At Pittsburg they found the Alleghany still open, but the Monongahela was frozen over. They purchased a small keel-boat, which they found lying upon the ice, and with considerable difficulty transported it to a point where they could launch it in the open water, though the stream was encumbered with vast masses of floating ice. Then the three brothers, with but three attendants, embarked to float down the Ohio and the Mississippi, through an almost unbroken wilderness of nearly two thousand miles, to New Orleans. When they arrived at Wheeling, Virginia, where there was a small settlement, they found their way hedged up by solid ice, which filled the stream, from shore to shore. They drew their boat upon the land, to wait for an opening through this effectual barricade. Louis Philippe, with characteristic energy, impatient of delay, ascended an eminence, and, carefully surveying the windings of the river, found that the obstruction of ice occupied only about three miles, beyond which the stream was clear.

Watching their opportunity, they forced their way through some miles of broken ice, and continued their adventurous voyage. An American military courier, less energetic, was detained three weeks by the obstructions which the French party thus speedily overcame. At Marietta, Ohio, they found another small village. Here they landed to lay in supplies; and they spent some time in examining those Indian mounds so profusely scattered there—interesting memorials of an extinct race.

Continuing their voyage amidst the masses of ice which still encumbered these northern waters, they one day, through the negligence of their helmsman, ran against a branch of a tree, termed a snag, and stove in their bows. The boat was immediately unloaded, drawn upon the shore, and in twenty-four hours was so repaired as to enable them to continue their journey. As they entered more southern latitudes the floating ice disappeared, and the voyage became more pleasant, as they rapidly floated down the tortuous stream, by forests and headlands, and every variety of wild, sublime, and beautiful scenery, until they reached New Orleans, on the 17th of February, 1798.

Here they met with a very friendly welcome, not only from the colonists generally, but from the Spanish governor, Don Gayoso. They were detained in New Orleans five weeks, awaiting the arrival of the corvette which was engaged in conveying passengers and light freight from that port to Havana. Impatient of the delay, as the packet did not arrive, they embarked in an American vessel. England was then truly mistress of the seas. She made and executed her own laws, regardless of all expostulations from other nations.

As the American vessel was crossing the Gulf of Mexico, she was encountered by an English frigate, which, by firing several guns, brought her to, and immediately boarded her. The British Government had adopted the very extraordinary principle that an English ship might stop a ship, of whatever nationality, on the seas, board her, summon her passengers and crew upon the deck, and impress, to serve as British seamen, any of those passengers or crew whom the officers of the frigate might pronounce to be British subjects. From their decision there was no appeal.

"The princes," says the Rev. G. N. Wright, "had an opportunity of witnessing one of those violations of international law which not only marked but degraded the maritime history of that period, by the gross sacrifice of public law and private liberty. This was the seizure and impressment of men employed on board neutral vessels, and compelling them to enter the navy of a foreign country. The crew, being mustered on the deck, Captain Cochrane selected the ablest hands from among them—taking them on a service in which they not only had no interest, but with which some of them were actually at variance, and might, therefore, be compelled to fight against their own country.

"It is not the least strange, of all the strange events which have occurred in those days of change, that a young man, a passenger on board an American ship, and who was brought by circumstances in contact with the practical operation of the iniquitous claim which Great Britain set up—of taking out of vessels sailing under the American flag any person they pleased—should have been called upon subsequently, when upon the throne of France, by the English Government to disavow the forcible abduction of a seaman from an English ship."

Many years after this, when Louis Philippe was king of the French, a French frigate, from a squadron blockading Vera Cruz, boarded an English packet-ship, and took out of her a Mexican pilot. All England resounded with a burst of indignation. Both Houses of Parliament passed a decree that such an act was a gross outrage upon the British flag, which demanded immediate apology from the French Government.

"The pilot," said Lord Lyndhurst, "had come on board, under the protection of the British flag. But in this instance it was no protection. A more grave and serious outrage was never committed against our country."

"Any man," said Lord Brougham, "on board a British merchantman is as much under the protection of the British flag as if he were on board the queen's ship. The gravemen of the charge is that a man has been taken from an English ship."

Louis Philippe, who deemed it essential to the stability of his throne to maintain friendly relations with the British Government, humbly disavowed the act in the name of his country, while he considerately forbore from taunting the British Government with its own opposite and arbitrary course, or from congratulating it upon the happy change of principles which it had so suddenly experienced.

Captain Cochrane, learning that the Duke of Orleans, with his brothers, the Duke of Montpensier and Count Beaujolais, were on board the small and uncomfortable American vessel, politely invited them to continue the remainder of their voyage in the enjoyment of the superior accommodations of his large and commodious ship. The deck of the frigate towered far above that of the humble American merchantman. A rope was lowered to assist the travellers in their ascent. The Duke of Orleans slipped his hold and fell into the sea. Being an excellent swimmer, he swam around to the stern of the ship, where a boat was lowered, which rescued him from his unwelcome bath. On the 31st of March, 1798, the British frigate landed them safely in Havana.



CHAPTER IV.

THE TOMB AND THE BRIDAL.

1799-1809

The antagonistic parties.—Driven from Cuba.—Take refuge in England.—Courted by the Bourbons.—Reconciliation.—Embarrassments of the princes.—Aristocratic attentions.—Fashionable life in London.—Domestic habits.—Death of the Duke of Montpensier.—Sickness of Count Beaujolais.—Death of Count Beaujolais.—The Princess Amelia.—Banner of the Empire.—The Duke of Orleans in the Sicilian Court.—Spanish intrigues.—Wandering of the Duchess of Orleans.—The brother and sister united.—Their arrival at Malta.—Anarchy in Spain.—Unfriendly conduct of the Queen of Sicily.—Eulogy upon the Duchess of Orleans.—The wedding.—Character of the bride.—Her benevolence.

The position of the French princes was peculiarly embarrassing. Both of the parties into which all the nations of Europe were then divided suspected and feared them. The Royalists could not forget that the father of the princes had taken the title of Egalite, had renounced all feudal privileges, had voted for the death of the king, and had placed himself at the head of the democratic movement in France.

The liberal or democratic party could not forget that the young princes were by birth in the highest ranks of the nobility, that by blood relationship they were nearly connected with the crown, that their whole family had been so utterly crushed by democratic rule that they could not but hate that rule, and that there was a party in France, sustained by many of the courts in Europe, in favor of reaction and of re-establishing the throne with the young Duke of Orleans as king. Thus the Orleans princes were alike suspected and feared by both parties.

The government in Madrid was in entire sympathy with the aristocratic party in Europe. Though the Orleans princes had been received in Cuba, by the Spanish authorities and leading citizens, with much attention, as the victims of democratic fury, the government of Madrid, remembering only the democracy of Egalite, and fearing that the princes, retaining their father's principles, might unfurl the dreaded tri-color in Havana, sent an order dated May 21, 1799, ordering the captain-general of the island not to permit any longer the presence of the dukes of Orleans and of Montpensier, and of their brother, Count Beaujolais, but to send them immediately to New Orleans, without any regard to their mode of subsistence.

Under these circumstances the exiles, withdrawing from Cuba, succeeded in reaching the Bahama Islands, which belonged to England, and thence sailed for Halifax. The Duke of Kent, son of George III., and father of Queen Victoria, was then in Halifax, and received them with guarded and formal courtesy. Not certain what might be the feelings of the British Cabinet in reference to them, he did not feel authorized to grant them a passage to England on board a British vessel of war. They, therefore, embarked in a small vessel for New York, and there took passage in a regular packet-ship for England.

In the first week in February, 1800, the ship reached Falmouth. Immediately the princes forwarded a request to George III. that they might be permitted to land in England and proceed to London. The request was promptly granted, and on the sixth of the month they reached the capital. To convince the court and the nobility of England that they were entirely weaned from all those democratic tendencies which had brought such awful ruin upon their house, they selected Twickenham as their place of residence. It was a beautiful and salubrious site in the midst of the family seats of the English aristocracy, and in the vicinity of Windsor Castle, the ancient and world-renowned palace of the British kings. Here every movement would be open to the eyes of the British aristocracy, and the mode of life of the princes, their associates, and their manner of spending their leisure hours, would all be known. The spotless and amiable character of these young men rapidly secured for them the confidence and esteem of all their acquaintances.

