The travails of a lady colonel in Hyder’s army
The story of Mme Mequinez comes to light, vividly explained
in the pages outlining a history of Hyder Ali penned by one MMDLT. MMDLT stands
for Msieur Maistre de la Tour, a French general in Hyder’s army, who as he
says, was in command of 10,000 men and had participated in many of his battles
and wars. Buried in this work is the story of this interesting lady and the
intrigues she got herself into, perusing which, provides some amusement on a
rainy or dull day.
Maistre de la Tour's work on Hyder Ali was perhaps an early
attempt to write the history of Hyder Ali in 1784, just two years after the
patron’s death. MMDLT introduces himself thus - General of Ten Thousand Men in
the Army of the Mogul Empire, and formerly Commander-in-Chief of the Artillery
of Hyder Ali, and of a Body of European Troops in the Service of that Prince. Initially
the British establishment scoffed at this work, ‘considering it too supportive
of Hyder, exaggerating the virtues of his patron while at the same time, as a
French man, quite critical of the British’. MMDLT states his purpose in writing
it - As an eyewitness of part of his conquests, and of the glory that surrounds
him, he thought it a kind of duty incumbent on him to make this sovereign
known, at an instant in which he has become so interesting to Europe, and to
France in particular. Askenzai (Chen Tzoref-Ashkenazi, German Soldiers in
Colonial India, 2016, p. 146) explains - De La Tour's text was based on two
central strategies: presenting a positive image of Haidar Ali and criticizing
the British for both their conduct towards Haidar and other Indian rulers and
towards the French, while at the same time defending the conduct of the French
in India. In doing so, De La Tour consciously wrote against an existing image
of Haidar Ali as a cruel Oriental despot and intolerant Muslim.
However, in spite of CK Kareem’s, MMDLT’s and some recent historian's sterling efforts at repainting Hyder and Tipu as honorable and
pious souls, we in Malabar are not so charitable when it comes to these Mysore interlopers
whose only desire was to dismember the regional structures, terrorize the region with forced conversions and loot much of its wealth. MMDLT’s narration
of Mequinez’s travails takes us to the days Hyder spent at Coimbatore, busy in
his exertions against Malabar, and outlines a legal issue brought to a just settlement
by Hyder.
We now get to the story of a Colonel from the Portuguese
army, who later joined Hyder and fought many battles for him, meeting his death
while fighting the Maratha army sometime in the 18th century. Hyder,
in appreciation for this meritorious service, passed on the command of the
regiment of Topasses to the dead colonel’s widow Madam Mequinez, together with
the same title of Colonel, on condition that she tender it to their adopted son
when he grew up to a suitable age. Mequinez you should note, never went into
action herself; and she left the duty of leading the soldiers in the field, to
the officer second in command.
As MMDLT puts it - This lady accompanied her regiment
everywhere: the colors were carried to her house, and she had a private
sentinel at the door. She received the pay, and caused the deductions to be
made in her presence from each company. When the regiment was collected, she
inspected them herself, as well as all the detachments that were ordered out; but
she permitted the second in command to exercise the troops, and lead them
against the enemy.
Some years later, as the story goes, the good lady filed a
suit of embezzlement against a Jesuit provincial priest, asking Hyder through
his secretary of war named Narim Rao, to interject and negotiate a settlement
in her favor.
As her deposition puts it, the lady had been in possession
of some jewels and money after her husband’s demise and as was the practice in
those days, she gave it to a Jesuit priest for safekeeping. MMDLT explains the
procedure as follows - All the Christian women in India that are married to
Europeans have the madness to hoard up a private sum or fund, which they
entrust to their priests, under the seal of confession. It is to the honor of
the missionaries, that there is no instance of any complaint of this trust
having been abused. This custom is very ancient, and seems to have originated
with the Portuguese. The monks, at all events, gain much money by the practice
because there are scarcely any women that die, who previously acquaint their
husbands or relations where they have placed sums in this manner
Continuing on, Mequinez approached the provincial father who
expressed surprise at the visitor’s mysterious request for return of her jewels
and replied that he had neither heard of any jewels or money, nor did he think
Mequinez was sane. Mequinez, appalled with this, approached Hyder’s minister
Narim Rao and showed him the receipt and a list of her deposits (Rs 1,000, a
pair of ruby bracelets, and a collar of pearls), so that he could explain the
situation properly to Hyder. Narim approached Hyder and did that and more,
painting the provincial priest in the vilest colors.
