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!"