CHAPTER XVII.

DEATH OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE.

Since Napoleon's star had grown pale, and himself compelled to leave

France as an exile, life seemed to Josephine also to be enveloped in a

gloomy mourning-veil; she felt that her sun had set, and night come upon

her. But she kept this feeling a profound secret, and never allowed a

complaint or sigh to betray her grief to her tenderly-beloved daughter.

Her complaints were for the emperor, her sighs for the fate of her

children and grandchildren. She seemed to have forgotten herself; her

wishes were all for others. With the pleasing address and grace of which

age could not deprive her, she did the honors of her house to the

foreign sovereigns in Malmaison, and assumed a forced composure, in

which her soul had no share. She would have preferred to withdraw with

her grief to the retirement of her chambers, but she thought it her duty

to make this sacrifice for the welfare of her daughter and

grandchildren; and she, the loving mother, could do what Hortense's

pride would not permit--she could entreat the Emperor Alexander to take

pity on her daughter's fate.

When, therefore, the czar had finally succeeded in establishing her

future, and had received the letters-patent which secured to the queen

the duchy of St. Leu Alexander hastened to Malmaison, to communicate

this good news to the Empress Josephine.

She did not reward him with words, but with gushing tears, as she

extended to the emperor both hands. She then begged him, with touching

earnestness, to accept from her a remembrance of this hour.

The emperor pointed to a cup, on which a portrait of Josephine was

painted, and begged her to give him that.

"_No_, sire," said she; "such a cup can be bought anywhere. But I wish

to give you something that cannot be had anywhere else in the world,

and that will sometimes remind you of me. It is a present that I

received from Pope Pius VII., on the day of my coronation. I present you

with this token in commemoration of the day on which you bring my

daughter the ducal crown, in order that it may remind you of mother and

daughter alike--of the dethroned empress and of the dethroned queen."

This present, which she now extended to the emperor with a charming

smile, was an antique cameo, of immense size, and so wondrously-well

executed that the empress could well say its equal was nowhere to be

found in the world. On this cameo the heads of Alexander the Great and

of his father, Philip of Macedonia, were portrayed, side by side; and

the beauty of the workmanship, as well as the size of the stone, made

this cameo a gem of inestimable value. And for this reason the emperor

at first refused to accept this truly imperial present, and he yielded

only when he perceived that his refusal would offend the empress, who

seemed to be more pale and irritable than usual.

Josephine was, in reality, sadder than usual, for the royal family of

the Bourbons had on this day caused her heart to bleed anew. Josephine

had read an article in the journals, in which, in the most contemptuous

and cruel terms, attention was called to the fact that the eldest son of

the Queen of Holland had been interred in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame,

and that the Minister Blacas had now issued an order to have the coffin

removed from its resting-place, and buried in an ordinary grave-yard.

Hortense, who had read this article, had hastened to Paris, in order

that she might herself superintend the removal of the body of her

beloved child from Notre-Dame, and its reinterment in the Church of

St. Leu.

While she informed the emperor of this new insult, Josephine's whole

figure trembled, and a deathly pallor overspread her countenance.

Josephine lacked the strength to conceal her sufferings to-day, for the

first time; Hortense was not present, and she might therefore, for once,

allow herself the sad consolation of showing, bereft of its smile and

its paint, the pale countenance, which death had already

lightly touched.

"Your majesty is ill!" exclaimed the emperor, in dismay.

With a smile, which brought tears to Alexander's eyes, Josephine pointed

to her breast, and whispered: "Sire, I have received the

death-wound here!"

Yes, she was right; she had received a fatal wound, and her heart was

bleeding to death.

Terrified by Josephine's condition, the emperor hurried to Paris, and

sent his own physician to inquire after her condition. When the latter

returned, he informed the emperor that Josephine was dangerously ill,

and that he did not believe her recovery possible.

He was right, and Alexander saw the empress no more! Hortense and

Eugene, her two children, held a sad watch at their mother's bedside

throughout the night. The best physicians were called in, but these

only confirmed what the Russian physician had said--the condition of the

empress was hopeless. Her heart was broken! With strong hands, she had

held it together as long as her children's welfare seemed to require.

Now that Hortense's future was also assured--now that she knew that her

grandchildren would, at least, not be compelled to wander about the

world as exiled beggars--now Josephine withdrew her hands from her

heart, and suffered it to bleed to death.

On the 29th of May, 1814, the Empress Josephine died, of an illness

which had apparently lasted but two days. Hortense had not heard her

mother's death-sigh; when she re-entered the room with Eugene, after her

mother had received the sacrament from Abbé Bertrand--when she saw her

mother, with outstretched arms, vainly endeavoring to speak to

them--Hortense fainted away at her mother's bedside, and the empress

breathed her last sigh in Eugene's arms.

The intelligence of the death of the empress affected Paris profoundly.

It seemed as though all the city had forgotten for a day that Napoleon

was no longer the ruler of France, and that the Bourbons had reascended

the throne of their fathers. All Paris mourned; for the hearts of the

French people had not forgotten this woman, who had so long been their

benefactress, and of whom each could relate the most touching traits of

goodness, of generosity, and of gentleness.

Josephine, now that she was dead, was once more enthroned as empress in

the hearts of the French people and thousands poured into Malmaison, to

pay their last homage to their deceased empress. Even the Faubourg St.

Germain mourned with the Parisians; these haughty and insolent

royalists, who had returned with the Bourbons, may, perhaps, for a

moment, have recalled the benefits which the empress had shown them,

when, as the mighty Empress of France, she employed the half of her

allowance for the relief of the emigrants. They had returned without

thinking of the thanks they owed their forgotten benefactress; now that

she was dead, they no longer withheld the tribute of their admiration.

"Alas!" exclaimed Madame Ducayla, the king's friend; "alas! how

interesting a lady was this Josephine! What tact, what goodness! How

well she knew how to do everything! And she shows her tact and good

taste to the last, in dying just at this moment!"

Immediately after the death of the empress, Eugene had conducted the

queen from the death-chamber, almost violently, and had taken her and

her children to St. Leu. The body of the empress was interred in

Malmaison, and followed to the grave by her two grandchildren only.

Grief had made both of her children severely ill, and the little princes

were followed, not by her relatives, but by the Russian General Von

Sacken, who represented the emperor, and by the equipages of all those

kings and princes who had helped to hurl the Bonapartes from their

thrones and restore the Bourbons.

The emperor passed his last night in France, before leaving for

England, at St. Leu; and, on taking leave of Eugene and Hortense, who,

at the earnest solicitation of her brother, had left her room for the

first time since her mother's death, for the purpose of seeing the

emperor, he assured them of his unchangeable friendship and attachment.

As he knew that, among those whom he strongly suspected, Pozzo di

Borgo[29], the ambassador he left behind him in Paris, was an

irreconcilable enemy of Napoleon and his family, he had assigned to duty

at the embassy as _attaché_, a gentleman selected for this purpose by

Louise de Cochelet--M. de Boutiakin--and it was through him that the

emperor directed that the letters and wishes of the queen and of her

faithful young lady friend should be received and answered.

[Footnote 29: Upon receiving the intelligence of the death of the

emperor at St. Helena, Pozzo di Borgo said: "I did not kill him, but I

threw the last handful of earth on his coffin, in order that he might

never rise again."]

A few days later Eugene also left St. Leu and his sister Hortense, to

return, with the King of Bavaria, to his new home in Germany. It was not

until his departure that Hortense felt to its full extent the gloomy

loneliness and dreary solitude by which she was surrounded. She had not

wept over the downfall of all the grandeur and magnificence by which she

had formerly been surrounded; she had not complained when the whirlwind

of fate hurled to the ground the crowns of all her relations, but had

bowed her head to the storm with resignation, and smiled at the loss of

her royal titles; but now, as she stood in her parlor at St. Leu and saw

none about her but her two little boys and the few ladies who still

remained faithful--now, Hortense wept.

"Alas!" she cried, bursting into tears, as she extended her hand to

Louise de Cochelet, "alas! my courage is at an end! My mother is dead,

my brother has left me, the Emperor Alexander will soon forget his

promised protection, and I alone must contend, with my two children,

against all the annoyances and enmities to which the name I bear will

subject me! I fear I shall live to regret that I allowed myself to be

persuaded to abandon my former plan. Will the love I bear my country

recompense me for the torments which are in store for me?"

The queen's dark forebodings were to be only too fully realized. In the

great and solemn hour of misfortune, Fate lifts to mortal vision the

veil that conceals the future, and, like the Trojan prophetess, we see

the impending evil, powerless to avert it.

BOOK III.

_THE RESTORATION._

CHAPTER I.

THE RETURN OF THE BOURBONS.

On the 12th of April, Count d'Artois, whom Louis XVIII. had sent in

advance, and invested with the dignity of a lieutenant-general of

France, made his triumphal entry into Paris. At the gates of the city,

he was received by the newly-formed provisional government, Talleyrand

at its head; and here it was that Count d'Artois replied to the address

of that gentleman in the following words: "Nothing is changed in France,

except that from to-day there will be one Frenchman more in the land."

The people received him with cold curiosity, and the allied troops

formed a double line for his passage to the Tuileries, at which the

ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain, adorned with white lilies and white

cockades, received him with glowing enthusiasm. Countess Ducayla,

afterward the well-known friend of Louis XVIII., had been one of the

most active instruments of the restoration, and she it was who had first

unfolded again in France the banner of the Bourbons--the white flag. A

few days before the entrance of the prince, she had gone, with a number

of her royalist friends, into the streets, in order to excite the people

to some enthusiasm for the legitimate dynasty. But the people and the

army had still preserved their old love for the emperor, and the

proclamation of Prince Schwartzenberg, read by Bauvineux in the streets,

was listened to in silence. True, the royalists cried, _"Vive le roi!"_

at the end of this reading, but the people remained indifferent

and mute.

