against every preconceived opinion he has in the world, against his prejudices, his education, his conscience, and his religion. Ah, me! "The weary thing Let us go scuffling out with the rest of the throng, turning our backs upon majesty with rather too little ceremony. We shall return to the room from whence we came, and there await the ambassador's coming. Our feet are damp, our noses are blue, our uniforms pinch us under the arms, our corns are shooting wildly. We rejoice at the second appearance of coffee and pipes; and when they are disposed of, we look stiffly at each other from our stiffly embroidered coat-collars, and our backs ache not a little. A fair hour has elapsed, many of us have long ceased to feel our noses at all, and our pipes have been burnt out and carried away, before the ambassador returns. He is quite radiant. He has delivered himself with great éclat. He is a kind, good, pleasant man; yet I am convinced that he has said things in his private audience with that gentle prince, which would provide him with his passports in twenty-four hours at any Court in Europe. Yea! even at the Court of Schwarzwursti-Schinkenshausen. As for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who has been only recently appointed, because his predecessor did not please Prince Knockoff, he is quite red with anger and humiliation, his under lip has fallen, and he seems to be literally wincing corporally. If the ambassador were to speak to him suddenly, I think he would stand up with his hand out in the form of a boy about to receive punishment. However, as I said before, the ambassador is delighted, and his entrance into the room causes quite a reaction on our spirits. After a few words, of course we all rise, and putting on our clogs in the passage, made across the garden, which has now become tolerably deep in mire, and then cuddling ourselves up in our cloaks, return from whence we came. Such is the ceremony at the reception of ambassadors at Constantinople in the Year of Grace One Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty-three. The Court of the Sultan has neither grace, dignity, nor splendour. I confess that I could not help being saddened by the spectacle. I was sorry to see the most just and merciful prince who ever sat upon that blood-stained throne so shorn of that pomp and power which all Orientals prize so highly. No one can really and seriously regret the humbling of Turkish power in Europe. One is too apt to remember the epitaph on the famous brigand, in which the traveller is requested not to mourn for the robber, for had he been living the traveller would have been dead. The decay of Mussulman power is synonymous with the advance of Christianity, and even the coldest philosopher could scarcely lament the gradual passing away of a race who never founded but one* civilized empire in the world, and who, from the palsying influence of Mohammedanism, have done * Granada. nothing for art, science, or literature, during the 400 years that they have possessed in wealthy leisure one of the finest countries upon earth; who have done worse, who have suffered the sands to collect upon her storied monuments, and the pride of her palaces and towers to crumble into dust. Where stood the Forum of Constantine, the founder of the city, with its porticoes, and lofty columns of porphyry? Where is the colossal statue of Apollo, supposed to be the work of Phidias? Where is the stately Hippodrome, with its statues and obelisks? the Baths, with their three score statues of bronze? the circus, the theatres, the schools? the marvellous treasures of antiquity which would have been standing to-day, had they fallen into other hands. I cannot, perhaps, better conclude this article than by contrasting, as a reminder to hectoring Ambassadors, the reception which they formerly received from the Ottoman despot with that I have already related. It may be useful to them. The receptions always took place on the grand Divan days, and immediately after the payment of the troops, so that the Foreign Envoys might see the Court of the Sultan on parade, and that the assembled troops might give the stranger a fitting idea of the Ottoman might. The Ambassador was usually granted audience upon a Tuesday, and as the Divan assembled shortly after daybreak, the Ambassador had to get up betimes in order that he might present himself at the Bagdsche Kapussi (Garden Gate of the Palace) before sunrise; after which there was no admittance. Here he was received by the Tschausch Baschi, an inferior dignitary of the empire, who was charged with his reception. He welcomed the stranger envoy as his guest, and arranged the order of their further procession. The Tschausch Baschi rode before a Minister, but gave a kind of surly precedence to an Ambassador, riding, however, on his right hand, and before all the rest of his suite. When the procession reached the "Divan Joli,” or grand street of the Divan, it halted, and the Ambassador proceeded on foot to