THE PALAIS MAZARIN AND THE RUE MAZARINE.
The Institute or Palais Mazarin--The Rue Mazarine--L’Illustre
Théâtre--Molière--The Théâtre Français--The Odéon--Heine--The Faubourg
Saint-Germain--Historical Associations.
During the middle ages the Palace of the Institute was one of the
landmarks and limits of Paris. The rest of the left bank belonged to the
agglomeration formed around the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and
which was called, during the different periods of its successive
developments, the _bourg_, or borough, the town, and the faubourg of
Saint-Germain.
Of the Institute as a central body, with the five academies composing
it, sufficient mention has already, perhaps, been made. Some words,
however, may be added on the subject of the building--the “Palace” in
which the Institute is lodged. Close to the Institute, which owes its
chief renown to the most important of its component academies, the
Académie Française, representing literature, is the Mint, or Hôtel des
Monnaies, with whose products literature is too often but slightly
connected. Nor can we leave the immediate neighbourhood of the Institute
without speaking of the famous Tour de Nesle, which figures so
dramatically in a well-known play written by Alexandre Dumas and
Frédéric Gaillardet. One wing of the Institute occupies the very site of
the old tower, which was situated on a tongue of earth projecting into
the Seine. It stood seventy-five feet high, with a diameter of ten feet;
and the crenelated platform at the summit was reached by a winding
staircase. According to the legend, as turned to literary account by
Roger de Beauvoir in a novel, and by Alexandre Dumas and his
collaborator (who claimed to have done all, or nearly all the work in
the before-mentioned play), Marguerite de Bourgogne, wife of Louis X.,
and her two sisters, or sisters-in-law, were accused and convicted of
unbecoming conduct in the Tower of Nesle; when two of their accomplices,
Philippe and Gaultier d’Aunay, were skinned alive, while Marguerite
herself was strangled by order of her royal husband, the lives of the
two other princesses being spared. According to the ancient tradition,
the queen and her sisters used to receive their lovers in the apartments
of the tower, and then, to prevent any compromising revelations, throw
them from the window into the Seine.
[Illustration: A NIGHT REFUGE IN THE VAUGIRARD QUARTER.]
Resting upon the tower was the Petit Nesle, given as a place of abode,
in 1540, by Francis I. to Benvenuto Cellini. The king’s right to dispose
of the house was questioned, indirectly, it is true, but in a very
substantial manner, by the Provost of Paris, who, after giving the
Florentine artist notice to quit, tried to turn him out by force; when
Cellini, with his companions, apprentices, and servants, defended the
place against the besiegers. It was in the Petit Nesle that this
admirable sculptor executed, among masterpieces, his colossal statue
of Jupiter in silver. In his Memoirs Benvenuto tells a story which
paints, in glaring colours, the disorderly character of the time. He was
returning to the Petit Nesle--his Château of Nesle, as he calls
it--carrying beneath his cloak, in a basket, 1,000 crowns in ancient
gold, which the royal treasurer had just delivered to him by order of
Francis I., when he was attacked by thieves before the Augustins--a
“very dangerous place.” He then tells how he kept his assailants at a
respectful distance by sweeping blows from his sword, and then ran away
in all haste to his château, where he called to the garrison, which
rushed out fully armed, thus enabling him to re-enter safe and sound the
Petit Nesle, where he and his friends had a lively supper. This simple
anecdote shows what a cut-throat place Paris was under the reign of
Francis I., in the year 1540.
[Illustration: CARDINAL MAZARIN.
(_From a Portrait in the Gallery of Versailles._)]
Tour de Nesle and Petit Nesle have both disappeared, and on their site
stands (as already mentioned) the Palace of the Institute, originally
known as the Palais Mazarin. Cardinal Mazarin, having been unable to
carry out personally the project he had formed of establishing a college
for the benefit of sixty young noblemen, or young men of the citizen
class belonging to the lands newly conquered by the Crown of France,
ordered by his will, on the 6th of March, 1661, that, should the king be
so pleased, a college should be founded for sixty sons of gentlemen or
of citizens belonging to the various territories--German, Flemish, and
Provençal--lately annexed to France. Hence the name given to it of
“College of the Four Nations”; the fourth nation being, of course,
France. In like manner there were formerly “four nations” in the
University of Paris. Mazarin had already drawn up the statute for the
college, and he bequeathed to it the whole of his library, with an
income of 45,000 francs secured on town property, the revenue of the
Abbey of Saint-Michel, and two millions of livres (francs) in silver.
The cardinal’s executors began by purchasing the Petit Nesle, the
ditches and ramparts of the Rue des Fossés, which now became the Rue
Mazarine; and a piece of land comprised between the Rue Mazarine, the
Rue de Seine, and the Quay. The college was then erected and the library
duly placed; and until the time of the Revolution the Institute, as it
was in time to be called, formed an important centre for men devoted to
the study of literature, science, or art.
At the time of the Revolution the college, being of suspicious origin,
was confiscated, while, on the other hand, the library was enlarged by
50,000 volumes, themselves the result of confiscation.
In suppressing the Institute the Revolution did not spare any one of its
five academies--not even the French academy, which, though it
represented the literature of the country, had a taint of aristocracy
about it. As soon, however, as France was delivered from the atrocities
of the Revolution, the National Convention, in its last sitting but one,
on the 25th October, 1795, reconstituted the Institute under the form of
a society of 144 members, divided into three classes: (1) positive
sciences, (2) political sciences, and (3) literature and art. The First
Consul reorganised the society as four classes: (1) science, (2)
literature, (3) ancient literature, (4) fine arts. Under this form the
Restoration found nothing to change but the name; and the four classes
of the Imperial Institute became once more “academies.” The fifth, that
of moral and political sciences, created by the Convention, was
re-established in 1832 on the proposition of M. Guizot, Minister of
Public Instruction. Independently of their internal economy and their
proprietorial rights, the five academies are bound together through the
chief secretarial department, the library, and various collections
belonging to the five academies in common. The unity of the academies is
affirmed, moreover, every year through a formal sitting, of which the
presidency falls in turn to each of the five academical presidents. “It
is a commonplace,” says M. Auguste Vitu, in his work on Paris, “to run
down academies. The five ancient, like the five modern academies, have
rendered, all the same, the greatest services to science, and cast a
brilliant light on literature and art. This is generally admitted in
connection with the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Inscriptions.
There is no foreign scientific man, however illustrious, who does not
welcome the honour of becoming its associate or correspondent. The
Academy of Sciences has taken part in every scientific advance; and to
the Academy of Inscriptions, with its adventurous explorers, is due the
immense development of Punic, Egyptian, Assyrian, and Persian studies.
It can be said to have created the science of epigraphy, that
resurrection of history from stones. But the utility of the Academy of
Fine Arts has been questioned often enough, and the French Academy is
the recognised object not only of everyone’s ambition, but also, and
above all, of everyone’s ridicule and satire; especially--if not
exclusively--on the part of men of letters.... Whoever be elected to the
French Academy, the election is sure to meet with much literary
disapproval. The scientific men are accused of ignoring literature, and
the dukes of being unable to spell. If, on the other hand, the Academy
chooses a dramatist, a novelist, a journalist, or a critic, journalism
is sure to ask why so-and-so was elected--my associate, my friend,
perhaps--and not myself. These condemnations have weakened neither the
authority nor the glory of the French Academy; they have, perhaps, even
preserved it, by diminishing in its secret councils the influence of
coteries. The idea of Cardinal Richelieu in creating it was to maintain
the unity of the French language, and consequently of France, while
giving to talent equal distinction with rank, birth, and official
service.”
