Thursday, the 16th of September, 1824, at the moment when Louis XVIII.
was breathing his last in his chamber of the Chateau des Tuileries, the
courtiers were gathered in the Gallery of Diana. It was four o'clock in
the morning. The Duke and the Duchess of Angouleme, the Duchess of
Berry, the Duke and the Duchess of Orleans, the Bishop of Hermopolis,
and the physicians were in the chamber of the dying man. When the King
had given up the ghost, the Duke of Angouleme, who became Dauphin,
threw himself at the feet of his father, who became King, and kissed
his hand with respectful tenderness. The princes and princesses
followed this example, and he who bore thenceforward the title of
Charles X., sobbing, embraced them all. They knelt about the bed. The
De Profundis was recited. Then the new King sprinkled holy water on the
body of his brother and kissed the icy hand. An instant later M. de
Blacas, opening the door of the Gallery of Diana, called out:
"Gentlemen, the King!" And Charles X. appeared.
Let us listen to the Duchess of Orleans. "At these words, in the
twinkling of an eye, all the crowd of courtiers deserted the Gallery to
surround and follow the new King. It was like a torrent. We were borne
along by it, and only at the door of the Hall of the Throne, my husband
bethought himself that we no longer had aught to do there. We returned
home, reflecting much on the feebleness of our poor humanity, and the
nothingness of the things of this world."
Marshal Marmont, who was in the Gallery of Diana at the moment of the
King's death, was much struck by the two phrases pronounced at an
instant's interval by M. de Damas: "Gentlemen, the King is dead! The
King, gentlemen!"
He wrote in his Memoirs: "It is difficult to describe the sensation
produced by this double announcement in so brief a time. The new
sovereign was surrounded by his officers, and everything except the
person of the King was in the accustomed order. Beautiful and great
thought, this uninterrupted life of the depository of the sovereign
power! By this fiction there is no break in this protecting force, so
necessary to the preservation of society." The Marshal adds: "The
government had been in fact for a year and more in the hands of
Monsieur. Thus the same order of things was to continue; nevertheless,
there was emotion perceptible on the faces of those present; one might
see hopes spring up and existences wither. Every one accompanied the
new King to his Pavilion of Marsan. He announced to his ministers that
he confirmed them in their functions. Then every one withdrew."
While the Duchess of Berry was present at the death of Louis XVIII.,
the Duke of Bordeaux and his sister, Mademoiselle, then, the one four,
the other five years of age, remained at the Chateau of Saint Cloud,
with the Governess of the Children of France, the Viscountess of
Gontaut-Biron. This lady passed the night of the 15th of September in
great anxiety. She listened on the balcony, awaiting and dreading the
news.
At the moment that the day began to dawn, she heard afar the gallop of
a horse that drew near, passed the bridge, ascended the avenue, reached
the Chateau, and in response to the challenge of the guard, she
distinguished the words: "An urgent message for Madame the Governess."
It was a letter from the new King. Madame de Gontaut trembled as she
opened it. Charles X. announced to her, in sad words, that Louis XVIII.
was no more, and directed her to made ready for the arrival of the
royal family. "Lodge me where you and the governor shall see fit. We
shall probably pass three or four days at Saint Cloud. Communicate my
letter to the Marshal. I have not strength to write another word."
"The day was beginning to break," we read in the unpublished Memoirs of
the Governess of the Children of France. "I went to the bed of
Monseigneur. He was awakened. He was not surprised, and said nothing,
and allowed himself to be dressed. Not so with Mademoiselle. I told her
gently of the misfortune that had come upon her family. I was agitated.
She questioned me, asking where was bon-papa. I told her that he was
still in Paris, but was coming to Saint Cloud; then I added: 'Your
bon-papa, Mademoiselle, is King, since the King is no more.' She
reflected, then, repeating the word: 'King! Oh! that indeed is the
worst of the story.' I was astonished, and wished her to explain her
idea; she simply repeated it. I thought then she had conceived the
notion of a king always rolled about in his chair."
