snuff she affects; and doubtless she and Stella were vastly fain to have been of the party with whom Swift went "trapesing to see the sights," a varied programme, from the lions at the Tower to the lunatics at Bedlam, concluding with a puppet-show, and where "the ladies were all in mobs-undressed—and it was the rainiest day that ever dripped."

The old order was changing; and yet the past to our century had scarcely ceased to be the present, yielding the foreground of the stage, perhaps, yet still distinct in its outlines as the Ghost in "Hamlet," before the broadening light of a fuller day blurs it into intangibility. A daughter of Oliver Cromwell's is fellow sponsor with Swift at a christening; John Evelyn's little friend, that Duchess of Grafton married at twelve years of age to one of Charles II.'s sons, is Swift's hostess of an evening, and is somewhat unchivalrously described by him as looking "like a madwoman in the great high head-dress of a fashion fifteen years back," yet showing "great remains of beauty." Yet that the yeast of the rights of the individual is already penetrating the mass of society is amusingly evidenced by Patrick's canvassing among his acquaintance of "gentlemen's gentlemen" for votes on behalf of that black Pompey, who, by virtue of his master's relationship to Mr. Masham, designs to stand Speaker for the footmen in attendance at the Houses of Parliament, who had formed themselves into a deliberative body, debating the same points with their masters.

Sedan-chairs are yet general in town (Stella is asked, would she not call the shilling fares, thirteen pennys ?), though they must make a clutter in narrow streets, for Swift's chairmen jostle "a great fellow against a wall," one of the side glasses is broken, and the cargo falls a-scolding, being "plaguily afraid" his "honour" might be called upon to make good the damage.

The brutality of an age which gave birth to the Mohocks gloats over the raree-show made of Guiscard's gashed corpse "pickled in a trough;" on the Chelsea road Patrick and his master must interpose in the fight between the seaman and the drunken parson, fit to be the instrument of some Sir Hargrave Pollexfen. The Venetian Ambassador's "monstrous rich gilt coach" rolls to royal audiences at Kensington through the town scented with haymaking; duels are still fought in Tuttle Fields with sword and pistol, but "a kind of a fashion to walk" has got as far as several young lords—many young fellows have got "swingeing strong shoes" on purpose. Women with old satin and taffeta cry their wares of a morning; faith, there is nothing new under the sun, for the modern cinematograph has

been forestalled by "the famous moving picture, where the ships sail in the sea, discharging their cannon under a great sky with moon and stars."

Stella may gather together her letters now into some Japan cabinet, filled already with eye lotions and half-drawn sampler patterns, ivory card markers and bottles of Hungary water. The writer is coming home to her, hardly disguising his reluctance to return to Ireland, poorly enough rewarded for three years' faithful service by the deanery of St. Patrick's. Daily intercourse, opportunities for the tender motherly services without which he once declared himself "as helpless as an elephant "-will these compensate for the lifelong heart-sickness that casts ever-deepening shadows over her? Proud, uncomplaining, the woman must run her career, till at the end she sinks upon the arena, her life drained from her by the bleeding of the soul-wounds dealt her by the man whom she had been fated to love.

K. L. MONTGOMERY.

NOTE.--To obviate confusion, the names Stella and Presto are used in this article, following the custom of various editors, although they were not apparently used by Swift till some years later than the actual date of the Journal, in the original of which Stella is usually alluded to as Ppt ("poor pretty thing," or "poppet"). Swift also designates himself by P. D. F. R. or F. R. (apparently "poor dear foolish rogue," or simply "foolish rogue ").

257

IT

THE NIECES OF MAZARIN.

T has often been said that the Papacy is the most democratic institution in the world. Any baptized Christian man is eligible to it. There is some truth in the saying; for though usually the priest chosen to occupy a position that made him the equal, and more than the equal, of secular princes came of a family of longstanding wealth and power, there were in all ages exceptions enough to show that in the Sacred College an able man could "break his birth's invidious bar" and become "the centre of a world's desire.” In the two centuries covered by Ranke's History we meet with four pontiffs at least-Pius IV., Pius V., Sixtus V., and Innocent XI.— whose origin was humble. A man thus taken up out of the dust to be set with the princes of his people would generally carry with him one or more relatives, a nephew or a brother-in-law, who would share his elevation and become the founder of a great political family. But no relatives of a Pope ever had a more strange and dazzling elevation than those of a member of the Sacred College who never became Pope-Giulio Mazzarini, the son of the Sicilian man of business of the great Roman family of Colonna, who received a good education from his father's patrons, and, when still a lad, was taken by Cardinal Colonna as valet de chambre (we may say "gentleman of the bedchamber") on his embassy to the Court of Madrid. He did some useful diplomatic work in Spain, and afterwards served as a soldier, again under a Colonna, and won some distinction in the Valteline war. The profession of arms was probably that which would have suited him best, and he is said to have rejoiced in the many opportunities of a temporary return to it that his stormy career afforded. But his good looks, his good temper, his invincible gaiety, which carried him through one or two very awkward crises, in which the gambling spirit, which was characteristic of him through life, involved him, fitted him also for diplomacy; and we find him in 1634, at the age of thirty-two, and already in minor orders, nuncio at Paris, where he pleased Richelieu and by his influence was made a cardinal. In or about the same year two of his sisters were NO. 2067.