To pass once more from the Institute to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, this
important social and historical district is bounded on the east by the
ancient ditch or moat of Paris, now represented by the Rue Mazarine
(formerly Rue de Nesle), the Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie, and the Rue
Monsieur le Prince.
The Rue Mazarine--one of the most interesting streets on the left hank
of the Seine, and, indeed, in all Paris--occupies an important place in
connection with the French stage. On the present site of Nos. 12 and 14,
Rue Mazarine corresponds at the back with No. 13, Rue de Seine. Here
Arnold Mestayer, citizen of Paris and captain of the hundred musketeers
of the town, under Henry IV., had built a house and tennis-court, and
here, on the 12th of September, 1643, a few days after the death of King
Louis XIII., a company of young men of honourable birth, brought
together by friendship and a passionate love of the dramatic art, rented
from the heirs of Arnold Mestayer the house and the court attached to
it.
There, too, was opened, in the last days of the year, a new theatre for
tragedy and comedy, in opposition to the royal players of the Hôtel de
Bourgogne, and under the title of L’illustre Théâtre. Among the members
of this remarkable company may be mentioned the two Béjards, Madeleine
and Geneviève, and Jean Baptiste Poquelin, who had not yet taken the
surname of Molière. The tennis-court still existed in 1818; and it was
not pulled down until about 1830, when space was wanted for the
enlargement of the street. The old house where Molière and; his
companions used to live is still in existence, numbered 10 in the Rue
Mazarine and 11 in the Rue de Seine, by the side of a haberdasher’s
shop, to the sign of The Tennis Court. A commemorative tablet marks the
spot where once stood the Illustre Théâtre--a name it was one day really
to deserve, from the fact that one of the least important members of its
company, considered as an actor, was soon afterwards to show himself the
greatest dramatist that France had produced. Another tablet in the same
street--No. 42--marks the ground once occupied by another tennis-court,
which, in 1669, was let to the Abbé Perrin and several associates, with
Cambert, the composer, among them, who had obtained from the king the
right or privilege of establishing at Paris an operatic theatre. The
opening performance took place on the 19th of May, 1671. A lyric drama,
called _Pomone_, written by Perrin, and set to music by Cambert, was
produced. Cardinal Mazarin had introduced Italian opera into Paris in
1645, and the first French opera, entitled, _Akbar, King of Mogul_,
words and music by the Abbé Mailly, was brought out the year following
in the episcopal palace of Carpentras, under the direction of Cardinal
Bichi, Urban VIII.’s legate in France. The second French opera was _La
Pastorale en Musique_, words by Perrin, music by Cambert, which was
privately represented at Issy; and the _Pomone_, given at Paris in 1671,
was only the third work of the kind. _Pomone_ was followed at the new
Lyric Theatre by a so-called “tragedy-ballet,” which is remarkable as
having been the joint product of Molière and Corneille, the two greatest
dramatists of France. It may here be mentioned that a privilege for an
academy of music had been ceded a hundred years before by Charles IX. to
Antoine de Baif, the word academy being used as an equivalent for
_accademia_, the Italian for concert. Perrin’s licence seems to have
been a renewal, as to form, of de Baif’s; and thus originated the
eminently absurd title which the chief operatic theatre of Paris has
since retained.
After a time Molière’s company was, by order of the king, combined with
two others--the company of the Hôtel de Bourgogne and that of the
Marais; and this reduction of the three companies into one constituted
the Comédie Française, which has now had a glorious existence of two
centuries. Before settling down finally into its present abode at the
Palais Royal end of the Rue Richelieu, the Comédie Française, or Théâtre
Français--for the two names equally belong to it--had a varied history,
and wandered about Paris from quarter to quarter and from street to
street. Its first abodes seem to have been far less solidly constructed
than our ancient national theatres of Drury Lane or Covent Garden; and
in 1770 the famous company, finding itself in a building so dilapidated
that its fall was daily imminent, the king granted it hospitality in one
of the wings of the Tuileries Palace. He at the same time took steps to
provide for it a permanent home; and with that view bought for 3,000,000
livres (francs) the ground occupied by the Hôtel de Condé, where a new
theatre was to be constructed. Here the Théâtre Français gave its
performances throughout the first phases of the Revolution, until, on
the 3rd of September, 1793, after the performance of a play founded on
Richardson’s _Pamela_, the Committee of Public Safety closed the house
and arrested alike the author of the piece and the actors who had
performed in it. The new playhouse was reopened under the successive
titles of Theatre of Equality and Theatre of the People, with a portion
of the company--which had been saved by the death of Robespierre.
Classical names were now in fashion, and the theatre, on being reopened
in 1797, was called, in memory of Athens, the Odéon. Its performances,
however, were not successful, and after a wretched existence of a few
months it closed in 1799. When it seemed to have taken a new lease of
life it was destroyed by fire, the origin of which was never explained.
Reconstructed in 1807, it was opened under the title of Théâtre de
l’Impératrice, and was looked upon as a supplementary house to the
Théâtre Français, with the right of playing comedy, but not tragedy. By
way of compensation, it was permitted to give representations of
opera-bouffe. The Odéon had once more been officially designated the
second Théâtre Français, when a new fire destroyed it on the 20th of
February, 1818. Louis XVIII. ordered the immediate reconstruction of the
house, and, on its completion, put the second Théâtre Français on the
same footing as the first, placing at its free disposal all the works of
the classical repertory.
Since this time the Odéon has, in a literary and dramatic sense,
undergone all kinds of metamorphoses. It became first a lyrical theatre,
with such pieces as _Robin des Bois_--corresponding, no doubt, to our
Robin of the Wood, or Robin Hood; this name having been given to a
strange adaptation by Castil-Blaze, with interpolations by the adapter,
of Weber’s _Der Freischütz_; and under Louis Philippe the Odéon was the
headquarters of Italian opera.
At present the Odéon is definitely classed as the second Théâtre
Français, in which character it pays no rent and enjoys an annual
subvention of 100,000 francs. No theatre during the last seventy years
has rendered greater services to dramatic art. Here have been
represented pieces by Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Alfred de Musset,
Alfred de Vigny, Balzac, George Sand, Émile Augier, Octave Feuillet,
Méry, Léon Gozlan, Theodore Barrière, Édmond Gondinet, Hippolyte Lucas,
Michel Carré, Frédéric Soulié, François Ponsard, François Coppée,
Alphonse Daudet, and a hundred others. The house, moreover, has formed a
great number of superior artists, who were, one after the other, claimed
by the Comédie Française. Of the many admirable pieces produced at the
Odéon, full and interesting accounts may be found in the collected
feuilletons of Jules Janin and of Théophile Gautier.
Nothing, however, more brilliant has been written on the artistic and
literary period represented by the dramatic triumphs of the Odéon than
the letters from Paris written from time to time between the years 1832
and 1848 by Heinrich Heine.
Heine is known to the English public chiefly through the French versions
of his works; which, as they have been produced by the author himself,
convey his thoughts quite as accurately, and his style almost as
accurately, as the German originals. His “Pictures of Travel”
(“Reisebilder”), a volume of poems, two volumes on Germany which have,
of course, taken the place of the now defunct work of Mme. de Stael,
some dramas or plans for dramas, which were published in the _Revue des
deux Mondes_, the “Livre de Lazare,” which appeared in the same
periodical, and “Lutèce,” are perhaps the most important of those of
Heine’s writings which have been reproduced in French. The “Buch der
Lieder,” too, has been done into French prose by Heine himself, with the
aid of his friend Gerard de Nerval, who in his youth, under the name of
Gerard, made a translation of “Faust” which satisfied, or at least
pleased, even Goethe himself. These Lieder, together with the
“Reisebilder,” were Heine’s favourite productions; and independently of
the life that is in them, many of them are further assured of continued
popularity by reason of Schubert’s having coupled them with some of his
most beautiful music.
