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Title: Louis Philippe
       Makers of History Series


Author: John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott



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Language: English

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Makers of History

LOUIS PHILIPPE

by

JOHN S. C. ABBOTT

With Engravings







New York and London
Harper & Brothers Publishers
1904

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by
Harper & Brothers,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

Copyright, 1899, by Susan Abbott Mead.




[Illustration: LOUIS PHILIPPE AT THE HOTEL DE VILLE.]




PREFACE.

It would be difficult to find, in all the range of the past, a man
whose career has been so full of wonderful and exciting vicissitude
as that of Louis Philippe. His life covers the most eventful period
in French history. The storms of 1789 consigned his father to the
guillotine, his mother and brothers to imprisonment, and himself and
sister to poverty and exile. There are few romances more replete with
pensive interest than the wanderings of Louis Philippe to escape the
bloodhounds of the Revolution far away amidst the ices of Northern
Europe, to the huts of the Laplanders, and again through the almost
unbroken wilds of North America, taking refuge in the wigwams of the
Indians, and floating with his two brothers in a boat a distance of
nearly two thousand miles through the solemn solitudes of the Ohio
and the Mississippi from Pittsburg to the Gulf.

Again we see the duke, on the recovery of a large portion of his
estates, enjoying the elegant retreat at Twickenham, feted by the
nobility of England, and caressed by the aristocracy of Europe.

Again the kaleidoscope of changeful life is turned. The Empire falls.
The Bourbons are restored. Louis Philippe returns to the palaces of
his fathers. In rank, he takes his stand next to the throne. In
wealth, he is the richest subject in Europe. At one moment he is
caressed by Royalty, hoping to win his support, and again he is
persecuted by Royalty, fearing his influence.

There is another change. The throne of the Bourbons is overthrown.
Louis Philippe finds himself, as by magic, King of the French. He
exchanges his ducal coronet for a royal crown. He enters the regal
mansions of the Tuileries, Versailles, Saint Cloud, and Fontainebleau
the acknowledged sovereign of thirty millions of people. All the
proud dynasties of Europe recognize him as belonging to the family of
kings. Eighteen years pass away, crowded with the splendor, cares,
toils, and perils which seem ever to environ royalty. During this
period the adventures of the Duchess de Berri to regain the throne
for her son, the Count de Chambord, presents an episode of
extraordinary interest.

There is another change. The tocsin of insurrection tolls its dismal
knell in the towers of Paris. Through scenes surpassing fable, the
king and his family escape to the hospitable shores of England. Here,
in obscurity and exile, he reaches the end of life's journey, and
passes away to the unknown of the spirit-land. Such is the wonderful
story which we have endeavored to compress within the limits of these
brief pages. Every event here narrated is sustained by documentary
evidence beyond the possibility of a doubt.

                         JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.

_Fair Haven, Conn._




CONTENTS.


 CHAPTER                                                    PAGE

    I. ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE OF ORLEANS                        13

   II. THE EXILE                                             45

  III. WANDERINGS IN THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW               76

   IV. THE TOMB AND THE BRIDAL                              109

    V. THE RESTORATION                                      136

   VI. THE DEATH OF LOUIS XVIII. AND THE REIGN OF
       CHARLES X                                            168

  VII. CHARLES X. DETHRONED                                 204

 VIII. THE STRUGGLES OF DIPLOMACY                           241

   IX. LOUIS PHILIPPE'S THRONE                              279

    X. THE ADVENTURES OF THE DUCHESS DE BERRI               306

   XI. THE FINAL STRUGGLE                                   349

  XII. THE THRONE DEMOLISHED                                379




ENGRAVINGS.


                                                            PAGE

 LOUIS PHILIPPE AT THE HOTEL DE VILLE            _Frontispiece._

 EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI                                      27

 STORMING THE BASTILE                                        40

 FLIGHT AND IMPRISONMENT OF LAFAYETTE                        50

 SAINT GOTHARD                                               71

 NORTH CAPE                                                  80

 LOUIS XVII. IN PRISON                                      113

 LOUIS XVIII. LEAVING PARIS                                 147

 NAPOLEON ENTERING THE TUILERIES                            151

 MARSHAL NEY                                                162

 ASSASSINATION OF THE DUKE DE BERRI                         171

 PALACE OF ST. CLOUD                                        222

 CHARLES X. AT VALOGNES                                     234

 THE PALAIS ROYAL                                           275

 THE BARRICADE                                              312

 ST. HELENA                                                 353

 LOUIS PHILIPPE LEAVING FRANCE                              391




LOUIS PHILIPPE.




CHAPTER I.

ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE OF ORLEANS.

1669-1793

Louis and Philippe.--The regent.--Louis de Valois.--Louis le
Gros.--Pride of royalty.--Birth of Egalite.--Fortune of the Duke
of Orleans.--Democracy of the Duke of Orleans.--Wealth of the
Duke of Orleans.--Banishment of the duke.--Popularity of the
Duke of Orleans.--Assembling of the States-General.--Commotion
in Paris.--Flight of the nobles.--Petition of the Duke of
Orleans.--Domestic discord.--Flight of General Dumouriez.--Arrest
of the Duke of Orleans.--Execution of Egalite.--Birth of Louis
Philippe.--His daily journal.--Educational influences.--Mental and
physical training.--Testimony of Madame de Genlis.--Demolition of
the Bastile.--The Duke of Chartres joins the Jacobin Club.--His
affability.--Noble sentiment.


The origin of the House of Orleans is involved in some obscurity. The
city of Orleans, from which the duke takes his title, was the
Aurelium of imperial Rome. The first Duke of Orleans with whom
history makes us familiar was Philip, the only brother of Louis XIV.
Louis XIII., the son and heir of Henry IV., married Anne of Austria.
Two children were born to them, Louis and Philippe. The first became
the world-renowned monarch, Louis XIV. His brother, known in history
as Monsieur, enjoyed the title and the princely revenues of the
dukedom of Orleans.

Monsieur married, as his first wife, the beautiful Henrietta Stuart,
daughter of the unfortunate Charles I. of England. Her mother was
Henrietta of France, the daughter of Henry IV., and sister of Louis
XIII. She died in the bloom of youth and beauty, of poison, after the
most cruel sufferings, on the 27th of June, 1669.[A] Philippe took as
his second wife Elizabeth Charlotte, daughter of the Elector Charles
of Bavaria. By this marriage he left a son, Philippe, who not only
inherited his father's almost boundless wealth and princely titles,
but who attained wide-spread notoriety, not to say renown, as the
regent of France, after the death of Louis XIV., and during the
minority of Louis XV. The regent was a man of indomitable force of
will. During his long regency he swayed the sceptre of a tyrant; and
the ear of Europe was poisoned with the story of his debaucheries.

[Footnote A: See Abbott's History of Louis XIV, p. 223.]

He married a legitimated daughter of Louis XIV., Marie Francoise de
Blois, a haughty, capricious beauty. His scandalous immoralities
alienated his duchess from him, and no happiness was to be found
amidst the splendors of their home. Dying suddenly, at the age of
fifty-one, his son Louis succeeded him in the vast opulence, the
titles, and the power of the dukedom of Orleans. The following list
of his titles may give some idea of the grandeur to which these
ancient nobles were born. Louis de Valois, De Chartres, De Nemours,
and De Montpensier, First Prince of the blood, First Peer of France,
Knight of the Golden Fleece, Colonel-general of the French and
Foreign Infantry, Governor of Dauphiny, and Grand Master of the
Orders of Notre Dame, of Mount Carmel, and of St. Lazarus of
Jerusalem.

Born, as this young man was, in the palace of splendor, and
surrounded by every allurement to voluptuous indulgence, two domestic
calamities opened his eyes to the vanity of all earthly grandeur, and
led him to enter those paths of piety where his soul found true
repose. The death of his father, cut down suddenly in the midst of
his godless revelry, and the decease of his beloved wife, Auguste
Marie Jeanne, a princess of Baden, in her twenty-second year, so
impressed him with the uncertainty of all terrestrial good, and left
his home and his heart so desolate, that he retired to the Abbey of
St. Genevieve, and devoted the remainder of his days to study, to
prayer, and to active works of Christian usefulness.

He became a proficient in the fine arts, an accomplished scholar, and
a patron of all those literary men whose works tended to benefit
society. He founded hospitals and literary institutions; established
a college at Versailles; endowed a professorship at the Sorbonne for
expounding the Hebrew text of the Scriptures, and translated, from
the original Greek and Hebrew, the Epistles of Paul and the Psalms of
David. At the early age of forty-eight he died--cheerfully fell
asleep in Jesus, rejoicing in the hope of a heavenly inheritance. Few
men who have ever lived have crowded their days with more kind,
useful, and generous actions.

His son, Louis Philippe, acquired the sobriquet of _le Gros_, or the
Fat, from his excessive corpulence. His unwieldy body probably
contributed to that indolence of mind which induced him to withdraw
from nearly all participation in political life. Louis XV. was one of
the vilest of men, and by a portion of his subjects was thoroughly
detested. Exasperated by an act of gross despotism, the deputies from
Brittany offered to furnish Louis Philippe with sixty thousand men,
completely armed, to overthrow the reigning dynasty, and to establish
in its place the House of Orleans. The prince received the deputation
courteously, but decidedly declined embarking in the enterprise,
avowing that he had not sufficient energy of character to meet its
demand, and that he was too much attached to his relative, Louis XV.,
to engage in a conspiracy against him. He was an amiable, upright
man, avoiding notoriety, and devoting himself to literary pursuits.
Being of the blood royal, the etiquette of the French court did not
allow him to enter into marriage relations with any one in whose
veins the blood of royalty did not flow. His first wife, Louise
Henriette de Bourbon Conti, was a princess of royal lineage. Upon her
death he married Madame de Montesson, a beautiful woman, to whom he
was exceedingly attached. But the haughty Court of France refused to
recognize the marriage. Notwithstanding his earnest solicitations, he
was not permitted to confer upon her the title of Duchess of Orleans.

Even when he died, in the year 1785, court etiquette would not allow
his widow to assume any public demonstrations of mourning. "The blood
of a Capet," it was said, "is too pure to admit of a _recognized_
alliance below the rank of royalty."

Such, in brief, was the character and career of the first four dukes
of this illustrious house. We are thus brought down to the exciting
scenes of modern history--to scenes in which the house of Orleans
has acted a part so conspicuous as to attract the attention of the
civilized world.

The fourth duke of whom we have spoken, and his first wife, Henrietta
de Bourbon Conti, had a son born on the 13th of April, 1747, at the
Palace of St. Cloud. They gave their child the name of Louis Philippe
Joseph d'Orleans. During the life-time of his father he bore the
title of the Duke de Chartres. No expense was spared in his
education, his parents providing for him teachers of the highest
eminence in all the branches of knowledge. Though the young prince
developed much energy and activity of mind, he was not fond of study,
and did not make any remarkable progress in book-learning.

Surrounded by flatterers, and in the enjoyment of almost boundless
wealth, as the appetites and passions of youth grew strong, he
plunged into the most extravagant excesses of dissipation. He is
described at this time as a young man of handsome features and
graceful figure, above the average size. His skin was remarkable for
its softness and whiteness, and a very sweet smile generally played
upon his lips. Though simple in his ordinary style of living, upon
all state occasions he displayed grandeur commensurate with his
wealth and rank. Immense as was the fortune to which he was born, it
was greatly enhanced by his marriage with the Princess Marie Therese
Louise, only daughter of the Duke of Penthievre, the most
richly-endowed heiress in Europe. Thus he attained wealth which made
him the richest subject in Europe, and which enabled him almost to
outvie the splendors of royalty. But, notwithstanding this vast
wealth, he plunged so recklessly into extravagance that his pecuniary
affairs became much embarrassed.

His father died in the year 1785, just as the storms of the French
Revolution were beginning to darken the horizon. The Duke of Chartres
then took the title of the Duke of Orleans, and rushed into the
tumult of revolution with eagerness and energy, which caused his name
to resound through all Europe, and which finally brought his neck
beneath the slide of the guillotine.

The court, under Louis XVI., in consequence of its arbitrary
measures, about the year 1789, was brought into collision with the
ancient Parliament, which remonstrated, and even refused to register
the royal edicts. The Duke of Orleans headed the party opposed to
the court. At his magnificent mansion, the Palais Royal, nearly
opposite the Tuileries, the leading men in the Opposition,
Rochefoucault, Lafayette, and Mirabeau, were accustomed to meet,
concerting measures to thwart the crown, and to compel the
convocation of the States-General. In that way alone could the people
hope to resist the encroachments of the crown, and to claim any
recognition of popular rights. The people, accustomed to the almost
idolatrous homage of rank and power, were overjoyed in having, as the
leading advocate of their claims, a prince of the blood. The court
was greatly exasperated. It was determined that the high-born leader
of the revolutionary party should feel the heaviest weight of the
royal displeasure. This severity, however, did but augment the
popularity of the duke among the people.

Louis XVI., through his advisers, ordered the Parliament to register
a loan, thus compelling the people to furnish the money it
despotically demanded. The Opposition in vain urged that the
States-General should be convened, as alone competent to impose
taxes. The royal measure was carried, notwithstanding the Opposition.
As the keeper of the seals, amidst the most profound emotion of the
Parliament, read the decree, the Duke of Orleans rose, and, with much
agitation of voice and manner, inquired:

"Is this assemblage a _lit de justice_, or a free consultation?"

"It is a _royal sitting_," the king answered, somewhat sternly.

"Then," replied the duke, "I beg that your majesty will permit me to
deposit at your feet, and in the bosom of the court, the declaration,
that I regard the registration as _illegal_, and that it will be
necessary, for the exculpation of those persons who are held to have
deliberated upon it, to add that it is by _express command_ of the
king."

This bold act announced to all France that the Duke of Orleans was
ready to place himself at the head of the opposition to the court,
and that he was endowed with the courage and energy which would be
found essential to maintain that post. The wealth of the Duke of
Orleans was so great that a former loan of twenty-five million
dollars he had taken up himself. Immediately upon the withdrawal of
the king from the Parliament, the Duke of Orleans presented and
carried a resolve declaring the action which had taken place as
illegal.

The king, who was quite under the influence of the stronger mind of
his wife, Maria Antoinette, was deeply offended. The duke was
banished from Paris to his rural chateau of Villers Cotterets, and
his leading friends in the Opposition were exiled to the isles of
Hieres. The indignation of Parliament was roused, and very vigorous
resolutions of remonstrance were adopted, and presented to the king.
In these resolves it was written:

    "The first prince of the royal family is exiled. It is asked
    in vain, What crime has he committed? If the Duke of Orleans
    is culpable, we are all so. It was worthy of the first prince
    of your blood to represent to your majesty that you were
    changing the sitting into a _lit de justice_. If exile be the
    reward for fidelity in princes, we may ask ourselves, with
    terror and with grief, What protection is there for law and
    liberty?"

In allusion to the universal impression that the king was urged to
these severe measures by the influence of Maria Antoinette, the
Parliament added, "Such measures, sire, dwell not in your own heart.
Such examples do not originate from your majesty. They flow from
another source. Your Parliament supplicates your majesty to reject
those merciless counsels, and to listen to the dictates of your own
heart."

The plea was unavailing. The agitation throughout France was rapidly
increasing--the people everywhere struggling against the
encroachments of the crown. From all parts of the kingdom the cry
arose for the assembling of the States-General. The Duke of Orleans,
maddened by his banishment, and exasperated to the highest degree
against Maria Antoinette, whom he considered as the author of his
exile, was intensely engaged in plotting measures of revenge. During
his banishment he won the affections of the peasantry by the kindly
interest he seemed to take in their welfare. He chatted freely with
the farmers and the day-laborers--entered their cottages and
conversed with their families on the most friendly terms--presented
dowries to young brides, and stood sponsor for infants.

This course rapidly increased the popularity of the duke among the
people, and the Parliament was unceasing in its solicitations for his
recall. The court became embarrassed, and at length gladly availed
itself of the opportunity of releasing him, in response to a petition
from the Duchess of Orleans.

The current of the revolution was now beginning to flow with
resistless flood. The hostility between the court and the people was
hourly increasing. Famine added its horrors to the general tumult and
agitation. A winter of unparalleled severity--the winter of
1789--terribly increased the general suffering. The Duke of Orleans
was profuse in his liberality, opening a public kitchen, and
supplying the wants of famishing thousands. The duke, having thus
embarked, without reserve, in the cause of the people, added to his
own popularity and to the exasperation of the court, by publicly
renouncing all his feudal rights, and permitting the public to hunt
and shoot at pleasure over his vast domains. His popularity now
became immense. The journals were filled with his praises. Whenever
he appeared in public, multitudes followed him with their acclaim.

On the 4th of May, 1789, the States-General, or National Assembly,
met. The duke, followed by about forty others of the nobility,
renounced all his aristocratic privileges, and took his place as an
equal in the ranks of the _tiers etat_, or third estate, as the
common people were called. The clergy, the nobility, and the people
then constituted the three estates of the realm.

The French Revolution was now advancing with rapid strides,
accompanied by anarchy, violence, and bloodshed. The court party was
increasingly exasperated against the popular duke, and many stories
were fabricated against him to undermine his influence. The situation
of the king and royal family became daily more irksome and perilous.
He endeavored to escape, to join the armies of Austria and Prussia,
which were marching to his relief. He was arrested at Varennes,
brought back to Paris, and held as a prisoner in the Tuileries. The
question was now discussed of deposing the king and establishing a
regency under the Duke of Orleans.

The first National Assembly, called the Constituent, which was
convened to draw up a constitution for France, having completed its
work, was dissolved; and another assembly, denominated the
Legislative, was chosen to enact laws under that constitution. The
allied armies of foreign dynasties were on the march to rob the
French people of their constitution, and to impose upon them the
absolute despotism of the _old regime_. Fearful riots ensued in
Paris. The palace of the Tuileries was stormed. The king, with his
family, fled to the Legislative Assembly for protection, and was
imprisoned in the Temple. On the 20th of January, 1793, he died upon
the scaffold.

The National Convention, which speedily succeeded the Legislative
Assembly, brought the accusation of treason against the king--tried,
condemned, and executed him. The Duke of Orleans, a member of this
Convention, voted for the death of the king. The abolition of
monarchy and the establishment of a republic immediately followed.
The question was with much interest discussed, whether the republic
should be federal, like that of the United States, or integral, like
the ancient republics of Greece and Rome. The Duke of Orleans
advocated the concentration of power and the indivisibility of
France. Fanaticism usurped the place of reason; the guillotine was
busy; suspicions filled the air; no life was safe. The Duke of
Orleans was alarmed. He sent his daughter, under the care of Madame
de Genlis, to England. The nobles were flying in all directions.
Severe laws were passed against the emigrants. The duke, who had
assumed the surname of Egalite, or Equality, excited suspicion by
placing his daughter among the emigrants. It was said that he had no
confidence in the people or in the new order of things. To lull
these suspicions, the duke sent a petition to the Convention on the
21st of November, 1792, containing the following statement:

[Illustration: EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI.]

    "Citizens,--You have passed a law against those cowards who
    have fled their country in the moment of danger. The
    circumstance I have to lay before you is peculiar. My
    daughter, fifteen years of age, passed over to England in the
    month of October, 1791, with her governess and two companions
    of her studies. Her governess, Madame de Genlis, has early
    initiated them in liberal views and republican virtues. The
    English language forms a part of the education which she has
    given to my daughter. One of the motives of this journey has
    been to acquire the pronunciation of that tongue. Besides
    that, the chalybeate waters of England were recommended as
    restoratives of my daughter's health. It is impossible, under
    these circumstances, to regard the journey of my daughter as
    emigration. I feel assured that the law is not applicable in
    this case. But the slightest doubt is sufficient to distress
    a father. I beg, therefore, fellow-citizens, that you will
    relieve me from this uneasiness."

But by this time the Convention began to look upon the Duke of
Orleans with suspicion. Rumors were in circulation that many of the
people, tired of republicanism--which was crowding the prisons, and
causing blood to gush in an incessant flow--wished to reinstate the
monarchy, and to place the Duke of Orleans upon the throne. The
Duchess of Orleans, the child of one of the highest nobles, was not
in sympathy with her husband in his democratic views. His boundless
profligacy had also alienated her affections, so that there was no
domestic happiness to be found in the gorgeous saloons of the Palais
Royal.

Robespierre wished to banish the Duke of Orleans from France, as a
dangerous man, around whom the not yet extinct spirit of royalty
might rally. He moved in the Convention, "That all the relatives of
Bourbon Capet should be obliged, within eight days, to quit the
territory of France and the countries then occupied by the Republican
armies."

The motion was, for the time, frustrated by the following
expostulation by M. Lamarque:

    "Would it not be the extreme of injustice to exile all of the
    Capets, without distinction? I have never spoken but twice to
    Egalite. I am, therefore, not open to the suspicion of
    partiality, but I have closely observed his conduct in the
    Revolution. I have seen him deliver himself up to it
    entirely, a willing victim for its promotion, not shrinking
    from the greatest sacrifices; and I can truly assert that but
    for Egalite we never should have had the States-General--we
    should never have been free."

Thus public sentiment fluctuated. An event soon occurred which
brought matters to a crisis. General Dumouriez, a former minister of
Louis XVI., was in command of the army on the northern frontier.
Disgusted with the violence of the Convention, which was silencing
all opposition with the slide of the guillotine, and apprehensive of
personal danger, from the consciousness that he was suspected of not
being very friendly to the Government, he resolved to abandon the
country which he thought doomed to destruction, and to seek safety in
flight. Louis Philippe, the eldest son of the Duke of Orleans, then a
lad of about 16, was on his staff. They fled together. This aroused
popular indignation in Paris to the highest pitch. This young prince,
Louis Philippe, then entitled the Duke of Chartres, and who, as
subsequently King of the French, is the subject of this memoir, had
written in a letter to his father, which was intercepted, these
words: "I see the Convention utterly destroying France." It was
believed that Dumouriez had entered into a plot for placing the Duke
of Orleans on the throne, and that the duke was cognizant of the
plan.

A decree was immediately passed ordering the arrest of every Bourbon
in France. The duke was arrested and conveyed to Marseilles, with
several members of his family. Here he was held in durance for some
time, and was then brought to Paris to be tried for treason. Though
there was no evidence whatever against him, he was declared guilty of
being "an accomplice in a conspiracy against the unity and
indivisibility of the Republic," and was condemned to death.

The duke, as he heard the sentence, replied: "Since you were
predetermined to put me to death, you ought at least to have sought
for more plausible pretexts to attain that end; for you will never
persuade the world that you deem me guilty of what you now declare me
to be convicted. However, since my lot is decided, I demand that you
will not let me languish here until to-morrow, but order that I be
led to execution instantly." His request was not granted; but he was
conducted back to the cells of the Conciergerie, to be executed the
next day. The next morning he was placed in the death-cart at the
Conciergerie, with four others of the condemned, to be conveyed to
the guillotine, which stood in the _Place de la Concorde_. He was
elaborately dressed in a green frock-coat, white waistcoat, doe-skin
breeches, and with boots carefully polished. His hair was dressed and
powdered with care. As the cart passed slowly along in front of his
princely abode, the Palais Royal, and through immense crowds, lining
the streets, who formerly had been fed by his liberality, and who now
clamored for his death, he looked around upon them with apparently
perfect indifference.

At the guillotine the executioner took off his coat, and was about to
draw off his boots, when he said, calmly, "It is only loss of time;
you will remove them more easily from my lifeless limbs." He examined
the keen edge of the knife, and was bound to the plank. The slide
fell, and his head dropped into the basket. Thus perished Louis
Philippe Egalite in the 46th year of his age. It was the 6th of
November, 1793, ten months after Louis XVI. had perished upon the
same scaffold. The immoralities of the Duke of Orleans were such that
it has often been said of him, "Nothing became his life so much as
his manner of leaving it." Louis Philippe Egalite, inheriting from
his ancestors vast opulence, had become, by his marriage with the
daughter of the immensely wealthy Duke of Penthievre, the possessor
of almost royal domains. His wife, the duchess, though aristocratic
in all her prepossessions, and sympathizing not at all with her
husband in his democratic views, was a woman of unblemished
character, of amiable disposition, and of devoted piety.

Having thus given a brief account of the origin of the Orleans
family, we must, at the expense of a little repetition, turn back to
the birth of Louis Philippe, the oldest son of the Duke of Orleans,
and the subject of this memoir.

Louis Philippe was born in the Palais Royal, in Paris, on the 6th of
October, 1773. In his early years, he, with the other children of the
ducal family, was placed under the care and tuition of the celebrated
Madame de Genlis. Until the death of his father, he bore the title of
the Duke of Chartres.

"The Duke of Chartres," writes Lamartine, "had no youth. Education
suppressed this age in the pupils of Madame de Genlis. Reflection,
study, premeditation of every thought and act, replaced nature by
study, and instinct by will. At seventeen years of age, the young
prince had the maturity of advanced years."

Madame de Genlis was unwearied in her endeavors to confer upon her
illustrious pupil the highest intellectual and religious education.
The most distinguished professors were appointed to instruct in those
branches with which she was not familiar. His conduct was recorded in
a minute daily journal, from which every night questions were read
subjecting him to the most searching self-examination. The questions
were as follows:

     1. Have I this day fulfilled all my duties towards God, my
     Creator, and prayed to Him with fervor and affection?

     2. Have I listened with respect and attention to the
     instructions which have been given me to-day, with regard to
     my Christian duties, and in reading works of piety?

     3. Have I fulfilled all my duties this day towards those I
     ought to love most in the world--my father and my mother?

     4. Have I behaved with mildness and kindness towards my
     sister and my brothers?

     5. Have I been docile, grateful, and attentive to my
     teachers?

     6. Have I been perfectly sincere to-day, disobliging no one,
     and speaking evil of no one?

     7. Have I been as discreet, prudent, charitable, modest, and
     courageous as may be expected at my age?

     8. Have I shown no proof of that weakness or effeminacy
     which is so contemptible in a man?

     9. Have I done all the good I could?

     10. Have I shown all the marks of attention I ought to the
     persons, present or absent, to whom I owe kindness, respect,
     and affection?

These questions were read to him every night from his journal. To
each one he returned a reply in writing. He then kneeled, and in
prayer implored the forgiveness of his sins, and Divine guidance for
the future. Under such training, notwithstanding the enjoyment of
almost boundless wealth, the influence of a dissolute father, and the
measureless corruptions of the times, Louis Philippe developed a
character embellished by the loftiest principles and the purest
integrity.

The Orleans children, consisting of three sons and a daughter, were
taught in their earliest years to speak French, English, German, and
Italian, so that each of these languages became, as it were,
vernacular. At St. Leu, where they resided most of the time, a garden
was laid out, which they dug and cultivated with their own hands. A
German gardener superintended their work, while a German valet
accompanied them in their morning walks. A physician, who was a
distinguished chemist, instructed them in botany, pointing out the
medicinal virtues of the various plants. They were taught to
manufacture numerous articles of domestic utility, and the boys
became skillful in turning, weaving, basket-making, and other
mechanical employments. The Duke of Chartres became a very skillful
cabinet-maker, and, aided by his brother, the Duke of Montpensier,
manufactured a bureau for a poor woman at St. Leu which was equal to
any which could be found in the market. They were also accustomed to
fatigue and hardship, that they might be prepared for any of the
vicissitudes of future life. Madame de Genlis, in reference to this
training of her pupil, and his subsequent trials and privations,
writes:

    "How often, since his misfortunes, have I applauded myself
    for the education I have given him; for having taught him the
    principal modern languages; for having accustomed him to
    wait on himself; to despise all kinds of effeminacy; to sleep
    habitually on a wooden bed, with no covering but a mat; to
    expose himself to heat, cold, and rain; to accustom himself
    to fatigue by daily and violent exercise, by walking ten or
    fifteen miles with leaden soles to his shoes; and, finally,
    for having given him the taste and habit of travelling. He
    had lost all that he inherited from birth and fortune; and
    nothing remained but what he had received from nature and
    me."

In one of her earlier letters, she wrote: "The Duke of Chartres has
greatly improved in disposition during the past year. He was born
with good inclinations, and has now become intelligent and virtuous.
Possessing none of the frivolities of the age, he disdains the
puerilities which occupy the thoughts of so many young men of
rank--such as fashions, dress, trinkets, follies of all kinds, and a
desire for novelties. He has no passion for money, is disinterested,
despises glare, and is, consequently, truly noble. Finally, he has an
excellent heart, which is common to his brothers and sister, and
which, joined to reflection, is capable of producing all other good
qualities."

[Illustration: STORMING THE BASTILE.]

During the boyhood of Louis Philippe, revolutionary principles were
rapidly spreading over France; and, as he approached manhood, they
had reached their maturity. The example of his father, and the
teachings of Madame de Genlis, inclined him strongly in the direction
of popular rights, though his mother did not at all sympathize with
these revolutionary principles. When the exasperated people rose and
demolished the Bastile--the symbol and the instrument of as great
despotic power as ever existed upon earth--Madame de Genlis took her
pupils into Paris to witness the sublime drama. In describing the
scene, she writes eloquently:

    "This redoubtable fortress was covered with men, women, and
    children, working with unequalled ardor, even on the most
    lofty parts of the building and on its turrets. The
    astonishing number of these voluntary laborers, their
    activity, their enthusiasm, their delight at seeing the fall
    of that terrible monument of tyranny--these avenging hands,
    which seemed consecrated by Providence, and which annihilated
    with such rapidity the work of many centuries--all this spoke
    at once to the imagination and the heart."

When the Duke of Chartres was informed that the Assembly had
annulled all the rights of primogeniture--thus depriving him, as the
first-born, of his exclusive right to the title and the estate--he
threw his arms around his brother, the Duke of Montpensier, and said,
"Now, indeed, we are brothers in every respect." The unconcealed
liberal opinions of the young prince increased the exasperation of
the court against the whole Orleans family. And when, guided by his
radical father, and in opposition to the advice of Madame de Genlis,
the young duke became a member of the Jacobin Club--then numbering,
as it was estimated, four hundred thousand in France--the indignation
of the court reached its highest pitch.

On the 20th of November, 1785, the young Duke of Chartres, then in
his thirteenth year, became colonel of the nineteenth regiment of
dragoons. He proceeded, not long after, to Vendome, and devoted
himself, with all the enthusiasm of youth, to the duties of his
profession. His democratic principles led him, in opposition to the
example of most of his brother-officers, to associate quite
familiarly with the common soldiers.

"Far from imitating the example of these young noblemen, who
disdained to mix or converse with the soldiers, the duke was
constantly in the midst of them, and the advice and reprimands which
they received from his lips had double the force of usual orders. On
every occasion he proved himself the soldier's friend. He heard their
complaints with kindness, and the generous, noble familiarity with
which he replied to their demands in a little time won for him all
their hearts. Strengthened by those affections, which he so well knew
how to merit, he was enabled, without any exertion, to establish and
preserve the strictest discipline. His men obeyed him with pleasure,
because his orders were always given with urbanity.

    "His exemplary conduct had the happiest influence over the
    whole garrison of Vendome. The soldiers now forgot his youth;
    the oldest officers found in him such intelligence and
    punctuality as sometimes left their experience in arrear. He
    frequently reached the stables, in the morning, before the
    lieutenant, whose duty it was to call there; and he exhibited
    equal energy in every other subject. His lieutenant-colonel,
    imagining that this too frequent appearance among the men
    would lessen that respect for the dignity of colonel which he
    considered essential to the maintenance of discipline,
    ventured to remonstrate with him upon his conduct. He
    replied:

    "'I do not think that I shall forfeit the respect of my men,
    or be less entitled to their regard, by giving them an
    example of punctuality, and by being the first to submit
    myself to the demands of discipline.'"[B]

[Footnote B: Life and Times of Louis Philippe, King of the French, by
Rev. G. N. Wright.]




CHAPTER II.

THE EXILE.

1791-1794

Plans for the invasion of France.--The campaign of 1792.--The invasion
of France.--Proclamation of the Assembly.--Imprisonment of
Lafayette.--Measures of defense.--Battle of Valmy.--Gallantry of the
Duke of Chartres.--Embarrassment of Egalite.--Continued war against
France.--The Battle of Jemappes.--Peril of the Orleans family.--Decision
of the Duke of Orleans.--Origin of the Tri-color.--The Decree of
Banishment.--Battle of Nerwinde.--Charges against Dumouriez.--The
Flight.--Supposed Plan of Dumouriez.--Wanderings on the Rhine.--Arrest
of the Orleans family.--Life in Switzerland.--Letter from General
Dumouriez.--Hardships of travel.--A college professor.--Political
divisions in France.--The wilds of Scandinavia.


In the month of August, 1791, the Duke of Chartres left Vendome with
his regiment, and went to Valenciennes, where he spent the winter. He
had been appointed commandant of that place, and, young as he was,
discharged the important duties of the position with ability and
firmness, which secured for him a very high reputation. The emigrant
nobles had assembled on the French frontier, in the electorate of
Treves, where they were organizing their forces for the invasion of
France. It was understood that Leopold II., then Emperor of Germany,
was co-operating with them, and was forwarding large bodies of troops
to many points along the German banks of the Rhine for a crusade into
France.

The French government demanded of the emperor an explanation of his
intentions. He replied: "We do not know of any armaments in the
Austrian states which can be magnified into preparations for war."
Though Louis XVI. was in cordial sympathy with the emigrants, and, by
his secret agents, was urging the Emperor of Austria to lend him
troops to aid in crushing the revolution in France, still he was
compelled not only to dissemble, but on the 20th of April, 1792,
publicly to declare war against the Emperor of Austria, who was
brother of his queen, Maria Antoinette.

The Duke of Orleans, _Egalite_, begged permission of the king to join
the armies of revolutionized France in their march against Austria,
and to take with him his two oldest sons, the Duke of Chartres (Louis
Philippe), and the Duke of Montpensier. In the campaign of 1792,
which ensued, both of these young men acquired distinction and
promotion. General Biron, in command, wrote to the minister of war:

    "Messieurs Chartres and Montpensier have accompanied me as
    volunteers, and, being exposed for the first time to a brisk
    fire from the enemy, behaved with the utmost heroism and
    intrepidity."

The Duke of Chartres, in command of a brigade of dragoons, was soon
after transferred to a corps at Metz, under General Kellerman, who
subsequently obtained such renown in the wars of the Empire.

When the Duke of Chartres first appeared at head-quarters, General
Kellerman, not knowing who he was, and surprised by his youthful
appearance, exclaimed:

"Ah, monsieur! I never before have had the pleasure of seeing so
young a general officer. How have you contrived to be made a general
so soon?"

The duke replied: "By being a son of him who made a colonel of you."
They clasped hands cordially, and a warm friendship commenced between
them.

In July, 1792, the united armies of Prussia and Austria commenced
their march from the German fortresses upon the Rhine into France.
The emigrant nobles, and all their partisans, were received into the
ranks of these invaders. Their combined strength amounted to 160,000
men. The Duke of Brunswick, in command of the united armies, issued
from Coblentz, on the 15th of July, 1792, his famous manifesto, in
which he declared, "That he would punish as rebels every Frenchman
who should oppose the allied army; and that, should any attack be
made upon the royal family in the Tuileries, the whole city should
be given up to destruction, and the rebels to instant death."

