DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51519#0328
276 THE DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH.
policy, by which he was to build up his own fortunes and power,
and ruin all his enemies, was but (( one of the thousand freaks that
died in thinking- •” he totally forgot both the lady and his promise,
and leaving- the disconsolate nymph at Dieppe to manage as she
could, passed over to England by way of Calais. Montagu, then
our ambassador at Paris, hearing of the duke’s egregious blunder,
immediately sent over for a yacht, and ordered some of his own
people to convey her with all honour to Whitehall, where she was
received by Lord Arlington with the utmost respect, and imme-
diately appointed Maid of Honour to the Queen. “Thus,” says
Burnet, “ the Duke of Buckingham lost all the merit he mioffit
have pretended to, and brought over a mistress, whom his own
strange conduct threw into the hands of his enemies.”
Though the lady carried it at first very demurely, the purpose
of her visit was pretty well understood.* Dryden, the court poet
of the time, hailed her arrival in some complimentary stanzas,
entitled the “ Fair Stranger,” not worth quoting here and St.
Evremond addressed to her an epistle, which, for different reasons,
I shall refrain from quoting; it is sufficient, that the elegance of
the diction was worthy of his pen; the sentiments worthy of his
epicurean philosophy ; and the morality—worthy of the occasion. J
The next we hear of Mademoiselle de Queroualle is from Evelyn,
who notes in his diary that he had seen “ that famous beauty, the
new French Maid of Honourbut adds, “ in my opinion, she is
of a childish, simple, and baby face.” We may judge, from all
the pictures of La Queroualle, that when young, her beauty, though
exquisite, must have had the character, or rather the want of cha-
* It had been foretold, apparently ; for Madame de Sevigne thus writes to her
daughter: “ Ne trouverez-v«.s pas bon de savoir que Keroual dont 1’etoile avait
ete devinee avant qu’elle partit, 1’a suivie tres-fidelement ? Le Roi d’Angleterre
l’a aimee, elle s’est trouve avec une legere disposition a ne le pas hair; enfin,”
&e.—Lcttre 190.
t See Dryden’s Works. Scott’s edit. vol. xi. p. 163.
J (Euvres de St. Evremond, vol. iii. p. 280.
policy, by which he was to build up his own fortunes and power,
and ruin all his enemies, was but (( one of the thousand freaks that
died in thinking- •” he totally forgot both the lady and his promise,
and leaving- the disconsolate nymph at Dieppe to manage as she
could, passed over to England by way of Calais. Montagu, then
our ambassador at Paris, hearing of the duke’s egregious blunder,
immediately sent over for a yacht, and ordered some of his own
people to convey her with all honour to Whitehall, where she was
received by Lord Arlington with the utmost respect, and imme-
diately appointed Maid of Honour to the Queen. “Thus,” says
Burnet, “ the Duke of Buckingham lost all the merit he mioffit
have pretended to, and brought over a mistress, whom his own
strange conduct threw into the hands of his enemies.”
Though the lady carried it at first very demurely, the purpose
of her visit was pretty well understood.* Dryden, the court poet
of the time, hailed her arrival in some complimentary stanzas,
entitled the “ Fair Stranger,” not worth quoting here and St.
Evremond addressed to her an epistle, which, for different reasons,
I shall refrain from quoting; it is sufficient, that the elegance of
the diction was worthy of his pen; the sentiments worthy of his
epicurean philosophy ; and the morality—worthy of the occasion. J
The next we hear of Mademoiselle de Queroualle is from Evelyn,
who notes in his diary that he had seen “ that famous beauty, the
new French Maid of Honourbut adds, “ in my opinion, she is
of a childish, simple, and baby face.” We may judge, from all
the pictures of La Queroualle, that when young, her beauty, though
exquisite, must have had the character, or rather the want of cha-
* It had been foretold, apparently ; for Madame de Sevigne thus writes to her
daughter: “ Ne trouverez-v«.s pas bon de savoir que Keroual dont 1’etoile avait
ete devinee avant qu’elle partit, 1’a suivie tres-fidelement ? Le Roi d’Angleterre
l’a aimee, elle s’est trouve avec une legere disposition a ne le pas hair; enfin,”
&e.—Lcttre 190.
t See Dryden’s Works. Scott’s edit. vol. xi. p. 163.
J (Euvres de St. Evremond, vol. iii. p. 280.