Part 4
Married, on the 10th of June, 1799, to the daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, the Duke of Angouleme had no children; but though the sterilty of his wife was an affliction, he never complained of it. He was not known to have either favorites or mistresses. The life of this descendant of Louis XIV. and of Louis XV. was purity itself. There were neither scandals nor intrigues about him. By nature irascible and obstinate, he had modified this tendency of his character by reason and still more by religion. Assiduous in his duties, without arrogance or vanity, regarding his role as Prince as a mission given him by Providence, which he wished to fulfil conscientiously, he had not the slightest mental reservation in favor of restoring the old regime, and showed, perhaps, more favor to the lieutenants of Napoleon than to the officers of the army of Conde, his companions in arms. To sum up, he was not an attractive prince, but he merited respect. The Count of Puymaigre thus concludes the portrait traced by him:--
"The manner, bearing, and gestures of the Duke of Angouleme cannot be called gracious, especially in contrast with his father's manners; doubtless it is not fair to ask that a prince, any more than another, should be favored by nature, but it is much to be desired that he shall have an air of superiority. The ruling taste of the Dauphin was for the chase. He also read much and gave much time to the personnel of the army. Retiring early, he arose every morning at five o'clock, and lighted his own fire. Far from having anything to complain of in him, I could only congratulate myself on his kindness."
The Dauphiness, Marie-Theresa-Charlotte of France, Duchess of Angouleme, born at Versailles the 19th of December, 1778, was forty-five years old when her uncle and father-in-law, Charles X., ascended the throne. She was surrounded by universal veneration. She was regarded, and with reason, as a veritable saint, and by all parties was declared to be sans peur et sans reproche.
The Duchess of Angouleme, shunning the notoriety sought by other princesses, preferred her oratory to the salons. Yet her devotion had nothing mean or narrow in it. Despite the legendary catastrophes that weighed upon her, she always appeared at fetes where her presence was demanded. She laughed with good heart at the theatre, and there was nothing morose or ascetic in her conversation. She never spoke of her misfortunes. One day she was pitying a young girl who suffered from chilblains. "I know what it is," she said; "I have had them." Then she added, without other comment: "True, the winters were very severe at that time." She did not wish to say that she had had these chilblains while a prisoner in the Temple, when fuel was refused to her.
But if the Princess never spoke of herself, she never ceased to think of the martyrs for whom she wept. At the Tuileries, she occupied the Pavillon de l'Horloge and the Pavillon de Flore, the first floor apartments that had been her mother's. She used for her own a little salon hung with white velvet sown with marguerite lilies. This tapestry was the work of the unhappy Queen and of Madame Elisabeth. In the same room was a stool on which Louis XVII. had languished and suffered. It served as prie-dieu to the Orphan of the Temple. There was in this stool a drawer where she had put away the remaining relics of her parents: the black silk vest and white cravat worn by Louis XVI. the day of his death; a lace bonnet of Marie Antoinette, the last work done by the Queen in her prison of the Conciergerie, which Robespierre had had taken from her on the pretext that the widow of the Christian King might kill herself with her needle or with a lace-string; finally some fragments of the fichu which the wind raised from the shoulders of Madame Elisabeth when the angelic Princess was already on the scaffold. The Dauphiness, who usually dined with the King, dined alone on the 21st of January and the 16th of October. She shut herself in the chamber where she had collected these relics and passed the whole day and evening there in prayer.
The charity of the pious Princess was inexhaustible. Almost all her revenue was expended in alms. She would not have receipts signed by those to whom she distributed relief. "The duty of givers," she said, "is to forget their gifts and the names of those who receive them; it is for those who receive to remember." Nor did she ever ask the political opinions of those she relieved. To be unfortunate, sufficed to excite her interest. One day Sister Rosalie, charged by the Princess with paying a pension to a man whose ill conduct she had discovered, thought it her duty to notify the benefactress, and suspend the succor. "My sister," replied the Dauphiness, "continue to pay this man his pension. We must be charitable to the good that they may persevere, and to the bad that they may become better." Sunday, when the Princess did no work, she passed the evening in detaching the wax seals from letters and envelopes. This wax, converted into sticks, produced one thousand francs a year, which she sent to a poor family. She gave much, but only to Frenchmen and Frenchwomen. She replied to every demand for aid for foreigners that she was sorry not to comply with the request, but she should feel that she was doing an injustice to give to others while there was a single Frenchman in need. On each anniversary of mourning she doubled her alms.