In view of these terrible menaces, the Legislative Assembly issued a
proclamation, in which it was said:

    "A numerous army has moved upon our frontiers. All those who
    are enemies to liberty have armed themselves against our
    constitution. Citizens! the country is in danger! Let all
    those who have had the happiness of taking up arms in the
    cause of liberty remember that they are Frenchmen, and free;
    that their fellow-citizens enjoy in their homes security of
    persons and property; that the magistrates are vigilant; that
    every thing depends on calm resolution; that they should take
    care to acknowledge the majesty of law, and the country will
    still be safe."

[Illustration: FLIGHT AND IMPRISONMENT OF LAFAYETTE.]

The plan of the campaign, adopted by the Duke of Brunswick, was to
press rapidly forward, with his combined army, from the banks of the
Rhine to Paris, cut off its supplies, and by famine to compel it to
surrender. He would then destroy the liberal constitution, punish and
disperse the friends of popular rights, and restore the king to the
absolutism of the old regime. To oppose this formidable army of
invasion, France had one corps of 14,000 men near Metz, and another
of 33,000 at Sedan, under General Dumouriez. General Lafayette had
been in command of the latter force; but, by his opposition to some
of the radical measures of the Convention, had excited the hostility
of the Paris mob and the Jacobin clubs. They had burned him in effigy
at the Palais Royal, accused him of treason before the Assembly, and
set a price upon his head. Argument was of no avail against the fury
of the populace--in flight only was his safety. While thus pursued by
the Jacobins of Paris as an aristocrat, he was arrested by a patrol
of the Austrian army as a democrat. With the greatest secrecy, his
captors hurried him to Olmutz, where he was thrown into close
confinement, and subjected to the most cruel privations. It was two
years before his friends could discover the place of his captivity.
His wife and daughters then, after much difficulty and delay,
succeeded in obtaining permission to share the glooms of his dungeon.
It was not until after an imprisonment of five years that he was set
at liberty, Napoleon commanding his release in tones which Austria
did not dare to disregard.

The proclamation by the Assembly that the country was in danger,
caused volunteers in large numbers to set out from every portion of
France. From Paris alone, in three days, an army of 32,000 men,
completely equipped, were on the advance to the scene of conflict.
General Dumouriez, in command at Sedan, drew up his lines of defense
before the defiles of Argoun, where he thought he could make the most
effectual stand against the invading host. The Duke of Brunswick fell
fiercely upon his left wing, and, breaking through, poured his troops
like a flood into the plains of Champagne. For a time a terrific
panic spread through the French army, and it became needful for
Generals Dumouriez and Kellerman to unite their forces. In the mean
time, the triumphant Prussians, defiling rapidly by Grandpre and
Croix-aux-Bois, were approaching Chalons.

The French troops concentrated at Valmy. There they drew up in line
of battle, to arrest the advance of their foes. The second line of
the French army was commanded by the Duke of Chartes. The battle
which ensued was one of the most memorable and hard-fought in French
history. In the early morning a dense mist covered the field of
conflict. At eleven o'clock the fog dispersed, and the sun came out
brightly, revealing the Prussian columns advancing in beautiful
order, with a glittering display of caparisoned horses and polished
weapons, deploying with as much precision as if on a field of parade.
The eye took in at a glance 100,000 men preparing for the
death-struggle. It was, indeed, an imposing spectacle, for such hosts
had then been rarely collected on any field of blood.

Neither party seemed disposed to come into close contact with the
other, but each brought forward its batteries, and a terrific
cannonade commenced, which continued until the close of the day. It
was estimated that forty thousand balls were hurled by the opposing
armies into each other's ranks. Each army, however, maintained its
position. Yet it was considered a French victory, for the Prussians
failed in their attempt to break through the lines of the French, and
the French succeeded in arresting the march of the Prussians. Indeed,
it was admitted by the Prussians that their plan was hopelessly
thwarted. The Duke of Brunswick proposed an armistice to the French
officers, and this was speedily followed by the evacuation of the
French territory by the whole body of Prussian troops. Thus, for the
time, the Germanic project of invasion was abandoned.

The Duke of Chartres again, upon this occasion, distinguished himself
by bravery and military skill. General Kellerman, in his official
report of the battle, said: "I shall only particularize, among those
who have shown distinguished courage, M. Chartres and his
aid-de-camp, M. Montpensier, whose extreme youth renders his presence
of mind, during one of the most tremendous cannonades ever heard, so
very remarkable."

It will be observed that General Kellerman speaks of the young dukes
as simply M. Chartres and M. Montpensier. At that time all honorary
titles were abolished in France, and the highest nobles were
addressed, as were the humblest peasants, by the only title of
_Citizen_. Still, the lower classes regarded with great jealousy
those higher orders to whom they had been accustomed to pay the
homage which slaves render their masters. The laborers, the humble
artisans, the toil-worn peasants, could not appear with any thing
like equality in the presence of the high-born men and courtly dames
who, through their ancestry of many generations, had been accustomed
to wealth and rank and power. Thus, to the lower orders, the dress of
a gentleman, the polite bearing of the prince, the courtly manner of
the noble, excited suspicion, and created hostile feelings.

Even Egalite himself, though he had renounced all his titles, all his
feudal rights, and had assumed, as far as possible, the manners of a
blunt, plain-spoken man, was still, next to the king, in the
enjoyment of the richest revenue in France. He could by no
possibility place himself upon a social equality with his boot-black.
He manifested no disposition to divide his vast possessions with the
mob in Paris, and to send his wife to work with the washer-women, and
his daughter to a factory, and to earn himself his daily bread by
menial toil. And the washer-women were asking, "Why should we toil at
the tub, and Citizeness Orleans ride in her carriage and dress in
satins? We are as good as she, and our blood is as red." And at the
corners of the streets, the uncombed mob were beginning to inquire,
"Why should Citizen Orleans, who, by adopting the title of Egalite,
has confessed himself to be only our equal, be in possession of
magnificent palaces, and of thousands of acres of the public domain,
and of a revenue of millions of francs, while we dwell in hovels, and
eat the coarsest food, and, by the most menial toil, obtain a bare
subsistence? Citizen Orleans has given up his titles, as he ought to
have done; now let him give up his enormous estates, and divide them
among us, his brethren; and, if he is unwilling to do this, let us
compel him to do so."

Louis Philippe, accustomed to profound reflection, and trained in the
school of these tremendous political agitations, clearly foresaw all
these menaces. He was well aware that it was no longer safe for him
to be in Paris, and that the perils of the battle-field were among
the least he had to encounter. Though the Prussian troops had
withdrawn from the alliance against France, the Austrians, encouraged
by the intrigues and the gold of the British cabinet, still continued
the conflict. The Austrian court had an additional motive for
perseverance, in the war against revolutionary France, in the anxiety
it felt for the safety of the Austrian princess, Maria Antoinette.

On the 5th of November, 1792, the French army, under General
Dumouriez, found itself intrenched upon the heights of Jemappes.
Directly before it was the camp of the Austrians, containing a
veteran force of twenty-two thousand men, commanded by General
Clarfait.

The renowned battle of Jemappes ensued, which commenced, after a
cannonade of three hours, by an attack upon the whole of the Austrian
lines by the entire French army. Again the young Duke of Chartres,
who commanded the centre, greatly distinguished himself by his
coolness, bravery, and skill. The carnage was serious on both sides,
and for some hours the result was doubtful. At length victory
declared in favor of the French. The Austrians, driven from all their
positions, fled, leaving the battle-field covered with their dead,
and abandoning nearly all their cannon to the victors.

The French vigorously pursued the routed Austrians until they again
overtook them, and drove them out of the kingdom. On the 8th day
after the victory of Jemappes, Dumouriez advanced the French standard
to Brussels. As we have mentioned, the sister of the Duke of
Chartres, the Princess Eugene Louise Adelaide, with her governess,
Madame de Genlis, had been included in the proscriptive laws against
emigration. The Duke of Chartres visited them in Switzerland, where
they had taken refuge, and conducted them to Tornay.

While there, a new decree was issued by the Assembly, declaring that
every member of the Bourbon family then in France, with the exception
of the royal household itself, which was held in imprisonment in the
Temple awaiting trial under the charge of treason, should leave
France, and all the territory occupied by the newly-established
Republic, within eight days. The position of the Orleans branch of
the Bourbon family now became every hour increasingly perilous. The
nation was demanding the life of the king, and the banishment of all
who bore his name. St. Just, in urging in the Assembly this decree of
banishment, said: "As to the king, we shall keep him; _and you know
for what?_"

The Duke of Chartres, who very fully comprehended the peril in which
his father's family was involved, urged him to avail himself of the
decree of banishment, which opened an honorable avenue of escape for
him, and all his family, from France.

"You will assuredly," said he to his father, "find yourself in an
appalling situation. Louis XVI. is about to be accused before an
assembly of which you are a member. You must sit before the king as
his judge. Reject the ungracious duty; withdraw, with your family,
to America, and seek a calm retreat, far from the enemies of France,
and there await the return of happier days."

But the Duke of Orleans did not deem it consistent with his honor to
desert his post in the hour of danger. Yet the arguments urged by his
son were so strong that he desired him to consult an influential
member of the Assembly upon the subject. The deputy replied:

"I am incompetent to give your father any advice. Our positions are
dissimilar. I myself seek redress for personal injuries. Your father,
the Duke of Orleans, ought to obey the dictates of his conscience as
a prince, and the dictates of duty as a citizen."

This undecided answer led the Duke of Orleans to the decision that,
in the prominent position which he occupied as a citizen of rank and
wealth, he could not with honor abandon his country in her hour of
peril. The Duke of Chartres desisted from any further solicitation,
and, oppressed with much anxiety, returned to the army.

The badge of the Bourbons was a white banner. The insurgents, if we
may so call the opponents, of all varieties of opinions, who assailed
the ancient despotism, at the siege of the Bastile, wore red
cockades. But very many were in favor of monarchy who were also in
favor of constitutional liberty. Blue had been, in ancient times, the
royal color, and they adopted that. Others, who were in favor of the
Bourbons, and advocated reform only, not revolution, adopted white,
the livery of the Bourbons. Thus arose the celebrated tri-color flag,
which became the emblem of all in France who adopted the principles
of political liberalism, whether monarchists or republicans. The
white banner of the Bourbons and the tri-color of the revolutionists
thus became arrayed against each other.

It was well known that there was a strong party in favor of placing
the Duke of Orleans upon the throne. The king was awaiting his trial
in the Temple. The monarchy was virtually overthrown, and a republic
was established. The Republicans were in great fear of a reaction,
which might re-establish the throne in favor of the Orleans family.
It was, therefore, proposed in the Assembly that the Duke of Orleans
and his sons should be banished from France. But it could not be
denied that the Duke of Orleans had been one of the most prominent
leaders in the revolution. He had given all his influence, and
consecrated his immense wealth, to the cause. He had made great
sacrifices, and had alienated himself entirely from the royal family,
and from the nobility generally, by his bold advocacy of democratic
principles. Under these circumstances, it seemed peculiarly
ungrateful to proscribe and persecute him, merely because the blood
of the Bourbons flowed in his veins, and because he was born near the
throne.

After a violent discussion in the Assembly, the decree of banishment
was passed. But the friends of the duke rallied, and succeeded, after
a struggle of two days, in obtaining a reversal of the decree. It was
known that the Duke of Chartres had urged his father to yield to the
decree, and to retire from France. This increased the suspicion that
the Duke of Chartres was not friendly to the new state of things in
republican, anarchic, France.

"It can not be denied," says a French historian, "that upon this
occasion the young prince evinced that high sagacity which, by
foreseeing events, succeeds in dispersing their dangers. He looked
upon it that the revocation of the decree of banishment against his
family was a great misfortune; because the name of Orleans having
been once pronounced suspected and dangerous, could never again be
useful to their country, and would be infallibly persecuted. 'If we
can no longer be useful,' said he, 'and if we only give occasion of
offense, can we hesitate in expatriating ourselves?'"

But, as we have said, the duke decided to remain at his post; and his
son, returning to the army, anxiously awaited events. The Austrians
speedily filled up their depleted ranks with reinforcements, and on
the 18th of March, 1793, were again in battle array near the village
of Nerwinde. Another terrible battle ensued, in which the Duke of
Orleans again won many laurels; but victory decided against the
French. The army of Dumouriez was utterly routed. The Duke of
Chartres had a horse shot from under him; but he spent the whole
night upon the field, struggling to rally the fugitives. It was
attributed to his heroism that the army did not, on that occasion,
experience an irreparable disaster.

General Dumouriez now found himself in the most painful and perilous
position. It was not safe for any leader of the Republican armies to
allow himself to be defeated. The loss of a battle was considered
equivalent to treason. A committee was sent by the Assembly to spy
out his conduct. The _Moniteur_ of the 27th of March, 1793, contains
the following report:

    "We arrived at Tournay on Tuesday, the 26th. Citizen
    Proly--who was previously known to General Dumouriez--waited
    upon him. He found him at the house of Madame Sillery, in
    company with that lady, the Misses Egalite, and Pamela. He
    was attended, also, by Generals Valence and Chartres.

    "Among other unbecoming observations, which he did not
    hesitate to make, General Dumouriez said that the Convention
    was the cause of all the misfortunes of France; that it was
    composed of 745 tyrants, all regicides; that he was strong
    enough to bring them to a sense of propriety; and that, if
    they were to call him Caesar, Cromwell, or Monk, he was still
    resolved to save his country."

The publication of this report rendered it certain to Dumouriez and
his friends that he would immediately be arrested and conveyed to
Paris, under circumstances which would render condemnation and
execution inevitable. He had not an hour to lose. He was supping with
the Duke of Chartres, anxiously conversing upon the peril in which
they both were involved, when a courier arrived, summoning him
immediately to repair to Paris to explain his conduct to the
Convention. The Duke of Chartres said sadly to his general: "This
order is your death-warrant." As he said this, the general was
opening another document, and replied: "Now it is your turn, my young
friend; this letter incloses a similar invitation for you."

They both mounted their horses, and bidding adieu to unhappy France,
set out, with a small retinue, for the frontier. A detachment of
dragoons was sent in pursuit of them. By the extraordinary sagacity
and self-possession of Baudoin, the faithful servant of the prince,
they effected their escape. It is altogether probable that Dumouriez
was intending, by the aid of the army, to overthrow the Convention,
and re-establish the throne in favor of the Duke of Chartres. An
anonymous French writer, commenting upon these events, says:

    "We do not hesitate to place among the number of the plans of
    Dumouriez a project which did him honor--that of abolishing
    the republican system and erecting a constitutional monarchy
    in favor of the Duke of Chartres. Many persons have imagined
    that the Duke of Chartres was aware of this design. It is
    certain that in the army, as well as among the moderates of
    the interior, the prince would have found a crowd of
    adherents. But he was too conscientious to usurp a crown
    which had just fallen in blood--too good a son to authorize
    proceedings which would have endangered the life of his
    father; in short, too enlightened, too prudent,
    notwithstanding his extreme youth, to be instrumental in any
    ambitious or ill-conceived scheme emanating from such a man
    as Dumouriez. However, whether the Duke of Chartres was
    conscious or not of the designs of General Dumouriez, a stern
    necessity rendered a union of their fortunes indispensable
    for a time."

The fugitives repaired first to Mons, the head-quarters of the
Austrians, to obtain their passports. Prince Charles urged the duke
to enter the service of the Empire, and to co-operate with foreign
armies and the emigrants in restoring monarchy to France. The duke
emphatically declined. Indeed, such an act would probably have
brought his father's head, and the head of every member of the
family, within reach of the Convention, beneath the slide of the
guillotine. Nothing now remained for the prince but exile and
poverty.

In the month of April, 1793, the duke, assuming the name of Mr.
Corby, and the appearance of an English traveller, accompanied only
by a servant and his aid-de-camp, Caesar Ducrest, commenced travelling
in Germany. While the Republicans assailed him from suspicion of his
secret hostility to Republican principles, the emigrants thoroughly
hated both him and his father for the countenance which they had
given to the Revolution. The region was full of emigrants who would
gladly surrender him to his enemies. It was necessary for him to
practise the utmost caution, that he might preserve his incognito. In
the cities of Liege, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Cologne, he did not dare to
dine at the table d'hote, lest he should be recognized.

The duke had reached Frankfort, when he read the account in the
journals of the arrest of his father and brothers. Lafayette, laden
with irons, was pining in the dungeons of Olmutz. Such was the reward
which these patriots received for their devotion to the cause of
popular liberty.

Departing from Frankfort, the duke proceeded to Basle. From an
eminence in the environs of the town the tri-color flag was visible,
floating in the distance above the battlements of the fortress of
Huninguen. With deep emotion the duke saluted the flag of liberty,
for which he had suffered so much, and continued his sad journey. At
Basle he learned that his sister, accompanied by Madame de Genlis,
had taken refuge at Schaffhausen, in Switzerland. His mother and two
brothers, as well as his father, had been arrested, and were
imprisoned in France. Joining his sister and Madame de Genlis, the
little party of exiles proceeded, oppressed with anxiety and grief,
to Zurich. Here it became necessary for them to acquaint the
magistrates with their real names.

The emigrant royalists who had taken refuge there ostentatiously
displayed their detestation of the democratic prince. At the same
time, the Helvetic magistrates trembled lest they should incur the
wrath of Revolutionary France by affording a refuge to the
illustrious exiles. The _Moniteur_, of the 12th of June, 1793,
contained the following notice:

    "The _ci-devant_ Duke of Chartres and his suite are not in
    Italy, as had been supposed, but reside in a solitary house
    on the margin of Lake Zug, in Switzerland. They pass for an
    Irish family."

It was on the 14th of May that the sorrowful exiles took up their
residence upon the banks of this silent lake. In Zurich, where they
were recognized, they had been exposed to many insults. One evening,
as they were walking out, an emigrant cavalier purposely caught his
spur in a portion of the dress of Mademoiselle d'Orleans, rudely
tearing it.

Soon they were again discovered by some emigrants who were passing
through Zug. A dispatch from Berne reproached the authorities for
their imprudence in allowing the noble wanderers an asylum. The
magistrates called upon the duke and respectfully, but with much
embarrassment, entreated him to depart from their coasts. It was now
evident that the party could no longer, with safety, reside together.
The duke succeeded, through some influential friends, in obtaining
admission for his sister into the convent of Sainte Claire, near
Bremgarten.

"As for you," said M. de Montjoie to the Duke of Chartres, "there is
no alternative but to wander in the mountains, not sojourning long in
any place, but pursuing this life of sorrow until the circumstances
of your country shall assume a more favorable aspect. If fortune
shall prove propitious, your wanderings will be an Odyssey, the
details of which will one day be collected with avidity."

General Dumouriez, who was also wandering in obscurity and exile, at
this time wrote to General Montesquieu, who was a friend of the Duke
of Chartres, and a gentleman possessed of much influence and power in
Switzerland:

     "Embrace for me our excellent young friend. What you are
     doing to serve him is worthy of you. Let him derive
     instruction and strength from his adversity. This frenzy
     will pass away, and then he will find his place. Induce him
     to make a circumstantial diary of his travels. It will be
     curious to see the diary of a Bourbon treating of other
     subjects than the chase, women, and the table. I am
     convinced that this work, which he will one day produce,
     will serve as a certificate for life, either when he shall
     have re-entered it, or to make him return to it."

Darker and darker grew the path of the exiled prince. His funds
became very low. He was separated from all his friends except his
faithful servant, Baudoin, who absolutely refused to leave him. He
retained but one horse. His servant chanced to be so sick that he
could not walk. The duke left Basle on foot, leading by the hand the
horse upon which his humble but faithful companion in exile was
mounted.[C]

[Footnote C: Vie Anecdotique de Louis Philippe. Par MM. A. Laugier et
Carpentier, p. 108.]

Passing through Neufchatel, Zellen Blatt, and Kussnacht, he reached
the ruins of Halsburg. Here, in the midst of silence and solitude,
the great-grandson of the brother of Louis XIV. sought a refuge from
his countrymen, who were thirsting for his blood.

[Illustration: ST. GOTHARD.]

During one of his adventurous excursions among the Alps, on foot,
accompanied only by his servant, he approached the hospitium of Saint
Gothard. It was on the 28th of August, 1793. Having rung the bell, a
Capuchin friar appeared at the casement and inquired, "What do you
want?" "I request," replied the duke, "some nourishment for my
companion and myself." "My good young men," said the friar, "we do
not admit foot-passengers here, particularly of your description."
"But, reverend father," replied the duke, "we will pay whatever you
demand." "No, no," added the Capuchin, pointing to a shed where some
muleteers were partaking of Alpine cheese, "that little inn there
is good enough for you."

At Gordona the duke and his servant met with a similar repulse.
Covered with the dust of travel, and with knapsacks on their backs,
with night and storm approaching, they found the door of a hostlery
closed against them. It was not until after much entreaty that the
way-worn travellers were allowed shelter, with a bed of straw, in an
outhouse.

While engaged in these wanderings, the duke received a letter from M.
de Montesquieu, offering him the situation of professor at the
college of Reichenau. This was a chateau near the confluence of the
upper and lower Rhine. He was then but twenty years of age. Assuming
the name of M. Chabaud, he underwent a very rigid examination,
without exciting the slightest suspicion as to his real character.
For eight months he discharged the duties of teaching the French and
English languages with marked success, and so secured the respect of
the inhabitants of Reichenau that they elected him their deputy to
the Assembly at Coire.

Here the tidings reached him of the sad fate of his father.
Overwhelmed with grief, and restless in view of the peril of other
members of the family, he resumed his wanderings. Proceeding to
Bremgarten, the residence of his influential friend M. de
Montesquieu, he remained with him, as aid-de-camp, until some time in
the year 1794.

But it was impossible for a man so widely known to remain long
concealed in any place. There was still an energetic and increasingly
powerful party in France opposed to the disorders which the Republic
had introduced, and anxious to restore monarchical forms. The
situation of the sister of the _Duke of Orleans_, as Louis Philippe
now became, on the death of his father, was considered so unsafe in
the convent of Bremgarten that she was removed to Hungary.

One day, as the duke was sitting silently, lost in thought, in a
parlor adjoining the one occupied by his generous host, he overheard
some conversation which led him to fear that the hospitality which he
was receiving might endanger the safety of his friend. He immediately
resolved to withdraw from Bremgarten and to seek refuge in Hamburg.
Here, finding his position very insecure, he resolved to hide himself
in the cheerless climate of Northern Europe. Accustomed to the
severest privations, he was enabled to recommence his wanderings
with the slender funds at his disposal. Assuming the character of a
Swiss traveller, he made arrangements to disappear from Southern
Europe, and seek refuge in the wilds of Scandinavia. He obtained
passports from the King of Denmark, which allowed him to take with
him his steadfast friend Count Montjoie, and his faithful servant
Baudoin, who had shared all the sufferings of his exile. A letter of
credit upon a banker at Copenhagen supplied his immediate pecuniary
wants.




 CHAPTER III.

 WANDERINGS IN THE OLD WORLD
 AND THE NEW.

 1794-1798

Louis Philippe in Sweden.--His incognito.--Journeying northward.--Court
ball of King Gustavus.--Despotism of the Directory.--The duke urged to
join the emigrants.--Letter from the duchess to her son.--Embarkation
for America.--Sufferings of the young princes.--Their destitution.--The
attempt to escape.--Strong affection for each other.--The release of
the captives.--The contrast.--Blending of joy and anxiety.--The long
and stormy voyage.--Visit to Mount Vernon.--The republican
landlord.--Driven from the inn.--Journeying in the wilderness.--Indian
hospitality.--Letter from the Duke of Montpensier.--Hardships of
travel.--Return to Philadelphia.--Crossing the Alleghanies.--Floating
down the river.--Welcome in New Orleans.--Arrogance of the British
Government.--Action of the French Government.--The "right of
search."--Narrow escape.


The peninsula of Scandinavia can be explored at a very slight
expense. The exiled prince, with his companions, travelled in the
most unostentatious manner. He felt quite secure in his wanderings,
as but few of the emigrants had penetrated those distant regions.
From Copenhagen he passed to Elsineur, visiting all objects of
historic interest. Crossing the Sound at Helsinbourg, he entered the
hospitable realms of Sweden. After a brief tarry at Gottenburg, and
ascending Lake Wener, he directed his steps towards Norway, remaining
for a short period at Friedrichsthal, where, in 1718, the half-mad
Charles XII., after perhaps the most stormy life through which a
mortal ever passed, breathed his last.

Proceeding to Christiania, he was received, as an intelligent and
affable traveller, with much distinction, though no one suspected his
rank. Wherever he went the purity of his character impressed itself
upon the community. M. Monod--subsequently a distinguished pastor of
one of the Protestant churches in Paris--was then at Christiania. He
fully appreciated the unusual virtues of his countryman, who, in
every word and action, manifested the spirit of true Christianity.

"M. Monod has repeatedly since been heard to declare," write A.
Laugier and Carpentier, "that the more the virtuous and instructive
life of this traveller was examined, the more exalted and exemplary
it appeared. What must have been his surprise when, subsequently, in
his own country, he recognized in the young Frenchman of Christiania,
so gentle and modest, a prince of the blood standing upon the very
steps of the throne of France!"

For some time the duke remained at Christiania, receiving many kind
attentions. On one occasion he dined with a numerous party at a
banker's in the city. In the evening, at the close of the
entertainment, as the guests were departing, the duke was startled
and alarmed by hearing the son of the banker, in a loud and somewhat
playful tone, call out, "The carriage of the Duke of Orleans." For a
moment he was much embarrassed. But perceiving that neither the
young man nor any of the company turned their eyes to him, he
recovered his self-possession, and calmly inquired of the young man,
"Why do you call for the carriage of the Duke of Orleans? What have
you to do with him?"

"Nothing at all," he replied, with a smile; "but in a journey which
we, not long ago, made to Paris, every evening, as we were coming out
of the opera, we heard the people shouting on all sides, and with the
greatest eagerness, '_La voiture de Monseigneur le Duc d'Orleans! les
gens de son Altesse Royale?_' I was almost stunned by the noise. At
the moment it occurred to me to imitate them, instead of simply
calling for the carriage."[D]

[Footnote D: Vie Anecdotique de Louis Philippe, p. 120.]

Continuing his journey to the north, the prince passed through
Drontheim and Hamersfeldt, which latter place was then the most
northern town in Europe. Some years after, when Louis Philippe had
ascended the throne of France, he sent a clock to the church tower in
Hamersfeldt, in graceful recognition of his hospitable reception
there as a stranger.

[Illustration: NORTH CAPE.]

Continuing along the coast of Norway, he reached the Gulf of
Salten, and visited the world-renowned Maelstrom. Taking an
Icelander, by the name of Holm, as his guide, he entered Lapland.
Thus journeying, he, on the 24th of August, 1795, reached North Cape,
the extreme northern point of Europe, within eighteen degrees of the
North Pole. It is said that no Frenchman had ever before visited
those distant and frigid regions. Here the duke remained for
several weeks, enjoying the hospitality of the simple-hearted
inhabitants--winning their confidence by his affability, and deeply
interested in studying their manners and customs.

Then, turning directly south, accompanied by several of the natives,
he reached Tornev, on the extreme northern shore of the Gulf of
Bothnia. Thence he traversed the eastern shores of the gulf for many
weary leagues, to Abo, in Finland, where he embarked for the Aland
Islands, and reached Stockholm the latter part of October. Here,
notwithstanding all his endeavors to preserve his incognito, his
curiosity to witness a grand court ball, given in honor of the
birth-day of King Gustavus II., led to his recognition by the French
envoy at that court, though he had adopted the precaution of
entering the highest gallery in the ball-room.

The king, being informed of his presence, immediately dispatched a
messenger to say that his majesty would be happy to see the
duke. The kindest attentions were lavished upon him. From such
attentions he deemed it prudent to escape, and speedily resumed his
wanderings--searching out and carefully examining all objects of
historical interest. Recrossing the Sound, he returned to Hamburg, by
the way of Copenhagen and Lubeck. The Revolution was still running
riot in France. The duke, having exhausted the resources at his
disposal, found himself in truly an embarrassing situation.

The _Directory_ was at that time ruling France with despotic sway.
Ever trembling in fear of a reaction, the Directors would gladly
place beneath the slide of the guillotine any one in whose veins
there ran a drop of royal blood. Fearful of the great influence of
the house of Orleans, even when its property was sequestered, and its
members were in prison or in exile, the greatest efforts had been
made, by means of secret agents, to find out the retreat of Louis
Philippe. At length, by some means, they discovered him in the small
town of Frederichstadt, in Holstein. His two brothers were then in
prison in Marseilles, in hourly danger of being dragged to the
guillotine, upon which their father had perished.

The Directory proposed to the Duchess of Orleans, who was imprisoned
in Paris, and to Louis Philippe, now the head of the family, that if
the duke and his brothers would embark for America, leaving Europe,
the two imprisoned princes should be restored to liberty, and the
sequestrated property of the family should be refunded.

Louis XVIII., also an emigrant, in the bosom of the armies of
Austria, and surrounded by the armed nobility of France, had
previously, through an envoy, urged Louis Philippe to join the
emigrants, in their attempt, by the aid of the sword of foreigners,
to re-establish the throne of France. But the prince was not willing
to bear arms against his native land.

The agents of the Directory, who now approached the prince, presented
him a letter from his mother. Her husband had suffered a cruel death
from the executioner. Her two sons were in hourly peril of the same
fate. Her eldest son and her daughter were in exile, wandering in
poverty, she knew not where. She herself was a captive, cruelly
separated from all her family, exposed to many insults, and liable,
at any hour, to suffer upon the scaffold the same fate which her
queen, Maria Antoinette, and many others of the noblest ladies of
France had already endured.

The affectionate heart of this amiable woman was lacerated with
anguish. She wrote a letter to her son, which was intrusted to the
agents in search of him, imploring him, in the most affecting terms,
to rescue the family, by a voluntary exile to America, from its
dreadful woes and perils. In the letter she wrote:

     "May the prospect of relieving the misfortunes of your
     distressed mother, of mitigating the sorrows of your family,
     and of contributing to restore peace to your unhappy
     country, reward your generosity."

The duke, upon the reception of this letter, decided at once to
embark for America. To his mother he wrote: "When my beloved mother
shall have received this letter, her commands will have been
executed, and I shall have sailed for America. I shall embark in the
first vessel destined for the United States. I no longer think that
happiness is lost to me while I have it in my power to alleviate the
sorrows of a cherished mother, whose situation and sufferings have
for a long time rent my heart."[E]

[Footnote E: A. Laugier et Carpentier, p. 132.]

On the 24th of September, 1796, the Duke of Orleans embarked at
Hamburg in an American vessel, "The America," then a regular packet
plying between that port and Philadelphia. Still retaining his
incognito, he represented himself as a Dane, and obtained Danish
passports. He paid thirty-five guineas for his passage, and took with
him his ever-faithful servant Baudoin, for whom he paid seventeen and
a half guineas. A favorable passage of twenty-seven days landed them
at Philadelphia, on the 21st of October, 1796.

We have not space here to describe the cruel sufferings of the two
younger brothers of Louis Philippe during their captivity. The elder
of the two, the Duke of Montpensier, was but seventeen years of age;
the younger, Count Beaujolais, was but thirteen. The brothers were
confined separately, in dark, fetid dungeons, and were not allowed
any communication with each other. The health of Beaujolais soon
began to suffer, and it was evident that he must die unless he could
have fresh air. The Duke of Montpensier writes, in his touching
autobiography:

    "My brother Beaujolais was consequently permitted to spend
    two or three hours each day in the open air, and was then
    remanded to his dungeon. His cell being above mine, he was
    obliged to pass my door on his way out, and he never failed
    to call out, 'Good-day, Montpensier; how are you?' It is
    impossible to describe the effect his gentle voice had upon
    me, or the distress I felt when a day passed without my
    hearing it; for he was sometimes actually forbidden to utter
    these words, and was always hurried by so quickly that he had
    scarce time to hear my answer. Once, however, that he was
    permitted to remain until my dinner was brought, he kept so
    close to the heels of the basket-bearer that, in spite of the
    administrators, who tried to hold him back, he darted into my
    cell and embraced me. It was six weeks since I had seen
    him--six wretched weeks. The moment was precious, but how
    short! He was torn from me forthwith, with threats of being
    no more allowed to go out should the same scene be repeated.
    I myself was not afterwards permitted, when my cell door was
    opened, to go near enough to catch the breeze which passed up
    the narrow staircase."

The princes were not allowed to see the public journals, or to
receive from their friends any letters which had not been previously
examined by their jailers. They were left in entire ignorance of
their father's execution until some time after his head had fallen.
When the awful tidings were conveyed to them, both of the young
princes, weakened by imprisonment and misery, fainted away. The
hatred with which they were pursued is evinced by the epithet of
_wolves' cubs_, which was ever applied to them in the clubs of the
Jacobins. Eight francs a day were allowed for their support. Their
mother had sent to them, for their immediate necessities, twelve
thousand francs ($2400); but the magistrates had seized the whole
sum. As the weary months rolled on, there were variations in the
treatment of the illustrious prisoners--it sometimes being more and
sometimes less brutal, but ever marked with almost savage ferocity.
After the fall of Robespierre, a decree was passed--

    "That the imprisoned members of the Orleans family should
    have the outer walls of the fort as the limits of their
    captivity, the privilege of ranging about within those
    bounds, and in future they were not to be locked up in their
    cells."

The mother of the princes, the Duchess of Orleans, who had been in
close surveillance in the palace of the Luxembourg, in Paris, also
experienced very considerable alleviation in the severity of her
treatment. From various quarters the captives at length obtained
funds, so that their pecuniary wants were supplied. On the 18th of
November, 1795, the princes made a desperate but unavailing effort to
escape. The breaking of a rope by which Montpensier was endeavoring
to let himself down, outside of the walls, precipitated him from a
great height to the ground, very seriously breaking one of his legs.
He was recaptured, and suffered terribly from mental and bodily
anguish. His brother, Beaujolais, having effected his escape,
learning of the misfortune which had befallen his brother, returned,
with true brotherly love, to voluntary captivity, that he might do
something to cheer the sufferer.

Upon the return of Beaujolais, the commandant of the prison said,
exultingly, to the Duke of Montpensier, who was writhing upon a bed
of bodily suffering and of mental anguish:

"Your young brother is again my prisoner in the fortress, and burns
with anxiety to see you. You are henceforth to be confined
separately, and will no longer have an opportunity to communicate
with each other."

The two brothers were allowed one short interview. "Ah, brother,"
said Beaujolais, "I fear we shall derive no benefit from what I have
done, for we are to be confined separately. But without you it was
impossible for me to enjoy liberty."

For forty days Montpensier was confined to his bed. It was a year and
a half before he entirely recovered the use of his broken limb. Thus
three years of almost unmitigated wretchedness passed away. There
were many massacres in the prison; and often it seemed that
miraculous interposition alone had saved them from a bloody death.
Gradually the horrors of the Reign of Terror seemed to subside. The
captive princes were allowed to occupy a room together, and that a
comfortably furnished apartment in the fort, overlooking the sea. It
was under these circumstances that the mother consented to their
banishment to America, as the condition of their liberation. The
Directory, however, would not open their prison doors until it had
received official intelligence of the embarkation of Louis Philippe.