visit the Grand Vizier. He was often kept waiting the pleasure of this functionary many hours. When the Vizier deigned at last to show himself, his suite took precedence of the Ambassador's, which were directed to march in order and at a measured pace. A little further on they were brought to halt again, and the High Chamberlain made his appearance, carrying a silver staff, which he struck haughtily on the ground as he walked. I cannot help fancying he must have been a strange sight. Preceded by the important functionary with the silver stick, the Ambassador and his train, who must have been rather tired and hungry by this time, moved slowly on once more. At the Divan the Ambassador was obliged to leave the greater part of his suite behind him. The Grand Vizier now caused numerous leather sacks full of money to be brought to him, and began to pay the soldiers. A more perfect piece of Oriental make-believe than this can hardly be conceived. Behind the place where the Grand Vizier sat was a little window from which the Sultan could see all that was going on without being seen. When the Divan was over, the Ambassador alone was allowed to dine at the table of the Grand Vizier, and his suite were huddled pell-mell together, somewhere else. The audience being now requested usually by the Grand Vizier, it was the wont of the Sultans to answer, that if the stranger (the Ambassador) had been already clothed and fed by his generosity, he would graciously consent to receive him. The reception, however, did not take place at once, but the envoy and his suite were still kept waiting an hour or two in the open air at the gate of the Sultan's palace. This was the time when the Ambassador presented his gifts, if he had brought any, and it was the almost invariable custom to do so; at the same time his Excellency and his suite were clothed with costly robes of oriental magnificence. The Sultan then consented to admit the stranger into the presence, but would not allow his whole suit to exceed twelve persons. At the audience were always present the Rapu Agassi, or chief of the white eunuchs, the "Sulfi Baltadschi," the long-haired axebearers, and a crowd of white eunuchs dazzlingly arrayed in cloth of gold. The Ambassador and his suite were borne into the presence of the Sultan by two stout men seizing each of them under the arms and lifting them in this manner off the ground, after which they carried them rapidly as near to Majesty as they were allowed to approach. When at last they stood before the Sultan, the High Chamberlain took them by their heads and made them bow before his Highness with due reverence. The Ambassador presented his letters of credence upon a velvet cushion embroidered with gold, which was carried by his secretary. The letters were received by the Grand Interpreter, who handed them to the Grand Vizier, and he laid them humbly at the Sultan's feet. During the whole interview the Sultan never deigned to address a single word to the Ambassador. When, therefore, he had said what he had to say, he was marched off and dismissed without further ceremony. The Ambassador was never permitted to see the Sultan more than twice. On the first occasion to present his letters of credence, and on the last to take leave. Ambassadors were looked upon with such small esteem in Turkey, that the representative of Sweden was once beaten by a Janissary without being able to obtain redress. Even an English Ambassador lies buried in unconsecrated ground at the little island of Halki, and the place of his interment was uncertain till Sir Stratford Canning erected a simple monument to his memory. Now, however, the question is altered. Ambassadors are everything. Not to put too fine a point upon it, the present state of things in Turkey may be said to exist only for the Embassies. They are above the law and the prophet; they take small account of either. I never see an Ambassador going down in state to hector the Sultan without being filled with a solemn joy at the greatness of Europe and the progress of Christianity; though now and then I may also, perhaps, own to a regret that he is not about to assert our glory before a prince less gentle and merciful, less amiable and beloved than Abdul Medjid. VOL. XXXV. H GABRIELLE D'ESTREES. FROM THE CAUSERIES DU LUNDI. M. NIEL, librarian to the Minister of the Home Department, a student of history and an amateur of art of considerable taste and judgment, has been publishing, ever since 1848, a succession of Portraits or Crayons of Celebrated Persons of the Sixteenth Century. And here we are introduced to kings, queens, and kings' mistresses, who make already a folio volume. M. Niel has been careful not to admit into his collection anything which might not be authentic and thoroughly original, and he has confined himself to one style of portraits, to those, namely, which are drawn in crayons of different colours by the different artists of the sixteenth century. Drawings which were executed in red chalk and