Part 8

In 1832, when the Duchess of Berry was imprisoned in the citadel of Blaye, her former lady of honor asked, without being able to obtain that favor, the privilege of sharing her captivity. The Duchess of Reggio to the last set an example of devotion and of all the virtues. She was so gracious and affable that one day some one remarked: "When the Duchess gives you advice, it seems as if she were asking a service of you." When the noble lady died, April 18th, 1868, at Bar-le-Duc, where her good works and her intelligent charity had made her beloved, they wished to give her name to one of the streets of the city, and as they already had the Rue Oudinot and the Place Reggio, one of the streets was called the Rue de La Marechale.

The lady of the bedchamber of the Duchess of Berry and her lady companions all belonged to the old aristocracy. The Countess of Noailles, lady of the bedchamber, a woman full of intelligence, and very beautiful, a mother worthy of all praise, was the daughter of the Duke de Talleyrand, the niece of the Prince de Talleyrand, the wife of Count Just de Noailles, second son of the Prince of Poix.

The Duchess of Berry had eight lady companions: the Countess of Bouille, the Countess d'Hautefort, the Marchioness of Bethisy, the Marchioness of Gourgues, the Countess of Casteja, the Countess of Rosanbo, the Marchioness of Podenas; and three whose title was honorary, the Marchioness of Lauriston, the Countess Charles de Gontaut, and the Countess de La Rochejaquelein.

The Countess of Bouille, who at the time of the coronation of Charles X. was about forty years old, was a creole, very agreeable and much respected.

The Countess d'Hautefort, nee Maille-Latour-Landry, forty-one years old, married to a colonel who belonged to the fourth company of the bodyguards, was a woman of much intelligence, charmingly natural, and an excellent musician. She shared in 1832 the captivity of the Duchess of Berry.

Very distinguished in manner and sentiment as in birth, the Marchioness Charles de Bethisy, married to a lieutenant-general and peer of France; the Countess of Gourgues, nee Montboissier, married to a master of requests, a deputy; the Countess of Mefflay, a young and charming woman, daughter of the Countess of Latour, whom the Duchess of Berry had as governess in the Two Sicilies, and wife of the Count Meffray, receiver-general of Gers; the Viscountess of Casteja, daughter of the Marquis of Bombelles, major-general, ambassador of Louis XVI. at Lisbon and Vienna, then priest, Canon of Breslau, Bishop of Amiens, First Almoner of the Duchess of Berry (he died in 1822, and one of his sons, Charles de Bombelles, married morganatically the Empress Marie-Louise, in 1833); the Countess of Rosanbo, daughter of the Count of Mesnard; the Marchioness of Podenas, wife of a lieutenant-colonel; the Marchioness of Lauriston, wife of the marshal, formerly lady of the palace to the Empress Josephine and the Empress Marie-Louise; the Countess Charles de Gontaut, whose husband was chamberlain of the Emperor, a very young and very pretty woman, remarkable for the vivacity of her mind; the Countess de La Rochejaquelein, nee Duras, a very pious and very charitable woman, whose husband was a major-general. In fact, the circle around the Duchess of Berry was perfection. The greatest ladies of France were by her side, and the society of the Petit Chateau, as the Pavilion de Marsan was called, was certainly fitted to give the tone to the principal salons of Paris.

The Duchess of Berry had as chevalier d'honneur a great lord, very learned, known for his unchangeable devotion to royalty, the Duke de Sevis (born in 1755, died in 1830). The Duke, who emigrated and was wounded at Quiberon, held himself apart during the Empire, and published highly esteemed writings on finance, some Memoirs, and a Recueil de Souvenirs et Portraits. He was a peer of France and member of the French Academy. For adjunct to the chevalier d'honneur, the Duchess had the Count Emmanuel de Brissac, one of the finest characters of the court, married to a Montmorency.

Her first equerry was the Count Charles de Mesnard, a Vendean gentleman of proven devotion. The Count Charles de Mesnard was born at Lugon, in 1769, the same year as Napoleon, whose fellow-pupil he was at Brienne. Belonging to one of those old houses of simple gentlemen who have the antiquity of the greatest races, he was son of a major-general who distinguished himself in the Seven Years War, and who at the close of the old regime was gentleman of the chamber of the Count of Provence (Louis XVIII.), and captain of the Guards of the Gate of this Prince. He emigrated, and served in the ranks of the army of Conde, with his older brother, the Count Edouard de Mesnard, married to Mademoiselle de Caumont-Laforce, daughter of the former governess of the children of the Count d'Artois (Charles X.), and sister of the Countess of Balbi. The Count Edouard de Mesnard, having entered Paris secretly, was shot there as emigre, October 27th, 1797, despite all the efforts of the wife of General Bonaparte to save him. When he was going to his death, his eyes met, on the boulevard, those of one of his friends, the Marquis of Galard, who had returned with him secretly. The condemned man had the presence of mind to seem not to recognize the passer-by, and the latter was saved, as he himself related with emotion sixty years afterward.

