Objections and Answers—Chiappini’s Ignorance—Name of the Maker
of the Exchange—Prolonged Pregnancy—Absence from Paris—Motive
of the Second Journey—Birth of the Duc de Montpensier and
the Comte de Beaujolais—Letter dated from Turin—Apparent
Contradictions—Virtues of the Duchess.
In setting forth the strong arguments in my own favour, I have also
considered those that might be urged against me, and I hasten to answer
them.
1st. “In his letter Chiappini said that I was born in a position almost
similar to, but still lower than that given me by my marriage to Lord
Newborough. Yet how great a difference between them! How superior was
the first to the second, if I really had the honour of belonging to the
august house of Orleans.”
This mistake can be corrected in a few words.
Every one must see how extremely important it was to guard against any
indiscretion on the part of the jailer, perhaps even such involuntary
revelations as his pride in the lofty position of his son might draw from
him.
Every sort of precaution, therefore, was taken to keep him in ignorance
of the exalted rank of the Sieur de Joinville, whom he never knew but as
a rich nobleman simply bearing the title of Count, a title so common in
Italy that no one pays any attention to it, so to speak.
It was by this title he must have called my true father, in order to do
away with milord’s constant suspicions, when he came to London; and my
husband, knowing more about the French nobility than he did, and having
a notion that I might have its blood in my veins, gave me his commands,
then so inconceivable, to avoid the great people of that nation,[56]
fearing, no doubt, that some unlooked-for circumstance might let me
discover my origin through them, which would infallibly have parted
me for ever from him whose only means of overcoming my insurmountable
repugnance was his perpetual references to the low estate from which he
claimed to have raised me.
2nd. “Does it not seem strange that the Duc de Chartres, anxious to
consign an atrocious crime to everlasting oblivion, should have assumed
a name belonging to his family, and one so easily recognizable?”
There is nothing to prove that when he first came to live at Modigliana,
under the name of Comte de Joinville, he had formed the fatal plan.
Perhaps the simultaneous pregnancy of his wife and Chiappini’s may have
really given him the first idea.
[Illustration: LOUIS-PHILIPPE, KING OF FRANCE]
But let us suppose, as is more probable, that this hateful plan had been
long made; how could he know what were the decrees of Providence?
The Duchess might just as well be about to give him a boy as a girl. In
that case, it would have been made public at once; Bishops, Cardinals,
the Pope himself, would have been informed of it; a courier would have
been dispatched to Versailles; the Prince and Princess would have excused
themselves at Court by saying that the reason of their secret journey
was to go to invoke the Virgin of Loretto for the granting of a happy
_accouchement_, which they had believed would not take place for some
months yet. Therefore a name not belonging to their family would not only
have made them look foolish, but might have led to their being accused of
falsehood, or have even given rise to legitimate suspicions.
3rd. “Why, even admitting the substitution, should the birth of the
supposed Prince not have been immediately made public? Why bring back to
France the reputed mother with the false appearances of a pregnancy which
was made to last some months longer?”
An invincible sense of shame must necessarily have prevented a course
which would infallibly have been taken in the absence of all fraud, under
the hypothesis of deceit.
Not only was self-betrayal to be dreaded, but some possible imprudent
talker; and after that there would be no way of concealing a secret that
the mere inspection of the infants must reveal to the least skilful
physiognomists.
The correctness of this conjecture was suddenly proved by experience;
there is some indiscreet talk, and, in spite of the determined silence
of the interested party, a little more and all would have been
discovered.[57]
Hence a thousand anxieties, a thousand cares;[58] hence the absolute
necessity of having recourse to expedients and thinking out new
stratagems; and hence, above all, the very natural idea of putting a long
interval between the real and the fictitious accouchement, so as to stop
tongues, and, if need arose, to fall back upon the difference in dates.
4th. “Is it absolutely certain that the accused Prince and Princess were
absent from Paris at the time of the exchange? The papers of the day seem
to show the contrary. Do they not report that the Duke was in the Chapel
Royal on April 8, being Holy Thursday; that, on the 13th of the following
May, he accompanied his Majesty to the great review of the troops on the
Plain of Sablons, and that in the month of June of that same year the
Duchess was seen at the opera?”
We could, no doubt, content ourselves with sending our readers back to
the unimpeachable testimony which has already vouched for the actual
fact,[59] without taking the trouble to reconcile it with the vague and
often incorrect assertions of many newspapers; but, for the sake of
fuller proof, we are willing to discuss the matter briefly.
As to the Duchess, it is incontestable that her absences after the
10th of October, 1771, were so lengthy and so mysterious that certain
historians, not knowing how to account for them, have maintained that
she stayed at the waters of Forges during two consecutive years; while
several eye-witnesses still living testify that she spent there only two
of what they call their seasons, of about three weeks each.
