Ralph The Bailiff, And Other Tales

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
I read Ralph The Bailiff, And Other Tales, a collection of shorter works by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, under the belief that it was first published in 1862. That is certainly the date most commonly given, and by a variety of different sources. However, subsequent research regarding the initial publication date of a couple of the individual stories has made it fairly clear that this volume must have been published later than that—with 1869 now seeming the most likely candidate.

Trying to nail this point down has not been helped by the fact that this collection was revised and/or retitled on several occasions. One of my 1862 sources adds that it was re-released in 1867, “with four extra stories” (it doesn’t bother to tell me their titles, of course). Meanwhile, the book was apparently released in America in 1870 as Dudley Carleon; or The Brother’s Secret: and Other Tales: presumably bailiffs weren’t considered a sufficient attraction. (This is still less annoying than a couple of later British editions, which had their titles pointlessly changed to Ralph The Bailiff, And Other Stories).

And just to top off the confusion, I have two different sources, one offering 1862 and the other 1869, having this collection as by “Mary Elizabeth Maxwell, formerly Braddon”—only Braddon and John Maxwell didn’t marry until 1874.

So if it’s all right with you, I’m just going to ignore all of that and pretend that for once, I didn’t feel obliged to spend longer researching a book’s original publication date than I did reading it. (I won’t say “than I did writing about it”, but—) Much as I hate doing things “out of order”, I’d hate even more to lose what’s fresh in my mind and have to read up on it all again at some point in the future.

So—

The magazine, The Welcome Guest, was founded in 1858 by the publisher, Henry Vizetelly. Subtitled “A Magazine of Recreative Reading for All”, the journal did its best to live up to this broad remit, offering a variety of material and a high standard of contributing writers—and this remained the case even after it changed hands. In 1860, John Maxwell bought the magazine, and hired the novelist and poet, Robert Brough, to edit it.

It was at the offices of The Welcome Guest that Mary Elizabeth Braddon and John Maxwell first met, in April of 1860. She was trying to support herself and her mother by acting and writing; he was impressed with the potential of her first novel, then titled Three Times Dead, which he helped her to revise and reissued as The Trail Of The Serpent.

Then other things happened.

One of them was that Braddon began regularly to contribute short stories and “novelettes”, as they were called, to The Welcome Guest, including several that were later included in Ralph The Bailiff, And Other Tales.

As the volume now stands, it has a slightly disconcerting arrangement, with the tone of the first few stories jerking back and forth between bleak and comic before the whole settles down into, predominantly, tales of crime and suspense, with the occasional touch of the supernatural.

The question of how to review a work such as this is a tricky one. I think the best approach might be to give a brief overview of each entry, along with a short quote, just to give a taste without, hopefully, spoiling anything. (And yes, I know I’m usually a shameless spoiler; but short works don’t stand up as well to that sort of handling.)

And this should also have the happy side-effect of keeping this to a single post of reasonable length. (Huzzah! they all cried.)

All that said—
 

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Ralph The Bailiff itself was originally published in the first volume of the St. James’s Magazine (April – July, 1861). Interestingly enough, no author was listed for it, which suggests that Braddon’s anomalous situation with respect to John Maxwell was known and causing angst in some quarters. (This may also be why Ralph The Bailiff was rather defiantly made the title story when this collection was finally published.)

When his elder brother unexpectedly dies, Dudley Carleon inherits his comfortable fortune and the respectable country property known as Grey Farm. It seems for a time that his loss has crushed Dudley’s spirits, which may or may not account for the ascendancy gained over him by his bailiff, Ralph Purvis, who becomes the real power of Grey Farm. When, after several years of a lonely, gloomy existence, Dudley is prompted to purchase another property at some distance and place Ralph in full charge of it, he makes use of his new freedom to court and marry Jenny Trevor, the pretty young ward of the rector—only to find, not happiness, but tragedy…

Braddon crams a lot into this novella, playing wicked games with the inversion of “the natural order”, that is, the master-servant and husband-wife relationships; but while we may get some grim fun out of Dudley’s helplessness in the grip of his bailiff, Braddon also uses her story to consider the terrible vulnerability of women, both within and without marriage. Jenny is trapped by her circumstances, literally unable to leave her husband’s house; while madness – or the accusation of madness – is a constant, lurking threat. Meanwhile, as we have seen before with Braddon, crime is not always punished and very often does pay—but only for those with the courage of their criminal acts.

    “And pray, my pretty, curly-haired Miss, who may you be?”
    “Your master’s wife,” said Jenny haughtily.
    The man stared at her rudely for two or three moments before he spoke.
    “My master’s what?”
    “His wife—Mrs Carleon,” she said, looking him full in the face, terrified, but not daunted by his insolence.
    The bailiff burst into a loud hoarse laugh.
    “Mr Dudley Carleon’s wife! His right-down lawful wife! O, you’re that, are you? Give me the light,” he said, snatching the silver candlestick from her hand; “let’s have a look at you, then, for you’re a bit of a curiosity…”
 

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Captain Thomas did first appear in The Welcome Guest, during August, 1860. This comic tale deals with a marriage that does not happen, with the narrator recounting how he came to the unhappy belief that his young fiancée’s heart was still to given to the man she had evidently loved before and lost, and who she did not hesitate to mourn in front of him. Braddon has fun with this one, offering a split-vision narrative whereby the reader sees a great deal more than the rather dull-witted central character—who, among other things, fails to grasp the true identity of his romantic rival, Captain Thomas, even when he makes an unorthodox reappearance on the very eve of the wedding:

    …the parlour-door was ajar—and I heard—yes, I heard from the lips of the woman I was going to marry—these passionate exclamations:
    “My darling Tom, my own precious Thomas! Ums Thomas!” In the whole course of our loves she had never called me Ums Benjamin. Ums was evidently a mysterious expression of endearment, especially consecrete to this military or naval deceiver. “Ums Thomas has come back to ums; ums naughty boy, then! There!”
    After the “There!” there was that indescribable and unmistakable sound—something between the whistling of birds in wet weather and the drawing of corks—which one is in the habit of hearing under the mistletoe. She—my “future”—was kissing Captain Thomas, or Captain Thomas was kissing her! What mattered it which? Ruin either way!
    There was an umbrella-stand in the hall. I retreated into the shadow thereof as Rosa Matilda rushed out of the room. “Mamma!” she called at the foot of the stairs; “Mamma, would you believe it? he’s come back! The Captain! He came in at the back-bedroom window!”
 

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Perhaps the most famous of all of Braddon’s short stories, and frequently anthologised in collections of Victorian ghost stories, The Cold Embrace was first published in The Welcome Guest in September of 1860.

An arrogant young artist draws his naïve cousin into a secret engagement. At the height of his passion he gives her a unique gold ring which once belonged to his mother, and swears that nothing – not even death – can part them; that even if he did die, his spirit would return to her… But out of sight is out of mind, and when tragedy strikes the artist is relieved as much as shocked. He flees, trying to bury the memory of his cousin; but his solitude is not left undisturbed…

…in the broad moonlight there are only two shadows, his own and his dog’s. He turns quickly round—there is no one—nothing to be seen in the broad square but himself and his dog; and though he feels, he cannot see the cold arms clasped round his neck…
 

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From one extreme to the other: My Daughters was also published in The Welcome Guest, in October of 1860.

This is a comic short story about a long-suffering father cursed with three grown-up daughters of romantic temperament, much addicted to sentimental reading. Braddon shows that she knows all the popular writing of her time; and as someone working through Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver novels, wherein Tennyson is a positive touchstone, her apparent exasperation with The Idylls Of The King (expressed here and elsewhere) is doubly amusing. Yet the story builds up to a disappointingly conservative coda that marks this as a very early work.

Well, we were scarcely out of Adam Bede when the girls sickened for the “Idyls.” They had a great struggle, so tremendous was the demand, to get it from Mudie’s; and I’m sure for a week our man-servant, Higgs, aged fourteen, almost lived upon the road between Brompton and Bloomsbury. At last, the modest green-covered volume arrived. O, little did I think what a viper that innocent-seeming book would prove!
 

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The Mystery Of Fernwood was first published in two parts, during November and December of 1861, in the literary magazine, Temple Bar (of which Braddon herself would later become editor).

When Isabel Morley becomes engaged to Laurence Wendale, she receives a rather ungracious invitation to Fernwood, the family estate in Yorkshire. Though Laurence warns her that it is a dreary place, that his father is in poor health and that his mother, Lady Adela, rarely receives company, Isabel is unprepared for the general air of gloom and sadness at Fernwood: an atmosphere which she slowly becomes convinced has something to do with “Mr William”, an invalid relative who occupies rooms in one wing of the building, from which he never emerges… Braddon transposes a number of Gothic conventions to the Yorkshire countryside in this one; though the overall tone is bleak, rather than sensationalised. The Mystery Of Fernwood also offers another of Braddon’s oblique commentaries upon the position of women, contrasting the thoughtless young Laurence with his quietly self-sacrificing half-sister, Lucy.

    “The poor gentleman’s rooms are at the other end of the gallery, miss.”
    “Has he lived here long?” I asked.
    “Nigh upon twenty years, miss—above twenty years, I’m thinking.”
    “I suppose he is distantly related to the family.”
    “Yes, miss.”
    “And quite dependent on Mr Wendale?”
    “Yes, miss.”
    “It is very good of your master to have supported him for so many years, and to keep him in such comfort.”
    “My master is a very good man, miss.”
    The woman seemed determined to give me as little information as possible; but I could not resist one more question. “How is it that in all these years Mr Laurence has never seen this invalid relation?” I asked.
 

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First appearing in The Welcome Guest during February of 1861, Samuel Lowgood’s Revenge is also slightly disappointing in its conventional morality. It concerns two clerks at a shipping firm, one poor, painstaking and retiring, the other brash, handsome and self-confident—and a gentleman’s son, as the obscure Samuel Lowgood is repeatedly reminded. Already consumed by resentment and jealousy, when Christopher Weldon breaks the heart of the girl that Samuel has long secretly loved, the humble clerk finds himself consumed with thoughts of revenge—even if that revenge takes a lifetime to enact…

    …at the end of the month Christopher Weldon was to give a great dinner-party, at which Messrs. Tyndale and Tyndale were to be present, to inaugerate his partnership. As senior clerk, I was honoured by an invitation.
    My enemy had mounted to the highest round of the ladder. Rich, beloved, honoured, the husband of a lovely and haughty lady, partner in the great and wealthy house which he had entered as junior clerk—what more could fortune bestow upon him?
    My time had come—the time at which it was worth my while to crush him…
 

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The Lawyer’s Secret first appeared in The Welcome Guest in three parts, between the 16th February – 2nd March, 1861. It is one of the longer works in this collection, and has since been excerpted and published as a standalone work.

When Ellinor Arden turns twenty-one, she learns that her inheritance of a fortune is conditional upon her marrying her uncle’s adopted son within the year. Ellinor is appalled, not least because she has long loved Horace Margrave, her lawyer, guardian and trustee—but the indifference with which he advises her, and the sensible way he discusses her potential marriage, chills her to the heart. Though she is prepared to dislike him, Henry Dalton seems to Ellinor a high-principled, generous young man; and impulsively, she agrees to the bargain. It is only after this that Horace Margrave confides to Dalton something that will bring the promising marriage to the point of disaster…

The main complaint that might be made against The Lawyer’s Secret is that the secret itself is too obvious. However, Braddon isn’t really writing sensation fiction here, where such a flaw might be fatal. She is more interested in the impact of the secret upon the marriage of Ellinor and Henry, and the simultaneous physical and moral deterioration of the brilliant, much-courted Horace Margrave. Particularly interesting here is how far Ellinor puts herself in the wrong in response to what she perceives as her husband’s sins, and that there is from the very first moment a large measure of class snobbery in her reaction to him, because of his background: a prejudice that colours her response to him and causes her to see his actions as those of someone who is “no gentleman”; unlike, say, Horace Margrave…

    “You too, against me?” cried Ellinor mournfully. “O, believe me, it is not the money I want, it is not the possession of of the money which I grudge him; it is only that my heart sinks at the thought of being united to a man I cannot respect or esteem. I did not ask to love him,” she added, half to herself; “but I did pray that I might be able to esteem him.”
    “I can only say, Ellinor, that you are mistaken in him.”
    At this moment came the sound of a quick firm step on the stairs, and Henry Dalton himself entered the room. His face was bright and cheerful, and he advanced to his wife eagerly; but at the sight of Horace Margrave he fell back with a frown.     “Mr Margrave, I thought it was part of our agreement—”
    The lawyer interrupted him. “That I should never darken this threshold. Yes.”
    Ellinor looked from one to the other with a pale, frightened face. “Mr Dalton,” she exclaimed, “what, in Heaven’s name, does this mean?”
    “Nothing that in the least can affect you, Ellinor. A business disagreement between myself and Mr Margrave; nothing more.”
    His wife turned from him scornfully, and approaching Horace Margrave, rested her hand on the scroll-work at the back of the chair on which he sat.
    It was so small an action in itself, but it said, as plainly as words could speak, “This is the man I trust, in spite of you, in spite of the world…”
 

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My First Happy Christmas finds Braddon dabbling in the other great mainstay of Victorian short fiction, the Christmas story. This one first appeared in The Welcome Guest in (of course) December of 1861.

