The Bourbons—Mdlle. Félicie de Fauveau and her vow—Marie
Antoinette at the Petit Trianon—A buried treasure—Madame du
Barry and her bankers—Her lost jewels—A possibility of
existence at some bank—Her destroyers—Zamor and the Englishman
Grieve—Mrs. Atkyns and the Dauphin—Her gallant effort to save
the Queen—Naundorff—An American Dauphin—Eleazar Williams—
Mystery surrounding the death of Louis XVII.
It is curious how, in spite of their manifold follies and
shortcomings—which were sometimes almost criminal—the Bourbons managed
to inspire certain of their adherents with an almost fanatical devotion.
Many and many a brave man sacrificed life and property for the ancient
Royal line of France. Of this stamp were the gallant Vicomte de Frotté,
shot by Napoleon in 1811, and the Marquise de la Rouérie, the organiser
and leader of the Chouan revolt. It is, indeed, almost impossible to
conceive the intense loyalty displayed by those Frenchmen and
Frenchwomen who cherished the traditions of the old régime.
In 1842 I knew at Florence a lady—Mademoiselle Félicie de Fauveau, a
sculptress of some note—who belonged to a noble French family. At that
time somewhat advanced in years, she had been much with the Duchesse de
Berri, and still remained a devoted supporter of the ancient monarchy.
To such an extent indeed was this the case that, inspired by a feeling
of the most ardent loyalty, Mademoiselle de Fauveau had made a vow never
to let her hair grow till the Comte de Chambord should as Henry V.
ascend the throne of France, and this resolution she carried out with an
utter disregard of the graces. The Comte de Chambord never reigned, and
therefore to the end of her life she kept her head closely cropped. I
very well remember seeing him at Vicenza in the same year as I met
Mademoiselle de Fauveau. He was not at all a remarkable-looking man, and
walked with a slight limp, the consequence of an accident which had
occurred to him as a young man, when his horse had fallen upon him. As a
matter of fact the fracture which he had sustained would have left no
traces had the doctors in attendance shown any great surgical capacity.
This, however, they did not do, allowing their patient to travel in a
carriage over bad roads before the fracture had been thoroughly reduced.
Dr. Récamier, it may be added, had especially warned them against
allowing such a thing, but no notice was taken of his letter.
The Comte de Chambord was far more high-minded than most of his line,
and it was always said that had he chosen to abandon some of his
convictions he would certainly have been King of France. His attitude,
however, was always straightforward, and for this reason it is in all
probability that he lies, the last of the Bourbons, uncrowned in his
tomb at Frohsdorf.
I still possess a sketch of Mademoiselle de Fauveau standing with her
hand on a favourite dog, which was drawn by my dear governess, Miss
Redgrave, from a full-length statuette which the sculptress herself had
modelled. The dress, oddly enough, is almost exactly similar to a
tailor-made costume of to-day; but in 1842 it was considered a very
great eccentricity, and used, I recollect, to excite almost as much
astonishment as the lady’s cropped head. Nevertheless, Mademoiselle de
Fauveau was a very dignified figure, her face, curiously enough, bearing
a considerable resemblance both in feature and expression to the
martyred Queen whose memory she adored.
Though it is now a hundred and fourteen years since Marie Antoinette
mounted the scaffold and became the victim of a crime which, according
even to Napoleon, was far worse than regicide, the very mention of her
name evokes as great a feeling of sympathetic compassion as it did at
the time of her brutal execution. No one who has studied the story of
the terrible persecution and mental torture to which she was subjected
can fail to be moved by the sufferings of this royal martyr, whose
dignified bearing in some measure actually impressed the howling mob
which shouted for her blood. The progress of the unfortunate Queen to
the place of execution was an awful one, for the squalid cart in which
she was placed was escorted by a band of furies, whose raucous howls and
ignoble jests disgusted even the rough soldiery who guarded the august
prisoner’s road to death. As the tumbril, it is said, passed the church
of Saint Roch a band of wretches seated on the steps actually clapped
their hands as if at a circus; the only open expression of sympathy,
indeed, came fitly enough from a little child, which, as the rueful
procession wended its way past the Oratoire, rose to its feet and kissed
its little hands to the poor Queen, a last message of love, as it were,
from the true heart of France.
When one thinks of the respectful affection, amounting almost to
adoration, which Marie Antoinette inspired in men like Fersen, the
Chevalier de Rougeville, and others, it would seem that there hung about
her graceful personality an atmosphere of mesmeric fascination,
something of which still seems to linger in certain places closely
connected with her romantic memory. Notably is this the case at the
Petit Trianon, where she must always remain almost a living figure to
the visitor of any imagination. Strolling through the beautiful grounds
on a fine spring day, the graceful trees bathed in a golden light, one
well imagines the beautiful Queen surrounded by her children and friends
wending her way to her _hameau_, the toy village in which she took so
much interest and delight.
