The new throne was sadly shaken by these events, added to discontents concerning the king's prudent policy of non-intervention in the attempted revolutions of other countries, which followed that of France in 1830 and 1831. The next very interesting event of this reign was the escapade and the discomfiture of the young Duchesse de Berri.
About the close of 1832, while France and all Europe were still experiencing the after-shocks which followed the Revolution of July, Marie Caroline, the Duchesse de Berri, planned at Holyrood a descent upon France in the interests of the Duc de Bordeaux, her son.[1] Had he reigned in consequence of the deaths of his grandfather and uncle, Charles X. and the Duc d'Angoulême, the duchess his mother was to have been regent during his minority. She regretted her inaction during the days of July, when, had she taken her son by the hand and presented him herself to the people, renouncing in his name and her own all ultra-Bourbon traditions and ideas, she might have saved the dynasty.
[Footnote 1: Louis Blanc and papers in "Figaro."]
Under the influence of this regret, and fired by the idea of becoming another Jeanne d'Albret, she urged her plans on Charles X., who decidedly disapproved of them; but "the idea of crossing the seas at the head of faithful paladins, of landing after the perils and adventures of an unpremeditated voyage in a country of knights-errant, of eluding by a thousand disguises the vigilance of enemies through whom she had to pass, of wandering, a devoted mother and a banished queen, from hamlet to hamlet and from château to château, appealing to human nature high and low on its romantic side, and at the end of a victorious conspiracy unfurling in France the ancient standard of the monarchy, was too dazzling not to attract a young, high-spirited woman, bold through her very ignorance, heroic through mere levity, able to endure anything but depression and ennui, and prepared to overbear all opposition with plausible platitudes about a mother's love."[1]
[Footnote 1: Louis Blanc, Histoire de Dix Ans.]
At last Charles X. consented to let her follow her own wishes; but he placed her under the guardianship of the Duc de Blancas. She set out through Holland and the Tyrol for Italy. She travelled incognita, of course. Charles Albert, of Sardinia, received her at Turin with great personal kindness, and lent her a million of francs,—which he borrowed from a nobleman of his court under pretence of paying the debts of his early manhood; but he was forced to request her to leave his dominions, and she took refuge with the Duke of Modena, who assigned her a palace at Massa, about three miles from the Mediterranean. A rising was to be made simultaneously in Southern France and in La Vendée. Lyons had just been agitated by a labor insurrection, and Marseilles was the first point at which it was intended to strike.
The Legitimists in France were divided into two parties. One, under Chateaubriand and Marshal Victor, the Duc de Bellune, wished to restore Henri V. only by parliamentary and legal victories; the other, favored by the court at Holyrood, was for an armed intervention of the Great Powers. The Duc de Blancas was considered its head.
The question of the invasion of France with foreign troops was excitedly argued at Massa. The duchess wished above all things to get rid of the tutelage of M. de Blancas, and she was disposed to favor, to a certain extent, the more moderate views of Chateaubriand. After endless quarrels she succeeded in sending off the duke to Holyrood, and was left to take her own way.
April 14, 1832, was fixed upon for leaving Massa. It was given out that the duchess, was going to Florence. At nightfall a carriage, containing the duchess, with two ladies and a gentleman of her suite, drove out of Massa and waited under the shadow of the city wall. While a footman was absorbing the attention of the coachman by giving him some minute, unnecessary orders, Madame (as they called the duchess) slipped out of the carriage door with one of her ladies, while two others, who were standing ready in the darkness, took their places. The carriage rolled away towards Florence, while Madame and her party, stealing along under the dark shadow of the city wall, made their way to the port, where a steamer was to take them on board.
That steamer was the "Carlo Alberto," a little vessel which had been already used by some republican conspirators, and had been purchased for the service of Marie Caroline. It had some of her most devoted adherents on board, but the captain was in ignorance. He thought himself bound for Genoa, and was inclined to disobey when his passengers ordered him to lay to off the harbor of Massa. However, they used force, and at three in the morning Marie Caroline, who was sleeping, wrapped in her cloak, upon the sand, was roused, put on board a little boat, and carried out to the steamer. She had a tempestuous passage of four days to Marseilles. The steamer ran out of coal, and had to put into Nice. At last, in a heavy sea which threatened to dash small craft to pieces, a fishing-boat approached the "Carlo Alberto," containing some of the duchess's most devoted friends. With great danger she was transferred to it, and was landed on the French coast. She scrambled up slippery and precipitous rocks, and reached a place of safety. But the delay in the arrival of her steamer had been fatal to her enterprise. A French gentleman in the secret had hired a small boat, and put out to sea in the storm to see if he could perceive the missing vessel. His conduct excited the suspicion of his crew, who talked about it at a wine-shop, where they met other sailors, who had their story to tell of a lady landed mysteriously a few hours before at a dangerous and lonely spot a few miles away. The two accounts soon reached the ears of the police, and Marseilles was on the alert, when a party of young men, with their swords drawn and waving white handkerchiefs, precipitated their enterprise, by appearing in the streets and striving to rouse the populace. They were arrested, as were also the passengers left on board the "Carlo Alberto,"—among them was a lady who deceived the police into a belief that she was the Duchesse de Bern.
