The Duchess Of Berry/Charles X
by
Imbert de St-Amand
Part 4 out of 4
flowers, and diamonds, cheered her. The 18th, she slept at Pau,
the native place of Henry IV. The mountaineers, descending from
their heights, banner in hand, with their Basque costumes, came to
meet her. The next day she visited the castle where was born the
Bearnais, whose cradle, formed of a great tortoise-shell, she saw:
it was shaded by draperies and white plumes. The following day she
visited the environs. To descend into the valley of Ossun, she
donned the felt hat and the red sash worn by the peasants of
Bearn. As she was looking at the spring of Nays, a mountaineer
offered her some water in a rustic dish, and said naively: "Are
you pleased with the BEarnais, Madame?"--"Am I not pleased!"
replied the Princess, eagerly. "See, I wear the hat and sash of
the country!"
The 24th, she was at the Ile des Faisans, famous in the souvenirs
of Louis XIV.; the 25th, at Bayonne, where she assisted at a
military fete. In all her excursions, Madame carried her pencils
with her, and almost every day sketched some picturesque site.
Eight Bearnais, with an amaranth belt and hats of white and green,
served her as a guard of honor. She passed all the month of August
and a part of the month of September in the Pyrenees. The
mountaineers never wearied of admiring the hardihood, the gaiety,
the spirit, shown by her in making the most difficult ascensions.
The 9th of September, she quitted Bagneres-de Luchon to return to
Paris, passing through Toulouse, Montauban, Cahors, Limoges, and
Orleans. It was one long series of ovations. The 1st of October,
Madame returned to the Tuileries. She had been accompanied all
through her journey by the Marechale Duchess of Reggio, lady of
honor; by the Marchioness of Podenas, lady companion; and by Count
de Mesnard, first equerry.
The Duchess of Berry returned enchanted. Could she suspect the
reception that awaited her, four years later, in the places where
she had just been the object of veritable worship? When she was
received at Nantes as a triumphant sovereign, could she believe
that the time was approaching when, in that same city, she would
have hardly a stone on which to lay her head and where she would
seek a futile refuge in the chimney-piece--mysterious hiding-
place--of the house of the Demoiselles Duguigny? At Blaye could
she imagine that the citadel, hung with white flags, whose cannon
were fired in her honor, would so soon become her prison? Poor
Princess! She had taken seriously the protestations of devotion
and fidelity addressed to her everywhere. They asked her to
promise that if ever the rights of her son were denied, she would
defend them on the soil of La Vendee, and she had said to herself:
"I swear it." The journey of 1828 held the germ of the expedition
of 1832.
XXIV
THE MARY STUART BALL
No society in Europe was more agreeable and brilliant than that of
the Duchess of Berry. The fetes given by the Princess in the
salons of the Pavilion de Marsan at the Tuileries were marked by
exceptional elegance and good taste; the Petit Chateau, as her
vivacious social staff was called at that time, had an
extraordinary brightness and animation. At the carnival of 1829
Madame organized a costume ball, which, for its brilliancy, was
the talk of the court and the city. All the costumes were those of
one period,--that at which the dowager queen of Scotland, Marie of
Lorraine, widow of James V., came to France to visit her daughter,
Mary Stuart, wife of the King, Francis II. It was decided that
Mary Stuart should be represented by the Duchess of Berry, and the
King, Francis II., by the oldest of the sons of the Duke of
Orleans, the Duke of Chartres, who was then eighteen and one-half
years old, and who was, the next year, to take the title of Duke
of Orleans, on the accession of his father to the throne. The
apartments of the Children of France in the Pavilion de Marsan
were chosen for the ball, and the date was fixed at Monday, March
2, 1829.
The King, the Dauphin and Dauphiness, the Duke and Duchess of
Orleans, appeared at the fete, but not in costume. Charles X. came
after the hour of giving out the general orders. The Dauphin, the
Dauphiness, and the Duke of Orleans arrived at 8 P.M. The entry of
the four queens, Mary Stuart, Marie of Lorraine, Catharine de'
Medici, Jeanne d'Albret, was announced by the band of the
bodyguards which preceded them. The cortege was magnificent, the
costumes of the princes and their ladies resplendent. To increase
its richness, the Dauphiness had lent not only her own jewels, but
a part of those of the crown. The invited guests not taking part
in the cortege occupied places already assigned them. They wore a
uniform costume of silver gauze and white satin. This coolness of
tone produced a charming effect when at the arrival of the cortege
all rose. In the ball-room a platform had been prepared with a
throne for Mary Stuart. The Duchess of Berry, as the famous queen,
wore with great grace a dazzling toilet--crown of diamonds, high
collar, blue velvet robe with wide sleeves, front of white satin
bordered with ermine. The Duke of Chartres, a handsome boy and
brilliant cavalier, as King Francis II., wore a cap with white
plumes, and a dark blue velvet doublet with ornaments of gold. His
brother, the Duke of Nemours, fourteen years old, was in the
character of a page to the King, with a white satin doublet, and
recalled in his features the youth of Henry IV. The Duchess of
Berry, playing to perfection her role of queen, advanced to the
throne. The Duke of Chartres gave her his hand to ascend the
steps. Then she made a sign to be seated; but the young Prince
remained standing. Placing himself behind the throne, and removing
his cap with white plumes, he bowed low and said: "Madame, I know
my place." The Duchess of Gontaut spoke to the Duchess of Orleans,
and asked her if she had remarked the tact of her son the Prince.
"I remarked it," replied the Princess, "and I approve of it."
The ball commenced. There was present a great Scotch lord, the
Marquis of Huntley, who belonged to a very illustrious Jacobite
house. In his youth he had been what was then called a beau
danseur, and had had the honor of opening a fancy dress ball at
the Chateau of Versailles with the Queen Marie Antoinette. Charles
X. remembered it and wished that the Marquis, then nearly eighty,
should open the ball with little Mademoiselle, who was but nine.
Still a beau danseur, the old Englishman had not forgotten the
pirouettes of Versailles; all the court admired, and the young
princes were greatly amused.
The ball was a marvellous success. It was a revival of the
beautiful fetes of the Renaissance. The sixteenth century, so
elegant, so picturesque, lived anew. A painter, who was then but
twenty-nine, and who had already a great vogue, M. Eugene Lamy,
perpetuated its memory in a series of twenty-six watercolors,
which have been lithographed, and form a curious album. (A copy of
this album is in the National Library, in the Cabinet of
Engravings.) It contains, besides, four water-colors, representing
one, the ascent of the stairway of the Pavilion de Marsan by the
guests; another, Mary Stuart seated on the throne; a third, one of
the dances of the ball; a fourth, the entrance of the Dowager
Queen of Scotland twenty-two reproductions of the principal
personages at the fete. At the left are the arms of the historic
personages represented, and at the right those of the
representative. Then above the portrait of the Duchess of Berry
there are at the left the arms of Scotland and France, and at the
right those of France and the Two Sicilies, and above the portrait
of the Duke of Chartres at the left the arms of France, at the
right the ducal blazon of Orleans.
Here are the names of the twenty-two persons who figure in the
album of M. Eugene Lamy, with the personages represented:--
1. The Duchess of Berry (Mary Stuart).
2. The Duke of Chartres (Francis II.).
3. The Duke de Nemours (a king's page).
4. Lady Stuart de Rothsay (Marie de Lorraine). Daughter of Lord
Hardwicke, she was the wife of Lord Stuart de Rothsay, ambassador
of England at Paris.
5. The Marquis of Douglas, since Duke of Hamilton (the Duke de
Chatellerault), a finished type of the great Scotch lord; he
married in 1843 the Princess Mary of Baden, and under the reign of
Napoleon III. added to his titles of Hamilton and of Brandon in
Scotland and England, the title of Duke de Chatellerault, in
France, which had formerly belonged to the Hamilton family.
6. The Marchioness of Podenas, NEE Nadaillac (Catharine de'
Medici). Lady companion of the Duchess of Berry, she was one of
the brightest women of the court.
7. The Count de Pastoret, married to a de Neufermeil (Duke of
Ferrara).
8. The Marquis de Vogue (the Vidame de Chartres). Married to a
Mademoiselle de Machault d'Arnouville; his son was the diplomat
who was ambassador under the presidency of Thiers and of Marshal
Macmahon.
9. Count Ludovic de Rosanbo (Duke de Guise). He was one of the
handsomest men of his time. He had married the daughter of the
Count de Mesnard, lady companion to the Duchess of Berry.
10. The Countess de La Rochejaquelein, daughter of the Duke de
Duras (a lady of honor to the Queen). She was honorary lady
companion to the Duchess of Berry.
11. Miss Louise Stuart (a page to the Queen-Mother of Scotland).
12. Miss Pole Carew (Mary Seaton, maid of honor to the same
queen).
13. The Count de Mailly (Rene de Mailly, officer of the guard to
Mary Stuart). The Count was the son of the Marshal de Mailly,
defender of the Tuileries on August 10, who paid for his devotion
on the scaffold of the Revolution. Aide-de-camp of the Duke of
Bordeaux, and lieutenant-colonel; he was a brilliant officer who
had received glorious wounds in the Russian campaign. He was
married to a Mademoiselle de Lonlay de Villepail.
14. The Countess d'Orglandes, NEE Montblin, one of the prettiest
women of the court (Louise de Clermont-Tonnerre, Countess of
Crussol).
15. The Duchess de Caylus, NEE La Grange, a great beauty,
remarried afterwards to the Count de Rochemure (Diane de
Poitiers).
