Louis the Unforgotten.
Poor Louis! With these it is a hollow phantasmagory, where like
mimes they mope and mowl, and utter false sounds for hire; but
with thee it is frightful earnest.
Frightful to all men is Death; from of old named King of Terrors.
Our little compact home of an Existence, where we dwelt
complaining, yet as in a home, is passing, in dark agonies, into
an Unknown of Separation, Foreignness, unconditioned Possibility.
The Heathen Emperor asks of his soul: Into what places art thou
now departing? The Catholic King must answer: To the Judgment-bar
of the Most High God! Yes, it is a summing-up of Life; a final
settling, and giving-in the “account of the deeds done in the
body:” they are done now; and lie there unalterable, and do bear
their fruits, long as Eternity shall last.
Louis XV. had always the kingliest abhorrence of Death. Unlike
that praying Duke of Orleans, _Egalité’s_ grandfather,—for indeed
several of them had a touch of madness,—who honesty believed that
there was no Death! He, if the Court Newsmen can be believed,
started up once on a time, glowing with sulphurous contempt and
indignation on his poor Secretary, who had stumbled on the words,
_feu roi d’Espagne_ (the late King of Spain): ‘_Feu roi,
Monsieur?_’—‘_Monseigneur_,’ hastily answered the trembling but
adroit man of business, ‘_c’est une titre qu’ils prennent_ (’tis
a title they take).’[15] Louis, we say, was not so happy; but he
did what he could. He would not suffer Death to be spoken of;
avoided the sight of churchyards, funereal monuments, and
whatsoever could bring it to mind. It is the resource of the
Ostrich; who, hard hunted, sticks his foolish head in the ground,
and would fain forget that his foolish unseeing body is not
unseen too. Or sometimes, with a spasmodic antagonism,
significant of the same thing, and of more, he _would_ go; or
stopping his court carriages, would send into churchyards, and
ask “how many new graves there were today,” though it gave his
poor Pompadour the disagreeablest qualms. We can figure the
thought of Louis that day, when, all royally caparisoned for
hunting, he met, at some sudden turning in the Wood of Senart, a
ragged Peasant with a coffin: ‘For whom?’—It was for a poor
brother slave, whom Majesty had sometimes noticed slaving in
those quarters. ‘What did he die of?’—‘Of hunger:’—the King gave
his steed the spur.[16]
But figure his thought, when Death is now clutching at his own
heart-strings, unlooked for, inexorable! Yes, poor Louis, Death
has found thee. No palace walls or life-guards, gorgeous
tapestries or gilt buckram of stiffest ceremonial could keep him
out; but he is here, here at thy very life-breath, and will
extinguish it. Thou, whose whole existence hitherto was a chimera
and scenic show, at length becomest a reality: sumptuous
Versailles bursts asunder, like a dream, into void Immensity;
Time is done, and all the scaffolding of Time falls wrecked with
hideous clangour round thy soul: the pale Kingdoms yawn open;
there must thou enter, naked, all unking’d, and await what is
appointed thee! Unhappy man, there as thou turnest, in dull
agony, on thy bed of weariness, what a thought is thine!
Purgatory and Hell-fire, now all-too possible, in the prospect;
in the retrospect,—alas, what thing didst thou do that were not
better undone; what mortal didst thou generously help; what
sorrow hadst thou mercy on? Do the “five hundred thousand”
ghosts, who sank shamefully on so many battle-fields from
Rossbach to Quebec, that thy Harlot might take revenge for an
epigram,—crowd round thee in this hour? Thy foul Harem; the
curses of mothers, the tears and infamy of daughters? Miserable
man! thou “hast done evil as thou couldst:” thy whole existence
seems one hideous abortion and mistake of Nature; the use and
meaning of thee not yet known. Wert thou a fabulous Griffin,
_devouring_ the works of men; daily dragging virgins to thy
cave;—clad also in scales that no spear would pierce: no spear
but Death’s? A Griffin not fabulous but real! Frightful, O Louis,
seem these moments for thee.—We will pry no further into the
horrors of a sinner’s death-bed.
And yet let no meanest man lay flattering unction to his soul.
Louis was a Ruler; but art not thou also one? His wide France,
look at it from the Fixed Stars (themselves not yet Infinitude),
is no wider than thy narrow brickfield, where thou too didst
faithfully, or didst unfaithfully. Man, “Symbol of Eternity
imprisoned into Time!” it is not thy works, which are all mortal,
infinitely little, and the greatest no greater than the least,
but only the Spirit thou workest in, that can have worth or
continuance.