Under cover of this mistake the duchess, finding that all hope was over in the southern provinces, resolved to cross France to La Vendée. At Massa she had had a dream. She thought the Duc de Bern had appeared to her and said: "You will not succeed in the South, but you will prosper in La Vendée."
She quitted the hut in which she had been concealed, made her way on foot through a forest, lost herself, and had to sleep in the vacant cabin of a woodcutter. The next night she passed under the roof of a republican, who respected her sex and would not betray her. She then reached the château of a Legitimist nobleman with the appropriate name of M. de Bonrecueil. Thence she started in the morning in a postchaise to cross all France along its public roads.
She accomplished her journey in safety, and fixed May 24, 1832, as the day for taking up arms. She made her headquarters at a Breton farm-house, Les Meliers. She wore the costume of a boy,—a peasant of La Vendée—and called herself Petit Pierre.
On May 21, three days before the date fixed upon for the rising, she was waited upon by the chiefs,—the men most likely to suffer in an abortive insurrection,—and was assured that the attempt would fail. Had the South risen, La Vendée would have gladly joined the insurrection; but unsupported by the South, the proposed enterprise was too rash a venture. Overpowered by these arguments and the persuasions of those around her, Marie Caroline gave way, and consented to return to Scotland with a passport that had been provided for her. But in the night she retracted her consent, and insisted that the rising should take place upon the 3d of June. She was obeyed; but what little prospect of success there might have been at first, was destroyed by the counter-order of May 22. All who rose were at once put down by the king's troops, and atrocities on both sides were committed.
Nantes, the capital city of La Vendée, was hostile to the duchess; in Nantes, therefore, she believed her enemies would never search for her. She took refuge there in the house of two elderly maiden ladies, the Demoiselles Duguigney, where she remained five months. They must have been months of anguish to her, and of unspeakable impatience. It is very possible that the Government did not care to find her. She was the queen's niece, and if captured what could be done with her? To set her free to hatch new plots would have been bitterly condemned by the republicans; to imprison her would have made an additional motive for royalist conspiracies; to execute her would have been impossible. Marie Caroline, however, had solved these difficult problems by her own misconduct.
Meantime the premiership of France passed into the hands of M. Thiers. A Jew—a Judas—named Deutz, came to him mysteriously, and bargained to deliver into his hands the Duchesse de Berri. Thiers, who had none of the pity felt for her by the Orleans family, closed with the offer. Some years before, Deutz had renounced his Jewish faith and pretended to turn Christian. Pope Gregory XVI. had patronized him, and had recommended him to the Duc de Berri as a confidential messenger. He had frequently carried despatches of importance, and knew that the duchess was in Nantes, but he did not know her hiding-place. He contrived to persuade her to grant him an interview. It took place at the Demoiselles Duguigney's house; but he was led to believe that she only used their residence for that purpose. With great difficulty he procured a second interview, in the course of which, having taken his measures beforehand, soldiers surrounded the house. Before they could enter it, word was brought to the duchess that she was betrayed. She fled from the room, and when the soldiers entered they could not find her. They were certain that she had not left the house. They broke everything to pieces, sounded the walls, ripped up the beds and furniture. Night came on, and troops were left in every chamber. In a large garret, where there was a wide fireplace, the soldiers collected some newspapers and light wood, and about midnight built a fire. Soon within the chimney a noise of kicking against an iron panel was heard, and voices cried: "Let us out,—we surrender!"
For sixteen hours the duchess and two friends had been imprisoned in a tiny hiding-place, separated from the hearth by a thin iron sliding-panel, which, when the soldiers lit their fire, had grown red hot. The gentleman of the party was already badly burned, and the women were nearly suffocated. The gendarmes kicked away the fire, the panel was pushed back, and the duchess, pale and fainting, came forth and surrendered. The commander of the troops was sent for. To him she said: "General, I confide myself to your honor." He answered, "Madame, you are under the safeguard of the honor of France."
This capture was a great embarrassment to the Government. Pity for the devoted mother, the persecuted princess, the brave, self-sacrificing woman, stirred thousands of hearts. The duchess was sent at once to an old château called Blaye, on the banks of the Gironde, the estuary formed by the junction of the Dordogne and the Garonne. Tradition said that the old castle had been built by the paladin Orlando (or Roland), and that he had been buried within its walls after he fell at Roncesvalles.
