DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51519#0135
THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT.
115
and elegant in liis person; his wit ready, pointed, yet perfectly
good-humoured: he told a story with inimitable grace—then, as
now, a true Parisian accomplishment. He appears to have been
a man of the most happy temperament, his vivacity and animal
spirits inexhaustible, and his invulnerable self-complacency beyond
the reach of a serious thought or a profound feeling of any kind.
But these are only the garnish and “outward flourishes,” which
make a character, otherwise estimable, irresistible. Where was the
high honour, the chivalrous feeling, the refined sentiments, the
nobility of soul, the generous self-devotion, which should have
distinguished the husband of Miss Hamilton ? Frivolous, worth-
less, heartless, inconstant, a selfish epicure, a gambler, a sharper,
a most malicious enemy, a negligent friend, and a faithless lover:
— such was De Grammont, such is the character which Bussy-
Babutin,* and even his partial friend St. Evremond, have left of
him, and which he was well content to support in the “ M emoires”
which Hamilton wrote from his dictation, and published in his
lifetime, f Whether the lovely, noble-minded, and far-superior
* “ Lc Chevalier avait les yeux rians, le nez bien fait, la Louche belle, une
petite fosscttc an mcnton, qui faisait un agreable effet sur son visage ; je ne sais
quoi de fin dans la physionomie, la faille assez belle s’il ne se fut point voute,
1’esprit galant et delicat. Il ecrivait le plus mal du monde.—Quoiqu’il soit
superflu do dire qu’un rival soit incommode, le Chevalier 1’etait.m point qu’il eut
micux vain pour une pauvre femme, en avoir quatre sur les bras que lui seul. Il
etait liberal jusques a la profusion; et par la sa maitresse ni ses rivaux ne pouvait
avoir de valets fideles. D’ailleurs le meilleur gargon du monde. Une chose qui
faisait qu’il lui etait plus difficile de persuader qu’a un autre, etait qu’il ne parlait
jamais serieusement, de sorte qu’il fallait qu’une femme se flattait beaucoup pour
croire qu’il fut amoureux d’elle.”—Histoire A.moureuse des G aides.
t Before the ^Lemoines da Comte de Grammont were published, they were of
course submitted to the censorship. Fontenelle was then Censeur Royal; and
he was so scandalized at the idea of a peer of Prance being represented as a
common sharper, or, in polite phrase, “ one who used address to correct the errors
of Fortune,” that he flatly refused his approbation. De Grammont, on hearing
this, hastened to wait upon the scrupulous censor, and demanded, with his usual
vivacity, what business he had to be more solicitous about a nobleman’s reputa’
tion than he was himself? and desired that he would do him the favour instantly
to sign the licence, if the freedom with which his character was treated was the.
I 2
115
and elegant in liis person; his wit ready, pointed, yet perfectly
good-humoured: he told a story with inimitable grace—then, as
now, a true Parisian accomplishment. He appears to have been
a man of the most happy temperament, his vivacity and animal
spirits inexhaustible, and his invulnerable self-complacency beyond
the reach of a serious thought or a profound feeling of any kind.
But these are only the garnish and “outward flourishes,” which
make a character, otherwise estimable, irresistible. Where was the
high honour, the chivalrous feeling, the refined sentiments, the
nobility of soul, the generous self-devotion, which should have
distinguished the husband of Miss Hamilton ? Frivolous, worth-
less, heartless, inconstant, a selfish epicure, a gambler, a sharper,
a most malicious enemy, a negligent friend, and a faithless lover:
— such was De Grammont, such is the character which Bussy-
Babutin,* and even his partial friend St. Evremond, have left of
him, and which he was well content to support in the “ M emoires”
which Hamilton wrote from his dictation, and published in his
lifetime, f Whether the lovely, noble-minded, and far-superior
* “ Lc Chevalier avait les yeux rians, le nez bien fait, la Louche belle, une
petite fosscttc an mcnton, qui faisait un agreable effet sur son visage ; je ne sais
quoi de fin dans la physionomie, la faille assez belle s’il ne se fut point voute,
1’esprit galant et delicat. Il ecrivait le plus mal du monde.—Quoiqu’il soit
superflu do dire qu’un rival soit incommode, le Chevalier 1’etait.m point qu’il eut
micux vain pour une pauvre femme, en avoir quatre sur les bras que lui seul. Il
etait liberal jusques a la profusion; et par la sa maitresse ni ses rivaux ne pouvait
avoir de valets fideles. D’ailleurs le meilleur gargon du monde. Une chose qui
faisait qu’il lui etait plus difficile de persuader qu’a un autre, etait qu’il ne parlait
jamais serieusement, de sorte qu’il fallait qu’une femme se flattait beaucoup pour
croire qu’il fut amoureux d’elle.”—Histoire A.moureuse des G aides.
t Before the ^Lemoines da Comte de Grammont were published, they were of
course submitted to the censorship. Fontenelle was then Censeur Royal; and
he was so scandalized at the idea of a peer of Prance being represented as a
common sharper, or, in polite phrase, “ one who used address to correct the errors
of Fortune,” that he flatly refused his approbation. De Grammont, on hearing
this, hastened to wait upon the scrupulous censor, and demanded, with his usual
vivacity, what business he had to be more solicitous about a nobleman’s reputa’
tion than he was himself? and desired that he would do him the favour instantly
to sign the licence, if the freedom with which his character was treated was the.
I 2