Born: Jean
Antoine, Marquis de Condorcet, distinguished
mathematician, 1743, Picardy; Samuel Prout, painter in
water-colours, 1783, London.
Died: Henry Bullinger, Swiss Reformer, 1575,
Zurich; Cardinal Robert Bellarmin, celebrated
controversialist, 1621, Rome; Philip IV of Spain,
1665; Dr. John Kidd, mineralogical and medical writer,
1851, Oxford.
Feast Day: Saints Socrates and Stephen,
martyrs, beginning of 4th century. St. Rouin, Rodingus,
or Chrodingus, abbot of Beaulieu, about 680. St.
Lambert, bishop of Maestricht, and patron of Liege,
martyr, 709. St. Columba, virgin and martyr, 853. St.
Hildegardis, virgin and abbess, 1179.
CONDORCET
Than the Marquis de Condorcet the French Revolution
had no more sincere and enthusiastic promoter. Writing
to Franklin, in 1788, concerning American affairs, he
observes:
'The very name of king is hateful, and in
France words are more than things. I see with pain
that the aristocratic spirit seeks to introduce itself
among you in spite of so many wise precautions. At
this moment it is throwing everything into confusion
here. Priests, magistrates, nobles, all unite against
the poor citizens.' When 'the poor citizens' came
into power, and proscribed those who served them, Condorcet's faith in democracy
remained unaffected. In
the words of Lamartine, 'the hope of the philosopher
survived the despair of the citizen. He knew that the
passions are fleeting, and that reason is eternal. He
confessed it, even as the astronomer confesses the
star in its eclipse.'
Condorcet was born in Picardy in 1743. Early in
life he distinguished himself as a mathematician, and
his labours in the development of the differential and
integral calculus, will preserve his name in the
history of science. Associating with Voltaire,
Helvetius, and D'Alembert, he became a sharer in their
opinions, and a social reformer with an almost
fanatical abhorrence of the present and the past, and
with an invincible assurance in a glorious destiny for
humanity in the future. The outbreak of the revolution
was to him as the dawn of this new era when old wrongs
should pass away and justice and goodness should rule
the world. He wrote for the revolutionary newspapers,
and was an indefatigable member of the Jacobin club,
but he was less effective with his tongue than his
pen. A cold and impassive exterior, a stoical Roman
countenance, imperfectly expressed the fiery energy of
his heart, and caused D'Alembert to describe him as 'a
volcano covered with snow.'
When the rough and bloody business of the
revolution came on, he was unable, either from
timidity or gentle breeding, to hold his own against
the desperadoes who rose uppermost. During the violent
struggle between the Girondist and Mountain party, he
took a decided part with neither, provoking
Madame
Roland to write of him, 'the genius of Condorcet is
equal to the comprehension of the greatest truths, but
he has no other characteristic besides fear. It may be
said of his understanding combined with his person,
that he is a fine spirit absorbed in cotton. Thus,
after having deduced a principle or demonstrated a
fact in the Assembly, he would give a vote decidedly
opposite, overawed by the thunder of the tribunes,
armed with insults and lavish of menaces. Such men
should be employed to write, but never permitted to
act.' This mingling of courage with gentleness and
irresolution caused him, says Carlyle, 'to be styled,
in irreverent language, mouton enrage'�peaceablest of
creatures bitten rabid.'