Immediately upon being satisfied that the Duke of Orleans had sailed
from Hamburg, the authorities prepared to release the princes from
their captivity, and to send them also to the New World. When all
things were ready, General Willot, a humane man, who had arrived at
Marseilles with extensive powers, informed them that the hour for
their release had come.

"The prisoners at first could scarcely credit their senses. They
looked steadfastly at each other; then, throwing themselves into each
other's arms, they began to cry, laugh, leap about the room, and for
several minutes continued to manifest a temporary derangement."

It would still be a few days before the vessel would sail.
Jacobinical fury was such in Marseilles that it was not safe for the
princes to appear in public, lest they should be torn in pieces by
the mob. They were therefore removed to the house of the American
consul, Mr. Cathalan, who had manifested almost a brotherly interest
in their welfare.

    "It is impossible to describe," writes the Duke Montpensier,
    in his autobiography, "the sensations I experienced in
    crossing the draw-bridge, and contrasting the present moment
    with the frightful occasions on which I had passed it before;
    the first time, on my entrance into that dismal fortress,
    where I had been immured for nearly three years of my life;
    and the second, on my unfortunate attempt to escape from it
    and recover my liberty. The gratifying reflection that I now
    trod on it for the last time could with difficulty impress
    itself upon my mind; and I could not avoid fancying that the
    whole was a sleeping vision, the illusion of which I was
    every moment apprehensive of seeing dissipated. On our exit
    from the fort, we were received by a strong detachment of
    grenadiers, who conducted us to the sloop."

Being thus placed under the protection of the stars and stripes, the
soldiers of the Directory left them, and they repaired immediately
from the vessel to the house of the American consul, where several
friends had assembled to greet them.

    "Here," continues M. Montpensier in his journal, "we passed
    very agreeably the few days that remained before the
    departure of the vessel for America. We were, indeed, true
    birds of the night--only venturing out after dusk; but our
    days passed happily enough. Still, we were too near that
    abode of misery, the fort, which we never ceased to think of
    without anguish. And so apprehensive were we of a sudden
    change in the sentiments of the existing Government, or an
    actual revolution in the Government itself, that our anxiety
    to depart was almost insupportable. At last we were informed
    that the vessel would sail the following day. The effect of
    this joyous news was the total loss of our rest during the
    night. Seven o'clock in the morning of the 5th of November,
    1796, found us awake and in transports of delight at being
    permitted to take wings and fly to some land of toleration
    and liberty, since our own had ceased to be such.

    "The citizens of Marseilles, being informed of our intended
    departure, assembled in crowds to see us embark. The ramparts
    of the fort were lined, the windows filled. Almost all
    congratulated us upon the recovery of our liberty. Some
    envied us our lot; while a few, undoubtedly, wished that the
    sea might ingulf us where its depth was greatest, and rid
    France of two members of the proscribed and hated race. The
    anchor was raised, and the sails were set. A favorable breeze
    springing up, we soon lost sight of that country in which we
    had been victims of a persecution so relentless, but for
    whose prosperity and happiness we never ceased to offer up
    our prayers to heaven."

The voyage was long and stormy. It was not until after the expiration
of _ninety-two_ days that the vessel, the "Jupiter," reached
Philadelphia, in February, 1797. Here, with inexpressible emotions of
joy, they found their brother awaiting their arrival. They took up
their residence in a humble house in Walnut Street, between Fourth
and Fifth streets, adjoining the church; from which they soon removed
to a house which they rented from the Spanish consul, in Sixth
Street.

Philadelphia was then the seat of the Federal Government. The
incognito of the princes was removed, and they were received with
marked respect and attentions. They were present when Washington
delivered his Farewell Address to Congress, and also witnessed the
inauguration of President Adams. The funds of the princes, though
not large, enabled them to meet their frugal expenses. In the
early summer the three princes--accompanied by the faithful
servant Baudoin, who had accompanied Louis Philippe in all his
wanderings--set out on horseback to visit Baltimore and other
Southern cities. The present City of Washington did not then exist.
They, however, visited Georgetown, where they were hospitably
entertained by Mr. Law.

Passing through Alexandria, they took the road to Mount Vernon, where
they had been invited to pass a few days with perhaps the most
illustrious man of modern ages. Washington, with whom they had become
acquainted in Philadelphia, and who had invited them to his house,
received them with the greatest kindness. The modest, gentlemanly,
heroic character of these remarkable young men deeply impressed him.
He furnished them with letters of introduction, and drew up an
itinerary of their journey, south and west, directing their attention
to especial objects of interest.

In those early days, and through that wild, almost uncultivated
country, travelling was attended with not a little difficulty and
with some danger. Mounted on horseback, with all their baggage in
saddle-bags, the princes took leave of their honored host, and rode,
by the way of Leesburg and Harper's Ferry, to Winchester, where they
were entertained in the celebrated inn of Mr. Bush. An American has
in the following terms described the character and appearance of this
celebrated landlord:

    "I have him in my mind's eye as he was then, portly, ruddy,
    though advanced in life, with a large, broad-brimmed hat, and
    with his full clothes of the olden time, looking the very
    patriarch of his establishment. He had two houses--one for
    his family, and the other for his guests; and there was no
    resting-place in all that rich valley more frequented by
    travellers than his. It was a model of neatness and comfort,
    and the excellent man who built it up, and who continued it
    more from the desire of employment than from the love of
    gain, seemed to consider the relations subsisting between the
    traveller and himself as a favor to the former rather than to
    the latter."

Mr. Bush had been in Manheim, which Louis Philippe had recently
visited, and he could speak German. This created quite an intimacy
between guest and host, and led to a long conversation. The journey
had been rough, the exposure great, and the youngest brother,
unaccustomed to such fatigue, was greatly exhausted. The Duke of
Orleans, who watched over his brother with parental tenderness, out
of regard to his prostration, asked the privilege, so common in
Europe, of having their dinner served to them in their own room. The
pride of the republican inn-keeper was touched.

    "Such a request," writes G. N. Wright, "had never been heard
    in the fair and fertile vale of Shenandoah, or, at all
    events, within the limits of Bush's Winchester Hotel. It
    infringed his rules; it wounded his professional pride; it
    assailed his very honor. The recollection of Manheim, and the
    pleasant days he had passed there--the agreeable opportunity
    of living over those hours again in the conversation of the
    Duke of Orleans--the gentle conduct of the three young
    strangers--were all, in a moment of extravagant folly,
    passion, and intractableness, forgotten, flung to the winds,
    when, with a scornful air, he addressed Louis Philippe:

    "'Since you are too good to eat at the same table with my
    guests, you are too good to eat in my house. I desire,
    therefore, that you leave it instantly.'"[F]

[Footnote F: Life and Times of Louis Philippe, by Rev. G. N. Wright,
p. 21.]

In vain did the Duke of Orleans endeavor to explain and convince his
irate host that he intended no disrespect. The weary travellers were
compelled immediately to leave, and to seek hospitality elsewhere.
Continuing their journey through a variety of adventures, some
amusing and some painful, they passed through Staunton, Abington, and
Knoxville, and reached Nashville, in Tennessee. After a short tarry
here, they continued their ride through Louisville, Lexington,
Maysville, Chilicothe, Lancaster, Zanesville, Wheeling, to Pittsburg,
in Pennsylvania. Their accommodations in these vast wilds were often
of the humblest kind. The three brothers often slept on the floor,
wrapped in their cloaks, in some wretched hut, with their feet
towards the blazing fire, while their landlord and his wife occupied
the only bed in the only room.

At Pittsburg the travellers rested for several days. From that place
the princes directed their steps to Buffalo, skirting, for some
distance, the shores of Lake Erie. At Cattaraugus they were the
guests, for one night, of the Seneca Indians. They felt some anxiety
in reference to their baggage, the loss of which, in those distant
regions, would have been a serious calamity. The chief, perceiving
their solicitude, said that he would be personally responsible for
every article which might be committed to his care, but for nothing
else. After a little reflection, the duke placed in his hands
saddles, bridles, blankets, clothes, and money--every thing, except a
beautiful dog, which he did not think of including in the inventory.
All were restored in the morning, excepting that the dog was missing.
"If the dog," said the chief, "had been intrusted to my care, it
would have been waiting your departure." With some difficulty the
favorite animal was reclaimed.

At Buffalo the travellers crossed the head of the Niagara River, and,
passing down the Canadian shore, visited the world-renowned falls. On
their way, they passed a night in the huts of the Chippewa Indians.
The following extracts, written by the Duke of Montpensier to his
sister, throw much light upon the character of these excellent young
men. It was dated August 14, 1797:

     "I hope you have received the letters which we wrote to you
     from Pittsburg about two months ago. We were then in the
     midst of a long journey, which we have terminated only
     fifteen days since. It occupied us four months. We
     journeyed during all that time a thousand leagues, and
     always upon the same horses, except the last hundred
     leagues, which we performed partly by water, partly on foot,
     partly on hired horses, and partly by stage, or the public
     conveyance.

     "We have seen many Indians, and we remained even many days
     in their country. They are, in general, the best people in
     the world, except when they are intoxicated or inflamed by
     passion. They received us with great kindness; and our being
     Frenchmen contributed not a little to this reception, for
     they are very fond of our nation. The most interesting
     object we visited, after the Indian villages, was certainly
     the Cataract of Niagara, which I wrote you word from
     Pittsburg that we were going to see. It is the most
     astonishing and majestic spectacle I have ever witnessed. I
     have made a sketch of it, from which I intend to make a
     water-color drawing, which our dear little sister shall
     certainly see at our beloved mother's home.

     "To give you an idea of the agreeable manner in which they
     travel in this country, I must tell you, dear sister, that
     we passed fourteen nights in the woods, devoured by all
     kinds of insects, often wet to the bone, without being able
     to dry ourselves, and our only food being pork, a little
     salt beef, and maize bread. Independently of this adventure,
     we were forty or fifty nights in miserable huts, where we
     were obliged to lie upon a floor made of rough timber, and
     to endure all the taunts and murmuring of the inhabitants,
     who often turned us out of doors, often refused us
     admission, and whose hospitality was always defective. I
     should never recommend a similar journey to any friend of
     mine; yet we are far from repenting what we have done, since
     we have all three brought back excellent health and more
     experience.

     "Adieu, beloved and cherished sister--so tenderly loved.
     Receive the embraces of three brothers, whose thoughts are
     constantly with you."

As the travellers were proceeding from Buffalo to Canandaigua, over a
country so rude that they suffered more than on any other part of
their journey, they met Mr. Alexander Baring, afterwards Lord
Ashburton, whose acquaintance they had made in Philadelphia. Mr.
Baring was on a tour to Niagara, from which the princes were
returning. His patience was quite exhausted by the hardships he was
enduring on the way; and he expressed the doubt whether the sight of
Niagara could repay one for such excessive toil and privation. His
experience must, indeed, have been different from that of the modern
tourist, who glides smoothly along in the palace-cars. Arriving at
Geneva, they took a boat and sailed up Seneca Lake to its head;
whence they crossed over to Tioga Point, on the Susquehanna. The last
twenty-five miles of this trip they accomplished on foot, each one
carrying his baggage. Passing through the country, in almost a direct
line, by the way of Wilkesbarre, they returned to Philadelphia.

Soon after their return the yellow-fever broke out in Philadelphia
with great malignity, in July, 1797. The princes had expended on
their long journey all their funds, and were impatiently awaiting
remittances from Europe. They were thus unable to withdraw from the
pestilence, from which all who had the means precipitately fled. It
was not until September that their mother succeeded in transmitting
to them a remittance.

With these fresh resources they commenced a journey to the Eastern
States, passing through the States of New York, Connecticut, Rhode
Island, and Massachusetts, to Boston; and it is said that they
extended their travels to Hallowell, in the District of Maine, to
call upon the Vaughans, an illustrious family from England, then
residing there.

Louisiana at that time belonged to Spain. The exiles decided to cross
the country to the Ohio, descend the river to New Orleans, and thence
to proceed to Havana, on the island of Cuba, by some Spanish vessel.
Returning to Philadelphia, they set out, on the 10th of December,
1797, to cross the Alleghanies. Upon those heights and gorges winter
had already set in, and the cold was very severe. Just before
leaving, they learned that the Directory had passed a decree
banishing every member of the Bourbon family from France, including
their mother, who was a Bourbon only by marriage, and that their
mother had taken refuge in Spain. At that time Spain was in alliance
with France, and the British Government was consequently at war
against it.

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.]

[Illustration: LOUIS XVII. IN PRISON.]

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.

[Illustration: LOUIS XVIII. LEAVING PARIS.]

"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.]

[Illustration: NAPOLEON ENTERING THE TUILERIES.]

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.

[Illustration: MARSHAL NEY.]

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!"

[Illustration: ASSASSINATION OF THE DUKE DE BERRI.]

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.

The first of these famous ordinances suspended the liberty of the
press, and prohibited the publication of any journals excepting such
as were authorized by the Government.

The second dissolved the new Chamber of Deputies, or Legislature,
because the members were too liberal in their political opinions,
assuming that the electors had been deceived by the popular clamor,
and had chosen such persons as they ought not to have chosen.

The third reduced the number of deputies from three hundred and
ninety-five to two hundred and twenty-eight, and so altered the
electoral franchise, in order to secure the return of members
favorable to the Government, as to deprive a large number of the
right of suffrage who had heretofore exercised it.

Such, in brief, were the ordinances which overthrew the throne of
Charles X. and drove the elder branch of the Bourbons into exile.
There were others issued at the same time, but which were of no
material importance.

Frivolous as was the character of Charles X., he had sagacity enough
to know that such decrees could not be issued in France without
creating intense agitation. His ministers also, though the advocates
of the despotic principles of the old regime, were men of ability.
They recognized the measures as desperate. Popular discontent had
reached such a crisis that it was necessary either to silence it by
despotic power or yield to it, introducing reforms which would
deprive the ministers of their places.

Prince Polignac was at this time prime minister. His mother had been
the bosom-friend of Maria Antoinette. Through his whole life he was
the unswerving friend of the Bourbons. Implicated in the plot of
Georges for the overthrow of the First Consul, he was condemned to
death. Napoleon spared his life, and finally liberated him, upon
which he followed Count d'Artois (Charles X.) into exile. Returning
with the Bourbons, in the rear of the Allied armies, he was rewarded
for his life-long fidelity to the ancient regime by the highest
honors.

The sorrows of life had left their impress upon his pensive features.
He was well-read, very decided in his views that the people were made
to _be governed_, not to govern. He was energetic, but possessed of
so little worldly wisdom that he thought that the people, however
much exasperated, could be easily subdued by determined action.

M. de la Bourdonnaye, Minister of the Interior, like Polignac, was an
ultra Royalist. He had been one of the most violent of the Vendeans
in their opposition to the Revolution, and is represented, even by
those who were in sympathy with him, as wishing to govern by a
royalist reign of terror.

M. de Bourmont, Minister of War, had been a staunch Royalist in the
days of the Revolution, struggling with the Vendeans in defense of
the monarchy. Upon the establishment of the Empire he gave his
adhesion to Napoleon. Being a man of ability, he was placed in
responsible posts. At Waterloo, upon the eve of the great struggle,
he deserted to the Allies, carrying as his peace-offering the
betrayal of the emperor's plan of campaign. It is supposed that his
testimony against Marshal Ney sealed the fate of that illustrious
man. The French people had not forgotten his defection at Waterloo,
and he was exceedingly unpopular.

These were the prominent ministers. The other members of the cabinet,
though men of ability, were not of historic note. The original
appointment of these ministers, whose opinions were so obnoxious and
well known, had caused great indignation. The liberal press assailed
them with vehemence. The _Journal des Debats_, after announcing the
names of the ministers, exclaimed:

    "The emigration of M. de Polignac, the fury of proscription
    of M. de la Bourdonnaye, desertion to the enemy in M. de
    Bourmont--such are the three principles in the three leading
    persons of the administration. Press upon it. Nothing but
    humiliation, misfortune, and danger will drive it from power."

M. Guizot was then editor of the journal _Le Temps_. He had already
attained renown. His weighty editorials, distinguished alike for
cogent argument and depth of philosophical thought, carried
conviction to the most intelligent minds. M. Thiers was editor of the
_Nationale_. His great abilities, already developed in his "History
of the French Revolution," had given him a commanding position among
the journalists on the liberal side. Both of these distinguished
writers, and many others, assailed the ministry with such popular
effect, that it was clear that their utterances must be silenced, or
the ministry must fall. Hence the _Ordinances_ were issued.

The scene at the signing of these ordinances is represented by
Lamartine as quite dramatic. The important measure of the _coup
d'etat_ was anxiously discussed under the pledge of secrecy. The
project of the ministers was cordially approved by the king. He is
reported to have said:

"It is not the ministry, it is the crown, which is attacked. It is
the cause of the throne against revolution which is at issue. One or
the other must succumb. I recollect what occurred in 1789. The first
step my unhappy brother, Louis XVI., made in retreat before the
revolutionists was the signal of his ruin. They, too, pretended
fidelity to the crown, and demanded only the dismissal of its
ministers. He yielded, and all was lost. Gentlemen, I will not
dismiss you. No! Let them conduct us, if they please, to the
scaffold. But let us fight for our rights; and if we are to fall,
fall sword in hand. I had rather be led to execution on horseback
than in a cart."

On the morning of the 25th of July, 1830, the king and his ministers
met at the palace of St. Cloud to sign the fatal ordinances. They all
seem to have been in some degree aware of the peril of the step. Many
of them had passed a sleepless night, and were deeply impressed with
the solemnity of the occasion. They sat pale, silent, anxious, as
Prince Polignac slowly read the ordinances and presented them to the
king for his signature. Charles X. took the pen, turned pale, and for
a moment hesitated. Then raising his eyes to heaven, as if imploring
Divine aid, he said, "The more I think of it, the more I am convinced
that it is impossible to do otherwise than I do." With these words he
affixed his signature to the document which expelled him and his
dynasty from France.[U]

[Footnote U: "The ministers took their places in silence around the
fatal table. Charles X. had the dauphin on his right and M. de
Polignac on his left. He questioned each of his servants, one after
another, and when he came to M. d'Hausrez, that minister repeated his
observations of the preceding day. 'Do you refuse?' inquired Charles
X. 'Sire,' replied the minister, 'may I be allowed to address one
question to the king? Is your majesty resolved on proceeding, should
your ministers draw back?' 'Yes,' said Charles, firmly. The minister
of marine took the pen and signed.

"When all the signatures were affixed, there was a solemn and awful
pause. An expression of high-wrought energy, mingled with uneasiness,
sat on the faces of the ministers. M. de Polignac's alone wore a look
of triumph. Charles X. walked up and down the room with perfect
composure."--_France under Louis Philippe_, by Louis Blanc, p. 107.]

The ministers, one after another, countersigned the ordinances. Not a
word was spoken. "Despair," says Alison, "was painted on every
visage." Polignac, in the temporary absence of M. Bourmont, was
acting Minister of War. In reply to the inquiry what means of
resistance the Government had in case of insurrection, he replied,
with confidence equal to his self-deception,

"No popular movement is to be apprehended. At all events, Paris is
sufficiently garrisoned to crush any rebellion and guarantee public
tranquillity."

The force upon which Polignac relied consisted of 11,550 men in
Paris, with twelve pieces of cannon. There were also fifteen
battalions of infantry and thirty-four squadrons of cavalry stationed
in towns not far distant, which could be rapidly collected to aid the
troops within the walls. On the other hand, the city of Paris, in a
general insurrection, could furnish 200,000 fighting men. Many of
these had seen actual service. There was a National Guard, the
militia of the metropolis, organized and well armed, consisting of
40,000 men. A portion of the royal troops, also, could not be relied
upon in a struggle with the people. General Marmont, one of the
marshals of the Empire, was in command of the Royalist troops. He was
exceedingly unpopular in Paris, in consequence of the feeble defense
it was thought he made when the city was captured by the Allies.

The ordinances were secretly printed, and during the night of the
25th were placarded on the walls of Paris. They also appeared
simultaneously the next morning in the _Moniteur_. Though some of the
more sagacious had been suspecting that the Government might resort
to measures of desperation, these ordinances took the whole community
by surprise. Crowds gathered in the coffee-houses, at the doors of
the public journals, and in all the prominent places of resort. There
was no sudden ebullition of indignation, and no immediate
demonstrations of violence. The event had come so suddenly that the
masses were unprepared for action, and the leaders required time to
decide whether it were best to attempt forcible resistance, and, if
so, what measures to that end could most effectually be adopted.
Though throughout the day no insurrectionary movements appeared,
still agitation was rapidly on the increase, and Paris represented a
bee-hive into which some disturbing element had been cast.

The editors of the leading journals, and several others of the most
illustrious advocates of liberal opinions, held a consultation upon
the state of affairs. But night came, and the result of their
deliberations was not made known. The day had been serene and
beautiful, inviting all the population of Paris into the streets. The
balmy summer night kept them there. Innumerable rumors increased the
excitement, and it was evident that a few words from influential lips
would create an insurrection, which might amount to a revolution.

The gentlemen who had met in conference--forty-four in number--after
careful deliberation, and having obtained the opinion of the most
celebrated lawyers that the ordinances were illegal, gallantly
resolved to resist them at the hazard of their lives. They
accordingly issued a protest, to which each one affixed his
signature. The boldness of the act commanded the admiration even of
the advocates of arbitrary power. In their protest they said:

    "The Government has lost the character of legality which
    commands obedience. We _resist_ it in so far as we are
    concerned. It is for France to determine how far resistance
    should extend."

The liberal journals refused to take out the license the ordinances
required. This act of defiance the Government met by sending the
police to seize the journals and close their printing-offices. A
commissary of police, with two gendarmes, repaired to the office of
the _Temps_, edited by M. Guizot, in the Boulevard des Italiens. They
found the doors barred against them. A blacksmith was sent for to
force the entrance. This collected a crowd, and he refused to act in
obedience to the police. A second blacksmith was sent for. As he
commenced operations the crowd took his tools from him. At length,
however, an entrance was effected, and a seal was put upon the
printing-presses. This scene, occurring in one of the most populous
thoroughfares of Paris, created intense agitation. Still, thus far,
there had been so little commotion that the king and his ministers
were quite sanguine that their measures would prove triumphant.
Charles X. was so infatuated that on that morning--the 26th--he went
to Rambouillet, and spent the day in hunting.

During the night of the 26th there was another very important meeting
of the leaders of the liberal party at the mansion of M. Casimir
Perier. About thirty were present. Nearly all were members of the
Chamber of Deputies, and in intellectual strength were among the
most illustrious men in France. Anxiously, yet firmly, they
discussed the course to be pursued. It was a fearful question to
decide. Submission placed France, bound helplessly hand and foot,
under the heel of Bourbon despotism. Unsuccessful insurrection would
consign them either to life-long imprisonment in the dungeon or to
death upon the scaffold.

All agreed in condemning the ordinances as illegal. The more cautious
hesitated at rousing the energies of insurrection, and submitting the
issue to the decision of the sword. The young and impetuous advocated
an immediate appeal to arms. While deliberating, a deputation
appeared professing to represent the electors of Paris, and urged
that, as the Government was manifestly resolved to support the
despotic ordinances by force, nothing remained to the people but to
have recourse to insurrection. It was also stated that nearly all the
workmen from the manufactories were in the streets, eager to throw up
barricades and to defend their rights at every hazard.

At the same time committees presented themselves from various bodies
of young men, urging the deputies to take the lead of the patriotic
movement in which the people were resolved to engage. Their
solicitations were intensified by occasional discharges of musketry
in the streets, and by the clatter of iron hoofs, as the king's
cavalry here and there made charges to disperse threatening
gatherings, or to prevent the erection of barricades. It does not,
however, appear that any very decisive action was taken by this body.
Late at night it adjourned, to meet again the next day.

The morning of the 27th revealed a scene of turmoil and agitation
such as even excitable Paris had rarely witnessed. The king and his
court, with twelve hundred of the troops, withdrawn from the city,
were at St. Cloud. Large bodies of men were surging through the
streets, apparently without leaders or definite object, but ready for
any deeds of daring. Every hour of the day affairs were more
menacing. Frequent reports were brought by the police to the
ministers at St. Cloud, which represented that, though business was
generally suspended, and there were agitated crowds in the streets,
still no serious danger was apprehended.

But General Marmont, who was intrusted with the command of the
garrison in Paris, early in the morning became alarmed in view of
the struggle which he apprehended was about to commence, and of the
inadequate means under his control to meet it. In counting up his
forces he found that he had not more than ten thousand troops within
the walls. Of these not more than four thousand could be relied upon
in a conflict with the people.

Well might General Marmont tremble. From the remote sections and
narrow streets the populace were thronging to central points. The
boulevards, from the Place de la Bastile to the Madeleine, presented
a dense mass, whose angry looks, loud words, and violent gestures
indicated that they would fight with desperation should the struggle
once commence. Many of them were skilled in the use of arms. They
knew how to construct barricades. Every house was a fortress from
whose windows and roof the populace could hurl destruction upon the
heads of the troops, wedged in the narrow streets. And General
Marmont had reason to fear that of the small force under his command
six thousand would fraternize with the people upon the report of the
first musket.

The war-worn marshal skillfully arranged his forces, evidently
copying the operations of Napoleon in his famous repulse of the
attack of the sections upon the Convention. Three battalions were
placed at the Carrousel, which might be regarded as a vast fortress
in the centre of the city, walled in by the Tuileries and the Louvre.
Three battalions were stationed in the Place de la Concorde, with two
pieces of artillery. Three battalions of the line were ranged along
the boulevards from the Place of the Bastile to the Madeleine.
General Marmont did not wait for an attack to be made upon him. He
sent out detachments to scour the streets and to prevent the erection
of barricades. Reports had reached him that several were in process
of construction in the most narrow streets.

The first barricade encountered was in the Rue St. Honore, nearly in
front of the Palais Royal. The troops endeavored to disperse the
defenders by a volley in the air. As this produced no effect, they
opened upon them with a point-blank discharge, by which several were
wounded, and one man was killed. The other detachments met with no
opposition, but removed several barricades, and dispersed tumultuous
gatherings. The agitation was hourly on the increase. Random shots
were heard in different parts of the city. The dead body of the man
shot while defending the barricade was paraded in blood-stained
ghastliness through the streets, exciting frenzied passions. The
troops of the line, so called, who were known to be in sympathy with
the people, and whom General Marmont distrusted, were received with
shouts of applause wherever they appeared.

A vast concourse of the people had assembled in front of the Palais
Royal. A detachment of the line was sent to guard the palace. The
troops and the populace mingled together, talking and laughing. As
the multitude pressed the troops, they opened their ranks and let the
living torrent pass through, amidst loud cheers. Several armorers'
shops were broken open, and it was manifest that vigorous
preparations were going on in anticipation of the struggle of the
succeeding day. Still the king, with an infatuation which is
inexplicable, took no measures to add to the military strength at the
disposal of General Marmont. Thus passed the day of the 27th. It
seems that at night the king became somewhat alarmed, for at eleven
o'clock he issued an ordinance from his retreat at St. Cloud
declaring Paris to be in a state of siege.

During all the hours of the night of the 27th there reigned the calm
which precedes the storm. The leaders of the Liberal party--among
whom were to be found many of the most intelligent men, the wisest
statesmen, and the most accomplished generals in France--had fully
decided to submit their cause to the arbitrament of battle. Calm
deliberation, organization, carefully matured plans, were requisite
to meet the marshalled forces of the monarchy. It was no longer a
mere street insurrection, but a kingdom was to be revolutionized.
Immediately a new and tremendous impulse was secretly given to the
movement. Committees were busy. Agents were active, invested with
authority which the populace instinctively recognized without
inquiring into the source from which it emanated.

With the early light of the next morning--the 28th--the result of the
operations of the night was manifest. In the vicinity of the Place of
the Bastile there is a portion of the city densely populated, called
the Faubourg St. Antoine. It is inhabited by a class in a humble
condition of life, who have ever taken a very prominent part in all
the insurrections which have agitated Paris. Reckless of their own
lives as well as of the lives of others, they have ever been the most
desperate and the most dreaded fighters in every conflict in the
streets.

With the morning dawn the faubourg seemed to be swarming. Guided by
some mysterious but common impulse, a huge and disorderly mass--ever
increasing--of maddened men and equally maddened women, armed with
swords, muskets, pickaxes, and every other conceivable weapon of
offense or defense, surged along through the Rue St. Denis and along
the crowded boulevards towards the Place of the Madeleine, which was
occupied by the military. At the same time, at several important
points along the boulevards, the people were busy--men, women, and
boys--tearing up the pavements, seizing and overturning omnibuses and
carts, cutting down the trees, pitching heavy articles of furniture
out of the windows of the houses, and thus constructing barricades.

The points selected and the artistic style of structure indicated
that military genius of a high order guided the movement. Only a
small detachment of troops could be sent out from the central
position at the Tuileries. As they could not be everywhere, the
intrenchments of the populace rose in various parts of the city,
unopposed, with inconceivable rapidity, and with almost military
precision. Large bodies advanced simultaneously to the gunsmiths'
shops, to the police stations and guard-houses, to the arsenal and
powder manufactory, to the artillery depot of St. Thomas Aquinas; and
the guns, muskets, and ammunition thus seized were freely distributed
to the people. The National Guard, forty thousand strong, was
thoroughly armed. The ranks of this formidable body were filled with
the citizens of Paris, who were all in sympathy with the
insurrection. Many of them appeared in the streets even in their
uniform.

A band of armed men advanced to the Hotel de Ville, where but sixteen
soldiers were stationed on guard. The soldiers, attempting no
opposition, withdrew unmolested. A huge tri-color flag, unfurled from
the roof, announced with the peal of the tocsin that that important
post, almost an impregnable citadel in the hands of determined men,
had fallen into the possession of the people. The tidings swept the
streets like a flood, giving a new impulse to the universal
enthusiasm. A few moments after another band burst open the gates of
Notre Dame, and another tri-color flag waved in the breeze from one
of its towers; while the bells of the cathedral with their sublime
voices proclaimed to the agitated yet exultant masses the additional
triumph. It was scarcely midday, and yet four-fifths of Paris was in
the undisputed possession of the insurgents, and, as by magic, from
twenty spires and towers the tri-color flag spread its folds in
defiance to the banner of the Bourbons. More than a hundred
barricades had been erected, or were in the process of erection.
Behind them stood more than a hundred thousand well-armed, determined
men. With such rapidity and sagacity had all this been effected that
there had been scarcely any collision worthy of notice. A few charges
had been made by the gendarmery in dispersing crowds, and a few
random shots had been fired.

General Marmont, in preparation for assuming the offensive,
concentrated the whole of his little band around the Tuileries, and
constructed for himself a fortified camp in the Carrousel protected
by eight guns. A few troops were forwarded to him from Vincennes and
Versailles, so that he could display for the defense of that central
point thirty-six hundred soldiers of the Guard, tried men, upon whom
he could rely. Six hundred of these were horsemen. Forming three
columns, he sent one along the banks of the river to recapture the
Hotel de Ville, to demolish all the barricades, and disperse the
armed bands, until they reached the Place of the Bastile. Another was
to advance to the same point by the boulevards. The third was to
force its way through the Rue St. Honore to the Market of the
Innocents. Along these three lines the battle now raged fiercely,
with equal determination on each side. The scene of tumult, carnage,
horror, which ensued can neither be described nor imagined. The
streets were narrow. Every house was a fortress, from whose windows a
deadly fire was poured upon the troops. The combatants, inflamed by
the fury and terror of the strife, neither asked nor granted quarter.
Hour after hour they fought, Frenchmen against Frenchmen, brother
against brother, and the pavements were clotted with blood.
Barricades were taken and retaken. There were triumphant charges and
murderous repulses.




CHAPTER VII.

CHARLES X. DETHRONED.

1830

Progress of the insurrection.--Night of tumult.--The "Marseillaise
Hymn."--Consternation of the court.--The royal family.--The Duchess
de Berri.--Embarrassment of the officers.--Resignation of Count de
Raoul.--The troops desert.--Tactics of General Marmont.--The struggle
continued.--Interview between General Marmont and M. Arago.--Firmness
of Marmont.--Success of the insurgents.--Capture of artillery.--Retreat
of the Royalists.--General Marmont and the king.--Consternation at
St. Cloud.--Recall of the ordinances.--Scenes of confusion.--Retreat
to Versailles.--To Rambouillet.--Abdication.--M. Barrot and the
king.--Departure for Cherbourg.--St. Maintenon.--Mournful
journey.--Parting with the Guard.--Louis seeks an asylum.--Journey
to Cherbourg.--Arrival at Cherbourg.--Embarkation.--A sad farewell.


Night came, the night of the 28th of July, 1830. The royal troops,
having really accomplished nothing of any moment in their conflict
with the insurgent people, were ordered to avail themselves of the
darkness to retreat from all the positions they had gained. Thus,
before midnight the troops, virtually defeated, sought refuge in
concentrating themselves in their fortified camp at the Carrousel. It
was with no little difficulty that some of them fought their way back
to regain the quarters which they had left.

Two parties must ever co-operate in such scenes as we are now
describing. There must be not only bold men, with arms in their
hands, to achieve, but there must be sagacious men in council to plan
and direct. During the day a sort of provisional government was
established by the insurgents, which continued in session until
midnight. The voices of the street cannon had summoned Lafayette to
Paris, and he consecrated his world-wide renown to the cause of
popular rights, for which he had fought in America, and to which he
had been ever true in Europe. M. Lafitte, the wealthiest banker in
Paris, consecrated his fortune to the cause. M. Thiers, never prone
to follow any lead but that of his own vigorous mind, though he had
united with other journalists in recommending resistance, now
objected to any resort to violence, and demanded that the resistance
should be legal only. Being outvoted by his more practical
compeers--Lafayette, Lafitte, and Mauguin--he retired in displeasure,
and, abandoning the conflict, took refuge in the country at some
distance from Paris. To his remonstrances Lafayette replied in
language which one would deem convincing to every mind:

"Legal means have been cut short by the ordinances in the _Moniteur_,
and the discharges of artillery you hear in the streets. Victory can
alone now decide the question."

There was but little sleep for any one in Paris that night. A
population of a million and a half of people, crowded in narrow
streets, was in a state of the wildest excitement. The air was filled
with rumors of the approaching forces of the monarchy. The tramp of
armed men, the rumbling of the ponderous enginery of war, the clamor
of workmen throwing up barricades, the shouts of the mob, and often,
rising above all, the soul-stirring strains of the "Marseillaise
Hymn," pealed forth from thousands of impassioned lips, together with
the darkness of the night, the flash of torches, the blaze of
bonfires, presented a spectacle sublime beyond comprehension. The
"Marseillaise Hymn" is unquestionably the most powerful composition
in the world, both in its words and its music, to rouse the populace
to a frenzy of enthusiasm. We give below a vigorous translation of
the first verse:

     Ye sons of France, awake to glory!
       Hark! hark! what myriads bid you rise!
     Your children, wives, and grandsires hoary,
       Behold their tears and hear their cries!
     Shall hateful tyrants, mischief breeding,
       With hireling hosts, a ruffian band,
     Affright and desolate the land,
       While peace and liberty lie bleeding?