In this citadel the Duchesse de Berri was confined, with every precaution against escape or rescue; and the restraint and monotony of such a life soon told upon a woman of her character. She could play the heroine, acting well her part, with an admiring world for her audience; but "cabined, cribbed, confined" in an old, dilapidated castle, her courage and her health gave way. She was cheered, however, at first by Legitimist testimonies of devotion. Chateaubriand wrote her a memorable letter, imploring her, in the name of M. de Malesherbes, his ancestor who had defended Louis XVI., to let him undertake her defence, if she were brought to trial; but the reigning family of France had no wish to proceed to such an extremity. The duchess had not come of a stock in which all the women were sans reproche, like Marie Amélie. Her grandmother, Queen Caroline of Naples, the friend of Lady Hamilton and of Lord Nelson, had been notoriously a bad woman; her sister, Queen Christina of Spain, had made herself equally famous; and doubts had already been thrown on the legitimacy of the son of the duchess, the posthumous child of the Duc de Berri. The queen of France, who was almost a saint, had been fond of her young relative for her many engaging qualities; and what to do with her, in justice to France, was a difficult problem.
To the consternation and disgust of the Legitimists, the heroine of La Vendée dropped from her pedestal and sank into the mire. "She lost everything," says Louis Blanc,—"even the sympathy of the most ultra-partisans of the Bourbon dynasty; and she deserved the fate that overtook her. It was the sequel to the discovery of a terrible secret,—a secret whose publicity became a just punishment for her having, in pursuit of her own purposes, let loose on France the dogs of civil war."
In the midst of enthusiasm for her courage and pity for her fate, rose a rumor that the duchess would shortly give birth to a child. It was even so. The news fell like a blow on the hearts of the royalists. If she had made a clandestine, morganatic marriage, she had by the law of France forfeited her position as regent during her son's minority; she had forgotten his claims on her and those of France. If there was no marriage, she had degraded herself past all sympathy. At any rate, now she was harmless. The policy of the Government was manifestly to let her child be born at Blaye, and then send her to her Neapolitan home.
Her desire was to leave Blaye before her confinement. In vain she pleaded her health and a tendency to consumption. The Government sent physicians to Blaye, among them the doctor who had attended the duchess after the birth of the Duc de Bordeaux; for it insisted on having full proof of her disgrace before releasing her. But before this disgrace was announced in Paris, twelve ardent young Legitimists had bound themselves to fight twelve duels with twelve leading men of the opposite party, who might, if she were brought to trial, injure her cause. The first of these duels took place; Armand Carrel, the journalist, being the liberal champion, while M. Roux-Laborie fought for the duchess. The duel was with swords, and lasted three minutes. Twice Carrel wounded his adversary in the arm; but as he rushed on him the third time, he received a deep wound in the abdomen. The news spread through Paris. The prime minister, M. Thiers, sent his private secretary for authentic news of Carrel's state. The attendants refused to allow the wounded man to be disturbed. "Let him see me," said Carrel; "for I have a favor to ask of M. Thiers,—that he will let no proceedings be taken against M. Roux-Laborie."
Government after this became anxious to quench the loyalty of the Duchesse de Berri's defenders as soon and as effectually as possible. The duel with Armand Carrel was fought Feb. 2, 1833; on the 22d of February General Bugeaud, commander of the fortress of Blaye, received from the duchess the following declaration:—
Under the pressure of circumstances and of measures
taken by Government, I think it due to myself and to my
children (though I have had grave reasons for keeping my
marriage a secret) to declare that I have been privately
married during my late sojourn in Italy.
(Signed) MARIE CAROLINE.
From that time up to the month of May the duchess continued to make vain efforts to obtain her release before the birth of her child. It had been intimated to her that she should be sent to Palermo as soon afterwards as she should be able to travel.
The Government took every precaution, that the event might be verified when it took place. Six or seven of the principal inhabitants of Blaye were stationed in an adjoining chamber, as is the custom at the birth of princes.
A little girl having been born, these witnesses were summoned to the chamber by Madame de Hautfort, the duchess's lady-in-waiting. The duchess answered their questions firmly, and on returning to the next room, her own physician declared on oath that the duchess was the lawful wife of Count Hector Luchesi-Palli, of the family of Campo Formio, of Naples, gentleman of the bedchamber to the king of the Two Sicilies, living at Palermo.
This was the first intimation given of the parentage of the child. A mouth later, Marie Caroline and her infant embarked on board a French vessel, attended by Marshal Bugeaud, and were landed at Palermo. Very few of the duchess's most ardent admirers in former days were willing to accompany her. Her baby died before it was many months old. Charles X. refused to let her have any further care or charge of her son. "As Madame Luchesi-Palli," he said, "she had forfeited all claims to royal consideration."
