CHANTILLY DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
No sooner had Chantilly been deserted by its owners than a detachment of
the National Guard of Paris was sent down to the Château. The
twenty-seven cannons were first seized: then all the arms found were
taken away; and finally the whole property was confiscated. Next a band
of six hundred soldiers arrived, devastated the place, and removed what
they pleased. Fortunately, the art-treasures did not attract them, as is
proved by the _Inventory_ made in 1793 of the pictures and furniture
then at Chantilly--a document which took forty days and cost 2,130
francs to draw up.
Throughout the period of the Revolution the Château at Chantilly was
used as a prison for political offenders; and the first arrivals were
forty-one persons from Beauvais,[15] amongst whom were M. des Courtils
de Merlemont, Knight of St. Louis, with his wife and son. On the road
thither they were deliberately exposed to the insults of the mob, but
they escaped the execution which they anticipated. Arriving at two
o'clock in the morning, they were thrust into the Chapel, but later on
they were lodged in the Château itself, which had been already
demolished to such a degree that none of the rooms were wind or weather
tight.
The moats had been allowed to dry up, so that they began to exhale
unwholesome odours; and the number of sick persons amongst the prisoners
soon amounted to over three hundred. The corpse of a young woman, who
was the first to die, was transported on the back of the concierge to
one of the still-existing chapels on the Pelouse built by Madeleine de
Savoie, wife of Anne de Montmorency. Amongst the prisoners was the
Duchesse de Duras, daughter of Philippe de Noailles, who had defended to
the last the person of Louis XVI, and who, in consequence, ended his
life on the scaffold. In some notes descriptive of her misfortunes, her
arrival at Chantilly is most dramatically related: "We were first locked
up in the chapel, which was still elaborately gilded, and where in the
days of the Condés I had often heard Mass. It was now filled with sacks
of flour, on one of which I took my seat, whilst the Commissioner
mounted upon the altar. He was accompanied by one Marchand, whom I
recognised as the son of my aunt's chambermaid. This vulgar man
concentrated all the insolence of the Committee of Public Safety. He
derived much pleasure from saying rude and insulting things regarding
the nobles and the clergy, and even expressed a wish that I should be
lodged as uncomfortably as possible." Fortunately he departed soon
after this speech and the Commissioner, more humane, apportioned to the
Duchess one of the better rooms. From her window she could see into the
courtyard, and she descried many of her acquaintances amongst the
prisoners and their children there assembled. She describes the food as
scanty and of very poor quality. They dined in the gallery, where she
could remember the brilliant fêtes given by Prince Louis Joseph de Condé
not so long before.
The death-rate amongst the prisoners, to whom even the most necessary
relief was denied, after a few months became so great that Chantilly had
to be entirely evacuated; and it was then proposed that it should be
used as a military hospital--a proposal which was, however, not carried
out. Subsequently the Château d'Enghien[16] was converted into barracks,
whilst Chantilly with its woods and parks found purchasers amongst the
Black Band, who were then buying up the castles and palaces of the hated
aristocrats with the sole purpose of demolishing them and profiting by
just what could be got out of them as building material, etc. Of the
so-called Grand Château, erected by Mansart during the time of the Grand
Condé, nothing remained but the foundations; for it was razed entirely
to the ground. The adjoining Petit Château of the Montmorencys, however,
as already stated, miraculously escaped.
Under Napoleon I, Chantilly in 1805 became the property of the State,
but the revenue of its woods was assigned to Queen Hortense, who also
figures upon the list of the owners of this famous estate. A military
school was presently established in the Château d'Enghien, and the
magnificent stables were once again devoted to their proper uses.
Meanwhile Prince Louis Joseph de Condé since he left France had
sojourned with the Elector at Worms, as Commander of the army of the
French _emigrés_, whilst the Comte d'Artois had formed his camp at
Coblenz. The former subsequently found a refuge for his family and his
regiment with the Tsar Paul; but eventually, when he saw that he could
no longer serve France and his King, he retired with his son to Wanstead
House, near Wimbledon. Over the doorway of this most attractive abode
the Seigneur of Chantilly inscribed the motto "_Parva domus magna
quies_."