16. Mademoiselle de Bearn, a charming young girl, married
afterwards to the Duke of Vallombrosa, and dying so young and so
regretted (a maid of honor to Mary Stuart).
17. Count de Mesnard, peer of France, field marshal, first equerry
of the Duchess of Berry, aide-de-camp of the Duke of Bordeaux
(Admiral de Coligny).
18. Marquis de Louvois, peer of France, married to Mademoiselle de
Monaco (Count Gondi de Ritz).
19. The Duke of Richelieu, nephew of the President of the Council
of Ministers of Louis XVIII. (Jacques d'Albon, Marshal of Saint
Andre).
20. The Baron de Charette (Francois de Lorraine). He had married a
daughter of the Duke of Berry and of Miss Brown. His son was the
general of the Papal Zouaves.
21. Countess de Pastoret, NEE Neufermeil (the Duchess of
Montpensier).
22. The Countess Auguste de Juigne, NEE Durfort de
Civrac (Jeanne d'Albret).
Among the pages were the Duke de Maille, who carried the banner of
France, and Count Maxence de Damas.
Eugene Lamy, at the age of eighty-seven, exhibited in 1887 a
charming water-color, of which the subject was "A Ball under Henry
III." He has the same talent, the same brightness, the same
freshness of coloring as when, fifty-eight years before, he
painted the water colors of the Mary Stuart ball. The Duke de
Nemours, one of the last survivors of the guests of this ball,
could recount its splendors. Even in the time of the old regime no
more elegant ball was ever seen. If such a fete had been given in
our time, the detailed accounts of it would fill the papers; but
under the Restoration the press was very sober in the matter of
"society news," and the dazzling ball of 1829 was hardly
mentioned. On the morrow, the Journal des Debats said:--
"PARIS, 2d of March.
"The ball given at the Pavilion Marsan, in the apartments of the
Children of France, was honored by the presence of the King, M.
the Dauphin and Madame the Dauphiness. Mgr. the Duke of Orleans
and his family arrived at eight o'clock.
"Tomorrow there will be a play at the Court Theatre; the actors of
the opera will play La Muette de Portici."
Beside the persons who figure in the album of M. Eugene Lamy many
others were to be noted. Let us mention the Countess Hemi de
Biron, the Marchionness Oudinot, the Countess de Noailles, who
represented Margaret of Savoy, Claude Duchess of Lorraine, the
Princess de Conde, the Princess of Ferrara; the Count A. de Damas,
as Lanoue Bras-de-Fer; Monsieur de San Giacomo, as Francois de'
Medici; the Countess de Montault, as Countess de Coligny; the
Marchioness de Montcalm, as the Duchess de Bouillon; the flower of
the English aristocracy,--Lady Aldborough, Lady Rendlesham, Lady
Cambermere, Lady Vernon, Lord Ramlagh, Captain Drummond, Lord
Forwich, Lord Abayne, Miss Caulfuld, Miss Thelusson, Miss Baring,
Miss Acton, and, lastly, the Counts de Cosse de Biron, and de
Brissac, representing the three marshals of France whose names
they bore.
In donning the costume of the unfortunate queen whose sorrows
could only be compared to those of Marie Antoinette, the Duchess
of Berry proved how free her mind was from all gloomy
presentiments, forgetting that the family of the Bourbons had
already had its Charles I., and not foreseeing that it was soon to
have its James II., the amiable Princess hardly suspected that in
the course of next year, she would be an exile in Scotland in the
castle of Mary Stuart.
XXV
THE FINE ARTS
From 1824 to the end of the Restoration, the department of the
Fine Arts, connected with the ministry of the King's household,
was confided to the Viscount Sosthenes de la Rochefoucauld, son of
the Duke de Doudeauville. He was then at the head of the museums,
the royal manufactures, the Conservatory and the five royal
theatres,--the Opera, the Francois, the Odeon, the Opera-Comique,
and the Italiens.
From the point of view of arts and letters the reign of Charles X.
was illustrious. The King encouraged, protected, pensioned the
greater number of the great writers and artists who honored
France. What is sometimes called in literature the generation of
1830 would be more exactly described as the generation of the
Restoration. This regime can claim the glory of Lamartine, as
poet. A body-guard of Louis XVIII., he was the singer of royalty.
He published, in 1820, the first volume of his Meditations
Poetiques, in 1823 the second, and in 1829 the Harmonies. His
literary success opened to him the doors of diplomacy. He was
successively attache of the Legation at Florence, Secretary of
Embassy at Naples and at London, Charge d'Affaires in Tuscany.
When the Revolution of 1830 broke out, he had just been named
Minister Plenipotentiary to Greece.
Victor Hugo published his Odes et Ballades from 1822 to 1828. "La
Vendee," "Les Vierges de Verdun," "Quiberon," "Louis XVII," "Le
Retablissement de la Statue de Henri IV.," "La Mort du due de
Berry," "La Naissance du duc de Bordeaux," "Les Funerailles de
Louis XVIII.," "Le Sacre de Charles X.," are true royalist songs.
Alexandre Dumas, FILS, in receiving M. Leconte de Lisle at the
French Academy, recalled "the light of that little lamp, seen
burning every night in the mansard of the Rue Dragon, at the
window of the boy poet, poor, solitary, indefatigable, enamoured
of the ideal, hungry for glory, of that little lamp, the silent
and friendly confidant of his first works and his first hopes so
miraculously realized." Who knows? without the support of the
government of the Restoration the light of that little lamp might
less easily have developed into the resplendent star that the
author of La Dame aux Camelias indicated in the firmament.
The author of Meditations Poetiques and the author of the Odes et
Ballades were sincere in the expression of their political and
religious enthusiasm. These two lyric apostles of the throne and
the altar, these two bards of the coronation, obeyed the double
inspiration of their imagination and their conscience. Party
spirit should not be too severe for a regime that suggested such
admirable verses to the two greatest French poets of the
nineteenth century--to Lamartine and to Victor Hugo.
Let us recall also that in Victor Hugo it was not only the
royalist poet that Charles X. protected, it was also the chief of
the romantic school; for the government, despite all the efforts
of the classicists, caused Hernani to be represented at the
Francais, a subsidized theatre. When the Academy pressed its
complaint to the very throne to prevent the acceptance of the
play, the King replied wittily that he claimed no right in the
matter beyond his place in the parterre. The first representation
of Hernani took place the 25th of February, 1830, and the author,
decorated, pensioned, encouraged by Charles X., did not lose the
royal favor, when, on the 9th of March following, he wrote in the
preface of his work: "Romanticism, so often ill-defined, is
nothing, taking it all in all--and this is its true definition, if
only its militant side be regarded--but liberalism in literature.
The principle of literary liberty, already understood by the
thinking and reading world, is not less completely adopted by that
immense crowd, eager for the pure emotions of art, that throngs
the theatres of Paris every night. That lofty and puissant voice
of the people, which is like that of God, writes that poetry
henceforth shall have the same matter as politics! Toleration and
liberty!"
The first representation of a work that was a great step forward
for the romantic school, Henri III et sa Cour, by Alexandre
Dumas, had already taken place at the Francais, February 11, 1829.
The 30th of March, 1830, the Odeon gave Christine de Suede, by the
same author.
In 1829, Alfred de Vigny had represented at the Francais his
translation in verse of Othello. It was from 1824 to 1826 that the
poet published his principal poems. It was in 1826 that his
romance of Cinq-Mars appeared. Victor Hugo published Les
Orientates in 1829; Alfred de Musset, Les Contes d'Espagne et
d'Italie in 1830. It may be said then that before the Revolution
of 1830, romanticism had reached its complete expansion.
Note, also, that the government of Charles X. always respected the
independence of writers and artists, and never asked for eulogies
in exchange for the pensions and encouragement it accorded them
with generous delicacy. It named Michelet Maitre de Conferences at
the Ecole Normale in 1826. It pensioned Casimir Delavigne, so well
known for his liberal opinions, and Augustin Thierry, a writer of
the Opposition, when that great historian, having lost his
eyesight, was without resources. It ordered of Horace Vernet the
portraits of the King, the Duke of Berry, and the Duke of
Angouleme, as well as a picture representing a "Review by Charles
X. at the Champ-de-Mars," and named the painter of the battles of
the Revolution and the Empire director of the School of Rome.
From the point of view of painting as well as of letters, the
Eestoration was a grand epoch. Official encouragement was not
wanting to the painters. Gros and Gerard received the title of
Baron. There may be seen to-day in one of the new halls of the
French School at the Louvre, the pretty picture by Heim, which
represents Charles X. distributing the prizes for the Exposition
of 1824, where Le Vaeu de Louis XIII. by Ingres had figured, and
where the talent of Paul Delaroche had been disclosed. In the
Salon Carre of the Louvre, the King, in the uniform of general-in-
chief of the National Guards, blue coat with plaits of silver,
with the cordon of the Saint Esprit, and in high boots, himself
hands the cross of the Legion of Honor to the decorated artists,
among whom is seen Heim, the author of the picture.
Ingres, chief of the Classic School, and Delacroix, chief of the
Romantic School, shone at the same time. In 1827, the first
submitted to general admiration l'Apotheose d'Homere and Le
Martyre de Saint Symphorien. The same year Delacroix, who had
already given in 1824 Le Massacre de Scio, in 1826 La Mort du Doge
Mariano Faliero, exhibited LE Christ au Jardin des Oliviers,
acquired for the Church of Saint Paul; Justinien,--for the Council
of State; and La Mort de Sardanapale.