The existence of the Dauphiness at the Tuileries passed with extreme regularity. A very early riser, like her husband, she made her toilet herself, having learned to help herself in her captivity in the Temple. She used to breakfast at six o'clock, and at seven daily attended the first Mass in the chapel of the Chateau. There was a second at nine o'clock for the Dauphin, and a third at eleven for the King. From eight to eleven she held audiences. She retired at ten o'clock, and only prolonged the evening to eleven when, she visited the Duchess of Berry, for whom she had a great affection, and whose children she saw two or three times a day. A devoted companion of Charles X., she always went with him to the various royal chateaux. The Count of Puy maigre says in his Souvenirs:--
"The Dauphiness having by her kindness accustomed me to speaking freely, I used this privilege without embarrassment, but always observing that measure which keeps a man of good society within just limits, equally careful not to put himself ridiculously at ease and not to be so abashed by exaggerated respect as to become insipid. I have always thought that a princess no more than any other woman likes to be bored. I talked much with her in the carriage, seeking to amuse the Princess with a few anecdotes, and I did not fear to discuss serious things with her, on which she expressed her self with real sagacity. When she was accused of want of tact in the numerous receptions of which one had to undergo the monotony, it was often the fault of her immediate companions, who neglected to give her suitable information as to the various persons received. How many times I have hinted to her to speak to some devoted man, who regarded a word from the Princess as a signal favor, to yield to requests, perhaps untimely, to visit some establishment, to receive the humble petitions of a mayor, a cure, or a municipal council. I will not deny that she had a sort of brusqueness,
## partly due to an exceedingly high voice, and moments of ill humor,
transient no doubt, but which nevertheless left a painful impression on those who were subjected to them. Madame the Dauphiness made no mistake as to the state of France; she was not the dupe of the obsequiousness of certain men of the court, and merit was certain to obtain her support whether it had been manifested under the old or the new regime; but she had not the influence she was supposed to have, and I doubt if she tried to acquire it."
One day the Princess was talking to the Prefect of the Oise about the great noblemen who had possessions in the Department.
"Have they any influence over the people?" she asked him.
"No, Madame, and it is their own fault. M. de La Rochefoucauld is the only one who is popular, but his influence is against you. As to the others, greedy of the benefits of the court, they come to their estates only to save money, to regulate their accounts with their managers, and the people, receiving no mark of their interest, acknowledge no obligation to them."
"You are perfectly right," replied the Dauphiness, "that is not the way with the English aristocracy."
"She saw with pain," adds M. de Puymaigre, "the marriages for money made by certain men of the court, but not when they allied themselves with an honorable plebeian family; her indignation was justly shown toward those who took their wives in families whose coveted riches came from an impure source."
The extraordinary catastrophes that had fallen on the daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette had been a great experience for her, and she was not surprised at the recantations of the courtiers. The Hundred Days had, perhaps, suggested even more reflections to her than her captivity in the Temple or her early exile. She could not forget how, in 1815, she had been abandoned by officers who, but the day before, had offered her such protestations and such vows. In the midst of present prosperity she had a sort of instinct of future adversity. Something told her that she was not done with sorrow, and that the cup of bitterness was not drained to the dregs. While every one about her contemplated the future with serene confidence, she reflected on the extreme mobility of the French character, and still distrusted inconstant fortune. The morrow of the birth of the Duke of Bordeaux one of her household said to her:--
"Your Highness was very happy yesterday."
"Yes, very happy yesterday," responded the daughter of Louis XVI., "but to-day I am reflecting on the destiny of this child."
To any one inclined to be deceived by the illusions of the prestige surrounding the accession of Charles X., it ought to have sufficed to cast a glance on the austere countenance of the Orphan of the Temple, to be recalled to the tragic reality of things. The King had for his niece and daughter-in-law an affection blended with compassion and respect. The pious and revered Princess gave to the court a character of gravity and sanctity.
VII
MADAME
The Duchess of Angouleme and the Duchess of Berry lived on the best of terms, showing toward each other a lively sympathy. Yet there was little analogy between their characters, and the two Princesses might even be said to form a complete contrast, one representing the grave side, the other the smiling side of the court.
