portal, supported by columns and decorated with draperies and garlands.
The interior of the Cathedral was brilliantly lit, and adorned with
flags. The seats in the choir to the right had been reserved for foreign
princes; those to the left, for the Diplomatic Body; the outer edge, for
the wives of the ministers of the high crown officers, as well as for
the households of the Imperial family; the sanctuary, for the twenty
cardinals, and the hundred archbishops and bishops; the choir, for the
Senate, the Council of State, the Mayors and Deputies of the forty-nine
cities; the upper part of the nave, for the civil and military
authorities; the rest of the nave, and the triforiums, for invited
guests.
At five o'clock the mounted chasseurs of the Guard, who were at the
head of the procession, began to move. But let us rather yield to the
_Moniteur_, which is always lyrical and enthusiastic, whatever the
Prince, imperial or royal, who is to be baptized: "At half-past five,"
says the official organ, "the cannon, which had been firing at a certain
distance ever since the evening before, announced the departure of Their
Majesties from the Palace of the Tuileries, accompanied by their suite
in the order prescribed by the programme. For the first time the
public was able to behold the August infant whose royal name was to be
consecrated under the auspices of religion. The effect that this sight
produced upon every soul defies description. 'Long live the King of
Rome!' was the uninterrupted acclamation all along the route. Their
Majesties were greeted in the same way; their August names united in
every mouth, with accents of love, respect, and gratitude. They seemed
to appreciate this double homage, which was, in fact, but one alone, and
they deigned to express their feeling in the most touching way to the
attendant multitude."
As the legendary grandmother says in Béranger's _Memories of the
People_, the weather was perfect, the Emperor radiant:--
"I, a poor woman,
Being in Paris one day,
Saw him with his court;
He was going to Notre Dame--
All hearts were happy;
Every one admired the procession.
Every one said: What fine weather!
Heaven is always favorable to him.
His smile was very gentle;
God had made him father of a son."
And the little villagers all sing in chorus:--
"What a great day for you, grandmother!
What a great day for you!"
At a little before seven the Imperial procession reached Notre Dame. The
sovereigns were met at the door by the Cardinal Grand Almoner, who gave
them holy water. Then the procession advanced in the following order:
ushers, heralds-at-arms, the Chief Herald, the pages, the aides, the
orderly officers on duty, the masters of ceremonies, the prefects of
the Palace on duty, the officers of the King of Rome, the Emperor's
equerries, ordinary and extraordinary, in attendance, the chamberlains,
ordinary and extraordinary, in attendance, the equerries of the day,
the chamberlains of the day, the First Equerry, the grand eagles of the
Legion of Honor, the high officers of the Empire, the ministers,
the High Chamberlain, the First Equerry, and the Grand Master of
Ceremonies;--the various objects to be used, to wit: the Prince's
candle, carried by the Princess of Neufchâtel; the chrisom cloth, by the
Princess Aldobrandini; the saltcellar, by the Countess of Beauvau;--then
the objects belonging to the godfather and godmother, to wit: the basin,
carried by the Duchess of Alborg; the ewer, by the Countess Vilain XIV.;
the towel, by the Duchess of Dalmatia;--in front of the King of Rome,
to the right, the Grand Duke of Würzburg, representing the Emperor of
Austria, godfather; to the left, the mother of Napoleon, godmother, and
Queen Hortense, representing the Queen of Naples, the second godmother;
the King of Rome, carried by his governess, in a coat of silver tissue
embroidered with ermine, with his two assistant governesses and nurse
on each side (the train of his coat was carried by Marshal, the Duke
of Valmy); the Empress, beneath a canopy upheld by canons, her First
Equerry holding Her Majesty's train; the lady-in-waiting and
tirewoman, the Knight of Honor and the First Almoner, to the right and
left;--behind the canopy Princess Pauline, an officer of her household
carrying her train; the ladies of the Palace; Cambacérès, Duke of Parma,
Archchancellor of the Empire; Marshal Berthier, Prince of Neufchâtel and
of Wagram, Vice-Constable; Talleyrand, Prince of Benevento, Vice Grand
Elector; Prince Borghese, Duke of Guastalla; Prince Eugene, Viceroy of
Italy; the Hereditary Grand Duke of Frankfort; Prince Joseph Napoleon,
King of Spain; Prince Jerome Napoleon, King of Westphalia;--the Emperor
under a canopy, upheld by canons: to the right and left of the canopy,
his aides; behind the canopy the Colonel commanding the Guard on
duty, the Grand Marshal of the Palace, and the First Almoner; the
ladies-in-waiting of the Princesses, the ladies and officers of Their
Imperial Highnesses on duty.