When the Musee Charles X. (the Egyptian Museum) was opened at the
Louvre, the government ordered the frescoes and ceilings from
Gros, Gerard, Ingres, Schnetz, Abel de Pujol. M. Jules Mareschal
says:--
"The right-royal munificence of Charles X. was not marked by
niggardliness in the appreciation of works of art any more than in
the appreciation of the works of science and letters. But, as is
known, it is not by interest alone that the heart of the artist is
gained and his zeal stimulated. They are far more sensitive to the
esteem shown them, to the respect with which their art is
surrounded, and to the taste manifested in the judgment of their
productions. Now, who more than Louis XVIII. and Charles X.
possessed the secret of awakening lively sympathy in the world of
artists and men of letters? Who better than their worthy
counsellor seconded them in the impulses of generous courtesy so
common with them? Thus from this noble and gracious manner of
treating men devoted to art and letters, which marked the royal
administration of the Fine Arts under the Restoration, sprang an
emulation and a good will which on all sides gave an impetus to
genius, and brought forth the new talents."
In theatrical matters, the Viscount Sosthenes de La Rochefoucauld
exercised a salutary influence. He loved artists, and wishing to
raise their situation, moral and social, he deplored the
excommunication that had been laid on the players.
Speaking of the stage, he wrote in a report addressed to Charles
X., June 20,1825: "I perceive that I have forgotten the most
essential side,--the moral, I will even say the religious side.
What glory it would be for a king to raise this considerable class
of society from the abject situation in which it is compelled to
live! Sacrificed to our pleasures, it has been condemned to
eternal death, and a king believes his conscience quiet! For a
long time I have cherished this thought; we must begin by
elevating these people, as regards their art, by reforming, little
by little, the swarming abuses that awaken horror, and end by
treating with Rome in order to obtain some just concessions that
would have important results."
In another report to the King, dated October 21, 1826, M. de La
Rochefoucauld wrote, apropos of the obsequies of Talma:--
"A profound regret for me is the manner of the great tragedian's
death. Sire, would it not be worthy of the reign, the breast, the
conscience of Charles X., to draw this class of artists from the
cruel position in which they are left by that excommunication that
weighs upon them without distinction? Whether they conduct
themselves well or ill, the Church repels them; this reprobation
holds them perforce in the sphere of evil and disorder, since they
have no interest in rising above it. Honor them, and they will
honor themselves. It is time to undertake the reform of what I
call a pernicious prejudice. The clergy itself is not far from
agreeing on these ideas."
In his relations with authors, artists, directors of theatres, the
Viscount was courtesy itself. We read in one of his reports (June
17, 1825):--
"Rossini is the first composer of Europe; I have succeeded in
attracting him to the service of France; he had before been
tempted in vain. Jealous of his success, people have cried out
that he was an idler, that he would do nothing. I secured him by
the methods and in the interest of the King; I can do with him as
I will, as with all the artists, though they are most difficult
people. They must be taken through the heart. Rossini has just
composed a really ravishing piece; and, touched by the manner in
which he is treated, he wishes to present it to the King in token
of his gratitude, and wishes to receive nothing. He is right, but
the King cannot accept gratis so fine a present; I propose that
the King grant him the cross of the Legion of Honor and announce
it himself to him to-morrow--which would be an act full of grace.
All favors must come always from the King."
Great tenacity was needed in the government of Charles X. to get
the Chefs-d'Oeuvre of Rossini represented at the Opera. A little
school of petty and backward ideas rushed, under pretext of
patriotism, but really from jealousy, systematically to drive from
the stage everything not French. For this coterie Rossini and
Meyerbeer were suspects, intruders, who must be repulsed at any
cost. The government had the good sense to take no account of this
ridiculous opposition, which refused to recognize that art should
be cosmopolitan. Before seeing his name on the bills of our first
lyric stage, Rossini required no less than nine years of patience.
All Europe applauded him, but at Paris he had to face the fire of
pamphleteers rendered furious by his fame. The government finally
forced the Opera to mount Le Siege de Corinthe. Its success was so
striking that the evening of the first representation (October 9,
1826), the public made almost a riot for half an hour, because
Rossini, called loudly by an enthusiastic crowd, refused to appear
upon the stage.
The maestro gave at the Opera Moise, March 26, 1826; Le Comte Ory,
August 20, 1828; Guillaume Tell, August 20, 1829. (At this time
the first representations of the most important works took place
in midsummer.) The evening of the first night of Guillaume Tell,
the orchestra went, after the opera, to give a serenade under the
windows of the composer, who occupied the house on the Boulevard
Montmartre, through which the Passage Jouffroy has since been cut.
The 10th of February, 1868, on the occasion of the hundredth
representation of the same work, there was a repetition of the
serenade of 1829. The master then lived in the Rue Chaussee
d'Antin, No. 2. Under his windows the orchestra and chorus of the
opera commenced the concert about half an hour after midnight, by
the light of torches, and Faure sang the solos.
The government which secured the representation of Guillaume Tell
was not afraid of the words "independence" and "liberty." A year
and a half before, the 20th of February, 1828, there had been
given at the Opera the chef-d'oeuvre of Auber, La Muette de
Portici, and the Duchess of Berry, a Neapolitan princess, had
applauded the Naples Revolution put into music.
The government of Charles X. protected Meyerbeer as well as
Rossini. Robert le Diable was only played under the reign of Louis
Philippe, but the work had already been received under the
Restoration.
During the reign of Charles X. the fine royal theatres reached the
height of their splendor: the Francais and the Odeon were
installed in their present quarters; the Opera in the hall of the
Rue La Peletier, excellent as to acoustics and proportions; the
Italiens in the Salle Favart (where they remained from 1825 to
1838); the Opera Comique in the Salle Feydeau, until the month of
April, 1829, when it inaugurated the Salle Ventadour. Talma,
Mademoiselle Duchesnoir, Mademoiselle Mars, triumphed at the
Francais; Mademoiselle Georges, at the Odeon; Nourrit, Levasseur,
Madame Damoreau, Taglioni, at the Opera; Sontag, Pasta, Malibran,
and Rubini at the Italiens.
The Viscount de la Rochefoucauld wished in every way to raise the
moral level of the theatre. He forbade subscribers, even the most
influential, the entree behind the scenes of the Opera, because
these persons had not always preserved there the desirable
decorum. Thence arose rancor and spite, against which he had to
contend during his entire administration. He wrote to the King,
July 29, 1828:--
"A cabal is formed to deprive me of the direction of the theatres;
and by whom and for what? It is a struggle, Sire, between good and
evil. It is sought to maintain, at any cost, the abuses I have
dared to reform. They throw a thousand unjust obstacles in my way.
Gamblers are mixed up in it too; they wish to join this ignoble
industry and the theatres. It is a monstrous infamy. The opera
must be reached at all hazards, the coulisses must be entered;
these are the abuses that must be revived. How can it be done? By
removing the theatres from troublesome authority ... Sire, Your
Majesty shall decide, and must defend me with a firm will in the
interest, I venture to declare, of order; you must defend yourself
also in the interest of morals and of art, and of a great
influence of which it is sought to deprive you."
M. de La Rochefoucauld had the last word, and remained at the head
of the direction of the Fine Arts until the close of the
Restoration. To the credit of his administration there must still
be added the creation of the school of religious music, directed
by Choron, and the foundation of the concerts of the conservatory
with Habeneck, and a little against the wishes of Cherubini. The
chefs-d'oeuvre of German music were brought out as well as those
of Italian music. The Viscount performed his task con amore, as
they say on the other side of the Alps. He wrote to Charles X.
January 12, 1830:--
"How many reflections must have come to the King on regarding the
picture of the Coronation! I divined the thought that he did not
complete, and my eyes filled with tears. Oh, how much I feel and
imagine all the ennui given to the King by these barren and
unfortunate politics! I detest them more even than the King
detests them. Ungrateful offspring of the times, they fly away,
rarely leaving even a memory. How much I prefer the arts!"
This was also the feeling of the Duchess of Berry, who, during all
the Restoration, fled from surly politics to live in the region,
radiant and sacred, of art and charity. The taste of this Italian
lady for painting and music was a veritable passion. She was
forever to be found in the museums, the expositions, the theatres.
She caught the melodies by heart and was always interested in new
works. An expert, a dilletante, was no better judge of pictures
and operas; the great artists who shone in the reign of Charles X.
received from the amiable Princess the most precious
encouragements. Nor did she forget to encourage the efforts of
beginners. "Who, then," she said, "would buy the works of these
poor young people, if I did not?"
XXVI
THE THEATRE OF MADAME
One of the most agreeable theatres of Paris, the Gymnase, owed its
prosperity, not to say its existence, to the high protection of
Madame the Duchess of Berry. Our old men recall its vogue, at the
time when they used to applaud Ferville, Gontier, Numa, Leontine
Fay, Jenny Verspre, and when they used to gaze at the greatest
ladies of the court, the most fashionable beauties; and they
remember that on its facade, from the month of September, 1824, to
the Revolution of 1830, there was this inscription in letters of
gold: "Theatre de Madame." Placed under the patronage of the
Princess, this fortunate theatre was a meeting-place of the most
elegant society of Paris. It had the same audiences as the Opera
and the Italiens, and they enjoyed themselves as much in the
entr'actes as during the acts. The spectacle was in the hall as
well as on the stage.