The unhappy son of Louis XVI., whom the Legitimists regarded as their sovereign under the title of Louis XVII., had perished of brutal treatment in his dungeon, on the 6th of June, 1796.[G] The Legitimists now recognized the elder brother of Louis XVI., the Count de Provence, as king, with the title of Louis XVIII. The Count de Provence, assuming all the etiquette of royalty, and recognized by nearly all the courts of Europe as the lawful sovereign of France, held his court at Mittau, in Courland, surrounded by a crowd of emigrant courtiers. His only brother, Count d'Artois, who subsequently ascended the throne of France as Charles X., resided in London, punctiliously maintaining court etiquette.

[Footnote G: There have been efforts to prove that the dauphin was removed from prison, and another child was substituted in his place, who died and was buried. Several claimants have risen, professing to be the dauphin. But there is no evidence upon this point sufficient to change the general verdict of history.]



The Count d'Artois, anxious to secure the open and cordial co-operation of the Duke of Orleans in behalf of the Royalist cause, sent him an earnest invitation to come to London, assuring him of an affectionate greeting on his own part and that of his friends. The duke repaired to London, and was received on the 13th of February with princely hospitality by the count and other members of the Bourbon family, at his residence in Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square.

"The king, Louis XVIII.," said the Count d'Artois, "will be delighted to see you; but it will be proper and necessary that you should first write to him." The Duke of Orleans did so. In this letter he must have recognized the sovereignty of Louis XVIII., a sovereignty founded on legitimacy, for he received a courteous and cordial reply. Thus there seemed to be a perfect reconciliation, social and political, between the elder and younger branches of the Bourbon family.

General Dumouriez had visited the court of the exiled monarch, pledged to him his homage, mounted the white cockade, and, receiving a commission in the Russian army, was marching with the Allies against republican France. All his energies were consecrated to the restoration of the house of Bourbon-Orleans.

Count d'Artois left no means untried to induce the Duke of Orleans and his brothers to enlist under the standard of emigration. But an instinctive reluctance to unite with foreigners in their war against France, and the entreaties of their anxious mother that they should not, in those dark and perilous hours, commit themselves to the apparently hopeless cause of the royal confederacy, led the cautious duke to adhere to the life of privacy upon which he had entered. But it is scarcely possible but that, under the circumstances, both he and his brothers must have longed for the restoration of the Bourbons, which would have enabled them to return to France and to enter upon the enjoyment of their exalted rank and their vast estates.

Still, the princes were subject to many humiliations and annoyances. The partisan press, on both sides, assailed them with every species of calumny. "The leading ministerial journals in London declared openly that they suspected the sincerity of the young Duke of Orleans in his late repentance; and that his past exemplary conduct should not be accepted as any security against his future treachery."

But the emigrants in London generally, and the British Court, assumed to place full reliance in the reconciliation between the Bourbon and the Orleans branches of the royal family. All the arts of flattery were employed to cement this union, and to lead the princes to commit themselves irreparably to the royal cause. England, under the ministry of William Pitt, was waging relentless warfare against revolutionary France. On the 20th of February the princes were invited to meet England's most renowned prime minister, and the most implacable foe of republican institutions in France, at a dinner-party, at the town mansion of the Count d'Artois. Lord Grenville gave a magnificent entertainment in their honor, on the 1st of March, 1800; and the next Sunday the exiles were presented to his majesty George III. at a levee held especially for that purpose.[H]

[Footnote H: Life and Times of Louis Philippe, p. 22.]

On the 13th of March the Russian ambassador, Count Woronzo, following in the train of these marked civilities, invited them to a princely banquet, which was attended by all the aristocracy of London, at his mansion in Harley Street; and on the 13th of March his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales honored them by an invitation to Carlton House to meet all the foreign ambassadors.

The Orleans princes were now fully introduced to fashionable life in London. Their presence was deemed essential to the completeness of any soiree or banquet. The Marchioness of Salisbury, then the arbitress in London of fashion and elegance, invited the princes to meet at her house four hundred guests of the highest rank and distinction, among whom was the Prince of Wales. Then the Lady Mayoress of the city, Lady Harvey Combe, threw open to them Egyptian Hall in as magnificent an entertainment as the times could furnish. Immediately following this brilliant scene, the Duke of Clarence, subsequently William IV., invited them to a dinner-party, which in many respects surpassed all which had preceded it in splendor. All these people who thus feted them were combining their energies to overthrow revolutionary principles in France, and to reinstate the Bourbons.

At this time the British Cabinet was preparing an armed force for the invasion of France by a descent on the southern coast. The report was circulated that the three Orleans princes were to assume the white cockade and accompany this military expedition against their native country. At the same time, the Bourbon princes renewed their solicitations to the Orleans princes to range themselves, with arms in their hands, under the standard of emigration. But the great victory of Marengo just then took place, which threw into the power of the First Consul all of upper Italy, and compelled the utterly discomfited Austrians to withdraw from the British alliance. It was a dark hour for the Royalist cause in France.

The exiled princes, who found but little in the festivities of London to alleviate their world-weariness, or to cheer them in the peculiar embarrassments and trials of their position, after several minor adventures, withdrew to their retreat in Twickenham, where they endeavored to seclude themselves from observation and from all participation in public affairs.

The Duke of Orleans devoted himself to the study of English institutions, visiting the prominent establishments of learning and of industry. The irreproachable character of this virtuous prince, his high intellectual culture, dignified bearing, amiable disposition, and persistent refusal to involve himself in any intrigues, secured for him general admiration. Months of tranquillity, almost of happiness, glided away. But sorrow is the doom of man. The Duke of Orleans had not yet drained the cup which was prepared for his lips.

The health of the Duke of Montpensier had been for some time rapidly failing. His constitution and that of his brother, Count Beaujolais, had been quite undermined by the hardships they had endured during their imprisonment. All the remedies which the best medical advice could administer proved unavailing. It soon became manifest that death was approaching by slow but resistless strides. The young duke, conscious that his end was approaching, bore all his sufferings with the most amiable and uncomplaining resignation, until, on the 18th of May, 1807, he fell asleep.

The grief of the Duke of Orleans and of the Count of Beaujolais, in the loss of so gentle and tenderly-beloved a brother, was very great. The funeral ceremonies were attended in London with almost regal pomp. The Count d'Artois was present as one of the principal mourners. The gloom of twilight had begun to fall upon the city as the imposing procession approached Westminster Abbey, to convey the remains of the long-suffering prince to the darkness of the tomb. The procession was led by mules bearing plumes of white feathers. A mourning-carriage, containing the heart of the deceased in an urn, was drawn by six horses, decorated with the richest funereal caparisons, and led by postilions in the mourning-livery of the house of Orleans. The hearse followed, preceded by a herald with a coronet on a velvet cushion.

The empty private carriage of the deceased was followed by many other carriages filled with the noblesse of France, each drawn by six horses. The state equipages of the Prince of Wales and of the Dukes of Sussex and York, with postilions in state livery, closed the procession. With such mournful pageants were the mortal remains of the exile consigned to the ancient mausoleum of the kings of England.

"Sorrows," says the poet, "come in troops." Scarcely were the remains of the Duke of Montpensier placed in the tomb, ere his brother, Count Beaujolais, began rapidly to fail. He was urged to seek a milder climate in Malta or Madeira. To the solicitations of his fond and anxious brother he replied:

"I feel that my life is soon to terminate as Montpensier's did. What is the use of going so far to seek a tomb, and thus to lose the consolation of dying in this retreat where we have at last found repose. Let us remain in this hospitable land. Here, at least, I shall be permitted to die in a brother's arms, and share a brother's tomb."

Still, amiably yielding to the anxiety of his brother, he consented, against his own judgment, to accompany him to the island of Malta. The climate not agreeing with him, and his strength rapidly failing, the Duke of Orleans wrote to Ferdinand IV., king of Naples, soliciting permission to visit the salubrious clime where he had established his court. Ferdinand IV., flying from the revolution beneath which his throne had crumbled, had sought refuge, protected by the British fleet, in the old Moorish castle, called the Palazzo Reale, near Palermo, on the island of Sicily. To the application of the duke to repair with his dying brother to those genial skies, a very cordial consent was returned. But before the reply arrived, the gentle spirit of Beaujolais had taken its flight to join the spirit of Montpensier in the eternal world. With tearful eyes and an almost broken heart, the bereaved Duke of Orleans deposited the wasted remains of his dearly-beloved brother in the vaults of the church of St. John, in Valetta.