When the procession had taken their places according to their rank,
the Grand Almoner intoned the _Veni Creator_, and the governess having
carried the child to the railing of the choir, he went through the
preliminary rites, and then took place the baptism. As soon as the
Imperial child had been baptized, the governess placed him in the hands
of the Empress; the First Herald-at-Arms advanced to the middle of the
choir and called out three times, "Long live the King of Rome!" Cheers
and applause, which till that moment had been restrained by the sanctity
of the ceremony and the solemnity of the place, then broke forth on all
sides. While they lasted, Marie Louise stood with the child in her arms;
the Emperor then took him and held him aloft, that all might see him.
Thiers thus comments in a page of real eloquence on this imposing
spectacle: "What a solemn mystery surrounds human life! What a painful
surprise it would have been, if beyond this scene of power and
greatness, one could have seen the ruin, the blood, the flames of
Moscow, the ice of the Beresina and Leipsic, Fontainebleau, Elba, Saint
Helena, and finally the death of this prince at the age of twenty, in
exile, without one of the crowns he wore that day upon his head, and the
many revolutions once more to raise his family after overthrowing
it! What a blessing that the future is hidden from man! But what a
stumbling-block for his prudence, charged to conjecture the morrow and
to guard against it with all one's wisdom."
When the governess had again taken the Prince, she courtesied to the
Emperor, and the King of Rome, with his retinue, left the church, to be
taken to the Archbishop's, whence he returned to the Tuileries. Then the
Grand Almoner intoned the _Te Deum_, which, was performed by the choir,
and followed by the _Domine, fac salvum imperatorem_. The Emperor
and the Empress were conducted with the same ceremonies as at their
entrance, to the church door, where they got into their carriage amid
the cheers of the crowd, and drove to the entertainment at the Hôtel de
Ville.
"The people of Paris admitted to this festivity," says Thiers, "were
able to see Napoleon at table, his crown on his head, surrounded by the
kings of his family and a number of foreign princes, eating in public,
like the old Germanic Emperors, the successors of the Emperors of
the West. The Parisians applauded in their delight at this brilliant
spectacle, imagining that durability was united with grandeur and with
glory! They did well to rejoice, for these joys were the last of the
reign. Henceforth our story is but one long lamentation."
Napoleon and Marie Louise reached the Hôtel de Ville at eight in the
evening. The Prefect of the Seine, after welcoming them with an address,
led them to the rooms prepared for them, and the Emperor received four
sets of presentations. The Grand Marshal of the Palace announced that
dinner was ready. The Imperial banquet was thus arranged: in the middle
of the table, the Emperor; on his left, the Empress, the Queen of
Holland, Princess Borghese, the Grand Duke of Würzburg, the Grand Duke
of Frankfort; on his right, his mother, the King of Spain, the King of
Westphalia, Prince Borghese, the Viceroy of Italy. The table was on
a dais. A canopy overhung the chairs of the Emperor and Empress. The
ladies of the Palace and the Imperial retinue sat below the platform,
opposite the table, The officers of the Emperor's household waited
on the table. The hall was decorated with the coats-of-arms of the
forty-nine chosen cities, Paris, Rome, and Amsterdam being the first;
the rest were in alphabetical order. After the dinner, the sovereigns
went into the record-room, where a concert was given, in which was sung
a cantata, called "Ossian's Song," with words by Arnault, and music by
Méhul. Then, after talking to a number of people in the throne-room,
Napoleon and Louise went into the garden which had been constructed
about the courtyard of the Hôtel de Ville, where the Tiber was
represented by abundant streams of cool water. They left at eleven, and
thereupon was opened a ball which lasted till daybreak. In the morning
poor young girls, with dowries given by the city, had been married
to soldiers in every arrondissement. The whole city was alive with
enthusiasm. Food had been given away on the Champs Élysées, there had
been sports in the square of Marigny, tournaments, greased poles,
public balls, balloon ascension, fireworks, a general illumination, and
everything of the sort for the amusement of the populace.