This story deals with the fate of three small schoolboys left behind when all of their classmates go home for Christmas. Two of them have parents on the other side of the world; the third, our narrator, is an orphan. Particularly interesting here is the justifiable bitterness against the ways of Santa: was Braddon the first to go down that road?

Be that as it may, a particularly agreeable Saturnalia Christmas miracle is in the making…

On the whole, I say, I was not unhappy. During the half-year’s lessons and the half-year’s exercises, the half-year’s propria qua maribus and “Enfield’s Speaker”, bad marks and good marks, stolen feasts in dimly-lighted dormitories, prisoner’s base and fly-the-garter in the great bare playground, I was tolerably happy. But Christmas, that Christmas to which thirty-one out of four-and-thirty boys looked forward with such rapture—Christmas, which, for those thirty-one young persons, meant home, and love, and roast turkey, and unlimited wedges of rich plum-pudding smothered with brandy-sauce, and inexhaustible brown-paper bags of chestnuts, and piles of golden oranges, and bilious attacks, and kisses under the mistletoe from pretty cousins, and blindman’s buffs, and hunt the slippers, and so many glorious things, which to myself and the two pupils from Demerera were nothing but strange words—Christmas was for me a sad and bitter time. That genial and ancient allegorical person with rubicund face, snow-white, holly-crowned head, and brave, good-natured smile, was to me an evil-minded demon, who whispered, “For you I am not what I am to other people; I can never be the same to you that I am to other people; I come to you only to remind you of the love that is forever lost to you; of the home which you have never known…”
 

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The history of Lost And Found is confusing and I’m not sure I’ve got it right yet. This is, however, one of the included stories that argues against an 1862 publication date.

As I understand it, this work was originally part of Braddon’s novel, The Outcasts; or, The Brand Of Society, which was serialised in the London Journal between the 12th September 1863 – 12th March 1864. Braddon then revised her work and reissued it in novel form under the title, Henry Dunbar: The Story Of An Outcast. During the revision process, Braddon removed an entire section of her novel and then published it as a standalone work.

Or so the story goes. Since Lost And Found is almost long enough to be called “a novel” in its own right, it seems unlikely that it was cut out as it stands from within another novel. Furthermore, the only publication details I have found for Lost And Found suggest that it was published in the London Journal during 1864; and it doesn’t really make sense to me that Braddon would serialise The Outcasts, cut out a chunk of it, and then republish that chunk in the same magazine as an independent work.

(Henry Dunbar is now the “definitive” version of this novel. I haven’t yet looked into whether The Outcasts is available also. Quite a few of the 19th century magazines have been archived online, though, so I’ll chase that up when the time, or rather date, is ripe.)

A man calling himself Gervoise Gilbert leaves his alcoholic wife and their life of poverty in London, taking with him their young son, George. The two are fortunate enough to fall in with a band of travelling performers. In exchange for food and lodging, Gervoise designs and paints pictures of the troupe to be used as advertising, while George becomes part of the show itself. Noting the tattoos upon one of the performers, and learning that he did most of them himself, Gervoise asks the man to place a certain mark upon George’s wrist, so that he may always in future be identified. The tattoo is of an earl’s coronet, with the initials ‘G. P.’…

The troupe is present when the Earl of Haughton is killed during a steeplechase race. His young countess is rushed from the scene; later it is learned that both she and her baby, a boy born prematurely, have died. Gervoise wastes no time in travelling to London, to the Palgrave family lawyers, who know his history and hold the documentation necessary to prove his identity. In his haste, Gilbert leaves Georgey with the troupe; and he returns in triumph as Gervoise Palgrave, Earl of Haughton, only to discover that the boy is missing—stolen away, it seems, by his mother…

The loss of his son blights Gervoise’s ascension to the aristocracy. Though he sets in motion a thorough search for Agatha and the boy, no trace is found of either. It is many months before Gervoise can reconcile himself to the situation—and then his consolation takes a dangerous form, in his tentative courtship of Ethel Hurst. Arguing to himself that were Agatha not dead, some hint of her whereabouts must have been discovered. Gervoise defiantly asks Ethel to marry him. However, a chance encounter only days before the wedding leaves Gervoise with a desperate choice to make…

Lost And Found is in all respects a grim work: there are no heroes here, only villains of varying shades and degrees of guilt. The one ray of light is Braddon’s sympathetic and humorous sketch of the performers—and even there she finds one more villain to darken her tale.

Gervoise may be our protagonist but the touchstone of his character is his selfishness. Even though it is Agatha’s violent and drunken behaviour that drives Gervoise away, it is made clear that when he married her, she was an innocent and sober girl; being made to carry the blame for Gervoise’s “fall” from high society to a life of poverty and struggle became too much for her. Gervoise knows well enough that he is leaving Agatha to face destitution, but makes Georgey’s safety his excuse for a desertion that is equally if not more for his own comfort. Yet it is Gervoise’s very haste to claim his inheritance that later leaves Georgey exposed to danger.

The working-out of the plot of Lost And Found exploits the Victorian unease over the implications of wet-nursing: the sense that, “necessary” as it might have been, it resulted in an improper and dangerous mingling of the classes and created intimacy where none should exist.

(Wet-nursing was “necessary” because of the social taboo against women having sex while breastfeeding. Babies were therefore taken away from their mothers at about six weeks of age, to allow husbands sexual access again—although this was usually couched in terms of women “worrying about their figures” [which repeated pregnancies weren’t going to help; just sayin’]. Samuel Richardson’s unnecessary sequel to Pamela deals with this situation with disturbing frankness, but of course that was the mid-18th century.)

Gervoise’s foster-brother, Humphrey Melwood, is positioned in the narrative as, effectively, Gervoise’s evil twin. He is passionately devoted to Gervoise, to the point of intuiting – and acting out – his darkest impulses, creating the disturbing scenario of the aristocratic Gervoise keeping his own hands technically clean while poacher-turned-gamekeeper Humphrey does his dirty work for him.

I argued during my review of The Trail Of The Serpent that Braddon may have been the first to write a real “detective story”, that is, to place a detective figure at the centre of her narrative and to make the successful unravelling of a mystery the backbone of her plot.

The second half of Lost And Found is effectively another such story, making the correct dating of it even more important. While it is perhaps not “pure” enough in its mystery aspects to qualify as a detective story proper, Lost And Found does give us a determined amateur detective following clues to discover the truth of certain dark events surrounding Gervoise’s marriage to Ethel Hurst—albeit that the detective is no hero, but someone determined to do as much harm as possible when he gets his hands on the proofs he seeks. Furthermore, the reader already knows the truth of the mystery being investigated—allowing us to argue, if we choose, that Braddon also invented the so-called “inverted detective story”, something usually attributed to R. Austin Freeman’s Dr John Thorndyke stories many years later.

    “You are Earl of Haughton! Last night you were walking about Avondale afraid to show yourself in your shabby clothes, wild and desperate, talking about ending your days in a river; to-night you are the master of Palgrave Chase. The poor countess is dying; the child died within an hour of its birth.”
    “Dead!”
    “Yes, Master Gervoise. Ah, my lord—I mustn’t call you Master Gervoise any longer—the days are gone forever when I might call you brother.”
    “No, no, Humphrey—no, no,” answered Gervoise. “If this is all true—if it is not some distempered dream, as it seems to me it must be—why then I will be more your brother than ever. Adversity is a hard master, Humphrey; and those who suffer are apt to think very little of the sufferings of others. But prosperity softens a man’s heart. I’ll be a true friend to you, Humphrey.”
    He held out his hand as he spoke, and grasped the horny fingers of the gamekeeper.
    “Bless you for those words, Master Gervoise! The world will be all at your feet now, and money’s very powerful; but for all it’s so powerful, there are some things it can’t do, and those are just the very things a faithful friend can do. You see this arm, Master Gervoise,” cried the gamekeeper, stretching out his muscular right arm and clenching his powerful fist; “there’s many about Avondale as could tell you that it isn’t a weak one. If there’s anyone that wronged you, I’d as lief strike him down with that arm as crush a worm that came in my pathway. It’s not many people I care for, Master Gervoise, but there’s something more than common in the love I bear you; I must have sucked it in with my mother’s milk, for it seems as if it was mixed with the blood that runs in my veins, and I think every drop of that blood would turn to liquid fire if I knew that anyone had injured you. Heaven help them that harmed you, that’s all! Heaven keep ’em safe out of my pathway!”
 

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Eveline’s Visitant is the death-knell of any suggestion of 1862: it first appeared in the Belgravia magazine in January of 1867. Belgravia was founded by John Maxwell late in 1866, and edited by Braddon from its establishment until 1876, becoming their most successful joint venture of this sort.

This is another of Braddon’s well-known and often-anthologised ghost stories. I find it interesting that, like The Cold Embrace, it is set outside of England, that supposed land of ghosts.

During a drunken fight over a worthless woman, Hector de Brissac, a young French soldier, strikes his aristocratic cousin across the face, cutting open his cheek. A duel is inevitable—and it is the aristocrat who falls. As he lies dying, Andre de Brissac whispers to his cousin that the affair between them is not yet over… Hector’s inheritance of his cousin’s estate initially brings him no happiness: he is looked askance at and shunned by his Andre’s friends and neighbours. Things change when Hector meets and marries the lovely and gentle Eveline Duchalet, who becomes the great joy of his life. Only a few months into the marriage, however, a shadow is thrown across it, when Eveline comes home one day to ask the name of the man who must, she concludes, be the owner of the neighbouring estate, who she has begun to see frequently while in the grounds? As Hector knows only too well, there is no such estate, nor any such man…

    “Have you seen this man often, Eveline?” I asked.
    She answered in a tone which had a touch of sadness, “I see him every day.”
    “Where, dearest?”
    “Sometimes in the park, sometimes in the wood. You know the little cascade, Hector, where there is some old neglected rock-work that forms a kind of cavern. I have taken a fancy to that spot, and have spent many mornings there reading. Of late I have seen the stranger there every morning.”
    “He has never dared to address you?”
    “Never. I have looked up from my book, and have seen him standing at a little distance, watching me silently. I have continued reading; and when I have raised my eyes again I have found him gone. He must approach and depart with a stealthy tread, for I never hear his footfall. Sometimes I have almost wished that he would speak to me. It is so terrible to see him standing silently there…”
 

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Found In The Muniment Chest was also published in Belgravia in 1867, in the December issue. It is a fairly straightforward romance, with its climax set during the Christmas season, and may have done duty for a more overt Christmas story.

A young lawyer falls in love with the daughter of a man who is not merely a bibliophile, but a “bibliomaniac”, having spent a literal fortune upon his collection of rare books and manuscripts. Knowing that he is in no position to aspire to the hand of an heiress, he buries his feelings, trying to content himself with the position of legal advisor and loyal friend. One night Barbara comes to him for advice on a matter that must change her life drastically and forever: she confides to him that she has found a will post-dating the one under which her father inherited his fortune…

    “…my first impulse was to come to you with this dreadful paper. And O, Mr Wilmot, does this will really mean anything, and will it reduce papa to poverty, for I fear he has squandered a great deal of money on his books, and has considerably impoverished the estate; and he will have to give all back, will he not, if that paper is binding?”
    How could I answer her when she looked at me with such a terror-stricken face, alarmed not for herself—I doubt if she was even conscious that her own interests were at stake—but for the father she loved so fondly!
 

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Ralph The Bailiff, And Other Tales concludes with a final comic story—although we may also choose to consider it an inverted ghost story, inasmuch as it is told from the point of view of the ghost. How I Heard My Own Will Read first appeared in Belgravia in February of 1867.

After an over-convivial evening following a stolen holiday at the St. Ledger, Augustus Pettifer is killed in a train wreck outside of a place called Slitherem-on-the-Dwingey; never mind that no such place exists, but was made up merely to excuse his absence from home. But this is only the first of many strange and mortifying events. For one thing, no-one seems to recognise him any more; not even his own widow, when he arrives home. Then there are the reactions of the beneficiaries to the last will and testament of Augustus Pettifer…

    Really, what with the parlour-maid’s asservations, Julia Maria’s mourning, and the graphic account of the accident in the newspaper, I was in a manner beginning to believe in Slitherem-on-the-Dwingey. Suppose I had been killed? Suppose I had been brought home on a shutter, and didn’t know it? There was an awful situation!
    I pinched myself; it was painful. There was a fire in the grate; I laid hold of the bars; that was painful, very, and I believe I swore; but O, it was such a comfort to feel that I was mortal, that I could have blessed anyone for treading upon my pet corn.
    It was a nice thing to be asked into my own dining-room to hear my own will read. There was Peck, in a suit of black, with ebony death’s-heads for studs,—he had always had a playful fancy,—sitting in one of my morocco chairs at the top of my patent telescopic dining-table. He seemed to have forgotten all about Doncaster. I tried to recall it to his recollection, but a temporary paralysis of the vocal organs prevented me…
 

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ETA:

Crap.