The origin of the Gymnase goes back to 1820. According to the
privilege accorded to the new stage under the Decazes ministry, it
was to be only a gymnase composed of the young pupils of the
Conservatoire, and other dramatic and lyric schools, and was
authorized only to present fragments from the various repertories.
But from the beginning it transgressed the limits set for it. Not
content with simple pupils, it engaged actors already well known.
In place of borrowing debris of the repertories of other theatres,
it created one of its own. At first the authorities shut their
eyes. But when M. de Corbiere became Minister of the Interior, he
tried to enforce the regulations and to compel the new theatre to
confine itself to the limits of its privilege. The Gymnase asked
for time, was very meek, prayed, supplicated. It would have
succumbed, however, but for the intervention of the Duchess of
Berry. Scribe composed for the apartments of the Tuileries a
vaudeville, called La Rosiere, in which he invoked the Princess as
protectress, as a beneficent fairy. She turned aside the
fulminations of M. de Corbiere. The minister was obstinate; he
wished the last word; but the Princess finally carried the day.
The day after he had addressed to the director of the Gymnase a
warning letter, he was amazed to hear the Duchess of Berry say: "I
hope, Monsieur, that you will not torment the Gymnase any longer,
for, henceforth, it will bear my name."
The minister yielded. The Gymnase was saved. It kept its company,
its repertory; it gained the right to give new pieces. From the
first days of September, 1824, it took the name of Madame the
Duchess of Berry. After the death of Louis XVIII., the 16th of
that month, the Duchess of Angouleme having replaced her title of
Madame by that of Dauphiness, and the Duchess of Berry taking the
former, the Gymnase was called the Theatre de Madame.
The programme of the Gymnase was constantly being renewed. Scribe,
whose verve was inexhaustible, wrote for this theatre alone nearly
one hundred and fifty pieces. It is true that he had
collaborators,--Germain Delavigne, Dupin, Melesville, Brazier,
Varner, Carmouche, Bayard, etc. It was to them that he wrote, in
the dedication of the edition of his works:--
"To my collaborators: My dear friends, I have often been
reproached for the number of my collaborators; for myself, who am
happy to count among them only friends, I regret, on the contrary,
that I have not more of them. I am often asked why I have not
worked alone. To this I will reply that I have probably neither
the wit nor the talent for that; but if I had had them I should
still have preferred our literary fraternity and alliance. The few
works I have produced alone have been to me a labor; those I have
produced with you have been a pleasure."
Eugene Scribe was born December 25, 1791, at Paris, Rue Saint-
Denis, near the Marche des Innocents. His father, whom he lost
early, kept a silk store, at the sign of the Chat Noir, where he
had made a considerable fortune. Eugene commenced his career as a
dramatic writer in 1811. From that time to his death (February 20,
1861), he composed alone, or with associates, and had represented
on the various stages of Paris, more than four hundred plays. M.
Vitel said, at the reception of M. Octave Feuillet, at the French
Academy, March 26, 1863:--
"There was in Scribe a powerful and truly superior faculty, that
assured to him and explained to me his supremacy in the theatre of
his day. It was a gift of dramatic invention that perhaps no one
before him has possessed; the gift of discovering at every step,
almost apropos of nothing, theatrical combinations of a novel and
striking effect; and of discovering them, not in the germ only, or
barely sketched, but in relief, in action, and already on the
stage. In the time needed by his confreres to prepare a plot, he
would finish four, and he never secured this prodigious fecundity
at the expense of originality. It is in no commonplace mould that
his creations are cast. There is not one of his works that has not
at least its grain of novelty."
On his part, M. Octave Feuillet, a master in things theatrical,
said in his reception discourse:--
"One of the most difficult arts in the domain of literary
invention, is that of charming the imagination without unsettling
it, of touching the heart without troubling it, of amusing men
without corrupting them; this was the supreme art of Scribe."
They are very pretty, very alert, very French, these plays of the
Theatre de Madame. They have aged less than many pretentious works
that have aimed at immortality. There is hardly one of them
without its ingenious idea, something truly scenic. We often see
amateurs seeking pieces to play in the salons; let them draw from
this repertory; they will have but an embarrassment of choice
among plays always amusing and always in good form.
Scribe said, in his reception discourse at the French Academy
(January 28, 1836):--
"It happens, by a curious fatality, that the stage and society are
almost always in direct contradiction. Take the period of the
Regency. If comedy were the constant expression of society, the
comedy of that time must have offered us strong license or joyous
Saturnalia. Nothing of the sort; it is cold, correct, pretentious,
but decent. In the Revolution, during its most horrible periods,
when tragedy, as was said, ran the streets, what were the theatres
offering you? Scenes of humanity, of beneficence, of
sentimentality; in January, 1793, during the trial of Louis XVI.,
La Belle Fermiere, a rural and sentimental play; under the Empire,
the reign of glory and conquest, the drama was neither warlike nor
exultant; under the Restoration, a pacific government, the stage
was invaded by lancers, warriors, and military costumes; Thalia
wore epaulettes. The theatre is rarely the expression of society;
it is often the opposite."
Scribe was an exception to the rule thus laid down by him. The
Theatre de Madame is an exact painting of the manners, the ideas,
the language of the Parisian bourgeoisie in the reign of Charles
X. Villemain was right in saying to Scribe, on receiving him at
the Academy:--
"The secret of your success with the theatre lies in having
happily seized the spirit of your century and in making the sort
of comedies to which it is best adapted and which most resemble
it."
The world that the amiable and ingenious author excels in
representing, is that of finance and the middle classes; it is the
society of the Chaussee d'Antin, rather than that of the Faubourg
Saint Germain. His Gymnase repertory is of the Left Centre, the
juste milieu, nearer the National Guard than the royal guard. The
protege of Madame the Duchess of Berry never flattered the ultras.
There is not in his plays a single line that is a concession to
their arrogance or their rancor; not a single phrase, not one
word, that shows the least trace of the prejudices of the old
regime; not one idea that could offend the most susceptible
liberal. It is animated by the spirit of conciliation and
pacification. We insist on this point because we see in it a proof
that a Princess who took under her protection a kind of literature
so essentially modern and bourgeois, never thought of reviving a
past destroyed forever.
The 28th of June, 1828, when the struggles of the liberals and the
ultras were so heated, Eugene Scribe, in connection with M. de
Rougemont, wrote for the Gymnase a piece entitled Avant, Pendant,
Apres, historical sketches in three parts. Avant was a critique of
the view of the old regime; Pendant, a critique of those of the
Revolution; Apres an appeal for harmony under the Charter and
liberty. This piece seems to us very curious, as a true programme,
a faithful reflection of the ideas of the haute bourgeoisie of
Paris a little before 1830.
The principal personage is a great liberal noble, the General
Count de Surgy, who has served gloriously in the armies of the
Republic and of the Empire, and at the close is named as deputy to
represent an intelligent and wise royalism. By the side of the
General is a certain Viscount, who has lived in a savage island
since the wreck of La Perouse, and who, more royalist than the
King, finds himself among strangers and is utterly dumfounded on
beholding the new France. Let us cite some fragments of this piece
in which there is more acuteness, more observation, more truth,
than in many of the studies called psychologic or historic:--
"THE GENERAL. Ah, do not confuse Liberty with the excesses
committed in her name. Liberty, as we understand her, is the
friend of order and duty; she protects all rights. She wishes
laws, institutions, not scaffolds.
THE MARQUIS. Alas! of what service to you are your courage and
your wise opinions? You are denounced, reduced as I am, to hiding,
after shedding your blood for them.
THE GENERAL. Not for them but for France. The honor of our country
took refuge in the armies, and I followed it there. I have done a
little good; I have hindered much evil, and if the choice were
still mine, I should follow the same route.
A VOICE (in the street). A great conspiracy discovered by the
Committee of Public Safety.
THE GENERAL. Still new victims.
THE MARQUIS. They who did not respect the virtues of Malesherbes,
the talents of Lavoisier, the youth of Barnave, will they recoil
from one crime more?
THE GENERAL. Decent people will get weary of having courage only
to die. France will reawaken, stronger and more united, for
misfortune draws to each other all ranks, all parties; and already
you see that we, formerly so divided, are understanding each other
better at last, and love each other more than ever.
THE MARQUIS (throwing himself into the General's arms). Ah, you
speak truly."
This scene passes in the midst of the Terror. The conclusion, the
moral of the piece, is as follows:--
"THE GENERAL. My friends, my fellow-citizens, we who, after so
many storms have finally reached port, and who, under the shelter
of the throne and the laws, taste that wise and moderate liberty
which has been the object of our desires for forty years; let us
guard it well, it has cost us dear. Always united, let us no
longer think of the evil done, let us see only the good that is,
let us put away sad memories, and let us all say, in the new
France, 'Union and forgiveness.'"
Among the spectators more than one could recognize himself in the
personages of the piece. But the allusions were so nicely made
that no one could be offended. Liberals and ultras could, on the
contrary, profit by the excellent counsels given them in the
little play of the Theatre de Madame.
Let us add, moreover, that Scribe never wished to be anything but
a man of letters. There could be applied to him the words said by
him of his confrere, friend, and nephew, Bayard:--
"A stranger to all parties, he speculated on no revolution; he
flattered no one in power, not even those he loved. He solicited
no honors, no places, no pension. He asked nothing of any one but
himself. He owed to his talent and his labor his honor and his
independence."