At the commencement of the Empire, the Count Charles de Mesnard was living at London, where he was reduced to gaining his living by copying music, when the Emperor offered to restore his confiscated property if he would come to France and unite with the new regime. The Count of Mesnard preferred to remain in England near the Duke of Berry, who showed great affection for him. The Restoration compensated the faithful companion of exile. He was a peer of France and Charles X. treated him as a friend. He had married, during the Emigration, an English lady, Mrs. Sarah Mason, widow of General Blondell, by whom he had a daughter, Aglae, who was named a lady companion to the Duchess of Berry, at the time of her marriage, in 1825, with the Count Ludovic de Rosanbo, and a son, Ferdinand, married in 1829, to Mademoiselle de Bellissen.

The Princess had for equerry-de-main, the Viscount d'Hanache; for honorary equerry, the Baron of Fontanes; for equerry porte-manteau, M. Gory. Her secretary of orders was the Marquis de Sassenay, who bore, besides, the title of Administrator of the Finances and Treasurer of Madame. He had under his orders a controller-general, M. Michals, who was of such integrity and devotion that when, after the Revolution of July, he presented himself at Holyrood to give in his accounts to the Duchess of Berry, she made him a present of her portrait.

There was not a private household in France where more order reigned than in that of Madame. The chief of each service,--the Duchess of Reggio, the Viscount Just de Noailles, the Count Emmanuel de Brissac, and the Count of Mesnard, presented his or her budget and arranged the expenditures in advance with the Princess. This budget being paid by twelfths before the 15th of the following month, she required to have submitted to her the receipts of the month past. This did not prevent Madame from being exceedingly generous. One day she learned that a poor woman had just brought three children into the world and knew not how to pay for three nurses, three layettes, three cradles. Instantly she wished to relieve her. But it was the end of the month; the money of all the services had been spent.

"Lend me something," she said to the controller-general of her household; "you will trust me; no one will trust this unfortunate woman."

As M. Nettement remarked: "The Duchess of Berry held it as a principle that princes should be like the sun which draws water from the streams only to return it in dew and rain. She considered her civil list as the property of all, administered by her. She was to be seen at all expositions and in all the shops, buying whatever was offered that was most remarkable. Sometimes she kept these purchases, sometimes she sent them to her family at Naples, Vienna, Madrid, and her letters used warmly to recommend in foreign cities whatever was useful or beautiful in France. She was thus in every way the Providence of the arts, of industry, and commerce."

To sum up, the household of the Duchess of Berry worked to perfection, and Madame, always affable and good, inspired a profound devotion in all about her.

XIII

THE PREPARATIONS FOR THE CORONATION

The coronation of Louis XVI. took place the 11th of June, 1775, and since that time there had been none. For Louis XVII. there was none but that of sorrow. Louis XVIII. had desired it eagerly, but he was not sufficiently strong or alert to bear the fatigue of a ceremony so long and complicated, and his infirmities would have been too evident beneath the vault of the ancient Cathedral of Rheims. An interval of fifty years--from 1775 to 1825--separated the coronation of Louis XVI. from that of his brother Charles X. How many things had passed in that half-century, one of the most fruitful in vicissitudes and catastrophes, one of the strangest and most troubled of which history has preserved the memory!

Chateaubriand, who, later, in his Memoires d'outretombe, so full of sadness and bitterness, was to speak of the coronation in a tone of scepticism verging on raillery, celebrated at the accession of Charles, in almost epic language, the merits of this traditional solemnity without which a "Very Christian King" was not yet completely King. In his pamphlet, Le roi est mort! Vive le roi! he conjured the new monarch to give to his crown this religious consecration. "Let us humbly supplicate Charles X. to imitate his ancestors," said the author of the Genie du Christianisme. "Thirty-two sovereigns of the third race have received the royal unction, that is to say, all the sovereigns of that race except Jean 1er, who died four days after his birth, Louis XVII., and Louis XVIII., on whom royalty fell, on one in the Tower of the Temple, on the other in a foreign land. The words of Adalberon, Archbishop of Rheims, on the subject of the coronation of Hugh Capet, are still true to-day. 'The coronation of the King of the French,' he says, 'is a public interest and not a private affair, Publica, sunt haec negotia, non privata.' May Charles X. deign to weigh these words, applied to the author of his race; in weeping for a brother, may he remember that he is King! The Chambers or the Deputies of the Chambers whom he may summon to Rheims in his suite, the magistrates who shall swell his cortege, the soldiers who shall surround his person, will feel the faith of religion and royalty strengthened in them by this imposing solemnity. Charles VII. created knights at his coronation; the first Christian King of the French, at his received baptism with four thousand of his companions in arms. In the same way Charles X. will at his coronation create more than one knight of the cause of legitimacy, and more than one Frenchman will there receive the baptism of fidelity."