     (_Chorus._) To arms! to arms, ye brave!
       Th' avenging sword unsheath!
     March on! march on! all hearts resolved
       On liberty or death!

But no translation can equal the force of the original.

The king and his courtiers at St. Cloud were struck with
consternation as they received the tidings of the general and
successful revolt. The booming of the cannon in the streets of Paris
could be distinctly heard. With his spy-glass, from the heights
behind the chateau, the king could see the tri-color, the
representative of deadly hostility to his dynasty, unfurled from the
Hotel de Ville and from the towers of Notre Dame, and then from more
than twenty other prominent points in the city. At four o'clock in
the afternoon a dispatch from General Marmont informed the king of
the desperate state of affairs. The Royal Guard, composed largely of
Swiss mercenaries, had been faithful to discipline. But the troops of
the line, all Frenchmen, had in many instances refused to fire upon
the insurgents.

The fearful and unexpected crisis roused the king to action. It is
said he displayed more of coolness and energy than any of his
ministers. Orders were sent to General Marmont to concentrate his
forces as speedily as possible at the Tuileries. Agents were
dispatched to all the divisions of the Royal Guard garrisoned in the
towns in the vicinity of Paris to break camp immediately, and move
with the utmost haste to the capital. The king's eldest son, the
Duke d'Angouleme, of whom we have previously spoken as having married
his cousin, the unhappy but heroic and very noble daughter of Louis
XVI., was with his father at St. Cloud. The duchess was absent. The
widow also of the king's second son, the Duke de Berri, was at St.
Cloud with her two children, a daughter ten years old, and the little
boy, the Duke of Bordeaux (Count de Chambord), nine years of age.
These constituted the royal family.

"While Charles X. thought only of inspiring all around him with his
own fatal security, a bold scheme was concocting, almost before his
eyes, in the apartments of Madame de Gentaul. Convinced of the old
monarch's impotence to defend his dynasty, General Vincent had
resolved to save royalty without the king's co-operation, unknown to
the king, and, if necessary, despite the king. He went to Madame de
Gentaul and set forth to her that, in the existing state of things,
the fate of the monarchy depended upon a heroic resolve, and he
therefore proposed to her to take the Duchess de Berri and her son,
the Duke of Bordeaux, to Paris. He suggested that they should take
Neuilly in their way, get hold of the Duke of Orleans, and oblige
him by main force to take part in the hazard of the enterprise. They
should then enter Paris by the faubourgs, and the Duchess de Berri,
exhibiting the royal child to the people, should confide him to the
generosity of the combatants. Madame de Gentaul approved of this
scheme. In spite of its adventurous character, or rather for that
very reason, it won upon the excitable imagination of the Duchess de
Berri, and every thing was arranged for carrying it into execution.
But the infidelity of a confederate put Charles X. in possession of
the plot, and it broke down."[V]

[Footnote V: Les Dix Ans de Louis Philippe, par Louis Blanc.]

The Duke d'Angouleme, called the Dauphin, was a very respectable man,
without any distinguishing character. His wife, disciplined in the
school not merely of sorrow, but of such woes as few mortals have
ever been called to endure, had developed a character of truly heroic
mould. The Duchess de Berri was young, beautiful, and fascinating.
Her courage, enthusiasm, and love of adventure, as subsequently
displayed in the eyes of all Europe, were perhaps never surpassed.
Every generous heart will cherish emotions of regret in view of that
frailty which has consigned her name to reproach. The two children of
the Duchess de Berri were too young to comprehend the nature of the
events which were transpiring. Even while the bloody strife was in
progress, and the din of the conflict reached their ears, these two
innocent children were amusing themselves in a game in which
Mademoiselle led the rebels, and the Duke of Bordeaux at the head of
his Royal Guard repulsed them.

The cabinet ministers, under the protection of the troops, were in
permanent session at the Tuileries. Prince Polignac, a thoroughly
impractical man, who was at the head of the Government, seems not at
all to have comprehended the true state of affairs. When General
Marmont sent him word, on the evening of the 28th, that the troops of
the line were fraternizing with the people, he is reported to have
replied, with extraordinary coolness and simplicity, "Well, if the
troops have gone over to the insurgents, we must fire upon the
troops."

Many of these officers found themselves in a very painful situation,
embarrassed by the apparently conflicting claims of duty--fidelity to
their sovereign on the one hand, and fidelity to the rights of the
people on the other. Some, like General Marmont, remained faithful to
their colors, some silently abandoned their posts, but refused to
enter the ranks of the people to fight against their former comrades;
some openly passed over to the people and aided them in the struggle,
thus with certainty forfeiting their own lives should the royal
troops conquer. The following letter from Count de Raoul to Prince de
Polignac, resigning his commission, will give the reader some idea of
the embarrassments with which these honorable men were agitated:

     "MONSEIGNEUR,--After a day of massacres and disasters,
     entered on in defiance of all laws, divine and human, and in
     which I have taken part only from respect to human
     considerations, for which I reproach myself, my conscience
     imperiously forbids me to serve a moment longer. I have
     given, in the course of my life, proofs sufficiently
     numerous of my devotion to the king, to warrant me, without
     exposing my intentions to unjust suspicions, to draw a
     distinction between what emanates from him and the
     atrocities which are committed in his name. I have the honor
     to request, monseigneur, that you will lay before the king
     my resignation of my commission as captain of his guard."

In the confusion of those hours it appears that this letter did not
reach its destination. M. Polignac writes: "I never received this
letter, I would have sent it back to its author. In the moment of
danger no one's resignation is accepted."

The dismal night of the 28th passed quickly away, as both parties
summoned their mightiest energies for the death-struggle on the
morrow. The truce of a few hours, which darkness and exhaustion
compelled, was favorable to the people. I think it was Madame de
Stael who made the shrewd remark that "there is nothing so successful
as success." The real victory which the people had achieved not only
inspired the combatants with new courage, but induced thousands, who
had hesitated, to swell their ranks, and the troops of the line very
generally deserted the defense of the Government and passed over to
the people.

Early in the morning of the 29th the heroic little band of the Guard
stationed at the Tuileries--heroic in their devotion to discipline,
though unconsciously maintaining a bad cause--received a
reinforcement of fifteen hundred infantry and six hundred cavalry.
This, however, did but little more than make up for the losses in
killed and wounded of the preceding day, and as most of the troops of
the line had now gone over to the people, the cause of the Government
seemed hopeless. As General Marmont counted up his resources, he
found that he had but five thousand effective men and eight guns to
defend his position at the Tuileries. A hundred thousand combatants,
most of them well armed and disciplined, and renowned for bravery,
surrounded him. Military men who may be familiar with the localities,
either by observation or from maps, may be interested in seeing how
General Marmont disposed of his force to meet the emergency.

A Swiss battalion occupied the Carrousel. Two more Swiss battalions
were stationed in the Louvre, a fortress which could not easily be
stormed. Two battalions were placed in the Rue de Rivoli, to guard
the northern entrance to the Carrousel. Three battalions of the Guard
and a regiment of cavalry occupied the garden of the Tuileries and
the spacious Place de la Concorde, outside of the iron railing. Two
battalions of the line, who had not yet abandoned their colors, were
stationed in the Rue Castiglione, which abuts upon the garden near
its central northern entrance.

By this arrangement General Marmont, if sorely pressed, could rapidly
concentrate his whole force, either in the Carrousel or in the garden
of the Tuileries, where he could easily for some time hold an army at
bay. Should retreat be found necessary, there was open before him the
broad avenue of the Champs Elysees. The ground which the royal troops
occupied was all that remained under the control of the Government.
The whole of the remainder of Paris was in possession of the
insurgents.

It was well known that General Marmont could feel but little sympathy
in the cause which, in obedience to his oath, he felt compelled to
defend. The insurgents were now pressing the troops on every side. An
incessant fire of musketry, accompanied by loud shouts, indicated the
renewed severity with which the battle was beginning to rage. The
Provisional Government, anxious to arrest, if possible, the carnage
inevitable upon the continuance of the struggle, dispatched M. Arago,
the celebrated philosopher, who was an intimate friend of General
Marmont, to confer with him upon the subject. The philosopher was
introduced to the warrior, seated upon his horse in the middle of the
Carrousel, surrounded by his staff of officers. The following is, in
substance, the conversation which is represented as having taken
place between them. M. Arago first urged General Marmont to imitate
the troops of the line, and, with his Guard, espouse the cause of the
people, which was the cause of liberty and justice. The general
firmly and somewhat passionately replied,

"No! propose nothing to me which will dishonor me."

M. Arago then urged him to abandon a bad cause, to surrender his
command, retire to St. Cloud, and return his sword to the king, and
no longer to fight in defense of despotic measures, and against the
people, who were struggling only for their rights. The general
replied:

"You know very well whether or not I approve of those fatal and
odious ordinances. But I am a soldier. I am in the post which has
been intrusted to me. To abandon that post under the fire of
sedition, to desert my troops, to be unfaithful to my king, would be
desertion, flight, ignominy. My fate is frightful. But it is the
decree of destiny, and I must go through with it."[W]

[Footnote W: "The Duc de Raguse found himself invested with a real
military dictatorship. His situation was a cruel one. If he took part
with the insurgents, he betrayed a king who relied upon him. If he
put so many mothers in mourning, without even believing in the
justice of his cause, he committed an atrocity. If he stood aloof, he
was dishonored. Of these three lines of conduct he adopted that which
was most fatal to the people."--LOUIS BLANC].

While they were conversing, the battle was still raging at the
outposts with the clamor of shouts, musketry, and booming cannon. An
officer came, covered with dust, and bleeding from his wounds, to
urge that reinforcements should be dispatched to one of the outposts
which was hotly assailed. "I have none to send," said the general, in
tones of sadness and despair. "They must defend themselves."

These two illustrious men, in heart both in sympathy, but by the
force of circumstances placed in opposite parties, arrayed in deadly
strife, after a long and melancholy interview separated, with the
kindest feelings, each to act his part, and each alike convinced that
the Bourbon monarchy was inevitably and rapidly approaching its end.
The Provisional Government, so hastily and imperfectly organized, had
also sent a deputation to the ministers assembled in the Tuileries.
But Polignac and his associates refused them admission. The decisive
decree was then passed by the Provisional Government that the king
and his ministers were public enemies, and orders were issued to
press the royal troops on every side with the utmost vigor.

The Hotel de Ville became the head-quarters of the insurgents, and
the Provisional Government transferred itself there. The military
government of Paris was given to Lafayette. The royal troops were
speedily driven in to the vicinity of the Louvre, and the situation
of the ministers in the Tuileries became alarming. They decided that
it was necessary for them to retire to St. Cloud. Before setting out
they sent for General Marmont, that they might ascertain his means of
defense.

"You may tell the king," said General Marmont, "that, come what may,
and though the entire population of Paris should rise up against me,
I can hold this position for fifteen days without further
reinforcements. This position is impregnable."

As this statement was repeated to the king he was much cheered by it.
The monarchy was much stronger in the provinces than in Paris. The
populace of the capital could do but little outside of its walls. A
few days would give an opportunity to assemble numerous regiments of
the Guard from the various positions they occupied in the vicinity of
the metropolis. But affairs were rapidly assuming a more fatal aspect
in Paris than General Marmont had deemed possible. The whole of the
city, except the ground held by the royal troops around the
Tuileries, was in the hands of the insurgents. An impetuous band of
students from the Polytechnic School rushed upon and took every piece
of artillery in the Rue St. Honore.

The regiment placed in the Rue Castiglione, to guard the great
entrance into the garden of the Tuileries from the boulevards,
through the Rue de la Paix, opened its ranks, and the triumphant
populace, with shouts which rang through Paris, entered the
iron-railed inclosure. These disasters caused the withdrawal of a
portion of the troops who had for some time been defending the Louvre
from the colonnade opposite the Church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois,
where the insurgents were posted in great strength. Thus encouraged,
the insurgents rushed vehemently across the street, and took the
Louvre by storm. Flooding the palace like an ocean tide, they opened
a deadly fire from the inner windows upon the Swiss in the Carrousel.

These brave men, thus assailed where successful resistance was
hopeless, were thrown into a panic. With bullets whistling around
them, deafened by the roar of the battle and the shouts of infuriated
men, and seeing their comrades dropping every moment upon the
pavement dead or wounded, they fled in wild disorder through the arch
of the Tuileries into the garden, into which, from the side gate, as
we have mentioned, the insurgents were pouring.

All was lost, and, as it were, in a moment. Such are the vicissitudes
of battle. General Marmont rushed to the rear, the post of danger and
of honor in a retreat. He did every thing which skill and courage
could do to restore order, and succeeded in withdrawing his little
band into the grand avenue of the Champs Elysees, through which they
rapidly marched out of Paris, leaving the metropolis in the hands of
the insurgents. In the midst of the storm of death which swept their
retreating ranks General Marmont was the last to leave the garden of
the Tuileries. One hundred of the Swiss troops, who had been posted
in a house at the junction of the Rue de Richelieu and the Rue St.
Honore, were unfortunately left behind. They perished to a man.

Did these heroic troops do right in thus proving faithful to their
oaths, their colors, and their king? Did these heroic people do right
in thus resisting tyranny and contending for liberty at the price of
their blood? Alas for man! Let us learn a lesson of charity.

General Marmont having collected his bleeding and exhausted band in
the Bois de Boulogne, where pursuit ceased, galloped across the wood
to St. Cloud, in anguish of spirit, to announce to the king his
humiliating defeat.

[Illustration: PALACE OF ST. CLOUD.]

"Sire," said this veteran of a hundred battles, with moistened eyes
and trembling lips, "it is my painful duty to announce to your
majesty that I have not been able to maintain your authority in
Paris. The Swiss, to whom I intrusted the defense of the Louvre,
seized with a sudden panic, have abandoned that important post.
Carried away myself by the torrent of fugitives, I was unable to
rally the troops until they arrived at the arch of the Etoile, and I
have ordered them to continue their retreat to St. Cloud. A ball
directed at me has killed the horse of my aid-de-camp by my side. I
regret that it did not pass through my head. Death would be nothing
to me compared to the sad spectacle which I have witnessed."

The ministers were called in. All were struck with consternation. The
chateau of St. Cloud is but six miles from Paris. Thousands of men,
maddened, savage, ripe for any deeds of outrage, might in an hour
surround the castle and cut of all possibility of retreat. There was
no time for deliberation. As usual on such occasions, confused and
antagonistic views were hurriedly offered. M. de Ranville, who had
the evening before advised measures of compromise, was now for a
continuance of the conflict.

"The throne is overturned, we are told," said he; "the evil is great,
but I believe it is exaggerated; I can not believe that the monarchy
is to fall without a combat. Happen what may, Paris is not France.
If, however, the genius of evil is again to prove triumphant, if the
legitimate throne is again to fall, let it fall with honor; shame
alone has no future." These sentiments were strongly supported by the
Duke d'Angouleme.

The king, however, either from a constitutional want of heroism, or
from a praiseworthy desire to save France from the horrors of a
protracted civil war, refused to appeal any longer to the energies of
the sword. He hoped, however, that by dismissing the obnoxious
ministers, and revoking the ordinances, the people might be appeased.
A decree in accordance with this resolve was immediately prepared and
signed. A new ministry was also announced, consisting of very popular
men.

It is said that the Duke d'Angouleme paced the floor, quivering with
indignation, as this decree was signed, and that the discarded
ministers left the council-chamber "with tears in their eyes and
despair in their hearts." The new ordinances were hastily dispatched
to the Provisional Government at the Hotel de Ville. "It is too
late," was the reply. "The throne of Charles X. has melted away in
blood." Some few of the members, dreading the anarchy which might
follow the demolition of the throne, urged that the envoys might be
received, as it was still possible to come to an accommodation. But
their voices were drowned by cries from all parts of the hall, "It is
too late. We will have no more transactions with the Bourbons."

It would only bewilder the reader to attempt a narrative of the
scenes of desperation, recrimination, confusion, and dismay which
simultaneously ensued. M. de Montmart, whom the king had appointed in
place of Prince Polignac as the new President of the Council, a noble
of vast wealth, and one of the bravest of men, set out in his
shirt-sleeves, disguised as a peasant, hoping to gain access to the
Provisional Government, and, by his personal influence, to save the
monarchy. His mission was in vain. General Marmont, to spare the
useless shedding of blood, entered into a truce--some said a
capitulation--with the revolutionary forces. The Duke d'Angouleme, in
his rage, called the venerable marshal to his face a traitor. In
endeavoring to wrest from him his sword, the duke severely wounded
his own hand. General Marmont was put under arrest; but soon, by the
more considerate king, was released.

The king, with most of the royal family and court, retired to the
chateau of Trianon, at Versailles, four or five miles farther back in
the country. The Duke d'Angouleme was left in command of such troops
of the guard and of the line as could be collected, to act as
rear-guard at St. Cloud. But scarcely had Charles X. established
himself at Trianon ere the duke presented himself in the presence of
his father, with the disheartening intelligence that the troops
stationed at the bridge of St. Cloud to prevent the insurgents from
crossing the Seine, had refused to fire upon them. In consequence,
the revolutionary forces had taken possession of the chateau, and
were preparing to march upon Trianon.

The king had gathered around him at Trianon about twelve thousand
troops. Some of them were troops of the line. He knew not what
reliance could be placed in their fidelity. Alarm-couriers were
continually arriving with appalling tidings. Men, women, and
boys, inflamed with passion, and many delirious with brandy--on
foot, and in all sorts of vehicles--a motley throng of countless
thousands--were on the march to attack him. The king had not
forgotten the visit of the mob of Paris to his brother Louis XVI.
and family at Versailles--their captivity--their sufferings in the
dungeon and on the scaffold. Another and an immediate retreat was
decided upon to Rambouillet, a celebrated royal hunting-seat, about
thirty miles from Paris. It was midnight when the king and his
family, in the deepest dejection, under escort of the Royal Guard,
ten thousand strong, reached Rambouillet.

The Duke d'Angouleme still earnestly advocated the most determined
resistance. But the king, an old man who had already numbered his
threescore years and ten, was thoroughly disheartened. After a few
hours of troubled repose he, on the following morning, assembled his
family around him, and communicated his intention of abdicating in
favor of his grandson, the Count de Chambord. His son, the Duke
d'Angouleme, renouncing his rights as heir to the throne, assented to
this arrangement. The king announced this event in a letter to Louis
Philippe, duke of Orleans, appointing the duke lieutenant-general of
France--requesting him to proclaim the accession of the Count de
Chambord, as Henry V., to the throne, and authorizing him to act as
regent during the minority of the king.

The act of abdication--drawn up informally as a letter to the Duke of
Orleans--contained the following expressions:

     "I am too deeply distressed by the evils that afflict, or
     that may seem to impend over my people, not to have sought a
     means to prevent them. I have, therefore, resolved to
     abdicate the crown in favor of my grandson. The dauphin (the
     Duke d'Angouleme), who participates in my sentiments,
     likewise renounces his rights in favor of his nephew. You
     will therefore have, in your quality of lieutenant-general
     of the kingdom, to cause to be proclaimed the accession of
     Henry V. to the crown. You will, furthermore, take all
     measures that befit you to regulate the forms of the
     Government during the minority of the new king.

     "I renew to you, my cousin, the assurance of the sentiments
     with which I am your affectionate cousin, CHARLES."

But in the mean time an army of uncounted thousands was hastily
organized in Paris to march upon Rambouillet and drive the king out
of France. This formidable array of determined men was crowded into
carriages, cabriolets, omnibuses, and vehicles of every kind, and
was pushed forward as rapidly as possible. General Pajol commanded
the expedition. General Excelmans was intrusted with the
advance-guard. This motley mass was trundled along, singing the
"Marseillaise" and other revolutionary songs, and presenting far more
the aspect of a mob than that of an army. In the position in which
the king was placed, with troops upon many of whom he could place but
little reliance, they were the more to be dreaded. Three
commissioners were sent in advance of the revolutionary troops to
demand of the king an unqualified resignation of the crown for
himself and his descendants. The king received them with calmness and
dignity.

"What do you wish with me?" he said. "I have arranged every thing
with the Duke of Orleans, my lieutenant-general of the kingdom."

M. Odillon Barrot replied, "If the king would avoid involving the
kingdom in unheard-of calamities and a useless effusion of blood, it
is indispensable that his majesty and his family should instantly
leave France. There are eighty thousand men who have issued from
Paris, ready to fall on the royal forces."

The king took Marshal Maison, another of the commissioners, aside
into the embrasure of a window, and said to him, "Marshal Maison, you
are a soldier and a man of honor. Tell me, on your word of honor, is
the army which has marched out of Paris against me really eighty
thousand strong?"

"Sire," the marshal replied, "I can not give you the number exactly;
but it is very numerous, and may amount to that force."

"Enough," said the king; "I believe you, and I consent to every thing
to spare the blood of my Guard."

Orders were immediately issued for the prompt departure of the court
for Cherbourg, there to embark for some foreign land. In a few hours
the mournful procession was in movement. The long cortege of
carriages was accompanied by several regiments of the Guard. Sad
indeed must have been the emotions of the inmates of those carriages
as they commenced their journey from the splendors of royalty to the
obscurity of exile. Slowly this funereal procession of departed power
was seen winding its way through the distant provinces of the realm,
to find in foreign lands a refuge and a grave.

The first night they stopped at Maintenon, where the illustrious
family of Noailles received the royal fugitives with sympathy and
generous hospitality, in one of the most ancient and splendid
country-seats of the kingdom. Here, the next morning, the king took
leave of the greater part of his Guard. He reserved for his escort
but a few hundred select troops, with six pieces of cannon. General
Marmont, in whom the king reposed implicit trust, was placed in
command of this little band, which was to guard the illustrious
refugees to the coast.

The parting of the King from that large portion of the Guard from
whom he here separated presented a touching spectacle. Loyalty with
these soldiers was a religious principle. In these hours of disaster,
whatever might have been the faults of their fallen sovereign, they
forgot them all. They were drawn up in military array along the noble
avenue of the park. As the royal cortege passed between them they
presented arms, silent in their grief, while many of these hardy
veterans were in tears. The king himself was for the moment quite
unmanned, and, bowing his head, sobbed aloud.

Twelve days were occupied in the slow journey to Cherbourg. It was
deemed necessary to avoid all the large towns, and to take
unfrequented paths, that they might not be arrested in their progress
by any popular uprising. Before reaching Cherbourg the king had the
mortification of hearing that the Orleans throne had been reared upon
the ruins of the Bourbon throne. During the whole of this sad journey
General Marmont, whose life had been so full of adventure and
vicissitude, rode on horseback by the side of the carriage of the
king. Many of the most illustrious noblemen and most distinguished
ladies of France, faithful to their principles and their king in the
hour of misfortune, added by their presence to the mournful pageantry
of the cavalcade. The peasants even were awed by this spectacle of
fallen grandeur. Though they gathered in crowds around the carriages
in the villages through which they passed the night, no word of
insult was offered. In silence they gazed upon the scene, and not
unfrequently tears were seen to moisten eyes quite unused to weep.

[Illustration: CHARLES X. AT VALOGNES.]

When the cavalcade reached Valognes, a few miles from Cherbourg, as
all danger was passed, the king decided to dismiss the remainder
of the Guard. Gathering around him the officers, and six of the
oldest soldiers of each company composing his escort, he received
from them the royal banners of the elder house of Bourbon, which
could no longer be unfurled in France. The Duke and the Duchess
d'Angouleme, and the Duchess de Berri, with her daughter, and her
son, the Duke of Bordeaux, stood by his side. With a trembling voice,
which was finally broken by sobs, the king said:

"I receive these standards, and this child" (pointing to the Duke of
Bordeaux) "will one day restore them to you. The names of each of
you, inscribed on your muster-rolls, and preserved by my grandson,
will remain registered in the archives of the royal family, to attest
forever my misfortunes, and the consolation I have received from your
fidelity."

This was one of time's tragedies--the dethronement of a dynasty.
There are but few who will not, in some degree, appreciate the
sublimity of the scene. All present were in tears, and loud sobs were
heard. The king and his family then laid aside all the insignia of
royalty, and assumed the dress more appropriate to exiles. The king
also wrote to the King of England and to the Emperor of Austria,
announcing his dethronement, and soliciting an asylum in each of
their realms.

It would seem, however, that Charles X., who twice before had been
driven into exile, did by no means relinquish the idea of regaining
the crown for his family. In taking leave of Prince Polignac, who
more than any one else was responsible for the obnoxious ordinances,
he said:

"I recollect only your courage. I do not impute to you our
misfortunes. Our cause was that of God, of the throne, and of the
people. Providence often proves its servants by suffering, and
defeats the best designs for reasons superior to what our limited
faculties can discern. But it never deceives upright consciences.
Nothing is yet lost for our house. I go to combat with one hand, and
to negotiate with the other. Retire behind the Loire, where you will
find an asylum from the vengeance of the people in the midst of my
army, which has orders to assemble at Chartres."

"Charles X.," writes Louis Blanc, "was tranquil. The aspect of the
dauphine in tears, of his woe-begone courtiers, and of the two
children of the Duchess de Berri, who, in their ignorance, found
amusement in the novelty of every thing about them--to all this he
was insensible, or at least resigned. But the sight of a bit of
tri-colored ribbon, or a slight neglect of etiquette, was enough to
excite his petulance. It was necessary, in the small town of L'Aigle,
to have a square table made, according to court usage, for the dinner
of a monarch who was losing an empire. Thus he showed, combined in
his person, that excess of grandeur and of littleness which is
acquired from the practice of royalty."

The journey to Cherbourg was sad and solemn. The two princesses, the
Duchess d'Angouleme and the Duchess de Berri, walked when the weather
was fine. Their dress was very much neglected, because their
attendants had not been able to bring away linen or clothes. A grave
and pensive expression sat on the faces of the beholders wherever the
cortege passed. Some officers presented themselves on the road,
bowing in homage to expiring royalty. "Gentlemen," said the king,
"keep those worthy sentiments for that child, who alone can save you
all;" and he pointed to the little flaxen-haired head of the Duke of
Bordeaux, at the window of a carriage following his own.

When the melancholy cortege, consisting of a long train of carriages,
reached the cliffs of Cherbourg, they beheld the ocean spread out in
its apparently illimitable expanse before them. Here they halted. For
a moment dismay filled their hearts; for the advance couriers came
galloping back with the tidings that a numerous band of armed
insurgents, a tumultuous mob, with shoutings like the roarings of the
sea, were advancing to assail the royal party. The king and his son,
the Duke d'Angouleme, hastily stepped from their carriages, and,
mounting horses, reached Cherbourg in safety. The ladies and children
were not molested save from the fright which they experienced.

An immense crowd thronged the streets of Cherbourg, raising
revolutionary cries, while the tri-color flags seemed to float from
every window. The port is separated from the town by a strong,
circular iron railing. The marine gate-way was guarded by some
grenadiers, who closed it as soon as the royal carriages, with the
small accompanying guard, had entered. Within this inclosure no
tri-color flag was seen, no word of reproach was uttered.

Thousands crowded to the railing, eagerly looking through the bars
upon the tragedy which was transpiring. The royal party alighted at a
small bridge, carpeted with blue cloth. The dauphine, who had passed
through so many scenes of woe, nearly fainted as with trembling steps
she entered the ship which was to bear her again to exile, and an
exile from which death alone could release her. The Duchess de Berri
assumed an air of indignation and defiance, characteristic of her
Neapolitan blood. The little Duke of Bordeaux, now called the Count
de Chambord, in behalf of whom Charles X. had abdicated, and who was
consequently now regarded by all the court party as their lawful
sovereign, was carried in the arms of M. de Dumas, who was very
apprehensive lest the bullet of some assassin might pierce him. The
king sufficiently controlled his feelings to appear calm as ever.

The deposed monarch and his despairing household stood upon the deck
of the vessel as it was towed by a steamer out of the harbor. As the
sails were unfurled, and filled with a favoring breeze, they sadly
watched the receding shores of France. There was no parting salute.
It was a funereal scene. Even the most ardent Loyalists could not
raise a cheer. A few hours' sail conveyed the silent, melancholy
court to England, and thence to Scotland, where an asylum was found
in the ancient palace of Holyrood, immortalized as the scene of the
sufferings of Mary Queen of Scots. Thus fell the throne of Charles X.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE STRUGGLES OF DIPLOMACY.

1830

Birth of the Duke of Bordeaux, now called Count de Chambord.--Henry
V. and the Regency.--Strength of the Republicans.--Arguments of the
Orleanists.--Embarrassment of Louis Philippe.--Indecision.--The
pressure of events.--Interview between the baron and the banker.--Plan
of the Legitimists.--Anxiety of Lafayette.--Danger of
anarchy.--Orleanist proclamation.--Activity of the
Legitimists.--Attempts at compromise.--Fears of the
Orleanists.--Singular interview.--Agitation of the ducal
family.--Strange crisis of affairs.--Appalling rumor.--The ultra
Democrats.--The demand for a plebiscite.--Tumultuous
scenes.--Resolutions passed by the Republicans.--Arrogance of the
Polytechnic pupils.--Increasing anxiety and peril.--The panic.--Two
imperialists.--Testimony of Louis Blanc.--The Empire.--The mob at
Neuilly.--The duke visits Paris.--Scene in the Palais Royal.--Advice
of Talleyrand.--Proclamation of Louis Philippe.


Upon the sudden overthrow of the throne of Charles X. by a revolution
in the streets of Paris, four parties appeared, struggling for the
crown. Charles, as he fled with his court in terror from France,
threw back a decree of abdication in favor of his grandson, the Count
de Chambord, then entitled the Duke de Bordeaux. This child, who
still lives, was then about ten years old. The birth of this child,
whom the Legitimists call Henry V., and whom they regard as the
legitimate heir to the ancient throne of the Bourbons, was hailed
with rejoicing throughout France.

It is recorded that quite a dramatic scene occurred at his birth. His
grandfather, Charles X., hastened to the chamber, and, seizing the
new-born babe in his arms, exclaimed, with delight, "Here is a fine
Duke de Bordeaux! He is born for us all!" He then gave the child a
few drops of the wine of Pau, with which tradition says that the
aged father of Jeanne d'Albret anointed the lips of her child, Henry
IV., before the babe was allowed to place his mouth to his mother's
breast.

The heroic mother of the young duke, the Duchess de Berri, whose
subsequent fate was so deplorable, said to the king, the father of
her departed husband, "Sire, I wish I knew the song of Jeanne
d'Albret, that every thing might be done here as at the birth of
Henry IV."

The advocates of the ancient _regime_, the Legitimist party, many of
them illustrious in rank and intellect, rallied around the banner of
young Henry, the Duke of Bordeaux. They probably had the sympathies
of those European dynasties which, by force of arms, had replaced the
Bourbons upon that throne of France from which the Revolution of 1789
had expelled them. In accordance with the decree of abdication which
Charles X. had issued, the Legitimists wished the young Duke of
Bordeaux to be recognized as sovereign, with the title of Henry V,;
and the Duke of Orleans, Louis Philippe, to be accepted as regent,
during the minority of the child.

Next came the Republican party, formidable in physical strength, in
Paris and in other cities. The Republicans had roused the masses,
filling the streets with a hundred thousand armed workmen; they had
inspired the conflict, demolished the throne, achieved the
revolution; but they had no leader capable of organizing and
controlling the tumultuous populace. The moneyed men, remembering the
Reign of Terror, were afraid of them. All through the rural
districts, the peasantry, influenced by the priests, could not endure
the idea of a republic.

The bankers in Paris, the moneyed class, men of large resources and
influence, were the leaders of the third, or Orleans party, so
called. These men were opposed to the aristocracy of rank, but were
in favor of the aristocracy of wealth. They had ample means and very
able leaders. They wished for a constitutional monarchy, modelled
after the aristocratic institutions of England. They would place upon
the throne the Duke of Orleans, a Bourbon, one of the richest nobles
in Europe. He would be the legitimate heir to the throne should the
young Duke of Bordeaux die. The Duke of Orleans, with his vast
wealth, would be the fitting representative of the moneyed class.
The Orleanists could very effectually appeal to the moderate men of
the Legitimist and Republican parties in favor of a compromise in the
interest of the Duke of Orleans. To the first they said:

"Unless you accept the Duke of Orleans, there is danger that the
Republicans will gain the ascendency, and then our time-honored
monarchy will be overthrown." To the Republicans they said: "Unless
you consent to this compromise, which gives us a constitutional
monarchy, under a _citizen king_, there is danger that another
coalition of the powers of Europe will inundate France, and, after
years of blood and woe, the old _regime_ of the Bourbons will be
again forced upon us."

In speaking to the Republicans, they emphasized the declaration that
Louis Philippe would be a _citizen king_. When speaking to the
Legitimists, they laid stress upon the fact that the Duke of Orleans
would be the _legitimate_ sovereign, should the frail child die who
alone stood between him and the throne.

There was a fourth party--the Imperial or Napoleonist. It existed
then in rather a latent state, though in a condition to be roused, as
subsequent events proved, to marvellous life by an electric touch.
The renown of the great emperor filled the land. The memorials of his
reign were everywhere. He was enthroned in the hearts of the French
people, as monarch was never enthroned before. But the Bourbons had
taken especial care to banish from France every one who bore his
name, and to obliterate, as far as possible, every memorial of his
wonderful reign. The revolution had burst upon Paris with almost the
suddenness of the lightning's flash. There was no one there who could
speak in behalf of the descendants of him who had so lately filled
the world with his renown, and who was still enshrined, with almost
idolatrous worship, in so many hearts.

From the above it will be perceived that the chances were greatly in
favor of the Orleans party. Louis Philippe was placed in perhaps as
embarrassing and painful a position as man ever occupied. He was far
advanced in life, with property amounting, it is said, to about one
hundred millions of dollars. Revolutionary storms had, at one time,
driven him into the extreme of poverty. He had experienced the
severest sufferings of persecution and exile. Now, in his declining
years, happy amidst the splendors of the Palais Royal, and in his
magnificent retreat at Neuilly, he was anxious for repose.

Should he allow himself to be placed at the head of the obnoxious,
utterly-defeated Legitimist party, as regent during the minority of
the Duke of Bordeaux? It was scarcely possible that he could maintain
his position. Republicans, Orleanists, and Imperialists, all would
combine against him. The army could not be relied upon to sustain
him. Ruin seemed inevitable--not only the confiscation of his
property, but probably also the loss of his head.

Should he allow himself to be made king by the bankers in Paris? He
would be an usurper; false to his own principles of legitimacy, to
those principles which had brought him into sympathy with the allied
dynasties of Europe in those long and bloody wars by which they had
forced rejected legitimacy back upon France.

The little Duke of Bordeaux and his grandfather, Charles X., were his
near blood relatives. He had received from the royal family great
favors--the restoration of his vast domains. He would be morally
guilty of the greatest ingratitude in assuming the attitude of their
antagonist, interposing himself between the lawful heir and the
crown. Should he stand aloof from these agitations, and take no part
in the movement of affairs, then anarchy or a Republic seemed the
inevitable result. In either case, he, as a rich Bourbon, with an
amount of wealth which endangered the state, would be driven from
France and his property confiscated.