A reconciliation, however, official rather than real, was patched up by Chateaubriand between the duchess and Charles X.; but her political career was over. She was allowed to see the Duc de Bordeaux for two or three days once a year. The young prince was thenceforward under the maternal care of his aunt, the Duchesse d'Angoulême. The Duchesse de Berri passed the remainder of her adventurous life in tranquillity. Her marriage with Count Luchesi-Palli was apparently a happy one. They had four children. She owned a palace in Styria, and another on the Grand Canal at Venice, where she gave popular parties. In 1847 she gave some private theatricals, at which were present twenty-seven persons belonging to royal or imperial families. Her buoyancy of spirit kept her always gay. One would have supposed that she would be overwhelmed by the fall we have related. She was good-natured, charitable, and extravagant. She died leaving heavy debts, which the Duc de Bordeaux paid for her. Her daughter Louise, sister of the Duc de Bordeaux, married the Duke of Parma, who was assassinated in 1854. Their daughter married Don Carlos, who claims at present to be rightful heir to the thrones of France and Spain. She died in 1864, shortly after the Count Luchesi-Palli. The Duchesse de Berri, who in her later years became very devout, d'après la manière Italienne, as somebody has said, wrote thus about his death:—
"I have been so tried that my poor head reels. The loss of my good and pious daughter made me almost crazy, but the care of my husband had somewhat calmed me, when God took him to himself. He died like a saint in my arms, with his children around him, smiling at me and pointing to heaven."
The duchess died suddenly at Brussels in 1870, aged seventy-one. "And," adds an intensely Legitimist writer from whom I have taken these details of her declining years, "had she lived till 1873, she would have given her son better advice than that he followed."[1]
[Footnote 1: Mémoire de la Duchesse d'Angoulême.]
Without following the ins and outs of politics during the first ten years of Louis Philippe's reign, which were checkered by revolts, émeutes, and attempts at regicide, I pass on to the next event of general interest,—the explosion of the "infernal machine" of Fieschi.
It was customary for King Louis Philippe to make a grand military promenade through Paris on one of the three days of July which during his reign were days of public festivity. On the morning of July 28, 1835, as the clock struck ten, the king, accompanied by his three elder sons, Marshals Mortier and Lobeau, his ministers, his staff, his household, and many generals, rode forth to review forty thousand troops along the Boulevards. At midday they reached the Boulevard du Temple. There, as the king was bending forward to receive a petition, a sudden volley of musketry took place, and the pavement was strewed with dead and dying. Marshal Mortier was killed, together with a number of officers of various grades, some bystanders, a young girl, and an old man. The king had not been shot, but as his horse started, he had received a severe contusion on the arm. The Duke of Orleans and the Prince de Joinville were slightly hurt. Smoke came pouring from the third-story windows of a house (No. 50) on the Boulevard. A man sprang from the window, seized a rope hanging from the chimney, and swung himself on to a lower roof. As he did so, he knocked down a flower-pot, which attracted attention to his movements. A police agent saw him, and a national guard arrested him. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and his face was covered with blood. The infernal machine he had employed consisted of twenty-five gun-barrels on a stand so constructed that they could all be fired at once. Happily two did not go off, and four burst, wounding the wretch who had fired them. Instantly the reception of the king, which had been cold when he set forth, changed into rapturous enthusiasm. He and his sons had borne themselves with the greatest bravery.
The queen had been about to quit the Tuileries to witness the review, when the door of her dressing-room was pushed open, and a colonel burst in, exclaiming: "Madame, the king has been fired at. He is not hurt, nor the princes, but the Boulevard is strewn with corpses." The queen, raising her trembling hands to heaven, waited only for a repetition of his assurance that her dear ones were all safe, and then set out to find the king. She met him on the staircase, and husband and wife wept in each other's arms.
The queen then went to her sons, looked at them, and touched them, hardly able to believe that they were not seriously wounded, and turned away, shuddering, from the blood on M. Thiers' clothes. Then, returning to her chamber, she sent a note at once to her younger boys, D'Aumale and Montpensier, who were with their tutors at the Château d'Eu. It began with these words: "Fall down on your knees, my children; God has preserved your father."
Of course the Legitimists, and likewise the Republicans, were accused of inspiring the attempt of Fieschi. The trials, that took place about six months later, proved that the assassin Fieschi was a wretch bearing a strong resemblance to our own Guiteau.
The funeral ceremonies of the victims of the infernal machine were celebrated with great pomp. The affair led to a partial reconciliation between the new Government and the Legitimist clergy; it led also to certain restrictions on the Press and an added stringency in the punishment for crimes of the like character.
On Jan. 31, 1836, the trial of the prisoners took place before the Peers. The crowd of spectators was immense. There were five prisoners, but the eyes of the spectators were fixed on only three.
The first was a man under-sized, nervous and quick in his movements. His face, which was disfigured by recent scars, had an expression of cunning and impudence. His forehead was narrow, his hair cropped close, one corner of his mouth was disfigured by a scar, his smile was insolent, and so was his whole bearing. He seemed anxious to concentrate the attention of all present on himself, smiled and bowed to every one he knew, and seemed well satisfied with his odious importance.
The second was an old man, pale and ill. He bore himself with perfect calmness. He seated himself where he was told to sit, and gave no sign of emotion throughout the trial.
The third was utterly prostrated by fear.
The first was Fieschi; the second was called Morey; the third was a grocer named Pepin.
