Louis the Well-Beloved.
President Hénault, remarking on royal Surnames of Honour how
difficult it often is to ascertain not only why, but even when,
they were conferred, takes occasion in his sleek official way, to
make a philosophical reflection. “The Surname of _Bien-aimé_
(Well-beloved),” says he, “which Louis XV. bears, will not leave
posterity in the same doubt. This Prince, in the year 1744, while
hastening from one end of his kingdom to the other, and
suspending his conquests in Flanders that he might fly to the
assistance of Alsace, was arrested at Metz by a malady which
threatened to cut short his days. At the news of this, Paris, all
in terror, seemed a city taken by storm: the churches resounded
with supplications and groans; the prayers of priests and people
were every moment interrupted by their sobs: and it was from an
interest so dear and tender that this Surname of _Bien-aimé_
fashioned itself—a title higher still than all the rest which
this great Prince has earned.”[1]
So stands it written; in lasting memorial of that year 1744.
Thirty other years have come and gone; and “this great Prince”
again lies sick; but in how altered circumstances now! Churches
resound not with excessive groanings; Paris is stoically calm:
sobs interrupt no prayers, for indeed none are offered; except
Priests’ Litanies, read or chanted at fixed money-rate per hour,
which are not liable to interruption. The shepherd of the people
has been carried home from Little Trianon, heavy of heart, and
been put to bed in his own Château of Versailles: the flock knows
it, and heeds it not. At most, in the immeasurable tide of French
Speech (which ceases not day after day, and only ebbs towards the
short hours of night), may this of the royal sickness emerge from
time to time as an article of news. Bets are doubtless depending;
nay, some people “express themselves loudly in the streets.”[2]
But for the rest, on green field and steepled city, the May sun
shines out, the May evening fades; and men ply their useful or
useless business as if no Louis lay in danger.
Dame Dubarry, indeed, might pray, if she had a talent for it;
Duke d’Aiguillon too, Maupeou and the Parlement Maupeou: these,
as they sit in their high places, with France harnessed under
their feet, know well on what basis they continue there. Look to
it, D’Aiguillon; sharply as thou didst, from the Mill of St.
Cast, on Quiberon and the invading English; thou, “covered if not
with glory yet with meal!” Fortune was ever accounted inconstant:
and each dog has but his day.
Forlorn enough languished Duke d’Aiguillon, some years ago;
covered, as we said, with meal; nay with worse. For La Chalotais,
the Breton Parlementeer, accused him not only of poltroonery and
tyranny, but even of _concussion_ (official plunder of money);
which accusations it was easier to get “quashed” by backstairs
Influences than to get answered: neither could the thoughts, or
even the tongues, of men be tied. Thus, under disastrous eclipse,
had this grand-nephew of the great Richelieu to glide about;
unworshipped by the world; resolute Choiseul, the abrupt proud
man, disdaining him, or even forgetting him. Little prospect but
to glide into Gascony, to rebuild Châteaus there,[3] and die
inglorious killing game! However, in the year 1770, a certain
young soldier, Dumouriez by name, returning from Corsica, could
see “with sorrow, at Compiègne, the old King of France, on foot,
with doffed hat, in sight of his army, at the side of a
magnificent phaeton, doing homage to the—Dubarry.”[4]
Much lay therein! Thereby, for one thing, could D’Aiguillon
postpone the rebuilding of his Château, and rebuild his fortunes
first. For stout Choiseul would discern in the Dubarry nothing
but a wonderfully dizened Scarlet-woman; and go on his way as if
she were not. Intolerable: the source of sighs, tears, of
pettings and pouting; which would not end till “France” (La
France, as she named her royal valet) finally mustered heart to
see Choiseul; and with that “quivering in the chin (_tremblement
du menton_)” natural in such case,[5] faltered out a dismissal:
dismissal of his last substantial man, but pacification of his
scarlet-woman. Thus D’Aiguillon rose again, and culminated. And
with him there rose Maupeou, the banisher of Parlements; who
plants you a refractory President “at Croe in Combrailles on the
top of steep rocks, inaccessible except by litters,” there to
consider himself. Likewise there rose Abbé Terray, dissolute
Financier, paying eightpence in the shilling,—so that wits
exclaim in some press at the playhouse, ‘Where is Abbé Terray,
that he might reduce us to two-thirds!’ And so have these
individuals (verily by black-art) built them a Domdaniel, or
enchanted Dubarrydom; call it an Armida-Palace, where they dwell
pleasantly; Chancellor Maupeou “playing blind-man’s-buff” with
the scarlet Enchantress; or gallantly presenting her with dwarf
Negroes;—and a Most Christian King has unspeakable peace within
doors, whatever he may have without. “My Chancellor is a
scoundrel; but I cannot do without him.”[6]
Beautiful Armida-Palace, where the inmates live enchanted lives;
lapped in soft music of adulation; waited on by the splendours of
the world;—which nevertheless hangs wondrously as by a single
hair. Should the Most Christian King die; or even get seriously
afraid of dying! For, alas, had not the fair haughty Châteauroux
to fly, with wet cheeks and flaming heart, from that Fever-scene
at Metz; driven forth by sour shavelings? She hardly returned,
when fever and shavelings were both swept into the background.
Pompadour too, when Damiens wounded Royalty “slightly, under the
fifth rib,” and our drive to Trianon went off futile, in shrieks
and madly shaken torches,—had to pack, and be in readiness: yet
did not go, the wound not proving poisoned. For his Majesty has
religious faith; believes, at least in a Devil. And now a third
peril; and who knows what may be in it! For the Doctors look
grave; ask privily, If his Majesty had not the small-pox long
ago?—and doubt it may have been a false kind. Yes, Maupeou,
pucker those sinister brows of thine, and peer out on it with thy
malign rat-eyes: it is a questionable case. Sure only that man is
mortal; that with the life of one mortal snaps irrevocably the
wonderfulest talisman, and all Dubarrydom rushes off, with
tumult, into infinite Space; and ye, as subterranean Apparitions
are wont, vanish utterly,—leaving only a smell of sulphur!
These, and what holds of these may pray,—to Beelzebub, or whoever
will hear them. But from the rest of France there comes, as was
said, no prayer; or one of an _opposite_ character, “expressed
openly in the streets.” Château or Hôtel, were an enlightened
Philosophism scrutinises many things, is not given to prayer:
neither are Rossbach victories, Terray Finances, nor, say only
“sixty thousand _Lettres de Cachet_” (which is Maupeou’s share),
persuasives towards that. O Hénault! Prayers? From a France
smitten (by black-art) with plague after plague, and lying now in
shame and pain, with a Harlot’s foot on its neck, what prayer can
come? Those lank scarecrows, that prowl hunger-stricken through
all highways and byways of French Existence, will they pray? The
dull millions that, in the workshop or furrowfield, grind
fore-done at the wheel of Labour, like haltered gin-horses, if
blind so much the quieter? Or they that in the Bicêtre Hospital,
“eight to a bed,” lie waiting their manumission? Dim are those
heads of theirs, dull stagnant those hearts: to them the great
Sovereign is known mainly as the great Regrater of Bread. If they
hear of his sickness, they will answer with a dull _Tant pis pour
lui;_ or with the question, Will he die?
Yes, will he die? that is now, for all France, the grand
question, and hope; whereby alone the King’s sickness has still
some interest.