But affairs pressed. Scarcely a moment could be allowed for
deliberation. The crisis demanded prompt and decisive action. The
embarrassment of the duke is painfully conspicuous in the interviews
which ensued. Anxiously he paced the floor of his library at Neuilly,
bewildered and vacillating.

There was a rich banker at Paris by the name of Lafitte. He called a
meeting at his house, of Guizot, Thiers, and other leading
journalists. There they decided to unite upon the Duke of Orleans,
and to combine immediately, without a moment's delay, all possible
influences in Paris, to place the sceptre of power in his hands,
before the dreaded Republicans should have the opportunity to grasp
it. It was the 30th of July, the last of the three days' conflict.
The thunders of the battle had scarcely ceased to echo through the
streets of the metropolis.

Baron Glandeves, governor of the Tuileries, and of course a warm
partisan of Charles X., who had probably heard a rumor of this
meeting, called upon M. Lafitte, and the following conversation is
reported as having taken place between them:

"Sir," said the baron to the banker, "you have now been master of
Paris for twenty-four hours. Do you wish to save the monarchy?"

"Which monarchy?" inquired Lafitte, "the monarchy of 1789, or the
constitutional monarchy of 1814?"

"The constitutional monarchy," the baron replied.

"To save it," rejoined Lafitte, "only one course remains; and that is
to crown the Duke of Orleans."

"The Duke of Orleans!" exclaimed the baron, "what are his titles to
the crown? That boy, the son of Napoleon, whom Vienna has educated,
can at least invoke the memory of his father's glory. It must be
admitted that Napoleon has written his annals in characters of fire
upon the minds of men. But the Duke of Orleans--what prestige
surrounds him? What has he done? How many of the people know his
history, or have even heard his name?"

"In the fact of his want of renown," replied the banker, "I see a
recommendation. Having no influence over the imagination, he will be
the less able to break away from the restraints of a constitutional
monarch. His private life is irreproachable. He has respected himself
in his wife, and has caused himself to be revered and loved by his
children."

"Mere domestic virtues," rejoined M. Glandeves, "are not to be
recompensed by a crown. Are you ignorant that he is accused of
approving of the vote of his father for the death of Louis XVI.; that
in our dark days he associated himself with projects to exclude
forever from the throne the legitimate heirs; that during the Hundred
Days he preserved a mysterious inaction; that, since 1815, while
pretending to be the humble servant of the court, he has been the
secret fomenter of all intrigues? Louis XVIII. restored to him his
vast estates. Charles X., by a personal request to the Chambers,
secured them to him, by legal and irrefragable rights, and conferred
upon him the title of royal highness, which he so long coveted. How
can he now, thus burdened with kindnesses from the elder branch of
the Bourbons, seize upon their inheritance?"

"It is not for the personal interest of the duke," replied M.
Lafitte, "that we wish to place him upon the throne, but for the
salvation of the country. This alone can save us from anarchy, which
otherwise seems inevitable. I do not ask whether the situation of the
Duke of Orleans is painful to his feelings, but simply whether his
accession to the throne is desirable for France. What prince is more
liberal in his political sentiments, or more free from those
prejudices which have ruined Charles X.? And where can we find any
candidate for the throne who combines so many advantages? And what
course can you propose preferable to that of placing the crown on his
head?"

"If you believe Charles X. guilty," rejoined the baron, "at least you
will admit that the Duke de Bordeaux is innocent. Let us preserve the
crown for him. He will be trained up in good principles. Does
Lafayette very sincerely desire a Republic?"

"He would wish for it," Lafitte replied, "if he were not afraid of
too searching a convulsion."

"Well, then," said the baron, "let a council of regency be
established. You would take part in it with Lafayette."

M. Lafitte replied, "Yesterday that might have been possible; and,
had the Duchess de Berri--separating her cause from that of the old
king--presented herself, with her young son, holding a tri-color in
her hand--"

"A tri-color!" exclaimed the baron, in astonishment, interrupting
him--"A tri-color! Why, it is, in their eyes, the symbol of every
crime. Rather than adopt it, they would suffer themselves to be
brayed in a mortar."

"Under these circumstances," inquired Lafitte, "what is it you have
to propose to me?"

The prompt reply was, "Respect the divine right of the Duke of
Bordeaux--proclaim him sovereign, as Henry V.--intrust the regency,
during his minority, to the Duke of Orleans."

This was the plan of the Legitimists. Talleyrand also cherished the
same view. The Republicans were by no means inclined to enthrone
another Bourbon in the place of Charles X. When M. Thiers and M.
Mignet, with others from the office of the _Nationale_, appeared
among the crowd distributing printed slips of paper eulogizing the
Duke of Orleans, they were received with hisses. When it was
announced to the combatants of the Passage Dauphin that there was a
plot concocting to raise the Duke of Orleans to the throne, there was
one unanimous burst of rage, with the simultaneous exclamation, "If
that be the case, the battle is to be begun again, and we will go and
cast fresh balls. No more Bourbons: we will have none of them." M.
Leroux, who had witnessed this scene, hurried to the Hotel de Ville
to warn Lafayette of the danger. He assured Lafayette that the
Republican spirit which Lafayette had evoked now menaced Paris and
France with anarchy, and that the attempt to place another Bourbon on
the throne would be the signal of a new and terrible conflict.

Lafayette--who was seated in a large armchair--seemed, for a moment,
stunned and speechless. A messenger came in to inform him that the
Duke of Chartres--the eldest son of the Duke of Orleans--had been
taken captive, and that a riotous band was surging through the
streets shouting, "A prince is taken! Let us go and shoot him!"
Almost by miracle the young duke escaped death.

The peril of anarchy was hourly increasing. There was not a moment to
be lost in organizing, if possible, some stable government. The
millions in the rural districts would not accept a Republic organized
by the populace in Paris. The men of property, and the friends of
order generally, thought that their only chance of averting confusion
and ruin was to rally in support of the Orleans dynasty. Thus the
Orleans party rapidly increased among the more wealthy and reputable
portion of the citizens. The leading journals espoused their cause.
Nearly all the journals, trembling in view of the threatening
anarchy, earnestly rallied around that banner. Beranger, the most
popular poet in France--notwithstanding his profound admiration of
Napoleon, which was breathed forth in so many of his soul-stirring
songs--gave the Orleanists the aid of his all-powerful pen.

The following proclamation in favor of the Duke of Orleans was
issued:

    "Charles X. can never return to Paris; he has shed the blood
    of the people. A Republic would expose us to horrible
    divisions; it would involve us in hostilities with Europe.
    The Duke of Orleans is a prince devoted to the cause of the
    Revolution. The Duke of Orleans has never fought against us.
    The Duke of Orleans was at Jemappes. The Duke of Orleans is a
    citizen king. The Duke of Orleans has carried the tri-color
    flag under the enemy's fire. The Duke of Orleans can alone
    carry it again. We will have no other flag. The Duke of
    Orleans does not declare himself. He waits for the expression
    of our wishes. Let us proclaim those wishes and he will
    accept the charter, as we have always understood and desired
    it. It is from the French people he will hold the crown."

"This proclamation," says Louis Blanc, "was drawn up with great art.
It repeated the name of the Duke of Orleans again and again, in order
that this name, little known to the people, might nevertheless be
deeply imprinted on its memory. By talking of the tri-color flag and
Jemappes to a multitude who troubled themselves little about
political forms, it engaged, on behalf of the elect of the
bourgeoisie, that national feeling that had been exalted to so high a
pitch by the victories of the Republic and the Empire, Lastly, it
invoked the sovereignty of the people, the better to destroy it--an
old trick of courage-lacking ambition."

The above proclamation was placarded throughout Paris, and was
simultaneously published in the three leading journals, the
_Nationale_, the _Courier Francais_, and the _Commerce_, which were
severally edited by the distinguished journalists, Thiers, Mignet,
and Larequy. Another renowned editor, M. Carrel, was dispatched to
Rouen, to gain that important city to the Orleans cause.

In the mean time, the Legitimists, headed by Chateaubriand and
Talleyrand, were not idle. These men were not merely ambitious
partisans. It can not be doubted that they believed that the
interests of France would be best promoted by respecting the rights
of the Duke of Bordeaux, under the lieutenant-generalship of the Duke
of Orleans.

The successful insurrectionists, composed mainly of the Republican
and Democratic parties in Paris, had their head-quarters at the Hotel
de Ville. Here they hastily organized what they called a Provisional
Government. General Lafayette presided over their deliberations. The
embarrassment of affairs was such, that the illustrious marquis was
in a state of cruel anxiety. In principle he was a Republican. And
yet he could see no possibility of evolving a stable Republic from
the chaos into which the political world was then plunged. After much
deliberation, the Republican leaders at the Hotel de Ville sent
General Dubourg, as a commissioner, to the Orleanists assembled at M.
Lafitte's, to confer respecting a compromise and union of parties.
But already the Orleanists felt so strong that they refused even to
admit him to their presence.

The Orleanists were very anxious, from fear that the Duke of Orleans
might accede to the proposition of the Legitimists, and proclaim the
Duke of Bordeaux king, and himself, in accordance with the decree of
Charles X., lieutenant-general of France, and regent during the
minority of the duke. This would be in accordance with the forms of
law, and the only legal course. Such a step would give the
Legitimists immense vantage-ground, from which they could only be
driven by another bloody conflict.

To guard against this peril, it was decided to send a delegation,
consisting of M. Thiers, M. Scheffer, and M. Sebastiani, to the rural
chateau of Louis Philippe, at Neuilly, which was but a short distance
from Paris, to offer to him the crown. Should he refuse it, they
were directed to arrest him and convey him to a place of safety, and
hold him in close custody. Louis Blanc, in his "_Dix Ans de Louis
Philippe_," has given a minute account of this interview. It would
seem that Louis Philippe, in an agony of suspense, though informed of
the approach of the delegation, was not prepared to meet them. To
avoid the interview, he fled to Rancy, leaving his wife and sister
behind him.

The Duchess of Orleans received the gentlemen. Pale and trembling,
she listened to the offer of a crown to her husband. Then with
extreme emotion she replied to M. Scheffer, the speaker of the party:

"How could you undertake such a mission? That M. Thiers should have
charged himself with it, I can understand. He little knew us. But
that you, who have been admitted to our intimacy--who knew us so
well--ah! we can never forgive it."

Just then Louis Philippe's sister, Madame Adelaide, followed by
Madame de Montjoie, entered the room. Fully comprehending the object
of the mission, and the dangers which surrounded them, Madame
Adelaide said,

"Let them make my brother a president, a commander of the National
Guard, any thing, so that they do not make him a proscribed."

"Madame," responded M. Thiers, "it is a throne which we come to offer
him."

"But what," rejoined the princess, "will Europe think? Shall he seat
himself on the throne from which Louis XVI. descended to mount the
scaffold? What a panic will it strike in all royal houses! The peace
of the world will be endangered."

"These apprehensions, madame," M. Thiers replied, "are natural, but
they are not well-founded. England, full of the recollection of the
banished Stuarts, will applaud an event of which her history
furnishes an example and a model. As to the absolute monarchies, far
from reproaching the Duke of Orleans for fixing on his head a crown
floating on the storm, they will approve a step which will render his
elevation a barrier against the unchained passions of the multitude.
There is something great and worth saving in France. And if it be too
late for legitimacy, it is not for a constitutional throne. After
all, there remains to the Duke of Orleans only a choice of danger. In
the present posture of affairs, to fly from the possible dangers of
royalty is to face a Republic and its inevitable tempests."

These forcible words of the sagacious statesman produced a deep
impression upon the strong and well-balanced mind of Madame Adelaide.
She was fully capable of appreciating all their import. She gave
virtual assent to them by saying, "I am a child of Paris: I am
willing to intrust myself to the Parisians." It was decided to send
immediately for the duke. A messenger soon reached him, and he set
out on horseback, accompanied by M. Montesquiou, for Paris. Still his
irresolution, timidity, and bewilderment were so great that, before
reaching the city, his heart misgave him, and, turning his horse, he
galloped with the utmost speed back to Rancy. Alison, in depicting
these scenes, says, with a severity which our readers will probably
think that the recorded facts scarcely warrant,

    "He had neither courage enough to seize the crown which was
    offered to him, nor virtue enough to refuse it. He would
    gladly have declined the crown if he had been sure of
    retaining his estates. The most powerful argument for
    accepting it was, that by so doing he could save his
    property."

The strange crisis of affairs was such that, while the population of
France was over thirty millions, a few bankers in Paris, without
consulting the voice of the people, were about to impose upon them a
government and a king; and it must be admitted that the peril of the
nation was such that many of the purest and noblest men approved of
these measures. The majority of the members of the Chamber of
Deputies were gained over to this cause; and even the members of the
House of Peers were so overawed by the menacing aspect of the excited
populace, that they were disposed to fall in with the movement.

The deputies were assembled at the Hotel Bourbon, waiting to receive
the report of the delegation which had been sent to offer the crown
to Louis Philippe. It is said that there was but one man, M. Hyde de
Neuville, who occupied the benches reserved for the advocates of the
old royalty. There were probably, however, others in favor of the
Duke of Bordeaux, who absented themselves. While thus in session, the
rumor came that a body of royalist troops from Rouen were marching
upon Paris, and that their cannon were already planted upon the
heights of Montmartre, which commanded the city. In the midst of the
consternation which this communication created, the deputies returned
from Neuilly, with a report of their favorable reception by the
family of Louis Philippe.

Immediately, though with some dissenting voices, the following
resolution was adopted, and transmitted to the Duke of Orleans:

    "The deputies in Paris deem it essential to implore his royal
    highness the Duke of Orleans to repair immediately to Paris,
    to exercise the functions of lieutenant-general of the
    kingdom, and also to resume, in accordance with the universal
    wish, the tri-color flag."

Meanwhile the peers had met in their hall, in the palace of the
Luxembourg. Chateaubriand was then in the plenitude of his renown as
a writer, an orator, a statesman. Crowds of young men, in admiration
of his genius, were ready enthusiastically to follow his leading.
This distinguished man fully realized the true state of affairs--the
difficulties involved in whatever course they should attempt to
pursue. For some time he sat apart, silent and melancholy, apparently
in gloomy thought. Suddenly he rose, and, in deliberate, solemn
tones, said:

"Let us protest in favor of the ancient monarchy. If needs be, let us
leave Paris. But wherever we may be driven, let us save the king, and
surrender ourselves to the trust of a courageous fidelity. If the
question come to the salvation of legitimacy, give me a pen and two
months, and I will restore the throne."

Scarcely had he concluded these bold, proud words, when a delegation
presented itself from the Chamber of Deputies, soliciting the
co-operation of the peers in placing the crown upon the brow of the
Duke of Orleans. It was soon manifest that but few of the peers were
prepared to surrender themselves to martyrdom by following the
courageous but desperate councils of Chateaubriand.

The ultra democratic party, dissatisfied with the moderate tone
assumed by Lafayette and his associates at the Hotel de Ville, formed
a new organization at a hall in the Rue St. Honore. They were bold,
determined men, ready to adopt the most audacious resolutions, and to
shed their blood like water, in street fights, to maintain them. They
were numerous, and with nervous gripe held the arms they had seized;
but they had no commander. There was not a man in their ranks who
could secure the support of a respectable party throughout France.
They had no pecuniary resources--they consisted merely of a
tumultuous band of successful insurrectionists, with no one of
sufficient character and prominence upon whom even they could unite
to recognize as their leader. The eloquent and universally popular
Beranger, advocating in all his glowing verse the rights of the
people, with other agents of the Orleans cause, repaired to this
democratic gathering, to win them over, if possible, to their side.
Angrily the Democrats rejected all such propositions. A ferocious
debate ensued, which was terminated by a pistol-shot from an enraged
opponent, which wounded an Orleanist orator severely in the cheek. It
was no longer safe, in that presence, to urge the claims of Louis
Philippe. His advocates, as speedily as possible, left the hall.

The Democrats, as this wing of the Republican party may be called,
who had broken from their more moderate brethren, who were assembled,
under the presidency of Lafayette, at the Hotel de Ville, thus left
to themselves, sent a deputation to that body, with the following
well-expressed remonstrance against organizing a government without
consulting the voice of the French people:

    "The people yesterday reconquered their rights at the expense
    of their blood. The most precious of their rights is that of
    choosing their form of government. Till this is done, no
    proclamation should be issued announcing any form of
    government as adopted. A provisional representation of the
    nation exists: let it continue till the wishes of the
    majority of Frenchmen are known."

The spacious Place de Greve, in front of the Hotel de Ville, was
crowded with an excited, surging, tumultuous mass, anxiously awaiting
the issues of each passing hour. The democratic delegation elbowed
their way through the crowd, and were courteously received by
Lafayette, in behalf of the Provisional Government. As Lafayette was
addressing them, a gentleman entered, M. Sussy, a commissioner from
the fugitive king, Charles X., with a proclamation which Charles had
issued, hoping to conciliate the enraged people by revoking the
ordinances which had roused them to insurrection, dismissing the
obnoxious ministers who had recommended those ordinances, and
appointing a new cabinet of more popular men.

It was too late for compromise. The same proclamation had been sent
to the deputies, but they refused to receive it. Upon the
announcement of the mission of M. Sussy, the indignant cry arose from
the Republicans, "No! no! away with him: we will have nothing more to
do with the Bourbons." So great was the fury excited that it was with
difficulty that a brawny Republican, M. Bastide, was prevented from
throwing M. Sussy out of the window. By the interposition of
Lafayette, he was withdrawn, in the midst of a frightful tumult, to
another room. Under the influence of the hostile feelings thus
aroused, a series of resolutions were passed, declaring that France
would have no more of royalty--that the representatives of the people
alone should make the laws, to be executed only by a temporary
president.

It will be seen that these resolutions were in direct opposition to
the views of those who wished to re-erect the monarchy and to place
Louis Philippe upon the throne. But these resolutions were
passionately adopted, by the most radical portion of the party, in
the midst of a scene of the wildest tumult. They were by no means
unanimously accepted. The more moderate of the Republicans, with
Lafayette at their head, in view of the agitation hourly augmenting
in the streets, in view of the insuperable difficulties, obvious to
every well-informed man, of establishing a stable Republic in a realm
where a large majority of the population were opposed to a Republic,
and trembling in view of the anarchy with which all France was
menaced, and conscious that a Republic would excite the hostility of
every surrounding throne--were already strongly inclined to effect a
union with the Orleans party, under a constitutional monarchy.

In various parts of the city there were excited gatherings, adopting
all sorts of revolutionary resolutions, and sending delegations to
the Hotel de Ville with instructions, petitions, and threats. The
students of the Polytechnic School--who had distinguished themselves
in the bloodiest scenes of the street-fight with the troops of
Charles X.--sent a committee to the Hotel de Ville with a military
_order_, to which they _demanded_ an official signature. The
appropriate officer, M. Lobau, refused to sign it. "You recoil, do
you?" said the determined young man who presented the ordinance.
"Nothing is so dangerous, in revolutions, as to recoil: I will order
you to be shot!"

"To be shot!" was the indignant reply. "Shoot a member of the
Provisional Government!"

The young man drew him to the window, pointed to a well-armed band of
a hundred men, who had fought desperately the day before: "There,"
said he, "are men who would shoot God Almighty, were I to order them
to do so." The order was signed in silence.

Such occurrences gave new impulse to the inclinations of Lafayette
and the more moderate of the Republican party towards the Orleanists,
who were deliberating in the salons of M. Lafitte. Charles X., who
had fled from St. Cloud with his family and with some of the most
devoted of his followers, while these scenes were transpiring, was
still in France, at but a few leagues from Paris, at the head of
twelve thousand veteran troops. Should the Duke of Orleans escape and
join him, and rally the rural portion of the people in defense of
Legitimacy, and in support of the Duke of Bordeaux, results might
ensue appalling to the boldest imagination. As hour after hour passed
away, and the duke did not appear in Paris, the anxiety in the
crowded salons of M. Lafitte was terrible. Orleanists and Republicans
were alike imperilled. The re-establishment of the old regime would
inevitably consign the leaders of both these parties, as traitors, to
the scaffold. Democratic cries were resounding, more and more loudly,
through the streets. Power was fast passing into the hands of the
mob. Should the Duke of Orleans fail his party, there was no one else
around whom they could rally, and their disastrous defeat was
inevitable.

The hours were fast darkening into despair. Messengers were anxiously
sent to the Palais Royal, the sumptuous city residence of the duke,
to ascertain if he had arrived. No tidings could be heard from him.
The domestics seemed to be packing up the valuables in preparation
for removal. The utter failure of Beranger and his associates to gain
the co-operation of the Democrats was reported. The decisive
resolution adopted at the Hotel de Ville was known. All seemed lost.
There was nothing before the eye but a frightful vision of anarchy
and bloodshed. A general panic seized all those assembled in the
apartments of Lafitte, and there was a sudden dispersion. It was near
midnight; but three persons were left--Lafitte, Adolphe Thibodeaux,
and Benjamin Constant. A few moments of anxious conversation ensued.

"What will become of us to-morrow?" sadly inquired Lafitte.

"We shall all be hanged," replied Benjamin Constant, in the calm
aspect of despair.

In this crisis of affairs, matters threatened to become still more
involved by two energetic young men, M. Ladvocat and M. Dumoulin, who
proposed to bring forward the claims of the Empire. The name of
Napoleon then pronounced in the streets, and the unfurling of the
eagle-crowned banner under any recognized representative of his
renown, would, perhaps, have called a party into being which would
instantly have overridden all others. This peril was adroitly averted
by the sagacity of M. Thiers and M. Mignet. By their powerful
persuasion they induced M. Ladvocat to desist from the attempt The
other young man, who was found inflexible in his resolve, they lured
into a room in the Hotel de Ville, where they caused him to be
arrested and imprisoned.

In the following terms Louis Blanc describes this singular event:

    "While every one was seeking to realize his wishes, a few
    voices only were heard uttering the name of the emperor in a
    city that had so long echoed to that sound. Two men without
    influence, military reputation, or celebrity of any kind, MM.
    Ladvocat and Dumoulin, conceived, for a while, the idea of
    proclaiming the Empire. M. Thiers easily persuaded one of
    them that fortune gives herself to him who hastens to seize
    her. The other appeared, dressed as an orderly-officer, in
    the great hall of the Hotel de Ville. But, being politely
    requested by M. Carbonel to pass into an adjoining room, he
    was there locked up and kept prisoner.

    "This is one of those curiosities of history the key of which
    is found in the grovelling nature of most human ambition. The
    son of Napoleon was far away. For those who were actuated by
    vulgar hopes, to wait was to run the risk of losing those
    first favors which are always easiest to obtain from a
    government that has need to win forgiveness for its
    accession. Nevertheless, Napoleon's memory lived in the
    hearts of the people. But what was requisite to the crowning
    of the immortal victim of Waterloo in the first-born of his
    race?--That an old general should appear in the streets, draw
    his sword, and shout, _Vive Napoleon II!_

    "But no; General Gourgaud alone made some tentative efforts.
    Napoleon, besides, had pigmied all minds round his own. The
    imperial regime had kindled in the plebeians he had abruptly
    ennobled a burning thirst for place and distinction. The
    Orleanist party recruited itself among all those whose
    promptitude to revive the Empire needed, perhaps, but one
    flash of hardihood, a leader, and a cry. Of all the generals
    whose fortunes were of imperial growth, Subervic alone gave
    his voice for a Republic in M. Lafitte's saloons--at least he
    was the only one that was remarked. Thus all was over as
    regards Napoleon. And some little time after this, a young
    colonel, in the service of Austria, died beyond the
    Rhine--the frail representative of a dynasty whose last
    breath passed away with him."[X]

[Footnote X: "The History of Ten Years," by Louis Blanc, vol. i, p.
187.]

When Louis Blanc penned these lines he little supposed that but a few
years would pass away ere the almost unanimous voice of the French
people would call Napoleon III. to the throne of France, and that
under his energetic sway France would enjoy for twenty years
prosperity at home and influence abroad which almost eclipsed the
splendors of the first Empire.

In the mean time an agitated crowd poured out through the gates of
Paris, and, invading Neuilly, surrounded the chateau, intending to
seize the Duke of Orleans and carry him into the city. But he, as we
have mentioned, had retired to Rancy. The leaders of this multitude,
professing to be a deputation from the Chamber of Deputies, demanded
to see the duchess, and informed her that they should take her and
her children as hostages to the city, and there keep them until the
duke should appear in Paris. The duchess, terrified in view of the
peril to which she and her children would be exposed in the hands of
an ungovernable mob, wrote to her husband entreating him to return
immediately.

Thus influenced, the duke resolved to repair to Paris. The streets
were thronged with an excited mob, who would surely assassinate him
should he be recognized. The peril of his family overcame his
constitutional timidity. In disguise, accompanied by three persons
only, who were also disguised, this reluctant candidate for one of
the most brilliant of earthly crowns, a little before midnight, set
out on foot from his rural retreat; and, entering Paris, traversed
the thronged streets, with Republican cries resounding everywhere
about him. In several instances the mob, little aware whom they were
assailing, compelled him to respond to the cry. Upon reaching his
sumptuous palace, sometime after midnight, he threw himself, in utter
exhaustion, upon a couch, and sent the welcome announcement to his
friends of his arrival. M. de Montmart, one of the most prominent of
the Orleans party, immediately called. He found the duke in a state
of extreme agitation, bathed in sweat, undressed, and covered only
with a light spread.

The duke gave vehement utterance to his perplexities and alarm. He
declared his devotion to the principles of Legitimacy, and his
inalienable attachment to his friends and relatives of the elder
branch of the Bourbon family. He remonstrated against the cruelty of
placing him in the false position of their antagonist, saying, "I
would rather die than accept the crown." Seizing a pen, he wrote a
letter to Charles X., full of protestations of loyalty and homage. M.
de Montmart concealed this epistle in the folds of his cravat, and it
was conveyed to the fugitive king.

This epistle was probably intended only to be a forcible expression
of the extreme reluctance with which Louis Philippe yielded to those
influences which seemed morally to compel him to accept the crown.
Charles X. was cruelly deceived by the letter. He interpreted it to
signify that the Duke of Orleans would remain firm in his allegiance
to the dynasty which had been driven by successful insurrection from
Paris.

[Illustration: THE PALAIS ROYAL.]

At an early hour the next morning, a delegation from the Chamber of
Deputies, with General Sebastiani at its head, arrived at the Palais
Royal. The agitations of the hour were such that, without waiting for
an announcement, they broke into the presence of the duke with the
entreaty that he would accept from them the lieutenant-generalcy of
the kingdom, which was merely the stepping-stone to the throne. The
duke was still very undecided, or, to save appearances, feigned to be
so. The deputies assured him that the crisis was so imperious, that
not only the destinies of France, but also his own life, were
probably dependent upon his accepting the appointment. The duke
implored a few more moments for private reflection, and retired to
his cabinet with General Sebastiani, who was then hurriedly
dispatched to the hotel of M. Talleyrand in the Rue St. Florentin.
Talleyrand had been one of the firmest supporters of Legitimacy.
Louis Philippe sought his advice. The wily statesman, who had lived
through so many revolutions, had not yet left his bed-chamber, and
was dressing. He, however, promptly returned the sealed answer, "Let
him accept."

The duke hesitated no longer. Returning to the Deputies, he announced
his decision. The most vigorous action was now required. A
proclamation to the inhabitants of Paris was immediately drawn up in
the name of Louis Philippe, and which was unanimously agreed to by
the delegation, announcing that, in obedience to the wishes of the
Deputies, he had assumed the office of lieutenant-general of France.
At the same time, the illustrious writer, M. Guizot, was intrusted
with the duty of preparing a more full exposition of the principles
of the Orleanist party, which was to be signed by ninety-one of the
Deputies. The proclamation issued by Louis Philippe, and which was
simply expanded in the longer one drawn up by M. Guizot, was as
follows:

     "INHABITANTS OF PARIS,--The Deputies, at this moment
     assembled in Paris, have expressed their desire that I
     should betake myself to this capital to exercise there the
     functions of lieutenant-general of the kingdom. I have not
     hesitated to come and partake of your dangers, to place
     myself in the midst of this heroic population, and use all
     my endeavors to preserve you from civil war and anarchy. On
     entering the city of Paris, I wore with pride those glorious
     colors you have resumed, and which I had myself long
     carried.

     "The Chambers are about to assemble. They will consult on
     the means of securing the reign of the laws and the
     maintenance of the rights of the nation. A charter shall be
     henceforth a true thing.

                         "LOUIS PHILIPPE D'ORLEANS."




CHAPTER IX.

LOUIS PHILIPPE'S THRONE.

1830

The duke at the Hotel de Ville.--Discordant cries.--Decisive action
of Lafayette.--The social contract.--Singular statement.--Support
of the journals.--Endeavors to reconcile the democracy.--The treaties
of 1815.--The duke interviewed.--Interesting statement
of Chateaubriand.--The conversation.--Counsel of
Chateaubriand.--Termination of the interview.--Remonstrance of M.
Arago.--Flattering offers to Chateaubriand.--Speech of Viscount
Chateaubriand.--Resolve passed by the Deputies.--Louis Philippe
chosen king.--Subsequent vote for Napoleon.--Reply of the Duke of
Orleans.--Testimony of Alison.--The inauguration.


By the movement chronicled in the previous chapter, the Duke of
Orleans became virtually dictator. Could his dictatorship be
maintained, it was of course a death-blow to all other parties. The
Republican party, weak as it was if we consider the whole of France,
was strong in the streets of Paris. It was a matter of great moment
to try to conciliate the leaders of that party. It was soon evident
that this would be no easy matter. The proclamation of the duke was
very angrily received in the streets. Loud mutterings were heard.
Those who were distributing the proclamation were fiercely assailed,
and one of the agents narrowly escaped with his life.

At length the bold resolve was adopted for the Duke of Orleans to go
in person to the Hotel de Ville, accompanied by an escort of
Deputies. A throng of Orleanists surrounded the Palais Royal and
cheered the duke as he came out. As the procession advanced,
insulting shouts began to assail their ears. The duke was on
horseback. The Place de Greve was thronged with Republicans. Angry
outcries greeted him. "He is a Bourbon," some shouted; "away with
him! We will have nothing to do with him."

Benjamin Constant and Beranger mingled with the crowd, doing every
thing in their power to appease and calm it. It was feared, every
moment, that some pistol-shot would strike the duke from his horse.
His countenance was pale and care-worn; but there was no visible
perturbation. Having with difficulty forced his way through the angry
crowd, Louis Philippe alighted from his horse and ascended the
stairs. Lafayette, who was already in heart in sympathy with the
Orleanist movement, came forth courteously to meet him, and conducted
him to the great hall of the palace. There was here a very excited
interview, the more passionate of the Orleanists and of the
Republicans coming very near to blows. But Lafayette and the most
illustrious men of the liberal party, seeing no other possible way of
rescuing France from anarchy, now openly espoused the cause of Louis
Philippe.

Lafayette took the Duke of Orleans by the hand, and led him out upon
a balcony, where they were in view of the vast multitude swarming in
the vacant space below. The devotion of the marquis to popular rights
was universally known. He could not, in that tumultuous hour, make
his voice heard. But in the use of action, more expressive than
words, he threw his arms around the neck of the duke in an
affectionate embrace. The best part of the multitude accepted this as
the indorsement of his fitness for the trust, by one in whom they
could confide. It was on this occasion that the following incident
occurred:

"You know," said Lafayette to Louis Philippe, "that I am a
Republican, and that I regard the Constitution of the United States
as the most perfect that has ever existed."

"I think as you do," Louis Philippe replied. "It is impossible to
have passed two years in the United States, as I have done, and not
be of that opinion. But do you think that in the present state of
France a republican government can be adopted?"

"No," said Lafayette; "that which is necessary for France now is a
throne, surrounded by republican institutions. All must be
republican."

"That is precisely my opinion," rejoined Louis Philippe.

After this scene, the duke, immensely strengthened in his position,
returned to the Palais Royal, accompanied by a decided increase of
acclamations. Still there were many murmurs. The people could not
forget that he was by birth an aristocrat and a Bourbon; that he had
taken no part, either by word or deed, in the conflict for the
overthrow of the despotic throne; that, concealed in the recesses of
his palace at Neuilly, he had not shown his face in Paris until the
conflict in which they were shedding their blood was terminated, and
that then he had come merely to assume a crown.

Immediately after the withdrawal of Louis Philippe from the Hotel de
Ville, Lafayette and his friends drew up a programme, or social
contract, in which they endeavored to reconcile republican
institutions with the forms of a monarchy. Lafayette himself took
this contract to the Palais Royal, and submitted it to the duke. He
gave it apparently his candid consent. There were, however,
Legitimists as well as Republicans who had no faith in this union.
The Abbe Gregoire is reported to have exclaimed in disgust, "Good
God, are we then to have both a republic and a king?"

There were yet many dangers to be encountered. The word _king_ had
not been distinctly spoken. And still the supreme power was placed in
the hands of Louis Philippe, the Duke of Orleans. It was necessary to
the more full organization of the government that he should be
recognized as a sovereign. But it was no easy matter to reconcile the
populace of Paris to the idea of placing a Bourbon at the head of the
new government.

"To obviate the unfavorable impression thus produced," writes Alison,
"the Orleans committee prepared and placarded all over Paris a
proclamation not a little surprising, considering that M. Mignet and
M. Thiers were members of it--'_The Duke of Orleans is not a Bourbon;
he is a Valois_.' A remarkable assertion to be made, by historians,
of a lineal descendant of Henry IV., and of the brother of Louis
XIV."

The leading journals had all been won over to the side of the Orleans
party. We would not intimate that any unworthy means had been
employed to secure their support. Such men as Thiers, Guizot, Mignet,
are above suspicion. They doubtless felt, as did Lafayette, that the
attempt to establish a Republic would result only in anarchy; that it
would be impossible to maintain a Republic in a realm where the large
majority of the people were monarchists. Still, it is obvious that
the wealth of a party composed of nearly all the moneyed men in the
kingdom, and whose leader was the richest noble in France, if not in
Europe, was amply sufficient to present very persuasive influences to
secure the support of any journalist who might be wavering. The
result was, that nearly all the periodicals of the kingdom opened
their broadsides against a Republic. They denounced that form of
government as the sure precursor of anarchy, pillage, and a reign of
terror, and as certain to embroil France in another war with combined
Europe.

It was, indeed, greatly to be feared that the foreign dynasties, who
would not allow France to lay aside the Bourbons and place Napoleon
upon the throne, would resist, through the same devotion to the
principles of legitimacy, the "usurpation" of Louis Philippe. To
conciliate them it was necessary for the Duke of Orleans to represent
that he was in sympathy with the hereditary thrones, co-operating
with them in their advocacy of exclusive privilege, and that he was,
providentially, a barrier to whom they owed a debt of gratitude,
arresting France from rushing over to democracy. But the open avowal
of these opinions would rouse the liberal party to desperation
against him.