The two last had been arrested on the testimony of Nina Lassave, who had had Fieschi for her lover. The life of this man had been always base and infamous. He was a Corsican by birth, and had been a French soldier. He had fought bravely, but after his discharge he had been imprisoned for theft and counterfeiting. He led a wandering life from town to town, living on his wits and indulging all his vices. He had even succeeded in getting some small favors from Government; but finding that he could not long escape punishment for crimes known to the police, he undertook, apparently without any especial motive, the wholesale murder of king, court, and princes.
During his imprisonment his vanity had been so great that the officers of the Crown played upon it in order to obtain confessions and information.
The only witness against Morey was Nina Lassave, who insisted that, Fieschi having invented the murderous instrument, Morey had devised a use for it, and that Pepin had furnished the necessary funds for its completion.
I give Louis Blanc's account of Fieschi's behavior on his trial, because when foreign nations have reproached us for the scandal of the license granted to the murderer of President Garfield on his trial, I have never seen it remarked that Guiteau's conduct was almost exactly like that of Fieschi.
"With effrontery, with a miserable kind of pride, and with smiles of triumph on his lips, he alluded to his victims with theatrical gesticulations, and plumed himself on the magnitude of his own infamy, answering his judges by ignoble buffooneries, playing the part of an orator, making pretensions to learning, looking round to see what effect he was producing, and courting applause. And some of those who sat in judgment on him did applaud. At each of his atrocious vulgarisms many of the Peers laughed, and this laugh naturally encouraged him. Did he make a movement to rise, voices called out: 'Fieschi desires to say something, Monsieur le Président! Fieschi is about to speak!' The audience was unwilling to lose a word that might fall from the lips of so celebrated a scoundrel. He could hardly contain himself for pride and satisfaction. His bloody hand was eager to shake hands with the public, and there were those willing to submit to it. He exchanged signs with the woman Nina who was seated in the audience. He posed before the spectators with infinite satisfaction. What more can we say? He directed the proceedings. He prompted or browbeat the witnesses, he undertook the duties of a prosecuting attorney. He regulated the trial.... He directed coarse jokes at the unhappy Pepin; but reckless as he was, he dared not meddle with Morey. He had no hesitation in accusing himself. He owned himself the worst of criminals, and declared that he esteemed himself happy to be able to pay with his own blood for the blood of the unhappy victims of his crime. But the more he talked about his coming fate, the plainer it was that he expected pardon, and the more he flattered those on whom that pardon might depend."
The trial lasted twelve days, and very little was elicited about the conspiracy,—if indeed there was one. Suddenly Pepin, whose terror had been abject, rallied his courage, refused to implicate Morey or to make revelations, and kept his resolution to the last.
One of the five prisoners was acquitted, one was condemned to a brief imprisonment, and Morey, Pepin, and Fieschi were sent to the block. Up to almost the last moment Fieschi expected pardon; but his last words were to his confessor: "I wish I could let you know about myself five minutes from now."
On the scaffold Morey's white hair elicited compassion from the spectators. Pepin at the last moment was offered a pardon if he would tell whence the money came that he had advanced to Fieschi. He refused firmly, and firmly met his fate.
The next day the woman who had betrayed her lover and the rest was presiding at a café on the Place de la Bourse, having been engaged as an attraction!
After these horrors we turn with relief to some account of good and noble women, the ladies of Louis Philippe's family.
After the murderous attempt of Fieschi the king lived under a continual expectation of assassination. He no longer walked the streets of Paris with his cane under his arm. When he drove, he sat with his back to the horses, because that position gave less certainty to the aim of an assassin. It was said that his carriages were lined with sheet-iron. He was thirteen times shot at, and the pallid looks of the poor queen were believed to arise from continual apprehension. Her nerves had been shaken by the diabolical attempt of Fieschi, and she never afterwards would leave her husband, even for a few days. She stayed away from the deathbed of her daughter, the Queen of the Belgians, lest in her absence he should be assassinated.
Neuilly was the home of the family, its beloved, particular retreat. The greatest pang that Louis Philippe suffered in 1848 was its total destruction by rioters. The little palace was furnished in perfect taste, with elegance, yet with simplicity. The inlaid floors were especially beautiful. The rooms were decorated with pictures, many of them representing passages in the early life of the king. In one he was teaching mathematics in a Swiss school; in another he was romping with his children. His own cabinet was decorated with his children's portraits and with works of art by his accomplished daughter, the Princess Marie. The family sitting-room was furnished with the princesses' embroidery, and there was a table painted on velvet by the Duchesse de Berri. The library was large, and contained many English books, among them a magnificent edition of Shakspeare. The park enclosed one hundred acres. The gardens were laid out in the English style. A branch of the Seine ran through the grounds, with boat-houses and bath-houses for the pleasure of the young princes,—and in one night this cherished home was laid in ruins!
QUEEN MARIE AMÉLIE.
"All is possible," said Louis Philippe to a visitor who talked with him at Claremont in his exile, "all is possible to France,—an empire, a republic, the Comte de Chambord, or my grandson; but one thing is impossible,—that any of these should last. On a tué le respect,—the nation has killed respect."
