[Illustration: _EMPEROR NAPOLEON I._]
FRANCE
IN
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
1830-1890
BY ELIZABETH WORMELEY LATIMER
AUTHOR OF "SALVAGE," "MY WIFE AND MY WIFE'S SISTER," "PRINCESS
AMÉLIE," "FAMILIAR TALKS ON SOME OF SHAKESPEARE'S COMEDIES," ETC.
NOTE
The sources from which I have drawn the materials for this book are
various; they come largely from private papers, and from articles
contributed to magazines and newspapers by contemporary writers,
French, English, and American. I had not at first intended the
work for publication, and I omitted to make notes which would have
enabled me to restore to others the "unconsidered trifles" that
I may have taken from them.
As far as possible, I have endeavored to remedy this; but should
any other writer find a gold thread of his own in my embroidery,
I hope he will look upon it as an evidence of my appreciation of
his work, and not as an act of intentional dishonesty.
E. W. L.
SEPTEMBER, 1892.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY
II. LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY
III. LOUIS NAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER
IV. TEN YEARS OF THE REIGN OF THE CITIZEN-KING
V. SOME CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1848
VI. THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE
VII. LAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC
VIII. THE COUP D'ÉTAT
IX. THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE
X. MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO
XI. THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS AT THE SUMMIT OF
PROSPERITY
XII. PARIS IN 1870,--AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER
XIII. THE SIEGE OF PARIS
XIV. THE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE
XV. THE COMMUNE
XVI. THE HOSTAGES
XVII. THE GREAT REVENGE
XVIII. THE FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC
XIX. THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS
XX. GENERAL BOULANGER
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
EMPEROR NAPOLEON I
CHARLES X
LOUIS PHILIPPE, DUKE OF ORLEANS
DUCHESSE DE BERRY
QUEEN MARIE AMÉLIE
LOUIS PHILIPPE, "THE CITIZEN KING"
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
LOUIS NAPOLEON, "THE PRINCE PRESIDENT"
DUC DE MORNY
EUGÉNIE
EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN
EMPEROR NAPOLEON III
EMPRESS EUGÉNIE
JULES SIMON
JULES FAVRE
MONSEIGNEUR DARBOY, ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS
PRESIDENT ADOLPH THIERS
LÉON GAMBETTA
COMTE DE CHAMBORD
PRESIDENT JULES GRÉVY
PRESIDENT SADI-CARNOT
GENERAL BOULANGER
FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
1830-1890.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY.
Louis XVIII. in 1815 returned to his throne, borne on the shoulders
of foreign soldiers, after the fight at Waterloo. The allied armies
had a second time entered France to make her pass under the saws
and harrows of humiliation. Paris was gay, for money was spent
freely by the invading strangers. Sacrifices on the altar of the
Emperor were over; enthusiasm for the extension of the great ideas
of the Revolution had passed away; a new generation had been born
which cared more for material prosperity than for such ideas; the
foundation of many fortunes had been laid; mothers who dreaded
the conscription, and men weary of war and politics, drew a long
breath, and did not regret the loss of that which had animated
a preceding generation, in a view of a peace which was to bring
wealth, comfort, and tranquillity into their own homes.
The _bourgeoisie_ of France trusted that it had seen the last of the
Great Revolution. It stood between the working-classes, who had no
voice in the politics of the Restoration, and the old nobility,--men
who had returned to France full of exalted expectations. The king
had to place himself on one side or the other. He might have been
the true Bourbon and headed the party of the returned _émigrés_,--in
which case his crown would not have stayed long upon his head; or
he might have made himself king of the _bourgeoisie_, opposed to
revolution, Napoleonism, or disturbances of any kind,--the party,
in short, of the Restoration of Peace: a peace that might outlast
his time; _et après moi le déluge!_
But animals which show neither teeth nor claws are seldom left in
peace, and Louis XVIII.'s reign--from 1814 to 1824--was full of
conspiracies. The royalty of the Restoration was only an ornament
tacked on to France. The Bourbon dynasty was a necessary evil, even
in the eyes of its supporters. "The Bourbons," said Chateaubriand,
"are the foam on the revolutionary wave that has brought them back
to power;" whilst every one knows Talleyrand's famous saying "that
after five and twenty years of exile they had nothing remembered
and nothing forgot." Of course the old nobility, who flocked back to
France in the train of the allied armies, expected the restoration
of their estates. The king had got his own again,--why should not
they get back theirs? And they imagined that France, which had
been overswept by successive waves of revolution, could go back
to what she had been under the old régime. This was impossible.
The returned exiles had to submit to the confiscation of their
estates, and receive in return all offices and employments in the
gift of the Government. The army which had conquered in a hundred
battles, with its marshals, generals, and _vieux moustaches_, was
not pleased to have young officers, chosen from the nobility, receive
commissions and be charged with important commands. On the other
hand, the Holy Alliance expected that the king of France would
join the despotic sovereigns of Russia, Austria, and Prussia in
their crusade against liberal ideas in other countries. Against
these difficulties, and many more, Louis XVIII. had to contend.
He was an infirm man, physically incapable of exertion,--a man
who only wanted to be let alone, and to avoid by every means in
his power the calamity of being again sent into exile.
He placed himself on the side of the stronger party,--he took part
with the _bourgeoisie_. His aim, as he himself said, was to _ménager_
his throne. He began his reign by having Fouché and Talleyrand, men
of the Revolution and the Empire, deep in his councils, though he
disliked both of them. Early in his reign occurred what was called
the White Terror, in the southern provinces, where the adherents of
the white flag repeated on a small scale the barbarities of the
Revolution.