Charles X. had no hesitation. This crowned representative of the union of the throne and the altar did not comprehend royalty without coronation. Not to receive the holy unction would have been for him a case of conscience, a sort of sacrilege. In opening the session of the Chambers in the Hall of the Guards at the Louvre, December 22d, 1824, he announced, amid general approval, the grand solemnity that was to take place at Rheims in the course of the following year. "I wish," he said, "the ceremony of my coronation to close the first session of my reign. You will attend, gentlemen, this august ceremony. There, prostrate at the foot of the same altar where Clovis received the holy unction, and in the presence of Him who judges peoples and kings, I shall renew the oath to maintain and to cause to be respected the institutions established by my brother; I shall thank Divine Providence for having deigned to use me to repair the last misfortunes of my people, and I shall pray Him to continue to protect this beautiful France that I am proud to govern."

If Napoleon, amid sceptical soldiers, former conventionnels, and former regicides, had easily secured the adoption of the idea of his coronation at Notre-Dame, by so much the more easy was it for Charles X. to obtain the adoption, by royalist France, of the project of his coronation at Rheims. "The King saw in this act," said Lamartine, "a real sacrament for the crown, the people a ceremony that carried its imagination back to the pomps of the past, politicians a concession to the court of Rome, claiming the investiture of kings, and a denial in fact of the principle, not formulated but latent since 1789, of the sovereignty of the people. But as a rule, there was no vehement discussion of an act generally considered as belonging to the etiquette of royalty, without importance for or against the institutions of the country. It was the fete of the accession to the throne--a luxury of the crown. The oaths to exterminate heretics, formerly taken by the kings of France at their coronation, were modified in concert with the court of Rome and the bishops. For these was substituted the oath to govern according to the Charter. Thus it was in reality a new consecration of liberty as well as of the crown." The French love pomp, ceremonies, spectacles. The idea of a consecration was not displeasing to them, and with rare exceptions, the Voltaireans themselves refrained from criticising the ceremony that was in the course of preparation. It soon became the subject of conversation on every side.

Six millions voted by the two Chambers for the expenses of the coronation, at the time that the civil list was regulated at the beginning of the reign, permitted the repairs required by the Cathedral of Rheims to be begun in January, 1825. The arches that had sunken, or threatened to do so, were strengthened; the ancient sculptured decorations were restored; the windows were completed; the fallen statues were raised. It was claimed that even the holy ampulla had been found, that miraculous oil, believed, according to the royal superstitions of former ages, to have been brought from heaven by a dove for the anointing of crowned heads. The Revolution thought that it had destroyed this relic forever. The 6th of October, 1793, a commissioner of the Convention, the representative of the people, Ruhl, had, in fact, publicly broken it on the pedestal of the statue of Louis XV. But it was related that faithful hands had succeeded in gathering some fragments of the phial as well as some particles of the balm contained in it. The 25th of January, 1819, the Abbe Seraine, who in 1793 was cure of Saint-Remi of Rheims, made the following declaration:--

"The 17th of October, 1793, M. Hourelle, then municipal officer and first warden of the parish of Saint-Remi, came to me and notified me, from the representative of the people, Ruhl, of the order to remit the reliquary containing the holy ampulla, to be broken. We resolved, M. Hourelle and I, since we could do no better, to take from the holy ampulla the greater part of the balm contained in it. We went to the Church of Saint-Remi; I withdrew the reliquary from the tomb of the saint, and bore it to the sacristy, where I opened it with the aid of small iron pincers. I found placed in the stomach of a dove of gold and gilded silver, covered with white enamel, having the beak and claws in red, the wings spread, a little phial of glass of reddish color about an inch and a half high corked with a piece of crimson damask. I examined this phial attentively in the light, and I perceived a great number of marks of a needle on the sides; then I took from a crimson velvet bag, embroidered with fleurs-de-lis in gold, the needle used at the time of the consecration of our kings, to extract the particles of balm, dried and clinging to the glass. I detached as many as possible, of which I took the larger part, and remitted the smaller to M. Hourelle."

The particles thus preserved were given into the hands of the Archbishop of Rheims, who gathered them in a new reliquary.

Sunday, the 22d of May, 1825, the day of the feast of the Pentecost, the Archbishop of Rheims assembled in a chapel of that city the metropolitan clergy, the principal authorities, and the persons who had contributed to the preservation of the particles of the precious relic, in order to proceed, in their presence, to the transfusion of those

## particles into the holy chrism, to be enclosed in a new phial. A

circumtantial report of this ceremony was prepared in duplicate.