Queen Marie Amélie was born in Naples in 1782. Her mother was a daughter of Maria Theresa, and sister to Marie Antoinette. This lady was not one who inspired respect, but she had some good qualities. She was a good mother to her children, and had plenty of ability. Of course she hated the French Revolution, and everything that savored of what are called liberal opinions. Her career, which was full of vicissitudes and desperate plots, ended by her being dismissed ignominiously from Naples by the English ambassador, and she went to end her days with her nephew at Vienna.
Marie Amélie used sometimes to tell her children how she had wept when a child for the death of the little dauphin, the eldest son of Louis XVI., who, before the Revolution broke out, was taken away from the evil to come. She was to have been married to him had he lived. When older, she had an early love-affair with her cousin, Prince Antoine of Austria; but he was destined for the Church, and the youthful courtship came to an untimely end. When she first met her future husband, she and her family were living in a sort of provisional exile in Palermo. The princess was twenty-seven, Louis Philippe was ten or twelve years older, and they seem to have been quite determined to marry each other very soon after their acquaintance began. It was not easy to do so, however, for the duke, as we have seen, was at that period too much a republican to suit even an English Admiral; but the princess declared that she would go into a convent if the marriage was forbidden, and on Dec. 25, 1809, she became the wife of Louis Philippe.
No description could do justice to the purity and charity of this admirable woman; and in her good works she was seconded by her sister-in-law, Madame Adélaïde, and by her daughter.
"The queen," her almoner tells us, "had 500,000 francs a year for her personal expenses, and gave away 400,000 of them." "M. Appert," she would say to him, "give those 500 francs we spoke of, but put them down upon next month's account. The waters run low this month; my purse is empty." An American lady, visiting the establishment of a great dressmaker in Paris, observed an old black silk dress hanging over a chair. She remarked with some surprise: "I did not know you would turn and fix up old dresses." "I do so only for the queen," was the answer.
The imposture, ingratitude, and even insolence of some of Marie Amélie's petitioners failed to discourage her benevolence. For instance, an old Bonapartist lady, according to M. Appert, one day wrote to her:—
MADAME,—If the Bourbons had not returned to France, for the
misfortune of the country, my beloved mistress and protectress,
the Empress Marie Louise, would still be on the throne, and
I should not be under the humiliating necessity of telling you
that I am without bread, and that the wretched bed on which I
sleep is about to be thrown out of the garret I inhabit, because
I cannot pay a year's rent. I dare not ask you for assistance,
for my heart is with my real sovereign, and I cannot promise
you my gratitude. If, however, you think fit to preserve a life
which, since the misfortunes of my country, has been full of
bitterness, I will accept a loan. I should blush to receive a
gift.
I am, Madame, your
servant, C.
When this impertinent letter was handed to the almoner, the queen had written on it: "She must be very unhappy, for she is very unjust. A hundred francs to be sent to her immediately, and I beg M. Appert to make inquiries concerning this lady's circumstances."
In vain the almoner remonstrated. The only effect of his remonstrance was that the queen authorized him to make her gift 300 francs if he found it necessary. When he knocked at the door of the garret of the petitioner, she opened it with agitation. "Oh, Monsieur!" she said, "are you the Commissioner of Police come to arrest me for my outrageous letter to the queen? I am so unhappy that at times I became deranged. I am sorry to have written as I did to a princess who to all the poor is good and charitable." For answer, M. Appert showed her her own letter, with the queen's memorandum written upon it. "There was no lack of heartfelt gratitude then," he says, "and no lack of poverty to need the triple benefaction."
CHAPTER III.
LOUIS NAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER.—STRASBURG, BOULOGNE, HAM.
There is a theory held by some observers that the man who fails in his duty to a woman who has claims upon his love and his protection, never afterwards prospers; and perhaps the most striking illustration of this theory may be found in the career of the Emperor Napoleon. Nothing went well with him after his divorce from Josephine. His only son died. The children of his brothers, with the exception of Louis Napoleon, and the Prince de Canino, the son of Lucien, were all ordinary men, inclined to the fast life of their period; while the descendants of Josephine, honored and respected, are now connected with many European thrones.
The son of Napoleon, called by his grandfather, the Austrian emperor, the Duc de Reichstadt, but by his own Bonaparte family Napoleon II., died at Vienna, July 22, 1832. The person from whom, during his short, sad life, he had received most kindness, and to whom, during his illness, he was indebted for almost maternal care, was the young wife of his cousin Francis, the Princess Sophia of Bavaria, who in the same week that he died, became the mother of Maximilian, the unfortunate Emperor of Mexico, who, exactly thirty-five years after, on July 22, 1867, was shot at Queretaro.
The Emperor Napoleon had made a decree that if male heirs failed him, his dynasty should be continued by the sons of his brother Joseph. Lucien, the republican, was passed over, as well as his descendants; and Joseph failing of male heirs, the throne of France was to devolve on Louis, king of Holland, and his heirs. Joseph left only daughters, Zénaide and Charlotte. Louis Bonaparte when he died, left but one son.