The king was forced to put himself in opposition to the old nobles
who had adhered to him in his exile. They bitterly resented his
defection. They used to toast him as _le roi-quand-même_, "the
king in spite of everything." His own family held all the Bourbon
traditions, and were opposed to him. To them everything below the
rank of a noble with sixteen quarterings was _la canaille_.
Louis XVIII.'s favorite minister was M. Decazes, a man who studied
the interests of the _bourgeoisie_; and the royal family at last made
the sovereign so uncomfortable by their disapproval of his policy
that he sought repose in the society and intimacy (the connection is
said to have been nothing more) of a Madame de Cayla, with whom
he spent most of his leisure time.
Before the Revolution, Louis XVIII. had been known sometimes as
the Comte de Provence, and sometimes as Monsieur. Though physically
an inert man, he was by no means intellectually stupid, for he
could say very brilliant things from time to time, and was very
proud of them; but he was wholly unfit to be at the helm of the
ship of state in an unquiet sea.
He had passed the years of his exile in various European countries,
but the principal part of his time had been spent at Hartwell,
about sixty miles from London, where he formed a little court and
lived a life of royalty in miniature. Charles Greville, when a
very young man, visited Hartwell with his relative, the Duke of
Beaufort, shortly before the Restoration. He describes the king's
cabinet as being like a ship's cabin, the walls hung with portraits
of Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, Madame Elisabeth, and the dauphin.
Louis himself had a singular habit of swinging his body backward
and forward when talking, "which exactly resembled the heavings
of a ship at sea." "We were a very short time at table," Greville
adds; "the meal was a very plain one, and the ladies and gentlemen
all got up together. Each lady folded up her napkin, tied it round
with a bit of ribbon, and carried it away with her. After dinner we
returned for coffee and conversation to the drawing-room. Whenever
the king came in or went out of the room, Madame d'Angoulême made him
a low courtesy, which he returned by bowing and kissing her hand.
This little ceremony never failed to take place." They finished
the evening with whist, "his Majesty settling the points of the
game at a quarter of a shilling." "We saw the whole place," adds
Greville, "before we came away; they had certainly shown great
ingenuity in contriving to lodge so great a number of people in
and around the house. It was like a small rising colony."
Louis XVIII. was childless. His brother Charles and himself had
married sisters, princesses of the house of Savoy. These ladies were
amiable nonentities, and died during the exile of their husbands; but
Charles's wife had left him two sons,--Louis Antoine, known as the
Duc d'Angoulême, and Charles Ferdinand, known as the Duc de Berri.
The Duc d'Angoulême had married his cousin Marie Thérèse, daughter
of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette. Their union was childless. The
Duc de Berri had married Marie Caroline, a princess of Naples.
She had two children,--Louise, who when she grew up became Duchess
of Parma; and Henri, called variously the Duc de Bordeaux, Henri
V., and the Comte de Chambord.
All Louis XVIII.'s efforts during his ten years' reign were directed
to keeping things as quiet as he could during his lifetime. He
greatly disapproved of the policy of the Holy Alliance in forcing
him to make war on Spain in order to put down the Constitutionalists
under Riego and Mina. The expedition for that purpose was commanded
by the Duc d'Angoulême, who accomplished his mission, but with
little glory or applause except from flatterers. The chief military
incident of the campaign was the capture by the French of the forts
of Trocadéro, which commanded the entrance to Cadiz harbor.
The Duchesse d'Angoulême, that _filia dolorosa_ left to languish
alone in the Temple after her parents and her aunt were guillotined,
had been exchanged with Austria for Lafayette by Bonaparte in the
treaty of Campo-Formio; but her soul had been crushed within her
by her sorrows. Deeply pious, she forgave the enemies of her house,
she never uttered a word against the Revolution; but the sight
of her pale, set, sad face was a mute reproach to Frenchmen. She
could forgive, but she could not be gracious. At the Tuileries,
a place full of graceful memories of the Empress Josephine, she
presided as a _dévote_ and a dowdy. She could not have been expected
to be other than she was, but the nation that had made her so,
bore a grudge against her. There was nothing French about her. No
sympathies existed between her and the generation that had grown
up in France during the nineteenth century. Both she and her husband
were stiff, cold, ultra-aristocrats. In intelligence she was greatly
the duke's superior, as she was also in person, he being short,
fat, red-faced, with very thin legs.
The Duc de Berri was much more popular. He was a Frenchman in character.
His faults were French. He was pleasure-seeking, pleasure-loving,
and he married a young and pretty wife to whom he was far from
faithful, and who was as fond of pleasure as himself.
The Duc de Berri was assassinated by a man named Louvel, Feb. 13,
1820, as he was handing his wife into her carriage at the door of
the French Opera House. They carried him back into the theatre,
and there, in a side room, with the music of the opera going on
upon the stage, the plaudits of the audience ringing in his ears,
and ballet-girls flitting in and out in their stage dresses, the
heir of France gave up his life, with kindly words upon his dying
lips, reminding us of Charles II. on his deathbed.
As I have said, Louis XVIII.'s reign was not without plots and
conspiracies. One of those in 1823 was got up by the Carbonari.
Lafayette was implicated in it. It was betrayed, however, the night
before it was to have been put in execution, and such of its leaders
as could be arrested were guillotined. Lafayette was saved by the
fact that the day fixed upon for action was the anniversary of his
wife's death,--a day he always spent in her chamber in seclusion.
It may be desirable to say who were the Carbonari. "Carbone" is
Italian for charcoal. The Carbonari were charcoal-burners. The
conspirators took their name because charcoal-burners lived in
solitary places, and were disguised by the coal-dust that blackened
their faces. It was a secret society which extended throughout
France, Italy, and almost all Europe. It was joined by all classes.