Heine was a poet and satirist by nature. Endowed with great analytical
power, and educated in Germany, he of course took a pleasure in studying
the operations of the human mind; but he was not a philosopher by
temperament, which is sufficiently proved by the fact that he not only
refrained from attaching himself to any particular system of philosophy
in a country where he had so many to select from, but that he did not
even take the trouble to invent a system for himself. He comprehended
philosophy, liked painting, loved music, and spoke of all science and
art in the spirit of a poet. He explained Victor Cousin and Pierre
Leroux, grew pathetic over the fate of Léopold Robert, and became
enthusiastic in his admirable descriptions of the performances of Ernst
and Paganini, of Grisi and Mario.
Heine’s poetry is principally remarkable for its fantastic character and
for its warmth of colour; accordingly, there are certain points of
resemblance between the German poet and Théophile Gautier, only there is
soul in the verse of Heine, whereas in that of Gautier we find nothing
but a glorification of the senses and an absolute worship of form.
Goethe, in his later years, is imagined by the enraptured Gautier
sitting, passionless, on a marble throne, looking upon the whole of
creation as the development of a superior form of art. Indeed, according
to the Gautier school, life and death are nothing compared with the
interests of art. Art is great, and life is unimportant; paganism is to
be revered on account of its marble temples; poverty is to be admired
for its beggar-boys by Murillo; the Millennium is objectionable because
it will produce no subjects for dramatic literature. Heine, on the
contrary, who, in addition to the skill of the artist, possessed the
heart of a man, was willing to sacrifice all art and all poetry--his
own, to begin with--if, in any scheme for alleviating the sufferings of
the poorer classes, such a sacrifice should appear inevitable. This
feeling is shown generally throughout his writings. “Unless,” he says,
“I deny the premise, that all men have the right to eat, I am forced to
admit it in all its consequences.... Let justice be done.... Let the old
system be broken up, in which innocence has perished, in which egotism
has prospered, in which man has been trafficked in by man.... And
blessed be the grocer who will one day make my poetry into paper bags,
and fill them with coffee and snuff for the poor good old women who, in
our present world of injustice, have perhaps had to deprive themselves
of all such comforts.”
To know the Paris of half a century ago it is only, indeed, necessary to
study the “Lutèce” of Heinrich Heine, in which the Paris of the best
part of Louis Philippe’s reign is portrayed in the most life-like, the
most brilliant style. The sketches, the anecdotes, the criticism--all
full of the Heinean verve and irony--form the best portion of the book,
which is deficient, perhaps, in the description (if we except personal
description) on which Heine, without adequate reason, was inclined to
pride himself. His poems, his travels, and his miniature dramas are
crowded with fantastic thoughts, which are of course presented in
fantastic forms; but he will always be remembered by his ideas rather
than by his images; and when he states, in his “Reisebilder,” that,
owing to the prodigality of German writers in the matter of thoughts, he
finds it more profitable to cultivate the production of pictures, one
would think, were it not for the very title of the work, that he was
indulging in irony at the expense of his readers.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE HÔTEL DE CHATEAUBRIAND, IN THE FAUBOURG
ST. GERMAIN.]
As a satirist Heine is first of all remarkable for his irony, which is
always masterly and which sometimes reaches the diabolical. He admits
that even in his most amiable moments the “caresses of his Teutonic paws
sometimes inflicted a wound”; and if he scratches like a cat in play, it
is certain that he tears in earnest like a tiger. He seizes his victim
by the neck, and either skins him with his delicate observation or
scalps him with his unerring sarcasm. On great occasions he resorts to
deliberate analysis, or rather anatomy; when, after a very few pages,
the patient finds himself lying dissected at the end of a chapter, with
the merciless satirist grinning at his remains.
In the last chapter of the Reisebilder, speaking of the misfortunes of
the German emigrants, Heine gives an anecdote of an artist who, on being
requested to paint a golden angel on a signboard, replied that he would
rather paint a red lion; that he was accustomed to them, and that even
if he painted a golden angel it would look like a red lion all the same.
“The words of this painter,” said Heine, “reply beforehand to the
objections which may be made to my book.... It was not any vain caprice
which made me quit all that was dear to me, all that charmed me and
smiled upon me in my native land. There more than one being loved me--my
mother, for instance. And yet I left it without knowing why--I left it
because I was obliged to do so. It is only in the winter that we become
fully penetrated with the beauties of the spring; the love of liberty is
a flower which grows in prison; and in the same way the love of the
German fatherland commences at the German frontier--above all, at sight
of German misery on a foreign soil.... I have now before me the letter
of a friend who is dead, and in which the following passage occurs: ‘I
never was aware that I loved my country so much. I was in the position
of a man who had never been taught by physiology the value of his blood.
The blood is taken from him, and the man falls. That was indeed the
case. Germany is ours, and that is why I felt suddenly broken down and
ill at the sight of those emigrants, of those great rivers of blood
which flow from the wounds of our country and lose themselves in the
deserts of Africa.’ ... The golden colours of the angel have since that
time entirely dried up on my palette, and all that remains upon it in a
liquid state is a raw red colour, which looks like blood, and with which
nothing but red lions can be painted. Accordingly, my next book will be
purely and simply a red lion; for which I beg the kind public to pardon
me by reason of the confession now made.”
Heine, during his prolonged stay in Paris, where he was adopted and
became naturalised, saw all the new operas and most of the new pictures;
attended the meetings of the Institute; abused the polka, then just
invented; discussed the Eastern Question, and tried to decide whether it
was more probable that England and Russia would declare war against
France, or that France and Russia would declare war against England;
calculated Philippe’s chances of remaining on the throne, considered the
rival merits of Thiers and Guizot, and generally criticised everyone and
everything with which he was brought in contact. He was on friendly
terms with George Sand, Meyerbeer, Rothschild, Balzac, Victor Cousin,
Spontini, and Alfred de Musset; and he has given elaborate portraits of
some of these celebrities, while he has written something characteristic
of each. If he was at any time personally acquainted with Victor Hugo,
all intimacy between the two must certainly have ceased after Heine’s
murderous attack upon the great French poet:--“As all the French writers
possess taste, the total absence of this quality in Victor Hugo struck
his compatriots as a sign of originality and genius. He is essentially
cold, as is the devil, according to the assertions of witches--cold and
icy even in his most passionate effusions; his enthusiasm is only a
phantasmagoria, a piece of calculation devoid of love; for he loves
nothing but himself--he is an egoist, or, worse still, a Hugoist. In
spite of his imagination and his wit, he has the awkwardness of a
parvenu or a savage.” In another place we are told that Hugo’s studied
passion and artificial warmth suggest “fried ice”--an edible antithesis
prepared by the Chinese, which consists of little balls of ice dipped
into a particular kind of batter, and forthwith fried and swallowed.