Louis Bonaparte was nine years younger than his brother Napoleon, who by no right of primogeniture, but by right of success, was early looked upon as the head of the family of Bonaparte. He assumed the place of father to his little brother Louis, and a very unsatisfactory father he proved. Louis was studious, poetical, solid, honorable, and unambitious. His brother was resolved to make him a distinguished general and an able king. He succeeded in making him a brave soldier and a very good general; but Louis had no enthusiasm for the profession of arms. He hated bloodshed, and above all he hated sack and pillage. He had no genius, and crooked ways of any kind were abhorrent to him. When a very young man he fell passionately in love with a lady, whom he called his Sophie. But his brother and the world thought the real name of the object of his affection was Emilie de Beauharnais, the Empress Josephine's niece by marriage. This lady became afterwards the wife of M. de La Vallette, Napoleon's postmaster-general, who after the return of the Bourbons in 1815, was condemned to death with Ney and Labédoyère. His wife saved him by changing clothes with him in prison; but the fearful strain her nerves suffered until she was sure of his escape, unsettled her reason. She was not sent to an asylum, but lived to a great age in an appartement in Paris, carefully tended and watched over by her friends.[1]
[Footnote 1: Jerrold's Life of Napoleon III.]
But whether it was with a Sophie or an Emilie, Louis Bonaparte fell in love, and Hortense de Beauharnais, the daughter of Josephine, gay, lively, poetical, and enthusiastic, had given her heart to General Duroc, the Emperor Napoleon's aide-de-camp; therefore both the young people resisted the darling project of Napoleon and Josephine to marry them to each other. By such a marriage Josephine hoped to avert the divorce that she saw to be impending. She fancied that if sons were born to the young couple, Napoleon would be content to leave his throne to the heir of his brother Louis, whom he had adopted, and of his step-daughter, of whom he was very fond. But Louis would not marry Hortense, and Hortense would not have Louis. At last, however, in the excitement of a ball, a reluctant consent was wrung from Louis; then Hortense was coerced into being a good French girl, and giving up Duroc. She and Louis were married. A more unhappy marriage never took place. Husband and wife were separated by an insurmountable (or at least unsurmounted) incompatibility of temperament. Louis was a man whose first thought was duty. Hortense loved only gayety and pleasure. He particularly objected to her dancing; she was one of the most graceful dancers ever seen, and would not give it up to please him. In short, she was all graceful, captivating frivolity; he, rigid and exacting. Both had burning memories in their hearts of what "might have been," and above all, after Louis became king of Holland, each took opposite political views. Louis wanted to govern Holland as the good king of the Dutch; Napoleon expected him to govern it in the interests of his dynasty, and as a Frenchman. The brothers disagreed most bitterly. Napoleon wrote indignant, unjust letters to Louis. Hortense took Napoleon's side in the quarrel, and led a French party at the Dutch court.
Intense was the grief of Louis and Hortense, Napoleon and Josephine, when the eldest son of this marriage, the child on whom their hopes were set, died of the croup at an early age. Hortense was wholly prostrated by her loss. She had still one son, and was soon to have another. The expected child was Charles Louis Napoleon, who was to become afterwards Napoleon III.
Soon after Louis Napoleon's birth, King Louis abdicated the throne of Holland. He said he could not do justice to the interests and wishes of his people, and satisfy his brother at the same time. He retired to Florence, where he lived for many years, only once more coming back to public life, viz., in 1814, to offer his help to his brother Napoleon, when others were deserting him.
Napoleon was very fond of Hortense's little boys, though in 1811 he had completed his divorce, had married the Austrian archduchess, and had a son of his own.
Louis Napoleon has left us some fragmentary reminiscences of his childhood, which have a curious interest.
"My earliest recollections," he says, "go back to my baptism, and I hasten to remark that I was three years old when I was baptized, in 1810, in the chapel at Fontainebleau. The emperor was my godfather, and the Empress Marie Louise was my godmother. Then my memory carries me back to Malmaison. I can still see my grandmother, the Empress Josephine, in her salon, on the ground floor, covering me with her caresses, and, even then, flattering my vanity by the care with which she retailed my bons mots; for my grandmother spoiled me in every particular, whereas my mother, from my tenderest years, tried to correct my faults and to develop my good qualities. I remember that once arrived at Malmaison, my brother and I were masters to do as we pleased. The empress, who passionately loved flowers and conservatories, allowed us to cut her sugar-canes, that we might suck them, and she always told us to ask for anything we might want.