The device chosen by Scribe is a pen, above which is the motto:
Inde fortuna et libertas. The Duchess of Berry knew how to
understand and appreciate this man of wit and good sense. For his
part, Scribe avowed for the Princess a sentiment of gratitude that
he never falsified. When the days of ill fortune came for her, he
journeyed to bear his homage to her upon a foreign soil.
XXVII
DIEPPE
Dieppe has not forgotten the benefits received from the Duchess of
Berry. It was this amiable Princess that made fashionable the
pretty Normandy city and made it the most elegant bathing resort
of Europe. She made five visits there, of several weeks each, in
1824, 1825, 1826, 1827, and 1829.
The Duchess came for the first time to Dieppe some time before the
death of Louis XVIII. She arrived the 29th of July, and left the
23d of August. She conceived immediately a passion for the
picturesque town, as famous for its fine beach as for its smiling
environs. The enthusiasm manifested for her by the inhabitants
touched her. She said to the mayor: "Henri IV. was right when he
called the Dieppois his good friends. I shall imitate my ancestor
in his love for them."
The next year--the year of the coronation--Madame returned to her
favorite city. She arrived there the 2d of August, 1825. More than
twenty thousand persons were awaiting her at the boundary of the
district, and her entry was triumphal. The 6th of August, the
actors of the Gymnase, come from Paris, gave a theatrical
representation in her honor.
Madame made many excursions by sea. There was on her boat a tent
of crimson silk, above which floated the white flag. The little
flotilla of the royal navy had manoeuvres in her honor, and
saluted her with salvos of artillery. The 10th of September, the
Princess made an excursion to Bacqueville, where there awaited her
a numerous cortege of Cauchois women, all on horseback, in the
costume of the country. The 12th, she breakfasted in the ship Le
Rodeur, and a recently constructed merchant vessel was launched in
her presence. She departed the 14th, promising to return the
following year.
Accordingly, Madame left Paris for Dieppe the 7th of August, 1826.
The morrow of her arrival, she assisted at the inauguration of a
new playhouse that had been built within six months. The mayor
presented the Princess with some keys, artistically worked--the
keys to her loge and to her salon. The prologue of the opening
piece, entitled La Poste Royale, was filled with delicate
allusions and compliments. The 17th of August, there was a
performance offered by Madame to the sailors and soldiers of the
garrison. From his place in the parterre a subordinate of the 64th
regiment of the line sang, in honor of the Princess, some couplets
expressing the sentiments of his comrades.
The 19th, there was a visit to the ruins of the Chateau of Arques,
immortalized by the victory of Henry IV. An agreeable surprise for
Madame was a comedy for the occasion improvised by the actors of
the Vaudeville. When the Princess presents herself before the
Chateau, a little peasant girl at first refuses her admittance.
She has received orders, she says, from her father and mother to
open to no one, no matter whom. But the air Vive Henri IV. is
heard, and straightway both doors are opened wide to the Princess.
An old concierge and his wife sing piquant verses about their
first refusal to open to her. From here Madame is guided by the
little peasant girl to the entrance of an ancient garden, where
she perceives the whole troupe in the costume of gardeners and
garden girls. She is offered bouquets and escorted to a dairy at
the extremity of the ruins. The band of the guard plays for her
her favorite air, Charmante Gabrielle. A young milk-maid--the
pretty actress Jenny Colon--offers her a cup of milk and sings
couplets that please her greatly. Then comes the husband of the
dairy-maid and recounts to the grand-daughter of Henry IV. the
victory won by her ancestor over the Duke of Mayenne. A little
later, Madame is conducted to the foot of an ancient tower, whence
there is a view of immense extent. Here she is arrested by the
songs of an ancient minstrel, whose voice is accompanied by
mysterious music hidden in the hollows of the ruins.
Going from surprise to surprise, the Princess trav erses a long
arch of verdure where she reads on escutcheons the dates dear to
her heart. At the end of this long avenue, she again finds the
entire troupe of the Vaudeville, who re-escort her to the gates of
Chateau, singing a general chorus of farewell, amid cries of "Long
live the King! Long live Madame!" the effect of which is doubled
by repeated salutes of artillery.
Some days later, the 7th of September, the Duchess of Berry
learned, during the day, that a frightful tempest threatened to
engulf a great number of fishing-boats which were coming toward
port. Instantly she countermanded a ball that she was to give that
evening. She proceeded in all haste to the point whence aid could
be given to these unfortunates. Clinging to a little post on the
jetty, which the waves covered from all sides, she directed and
encouraged the rescue. The Dieppe correspondence of the Moniteur
said:--
"What has been seen at Dieppe alone, is a young Princess, braving
all the dangers of a wild sea, re maining on the end of the jetty
to direct the succor of the fishing-boats that were seeking refuge
in the harbor. She seemed placed there by the Deity as a
protecting angel, and the sailors who saw her took courage again."
She withdrew from the dangerous place, which she called her post,
only when all the barks had entered port. One man only had
perished. Before even changing her clothing the Princess sent
relief to his widow.
By her kindness, her charity, her grace, Madame won all hearts.
Her protection revived at Dieppe the commerce in ivory and laces.
She gave two brevets, one in her own name, the other in that of
Mademoiselle, to the best two manufacturers in the city, and made
considerable purchases. She founded at her expense, under the
direction of the Sisters of Providence, a manufactory of laces
where a large number of young girls obtained at the same time the
means of living and the benefits of a Christian education. Between
the Princess and her good city of Dieppe there was a constant
exchange of delicate attentions and proofs of sympathy. When she
was spoken to of preparations for departure, "Already?" she said
sadly. She left the 19th of September, 1826, and returned the
following year.
The 6th of August, 1827, Madame made an entry to Dieppe by the
hamlet of Janval. A great crowd went to visit her, and greeted her
with enthusiastic cheers. The 13th of August, the city offered her
a great ball, at which more than twelve hundred persons attended.
On the 16th, the portrait of the Princess was unveiled at the
Hotel de Ville. At the moment that the veil was raised, the band
of the fifth regiment of the royal guard played the air of Vive
Henri IV. amid long applause. The mayor of Dieppe, M. Cavalier,
pronounced a discourse in which he expressed the gratitude of the
inhabitants, and promised that the cherished image should be
surrounded, age after age, by the veneration of a city whose
history was one of constant devotion to its Kings. In the evening
Madame gave a soiree at which the hereditary Princess of Hesse-
Darmstadt was present. Rossini was at the piano and sang with his
wife and with Balfe; Nadermann played the harp.
The Duchess of Berry made numerous excursions by sea, even in the
worst weather. One day, at least, she was in some danger. The
sailors admired her good spirits and her courage. "Oh," they said,
"she is indeed a worthy descendant of Henry IV."
The 4th of September, 1827, Mademoiselle, with her governess, the
Duchess of Gontaut, came to join her mother at Dieppe. The little
Princess was to be eight years old the 2lst of the month. A formal
reception was given her. Her arrival was announced by the noise of
cannon and the sound of bells. The Baron de Viel-Castel, sub-
prefect of the city, made a complimentary address to her. She
responded in the most gracious manner, "I know how much you love
my mother, and I loved you in advance."
Madame, who had gone to meet her daughter at Osmonville, three
leagues from Dieppe, took her in her carriage. The horses
proceeded at a walk, and the people never wearied of admiring the
gentle little Princess. On the morrow, Madame received the homage
of the functionaries. The mayor said to her: "Your Royal Highness
is in a country filled with your ancestors, in a city honored by
Henry IV. with special benevolence, which Louis XIV. rewarded for
its fidelity by calling it 'his good city,' which your august
aunt, Madame the Dauphiness, deigned to choose for her return to
France, and which received her, triumphant and adored."
An elegant breakfast service in ivory, with her arms, was
presented to Mademoiselle by a group of very young people. She
next received a deputation of the fisherwomen of Du Polet, the
faubourg of Dieppe. They came in their picturesque costumes,--a
skirt falling a little below the knee, men's buckled shoes, a
striped apron of white and red, an enormous head-dress, with broad
tabs, and great ear-rings. They sang couplets expressing a lively
attachment to the family of the Bourbons. In their enthusiasm they
asked and obtained leave to kiss the little Princess.
On the 6th of September, there was a fete at the ruins of the
Castle of Arques. From seven in the morning the crowd gathered on
the hillside of Saint Etienne, at the edge of the coast between
Martin-Eglise and the village of Arques. It is a magnificent site,
which, towering above the valley, is surrounded on all sides by
grim hill-slopes, while in the distance is the sea, along the edge
of which extends the city of Dieppe, like a majestic dike. A mimic
battle took place in the presence of Madame and her daughter, on
the ground where Henry IV. had delivered the famous battle of
September 21, 1589. Numerous strokes on the flags of different
colors indicated the lines of the Bearnais, and circumscribed the
enceinte occupied by his troops. An obelisk had been placed at the
highest point of this sort of entrenched camp; in the centre was a
post tent, under which a rich breakfast had been prepared for the
two princesses. During the repast, both put their names to a
subscription to erect a monument commemorating the victory of
their ancestor.
The 14th of September, the city offered a ball to Madame and
Mademoiselle. The little Princess danced two quadrilles. The 15th,
she offered lunch to a great number of children of her own age,
and afterward went with them to the theatre. The 18th, at the
close of the play, some scenes were represented before Madame,
mingled with verses, expressing the regret of the city at the near
departure of Madame. The next day, the Princess and her daughter
left Dieppe, between double lines of troops and National Guards.