Hyder put off personal involvement, but quickly sent some sentries
to watch and guard each major missionary in the region, since he was busy
quelling revolts in Malabar. After this had been taken care of, he sent a
French commandant to check out the situation with Mequinez, giving him the
authority to investigate and judge the affair, based on common Christian law.
The Frenchman summoned Mequinez first who came and gave a dramatic deposition
of the embezzlement by the Jesuits, convincing all and sundry, listening. But
the Frenchman kept mum and summoned the Provincial father, a wizened, mild-mannered and venerable man of 60 or thereabouts. The father requested that they discuss the
matter in private, and the Frenchman agreed.
The father then went on to explain that the priest who had
gone to Goa was a corrupt man, who incidentally had been caught and reprimanded
by him. In fact, the priest was absconding with the jewels among other items, and
had stopped at Mangalore, where he was restrained. Mequinez and many others quickly
arrived to collect their deposits which were returned formally and receipted, all
duly witnessed by both Portuguese and French factors. The receipt ledger was
initialed by Mequinez.
By now, the Frenchman was clear that the father was right
and the good lady was not. So, he summoned Mequinez again, who had been
impatiently waiting to hear about the conviction of the father. The Frenchman
went on an attack mode and accused Mequinez of being a bad Christian and party
to conspiring wicked schemes. He bluffed that the French factor who had
witnessed the receipt had told him the real story and was on the way with the ledger.
Threatening her of severe punishment from the Nabob who had trusted her until
then, he offered clemency should she confess right then and there. The lady was
startled, and now unmasked, agreed to tell all. Summoning two witnesses, a
confession was recorded. The provincial father and the Frenchman agreed to
close the matter without publicizing it since Mequinez was a widow and
secondly, they wanted to avoid enmity of the high official Narim Rao, for such
an inconsequential matter. A short summary was furnished to Hyder who was
satisfied that justice had been done and discussed the details no more.
The Jesuits then went on to excommunicate Mequinez and
condemned her to public penance. Hyder thought this a bit harsh and decided to
ask a mercenary who was not really in his favor, of Swedish extract, to marry
Mequinez, with the incentive that he would restored to his rank. MMDLT explains
what happened.
Hyder proposed to the Swedish officer, accomplice of
Turner, the Irishman, to espouse this lady colonel, as a condition upon which
he would pardon and restore him to his former post. This young man, aged twenty-eight,
but of a spirited disposition, absolutely rejected the offer; saying he would
rather die than marry a woman who had prostituted herself to all the Topasses.
His pardon, and permission to retire where he pleased, were the consequence of
this answer. They lady colonel afterwards married a mongrel Portuguese
serjeant; but she was highly astonished, when the bakhsi (paymaster) sent for
her, to let her know that the Nabob had reduced her to serjeant's pay because
she had dishonored the name of her former husband, whose services had demanded
that the woman who bore his name should not be without the means of subsisting
reputably.
Thus ended the story of Mequinez who must have thence led a
miserable life, in the lower rungs of the Goan social ladder. By the way, Col
Mequinez’s widow’s first name is not mentioned anywhere and all mentions of
Mequinez signifies the last name of the said lady, wife of Col Mequinez. Turner
incidentally was recommended to Hyder by Charles Bourchier, a British spy in
Hyder’s employ, according to Hayavadana Rao, the chronicler of Mysore.
H Rao uses the example of how Hyder dealt with Mequinez as a
testament to his character. Though unlettered and destitute of the benefit
of the discipline of any kind of education, Haidar possessed a mind of the
first order. The very original manner in which he dealt with the case of Madam
Mequinez shows this trait in him. He did justice to the revered Provincial head
of the Jesuits in Coimbatore, though he had been unjustly slandered by her of
misappropriation of her deposit of money and jewelry.
Much later, Walter Scott used her story as a prop in his work
‘The Surgeon’s Daughter’. Rao explains - The sketch of Madame Montreville
alias Queen of Sheba reminds us of her counterpart Madame Mequinez in De La
Tour’s Ayder Ali (1784). Madame Mequinez was, we read in that work, the widow
of a Portuguese officer, who had rendered signal services to Ayder.
