Part 15 (1/2)

Such sufferings and trials were not enough: impossible to read even now without some emotion the bare paragraph in which Du Gard, with official coldness and hard-heartedness, tells about the death of little Princess Elizabeth.

”Princess Elizabeth Stuart, daughter to the late King, who you know was brought together with her brother[278] to the Isle of Wight, having got overheated while playing at bowls and drenched afterwards by an unexpected fall of rain, took cold, being moreover of a weak and sickly health, and fell ill of a bad headache and fever, which increasing, she was obliged to be abed where she died on December 8th inst., though carefully attended by Mr. Mayerne, chief physician to her late Father” (September 1650, p. 41).

But the triumphs of the Parliament extend to enemies abroad; Portugal and Holland are both humbled, Barbadoes and Jamaica forced to surrender. Du Gard remained true to his promise. All Europe might peruse the famous letter, ”des generaux de l'armee navale du Parlement et de la Republique d'Angleterre au tres honorable Guil. Lenthal ecuier, orateur dudit Parlement, ecrite a bord du navire le Triomfe en la baie dite de Stoake,”

and signed: Robert Blake, Richard Deane, George Monck. Sprung from the ranks of the people, those revolutionists used, when occasion needed, the language of patricians. ”M. Bourdeaux (the French envoy) having delivered a copy of the letters accrediting him and subscribed: To our very dear and good friends, the people of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, it was directed to be returned, for all addresses should be subscribed: To the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England” (p. 513).

Such patriotic pride must move the writer of the _Nouvelles ordinaires_. So in one of his very few outbursts of humour he exclaims: ”The King of Portugal being unable to do us harm, had tried to frighten us, but being unable to do either, on the contrary showing the most egregious cowardice and poltroonery as ever was seen, without the slightest regard for his reputation, has tried to conceal his shame by a lying account, signed by himself; if the said King thinks he has seen what he has written, it must be said that his spectacles were set awry” (p. 45).

Religious intelligence takes up a great s.p.a.ce in the _Nouvelles ordinaires_. The readers are not spared a single proclamation about days of fasting and repentance; lengthy abstracts are duly given of the sermons preached at the Abbey or St. Margaret's; nor are the wordy resolutions of the several committees on religious affairs omitted. The _quakers_ are often spoken about. The first risings of the sect are set forth with the kind of minuteness that appeals to a modern historian. They are ”evil-disposed and melancholy people” (_gens malfaits et melancoliques_); most pestilent and persevering proselytisers, with an inordinate appet.i.te for martyrdom, they appear at the same time in the most unexpected quarters; driven from Boston, they cause a holy panic in Hamburgh and Bordeaux (p. 1375). Their leader, or at any rate ”the chief pillar of that frenzied sect,” is named George Fox. ”Many think the said Fox is a popish priest, there being several of that garb among the said quakers, and what makes the opinion plausible is that he is strong for popish and arminian tenets, such, for instance, as salvation by good works.” (p. 981).

With the exception of the poor Piedmont Waldenses, who had found a strenuous protector in Cromwell, the foreign Protestants interest but little the editor of the _Nouvelles ordinaires_: he was probably afraid of offending those in high places by more than casually alluding to the Huguenots who had shown themselves vehemently opposed to independency. Thus it would be difficult to find a more explicit piece of news than the following: ”Letters from Paris say that of late divers outrages have been committed on the Reformed, under frivolous pretences quite contrary to their privileges, especially at La Roch.e.l.le, Metz, Amiens, Langres....

Local quarrels breaking out daily in divers places on the score of religion, together with the ma.s.sacres of Protestants in Piedmont, make it feared lest there be a universal hidden design of the Papists to endeavour to exterminate all those that make profession of the Reformed religion in all places in the world” (p. 1057).

Mention is made of the French Churches in London. ”This week, the members of the French and Walloon Churches in this city have pet.i.tioned Parliament to be maintained in the enjoyment of the privileges granted to them of old; which pet.i.tion being duly read, was referred to the Council of State” (p.

668); and further on: ”This week, the ministers of the French Church in this city, and six of the elders of the said Church, together with the Marquis de Cugnac, came to Whitehall to congratulate His Highness” (p.

729).