Robespierre, in July 1793, issued
a decree of
accusation against Condorcet. At the entreaty of his
wife he hid himself in an attic in an obscure quarter
of Paris, and there remained for eight months without
once venturing abroad. e relieved the weariness of his
confinement by writing a treatise on his favourite
idea, The Perfectibility of the Human Race; and had he
been able to endure restraint for a few months longer,
he would have been saved; but he grew anxious for the
safety of the good woman who risked her life in giving
him shelter, and the first verdure of the trees of the
Luxembourg, of which he had a glimpse from his window,
brought on an over-powering desire for fresh air and
exercise. e escaped into the streets, passed the
barriers, and wandered among thickets and
stone-quarries in the outskirts of Paris. Wounded with
a fall, and half-dead with hunger and fatigue, he
entered. a cabaret in the village of Clamart, and
asked for an omelet. 'How many eggs will you have in
it?' inquired the waiter. 'A dozen,' replied the
starving philosopher, ignorant of the proper
dimensions of a working man's breakfast. The
extraordinary omelet excited suspicion. Some present
requested to know his trade. He said, a carpenter, but
his delicate hands belied him. He was searched, and a
Latin Horace and an elegant pocket-book furnished
unquestionable evidence that he was a skulking
aristocrat. He was forthwith arrested, and marched off
to prison at Bourg-la-Reine. On the way, he fainted
with exhaustion, and was set on a peasant's horse.
Flung into a damp cell, he was found dead on the floor
next morning, 24th March 1794. He had saved his neck
from the guillotine by a dose of poison he always
carried about with him in case of such an emergency.
Condorcet's works have been collected and published
in twenty-one volumes. The Marquise de Condorcet long
survived her husband. She was one of the most
beautiful and accomplished women of her day, and
distinguished herself by an elegant and correct
translation into French of Adam Smith's Theory of the
Moral Sentiments.
CURIOUS TESTAMENTARY DIRECTIONS ABOUT THE BODY
Sir Lewis Clifford, a member of the senior branch
of this ancient and distinguished family, who lived in
the reign of Henry IV, became a Protestant, or, to use
the language of an ancient writer, was 'seduced by
those zealots of that time, called Lollards (amongst
which he was one of the chief); but being at length
sensible of those schismatical tenets, he confessed
his error to Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury,
and did cordially repent.' By way of atoning for his
error, he left the following directions respecting his
burial, in his last will, which begins thus:
'In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti,
Amen. The seventeenth day of September, the yer of
our Lord. Jesu Christ, a thousand four hundred and
four, I Lowys Clyfforth, fals and traytor to my Lord
God, and to alle the blessed company of Hevene, and
unworthi to be clepyd Cristen man, make and ordeyn
my testament and my last wille in this manere. At
the begynnynge, I most unworthi and Goddys
tray-tour, recommaund my wretchid and synfule sowle
hooly to the grace and to the mercy of the blessful
Trynytie; and my wretchid careyne to be beryed in
the ferthest corner of the chirche-zerd, in which
pariche my wretchid sowle departeth fro my body. And
I prey and charge my survivors and myne executors,
as they wollen answere to fore God, and as all myne
hoole trest in this matere is in them, that on my
stinking careyne be neyther leyd clothe of gold ne
of silke, but a black clothe, and a taper at myne
bed, and another at my fete; ne stone ne other
thinge, whereby eny man may witte where my stinking
careyne liggeth. And to that chirche do myne
executors all thingis, which owen duly in such caas
to be don, without eny more cost saaf to pore men.
And also, I prey my survivors and myne executors,
that eny dette that eny man kan axe me by true
title, that hit be payd. And yf eny man can trewly
say, that I have don hym eny harme in body or in
good, that ye make largely his gree whyles the
goodys wole stretche. And I wole alsoe, that none of
myne executors meddle or mynystro eny thinge of my
goodys withoutyn avyse and consent of any survivors
or of sum of hem.'
The rest of the will is in Latin, and contains Sir
Lewis's directions for the disposal of his property.
THE GERMAN
PRINCESS
Two hundred years ago, all London interested itself
in the sayings and doings of a sharp-witted
adventuress, known as 'the German Princess.' Mary
Moders was the daughter of a Canterbury fiddler. After
serving as waiting woman to a lady travelling on the
continent, and acquiring a smattering of foreign
languages, she returned to England with a
determination to turn her talents to account in the
metropolis, where, on arriving, she took up her
quarters at 'the Exchange Tavern, next the Stocks,'
kept by a Mr. King. Taking her hostess into
confidence, she confessed that she was Henrietta Maria
do Wolway, the only daughter and heiress of John de
Wolway, Earl of Roscia, in Colonia, Germany, and had
fled from home to avoid a marriage with an old count.