Having performed these last sad rites, and feeling almost alone and desolate, in a world where he had experienced so many sorrows and so few joys, influenced by the friendly invitation of the Sicilian Court, he embarked for the island of Sicily, and reached Messina in safety. Proceeding to Palermo, he was welcomed with great cordiality to the ancient and massive palace. The commanding figure of the prince, his finely chiselled features, his dignified bearing, united with a frank, cordial, unaffected address, his intelligence and accomplishments, all combined with that nameless charm of a pensive spirit, created by the greatest sufferings patiently endured, secured for him the admiration and the warmest sympathy of the Sicilian family.

The second daughter of the king, the Princess Amelia, was a young lady whom all unite in describing as possessed of unusual attractions of person and character. A strong attachment almost immediately sprang up between them. But the Duke of Orleans was a wanderer, an exile, deprived of his patrimonial estates, and living upon the hospitality of others or upon those fragments which by chance had been saved from the utter wreck of the possessions which had descended to him from his ancestors. Should he recover his rank and possessions, it would be a suitable match. Should he fail, he would prove but a needy adventurer. The proud queen was perplexed whether to frown upon or to encourage his suit.

In France the anarchy of the Conventions and of the Directory had given place to the Consulate and the Empire. Under the sagacious and energetic rule of Napoleon, France had risen to dignity and power unequalled by that of any other nation in Europe. Napoleon had seized upon the fundamental principle of the Revolution, Equal Rights for all Men, and, inscribing that upon his banners, had reorganized France with such skill as to enable her to bid defiance to despotic Europe in arms against that principle. All France seemed united in this government of republican principles under monarchical forms, and, notwithstanding the implacable hostility and persistent coalition of foreign dynasties, all hopes of the restoration of the Bourbons seemed to have vanished. Ferdinand of Naples and his queen, who was an Austrian princess, and sister of Maria Antoinette, had, with great determination, espoused the cause of the Allies against France. A revolution in their own kingdom, aided by French arms, had driven them from the continent of Italy to the island of Sicily, where they were protected by an English army of twenty thousand men, and by the invincible fleet of Great Britain, which had entire command of the seas.

The position of the Duke of Orleans in the Sicilian Court must have been very embarrassing. Ferdinand, a weak man, and his wife, an intriguing, reckless woman, did every thing they could to entangle their illustrious visitor, and the suitor of their daughter, in the meshes of the intrigues in which they were ever involved. Napoleon had shown a very decided disposition to conciliate the Orleans family, and to restore to them their possessions if he could have any assurance that the vast influence which they would thus possess would not be used in the attempt to overthrow the republican empire which France had so cordially accepted. The cautious duke felt that it would be the height of folly to hurl himself against a power which seemed irresistible.

The Spanish Court had treacherously, while professing friendship for France, entered into a conspiracy with the Allies to strike her in the back in the anticipated hour of disaster. The Spanish war ensued, into the merits of which we have no space here to enter. The king and queen of Sicily hoped to place upon the throne of Spain their son Leopold; and they urged the Duke of Orleans to go to Spain, and, under the patronage of England, to take command of an army for the invasion of France.

Influenced by these importunities, the duke repaired with evident reluctance to Gibraltar; but seeing no chance for Leopold, he passed over to England to confer with the British Cabinet.[I] The duke was a Frenchman, and, instead of being cordially received in Spain, found himself in danger of being mobbed by the ignorant and fanatic populace. Lord Collingwood wrote to the British Government, in reference to this movement, in behalf of Prince Leopold, through the agency of the Duke of Orleans:

"Several of the nobles who attend his royal highness are French, and there is no government here which can give protection to any Frenchman from the populace."

[Footnote I: "I have another great puzzle come to me. The Queen of Sicily has sent her son, Prince Leopold, to Gibraltar to propose himself to be regent of Spain. It appears to me to be extreme want of knowledge of the state of Spain. The Duke of Orleans came down with him, and on the 13th of August I discussed the subject fully with his highness, much to his satisfaction, and he went off to England with a light heart."—Collingwood's Correspondence.]

England did not favor the idea of placing a Sicilian prince on the throne of Spain by the aid of a French duke. Thus the enterprise was finally abandoned. In the then disturbed state of Europe, nearly all the countries being more or less ravaged by the sweep of hostile armies, and there being no regular postal communication, and no free passage from one country to another, it was often impossible for the Duke of Orleans to learn, for long periods of time, what was the fate of his mother and his sister, or even where they were. Upon the decree by the Directory of the expulsion of all the Bourbons from France, the Duchess of Orleans had retired to Figueras, in Spain.

In June, 1808, one of the tempests of war reached that town, and in a terrific bombardment of a few hours it was laid in ashes. The Duchess of Orleans fled from her home at midnight, only a few hours before it was blown into the air by a shower of bombs. Escaping from these scenes of ruin and woe, the widowed, almost childless, and friendless duchess, but still maintaining wonderful fortitude of character, found refuge, after many painful adventures, in Port Mahon, on the island of Minorca.

The Duke of Orleans, thwarted in his plans, regarded with jealousy by the British Cabinet, and assailed with bitterest contumely in both aristocratic and democratic journals, applied to the English Secretary of State for permission to pass to Port Mahon to join his mother. But the British authorities would not consent to his landing anywhere on the Spanish territories. They, however, at length yielded to his importunities so far as to allow him to embark in an English frigate for the island of Malta, the captain of the frigate receiving strict injunctions not even to approach the Spanish coast.

Proceeding to Portsmouth, where he was to embark, he there, to his inexpressible joy, met his only and dearly beloved sister, from whom he had so long been separated. This virtuous, amiable, but unhappy princess, had long been striving to join her wandering brothers and share their fate. Thus far she had been baffled in every endeavor, and two of them had sadly gone down into the grave, unsustained by those consolations which a sister's love and attentions might have afforded them. The princess had finally succeeded in tracing her only surviving brother from Sicily to Gibraltar, and from Gibraltar to England. She had thus providentially met him just as he was embarking for Malta.

The brother and sister sailed together, and landed at the port of Valetta, in Malta, in February, 1809. Thence the duke dispatched a private messenger, the Chevalier de Brovul, to seek an interview with his mother, to explain to her the impossibility of their going to Minorca, and to entreat her to join them, if possible, in Malta.

"The duke's agent," writes the English historian, Rev. G. N. Wright, "was faithful, intelligent, and active. But the impediments which were placed in his path rendered his progress in negotiation slow, and at length completely obstructed them."

The Spaniards did not love the English, and the English made no efforts to disguise their contempt of the Spaniards. There was no cordial co-operation of action. There was a strong party in Spain in favor of the regeneration of their country by the enlightened and liberal views which Joseph Bonaparte was introducing. There was another powerful party opposed to France, and equally opposed to British domination.

"The greatest anarchy," says Mr. Wright, "prevailed in every part of the Peninsula. The Spaniards were divided in their allegiance, and a Bonapartist party was formed in the heart of the country. The national resources were exhausted; and their co-operation with the English wanted that cordiality to which her noble efforts had entitled her, and which Spanish policy ought to have extended to them.

"Brovul, who had been dispatched to convey a mere affectionate expression of regard and love from her children to the venerable duchess, became, on his route, transformed into a political envoy. It was now distinctly and emphatically proposed, by several of the most distinguished men of the Spanish national party, that the Duke of Orleans should be invited over into Spain, and that he should place himself at their head, and lead an army of invasion into France.

"A secret agent was sent into the southern provinces of France to ascertain the public sentiment there. He reported that the people looked to the Duke of Orleans as the only member of the Bourbon family who enjoyed a military reputation; as a prince whose sword had been sharpened by the wrongs of his race, and that they declared, in the most enthusiastic manner, their readiness to follow him to victory or death."

Misled by this report, which proved to be a gross exaggeration, the Spanish Junta appointed the Duke of Orleans to a command destined to act on the frontiers of Catalonia. But the local juntas were opposed to the movement. There was no harmony—no combined action. All was confusion, and the duke made no attempt to enter upon his command.[J] The Sicilian queen, Maria Caroline, irritated by the utter failure of the movement in behalf of her son, and disappointed that the Duke of Orleans had so little influence over the British Cabinet, became quite alienated from her prospective son-in-law, wrote very cold letters to him, and the failure of the marriage treaty was openly spoken of in the court and in the journals.