It occurred to me just too late that there are four stories here with an original publication date post-1862, and that I therefore accidentally read the first revised edition of 1867, referred to up above, to which more stories were added.

This in spite of the fact that my copy carried a “First published in 1862” rider. I guess I’m not the only one confused by all this.

Anyway…I’m not going to re-write anything. I’m just going to allow myself the comfort of not really having gotten things “out of order”…

A Letter From Lewis The Great, To James The Less

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So it turns out that the next entry in our journey through this particular outbreak of political brawling is not prose – still less an actual “letter” – but a poem. Given its relatively short length, I’ve decided to transcribe it rather than deal in excerpts.

This work, whose complete title is A LETTER From LEWIS the Great, To JAMES the Less, His Lieutenant in IRELAND. With Reflections by way of ANSWER to the said LETTER, or serious CONTEMPLATIONS at an Unseasonable Time, is one of the slander-writings that provoked the anger of the author of The Blatant Beast Muzzl’d; although in this case, we assume that it was the crass language and crude sexual innuendo which upset him, rather than the content.

Obviously this poem was part of that subset of political writing which decided that the best way to deal with James was not ranting and raving and tub-thumping, but mockery. It offers the by-now standard view of James as a fool and a cuckold; but it also adds a further smear—presenting him as a coward.

The dating of this poem is uncertain, being unhelpfully listed as 1689-1690 in the catalogues; but there isn’t any doubt that it was published after the Battle of the Boyne, when James’ fate had been decided.

And while there is plenty of crude humour in the text, the poem’s best joke is actually a pretty subtle one: it has Louis XIV offering James the choice of two fates, Death or Glory; but as we know, he found a third option…

(I suppose I should add a warning here for “coarse language” and “sexual references”. Just noting that the censored language is in the original document. And that some of the censoring choices, and non-choices, seem…odd.)

 

I

TO James our Lieutenant this greeting we send:
As you hope to preserve us your Patron and Friend,
As you trust to the vertue of us and your Wife,
Who leads in your absence a dissolute life;
          Now you’ve sold us your Land,
          Obey Our Command,
As your Spouse does our Pego when e’re it will st—,
And what I enjoyn you be sure to observe,
Since you know not to Rule, I will teach you to Serve.

II

To reduce our new Subjects, we sent you ’tis true,
But be sure take upon you no more than you’re due;
Submit to the Fetters your self have put on,
You’ve the Name of a King but the Majesties gone.
          For your bold Son-in-Law,
          The valiant Nassaw,
Who values not you nor my self of a straw,
Will neither be cullied nor bubbled like you,
I’ve a prospect already of what he will do.

III

Let not Infant or Bedrid your pity implore,
You’ve lost all your Kingdoms by that heretofore,
A Hereticks life like a Dog’s I do prise,
Murther all that oppose you, or ‘gainst you dare rise:
          They were Subjects to you,
          Therefore make ’em all rue,
And either give them, or I’le give you your due:
I acknowledge your folly has made me more wise,
I see with my own, and not Jesuits eyes.

IV

These Courses in Ireland, I charge you to steer,
In the Head of your Army be sure to appear,
You’re a Souldier of Fortune and fight for your pay,
You know your reward, if you once run away;
          Either Conquest or Death,
          I to you bequeath,
And therefore prepare for a Shrowd or a Wreath:
So thus I commit you to one of the Two,
If I see you no more here, I bid you adieu.

**********

I

WHEN that Remnant of Royalty Jimmy the Cully,
Had receiv’d this Epistle from Lewis the Bully,
His Countenance chang’d, and for madness he cry’d,
I’ve the Devil to my Friend, and his Dam to my Bride;
          Sure I am the first
          That’s in all things accurst,
Nor can I determine which Plague is the worst,
That of losing my Realms or the News I’ve receiv’d,
Which from any Hand else, I could ne’re have believ’d.

II

I find they agreed when for Ireland they sent me,
And if I knew how, ’tis high time to repent me;
I’ve abandon’d my reason to pleasure a Trull,
Who has made me her Bubble, her Cuckold, and Fool;
          We’re all in the Pit,
          Our designs are besh-t,
And hither I’m sent to recover my Wit:
If this be the fortune proud Este does bring,
Wou’d I’de been a Tinker instead of a King.

III

How or which way to turn me, or whither to go,
By the Faith of a Jesuit I’me a Dog if I know;
For this going to War I do mortally hate,
Tho’ of Sieges and Battles I ever cou’d prate;
          I thought I had Valour,
          But I find it was Choler,
Tho’ thirty years I have been Lewis’s Scholar;
I’ve trac’d all his Policies, Maxims and Rules,
By which I’ve attain’d to be chief of his Fools.

IV

Had I courage to dye I’de refuse to survive,
I’m buried already altho’ I’m alive,
My Story’s like that of unfortunate Jack,
I’ve shuffled and cut till I’ve quite lost the Pack:
          He that trusts to the Pope,
          No better must hope,
Or to Lewis or she whom that Pagan does grope:
For no Monarch must ever expect a good Life,
Who is rid by a Priest, or a damn’d Popish Wife.

V

May Lewis succeed me in all Circumstances,
His Arms unsuccessful where e’re he advances,
May his ill gotten Laurels be blasted and dry,
May a Shrowd be deny’d him when e’re he does dye;
          May his Land be o’re-run,
          By that Champion our Son:
So I’le close up with her who that mischief begun;
May the Curse of Three Kingdoms for ever attend her,
While to WILLIAM and MARY my Crown I surrender.
 
 

 

 

The History Of The Mareschalless De La Ferté

The Marquess de Beuvron believing himself handsome enough to be happy, was not contented with the leavings of so many; and Madame d’Olonne being not more faithful to him, he not only resolved to see neither of ’em, but also to ruin their Reputations in the World. As he durst not brag publicky to have lain with two Sisters, he gave ’em to understand that he had enjoy’d that happiness with one, and that it was only his own fault that he had not arriv’d to it with the other. Those who knew ’em both, had no hardship to believe it, but many believing it was malice that occasion’d his railing, the injury he thought to do their Reputations, excited only in them a curiosity to see such remarkable Ladies…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So! – it is with an altered perspective that I returned to The History Of The Mareschalless De La Ferté. Possibly because, in this instance, he was dealing with people much more widely known, the anonymous author does reel himself in a bit, with this narrative being far less sexually explicit; but otherwise, it is business as usual.

The author starts out by introducing his new cast of characters:

What I have told you of Madam de Lionne, shews a great condescention in one who had aspired to Charm even the King; yet it is nothing in Comparison of what I am going to relate concerning the Mareschalless de la Ferté, who is my other Heroess; but one so Illustrious, that it would be difficult to find her fellow, should you seek throughout Paris, which is nevertheless a Marvellous place for such kind of Discoveries. However, she was no sooner thrown from the aspiring hopes I have before mention’d, but she began to endeavour to comfort her self: And it seem’d not difficult, since he who had made her forget so Charming an Idea, was not one of extraordinary merit. She was of a good Family, and the Mareschal prov’d himself more couragious when he marry’d her, than he had before done by all the Warlike enterprises he had ever attempted. For she must either have been chang’d at nurse, or resemble the rest of her Relations who were so inclin’d: a fair Example whereof was to be seen in her Sister the Countess d’Olonne, whom Bussy has endeavoured to render famous to his Abilities, tho’ he has very much fail’d in it. The Copy falling so short of the Original. This Lady, tho’ of an indifferent Beauty, and far beneath her Sisters, had nevertheless so good an Opinion of her self, that she thought it her right to Charm the World…

The narrative then offers an unpleasant sketch of the Maréchal de la Ferté, “the Mareschal” – the most brutal Man that ever was – who is shown using threats and violence against his erratic wife, in an effort to keep her in line when his military duties call him away from home. In particular, he warns her against keeping company with her sister, the Countess d’Olonne, who is less than pleased at being cast in the role of corrupting influence:

And as Revenge is commonly the darling sin of Women; she could not rest till she had place’d him in the same rank with her own Husband, that is, till she had contriv’d a pair of Horns for him. Having discover’d her intentions in this to the Marquess of Beuvron who lov’d her, she desir’d him to render her that service, in hopes, that being both handsom and witty, it would not be difficult for him to supplant a Jealous Coxcomb, who could never have pleas’d her Sister any other way than by making her Fortune.

The Marquess, while attracted by the idea of bagging sisters, suspects that the Countess is trying to palm him off so that she can move on to the Duke de Candalle. He shows his jealousy so clearly, she abandons the notion of using him as her tool; though not the notion itself. After some reflection, she comes up with an alternative lover for her sister:

…she fixt upon her own Husband, in whom she fancy’d, she had heretofore observ’d some kind looks towards her Sister, by which she concluded her not indifferent to him; and besides she thought it not ill Policy to amuse him with some engagement, that he might not pry so narrowly after her affairs.

The Countess is right about her husband, but this plan falls through too: the Count d’Orlonne being so aware of his own shortcomings that he can bring himself to make no real attempt to seduce his sister-in-law. Exasperated, the Countess then fixes upon a certain Valet de Chambre in her sister’s employ, who helps her scheme along by being reticent about his background. The Countess brings the young man to the Mareschalless’ attention, suggesting to her that he is, in reality, some young lord who is in love with her, and has adopted the disguise of a servant to get close to her. The Mareschalless is intrigued and flattered, as she intended; while she also takes opportunities to urge the young servant on. He is dazzled, but doubtful; and hesitates in a manner that frustrates the Mareschalless, and forces her to make the first move:

…he, who was afraid of being guilty of any disrespect that might occasion his discharge, had still continued so dull not to have profited by the opportunity, had not the Lady, who kindly interpreted his proceedings, forc’d him into her lap, where she made him so many advances, that he could no longer be in doubt of his good Fortune. At these signs he took Courage, and the Bed being not yet made, the half hour he remained with her, was so well employ’d, that she conceiv’s a great esteem of his merit…

The affair being so unlikely, and the Mareschalless’ lover living under her roof, the intrigue goes undiscovered by the spies placed by the Mareschal, as well as by the world at large. This does not suit the Countess d’Olonne, who is perfectly prepared to sacrifice her sister to make a fool out of her brother-in-law: she sends him an anonymous letter informing him of the intrigue. Despite his low opinion of his wife, the Mareschal can hardly believe such a thing, and determines to hide his doubts and keep watch upon her himself:

His resentment was not the less for being conceal’d, on the contrary, it disturb’d his quiet both Night and Day; which afforded no little joy to the Countess d’Olonne, who was so clear sighted to discern through all his false disguises, he suffer’d all the torture she could wish him…

However, the Countess reckons without the jealousy of the Marquess de Beuvron who, angry at being made to share her favours, secretly gives her away to the Mareschalless. She, terrified of her husband’s violence, immediately breaks off the affair—or tries to: the young man, tempting fate, digs in his heels when she tries to dismiss him from the household; time enough for the Mareschal, who has plans of his own, to offer him a position in his own service. The young man foolishly takes this as a sign that the cuckolded husband does not know about the affair, a misapprehension which costs him his life:

For taking a Journey not long after this, towards his Government of Lorain, by the way Assassinated him with his own hand, that no one might know what was become of him…

The Mareschal takes pains to advertise the disappearance of his servant, whose body is found some time afterwards, and his own anger at the cowardly crime:

The Garrison of Luxemburgh, having at this time sent Parties abroad, this Murder was attributed to them, and the Mareschal seem’d to be so incens’d at it, that he commanded a Village in that Duchy to be burnt, tho’ it was under Contribution.

Though to the world at large the Mareschal is innocent, those closest to him know better. The Countess sends the Marquess to warn her sister (without giving away her own part in the matter), and the Maraschelless takes heed, altering her conduct and confining herself to home and family parties. This attempt to allay her husband’s anger backfires, however, because “family party” means the company of the Count d’Olonne, who finds his passion for his sister-in-law becoming uncontrollable. Meanwhile, the Marquess de Beuvron, having had several private meetings with the Mareschalles while they planned the best way to placate her husband, also finds his inclinations drifting from one sister to the other. Granted, a few days earlier he was urging her to behave herself at all cost; but, oh well…

The Mareschalless is surprised by the Marquess’ sudden declaration; doubtful that he means it; and frightened of her husband. The Marquess has an answer for all this—that since he is so well known as the Countess d’Olonne’s lover, no-one will suspect them, including the Mareschal; that he is fed up with the Countess’ infidelities; and that, while the Countess is generally deemed the most beautiful women in Paris, he finds himself drawn to the Mareschalless’ less obvious charms.