If Mr. King and his wife had any doubts as to the
truth of her story, they were reassured by the receipt
of a letter from the earl's steward, thanking them for
the kindness they had shewn to his young mistress.
Mrs. King had a brother; John Carleton, of the
Middle Temple, whom she soon introduced to her
interesting guest as a young nobleman. He played his
part well, plied the mock-princess with presents, took
her in his coach to Holloway and Islington, and vowed
himself the victim of disinterested love. On
Easter-Day, he proposed to take her to
St. Paul's, 'to
hear the organs and very excellent anthems performed
by rare voices;' but, instead of going there, he
persuaded the lady to accompany him to Great St.
Bartholomew's Church, where he had a clergyman ready,
and Miss Moders became Mrs. Carleton, to the great
rejoicing of his relatives. After the wedding, the
happy couple went to Barnet for a couple of days,
after which they returned, and to make assurance
doubly sure, were remarried by licence, and went home
to Durham Yard.
For a time all went smoothly enough, although the
newly-made Benedict found his wife's notions of
economy more befitting a princess than the spouse of a
younger brother. As weeks, however, passed by without
the Carletons deriving any of the expected benefits
from the great match, they grew suspicious;
good-natured friends, taken into the secret, expressed
their doubts of the genuineness of Mrs. John Carleton,
and set inquiries on foot. Before long, old Carleton
received a letter from Dover, in which his
daughter-in-law was stigmatised as the greatest cheat
in the world, having already two husbands living in
that town, where she had been tried for bigamy, and
only escaped conviction by preventing her real husband
from putting in an appearance at the trial. Great was
the indignation of the family at having their
ambitious dream dispelled so rudely.
Carleton p�re, at the head of a posse of male and
female friends, marched to Durham Yard, and, as soon
as they gained admittance, set upon the offender,
knocked her down, despoiled her of all her counterfeit
rings, false pearls, and gilded brass-wire worked
bracelets, and left her almost as bare as Mother Eve
ere the invention of the apron. She strenuously denied
her identity with the Dover damsel, but was taken
before the magistrates, and committed to the
Gatehouse, at 'Westminster, to await her trial for
bigamy. Here for six weeks she held her levees, and
exercised her wit in wordy warfare with her visitors.
When one complimented her upon her breeding and
education, she replied: 'I have left that in the city
amongst my kindred, because they want it;' and upon a
gentleman observing that 'marrying and hanging went by
destiny,' told him, she had received marriage from the
destinies, and probably he might receive hanging.
Among her visitors were
Pepys and his friend Creed.
Upon the 4th of June 1663, our heroine was brought
up at the Old Bailey, before the Lord Chief-Justice of
Common Pleas, the lord mayor, and alder-men. If the
account of the trial contained in The Great Tryal and
Arraignment of the late Distressed Lady, otherwise
called the late German Princess, be correct, the
result was a foregone conclusion. She was indicted in
the name of Mary Moders, for marrying John Carleton,
having two husbands, Ford and Stedman, alive at the
time. The prosecution failed to prove either of the
marriages, and one incident occurred which must have
told greatly in her favour.
'There came in a
bricklayer with a pretended interest that she was his
wife; but Providence or policy ordered it another way.
There was a fair gentle-woman, standing at the bar by
her, much like unto her, to whom he addressed himself,
saying: "This is my wife;" to which the judge said:
"Are you sure she is yours?" and the old man, taking
his spectacles out of his pocket, looked her in the
face again, and said: "Yes; she is my wife, for I saw
her in the street the other day." Then said the lady:
"Good, any lord, observe this doting fellow's words,
and mark his mistake, for he doth not know me here
with his four eyes; how then is it possible that he
should now know me with his two!" At which expression
all the bench smiled. Again said she: "My lord, and
all you grave senators, if you rightly behold my face,
that I should match with such a simple piece of
mortality!" Then the old fellow drew back, and said no
more.'