[Footnote J: "Besides, possibly England did not think, and the exiled Bourbons of the elder branch would naturally have concurred in the sentiment, that it would be prudent or politic to send a gallant prince of Orleans to lead the Spaniards to victory, a prince who was the great-grandson of that Philippe of Orleans who, by the lustre of his talents and the many attractions of his character, became the idol of the army and the nation."—Life and Times of Louis Philippe, by Rev. G. N. Wright.]

The duke—whose attachment to the Princess Amelia was very strong—alarmed by these procedures, repaired immediately to Palermo to confront his enemies and to plead his cause. He was successful. The confidence and love of Amelia had never abated. The presence of the illustrious young man—so handsome, so intelligent, so spotless in character, so fascinating and princely in his bearing—soon dispelled all clouds. The queen could no longer withhold her consent to the nuptials. With happiness thus beginning to dawn upon him, the duke wrote as follows to his mother:

"Their majesties urged some objections to the marriage of a princess of their house to a wandering exile like myself. Upon which I stated that I should apply to you and induce you to advocate my cause, and become security for my principles and fidelity to those to whom I promised allegiance. 'Ah,' replied the queen, 'if you can obtain the advocacy of that angel, it will, indeed, be impossible to refuse you any thing.' I should like, dear mother, to give you a faithful portrait of the princess, who was destined to be my bride, even before her birth. But I feel that I could make but an indifferent and very unworthy sketch. She possesses many amiable and elevated qualities, which I shall take the liberty of summing up in one brief sentence, by assuring you that she seems to be a perfect model of my mother."

Soon after this the duchess embarked in an English frigate for Palermo, and reached there in safety on the 15th of October, 1809. Thus, after long, long years of separation, the survivors of the exiled family, though still in exile, were reunited. On the 25th of November the nuptial benediction was pronounced in the beautiful old Norman chapel of the Palazzo Reale.

"The most remarkable and curious fact connected with the origin and structure of the Capella Reale is, that to the completion of this most perfect illustration of the art of ecclesiastic building three nations have contributed—the Greeks, Saracens, and Normans. And by this fortuitous association the chaste style of the ancients, the cold manner of the Northerns, and the luxurious fashion of the East are all here blended in perfect harmony."[K]

[Footnote K: Wright's Shores and Islands of the Mediterranean.]

General Cass, the American minister to France, who, thirty years after these events, wrote from the palace of the Tuileries, where Louis Philippe and his amiable queen were then enthroned, says:

"The queen was the daughter of that King of Naples who was driven from his Continental dominions by the French, and took refuge, with his family and court, in Sicily. Here the king, Louis Philippe, then poor and in exile, married her; and the match is understood to have been one of affection on both sides. The thirtieth anniversary of their union has just expired, and they are at the summit of human power, with a most interesting family of seven children, and, as is known to every body, with the warmest attachment to each other. In the bitterness of French political discussions no whisper of calumny has ever been heard against the queen. And one who could pass through this ordeal has nothing more to dread from human investigation. A kinder, more anxious mother is nowhere to be found. She is a sincere believer in the Christian religion, and devout in the performance of its duties. Her charity is known throughout the country, and appeals for the distressed are never made to her in vain. In the performance of her regal duties, while her bearing is what the nature of her position requires, there is a kind of affability which seems continually seeking to put all around her as much at their ease as possible."[L]

[Footnote L: France in 1840. By an American—[General Cass].]



CHAPTER V.

THE RESTORATION.

1814-1817

The Sicilian Court.—Retirement of the duke.—The Restoration.—The return to Paris.—Arrival in Paris.—Reception by the Bourbons.—Testimony of an American.—Pride of the Bourbons.—Madame de Genlis.—Triumphal advance of Napoleon.—Flight of Louis XVIII.—Signal triumph of Napoleon.—Retirement of the Bourbons.—Efforts of the Duke of Orleans.—Dejection of the Duke of Orleans.—Calumnies of the journals.—Return of the Bourbons to Paris.—The duke's possessions restored.—The duke returns to the Palais Royal.—Humanity of the Duke of Orleans.—The duke persecuted by the court.—Execution of Marshal Ney.—Again an exile.—Testimony of Madame de Genlis.—The princes in the national lyceums.—Democratic tendencies of the duke.

The court of Ferdinand IV., one of the most worthless and corrupt of the old feudal dynasties, was maintained in Sicily by the army, the navy, and the purse of England. His Sicilian majesty received from the British Government an annual subsidy of four hundred thousand pounds sterling ($2,000,000), to support the dignity of his throne, and to pay for the troops which Sicily furnished England for her interminable warfare against the French Empire. The Duke of Orleans severely condemned the errors and follies continually developed by the reigning dynasty, and yet he found himself utterly powerless to remedy them. The queen was the ruling power at the court, and her prejudiced and impassioned nature was impervious to any appeals of reason. She knew very well that England did not loan her protection and lavish her gold upon the Sicilian Court from any love for that court, but simply from dread and hatred of the republican principles advocated by Napoleon. She, therefore, often treated the English with the utmost disdain. And yet, sustained by twenty thousand British troops upon the island, she trampled upon all popular rights, consigning, by arbitrary arrests, to the dungeon or to exile all who opposed her sway.

"Against these violations of law, infringements of liberty, and manifestations of absolutism, the Sicilians rose with becoming firmness. The Duke of Orleans had long foreseen the approaching hurricane, the gathering wrath of an injured people; but finding his remonstrances vain, his principles of government almost directly contrary to those of his august mother-in-law, he retired from a court where there was no room for a virtuous counsellor, and, with his wife and her infant prince, lived in retirement a few miles from Palermo."[M]

[Footnote M: Life and Times of Louis Philippe.]

The duke was living tranquilly, and perhaps not unhappily, in this retirement, abstaining from all participation in the intrigues of the Sicilian Court, when, on the morning of the 23d of April, 1814, an English frigate, with every banner floating triumphantly in the breeze, entered the harbor of Palermo. It brought the astounding intelligence of the fall of Napoleon and the restoration of the Bourbons. The exciting tidings soon reached the ears of the duke. He hurried to Palermo, and drove directly to the palace of the English ambassador, where he was greeted with the words:

"I congratulate you upon the downfall of Napoleon, and on the restoration of the illustrious race, of which you yourself are a member, to the throne of their fathers."

For a moment the duke was speechless with astonishment, and then declared the story to be quite incredible. He however was soon convinced that it was even so, by reading a copy of the Moniteur, which gave a detailed account of the whole event. All the shipping and all the forts of Palermo were now resounding with the thunders of exultation. The Duke of Orleans had fought under the tri-color flag. Mingled emotions agitated him. He saw that national banner which had waved so proudly over many a field of victory now trampled in the dust beneath the feet of foreign squadrons, and their allied armies exultingly encamped within the parks of his native city. The restoration of the Bourbons had been accomplished at the expense of the humiliation of his country.

The next day, the commander of the ship which had brought the intelligence called at the residence of the Duke of Orleans, and said to him,

"I am directed by Admiral Lord William Bentinck, who is now at Genoa, to wait upon your royal highness, and ascertain if you wish to return to France. If so, my vessel and my personal services are at your command. If you prefer to remain at Naples, I hope you may enjoy that lasting happiness to which, by your eventful and virtuous life, you are so eminently entitled."[N]

[Footnote N: During much of his exile, Louis XVIII. had occupied the chateau of Hartwell, in the county of Buckingham, about fifty miles from London.]

The duke pondered the fact that he was invited to return to Paris, not by an envoy from the restored king, but by an officer in the British navy. Still the prince resolved immediately to repair to Paris. Taking an affectionate farewell of his wife and their infant son, he embarked on board the English frigate, accompanied by a single servant, and on the eighteenth of May, 1814, entered his native city, from which he had so long been an exile. Louis XVIII. was already there, having returned to Paris in the rear of the bayonets and the batteries of foreign troops. It was his majesty's expressed wish that the Palais Royal, the hereditary mansion of the Orleans family, should be repaired and restored to its former owners. During the republican and imperial rule, its numerous and spacious apartments had been appropriated to private residences. The duke, upon arriving in Paris, availed himself of temporary accommodations in furnished apartments in the Rue Grange Bateliere. One of his first steps was to repair incognito to the home of his fathers. The Swiss servants who guarded the palace still wore the imperial livery. With some reluctance they yielded to the importunities of the stranger, and allowed him to penetrate the interior apartments.