The Mareschalless doesn’t quite believe any of this but, having lived all her life in her sister’s shadow, the thought of stealing her lover is too tempting. The mere fact of it is not enough for her, however:

She ask’d him which (meaning she or her Sister,) afforded him the most ravishing transports, and he…laying aside his discretion, freely confess’d, her self without Comparison: She see,’d not to believe him, pretending his Raptures did not appear to her violent enough, but this was only to give him the opportunity to begin again; which he perceiving, acquitted himself so well of his Duty, that she was forc’d to confess that if he did not love her, his treatment of her had very much the appearance of it…

The smokescreen of the Marquess’ long-standing affair with the Countess operates as anticipated—except, curiously, in one quarter. The Count d’Olonne, having turned a blind eye to the Marquess’ affair with his wife, is infuriated to find him beforehand with the Mareschalless, and picks a violent quarrel with him.

In the end it is the Countess who must act as peacemaker, inviting de Beuvron to a private supper with herself and the Count as a public show of friendship and reconciliation. The Count, however, afraid that this reconciliation may mean a resumption of the earlier affair, determines to do his best to ruin the Marquess with her, and excuses his conduct in terms of defending his sister-in-law’s reputation. This ploy fails in its intent, the Countess concluding, correctly, that he is is driven by his desire for the Mareschalless, but dismissing the notion of the Marquess cheating on her as ridiculous.

But as it turns out, the Countess has created a monster. Her desires being let off the leash via her consecutive affairs, the Mareschalless goes wild:

In effect finding her Husband more tractable at his return than she could hope, she stopped not at the Marquess de Beuvron, but associated with him many Comrades of all sorts. The Church, the Law, and the Sword, was equally well receiv’d by her, and not contented with these three States, she made a Favourite of a fourth. Those who were concern’d in the Revenue pleas’d her extreamly, and having a great inclination for Play, many believ’d her Interest engag’d her to it.

Indeed, the behaviour of the Mareschalless is so outrageous, it attracts notice in high places:

This happen’d whilst the King was young, and but little of his adroitness either in War or Love had yet appear’d; but as he had the inclinations of a great Prince, of all the Women about Court these two Sisters were the least in his esteem, and he could not forbear to say one day, speaking of the Countess d’Olonne, that she was a shame to her Sex, and that her Sister was going the way to be little better…

Meanwhile, we discover that the reason for the Mareschal’s unwonted compliance is his own secret affair. In fact, in order to keep him distracted, the Marquess has procured a pretty young prostitute and thrown her in the Mareschal’s way; and he, unknowing, has snapped at the bait:

He look’s very much upon her, and believing her as vertuous as she affeted to appear, it was not long before he made her an offer of his Heart. She at first refused it, and his passion was so enhanc’d by the denyal, that he openly Courted her. His Wife, to push the design, pretended to be offended at it, but he desisted not for this, neither car’d she much, for what she did, was only to make him believe he was not indifferent to her.

The girl eventually gives in, of course; and, primed by the Marquess, does her best to keep everyone happy:

She took great care to entertain him with the Vertue of the Mareschalless, under the pretext that having a Wife so commendable in all things, the Passion he had for her would no doubt be quickly expir’d.

No doubt.

Worried that she is overplaying her hand, the Marquess thinks it prudent to brings matters to a conclusion:

    …to prevent the worst, he caus’d her one day to be taken away by stealth, and carry’d her to Rouen, from whence he sent her to America.
    The Marechal made a great noise about it, and attributed it to his Wife’s Jealousie, which she did not at all deny. This occasion’d a breach for some time, but the Mareschal’s love fit being over, he was reconcil’d to her, and the Friendship he shew’d her, was so much the more sincere, as he believ’d a Woman capable of so much jealousie, could by no means be unfaithful to him.

The fortunes of the two sisters then shift. It is the Mareschalless who is courted by the public, her husband’s infatuation leading him to fund her various pleasures; while the Countess d’Olonne is shunned and despised. She finally stoops to a single lover, the undistinguished but wealthy Feruaques; excusing her connection with him under the guise of trying to arrange a marriage between the rich man and her comparatively poor niece, Mlle de la Ferté. But in time she stops making excuses, and the affair becomes open enough to alarm Feruaques’ family, who are afraid that, should the Countess be widowed, the foolish young man might be infatuated enough to marry her.

By this time, we are to understand that both sisters are “elderly” (they might be in their thirties); not that this has altered their desires, if it has their opportunities. The Mareschalless, being the younger, is still doing better; and it is at this point that the narratives of Gallantry Unmask’d and The History Of The Mareschalless De La Ferté begin to cross paths:

‘Twas not ill Fortune to an Elderly Lady, as the Countess was, to have the enjoyment of a Lover young and rich, but yet she fell far short of her Sister, who after she had tasted of all the Court, and even her Brother In Law, was so lucky to engage a young Prince of great Merit, the Duke of Longueville, Nephew to the Prince of Condée…

This arrangement was brokered by none other than our old acquaintance, the Count de Fiesque, who is one of the few men at court whom the Mareschalless has not “sampled”, and who she therefore regards as an actual friend. The Count is likewise a close friend of de Longueville, and warns the Mareschalless that her only hope with the young man is to reform her conduct, as the Duke is not one to be toyed with, and neither a man to share a woman’s favours. He promises her that if she can behave herself, he will put in a good word for her.

The Mareschalless is so determined on this triumph, she takes heed of de Fiesque’s advice:

‘Twas thus that the Mareschalless, by the necessities of her temper, overturn’d the Laws of Nature; for, not considering that ’twas the Woman’s part to expect the Courtship from the Man, it is evident, that she first made Love to the Duke of Longueville. The Count de Fiesque, who beliv’d she would find it very difficult to discharge so many favourites for the sake and enjoyment of one, mention’d nothing at first, of this Conversation to the Duke; but when he found she began in earnest to effect her Promise, and had parted with the Count d’Olonne, the Marquess Dessiat, and many more too tedious to name; he thought himself oblig’d to perform his promise…

The Duke, meanwhile, is willing enough now that the “obstacle” of countless rivals has been removed; and the affair is delayed only because of a certain inconvenience on his part:

In fine, too much health had occasioned his sickness, for frequenting too often some brisk Ladies about the Court, he was forc’d to retire from theirs, to put himself into the Chirurgeons hands…

In order to make sure that nothing can happen immediately, the Duke insists upon the Count de Fiesque accompanying him to his first interview with the Mareschalless, in which each of them promises to give up all their other lovers and swears fidelity (the Mareschal notwithstanding) to the other:

…she, who thought those earnests not sufficient, threw her arms about his neck, and gave him a thousand amorous kisses: Had not the Prince been indispos’d, his temper had been too acknowledging to have omitted a suitable answer. But knowing that it was not in this Distemper, that a hair of the same Dog was to be taken for a Remedy; he broke off the entertainment as soon as he could…

All of the Mareschalless’ former lovers are aggrieved by their abrupt dismissal, but none so much as the Count d’Olonne, who has spent a small fortune on her, and is wounded in both his purse and his feelings. We get a sliver of historical fact here, as with great presence of mind, the Mareschalless puts her rejection of him down to the disrespect he has shown her sister by separating from her. (The d’Olonnes did separate after ten years of marriage, when Catherine-Henriette failed to produce an heir.) The Count, bewailing the cruel fate that involved him with the sisters, is not to be persuaded by either words or tears, and the two part bitterly.

For a time the Mareschalless is concerned that he might vent by telling her husband; and we now learn that the Mareschal, much afflicted by gout, has effectively withdrawn from public life and is the one person who knows nothing of his wife’s latest escapade.

The affair between the Mareschalless and the duke hots up, but even so, he has enough caution to resist when she tries to persuade him to spend the entire night with her. Instead, he compromises:

…he desir’d Fiesque to hire a House in his name. He took one near St Anthony’s Gate, where the Mareschalless, pretending to go walk, sometimes to the Arsenal, sometimes to Vincenne, often came through a back Gate. The Petticoats began to rise with these Interviews, and finding her self with Child, she was in some concern. Yet seeming to be careless of the resentment of her Husband, to shew the greater violence of her Passion to her Gallant, she contriv’d ways to hide her great Belly, and was brought to Bed in her own Apartment…

The baby is smuggled out of the house, and the Duke puts it out to nurse. Its existence is whispered about, however, and when the still bed-ridden Mareschal makes an enemy through his rapacious and often violent acquisition of other people’s land, he retaliates via an anonymous letter hinting at the infant’s parentage. The Maraschel tries to believe that this is just slander, but he can’t help but notice that the illness which has lately confined his wife to her own bed had the same duration as a traditional recovery period…

…the time of lying in being pass’d, the Lady’s distemper vanish’d, and she came into his Chamber in as good health as if she had ailed nothing. As soon as he saw her, he began to cry out as if he had a fit of his Pain, and the Mareschalless demanding the reason. Ah Madam, said he, when you cry’d out louder than I do, not long ago, I did not ask you the matter, and therefore pray let me alone…

Before long, France and Holland being at war, the Duke de Longueville is ordered into the field. this causes the Mareschalless less distress than we might expect, as a coolness has arisen due to jealousy on her part; and when the Duke is killed in action she shrugs it off.

(More historical fact here: the Duke de Longueville was killed in 1672. Before he left Paris, he had his bastard son legitimated, a common practice at the time, a sort of “spare heir” arrangement; although history does not seem to record the identity of the boy’s mother.)

The Marechalless’ next venture is with a certain M. Bechameil who, as a “mere citizen”, she feels should be willing to pay for his pleasure, and hers; and pay – and pay – and pay. Bechameil tries to rein in her demands, insisting upon a fixed allowance, to which she reluctantly agrees; but when he finds out she has been taking his money and cheating on him anyway, he breaks off the connection:

So that not being seis’d of the whole I am contented to part with what I had to the advantage of whom you please, or, to speak properer, to the first Comer; in doing whereof, I shall for the future employ my ten thousand Crowns in Manuring a ground which shall be till’d by me alone…

Things go from bad to worse for the Mareschalless. Not only does she have debts of her own, but when soon afterwards the Mareschal dies, she learns that he too was in debt, besides the stopping of his government stipend. Desperate, the Mareschalless begins holding card parties, at which (surprise!) she does not always play fair. She finds a partner in crime in the Marchioness de Royan, who has likewise been left in difficult circumstances, and threatened with a convent by her family. To circumvent this, she agrees to marry a brother of the Count d’Olonne – there was nothing in nature more horrible than this Chevalier…he had rather the air of a Cow than a Man – a marriage which the Count has a particular reason for bringing about:

Thus it was, that the Count d’Olonne fearing there should be no Cuckolds in the Family, took himself care of that Subject…

But the cheating being suspected, the Mareschalless’ card parties do not serve her as she hoped; and at last she is driven to try and steal the still-infatuated Feruaques from her sister:

For she was vex’d at the very heart, that her Sister, who was older than her by several years, and had not a better Reputation, should have a purse like that at her command…

At this time the whole family is at loggerheads, with the debauched young Duke de la Ferté finally driven to reprimand his mother, who responds in kind:

    The Mareschalless…told him that he truly had great reason to complain, who was not only despis’d by the Court but the Town. This was nothing but the truth, but as all truths are not to be spoke; he could not bear it, but reply’d, there was yet less on hers, who was an old Wh–e, and hereupon he reckon’d up all that had to do with her, and the sum amounted to threescore and twelve; a thing not to be credited, was not Paris sufficiently satisfied of the truth of what I say.
    The Mareschalless bid him not forget his own Wife, who was as much to blame as any body; but the Duke stopt her mouth by telling her, he very well knew he was a Cuckold, but that did not hinder his Father from being one beforehand, in marriage, and after his death.

The family quarrel soon achieves such proportions, it reaches the ears of the king. Even this cannot bring them into line, as each (rightly) considers themselves already ruined at court, and so sees no point in reformation:

The Duke de la Ferte, who knew his Reputation was already lost with him, concern’d himself for it no more than the Mareschalless who continu’d this way of living; so that perhaps I may some other time acquaint you of the rest of her life, as well as the Story of Madam de Lionne, if they are still so lucky to meet with those who will accept of ’em, and Age as well as Shame does not bring ’em to Conversion…

…an offer, I am not in the least sorry to say, that does not appear to have been taken up.

 

Gallantry Unmask’d; or, Women In Their Proper Colours

 
    Whether Madame de Lionne took any new offence at the Letter, or had too good an appetite (as is more likely) to be contented with the Count, who had the reputation of being more Gentile than Vigorous, she threw the Letter into the fire, and told the Messenger, she had no answer to return to it. This encreas’d the passion of the Lover, who with all haste imaginable flew to her Apartment, telling her, if she would not pardon him, he came to die at her feet, but hop’d his offence was not beyond the reach of mercy, that his Notary’s Wife, call’d le Vasseur, had forgiv’n her Husband, tho’ he had caus’d her to be proclaim’d a publick Whore by arrest of Parliament, and had long confin’d her in the Magdelonnettes or Bridewel; that his Crime was not so notorious as the Husband’s, who whatever he perceiv’d, was oblig’d by the Articles and Contract of Marriage to be silent; that there was no such Law for the Lovers, but on the contrary, Complaints were always permitted, as the kind effects of Passion, and to deny him, was an infringement on his undoubted Right.
    Tho’ the only difference between Madame de Lionne and Madame le Vasseur was, that one was a Notary’s, and the other the Wife to a Minister of State; that one was declar’d so by an Arrest of Parliament, and the other by the Voice of the People, which is nevertheless the Voice of God; the Comparison did not please her…

 

 

Welcome back, Chronobibliography. It’s been a while, by gar!