Born November 7, 1798, and a widow since February 14, 1820, Madame (as the Duchess of Berry was called after the Duchess of Angouleme became Dauphiness) was but twenty-five when her father-in-law, Charles X., ascended the throne. She was certainly not pretty, but there was in her something seductive and captivating. The vivacity of her manner, her spontaneous conversation, her ardor, her animation, her youth, gave her charm. Educated at the court of her grandfather, Ferdinand, King of Naples, who carried bonhomie and familiarity to exaggeration, and lived in the company of peasants and lazzaroni, she had a horror of pretension and conceit. Her child-like physiognomy had a certain playful and rebellious expression; slightly indecorous speech did not displease her. This idol of the aristocracy was simple and jovial, mingling in her conversation Gallic salt and Neapolitan gaiety. In contrast with so many princesses who weary their companions and are wearied by them, she amused herself and others. Entering a family celebrated by its legendary catastrophes, she had lost nothing of the playfulness which was the essence of her nature. The Tuileries, the scene of such terrible dramas, did not inspire her as it did the Duchess of Angouleme, with sad reflections. When she heard Mass in the Chapel of the Chateau, she did not say to herself that here had resounded the furies of the Convention. The grand apartments, the court of the Carrousel, the garden, could not recall to her the terrible scenes of the 20th of June and the 10th of August. When she entered the Pavillon de Flore, she did not reflect that there had sat the Committee of Public Safety. The Tuileries were, to her eyes, only the abode of power and pleasure, an agreeable and beautiful dwelling that had brought her only happiness, since there she had given birth to the Child of Europe, the "Child of Miracle."
The Duchess of Berry thought that a palace should be neither a barracks nor a convent nor a prison, and that even for a princess there is no happiness without liberty. She loved to go out without an escort, to take walks, to visit the shops, to go to the little theatres, to make country parties. She was like a bird in a gilded cage, which often escapes and returns with pleasure only because it has escaped. She was neither worn out nor blasee; everything interested her, everything made her gay; she saw only the good side of things. In her all was young--mind, character, imagination, heart. Thus she knew none of those vague disquietudes, that causeless melancholy, that unreasoned sadness, from which suffer so many queens and so many princesses on the steps of a throne.
Gracious and simple in her manners, modest in her bearing, more inclined to laughter and smiles than to sobs and tears, satisfied with her lot despite her widowhood, she felt happy in being a princess, in being a mother, in being in France. Flattered by the homage addressed to her on all sides, but without haughty pride in it, she protected art and letters with out pedantry, rejuvenated the court, embellished the city, spread animation wherever she was seen, and appeared to the people like a seductive enchantress. Those who were at her receptions found themselves not in the presence of a coldly and solemnly majestic princess, but of an accomplished mistress of the house bent on making her salon agreeable to her guests. There was in her nothing to abash, and by her gracious aspect, her extreme affability, she knew how to put those with whom she talked at their ease, while wholly preserving her own rank. She was not only polite, she was engaging, always seeking to say something flattering or kindly to those who had the honor to approach her. If she visited a studio, she congratulated the artist; in a shop she made many purchases and talked with the merchants with a grace more charming to them, perhaps, than even her extreme liberality. If she went to a theatre, she enjoyed herself like a child. The select little fetes given by her always had a character of special originality and gaiety.
The Dauphiness had a higher rank at court than Madame, because she was married to the heir of the throne. But as she took much less interest in social matters, she did not shine with so much eclat. The Duchess of Berry was the queen of elegance. In all questions of adornment, toilet, furniture, she set the fashion. A commission as "tradesman of Madame" was the dream of all the merchants. Sometimes, on New Year's Day, her purchases at the chief shops were announced in the Moniteur. There were hardly any chroniques in the journals under the Restoration. A simple "item" sufficed for an account of the most dazzling fetes. If the customs of the newspapers had been under the reign of Charles X. what they are now, the Duchess of Berry would have filled all the "society notes," and the objective point of every "reporter," to use an American expression, would have been the Pavillon de Marsan, the "Little Chateau," as it was then called. There indeed shone in all their splendor the stars of French and foreign nobility, the women who possessed all sorts of aristocracy--of birth, of fortune, of wit, and of beauty. This little circle of luxury and elegance excited less jealousy and less criticism than did the intimate society of Marie Antoinette in the last part of the old regime, because in the Queen's time, to frequent the Petit Trianon was the road to honors, while under Charles X. the intimates of the Pavillon de Marsan did not make their social pleasures the stepping-stone to fortune.
The Duchess of Berry never meddled in politics. Doubtless her sympathies, like those of the Dauphiness, were with the Right, but she exercised no influence on the appointment of ministers and functionaries. Charles X. never consulted her about public affairs; the idea would never have occurred to the old King to ask counsel of so young and inexperienced a woman.