"Thus," said the Moniteur, May 26, "there remains no doubt that the holy oil that will flow on the forehead of Charles X. in the solemnity of his consecration, is the same as that which, since Clovis, has consecrated the French monarchs."

The day of the consecration approached. The Mayor of Rheims, M. Ruinard de Brimont, had not a moment's rest. At the consecration of Louis XV., about four hundred lodgings had been marked with chalk. For that of Charles X. there were sixteen hundred, and those who placed them at the service of the administration asked no compensation. The 19th of May was begun the placing of the exterior decorations on the wooden porch erected in front of the door of the basilica. It harmonized so completely with the plan of the edifice that "at thirty toises," it seemed a part of the edifice. The centrings and the interior portieres of this porch presented to the view a canopy sown with fleurs-de-lis in the midst of which stood out the royal cipher and the crown of France, modelled in antique fashion. These decorations were continued from the portal along the beautiful gallery that led to the palace. The palace itself, whose apartments had been adorned and furnished with royal magnificence, was entered by a very elegant porch. The grand feasting-hall, with its Gothic architecture, its colored glass, its high chimney-piece covered with escutcheons and surmounted by a statue of Saint-Remi, its portraits of all the kings of France, was resplendent. Three tables were to be set in the royal feasting-hall,--that of the King, that of the Dauphiness, and that of the Duchess of Berry. A gallery enclosed in glass, where there was a table of one hundred and thirty covers, had been built as by enchantment. On leaving the feasting-hall, one entered the covered gallery, which, by a gentle incline, led to the Cathedral. This gallery was formed of twenty-four arcades of fifteen feet each, and joined at right angles the porch erected before the portal. By this arrangement the King could proceed on a level from his apartment to the Cathedral.

In the middle of the nave was erected a magnificent jube, where the throne of Charles X. was placed. The cornice of the Corinthian order was supported by twenty columns. At the four corners there were gilded angels. The summit was surmounted by a statue of Religion and an angel bearing the royal crown. This jube, glittering with gold, was placed about one hundred and fifty feet from the portal. There was a passage under it to reach the choir, and the ascent to it was by a staircase of thirty steps. As it was open, the King upon his throne could be seen from all parts of the basilica. At the end of the choir, to the right on entering, was the gallery of the Dauphiness and the Duchess of Berry; to the left, opposite, was that of the princes and princesses of the blood; lower, toward the jube, and also on the left, that of the ambassadors and strangers of distinction; by the side of the jube, the gallery of the first gentlemen of the chamber of the King. There were, moreover, two rows of galleries on each side of the nave. The sanctuary was beaming with gold. The pillars, surrounded with wainscoting, were covered with rich Gothic ornaments. Above each of the galleries was a portrait of a king of France seated on his throne; still higher, portraits of bishops and statues of the cities of France in niches. At the back, a platform had been constructed for the musicians of the Chapel of the King. The choir and the sanctuary were to be lighted by thirty-four grand chandeliers, besides the candelabra attached to each pillar.

Some days before the coronation, which excited the curiosity of all Europe, the city of Rheims was filled with a crowd of tourists. The streets and promenades of the city, usually so quiet, presented an extraordinary animation. There had been constructed a bazaar, tents, cafes, places for public games, and at the gates of the city there was a camp of ten thousand men. To visit this camp was a favorite excursion for the people and for strangers. The soldiers assembled each evening before their tents and sang hymns to the sovereign and the glory of the French arms. In the evening of the 22d of May, these military choruses were closed by the serment francais, sung by all voices. At the words "Let us swear to be faithful to Charles!" all heads were uncovered, and the soldiers waving their helmets and shakos in the air, cried over and again, "Long live the King!"

On May 24th, the King left Paris with the Dauphin. Before going to Rheims he stopped at the Chateau of Compiegne, where he remained until the 27th, amid receptions and fetes and hunts.

M. de Chateaubriand was already at Rheims. He wrote on May 26:--

"The King arrives day after to-morrow. He will be crowned Sunday, the 29th. I shall see him place upon his head a crown that no one dreamed of when I raised my voice in 1814. I write this page of my Memoirs in the room where I am forgotten amid the noise. This morning I visited Saint-Remi and the Cathedral decorated in colored paper. The only clear idea that I can have of this last edifice is from the decorations of the Jeanne d'Arc of Schiller, played at Berlin. The opera-scene painters showed me on the banks of the Spree, what the opera-scene painters on the banks of the Vesle hide from me. But I amused myself with the old races, from Clovis with his Franks and his legion come down from heaven, to Charles VII. with Jeanne d'Arc."

The writer, who some weeks earlier had expressed himself in terms so dithyrambic as to the consecration, now wrote as follows of this religious and monarchical solemnity:--