Rothschild is said to be the best possible political thermometer; and he
is praised for the genial if slightly patronising manner in which he
_famillionairement_ addresses his friends. “Indeed, it might be
affirmed,” says Heine, still full of the thermometrical idea, “that he
possesses the talent of the frog for indicating fair and foul weather,
were it not that this comparison might be considered somewhat
disrespectful; and certainly he is a man who must be respected, if only
on account of the respect he inspires in the greater number of those who
approach him. I love to visit him at his bank, where I have the
opportunity of observing men of all classes and all religions. Gentiles
as well as Jews bow, incline, and prostrate themselves before him. They
turn, and stoop, and bend their backs nearly double, in a manner which
the most talented acrobat might envy. I have seen some persons tremble
on approaching him as if they had touched a voltaic battery. Even when
standing outside the door many of them are seized with a quivering
veneration, such as Moses felt on Mount Horeb.... His private room is,
indeed, a most remarkable place, and awakes sublime thoughts and
feelings--like the aspect of the ocean, of the starry heavens, of
mountains or of boundless forests. It teaches me the littleness of man
and the greatness of God. For money is the god of our age, and
Rothschild is his prophet.”
* * * * *
As the Louvre is associated with the monarchy and Notre Dame with the
Episcopacy, so the Faubourg St. Germain is associated with the ancient
French nobility. It is interesting to know that St. Germain, the holy
man to whom the nobiliary quarter (there are “aristocratic” quarters
elsewhere in Paris) owes its name, was himself of noble birth. Little is
recorded of him except that he performed miracles, which the inhabitants
of the district bearing his name have failed to do, and that, like the
ancient nobility of France at the period of the Revolution, he visited
England and stayed there some time. The church of St. Germain des Prés
was one of the principal landmarks on the left bank of the Seine in the
latter part of the seventeenth century, when the Institute and the
church just named formed two important centres on the left bank of the
Seine. The Faubourg St. Germain, or simply “the Faubourg,” as its
exclusive inhabitants love to call it, was scarcely known, however, by
any such name until the time of the Revolution or even later, when it
emigrated in a mass to England, or in some cases to Russia. The German
courts, too, offered for a time a favourite place of retirement until
Germany was invaded by the Republican armies of France.
“The emigration” is usually attributed to the excesses of the
Revolutionists, especially during the Reign of Terror; but as a matter
of fact it began in 1789, the first examples being given by members of
the royal family. The emigration of the French nobility may indeed be
said not to have been caused by the Reign of Terror, but in a measure to
have produced it. This now seems to be supported in a certain measure by
dates. After the 14th of July the Count of Artois, the Condés, the
Contis, the Polignacs, the Broglies, the Vaudreuils, the Lambescs, and
others, hurried abroad in order to band together the enemies of France,
and to prepare the invasion of the country. While the Count of Artois
was intriguing on all sides, Condé, installed at Worms, surrounded
himself with a body of fatuous noblemen, the nucleus of his future army,
adopted a rebellious attitude, replied with contempt to the invitations
of the National Assembly, and organised plots in the eastern provinces.
In 1792 the king himself would have emigrated and thrown himself into
the arms of foreigners, in the hope that they would subdue France and
restore the ancient régime. He was, as everyone knows, arrested at
Varennes. But his brother, the Count of Provence, succeeded in quitting
France, and at Brussels prepared the celebrated declaration of Pilnitz.
At the same time a crowd of nobles left France to furnish recruits to
the Prince de Condé. Coblenz was full to overflowing with emigrants,
whose manœuvres were in no way affected by the fact that the king had
himself accepted the constitution. The army of the emigrating princes
was being openly organised. It was to be composed of three army corps:
one commanded by Condé, which was to operate in Alsace; another
commanded by the princes of the blood, who were to enter France through
Lorraine, in company with the Prussians, and march upon Paris; and a
third commanded by the Prince de Bourbon, which was to act in the
provinces of the north. Later on special regiments of émigrés were
formed, to which the names of Rohan, Damas, Salm, “Loyal Emigrants,”
etc., were given. The Viscount de Mirabeau, brother to the orator,
formed a legion of his own, whose soldiers wore a black uniform adorned
with death’s-heads, and whose disorderly conduct is said to have been
such that the corps was not allowed to form part of the Austrian army,
to which it had originally been attached.
Thus, long before the war, there were masses of emigrants who adopted
from their foreign posts of observation a menacing attitude towards
France. Many noble families left France simply from fear; but most of
the émigrés, when they had once reached foreign lands, did not scruple
to take part in hostile enterprises against France. Invitations to
return were addressed to the emigrants by various assemblies; without
the least probability, it must be admitted, of their being accepted.
Then laws were passed by which the property of the absentees was
confiscated, and they themselves threatened with death should they
reappear in France without due authorisation. As a matter of fact, the
émigrés fought against France, in concert with the invading troops, for
the most part as volunteers, though some are said to have received pay
from the foreign foe. They had boasted of their ability and readiness
to conquer revolutionary France with postillions’ whips, and they had
fixed beforehand the day and hour of their entry into Paris. Driven back
by the Republican armies, they were mad with humiliation and rage. The
King of Prussia abruptly dismissed those who had entered his service,
and gradually, as new victories were gained by the Republic, they found
themselves expelled from Brussels, Florence, Turin, Berlin, Switzerland,
and other asylums, retreating almost exclusively to England. When nearly
all their legions had been dissolved, a certain number of them remained
in the pay of foreign sovereigns. But many stayed without any resource.
A strange sight was then seen: the whole order of nobility, and the most
brilliant nobility in Europe, some thirty thousand persons, including
the members of the priesthood, fallen to the condition of beggars or
hangers-on. Sad expiation for the treason of those who had borne arms
against their native land.
[Illustration: THE BRIDGE, PLACE, AND BOULEVARD ST. MICHEL.]
In the first days of the emigration the French nobility continued to
lead a life of luxury and pleasure. When their last resources had been
exhausted, they had to hold out their hands for such alms as the
coalition would give them. The name of émigré became a synonym for “poor
devil” and parasite. A few of the most fortunate of the refugees had
preserved private resources, but the great majority were in a sad
condition of poverty. Beaumarchais has described the misery of those who
had sought asylum at Hamburg, where he helped them to the best of his
power, though he himself was suffering from straitened means. It was no
uncommon sight to see Knights of St. Louis, gentlemen who had ridden in
the king’s carriages, asking for alms at the corner of the streets.
Chateaubriand has drawn a striking picture of his own poverty and that
of his companions at this trying time. “I was devoured by hunger,” he
writes; “sucked pieces of linen which I had steeped in water; chewed
grass and paper. When I passed before a baker’s shop I felt the greatest
torture. On a cold winter’s evening I stood two hours in front of a shop
of dried fruits and smoked meats, devouring with my eyes whatever I saw.
I could have eaten not only the comestibles, but the boxes and baskets
which held them.”
In 1793 the English Government thought of offering the emigrants
settlements in Canada. The Empress Catherine of Russia, who had behaved
generously to the small number rich enough to find their way to her
distant dominions, proposed to establish six thousand of them on the
shores of the Sea of Azof, under the command of Condé. In London a
certain number of the émigrés received from the English Government one
shilling a day as subsidy. It was very little, but many received nothing
at all. Tired of having to choose between living on alms and dying of
hunger, numerous émigrés determined at last to seek some regular
occupation. Duchesses and marchionesses were now seen in charge of
haberdashers’ and perfumers’ shops; of cafés and other establishments of
the kind. The Count de Vieuville became a messenger, or “commissionaire”
as he would now be called; the Chevalier de Lanty a servant; Madame de
la Londe a shopwoman; Mlle. de St. Marceau a shop-girl; Madame de la
Martinière a dealer in second-hand clothes; a well-known marquis an
actor (not in those days considered a very gentlemanly profession); the
Chevalier d’Anselme a waiter; the Marquis de Montbazet a lamplighter;
while others turned themselves into hairdressers, barbers, and
dancing-masters. One émigré, mentioned by Brillat-Savarin, used to dress
salads, and, what was still more remarkable, obtained a guinea for every
salad he dressed.