This sombre silence alarmed Countess Ducayla; it seemed to indicate a

secret discontent with the new order of things. She felt that this

sullen people must be inflamed, and made to speak with energy and

distinctness. To awaken enthusiasm by means of words and proclamations

had been attempted in vain; now the countess determined to attempt to

arouse them by another means--to astonish them by the display of a

striking symbol--to show them the white flag of the Bourbons!

She gave her companion, Count de Montmorency, her handkerchief, that he

might wave it aloft, fastening it to the end of his cane, in order that

it should be more conspicuous. This handkerchief of Countess Ducayla,

fastened to the cane of a Montmorency, was the first royalist banner

that fluttered over Paris, after a banishment of twenty years. The

Parisians looked at this banner with a kind of reverence and shuddering

wonder; they did not greet it with applause; they still remained silent,

but they nevertheless followed the procession of royalists, who marched

to the boulevards, shouting, _"Vive le roi!"_ They took no part in their

joyful demonstration, but neither did they attempt to prevent it.

This demonstration of the royalists, and particularly of the royalist

ladies, transcended the bounds of propriety, and of their own dignity.

In their fanaticism for the legitimate dynasty, they gave the allies a

reception, which almost assumed the character of a declaration of love,

on the part of the fair ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain, for all the

soldiers and officers of the allied army. In a strange confusion of

ideas, these warriors, who had certainly entered France as enemies,

seemed to these fair ones to be a part of the beloved Bourbons; and they

loved them with almost the same love they lavished upon the royal family

itself. During several days they were, in their hearts, the daughters of

all countries except their own!

Louis XVIII. was himself much displeased with this enthusiasm of the

ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain, and openly avowed to Countess

Ducayla his dissatisfaction with the ridiculous and contemptible

behavior of these ladies at that time. He was even of the opinion that

it was calculated to injure his cause, as the nation had then not yet

pronounced in his favor.

"They should," said he, "have received the allies with a dignified

reserve, without frivolous demonstrations, and without this

inconsiderate devotion. Such a demeanor would have inspired them with

respect for the nation, whereas they now leave Paris with the conviction

that we are still--as we were fifty years ago--the most giddy and

frivolous people of Europe. You particularly, ladies--you have

compromised yourselves in an incomprehensible manner. The allies seemed

to you so lovable _en masse,_ that you gave yourselves the appearance of

also loving them _en détail_; and this has occasioned reports concerning

you which do little honor to French ladies!"

"But, _mon Dieu!_" replied Countess Ducayla to her royal friend, "we

wished to show them a well-earned gratitude for the benefit they

conferred in restoring to us your majesty; we wished to offer them

freely what we, tired of resistance, were at last compelled to accord to

the tyrants of the republic and the sabre-heroes of the empire! None of

us can regret what we have done for our good friends the allies!"

Nevertheless, that which the ladies "had done for their good friends the

allies" was the occasion of many annoying family scenes, and the

husbands who did not fully participate in the enthusiasm of their wives

were of the opinion that they had good cause to complain of their

inordinate zeal.

Count G----, among others, had married a young and beautiful lady a few

days before the restoration. She, in her youthful innocence, was

entirely indifferent to political matters; but her step-father, her

step-mother, and her husband, Count G----, were royalists of the

first water.

On the day of the entrance of the allies into Paris, step-father,

step-mother, and husband, in common with all good legitimists, hurried

forward to welcome "their good friends," and each of them returned to

their dwelling with a stranger--the husband with an Englishman, the

step-mother with a Prussian, and the step-father with an Austrian. The

three endeavored to outdo each other in the attentions which they

showered upon the guests they had the good fortune to possess. The

little countess alone remained indifferent, in the midst of the joy of

her family. They reproached her with having too little attachment for

the good cause, and exhorted her to do everything in her power to

entertain the gallant men who had restored to France her king.

The husband requested the Englishman to instruct the young countess in

riding; the marquise begged the Prussian to escort her daughter to the

ball, and teach her the German waltz; and, finally, the marquis, who had

discovered a fine taste for paintings in the Austrian, appealed to this

gentleman to conduct the young wife through the picture-galleries.

In short, every opportunity was given the young countess to commit a

folly, or rather three follies, for she did not like to give the

preference to any one of the three strangers. She was young, and

inexperienced in matters of this kind. Her triple intrigue was,

therefore, soon discovered, and betrayed to her family; and now husband,

step-father, and step-mother, were exasperated. This exceeded even the

demands of their royalism; and they showered reproaches on the head of

the young wife.

"It is not my fault!" cried she, sobbing. "I only did what you

commanded. You ordered me to do everything in my power to entertain

these gentlemen, and I could therefore refuse them nothing."

But there were also cases in which the advances of the enthusiastic

ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain were repelled. Even the high-born and

haughty Marquise M---- was to experience this mortification. She stepped

before the sullen, sombre veterans of the Old Guard of the empire, who

had just allowed Count d'Artois to pass before their ranks in dead

silence. She ardently appealed to their love for the dynasty of their

fathers, and, in her enthusiasm for royalism, went so far as to offer

herself as a reward to him who should first cry _"Vive le roi!"_ But the

faithful soldiers of the emperor stood unmoved by this generous offer,

and the silence remained unbroken by the lowest cry!

The princes who stood at the head of the allied armies were, of course,

the objects of the most ardent enthusiasm of the royalist ladies; but it

was, above all, with them that they found the least encouragement. The

Emperor of Austria was too much occupied with the future of his daughter

and grandson, and the King of Prussia was too grave and severe, to find

any pleasure in the coquetries of women. The young Emperor Alexander of

Russia, therefore, became the chief object of their enthusiasm and love.

But their enthusiasm also met with a poor recompense in this quarter.

Almost distrustfully, the czar held himself aloof from the ladies of the

Faubourg St. Germain; and yet it was they who had decided the fate of

France with him, and induced him to give his vote for the Bourbons; for

until then it had remained undetermined whom the allies should call to

the throne of France.

In his inmost heart, the Emperor of Russia desired to see the

universally-beloved Viceroy of Italy, Eugene Beauharnais, elevated to

the vacant throne. The letter with which Eugene replied to the

proposition of the allies, tendering him the ducal crown of Genoa, had

won for Josephine's son the love and esteem of the czar for all time.

Alexander had himself written to Eugene, and proffered him, in the name

of the allies, a duchy of Genoa, if he would desert Napoleon, and take

sides with the allies. Eugene Beauharnais had replied to him in the

following letter:

* * * * *

"SIRE,--I have received your majesty's propositions. They are

undoubtedly very favorable, but they are powerless to change my

resolution. I must have known how to express my thoughts but poorly when

I had the honor of seeing you, if your majesty can believe that I could

sully my honor for any, even the highest, reward. Neither the prospect

of possessing the crown of the duchy of Genoa, nor that of the kingdom

of Italy, can induce me to become a traitor. The example of the King of

Naples cannot mislead me; I will rather be a plain soldier than a

traitorous prince.

"The emperor, you say, has done me injustice; I have forgotten it; I

only remember his benefits. I owe all to him--my rank, my titles, and

my fortune, and I owe to him that which I prefer to all else--that which

your indulgence calls my renown. I shall, therefore, serve him as long

as I live; my person is his, as is my heart. May my sword break in my

hands, if it could ever turn against the emperor, or against France! I

trust that my well-grounded refusal will at least secure to me the

respect of your imperial majesty. I am, etc."

* * * * *

The Emperor of Austria, on the other hand, ardently desired to secure

the throne of France to his grandson, the King of Rome, under the

regency of the Empress Marie Louise; but he did not venture to make this

demand openly and without reservation of his allies, whose action he had

promised to approve and ratify. The appeals of the Duke of Cadore, who

had been sent to her father by Marie Louise from Blois, urging the

emperor to look after her interests, and to demand of the allies that

they should assure the crown to herself and son, were, therefore,

fruitless.

The emperor assured his daughter's ambassador that he had reason to hope

for the best for her, but that he was powerless to insist on any action

in her behalf.

"I love my daughter," said the good emperor, "and I love my son-in-law,

and I am ready to shed my heart's blood for them."

"Majesty," said the duke, interrupting him, "no such sacrifice is

required at your hands."

"I am ready to shed my blood for them," continued the emperor, "to

sacrifice my life for them, and I repeat it, I have promised the allies

to do nothing except in conjunction with them, and to consent to all

they determine. Moreover, my minister, Count Metternich, is at this

moment with them, and I shall ratify everything which he has

signed[30]."

[Footnote 30: Bourrienne, vol. x., p. 129.]

But the emperor still hoped that that which Metternich should sign for

him, would be the declaration that the little King of Rome was to be the

King of France.

But the zeal of the royalists was destined to annihilate this hope.

The Emperor of Russia had now taken up his residence in Talleyrand's

house. He had yielded to the entreaties of the shrewd French diplomat,

who well knew how much easier it would be to bend the will of the

Agamemnon of the holy alliance[31] to his wishes, when he should have

him in hand, as it were, day and night. In offering the emperor his

hospitality, it was Talleyrand's intention to make him his prisoner,

body and soul, and to use him to his own advantage.

[Footnote 31: Mémoires d'une Femme de Qualité.]

It was therefore to Talleyrand that Countess Ducayla hastened to concert

measures with the Bonapartist of yesterday, who had transformed himself

into the zealous legitimist of to-day.

Talleyrand undertook to secure the countess an audience with the Russian

emperor, and he succeeded.

While conducting the beautiful countess to the czar's cabinet,

Talleyrand whispered in her ear: "Imitate Madame de Lemallé--endeavor

to make a great stroke. The emperor is gallant, and what he denies to

diplomacy he may, perhaps, accord to the ladies."

