced to such a pitch of misery as to regret that no human foes disturbed the solitude where they were slowly perishing; and their eyes were fixed in unut- terable woe on those broken pyramids, those mutilated columns, those remnants of former ages, of faded glories, on those eloquent ruins, which, long before the time when they sheltered Marius, spoke of nothing but past, present, and future miseries.
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Such was the scene which awaited Louis on his death-bed. It was enough to strike despair into the boldest heart, but he stood it unmoved. A perpetual smile, such as grace only the lips of the blessed, en- livened his face; he looked round not only without dismay, but with an evangelical serenity of soul. He knew well that the apparent evils which he saw, were a mere passing trial, inflicted for the benefit of the suf- ferers, and for some goodly purpose; he knew that this transitory severity was the wise device of infi- nite and eternal benignity, and therefore, instead of repining, he thanked God for the chastisement which served only to hasten the coming reward. The vision of the Christian extends beyond the contracted sphere of the sufferings of humanity, and sees the crowning mercies that attend the disembodied spirits in a better world.
By the manner in which Louis died, this was strik- ingly illustrated. Calm and collected, after having dis- tributed words of encouragement to all that could ap- proach him, he summoned his son and successor to his bedside, and laying his hands on his head to bless him, he bid him a short and an impressive farewell. "My son !" said he, " I die in peace with the world and with myself, warring only against the enemies of our holy faith. As a Christian, I have lived in the fear, and I depart in the hope of God. As a man, I have never
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wasted a thought on my own perishable body ; and in obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christus, I have always forgotten my own worldly interest to promote that of others. As a king, I have considered myself as my subjects' servant, and not my subjects as mine. If, as a Christian, as a man, and as a king, I have erred and sinned, it is unwillingly and in good faith, and therefore, I trust for mercy in my heavenly Father, and in the protection of the Holy Virgin. I have lived-do thou likewise. Follow an example which secures to me such a sweet death amid such scenes of horror. Thou shalt find in my written will such precepts as my experience and my affection for thee and for my subjects have devised for thy guidance and for their benefit. And now, my son, farewell ! This life, as thou knowest, is a mere state of proba- ton : hence, do not repine at our short separation. Blessed be thou here, and in heaven, where I hope to met thee in everlasting bliss. So help me God! In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen!" Thus saying, he devoutly crossed himself, looked upwards, and exclaimed : " In- troibo in domum tuam, adorabo ad templum sanctum tuum." These were his last words. During his life, he was emphatically the Christian king: shortly after his death, he was canonized by the church, and be- came a saint.
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