To this lovely retreat, when the leaves were beginning to fall and the
lilies of France to fade came the news of the arrival at Versailles of
the crowd of Parisian rabble, who on the 5th of October 1789 invaded
that stately palace. The same day Marie Antoinette decided to join the
King, and flying to his side, abandoned for ever her beautiful Trianon,
the enchanting spot in which some of the happiest days of her life had
been passed, and which she was never to see again.
From that moment nothing but sorrow and misfortune were to be her lot.
Versailles was in a turmoil, and on her arrival there she soon found
that her life itself was in danger. Oh the following day (6th October),
she spent some terrible hours at the windows of the room known as the
bedroom of Louis XV., to which she had been forced to fly from her own
private apartments, whilst the crowd without the palace savagely called
for her blood. Only did its fury abate when both she and the King,
appearing on the balcony of an adjoining apartment, promised to set out
forthwith for Paris and to take up their residence at the Tuileries.
A mysterious legend has always declared that before taking their
departure the Royal couple caused a considerable sum of money, together
with many valuables, to be secretly buried in the park adjoining the
palace, but though careful search has often been made nothing has
hitherto come to light. At the present time, however (April 1907), there
is a rumour that, owing to the discovery of an old manuscript indicating
the place of concealment, the authorities in charge of the palace of
Versailles are on the point of discovering the exact locality of this
long-hidden treasure. It is much to be hoped that such a report should
prove true, for in all probability, in addition to the financial and
artistic value of such a discovery, some documents of the highest
historical interest are almost certain once more to be brought to the
light of day.
There must, undoubtedly, be much treasure and many jewels buried during
the great Revolution still lying hidden under the soil of France, for
before going into exile numbers of _emigrés_ buried their most valuable
possessions in the earth, with the intention of recovering them on that
return which in many cases was never to take place. A great portion of
the splendid jewellery of Madame du Barry has never been satisfactorily
accounted for, though it has often been declared that it still remains
intact and untouched in an unopened case lying in the strong-room of
Coutts’ Bank. Be this as it may, I believe that it is an absolute fact
that, this famous firm of bankers are still the guardians of a large
number of cases deposited there by French _emigrés_, who having returned
to France in order to forward the Royalist cause, met their death
without having left any instructions as to the disposal of their
property lodged in England. The rule, I believe, in such cases is for
the bank to allow the boxes literally to moulder to pieces, carefully
wrapping up in paper any objects which may fall out, and replacing them
in a heap on the top of what is left. It seems a pity that no Act of
Parliament should ever have been passed to deal with such cases, for
there are probably many priceless works of art slowly drifting to utter
decay in these old brass-bound chests fast mouldering into dust.
Though, as has been said, a legend declares that some of the jewels of
Madame du Barry still lie in the strong-room of Coutts’ Bank, it is
difficult to see how such can be the case unless she deposited her
valuables with more than one London banker; for it is absolutely certain
that the firm with whom she usually banked when in England was that of
Messrs. Hammersley and Morland of Pall Mall, in whose keeping, according
to her own estimate, she at one time had over 300,000 livres’ worth of
diamonds. The firm in question has long ceased to exist, and I do not
know who took over their business. At the end of 1794, after the death
of Madame du Barry, diamonds left by her in England were sold by order
of the Court of Chancery, and realised 13,300 guineas.
As is well known, this poor woman was literally hounded to death by an
Englishman, George Grieve by name; he was a native of Alnwick, in
Northumberland, where he early in life distinguished himself by his
Radical proclivities. Having squandered the patrimony bequeathed to him
by his father, an attorney of some local standing, he went to America in
1780, where, it is said, he met Washington, Franklin, and other lights
of the young American Republic. In 1783 he came to Paris, in which city
he appears to have posed, perhaps with authority, as an American
representative in the revolutionary demonstrations which were already
beginning to agitate the French. Later on, grandiloquently styling
himself, “Factieux et anarchiste de premier ordre et désorganisateur du
despotisme dans les deux hémisphères depuis vingt ans”—a title, by the
way, which might be recommended to the consideration of some of our
modern socialists—Grieve took advantage of Madame du Barry’s absence in
London in 1792 (to which city she had gone to look after her stolen
diamonds) to take up his residence at Louveciennes, where she possessed
a splendid residence, and where she was adored by the peasantry, to whom
she ever dispensed a truly regal charity. By bribery and persuasion this
apostle of progress gained over two of her servants, and then, managing
to obtain an order for seals to be placed on her papers and valuables,
installed himself in her house whilst procuring its mistress’s arrest on
her return to France. The villagers, however, mindful of the goodness of
their Lady Bountiful, petitioned for and obtained her release. Grieve,
no doubt desiring that his own very doubtful dealings with the contents
of her château should not be exposed, again managed to get her arrested,
but, as on the previous occasion, a petition of the inhabitants of
Louveciennes once more set her free. In November 1793, the wretch, who
was quite determined not to be balked of his prey, finally ran his
unfortunate quarry to ground, and was successful in getting the
favourite of Louis XV. tried and led to the guillotine. Her persecutor,
unlike many of his fellow-benefactors of humanity, contrived to survive
the Terror, and died peacefully in Brussels in 1809, having in the
interval once more made a journey to America, where he published a
translation of Chastellux’s travels.