The same day the court arrived. It was no longer the light carriage
that used almost daily to bring Monsieur, to the great joy of his
grandchildren. It was the royal coach with eight horses, livery,
escort, and body-guard. The Duke of Bordeaux and his sister were on the
porch with their governess. On perceiving the coach, instead of
shouting with pleasure, as was their custom, they remained motionless
and abashed. Charles X. was pale and silent. In the vestibule he
paused: "What chamber have you prepared for me?" he said sadly to
Madame de Gontaut, glancing at the door of his own. The governess
replied: "The apartment of Monsieur is ready, and the chamber of the
King as well." The sovereign paused, then clasping his hands in
silence: "It must be!" he cried. "Let us ascend."
They followed him. He passed through the apartments. On the threshold
of the royal chamber Madame de Gontaut brought to Charles X. the Duke
of Bordeaux and Mademoiselle and he embraced them. The poor children
were disconcerted by so much sadness. "As soon as I can," he said to
them, "I promise to come to see you." Then turning to the company: "I
would be alone." All withdrew in silence. The Dauphiness was weeping.
The Dauphin had disappeared. Everything was gloomy. No one spoke. Thus
passed the first day of the reign of Charles X.
The next day the King received the felicitations of the Corps de
l'Etat. Many addresses were delivered. "All contained the expression of
the public love," said Marshal Marmont in his Memoirs, "and I believe
that they were sincere; but the love of the people is, of all loves,
the most fragile, the most apt to evaporate. The King responded in an
admirable manner, with appropriateness, intelligence, and warmth. His
responses, less correct, perhaps, than those of Louis XVIII., had
movement and spirit, and it is so precious to hear from those invested
with the sovereign powers things that come from the heart, that Charles
X. had a great success. I listened to him with care, and I sincerely
admired his facility in varying his language and modifying his
expressions according to the eminence of the authority from whom the
compliments came."
The reception lasted several hours. When the coaches had rolled away
and when quiet was re-established in the Chateau of Saint Cloud,
Charles X., in the mourning costume of the Kings, the violet coat, went
to the apartment of the Duke of Bordeaux and his sister. The usher
cried: "The King!" The two children, frightened, and holding each other
by the hand, remained silent. Charles X. opened his arms and they threw
themselves into them. Then the sovereign seated himself in his
accustomed chair and held his grandchildren for some moments pressed to
his heart. The Duke of Bordeaux covered the hands and the face of his
grandfather with kisses. Mademoiselle regarded attentively the altered
features of the King and his mourning dress, novel to her. She asked
him why he wore such a coat. Charles X. did not reply, and sighed. Then
he questioned the governess as to the impression made on the children
by the death of Louis XVIII. Madame de Gontaut hesitated to answer,
recalling the strange phrase of Mademoiselle: "King! Oh! that indeed is
the worst of the story." But the little Princess, clinging to her
notion, began to repeat the unlucky phrase. Charles X., willing to give
it a favorable interpretation, assured Mademoiselle that he would see
her as often as in the past, and that nothing should separate him from
her. The two children, with the heedlessness of their age, took on
their usual gaiety, and ran to the window to watch the market-men, the
coal heavers, and the fishwomen, who had come to Saint Cloud to
congratulate the new King.
The griefs of sovereigns in the period of their prosperity do not last
so long as those of private persons. Courtiers take too much pains to
lighten them. With Charles X. grief at the loss of his brother was
quickly followed by the enjoyment of reigning. Chateaubriand, who, when
he wished to, had the art of carrying flattery to lyric height,
published his pamphlet: Le roi est mart! Vive le roi! In it he said:
"Frenchmen, he who announced to you Louis le Desire, who made his voice
heard by you in the days of storm, and makes to you to-day of Charles
X. in circumstances very different. He is no longer obliged to tell you
what the King is who comes to you, what his misfortunes are, his
virtues, his rights to the throne and to your love; he is no longer
obliged to depict his person, to inform you how many members of his
family still exist. You know him, this Bourbon, the first to come,
after our disaster, worthy herald of old France, to cast himself, a
branch of lilies in his hand, between you and Europe. Your eyes rest
with love and pleasure on this Prince, who in the ripeness of years has
preserved the charm and elegance of his youth, and who now, adorned
with the diadem, still is but ONE FRENCHMAN THE MORE IN THE MIDST OF
YOU. You repeat with emotion so many happy mots dropped by this new
monarch, who from the loyalty of his heart draws the grace of happy
speech. What one of us would not confide to him his life, his fortune,
his honor? The man whom we should all wish as a friend, we have as
King. Ah! Let us try to make him forget the sacrifices of his life! May
the crown weigh lightly on the white head of this Christian Knight!
