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Updated: May 27, 2025
Stacey, the sailing-master, had the deck, and the coasting pilot was conning; now and anon the boatswain's whistle piped for Garrett or Quito or Fogg to lay aft to the mast, where the first lieutenant stood talking to Colonel de Chamillard, of the French marines. The scavengers were sweeping down, and part of the after guard was bending a new bolt-rope on a storm staysail.
The imperialists were threatening Elsass; the weather was fearful; letters had been written to Chamillard to say that the inundations alone would be enough to prevent the enemy from investing Fort Louis.
Met thus by looks of curiosity and affected silence, the young colonel felt some embarrassment, and this increased when Chamillard, who had accompanied him to his appointed place, left him to rejoin the king.
At three o'clock he reached Versailles, and found Chamillard waiting for him; all the courtiers of every rank were in a state of great excitement, for they had learned that the great Louis had expressed a wish to meet the late Cevenol chief, whose name had been pronounced so loud and so often in the mountains of Languedoc that its echoes had resounded in the halls of Versailles.
Louis XIV. had been faithfully and mightily served by Colbert and Louvois; he had felt confidence in them, though he had never had any liking for them personally; their striking merits, the independence of their character, which peeped out in spite of affected expressions of submission and deference, the spirited opposition of the one and the passionate outbursts of the other, often hurt the master's pride, and always made him uncomfortable; Colbert had preceded him in the government, and Louvois, whom he believed himself to have trained, had surpassed him in knowledge of affairs as well as aptitude for work; Chamillard was the first, the only one of his ministers whom the king had ever loved.
We cannot name or classify the bibliophiles of the eighteenth century. It would be endless to describe them with the briefest of personal notes; how M. Barré loved out-of-the-way books and fugitive pieces, or Lambert de Thorigny a good history, or how Gabriel de Sartines, the policeman of the Parc aux Cerfs, had a marvellous collection about Paris. When Count Macarthy sold his books at Toulouse his catalogue contained a list of about ninety others, issued in the same century, from which his riches were derived. We can point to a few of the mightiest Nimrods. We see the serene Gaignat pass, and the bustling La Vallière; the Duc d'Estrées is recognised as a busy book-hunter, and there are the physicians Hyacinthe Baron and Falconnet whose keenness no prey could escape. We can distinguish the forms of the elegant 'bibliomanes' to whom their books were as pictures or as jewels to be enclosed in a shrine; there is Count d'Hoym with a house full of treasures, and Boisset and Girardot de Préfond with their cabinets of marvels. If the crowds in the old-fashioned libraries are like the multitude at Babel, these tall volumes in crushed morocco and 'triple gold bands' remind us of what our antiquaries have said of books glimmering in their wire cases 'like eastern beauties peering through their jalousies. We ought to say something of M. de Chamillard, best known in his public capacity as a good match for the King at billiards and as the minister who proposed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In private life Michael de Chamillard was a virtuoso with well-filled galleries and portfolios; and he had assembled a large company of books of fashionable appearance. But our real interest is not so much with the Minister of Billiards, as M. Uzanne described him, but rather with his wife and three daughters, who were all true female bibliophiles. The eldest daughter, the Marquise de Dreux, was wife of the Grand Master of the Ceremonies; but though his collection was gay and polite the Marquise insisted on a separate establishment for the books that she had discovered and bought and bound. The Duchesse de la Feuillade and the Duchesse de Lorges insisted, like their elder sister, on having libraries for their separate use. The minister's wife was celebrated for the splendour of her books, and marvellous prices have been paid for specimens of her earlier style. But 'little Madame de Chamillard' attached herself in all things to the Maintenon, and followed the uncrowned queen in abandoning the paths of vanity; she gave up the world, so far as gilt arabesques and crushed morocco were concerned, and dressed all her later acquisitions
"The King promises to act on this matter in a few days, to-morrow, probably. Chamillard is against us; he seems all powerful now; the King loves him for his truculence. But these will help, yes, these will help." And again he ran through the various papers with business-like swiftness. His fashionable air and the perfumed handkerchief were alike laid aside.
In virtue of this intimation d'Aygaliers went next day to the minister's country house; for Chamillard had given him that address, and there he learned that the king had granted him a pension of 800 livres.
Unhappily, the time was approaching when the French soldiery had more cause to dread their own generals than those of the enemy; and these forces, besides being insufficient, were placed under the command of Marshal de Tessé, a cunning courtier but mediocre general, incapable of any initiative strategy, and whose sole study was to carry out to the letter the personal instructions of Louis XIV. and Chamillard.
Stacey, the sailing-master, had the deck, and the coasting pilot was conning; now and anon the boatswain's whistle piped for Garrett or Quito or Fogg to lay aft to the mast, where the first lieutenant stood talking to Colonel de Chamillard, of the French marines. The scavengers were sweeping down, and part of the after guard was bending a new bolt-rope on a storm staysail.
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