It is curious to learn that Grieve, who was evidently full of
Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy, had the effrontery to make a personal appeal to
the Convention, in which he demanded the head of the Du Barry “in the
name of good morals.” The real truth of course being, as has been said,
that this scoundrel (who had obtained permission to make an inventory of
her valuables, which he drew up absolutely alone, entrance to her
residence at Louveciennes being closed to all but him) had made away
with much of her money and jewellery, and was in consequence determined
to have their unfortunate owner sent to another world in order that his
own defalcations might evade detection. In all probability he buried a
certain amount of treasure in the grounds of Madame du Barry’s house; at
all events local rumour has always declared that gold and jewels lie
hidden in the earth there. Many searches have been made, but no
valuables discovered. A skull, however,—in all probability that of the
Due de Cossé-Brissac, the Royal favourite’s last lover,—was dug up near
the house. Brissac having been hacked to pieces at Versailles, some
youths got hold of the head, and in high glee carried it on a dung-fork
to Louveciennes, where they hurled it through the open windows of the Du
Barry’s salon.
A principal agent of Grieve in his campaign against Madame du Barry was
her black page, Zamor, who appears in many a picture, fantastically
dressed, standing by the side of the beautiful mistress of Louis XV. The
old King himself took the greatest interest in Zamor, and bored as he
usually was with everything, would yet sometimes deign to smile at the
pleasantries of the spoilt little negro, who was allowed to take pretty
well any liberties he pleased. Zamor had been originally brought from
Bengal as a child by an English sea-captain, and, having been made chief
page to the favourite (who acquired him as a pleasing contrast to her
white dog and her monkeys), received an excellent education after being
baptized with the greatest pomp. Nevertheless, in spite of the favours
with which his mistress had loaded him, Zamor turned against her at the
time when one word from him could have saved her head. An ardent student
of Rousseau and an enthusiastic democrat, this little negro attained a
certain position in revolutionary circles, being given an official
position in the district of Versailles. He was called as an important
witness at the trial of his benefactress, and manifesting the greatest
bitterness against her, coldly and brutally gave such testimony as
directly contributed to her condemnation.
His ingratitude, however, did him no good, for, falling into disgrace
with the revolutionary authorities, he soon sank into the most dire
poverty, the property which he had amassed being got out of him by a
designing milliner. In old age he supported life by giving elementary
lessons to the children in the quarter of Paris which he inhabited,
where the little wizened old man was well known as “the negro who had
betrayed la du Barry.”
Silent and taciturn, he retained the cult of the revolutionary doctrine
to the end of his life, which seems to have occurred somewhere about
1820, his little room being decorated to the last with the portraits of
Marat and Robespierre, whilst the works of Rousseau, his favourite
author, occupied a prominent place upon his modest bookshelf.
Zamor was a traitor, it is true, but there is no doubt he was sincere in
his devotion to the revolutionary ideal, whereas the arch-scoundrel
Grieve was nothing but an egotistical hypocrite—a callous, canting
rogue.