Pious as Saint Louis, affable, compassionate, and just as Louis XII.,
courtly as Francis I., frank as Henry IV., may he be happy with all the
happiness he has missed in his long past! May the throne where so many
monarchs have encountered tempests, be for him a place of repose!
Devoted subjects, let us crowd to the feet of our well-loved sovereign,
let us recognize in him the model of honor, the living principle of our
laws, the soul of our monarchical society; let us bless a guardian
heredity, and may legitimacy without pangs give birth to a new King!
Let our soldiers cover with their flags the father of the Duke of
Angouleme. May watchful Europe, may the factions, if such there be
still, see in the accord of all Frenchmen, in the union of the people
and the army, the pledge of our strength and of the peace of the
world!" The author of the Genie du Christianisme thus closed his prose
dithyramb: "May God grant to Louis XVIII. the crown immortal of Saint
Louis! May God bless the mortal crown of Saint Louis on the head of
Charles X.!"
In this chant in honor of the King and of royalty, M. de Chateaubriand
did not forget the Duke and Duchess of Angouleme, nor the Duchess of
Berry and the Duke of Bordeaux. "Let us salute," he said, "the Dauphin
and Dauphiness, names that bind the past to the future, calling up
touching and noble memories, indicating the own son and the successor
of the monarch, names under which we find the liberator of Spain and
the daughter of Louis XVI. The Child of Europe, the new Henry, thus
makes one step toward the throne of his ancestor, and his young mother
guides him to the throne that she might have ascended."
Happy in the ease with which the change in the reign had taken place,
and seeing the unanimous manifestations of devotion and enthusiasm by
which the throne was surrounded, the Duchess of Berry regarded the
future with entire confidence. Inclined by nature to optimism, the
young and amiable Princess believed herself specially protected by
Providence, and would have considered as a sort of impiety anything
else than absolute faith in the duration of the monarchy and in respect
for the rights of her son. Had any one of the court expressed the
slightest doubt as to the future destiny of the CHILD OF MIRACLE, he
would have been looked upon as an alarmist or a coward. The royalists
were simple enough to believe that, thanks to this child, the era of
revolutions was forever closed. They said to themselves that French
royalty, like British royalty, would have its Whigs and its Tories, but
that it was forever rid of Republicans and Imperialists. At the
accession of Charles X. the word Republican, become a synonym of
Jacobin, awoke only memories of the guillotine and the "Terror." A
moderate republic seemed but a chimera; only that of Robespierre and
Marat was thought of. The eagle was no longer mentioned; and as to the
eaglet, he was a prisoner at Vienna. What chance of reigning had the
Duke of Reichstadt, that child of thirteen, condemned by all the Powers
of Europe? By what means could he mount the throne? Who would be regent
in his name? A Bonaparte? The forgetful Marie Louise? Such hypotheses
were relegated to the domain of pure fantasy. Apart from a few
fanatical old soldiers who persisted in saying that Napoleon was not
dead, no one, in 1824, believed in the resurrection of the Empire. As
for Orleanism, it was as yet a myth. The Duke of Orleans himself was
not an Orleanist. Of all the courtiers of Charles X., he was the most
eager, the most zealous, the most enthusiastic. In whatever direction
she turned her glance, the Duchess of Berry saw about her only reasons
for satisfaction and security.