VOL. CCXCIV.

T

married to Roman gentlemen, the elder to Girolamo Martinozzi, the younger to Lorenzo Mancini. The marriages were thought brilliant for portionless girls, and we may probably conclude that the prospect of their brother's advancement counted in their favour. Of Martinozzi's family we know little, except that they were counts at Fano; but the Mancini genealogy went back to the fourteenth century and was authentic enough to satisfy so stern a precisian in such matters as St-Simon. Lorenzo Mancini was all his life a dabbler in astrology, but he would hardly have ventured, in casting the horoscopes of his five daughters, to predict that one of them would, but for her uncle's misplaced prudence, have been queen of Charles II. of England, while another would conceive, and nearly achieve, the design of sharing the throne of the Grand Monarque himself.

Late in 1642 Richelieu died, and six months later, in May 1643, Louis XIII. The King had appointed Mazarin, as the friend of Richelieu and inheritor of his ideas, his successor as Minister; and on the King's death Anne of Austria, the Regent for her son, then only five years old, continued him in that position. She was a weak and vain woman, and soon fell completely into the power of the brilliant Italian ecclesiastic, as clever as he was handsome and magnificent. At one time De Retz tells us that he was advised by Madame de Chevreuse to attempt to supplant Mazarin in the Queen's favour. She said to him: "Faites seulement le rêveur quand vous êtes auprès de la Reine; regardez continuellement ses mains." She was very vain of her hands, and by nature, De Retz again tells us, "très coquette." Buckingham's affected adoration of her is one of the commonplaces of history and romance. Mazarin was just the man to utilise this vanity for his own advancement -to pose as her distant and humble adorer; but we need not suppose he was secretly married to her, as his enemies said, though, as he was not in priest's orders, his marriage would not have been impossible.

No public man was ever more traduced than was Mazarin in the political strife that followed on his advancement; his luxury and magnificence were the constant theme of satire in verse and prose, sometimes witty, sometimes coarse. He was reproached with his pictures and statues, with the artists brought over to decorate his hotel, the soins galants he gave to his person and his dress, the pomades that idle Italian monks had taken three years to compound for making his hands white, the lemonades and pastry and fancy bread named after him, his scented gloves, and the apes he so loved, scented like himself.

Among the articles of luxury sent to him from Italy were three

The

nieces, still of schoolroom age, the eldest only thirteen. Cardinal probably thought that young Italian ladies, beautiful and clever, which the girls promised to become, would be an additional attraction to the pictures and statues and all the other luxuries of the new palace he was building. They came in 1647. Madame de Motteville ("Petitot," t. 37, pp. 270-4) tells us of the almost royal honour with which they were received, and describes their appearance. The eldest of the three, Laura Mancini, was a pleasing brunette of twelve or thirteen. Olympia Mancini, the second, was also dark, "with a long face and pointed chin, and small bright eyes that gave reason to hope that her fifteenth year, if she reached it, might give them some agrément." Anna Maria Martinozzi, the third, was blonde, with beautiful features and gentle eyes. She and Olympia were of the same age, between nine and ten. The Queen saw them as soon as they arrived, and thought them pretty. Madame de Motteville thought that the Cardinal affected indifference to them; she heard Marshal de Villeroy speculating on the fine castles, the rentes, the jewellery and plate and dignities, these little maidens, now so poor, would soon possess. They were brought to the Palais Royal, where their uncle was established with the Queen, and were educated with the King, who was of the same age as Olympia. The Queen herself presided over their devotions, and frequently took them with her on her visits to the nuns of Val de Grâce.

The words spoken by Villeroy show that he thought the girls were brought to Paris to make great marriages that would give the Cardinal powerful allies in his very slippery position-that of a foreign favourite in a court seething with turbulent ambitions. The same suspicion was present to others—to Condé, for instance, who, after the first Fronde, when still on the side of the Queen and Cardinal, had forced the latter to promise not to marry any of his nieces without his consent. The Mazarinades, the bitter political lampoons that during all these years were showered upon Mazarin, did not spare his three little nieces, the "Mazarinettes." It was natural to compare to his pet apes the nieces who had "bidden adieu to their beggarly kinsfolk to make the best matches they could with Candales or Richelieux or grand-masters of artillery."1

1 Elles avaient fait leurs adieux

A leurs parents de gueuserie,

Pour s'accoupler, à qui mieux mieux,

Aux Candales, aux Richelieux,

Aux grands maîtres d'artillerie.

The Duc de Candale was son of the Duc d'Epernon by a natural daughter of