[Illustration: THE ST. MICHEL FOUNTAIN.]
A few exercised more lucrative functions as secret political agents.
Among these may be mentioned Count d’Antraigues, the husband of Madame
de St. Huberty, the famous singer, who, with his wife, was assassinated
at Barnes by an irritated domestic. The Count had rendered important
services to the Coalition, and claimed to have revealed to the English
Government the secret articles of the Treaty of Tilsit.
On the outbreak of the Revolution most of the great families who,
collectively, may be said to compose the Faubourg St. Germain, had left
France, when a special law against “emigrants” was passed, striking
through their property those who, had they remained, would have suffered
in person. Some members, however, of the ancient nobility stayed in
Paris throughout the Reign of Terror, among whom may in particular be
mentioned that Baron Lézardière who saved, or did his best to save, the
heroic Abbé Edgeworth, when the last confessor of Louis XVI. was, or
believed himself to be, in imminent danger of his life. “The friend,”
wrote the abbé to his brother, “whose name must be for ever sacred to
you, since to him your brother owes his life, was the Baron de
Lézardière, a nobleman of high character, advanced in years, and then
living in opulence, who not only received me with open arms, but,
slighting all the dangers to which he exposed himself and family by
giving hospitality to such a guest, insisted on my regarding his house
as my own, seeking for no other place of refuge; so that I received
during those months every attention that the most delicate friendship
could invent, and though the family was large and the servants numerous,
my existence was hardly perceived out-of-doors, so well was the secret
kept. I had not been long in this charming solitude when I received
information from Paris that at two or three different clubs, and
especially at the Jacobins’, my head was mentioned as the only atonement
equal to my guilt of having openly professed my attachment for the
‘tyrant.’ This was alarming news indeed. But a journalist (friend or
foe) having announced some days afterwards that I had got safe over to
England, and had there had frequent conferences not only with the
principal emigrants, but with Mr. Pitt himself, this idle story was
credited by all, and I was completely forgotten.
“However, the fiction, though favourable to me in one sense, distressed
me much in other respects, as it obliged me to conceal myself more
cautiously than ever, for had I been discovered in France after such a
report, I must have been, in the eyes of Government, no less than an
emissary from the court of England, an agent to the emigrants, and an
emigrant myself--all titles that made my case the blacker by adding to
my former guilt. Hence I was obliged to keep within doors more than
ever; nor could I venture out to Paris but by night. Then I dared but to
remain a day or two at a time, and though my house should have been open
to all, since to all I owed myself, few people knew where it was or how
to get admittance into it. It is true that from my solitude in the
country I entertained a large correspondence with the town; but all
kinds of business could not be transacted by letters, and I soon
perceived that the diocese committed to my care, far from prospering in
my hands, suffered materially from my absence.
“In this distressing situation, and really not knowing what part to
take, I wrote a long letter to the archbishop, informing him of all and
demanding his advice; but, unfortunately for me, my letter, though
directed to one of the commanding officers upon the frontier (who
favoured, underhand, my correspondence), was seized, opened, and sent
back to the _Comité de Salut Public_. Soon after, the house of M. de
Lézardière, where I lay concealed, was assaulted in mid-day, and the
whole family, supposing the storm to be directed against me alone, fell
at my knees, requesting I would provide for my own safety by a timely
flight. I yielded, though indeed with some reluctance, to their
entreaties, and casting into the fire all my papers, I escaped by a back
road into the fields, where I remained until it was dark. But how bitter
was my grief when, coming back at night, I was informed that my valuable
friend had been carried off to prison with his youngest son and eldest
daughter, and that upon the road to Paris, three different times, the
bloodthirsty gang had held counsel whether it was not best to shorten
the business by murdering them upon the spot. My mind was relieved a few
days after (at least in some degree) by the positive assurances given me
that amongst the questions put to the three prisoners, upon their
arrival in Paris, not a word had been said about me, which clearly
proved that I had not been the innocent cause of their misfortune; but
my friend was not the less in danger (for prison and death now began to
be synonymous terms in France), and my papers were lost for ever.” This
accident did not prove fatal to M. de Lézardière, for after ten days’
confinement he was dismissed. “As to my papers, those I regret the most,
and shall in all probability ever lament, were the letters written to me
from the Temple by Madame Elizabeth. I have already hinted to you (but
this to you and no other mortal, as the time for revealing is not yet
come) that notwithstanding the unrelenting vigilance of her guardians,
this unfortunate princess found a means to correspond with me from time
to time, and to take my advice on many critical occurrences during her
imprisonment. These letters were conveyed to me in a ball of silk, and
all measures so prudently taken that the correspondence, though at last
suspected, was never found out entirely. I had already destroyed, in one
of my critical moments, all those she had written to me upon different
subjects before her confinement, nor was I sensible of the loss, as she
was still alive to repair it; but when I now reflect that she is no
more, and that her last pages, bathed with her tears, and painting in so
lively colours her resignation and her courage, are now lost for
posterity, I cannot but lament it as a public misfortune.
“But to return to my subject: the poor officer who had favoured my
correspondence with the Archbishop of Paris was soon called to an
account for the anonymous letter that had been put into the post under
his cover; and the affair being likely to take a very serious turn, not,
indeed, for him, as he could plead ignorance of the contents, but for
the author, whose existence in France could be no longer doubted, all my
friends joined in requesting I would retire without delay to some remote
province. I had only time to see my poor mother, whom I embraced for the
last time, and to provide, as well as the circumstances would permit,
for the government of the diocese. These two duties fulfilled, I got
into a carriage, and under the name of Essex I got off to Montigny,
where M. le Comte de Roche Chouart received me with the greatest
kindness in his castle.
“Here my first business was to write to the faithful agent of Madame
Elizabeth, giving her at full length my direction, in case she had any
silk balls to send me. This letter was directed to her house, and signed
‘Essex’; but no sooner was it put into the post office than I was
informed that the very person to whom I wrote had been arrested a few
days ago, after I had left Paris, _for favouring a clandestine
correspondence of one of the royal prisoners_; and also that a friend of
mine, being cited before the Comité de Salut Public, and questioned
about the letter I had written to the Archbishop, had inadvertently
discovered the name under which I was endeavouring to conceal my
existence. This was fatal indeed; for the letter I had just cast into
the post office, being directed to a prisoner, must, of course, go to
the Comité de Salut Public; and there the Comité found, without further
inquiry, not only my handwriting to compare it with that of the
anonymous letter written to the Archbishop, but my name full at length,
and every means of discovering me, given by myself. I leave you to
judge, my dear Ussher, into what perplexity I was cast by this accident.
But Providence looked down upon my distress; and after a whole week
spent in the most cruel anxiety, I at last had news from the person
herself, informing me that the affair had been hushed up, and that my
letter had got safe.
“I pass over in silence many incidents of less importance which I met
with during the four months I spent with M. de Roche Chouart. I must now
relate the circumstance which obliged me to fly, and to seek for safer
concealment. The Comité de Salut Public having got hold of the name
under which I concealed myself in France, caused an article, relative to
I know not what correspondence, supposed to have existed between Louis
XVI. and the King of Prussia, to be inserted in the public papers. The
article was insignificant in itself; but the author, in order to obtain
more credit for his story, took care to tell the public that he was
indebted for the anecdote to Mr. Essex, the last friend to Louis
XVI.--Mr. Essex, a person who must have been informed of all that had
passed. This paper came to Montigny, where I was publicly known, and was
there reputed to be an English gentleman of small fortune, travelling
for his private business, or for his health; but this resemblance of
names, and I know not what in my person, when nicely viewed, that
betrayed a clergyman, soon gave rise to other thoughts. During the first
days I paid but little attention to what was whispered about, hoping
that the author and the anecdote would soon be forgotten; but as I was
thus endeavouring to tranquillise myself, a man advanced in years, and
of most noble appearance, came up to the castle, and inquired for Mr.