Its members, under pain of death, were forced to obey the orders
of the society. The deliverance of Italy from the Austrians became
eventually the prime object of the institution.
Lafayette, during his visit to America in 1824, expressed himself
freely about the Bourbons. "France cannot be happy under their
rule," he said;[1] "and we must send them adrift. It would have been
done before now but for the hesitation of Laffitte. Two regiments
of guards, when ordered to Spain under the Duc d'Angoulême, halted
at Toulouse, and began to show symptoms of mutiny. The matter was
quieted, however, and the affair kept as still as possible. But
all was ready. I knew of the whole affair. All that was wanted
to make a successful revolution at that time was money. I went
to Laffitte; but he was full of doubts, and dilly-dallied with
the matter. Then I offered to do it without his help. Said I: 'On
the first interview that you and I have without witnesses, put
a million of francs, in bank-notes, on the mantelpiece, which I
will pocket unseen by you. Then leave the rest to me.' Laffitte
still fought shy of it, hesitated, deliberated, and at last decided
that he would have nothing at all to do with it."
[Footnote 1: Vincent Nolte, Fifty Years in Two Hemispheres.]
Here the gentleman to whom Lafayette was speaking exclaimed, "If
any one had told me this but yourself, General, I would not have
believed it."
Lafayette merely answered, "It was really so,"--a proof, thinks
the narrator, how fiercely the fire of revolution still burned
in the old man's soul.
The last months of Louis XVIII.'s life were embittered by changes
of ministry from semi-liberal to ultra-royalist, and by attempts
of the officers of the Crown to prosecute the newspapers for
free-speaking. He died, after a few days of illness and extreme
suffering, Sept. 15, 1824, and was succeeded by the Comte d'Artois,
his brother, as Charles X. This was the third time three brothers
had succeeded each other on the French throne.
Charles X. was another James II., with cold, harsh, narrow ideas
of religion, though religion had not influenced his early life
in matters of morality. He was, as I have said, a widower, with
one remaining son, the Duc d'Angoulême, and a little grandson, the
son of the Duc de Berri. His two daughters-in-law, the Duchesse
d'Angoulême and the Duchesse de Berri, were as unlike each other
as two women could be,--the one being an unattractive saint, the
other a fascinating sinner.
Charles X. was not like his brother,--distracted between two policies
and two opinions. He was an ultra-royalist. He believed that to the
victors belong the spoils; and as Bourbonism had triumphed, he wanted
to stamp out every remnant of the Revolution. Constitutionalism,
the leading idea of the day, was hateful to him. He is said to have
remarked, "I had rather earn my bread than be a king of England!"
He probably held the same ideas concerning royal prerogative as
those of his cousin, the king of Naples, expressed in a letter
found after the sack of the Tuileries in 1848.
"Liberty is fatal to the house of Bourbon; and as regards myself,
I am resolved to avoid, at any price, the fate of Louis XVI. My
people obey force, and bend their necks; but woe to me if they
should ever raise them under the impulse of those dreams which sound
so fine in the sermons of philosophers, and which it is impossible
to put in practice. With God's blessing, I will give prosperity
to my people, and a government as honest as they have a right to
expect; but I will be a king,--and that _always!_"
Charles X. was on the throne six years. He was a fine-looking man
and a splendid horseman,--which at first pleased the Parisians,
who had been disgusted with the unwieldiness and lack of royal
presence in Louis XVIII. His first act was a concession they little
expected, and one calculated to render him popular. He abridged
the powers of the censors of the Press. His minister at this time
was M. de Villèle, a man of whom it has been said that he had a
genius for trifles; but M. de Villèle having been defeated on some
measures that he brought before the Chamber of Deputies, Charles
X. was glad to remove him, and to appoint as his prime minister
his favorite, the Prince de Polignac. Charles Greville, who was
in Paris at the time of this appointment, writes: "Nothing can
exceed the violence of feeling that prevails. The king does nothing
but cry; Polignac is said to have the fatal obstinacy of a martyr,
the worst courage of the _ruat coelum_ sort."
[Illustration: _CHARLES X._]
Six months later Greville writes: "Nobody has an idea how things
will turn out, or what are Polignac's intentions or his resources."
He appeared calm and well satisfied, saying to those who claimed the
right to question him, that all would be well, though all France
and a clear majority in the Chambers were against him. "I am told,"
says Charles Greville, "that there is no revolutionary spirit abroad,
but a strong determination to provide for the stability of existing
institutions, and disgust at the obstinacy and the pretensions of
the king. It seems also that a desire to substitute the Orleans
for the reigning branch is becoming very general. It is said that
Polignac is wholly ignorant of France, and will not listen to the
opinions of those who could enlighten him. It is supposed that
Charles X. is determined to push matters to extremity; to try the
Chambers, and if his ministers are beaten, to dissolve the House
and to govern _par ordonnances du roi_." This prophecy, written
in March, 1830, foreshadowed exactly what happened in July of the
same year, when, as an outspoken English Tory told Henry Crabb
Robinson, in a reading-room at Florence: "The king of France has
sent the deputies about their business, has abolished the d----d
Constitution and the liberty of the Press, and proclaimed his own
power as absolute king."
"And what will the end be?" cried Robinson.
"It will end," said a Frenchman who was present, "in driving the
Bourbons out of France!"
During the last months of Charles X.'s reign France made an expedition
against the Dey of Algiers, which was the first step in the conquest
of Algeria. The immediate object of the expedition, however, was to
draw off the attention of a disaffected nation from local politics.
An army of 57,000 soldiers, 103 ships of war, and many transports,
was despatched to the coast of Barbary. The expedition was not
very glorious, but it was successful. Te Deums were sung in Paris,
the general in command was made a marshal, and his naval colleague
a peer.