An ancient Norfolk family, which in old days had much to do with France,
is that of Jerningham of Costessey Hall. Many of its members indeed,
prevented from entering the English army owing to their unswerving
adherence to the Roman Catholic faith, crossed the Channel and took
service under the banners of the French king, attaining in several cases
to high military command. The last of these to do this was General
Jerningham, Colonel Commandant of several Irish regiments under Louis
XVI., who, returning to England after the Revolution, died at Costessey
in 1814. At the present day the best known representatives of this old
family are that distinguished man, Sir Hubert Jerningham, and his
brother, Mr. Charles Edward Jerningham, a cultured collector and
authority upon prints of Old London. A peculiarity of the Jerninghams is
that, though they have steadfastly adhered to the Roman Catholic Church,
no one of them has ever been a priest, or, on the other hand, become a
Protestant; though Mr. Edward Jerningham, the friend of Horace Walpole,
well known as a good scholar and elegant poet, did, I believe, more or
less abjure his faith and declare himself an Agnostic. Notwithstanding
the very strong anti-Catholic feeling which in old days prevailed in
Norfolk (the bells of the Norwich churches were rung on the rejection of
the Catholic Emancipation Bill in 1825), the Jerninghams did not, like
so many of their co-religionists, abstain from social intercourse with
their Protestant neighbours, with whom, in spite of their faith, they
were always very popular. One of the Dillons, a close connection of the
family of which I have been speaking, took a leading part in the many
attempts made to rescue the unfortunate Dauphin who, according to the
most modern authorities, was actually got out of the Temple, a
substituted child being left in his stead. Another Norfolkian also made
several strenuous efforts to the same end. This was a lady, Mrs. Atkyns
of Ketteringham Hall, near Norwich, who expended practically her entire
fortune in efforts to save the unfortunate Prince.
An energetic and adventurous woman, the story of her life has been given
to the world in a French book published a short time ago. She was,
before her marriage, Miss Charlotte Walpole, an actress of Drury Lane
Theatre, and I like to believe that she was in some way connected with
the Walpole family to which I belong; her father, Robert Walpole, was
certainly a Norfolk man, but the exact degree of his relationship to us
I have never been able to discover. Certain is it, however, that she
used the Walpole crest with the addition of a lion, a circumstance which
might possibly point to a descent from Colonel John Walpole, a Royalist
who, for his services at Cropredy Bridge, was granted such an addition
to his arms. Miss Walpole, who appears to have been exceedingly
fascinating, before very long captured the heart of a Norfolk squire,
and after their marriage the young people took up their abode at
Ketteringham Hall, old Mrs. Walpole, the bride’s mother, being installed
in the Park close by in a house which has been long pulled down.
Curiously enough, flowers still come up in the spring-time at this spot,
which yet retains the name of Madame Walpole’s garden. After a short
time passed in Norfolk, Mr. and Mrs. Atkyns went to Versailles, where,
introduced into the intimate entourage of Marie Antoinette by the
Duchesse de Polignac, the lady conceived a respectful veneration for the
unfortunate Queen, which, in after-years, caused her to penetrate,
disguised as a member of the National Guard, into the prison of the
Conciergerie. By means of a daring stratagem she actually contrived to
obtain admission to the cell in which Marie Antoinette lay, her
intention being to inform the Queen of a plan of escape. At the moment,
however, of handing the royal captive a bouquet of flowers, the missive
which was concealed amongst its leaves fell to the ground, when Mrs.
Atkyns, seeing that a gaoler was about to read it, snatched the note
from his hands and without a moment’s hesitation swallowed it. Later on
Mrs. Atkyns was the chief organiser of several attempts to save the
Dauphin, and expended some very large sums of money in plots, actually
hiring ships to lie off the French coast ready to receive the young
Prince should one of the efforts made to rescue him prove successful.
Living to a great age, the poor woman eventually died almost penniless
in Paris as late as the year 1836, for Louis XVIII. though admitting, on
his restoration, that she had devoted her life and fortune to the
service of his line, would never reimburse any serious portion of the
sums which the mistress of Ketteringham Hall had, with the greatest
difficulty, raised upon her estate. He did once, however, under great
pressure, send her some insignificant sum. Ketteringham Hall itself is
now the property of Sir Francis and Lady Boileau, who, together with a
few others, have, within the last year, erected a memorial tablet to the
friend and would-be rescuer of Marie Antoinette. Owing to the
comparative state of destitution in which the poor woman died her wish
to be buried in Ketteringham church had not been respected. It is
therefore pleasant to think that, owing to the kindly initiative of Lady
Boileau, a memorial of her now exists close to those of her husband and
son—the last members, it may be added, of a distinguished county
family.
There exists a print of Mrs. Atkyns engraved by Watson and Dickinson
after Bunbury. In this she is represented in the character of “Nancy,”
who, dressed as a young soldier, has followed her lover to the camp of
Coxheath, a part which contemporary critics tell was enacted by the
young actress with much dash and charm. In this character, indeed, she
won the heart and hand of her Norfolk squire.
Retiring from the stage after the conclusion of the run of _The Camp_,
her next appearance in a soldier’s dress was to be in far different
surroundings. Surely when assuming the costume of the National Guard in
which she set out to attempt the rescue of the captive queen, her
thoughts must have flown back to those careless days in which, miniature
firelock in hand, she had gone through the military exercise amidst the
plaudits of the audience at “Old Drury.”