It was on the 16th of June, exactly two months after my birth[60]—a time
quite long enough for her return—that she was first seen at the opera.
Monseigneur the Dauphin and Madame la Dauphine were expected; and the
_Duchess de Chartres_, says a writer, “_had taken care to be in her box
before the arrival of the august couple_; so much was she in doubt as to
their demeanour towards her.”[61]
It is equally well known that the Duke was not in Paris towards the end
of May 1773, and that, failing him, recourse had to be had to the Princes
of the house of Condé to appear at the funeral-service for the King of
Sardinia celebrated at Notre-Dame.
The list of assistants at the Holy Thursday ceremonies and at the Sablons
review ought to be looked upon as mere official etiquette rather than
historical and accurate reports of events; the constant uniformity during
a long series of years to be noted is a convincing proof of this.
And even admitting that the Duc de Chartres was actually in Paris on Holy
Thursday 1773, what does that prove?
At most that he was not at Modigliana the following Friday, the day of my
birth.
But this, far from being against me, becomes, in a fashion, a presumption
in my favour, as being absolutely in accordance with the deposition of
the sisters Bandini, who swore to having seen the Sieur Joinville before
and after the exchange, but said nothing of his being there on the day it
was made.
What they said about that fatal day related to the Borghi family, the
two children, the two mothers, even to Chiappini; the Comte alone is not
mentioned.[62]
It might well be believed, then, that, the better to deceive inquiry,
after having sealed his infamous compact, he went back to Court to
perform his usual function at that sacred solemnity;[63] and, as he was
an expert traveller, and even able to drive a chariot himself, it would
have been still possible for him to start at once for the Apennines and
get back there during the five weeks between the 8th of April and the
13th of May.
5th. “Supposing the Duke and Duchess of Chartres to have been the
perpetrators of this abominable traffic, would the Duchess have returned
to Italy three years later? Would she have reappeared under the same name
of Comtesse Joinville and with such a display of luxury and magnificence?”
Although at the time the Prince and Princess must have suffered from
grave fears, they had, nevertheless, ground for hoping that influence and
money would, if necessary, be able to stifle the accusing voices of a few
poor and timid witnesses.
But could they be certain of equally good luck in the future?
Therefore it was necessary to think of and provide for everything. Well,
what more efficacious and advantageous way of doing this was there than
to put people on a wrong scent by confusing the dates? And supposing that
some unlucky echoes of the old rumours at Brisighella and Ravenna[64]
were still to be heard, what more likely to destroy them than boldness
and bravado? What more plausible, deluding and beguiling than a visit
in state after so short a lapse of time, a procedure which our opposers
think so improbable?
In this matter we feel that the objection absolutely contradicts itself.
Let us examine it in detail.
Nature does not easily give up its rights; it makes itself heard even in
the hardest hearts, and the heart of a mother cannot possibly remain deaf
to its mighty voice.
Therefore the Duchess’s whole mind is drawn and attracted to the spot
that holds the first-fruit of her maternity, and there is born in her the
ardent desire to turn her steps thither.
Despite _convenances_, despite obstacles, despite a thousand objections,
this desire must needs find fulfilment, with these two remarkable
circumstances: _i.e._[65] the first, that the Duke seems to have
consented to his wife’s request, only on the condition that she would
bind herself in a very special fashion to keeping the secret inviolable
by becoming a Freemason;[66] the second, that the arrival of the Princess
at Florence exactly coincides with the time when great influence must
have been used with regard to Chiappini, who was not only suddenly called
to fill a more honourable and lucrative post, but was admitted to some
sort of intimacy with his sovereign, who was good enough also to take a
quite wonderful interest in me.[67]
Among the patrimonial estates belonging to the Orleans family, that of
Joinville was the finest;[68] it was therefore the most natural name
to take for an incognito; to choose another might possibly serve to
increase the King’s displeasure and to awake dangerous suspicions.
Moreover, the correct pronunciation of the word is so strange to Italian
lips that it was hardly probable that the wretched inhabitants of
Modigliana would recognize it by the mere reading of the newspapers,
which the greater number of them never saw.[69]
Finally, if Madame de Chartres displayed such magnificence and brilliancy
in the places she condescended to visit, it was only to put every one on
the wrong scent and the better to convince them that she had absolutely
nothing to do with the simple and retiring lady so few people had seen
some years earlier.
6th. “Supposing that Louis-Philippe-Joseph had determined on the
substitution before his wife had given him a male child, would not the
subsequent births of the Duc de Montpensier and the Comte de Beaujolais
have induced him to make every effort to return the substituted child to
its real position?”
But, admitting in our turn the possibility of such a reparation, there
was always time enough to carry it out; and it was expedient to make sure
if the two first would live long; for, from their earliest years alarming
symptoms must have given rise to very sad and, alas! but too true
forebodings,[70] while the health of their _elder brother_ was so assured
and excellent that there was no need for fear about him.