The royalists of France were at this period divided into two parties;
the party of the king and Polignac, who were governed by the Jesuits,
looked for support to the clergy of France. The other party looked
to the army. Yet the most religious men in the country--men like M.
de la Ferronays, for example--condemned and regretted the obstinacy
of the king.
Louis Philippe, the Duke of Orleans, on whom all eyes were fixed,
was the son of that infamous Duke of Orleans who in the Revolution
proclaimed himself a republican, took the name of Philippe Égalité,
and voted for the execution of the king, drawing down upon himself
the rebuke of the next Jacobin whose turn it was to vote in the
convention, who exclaimed: "I was going to vote Yes, but I vote
No, that I may not tread in the steps of the man who has voted
before me."
Égalité was in the end a victim. He perished, after suffering great
poverty, leaving three sons and a daughter. The sons were Louis
Philippe, who became Duke of Orleans, the Comte de Beaujolais, and
the Duc de Montpensier. One of these had shared the imprisonment
of his father, and narrowly escaped the guillotine.
Louis Philippe had solicited from the Republic permission to serve
under Dumouriez in his celebrated campaign in the Low Countries.
He fought with distinguished bravery at Valmy and Jemappes as
Dumouriez's aide-de-camp; but when that general was forced to desert
his army and escape for his life, Louis Philippe made his escape
too. He went into Switzerland, and there taught mathematics in a
school. Thence he came to America, travelled through the United
States, and resided for some time at Brooklyn.
In 1808 he went out to the Mediterranean in an English man-of-war
in charge of his sick brother, the Comte de Beaujolais. The same
vessel carried Sir John Moore out to his command, and landed him at
Lisbon. Louis Philippe could not have had a very pleasant voyage,
for the English admiral, on board whose ship he was a passenger,
came up one day in a rage upon the quarter-deck, and declared aloud,
in the hearing of his officers, that the Duke of Orleans was such a
d----d republican he could not sit at the same table with him.[1]
[Footnote 1: My father was present, and often told the story]
There used to be stories floating about Paris concerning Louis
Philippe's birth and parentage,--stories, however, not to be believed,
and which broke down upon investigation. These made him out to
be the son of an Italian jailer, exchanged for a little girl who
had been born to the Duke of Orleans and his wife at a time when
it was a great object with them to have a son. The little girl
grew up in the jailer Chiappini's house under the name of Maria
Stella Petronilla. There is little doubt that she was a changeling,
but the link is imperfect which would connect her with the Duke
and Duchess of Orleans. She was ill-treated by the jailer's wife,
but was very beautiful. Lord Newburgh, an English nobleman, saw
her and married her. Her son succeeded his father as a peer of
England. After Lord Newburgh's death his widow married a Russian
nobleman. Chiappini on his death-bed confessed to this lady all he
knew about her origin, and she persuaded herself that her father
must have been the Duke of Orleans. She took up her residence in the
Rue Rivoli, overlooking the gardens of the Tuileries, and received
some small pension from the benevolent royal family of France. She
died in 1845.
But whoever the mother of Louis Philippe may have been, she whom
he and Madame Adélaide looked up to and loved as though she had
been their second mother, was Madame de Genlis. In her company
Louis Philippe witnessed, with boyish exultation, the destruction
of the Bastile. To her he wrote after the great day when in the
Champ de Mars the new Constitution was sworn to both by king and
people: "Oh, my mother! there are but two things that I supremely
love,--the new constitution and you!"
On Christmas Day, 1809, he married at Palermo the Princesse Marie
Amélie, niece to Marie Antoinette, and aunt to the future Duchesse
de Berri.
No breath of scandal ever disturbed the matrimonal happiness of
Louis Philippe and Marie Amélie. They had a noble family of five
sons and three daughters, all distinguished by their ability and
virtues. I shall have to tell hereafter how devotion to the interests
of his family was one cause of Louis Philippe's overthrow.
In 1814, when Napoleon abdicated at Fontainebleau; Louis Philippe
left Palermo, attended only by one servant, and made his way to
Paris and the home of his family, the Palais Royal. He hurried
into the house, and in spite of the opposition of the concierge,
who took him for a madman, he rushed to the staircase; but before
he ascended it he fell upon his knees, and bursting into tears,
kissed the first step before him.
This was probably the most French-like thing in Louis Philippe's
career. He was far more like an Englishman than a Frenchman. Had
he been an English prince, his faults would have seemed to his
people like virtues.
Of course the son of Égalité could be no favorite with the elder
Bourbons; but he soon became the hope of the middle classes, and
was very intimate with Laffitte the banker, and with Lafayette,
who, as we have seen, were both implicated in conspiracies seven
years before the Revolution of 1830. He was for many years not
rich, but he and the ladies of his house were very charitable.
Madame Adélaïde, speaking one day to a friend[1] of the reports
that were circulated concerning her brother's parsimony, said,--
"People ask what he does with his money. To satisfy them it would
be necessary to publish the names of honorable friends of liberty
who, in consequence of misfortunes, have solicited and obtained
from him sums of twenty, thirty, forty, and even three hundred
thousand francs. They forget all the extraordinary expenses my
brother has had to meet, all the demands he has to comply with.
Out of his income he has furnished the Palais Royal, improved the
_apanages_ of the House of Orleans; and yet sooner or later all
this property will revert to the nation. When we returned to France
our inheritance was so encumbered that my brother was advised to
decline administering on the estate; but to that neither he nor
I would consent. For all these things people make no allowances.
Truly, we know not how to act to inspire the confidence which our
opinions and our consciences tell us we fully deserve."
[Footnote 1: M. Appert, chaplain to Queen Marie Amélie.]