The journey of the Duchess of Berry in the West, in 1828,
prevented her from going that year to Dieppe. She came in 1829,
but it was for the last time. She arrived the 6th of August, with
her daughter. The next day she danced at a subscription ball given
by the city and by the visitors to the baths; the 8th she received
a visit from the Dauphiness, who passed three days with her.
For every fete there was a corresponding good work. The Princess
said: "I wish that while I am enjoying myself the poor may also
have their share." The 18th of August, she visited the bazaar
opened for the benefit of the indigent. Mademoiselle had conceived
the idea of writing her name on little objects of painted wood,
which were bid for at their weight in gold. The 24th, Madame gave
a concert, at which the Sontag sisters were heard and some stanzas
of the Viscount of Castel-bajac were recited. The 25th, the city
offered a ball to Mademoiselle, at which the grace of the little
Princess, her tact, and her precocious amiability, excited
surprise. The 9th of September, the inauguration of the monument
commemorative of the victory of Henry IV. took place in the
presence of Madame and her daughter. It was a column indicating
the point where the army of Mayenne debouched to surround the
King's troops, when, the fog rising, the artillery of the castle
could be brought into play, and threw into disorder the ranks of
the Leaguers. The inauguration interested the Duchess much. The
troops of the line and the National Guard had established bivouacs
where the princesses read with joy such inscriptions as these:
"The young Henry will find again the arquebusiers of Henry IV.--
The flag of the 12th will always rally to the white plume!--Two
Henrys--one love, one devotion."
A table of forty covers had been arranged under a pavilion draped
with flags. After the repast Madame and Mademoiselle danced
several quadrilles on the grass. The fete was charming. An
expression of joy was depicted on every face.
At the time of her various sojourns at Dieppe, the Duchess of
Berry went to visit the Orleans family at the Chateau d'Eu, She
manifested toward her aunt, Marie-Amelie, the liveliest affection,
and had no courtier more amiable and assiduous than the young Duke
of Chartres, whom, it is said, she wished to have as husband for
Mademoiselle. The 9th of September, she had been at the baptismal
font, with the Duke of Angouleme, the Duke of Montpensier, the
latest son of the Duke of Orleans. She was very fond of her god-
son, and nothing was more agreeable to her than a reunion at the
Chateau d'Eu, where Mademoiselle was always happy, playing with
her young cousins.
The Duchess of Berry and her daughter returned to Saint Cloud the
16th of September, 1829. On leaving, Mademoiselle said to the
Dieppois: "My friends, I will come back next year, and I will
bring you my brother." Neither she nor her mother was to return.
XXVIII
THE PRINCE DE POLIGNAC
At the very moment that the Duchess of Berry, happy and smiling,
was tranquilly taking the sea-baths at Dieppe, an event occurred
at Paris that was the signal for catastrophes. The 9th of August,
1829, the Moniteur published the decree constituting the cabinet,
in which were included the Prince de Polignac as Minister of
Foreign Affairs; Count de La Bourdonnaye as Minister of the
Interior; and as Minister of War, the General Count de Bourmont.
The next day the Debats said:--
"So here is once more broken the bond of love and confidence that
was uniting the people to the Monarch. Here once again are the
court with its old rancors, the Emigration with its prejudices,
the priesthood with its hatred of liberty, coming to throw
themselves between France and her King. What she has conquered by
forty years of travail and misfortune is taken from her; what she
repels with all the force of her will, all the energy of her
deepest desires, is violently imposed upon her. Ill-fated France!
Ill-fated King!"
The 15th of August the Debats reached a paroxysm of fury:--
"If from all the battle-fields of Europe where our Grand Army has
left its members, if from Belgium, where it left the last
fragments of its body, and from the place where Marshal Ney fell
shot, there arise cries of anger that resound in our hearts, if
the column of the Grand Army seems to tremble through all its
bronze battalions, whose is the fault? No, no; nothing is lacking
in this ministry of the counter-Revolution. Waterloo is
represented. ... M. de Polignac represents in it the ideas of the
first Emigration, the ideas of Coblenz; M. de La Bourdonnaye the
faction of 1815 with its murderous friendships, its law of
proscription, and its clientele of southern massacres. Coblenz,
Waterloo, 1815, these are the three personages of the ministry.
Turn it how you will, every side dismays. Every side angers. It
has no aspect that is not sinister, no face that is not menacing.
Take our hatreds of thirty years ago, our sorrows and our fears of
fifteen years ago, all are there, all have joined to insult and
irritate France. Squeeze, wring this ministry, it drips only
humiliations, misfortunes, dangers."
The Abbe Vedrenne, historian of Charles X., wrote:--
"How is the language of the writers of the Debats, who called
themselves royalists, to be understood? Was not Charles X. at
Coblenz? Did not Chateaubriand emigrate with the King and the
princes? Did he not follow Louis XVIII. to Ghent? Was he not in
his council at the very hour of the battle of Waterloo? They might
as well have stigmatized the white flag and demanded the
proscription of the King's dynasty. But such was their blindness
that they feared nothing for it. 'The throne runs no risk,' said
Chateaubriand, 'let us tremble for liberty only.' Yet the
nomination of the Polignac ministry was an error. It appeared to
be a provocation, a sort of defiance. Charles X. doubtless only
wished to defend himself, but in choosing such ministers at such
an hour, he appeared to be willing to attack."
From the debut of the new cabinet, the Opposition, to use a recent
expression, showed itself irreconcilable. It raised a long cry of
anger, and declared war to the death on Prince Polignac.
"It is in vain," said the Debats, "that the ministers demand of
Time to efface with a sweep of his wing their days, their actions,
their thoughts, of yesterday; these live for them, as for us. The
shadow of their past goes before them and traces their route. They
cannot turn aside; they must march; they must advance.--But I wish
to turn back.--You cannot.--But I shall support liberty, the
Charter, the Opposition.--You cannot. March, then, march, under
the spur of necessity, to the abyss of Coups d'Etat! March! Your
life has judged and condemned you. Your destiny is accomplished."
The man who excited hatreds so violent was Jules de Polignac. He
was born at Versailles, May 14, 1780. As the German historian,
Gervinus, has said: "His past weighed upon him like a lash of
political interdict. He was the son of the Duchess of Polignac,
who had been the object of so many calumnies, and who had never
been pardoned for the intimate friendship with which she was
honored by the unfortunate queen, Marie Antoinette, a friendship
that had evoked against her, first all the jealousies of the
envious courtiers, and then all the aversion of the people. It was
believed that a like favoritism could be recognized in the
relations of the son of the Duchess with Charles X. To this
unpopularity, inherited from his mother, was joined another that
was directed against the person of the emigre."
After having been one of the courtiers of the little court at
Coblenz, he had taken service for some time in Russia, and then
passed into England, where he had been one of the most intimate
confidants, and one of the most active agents of the Count
d'Artois. Sent secretly into France, with his elder brother, the
Duke Armand de Polignac, he was, like the latter, compromised in
the Cadoudal conspiracy. Their trial is remarkable for the noble
strife of devotion, in which each of the brothers pleaded the
cause of the other at the expense of his own. Armand was condemned
to death. His wife threw herself at the feet of the First Consul,
who, thanks to the intercession of Josephine, commuted the penalty
of death to perpetual confinement. Jules was condemned to prison,
and shared the captivity of his brother. Confined at first in the
castle of Ham, then in the Temple, then at Vincennes, they
obtained, at the time of the marriage of Napoleon with Marie
Louise, their transfer to a hospital. There they knew the General
Mallet, but the part they were suspected of taking in his
conspiracy was never proven. When the allied armies entered
France, they succeeded in escaping, and rejoined the Count
d'Artois at Vesoul. They penetrated to Paris some days before the
capitulation, and displayed the white flag there the 3d of March,
1814.
Peer of France, field-marshal, ambassador, the Prince Jules de
Polignac was one of the favorites of the Restoration. On the
proposition of M. de Chateaubriand, then Minister of Foreign
Affairs, he had him named, in 1823, ambassador to London, where he
had shown a genuine talent for diplomacy. The example of England
made him think that in France the liberties of the constitutional
regime could be combined with the directing influence of an
aristocracy. That was his error and the cause of his fall. Some
weeks before his accession to the ministry, he had solemnly
affirmed in the Chamber of Peers, that he considered the Charter
as a solemn pact, on which rested the monarchical institutions of
France, and as the heavenly sign of a serene future. But the
liberals did not believe his word, and accused him of striving to
re-establish the old regime.
Even at court the accession of the Prince de Polignac did not fail
to cause apprehension. Charles X., having announced to the Duchess
of Gontaut that he was going to appoint him minister, added: "This
news must give you pleasure; you know him well, I believe." The
Duchess replied: "He has been absent a long time. I only knew him
when very young." The King resumed: "Do not speak of it; it is my
secret as yet." Madame de Gontaut could not keep from smiling, for
she held several letters from London in her hand, among others one
from the sister-in-law of the Duke of Wellington, announcing the
news. Charles X. wished to see the letters. "He is good, loyal,"
they said, "loving the King as one loves a friend, but feeble, and
with bad surroundings. It is doubted whether he can ever rise to
the height of the post in which the King wishes to place him."
Charles X., wounded by the indiscretion of the Prince, and also by
that of the Duke of Wellington, who divulged what he himself was
keeping secret, returned the letter to Madame de Gontaut, and
remarked:--
"It is very thoughtless in Jules to have spoken of it so soon, and
in the Duke to have published it." The Duchess of Gontaut, who was
used to frank talk with the King, said: "In the circumstances
existing, I long for, I confess it frankly, and at the risk of
displeasing Your Majesty, yes, I long for the Martignac ministry."