"As he approached the grand staircase, the recollections of his boyhood, the lustre of his ancient race, the agonies of mind he had endured since he last beheld that spot, and gratitude to that Providence which had spared him amidst such universal ruin, completely overwhelmed him, and, falling prostrate on the tesselated pavement, he imprinted a thousand kisses on the cold white marble, while tears gushing from his eyes indicated, while they relieved, the emotions with which he contended."[O]

[Footnote O: Life and Times of Louis Philippe.]

The next day the duke was presented to his majesty, Louis XVIII., at the Tuileries. As he approached the royal presence, the king advanced towards him, and said,

"Your highness was a lieutenant-general in the service of your country twenty-five years ago, and you are still the same."

The assumption adopted by Louis XVIII. that there had been no interruption of the Bourbon reign, and the attempt to blot from history the twenty-five most eventful years in the annals of France, deservedly excited both contempt and ridicule. An American writer of distinction says:

"The unconquerable prejudices of the Bourbons, and their studied ignorance of the feelings of the country they were called to govern after an exile of twenty-five years, were the prognostics as well as the cause of their ultimate fall.

"Their imperial predecessor had indeed left them a difficult task. His career was so brilliant that it may well have dazzled his countrymen, and left them unfitted for a milder domination. He was, indeed, a wonderful man; and I have been more powerfully impressed than ever, since my arrival in France, with the prodigious force of his character, and with the gigantic scope as well as the vast variety of his plans.

"I am satisfied that circumstances have not been favorable to a just appreciation of the whole character of Napoleon in the United States. While he was at the head of the nation, we surveyed him very much through the English journals, and we imbibed all the prejudices which a long and bitter war had engendered against him in England. To be sure, his military renown could not be called in question; but of his civic talents a comparatively humble estimate was formed. I have since learned to correct this appreciation."[P]

[Footnote P: General Cass.]

It was the undisguised effort of Louis XVIII., now restored by foreign armies to the throne, to annihilate the memory of all that France had achieved at home and abroad, under the administration of Napoleon. The tri-color was exchanged for the white banner of the Bourbons, and the eagles were replaced by the Gallic cock. All the insignia of imperialism were carefully obliterated. The evidence seems quite conclusive that the king, notwithstanding his apparent reconciliation with the Duke of Orleans, still regarded him with much suspicion, and would have been very willing that he should have continued in exile. Indeed, the king seemed disposed to revive old family feuds, that he might keep the duke estranged, as far as possible, from the sympathies of the Legitimist party.

The Duchess of Orleans was of royal blood, the daughter of a king. But the father of the Duke of Orleans had worn only a ducal, not a royal crown. The king, consequently, gave orders that, whenever the Duke of Orleans and his suite should appear at court, both of the folding-doors of the grand entrance should be thrown open for the duchess, while but one should be opened for her husband.

In July the duke embarked in a French ship of the line, with Baron Athalin and Count Sainte Aldegonde as his aids, to transfer his family from Palermo to Paris. Early in August they were luxuriously domiciled in his magnificent ancestral home. Madame de Genlis, now venerable in years, and having ever retained the reverence and affection of her distinguished pupils, hastened to join the ducal family in the saloons of the Palais Royal.

"This resolution," she writes, "procured me the inexpressible happiness of once more seeing my pupils, Mademoiselle and the Duke of Orleans. In our first interview they both displayed to me all the affection, all the emotion and delight which I myself experienced. Alas! how deeply I felt, at this meeting, the absence of the beloved pupils, the Duke of Montpensier and his brother Count Beaujolais, who both died in exile."

The winter passed rapidly away, and on the 5th of March, 1815, to the dismay of the Bourbons, and of all the crowned heads of Europe, the tidings reached Paris that Napoleon had left Elba, landed at Cannes, and, accompanied by ever-increasing thousands of enthusiastic supporters, was on the triumphal march towards the metropolis. The most terrible proclamations were hurled against him by Louis XVIII., but all in vain. All opposition melted before the popular emperor. The path from Cannes to Paris was over six hundred miles in length, through the heart of France. But the Bourbons, with the armies of France nominally at their disposal, and the sympathies of all the feudal dynasties in Europe enlisted in their behalf, could summon no force sufficient to arrest the progress of that one unarmed man. The Duke of Orleans hastened to the presence of his majesty, and, addressing the trembling monarch, said:

"Sire, as for me, I am prepared to share both your bad and good fortune. Although one of your royal race, I am your subject, servant, and soldier. Do with me as your majesty pleases, for the honor and peace of our country."

The king sent him to Lyons; to co-operate with the king's brother, the Count d'Artois, subsequently Charles X., in the endeavor to retard, by every means in their power, the advance of the ex-emperor upon Paris. A council of war was immediately held, the Count d'Artois presiding. Marshal Macdonald proved to the satisfaction of all present that it would be impossible to prevent the occupation of Lyons by Napoleon. Thence his march to Paris would be unimpeded.

All was consternation in the Bourbon Court. Louis Philippe broke up his establishment, and dispatched his wife and family, by the most expeditious route, to England. The armies of France were concentrated as rapidly as possible on the borders of the Rhine, where the allied troops could hurry to their support. The Duke of Orleans was invested with the command of this army of the north. Louis XVIII., surrounded by a small body of Guards, entered his carriage and fled precipitately across the Rhine, to place himself again under the protection of the allied sovereigns who were convened in Congress at Vienna.

The accompanying cut will give the reader a vivid idea of the departure. The king was enormously fat. His figure, with long body and very short legs, was peculiar almost to deformity. He entered his carriage for his flight, with apparently none to regret his departure, at one o'clock, on the morning of the 19th of March. The evening of the next day, the 20th, the emperor arrived, and, surrounded by the acclamations of thousands, was borne, in a scene of indescribable enthusiasm, on the shoulders of the people into the vacant palace.



"The moment that the carriage stopped," says Alison, "he was seized by those next the door, borne aloft in their arms, amidst deafening cheers, through a dense and brilliant crowd of epaulets, hurried literally above the heads of the throng up the great staircase into the saloon of reception, where a splendid array of the ladies of the imperial court, adorned with a profusion of violet bouquets, half concealed in the richest laces, received him with transports, and imprinted fervent kisses on his cheeks, his hands, and even his dress. Never was such a scene witnessed in history."

This triumphal journey of Napoleon for nearly seven hundred miles, through the heart of France, alone and unaided invading a kingdom of thirty millions of inhabitants, vanquishing all the armies of the Bourbons, and regaining the throne without drawing a sword or firing a musket, presents one of the most remarkable instances on record of the power of one mighty mind over human hearts. Boundless enthusiasm, from citizens and soldiers, greeted him every step of his way. A more emphatic vote in favor of the Empire could not have been given. A more legitimate title to the throne no monarch ever enjoyed. And yet the Allies, in renewing the war against him, had the unblushing effrontery to proclaim that they were contending for the liberties of the people against the tyranny of an usurper! In view of such achievements of Napoleon, we do not wonder that Lamartine, his unrelenting political foe, should say that, as a man, "Napoleon was the greatest of the creations of God."

"The emperor, notwithstanding the Bourbons had set a price upon his head, issued special orders that they should not be molested; that they should be permitted to retire without injury or insult. He could, with perfect ease, have taken them prisoners, and then, in possession of their persons, could have compelled the Allies to reasonable terms. But his extraordinary magnanimity prevented him from pursuing such a course. Louis XVIII., accompanied by a funeral procession of carriages containing members of his family, his ministers, and returned emigrants, trembling and in dismay, retired to Lille, on the northern frontiers of France. The inhabitants of the departments through which he passed gazed silently and compassionately upon the infirm old man, and uttered no word of reproach; but as soon as the cortege had passed, the tri-colored banner was run up on steeple and turret, and the air resounded with shouts of Vive l'Empereur."[Q]

[Footnote Q: Abbott's Life of Napoleon, vol. ii., p. 465.]



Immediately Napoleon dispatched by telegraph the following order throughout France: "The emperor having entered Paris at the head of the very troops that were sent to oppose him, the civil and military authorities are hereby cautioned against obeying any other than the imperial orders, and are enjoined, under the last penalty of military law, to hoist the tri-colored flag upon the receipt of this intelligence."