As we have seen already, with Lisarda; or, The Travels Of Love And Jealousy, the receding of politics in literature in the wake of the Glorious Revolution opened up a space within English fiction for the return of the story of romantic – or at least, sexual – misunderstanding.

Though these narratives bear a distinct resemblance to the rogue’s biographies that flourished earlier in the decade, we note too some very marked differences between them. In the first place, there tends to be more of a balance within the narrative, with neither men or women necessarily dominating in the role of identification character; and in the second, most of the subsidiary material – the cheating, and scatological humour, and physical brutality – has fallen by the wayside, leaving us with stories focused almost entirely on the mutual manoeuvring of the sexes. This might be within a context of “honourable love”, as was the case with Lisarda; or conversely, we might get something like Gallantry Unmask’d; or, Women In Their Proper Colours, which is an unapologetic sex-farce.

Though in all other respects a very minor work, Gallantry Unmask’d is important for its failure to pretend to be anything other than a work of fiction: note that on the title page, the words “A NOVEL” are in the largest font, again indicating the increasing importance of fiction in the literary marketplace. Otherwise, the one really notable thing about this short work are the lengths to which it goes in order to remind us that, prior to the 18th century, it was widely believed that women were the sexually insatiable sex—incapable of fidelity, still less monogamy; moving briskly from lover to lover, and willing to do anything to get the latest object of desire into bed; though quick to grow bored afterwards. Men, meanwhile, tend to be presented in these narratives as the hapless victims of female scheming and deceit; while husbands are simply ridiculous—unknowing cuckoldry the best they have to hope for, and no redress for their wives’ wrongs except (as with M. le Vasseur in the quote above) at the price of public humiliation and scorn. Indeed, the only thing funnier than a cuckolded husband is an impotent lover.

However, while the female-centricity of Gallantry Unmask’d puts a significant distance between it and something like The English Rogue, there’s no celebration associated with the sexual conquests described here, as there always is with those of the male (anti-)heroes of the rogue’s biographies. In its place is a constant air of tut-tut-tut, with the inevitable double-standard being applied: men are men, but women are whores.

It’s exasperating, of course; though given how little has changed since in that respect, we can hardly make it grounds for condemnation. And besides— Gallantry Unmask’d ended up teaching me new euphemisms for impotency and pregnancy; so it wasn’t a complete waste.

This anonymous work is in fact comprised of two short, related fictions (which may have been published separately in the first instance, though I can find no solid evidence of it): the title story, which follows the sexual misadventures of a certain Madame de Lionne, and The History of the Mareschalless de la Ferte, which picks up one of the minor characters of Gallantry Unmask’d and follows her sexual misadventures. Both are set in France, during the reign of Louis XIV (or “the Great Alexander” as the author discreetly calls him, following Voltaire); and once again we see a tendency to set stories of people behaving badly in not-England (another shift since the heights, or depths, of the rogue’s biography). This choice of setting also allows the author to take numerous pot-shots at the hypocrisy of the Catholic clergy.

At the beginning of Gallantry Unmask’d, Mme de Lionne is trying – and failing – to achieve the honour of becoming Louis’ mistress. Her lover, the Count de Fiesque (who she keeps, presumably with her husband’s money), is unbothered by her attempts to gain the King’s favour; but when he realises her eyes are wandering further afield, he is affronted:

He was not angry at her desire to please the King, neither would it have troubled him had she succeeded in it: but finding, that not considering he had serv’d her from her youth, she was purveying for her self else where, he frankly bid her think well of what she was going to do; that it was enough to be contented with the leavings of a fulsome Husband, without suffering the refuse of others; that if he had afforded his assistance to her amour with the King, ’twas upon promise that he should only partake the pleasures of the Body, without any interest in her affection; but her daily proceedings sufficiently convinc’d him she was in search of some new Ragoust; and he was not at all pleas’d at it…

Mme de Lionne is affronted in turn, and warns M. de Fiesque that she can very well do without him: better than he can do without her money. He considers this an empty threat and, besides, that he doesn’t really care for her any more – perswading him he lov’d her now no more than a Husband does his Wife – until she starts to act upon her threats…whereupon he finds himself desperate to win her forgiveness. He goes about it rather unwisely, however, making the quoted comparison between Mme de Lionne and “publick Whore” Mme de Vasseur in the course of asserting his common-law right over her conduct. The quarrel ends with the smashing of a lute, and the entrance upon the scene of the Duke de Saux, who is amused by this evidence of a falling-out, and who Mme de Lionne immediately starts trying on, so to speak, as a replacement for M. de Fiesque.

In fact, the Duke is manouevring to get into the good graces of the Marchioness de Cœuvres, Mme de Lionne’s daughter; and it suits him for the moment to pretend not to understand her overtures. However, the Duke’s jocular attitude puts all sorts of fears into M. de Fiesque’s head, and he tries to find out Mme de Lionne’s intentions by sending her a forged letter, supposedly from the Duke, putting his failure to take her hints down to, uh, medical reasons, and suggesting an assignation at a more appropriate time:

…but, Madam, when it is ones ill fortune to be in the Chirurgeon’s hands, is it not better to seem not to understand, than expose a Lady to such certain repentance as must reasonably occasion hatred to succeed the friendship? If they tell me true, I shall be well in eight days…

Mme de Lionne’s response is alarmingly practical:

This accident has thrown me into a despair; for who can ever assure me that I can place a confidence in you; there are so many Quacks at Paris, and if by misfortune, you are fallen under any of their hands, into what extremity will you reduce those who shall fall into yours? If decency would permit me to send you my Chirurgeon, he is an able man, and would soon lead you out of this misfortune; let me know your thoughts of it…

The enraged M. de Fiesque threatens to expose Mme de Lionne, first to her husband, then to the world at large, which sends her in a panic to the Duke; arguing that if she is caught in a scandal, his name will be blackened too. She promises him that if he will help her, she will pave his way to her daughter; and offers him – or rather, demands – a few other things; right now.

Well. The spirit is willing enough, but the flesh, it turns out (the Duke having passed the previous night with a certain famous courtesan), isn’t up to the challenge:

    …he asked her if she would have money in hand, or defer payment to the following night. Madam de Lionne, who knew Man to be mortal, thought ready money best, but nevertheless she she told him, if he was not provided with the whole Sum, she would give him credit for the remainder for the time he should require.
    The Duke quickly understood the meaning of this, and placed the Cushions for a Table whereon to Count the money; but when he pull’d forth his purse, it was quite empty, to the great astonishment of the one, and no less Confusion of the other…

Knowing that one of his friends, stricken in the same way, blamed his use of a certain perfumed powder known as “Puvillio” for his failure, the Duke believes himself afflicted for the same reason. Having excused himself to the angry and frustrated Mme de Lionne, the Duke carries his grievance to Vienne, the compounder / seller of the powder, who tells him scornfully that there is nothing wrong with the cosmetic, and that the Count de St. Poll was merely trying to shift the blame to save his own reputation. Vienne also pleads with the Duke not to spread such a story about his Puvillio, but to no avail: various other men, finding themselves unable to satisfy their rapacious female partners, are glad enough to have such an excuse to fall back upon, and continue to use it, much to the indignation of the unfortunate Vienne.

A second running joke here emerges regarding the elderly Mareschal de Grancey, and the constant attempts by his servant, Gendarme, to convince him that his mistress of long-standing, Madame de Mesuil, is cheating on him with—well, just about everybody. Gendarme tries again and again to hurry the Mareschal to the scene of the crime, but since the Mareschal always has to stop and put on his truss and his wooden leg first, he never manages to catch the cheaters in the act.

Meanwhile, feeling reinvigorated, the Duke returns to Mme de Lionne, but catches her in the act of, uh, reconciling with M. de Fiesque. As they try to cover their confusion and excuse themselves, the Duke takes the opportunity to resume his pursuit of the Marchioness de Cœuvres, persuading her to a meeting. The two travel separately to the house of Mme de Mesuil (which she allows her friends to use for their assignations):

No sooner were they arriv’d, but he had a mind to know if he was still enchanted; and he found that two or three days of rest to a Man of his Age, was a wonderful remedy against such sort of Charms; when he had caress’d her twice he was glad to entertain her with some other diversion…

…but that’s not good enough for the Marchioness:

…the Duke she found was again enchanted; the Marchioness de Cœuvres, who was one of the prettiest Women in Paris, took it for a great affront to her, and began to be concern’d; she not only shew’d it by her Countenance, but resented it in these terms; I was never a Glutton in this point, and if you knew what Monsieur de Cœuvres says of me concerning it, you would find it was not on that occasion that I speak; besides, it is often a great punishment to me to endure it, which makes him often say, that I am not my Mothers Daughter, and that certainly I was chang’d at nurse. Yet altho’ my coldness might have discouraged him, he never gave me such an affront as you have done. I remember that on our Wedding Night—but why should I tell you, it will make you dye with shame; and yet he was a Husband, but you a Gallant. But yet Gods what a Gallant? one that has taken that Name to abuse me…

Frustrated and jealous that her daughter has got in before her with the Duke, Mme de Lionne rats her out to her husband, the Marquess de Cœuvres; only going so far, however, as to hint that he might want to keep a closer eye upon his wife. Nevertheless, the Marquess is sufficiently outraged to call a family meeting, in order to decide what is to be done; at which point we learn that the Mareschal de Grancey is the Marquess’ grandfather:

Most of ’em were for sending the Marchioness to a Nunnery, saying this was what might be expected from so unequal a match… Some enlarg’d upon it, and said, that an ill Tree seldom brings good Fruit; and when her Mother had always made profession of Gallantry, it was not to be expected, but her Daughter should resemble her. That they had Whores enough in the family without her…

To everyone’s surprise, the Mareschal offers a spirited defence of his granddaughter-in-law:

In troth you make me mad to hear ye talk thus; ye that pretend to be so delicate, but who had not been here any more than myself, had our Mothers been so nice… If her Crime has been only to seek the Pleasures of Nature, I declare my self her Protector. Let all this be kept secret amongst our selves, that the Court know nothing of it; The shortest Follies are the best, and it will be ill husbandry to let the whole Town laugh at our Expence…

The Mareschal is then called away, but his son, the Bishop of Laon, takes up the argument—insisting that if the Marchioness is unfaithful, she is at least discreet, and brings no discredit upon the family name. He offers to keep an eye upon her in future, which the Marquess de Cœuvres agrees to:

But he was the only man in the Company who did not penetrate his Design. The good Prelate was fal’n in love with his Niece, and not having leisure enough to follow the whole Duty of a Lover, he resolv’d to make her esteem this as a great piece of Service, and to demand an immediate recompense for it…

The Bishop does exactly that—leaving his father’s defence of the Marchioness out of his version of events. The Marchioness experiences a variety of emotions, but relief at discovering that she is only suspected by the family predominates. The situation also allows her to assume a pose of outraged virtue, both generally and in rejecting the Bishop’s overtures—which, seeing her reaction, he quickly downplays to platonic adoration; not that this deceives her:

What, ’tis a trifle then with you, says Madam de Cœuvres, for a Bishop to make Love to a marryed Woman, and for an Uncle to endeavour to seduce his Niece? Believe me, if I have any Case of Conscience to consult of, you shall never be my Casuist…

She finishes with a threat to tell the Marquess. The Bishop, stunned and disappointed at first, soon grows angry, and decides to do in reality what he promised in self-interest: to watch her, and catch her out; intending not to expose her to the family, but blackmail her into his bed.

Sure enough, the Bishop soon becomes convinced that she is carrying on with the Duke de Saux, who has indeed returned to his pursuit of her, but is disguising it behind a smokescreen of a seeming affair with Mme de Lionne. The latter is not happy with him, but the two eventually come to an understanding, agreeing to keep each other’s secrets. Their reconciliation is taken the wrong way by the Marchioness, however, who sends the Duke an angry letter in which she blames his “failure” on her mother:

It is not above an hour or two since I design’d to enquire how you did after your paralitick fit, but when I saw you get into your Coach so overjoy’d at Madame de Lionnes, I thought my Complement would be to little purpose. Any besides my self would have wonder’d, that she should perform a Miracle, they had so unsuccessfully endeavour’d to Compass; but I find the reason; in many things, I have not an Experience equal to hers; and perhaps she may have an interest with the Saints, that I cannot boast of; Let me know which you are beholden to, for I have all the reason in the World to believe it proceeds from a Religious Effect, when I find you pay such Devotion to Relicks…

His favourite courtesan being temporarily hors de combat (in her “Chirurgeon’s hands”, we gather), the Duke has no immediate choice of women, and so quickly sends his own letter to the indignant Marchioness:

I have been in search for you ever since my misfortune, to let you know ’tis you alone can cure me; if you will make an Experiment of it about two in the Morning, I have an infallible secret will help me to the door of your Apartment. Be satisfy’d you run no danger, since your Husband will not return from Versailles before tomorrow Night; if you have but the least consideration for my health, you will accept this offer; remember that old mischiefs are dangerous, and if you permit mine to root it self deeper, have a care lest it becomes at last incurable…

The Marquess de Cœuvres may be out of the way, but the Bishop of Laon is on the watch, and gets wind of the assignation. He sees in it the opportunity he has been waiting for, and determines to go to any lengths to catch the lovers out. Divesting himself of all the paraphernalia that might give away his identity, he sets himself to spy upon the Hotel de Lionne (where the de Cœuvres also live). Embarrassingly enough, he is caught by a servant of M. de Lionne, who takes him for a lurking thief. The Bishop being recognised, he begs that the servant be sent away, and then explains himself to M. de Lionne; putting his spying in terms of preserving the Marchioness’s reputation. Like everyone but the Marquess, M. de Lionne knows that the Bishop desires his daughter; but he has enough at stake in terms of the family reputation to take him at his word, and offers to watch with him.