Then, adds the Duchess in her unpublished Memoirs, the King, more
impatient than ever, turned his back on me, and took his way to
his apartment. I had had the courage to tell him my thought and
the truth. I did not repent it. When we saw each other again the
same day he did not speak to me again of it.
One of those most devoted to the elder branch, the Duke Ambroise
de la Rochefoucauld-Doudeauville, also says in his Memoirs:--
"The King sincerely wished for the Charter, whatever may be said,
but he wished for the monarchy; he, therefore, decided to change
ministers who had made promises that seemed to him fatal, and to
replace them by others whose principles suited him better. He was
not happy in this choice, it must be agreed. He took as Minister
of Foreign Affairs and President of the Council the Prince de
Polignac. For a long time public opinion had foreseen this choice,
and dreaded it. At the commencement of the Restoration M. de
Polignac for more than a year had refused to recognize the Charter
and to swear fidelity to it, which made him regarded as the
pronounced enemy of our institutions. Was this antipathy real? I
do not think so. He had for a long time lived in England, as
ambassador, and was thoroughly imbued with principles at once very
constitutional and very aristocratic, after the English fashion.
His devotion was great, as well as his personal merit, but his
resources as a statesman were not so much so; he took his desire
to do well for the capacity to do well, and he mistook."
When he assumed the direction of affairs the Prince de Polignac
was wholly surprised at the systematic and obstinate opposition
that he encountered. As M. Guizot said, "he was sincerely
astonished that he was not willingly accepted as a minister
devoted to the constitutional regime. But the public, without
troubling itself to know if he were sincere or not, persisted in
seeing in him the champion of the old regime and the standard-
bearer of the counter-Revolution."
Although he had passed a part of his life in England, first as
emigre, then as ambassador, and had married as his first wife an
English lady, Miss Campbell, and as his second another, the
daughter of Lord Radcliffe, the Prince de Polignac was French at
heart.
No Minister of Foreign Affairs in France had in higher degree the
sentiment of the national dignity. Yet this is the way the Debats
expressed itself, the 16th of August, 1829, about a man who, the
next year, at the time of the glorious Algiers Expedition, was to
hold toward England language so proud and firm:--
"The manifesto of M. de Polignac comes to us from England. That is
very simple. We have a minister who scarcely knows how to speak
anything but English. It takes time to relearn one's native tongue
when one has forgotten it for many years. It appears even that one
never regains the accent in all its freedom and purity. In fact,
the English have not given us M. de Polignac; they have sold him
to us. That people understand commerce so well."
Despite all the violent criticisms, all the implacable hatreds by
which he was incessantly assailed, the Prince de Polignac was a
noble character, and no one should forget the justness of soul
with which, from the commencement to the end of his career, he
supported misfortune and captivity. The Viscount Sosthenes de La
Rochefoucauld, afterwards the Duke of Doudeauville, says, in his
Memoirs:--
"The purest honor, the loftiest disinterestedness, the sincerest
devotion, are not everything, there is needed a capacity for
affairs, a knowledge of men, which experience alone procures and
which even the strongest will cannot give. M. de Polignac had all
the qualities of the most devoted subject, but his talent did not
rise to the height of his position. If it had been necessary only
to suffer and to march to death, no one, surely, could have
equalled him; but more was requisite, and he remained beneath the
level of the circumstances he thought he was overcoming; the fall
of the throne was the consequence. How he developed, though, and
grew great when in duress, and who should flatter himself that he
could bear up with a firmness more unshaken against the severest
trials? If M. de Polignac is not a type of the statesman, he will
at least remain the complete model of the virtues of the Christian
and the private citizen."
The Prince de Polignac was mistaken, but he acted in good faith.
No one can dispute his faults, but none can suspect the purity of
his intentions. Unfortunately his royalism had in it something of
mysticism and ecstasy that made of this gallant man a sort of
illumine. He sincerely believed that he had received from God the
mission to save the throne and the altar, and foreseeing neither
difficulties nor obstacles, regarding all uncertainty and all fear
as unworthy of a gentleman and a Christian, he had in himself and
in his ideas, that blind, imperturbable confidence that is the
characteristic of fanatics. In a period less troubled, this great
noble would perhaps have been a remarkable minister of foreign
affairs, but in the stormy time when he took the helm in hand, he
had neither sufficient prudence nor sufficient experience to
resist the tempest and save the ship from the wreck in which the
dynasty was to go down.
XXIX
GENERAL DE BOURMONT
The new Secretary of War awoke no less lively anger than the
Prince de Polignac. He was a general of great merit, bold to
temerity, brave to heroism, and a tactician of the first order.
But his career had felt the vicissitudes of politics, and like so
many of his contemporaries,--more, perhaps, than any of them,--he
had played the most contradictory parts. Equally intrepid in the
army of Conde, in the Vendean army, and in the Grand Army of
Napoleon, he had won as much distinction under the white flag as
under the tricolor. The Emperor, who was an expert in military
talent, having recognized in him a superior military man, had
rewarded his services brilliantly. But it is difficult to escape
from the memories of one's childhood and first youth.
General Count de Bourmont, born September 2, 1773, at the Chateau
of Bourmont (Maine-et-Loire), amid the "Chouans," had shared their
religious and monarchical passions. Officer of the French Guards
at sixteen, and dismissed by the Revolution, he followed his
father at the beginning of the Emigration, lost him at Turin, then
went to join the Count d'Artois at Coblenz. He took part in the
campaign of 1792, until the disbandment of the Prince's army,
served as a simple cavalryman in the army of Conde, then threw
himself into La Vendee in the month of October, 1794. He was
second in command of the troops of Scepeaux. The Vendean
insurrection of 1799 recognized him as one of its chiefs. Victor
at Louverne, he seized Mans the 15th of October, and was the last
to lay down his arms.
Bourmont had a passion for the life of the camp. When the royal
troops had laid down their arms, he was ready to fight in the
ranks of the imperial troops rather than not to fight at all. He
distinguished himself in the Russian campaign, contributed to the
victory of Lutzen, made a heroic defence at Nugent during the
campaign in France, and was named general of division by the
Emperor.
During the Hundred Days, General de Bourmont, guilty as was
Marshal Ney, abandoned the cause of Napoleon as the Marshal had
that of Louis XVIII. But there were attenuating circumstances for
their conduct. One could not resist the prestige of the Emperor,
nor the other that of the King. What aggravated the situation of
General de Bourmont was that, after having sought a command from
Napoleon, as Marshal Ney had from Louis XVIII., he deserted three
days before the battle of Waterloo. The royalist, the soldier of
the army of Conde, the "Chouan" had suddenly reappeared under the
General of the Empire. His King had summoned him, and impelled by
a false sentiment of conscience, he had responded to the appeal of
his King. But he was wrongly suspected of having delivered to the
English and Prussians the plans of Napoleon.
One may read in the Memoirs of the Duke Ambroise de Doudeauville:--
"The Count de Bourmont was appointed Minister of War. He had to
meet grave prejudices. It was claimed that, having accepted
service under Bonaparte in the Hundred Days, he had deserted a few
hours before the battle of Waterloo, taking with him a great part
of the troops, and carrying to the enemy the plans and projects of
the campaign. I owe it to the truth to say that this story is
greatly exaggerated. I have it from Marshal Gerard himself--and
his testimony cannot be suspected--that some days before this
battle M. de Bourmont had written him that, summoned by Louis
XVIII., he believed it his duty to go to him, but promised to
guard the most religious silence. He kept his word, went alone,
carried away no plan, and faithfully kept the secret."
The Duke adds:--
"I knew, from Charles X. himself, that he was very greatly
surprised at the accusation of desertion brought against M. de
Bourmont when he appointed him minister. He had not the least idea
that that reproach could be addressed to him, for he knew that the
General had but obeyed the orders of Louis XVIII., his legitimate
sovereign."
Does not this phrase show the illusions of which Charles X. was
the victim? He never even suspected that his choice was a
challenge to the old soldiers of the Empire. Yet the violence of
the liberal press certainly extended the range of insult. "As for
the other," said the Journal des Debats disdainfully, "on what
field of battle did he win his epaulets? There are services by
which one may profit, which may even be liberally paid for, but
which no people ever dreamed of honoring." And, as if the allusion
was not sufficiently transparent, "I see," added the same writer,
"but one kind of discussion in which the minister can engage with
credit--that of the military code, and the chapter relating to
desertion to the enemy. There are among our new ministers those
who understand the question to perfection." As for the Figaro, it
confined itself to quoting this line from a proclamation of the
General during the Hundred Days: "The cause of the Bourbons is
forever lost! April, 1815.--BOURMONT."
Despite the virulent attacks of the journals, General de Bourmont,
who had distinguished himself on so many battle-fields, had
authority with the troops, and the Expedition of Algiers the next
year was to show him to be a military man of the first order. If
Charles X. committed an error in naming him as minister, he
committed a greater one in sending him away from Paris before the
"ordinances," for no one was more capable of securing the success
of a coup d'etat. M. de Chateaubriand remarks:--
"If the General had been in Paris at the time of the catastrophe,
the vacant portfolio of war would not have fallen into the hands
of M. de Polignac. Before striking the blow, had he consented to
it, M. de Bourmont would beyond doubt have massed at Paris the
entire royal guard; he would have provided money and supplies so
that the soldiers would have lacked for nothing."