Essex; he was introduced, and, all witnesses being removed, he said,
‘Sir, your existence in this house is no secret to the public, nor has
it hitherto occasioned the least suspicion, as you had not been supposed
to be a man of importance; but a paragraph inserted lately in the papers
is now the subject of all conversation, and all eyes in the
neighbourhood are fixed upon you. Be so good as to read the article, and
if in it you behold your own features, oh! my dear sir, give leave to a
man who was your friend before he had the honour of seeing you, to
request of you to provide for your own safety by a timely flight, for
here you will be infallibly arrested.’
“This unexpected visit gave me, as you may believe, much alarm. I
thanked the gentleman in the warmest terms, and, after holding counsel
with the few friends I had made in that part of France, it was
unanimously resolved that I must fly with all speed, and seek for
shelter in some other place. I pitched upon Fontainebleau as one of the
quietest spots in France; there I had neither friends nor acquaintances,
except a lady whom I had never seen but once. Apprised of my arrival,
she flew to my assistance; her credit, her purse, her servants--all were
at my disposal, and my own mother could not have done more for me than
she did during my stay in that place; but, unfortunately, it was not
long, for an order was issued to arrest all foreigners, and for me
arrestation was certain death. I therefore was obliged once more to seek
for safety in some other spot. The Baron Lézardière, who never lost
sight of me amidst my distresses, had an old servant--a man of uncommon
resolution and prudence. Him he despatched to protect me in my flight.
We both fell into the hands of an armed troop appointed to examine all
travellers, and to take up all those whom they might suspect; but the
fierce and bold countenance of my companion got me off, and, thanks to
his zeal, I arrived, without accident, at Bayeux, in Normandy, two
hundred miles from Paris.
“There I had it in my power to get off to England, as the coasts were
but ill-guarded. But Madame Elizabeth was still alive, and if she should
be exposed to danger, I was resolved to keep my word, and to be her
friend to the last, let the consequences be what they would for myself.
Hence I stopped at Bayeux, and took up my lodging in a poor hut, where I
lay unnoticed; nobody suspected that a man of any importance could be
lodged in so dismal a place. Soon after, the Baron de Lézardière, hunted
from town to town, came to join me in this hole, with his three
daughters and his younger son, and there we remained eighteen months,
almost forgotten. He was still in opulence when he arrived; but his
castle being burned to the ground, all his lands seized, and most of his
friends destroyed by the guillotine, he soon fell into poverty, so I
became his only resource. My friends, who were numerous, and some of
them still wealthy, seeing me in this situation, came on all sides to my
assistance, and with the supplies I received from them (without my ever
asking), and the little I received from you, I have had the happiness to
maintain, not, indeed, in opulence, but still above want, one of the
most respectable families in France.
“Our solitude, indeed, was daily bathed with our tears (though otherwise
comfortable enough); for there my poor Baron, after the loss of all he
possessed in this world, was apprised of the death of his two sons,
young men of the greatest merit (a third had been murdered in the
prisons of Paris, and the fourth is actually under trial for his life).
Soon afterwards he received the shocking news of his four sisters being
shot on the same day, as they were flying in the fields to avoid
something worse. On my side, it was in the same solitude that I received
the fatal news of my poor mother being arrested, and of her soon sinking
under her grief; that my sister was torn from her, and conducted from
prison to prison, partly on my account; and finally, that Madame
Elizabeth, the glory of religion and the idol of France, had fallen a
victim to the cruel policy of our tyrants, at a moment when I least
expected it. I must confess that this last blow went to my very heart,
almost as much as the loss of my dear mother, for she often called upon
me; but she was no more when I first heard of her being taken from the
Temple. Only sixteen hours elapsed between her being brought to judgment
and her death, and my only consolation ever since has been to think
that, had I been in Paris, I could have been of no service to her, as
nobody even suspected on that day that she was in the fatal cart.
“No sooner had I been informed of her death than I resolved to leave
France. It was now a duty to fly, as it had been one to remain as long
as she was in existence; for a few days before her imprisonment she had
entrusted me with her last will (by word of mouth), and requested I
would execute it in person whenever I should hear of her death. It is to
perform this duty that I am now in London, and as soon as I close this
letter I set off for Edinburgh.”
The abbé started immediately for Edinburgh to carry out the commands of
the Princess Elizabeth--in other words, to communicate to the legitimate
King of France her last wishes, which she had entrusted to him “by word
of mouth.” The Abbé Edgeworth stayed about a week at Edinburgh,
returning to London in September, 1796. Soon after his return Mr. Pitt
desired to see him, and had a long interview with him at Lord
Liverpool’s office. When the interview was concluded, Mr. Pitt informed
him that his Majesty intended to settle a pension upon him for life. The
abbé expressed his gratitude for the intended honour. But next day he
wrote to Lord Liverpool, and in the most polite and grateful terms
begged to decline the pension so graciously offered to him. “He could
not think of adding,” he said, “to the expenses which the Government had
already incurred in providing for such a number of French emigrants.”
During the three months that the abbé spent in London he received marks
of high respect and of kind attention from persons of the most
distinguished character in England; and from all classes he had proofs
of the generous feeling of the British public. The polished yet simple
manners of the Abbé Edgeworth now attached to his person those who had
begun by admiring his character. It became the fashion to invite him
everywhere, and such, indeed, was the general eagerness to see and hear
him that, had he complied with this desire, he must have lived in
public. Had he felt within him any latent love of celebrity, or of
popular applause, it would now have appeared, and been fully gratified.
But he did not care for fame; he withdrew as much as possible from
notice, and lived in retirement with a few private friends.
[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF CHAMBORD.]
“His brother and his other relations in Ireland were most anxious to see
him, and to welcome to their country one who had brought them so much
honour. The abbé, in compliance with their entreaties, was actually
preparing to set out on his journey to Ireland, when he was stopped and
all his views were altered by the arrival of Mlle. de Lézardière from
France, charged with despatches of importance for Louis XVIII. Mlle. de
Lézardière had undertaken to deliver the papers to her brother, who was
to carry them to the King of France. His Majesty was at this time at
Blanckenberg. It happened that M. de Lézardière had left London and had
gone on other business to his Majesty. Mlle. de Lézardière therefore
applied to the Abbé Edgeworth as the only person whom she could venture
to entrust with a confidential mission of so much importance. Had the
abbé hesitated he would have been decided by a message delivered to him
with the following letter from the king:--
“I have heard, sir, with extreme satisfaction, that you have at last
escaped from all the dangers to which your devoted attachment to my
brother has exposed you. I sincerely thank Providence for having
preserved in you one of his most faithful ministers, and the trusty
friend who received the last thoughts of a brother whose death I shall
ever deplore--whose memory will ever be venerated by Frenchmen; of a
martyr whose triumph you have been the first to proclaim, and whose
virtues will, I trust, be at some future day consecrated by the Church.