black and white lead pencil, were then called crayons, says M. Niel; they were tinted and touched up in such a manner as to give them the appearance of paintings. These drawings, in which a red shade predominates, and which are faithful productions, are chiefly by unknown artists, and appear to be of the pure French school. These artists must be viewed in the light of humble companions and followers of the chroniclers, for they only sought in their rapid sketches to give a faithful notion of the face according to their ideas of it; the desire of producing a close resemblance alone occupied their mind; they never dreamt of adopting any foreign mode of treatment of their subject. Francis the First opens the volume with one at least of his brilliant mistresses, namely, the Countess de Chateaubriand. Henry the Second, who is giving his arm to Catherine de Medicis and to Diane de Poitiers, is placed next to him; then we have two portraits of Mary Stuart when quite young, and before and after her widowhood. In this style of drawing the men in general appear rather to advantage, while, on the contrary, it requires a strong effort of imagination to invest many of the women's portraits with that delicacy of expression and freshness of beauty which the artist nevertheless intended to convey to the mind of the beholders. There are two sketches of Charles the Ninth, at twelve years old, and again between eighteen and twenty, which are taken from nature, and seem actually endowed with animation. Then there is Henry the Fourth, younger and fresher than we are accustomed to see him, it is Henry of Navarre before his beard became grey; there is also a portrait of his first wife, Marguerite de France, in the prime of her beauty, but she is so much disguised by her toilet and buried in her ruffle, that it is necessary to be perfectly acquainted with the charms she possessed to feel at all sure that this doll-like figure could ever have been attractive. Gabrielle d'Estrées, who stands next in order, and looks quite stiff and imprisoned in her rich toilet, would not be appreciated without the aid of the short memoir which M. Niel has affixed to each of the portraits, and which is prepared with much care and erudition. The date of her birth is not well known, and consequently we are ignorant how old she was when she died, so suddenly, in the prime of her youth and beauty, M. Niel imagines that she was born somewhere about 1571 or 1572, which would make her about twenty-eight at the time of her death. She was the daughter of a woman not famous for her purity of conduct, and came of a race remarkable for its gallantries, and about which little mention has been made. Madame Gabrielle was the fifth of six daughters, all whom created a sensation in the world. Her brother was the Marquis de Cœuvres, afterwards Maréchal d'Estrées. He was a man of much penetration and shrewdness, a gay fellow, and so clever and intriguing that he made all the warriors and negotiators appear blockheads. One of her sisters was Abbesse de Maubuisson, whose unbridled conduct rendered her so celebrated. Gabrielle came between this brother and sister; she appears not to have possessed so much talent as her brother, or to have been quite so ill regulated as her sister the abbess; but we must not be too eager to scrutinize her conduct during those early years which preceded her acquaintance with Henry the Fourth. This Prince saw her in Picardy about 1591, at the time he was carrying on a war in the environs of Rouen and Paris. He formed almost a little capital at Mantes, and from thence he flew to Mademoiselle d'Estrées for diversion, or else induced her father to take her to Mantes, but the bustle there was a source of annoyance to them. Bellegarde, who had introduced Gabrielle to the King, soon repented that he had done so; the jealousy and rivalry of the servant and master have been tolerably described in the history of Henry the Fourth's amours, which was written by a person living at the period, Mademoiselle Guise, afterwards Princess de Conti. She has introduced some little anecdotes, which Madame de la Fayette afterwards related, when writing Madame's amours. Henry the Fourth's passion for Gabrielle seems to have gone through many different stages; at its commencement it appears to have been of rather a coarse nature. In order to emancipate M. d'Estrées' daughter from restraint, the King thought the best thing was to marry her to a gentleman of Picardy, M. de Liancourt. It has been asserted that he promised to go to her deliverance before the end of the wedding day, however, he did not keep his promise. The poets of the time wrote some verses on this marriage of obligation, which were printed under Henry the Fourth's eyes, and which are not more indelicate than those addressed fifty years before to Diane de Poitiers, or than those which were written a century and a half afterwards to Madame de Pompadour. In endeavouring to give a description of Gabrielle's sentiments, |