He left her at the door, and the countess entered the emperor's cabinet

alone. She no sooner saw him, than she sank on her knees, and stretched

out her arms.

With a knightly courtesy, the emperor immediately hastened forward to

assist her to rise.

"What are you doing?" asked he, almost in alarm. "A noble lady never has

occasion to bend the knee to a cavalier."

"Sire," exclaimed the countess, "I kneel before you, because it is my

purpose to implore of your majesty the happiness which you alone can

restore to us; it will be a double pleasure to possess Louis XVIII. once

more, when Alexander I. shall have given him to us!"

"Is it then true that the French people are still devoted to the Bourbon

family?"

"Yes, sire, they are our only hope; on them we bestow our whole love!"

"Ah, that is excellent," cried Alexander; "are all French ladies filled

with the same enthusiasm as yourself, madame?"

"Well, if this is the case, it will be France that recalls Louis XVIII.,

and it will not be necessary for us to conduct him back. Let the

legislative bodies declare their will, and it shall be done[32]."

[Footnote 32: Mémoires d'une Femme de Qualité, vol. i., p. 179.]

And of all women, Countess Ducayla was the one to bring the legislative

bodies to the desired declaration. She hastened to communicate the hopes

with which the emperor had inspired her to all Paris; on the evening

after her interview with the emperor, she gave a grand _soirée_, to

which she invited the most beautiful ladies of her party, and a number

of senators.

"I desired by this means," says she in her memoirs, "to entrap the

gentlemen into making a vow. How simple-minded I was! Did I not know

that the majority of them had already made and broken a dozen vows?"

On the following day the senate assembled, and elected a provisional

government, consisting of Talleyrand, the Duke of Dalberg, the Marquis

of Jancourt, Count Bournonville, and the Abbé Montesquieu. The senate

and the new provisional government thereupon declared Napoleon deposed

from the throne, and recalled Louis XVIII. But while the senate thus

publicly and solemnly proclaimed its legitimist sentiments in the name

of the French people, it at the same time testified to its own

unworthiness and selfishness. In the treaty made by the senate with its

recalled king, it was provided in a separate clause, "that the salary

which they had hitherto received, should be continued to them for life."

While recalling Louis XVIII., these senators took care to pay themselves

for their trouble, and to secure their own future.

CHAPTER II.

THE BOURBONS AND THE BONAPARTES.

The allies hastened to consider the declaration of the senate and

provisional government as the declaration of the people, and recalled to

the throne of his fathers Louis XVIII., who, as Count de Lille, had so

long languished in exile at Hartwell.

The Emperor of Austria kept his word; he made no resistance to the

decrees of his allies, and allowed his grandson, the King of Rome, to be

robbed of his inheritance, and the imperial crown to fall from his

daughter's brow. The Emperor Francis was, however, as much astonished at

this result as Marie Louise, for, until their entrance into Paris, the

allies had flattered the Austrian emperor with the hope that the crown

of France would be secured to his daughter and grandson. The emperor's

astonishment at this turn of affairs was made the subject of a

caricature, which, on the day of the entrance of Louis XVIIL, was

affixed to the same walls on which Chateaubriand's enthusiastic

_brochure_ concerning the Bourbons was posted. In this caricature, of

which thousands of copies were sown broadcast throughout Paris, the

Emperor of Austria was to be seen sitting in an elegant open carriage;

the Emperor Alexander sat on the coachman's box, the Regent of England

as postilion on the lead-horse, and the King of Prussia stood up behind

as a lackey. Napoleon ran along on foot at the side of the carriage,

holding fast to it, and crying out to the Emperor of Austria,

"Father-in-law, they have thrown me out"--"And _taken me in_," was the

reply of Francis I.

The exultation of the ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain was great, now

that their king was at last restored to them, and they eagerly embraced

every means of showing their gratitude to the Emperor of Russia. But

Alexander remained entirely insusceptible to their homage; he even went

so far as to avoid attending the entertainments given by the new king at

the Tuileries, and society was shocked at seeing the emperor openly

displaying his sympathy for the family of the Emperor Napoleon, and

repairing to Malmaison, instead of appearing at the Tuileries.

Count Nesselrode at last conjured his friend Louise de Cochelet to

inform the czar of the feeling of dismay that pervaded the Faubourg St.

Germain, when he should come to Queen Hortense's maid-of-honor, as he

was in the habit of doing from time to time, for the purpose of

discussing the queen's interests with her.

"Sire," said she to the czar, "the Faubourg St. Germain regards your

majesty's zeal in the queen's behalf with great jealousy. It has even

caused Count Nesselrode much concern. 'Our emperor,' said he to me,

recently, 'goes to Malmaison much too often; the high circles of

society, and the diplomatic body, are already in dismay about it; it is

feared that he is there subjected to influences to which policy

requires he should not be exposed.'"

"This is characteristic of my Nesselrode," replied the emperor,

laughing, "he is so easily disquieted. What do I care for the Faubourg

St. Germain? It speaks ill enough for these ladies that they have not

made a conquest of me! I prefer the noble qualities of the soul to all

outward appearances; and I find united in the Empress Josephine, in the

Queen of Holland, and in Prince Eugene, all that is admirable and

lovable. I am better pleased to be here with you in quiet, confidential

intercourse, than with those who really demean themselves as though they

were crazed, and who, instead of enjoying the triumph we have prepared

for them, are only intent on destroying their enemies, and have

commenced with those who formerly accorded them such generous

protection; they really weary one with their extravagances.

"Frenchwomen are coquettish," said the emperor in the course of the

conversation; "I came here in great fear of them, for I knew how far

their amiability could extend; but their heart is undoubtedly no longer

their own. I am therefore on my guard against being deceived by it, and

I fancy these ladies love to please so well, that they are even angry

with those who respond to the attentions which are so lavishly showered

on them, with conventional politeness only."

Louise de Cochelet undertook to defend the French ladies against the

emperor's attacks. She told him he should not judge of them by the

manner in which they had conducted themselves toward him, as it was but

natural that the ladies should be inspired with enthusiasm for a young

emperor who appeared to them in so favorable a light, and that they must

necessarily, even without being coquettish, ardently desire to be

noticed by him.

"But," said the emperor, with his soft, sad smile, "have these ladies

only been waiting for me in order to feel their heart palpitate? I seek

mind and entertainment, but I fly from all those who display a desire to

exercise a control over my heart; in this I see nothing but self-love,

and I hold myself aloof from such contact."

While the royalists and the ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain were

lavishing attentions upon the allies, and assuring the returned king of

the boundless delight of his people, this people was already beginning

to grumble. The allies had now completed their task, they had restored

to France its legitimate king, and they now put the finishing-touch to

their work by providing in the treaty, that France should be narrowed

down to the boundaries it had had before the revolution.

France was compelled to conform to the will of its vanquishers. From the

weakness of the legitimists they now snatched that which they had been

compelled to accord to the strength of the empire.

All of those fortified places, that had been bought with so much French

blood, and that were still held by Frenchmen, were to be given up, and

the great, extended France was to shrink back into the France it had

been thirty years before! It was this that made the people murmur. The

Frenchmen who had left Napoleon because they had grown weary of endless

wars, were, nevertheless, proud of the conquests they had made under

their emperor. The surrender of these conquests wounded the national

pride, and they were angry with their king for being so ready to put

this shame upon France--for holding the crown of France in higher

estimation than the honor of France!

It must be conceded, however, that Louis XVIII. had most bitterly felt

the disgrace that attached to him in this re-establishment of France

within its ancient boundaries, and he had endeavored to protest in every

way against this demand of the allies. But his representative had been

made to understand that if Louis XVIII. could not content himself with

the France the allies were prepared to give him, he was at liberty to

relinquish it to Marie Louise. The king was, therefore, compelled to

yield to necessity; but he did so with bitter mortification, and while

his courtiers were giving free rein to their enthusiasm for the allies,

he was heard to whisper, "_Nos chers amis les ennemis_[33]!"

[Footnote 33: "Our dear friends the enemies!"]

Thus embittered against the allies, it was only with great reluctance,

and after a long and bitter struggle, that Louis XVIII. consented to the

demands made by the allies in behalf of the family of Napoleon. But the

Emperor Alexander kept his word; he defended the rights of the Queen of

Holland and her children against the ill-will of the Bourbons, the

dislike of the royalists, and the disinclination of the allies, alike.

The family of the emperor owed it to him and to his firmness alone that

the article of the treaty of the 11th of April, in which Louis XVIII.

agreed "that the titles and dignities of all the members of the family

of the Emperor Napoleon should be recognized, and that they should not

be deprived of them," remained something more than a mere phrase.

It was only after repeated efforts that the emperor at last succeeded in

obtaining for Hortense, from Louis XVIII., an estate and a title, that

secured her position. King Louis finally yielded to his urgent

solicitations, and conferred upon Hortense the title of Duchess of St.

Leu, and made her estate, St. Leu, a duchy.

But this was done with the greatest reluctance, and only under the

pressure of the king's obligations to the allies, who had given him his

throne; and these obligations the Bourbons would have forgotten as

willingly as the whole period of the revolution and of the empire.

For the Bourbons seemed but to have awakened from a long sleep, and were

not a little surprised to find that the world had progressed in the

meanwhile.

According to their ideas, every thing must have remained standing at the

point where they had left it twenty years before; and they were at least

determined to ignore all that had happened in the interval. King Louis

therefore signed his first act as in "the nineteenth" year of his reign,

and endeavored in all things to keep up a semblance of the continuation

of his reign since the year 1789. Hence, the letters-patent in which

King Louis appointed Hortense Duchess of St. Leu were drawn up in a

manner offensive to the queen, for they contained the following: "The

king appoints Mademoiselle Hortense de Beauharnais Duchess of St. Leu."