Meanwhile, the banished servant hasn’t gone far, and so sees a man climbing in over the garden wall, and then entering the house through a window; though in the darkness he cannot see who it is.

It is the Duke de Saux, who is caught while making his way to the Marchioness’s room by Mme de Lionne, who is expecting the Count de Fiesque. After a moment of mutual alarm, they identify each other. The Duke proposes that they each just go about their business, but Mme de Lionne, assuming since it is so late, that M. de Fiesque has let her down, has other ideas:

No, no, Sir, replyed she, it shall not go as you imagine, I know it is my Daughter you would be at, but let it displease you both if it will, I shall nevertheless make use of the opportunity, since it has offer’d itself so kindly; in all likelihood the Charm of the Puvillio may be broken, and you must give me proofs of it this very instant…

The resulting low-voiced dispute, which finds the Duke trying but failing to extricate himself from Mme de Lionne’s clutches, ends with an unexpected compromise:

…she propos’d a medium, which was to go her self, and fetch her Daughter. He accepted the proposition, not being able to get out of her hands by any other means; but before she went, she conducted him to her Chamber, obliging him to go to bed, and promising to bring her Daughter, bidding him take care how he behaved himself, since he was to pass that night between ’em. If the Duke had been too scrupulous, such a proposition would have startled him, but he being a Courtier fear’d nothing of this nature; but answer’d, that he should expect ’em both with great impatience…

Mme de Lionnes does not prepare her daughter, simply ordering her to follow to her own room. She, torn between the fear of losing her assignation and that of being found out, does as she is bid. Finding the Duke in her mother’s bed, she assumes the worst, until her impatient mother explains the situation:

This a little appeas’d the young Lady, and tho’ she was sorry to be forc’d to part with a share to her Mother, of what she had all expect’d to her self, she lik’d it yet much better than to have found the Duke unfaithful… She undress’d her self, half out of obedience, and half through inclination and desire. Madam de Lionne was doing the same thing on her side, and both, expecting good fortune that Night, were only in loose Gowns, which were soon taken off, and one would have thought a reward had been promis’d to those who should be first undrest, such haste did they seem to make…

Outside, M. de Lionne’s servant tells the guardians of the family honour what he has seen. M. de Lionne takes it quite coolly, thinking only of the best way to keep the matter quiet, which drives the insanely jealous Bishop, who is thirsting for the Duke’s blood, to abuse him as a coward and a cuckold. The servant leads both men to Mme de Lionne’s room:

The Duke and the two Ladies were so busily employ’d, that they heard not the door open… M. de Lionne was so surpris’d, that he said not one word. He thought himself a Cuckold, but to find a Spark between the Mother and the Daughter, seem’d so strange a thing to him, that he could not have more wondred, had the horns sprouted out immediately on his forehead…

As the embarrassed Duke slinks away, Mme de Lionne casts herself at her husband’s feet, the Marchioness at the Bishop’s: the latter quietly promising everything her uncle wants, if only he will not expose her. The Bishop is so delighted, he switches stance, agreeing that M. de Lionne’s initial plan of hushing the matter up is by far the best proceeding:

After this the Bishop, under a pretence of correcting his niece, led her to a Chamber, where demanding her promise, she durst not refuse him, for fear he should ruin her with her Husband, and the whole Family. And having obtain’d what he desir’d, knowing she did it only out of fear, imagin’d she would quickly return to her first Affections; and to prevent it, he manag’d the affair after that method with her Husband, that she was sent into the Country to a seat of his, not far from the Bishops. This produc’d a good effect, for he recided more constantly than usual in his Doicess…

But regarding his wife, M. de Lionne has second thoughts. He places her in a convent, where she remains confined until his death; at which time she…

…is become so old, that she is forced to be contented with the Count de Fiesque, who out of necessity is oblig’d to pass by many things which would not be agreeable to a more Critical Lover.

Meanwhile – of course – the Duke emerges from the escapade with his reputation not only undamaged, but if anything enhanced:

He publish’d himself his own Adventure, chusing rather to be tax’d with indiscretion, than be depriv’d of the pleasure of talking…

 

[To be continued…]

 

Lisarda; or, The Travels Of Love And Jealousy (Part 2)

 
Extreamly pleased was the Melancholy Gentleman, with the courteous offers of Ricardo, who desir’d not to wonder that he of himself should relate a misfortune, that ought to be for his honour kept private from all the World, but his Civilities had such influence over him, that he had not Power to refuse him any thing; besides he thought the stillness of the night requir’d a Companion to Discourse with to pass away those tedious hours; so that Ricardo began, and related the whole story of his Misfortunes; and having ended, the Gentleman confest his Misfortunes were great, but those he should relate were far exceeding his, in as much as he had not only lost a Mistress that he lov’d, but a Wife, whom he admir’d above all Worldly things; and his Honour, a thing that ought to be dearer than Life…

 

 

 

 

 
 
Whatever the Criticks made of the first part of Lisarda, it seems that its author’s overriding ambition for it –  that “the Book sells” – was sufficiently fulfilled to satisfy Mr Cox’s publisher, since the concluding part of the short novel appeared in due course; with the two being reissued together in September of 1690.

Not that the author’s opinion of himself, or his opinion of his readers’ opinions, seem to have altered as a result of his apparent success. The second part of Lisarda opens with another address to “The Reader” wherein Mr Cox expresses his dismal conviction that they probably followed his advice, tendered at the beginning of the first part, and bought his book chiefly to abuse it; with more to come:

Now do not I know whether with truth begin with Gentle, Courteous, or Kind Reader; for perhaps you deserve none of these Epithets; examine your Conscience, and if you find yourself clear of having abus’d either Book or Author, send me but word of it, and I have left sufficient to have any of those to begin with: But if you had rather show your Wit, and exercise your Talent in Criticism; perhaps I shall give you subject enough to work on in this second Part, so that you would really be at a loss, if you had spent all your Satyrical Phrases on the first, and prodigally thrown away the last Jear your Mistress sent you on an odd expression you preferr’d from the Academy of Complements to your Heroick Love Epistle; and for a further advancement made it the ridicul’d Interpreter of your Incomprehensible thoughts; your Lovely Cælia, Aminta, or what other fine Romantick Names you have bestow’d on the sweet Lady. I protest, Sir, if so, you must change your Company, and there wait a fit occasion to put if off a second time: Or else continue saying every now and then, with a bonne Grace, But Damn me, Madam, if it ben’t very Silly. This will do; for without doubt, Sir, the Ladies will credit you; and the unknown Author hath but lost his labour, in thinking to forestall you, and be satyrical first; he’ll bemoan the loss of so much pains; and ten to one the next Novel he writes, you will read in the Preface that he hath either hang’d or drown’d himself to put the thoughts of it out of his mind…

(For what it’s worth, I can’t find that Cox ever did publish a second novel…)

The second part of Lisarda opens with the unhappy Ricardo slowly recovering from his wounds, but much tormented by his kinsman, the Corregidor, and other friends who keep trying to cheer him up. Finally, when he is able, Ricardo decides to go travelling. He heads first to Barcelona, and from there embarks; his ultimate destination being Rome.

On board the ship on which he is travelling, Ricardo meets another gentleman as miserable as he is; and since misery truly does love company, the two of them immediately fall into a “My Sufferings Are Worse Than Yours” contest; while the reader is presented with a clear indication that Lisarda has shifted into the realm of the picaresque with the appearance of our old friend, or at least acquaintance, the Interpolated Narrative:

My name is Enrique Thomas de Guanches Fernandez Ysugo, my Country Barcelona, the Metropolitan of the noble Principality of Cattalonna, my Quality of the Most Illustrious in that State; my Estate, though not of the largest, yet enough; and my Age thirty four years: There dwelt in the very next House to my Fathers a young Lady, whom I lov’d as I grew in sense and years, beginning from my Childhood: I mistake, I should say ador’d…

Don Enrique and Donna Estefania marry young, with the blessing of their respective parents, and at first all is well; very well indeed:

Whoever says that Marriage gluts, and consequently impairs Love, certainly must be such dull Souls, who more like Brutes than Men, are but satisfying their sensual Appetite, while I’m sure all refin’d Spirits, who by the continual Enjoyment, have daily the Experiments of the Wit, the Modesty, the pleasing Behaviour, affording daily fresh supplies to edge his Appetite…

But alas for our Refin’d Spirit, disaster was looming:

…but who would think it, Don Ricardo, that with all these visible signs of Love, (I am asham’d to say it) that Estefania should offend my Honour, that she should defile my Bed, rejoicing in a Strangers Arms; at least in desire if not in deed; and who would think, that I being who I am, should live to own it, and that grief for the loss of my Honour should not deprive me of Life: I will not, my Dear Friend, nor will my Honour permit me to speak ill of that Sex, since we owe our Births to them, with the dangers of their own lives; but laying these natural Obligations aside, and to speak how firm they ought to be, and how constant: Tell me what trust can a Man put in that Sex, or who can sleep secure of their Treasons, since Estefania could be false?

My sex thanks you for the sour persimmons, Don Enrique, while also noting that little loophole about in desire if not in deed: could this by any wild, improbable chance be another instance of an over-emotional Spaniard jumping the gun on flimsy-to-non-existent evidence??

Enrique and Estefania have a son, and because he cannot bequeath the boy as large an estate as he would wish, Enrique begins manoeuvring to acquire him a title. Esefania throws herself into the plan with enthusiasm, pressing Enrique to travel to Madrid, to the Court, to pursue the matter. Though he expects to encounter many difficulties, in fact the king is very gracious, and Enrique achieves his purpose very swiftly and hurries home ahead of the expected time. Not far out, however, he is caught in a violent storm and takes refuge at an inn, where he finds himself sharing quarters with another gentleman, a certain Don Federico, who also has cause to bemoan the delay, as he was in eager expectation of having his pursuit of a certain lovely lady come that night to fruition.

Once the servants have gone, Enrique asks Federico for more of his story—merely to pass the time, and never dreaming of the shock in store. Federico has mentioned that his would-be lover’s name is “unfortunate”, and Enrique picks up this point:

…but no sooner did I see our selves alone, but with as impertinent a Curiosity, as malicious, and designedly to know the Lady’s Name, I told him, I thought no Name in Spain unfortunate, because they are Names of Saints that are always given in Spain. To this he answer’d, That ever since in Castile there was a Lady named Estefania, who was Kill’d by her Husband, without ever offending him, only by the deceit of a Servant, That it was a vulgar Attribute of the Estefania’s to be Unfortunate. According to this your Lady is called Estefania said I, a little alter’d: And he answer’d, Having told you the Story first, it would be a folly to think to hide her Name now: So craving leave to sleep, he turn’d himself, and left me not altogether free from a villainous suspicion of being Horn’d…

…and to dwell on one detail in that story to the exclusion of another.

The next day, Enrique rushes on his fate, pressing Federico for all the details of his amour: the accidental meeting, the pursuit, the encouragement, the lady’s fear for her reputation, and finally a capitulation to the point of allowing Federico into her house. Federico explains how, by questioning some chair-men about a certain livery, he learns that the servants he described belonged to Donna Estefania de Arcosty Fuentes; while his further description of the lady’s house seems to settle the point. From that moment there is only one thought on Enrique’s mind:

At the crossing of a very thick Wood, where for many Years the Branches of the Trees hid the Roots from the heat of the Sun, I drew my Sword and gave him so strong a thrust through the Breast, that without speaking he fell on the Ground, where lighting from my Horse I gave him many Blows, that in a short time I put him past offending me, or defending himself; he begg’d me not to kill him, but to give him time to confess, not knowing me, nor why I used him so cruelly: I then thinking it would be too much Rigour, not to spare him so much time, since in it though his Body was beyond the Art of Chirurgery to heal, his Soul might be cured; I left him alive; for one thing it is to revenge my Honour as a Gentleman, and another thing to be a Christian…

Enrique’s first thought is to serve Estefania the same way, except that this would make his dishonour known to the world; finally he decides that he will never see her again. He tells his servants that he and Federico had a falling out and fought a duel, and that as a consequence he must leave the country—gaining their assistance to disguise himself and to cover up when he left Madrid. Without looking back, he embarks upon a galley to Naples…and loses no time in blurting out the whole thing to Ricardo.