[Illustration: _LOUIS PHILLIPPE_. (_Duke of Orleans_.)]
It is not necessary in a sketch so brief to go minutely into politics.
Prince Polignac and the king dissolved the Chambers, having found the
deputies unwilling to approve their acts, and a few days afterwards
the king published his own will and pleasure in what were called
_Les Ordonnances du Roi_. One of these restricted the liberty of
the Press, and was directed against journalism; another provider
new rules, by which the ministry might secure a more subservient
Chamber.
As we have seen, these _ordonnances_ even in foreign countries
spread dismay. The revolution that ensued was the revolution of
the great bankers and the business men,--the _haute bourgeoisie_.
In general, revolutions are opposed by the moneyed classes; but
this was a revolution effected by them to save themselves and their
property from such an outbreak as came forty years later, which
we call the Commune. The working-classes had little to do with
the Revolution of 1830, except, indeed, to fight for it, nor had
they much to do with the Revolution of 1848. It was the moneyed
men of France who saw that the resuscitated principles of the old
régime had been stretched to their very uttermost all over Europe,
and that if they did not check them by a well-conducted revolution,
worse would be sure to come.
On July 26, 1830, the _ordonnances_ appeared. The working-classes
seemed to hear of them without emotion; but their effect on all those
who had any stake in the prosperity of the country was very great.
By nightfall the agitation had spread in Paris to all classes. King
Charles X. was at Saint-Cloud, apparently apprehending no popular
outbreak. No military preparations in case of disturbances had been
made, though on the morning of the 26th the Duc d'Angoulême sent
word to Marshal Marmont to take command of the troops in Paris,
"as there might be some windows broken during the day."
The next morning trouble was begun by the journeymen printers,
who, as the newspapers on which they worked had been prohibited,
were sent home from their printing-offices. Before long they were
joined by others, notably by the cadets from the Polytechnic School.
Casimir Perrier and Laffitte were considered chiefs of the revolution.
The cry was everywhere "Vive la Charte,"--a compendium that had
been drawn up of the franchises and privileges of Frenchmen. M.
Thiers, then young, counselled moderation in the emergency.
On July 28 the tricolored flag was again unfurled in Paris,--those
colors dear to Frenchmen, who had long hated the white flag, which
represented in their eyes despotism and the rule of the Bourbons!
The National Guard (or militia) was called out, and the populace
began erecting barricades.
It is surprising how rapidly in an emergency a barricade can be
formed. A carriage or two is overturned, furniture is brought out
from neighboring houses, a large tree, if available, is cut down,
and the whole is strengthened with paving-stones. By night all
Paris had become a field of battle.
In vain Marshal Marmont had sent courier after courier to Saint-Cloud,
imploring the king and his ministers to do something that might allay
the fury of the people. No answer was returned. The marshal went
himself at last, and the king, after listening to his representation
of the state of Paris, said calmly: "Then it is really a revolt?"
"No, sire," replied Marmont; "it is not a revolt, but a revolution."
As soon as the idea of ruin broke upon the royal household, everything
at Saint-Cloud became confusion and despair. The Duchesse de Berri
wanted to take her son, the Duc de Bordeaux, into Paris, hoping
that the people would rally round a woman and the young heir to
the throne. Some implored the king to treat with the insurgents;
some to put himself at the head of his troops; some to sacrifice
the _ordonnances_ and the most obnoxious of his ministers.
The Parisian mob by this time had its blood up. It fought with any
weapons that came to hand. Muskets were loaded with type seized in
the printing-offices. At the Hôtel-de-Ville, Laffitte, Lafayette,
and other leading men opposed to the policy of Charles X. were
assembled in council.
The troops at first fought in their king's cause bravely, but without
enthusiasm. Subsequently the Duke of Wellington was asked if he
could not have suppressed the revolution with the garrison of Paris,
which was twenty thousand men. He answered, "Easily; but then they
must have been fighting for a cause they had at heart."
The fight continued all the night of the 28th, bloody and furious.
By morning the soldiers were short of ammunition. As usual, the
Swiss Guard was stanch, but the French soldiers faltered. About
midday of the 29th two regiments went over to the insurgents.
Two peers were at this juncture sent to negotiate with the royal
family. The ministers, with Polignac at their head, went out also
to Saint-Cloud. "Sire," said one of the negotiators, "if in an
hour the _ordonnances_ are not rescinded, there will be neither
king nor kingdom." "Could you not offer me two hours?" said the
king, sarcastically, as he turned to leave the chamber. The envoy,
an old man, fell on his knees and seized the skirt of the king's
coat. "Think of the dauphine!" he cried, imploringly. The king
seemed moved, but made no answer.
In Paris, Marmont, whose heart was with the insurgents, endeavored
nevertheless to do his duty; but his troops deserted him. On learning
this, Talleyrand walked up to his clock, saying solemnly: "Take
notice that on July 29, 1830, at five minutes past twelve o'clock,
the elder branch of the Bourbons ceased to reign."
The Louvre was taken, and the Tuileries. There was no general pillage,
the insurgents contenting themselves with breaking the statues of
kings and other signs of royalty.
One of the most obnoxious persons in Paris was the archbishop. The
mob fought to the music of "Ça ira." with new words:--
"C'est l'Archevêque de Paris
Qui est Jésuite comme Charles Dix.
Dansons la Carmagnole; dansons la Carmagnole,
Et ça ira!"
There were deeds of heroism, deeds of self-sacrifice. deeds of
loyalty, deeds of cruelty, and deeds of mercy, as there always
are in Paris in times of revolution. By nightfall on the 29th the
fighting was over. It only remained to be seen what would be done
with the victory. The evening before, Laffitte had sent a messenger
to Louis Philippe, then residing two miles from Paris, at his Château
de Neuilly, warning him to hold himself in readiness for anything
that might occur. Lafayette had been made governor of Paris, and
thus held in his hand the destinies of France. Under him served
an improvised municipal commune.
