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Updated: May 21, 2025
Thus do I no more believe that Mr. Bartholomew Pinchin was cousin to Lady Betty Heeltap, or in any manner connected with the family of my Lord Poddle (and he was only one of the Revolution Peers, that got his coronet for Ratting at the right moment to King William III.), than that he was the Great Mogul's Grandmother. His gentlemanly extraction was with him all a Vain Pretence and silly outward show. It did no very great Harm, however. When the French adventurer Poirier asked King Augustus the Strong to make him a Count, what said his Majesty of Warsaw and Luneville? "That I cannot do," quoth he; "but there is nothing under the sun to prevent thee from calling thyself a Count, if the humour so please thee." And Count Poirier, by Self-Creation, he straightway became, and as Count Poirier was knouted to Death at Moscow for Forging of Rubles Assignats. Pinchin was palpably a Plebeian; but it suited him to be called and to call himself an Esquire; and who should gainsay him? At the Three Archduchesses at Ostend, indeed, they had an exceeding sensible Plan regarding Titles and Precedence for Strangers, which was found to answer admirably well. He who took the Grand Suite, looking upon the courtyard, was always held to be an English Lord. The tenant of the floor above him was duly esteemed by the Drawers and Chamberlains to be a Count of the Holy Roman Empire; a quiet gentleman, who would pay a Louis a day for his charges, but was content to dine at the Public Table, was put down as a Baron or a Chevalier; those who occupied the rooms running round the galleries were saluted Merchants, or if they chose it, Captains; but, in the gardens behind the Inn, there stood a separate Building, called a Pavilion, most sumptuously appointed, and the Great Room hung with the Story of Susannah and the Elders in Arras Tapestry; and he who would pay enough for this Pavilion might have been hailed as an Ambassador Plenipotentiary, as a Duke and Peer of France, or even as a Sovereign Prince travelling incognito, had he been so minded. For what will not Money do? Take our English Army, for instance, which is surely the Bravest and the Worst Managed in the whole World. My Lord buys a pair of colours for the Valet that has married his Leman, and forthwith Mr. Jackanapes struts forth an Ensign. But for his own Son and Heir my Lord will purchase a whole troop of Horse: and a Beardless Boy, that a month agone was Birched at Eton for flaws in his Grammar, will Vapour it about on the Mall with a Queue
Maria Theresa, who inspired awe by her great qualities, taught the Archduchesses to fear and respect rather than to love her; at least I observed this in the Queen's feelings towards her august mother. She therefore never desired to place between her own children and herself that distance which had existed in the imperial family.
These facts are important, for they indicate how completely the objects of the embassy, the commencement of which was so pretentious, were cast aside, that a more advantageous marriage for one of the seven Austrian Archduchesses might be secured. The King replied to the Archduke, when this proposition was made, that if he had regard only to his personal satisfaction, he should remain as he was.
And the wretched woman thought how one day when the imperial family had dined together, and her entrance had been announced as that of "Her majesty, the reigning empress," the archduchesses had sneered, and their mother had smiled in derision.
The celebrated Wansvietten, her physician, went daily, to visit the young imperial family, and afterwards to Maria Theresa, and gave the most minute details respecting the health of the Archdukes and Archduchesses, whom she herself sometimes did not see for eight or ten days at a time.
"Dying of cold indeed," said Lope, "and we are in the middle of the dog days." "Oh, leave off now, friend Lope," said the Gallegan; "get up and open the door; for here we are as fine as archduchesses." "Archduchesses, and at this hour? I don't believe a word of it, but rather think you must be witches or something worse.
You are about to become the wife of the handsomest prince in all Europe, an emperor in prospect, and son of the great Maria Theresa, whose beauty and goodness are the theme of the whole world. And then the lovely and accomplished Archduchesses of Austria they are to be your sisters-in-law!" "Yes," said the princess, passionately, "and look at me.
In after years, when marquises of another caste had been gracious to her, she became a strong Tory, and thought that archduchesses were sweet. But with her politics were always an affair of the heart, as, indeed, were all her convictions. Of reasoning from causes, I think that she knew nothing.
The trousseau of the archduchess was exposed in the apartments which had once been occupied by the empress and her husband; and now Maria Theresa, followed by a bevy of wondering young archduchesses, was examining her daughter's princely wardrobe, that with her own eyes she might be sure that nothing was wanting to render it worthy of a queen-elect.
The empress, who overheard these murmured plaudits, smiled proudly upon her young daughters, who, even if they had been no archduchesses, would still have been the handsomest girls in Austria.
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