The two bereft men decide to travel on together, and after seeing Rome and the Vatican, they move on to “Loretta” (Loreto) to see the Basilica. There Ricardo is suddenly accosted by a man in a state of emotional collapse and, after a moment, realises who it is…

(Ricardo remembers; our author, Mr Cox, not so much: first he misspells Fulgencio’s name as “Fulgentio”, then he renders the duplicated part of his name as Antonio, instead of Ricardo!)

Then of course it’s time for another Interpolated Narrative, as Fulgencio catches us up on his various misfortunes—which we might well consider he deserves, since it turns out that it was he (with a band of paid bravos) who engineered the abduction of Lisarda!—after first, of course, ridding himself of the unfortunate Clara:

…giving Clara a thousand sweet words lest she obstruct my Design, I left her in the Village…

This seems to be a recurrent theme for poor Clara.

Fulgencio and his goons then ride off with Lisarda’s coach:

I hoping by this to confirm her in the Belief of your Infidelity; and if not to get my own Ends at least, to dispose her never to make you happy. While we were on the way I used my Rhetorick, with all the Vows and Protestations imaginable, after my endeavours of disswading her from you; then I told her that ’twas in my power whither I carried her, and how I’d dispose of her; and therefore she had better comply than venture the Displeasure of a cholerick Man: But all this produc’d nothing but Scorns and Slights from her, telling me no Man should ever have her, save Ricardo, who, however the Misfortune happen’d that Night, she was sensible he lov’d her, and was one deserving her love. I told her you were kill’d in the Skirmish…

The effect of this upon Lisarda isn’t quite what Fulgencio expects. Sure, there’s a Flood of Tears, but then—

…he is dead, said she, and the Cause so near me yet lives! Snatching my Dagger from my side, gave me a Wound in my Breast, that had certainly kill’d me had her Arm had but a little more Strength…

Fulgencio then carries Lisarda to an isolated country house of his, where he imprisons her—

—to see if I possibly could gain her by all the Endeavours that Love and Kindness could invent.

So I guess it’s true what they say: hope springs eternal in the human breast that has just had a dagger stuck into it.

More sensibly, Fulgencio absents himself for a while to let Lisarda cool down; and, with nothing else to do, he passes the time dallying with Clara—with surprising results:

…Clara, who daily so endeavoured to make me love her; and considering I was married, and that I had best to make my Life as easie as I could: In two Months time seeing no hope of prevailing on Lisarda, Clara had so far gain’d me, that I really felt Motions of the greatest Tenderness for her; and as they say, Love begets Love, so was it with me; I left plying Lisarda with Letters, and began to forget her…

But at least – at least – Fulgencio gets around to telling Lisarda the truth about Ricardo: that he did recover, and then went travelling; and this off his conscience, he has her conveyed back to her father’s house.

Ricardo and Enrique dine with Fulgencio, and afterwards he tells them the rest of his story.

Fulgencio and Clara were very happy for a time—though not as happy as her family, with their erring daughter achieving respectable wifehood—but then…well, you know those Spaniards!

But as I lov’d her, so did I grow Jealous of her, remembering she had been faulty, and leaving one Night stay’d out, the next Morning a Servant told me he had seen a Man enter into my House, that was but just gone before my coming, who with all their Privacy in bringing him in and out, could not escape his Eyes: I without any further assurance, thought it must be Clara that was faulty, and there-withal going to her, though she lay asleep, wak’d her with a thousand Reproaches, upbraiding her with her former Life; and maugre all the Assurances and Protestations she made, to such a height my Choler grew, that I struck her… At last putting on her Night-Gown, she came near a Table where a Pen-knife lay, and taking it up, gave herself several Stabs…

At this rather critical moment, Clara’s maid enters the room; and, inevitably—

‘Twas I brought in the Man last night, who is my Husband…

It’s too late for poor Clara, however, though at least she dies vindicated; and in the wake of what he likes to call “the Misfortune”, Fulgencio sets out on a pilgrimage to Loretta.

Leaving Fulgencio to do his penance, Ricardo and Enrique set out for Andalusia; though they go a longer way, via Monserrat, so that Enrique will not be endangered by passing through Barcelona. The city is crowded due to a large influx of pilgrims to an image of the Virgin Mary known as Our Lady Of Monserrat. The two men are watching events from the window of their room when Enrique sees a familiar face—none other than Federico, not dead after all. It is clear, too, that there is a lady in his coach; and it takes all of Ricardo’s tact and persuasions to stop Enrique doing – yet again – something stupid. Finally he promises to look into it himself and goes out to investigate; sensibly locking Enrique in their room first.

Sure enough, Federico and Estefania it is; but they are not alone: Estefania’s sister, Donna Angela, is with them; and it does not take Ricardo long to establish that (i) Estefania is innocent; (ii) she has done nothing for the past two years but search for her missing husband; and (iii) it was Angela whom Federico was pursuing, and to whom he is now married. Moreover, discovering after he had recovered that the story of Enrique’s attack upon himself and Estefania’s supposed adultery was being gossiped about, Federico took pains to make sure everyone knew the truth, and that Estefania’s honour was re-established.

And so Enrique and Estefania are reunited. Meanwhile, Ricardo gets his reward from Angela:

Then Donna Angela desired to know if she might be acquainted with his Mistresses Name, which he told her was Lisarda, O then, Sir, saith she, you may safely depend on your Marriage, for by her name I guess yours to be Don Ricardo Antonio, the only person she hath told me should be her Husband; for about three Months ago I came acquainted with her here, she having vowed the Romery for your Prosperity; we became so intimately acquainted lodging in the same Inne together, that she told me the whole Story of your Loves…

Ricardo immediately sets out for Andalusia, where we discover than some people never learn anything:

…perceiving some Gentlemen at the Door of Donna Clara Lisarda’s House, tuning their Instruments, by which he knew they had a mind to Divert some Lady; he at a distance alighted off his Horse, desirous, if it was possible, to know who these were, serendaing, as he thought, his Mistress… No sooner ended, but he heard the Lady shut her Window; the Company took leave of one another, and one who seemed to be the Master of this Treat, mounted a Horseback: Don Ricardo, though tired with a long Journey, and very desirous to see Don Pedro de Vargas the Corregidor, was yet more desirous to see his supposed Rival…

Seriously, Ricardo? SERIOUSLY!?

Following his, sigh, rival, Ricardo is attacked by bandits, from whom his, sigh, rival rescues him—turning out to be none other than Don Pedro, who is delighted to see his cousin and takes him home for the night. The delight isn’t entirely mutual, but I’ll spare you Ricardo’s tossings and turnings and torments (at least he refrains from trying to kill anyone!), and cut to the chase: even more inevitably than poor Clara’s “lover” being nothing of the kind, Don Pedro is courting Lisarda’s cousin, Donna Maria, who happens to be staying with her.

Perversely enough, it turns out that the band of goons hired by Fulgencio were from amongst Donna Maria’s vassals; but between the letter which Fulgencio wrote to the Corregidor, taking all the blame onto himself, and Maria’s pleading for her people, they got off lightly. Don Pedro was immediately captivated by Maria, but soon discovered that he had, sigh, a rival: a story that of course requires an Interpolated Narrative.

The, sigh, rival is Don Roderido Vasques, a man who has acquired a reputation for courage and daring without doing anything to earn it—much to the annoyance of Don Pedro, who has earned the same reputation the hard way. The two men get put to the test when Maria’s house catches fire. It is Pedro who saves her, but Roderigo who manages to be there when Maria recovers from her inevitable swoon.

Wow! That chestnut’s even older than I imagined!

The grateful Maria promises to marry Roderigo:

    He with a feigned Modesty, said, That truly he had done nothing for their Service, at least, it was so little, as did not deserve Thanks from her Mouth, much less so great a Blessing as her self; but it was too Good to be refused, and that he now trusted to her Word.
    The next day it was all about the Town that Don Roderigo had ventur’d through the Fire, and rescu’d Donna Maria: This was every bodies story which did not a little vex me. I affirm’d the Action to be mine, and said that he ly’d who said the contrary. Don Roderigo said, Yes it was I did it; but that with such a false Smile, such a feigned Dissimulation, and with such Equivocating words, that he own’d the Action more in his Denial, than I in all my Affirmatives.

Luckily for Pedro, and for Maria, during his rescue of her he took a ring from her finger, which he could not have gained possession of at any other time. This backs up his claims, and Roderigo retires, as they say, disconsolate.

Which sorts out all our immediate romantic problems; and allows Mr Cox to wrap up his story of insanely jealous foreigners in a one brisk paragraph of happy-ever-afters:

…the Joy Lisarda had at the sight of Ricardo, cannot be exprest, no more than his at the sight of her. But to be short with you, and to make an end, both his Marriage with Lisarda, and his cousins with Donna Maria were concluded, and to be Celebrated both the following Sunday; on the day before the Marriage, Don Enrique and Don Federico, with their Ladies Arrived, so that they had a full House, great Entertainment, and a long continued Feast for Joy, and living very lovingly and happily all the Days of their Lives.

…or at least until some poor SOB looks the wrong way at Lisarda…

Lisarda; or, The Travels Of Love And Jealousy (Part 1)

 
“I find it hard to marry a Man who woos not me but my Estate; and yet could I bear with this, (for Ambition is so grown into the World, that there must be a new Creation to find disinteress’d men:) who can assure their selves of their manners, where there are so many Cheats. In the time of wooing the most vicious appears a Saint, and detests all Vice: with what protestations doth the inconstant at that time avouch his Constancy? and how assured of his Mistress’s Vertue is the Gallant, who many times afterwards, he proves murderously troublesome with his Jealousy; and all, how false soever, call Heaven to witness the sincerity of their Love: O! how they Adore, Admire, Esteem, with many other such like terms, till they have got their aim. His friend stiles him vertuous, good, &c. His Relations will say that for him, He is good-natured, and given to no remarkable Vice; another as a gallant young Gentleman; Nay the Maid, the young Ladies Confident, hath had the itching of her Palms answer’d, to give her good word, and all this to her cost, who takes him for better or for worse; and gives her hand and heart to an Enemy…”

 

 

 
 
So I made it to 1690.

{Insert slow, sarcastic hand-clapping.}

We’ve touched previously upon some of the events of 1690, and I imagine they’ll be cropping up in the Chronobibliography in due course; but our current work, Lisarda; or, The Travels Of Love And Jealousy by one “H. Cox” (a gentleman, his title page reassures us) has nothing to do with politics, or indeed with anything serious. Despite its title (and noting that “travels” is an archaic rendering of “travails”), this is a mostly humorous short work about various young Spaniards at romantic cross-purposes that serves as another illustration of the shifting position of fiction in England as the country entered the final decade of the 17th century.

The Puritan resistance to fiction, which retarded the development of the English novel, saw local writers frequently compromise by setting their stories in foreign countries—whether they were writing actual fiction, or political allegories disguised as such, as per the numerous romans à clef which we have already considered. In the former case, it was a way of dodging criticism, since the works in question could be pitched as cautionary tales about foreigners and how lucky everyone was to be English.

What is chiefly interesting about Lisarda is that, while it is set in Spain, there is no sense at all of this being a defensive tactic: rather, it simply suited Mr Cox to take advantage of the differences (real and perceived) between Spanish customs and those prevailing in England: another “cautionary tale” if you like, but one with its tongue tucked into its cheek.

This attitude is made clear from the very outset, in the book’s dedication to The Honourable James Levinston, Esq., wherein Cox speaks for his anxious heroine:

That, Sir, I hope will excuse my Presumption of Introducing Lisarda to you; A Lady, who though Vertuous to a Superlative, yet Unfortunate, till the Consummation of her Marriage with Don Ricardo, and the greater Happiness of attaining the Honour to be Presented to you; fearful least her Misfortunes might follow her here into England, and that many might blame that here, for want of knowing the Customs of Spain, which there is not felt a fault, no not a venial one: She fears our Ladies might be offended with so much Forwardness in Spanish Women, which for want of a Spanish Confinement, they are not Guilty of themselves: These thoughts are what troubled her, till now that I assur’d her, You were too Courteous to refuse your Patronage to a Lady…

Cox then moves on to address the reader directly, offering an amusingly clear overview of the state of the English novel, and the English novel-writer, circa 1690.