The Marquis de Cugnac was then in England on behalf of the rebel Prince de Conde, bidding against Cardinal Mazarin's envoys to gain the friends.h.i.+p of Cromwell and the help of the English fleet. Many are the allusions in the _Nouvelles ordinaires_ to the dark intrigues of the Frondeurs. A most characteristic one may be quoted here; in May 1653 the ”city of Bordeaux sends four deputies to the Commonwealth, a councillor of Parliament Franquart, a gentleman La Ca.s.sagne, a man of the Reformed religion whose name is not stated, and a tin-potter named Taussin; with them have come a herald bearing the arms of England as they were when Guyenne was under English rule, and a trumpeter of the said city” (p. 597).

Many of Du Gard's readers are merchants; for them he prints the resolutions of Parliament concerning the Customs and Excise, the Post Office regulations, the treaties with foreign countries. No sooner is peace proclaimed with Portugal than Du Gard gives information as to sending letters to Lisbon, by means of frigates building at Woolwich (pp. 1326, 1328, 1333). Warnings are issued as to pirates in the Mediterranean or the piratical practices of neutrals: ”Letters from Leghorn say that Mr.

Longland, an English merchant, having loaded a French s.h.i.+p with a cargo of tin, the captain of the said s.h.i.+p perfidiously gave notice to the Dutch, who forthwith came with two men-of-war and seized it” (p. 562).

Pirates and ”sea-rovers” (_esc.u.meurs de mer_) meet with short mercy at the hands of Du Gard: ”We have notice from Leghorn that our s.h.i.+ps on the Mediterranean have captured a French s.h.i.+p commanded by Captain Puille, nicknamed the Arch-pirate” (p. 194).

Robbers must be as summarily dealt with, especially Irish robbers: ”Lieutenant-General Barry was taken prisoner in Ireland by the Tories and put to death. The Tories are a kind of brigands, of somewhat the same sort as the Italian banditti; they live in marshes, woods, and hills, neither till nor sow the earth, do no work, but live only on thieving and robbery”

(p. 15). Fancy Cardinal Mazarin reading about the Tories!

Such is the curious French paper in which Milton's name was mentioned for the first time. Nor should we think the old forgotten publication unworthy to record the rising fame of a future epic poet. Though the style of the _Nouvelles ordinaires_ be as rough and harsh as the manners of Roundheads and Ironsides, it served to tell in Paris and Brussels and Amsterdam of lofty thoughts and splendid deeds. The utterings of a Cromwell still ring with the haughtiness and energy that remind one of Satan's speeches in _Paradise Lost_.

Du Gard's undertaking was remembered after the Commonwealth. To the _Nouvelles ordinaires_ succeeded, with but a few years' interval, the _Gazette de Londres_, the French edition to Charles II.'s _London Gazette_.

The general editor was one Charles Perrot, an Oxford M.A.; the printer, a friend of Thurloe, as Du Gard had been, was called Thomas Newcombe; and the task of writing the French translation was entrusted to one Moranville.

Editor, printer, and translator received their inspirations from Secretary Williamson, who, the better to see his directions obeyed, placed Mrs.

Andrews, a spy, in the printing-house.

Beginning Feb. 5, 1666 (old style), the _Gazette de Londres_ was issued under the reigns of both Charles II. and James II. Numbers are extant dating from William III. and Queen Anne.

The few numbers of the _Gazette_ that we were enabled to read, appear of much less interest than the _Nouvelles ordinaires_. Even a newspaper would degenerate in the hands of Charles II. and his ministers. Here are specimens of the vague colourless political news concerning France and England: ”Two of Mons. Colbert's daughters were bestowed--the elder on M.

de Chevreuse, son to the Duc de Luynes, the younger on the Count de Saint-Aignan, only son to the Duc of the same name” (No. 13, Dec. 1666).

”Mons. de Louvois is ill with a fever” (No. 2248, May 1688). ”His Majesty (James II.) has begun to touch for the King's evil” (No. 1914, March 1684).

Such news the Secretary of State thought would neither stir rebellion nor cause diplomatic complications.

The _Gazette de Londres_ appeared twice a week, on Monday and Thursday, was printed on a half-sheet, and cost one penny.

Here is an advertis.e.m.e.nt that brings one back to the Great Fire: ”All that wish to provide this city with timber, bricks, stones, gla.s.s, tiles and other material for building houses, are referred to the Committee of the Common Council in Gresham House, London” (No. 12, Dec. 1666). Another may be quoted: ”An engineer has brought to this city the model in relief of the splendid Versailles Palace, with gardens and waterworks, the whole being 24 feet long and 18 wide” (No. 2222, Feb. 1687).

To Thomas Newcombe succeeded as printer, in 1688, Edward Jones, who till his death in 1705 published the _Gazette_, which then pa.s.sed to his widow, and ultimately to the famous bookseller Tonson.