Notwithstanding all these efforts of the journalists to discredit
republicanism in every possible way, there still remained a
democratic party in Paris among the populace, led by very bold,
impetuous, and determined men. These leaders had great influence with
a portion of the people who could be easily roused to insurrection,
which, however impotent, might still cause the streets of Paris to
run red with blood. It was deemed a matter of much importance to win
over these men. A meeting was arranged between them and the Duke of
Orleans. M. Boinvilliers, a man who understood himself, and who was
entirely unawed in the presence of dignitaries, was the spokesman of
the delegation. His scrutinizing interrogatories embarrassed the duke
exceedingly.

"To-morrow," said M. Boinvilliers, "you are to be king. What are your
ideas upon the treaties of 1815?"

By the treaties which in that year the conquerors of Waterloo formed
at Vienna, Europe was partitioned out among the dynasties, so as to
bind the people hand and foot, and render any future uprising in
behalf of liberty almost impossible. The River Rhine, since the days
of Caesar, had been regarded as the natural boundary between France
and Germany. Large provinces on the French banks of the Rhine were
wrested from France and placed in the hands of Prussia, that, in case
the French people should again endeavor to overthrow the aristocratic
institutions of feudal despotism, the allied dynasties might have an
unobstructed march open before them into the heart of France.

Though the Bourbons, replaced by foreign bayonets, had entered into
this arrangement for their own protection against democracy, still,
the discontent of the French people, in view of the degradation, was
so great that even Charles X. was conspiring to regain the lost
boundary. According to the testimony of his minister, Viscount
Chateaubriand, he was entering into a secret treaty with Russia to
aid the czar in his designs upon Turkey, and, in return, Russia was
to aid France in regaining her lost Rhenish provinces. In reference
to these treaties of 1815 even one of the British quarterlies has
said:

    "Though the most desperate efforts have been made by the
    English diplomatists to embalm them as monuments of political
    wisdom, they should be got under ground with all possible
    dispatch, for no compacts so worthless, so wicked, so utterly
    subversive of the rights of humanity, are to be found in the
    annals of nations."

When the question was asked of Louis Philippe, "What are your ideas
upon the treaties of 1815?" his embarrassment was great. Should he
say he approved of those treaties, all France would raise a cry of
indignation. Should he say that he was prepared to assail them, all
the surrounding dynasties would combine in hostility to his reign.

The reply of the duke was adroit. "I am no partisan to the treaties
of 1815. But we must avoid irritating foreign powers."

The next question was still more embarrassing, for it was to be
answered not only in the ears of this democratic delegation, but in
the hearing of all aristocratic Europe eagerly listening. "What are
your opinions upon the subject of an hereditary peerage?" Still the
duke manifested no little skill in meeting it. He replied:

"In hereditary aristocracy is the best basis of society. But if the
hereditary peerage can not maintain itself, I certainly shall not
endow it. I was once a Republican; but I am convinced that a Republic
is inapplicable to such a country as France."

The interview was unsatisfactory to the delegation, and the members
retired in disgust.[Y]

[Footnote Y: Louis Blanc, i., 359.]

Chateaubriand, with all the ardor of his poetic and religious
instincts, was a Legitimist. As the representative of the old Bourbon
regime, he sought an audience with the duke, hoping to induce him to
decline the crown, and to act in the interests of the expelled
dynasty. In his "Memoires d'Outre Tombe," this illustrious man has
given a minute account of the conversation which took place.
Chateaubriand was received by the Duchess of Orleans, who very
cordially invited him to take a seat near her. Rather abruptly she
commenced the conversation by saying,

"Ah, Monsieur de Chateaubriand, we are very unhappy. If all parties
could unite, we might yet be saved. What do you think about it?"

"Madame," Chateaubriand replied, "nothing is so easy. Charles X. and
Monsieur the Dauphin have abdicated. Henry, the Duke of Bordeaux, is
now king. The Duke of Orleans is lieutenant-general of the realm. Let
him be regent during the minority of Henry V., and all is right."

"But, Monsieur de Chateaubriand," said the duchess, "the people are
very much agitated. We shall fall into anarchy."

"Madame," replied Chateaubriand, "may I venture to inquire of you
what is the intention of the Duke of Orleans? Will he accept the
crown, if it is offered to him?"

The duchess, after a moment's hesitation, added, without replying to
the question, "Reflect, Monsieur de Chateaubriand, upon the evils to
which we are exposed. It is necessary that all good men should unite
in the endeavor to save us from a Republic. You could render great
service as ambassador to Rome, or in the ministry here, should you
not wish to leave Paris."

"Madame is not ignorant," Chateaubriand rejoined, "of my devotion to
the young king and to his mother. Your royal highness could not wish
that I should give the lie to my whole life"--_que je dementisse
toute ma vie_.

"Monsieur de Chateaubriand," replied the duchess, "you do not know my
niece. She is so frivolous. Poor Caroline! But I will send for the
Duke of Orleans. He can persuade you better than I can."

The duke soon entered, in dishevelled dress and with a countenance
expressive of great anxiety and fatigue. After a few words, which
Chateaubriand rather contemptuously records as an "idyl upon the
pleasures of country life," Chateaubriand repeated what he had said
to the duchess.

The duke exclaimed, "That is just what I should like. Nothing would
please me better than to be the tutor and guardian of that child. I
think just as you do, M. Chateaubriand. To take the Duke of Bordeaux
would certainly be the best thing that could be done. I fear only
that events are stronger than we."

"Stronger than we, my lord!" rejoined M. Chateaubriand. "Are you not
esteemed by all the powers? Let us go and join Henry V. Call around
you, outside the walls of Paris, the Chambers and the army. At the
first tidings of your departure all this effervescence will cease,
and every one will seek shelter under your protection and enlightened
power."

The duke was much embarrassed. He seemed to avoid looking
Chateaubriand in the face. With averted eyes he said, "The thing is
more difficult than you imagine. It can not be accomplished. You do
not know what peril we are in. A furious band can launch against the
Chambers with the most frightful excesses; and we have no means of
defense. Be assured that it is I alone who now hold back this
menacing crowd. If the Royalist party be not massacred, it will owe
its life solely to my efforts."

M. de Chateaubriand responded in brave words, which perhaps the
occasion warranted:

"My lord, I have seen some massacres. Those who have passed through
the Revolution are inured to war. The gray mustaches are not
terrified by objects which frighten the conscripts."

These not very courteous remarks, which implied that, though the duke
might be a coward, the viscount was not, terminated the interview.

Chateaubriand, then the most distinguished writer and illustrious
orator in France, had prepared an "accusing and terrible speech," to
be addressed to the Chamber of Peers, pleading the cause of the
vanquished dynasty, and protesting against the Orleans usurpation.

"This news," writes Louis Blanc, "had reached the Palais Royal, which
it threw into the utmost uneasiness. Such a danger was to be averted
at any cost. Madame Adelaide saw M. Arago, and told him that he would
entitle himself to unbounded gratitude if he would see M. de
Chateaubriand and entreat him to forego his intended speech; upon
which condition he should be assured of having his place in the
administration.

"M. Arago called upon the illustrious poet and submitted to him that
France had just been shaken to its inmost centre; that it was
important to avoid exposing it to the risk of too sudden reactions;
that the Duke of Orleans would have it in his power, on becoming
king, to do much for public liberty; and that it became a man like
Viscount de Chateaubriand to abstain from making himself the
mouth-piece of the agitators at the commencement of a reign.

"He ended by telling him that a better means remained to him to serve
his country with advantage, and that there would be no hesitation to
bestow a _portefeuille_ upon him--that of public instruction, for
example. Chateaubriand shook his head suddenly, and replied that, of
all he had just heard, that which most touched his heart was the
consideration of what was due to the interests of France in its
deeply disturbed condition; that he expected nothing, and would
accept nothing upon the ruin of his hopes; but, since his speech
might sow the seeds of rancor in his native land, he would soften
down its tenor. This singular negotiation took place on the eve of
the 7th of August."

The next evening, the 8th of August, there was a meeting of the
Chamber of Peers. In the eloquent speech which M. Chateaubriand made
in advocacy of the old regime, he said;

"A king named by the Chambers, or elected by the people, will ever be
a novelty in France. I suppose they wish liberty--above all, the
liberty of the press, by which and for which they have obtained so
astonishing a victory. Well, every _new_ monarchy, sooner or later,
will be obliged to restrain that liberty. Was Napoleon himself able
to admit it? The liberty of the press can not live in safety but
under a government which has struck its roots deep into the hearts of
men.

"A Republic is still more impracticable. In the existing state of our
morals, and in our relations with the adjoining states, such a
government is out of the question. The first difficulty would be to
bring the French to any unanimous opinion upon the subject. What
right have the people of Paris to impose a government, by their vote,
on the people of Marseilles? What right have they to constrain any
other town to receive the rulers which they have chosen, or the form
of government which they have adopted? Shall we have one Republic, or
twenty Republics? a federal union, or a commonwealth one and
indivisible?

"Charles X. and his son are dethroned, or have abdicated, as you have
heard. But the throne is not thereby vacant. After them a child is
called to the succession; and who will venture to condemn his
innocence? I know that in removing that child it is said you
establish the sovereignty of the people. Vain illusion! which proves
that in the march of intellect our old democrats have not made
greater advances than the partisans of royalty. It were easy to show
that men may be as free and freer under a Monarchy than a Republic.
After all I have said, done, and written for the Bourbons, I should
be the basest of the human race if I denied them when, for the third
and last time, they are directing their steps towards exile."[Z]

[Footnote Z: _Moniteur_, August 3, 1830.]

On the morning of the next day, the 9th, the Chamber of Deputies met
at the Palais Bourbon. It was a very exciting scene, and strong
opposition was manifested against proclaiming the Duke of Orleans
king. After an angry debate the motion was carried, that,

    "Considering that the king, Charles X., his royal highness
    Louis Antoine, dauphin, and all the members of the elder
    branch of the royal family, are at this moment quitting
    French territory, the throne is declared to be vacant, _de
    facto_ and _de jure_, and that it is indispensably needful to
    provide for the same."

The friends of the duke felt that their only hope consisted in
driving the question to an immediate decision. The Chamber of
Deputies had no legal authority to elect a king. M. Fleury demanded
that the electoral colleges should be invoked to elect a new
assembly, with special powers delegated to the Deputies to elect a
king. The demand was not listened to. M. de Corcelles urged that the
question should be submitted to the people, that the voice of
universal suffrage might decide what should be the form of government
for France, and who should be the sovereign. This proposition was
rejected. The venerable Labbey de Pompieres then demanded that the
voters should inscribe their names and their votes in a register.
This they had not courage to do; for, in case of the return of the
Bourbons, they would lose their heads.

"Thus," writes Louis Blanc, "the crown of France was voted as a
simple matter of by-law regulation."

After some amendments of the charter, the vote was taken. It was a
tumultuous scene, and there is some little discrepancy in the number
of votes given as the result of the ballot. Louis Blanc gives the
result as follows:

     Number of voters         252
     White balls              229
     Black balls               33

"Thus," he adds, "229 Deputies, who in ordinary times would have
formed a majority of but two voices, had modified the constitution,
pronounced the forfeiture of one dynasty, and erected a new one."

France contained between thirty and forty million inhabitants. Two
hundred and twenty-nine Deputies, with no delegated authority to do
so, decided upon the form of government for these millions, and chose
their sovereign.

When, several years after, the throne of Louis Philippe was
overthrown, an appeal to universal suffrage re-established the
Empire, and placed the crown upon the brow of Napoleon III. In this
act the voice of the nation was heard. The vote was taken throughout
the eighty-six departments of France, in Algiers, in the army, and in
the navy. The result was as follows:

     Affirmative votes           7,844,180
     Negative                      253,145
     Irregular                      63,326
                                 ---------
         Total                   8,160,651

The action of the Deputies in choosing Louis Philippe king greatly
exasperated the Democrats. They endeavored to stir up insurrection
in the streets; but the journals were against them, and they had
neither leaders of any repute, organization, or money. A procession,
four abreast, marched through the streets to the Palais Royal, to
inform Louis Philippe of his election by their body to the throne of
France. The newly elected king feelingly replied:

"I receive with deep emotion the declaration you present to me. I
regard it as the expression of the national will; and it appears to
me conformable to the political principles I have all my life
professed. Full of remembrances which have always made me wish that I
might never be called to a throne, and habituated to the peaceful
life I led in my family, I can not conceal from you all the feelings
that agitate my heart in this great conjuncture. But there is one
which overbears all the rest--that is, the love of my country. I feel
what it prescribes to me, and I will do it."

According to Alison, in the Chamber of Peers eighty-nine voted "the
address to the Duke of Orleans to accept the throne, while ten voted
against it." But there was great informality in all these hurried
proceedings. "We will not," writes Lamartine, "enter into the details
of these gradual approaches to the throne during the five days which
preceded the election of one who had no title, by a Parliament which
had no mission, to a royalty which had no rights."[AA]

[Footnote AA: History of the Restoration, vol. iv., p. 489.]

In the same spirit Sir Archibald Alison writes: "Thus did a small
minority, not exceeding a third of either Chamber, at the dictation
of a clique in the antechambers of the Duke of Orleans, dispose
of the crown to a stranger to the legitimate line, without either
consulting the nation or knowing what form of government it
desired."[AB] The two Chambers hurriedly prepared a constitution,
to which Louis Philippe gave his assent. The ceremony of
inauguration--it could scarcely be called coronation--took place with
much pomp, in the Chamber of Deputies, on the 9th of August, 1830.

[Footnote AB: Alison, vol. vi., p. 463.]

"Gentlemen, peers, and deputies," said the Duke of Orleans, "I have
read with great attention the declaration of the Chamber of Deputies
and the adhesion of the peers, and I have weighed and meditated upon
all its expressions. I accept, without restriction or reserve, the
clauses and engagements which that declaration contains, and the
title of King of the French, which it confers upon me." He then took
the following oath:

    "In the presence of God, I swear to observe faithfully the
    Constitutional Charter, with the modifications contained in
    the declaration; to govern only by the laws and according to
    the laws; to render fair and equal justice to every one
    according to his right, and to act in every thing in no other
    view but that of the interest, the happiness, and the glory
    of the French people."

The hall resounded with shouts of "_Vive le Roi!_" The new-made
sovereign, with a splendid cortege, retired, to take up his residence
in the Tuileries as King of the French. The Revolution was
consummated. The throne of Louis Philippe was erected.




CHAPTER X.

THE ADVENTURES OF THE DUCHESS DE BERRI.

1831-1836

Death of General Lamarque.--The funeral.--Strength of the royal
forces.--Movement of the procession.--Speech of General
Uminski.--Advance of the cuirassiers.--The Provisional
Government.--Marshal Soult in command.--The conflict.--The conflict
at St. Meri.--The insurrection quelled.--Severity of the
Government.--Numerous prosecutions.--The Duchess de Berri.--Statement
of Louis Blanc.--The reception of the duchess in Italy.--Abolition
of the peerage.--Vigilance and severity of the Government.--A midnight
adventure.--The embarkation.--The night storm.--The landing at
Marseilles.--The insurrection.--Wild adventures.--"Little
Peter."--Perilous wanderings.--Letter to the queen.--The letter
returned.--Note from Louis Blanc.--The traitor Deutz.--Discovery
and arrest.--Imprisonment at Blaye.--The terrible secret.--The
marriage announcement.--Humiliations of the duchess.--Comments of
Louis Blanc.--The duchess liberated.--Death of the Duke of
Reichstadt.--Louis Napoleon.--Statement of Louis Blanc.--Death of
Charles X.


Louis Philippe had scarcely taken his seat upon the throne ere he
found himself involved in apparently inextricable embarrassments.
Legitimists and Republicans were alike hostile to his reign. That he
might conciliate the surrounding dynasties, and save himself from
such a coalition of crowned heads as crushed Napoleon I., he felt
constrained to avow political principles and adopt measures which
exasperated the Republicans, and yet did not reconcile the
Legitimists to what they deemed his usurpation. Notwithstanding the
most rigid censorship of the press France has ever known, the
Government was assailed in various ways, continuously and
mercilessly, with rancor which could scarcely be surpassed.

On the 1st of June, 1832, General Lamarque died--one of the most
distinguished generals of the Empire. He had gained great popularity
by his eloquent speeches in the tribune in favor of the rights of
the people. Napoleon, at St. Helena, spoke of him in the highest
terms of commendation. His death occurred just at the moment when
Paris was on the eve of an insurrection, and it was immediately
resolved to take advantage of the immense gathering which would be
assembled at his funeral to raise the banner of revolt. A meeting of
all the opposition had just been held at the house of the banker, M.
Lafitte, who had been so influential an agent in crowning the Duke of
Orleans. A committee had been appointed, consisting of Lafayette,
Odillon Barrot, M. Manguin, and others of similar influence and rank,
to draw up an address to the nation. All the leaders of the popular
committees were very busy in preparation for the outbreak, and arms
were secretly distributed and officers appointed, that they might act
with efficiency should they be brought into collision with the royal
troops.

The funeral took place on the 5th of June. It was one of the most
imposing spectacles Paris had ever witnessed--assembling, apparently,
the whole population of the metropolis, with thousands from the
provinces. A magnificent car, decorated with tri-color flags, bore
the remains. The procession moved from the house of the deceased
through the Rue St. Honore to the Church of the Madeleine, and
thence, by way of the teeming Boulevards, to the Place of the
Bastile, where several funeral orations were pronounced, and where
the body was received, to be taken to its place of burial in the
south of France. All the Republican and Democratic clubs turned out
in full strength. The Chamber of Deputies was present. Banners,
inscribed with exciting popular devices, floated in the air.

The police of Paris was maintained by two thousand municipal guards.
In anticipation of an outbreak, the Government had summoned into the
squares of the city an additional force of twenty-two thousand
troops, consisting of eighteen thousand infantry, four thousand
cavalry, and eighty pieces of cannon. And, as an additional
precaution, there was a reserve of thirty thousand troops stationed
in the vicinity of Paris who could in an hour be brought into the
streets. Apparently here was ample force to crush any uprising of the
populace.

But, on the other hand, the populace could easily rally an
enthusiastic mass of one hundred thousand men. Large numbers of
these were accustomed, in their clubs, to act in concert. Their
leaders were appointed--each one having his special duty assigned to
him. Not a few of these were veteran soldiers, who had served their
term in the army, and there were military men of distinction to lead
them. The forces, therefore, which might be brought into collision
were not very unequal.

The immense procession commenced its movement at ten o'clock in the
morning. The whole city was in excitement. All hearts were oppressed
with the conviction that tumultuous scenes might be witnessed before
the sun should go down. When the head of the procession reached the
Place Vendome, it was turned from its contemplated course, so as to
pass up through the Place and the Rue de la Paix to the Boulevards,
thus marching beneath the shadow of the magnificent column of
Austerlitz, which has given the Place Vendome world-wide renown.

Cries of _Vive la Republique_ began now to be heard. A hundred and
fifty pupils of the celebrated military school, the Polytechnic,
joined the procession, shouting "_Vive la Liberte!_" These shouts
were soon followed by the still more ominous cry, "_A bas Louis
Philippe!_" "_Vive Lafayette!_" The storm of popular excitement was
rapidly rising.

When the funeral-car had reached its point of destination, near the
bridge of Austerlitz, where the remains were to be transferred to
those who would carry them to their distant place of burial, several
brief funeral orations were pronounced, adroitly calculated still
more intensely to arouse popular feeling. A Polish refugee, General
Uminski, in an impassioned harangue, said:

"Lamarque, you were the worthy representative of the people. You were
ours. You belonged to the human race. All people who love freedom
will shed tears at your tomb. In raising your noble voice for Poland,
you served the cause of all nations as well as France. You served the
cause of liberty--that of the interests dearest to humanity. You
defended it against the Holy Alliance, which grew up on the tomb of
Poland, and which will never cease to threaten the liberties of the
world till the crime which cemented it shall have been effaced by the
resurrection of its unfortunate victim."[AC]

[Footnote AC: Louis Blanc, iii., 296.]

[Illustration: THE BARRICADE.]

The agitation was now indescribable. General Lafayette was urged to
repair to the Hotel de Ville and organize a provisional government.
The crowd unharnessed his horses and began, with shouts, to draw him
in his carriage through the streets. Suddenly the cry was raised,
"The Dragoons!" A mounted squadron of cuirassiers, with glittering
swords and coats of mail, in a dense mass which filled the streets,
came clattering down at the full charge upon the multitude, cutting
right and left. Blood flowed in torrents, and the wounded and the
dead were strewn over the pavements. The battle was begun. Fiercely
it raged. Barricades were instantly constructed, which arrested the
progress of the troops. As by magic, fire-arms appeared in the hands
of the populace. Notwithstanding the general tumult and
consternation, order emerged from the chaos. Every house became a
citadel for the insurgents, and two armies were found confronting
each other.

The king and his council, in session at the Tuileries, were greatly
alarmed. At three o'clock the tidings were brought that one-third of
the metropolis, protected by barricades, was in the possession of the
insurgents, and that the aspect of affairs was threatening in the
extreme. Orders were transmitted for all the royal troops within
thirty miles of Paris to hasten to the capital. The night passed in
tumult and terror. Armed bands were surging through the streets. The
solemn boom of the tocsin floated mournfully through the air. The
shoutings of the populace, and the frequent explosions of artillery
and musketry, added to the general dismay and gloom. There was no
sleep in Paris that night. Fifty thousand troops of the line and
fifty thousand of the National Guard were marching to their appointed
places of rendezvous in preparation for the deadly strife which the
morrow would certainly usher in. The populace were no less busy,
organizing in military bands, collecting arms, throwing up
barricades, and seizing important posts. Both parties were alike
aware that the Government could place but little reliance upon the
National Guard, as many of them were known to be in sympathy with the
people.

A provisional government had in reality, as it were, organized
itself. While Louis Philippe and his ministers were in session at the
Tuileries, Lafayette, M. Lafitte, and other distinguished men, who
but a few months before had placed Louis Philippe upon the throne,
were in secret assembly at the mansion of M. Lafitte, issuing orders
for the overthrow of that throne. Their orders were received by the
leaders of the populace, and thus there was unity and efficiency of
action.[AD]

[Footnote AD: Alison, vol. vii., p. 77.]

During the night there were several bloody conflicts, in which the
populace were generally successful. With their head-quarters at the
Porte St. Martin, and pushing out their intrenchments on both sides
of the river, before the dawn a large part of the city was under
their control. The Government forces were mainly concentrated at the
Tuileries, the Louvre, and the Hotel de Ville.

Marshal Soult was in command of the royal troops. Wherever his
sympathies might be in the peculiar emergency which had risen, he
felt bound to be true to his oath and his colors. By ten o'clock in
the morning he had eighty thousand men under his command, including
six thousand cavalry, with one hundred and twenty pieces of
artillery. Strong as this force was, it was none too strong for the
occasion. There was great consternation at the Tuileries. To prevent
the soldiers of the National Guard from passing over to the people,
they were intermingled with the troops of the line.

The conflict which ensued was one of the most terrible ever recorded
in the history of insurrections. Thirty thousand compact royal
troops, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, slowly marched along the
Boulevards, battering down the barricades, and sweeping the streets
with musketry and grape-shot. Another band of thirty thousand
traversed, in an equally sanguinary march, the streets which bordered
the banks of the Seine. They were to meet at the bridge of
Austerlitz.

The houses of Paris are of stone, five or six stories high. Each
house became a citadel filled with insurgents, which kept up a deadly
fire upon the advancing columns. The slaughter on both sides was
dreadful; on either side was equal courage and desperation. A very
bloody struggle took place at the Cloister of St. Meri, which strong
position the insurgents held with the utmost determination.

"The tocsin," writes Sir Archibald Alison, "incessantly sounded from
the Church of St. Meri to call the Republicans to the decisive
point; and they were not wanting to the appeal. Young men, children
of twelve years of age, old men tottering on the verge of the grave,
flocked to the scene of danger and stood side by side with the manly
combatants. Never had there been, in the long annals of revolutionary
conflicts, such universal enthusiasm and determined resolution on the
part of the Republicans."

Before the terrific fire from the windows and from behind the
barricade the whole column of royal troops at first recoiled and fled
back in confusion. But heavy artillery was brought forward; a breach
was battered through the barricade; shells were thrown beyond to
scatter the defenders, while an incessant storm of bullets penetrated
every window at which an assailant appeared. The royal troops rushed
through the breach. Quarter was neither given nor asked. On both
sides the ferocity of demons was exhibited. This closed the conflict.
The insurrection was crushed. The royal troops admitted a loss in
killed and wounded of 417. The loss of the insurgents can never be
known, as both the dead and the wounded were generally conveyed away
and secreted by their friends.

On the morning of the 6th, the leaders of the Liberal party were
sanguine of success. But the unexpected display of governmental force
rendered the revolt hopeless. The leaders, who had been acting in
entire secrecy, dispersed, and Alison says that they quietly slipped
over to the other side, and sought only to mitigate the victor's
wrath. A deputation was appointed by some of the citizens to call
upon the king, _congratulate him upon his victory_, and implore him
to temper justice with mercy.

The king angrily replied, "Who is responsible for the blood which has
been shed? The miserable wretches who took advantage of the funeral
of General Lamarque to attack the Government by open force. The
cannons you have heard have demolished the barricades of St. Meri.
The revolt is terminated. I do not know why you should suppose that
violent measures are to be adopted; but, rely upon it, they are
loudly called for. I know that the press is constantly endeavoring to
destroy me; but it is by the aid of falsehood. I ask you, is there
any person of whom you have ever heard, against whom a greater
torrent of calumny has been poured forth than against myself?"[AE]

[Footnote AE: Les Dix Ans de Louis Philippe, vol. iii., p. 318.]

The next morning a decree was issued ordering all the
printing-presses opposed to the Government to be broken to pieces,
and substituting courts-martial instead of the ordinary tribunals to
try all cases connected with the insurrection. The Government
regarded the movement as a combined attempt of the Republicans and
the Legitimists. Hence Garnier Pages, the Democrat, and Viscount
Chateaubriand, the Bourbonist, found themselves arrested as
accomplices in the same rebellion.

Three days after, on the 10th of June, Chateaubriand wrote from his
prison to M. Bertin, editor of _Le Journal des Debats_, that he had
refused to take the oath of allegiance to Louis Philippe, first
because his government was not founded upon legitimate succession,
and second, that it was not founded on popular sovereignty.

A few weeks after this, upon his release, Chateaubriand visited the
young prince, Louis Napoleon, who, in studious retirement, was
residing with his mother, Queen Hortense, in their beautiful retreat
at Arnemberg, on the Lake of Constance. The prince had just published
a work entitled "Political Reveries," in which he took the ground
that the _voice of the people_ is the legitimate foundation of all
government; that the people, in the exercise of universal suffrage,
should decide upon their form of government and choose their rulers.
Chateaubriand read this treatise with much interest, suggested the
substitution of the word _nation_ for that of _people_, and became
personally the warm friend of the young prince, though still adhering
to the doctrine of legitimacy and to his allegiance to the
Bourbons.[AF]

[Footnote AF: Oeuvres de Napoleon III., t. i., p. 393.]

The government of Louis Philippe pursued and punished with the
greatest energy those engaged in the revolt. "The number of the
prosecutions," writes Alison, "exceeded any thing previously
witnessed, not merely in French, but in European history. The
restrictions complained of during the Restoration were as nothing
compared to it. From the accession of Louis Philippe to the 1st of
October, a period of a little more than two years, there occurred in
France 281 seizures of journals and 251 judgments upon them. No less
than 81 journals had been condemned, of which 41 were in Paris alone.
The total number of months of imprisonment inflicted on editors of
journals during this period was 1226, and the amount of fines levied
347,550 francs [$80,000]. This is perhaps the hottest warfare,
without the aid of the censorship, ever yet waged, during so short a
period, against the liberty of the press. The system of Louis
Philippe was to bring incessant prosecutions against the parties
responsible for journals, without caring much whether they were
successful or not, hoping that he should wear them out by the trouble
and expense of conducting their defenses."[AG]

[Footnote AG: History of Europe from the Fall of Napoleon to the
Accession of Louis Napoleon, by Sir Archibald Alison, vol. iii., p.
82.]

Thus terminated the Republican attempt to overthrow the throne of
Louis Philippe. And now let us turn to an attempt of the Legitimists
to accomplish the same end. About eleven months after the
enthronement of Louis Philippe, in March, 1831, the Duchess de Berri,
having obtained the reluctant consent of Charles X., set out from
Scotland for the south of France, to promote a rising of the Bourbon
party there in favor of the Duke of Bordeaux--whom we shall hereafter
call by his present title, the Count de Chambord--and to march upon
Paris. The Legitimist party was rich, and was supported generally by
the clergy and by the peasantry. In the south of France and in La
Vendee that party was very strong.

    "The idea of crossing the sea at the head of faithful
    paladins; of landing after the perils and adventures of an
    unexpected voyage, in a country of knights-errant; of
    eluding, by a thousand disguises, the vigilance of the
    watchful enemies through whom she had to pass; of wandering,
    a devoted mother and banished queen, from hamlet to hamlet,
    and chateau to chateau; of testing humanity, high and low, on
    the romantic side, and, at the end of a victorious
    conspiracy, of rearing in France the standard of the
    monarchy--all this was too dazzling not to captivate a young
    and high-spirited woman, bold through very ignorance of the
    obstacles she had to surmount, heroic in the hour of danger
    through levity; able to endure all but ennui, and ready to
    lull any misgivings with the casuistry of a mother's
    love."[AH]

[Footnote AH: Louis Blanc.]

The ex-king, Charles X., who, having abdicated, had no power to
nominate to the regency, still issued a decree, dated Edinburgh,
March 8th, 1831, by which he authorized "a proclamation in favor of
Henry V., in which it shall be announced that Madame, Duchess de
Berri, is to be regent of the kingdom during the minority of her
son."[AI]

[Footnote AI: By the laws of France the dauphin attained his majority
at the age of thirteen.]

The duchess, assuming the title of Countess of Segana, crossed over
to Holland, and, ascending the Rhine and traversing the Tyrol, safely
reached Genoa. The King of Sardinia, Charles Albert, received her
kindly, and loaned her a million francs. But the French consul
discovered her through her disguise, and by order of the French Court
the Sardinian king felt constrained to request her to withdraw from
his domains.

The Duke of Modena received her hospitably, and assigned to her use
the palace of Massa, about three miles from the sea. Here, with
confidential advisers, she matured her plans. Secret agents were sent
to all the principal cities in France, to organize royalist
committees and to prepare for a general uprising. The plan was for
the insurrection to break out first in the west of France, to be
immediately followed by all the southern provinces.

While affairs were in this posture, a very curious measure was
adopted by the Government, which merits brief notice. The Chamber of
Deputies, composed of the _bourgeoisie_, voted the abolition of the
hereditary peerage. This was a constitutional amendment, which needed
to be ratified by the Chamber of Peers. But the Peers were not
disposed thus to commit suicide. Louis Philippe had been placed upon
the throne by the bourgeoisie. The nobles were Bourbonists. He felt
constrained to support the measures of his friends. He therefore
created, by royal ordinance, thirty-six new peers to vote the
abolition of the peerage, and thus the vote was carried.[AJ] A vote
was also passed banishing forever from the soil of France every
member of the elder branch of the house of Bourbon. These measures,
of course, exasperated the friends of the ancient regime, and
rendered them more willing to enter into a conspiracy for the
dethronement of the Citizen King.

[Footnote AJ: In the British House of Lords the Crown will often
carry a measure by a similar action. By the Constitution of the
Empire in France, under Napoleon III., this was rendered impossible.]

At Massa the duchess had assembled several prominent men to aid her
with their advice and co-operation. But, as was to have been
expected, these men soon quarrelled among themselves. The brother of
the Duchess de Berri was now King of Naples. But he did not dare to
afford his sister an asylum, as the French Government threatened, in
that case, immediately to send a fleet and an army from Toulon and
bombard the city of Naples.

Proclamations and ordinances were prepared, to be widely distributed.
A provisional government, to be established in Paris, was organized,
on paper, to consist of the Marquis de Pastoret, the Duke de Bellino,
the Viscount Chateaubriand, and the Count de Kergarlaz.

In the mean time the officers of the Government were watching with
the utmost vigilance every movement in the south of France, and
punishing with terrible severity, by shooting, bayoneting, and
hanging, and often without trial, those who were suspected of being
implicated in the anticipated Bourbon uprising. The duchess was much
deceived by the flattering reports she was receiving from her
friends. Though they correctly described the intense dissatisfaction
of the country with the government of Louis Philippe, they greatly
exaggerated the numbers and the zeal of those whom they supposed to
be ready to rally around the banner of the Bourbons.

The 24th of April, 1832, was fixed for the departure. The utmost
secrecy was necessary, as the spies of Louis Philippe were all
around. Arrangements had been made for a small steamer, the Carlo
Alberto, in the darkness of the night to glide into the harbor, take
on board the duchess and her suite, and convey them to Marseilles. It
was given out that the duchess was about to visit Florence. At
nightfall of the 24th a travelling carriage, with four post-horses,
was drawn up before the ducal palace. The duchess, with one gentleman
and three ladies, entered, and in the darkness the carriage was
rapidly driven a short distance from the gate of Massa, when, upon
some pretext, it stopped for a moment beneath the shadow of a high
wall. While some directions were given, to engage the attention of
the postilion, the duchess, with Mademoiselle Lebeschu and M. de
Brissac, glided out of the door unperceived, when the door was shut
and the horses again set out upon the gallop for Florence.

The duchess and her friends stealthily moved along under the shadow
of the wall, until they reached a secluded spot upon the sea-shore
where the steamer was expected. The major of a body of troops in
that vicinity joined them, with a lantern, as a signal to guide the
boat from the expected steamer to the shore. Here they remained, in
breathless silence and in much anxiety, for an hour. Just as the
clocks in the distant churches were tolling the hour of midnight, a
feeble light was seen far away over the water. It was the Carlo
Alberto, the steamer for which they were waiting. Rapidly it
approached; a boat was sent ashore. The Princess Marie Caroline, worn
out with cares and anxieties, or--which is the more
probable--possessed of that gay, untroubled spirit which no cares
could agitate, was wrapped in her cloak and soundly asleep on the
sand. Her companions did not awake her till the boat was about to
touch the beach. It was three o'clock in the morning. The duchess and
her suite, composing a party of seven--Mademoiselle Lebeschu being
her only lady attendant--were soon transferred from the shore to the
deck of the Carlo Alberto.

All were conscious that the enterprise upon which they had embarked
was perilous in the extreme. Its success would greatly depend upon
what is called chance. The duchess appeared calm and cheerful, as if
determined not to doubt of a triumphant result, and manifestly
resolved to wipe from the Bourbon name the charge of pusillanimity
which it has so often incurred.