Regardless of this order, the Duke of Orleans, in the north of France, made very great efforts, by visiting all the posts, to inspire the soldiers to fidelity to the Bourbons, and to rouse them to oppose the emperor. "Finding," says a writer, who was in sympathy with his efforts, "his great exertions as fruitless as the assaults of the winds upon the mountain's rocky ridge, he at length abandoned the project. The conduct of Louis XVIII. was but little calculated to inspire his subjects with respect, or to restore their fading fidelity. Having reached Lille on the 22d, on the next day he fled, with indecent haste, towards the frontier, not remaining long enough, even if his faculties had been sufficiently collected to do so, to give final or further instructions to the lieutenant-general. Terror of Napoleon occupied his every thought; and the wings of the wind were unequal to keep pace with the eagerness of his mind to escape from the iron grasp of the mortal enemy of his race. Louis Philippe had lent the protection and encouragement of companionship to his majesty to a distance of five miles from Lille; yet the timid monarch never delivered to him any instructions or command as to the operations of the army, nor confessed his future project."[R]

[Footnote R: Life and Times of Louis Philippe, by Rev. G. N. Wright.]

The Duke of Orleans was annoyed and irritated by the pusillanimity displayed by the king, and by the mortifying reserve with which he himself was treated. He called upon the commandants of the different towns, and informed them that the king had left France without giving him any authority to act. He then issued a public proclamation, in which he resigned his entire command to Marshal Mortier. In this he said:

"I go to bury myself in retirement and oblivion. The king being no longer in France, I can not transmit you any further orders in his name; and it only remains for me to release you from the observation of all the orders which I have already transmitted to you, and to recommend you to do every thing that your excellent judgment and pure patriotism will suggest to you. Farewell, my dear marshal. My heart is oppressed in writing this word."

On the 22d Louis Philippe broke up his establishment at head-quarters, and set out to rejoin his family in England. He had but little hope then of ever again revisiting France. His sufferings must indeed have been agonizing in finding all his newly-born hopes vanishing, and in again entering upon the weary life of an exile. Arriving in England, he directed his steps to the beautiful and sequestered retreat of Twickenham. It was a hallowed spot, endeared to him by the memory of days of tranquillity and of a pensive joy, and by scenes of heart-rending anguish, as he had there seen his two beloved brothers sinking sadly into the grave.

"The triumph of legitimacy," says Mr. Wright, "which dethroned Napoleon," inspired its followers in foreign lands with new zeal, fresh devotion, and increased prospects of ascendency. In England the most servile of that faction had the malignity to invent and publish, by means of the dishonest portion of the daily press, the grossest and most painful calumnies against the Duke of Orleans. The Bourbon faction, expert at calumny and intrigue, employed every means their art supplied to accomplish their darling object, which was the still further separation of the elder from the younger branch of the royal family. It was now that the persecutors of the Duke of Orleans hit upon the scheme of defaming him by forgery. They forged various protestations and confessions of faith, which they subscribed with the name of Louis Philippe, and procured their publication in English journals; "the tendency of which was to place him in a false position with respect to the elder branch of his family."

The hundred days of Napoleon's second reign passed rapidly away. The defeat at Waterloo restored Louis XVIII. to the throne, with a better prospect of its permanent possession. Napoleon, in the long agony at St. Helena, expiated the crime of raising the banner of Equal Rights for All Men, in opposition to the exclusive privileges of kings and nobles. Louis XVIII., escorted by nearly a million of foreign troops, returned to the Tuileries. All the members of the royal family followed from their wide dispersion. Louis Philippe joined the crowd, and again presented himself in the royal saloons. The king suspected him, and in the presence of a full court received him with marked coldness. Conscious of his own unpopularity, and of the general impression that the Duke of Orleans was tinctured with liberal sentiments, the king was ever apprehensive that a faction might arise in favor of placing the Duke of Orleans upon the throne.

The shrewd, intriguing Fouche, duke of Otranto, in a letter written to the Duke of Wellington at this time, says:

"The personal qualities of the Duke of Orleans, the remembrance of Jemappes, the possibility of making a treaty which would conciliate all interests, the name of Bourbon, which might serve outside, but not be pronounced within—all these motives, and many others that might be mentioned, present in this last choice a perspective of repose and security even to those who could not perceive in them an omen of happiness."

Though the king declined the assistance of the Duke of Orleans in reorganizing his government, he restored to him his vast ancestral possessions. Recrossing the Channel, the duke conducted his family from Twickenham back to the sumptuous saloons of the Palais Royal. A royal ordinance commanded all the princes of the blood royal to take seats in the Chamber of Peers. Under this decree the Duke of Orleans became a member of that august and influential body.

And now commenced the reign of what was called the Terreur Blanche, or White Terror, consisting of a series of proscriptions and bloody executions, under the white flag of the Bourbons, which shocked the spirit of humanity. Unrelenting revenge was dominant. Marshal Ney, General Labedoyere, and many others of the noblest men in France, were ere long put to death or driven into exile. The friends of Louis XVIII. in the Chamber of Peers urged on these merciless executions. A resolution was introduced into that body and strongly supported, calling for the exemplary chastisement of all political delinquents. There were a few who indignantly repudiated this revengeful spirit.

The Duke of Orleans ascended the tribune. His person was but little known by the majority of those present. As the son of Egalite, and as one suspected of liberal principles, he was hated by the returned emigrants of the old Bourbon party. As he took his stand in the tribune there was breathless silence throughout the whole assembly. Every eye was fixed upon him. His majestic figure, his fine countenance, intellectual, thoughtful, upon which there remained the traces of many sufferings, his calm, dignified, self-possessed bearing, and his exalted rank as a prince of the royal line, created profound sentiments of respect. For a moment he looked upon the assembly in silence. Then in slow, solemn, decisive terms he remonstrated against the malevolent spirit which was being developed.

"I propose," said he, "the total suppression of the obnoxious clause. Let us leave to his majesty's parental care the charge of maintaining public order. Let us not urge a revengeful spirit which malevolence may convert into a weapon for disturbing the peace of the nation. Our position as judges of appeal over those very individuals to whom you recommend the exercise of severity, rather than of mercy, should impose absolute silence upon us in respect to them."

These just and noble sentiments the majority applauded, and the vote was carried in behalf of humanity. But the king and his coterie were very angry, and assailed the duke in the most violent terms of condemnation. The king, in a petty spirit of revenge, issued a decree, recalling the ordinance that all the princes of the blood royal were to sit in the Chamber of Peers, and declaring that none in future were to appear there but by special authority of the king, delivered at each particular sitting.

This was intended as a deliberate insult to the Duke of Orleans, to exclude him from the Chamber of Peers, and to degrade him in the eyes of the partisans of the king. This pitiful spirit of persecution greatly increased the general popularity of the duke, which led to a redoubled clamor of calumny on the part of his opponents. He was accused of seeking to rally around him the malcontents, of courting the favor of the populace, and of trying to organize an Orleans faction in his interests.



The clamor was so loud and so annoying, and the duke found himself so entirely excluded from the sympathies of the court and of the dominant nobles, that, to escape from the storm, he imposed upon himself voluntary exile, and again, forsaking France, sought refuge with his family in his English retreat at Twickenham.

The annoying report was circulated, that the duke was banished by an indignant decree of the king, which, out of regard to the duke's feelings, he had not made public. Louis Philippe was fully conscious of the great unpopularity of the elder branch of the Bourbons, and of the feeble tenure by which they held their power, sustained against the popular will by the bayonets of the Allies.

The duke had hardly arrived at Twickenham ere he received an affecting letter from the wife of Marshal Ney, entreating him to intercede with the Prince Regent of England for the life of her noble husband, then in prison awaiting the almost certain doom of death. The duke did plead for him in the most earnest terms; but his efforts were unavailing. Thus one of the most illustrious of the sons of France, "the bravest of the brave," was led out into the garden of the Luxembourg and shot down like a dog. Marshal Ney had fought a hundred battles for France, not one against her. His crime was, that, having accepted command under the Bourbons, he had been guilty of treason in deserting his standard, and had welcomed back the emperor, whom he had served in so many battles, and whom he so dearly loved. By the capitulation of Paris it was expressly declared that "no person should be molested for his political opinions or conduct during the Hundred Days;" but the Allies paid no regard to their plighted faith.[S]

[Footnote S: "England entailed a lasting disgrace upon her name by not prohibiting the execution of a vengeance so long delayed; by not claiming as her victims those brave men whom the glory of her arms had unfortunately placed at the mercy of the Bourbons, and by allowing the French king to put those fine fellows to death on the scaffold, whose military prowess was honorable to France."—Life and Times of Louis Philippe.]