But reflect, in any case, what a life-problem this of poor Louis,
when he rose as _Bien-Aimé_ from that Metz sick-bed, really was!
What son of Adam could have swayed such incoherences into
coherence? Could he? Blindest Fortune alone has cast _him_ on the
top of it: he swims there; can as little sway it as the drift-log
sways the wind-tossed moon-stirred Atlantic. ‘What have I done to
be so loved?’ he said then. He may say now: What have I done to
be so hated? Thou hast done nothing, poor Louis! Thy fault is
properly even this, that thou didst _nothing_. What could poor
Louis do? Abdicate, and wash his hands of it,—in favour of the
first that would accept! Other clear wisdom there was none for
him. As it was, he stood gazing dubiously, the absurdest mortal
extant (a very Solecism Incarnate), into the absurdest confused
world;—wherein at lost nothing seemed so certain as that he, the
incarnate Solecism, had five senses; that were Flying Tables
(_Tables Volantes_, which vanish through the floor, to come back
reloaded). and a _Parc-aux-cerfs_.
Whereby at least we have again this historical curiosity: a human
being in an original position; swimming passively, as on some
boundless “Mother of Dead Dogs,” towards issues which he partly
saw. For Louis had withal a kind of insight in him. So, when a
new Minister of Marine, or what else it might be, came announcing
his new era, the Scarlet-woman would hear from the lips of
Majesty at supper: ‘Yes, he spread out his ware like another;
promised the beautifulest things in the world; not a thing of
which will come: he does not know this region; he will see.’ Or
again: ‘’Tis the twentieth time I hear all that; France will
never get a Navy, I believe.’ How touching also was this: ‘If _I_
were Lieutenant of Police, I would prohibit those Paris
cabriolets.’[17]
Doomed mortal;—for is it not a doom to be Solecism incarnate! A
new _Roi Fainéant_, King Donothing; but with the strangest new
_Mayor of the Palace:_ no bow-legged Pepin now for _Mayor_, but
that same cloud-capt, fire-breathing Spectre of DEMOCRACY;
incalculable, which is enveloping the world!—Was Louis no
wickeder than this or the other private Donothing and Eatall;
such as we often enough see, under the name of Man, and even Man
of Pleasure, cumbering God’s diligent Creation, for a time? Say,
wretcheder! His Life-solecism was seen and felt of a whole
scandalised world; him endless Oblivion cannot engulf, and
swallow to endless depths,—not yet for a generation or two.
However, be this as it will, we remark, not without interest,
that “on the evening of the 4th,” Dame Dubarry issues from the
sick-room, with perceptible “trouble in her visage.” It is the
fourth evening of May, year of Grace 1774. Such a whispering in
the Œil-de-Bœuf! Is he dying then? What can be said is, that
Dubarry seems making up her packages; she sails weeping through
her gilt boudoirs, as if taking leave. D’Aiguilon and Company are
near their last card; nevertheless they will not yet throw up the
game. But as for the sacramental controversy, it is as good as
settled without being mentioned; Louis can send for his Abbé
Moudon in the course of next night, be confessed by him, some say
for the space of “seventeen minutes,” and demand the sacraments
of his own accord.
Nay, already, in the afternoon, behold is not this your Sorceress
Dubarry with the handkerchief at her eyes, mounting D’Aiguillon’s
chariot; rolling off in his Duchess’s consolatory arms? She is
gone; and her place knows her no more. Vanish, false Sorceress;
into Space! Needless to hover at neighbouring Ruel; for thy day
is done. Shut are the royal palace-gates for evermore; hardly in
coming years shalt thou, under cloud of night, descend once, in
black domino, like a black night-bird, and disturb the fair
Antoinette’s music-party in the Park: all Birds of Paradise
flying from thee, and musical windpipes growing mute.[18] Thou
unclean, yet unmalignant, not unpitiable thing! What a course was
thine: from that first trucklebed (in Joan of Arc’s country)
where thy mother bore thee, with tears, to an unnamed father:
forward, through lowest subterranean depths, and over highest
sunlit heights, of Harlotdom and Rascaldom—to the guillotine-axe,
which shears away thy vainly whimpering head! Rest there
uncursed; only buried and abolished: what else befitted thee?