To avoid the French cruisers the Carlo Alberto kept far out to sea,
and did not reach Marseilles until midnight of the 28th. The party
was to be landed near the light-house, where a rendezvous had been
fixed for the small but determined band who were to meet her there.
The moment the steamer cast anchor the signal of two lanterns was
raised, one at the foremast head and the other at the mizzen-mast
head, which signal was instantly responded to from the shore. Dark
clouds had gathered in the sky, and the moanings of a rising gale and
the dashings of the surge added to the gloom of the hour. The
gentlemen who were to accompany Marie Caroline to the shore were
dressed in the disguise of fishermen. The sea had become so high that
it was with difficulty and peril that the party could embark. At one
time the boat was dashed so furiously against one of the paddle-boxes
of the steamer that the destruction of all on board seemed
inevitable. Through all these trying scenes the fragile, sylph-like
duchess manifested intrepidity which excited the wonder and
admiration of every beholder. The little skiff which was to convey
her to the beach soon disappeared in the darkness of that stormy sea.

The landing occurred without accident, and Marie Caroline scaled the
rocks, along a path which tried the nerves even of the boldest
smugglers, till she reached a temporary hut which had been reared to
afford her shelter. The vigilance, however, of the Government police
had not been entirely eluded. That very evening the authorities, in
some way, received the rumor that the duchess had landed, or was
about to land, at Marseilles, to commence the uprising there.
Immediate and vigorous preparations were adopted to quell it. The
force of every military post was doubled.

A band of about two thousand of her partisans was the next morning
assembled at an appointed rendezvous in the city. They ran up the
white banner of the Bourbons upon the spire of St. Laurient, and
began shouting vociferously, "_Vive Henri Cinq!_"--hoping to excite a
general insurrection, and that the whole populace of the city would
join them. They did create intense agitation, and wonder, and
bewilderment. Men, women, and children ran to and fro, and the
alarm-bells were violently rung from the steeples. The duchess was
still in her hut, waiting for the favorable moment in which to make
her appearance. When she saw the Bourbon flag unfurled from St.
Laurient, she was deluded by the hope that the success of the
enterprise was secured.

But soon the regular troops appeared in solid battalions. The crowd
fled before them. A few of the insurgents who attempted to make a
stand were dispersed by a bayonet charge, their leaders captured, and
the Bourbon flag disappeared! By one o'clock it was all over--the
_emeute_ had utterly and hopelessly failed!

Her despairing friends urged her immediately to repair to the
steamer, and to take refuge with the Bourbons of Spain. Heroically
she replied, "I am in France now, and in France will I remain." We
have not space here to enter into the detail of her wonderful
adventures, which she seemed to enjoy as if she were merely engaged
in a school-girl frolic. Probably she felt assured that if she were
taken prisoner, her royal blood, her relationship with the queen, as
her niece, and the sympathy of most of the courts of Europe in what
they deemed the righteousness of her cause, would save her from any
very severe treatment.

    "Disguised as a peasant-boy, and accompanied by no one but
    Marshal Bourmont, also in disguise, she set out on foot to
    walk across France, through fields and by-paths, a distance
    of four hundred miles, to the department of La Vendee, where
    the Bourbon party was in its greatest strength. The first
    night they lost their way in the woods. Utterly overcome by
    exhaustion, the duchess sank down at the foot of a tree and
    fell asleep, while her faithful attendant stood sentinel at
    her side.

    "There is nothing in the pages of romance more wild than the
    adventures of this frivolous yet heroic woman. She slept in
    sheds, encountered a thousand hair-breadth escapes, and, with
    great sagacity, eluded the numerous bands who were scouring
    the country in quest of her. At one time, in an emergency,
    she threw herself upon the protection of a Republican, boldly
    entering his house, and saying, 'I am the Duchess of Berri:
    will you give me shelter?' He did not betray her. After such
    a journey of fifty days, she reached, on the 17th of May, the
    chateau of Plassac, near Saintes, in La Vendee, where a
    general rising of her friends was appointed for the 24th.
    Nearly all the Vendean chiefs were then awaiting the summons.
    On the 21st of May, the duchess--still in the costume of a
    young peasant, presenting the aspect of a remarkably graceful
    and beautiful boy, and taking the name of 'Little
    Peter'--repaired on horseback to an appointed rendezvous at
    Meslier."[AK]

[Footnote AK: Abbott's Life of Napoleon III., p. 87.]

Here her disappointment was bitter. The Government troops were on the
alert, fully prepared for any conflict. Her own friends were
despairing. There was no enthusiasm manifested to enter upon an
enterprise where defeat and death seemed inevitable. Passionately she
entreated her friends not to abandon her, delineating the great risks
she had run. It was all in vain. No general uprising could be
secured. There were a few despairing conflicts, but the feeble bands
of the insurgents rapidly melted away before the concentration of the
Government troops.

Still, the duchess herself escaped capture. Accompanied by a single
guide, and apparently insensible to hardship or peril, she wandered
through the woods, often sleeping in the open air, and occasionally
carried upon the shoulders of her attendant through the marshes.

"On one occasion," writes Alison, "when the pursuit was hottest, she
found shelter in a ditch covered with bushes, while the soldiers in
pursuit of her searched in vain, and probed with their bayonets every
thicket in the wood with which it was environed. The variety, the
fatigue, the dangers of her life, had inexpressible charms for a
person of her ardent and romantic disposition. She often said, 'Don't
speak to me of suffering. I was never so happy at Naples or Paris as
now.'"[AL]

[Footnote AL: Alison.]

She took great pleasure in a variety of disguises. Sometimes, in the
picturesque costume of a peasant-girl, with coarse wooden shoes on
her little feet, she would enter a town filled with Royalist troops,
and converse gayly with the gendarmes who guarded the gates. The
coasts of France were so watched by Governmental vessels as to render
her escape by water almost impossible. She consequently decided to
seek a retreat in Nantes, a city in which she had so few adherents
that no one would suspect her taking refuge there.

In the disguise of a peasant-girl, with one female companion, she
entered the city, and was concealed by a few friends who perilled
their lives in so doing. For several months she eluded all the
efforts of the Government to find her. In the mean time, the
partisans of the duchess were pursued and punished with the most
terrible severity. No mercy was shown them. The duchess, from her
retreat, kept up a lively correspondence with her friends, still
hoping that fortune might turn in her favor. Pleading in behalf of
these men, she wrote as follows to her aunt, the queen:

     "Whatever consequences may result for me, from the position
     in which I have placed myself while fulfilling my duties as
     a mother, I will never speak to you, madame, of my own
     interests. But brave men have become involved in danger for
     my son's sake, and I can not forbear from attempting
     whatever may be done with honor, in order to save them.

     "I therefore entreat my aunt, whose goodness of heart and
     religious sentiment are known to me, to exert all her credit
     in their behalf. The bearer of this letter will furnish
     details respecting their situation. He will state that the
     judges given them are men against whom they have fought.

     "Notwithstanding the actual difference in our positions, a
     volcano is under your feet, madame, as you know. I knew your
     alarm--your very natural alarm--at a period when I was in
     safety, and I was not insensible to it. God alone knows what
     He destines for us, and perhaps you will one day thank me
     for having had confidence in your goodness, and for having
     given you an opportunity of exerting it in behalf of my
     unfortunate friends. Rely on my gratitude. I wish you
     happiness, madame, for I think too highly of you to believe
     it possible that you can be happy in your present situation.
                         MARIE CAROLINE."

This letter was conveyed to the queen at St. Cloud. She probably read
it; but it was immediately returned to the bearer, who was in
waiting, with the declaration that the queen could not receive it.
Five months had now elapsed since the duchess entered Nantes. It is
by some supposed that Louis Philippe did not wish to have her
arrested. He would be fearfully embarrassed to know what to do with
her. It would hardly do to restore her to liberty while her
partisans were cruelly punished with death. It was not easy to decide
upon the tribunal which would sit in judgment upon her. The peerage
would have recoiled with horror from passing judgment upon a
princess, who endeavored to gain the throne for a child, who was
entitled to that throne by the avowed principles of legitimacy.

A renegade Jew, by the name of Deutz, at length betrayed her. By the
most villainous treachery he obtained an interview with the duchess,
and then informed the police of the place of her retreat. It was the
6th of November. In the following words Louis Blanc describes the
preparations made for her arrest:

    "The first communication between M. Thiers and Deutz took
    place under the following circumstances: M. Thiers one day
    received a letter wherein a stranger begged him to repair in
    the evening to the Champs Elysees, promising to make him a
    communication of the very highest importance. At the
    appointed hour he proceeded to the Champs Elysees, with a
    brace of pistols ready in his coat-pockets. At the spot
    indicated in the letter he perceived a man standing, who
    seemed agitated with fear and doubt. He approached and
    accosted this man. It was Deutz. A conference was opened,
    which ended in a base crime. The next night, by an
    arrangement of the police, Deutz was introduced into the
    office of the Minister of the Interior. 'You can make a good
    thing of this,' said M. Thiers. The Jew shook with agitation
    at the idea; his limbs trembled under him, and his
    countenance changed. The price of the treachery was settled
    without difficulty."

No sooner had Deutz withdrawn than bayonets glittered in every
direction, and commissioners of police rushed into the house, with
pistols in their hands. The duchess had barely time to take refuge,
with three companions, in a small recess behind the fire-place, which
was adroitly concealed by an iron plate back of the chimney. The
police commenced a minute search, calling masons in to aid them. The
walls were sounded with hammers, articles of furniture moved and
broken open. Night came while the search continued. The space in
which they were confined was very narrow, with but one small aperture
for the admission of air. They barely escaped suffocation by applying
their mouths in turn to this hole, but three inches in diameter.

The gendarmes, fully satisfied that the duchess must be concealed
somewhere in the house, took possession of the room and lighted a
fire in the chimney, which converted their hiding-place into a hot
oven. The heat soon became insupportable. The iron plate had become
red-hot. One of the prisoners kicked it down, and said, "We are
coming out; take away the fire." The fire was instantly brushed away,
and the duchess and her companions, after having endured sixteen
hours of almost insupportable torture, came forth in great
exhaustion, and yet the duchess almost gayly said, referring to the
ancient martyr roasted upon a gridiron,

"Gentlemen, you have made war upon me _a la St. Laurent_. I have
nothing to reproach myself with. I have only discharged the duty of a
mother to gain the inheritance of her son."[AM]

[Footnote AM: Memoires de la Duchesse de Berri, pp. 87-90.]

The captive was treated with the respect due to her rank. After a
brief confinement at Nantes, she was transferred to the citadel of
Blaye, one of the most gloomy of prisons, on the left bank of the
Gironde. All the effects of this princess of royal birth, who had
entered France as regent, were tied up in a pocket-handkerchief.
Measures were apparently adopted to keep her in close captivity,
without trial, for a long time. The fortress was thoroughly manned
with nine hundred men, and put in a state of defense, as if
anticipating a siege. Three gun-boats were stationed in the river.
The small building within the walls of the citadel, which was
assigned to the duchess, was surrounded with a double row of
palisades ten or twelve feet high. The windows were covered with
strong iron bars, and even the apertures of the chimneys were closed
with an iron grating. Even the gay spirit of the princess was subdued
by the glooms in which she was enveloped.

Still, from many eminent men of her own party she received gratifying
proofs of fidelity. Chateaubriand issued an eloquent pamphlet which
won the applause of the Legitimists throughout Europe. In this he had
the boldness to exclaim, "Madame, your son is my king." In a letter
of condolence to the princess, in which he offered his professional
services in her defense, he said:

     "MADAME,--You will deem it inconsiderate, obtrusive, that
     at such a moment as this I entreat you to grant me a favor,
     but it is the high ambition of my life. I would earnestly
     solicit to be numbered among your defenders. I have no
     personal title to the great favor I solicit of your new
     grandeur, but I venture to implore it in memory of a prince
     of whom you deigned to name me historian, and in the name of
     my family's blood. It was my brother's glorious destiny to
     die with his illustrious grandfather, M. de Malesherbes, the
     defender of Louis XVI., the same day, the same hour, for the
     same cause, and upon the same scaffold. CHATEAUBRIAND."

But a terrible secret was soon whispered abroad, which overwhelmed
the princess with shame, and which filled the court of Louis Philippe
with joy, as it silenced all voices which would speak in her favor.
It became evident that the duchess was again to become a mother. For
a princess, the child, sister, and mother of a king, secretly to
marry some unknown man, was deemed as great a degradation as such a
person could be guilty of. The shame was as great as it would be in
New York for the daughter of a millionaire secretly to marry a negro
coachman. It consigned the princess to irremediable disgrace. But the
situation in which she found herself compelled her to acknowledge her
marriage. The universal assumption was that she had not been married.
Secrecy divests marriage of its sanctity.

The sufferings through which the princess passed were awful. No pen
can describe them. Could she but be released from prison, her shame
might be concealed. Her tears and entreaties were all unavailing.
Louis Philippe, unmindful that the princess was the niece of his
wife, deemed that the interests of his dynasty required that she
should be held with a firm grasp until the birth of her child should
consign her to ignominy from which there could be no redemption.

On the 22d of February, 1833, the duchess placed in the hands of
General Bugeaud, governor of the citadel of Blaye, the following
declaration:

    "Urged by circumstances, and by the measures ordered by the
    Government, though I had the strongest reason to keep my
    marriage secret, I think it a duty to myself and my children
    to declare that I was secretly married during my residence in
    Italy."

To a friend, M. de Mesnard, she wrote: "I feel as if it would kill me
to tell you what follows, but it must be done. Vexatious annoyances,
the order to leave me alone with spies, the certainty that I can not
get out till September, could alone have determined me to declare my
secret marriage."

The humiliations to which the unhappy duchess was compelled to submit
were dreadful. The detail would be only painful to our readers. On
the morning of the 10th of May a daughter was born, whom God kindly,
ere long, removed to another world. The fact, minutely authenticated,
was proclaimed to all Europe. Thus far Marie Caroline had kept secret
the name of her husband. But it was now necessary that his name
should be given, to secure the legitimacy of her child. It was then
announced, by the officiating physician to the group of officials
which the Government had placed around her bed, that the father of
the child was Count Hector Sucheri Palli, gentleman of the chamber to
the King of the Two Sicilies.

In commenting upon these events, Louis Blanc writes: "The partisans
of the new dynasty exulted with indecent zeal at the event of which
the ministers had so well prepared the scandal. The Republicans only
manifested the contempt they felt for this ignoble triumph. As for
the Legitimists, they were overwhelmed with consternation. Some of
them, however, still persisted in their daring incredulity; and they
did not hesitate to denounce the document, upon which their enemies
relied as the denouement of an intrigue which had begun with violence
and ended with a lie. Separated from her friends, deprived of their
counsels, dead to the world, to the laws, to society, was it possible
for Marie Caroline to make any valid deposition against herself, and
that, too, surrounded by her accusers, by her keepers, by the men who
had vowed her destruction?"

Thus, while one party affirmed that there was no truth in the alleged
birth or marriage, the Orleanists declared that the Duchess of Berri
had not only given birth to a child of no legitimate parentage, but
that the Duke of Bordeaux, who was born seven months after the
assassination of the Duke of Berri, was also the child of dishonored
birth, and had, therefore, no title whatever to the crown. Such is
the venom of political partisanship.

On the 8th of June, Marie Caroline, who could no longer claim the
title of Regent of France, but who had sunk to the lowly condition of
the wife of an Italian count, was liberated from prison. She had
fallen into utter disgrace, and was no longer to be feared. With her
child and her nurse, abandoned by those friends who had gathered
around the regent, she sailed for Palermo. Her brother, the king,
received her kindly, and she was joined by Count Lucheri Palli. Few
troubled themselves to inquire whether she were ever _married_ to the
count or not. We hear of her no more.

These events broke up the Legitimists into three parties. The one
assumed that, under the circumstances, the abdication of Charles X.
was not to be regarded as binding; that he was still king, and to him
alone they owed their allegiance. The second took the position that,
in consequence of the suspicions cast upon the birth of the Duke of
Bordeaux, the abdication in favor of the duke was null, and that the
dauphin, the Duke de Angouleme, was the legitimate heir to the crown.
The third party still adhered to the Duke of Bordeaux, recognizing
him as king, under the title of Henry V. Thus terminated in utter
failure the Legitimist endeavor to overthrow the throne of Louis
Philippe.

While these scenes were transpiring, the Duke of Reichstadt, the only
son of Napoleon I., and, by the votes of the French people, the
legitimate heir to the throne of the Empire, died in Vienna, on the
22d of July, 1832. Commenting upon this event, Louis Blanc writes:

    "In a calm, lovely day, there was seen advancing through a
    perfectly silent crowd, along the streets of that capital of
    Austria which once looked down abashed and terror-struck
    beneath the proud eagles of Napoleon, a hearse, preceded by a
    coach and a few horsemen. Some attendants walked on either
    side, bearing torches. When they arrived at the church, the
    court commissioner, in pursuance of a remarkable custom of
    the country, proceeded to enumerate the names and titles of
    the deceased. Then, knocking at the door, he solicited for
    the corpse admission to the temple. The princes and
    princesses of the house of Austria were there awaiting the
    body, and attended it to the vault, into which the fortune of
    the Empire then descended forever. The death of the son of
    Napoleon occasioned no surprise among the nations. It was
    known that he was of a very sickly constitution, and besides
    poison had been spoken of. Those who think every thing
    possible to the fear or ambition of princes had said, _He
    bears too great a name to live._"

The attempts subsequently made by Louis Napoleon for the restoration
of the Empire, which failed at Strasbourg and Bologne, but which
finally gave the Empire to France through twenty years of
unparalleled prosperity, we have not space here to record. They will
be found minutely detailed in Abbott's History of Napoleon III.

In reference to these unsuccessful attempts, Louis Blanc writes: "Of
the two sons of the ex-king of Holland, Napoleon's brother, the
elder, we have seen, had perished in the Italian troubles, by a death
as mysterious as premature. The younger had retired to Switzerland,
where he applied himself unceasingly to the preparation of projects
that flattered his pride and responded to the most earnest
aspirations of his soul.

"Nephew to him whom France called the Emperor, the emperor _par
excellence_ (imperator), and condemned to the vexations of an obscure
youth; having to avenge his proscribed kindred, while himself exiled
by an unjust law, from a country he loved, and of which it might be
said, without exaggeration, that Napoleon still covered it with his
shadow--Louis Bonaparte believed himself destined at once to uphold
the honor of his name, to punish the persecutors of his family, and
to open to his disgraced country some way to glory.

"His design was to make trial of the prestige of his name to
overthrow the Orleans dynasty, after which he would convoke the
people, consult and obey it. Nothing is more certain than that this
respect for the principle of the sovereignty of the people was
perfectly sincere and honest on the part of the young prince. But the
hopes with which he flattered his ambition were not the less grand on
that account. Heir to the imperial tradition, might he not be the
choice of the people?

"He was generous, enterprising, prompt in military exercises, and the
uniform sat upon him with a manly grace. There was no braver
officer--no more gallant cavalier. Though the expression of his
countenance was gentle, rather than energetic and imperious--though
there was an habitual languor in his looks, often dashed with
thought, no doubt the soldiers would love him for his frank bearing,
his honest and hearty speech, his small figure, resembling his
uncle's, and the imperial lightning which the passion of the moment
kindled in his blue eye. What a name, too, was his!"[AN]

[Footnote AN: "The History of Ten Years," by Louis Blanc, vol ii., p.
453.]

Charles X. was overwhelmed by his misfortunes. His health rapidly
failed. He was often heard to say, "The day is not far distant that
shall witness the funeral of the poor old man." On the morning of
November 4, 1836, he was seized with a chill, while temporarily
residing at Goritz, in Styria. It proved an attack of cholera. His
sufferings were severe, but he was calm and resigned, and conversed
freely upon the eternity opening before him. The Duke of Bordeaux and
his sister were brought into the room to receive his blessing. He
placed his trembling hands upon their heads and said, "God protect
you, my children. Walk in the ways of righteousness; do not forget
me; pray for me sometimes." A deep lethargy came upon him; and, after
a few hours of apparent insensibility, he breathed his last, at the
age of 79 years.




CHAPTER XI.

THE FINAL STRUGGLE.

1833-1848

Letter to Louis Napoleon.--Honors to the memory of Napoleon I.--The
Arc de l'Etoile.--The "Target King."--Death of the Duke of
Orleans.--The Count de Paris.--Testimony of Louis Blanc.--Opposition
of the king.--Liberals and Legitimists.--Letter from the Prince de
Joinville.--The banquets.--Agitation in Paris.--The procession
prohibited.--The procession abandoned.--Concentration of the royal
troops.--Defection of the National Guard.--Consternation at the
Tuileries.--A cabinet council summoned.--Resignation of the
ministry.--Organization of the revolutionists.--Collision with
the troops.--The conflict commenced.--Flight of the
insurgents.--Unpopularity of the king.--The Duchess of
Orleans.--Midnight tumult.--Consternation of the royal family.--Marshal
Bugeaud.


The Liberal party in France, despairing of any effectual reform under
the government of Louis Philippe, began to turn their thoughts to the
re-establishment of the Empire under Louis Napoleon, a young prince,
the nephew and heir of Napoleon I., then residing in studious
seclusion at Arnemberg, in Switzerland. The prince had already
obtained some celebrity by his writings in favor of popular rights.
One of the leading republicans wrote to him:

     "The life of the king is daily threatened. If one of these
     attempts should succeed, we should be exposed to the most
     serious convulsions; for there is no longer in France any
     party which can lead the others, nor any man who can inspire
     general confidence. The great name which you bear, your
     opinions, your character, every thing, induces us to see in
     you a point of rallying for the popular cause. Hold yourself
     ready for action. When the time shall come, your friends
     will not fail you."[AO]

[Footnote AO: Vie de Louis Napoleon, t. i., p. 22.]

Every month there seemed to be rising enthusiasm in respect to the
Napoleonic name. Louis Philippe had but just taken his seat upon the
throne, when a petition was presented to the Chamber of Deputies
praying that the remains of the Emperor might be claimed of the
British Government, and transferred from St. Helena to Paris. In a
speech made by M. Mortigny, on the occasion, he said:

"Napoleon established order and tranquillity in our country: he led
our armies to victory: his sublime genius put an end to anarchy: his
military glory made the French name respected throughout the world,
and his name will ever be pronounced with emotion and veneration."

In the Place Vendome a column was reared in commemoration of the
deeds of the French army. It had been surmounted by the statue of
Napoleon. The Allies tore down the effigy. The people now demanded
that the statue should be restored. The Government could not refuse.
On the 28th of July, 1833, the statue of the emperor again rose to
that proud summit, in the midst of, apparently, the universal
acclaim of Paris and France.

On the 1st of August, 1834, a statue of the emperor was placed in the
court-yard of the Royal Hotel des Invalides, accompanied by as
imposing civil and religious ceremonies as France had ever witnessed.

In the year 1806, Napoleon I. had laid the foundations of the Arc de
l'Etoile, at the entrance of the most superb avenue in the world. The
people now demanded the completion of the monument. Preparations were
made for a magnificent fete on the 29th of July, 1836, when the
completed arc was to be unveiled. But Louis Philippe had become so
excessively unpopular, he was so incessantly pursued by assassins,
that it was not deemed safe for him to appear at the ceremony. The
magnificent monument was unveiled without any ceremony--the
_Moniteur_ proclaiming to Europe the humiliating declaration that the
king could no longer with safety appear in the streets of Paris. "The
soil," writes a French annalist, "was so sown with assassins that
there was no safety for the monarch but within the walls of his
palace."[AP]

[Footnote AP: Alison, vol. iii., p. 206.]

All over the kingdom insurrections were constantly bursting out, and
there were bloody conflicts in Lyons, Marseilles, and other places.
And now the demand became irresistible for the transfer of the
remains of Napoleon to Paris. Such a scene of national homage as this
great occasion manifested the world never witnessed before. In 1840,
the eyes of the world were fixed upon this grand funereal pageant.
The honored remains were transferred from the lonely grave at St.
Helena, placed beneath the dome of the Invalides, and over those
remains a nation's gratitude has reared a monument which attracts the
admiration of the world.

[Illustration: ST. HELENA.]

But these reluctant yieldings to popular sentiment did not add to the
popularity of Louis Philippe. He was shot at so frequently that he
received the sobriquet of the _Target King_! A volume might be filled
with the recital of the foul attempts to assassinate him. His days
must have passed in constant wretchedness. He was assailed in low
blackguardism in the journals: he was assailed with envenomed
eloquence, by such men as Lamartine, at the banquets; and his path
was dogged, with dagger and pistol, by such brutal wretches as
Fieschi, Boirier Meunier, Alibaud, and many others.

Louis Philippe, in the relations of private life, was one of the best
of men. His character had been formed in the school of misfortune. He
was not a man of generous affections; the fearful discipline through
which he had passed rendered this almost impossible. He was greedy of
money, and exceedingly desirous of aggrandizing his family by such
matrimonial alliances as would strengthen his dynasty.

On the 13th of July, 1842, the king experienced one of the heaviest
calamities of his life--a calamity quite irreparable. His eldest son,
who, upon the enthronement of his father, had taken the title of the
Duke of Orleans, was a very noble young man, quite popular with the
people and in the army. He was believed to be far more liberal in his
views than his father. He was driving in his carriage from Paris to
Neuilly; the horses took fright, and the driver lost his control over
them. The duke endeavored to leap from the carriage; his head struck
the ground, and his brain was so injured that he breathed but a few
hours, in insensibility, and died. Thus sadly the direct heir to the
throne was cut off. The succession reverted to his son, the Count of
Paris--an infant child, then in the arms of its nurse.

This young man--who subsequently married his cousin, a daughter of
the Duke of Montpensier, and who has been residing much of the time
at Twickenham, in England--is, at the present writing, the Orleans
candidate for the throne of France. He is deemed a worthy man--has
two children, but never has been placed in circumstances to develop
any marked traits of character. As the Count of Chambord has no
children, upon his death the Count of Paris becomes the _legitimate_
candidate for the throne.

The Count of Chambord had married the Archduchess Maria
Theresa-Beatrice, of Modena, eldest sister of the reigning duke of
that principality, and the only prince in Europe who had refused to
recognize Louis Philippe. "It was a singular proof of the mutations
of fortune that the direct descendant of Louis XIV. deemed himself
fortunate upon being admitted into the family of a third-rate Italian
potentate."[AQ]

[Footnote AQ: Alison, vol. viii., p. 193.]

Louis Philippe, during his reign of about eighteen years,
encountered nothing but trouble. The advocates of legitimacy--of the
divine right of kings--regarded him as an usurper. As the voice of
the nation was not consulted in placing him upon the throne, the
masses of the people deemed themselves defrauded of their rights, and
hated him, as the representative only of the moneyed aristocracy of
Paris. The bitterness with which he was assailed by the Liberal party
may be inferred from the following extract from the "Revolution of
1848," by Louis Blanc:

    "Whatever may have been the baseness of Rome under the
    Caesars, it was equalled by the corruption in France in the
    reign of Louis Philippe. Nothing like it had ever been
    witnessed in history. The thirst for gold having obtained
    possession of minds agitated by impure desires, society
    terminated by sinking into a brutal materialism. The formula
    of selfishness, every one by himself and for himself, had
    been adopted by the sovereign as the maxim of state; and that
    maxim, alike hideous and fatal, had become the ruling
    principle of government. It was the device of Louis
    Philippe--a prince gifted with moderation, knowledge,
    tolerance, humanity, but skeptical, destitute of either
    nobility of heart or elevation of mind--the most experienced
    corrupter of the human race that ever appeared on earth!"

There were thirty-four millions of people in France. Of these, but
one hundred and fifty thousand of the richest proprietors enjoyed the
right of suffrage. Consequently, the laws were framed to favor the
rich. All the efforts of the people to secure a reform of the
electoral law proved unavailing. The agitation of the subject
increased every year, and the cry for parliamentary reform was ever
growing louder and more menacing. Many of the illustrious men in
France joined this reform party. Among others, there were M. Lafitte,
the wealthy banker, M. Odillon Barrot, the renowned advocate, and M.
Arago, the distinguished philosopher.

We may search history in vain for the record of any monarch so
unrelentingly harassed as was Louis Philippe from the time he
ascended the throne until he was driven from it. He was
irreproachable in morals, a man who had seen much of the world in all
its phases, sagacious and well meaning. But he was placed in a
position in which no earthly wisdom could rescue him from the direst
trouble. There were two antagonistic and very powerful parties
watching him.

The one was the Liberal party in France, of varied shades of opinion,
demanding equal rights for all men, hating the old dynastic
despotisms of Europe, who had forced the Bourbons upon them, and
hating those treaties of Vienna, of 1815, which had shorn France of a
large portion of her territory, and had bound Europe hand and foot,
so as to prevent any future uprising of the friends of popular
liberty.

The other party consisted of the old aristocracy of France, the
Legitimists, supported by the sympathies of all the courts of Europe,
who were supposed to be not only willing but eager to unite their
armies to maintain the principles of the old _regime_ in France, and
thus to prevent the establishment there of those principles of
popular liberty which would endanger all their thrones.

The difference between these two parties was irreconcilable. As Louis
Philippe was situated, he was compelled to choose between the two. He
chose the latter. This involved him in unrelenting and unintermitted
war with the former. Alison says: "Concession to the Republican party
and a general change in external policy, so earnestly pressed upon
him by the Liberals, would lead at once to a general war;" that is,
the surrounding dynasties would not permit free institutions to be
established in France.

Louis Philippe was a man of great decision of character, as his
friends would say. His enemies called that trait stubbornness. In a
letter purporting to have been written on the 9th of November, 1847,
by his son, the Prince de Joinville, to the Duke de Nemours, the
writer says to his brother:

     "I write one word to you, for I am disquieted at the events
     which I see on all sides thickening around us. Indeed, I
     begin to be seriously alarmed. The king is inflexible. He
     will listen to no advice. His own will must prevail over
     every thing. There are no longer any ministers. Their
     responsibility is null. Every thing rests with the king. He
     has arrived at an age when observations are no longer
     listened to. He is accustomed to govern, and he loves to
     show that he does so."

The king is reported to have said, at the close of a cabinet meeting,
in reply to some who urged concessions to the Liberal party, "Every
one appears to be for reform. Some demand it, others promise it. For
my part, I will never be a party to such weakness. Reform is another
word for war. When the opposition succeed to power, I shall take my
departure."

This was the declaration of the king that the surrounding dynasties
would not permit popular rights in France. An ancient law of the old
_regime_ did not allow the people to assemble to discuss affairs of
state. Louis Philippe revived the law, and enforced it vigorously. To
evade this prohibition, large dinner-parties, or banquets, as they
were called, were introduced, which afforded an opportunity of
offering toasts and making speeches, in which the measures of
Government were vehemently assailed. These banquets sprang up in all
parts of the kingdom, and were attended by thousands. Arrangements
were made for a mammoth banquet in the city of Paris on the 22d of
February, 1848. The place selected was a large open space near the
Champs Elysees. It would accommodate six thousand persons at the
tables, and was to be covered with a canvas awning.

The Government resolved to disperse the assembly by force. The
leaders of the Opposition, aware that they were not prepared for a
resort to arms, entered into a compromise with the Government. The
guests were to meet at the appointed time and place for the banquet.
The officers of the police were then to appear, order the assembly to
disperse, and arrest the leaders, who were to be indicted for a
breach of the law prohibiting political gatherings. Thus the question
of the right thus to assemble was to be referred to the legal
tribunals. This compromise was gladly acceded to by the Liberals, as
many of them desired a change of ministry only, being very reluctant
to run the hazard of a change of dynasty.

The Liberals accordingly announced to Paris, by a proclamation, that
the banquet was interdicted by the Government, but that there would
be a general demonstration by forming a procession on the largest
possible scale, to march to the appointed place of meeting, and there
peaceably to disperse at the orders of the police.

The Government was exceedingly alarmed when it learned that the
banquet was converted into a procession. This was magnifying the
danger. The excitement in Paris was intense. It soon became manifest
that not less than one hundred thousand men would join in the
procession. A decree was accordingly issued by the prefect of police,
stating that all who chose to go to the banquet individually could do
so, but that any attempt to form a procession would meet with
forcible resistance. This rendered it necessary for the Liberals
either to give up the plan of the procession, or to run the risk of a
collision with the royal troops, for which they were by no means
prepared.

The leaders of the Liberal party held a meeting, when the question
was anxiously discussed. Opinions on the subject were divided. One of
the most prominent men of the party, M. Lagrange, urged decided
measures. "Let the democracy," said he, "hoist its standard, and
descend boldly into the field of battle for progress. Humanity, in a
mass, has its eyes upon you. Our standard will rally around us the
whole warlike and fraternal cohorts. What more are we waiting for?"

On the other hand, Louis Blanc said, "Humanity restrains me. I ask if
you are entitled to dispose of the blood of a generous people,
without any prospect of advantage to the cause of democracy. If the
patriots commence the conflict to-morrow they will infallibly be
crushed, and the democracy will be drowned in blood. That will be the
result of to-morrow's struggle. Do not deceive yourselves. Determine
on insurrection, if you please; but for my part, if you adopt such a
decision, I will retire to my home, to cover myself with crape and
mourn over the ruin of democracy."

Ledru Rollin, following in the same strain, said, "Have we arms,
ammunition, combatants ready? The Government is thoroughly prepared.
The army only awaits the signal to crush us. My opinion is, that to
run into a conflict in such circumstances is an act of madness."

Under the influence of such views, it was decided to abandon the
procession. The regular troops in Paris at that time numbered
twenty-five thousand. There were as many more garrisoned in
neighboring towns, who could in a few hours be concentrated in the
city. Orders had been already issued for all the military posts of
the capital to be strongly occupied. In consequence of these various
measures, excitement pervaded the whole metropolis. Many of the
Liberal party were not satisfied with the decision of their leaders.
Many of the populace were also ignorant of the resolutions to which
the committees had come at a late hour of the evening of the day
before the procession was to have been formed.

At an early hour in the morning of the 22d, immense crowds had
assembled in the Place de la Madeleine, the Place de la Concorde, and
the Champs Elysees. Here they swayed to and fro, hour after hour,
motiveless, awaiting the progress of events. M. Guizot was then
Minister of Foreign Affairs, and M. Duchatel Minister of the
Interior. In the afternoon a large band of students swept through the
streets singing the Marseillaise, and shouting "Long live Reform!"
"Down with Guizot!" Agitation was rapidly on the increase. Quite a
large body of regular troops was stationed at the junction of the Rue
Rivoli and the Rue St. Honore. Towards evening the excited mob pelted
the troops with stones, and commenced erecting barricades in the
vicinity. There was, however, no other serious disturbance during the
day.

The Government, alarmed by these demonstrations, resolved to call out
all its military force the next morning, both the regular troops and
National Guard, to maintain order. Consequently, at an early hour in
the morning of the 23d, the _generale_ was beat in all the streets,
and the National Guard, more than forty thousand strong, hurried to
their appointed places of rendezvous. This crowding of the streets
with troops greatly increased the general excitement. All business
was suspended. Many of the shops were closed. The whole population of
Paris seemed to be upon the pavement.