The queen refused to accept this title, under the circumstances, and

rejected the letters-patent. It was not until the czar had angrily

demanded it, that M. de Blacas, the king's premier, consented to draw up

the letters-patent in a different style. They read: "The king appoints

Hortense Eugénie, included in the treaty of the 11th of April, Duchess

of St. Leu." This was, to be sure, merely a negative and disguised

recognition of the former rank of the queen; but it was, at least no

longer a degradation to accept it.

The Viceroy of Italy, the noble Eugene--who was universally beloved, and

who had come to Paris, at the express wish of the czar, to secure his

future--occasioned the Bourbons quite as much annoyance and perplexity.

The king could not refuse to recognize the brave hero of the empire and

the son-in-law of the King of Bavaria, who was one of the allies; and,

as Eugene desired an audience of the king, it was accorded him at once.

But how was he to be received? With what title was Napoleon's step-son,

the Viceroy of Italy, to be addressed? It would have been altogether too

ridiculous to repeat the absurdity contained in Hortense's

letters-patent, and call Eugene "Viscount de Beauharnais;" but to accord

him the royal title would have compromised the dignity of the

legitimate dynasty. A brilliant solution of this difficult question

suggested itself to King Louis. When the Duke d'Aumont conducted Prince

Eugene to the royal presence, the king advanced, with a cordial smile,

and saluted him with the words, "M. Marshal of France, I am happy to

see you."

Eugene, who was on the point of making his salutation, remained silent,

and looked over his shoulder to see whom the king was speaking with.

Louis XVIII. smiled, and continued: "You, my dear sir, are a marshal of

France. I appoint you to this dignity."

"Sire," said Eugene, bowing profoundly, "I am much obliged to your

majesty for your kind intentions, but the misfortune of the rank to

which destiny has called me will not allow me to accept the high title

with which you honor me. I thank you very much, but I must

decline it[34]."

[Footnote 34: Mémoires d'une Femme de Qualité, vol. i., p. 267.]

The king's stratagem had thus come to grief, and Eugene left the royal

presence with flying colors. He was not under the necessity of accepting

benefits from the King of France, for his step-father, the King of

Bavaria, made Eugene a prince of the royal house of Bavaria, and created

for him the duchy of Leuchtenberg. Hither Eugene retired, and lived

there, surrounded by his wife and children, in peace and tranquillity,

until death tore him from the arms of his sorrowing family, in the

year 1824.

CHAPTER III.

MADAME DE STAËL.

The restoration, that had overthrown so many of the great, and that was

destined to restore to the light so many names that had lain buried in

obscurity, now brought back to Paris a person who had been banished by

Napoleon, and who had been adding new lustre and renown to her name in a

foreign land. This personage was Madame de Staël, the daughter of

Necker, the renowned poetess of "Corinne" and "Delphine."

It had been a long and bitter struggle between Madame de Staël and the

mighty Emperor of the French; and Madame de Staël, with her genius and

her impassioned eloquence, and adorned with the laurel-wreath of her

exile, had perhaps done Napoleon more harm than a whole army of his

enemies. Intense hatred existed on both sides, and yet it had depended

on Napoleon alone to transform this hatred into love. For Madame de

Staël had been disposed to lavish the whole impassioned enthusiasm of

her heart upon the young hero of Marengo and Arcola--quite disposed to

become the Egeria of this Numa Pompilius. In the warm impulse of her

stormy imagination, Madame de Staël, in reference to Bonaparte, had

even, in a slight measure, been regardless of her position as a lady,

and had only remembered that she was a poetess, and that, as such, it

became her well to celebrate the hero, and to bestow on the luminous

constellation that was rising over France the glowing dithyrambic of her

greetings.

Madame de Staël had, therefore, not waited for Napoleon to seek her, but

had made the first advances, and sought him.

To the returning victor of Italy she wrote letters filled with

impassioned enthusiasm; but these letters afforded the youthful general

but little pleasure. In the midst of the din of battle and the grand

schemes with which he was continually engaged, Bonaparte found but

little time to occupy himself with the poetical works of Madame de

Staël. He knew of her nothing more than that she was the daughter of the

minister Necker, and that was no recommendation in Napoleon's eyes, for

he felt little respect for Necker's genius, and even went so far as to

call him the instigator of the great revolution. It was, therefore, with

astonishment that the young general received the enthusiastic letter of

the poetess; and, while showing it to some of his intimate friends, he

said, with a shrug of his shoulders, "Do you understand these

extravagances? This woman is foolish!"

But Madame de Staël did not allow herself to be dismayed by Bonaparte's

coldness and silence--she continued to write new and more

glowing letters.

In one of these letters she went so far in her inconsiderate enthusiasm

as to say, that it was a great error in human institutions that the

gentle and quiet Josephine had united her faith with his; that she,

Madame de Staël, and Bonaparte, were born for each other, and that

Nature seemed to have created a soul of fire like hers, in order that it

might worship a hero such as he was.

Bonaparte crushed the letter in his hands, and exclaimed, as he threw it

in the fire: "That a blue-stocking, a manufactress of sentiment, should

dare to compare herself to Josephine! I shall not answer these letters!"

He did not answer them, but Madame de Staël did not, or rather would

not, understand his silence. Little disposed to give up a resolution

once formed, and to see her plans miscarry, Madame de Staël was now also

determined to have her way, and to approach Bonaparte despite his

resistance.

And she did have her way; she succeeded in overcoming all obstacles, and

the interview, so long wished for by her, and so long avoided by him, at

last took place. Madame de Staël was introduced at the Tuileries, and

received by Bonaparte and his wife. The personal appearance of this

intellectual woman was, however, but little calculated to overcome

Bonaparte's prejudice. The costume of Madame de Staël was on this

occasion, as it always was, fantastic, and utterly devoid of taste, and

Napoleon loved to see women simply but elegantly and tastefully attired.

In this interview with Napoleon, Madame de Staël gave free scope to her

wit; but instead of dazzling him, as she had hoped to do, she only

succeeded in depressing him.

It was while in this frame of mind, and when Madame de Staël, in her

ardor, had endeavored almost to force him to pay her a compliment, that

Napoleon responded to her at least somewhat indiscreet question: "Who is

in your eyes the greatest woman?" with the sarcastic reply, "She who

bears the most children to the state."

Madame de Staël had come with a heart full of enthusiasm; in her address

to Napoleon, she had called him a "god descended to earth;" she had come

an enthusiastic poetess; she departed an offended woman. Her wounded

vanity never forgave the answer which seemed to make her ridiculous. She

avenged herself, in her drawing-room, by the biting _bon mots_ which she

hurled at Napoleon and his family, and which were of course faithfully

repeated to the first consul.

But the weapons which this intellectual woman now wielded against the

hero who had scorned her, wounded him more severely than weapons of

steel or iron. In the use of these weapons, Madame de Staël was his

superior, and the consciousness of this embittered Bonaparte all the

more against the lady, who dared prick the heel of Achilles with the

needle of her wit, and strike at the very point where he was most

sensitive.

A long and severe conflict now began between these two greatest geniuses

of that period, a struggle that was carried on by both with equal

bitterness. But Napoleon had outward power on his side, and could punish

the enmity of his witty opponent, as a ruler.

He banished Madame de Staël from Paris, and soon afterward even from

France. She who in Paris had been so ready to sing the praises of her

"god descended from heaven," now went into exile his enemy and a

royalist, to engage, with all her eloquence and genius, in making

proselytes for the exiled Bourbons, and to raise in the minds of men an

invisible but none the less formidable army against her enemy the

great Napoleon.

Madame de Staël soon gave still greater weight to the flaming eruptions

of her hatred of Napoleon, by her own increasing renown and greatness;

and the poetess of Corinne and Delphine soon became as redoubtable an

opponent of Napoleon as England, Russia, or Austria, could be.

But in the midst of the triumphs she was celebrating in her exile,

Madame de Staël soon began to long ardently to return to France, which

she loved all the more for having been compelled to leave it. She

therefore used all the influence she possessed in Paris, to obtain from

Napoleon permission to return to her home, but the emperor remained

inexorable, even after having read Delphine.

"I love," said he, "women who make men of themselves just as little as I

love effeminate men. There is an appropriate _rôle_ for every one in the

world. Of what use is this vagabondizing of fantasy? What does it

accomplish? Nothing! All this is nothing but do rangement of mind and

feeling. I dislike women who throw themselves in my arms, and for this

reason, if for no other, I dislike this woman, who is certainly one of

that number."

Madame de Staël's petitions to be permitted to return to Paris were

therefore rejected, but she was as little disposed to abandon her

purpose now as she was at the time she sought to gain Bonaparte's

good-will. She continued to make attempts to achieve her aim, for it was

not only her country that she wished to reconquer, but also a million

francs which she wished to have paid to her out of the French treasury.

Her father, Minister Necker, had loaned his suffering country a million

francs, at a time of financial distress and famine, to buy bread for the

starving people, and Louis XVI. had guaranteed, in writing, that this

"national debt of France" should be returned.

But the revolution that shattered the throne of the unfortunate king,

also buried beneath the ruins of the olden time the promises and oaths

that had been written on parchment and paper.

Madame de Staël now demanded that the emperor should fulfil the promises

of the overthrown king, and that the heir of the throne of the Bourbons

should assume the obligations into which a Bourbon had entered with

her father.

She had once called Napoleon a god descended from heaven; and she even

now wished that he might still prove a god for her, namely, the god

Pluto, who should pour out a million upon her from his horn of plenty.

As she could not go to France herself, she sent her son to plead with

the emperor, for herself and her children.

Well knowing, however, how difficult it would be, even for her son to

secure an audience of the emperor, she addressed herself to Queen

Hortense in eloquent letters imploring her to exert her influence in her

son's behalf.