It is but justice to the Princess to say that while wholly inclined toward the Right, she had none of the exaggeration of the extremists in either her ideas or her attitude, and that, repudiating the arrogance and prejudices of the past, she never, in any way, dreamed of the resurrection of the old regime. She was liked by the army, being known as a good rider and a courageous Princess. When she talked with officers she had the habit of saying things that went straight to their hearts. There was no difference in her politeness to the men of the old nobility or to the parvenus of victory. The former servitors of Napoleon were grateful for her friendliness to them, and perhaps they would always have respected the white flag--the flag of Henry IV., had it been borne by the gracious hand of his worthy descendant. To sum up, she was what would be called to-day a very "modern" Princess; her role might well have been to share the ideas and aspirations of the new France.
The Duchess of Berry led a very active life. When she came to France she was in the habit of rising late. But her husband, who believed the days to be shorter for princes than for other men, showed that he disliked this, and after that the Princess would not remain in bed after six o'clock, winter or summer. As soon as she was ready she summoned her children, and for half an hour gave them her instructions. On leaving them, she went to hear Mass, and then breakfasted. Next came the walks, almost always with a useful object in view. Sometimes it was a hospital to which Madame carried relief, some times an artist's studio, a shop, an industrial establishment that she encouraged by her purchases and her presence. On her return she busied herself with the tenderest and most conscientious care in the education of the two daughters whom her husband had left to her, and who have since become, one the Baroness of Chorette, the other the Princess of Lucinge. Audiences took up the remainder of the morning, sometimes lasting to dinner time. When some one said to her one day that she must be very tired of them, she replied: "During all that time I am told the truth, and I find as much pleasure in hearing it as people of society do in reading romances."
Madame was very charitable. She devoted to the poor an ordinary and an extraordinary budget. The tenth of her revenue was always applied to the relief of the unfortunate, and was deposited by twelfths, each month, with her First Almoner. This tithe was distributed with as much method as sagacity. A valet de chambre, each evening, brought to the Princess the day's petitions for relief. Madame classified them with her own hand in alphabetical order, and registered and numbered them. Whatever the hour, she never adjourned this task to the morrow. The private secretary then went over these petitions and presented an analysis of them to the Princess, who indicated on the margin what she wished to give. This was the ordinary budget of the poor, the tenth of Madame's revenue. But she had, besides, an extraordinary budget of charity for the unfortunate who were the more to be respected because they concealed themselves in obscurity and awaited instead of seeking help. It often happened that the Princess borrowed in order to give more. The total of her revenues amounted to 1,730,000 francs,--1,500,000 francs from the Treasury, 100,000 francs in Naples funds, coming from her dower, and 130,000 francs from her domain of Rosny. Madame expended all in alms or in purchases intended to encourage the arts and commerce.
The Duchess of Angouleme and the Duchess of Berry each had in the environs of Paris a pleasure house, which was their Petit Trianon, where they could lead a simpler life, less subject to the laws of etiquette than in the royal Chateaux. That of the Dauphiness was Villeneuve-l'Etang; and that of Madame, Rosny. The first had been bought of Marshal Soult by the Duchess of Angouleme in 1821. When she rode from Paris, this was always her destination. When she lived at Saint Cloud, she often set out on foot in the early morning alone, and followed across the park a little path known as the "road of the Dauphiness," to a little gate of the Chateau of Villeneuve-l'Etang, of which she carried the key.
Rosny is a chateau situated in the Department of Seine-et-Oise, seven kilometres from Mantes, where Sully, the famous minister of Henry IV., was born, and which had been bought in 1818 by the Duke of Berry. It was the favorite resort of Madame. She went there often and passed a great part of the summer. There she lived the life of a simple private person, receiving herself those who came to offer homage or request aid. The village of Rosny profited by the liberality of the Chateau, La Quotidienne said in an article reproduced by the Moniteur:--
"Since Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Berry has owned the estate of Rosny, her sole occupation has been to secure the happiness of this country. Every journey she makes is marked by some act of goodness. Besides the Hospital of Saint-Charles, a monument of her beneficence and piety, which is open to all the sick of the country, she sends out relief to the homes of the needy every day. The houses that rise in the village replace wretched huts, and give a more agreeable and cheerful aspect to the place. The children of either sex, the object of her most tender solicitude, are taught at her expense. At every journey Madame honors them with a visit and encourages them with prizes which she condescends to distribute herself."
In his Souvenirs Intimes the Count de Mesnard, First Equerry of the Duchess of Berry, writes:--
"The King, Charles X., did not recognize in his daughter-in-law nearly the solidity that she had. He believed her to be light-minded, and only looked upon her as a great child, though he loved her much and her gaiety pleased him beyond measure, being himself of a gay nature. You may have heard that one day Madame rode in an omnibus. That is not correct. But it is true that one day Her Royal Highness said to the King:--