One important object of Louis Philippe, in withdrawing from France, was to avoid the embarrassment of being brought forward in opposition to the king, and in being made the head of the Liberal party. This refusal to identify himself with any democratic movement rendered him very popular with the English Court, a popularity increased by England's adoration of exalted rank and princely fortune. The duke was received, in palace and castle, with splendid hospitality, which he frequently eclipsed in the brilliant entertainments which he in return gave at Twickenham.

The duke now devoted himself, in his voluntary exile, to the administration of his sumptuous household, and to the rearing of his rapidly increasing family, abstaining entirely from all participation in the politics and intrigues of Paris. His mansion was ever thronged with distinguished guests, and multitudes, ruined by the storms which had swept over their several lands, frequented his saloons, seeking pecuniary aid. The applicants were so numerous and the claims so complicated, that the duke found it necessary to establish a bureau of charity to examine these claims and to disburse his bounty.

In 1817 the duke returned to France, and divided his time between the Palais Royal and his magnificent rural retreat at Neuilly. Wealth, rank, and hospitality will always draw a crowd. The duke lived, as it were, in a small but brilliant court of his own. He seldom appeared in the court of Louis XVIII., and took no part in public affairs. Much of his time was devoted to superintending the education of his very interesting group of children. Madame de Genlis gives the following description of this ducal family:

"I continued to pay my respects to Mademoiselle d'Orleans, who is still as kind and affectionate towards me as ever. I saw the young Prince de Joinville, who was only two years old, but who spoke as distinctly as a child of six or seven. He was also as polite as he was handsome and intelligent. In fact, the whole family of the Duke of Orleans is truly the most interesting I ever knew. The members of it are charming by their personal attractions, their natural qualities and education, and by the reciprocal attachment of parents and children."[T]

[Footnote T: Autobiography of Madame de Genlis.]

But again the duke incurred the displeasure of the court. Anxious that his sons should derive the benefit of free intercourse with the world, he decided to place them, for the completion of their education, in the national lyceums. Here they were on a level with other boys, and could only secure distinction by merit. The court, however, and the old nobility, deemed it gross contamination for princes of the blood royal to associate with the children of citizens, and they regarded the measure as merely another attempt on the part of the Duke of Orleans to secure the favor of the populace. Even the king himself remonstrated with the duke upon the impropriety of his course. But the duke reminded his majesty that their illustrious ancestor, Henry IV., had been thus brought up, having been sent by his mother to the public school in Berne.

One of the Paris journals, commenting upon this republican measure of the duke, wrote: "Already has the Duke of Chartres, the eldest son of the Duke of Orleans, entered a college in Paris; a natural thing, it may be said, provided he is only old enough to comprehend the course of study. Princes have not hitherto been seen in public colleges since princes and colleges were in existence; and this noble youth is the first who has been educated in this manner.

"What would that great king Louis the Superb say—he who could not tolerate the idea even of his illegitimate children being confounded with the nobility of the kingdom, such was his sensitiveness in view of the degradation of the blood royal—if he beheld his grand-nephew, without page or Jesuit, at a public school, mixing with the common herd of the human race, and disputing with them for prizes, sometimes conquered, sometimes conqueror!"



CHAPTER VI.

THE DEATH OF LOUIS XVIII., AND REIGN OF CHARLES X.

1816-1830

Marriage of the Duke de Berri.—Family of the Duke de Berri.—Assassination of the Duke de Berri.—The dying scene.—Assembling of the royal family.—Noble conduct of the Duchess de Berri.—Death and burial.—Character of Louis XVIII.—Death of Louis XVIII.—Charles X. and family.—Ball at the Palais Royal.—Striking remarks of the Duke of Orleans.—Complaints against the crown.—The fatal ordinances.—Character of the ministry.—M. de Bourmont.—Dramatic scene.—Charles X. and his ministers.—Their unanimity.—The antagonistic forces.—Issuing the ordinances.—Risings of opposition.—Silencing the journals.—Diversity of counsel.—The conflict in Paris.—Threatening aspect of affairs.—Incidents of the battle.—Fraternization of the troops and the populace.—Retreat of the king.—All Paris in arms.—Triumph of the insurgents.—Success of the insurgents.—Tactics of General Marmont.

We have alluded to the Duke de Berri, the second son of Count d'Artois. As he became the father of Count de Chambord, the present Legitimist claimant of the throne of France, his career calls for more minute mention.

On the 28th of March, 1816, the French people were informed, by an announcement to both of the Chambers, that the young Duke de Berri was about to enter into a matrimonial alliance with Caroline Mary, eldest daughter of the heir to the crown of Naples. Caroline Mary was the niece of the Duchess of Orleans, being the child of her brother. The Chambers, in token of their satisfaction, voted the Duke de Berri a nuptial gift amounting to three hundred thousand dollars. The duke manifested his generous character, and won great popularity, by accepting the gift only upon condition that he might be allowed to distribute the sum among the poor in the provinces, who were then suffering severely from famine.

The marriage proved a happy one, until death sundered the tie. Caroline Mary, who thus became the Duchess de Berri, was of sylph-like grace of figure, beautiful in features, and by her affable manners and unaffected amiability won all hearts. Four years glided swiftly away. Two children were born, a son and a daughter; both died in infancy. A third child proved to be a daughter. As, by an ancient law of the realm, daughters were not eligible to the throne of France, there was great anxiety felt throughout the kingdom. Unless a prince were born, there would be a failure in the direct line of succession, and civil war might be the result. On the 13th of February, the duke and duchess attended the opera. The duchess was expecting soon again to be a mother. By the sudden opening of a door, she was unexpectedly struck in the side with violence, which caused her some alarm, and she expressed the wish to return home.

The duke led her to her carriage. She took her seat in it, saying to him with a smile, "Adieu; we shall soon meet again." As the duke was returning to the opera, an assassin, by the name of Louvel, who had been lying in wait for him, sprang from the darkness of a projecting wall, and seizing the duke by the shoulder with one hand, with the other plunged a dagger to the hilt in his side. It was the deed of an instant, and the assassin, in the darkness, fled, leaving the dagger in the side of the victim.

The footman was just closing the door of the carriage of the duchess when she heard her husband cry out, "I am assassinated! I am dead! I have the poniard! That man has killed me!" With a shriek, the duchess sprang from her carriage and clasped her husband in her arms, as the gushing blood followed the dagger which he drew from the wound.

"I am dead!" exclaimed the duke. "Send for a priest. Come, dearest, let me die in your arms!"



The dying man was conveyed to an adjoining room, and medical attendance was summoned. Nothing could staunch the gushing blood, and life was rapidly ebbing away. The duke was informed that the assassin was arrested. "Alas!" he said, "how cruel it is to die by the hands of a Frenchman!" Overhearing some one say to the almost distracted duchess that he hoped the wound would not prove fatal, the duke replied, "No; I am not deceived; the poniard has entered to the hilt." His sight became dim, and he inquired, "Caroline, are you there?" "Yes," she answered, "and I will never leave you."

His father's confessor, the Bishop of Chartres, entered, and the dying man had a few moments of private conversation with the ecclesiastic. He then called for his infant daughter. She was brought to him, asleep, for it was near midnight. Placing his hand upon her head, he said, "Poor child! may you be less unfortunate than the rest of your family."

The wound ceased to bleed externally, and its inward flow threatened suffocation. The duke's physician, M. Boujou, endeavored to restore circulation by sucking the wound. "What are you doing?" exclaimed the duke. "For God's sake stop! Perhaps the poniard was poisoned." Respiration was now very difficult, and the hand of the duke was clammy with the damp of death. As a last resort, the surgeon, with his knife, opened and enlarged the wound. The duke, grasping the hand of the duchess, patiently bore the painful operation, and then said, "Spare me further pain."

Turning to his wife, whom he tenderly loved, he said, "Caroline, take care of yourself for the sake of our infant, which you bear in your bosom."

The duke and the duchess of Orleans, being immediately summoned, were the first of the relatives to arrive in this chamber of death. They were speedily followed by the Count d'Artois, the father of the sufferer, and by the Duke d'Angouleme, his elder brother. Other members of the royal family soon arrived. In the feeble accents of approaching death, the duke inquired,

"Who is the man who has killed me? I wish I could see him, to inquire into his motives. Perhaps it is some one whom I have unconsciously offended. Would that I might live long enough to ask the king to pardon him. Promise me, my father, promise me, my brother, to ask of the king the life of that man."