On the 9th of June there were grand festivities in the large towns of
the Empire, in honor of the baptism of the King of Rome. At Antwerp all
the arts and trades contributed to making six chariots, which made
an imposing procession. The first represented France crowned by
Immortality; the second, the marriage of the Emperor and Empress; the
third, the birth of the King of Rome; the fourth, his cradle; the fifth,
Religion, Innocence, and Charity praying Heaven for a long life to the
sovereigns and their son; the sixth, France representing the young
Prince as King to the city of Rome. This procession of chariots was
preceded by the giant, the whale, the frigate, the car of Neptune, that
of Europe, and other figures called in their language _den grooten
hommegang_.
At Rome, the city of the Prince, festivities began in the night of June
8, being announced by guns of the fleet of Civita Vecchia, which had
sailed up the Tiber, all beautifully decorated. The Capitol, the Forum,
the Coliseum, the arches of Septimius and Constantine, the temples of
Concord, of Peace, of Antoninus, and Fausta, the Column of Jupiter
Stator, were all brilliantly illuminated. In the morning of the 9th all
the authorities went to Saint Peter's to hear the _Te Deum_ sung before
an immense multitude. In the course of the day there was a horse-race,
and in the evening the dome of Saint Peter's and the Colonnade were
illuminated, and there were fireworks at the Castle of Saint Angelo.
The Rome of the Cæsars and the Popes, the Eternal City, celebrated the
baptismal day of its young King with great splendor.
XXII.
SAINT CLOUD AND TRIANON.
The Emperor had determined that there could not be too much rejoicing at
his son's baptism; consequently he gave an entertainment himself, June
23,1811, in the palace and park of Saint Cloud. The palace, with its
magnificent halls, its drawing-rooms of Mars, Venus, Truth, Mercury, and
Aurora, its Gallery of Apollo, and Room of Diana, adorned with Mignard's
frescoes; the park, with its fine trees, its wonderful stretches, its
greensward, and abundant flowers; the two grand views from the
upper windows, one towards Paris, the other towards the garden; the
waterfalls, set in a tasteful frame, and rushing down step by step,
breaking into a white foam, sparkling in the sunlight or with the
reflection of a thousand torches, formed a marvellous setting for a
festival both by night and by day. More than three hundred thousand
persons went to Saint Cloud; they began to arrive in the morning, and
filled every avenue, covered every bit of rising ground. Food was
publicly distributed; the fountains ran wine. Games and sports of all
kinds were played, and the Imperial Guard gave an open-air banquet to
the garrison of Paris.
At six in the evening Napoleon and Marie Louise drove in an open
barouche through the park, without guard or escort, to the great delight
of the applauding multitude. The orange house, which had been stripped
of its contents for the decoration of the front of the palace, was
adorned with stuffs of fine colors. Temples and kiosks had been set
up in the shrubbery. At nightfall six illuminated launches, manned
by sailors of the Imperial Guard, performed various evolutions and
discharged fireworks, which made a brilliant show upon the river.
Meanwhile the illuminations began throughout the park, along the
terraces, and the amphitheatre, and in the palace. It was a most
fairy-like sight; the large cascade with its half-lying statues of the
Seine and the Loire; the lower cascade beneath; the fountain rising
twenty-seven metres; the large square basin with the ten little
shell-shaped basins and the nine fountains spurting from gilded masques;
the green lawns, the flower-beds, the shrubbery,--all lit up by the
blazing fireworks. At nine o'clock Madame Blanchard went up in a
balloon, discharging fireworks from the car, which formed a starlike
crown set at a great height; she seemed like a magician in a fiery
chariot. Fireworks were then set off by the artillery of the Imperial
Guard from the middle of the Plain of Boulogne; they were visible from
Paris as from Saint Cloud, and from all the hills bordering the
Seine from Calvaire to Meudon. Next to the row of columns opened the
illuminated garden, with waterfalls, trees, and porticoes, forming a
most brilliant spectacle. The Emperor and Empress walked through the
park, and Marie Louise was continually reminded of her beloved Austria,
of Schoenbrunn, of the Burg, of Laxenburg, by the wonderful panorama.
There were many bands stationed among the trees, playing waltzes, and
dancers from the opera, dressed as German shepherds and shepherdesses,
were dancing. An interlude, "The Village Festival," words by Étienne,
set to music by Nicolo, was given in the open air, on the grass. When
the Empress came to a column supporting a basket of flowers, a dove alit
at her feet and offered her an ingenious motto.