Hortense, ever full of pity for misfortune, felt the warmest sympathy

and admiration for the genius of the great poetess, and interceded for

Madame de Staël with great courage and eloquence. She alone ventured,

regardless of Napoleon's frowns and displeasure, to plead the cause of

the poor exile again and again, and to solicit her recall to France, as

a simple act of justice; she even went so far in her generosity as to

extend the hospitalities of her drawing-rooms to the poetess's son, who

was avoided and fled from by every one else.

Hortense's soft entreaties and representations were at last successful

in soothing the emperor's anger. He allowed Madame de Staël to return to

France, on the condition that she should never come to Paris or its

vicinity; he then also accorded Madame de Staël's son the long-sought

favor of an audience.

This interview of Napoleon with Madame de Staël's son is as remarkable

as it is original. On this occasion, Napoleon openly expressed his

dislike and even his hatred as well of Madame de Staël as of her father,

although he listened with generous composure to the warm defence of the

son and grandson.

Young Staël told the emperor of his mother's longing to return to her

home, and touchingly portrayed the sadness and unhappiness of her exile.

"Ah, bah!" exclaimed the emperor, "your mother is in a state of

exaltation. I do not say that she is a bad woman. She has wit, and much

intellect, perhaps too much, but hers is an inconsiderate, an

insubordinate spirit. She has grown up in the chaos of a falling

monarchy, and of a revolution, and she has amalgamized the two in her

mind. This is all a source of danger; she would make proselytes, she

must be watched; she does not love me. The interests of those whom she

might compromise, require that I should not permit her to return to

Paris. If I should allow her to do so, she would place me under the

necessity of sending her to Bicétre, or of imprisoning her in the

Temple, before six months elapsed; that would be extremely disagreeable,

for it would cause a sensation, and injure me in the public opinion.

Inform your mother that my resolution is irrevocable. While I live, she

shall not return to Paris."

It was in vain that young Staël assured him in his mother's name, that

she would avoid giving him the least occasion for displeasure, and that

she would live in complete retirement if permitted to return to Paris.

"Ah, yes! I know the value of fine promises!" exclaimed the emperor. "I

know what the result would be, and I repeat it, it cannot be! She would

be the rallying-point of the whole Faubourg St. Germain. She live in

retirement! Visits would be made her, and she would return them; she

would commit a thousand indiscretions, and say a thousand humorous

things, to which she attaches no importance, but which annoy me. My

government is no jest, I take every thing seriously; I wish this to be

understood, and you may proclaim it to the whole world!"

Young Staël had, however, the courage to continue his entreaties; he

even went so far as to inquire in all humility for the grounds of the

emperor's ill-will against his mother. He said he had been assured that

Necker's last work was more particularly the cause of the emperor's

displeasure, and that he believed Madame de Staël had assisted in

writing it. This was, however, not so, and he could solemnly assure the

emperor that his mother had taken no part in it whatever. Besides,

Necker had also done full justice to the emperor in this work.

"Justice, indeed! He calls me the 'necessary man.' The necessary man!

and yet, according to his book, the first step necessary to be taken,

was to take off this necessary man's head! Yes, I was necessary to

repair all that your grandfather had destroyed! It is he who overthrew

the monarchy, and brought Louis XVI. to the scaffold!"

"Sire!" exclaimed the young man, deeply agitated, "you are then not

aware that my grandfather's estates were confiscated because he defended

the king!"

"A fine defence, indeed! If I give a man poison, and then, when he lies

in the death-struggle, give him an antidote, can you then maintain that

I wished to save this man? It was in this manner that M. Necker defended

Louis XVI. The confiscations of which you speak prove nothing.

Robespierre's property was also confiscated. Not even Robespierre,

Marat, and Danton, have brought such misery upon France as Necker; he it

is who made the revolution. You did not see it, but I was present in

those days of horror and public distress; but I give you my word that

they shall return no more while I live! Your schemers write out their

utopias, the simple-minded read these dreams, they are printed and

believed in; the common welfare is in everybody's mouth, and soon there

is no more bread for the people; it revolts, and that is the usual

result of all these fine theories! Your grandfather is to blame for the

orgies that brought France to desperation."

Then lowering his voice, from the excited, almost angry tone in which he

had been speaking, to a milder one, the emperor approached the young

man, who stood before him, pale, and visibly agitated. With that

charming air of friendly intimacy that no one knew so well how to assume

as Napoleon, he gently pinched the tip of the young man's ear, the

emperor's usual way of making peace with any one to whom he wished well,

after a little difficulty.

"You are still young," said he; "if you possessed my age and experience,

you would judge of these matters differently. Your candor has not

offended, but pleased me; I like to see a son defend his mother's cause!

Your mother has entrusted you with a very difficult commission, and you

have executed it with much spirit. It gives me pleasure to have

conversed with you, for I love the young when they are straightforward

and not too 'argumentative.' But I can nevertheless give you no false

hopes! You will accomplish nothing! If your mother were in prison, I

should not hesitate to grant you her release. But she is in exile, and

nothing can induce me to recall her."

"But, sire, is one not quite as unhappy far from home and friends, as in

prison?"

"Ah, bah! those are romantic notions! You have heard that said about

your mother. She is truly greatly to be pitied. With the exception of

Paris, she has the whole of Europe for her prison!"

"But, sire, all her friends are in Paris!"

"With her intellect, she will be able to acquire new ones everywhere.

Moreover, I cannot understand why she should desire to be in Paris. Why

does she so long to place herself in the immediate reach of tyranny? You

see I pronounce the decisive word! I am really unable to comprehend it.

Can she not go to Rome, Berlin, Vienna, Milan, or London? Yes, London

would be the right place! There she can perpetrate libels whenever she

pleases. At all of these places I will leave her undisturbed with the

greatest pleasure; but Paris is my residence, and there I will tolerate

those only who love me! On this the world can depend. I know what would

happen, if I should permit your mother to return to Paris. She would

commit new follies; she would corrupt those who surround me; she would

corrupt Garat, as she once corrupted the tribunal; of course, she would

promise all things, but she would, nevertheless, not avoid engaging in

politics."

"Sire," I can assure you that my mother does not occupy herself with

politics at all; she devotes herself exclusively to the society of her

friends, and to literature."

"That is the right word, and I fully understand it. One talks politics

while talking of literature, of morals, of the fine arts, and of every

conceivable thing! If your mother were in Paris, her latest _bon mots_

and phrases would be recited to me daily; perhaps they would be only

invented; but I tell you I will have nothing of the kind in the city in

which I reside! It would be best for her to go to London; advise her to

do so. As far as your grandfather is concerned, I have certainly not

said too much; M. Necker had no administrative ability. Once more,

inform your mother that I shall never permit her to return to Paris."

"But if sacred interests should require her presence here for a few

days, your majesty would at least--"

"What? Sacred interests? What does that mean?"

"Sire," the presence of my mother will be necessary, in order to procure

from your majesty's government the return of a sacred debt."

"Ah, bah! sacred! Are not all the debts of the state sacred?"

"Without doubt, sire; but ours is accompanied by peculiar

circumstances."

"Peculiar circumstances!" exclaimed the emperor, rising to terminate

the long interview, that began to weary him. "What creditor of the state

does not say the same of his debt? Moreover, I know too little of your

relations toward my government. This matter does not concern me, and I

will not be mixed up in it. If the laws are for you, all will go well

without my interference; but if it requires influence, I shall have

nothing to do with it, for I should be rather against than for you!"

"Sire," said young Staël, venturing to speak once more, as the emperor

was on the point of leaving, "sire, my brother and I were anxious to

settle in France; but how could we live in a land in which our mother

would not be allowed to live with us everywhere?"

Already standing on the threshold of the door, the emperor turned to him

hastily. "I have no desire whatever to have you settle here," said he;

"on the contrary. I advise you not to do so. Go to England. There they

have a _penchant_ for Genevese, parlor-politicians, etc.; therefore, go

to England; for I must say, I should be rather ill than well disposed

toward you[35]!"

[Footnote 35: Bourrienne, vol. viii., p. 355.]

CHAPTER IV.

MADAME DE STAËL'S RETURN TO PARIS.

Madame de Staël returned to her cherished France with the restoration.

She came back thirsting for new honor and renown, and determined, above

all, to have her work republished in Germany, its publication having

been once suppressed by the imperial police. She entertained the

pleasing hope that the new court would forget that she was Necker's

daughter, receive her with open arms, and accord her the influence to

which her active mind and genius entitled her.

But she was laboring under an error, by which she was not destined to be

long deceived. She was received at court with the cold politeness which

is more terrible than insult. The king, while speaking of her with his

friends, called Madame de Staël "a Chateaubriand in petticoats." The

Duchess d'Angoulême seemed never to see the celebrated poetess, and

never addressed a word to her; the rest of the court met Madame de Staël

armed to the teeth with all the hatred and prejudices of the olden time.

It was also in vain that Madame de Staël endeavored to act an important

part at the new court; they refused to regard her as an authority or

power, but treated her as a mere authoress; her counsel was ridiculed,

and they dared even to question the renown of M. Necker.

"I am unfortunate," said Madame de Staël to Countess Ducayla; "Napoleon

hated me because he believed me to possess intellect; these people repel

me because I at least possess ordinary human understanding! I can

certainly get on very well without them; but, as my presence displeases

them, I shall, at least, endeavor to get my money from them."

The "sacred debt" had not been paid under the empire, and it was now

Madame de Staël's intention to obtain from the king what the emperor

had refused.

She was well aware of the influence which Countess Ducayla exercised

over Louis XVIII., and she now hastened to call on the beautiful

countess--whose acquaintance she had made under peculiar circumstances,

in a romantic love intrigue--in order to renew the friendship they had

then vowed to each other.