The accused bore herself bravely at the bar,
bewitching all auditors as she played with her fan,
and defended herself in broken English. She insisted
on her German birth, saying she came to England to
better her fortunes�and if there was any fraud in the
business, it lay on the other side.; 'for they thought
by marrying of me, to dignify themselves, and advance
all their relations, and upon that account, were there
any cheat, they cheated themselves.'
She divided the
witnesses against her into two classes - those who
came against her for want of wit, and those who
appeared for want of money. The jury acquitted her,
and when she applied for an order for the restoration
of her jewelry, the judge told her she had a husband
to see after them. The verdict seems to have pleased
the public, and we find lady-loving Pepys recording, 'after church to Sir W.
Batten's; where my Lady Batten
inveighed mightily against the German Princess, and I
as high in defence of her wit and spirit, and glad
that she is cleared at the sessions.' The author of An
Encomiastick Poem, after comparing his subject to
divers famous ladies, proceeds to tell us that:
'Her most illustrious worth
Through all impediments of hate brake forth;
Which her detractors sought within a prison,
T' eclipse, whereby her fame's the higher risen.
As gems i' th' dark do cast a brighter ray
Than when obstructed by the rival day;
So did the lustre of her mind appear
Through this obscure condition, more clear.
And when they thought by bringing to the bar
To gain her public shame, they raised her far
More noble trophies�she being cleared quite
Both by her innocence and excellent wit.'
Mr. Carleton, however, refused to acknowledge his
wife, and published his Ultima Vale, in which, after
abusing her to his heart's content, he grows
sentimental, and indites a poetical farewell to his 'perjured Maria;' whose next
appearance before the
public was as an actress in a play founded upon her
own adventures. Mr. Pepys records:
'15 April 1664.�To the Duke's House, and there saw
The German Princess acted by the woman herself; but
never was anything so well done in earnest, worse
performed in jest upon the stage.'
The theatre failing her, Mary Carleton took to
thieving, was detected, tried, and sentenced to
transportation to Jamaica. By discovering a plot
against the life of the captain of the convict-ship,
she obtained her liberty upon arriving at Port Royal,
but becoming tired of West-Indian life, she contrived
to find her way back to England, and resumed her old
life. For some time she appears to have done so with
impunity, in one case succeeding in getting clear off
with ₤600 worth of property belonging to a watchmaker.
The manner of her arrest was curious. A brewer,
named Freeman, having been robbed, employed Lowman, a
keeper of the Marshalsea, to trace out the thieves.
With this object in view, Lowman called at a house in
New Spring Gardens, and there spied a gentlewoman
walking in one of the rooms, two pair of stairs high,
in her night-gown, with her maid waiting upon her. He
presently enters the room, and spies three letters
lying upon the table, casts his eye upon the
superscription of one of them, directed to a prisoner
of his; upon which the lady began to abuse him in no
measured terms, and so drew him to look at her more
closely than he had done, and thereby recognise her as
Mrs. Carleton. He at once took her into custody for
the watch-robbery; she was tried at the Old. Bailey,
found guilty, and sentenced. to death.
She was executed at Tyburn on the 22
nd of January
1672-3, with five young men, 'who could not, among
them all, complete the number of 120 years.' She made
a short exhortation to the people, sent some words of
good advice to her husband, whose portrait she placed
in her bosom at the last moment. Her body was given up
to her friends, by whom it was interred in the
churchyard of St. Martin's, and 'thus,' says her
biographer, 'exit German Princess, in the
thirty-eighth year of her age, and the same month she
was born in.'
In Luttrell's Collection of Eulogies and Elegies,
there is preserved an 'Elegie on the famous and
renowned Lady,' Madame Mary Carleton, which concludes
with
HER EPITAPH
Here lieth one was hurried hence,
To make the world a recompense
For actions wrought by wit and lust,
Whose closet now is in the dust.
Then let her sleep, for she bath wit
Will give disturbers hit for hit.