By this time Prince Polignac had been dismissed, and the Duc de
Montemart had been summoned by the king to form a more liberal
ministry. Everything was in confusion in the palace. The weary
troops, who had marched to the defence of Saint-Cloud when the
struggle in Paris became hopeless, were scattered about the park
unfed and uncared-for.
The king, having at last made up his mind to yield, sent the envoys
who had been despatched to him, back to Paris, saying: "Go, gentlemen,
go; tell the Parisians that the king revokes the _ordonnances_.
But I declare to you that I believe this step will be fatal to
the interests of France and of the monarchy."
The envoys on reaching Paris were met by the words: "Too late!
The throne of Charles X. has already passed from him in blood."
The king, however, confident that after such concessions the revolt
was at an end, played whist during the evening, while the Duc
d'Angoulême sat looking over a book of geography. At midnight,
however, both were awakened to hear the news from Paris, and then
Charles X.'s confidence gave way. He summoned his new prime minister
and sent him on a mission to the capital. The Duc d'Angoulême,
however, who was opposed to any compromise with rebels, would not
suffer the minister to pass his outposts. The Duc de Montemart,
anxious to execute his mission, walked all night round the outskirts
of Paris, and entered it at last on the side opposite to Saint-Cloud.
The city lay in the profound silence of the hour before day.[1]
[Footnote 1: Louis Blanc, Dix Ans. Histoire de trente heures, 1830.]
The question of who should succeed Charles X. had already been
debated in Laffitte's chamber. Laffitte declared himself for Louis
Philippe, the Duke of Orleans. Some were for the son of Napoleon.
Many were for the Duc de Bordeaux, with Louis Philippe during his
minority as lieutenant-general of the kingdom. "That might have been
yesterday," said M. Laffitte, "if the Duchesse de Berri, separating
her son's cause from that of his grandfather, had presented herself in
Paris, holding Henri V. in one hand, and in the other the tricolor."
"The tricolor!" exclaimed the others; "why, they look upon the
tricolor as the symbol of all crimes!" "Then what can be done for
them?" replied Laffitte.
At this crisis the poet Béranger threw all his influence into the
party of the Duke of Orleans, and almost at the same moment appeared
a placard on all the walls of Paris:--
"Charles X. is deposed.
A Republic would embroil us with all Europe.
The Duke of Orleans is devoted to the cause of the Revolution.
The Duke of Orleans never made war on France.
The Duke of Orleans fought at Jemappes.
The Duke of Orleans will be a Citizen-King.
The Duke of Orleans has worn the tricolor under fire: he
will wear the tricolor as king."
Meantime, early on the evening of the 29th, Neuilly had been menaced
by the troops under the Duc d'Angoulême, and Madame Adélaïde had
persuaded her brother to quit the place. When M. Thiers and the
artist, Ary Scheffer, arrived at Neuilly, bearing a request that
the Duke of Orleans would appear in Paris, Marie Amélie received
them. Aunt to the Duchesse de Berri and attached to the reigning
family, she was shocked by the idea that her husband and her children
might rise upon their fall; but Madame Adélaïde exclaimed: "Let
the Parisians make my brother what they please,--President, _Garde
National_, or Lieutenant-General,--so long as they do not make
him an exile."
Louis Philippe, who was at Raincy (or supposed to be there, for
the envoys always believed he was behind a curtain during their
interview with his wife and sister), having received a message from
Madame Adélaïde, set out soon after for Paris. The resolution of
the leaders of the Revolution had been taken, but in the Municipal
Commune at the Hôtel-de-Ville there was still much excitement.
There a party desired a republic, and offered to place Lafayette
at its head.
At Saint-Cloud the Duchesse de Berri and her son had been sent off
to the Trianon; but the king remained behind. He referred everything
to the dauphin (the Duc d'Angoulême); the dauphin referred everything
to the king.
The dauphin's temper was imperious, and at this crisis it involved
him in a personal collision with Marshal Marmont. In attempting
to tear the marshal's sword from his side, he cut his fingers. At
sight of the royal blood the marshal was arrested, and led away as
a traitor. The king, however, at once released him, with apologies.
When the leaders in Paris had decided to offer the
lieutenant-generalship of France to Louis Philippe during the minority
of the Duc de Bordeaux, he could not be found. He was not at Raincy,
he was not at Neuilly. About midnight, July 29, he entered Paris on
foot and in plain clothes, having clambered over the barricades.
He at once made his way to his own residence, the Palais Royal,
and there waited events.
At the same moment the Duchesse de Berri was leaving Saint-Cloud with
her son. Before daylight Charles X. followed them to the Trianon; and
the soldiers in the Park at Saint-Cloud, who for twenty-four hours
had eaten nothing, were breaking their fast on dainties brought
out from the royal kitchen.
The proposal that Louis Philippe should accept the
lieutenant-generalship was brought to him on the morning of July
30, after the proposition had first been submitted to Talleyrand, who
said briefly: "Let him accept it." Louis Philippe did so, accepting
at the same time the tricolor, and promising a charter which should
guarantee parliamentary privileges. He soon after appeared at a
window of the Hôtel-de-Ville, attended by Lafayette and Laffitte,
bearing the tricolored flag between them, and was received with
acclamations by the people. But there were men in Paris who still
desired a republic, with Lafayette at its head. Lafayette persisted
in assuring them that what France wanted was a king surrounded
by republican institutions, and he commended Louis Philippe to
them as "the best of republics." This idea in a few hours rapidly
gained ground.