Here he married as his second wife Marie Catherine de Brignole, the
widowed Princess of Monaco, who had long been his constant and faithful
friend, especially during his exile. She shared with him his literary
and artistic interests, and she put her whole fortune at his disposition
when he was in need. His daughter, Louise de Condé, after many
vicissitudes, at last found quiet and rest in a Benedictine convent,
where she took the veil. In 1807 she received a terrible shock when the
news reached her of the tragic death of her beloved nephew, the Duc
d'Enghien, and she felt it to be her duty to leave her seclusion and
proceed at once to condole with her father and brother in their
overwhelming sorrow. She started immediately for England, where she was
received on landing with Royal honours: Pitt, Lord Moore, and the two
surviving Condé Princes coming to meet her.
The execution of the Duc d'Enghien has left a stain on Napoleon's
character; it was not only a crime, but what was worse, it was a
blunder; for d'Enghien at the time of his arrest was living in strictest
seclusion at Ettenheim in Baden with the Princesse Charlotte de Rohan,
to whom he was deeply attached, and, it was said, had married. He was
therefore absolutely innocent of the conspiracy against the Republic, of
which he was accused; and it is affirmed that it was only because
Bonaparte could not get hold of the legitimate Princes--Artois and
Berry--whose claims to the throne of France he grudged and feared, that
he took his revenge upon the Duc d'Enghien. He had tried in vain to
entrap these Princes, and failing committed this act of personal revenge
on the eve of proclaiming himself Emperor, in order to frighten the
Royalists, who, as he declared, were continually conspiring against him.
When this dastardly murder became known there was a cry of indignation
all over Europe. The Russian Court went into mourning, and Napoleon
found it necessary to lay the blame upon Talleyrand and Murat. The grief
of the unhappy father at the loss of his only son and the last scion of
his race was so great that he became a prey to chronic melancholy; but
Louis Joseph, the grandfather, strove bravely to live down his anguish.
More than twelve years had still to elapse before their exile was ended,
and then, for a brief period, on the collapse of the Napoleonic Empire,
the Bourbon Monarchy was restored in France. At last, in 1815, the two
Condés returned to Chantilly from England and found the old place, with
the exception of the Petit Château, which they henceforth made their
chief abode, a pile of ruins, and themselves almost strangers. The
Princess of Monaco had died in England; and the Duc d'Enghien, upon whom
all hope had centred, had been ruthlessly slain. In spite of all these
misfortunes Louis Joseph remained faithful to the old home and began to
repurchase his former possessions acre by acre. Some portions of the
property had passed into alien hands; as, for instance, the site of the
great waterfall, which had been separated from the original grounds by a
wall. One of the alterations made at this time was the filling in of the
moat, which hitherto had divided the smaller from the larger Château;
and later the present Entrance-Hall was built on that site, whilst two
new rooms decorated in the style of the period were added where the
covered bridges had formerly stood. These new buildings gave access to
the rooms formerly occupied by the Grand Condé, which, by a strange
piece of luck, the Revolutionists had not demolished. The old Prince
held these apartments in high honour; and they were the first to be
redecorated and exquisitely panelled. During the four remaining years of
his life he was continually occupied in restoring his ancestral palace
to that dignity which he remembered so well in the past. He also
succeeded in recovering the larger number of the works of art which the
Montmorencys and the Condés had accumulated, not only at Chantilly but
also at Ecouen and the Palais Bourbon in Paris. Most of these treasures
had fortunately fallen into good hands, for during the worst horrors of
the Revolution there had been men in France who had succeeded in
preserving the art treasures belonging to the old family mansions which
their proprietors had been compelled to abandon. Alexander Lenoir was
one of these faithful guardians, and it is certainly due to his efforts
that so many of these monuments and works of art in France were not
destroyed. Conspicuous amongst them were the valuable collections at
Chantilly.