The weather had been tolerably pleasant all day; but it became stormy in
the evening; the air grew heavy: there could be seen neither moon nor
stars. There had just been illuminated, opposite the grand cascade, a
model of the palace intended for the King of Rome,--this palace the
Emperor meant to build on the high ground of Chaillot, with the Bois de
Boulogne for its park,--when suddenly the storm that had been slowly
gathering burst upon the heads of the vast crowd in the park. There were
there deputations from all the large towns of the vast empire which
reached from Cuxhaven to Rome; the men in costly velvet coats, the women
in dresses of embroidered silk. The Emperor at the moment happened to be
talking in the doorway between the drawing-room and the garden; near him
was the Mayor of Lyons, to whom he said, "I am going to benefit your
manufactures." Then he remained standing in the doorway. The courtiers
received the shower with bare heads and smiling faces. Possibly some
might have said that the rain of Saint Cloud, like the rain of Marly,
did not wet.
Of course no one had an umbrella. Prince Aldobrandini, the Empress's
First Equerry, managed to procure one, which he held over her. Count
Rémusat found another, and for an hour he was coming and going, between
the park and the palace, to bring as many ladies as possible under
shelter. The entertainment could not go on; every one was wet through.
The musicians could not play on their dripping instruments. The Emperor
and the Empress withdrew at eleven, and both the court and the people
had gloomy memories of this festivity which began so well and ended so
badly. Superstitious and ill-disposed persons fancied that they saw an
evil omen in this; they recalled the disastrous ball at the Austrian
Embassy, and said that the storm broke just at the very moment when the
palace of the King of Rome was illuminated. But what difference could a
simple shower make to a people accustomed to streams of blood?
August 15, 1811, there was a brilliant celebration at Saint Cloud and
Paris, as well as throughout the Empire, of the festival of the great
and the small Napoleon. August 25 was the birthday of the Empress
Marie Louise, and this was celebrated at the two Trianons, which were
full of memories of Louis XIV. and of Marie Antoinette. The Grand
Trianon, graceful and majestic, though but a single story high, and the
Little Trianon, charming, though but a simple small square, of no regal
aspect, were enchanted palaces on Marie Louise's birthday. The two
buildings, the belvedere, the little lakes, the island and Temple of
Love, the village, the octagonal pavilion, the theatre, were all aglow.
It seemed as if Marie Antoinette were alive again, and to the Empress
Delille's lines could have applied as well as to the Queen:--
"Like its August and youthful deity,
Trianon combines grace with majesty:
For her it adorns itself, is by her adorned."
It was only twenty-two years since Marie Antoinette had been there, and
many of the lords and ladies who adorned Napoleon's court as they had
adorned that of Louis XVI. could not see without emotion this fairy-like
recall of the brilliant days of the old régime. The French nobility had
an opportunity to make many reflections on revisiting the Little Trianon
which aroused many memories. It was less than eighteen years since there
had perished on the scaffold the charming sovereign who had been the
idol, the goddess, of this little temple; and now new festivities were
beginning; another Austrian archduchess occupied the place of the martyred
Queen. There was the Swiss village, of which Louis XVI. had been
the miller, the Count of Provence the schoolmaster, the Count of Artois
the gamekeeper, the village with its merry mill, the dairy where the
cream filled porphyry vessels on marble tables, the laundry where the
clothes were beaten with ebony sticks, the granary to which led mahogany
ladders, the sheep-house where the sheep were shorn with golden shears.
They saw once more the grass sprinkled with flowers, the clear water,
the trees of all colors from dark green to cherry-red; larches and pink
acacias, cedars of Lebanon, sophoras from China, poplars from Athens,
and they said that Time, which shatters a sceptre, respects a shrub.
Everything else had changed; the garden was still the same.
All day long the gloomy solitude of Versailles had been crowded anew
as if by magic. A countless multitude thronged its long, wide avenues,
which had been almost deserted since October, 1789. The festivities
of the former monarchy appeared to have begun again. At three in the
afternoon a rather heavy shower had fallen, and it seemed as if the day
and evening would end gloomily; but on the contrary, the rain was but
brief and only freshened the air, and made the festival pleasanter. The
setting sun lit up the great king's town, and at night many-colored
lamps decorated the Grand Trianon. Six hundred women in rich dresses,
and ablaze with jewelry, gathered in the gallery of that palace. The
Empress spoke to many of them, and it was noticed how well she had
become acquainted with French society, although she had been in the
country but fifteen months; and with what kindness and dignity she
addressed them.