Your miraculous preservation makes me hope that God has not yet
abandoned France. He has without doubt ordained that an unimpeachable
witness should attest to all Frenchmen the love with which their king
was ever animated towards them; so that, knowing the extent of their
loss, their grief may not be confined to mere lamentations, but that
they may throw themselves into the arms of their heavenly Father and
receive from Him the only alleviation of which their sorrow is
susceptible. I therefore exhort you, sir, or rather, I entreat, in the
most earnest manner, that you will collect and publish all the
particulars you can, consistently with your holy office.
“That will be the finest monument that I can erect to the best of kings
and the most beloved of brothers.
“I should wish, sir, to give you solid proofs of my profound esteem, but
I can only offer you my admiration and my gratitude. These are the
sentiments most worthy of you.
“LOUIS.”
Soon after the establishment of the royal family of France at Mittau,
the Emperor Paul wished to confer the order of St. Alexander upon Louis
XVIII. He sent for the Abbé Edgeworth to receive the insignia from his
hands and to convey them to his royal master, who, in return, presented
the Order of the Holy Ghost to the emperor.
When the Abbé Edgeworth arrived at the Court of Russia, Paul was so much
struck by his venerable appearance, that he prostrated himself before
him and implored his blessing. He presented the abbé with his picture
set in diamonds, and settled upon him a pension of 500 roubles a year.
The picture the Abbé Edgeworth laid at the feet of his king; the pension
he divided with the poor.
In the spring of the year 1807, Bonaparte directed the arms of France
against the dominions of Russia. During the course of this year it
happened that some French soldiers, who had been taken prisoners, were
sent to Mittau. Though they had borne arms against the House of Bourbon,
yet, in the true spirit of Christian forgiveness, their errors were
forgotten by Louis XVIII. The Abbé Edgeworth went, with his Majesty’s
permission, to attend them and give them all the comforts which humanity
could procure, and all the consolation which religion could bestow. A
contagious fever raged among the prisoners, and of this the venerable
abbé was aware. But he persevered in his visits and would not abandon
those who had no earthly hope but in him. Day and night he continued his
attendance, assisted by his faithful servant Bousset, who emulated the
virtues of his master. The Abbé Edgeworth caught the fever. His
constitution had previously been weakened by ill-health and mental
suffering. At length, submitting to the force of disease, he was obliged
to desist from all further exercise of his charitable and pious
functions. On the 17th of May, 1807, he was confined to the bed from
which he never afterwards rose. When the daughter of Louis XVI. heard
that the abbé was taken ill, she declared that she would go immediately
and see this friend of her family. All her attendants represented to her
the danger of infection, and used every argument and entreaty to prevail
upon her not to run such a hazard, but in vain. “The less he knows of
his own wants,” said the princess, “the more he stands in need of a
friend; and if every human being were to fly from him in this contagion,
I should never forsake one who is more than my friend: the unalterable,
disinterested friend of my family, who has left kindred and
country--all! all for us! Nothing shall withhold my personal attendance
on the Abbé Edgeworth. I ask no one to accompany me.”
The princess attended the death-bed of the Abbé Edgeworth, administered
medicine to him with her own hands, and received his dying breath. This
is here recorded, not to do honour to the Abbé Edgeworth, but to do
justice to human nature and the gratitude of princes--a virtue whose
existence would not, perhaps, have so often been doubted if there had
been more examples of attachment as disinterested, sincere, and steady
as that which, beyond possibility of doubt, was manifested by him whose
life was the best proof at once of his loyalty and his faith.
The abbé died on the 22nd of May, 1807, the fifth day after he had been
taken ill. The court of Louis XVIII. went into mourning for him. The
Duke and Duchess of Angoulême, the Archbishop of Rheims, and all the
nobility of the court, attended his funeral. His epitaph was written by
King Louis XVIII.
Many of the émigrés--who, without being banished, felt it necessary,
like the Abbé Edgeworth, to fly for their own safety--applied for
permission to return to France under the first Directory, and
afterwards, in greater numbers, under the Consulate. Bonaparte, who had
now conquered the Revolution, was only too anxious to obtain the support
of the old French nobility, and did his best to make them accept him in
the position he had conquered. But as the great majority of the ancient
nobility, the former inhabitants of the Faubourg St. Germain, stayed
abroad, Napoleon, on becoming emperor, created a new nobility, choosing
its members among his most successful generals and high officials. In
1814, and again in 1815, the Faubourg St. Germain was once more
inhabited, and until the downfall of Charles X. in 1830 the ancient
nobility seemed to have resumed its position in France. It was not
always possible to restore the estates which had been confiscated; but
large pecuniary allowances had been made to those who had suffered by
the confiscation. In 1830 a number of new peers were created by King
Louis Philippe, who, unable to count on the Legitimists of the Faubourg
St. Germain, felt it necessary to improvise a nobility of his own. There
was now in France a Legitimist nobility, an Orleanist nobility, and a
nobility which owed its origin to the creations of Napoleon I.
After the _coup d’état_ of 1851, and the establishment of the Second
Empire, Napoleon III., without in any way discountenancing the old
nobility of pre-revolutionary France or the new nobility of Louis
Philippe’s creation, could not but show favour to the nobility of
Napoleonic origin, whose numbers he increased by creations of his own.
After the calamities of 1870 and 1871, the Faubourg looked forward to
the restoration of the ancient monarchy, and ardently hoped to see the
throne occupied by the Count of Chambord, though there were now two
aspirants to the crown: the Count of Chambord on the part of the elder
branch of the Bourbons, and the Count of Paris as representing the
younger or Orleanist branch.
The Castle of Chambord, which gave its name to the representative of the
elder branch of the Bourbons, was originally a family possession of the
Duke of Orleans; and it was not until the close of the fifteenth
century, when Louis, Duke of Orleans, became, under the name of Louis
XII., King of France, that it passed to the Crown. As yet, however, it
was merely an ordinary manor-house; and it received nothing like its
present shape until the reign of Francis I., who turned it into a
palace. The rebuilding is said to have occupied nearly two thousand
workmen for the space of twelve years. During the latter part of his
life Francis often lived in the newly built château, whose magnificent
halls he embellished with the finest works of art. It was on one of the
windows of the castle that, after patiently listening to an apology made
by his sister Marguerite for the alleged weakness of her sex, he is said
(on good authority) to have written with a diamond the famous distich:
“Toute femme varie
Bien fol qui s’y fie.”
These lines are usually given, “Souvent femme varie,” etc. Such, indeed,
is the version adopted by the author of _Le Roi s’Amuse_--in the
situation where, in Verdi’s operatic arrangement of Victor Hugo’s play,
the canzone “La donna è mobile” occurs. “Toute femme varie” seems too
absolute. The calumnious verses were, in any case, according to the
legend on the subject, scratched out by order of Louis XIV., who found
that they annoyed Mlle. de la Vallière.
Henry II. inherited all the taste of Francis for the Castle of Chambord,
to which he made several additions, including a stately staircase in the
western court, where the armorial bearings of his mistress Diana, a
crowned H and a crescent, are seen in company with his own device:
“Donec totum impleat orbem.” It was at Chambord that this sovereign
ratified, in 1552, the treaty which he had concluded the year before at
Fontainebleau with the Protestant princes of Germany. Charles IX.
repaired and adorned the castle, though to no very great extent, owing
to the failure of his resources. The modest Louis XIII. was frequently
at Chambord; and historians say that during one of his stays there Mlle.
de Hautefort put a love-letter under his collar; when, afraid to touch
it with his fingers, he removed it by means of the tongs. Louis XIV.
cared little for the castle, which, magnificent as it was, fell far
short of the splendour with which he loved to be surrounded. He gave,
however, several grand fêtes at Chambord, and witnessed there the first
performance of two of Molière’s plays--one of them _Le Bourgeois
Gentilhomme_.
