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Updated: June 22, 2025
The Marquise San Carlos sent her carriage for us the evening of her soiree. All the company was assembled when we arrived: the Marquis, the Dean of Havana, and two abbes were playing tresillo, a Spanish game of cards. A group of men stood in the corner and seemed to be talking politics, as far as I could judge from then gesticulations.
The deputation of the nobility was comprised of two hundred and forty-two gentlemen, and twenty-eight members of the parliament; that of the clergy, of forty-eight archbishops or bishops, thirty-five abbes or deans, and two hundred and eight cures; and that of the communes, of two ecclesiastics, twelve noblemen, eighteen magistrates of towns, two hundred county members, two hundred and twelve barristers, sixteen physicians, and two hundred and sixteen merchants and agriculturists.
"The Electors of the German Empire are nearly all of them ecclesiastics; our own history of France will show you that the sons of kings were bishops or mere abbes; the grandson of the Duc de Savoie is a cardinal and an archbishop, and King Charles X., my grandfather's paternal uncle, nearly became King of France and cardinal at one and the same time." At this moment Madame Scarron came in.
"And Crebillon," said he. "And la Chaussee, and the younger Crebillon," said some one. "He ought to be more agreeable than his father." "And there are also the Abbes Prevot and d'Olivet." Madame de Pompadour repeated to me this conversation, which I wrote down the same evening. M. de Marigny, also, talked to me about it.
The second act displayed four or five couples reversed, and here the abbes shone, both in the active and passive parts of this lascivious spectacle. I was the only person respected. All at once, the earl, who had hitherto remained perfectly motionless, attacked the wretched Poinsinet, who in vain attempted to defend himself. He had to strip like my lord, who was as naked as the others.
The galleys of France abound with abbes; and many templars may be found in our American plantations; not to mention those who have made a public exit nearer home. Yet I would not have it thought that my description includes every individual of those societies.
As soon as he saw me he embraced me, called me his dear friend, and named his guests. There were seven or eight girls, all of them pretty, three or four castrati who played women's parts in the Roman theatre, and five or six abbes, the husband of every wife and the wives of every husband, who boasted of their wickedness, and challenged the girls to be more shameless than they.
These are the bishops who stand well at Court, who are rich, well endowed, skilful, accepted by the world, who know how to pray, no doubt, but who know also how to beg, who feel little scruple at making a whole diocese dance attendance in their person, who are connecting links between the sacristy and diplomacy, who are abbes rather than priests, prelates rather than bishops.
To these we may add Galiani, the smallest, the wittiest, and the most delightful of abbes, whose piercing insight and Machiavellian subtlety lent a piquant charm to the stories with which for hours he used to enliven this choice company; Caraccioli, gay, simple, ingenuous, full of Neapolitan humor, rich in knowledge and observation, luminous with intelligence and sparkling with wit; and the Comte de Crentz, the learned and versatile Swedish minister, to whom nature had "granted the gift of expressing and painting in touches of fire all that had struck his imagination or vividly seized his soul."
When one thinks of the patches and powder that have simpered out of those plate-glass windows the mitred bishops, the big-wigged marshals, the shovel- hatted abbes which they have borne in their time the human mind becomes affected in no ordinary degree.
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