But after the long exile of the owners no more entertainments were held
at Chantilly such as had been given so lavishly in happier days. After
the great reverses which Louis Joseph and his son had undergone they
seemed to indulge in one pleasure only, namely, that of the chase--the
single luxury which they allowed themselves. They kept a splendid pack
of hounds--the descendants of which still survive and are lodged in a
corner of the great stables--and in spite of his great age the Prince
himself appeared on horseback almost daily; often alone, but sometimes
accompanied by his son, and hunted until quite late in the afternoon.
Though past his eightieth year, he still had vigour enough, even on his
return from a day's hunting, to shoot the wild duck which abounded in
the moats. He died at Chantilly in his eighty-second year during the
absence of both his son and his daughter, and was buried at Saint-Denis.
As a true Condé he was very imperious and held strong opinions of his
own: but he was tenaciously faithful in his friendships; and it was, no
doubt, this fidelity to the Royal cause which characterised his conduct
during the Revolution, and made him sacrifice everything rather than
give up his Royalist principles.
His son, the Duc de Bourbon, had not the iron nature of his father. He
refused to take the title of Prince de Condé on his father's death,
since he knew that this title must die with him. He, who had begun life
under such happy auspices, long before his death became a broken man.
His wife, the Duchesse de Bourbon, Louise Marie Thérèse Bathilde of
Orléans to whom he became reconciled after a long separation, died
suddenly whilst attending a patronal festival at Saint-Geneviève. She
fainted whilst at her devotions, and on being transported to the
Sorbonne died before her husband could be summoned. Her favourite
nephew, the Duc d'Orléans--afterwards King Louis Philippe--was the only
member of her family present when she expired.
It was at about that time that Louis Philippe's fifth son was born--a
child who eventually became the last Seigneur of Chantilly. He was held
at the baptismal font by the last Condé, who from this time formed a
great affection for his godson. He used to walk with him in the grounds
of Chantilly and narrate to him all the memorable events which had taken
place in this ancestral abode; and Henri d'Orléans, then but seven years
old, would listen with the greatest attention, and long after remembered
the colloquies held with his princely sponsor and benefactor--the last
of the line of Condé. He thus refers to him: "When recalling my
childhood, I picture to myself M. le Duc de Bourbon, dressed in his
habitual grey coat, white silk stockings, and light shoes, walking about
in the grounds of Chantilly on cold December days. Leaning on his stick
he would sometimes stand still and relate to me what had happened in
years gone by at the old place; how he had known it in its splendour
during his youth; and how all these sad changes had come upon it. He
loved to recall also the grand festivities given by his father to King
Louis XV, to Marie Antoinette, and to the Emperor and Empress Paul of
Russia."
[Illustration: PLATE XVIII.
LOUIS HENRI JOSEPH DE BOURBON, LAST PRINCE DE CONDÉ.
_Musée Condé._
Danloux]
In 1830 Marie Amélie, Queen of Louis Philippe of France, visited
Chantilly with her son, Prince Henri d'Orléans, and was received by the
last of the Condés. A fortnight later the news was brought there that
this princely line had come to an end. It has been alleged that the
unfortunate liaison which the Duke had contracted with a heartless
and low-born woman--one Sophie Dawes, the daughter of a fisherman in
the Isle of Wight, and known as the Baronne de Feuchères--contributed
greatly to embitter the last days of his life. After pocketing all she
could, Madame de Feuchères on the death of the Duke left for England
rather suddenly, and from that time was heard of no more.
Louise, Princesse de Condé, died several years before her brother at the
Temple as Prioress of the Benedictine Nuns. She had borne with much
fortitude great trials; for during the Revolution she had to flee from
place to place for safety, until she found at last a shelter within the
walls of a convent--thus fulfilling the prophetic words of her friend,
Gervaisais, "_C'est un front à porter une couronne ... ou un voile de
religieuse_."