Another touching scene, of a very delicate nature, which I can not refrain from recording occurred in this solemn hour. It was manifest to the duke, as well as to all of his friends, that before the hour should expire the spirit of the dying would pass to the tribunal of that God in whose presence both prince and peasant are alike. The memory of all past sins, in such an hour, often crowds the soul with its tumultuous array. In whispering tones, inaudible to others, a few words were interchanged between the dying man and his wife. Then two illegitimate children, who were born to the duke when he was an exile in London, were brought in. It seems that he had ever recognized them as his own, and that they had been protected and fostered by both himself and his lawful wife.

As these children entered the chamber, and knelt, sobbing convulsively, at their father's dying bed, the duke embraced them tenderly, and, turning his fading eye to his wife, said,

"I know you sufficiently, Caroline, to be assured that, after me, you will take care of these orphans."

The duchess responded in an action far more impressive than words. Taking her own babe into her arms from its nurse, she drew the unfortunate children to her bosom, and said, "Kiss your sister." It was a noble deed. All eyes were suffused in tears. Few can read the simple record without emotion.

The duke then received, from the bishop, absolution, repeatedly attempting the prayer, "My God, pardon me, pardon me; and pardon the man who has taken my life!"

Just then the king, Louis XVIII., who was very infirm, arrived. "My uncle," said the dying man, "give me your hand, that I may kiss it for the last time. I entreat you, in the name of my death, to spare the life of that man."

The king replied, "You are not so ill as you suppose. We will speak of this again."

"Ah!" exclaimed the duke, "you do not say yes. The pardon of that man would have softened my last moments, if I could die with the assurance that his blood would not flow after my death."

These were his last words. There was a slight gasping, a convulsive shuddering passed over his frame, and the spirit of the duke took its flight to the judgment-seat of Christ. The remains were conveyed, with much funereal pageantry, to the vaults of St. Denis, the ancient mausoleum of the kings of France. Louvel, a miserable fanatic, who sought notoriety by the murder of a prince, expiated his crime upon the scaffold.

Seven months after this assassination, on the 20th of September, 1820, the Duchess de Berri gave birth to a son. He was christened Henry, duke of Bordeaux. He is now known as the Count de Chambord, the Legitimist candidate for the throne of France. Indeed the Legitimists regard him as their lawful sovereign, though in exile, and give him the title of Henry V.

Louis XVIII. retained the throne, upon which the Allies had placed him, for eight years, until his death. He was a good-natured, kind-hearted old man, but so infirm from gout and excessive obesity, that he could with difficulty walk, and he was wheeled around his saloons in a chair. Lamartine, whose poetic nature ever bowed almost with adoration before hereditary royalty, gives the following pleasing account of his character:

"His natural talent, cultivated, reflective, and quick, full of recollections, rich in anecdotes, nourished by philosophy, enriched by quotations, never deformed by pedantry, rendered him equal, in conversation to the most renowned literary characters of his age. M. De Chateaubriand had not more elegance, M. De Talleyrand more wit, Madame De Stael more brilliancy. Since the suppers of Potsdam, where the genius of Voltaire met the capacity of Frederick the Great, never had the cabinet of a prince been the sanctuary of more philosophy, literature, talent, and taste."

To this it should be added that he was devoted to the interests of the aristocracy; that his mind was almost exclusively occupied in making happy hits in conversation, and in writing graceful billet-doux; that the priests and the nobles controlled him through the all-persuasive influence of the fascinating Madame Du Cayla. He died on the 16th of September, 1824. As his last hour approached, and his extremities became cold, and it was manifest that he had but a few moments to live, his mind remained clear and composed. Assuming a cheerful air, he said to his family, gathered around his bed:

"A king of France may die, but he is never ill. Love each other, and thus console yourselves for the disasters of our house. Providence has replaced us upon the throne."

He then received extreme unction, bade adieu to all, and, ordering the curtains of his bed to be closed, composed himself as for ordinary sleep. With the earliest dawn of the morning the chief physician opened the curtains, and found that his pulse was just ceasing to beat. In a few moments he breathed his last. In accordance with court etiquette the physician said, solemnly, "The king is dead." Then, turning to the king's brother, Charles, previously known as the Count d'Artois, he bowed and said, "Long live the king."

Charles X., into whose hands the sceptre thus passed, was then in the sixty-seventh year of his age—having been born in Versailles, October 9, 1757. This unfortunate monarch is represented, by his friends, as having been one of the most accomplished of men. His horsemanship attracted universal admiration. In all social circles he charmed every one who approached him by his grace and courtesy. He was warm-hearted and generous. Though in early life a man of pleasure, he had become quite a devotee; and, to an extraordinary degree, was under the influence of the priesthood. Leaving the affairs of State in the hands of others, he gave his time, his thoughts, his energies, to the pleasures of the chase. This pursuit became, not his recreation, but the serious occupation of his life.

Charles was the father of two sons. The eldest, and consequently the heir to the crown, was the Duke d'Angouleme. He had married the daughter of Louis XVI., whose sufferings, with her brother, the dauphin, in the Temple, have moved the sympathies of the whole civilized world. The duke and duchess were childless, and with no hope of offspring.

His second son, the Duke de Berri, had been assassinated, as we have mentioned, about four years before, as he was coming from the opera, leaving his wife enciente. In the course of a few months she gave birth to a son—the Duke of Bordeaux. This child—now called Count de Chambord—was the legitimate heir to the throne, next to his uncle, the Duke d'Angouleme.

Six years of the reign of Charles X. passed away, during which the discontent of the people was continually making itself increasingly manifest. They regarded the Government as false to the claims of the masses, and devoted only to the interests of the aristocracy.

The spirit of discontent which had long been brooding now rose in loud and angry clamor everywhere around the throne. The court was blind to its peril; but thoughtful men perceived that the elements for a moral earthquake were fast accumulating. In the midst of these hourly increasing perils, the Duke of Orleans, on the 31st of May, 1830, gave a ball at the Palais Royal in honor of his father-in-law, the King of Naples. This festival was of such splendor as to astonish even splendor-loving Paris, and was long remembered as one of the most brilliant entertainments the metropolis had ever witnessed. The immense fortune of the duke, his refined taste, and the grandeur of the saloons of his ancestral palace, enabled him almost to outvie royalty itself in the brilliance of the fete.

Vast amphitheatres bloomed with flowers in Eden-like profusion. The immense colonnades of the Palais Royal were crowded with orange-trees, whose opening buds filled the air with fragrance, and whose clusters of golden fruit enhanced the beauty of the scene. The spacious roofs and rotundas of glass sparkled with thousands of wax-lights, creating a spectacle so gorgeous and glittering that even those who were accustomed to royal splendor were reminded of the enchanter's palace in Oriental fable.

The marriage of the Duke de Berri, the son of Charles X. with Caroline Mary, niece of the Duchess of Orleans, had produced some reconciliation between the Bourbon and the Orleans branches of the royal family. The king and his family this evening, for the first time, in regal state visited the Palais Royal. As the duke was receiving the congratulations of his guests upon the marvellous splendor which the palace presented, thronged with courtiers sparkling with jewels and decorated with all the costly and glittering costumes of the old regime, one of the guests, M. Salvandy, shrewdly observed to the duke,

"It is, indeed, quite a Neapolitan fete, your highness, for we dance upon a volcano."

The duke with some emotion replied, "That there is a volcano here I believe as firmly as you do. But I know that the fault is not mine. I shall not have any occasion, hereafter, to reproach myself for not having endeavored to open the eyes of the king. But what could be expected when nothing is listened to? God only knows where all this will end—I certainly do not foresee what is about to happen. I can not tell where all those who are producing this state of things will be in six months hence; but one thing I do know, which is, where I shall be myself.

"Under all circumstances or changes which may occur, my family and myself will remain in this palace. This is our throne. Whatever may be the peril of so doing, I shall not move from the home of my fathers. I shall never again consent to separate the fate and fortune of myself and children from those of my country. This is my unchangeable determination."

One of the saloons contained two very fine paintings of Montmiral and Champ-Aubert, two towns in France in which Napoleon, heroically struggling against dynastic Europe combined in arms against him, signally defeated and drove back the Allies. The duke, being asked why he allowed paintings commemorative of the victories of the Empire to hang upon his walls, replied, "Because I like every thing French."

Soon after this the popular complaints against the crown became so general, so bitter, and the excitement so great, that the king, by the advice of the ministers who governed him, issued several ordinances which were regarded by the people as so despotic, as so subversive of all popular rights, as to call for resistance by insurrection and the force of arms.