Then they went to the theatre of the Little Trianon, a perfect jewel, a
gem, with its two Ionic columns, its pediment in which Love is holding a
lyre and a laurel wreath; and its ceiling representing Olympus, the work
of Lagrenée; and its curtain, on which are two nymphs supporting Marie
Antoinette's coat-of-arms. It was there that, August 19, 1785, the Queen
played Rosina, in "The Barber of Seville," and that the Count of Artois
uttered those ominous words as Figaro, "I try to laugh at everything,
lest I should have to weep at everything." Before Napoleon and Marie
Louise there was given a piece composed for the occasion by Alissan de
Chazet: it was called "The Gardener of Schoenbrunn." After it was a
pretty ballet given by the dancers of the Opera.
When this was over, the Emperor and Empress walked through the gardens
of the Little Trianon, which were illuminated. Napoleon, with his hat in
his hand, gave his arm to Marie Louise. They visited the island and the
marble Temple of Love, in which is Bouchardon's statue of Love carving
his bow into the club of Hercules. There was soft music from concealed
performers, which seemed to rise from the bottom of the lake, on which
floated illuminated boats full of children disguised as cupids. Then
they walked further in the garden, and watched a _tableau vivant_,
representing Flemish peasants. This was succeeded by groups representing
the people of the different provinces of the Empire in their national
dress, from the Tiber to the North Sea. The celebration ended with a
supper in the gallery of the Grand Trianon. All those who had known the
place in the old régime agreed that the festival was a perfect success;
and Marie Louise, who was becoming more and more at home in France, was
sure that her birthday had never been celebrated with anything like such
magnificence.
XXIII.
THE TRIP TO HOLLAND.
A short time after Wagram Napoleon had been heard, in a levee at which
his generals were present, to lament the bloody campaigns in which he
always lost some of his early companions. "I have been a soldier long
enough," he went on; "it's time for me to be a king." During 1811 he
seemed faithful to this new programme. The soldier had become a monarch,
and the hero of so many battles seemed to be desirous of the glories of
peace. He determined to make a trip in Belgium and Holland and along the
banks of the Rhine, where he should see for himself what the happiness
of the people required. The Empress made the journey with him, but
Napoleon started from Compiègne without her, September 19; she was to
join him on the 30th at Antwerp. At this time she was so attached to him
that she could not endure a separation of only a few days, and she wrote
to her father: "My husband has left to-night to go to the island of
Walcheren, which has the worst climate in the world, so that I could
not go with him, for which I am extremely sorry." While the Emperor was
visiting Boulogne, Ostend, and Flushing, the Queen made her way, with
a magnificent court, to Belgium. She left Compiègne, September 22, and
took up her residence at the castle at Laeken, near Brussels. She often
visited the Belgian capital, which then was only the chief town of a
French department,--the department of the Dyle. Napoleon made a great
point of her appearing in all splendor in the provinces which had
previously been governed by the house of Austria. She went to the
theatre, where she was warmly greeted, and purchased a hundred and fifty
thousand francs' worth of lace to revive the manufactures of the city.
September 30 she joined her husband at Antwerp. The _Moniteur_ thus
spoke of the way the Emperor had transformed this city: "Antwerp may be
considered as a fortress of the rank of Metz and Strasbourg. The work
which has been done there is enormous. On the left bank of the Scheldt,
where two years ago there was only a redoubt, there has risen a city
twelve thousand feet long, with eight bastions.... The view from
the dockyard is unparalleled; twenty-one men-of-war, eight of them
three-deckers, are building. The arsenal is fully provided with
provisions of all sorts brought down the Rhine and the Meuse.
"Seven years ago," continues the _Moniteur_, "there was not a single
quay in Antwerp, and the houses came down to the river's edge. To-day,
in the place of these houses, are superb quays, of service to the
commerce and to the defence of the place. Six years ago there was no
basin, but only a few canals where boats drawing ten or twelve feet
could scarcely enter. To-day there is a basin twenty-six feet deep at
the bank, able to hold ships-of-the-line, with a lock for the admission
of ships carrying a hundred and twenty guns."