CHAPTER XLII

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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.

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