The countess had not forgotten this friendship, and she was now grateful

for the service Madame de Staël had then shown her. She helped to secure

the liquidation of the sacred debt, and, upon the order of King Louis,

the million was paid over to Madame de Staël. "But," says the countess,

in her memoirs, "I believe the recovery of this million cost Madame de

Staël four hundred thousand francs, besides a set of jewelry that was

worth at least one hundred thousand."

The countess's purse and the jewelry case, however, doubtlessly bore

evidence that she might as well have said "I know" as "I believe."

Besides the four hundred thousand francs and the jewelry, Madame de

Staël also gave the countess a piece of advice. "Make the most of the

favor you now enjoy," said she to her; "but do so quickly, for, as

matters are now conducted, I fear that the restoration will soon have to

be restored."

"What do you mean by that?" asked the countess, smiling.

"I mean that, with the exception of the king, who perhaps does not say

all he thinks, the others are still doing precisely as they always have

done, and Heaven knows to what extremities their folly is destined to

bring them! They mock at the old soldiers and assist the young priests,

and this is the best means of ruining France."

Countess Ducayla considered this prediction of her intellectual friend

as a mere cloud with which discontent and disappointed ambition had

obscured the otherwise clear vision of Madame de Staël, and ridiculed

the idea, little dreaming how soon her words were to be fulfilled.

Madame de Staël consoled herself for her cold reception at court, by

receiving the best society of Paris in her parlors, and entertaining

them with biting _bon mots_ and witty _persiflage_, at the expense of

the grand notabilities, who had suddenly arisen with their imposing

genealogical trees out of the ruins and oblivion of the past.

Madame de Staël now also remembered the kindness Queen Hortense had

shown her during her exile; and not to her only, but also to her friend,

Madame Récamier, who had also been exiled by Napoleon, not, however, as

his enemies said, "because she was Madame de Staël's friend," but

simply because she patronized and belonged to the so-called "little

church." The "little church" was an organization born of the spirit of

opposition of the Faubourg St. Germain, and a portion of the Catholic

clergy, and was one of those things appertaining to the internal

relations of France that were most annoying and disagreeable to

the emperor.

Queen Hortense had espoused the cause of Madame de Staël and of Madame

Récamier with generous warmth. She had eloquently interceded for the

recall of both from their exile; and, now that the course of events had

restored them to their home, both ladies came to the queen to thank her

for her kindness and generosity.

Louise de Cochelet has described this visit of Madame de Staël so

wittily, with so much _naïveté_, and with such peculiar local coloring,

that we cannot refrain from laying a literal translation of the same

before the reader.

CHAPTER V.

MADAME DE STAËL'S VISIT TO QUEEN HORTENSE.

Louise de Cochelet relates as follows: "Madame de Staël and Madame

Récamier had begged permission of the queen to visit her, for the

purpose of tendering their thanks. The queen invited them to visit her

at St. Leu, on the following day.

"She asked my advice as to which of the members of her social circle

were best qualified to cope with Madame de Staël.

"'I, for my part,' said the queen, 'have not the courage to take the

lead in the conversation; one cannot be very intellectual when sad at

heart, and I fear my dullness will infect the others.'

"We let quite a number of amiable persons pass before us in review, and

I amused myself at the mention of each new name, by saying, 'He is too

dull for Madame de Staël.'

"The queen laughed, and the list of those who were to be invited was at

last agreed upon. We all awaited the arrival of the two ladies in great

suspense. The obligation imposed on us by the queen, of being

intellectual at all hazards, had the effect of conjuring up a somewhat

embarrassed and stupid expression to our faces. We presented the

appearance of actors on the stage looking at each other, while awaiting

the rise of the curtain. Jests and _bon mots_ followed each other in

rapid succession until the arrival of the carriage recalled to our faces

an expression of official earnestness.

"Madame Récamier, still young, and very handsome, and with an expression

of _naïveté_ in her charming countenance, made the impression on me of

being a young lady in love, carefully watched over by too severe a

_duenna,_ her timid, gentle manner contrasted so strongly with the

somewhat too masculine self-consciousness of her companion. Madame de

Staël is, however, generally admitted to have been good and kind,

particularly to this friend, and I only speak of the impression she made

on one to whom she was a stranger, at first sight.

"Madame de Staël's extremely dark complexion, her original toilet, her

perfectly bare shoulders, of which either might have been very

beautiful, but which harmonized very poorly with each other; her whole

_ensemble_ was far from approximating to the standard of the ideal I had

formed of the authoress of Delphine and Corinne. I had almost hoped to

find in her one of the heroines she had so beautifully portrayed, and I

was therefore struck dumb with astonishment. But, after the first shock,

I was at least compelled to acknowledge that she possessed very

beautiful and expressive eyes; and yet it seemed impossible for me to

find anything in her countenance on which love could fasten, although I

have been told that she has often inspired that sentiment.

"When I afterward expressed my astonishment to the queen, she replied:

'It is, perhaps, because she is capable of such great love herself, that

she succeeds in inspiring others with love; moreover, it flatters a

man's self-love to be noticed by such a woman, and, in the end, one can

dispense with beauty, when one has Madame de Staël's intellect.'

"The queen inquired after Madame de Staël's daughter, who had not come

with her, and who was said to be truly charming. I believe the young

gentlemen of our party could have confronted the beautiful eyes of the

daughter with still greater amiability than those of the mother, but an

attack of toothache had prevented her coming.

"After the first compliments and salutations, the queen proposed to the

ladies to take a look at her park. They seated themselves on the

cushions of the queen's large _char à banc_, which has become historic

on account of the many high and celebrated personages who have been

driven in it at different times. The Emperor Napoleon was, however, not

one of this number, as he never visited St. Leu; but, with this

exception, there are few of the great and celebrated who have not been

seated in it at one time or another.

"As they drove through the park and the forest of Montmorency, in a walk

only, the conversation was kept up as in the parlor, and the consumption

of intellectuality was continued. The beautiful neighborhood, that

reminded one of Switzerland, as it was remarked, was duly admired. Then

Italy was spoken of. The queen, who had been somewhat _distraite_, and

had good cause to be somewhat sad, and disposed to commune with herself,

addressed Madame de Staël with the question, 'You have been in

Italy, then?'

"Madame de Staël was, as it were, transfixed with dismay, and the

gentlemen exclaimed with one accord: 'And Corinne? and Corinne?'

"'Ah, that is true,' said the queen, in embarrassment, awakening, as it

were, from her dreams.

"'Is it possible,' asked M. de Canonville, 'your majesty has not read

Corinne?'

"'Yes--no,' said the queen, visibly confused, 'I shall read it again,'

and, in order to conceal an emotion that I alone could understand, she

abruptly changed the topic of conversation.

"She might have said the truth, and simply informed them that the book

had appeared just at the time her eldest son had died in Holland. The

king, disquieted at seeing her so profoundly given up to her grief,

believed, in accordance with Corvisart's advice, that it was necessary

to arouse her from this state of mental dejection at all hazards. It was

determined that I should read 'Corinne' to her. She was not in a

condition to pay much attention to it, but she had involuntarily

retained some remembrance of this romance. Since then, I had several

times asked permission of the queen to read Corinne to her, but she had

always refused. 'No, no,' said she, 'not yet; this romance has

identified itself with my sorrow. Its name alone recalls the most

fearful period of my whole life. I have not yet the courage to renew

these painful impressions.'

"I, alone, had therefore been able to divine what had embarrassed and

moved the queen so much when she replied to the question addressed to

her concerning Corinne. But the authoress could, of course, only

interpret it as indicating indifference for her master-work, and I told

the queen on the following day that it would have been better to have

confessed the cause of her confusion to Madame de Staël.

"'Madame de Staël would not have understood me,' said she; 'now, I am

lost to her good opinion, she will consider me a simpleton, but it was

not the time to speak of myself, and of my painful reminiscences.'

"The large _char à banc_ was always preferred to the handsomest

carriages (although it was very plain, and consisted of two wooden

benches covered with cushions, placed opposite each other), because it

was more favorable for conversation. But it afforded no security against

inclement weather, and this we were soon to experience. The rain poured

in streams, and we all returned to the castle thoroughly wet. A room was

there prepared and offered the ladies, in which they might repair the

disarrangement of their toilet caused by the storm. I remained with them

long, kept there by the questions of Madame de Staël concerning the

queen and her son, which questions were fairly showered upon me. There

was now no longer a question of intellectuality, but merely of washing,

hair-dressing, and reposing, with an entire abandonment of the display

of mind, the copiousness of which I had been compelled to admire but a

moment before. I said to myself: 'There they are, face to face, like the

rest of the world, with material life, these two celebrated women, who

are everywhere sought after, and received with such marked

consideration. There they are, as wet as myself, and as little poetic.'

We were really behind the curtain, but it was shortly to rise again.

"Voices were heard under the window; among other voices, a German accent

was audible, and both ladies immediately exclaimed: 'Ah, that is

Prince Augustus of Prussia!'

"No one expected the prince, and this meeting with the two ladies had

therefore the appearance of being accidental. He had come merely to pay

the queen a visit, and it was so near dinner-time, that politeness

required that he should be invited to remain. And this was doubtless

what he wished.

"The prince had the queen on his right, and Madame de Staël on his left.

The servant of the latter had laid a little green twig on her napkin,

which she twisted between her fingers while speaking, as was her habit.

The conversation was animated, and it was amusing to observe Madame de

Staël gesticulating with the little twig in her fingers. One might have

supposed that some fairy had given her this talisman, and that her

genius was dependent upon this little twig.

"Constantinople, with which city several of the gentlemen were well

acquainted, was now the topic of conversation. Madame de Staël thought

it would be a delightful task for an intellectual woman, to turn the

sultan's head, and then to compel him to give his Turks a constitution.