Though Scott has woven the novel around the principal
incident as narrated to him by his friend Mr. Tram of Castle Douglas, he seems
evidently to have been well acquainted with De La Tour’s account of Madame
Mequinez for his nice adaptation of the character of Madame Montreville, of
whom we read thus. This lady is the widow of a Swiss officer in the French
service, who, after the surrender of Pondicherry, went off into the interior,
and commenced soldier on bis own account. He got possession of a fort, under pretense
of keeping it for some simple Rajah or other; assembled around him a parcel of
desperate vagabonds of every color in the rainbow; occupied a considerable
territory, of which he raised the duties in his own name, and declared for
independence. But Hyder Naib understood no such interloping proceedings, and
down he came, besieged the fort and took it, though some pretend it was
betrayed to him by this very woman.
Be that as it may, the poor Swiss was found dead on the
ramparts. Certain it is, she received large sums of money, under pretense of
paying off her troops, surrendering of hill-forts, and Heaven knows what
besides. She was permitted also to retain some insignia of royalty; and, as she
was wont to talk of Hyder as the Eastern Solomon, she generally became known by
the title of Queen of Sheba. She leaves her court when she pleases, and has
been as far as Fort St. George before now. In a word, she does pretty much as
she likes. Hyder, it is supposed, has insured her fidelity by borrowing the
greater part of her treasures, which prevents her from daring to break with him.”
Rao concludes - This account of the origin of Madame
Montreville with her subsequent doings and the ultimate fate which befell her,
as portrayed by Scott in this novel, shows clearly that the idea of creating
and developing the character of an adventuress of this type perhaps suggested
itself to his fertile and imaginative brain by his acquaintance with De La
Tour’s memoir recording, for the first time, the career and character of the
historical Madame Mequinez.
In ‘Tiger of Mysore: Life and Death of Tipu Sultan’, Forrest,
Denys explains in the introduction, concurring with Rao - I doubt whether
Walter Scott’s short novel, The Surgeon's Daughter, has many readers today.
Swathed in an extraordinary apparatus of introductions and prologues and
grossly overweighted with plot, it occupies an uneasy niche in the Chronicles
of the Canongate, First Series (1827)… The interesting thing about this queer
tale is that most of Scott’s apparently far-fetched episodes do have some
remote historical basis….. Then, once in India, and having with the greatest
casualness killed his colonel in a duel, he takes service with an
improbable-sounding character called ‘’the Begum Montreville’, widow of a Swiss
officer and now in command of a fort in the Haidar Ali country! Yet the Begum
derives almost certainly from de la Tour’s description of a certain Madame
Mequinez, to whom Haidar gave the colonelcy of her late husband’s regiment.
So that my friends, was the story of Madame Mequinez and
Hyder. The secretary named by MMDLT as Narim rao is to be read as Narayana Rao.
Shama Rao was the Military Bakshi and Narayana Rao, was Haider’s Secretary for
War. Rao tells us – As in olden days, the military department was under a
Bakshi, who corresponded to the European Minister for War. He was in charge of
the finances of his department, though he could not act without the precise
orders of his master. He was assisted by a secretary, who enjoyed the
confidence of Haidar. These were usually Brahman officers in whom Haidar placed
great trust.
Narayana Rao’s fate after this affair is not known, but I
presume he continued on, since Hyder was never told the full story, unlike you
folks!! What fascinated me was that the provincial Christian missionary fathers
lived and dressed like Tamil Brahmins even in the 18th century, a
full two centuries after Nobili! If you recall this was pioneered by Robert
Nobili, who I had briefly introduced some time ago and more recently, charmingly
essayed in the interesting work of Manu Pillai - The Courtesan, the Mahatma
& the Italian Brahmin.
References
History of Mysore Vol 3 – Hayavadana Rao
Historic Alleys – Robert Nobili
2 comments:
Maddy ,had been missing your blogposts for some time due to my not reading mails much !how do you smell such stories and get those details ,truly awesome storyteller you are
Thanks Hari - long time no hear- yeah, I was researching Balthu chutney and the Mavelikkara malittas when I chanced on this: all three are linked in Mmdlt’ s work!!
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