This may, in fact, be the most important aspect of this short novel. We are so accustomed to pointed dedications, to writers with political intent declaring their allegiances and/or showing that they have friends in high places, that the absence here of any such addendum – or rather, the substitution of a bit of prosaic reality – acts as a measure of how completely things had changed in England during the comparatively brief period between the “Glorious Revolution” and the publication of Cox’s work: fiction is longer necessarily about a political agenda, but about entertainment; it is also about the serious business of making a living, one opposed by the emergence of a new enemy. The main thing that writers of fiction had to fear was no longer The Law, but—The Criticks:

I have offer’d you this Book without the Commands of any Person of Quality, or the urgent desires of any friend, only for my own Pleasure, and perhaps a little for my Profit; besides, I think it a pleasant thing, though I shall no impose this Opinion on any one, nor think myself oblig’d to him who favours it; do but buy it, and let the Bookseller take your money; then Curse it, Damn it, and the Author, and throw it away, or what you please. Nor have I omitted my Name for fear of the Criticks, who I desire to have no more mercy on the Book, when once bought, than they have of their own unpitied Souls, who likely they may damn, by way of affirming the poor ignorant Author for a Blockhead, a Dunce, and Fool, with a long Et cætera of their ironical Titles; a thing that he’ll but smile to bear, so that his Expectations are but answer’d, and the Book sells…

Though Cox is clearly joking, the inference that it is no longer necessary for writers of fiction to publish anonymously is also significant.

The reader is then introduced to Clara Lisarda, a beautiful and virtuous sixteen-year-old with an equally attractive fortune. Naturally such a prize is much courted; but although eager for love and marriage, she hangs back, only too aware that she must be the target of fortune-hunters as well as honourable gentleman, and that courtship is often a matter of flowery falsehoods. The matter is becoming one of urgency for Lisarda, since among the throng of her admirers, her fancy has lighted upon one Don Ricardo.

Among many other public events to mark a new alliance between Spain and France, a bull-fight (sigh) is arranged to allow the gentlemen of Seville to display their courage. A certain Don Fulgencio nearly loses his life when he and his horse are attacked by a bull and, at this appalling sight, Lisarda faints. Thus she misses Don Ricardo rushing bravely to the rescue, dispatching the bull and saving Fulgencio’s life.

When the dust settles, Ricardo looks up at the spectators’ boxes to see how his actions have impressed Lisarda:

…Ricardo lighting from his Horse, lookt up to the Window where Lisarda sate; but his Servants telling him that they saw her carried away in a swound when the Bull so fiercely attacqued Fulgencio, he concluded he was the Chosen from among the Crowd of her Adorers, and running to help him up, taking him by the Arm, said, Sir, Your fall to you is like that of Saul, for it hath made known your Election; and so retir’d extreamly discontented to his Lodging: where we’ll leave him complaining of his hard Fate…

…because, after all, who could get sick over a little thing like a horse getting disembowelled?

This moment sets the tone for an entire comedy of misunderstanding, wherein Cox’s characters are constantly leaping to ridiculous conclusions and taking drastic (and I mean drastic) action on the strength of evidence so flimsy it can scarcely be called “evidence”—and sometimes on the strength of no evidence at all.

Recovering at home, the dismayed Lisarda learns that Ricardo intends that afternoon to fight a bull on his own account. After struggling with herself, she decides to send him a letter begging him not to risk himself again, though she can only justify her action by admitting to him that she loves him.

When Ricardo – whose full name, we now learn, is Don Ricardo Antonio – receives Lisarda’s letter, however, the outcome is not exactly what she intended, though not through any fault of hers:

…he knew not what to make of the Letter; the Directions he knew to be Lisarda’s writing, but never having receiv’d, nor heard that she had ever writ to any of her Lovers before, he conjectur’d it was to discard him: since she had made her choice of Fulgencio, least she might give him Ombrage, or cause Jealousy, by entertaining still her old Suitors, she had writ to them all to forbear their vain Endeavours. This now past for granted, and he was resolv’d not to open the Letter, least it might draw Effeminate tears into his Eyes, therefore retaking his Poniard, he said, Come welcome steel, thy sharpness is much easier to be endur’d, than to see the happiness of my Rival; end my Misery; and as he was going to strike, says he, No. Though thy Charms hath made me miserable to that degree, that to avoid that succeeding Chain of Miseries that must needs follow, I will end my life. Yet in my last hour such is my Constancy, I will kiss thy Name, paying my last devoir to the sign of my cruel Sentence, submitting— More he would have said, but having open’d the Letter to kiss the name, he could not so confine his sight…

Yyyyeah: I generally find it is a good idea to find out what the contents of a letter are before killing yourself over them…

Having answered Lisarda’s letter, Ricardo does as she asks and refrains from participating further in the bull-fights. He attends, however, and Fulgencio invites him to sit in his box—which happens to be next to that occupied by Lisarda. The two spend the afternoon making goo-goo eyes at each other, so openly that Fulgencio can’t avoid noticing:

…at this he was in so great a Passion, that with much difficulty could he contain himself within the compass of Discretion, Envy, Jealousy, Anger, and a thousand other Passions tore his Breast; in short, he found them prevailing over his Reason, and least by seeing more it should be overpower’d, and that not being a fit place for a quarrel or disturbance, he slunk away…

With marriage to Lisarda on his horizon, Ricardo’s thoughts turn to how best to rid himself of his mistress—whose name, uncomfortably enough, is also Clara—Donna Clara Euphegenia. We learn that she is of good birth, but was seduced and abandoned by another man, and turned to elegant prostitution after being cast off by her family. She sincerely loves Ricardo, and it is soon clear to him that she isn’t going to go quietly:

…nor would she hear him speak, but threatened to tear Lisarda to pieces; this urg’d Ricardo to think of another course, so that saying nothing, he went Streight to the Corregidors, or Governour of the Town who was his kinsman, and one that really lov’d him, to him he told the whole, and desir’d his assistance to get rid of her, which he promis’d; then they agreed; that the ensuing night, about eleven a Clock, the Corregidor should come with a Coach and Guards, and with a feign’d Warrant seize her, and send her in a Coach to Madrid, where the Guards should leave her…

Ricardo is on his way home from this highly honourable mission when he runs into Fulgencio, who by now has worked himself into a real state, and insists that they fight. Ricardo tells him, in essence, that he’s too busy just now, but he’ll be happy to fight him later, when he’s finished getting his mistress deported on trumped-up charges. A busy boy, Ricardo then calls upon Lisarda and makes his vows and proposals to her, before returning to Clara Euphegenia and dissembling his intentions, in order to keep her placated until the Guards arrive. He does it very thoroughly:

…he din’d with her, and staid with her till near four of the Clock, in which time he show’d so much love, and Caress’d her so handsomely, that she could not doubt but he was sincere…

—a little too thoroughly: Lisarda’s parents are away (thus she has been able to meet with Ricardo and answer him directly), and now, as she spots Ricardo, returning to the celebrations as she thinks, but in fact going back to Clara’s house for a second round of, ahem, placating, she follows him, meaning to join him, but finds herself outside a house which her servant is able to tell her belongs to him:

…she went in, but being in the first room, the door of the second stood half open, from whence our Lady heard these words; Ah, my dear Clara, Don’t imagine or think, that I can be false to thee; It is to have little Confidence in thine own Charms; Knowing this voice to be Ricardo’s, she carefully lookt the opening of the door, and saw her Lover lying on Clara’s Lap: O, Ye juste Powers! said she to herself, Is this possible! Could silly, easy Lisarda have believ’d it, had not her Eyes and Ears been Witnesses of his Ingratitude: Here she stopt hearing Ricardo speaking thus: My dear Clara, I don’t deny, that for my Friends satisfaction I gave out, and pretended to love Lisarda, but that was, that I might with secrecy give a full scope to my wishes, and thy Dear Embraces. What is Lisarda comparable to thee, but as a False Glass to a Diamond…

Lisarda can’t take any more, and rushes into the room—telling her startled rival that she’s welcome to Ricardo:

…I assure you, I have no design, if I could, which would be impossible, he being withheld by your all-powerful Charms, to rob you of the Gallant, who so justly enjoys your good will, that you ought to love him for his many good Parts, I mean as to his Body, for as to the rest, Heaven never fram’d a man so False, so ungrateful a Creature…

And in the middle of this scene, Ricardo hears the signal from Fulgencio, reminding of their appointment to fight. Worried about what might happens in his absence, he bundles Clara into another room and locks her in, then hurries downstairs to ask Fulgencio if they can put it off for an hour or two, as he has rather a lot on his plate; but Fulgencio isn’t in a mood to be put off, so they go off to duel. Meanwhile, hearing voices and now calm enough to worry about consequences, Lisarda throws on her veils to conceal herself from any newcomers—and thus finds herself under arrest and being carried off to Madrid…

The real Clara, meanwhile, escapes out of a window with her maid, and in the darkness encounters Fulgencio returning from the duel. He mistakes her for Lisarda and begins upbraiding her:

Madam, Might I never be so happy in any other Woman, I would not exchange the Hell wherein you have put me, not for that happiness: And she mistaking him for Antonio, I thought you would not have been in pain while you possest my heart; at least you have often told me so: He perceiving she mistook him for t’other was overjoy’d, not knowing he himself was mistaken , but on the contrary, by having seen her in the street go into Antonio’s; her discourse of having seen him that night, and his seeing Antonio go in just before her, had not any scruple, but really thought it was the Person he took her for; and since she took him for his Rival, not being able to worst Antonio by the Sword, he thought now to revenge himself by a trick, and so proceeded.
Well, Madam, said he, Since we love sincerely, let me beg of you, before we go further, to give me the assurance, you’ll ever be mine: How shall I do that, replied Clara? Why, Madam, for several urgent reasons, for your advantage as well as mine, we may be married now, and keep it private till— Here cutting off his words, not having power to contain her self for Joy, said, Ay, my Antonio, I Consent, You know I can refuse you nothing. So presently they went to a Priest, who was at Fulgencio’s Devotion, or rather was devoted to the gold he expected, who married them by the light of one single Lamp that hung i’ the church, so that neither perceived their mistake…

Amusingly enough, our author feels obliged to interject here—having reached levels of ridiculousness that, evidently, he considered too great even for a bunch of Spaniards. He has, of course, already made it clear that our ladies’ names overlaps; now he clarifies:

What cover’d extreamly the mistake was, as in all Foreign Countries, having two Names, Fulgencio could answer by that of Ricardo, and designedly did so, Clara was the first Name of Lisarda’s as well as hers, whom we call by that Name…

Meanwhile, Ricardo – whose disarming of Fulgencio in the duel is mentioned only in passing – returns to Clara’s house and there learns what has befallen Lisarda. He dashes off to the Corregidor, gets an order rescinding the warrant, and rides off after the coach, calling upon it to stop. Instead it goes faster, which prompts Ricardo to start firing his pistols after it. Someone fires back, and they keep it up until both are out of bullets—at which point, Fulgencio calls out to Ricardo, and before we know it, the two are in the middle of another duel, which ends exactly as the first did, much to Fulgencio’s mortification:

…when he came to examine the business, it was the discovery of a double deceit: First instead of Lisarda, whom both thought was in the Coach, they found Clara Ricardo’s late Mistress, and to Fulgencio’s great perplexity, his now Wife; he no sooner knew who t’was but he would have disown’d her, but in vain, for he had told Ricardo in his Capitulation, that on Condition he would not meddle with a Lady in the Coach, who he had that Night Married, he would surrender, but without that Promise, Disarm’d as he was, the Dispute should continue, and assuring him it was no Person sent by Command of the Corregidor, and consequently not the Person he sought for; Ricardo had granted his Request, deliver’d him his Sword, and went to wish the Lady Joy; when, Gods! what a surprise was it to him to see Clara; had he been capable to have receiv’d any Pleasure amidst that throng of Vexations, undoubtedly this would have been a great one to see himself rid of so troublesome a Mistress…

Washing his hands of that mess, Ricardo returns to the chase, and finally overtakes the government coach. The guards acknowledge their new orders and obligingly offer Ricardo a seat in the coach, inviting him to stay wherever they put up for the night. He accepts, although there is still a deathly silence within the coach, as both parties try to figure out what to say to one another, when the coach is suddenly held up by a band of men, who shoot three of the guards before Ricardo can finish making a speech:

Madam, I am far from being sorry for this occasion, of shewing how tenderly I love you; if I live I hope to clear my self of what things have happen’d to night; but if it is my misfortune to be kill’d, let me beg you to entertain a Charitable Opinion for me…

Ricardo manages to kill one of the band, but is shot and injured himself as the carriage is driven away. He expends what he honestly believes to be his dying breath on making yet another speech, a distinctly self-pitying one, only to be rescued by some locals—Cowardly Bores, we are assured—who heard the shots but kept well clear until the fight was over, and in fact only show up now to rob the corpses. They get a shock when one of the dead men starts resisting them, and Ricardo in danger of his life yet again when more guards show up, these dispatched from the nearest town where word of the fight and abduction was also carried.

Ricardo survives his ordeal, but is left in complete ignorance of Lisarda’s fate and can only fear the worst.

Meanwhile, we discover that this town has a short way with boring people:

…the Bores were carried before the Corregidor, who committed them to Gaol…innumerable were the imprecations laid on the Bores…the poor Bores were loaded with Irons, and laid in a Dungeon…

[To be continued…]