L'homme qui rit. English

  CHAPTER V.

  QUEEN ANNE.

  I.

  Above this couple there was Anne, Queen of England. An ordinary womanwas Queen Anne. She was gay, kindly, august--to a certain extent. Noquality of hers attained to virtue, none to vice. Her stoutness wasbloated, her fun heavy, her good-nature stupid. She was stubborn andweak. As a wife she was faithless and faithful, having favourites towhom she gave up her heart, and a husband for whom she kept her bed. Asa Christian she was a heretic and a bigot. She had one beauty--thewell-developed neck of a Niobe. The rest of her person was indifferentlyformed. She was a clumsy coquette and a chaste one. Her skin was whiteand fine; she displayed a great deal of it. It was she who introducedthe fashion of necklaces of large pearls clasped round the throat. Shehad a narrow forehead, sensual lips, fleshy cheeks, large eyes, shortsight. Her short sight extended to her mind. Beyond a burst of merrimentnow and then, almost as ponderous as her anger, she lived in a sort oftaciturn grumble and a grumbling silence. Words escaped from her whichhad to be guessed at. She was a mixture of a good woman and amischievous devil. She liked surprises, which is extremely woman-like.Anne was a pattern--just sketched roughly--of the universal Eve. To thatsketch had fallen that chance, the throne. She drank. Her husband was aDane, thoroughbred. A Tory, she governed by the Whigs--like a woman,like a mad woman. She had fits of rage. She was violent, a brawler.Nobody more awkward than Anne in directing affairs of state. She allowedevents to fall about as they might chance. Her whole policy wascracked. She excelled in bringing about great catastrophes from littlecauses. When a whim of authority took hold of her, she called it givinga stir with the poker. She would say with an air of profound thought,"No peer may keep his hat on before the king except De Courcy, BaronKingsale, an Irish peer;" or, "It would be an injustice were my husbandnot to be Lord High Admiral, since my father was." And she made Georgeof Denmark High Admiral of England and of all her Majesty's plantations.She was perpetually perspiring bad humour; she did not explain herthought, she exuded it. There was something of the Sphinx in this goose.

  She rather liked fun, teasing, and practical jokes. Could she have madeApollo a hunchback, it would have delighted her. But she would have lefthim a god. Good-natured, her ideal was to allow none to despair, and toworry all. She had often a rough word in her mouth; a little more, andshe would have sworn like Elizabeth. From time to time she would takefrom a man's pocket, which she wore in her skirt, a little round box, ofchased silver, on which was her portrait, in profile, between the twoletters Q.A.; she would open this box, and take from it, on her finger,a little pomade, with which she reddened her lips, and, having colouredher mouth, would laugh. She was greedily fond of the flat Zealandgingerbread cakes. She was proud of being fat.

  More of a Puritan than anything else, she would, nevertheless, haveliked to devote herself to stage plays. She had an absurd academy ofmusic, copied after that of France. In 1700 a Frenchman, namedForetroche, wanted to build a royal circus at Paris, at a cost of400,000 francs, which scheme was opposed by D'Argenson. This Forterochepassed into England, and proposed to Queen Anne, who was immediatelycharmed by the idea, to build in London a theatre with machinery, with afourth under-stage finer than that of the King of France. Like LouisXIV., she liked to be driven at a gallop. Her teams and relays wouldsometimes do the distance between London and Windsor in less than anhour and a quarter.