After dinner, freedom of the press was also a topic of conversation.

"Madame de Staël astonished me, not only by the brilliancy of her

genius, but also by the deep earnestness with which she treated

questions of that kind, for until then custom had not allowed women to

discuss such matters. At entertainments, philosophy, morals, sentiment,

heroism, and the like, had been the subjects of conversation, but the

emperor monopolized politics. His era was that of actions, and, we may

say it with pride, of great actions, while the era that followed was

essentially that of great words, and of political and literary

controversies.

"Madame de Staël spoke to the queen of her motto: 'Do that which is

right, happen what may.'

"'In my exile, which you so kindly endeavored to terminate,' said she,

'I often repeated this motto, and thought of you while doing so.'

"While speaking thus, her countenance was illumined by the reflection of

inward emotion, and I found her beautiful. She was no longer the woman

of mind only, but also the woman of heart and feeling, and I

comprehended at this moment how charming she could be.

"Afterward, she had a long conversation with the queen touching the

emperor. 'Why was he so angry with me?' asked she. 'He could not have

known how much I admired him! I will see him--I shall go to Elba! Do you

think he would receive me well? I was born to worship this man, and he

has repelled me.'

'Ah, madame,' replied the queen, 'I have often heard the emperor say

that he had a great mission to fulfil, and that he could compare his

labors with the exertions of a man who, having the summit of a steep

mountain ever before his eyes, strains every nerve to attain it, ever

toiling painfully upward, and allowing his progress to be arrested by no

obstacle whatever. "All the worse for those," said he, "who meet me on

my course--I can show them no consideration."'

"'You met him on his course, madame; perhaps he would have extended you

a helping hand, after having reached the summit of his mountain.'

"'I must speak with him,' said Madame de Staël; 'I have been injured in

his opinion.'

"'I think so too,' replied the queen, 'but you would judge him ill, if

you considered him capable of hating any one. He believed you to be his

enemy, and he feared you, which was something very unusual for him,'

added she, with a smile. 'Now that he is unfortunate, you will show

yourself his friend, and prove yourself to be such, and I am satisfied

that he will receive you well.'

"Madame de Staël also occupied herself a great deal with the young

princes, but she met with worse success with them than with us. It was

perhaps in order to judge of their mental capacity, that she showered

unsuitable questions upon them.

"'Do you love your uncle?'

"'Very much, madame!'

"'And will you also be as fond of war as he is?'

"'Yes, if it did not cause so much misery.'

'Is it true that he often made you repeat a fable commencing with the

words, "The strongest is always in the right?"'

"'Madame, he often made us repeat fables, but this one not oftener than

any other.'

"Young Prince Napoleon, a boy of astounding mental capacity and

precocious judgment, answered all these questions with the greatest

composure, and, at the conclusion of this examination, turned to me and

said quite audibly: 'This lady asks a great many questions. Is that what

you call being intellectual?'

"After the departure of our distinguished visitors, we all indulged in

an expression of opinion concerning them, and young Prince Napoleon was

the one upon whom the ladies had made the least flattering impression,

but he only ventured to intimate as much in a low voice.

"I for my part had been more dazzled than gladdened by this visit. One

could not avoid admiring this genius in spite of its inconsiderateness,

and its wanderings, but there was nothing pleasing, nothing graceful and

womanly, in Madame de Staël's manner[36]."

[Footnote 36: Cochelet, Mémoires sur la Reine Hortense, vol. i., pp.

429-440.]

CHAPTER VI.

THE OLD AND THE NEW ERA.

The restoration was accomplished. The allies had at last withdrawn from

the kingdom, and Louis XVIII. was now the independent ruler of France.

In him, in the returned members of his family, and in the emigrants who

were pouring into the country from all quarters, was represented the

old era of France, the era of despotic royal power, of brilliant

manners, of intrigues, of aristocratic ideas, of ease and luxury.

Opposed to them stood the France of the new era, the generation formed

by Napoleon and the revolution, the new aristocracy, who possessed no

other ancestors than merit and valorous deeds, an aristocracy that had

nothing to relate of the _oeil de boeuf_ and the _petites maisons_, but

an aristocracy that could tell of the battle-field and of the hospitals

in which their wounds had been healed.

These two parties stood opposed to each other.

Old and young France now carried on an hourly, continuous warfare at the

court of Louis XVIII., with this difference, however, that young France,

hitherto ever victorious, now experienced a continuous series of

reverses and humiliations. Old France was now victorious. Not victorious

through its gallantry and merit, but through its past, which it

endeavored to connect with the present, without considering the chasm

which lay between.

True, King Louis had agreed, in the treaty of the 11th of April, that

none of his subjects should be deprived of their titles and dignities;

and the new dukes, princes, marshals, counts, and barons, could

therefore appear at court, but they played but a sad and humiliating

_rôle_, and they were made to feel that they were only tolerated, and

not welcome.

The gentlemen who, before the revolution, had been entitled to seats in

the royal equipages, still retained this privilege, but the doors of

these equipages were never opened to the gentlemen of the new Napoleonic

nobility. "The ladies of the old era still retained their _tabouret,_ as

well as their grand and little _entrée_ to the Tuileries and the Louvre,

and it would have been considered very arrogant if the duchesses of the

new era had made claim to similar honors."

It was the Duchess d'Angoulême who took the lead and set the Faubourg

St. Germain an example of intolerance and arrogant pretensions in

ignoring the empire. She was the most unrelenting enemy of the new era,

born of the revolution, and of its representatives; it is true, however,

that she, who was the daughter of the beheaded royal pair, and who had

herself so long languished in the Temple, had been familiar with the

horrors of the revolution in their saddest and most painful features.

She now determined, as she could no longer punish, to at least forget

this era, and to seem to be entirely oblivious of its existence.

At one of the first dinners given by the king to the allies, the Duchess

d'Angoulême, who sat next to the King of Bavaria, pointed to the

Grand-duke of Baden, and asked: "Is not this the prince who married a

princess of Bonaparte's making? What weakness to ally one's self in

such a manner with that general!"

The duchess did not or would not remember that the King of Bavaria, as

well as the Emperor of Austria, who sat on her other side, and could

well hear her words, had also allied themselves with General Bonaparte.

After she had again installed herself in the rooms she had formerly

occupied in the Tuileries, the duchess asked old Dubois, who had

formerly tuned her piano, and had retained this office under the empire,

and who now showed her the new and elegant instruments provided by

Josephine--she asked him: "What has become of my piano?"

This "piano" had been an old and worn-out concern, and the duchess was

surprised at not finding it, as though almost thirty years had not

passed since she had seen it last; as though the 10th of August, 1792,

the day on which the populace demolished the Tuileries, had never been!

But the period from 1795 to 1814 was ignored on principle, and the

Bourbons seemed really to have quite forgotten that more than one night

lay between the last levee of King Louis XVI. and the levee of to-day of

King Louis XVIII. They seemed astonished that persons they had known as

children had grown up since they last saw them, and insisted on treating

every one as they had done in 1789.

After the Empress Josephine's death, Count d'Artois paid a visit to

Malmaison, a place that had hardly existed before the revolution, and

which owed its creation to Josephine's love and taste for art.

The empress, who had a great fondness for botany, had caused magnificent

greenhouses to be erected at Malmaison; in these all the plants and

flowers of the world had been collected. Knowing her taste, all the

princes of Europe had sent her, in the days of her grandeur, in order

to afford her a moment's gratification, the rarest exotics. The Prince

Regent of England had even found means, during the war with France, to

send her a number of rare West-Indian plants. In this manner her

collection had become the richest and most complete in all Europe.

Count d'Artois, as above said, had come to Malmaison to view this

celebrated place of sojourn of Josephine, and, while being conducted

through the greenhouses, he exclaimed, as though he recognized his old

flowers of 1789: "Ah, here are our plants of Trianon!"

And, like their masters the Bourbons, the emigrants had also returned to

France with the same ideas with which they had fled the country. They

endeavored, in all their manners, habits, and pretensions, to begin

again precisely where they had left off in 1789. They had so lively an

appreciation of their own merit, that they took no notice whatever of

other people's, and yet their greatest merit consisted in having

emigrated.

For this merit they now demanded a reward.

All of these returned emigrants demanded rewards, positions, and

pensions, and considered it incomprehensible that those who were already

in possession were not at once deprived of them. Intrigues were the

order of the day, and in general the representatives of the old era

succeeded in supplanting those of the new era in offices and pensions as

well as in court honors. All the high positions in the army were filled

by the marquises, dukes, and counts, of the old era, who had sewed

tapestry and picked silk in Coblentz, while the France of the new era

was fighting on the battle-field, and they now began to teach the

soldiers of the empire the old drill of 1780.

The etiquette of the olden time was restored, and the same luxurious and

lascivious disposition prevailed among these cavaliers of the former

century which had been approved in the _oeil de boeuf_ and in the

_petites maisons_ of the old era.

These old cavaliers felt contempt for the young Frenchmen of the new era

on account of their pedantic morality; they scornfully regarded men who

perhaps had not more than one mistress, and to whom the wife of a friend

was so sacred, that they never dared to approach her with a

disrespectful thought even.

These legitimist gentlemen entertained themselves chiefly with

reflections over the past, and their own grandeur. In the midst of the

many new things by which they were surrounded, some of which they

unfortunately found it impossible to ignore, it was their sweetest

relaxation to give themselves up entirely to the remembrance of the old

_régime_, and when they spoke of this era, they forgot their age and

debility, and were once more the young _roués_ of the _oeil de boeuf_.