The National Guard, composed of the middling class in the city of
Paris, were most of them in favor of reform. Many of their officers
belonged to the Liberal party. Their commander-in-chief, General
Jacquemont, was ready to sustain the Government. He was powerless
without the co-operation of his officers and men. In anticipation of
the conflict which now seemed so menacing, large numbers of the
officers held a secret meeting the night before, in which they
decided to stand between the regular troops and the irresponsible
populace. They would, on the one hand, assist the people in demanding
reform, and would protect them from the assaults of the regular
troops. On the other hand, they would defend the monarchy, and aid
the troops in repelling insurrection and revolution. As the National
Guard occupied every post conjointly with the regular troops, they
would not allow the troops to disperse the assemblages of the people.
It would have been destruction to the regular troops to engage in a
conflict with the National Guard, supported as it would have been by
the whole populace of Paris.

In this singular posture of affairs, the guard standing between the
regulars and the people, and not unfrequently joining with the people
in shouts of _Vive la Reforme_, the hours wore on. Many of the
Liberal leaders were so encouraged by this state of things that they
dispatched orders to the secret societies in the faubourgs
immediately to come forth in all their banded strength, hoping to
overawe the Government. These formidable bodies soon appeared,
traversing the thoroughfares in appalling numbers. The cavalry
received orders to clear the streets. The guard formed into line in
front of one of these bands, and with fixed bayonets held the cavalry
back. The populace, inspired with new zeal, seized arms wherever they
could be found and commenced throwing up barricades.

The king was struck with consternation as these tidings were brought
to him at the Tuileries. A cabinet council was hastily convened. In
view of the peril of the hour the king sent for the queen and his
son, the Duke de Montpensier, to be present at the meeting of the
ministers. Lamartine has given an account of the interview. The queen
and the Duke de Montpensier both urged the king to dismiss his
obnoxious ministers, and replace them by a Liberal ministry who
should introduce parliamentary reform. The king was in entire
sympathy with his ministers. They were carrying out his own policy.
With tears in his eyes he declared that he had rather abdicate the
throne than be separated from them.

"You can not do that, my dear," said the queen; "you belong to
France, and not to yourself. You can not abdicate."

"True," replied the king, mournfully, "I am more to be pitied than
they. I can not resign."

M. Guizot, who was absent at the commencement of the meeting, had
come in during the interview. The king turned to him and said, "My
dear M. Guizot, is it your opinion that the Cabinet is in a situation
to make head against the storm, and to triumph over it?"

The minister replied, "Sire, when the king proposes such a question
he himself answers it. The Cabinet may be in a condition to gain the
victory in the streets, but it can not conquer, at the same time, the
royal family and the crown. To throw a doubt upon its support in the
Tuileries is to destroy it in the exercise of power. The Cabinet has
no alternative but to resign."

The king was deeply moved as he felt thus compelled to accept their
resignation. Tears dimmed his eyes. Affectionately embracing them, he
bade them adieu, saying, "How happy you are! You depart with honor, I
remain with shame."

Guizot himself announced his resignation to the Chamber of Deputies,
then in session. The announcement was received with shouts of
applause from the Opposition benches. The tidings spread with
electric speed through the streets. Night came, and large portions of
the city blazed with illuminations, exultant bands surged through the
streets, songs resounded, and the city presented an aspect of
universal rejoicing. Still, with thinking men, there was great
anxiety. Where would all this lead to? Would the triumphant populace
be satisfied merely with a change of ministry? Might it not demand
the overthrow of a dynasty? If so, what government would succeed?
There were Legitimists, and Orleanists, and Imperialists, and
moderate Republicans, and Socialists of every grade of ultra
Democracy. Was France to be plunged into anarchy by the conflict of
these rival parties? While the unreflecting populace drank, and sang,
and danced, and hugged each other in exultant joy, thoughtful men
paused, pondered, and turned pale with apprehension.

The ardent revolutionists began now to organize in bands in different
parts of the city. Three large bodies were speedily gathered; one in
front of the office of the _Reform_, another before that of the
_Nationale_, and a third in the Place de la Bastile. These three
columns, led by such men, born to command, as ever emerge from the
populace in scenes of excitement, paraded the illuminated streets,
with songs and shouts and flaming torches, until they formed a
junction in the Boulevard des Italiens. It was manifest that some
secret but superior intelligence guided their movements. The Hotel of
Foreign Affairs, then the residence of M. Guizot, was in the Rue de
Choiseul. At the head of that street a well-armed detachment broke
off from one of the processions, and, bearing with them the blood-red
flag of insurrection, advanced to surround the hotel.

A royal guard had been stationed here, consisting of a battalion of
the line. The troops were drawn up across the street, presenting a
rampart of bayonets to prevent the farther advance of the column.
Here the insurgents halted, face to face with the troops, almost near
enough to cross bayonets. The leader of this column is thus
graphically pictured by Lamartine:

    "A man about forty years of age, tall, thin, with hair curled
    and falling on his shoulders, dressed in a white frock, well
    worn and stained with dirt, marched, with a military step, at
    their head. His arms were folded over his chest, his head
    slightly bent forward with the air of one who was about to
    face bullets deliberately, and to brave death with
    exultation. In the eyes of this man, well known by the
    multitude, was concentrated all the fire of the Revolution.
    The physiognomy was the living expression of the defiance of
    opposing force. His lips, incessantly agitated, as if by a
    mental harangue, were pale and trembling. We are told that
    his name was Lagrange."

The commander of the royal troops sat on horseback in front of his
line. The gleam of the torches and the waving of the insurgent banner
frightened his horse. The animal reared, and, recoiling upon his
haunches, broke through the line of troops, which in some confusion
opened to let him pass to the rear. At this moment, either by
accident or design, a musket-shot was discharged at the soldiers by
some one of the insurgents; Alison says by Lagrange himself. The
troops, in the gloom of the night, agitated by the terrible
excitements of the hour, and by the confusion into which their ranks
were thrown by the retreat of their commander through them, deeming
themselves attacked, returned the fire, point-blank, in full volley.
By that one discharge fifty of the insurgents were struck down upon
the pavements, killed or wounded.

The street thus swept by bullets was crowded with men, women, and
children. The discharge echoed far and wide through Paris, creating
terrible alarm. Most who were present had not the remotest idea of
danger, supposing that they had met only for a demonstration of joy.
Apprehensive of another discharge, there was an immediate and
tumultuous flight of the populace, the strong trampling the weak
beneath their feet. The insurgents took with them their dead and
wounded. This accidental slaughter roused Paris to frenzy. It was
regarded as the revenge which the ministers had taken for their
overthrow. Several large wagons were procured, and the dead,
artistically arranged so as to display to the most imposing effect
their blood and wounds, were placed in them. Torches were attached to
the wagons, so as to exhibit the bodies of the slain. A woman was
among the victims. Her lifeless body, half naked, occupied a very
conspicuous position. A man stood by her side occasionally raising
the corpse that it might be more distinctly seen.

Thus, in the gloom of a dark and clouded night, this ghastly
procession traversed all the leading streets of Paris, the whole
population, of a city of a million and a half of inhabitants, being
then in the streets. The rage excited, and the cries for vengeance,
were deep and almost universal. Louis Philippe had no personal
popularity to sustain him. Legitimists and Republicans alike ignored
his claims to the throne. He was regarded as intensely avaricious,
notwithstanding his immense wealth, and as ever ready to degrade
France in subserviency to the policy of foreign courts, that he might
gain the co-operation of these courts in the maintenance of his
crown, and secure exalted matrimonial alliances for his children.
There have probably been few, if any, kings upon the throne of
France, who have had fewer friends or more bitter enemies than Louis
Philippe. The following statement from the _North American Review_
correctly expresses the sentiment of most thoughtful men upon the
character of his administration:

    "During a reign in which his real authority and influence
    were immense, he did little for his country, little for the
    moral and intellectual elevation of his people, and nothing
    for the gradual improvement of the political institutions of
    his kingdom; because his time and attention were absorbed in
    seeking splendid foreign alliances for his children, and in
    manoeuvring to maintain a supple majority in the Chambers,
    and to keep those ministers at the head of affairs who would
    second more heartily his private designs."

While these scenes were transpiring, the king, though greatly
chagrined at the compulsory dismissal of his ministers, yet supposed
that he had thus appeased the populace, and that there was no longer
danger of lawless violence. Helen, duchess of Orleans, widow of the
king's eldest son, a woman of much intelligence, had been greatly
alarmed in apprehension that the dynasty was about to be overthrown.
Her little son, the Count de Paris, was heir to the crown. Relieved
of her apprehensions by the dismissal of the obnoxious ministers, and
not aware of what was transpiring in the streets, she pressed her
child to her bosom, saying: "Poor child! your crown has been indeed
compromised, but now Heaven has restored it to you."

M. Guizot, at the time the untoward event occurred in front of his
hotel, chanced to be at the residence of M. Duchatel, the ex-Minister
of the Interior. As they were conversing, the brother of M. Duchatel
entered, breathless and in the highest state of agitation, to
communicate the tidings that the troops had fired upon the people,
that the whole populace of Paris was in a ferment of indignation, and
that there was imminent danger that the streets of the metropolis
were about to be the theatre of the most fearful carnage. Should
either of these ministers fall into the hands of the exasperated
populace, their instant death was certain. They both hastened to the
Tuileries. It was midnight. The terrible news had already reached the
ears of the king. They found him in his cabinet with his son, the
Duke de Montpensier, and other important personages. All were in a
state of great consternation. M. Thiers was immediately sent for. The
crisis demanded the most decisive measures, and yet the councils were
divided. There was a very energetic veteran general in Paris, Marshal
Bugeaud, who had acquired renown in the war in Algeria. He was
popular with the soldiers, but very unpopular with the people. Inured
to the horrors of the battle-field, he would, without the slightest
hesitation, mow down the people mercilessly with grape-shot.

The king was appalled, in view of his own peril and that of his
family. He well knew how numerous and bitter were his enemies. He had
not forgotten the doom of his predecessors in that palace, Louis XVI.
and Maria Antoinette. For years assassins had dogged his path. All
varieties of ingenious machines of destruction had been constructed
to secure his death. He was appropriately called the Target King, so
constantly were the bullets of his foes aimed at his life. Even a
brave man may be excused for being terrified when his wife and his
children are exposed to every conceivable indignity and to a bloody
death. Under these circumstances the king consented to place the
command of the army in the hands of the energetic Marshal Bugeaud. It
was now two o'clock in the morning. The veteran marshal, invested
with almost dictatorial powers, left the Tuileries in company with
one of the sons of the king, the Duke de Nemours, to take possession
of the troops, and to arrange them for the conflict which was
inevitable on the morrow.

The impulse of a master-mind was immediately felt. Aided by the
obscurity of the night, messengers were dispatched in every
direction, and by five o'clock in the morning four immense columns of
troops were advancing to occupy important strategic points, which
would command the city. These arrangements being completed, the Duke
de Nemours anxiously inquired of the marshal what he thought of the
morrow. M. Bugeaud replied:

"Monseigneur, it will be rough, but the victory will be ours. I have
never yet been beaten, and I am not going to commence to-morrow.
Certainly it would have been better not to have lost so much time;
but no matter, I will answer for the result if I am left alone. It
must not be imagined that I can manage without bloodshed. Perhaps
there will be much, for I begin with cannon. But do not be uneasy.
To-morrow evening the authority of the king and of the law shall be
re-established."




CHAPTER XII.

THE THRONE DEMOLISHED.

1848

Attempts at conciliation.--False confidence of the king.--Resignation
of Thiers.--Scene in the palace.--Heroism of the queen.--The
insurrection triumphant.--The abdication.--Imminent danger of the
royal family.--Peril and sufferings of the Duchess of Orleans.--Flight
of the king.--Escape.--She retires from the Tuileries.--The duchess in
the Chamber of Deputies.--Speech of Lamartine.--Scene in the
Chamber.--Entrance of the duchess.--The rush of the mob.--Escape of
the duchess and her children.--The Provisional Government.--The
moderate and the radical Republicans.--A compromise.--A surging
crowd.--Awful scenes in Paris.--Death of Louis Philippe.


In the mean time the king formed a new and liberal ministry,
consisting of MM. Thiers, Odillon Barrot, and Duvergier de Hauranne,
hoping thus to conciliate the populace. The fact was placarded, at
six o'clock in the morning, all over Paris. But the act of appointing
Marshal Bugeaud to command the troops was a declaration of war--the
formation of this ministry was a supplication for peace. The one act
was defiance, the other capitulation. Thus, while General Bugeaud was
loading his cannon to the muzzle, and marshalling his troops for
battle, he received an order, to his inexpressible chagrin, from the
new ministry directing him to cease the combat and to withdraw the
troops, while at the same time an announcement was made, by a
proclamation to the people, that the new ministry had ordered the
troops everywhere to cease firing, and to withdraw from the menacing
positions which they occupied. The indignant marshal for a time
refused to obey the order until it should be ratified by the
sign-manual of the king. He soon, however, received a dispatch from
the Duke de Nemours which rendered it necessary to submit. Thus the
new ministry rejected the policy of resistance, and inaugurated that
of conciliation.

The king, worn out by excitement and fatigue, at four o'clock in the
morning retired to his chamber for a few hours of sleep. He was so
far deceived as to flatter himself that, through the measures which
had been adopted, all serious trouble was at an end. He slept
soundly, and did not rise until eleven o'clock, when he came down to
the breakfast-room in morning-gown and slippers, and with a smiling
countenance. Here appalling tidings met him. The exasperated populace
were tearing down and trampling under foot the conciliatory
proclamation of M. Thiers. The national troops, disgusted with the
contradictory orders which had been issued, were loud in their clamor
against the king. The National Guard was everywhere fraternizing with
the people. The frenzy of insurrection was surging through all the
thoroughfares of Paris.

The king was silent in consternation. Immediately repairing to his
chamber, he dressed himself in the uniform of the National Guard, and
returned to his cabinet, where he was joined by two of his sons, the
Duke de Nemours and the Duke de Montpensier. All night long the
dismal clang of the tocsin had summoned the fighting portion of the
population to important points of defense. Nearly all the churches
were in the hands of the insurgents. Under cover of the darkness,
barricades had been rising in many of the streets. The national
troops had retired, humiliated, to the vicinity of the Tuileries and
Palais Royal. Many of the soldiers, in their disgust, had thrown away
their muskets, while some of the officers, under similar feelings,
had broken their swords and cast them away upon the pavement.

Affairs made such rapid progress that by ten o'clock M. Thiers became
fully convinced that he had no longer influence with the people. He
accordingly resigned the ministry, and M. Odillon Barrot, a man far
more democratic in his principles, was appointed prime-minister in
his stead. The Palais Royal, the magnificent ancestral abode of the
Duke of Orleans, being left unguarded, the mob burst in, rioted
through all its princely saloons, plundering and destroying. Its
paintings, statuary, gorgeous furniture, and priceless works of art
were pierced with bayonets, slashed with sabre-strokes, thrown into
the streets, and consumed with flames. In less than half an hour the
magnificent apartments of this renowned palace presented but a
revolting spectacle of destruction and ruin.

The king, the queen, the Duchess of Orleans, and the Duke de
Montpensier, with several distinguished friends, were still in the
breakfast-room--the Gallery of Diana, in the Tuileries. The mob,
their hands filled with the plunder of the Palais Royal, were already
entering the Carrousel. Loud shouts announced their triumph to the
trembling inmates of the royal palace, and appalled them with fears
of the doom which they soon might be called to encounter. Two of the
gentlemen, M. Remusat and M. de Hauranne, stepped out into the
court-yard of the Tuileries to ascertain the posture of affairs.
Speedily they returned, pale, and with features expressive of intense
anxiety.

"Sire," said M. Remusat to the king, "it is necessary that your
majesty should know the truth! To conceal it at this moment would be
to render ourselves implicated in all that may follow. Your feelings
of security prove that you are deceived! Three hundred feet from here
the dragoons are exchanging their sabres, and the soldiers their
muskets with the people!"

"It is impossible!" exclaimed the king, recoiling with astonishment.

"Sire," added an officer, M. de l'Aubospere, who was present, "it is
true. I have seen it."

The queen, re-enacting the heroism of Maria Antoinette on a similar
occasion, said to her faint-hearted husband, "Go, show yourself to
the discouraged troops, to the wavering National Guard. I will come
out on the balcony with my grandchildren and the princesses, and I
will see you die worthy of yourself, of your throne, and of your
misfortunes."

The king descended the stairs, while the queen and the princesses
went upon the balcony. He passed through the court-yard of the
Tuileries into the Carrousel. If any shouts were uttered of "_Vive le
Roi_," they were drowned in the cry which seemed to burst from all
lips, "_Vive la Reforme! a bas les Ministres!_"

All hope was now gone! The king, in despair, returned to the royal
family. The panic was heart-rending--the ladies weeping aloud. The
shouts which filled the air announced that the mob was approaching,
triumphant, from all directions, while a rattling fire of musketry
was heard, ever drawing nearer. Marshal Bugeaud did what he could to
arrest the advance of the insurgents, but his troops were sullen, and
but feebly responded to any of his orders.

In the midst of this terrible scene, the king took his pen to appoint
another ministry, still more radically democratic than Barrot and
Hauranne. As he was writing out the list, M. de Girardin entered the
apartment. He was editor of the _Times_ newspaper, and one of the
most uncompromising Republicans in the city. Approaching the king, he
said to him firmly, yet respectfully,

"Sire, it is now too late to attempt to form a new ministry. The
public mind can not be tranquilized by such a measure. The flood of
insurrection, now resistless, threatens to sweep away the throne
itself. Nothing short of _abdication_ will now suffice."

Upon the utterance of that fatal word, the king inquired anxiously,
"Is there no other alternative?"

M. Girardin replied, "Sire, within an hour, perhaps, there will be no
such thing as a monarchy in France. The crisis admits of no third
alternative. The king must abdicate, or the monarchy is lost."

The Duke de Montpensier, fully comprehending the peril of the hour,
earnestly entreated his father to sign the abdication. But, on the
other hand, there were those who entreated the king, with equal
fervor, not to sign it. M. Piscatory and Marshal Bugeaud urged that
abdication would inflict a _Republic_ upon France, with no end to
anarchy and civil war; that the only way to meet the insurrection was
to crush it by military power.

The king hesitated. The clamor and the rattle of musketry increased
and drew nearer. Messengers came in breathless, announcing that all
was lost. The Duke de Montpensier, trembling in view of the irruption
of the mob, and of the dreadful consequent doom of the royal family,
with renewed earnestness entreated his father to abdicate. Thus
influenced, the king took his pen and wrote:

    "I abdicate this crown, which I received from the voice of
    the nation, and which I accepted only that I might promote
    the peace and harmony of the French.

    "Finding it impossible to accomplish this endeavor, I
    bequeath it to my grandson, the Count de Paris. May he be
    more happy than I have been."

It is said that the excitement and hurry of the occasion were so
great that the king neglected to sign the abdication. Girardin,
however, took the paper and went out into the stormy streets to
announce the important event. But Paris was now in a state of ferment
which nothing could immediately appease. The rush and roar of the
storm of human passion in the streets seemed still to increase, and
to approach nearer to the doors of the palace. Danger of violence and
death was imminent. Nearly all had withdrawn from the Tuileries
except the royal family. Louis Philippe now thought only of escape.
Surrounded as the palace was by the mob, this was no easy task to
accomplish. The king disguised himself in citizen's dress. The queen
was almost frantic with terror.

The king, having abdicated in favor of his grandson, the Count de
Paris, was disposed to leave the child-monarch with his mother in the
palace. He flattered himself that the innocence of the child and the
helplessness of the mother would prove their protection. But when the
Duchess of Orleans perceived that no arrangements were being made
for her escape and that of her children, she exclaimed in anguish,

"Are you going to leave me here alone, without parents, friends, or
any to advise me? What will become of me?"

The king sadly replied, "My dear Helen, the dynasty must be saved,
and the crown preserved to your son. Remain here, then, for his sake.
It is a sacrifice you owe your son."

Seldom has a woman and a mother been called to pass through a more
severe ordeal than this. The peril was awful. In a few moments a mob
of countless thousands, composed of the dregs of the populace of
Paris, inflamed with intoxication and rage, might be surging through
all the apartments of the Tuileries, while the duchess and her
children were entirely at their mercy. No ordinary heroism could be
adequate to such a trial. The duchess threw herself at the feet of
the king, and entreated permission to accompany him in his flight.
The king was firm, cruelly firm. Leaving the widow of his son, with
her two children, all unprotected, behind him, he withdrew, to effect
his own escape with the queen and the princesses, under the guidance
of his son, the Duke de Nemours, who displayed the utmost heroism
during all the scenes of that eventful day. As the party was in
disguise, and the whole city was in a state of indescribable tumult,
the fugitives succeeded in traversing, without being recognized, the
broad central avenue of the garden of the Tuileries. Emerging by the
gate of the Pont Tournant, they reached the foot of the obelisk in
the Place de la Concorde. It was one o'clock in the afternoon; the
duke had ordered the carriages to be ready for them there. But the
mob, recognizing the carriages as belonging to the royal family, had
dashed them to pieces.

The embarrassment and peril were terrible. There was momentary danger
of being recognized. Then death and being trampled beneath the feet
of the mob were almost inevitable. An agitated throng of countless
thousands was surging through the Place. Already some began to
suspect them as belonging to the court, and they were rudely jostled.
But providentially there were two hackney-coaches near by. These were
hurriedly engaged, the royal family thrust into them, and a guard of
cuirassiers, previously stationed near for the occasion by the Duke
de Nemours, gathered around the carriages as an escort, and at a
quick trot swept along the banks of the Seine by the Quai de Billi,
and escaped from Paris. That night they reached Dreux, one of the
country-seats of the king.

Their peril still was great. The small escort at their disposal was
by no means sufficient to protect them, should there be any uprising
of the people to arrest their progress. It was, therefore, deemed
best to dismiss their guard, and proceed to the sea-coast in
disguise, by unfrequented routes, as simple travellers. They were,
however, in great want of money. The king, in the confusion of his
departure, had left seventy thousand dollars in banknotes upon his
bureau. He had but a small supply in his pocket.

Resuming their journey the next morning, they reached Evreux, and
were entertained for the night by a farmer in the royal forest, who
had no idea of the distinguished character of the guests to whose
wants he was ministering. Early in the morning of the third day they
set out again in a rude cart, called a Berlin, drawn by two
cart-horses. They had many strange adventures and narrow escapes,
even performing a portion of their journey on foot. At length they
reached the sea-coast at Honfleur, near the mouth of the Seine, on
the southern bank. Here they embarked, still under the assumed name
of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, for Havre, from which port they crossed over
to New Haven, on the southern coast of England, leaving behind them
their crown and their country forever. They reached this land of
refuge for dethroned kings on the 4th of March, and took up their
abode at Claremont, formerly the residence, and perhaps then the
property of their son-in-law, Leopold, king of Belgium.

[Illustration: LOUIS PHILLIPE LEAVING FRANCE.]

And now let us return to the Princess Helen, who was left with her
two children in one of the apartments of the palace. Immediately upon
the withdrawal of the king, the troops in the Carrousel, who were
then retreating into the court-yard of the Tuileries, retired through
the palace into the garden. The princess, a very heroic woman, had
entirely recovered her self-possession, and awaited her doom with the
serenity of a martyr. As the shouting mob rushed into the Carrousel,
and the windows of the palace were rattling from the explosions of
the artillery, M. Dupin, president of the Chamber of Deputies,
entered the room, and, much agitated with both fear and hope,
said,

"Madame, I have come to tell you that perhaps the _role_ of Maria
Theresa is reserved for you."

"Lead the way," replied the heroic woman; "my life belongs to France
and to my children."

"There is not a moment to lose," M. Dupin rejoined. "Let us go
instantly to the Chamber of Deputies."

As he was speaking these words, the Duke de Nemours returned. Peril
was indeed imminent. The mob was already surging in at the court of
the Tuileries, and thundering against the gates of the palace.

The princess and her few companions immediately set out on foot, to
pass through the garden of the Tuileries, the Place de la Concorde,
and to cross the river, to obtain the protection of the Chamber of
Deputies. Scarcely had they emerged from the portals into the garden
ere the roaring mob burst from the court-yard into the palace, and
surged through the saloons with the destruction of consuming flame.
Shouts seemed to burst from all lips, "Down with the Throne!" "Long
live the Republic!" Every vestige of royalty was torn to shreds. The
rich drapery which canopied the throne was rent into scarfs, or
formed into cockades, with which the mob decorated their persons.

With hurried steps and anxious hearts the royal party pressed on
through the throng which choked all the avenues to the palace. They
seem to have been partially recognized, for a noisy crowd followed
their footsteps. The princess led her eldest son, the Count de Paris,
by the hand. The youngest, the Duke de Chartres, was carried in the
arms of an aid-de-camp. M. Dupin walked upon one side of the
princess, and the Duke de Nemours upon the other. Safely they crossed
the bridge and entered the hotel of the Deputies. All was agitation
and confusion there. M. Dupin repaired to the hall of session, and,
ascending the tribune, announced that the king had abdicated in favor
of his grandson. In a brief, earnest speech he urged the claims of
the Count de Paris as king, under the regency of the Duchess of
Orleans, his mother. This speech created a momentary enthusiasm. By
acclamation it was voted that the resignation of the king should be
accepted, and that the Count de Paris should be recognized as lawful
sovereign, under the regency of the duchess. Just then Lamartine came
in.

Lamartine, notwithstanding the brilliance of his talents and the
purity of his character, was by no means insensible to flattery, or
to the suggestions of ambition. It is said that a group of
Republicans had but a moment before met him at the entrance of the
building, with the assurance that a Republic was inevitable, and that
all the Republicans were looking to him as their leader and future
President. These assurances may not have swayed his judgment. But
many who had supposed that his strong predelictions were for royalty
were not a little surprised when he ascended the tribune, and said,

"There is but one way to save the people from the danger which a
revolution, in our present social state, threatens instantly to
introduce, and that is to trust ourselves to the force of the people
themselves--to their reason, their interests, their aims. It is a
_republic_ which we require. Yes, it is a Republic which alone can
save us from anarchy, civil war, foreign war, spoliation, the
scaffold, destruction of property, the overthrow of society, the
invasion of foreigners. The remedy is heroic. I know it. But there
are occasions, such as those in which we live, when the only safe
policy is that which is grand and audacious as the crisis itself."

As Lamartine left the tribune, M. Thiers entered, flushed with
excitement. All eyes were anxiously fixed upon him. Taking his place
in the tribune, he simply remarked, "The tide is rising," at the same
time, with dramatic gesture, lifting his hat above his head. As he
again disappeared in the crowd, there was a general increase of
alarm. It was manifest to all that affairs were now sweeping along in
a swollen current which human sagacity could but feebly control. The
roar of the throng surging around the hall filled the air. The
strongest minds were appalled.

Just then the folding-doors of the Chamber were thrown open, and the
Duchess of Orleans, leading the Count de Paris by one hand and the
Duke de Chartres by the other, was ushered in. Lamartine, an
eye-witness, gives the following account of the scene: "A respectful
silence immediately ensued. The Deputies, in deep anxiety, crowded
around the august princess, and the strangers in the gallery leaned
over, hoping to catch some words which might fall from her lips. She
was dressed in mourning. Her veil, partially raised, disclosed a
countenance the emotion and melancholy of which enhanced the charms
of youth and beauty. Her pale cheeks were marked by the tears of the
widow, the anxieties of the mother. No man could look on her
countenance without being moved. Every feeling of resentment against
the monarchy faded away before the spectacle. The blue eyes of the
princess wandered over the hall as if to implore aid, and were, for a
moment, dazzled. Her slight and fragile form inclined before the
sound of the applause with which she was greeted. A slight blush, the
mark of the revival of hope in her bosom, tinged her cheeks. The
smile of gratitude was already on her lips. She felt that she was
surrounded by friends. In her right hand she held the young king, in
her left the Duke of Chartres--children to whom their own catastrophe
was a spectacle. A white collar was turned down the neck of each, on
his dark dress--living portraits of Vandyck, as if they had stepped
out of the canvas, of the children of Charles I."

The duchess had but just entered when the doors were burst open by
the pressure of the crowd, and the mob rushed in. They were coarse,
brutal men, armed with every conceivable weapon, and immediately they
inundated the hall. Clamorously they demanded the rejection of the
throne, which had, thus far, ever trampled upon their rights, and for
the establishment of a republic, from which alone they hoped for
redress. A scene of indescribable confusion ensued, cries rising upon
all sides. The duchess endeavored to speak. Her tremulous feminine
voice was heard exclaiming, "I have come with all I hold dear in the
world," but the remainder of her words were drowned in the universal
clamor.

The sympathies of Lamartine, notwithstanding his republican speech,
were deeply moved by the presence of the princess. Taking advantage
of a slight lull in the storm, when his voice could be heard, he
said, "Mr. President, I demand that the sitting should be suspended,
from the double motive, on the one hand, of respect for the national
representation; on the other, for the august princess whom we see
before us."

But Marshal Oudinot, the Duke de Nemours, and other friends who
surrounded the duchess, deemed it essential to the success of her
cause that she should not withdraw from the Chamber. The human heart
is often swayed by influences stronger than argument. A young and
beautiful woman, heroically facing the most terrible dangers in
advocacy of the claims of her child to the throne, appealed more
persuasively to many chivalric hearts than the most cogent logic.
Every one in the room trembled for the life of the princess and her
children. They were surrounded by a mob of scowling, ferocious men,
who held possession of the hall. The blow of a club, the thrust of a
dagger, might at any instant be given, and there was no possibility
of protection.

The friends who endeavored to surround the princess and the children
with the shield of their bodies gradually crowded them along to a
higher portion of the house near the door, through which they could
more easily effect their escape in case of necessity. The confusion
and clamor which now filled the hall can scarcely be imagined.
Scarcely the semblance of a deliberative assembly was maintained. The
triumphant mob was holding there its wildest orgies. In vain
Lamartine, Ledru Rollin, and others endeavored to make themselves
heard, calling for a provisional government. The howling of the mob
drowned every voice.

The members, in confusion, rose from their seats. The president fled
from his chair. Some ferocious wretches, upon whose countenances
brutality was imprinted, clambered over the benches and leveled their
muskets at the head of the princess. Her friends, terror-stricken,
hurried her and her children through the door. The moment she
disappeared there was a general cry for a provisional government, as
the first step towards the establishment of a Republic. This call was
made, not only by the mob, but by that large portion of the Deputies
who thought that a Republic alone could save France from anarchy, and
restore to the people their long withheld rights.

Lamartine succeeded in obtaining the tribune. For a moment he was
popular, the representative of Republicanism. There was a brief lull
in the tempest as the throng listened to what he had to say. The
following list of names of those proposed to constitute the
Provisional Government was then read off: Lamartine, Marie, Ledru
Rollin, Cremieux, Dupont de l'Eure, Arago, and Garnier Pages. Some
of these names were received with cheers, others with hisses. It was
impossible to take any formal vote. The voices of the Deputies were
lost in the clamor of the mob. Still, the general assent seemed to be
in their favor. These were all good men. They were deemed moderate
Republicans.

But there was another portion of the Republican party, the radical,
so called, who would by no means be satisfied with such an
administration as these calm, deliberate men would inaugurate, with
their lingering adhesion to the rights of wealth and the dignity of
rank. There might have been possibly a thousand people crowded into
the hall of the Chamber of Deputies, who thus, self-appointed, were
forming a government for a nation numbering thirty-five millions.

The more radical party, perhaps equal in number, and no less
tumultuous, composed also of those of the stoutest muscle and most
determined will, who could elbow their way through the throng,
gathered in the great hall of the Hotel de Ville, proclaimed an
antagonistic provisional government, more in accordance with their
views. Their list consisted of Marrast, Flocon, Louis Blanc, and
Albert. The danger of a conflict, leading to hopeless anarchy, was
imminent, as the partisans of each should rally around its own
choice.

The first Provisional Government, accordingly, immediately repaired
to the Hotel de Ville, followed by a tumultuous crowd which no man
could number. The leaders of the two parties soon met upon the stairs
of the Hotel de Ville, and a violent altercation ensued, which came
near to blows. The Place de Greve, in front of the hotel, was like a
storm-tossed ocean of agitated men, "a living sea, madly heaving and
tossing about beneath the tempest of revolution."

Both parties were terrified by the menacing aspect of affairs. A
compromise was hurriedly agreed to by adding to the six chosen at the
Chamber of Deputies six more, chosen from the party at the Hotel de
Ville. Lamartine, from the head of the stairs, read off the list to
the masses surging below.

In the mean time, the Duchess of Orleans, having escaped from the
Chamber of Deputies, and surrounded by friends who were ready to
sacrifice their own lives in her defense, was with difficulty rescued
from the crowd. Prominent among her protectors was M. de Morny. As
the duchess was veiled, her little party was soon lost in the heaving
masses, and unrecognized. The terrors of the hour caused fugitives to
be struggling wildly through the throng in all directions. The
pressure was so great and so resistless that the duchess was torn
from the side of her brother, the Duke de Nemours, and from both of
her children. A moment after the separation, as the mother, frantic
with terror, was groping around in search of her sons, a brutal
wretch of gigantic stature recognized the Count de Paris, and,
seizing him by the throat, endeavored to strangle him. One of the
National Guard who chanced to be near rescued the child, and
succeeded in placing him in the hands of his mother. But the younger
child, the Duke de Chartres, could nowhere be found. In vain the
distracted mother called aloud for her child. The close-packed throng
swayed to and fro, and her feeble voice was unheard in the deafening
clamor. She was swept along by the flow of a torrent which it was
impossible to resist. With exceeding difficulty her friends succeeded
in forcing her into a house. She ran to the window of one of the
chambers to look down upon the scene of tumult for her lost child.
Soon, to her inexpressible joy, she saw him in the arms of a friend.
The poor child was faint, and almost lifeless. He had been thrown
down and trampled under the feet of the crowd. The day was now far
spent. As soon as it was dark, the royal party, all in disguise,
engaged a hack, and, passing through the Champs Elysees, escaped from
the city. After a short journey of many perils and great mental
suffering, they were reunited with the exiled king and court at
Claremont.

The night succeeding these scenes in Paris was appalling beyond
imagination. There was no recognized law in the metropolis. A
population of a million and a half of people was in the streets. The
timid and the virtuous were terror-stricken. The drunken, the
degraded, the ferocious held the city at their mercy. Radical as was
the party which had assembled at the Hotel de Ville, there was
another party, composed of the dregs of the Parisian populace, more
radical still. This party was ripe for plunder and for unlimited
license in every outrage. About midnight, in a desperately armed and
howling band, they made an attack upon the Provisional Government at
the Hotel de Ville; after a severe struggle, the assailants were
repelled. The next morning the _Moniteur_ announced to the citizens
of Paris, and the telegraph announced to Europe, that the throne of
Louis Philippe had crumbled, and that a Republic was established in
France.

We must not forget, in our stern condemnation of the brutality, the
ignorance, the ferocity of the mob, that it was composed of
men--husbands, brothers, fathers--many of whom had been defrauded of
their rights and maddened by oppression. If governments will sow the
wind by trampling upon the rights of the people, they must expect to
reap the whirlwind when their exasperated victims rise in the
blindness of their rage.

Louis Philippe did not long survive his fall. He died at Claremont,
in England, on the 26th of August, 1850. The reader, who may be
interested to inform himself of the changes in France which followed
this Revolution, will find them minutely detailed in the "Life of
Napoleon III."




      *      *      *      *      *




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