By midday on July 30th Paris was resuming its usual aspect. Charles
X., finding that the household troops were no longer to be depended
on, determined to retreat over the frontier, and left the Trianon
for the small palace of Rambouillet, where Marie Louise and the King
of Rome had sought refuge in the first hours of their adversity.
The king reached Rambouillet in advance of the news from Paris,[1]
and great was the surprise of the guardian of the Château to see
him drive up in a carriage and pair with only one servant to attend
him. The king pushed past the keeper of the palace, who was walking
slowly backward before him, and turned abruptly into a small room
on the ground floor, where he locked himself in and remained for
many hours. When he came forth, his figure seemed to have shrunk,
his complexion was gray, his eyes were red and swollen. He had
spent his time in burning up old love-letters,--reminiscences of
a lady to whom he had been deeply attached in his youth.
[Footnote 1: All the Year Round, 1885.]
The mob of Paris having ascertained that the fugitive royal family
were pausing at Rambouillet, about twelve miles from the capital,
set out to see what mischief could be done in that direction. The
Duchesse de Berri, her children, and the Duc d'Angoulême were at the
Château de Maintenon, and the king, upon the approach of the mob,
composed only of roughs, determined to join them. As he passed out of
the chateau, which he had used as a hunting-lodge, he stretched out
his hand with a gesture of despair to grasp those of some friends
who had followed him to Rambouillet, and who were waiting for his
orders. He had none to give them. He spoke no word of advice, but
walked down the steps to his carriage, and was driven to the Château
de Maintenon to rejoin his family.
The mob, when it found that the king had fled, was persuaded to
quit Rambouillet by having some of the most brutal among them put
into the king's coaches. Attended by the rest of the unruly crowd,
they were driven back to Paris, and assembling before the Palais
Royal, shouted to Louis Philippe: "We have brought you your coaches.
Come out and receive them!" Eighteen years later, these coaches
were consumed in a bonfire in the Place du Carrousel.
At the Château de Maintenon all was confusion and discouragement,
when suddenly the dauphine (the Duchesse d'Angoulême) arrived.
She, whom Napoleon had said was the only man of her family, was in
Burgundy when she received news of the outbreak of the Revolution.
At once she crossed several provinces of France in disguise. Harsh
of voice, stern of look, cold in her bearing, she was nevertheless
a favorite with the household troops whose spirit was reanimated
by the sight of her.
From Rambouillet the king had sent his approbation of the appointment
of the Duke of Orleans as lieutenant-general during the minority
of Henri V. Louis Philippe's answer to this communication so well
satisfied the old king that he persuaded the dauphin to join with
him in abdicating all rights in favor of Henri V., the little Duc
de Bordeaux. Up to this moment Charles seems never to have suspected
that more than such an abdication could be required of him. But
by this time it was evident that the successful Parisians would
be satisfied with nothing less than the utter overthrow of the
Bourbons. Their choice lay between a constitutional monarchy with
Louis Philippe at its head, or a renewal of the attempt to form
a republic.
The populace, on hearing that the abdication of the king and of the
dauphin had been announced to the Chamber of Deputies, assembled
to the number of sixty thousand, and insisted on the trial and
imprisonment of the late king. Hearing this, the royal family left
the Château de Maintenon the next morning, the king and the Duchesse
d'Angoulême taking leave of their faithful troops, and desiring
them to return to Paris, there to make their submission to the
lieutenant-general, "who had taken all measures for their security
and prosperity in the future."
During the journey to Dreux, Charles X. appeared to those around
him to accept his misfortunes from the hand of Heaven. The Duchesse
d'Angoulême, pale and self-contained, with all her wounds opened
afresh, could hardly bring herself to quit France for the third
time. Her husband was stolid and stupid. The Duchesse de Berri
was almost gay.
Meantime old stories were being circulated throughout France
discrediting the legitimacy of the Duc de Bordeaux, the posthumous
son of the Duc de Berri. He had been born seven months after his
father's death, at dead of night, with no doctor in attendance,
nor any responsible witnesses to attest that he was heir to the
crown. Louis Philippe had protested against his legitimacy within
a week after his birth. There was no real reason for suspecting his
parentage; nobody believes the slander now, but it is not surprising
that in times of such excitement, with such great interests at
stake, the circumstances attending his birth should have provoked
remark. They were both unfortunate and unusual.
Charles X. was the calmest person in the whole royal party. He
was chiefly concerned for the comfort of the rest. The dauphine
wept, her husband trembled, the children were full of excitement
and eager for play. Charles was unmoved, resigned; only the sight
of a tricolored flag overcame him.
He complained much of the haste with which he was escorted through
France to Cherbourg; but that haste probably insured his safety.
At Cherbourg two ships awaited him,--the "Great Britain" and the
"Charles Carroll;" both were American-built, and both had formed
part of the navy of Napoleon.
The day was fine when the royal fugitives embarked. In a few hours
they were off the Isle of Wight. For several days they stayed on
board, waiting till the English Government should complete arrangements
which would enable them to land. They had come away almost without
clothes, and the Duchesses of Angoulême and Berri were indebted for
an outfit to an ex-ambassadress. The king said to some of those
who came on board to see him, that he and his son had retired into
private life, and that his grandson must wait the progress of events;
also, that his conscience reproached him with nothing in his conduct
towards his people.