Louis, meanwhile, is in considerable impatience for his
sacraments; sends more than once to the window, to see whether
they are not coming. Be of comfort, Louis, what comfort thou
canst: they are under way, those sacraments. Towards six in the
morning, they arrive. Cardinal Grand-Almoner Roche-Aymon is here,
in pontificals, with his pyxes and his tools; he approaches the
royal pillow; elevates his wafer; mutters or seems to mutter
somewhat;—and so (as the Abbé Georgel, in words that stick to
one, expresses it) has Louis “made the _amende honorable_ to
God;” so does your Jesuit construe it.—‘_Wa, Wa_,’ as the wild
Clotaire groaned out, when life was departing, ‘what great God is
this that pulls down the strength of the strongest kings!’[19]
The _amende honorable_, what “legal apology” you will, to
God:—but not, if D’Aiguillon can help it, to man. Dubarry still
hovers in his mansion at Ruel; and while there is life, there is
hope. Grand-Almoner Roche-Aymon, accordingly (for he seems to be
in the secret), has no sooner seen his pyxes and gear repacked,
then he is stepping majestically forth again, as if the work were
done! But King’s Confessor Abbé Moudon starts forward; with
anxious acidulent face, twitches him by the sleeve; whispers in
his ear. Whereupon the poor Cardinal must turn round; and declare
audibly; ‘That his Majesty repents of any subjects of scandal he
may have given (_a pu donner_); and purposes, by the strength of
Heaven assisting him, to avoid the like—for the future!’ Words
listened to by Richelieu with mastiff-face, growing blacker;
answered to, aloud, “with an epithet,”—which Besenval will not
repeat. Old Richelieu, conqueror of Minorca, companion of
Flying-Table orgies, perforator of bedroom walls,[20] is thy day
also done?
Alas, the Chapel organs may keep going; the Shrine of Sainte
Genevieve be let down, and pulled up again,—without effect. In
the evening the whole Court, with Dauphin and Dauphiness, assist
at the Chapel: priests are hoarse with chanting their “Prayers of
Forty Hours;” and the heaving bellows blow. Almost frightful! For
the very heaven blackens; battering rain-torrents dash, with
thunder; almost drowning the organ’s voice: and electric
fire-flashes make the very flambeaux on the altar pale. So that
the most, as we are told, retired, when it was over, with hurried
steps, “in a state of meditation (_recueillement_),” and said
little or nothing.[21]
So it has lasted for the better half of a fortnight; the Dubarry
gone almost a week. Besenval says, all the world was getting
impatient _que cela finît;_ that poor Louis would have done with
it. It is now the 10th of May 1774. He will soon have done now.
This tenth May day falls into the loathsome sick-bed; but dull,
unnoticed there: for they that look out of the windows are quite
darkened; the cistern-wheel moves discordant on its axis; Life,
like a spent steed, is panting towards the goal. In their remote
apartments, Dauphin and Dauphiness stand road-ready; all grooms
and equerries booted and spurred: waiting for some signal to
escape the house of pestilence.[22] And, hark! across the
Œil-de-Bœuf, what sound is that; sound “terrible and absolutely
like thunder”? It is the rush of the whole Court, rushing as in
wager, to salute the new Sovereigns: Hail to your Majesties! The
Dauphin and Dauphiness are King and Queen! Over-powered with many
emotions, they two fall on their knees together, and, with
streaming tears, exclaim, ‘O God, guide us, protect us; we are
too young to reign!’—Too young indeed.
Thus, in any case, “with a sound absolutely like thunder,” has
the Horologe of Time struck, and an old Era passed away. The
Louis that was, lies forsaken, a mass of abhorred clay; abandoned
“to some poor persons, and priests of the _Chapelle
Ardente_,”—who make haste to put him “in two lead coffins,
pouring in abundant spirits of wine.” The new Louis with his
Court is rolling towards Choisy, through the summer afternoon:
the royal tears still flow; but a word mispronounced by
Monseigneur d’Artois sets them all laughing, and they weep no
more. Light mortals, how ye walk your light life-minuet, over
bottomless abysses, divided from you by a film!
For the rest, the proper authorities felt that no Funeral could
be too unceremonious. Besenval himself thinks it was
unceremonious enough. Two carriages containing two noblemen of
the usher species, and a Versailles clerical person; some score
of mounted pages, some fifty palfreniers; these, with torches,
but not so much as in black, start from Versailles on the second
evening with their leaden bier. At a high trot they start; and
keep up that pace. For the jibes (_brocards_) of those Parisians,
who stand planted in two rows, all the way to St. Denis, and
“give vent to their pleasantry, the characteristic of the
nation,” do not tempt one to slacken. Towards midnight the vaults
of St. Denis receive their own; unwept by any eye of all these;
if not by poor _Loque_ his neglected Daughter’s, whose Nunnery is
hard by.
Him they crush down, and huddle under-ground, in this impatient
way; him and his era of sin and tyranny and shame; for behold a
New Era is come; the future all the brighter that the past was
base.