After the battle of Fontenoy, in 1745, Chambord was presented by Louis
XV. to Maurice de Saxe; but it was not until three years later, on the
conclusion of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, that the Marshal took up his
abode at the castle. He constructed barracks there for two regiments of
Uhlans, and established in the park a stud of Russian horses, which,
though they roamed just where they liked, would at sound of trumpet come
galloping up, as if of their own accord, for drill. Within the castle
Maurice de Saxe lived amid almost regal pomp. When not occupied with
military duties he gave himself up to pleasure. Mdme. Favart, for whom
he had conceived a violent passion, often performed before him at
Chambord.
[Illustration: PORTE AUX POMMES: FRUIT-BOATS ON THE SEINE.]
When the Revolution broke out Chambord had long since gone back to the
Crown. The Republican Government, not knowing what to do with such an
edifice, thought of demolishing it, but happily abandoned the barbarous
idea. The furniture, however, and the works of art were sold by auction;
and the escutcheons and other ensigns of royalty on various parts of the
building would have been effaced had not the architect called in to
estimate the cost of the work asked too large a sum.
Napoleon thought several times of restoring the castle. After dethroning
Charles V. of Spain, he wished to present it in a habitable state to the
ex-King, but found that the expense of repairing and refurnishing it
would be far more than he could afford. In 1809 Chambord was made into a
principality, with the title of “Principality of Wagram,” and was given,
with an endowment of 500,000 francs a year, to Marshal Berthier. The
allowance was, in part at least, to be expended on furniture and on the
more pressing repairs. In the reign of Louis XVIII., the endowment
having ceased, the Princess of Wagram obtained the royal permission to
alienate a possession which had become burdensome; and soon after, at
the Count de Calonne’s suggestion, it was bought by public subscription
and bestowed as a dependency on the posthumous son of the Duke of
Berry--“Duke of Bordeaux,” as he was in the first instance called. This
provoked the ire of many Liberals, and notably of Paul-Louis Courier,
who wrote a very energetic pamphlet on the subject. He dwelt much on the
bad effect which would probably be produced on the heir to the throne by
living in the midst of so many memorials of the depravity of his
forefathers. “At Chambord,” he asked, “what will the Duke learn? The
place is full of his ancestors, and for that reason alone it would
hardly be fit for him. I would rather he lived among us than among
them. There, too, are the faces of a Diana and a Chateaubriand, whose
names of ill-repute still sully the walls of the castle. Interpreters to
explain the emblems will, doubtless, not be wanting to the Duke; and
what instruction for a child destined one day to reign!” The pamphlet
obtained for its author two months’ imprisonment.
In 1828 the Duchess of Berry took possession of the castle in her son’s
name. It was her desire to restore it to its former state, but this has
yet to be done. The Castle of Chambord has never since its first
construction been adequately repaired, and it is now said to be on the
point of falling into general ruin.
[Illustration: PORTE AUX POMMES.]
It might have been thought that after the death of the Count of
Chambord, the Count of Paris, who now became the true heir to the French
throne, would have been acknowledged not only by all his relatives, but
by the Legitimist party, equally with the Orleanists. But the will by
which the Count of Chambord left a large sum of money to two Italian
representatives--Count Bardi and the Duke of Parma--without making any
mention of the Count of Paris, was yet another indication of the little
cordiality felt by the Bourbons of the elder branch for the grandson of
Louis Philippe, the great-grandson of Philippe Égalité. The reasons
which animated the Countess of Chambord in her opposition to the Count
of Paris do not demand long consideration. Possibly she was vexed at the
scanty assistance given by the Count of Paris to the head of the family
in 1871, and again in 1873; and it is a fact, in any case, that the
Count of Paris did not attend the Count of Chambord’s funeral. This
abstention was due to the Countess of Chambord’s strange decision that
her husband’s foreign relatives should be regarded as nearer to him than
his French kinsman, who, moreover, by the Count of Chambord’s death
would become the legitimate heir to the French throne. Don Carlos, as
representative of the Spanish Bourbons, was, it is true, more nearly
related to the Count of Chambord than the Count of Paris as representing
the Orleans family, just as much, indeed, as sixth cousins are more
nearly related than eighth cousins. But the Bourbon prince who, at the
beginning of the last century, ascended the Spanish throne lost, in
doing so, his character of Frenchman, just as the offshoots from the
Spanish Bourbons, on becoming established in Naples and in Parma, lost
their Spanish character. It is well, even in connection with such lofty
subjects as the divine right to rule, not to lose sight of practical
considerations; and one can imagine no possible combination of
circumstances under which the French would consent to be ruled either by
a Spaniard or by an Italian. To argue in the present day that a foreign
prince who is descended from Louis XIV. has therefore a better title to
reign in France than a French prince who can only boast of a collateral
relationship with that sovereign, but who is himself the grandson of a
French king, is to attach strange importance to a mere theory spun to
suit the occasion. Such a theory may have harmonised with the Countess
of Chambord’s private prejudices. But to state it is enough to show its
weakness. If for one moment, and simply to conform to the arbitrary
arrangements of a funeral pageant, the Count of Paris could have
recognised it, he would by doing so have shown himself unworthy of all
confidence. It is better for him to have broken altogether with the
unrecognised claimants and dispossessed occupiers of foreign thrones
than to remain their ally at the cost of such sacrifices as were
demanded from him. King Louis Philippe, in his last instructions to his
grandson, laid no stress upon the principle of descent, but called upon
him to be above all “of his own time and of France.” The shadowy
potentates to whom the Count of Paris was invited to submit himself at
Frohsdorf are as far removed from France by their nationality as from
the present time by their ideas.
The fault, however, charged against the Count of Paris by the late Count
of Chambord is as nothing compared to the offence of which his
grandfather, Louis Philippe, is held to have been guilty; which, again,
cannot be likened for atrocity to the crime committed by Louis
Philippe’s father, Philippe Égalité.
When, in 1873, there was a prospect of a Royalist restoration, the Count
of Paris, according to the Countess of Chambord, speaking as with the
voice of her late husband, did not give the Count the support which he
had a right to expect; and the Count of Chambord seems, in particular,
to have complained to the Countess that the Count of Paris had refused
to accept the white flag--“the flag of Ivry,” as the Count of Chambord
called it, unmindful, it would seem, of the fact that Ivry was a victory
gained by one French army over another, and by Protestants over
Catholics. The important point, however, in the eyes of the Count of
Chambord, was that the grandson of Louis Philippe, the great-grandson of
Philippe Égalité, stuck to the Revolutionary tricolour, and declined to
return to the flag of the ancient monarchy. The grandson of a usurper
and great-grandson of a regicide could have no claim, then, either in
the past or in the present, to represent a line of kings towards which
the grandfather had played the part of a betrayer and the
great-grandfather that of a murderer.
If the Count of Chambord’s widow, remembering her husband’s last
instructions, disavows Louis Philippe’s grandson, his mother, the
Duchess of Berry, disavowed Louis Philippe, and even organised against
him an armed rebellion. Thus, while Louis Philippe was hated as an enemy
both by the grandfather and by the mother of the Count of Chambord, his
father was worse than the enemy of the Count of Chambord’s great-uncle,
Louis XVI. The Count of Chambord must naturally have inherited something
of the horror and hatred with which the Orleans family, in one or other
of its members, was regarded successively by Louis XVI., Charles X., and
the Count’s own mother, the Duchess of Berry.