After a few days the party landed in England and took up their
abode at Ludworth Castle. Afterwards, at the king's own request,
the old Palace of Holyrood, in Edinburgh, was assigned him. There
was some fear at the time lest popular feeling should break out
in some insult to him or his family. To avert this, Sir Walter
Scott, though then in failing health, wrote in a leading Edinburgh
newspaper as follows:--
"We are enabled to announce from authority that Charles of Bourbon,
the ex-king of France, is about to become once more our fellow-citizen,
though probably only for a limited space, and is presently about to
inhabit the apartments again that he so long occupied in Holyrood
House. This temporary arrangement has been made, it is said, in
compliance with his own request, with which our benevolent monarch
immediately complied, willing to consult in every way possible
the feelings of a prince under pressure of misfortunes, which are
perhaps the more severe if incurred through bad advice, error, or
rashness. The attendants of the late sovereign will be reduced
to the least possible number, and consist chiefly of ladies and
children, and his style of life will be strictly retired. In these
circumstances it would be unworthy of us as Scotchmen, or as men,
if this unfortunate family should meet with a word or a look from
the meanest individual tending to aggravate feelings which must
be at present so acute as to receive injury from insults, which
in other times would be passed over with perfect disregard. His
late opponents in his kingdom have gained the applause of Europe
for the generosity with which they have used their victory, and
the respect which they have paid to themselves in their moderation
towards an enemy. It would be a great contrast to that part of
their conduct which has been most generally applauded, were we,
who are strangers to the strife, to affect a deeper resentment
than those concerned more closely. Those who can recollect the
former residence of this unhappy prince in our Northern capital
cannot but remember the unobtrusive, quiet manner in which his
little court was then conducted, and now, still further restricted
and diminished, he may naturally expect to be received with civility
and respect by a nation whose good will he has done nothing to
forfeit. Whatever may have been his errors towards his own subjects,
we cannot but remember in his adversity that he did not in his
prosperity forget that Edinburgh had extended him her hospitality,
but that at the period when the fires consumed so much of our city,
he sent a princely benefaction to the sufferers.... If there be
any who entertain angry or invidious recollections of late events
in France, they ought to remark that the ex-monarch has by his
abdication renounced the conflict, into which perhaps he was engaged
by bad advice, that he can no longer be an object of resentment
to the brave, but remains, to all, the most striking example of
the instability of human affairs which our unstable times have
afforded. He may say, with our own deposed Richard,--
'With mine own hands I washed away my blame;
With mine own hands I gave away my crown;
With my own tongue deny my sacred state.'
"He brings among us his 'gray, discrownèd head,' and in a 'nation
of gentlemen,' as we were emphatically termed by the very highest
authority, it is impossible, I trust, to find a man mean enough
to insult the slightest hair of it."
Charles X. was greatly indebted to this letter for the cordiality
of his reception at Edinburgh, where he lived in dignified retirement
for about two years; then, finding that the climate was too cold
for his old age, and that the English Government was disquieted
because of the attempts of the Duchesse de Berri to revive her
son's claims to the French throne, he made his way to Bohemia,
and lived for a while in the Castle of Prague. At last he decided
to make his final residence in the Tyrol, not far from the warm
climate of Italy. It is said that as the exiled, aged king cast
a last look at the Gothic towers of the Castle of Prague, he said
to those about him: "We are leaving yonder walls, and know not to
what we may be going, like the patriarchs who knew not as they
journeyed where they would pitch their tents."[1]
[Footnote 1: Memoirs of the Duchesse d'Angoulême.]
On reaching the Baths of Töplitz, where the waters seemed to agree
with him, and where he wished to rest awhile, he found it needful
to "move on," for the house he occupied had been engaged for the
king of Prussia. The cholera, too, was advancing. The exiled party
reached Budweiz, a mountain village with a rustic inn, and there
it was forced to halt for some weeks, for the Duc de Bordeaux was
taken ill with cholera. It was a period of deep anxiety to those
about him, but at last he recovered.
After trying several residences in the Tyrolese mountains, to which
the old king had gone largely in hopes that he might enjoy the
pleasures of the chase, the exiled family fixed its residence at
Goritz towards the end of October, 1836. The king was then in his
eightieth year, but so hale and active that he spent whole mornings
on foot, with his gun, upon the mountains.
The weather changed soon after the family had settled at Goritz.
The keen winter winds blew down from the snow mountains, but the
king did not give up his daily sport. One afternoon, after a cold
morning spent upon the hills, he was seized at evening service
in the chapel with violent spasms. These passed off, but on his
joining his family later, its members were struck by the change
in his appearance. In a few hours he seemed to have aged years.
At night he grew so ill that extreme unction was administered to
him. It was an attack of cholera. When dying, he blessed his little
grandchildren, the boy and girl, who, notwithstanding the nature of
his illness, were brought to him. "God preserve you, dear children,"
he said. "Walk in paths of righteousness. Don't forget me.... Pray
for me sometimes."
He died Nov. 6, 1836, just one week after Louis Napoleon made his
first attempt to have himself proclaimed Emperor of the French,
at Strasburg.
He was buried near Goritz, in a chapel belonging to the Capuchin
Friars. In another chapel belonging to the same lowly order in
Vienna, had been buried four years before, another claimant to the
French throne, the Duc de Reichstadt, the only son of Napoleon.
On the coffin of the ex-king was inscribed,--
"Here lieth the High, the Potent, and most Excellent Prince, Charles
Tenth of that name; by the Grace of God King of France and of Navarre.
Died at Goritz, Nov. 6, 1836, aged 79 years and 28 days."
All the courts of Europe put on mourning for him, that of France
excepted. The latter part of his life, with its reverses and
humiliations, he considered an expiation, not for his political
errors, but for the sins of his youth.
As he drew near his end, his yearnings after his lost country increased
more and more. He firmly believed that the day would come when his
family would be restored to the throne of France, but he believed
that it would not be by conspiracy or revolt, but by the direct
interposition of God. That time did almost come in 1871, after
the Commune.