Once in the antechamber of King Louis XVIII., while the Marquis de

Chimène and the Duke de Lauraguais, two old heroes of the frivolous era,

in which the boudoir and the _petites maisons_ were the battle-field,

and the myrtle instead of the laurel the reward of victory, while these

gentlemen were conversing of some occurrence under the old government,

the Duke de Lauraguais, in order to more nearly fix the date of the

occurrence of which they were speaking, remarked to the marquis, "It was

in the year in which I had my _liaison_ with your wife."

"Ah, yes," replied the marquis, with perfect composure, "that was in the

year 1776."

Neither of the gentlemen found anything strange in this allusion to the

past. The _liaison_ in question had been a perfectly commonplace matter,

and it would have been as ridiculous in the duke to deny it as for the

marquis to have shown any indignation.

The wisest and most enlightened of all these gentlemen was their head,

King Louis XVIII. himself.

He was well aware of the errors of those who surrounded him, and placed

but little confidence in the representatives of the old court. But he

was nevertheless powerless to withdraw himself from their influence, and

after he had accorded the people the charter, in opposition to the will

and opinion of the whole royal family, of his whole court and of his

ministers, and had sworn to support it in spite of the opposition of

"Monsieur" and the Prince de Condé, who was in the habit of calling the

charter "_Mademoiselle la Constitution de 1791,_" Louis withdrew to the

retirement of his apartments in the Tuileries, and left his minister

Blacas to attend to the little details of government, the king deeming

the great ones only worthy of his attention.

CHAPTER VII.

KING LOUIS XVIII.

King Louis XVIII. was, however, in the retirement of his palace, still

the most enlightened and unprejudiced of the representatives of the old

era; he clearly saw many things to which his advisers purposely closed

their eyes. To his astonishment, he observed that the men who had risen

to greatness under Bonaparte, and who had fallen to the king along with

the rest of his inheritance, were not so ridiculous, awkward, and

foolish, as they had been represented to be.

"I had been made to suppose," said Louis XVIII., "that these generals of

Bonaparte were peasants and ruffians, but such is not the case. He

schooled these men well. They are polite, and quite as shrewd as the

representatives of the old court. We must conduct ourselves very

cautiously toward them."

This kind of recognition of the past which sometimes escaped Louis

XVIII., was a subject of bitter displeasure to the gentlemen of the old

era, and they let the king perceive it.

King Louis felt this, and, in order to conciliate his court, he often

saw himself compelled to humiliate "the _parvenus_" who had forced

themselves among the former.

Incessant quarrelling and intriguing within the Tuileries was the

consequence, and Louis was often dejected, uneasy, and angry, in the

midst of the splendor that surrounded him.

"I am angry with myself and the others," said he on one occasion to an

intimate friend. "An invisible and secret power is ever working in

opposition to my will, frustrating my plans, and paralyzing my

authority."

"And yet you are king!"

"Undoubtedly I am king!" exclaimed Louis, angrily; "but am I also

master? The king is he who all his life long receives ambassadors, gives

tiresome audiences, listens to annihilating discourses, goes in state to

Notre-Dame, dines in public once a year, and is pompously buried in St.

Denis when he dies. The master is he who commands and can enforce

obedience, who puts an end to intriguing, and can silence old women as

well as priests. Bonaparte was king and master at the same time! His

ministers were his clerks, the kings his brothers merely his agents, and

his courtiers nothing more than his servants. His ministers vied with

his senate in servility, and his _Corps Législatif_ sought to outdo his

senate and the church in subserviency. He was an extraordinary and an

enviable man, for he had not only devoted servants and faithful friends,

but also an accommodating church[37]."

[Footnote 37: Mémoires d'une Femme de Qualité, vol. v., p. 35.]

King Louis XVIII., weary of the incessant intrigues with which his

courtiers occupied themselves, withdrew himself more and more into the

retirement of his palace, and left the affairs of state to the care of

M. de Blacas, who, with all his arrogance and egotism, knew very little

about governing.

The king preferred to entertain himself with his friends, to read them

portions of his memoirs, to afford them an opportunity of admiring his

verses, and to regale them with his witty and not always chaste

anecdotes; he preferred all these things to tedious and useless disputes

with his ministers. He had given his people the charter, and his

ministers might now govern in accordance with this instrument.

"The people demand liberty," said the king. "I give them enough of it to

protect them against despotism, without according them unbridled

license. Formerly, the taxes appointed by my mere will would have made

me odious; now the people tax themselves. Hereafter, I have nothing to

do but to confer benefits and show mercy, for the responsibility for all

the evil that is done will rest entirely with my ministers[38]."

[Footnote 38: Mémoires d'une Femme de Qualité, vol. i., p. 410.]

While his ministers were thus governing according to the charter, and

"doing evil," the king, who now had nothing but "good" to do, was

busying himself in settling the weighty questions of the old etiquette.

One of the most important features of this etiquette was the question of

the fashions that should now be introduced at court; for it was, of

course, absurd to think of adopting the fashions of the empire, and

thereby recognize at court that there had really been a change

since 1789.

They desired to effect a counter-revolution, not only in politics, but

also in fashions; and this important matter occupied the attention of

the grand dignitaries of the court for weeks before the first grand

levee that the king was to hold in the Tuilerics. But, as nothing was

accomplished by their united wisdom, the king finally held a private

consultation with his most intimate gentleman and lady friends on this

important matter, that had, unfortunately, not been determined by

the charter.

The grand-master of ceremonies, M. de Bregé, declared to the king that

it was altogether improper to continue the fashions of the empire at the

court of the legitimate King of France.

"We are, therefore, to have powder, coats-of-mail, etc.," observed the

king.

M. de Bregé replied, with all gravity, that he had given this subject

his earnest consideration day and night, but that he had not yet arrived

at a conclusion worthy of the grand-master of ceremonies of the

legitimate king.

"Sire," said the Duke de Chartres, smiling, "I, for my part, demand

knee-breeches, shoe-buckles, and the cue."

"But I," exclaimed the Prince de Poir, who had remained in France during

the empire, "I demand damages, if we are to be compelled to return to

the old fashions and clothing before the new ones are worn out!"

The grand-master of ceremonies replied to this jest at his expense with

a profound sigh only; and the king at last put an end to this great

question, by deciding that every one should be permitted to follow the

old or new fashions, according to his individual taste and inclination.

The grand-master of ceremonies was compelled to submit to this royal

decision; but in doing so he observed, with profound sadness: "Your

majesty is pleased to smile, but dress makes half the man; uniformity of

attire confounds the distinctions of rank, and leads directly to an

agrarian law."

"Yes, marquis," exclaimed the king, "you think precisely as Figaro. Many

a man laughs at a judge in a short dress, who trembles before a

procurator in a long gown[39]."

[Footnote 39: Mémoires d'une Femme de Qualité, vol. i., p. 384.]

But while the king suppressed the counter-revolution in fashions, he

allowed the grand-master of ceremonies to reintroduce the entire

etiquette of the old era. In conformity with this etiquette, the king

could not rise from his couch in the morning until the doors had been

opened to all those who had the _grande entrée_--that is to say, to the

officers of his household, the marshals of France, several favored

ladies; further, to his _cafetier_, his tailor, the bearer of his

slippers, his barber, with two assistants, his watchmaker, and his

apothecaries.

The king was dressed in the presence of all these favored individuals,

etiquette permitting him only to adjust his necktie himself, but

requiring him, however, to empty his pockets of their contents of the

previous day.

The usage of the old era, "the public dinner of the royal family," was

also reintroduced; and the grand-master of ceremonies not only found it

necessary to make preparations for this dinner weeks beforehand, but the

king was also compelled to occupy himself with this matter, and to

appoint for this great ceremony the necessary "officers of

provisions"--that is to say, the wine-taster, the cup-bearers, the grand

doorkeepers, and the cook-in-chief.

At this first grand public dinner, the celebrated and indispensable

"ship" of the royal board stood again immediately in front of the king's

seat. This old "ship" of the royal board, an antique work of art which

the city of Paris had once presented to a King of France, had also been

lost in the grand shipwreck of 1792, and the grand-master of ceremonies

had been compelled to have a new one made by the court jeweller for the

occasion. This "ship" was a work in gilded silver, in form of a vessel

deprived of its masts and rigging; and in the same, between two golden

plates, were contained the perfumed napkins of the king. In accordance

with the old etiquette, no one, not even the princes and princesses,

could pass the "ship" without making a profound obeisance, which they

were also compelled to make on passing the royal couch.

The king restored yet another fashion of the old era--the fashion of the

"royal lady-friends."

Like his brother the Count d'Artois, Louis XVIII. also had his

lady-friends; and among these the beautiful and witty Countess Ducayla

occupied the first position. It was her office to amuse the king, and

dissipate the dark clouds that were only too often to be seen on the

brow of King Louis, who was chained to his arm-chair by ill-health,

weakness, and excessive corpulency. She narrated to him the _chronique

scandaleuse_ of the imperial court; she reminded him of the old affairs

of his youth, which the king knew how to relate with so much wit and

humor, and which he so loved to relate; it devolved upon her to examine

the letters of the "black cabinet," and to read the more interesting

ones to the king.

King Louis was not ungrateful to his royal friend, and he rewarded her

in a truly royal manner for sometimes banishing _ennui_ from his

apartments. Finding that the countess had no intimate acquaintance with

the contents of the Bible, he gave her the splendid Bible of Royaumont,

ornamented with one hundred and fifty magnificent engravings, after

paintings of Raphael. Instead of tissue-paper, a thousand-franc note

covered each of these engravings[40].

[Footnote 40: Amours et Galanteries des Rois de France, par St. Edme,

vol. ii., p. 383. Mémoires d'une Femme de Qualité, vol. i., p. 409.]

On another occasion, the king gave her a copy of the "Charter;" and in

this each leaf was also covered with a thousand-franc note, as in

the Bible.