We are inclined to think, however, that when he took the portfolio
of war General de Bourmont was not dreaming of a coup d'etat, and
that the Prince de Polignac had as yet no thought of it. This
minister, who was so decried, showed at the outset such an
inoffensive disposition that the Opposition was surprised and
disturbed by it.
"The minister," said the Debats, "boasts of his moderation,
because in the ten days of his existence, he has not put France to
fire and sword, because the prisons are not gorged, because we
still walk the streets in freedom. From all this, nevertheless,
flows a striking lesson. There are men who were going to make an
end of the spirit of the century. Well, they do nothing!"
The journals of the Right lamented this inaction.
"If the ministerial revolution," said the Quotidienne, "reduces
itself to this, we shall retire to some profound solitude where
the sound of the falling monarchy cannot reach us."
Then, more royalist than the King, M. de Lamennais wrote on the
subject of the new ministers: "It is stupidity to which fear
counsels silence." M. Guizot says in his Memoires pour servir a
l'histoire de mon temps:--
"This ministry, formed to overcome the Revolution and save the
monarchy, remained inert and sterile. The Opposition insultingly
charged it with impotence; it called it the hectoring ministry,
the dullest of ministries, and, for answer, it prepared the
expedition of Algiers and prorogued the Chambers, protesting
always its fidelity to the Charter, promising itself to get out of
its embarrassments by a majority and a conquest."
The Duchess of Berry had seen without apprehension, and perhaps
even with pleasure, the nomination of the new ministers.
Tranquillity reigned in France. There was no symptom of agitation,
no sign of disquiet in the circle surrounding the Princess, and
after an agreeable stay of some weeks at Dieppe, she proceeded to
the south, where her journey was a triumph.
XXX
THE JOURNEY IN THE SOUTH
The journey of the Duchess of Berry in the south of France, in
1829, was scarcely less triumphant than that she had made in the
Vendee the year before. The object of the Princess was to meet her
family of the Two Sicilies, which was traversing the kingdom on
the way from Italy to Spain, to escort to Madrid the young Marie-
Christine, who was about to espouse King Ferdinand VII.--his
fourth wife.
Born October 13, 1784, King since March 19, 1808, Ferdinand VII.
had married, first, Marie Antoinette, Princess of the Two
Sicilies; second, Isabelle-Marie Francoise, Princess of Portugal;
third, Marie-Josephe-Amelie, Princess of Saxony. He had chosen for
his fourth wife, Marie-Christine, Princess of the Two Sicilies,
born April 27, 1806. Sister of the father of the Duchess of Berry,
Marie-Christine was the daughter of Francois I., King of the Two
Sicilies, and his second wife, the Infanta of Spain, Marie-
Isabelle, born October 13, 1784, and sister of Ferdinand II. The
King of the Two Sicilies was escorting his daughter, Marie-
Christine, to the King of Spain, where she was to marry at Madrid
the 11th of December, 1829. Ferdinand VII. had a brother, the
Infante Francois de Paule, born March 10, 1784, who had espoused a
princess of the Two Sicilies, Louise-Caroline-Marie Isabelle, born
October 24, 1804, sister of the Duchess of Berry. From this
marriage was born the Infante Don Francisco of d'Assisi, husband
of Queen Isabelle. The Infante and Infanta Francois de Paule
traversed the south of France, to meet the Bourbons of Naples. We
may add that the Duchess of Orleans, sister of King Francois I.,
aunt of Marie-Christine and of the Duchess of Berry, went with her
husband to the eastern frontier of France to meet her relatives.
The Duchess of Berry, authorized by Charles X. to go to the south
to meet her father, her step-mother, and her sisters, left Saint
Cloud, October 10, 1829. The 17th, she was at Lyons, whither she
promised to return. At Valence, she found her step-brother and her
sister, the Infante and Infanta Francois de Paule, and returned
with them to Lyons, where, October 20, she was greeted by a great
crowd, eager to look upon her face. At the Grand Theatre Their
Highnesses assisted at a performance, in which the actor Bernard-
Leon, Jr., played the part of Poudret in Le Coiffeur et le
Perruquier.
Their Highnesses quitted Lyons, October 23, visited the Grande-
Chartreuse the 24th, and were at Grenoble the 25th, where they met
the Bourbons of Naples, who arrived in that city the 31st, coming
from Chambery. The Duchess of Berry, the Infante and Infanta
Francois de Paule, the Duke and Duchess of Orleans, received them
at their entry into France. Everywhere, from the frontier to
Grenoble, the Sicilian Majesties were met by the authorities, the
mayors, the clergy. Triumphal arches were erected by various
communes. The one constructed by the Marquis de Marcieu, in the
wood of the avenue of his Chateau of Trouvet, was especially
remarked. This arch formed three porticoes, surmounted by the arms
of France, Naples, and Spain. Above were these words, "Love to all
the Bourbons." The grand avenue of the chateau was draped from one
end to the other. Every tree bore a white flag. Garlands of
verdure, mingled with these flags, formed an arbor that stretched
as far as the eye could see. Thirty young girls, clad in white,
crowned with flowers, and holding little flags in their hands,
were ranged in two lines near the arch. They offered to the King
of Naples, to the Queen and the princesses, bouquets and baskets
of fruits. When the cortege arrived before Grenoble, the mayor
said: "Sire, the descendants of Louis XIV. have imprescriptible
rights to our respect, to our love. We can never forget their
origin nor the indissoluble bonds that bind them to our native
land, and still less the virtues and goodness that distinguish
this illustrious dynasty." He added: "Sire, the city of Grenoble
deems itself happy in being the first city of France to present to
Your Majesties the homage of our respects, and to thank you for
the noble present you have made to our land in the person of your
illustrious daughter, Madame, Duchess of Berry. May the future
Queen of Spain long embellish the throne on which she is about to
take her seat, and reign over the hearts of her new subjects as
her heroic sister reigns over ours. Long live the King! Forever
live the Bourbons!"
The Duchess of Berry accompanied her relatives to the Pyrenees.
The journey was a long series of ovations. Marie-Christine, who
was about to ascend the throne of Spain, never ceased to admire
the riches and beauty of France. "Ah, my sister," said the Duchess
of Berry to her, "do not contemplate it too much. You would not be
able to quit it!" During the entire passage--at Valence, Avignon,
Montpellier, Nimes--the people rivalled the authorities in making
the welcome as brilliant as possible. Perpignan was reached the
10th of Novemher. The King and Queen of Naples, the Duchess of
Berry, and the future Queen of Spain, journeyed together in an
uncovered caleche. Madame accompanied her relatives to the
frontier at Perthus, where she bade them adieu, the 13th of
November. The French troops from the foot of Bellegarde flanked
the right of the road. At the first salute fired from the fort, an
immense crowd of French and Spanish, who occupied the heights,
greeted with harmonious shouts the appearance of the royal
carriage. On an arch of triumph, erected on the Spanish side of
the frontier, floated the flags of the three peoples placed under
the sceptre of the Bourbons. That of France was in the middle and
seemed to protect those of Spain and Naples on either side. Thus
was indicated the mother branch of the three reigning families.
The adieux were made with effusion. The Duchess of Berry fell at
the feet of her father, who hastened to raise her and embrace her
tenderly. The two sisters threw themselves into each other's arms.
Then they parted.
While the Bourbons of Naples were entering on the soil of Spain,
the Duchess of Berry returned to Perpignan. She left there the
14th, and the ovations were renewed along the route. The 16th, she
passed through Montpellier, where she admired the promenade of the
Peyrou, whence are perceived the sea, the Pyrenees, and the Alps,
and saw the foundations prepared for an equestrian statue of Louis
XIV. The 17th, at Tarascon, she breakfasted with the Marquis de
Gras-Preville, and was present at the games instituted by good
King Rene,--tambourine dances and the races of the Tarasque. The
18th, at Arles, she visited the Cloister of Saint Trophime, and
the Roman circus. About eighteen thousand persons were crowded on
the ancient benches. The galleries resounded with military music
which, borne from echo to echo, spread beneath all the arches. In
the evening the entire city was illuminated. From a balcony, the
Princess assisted at a pegoulade, a sort of torchlight promenade
of five or six hundred young people, who bore pieces of tarred
rope lighted at one end. She desired to see again these bizarre
and picturesque effects of light, this joyous procession, this
clamorous animation, and she had the enthusiastic cortege file a
second time under her windows. The 21st, she visited the Roman
theatre at Orange, one of the most curious ruins of the world. The
23d, she passed again through Lyons. The 28th, she was at the
Tuileries for dinner.
The Duchess of Berry returned enchanted with her journey. Never
had the throne of the Bourbons seemed to her more solid, never
were the advantages of the family pact revealed in a more
brilliant manner. The Moniteur wrote: "The Princess Marie-
Christine has heard her name mingling in the air with that of her
whose son is one day to be King of France. Happy the new Queen, if
her presence shall deliver Spain from the factions that still
divide it, and if, finding beyond the mountains the same order,
devotion, prosperity, as in our provinces, she can cry, 'There are
no longer any Pyrenees.'"
The Duchess of Berry had not found the inclinations of the south
less royalist than that of La Vendee. Everywhere protestations
were made to her, verging on lyrism, on idolatry; the idea of
suspecting such demonstrations never crossed her mind. She
persuaded herself that France loved her as much as she loved
France.
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