"One day, when she wished to know as usual, what we would like best, my brother, who was three years older than I, and consequently more full of sentiment, asked for a watch, with a portrait of our mother; but I, when the empress said: 'Louis, ask for whatever will give you the greatest pleasure,' begged to be allowed to go out and paddle in the gutter with the little boys in the street. Indeed, until I was seven years old it was a great grief to me to have to ride always in a carriage with four or six horses. When, in 1815, just before the arrival of the allied army in Paris, we were hurried by our tutor to a hiding-place, and passed on foot along the Boulevards, I felt the keenest sensations of happiness within my recollection. Like all children, though perhaps even more than most children, soldiers fixed my attention. Whenever at Malmaison I could escape from the salon, I was off to the great gates, where there were always grenadiers of the Garde Impériale. One day, from a ground-floor window I entered into conversation with one of these old grognards who was on duty. He answered me laughing. I called out: 'I know my drill. I have a little musket!' Then the grenadier asked me to put him through his drill, and thus we were found, I shouting, 'Present arms! Carry arms! Attention!' the old grenadier obeying, to please me. Imagine my happiness! I often went with my brother to breakfast with the emperor. When he entered the room, he would come up to us, take our heads in his hands, and so lift us on the table. This frightened my mother very much, Dr. Corvisart having told her that such treatment was very bad for children."
The day before the Emperor Napoleon left Paris for the campaign of Waterloo, Hortense carried her boys to the Tuileries to take leave of him. Little Louis Napoleon contrived to run alone to his uncle's cabinet, where he was closeted with Marshal Soult. As soon as the boy saw the emotion in the emperor's face, he ran up to him, and burying his head in his lap, sobbed out: "Our governess says you are going to the wars,—don't go; don't go, Uncle." "And why not, Louis? I shall soon come back." "Oh, Uncle, those wicked allies will kill you! Let me go with you." The emperor took the boy upon his knee and kissed him. Then, turning to Soult, who was moved by the little scene, he said, "Here, Marshal, kiss him; he will have a tender heart and a lofty spirit; he is perhaps the hope of my race."
After Waterloo, the emperor, who passed one night in Paris, kissed the children at the last moment, with his foot upon the step of the carriage that was to carry him the first stage of his journey to St. Helena.
After this, Hortense and her boys were not allowed to live in France. Protected by an aide-de-camp of Prince Schwartzenberg, they reached Lake Constance, on the farthest limits of Switzerland. There, after a while, Queen Hortense converted a gloomy old country seat into a refined and beautiful home. A great trial, however, awaited her. King Louis demanded the custody of their eldest son, and little Napoleon was taken from his mother, leaving her only Louis. Louis had always been a "mother's boy," frail in health, thoughtful, grave, loving, and full of sentiment.
Hortense's life at Arenenberg was varied in the winter by visits to Rome. Her husband lived in Florence, and they corresponded about their boys. But though they met once again in after years, they were husband and wife no more. Indeed, charming as Hortense was to all the circle that surrounded her, tender as a mother, and devoted as a friend, her conduct as a wife was not free from reproach. She was a coquette by nature, and it is undeniable that more than one man claimed to have been her lover.
After a while her son Louis went for four years to college at Heidelberg. Mother and son never forget the possibilities that might lie before them. When the Italian revolution broke out, in 1832, Hortense went to Rome, both her sons being at that time in Florence with their father. Although the elder was newly married to his cousin, the daughter of King Joseph, both he and Louis were full of restlessness, and caught the revolutionary fervor. They contrived to escape from their father's house and to join the insurgents, to the great displeasure of both father and mother; but they were fired by enthusiasm for Italian liberty, and took the oaths as Carbonari.
King Louis and Queen Hortense were exceedingly distressed; both foresaw the hopelessness of the Italian rising. Queen Hortense went at once to Florence to consult her husband, and it was arranged that she should go in pursuit of her sons, inducing them, if possible, to give up all connection with so hopeless a cause. But before she reached them, the insurgents, who seem to have had no fixed plan and no competent leader, had come to the conclusion that Bonapartes were not wanted in a struggle for republicanism; they therefore requested the young men to withdraw, and their mother went after them to Ancona. On her way she was met by her son Louis, who was coming to tell her that his brother was dead. There has always been mystery concerning the death of this young Napoleon. The accredited account is that he sickened with the measles, and died at a roadside inn on his way to Ancona. The unhappy mother went into that little town upon the Adriatic with her youngest son; but she soon found that the Austrians, having come to the help of the Pope, were at its gates. Louis, too, had sickened with the measles. She hid him in an inner chamber, and spread a report that he had escaped to Corfu. She had with her an English passport for an English lady, travelling to England with her two sons. She was obliged to substitute a young Italian, who was compromised, for her dead son; and as soon as Louis could rise from his bed, they set out, meeting With many adventures until they got beyond the boundaries of Italy. Under cover of their English passport they crossed France, and visited the Château of Fontainebleau, where the mother pointed out to her son the scenes of his childhood.
The death of the Duc de Reichstadt in July, 1832, caused Louis Napoleon to consider himself the head of the Napoleonic family. According to M. Claude, the French Minister of Police, he came on this occasion into Paris, and remained there long enough to dabble in conspiracy.
After spending a few months in England, mother and son went back to Arenenberg, where they kept up a close correspondence with all malcontents in France. The Legitimists preferred them the house of Orleans, and the republicans of that period—judging from their writings as well as their acts—evidently believed that Louis Napoleon, now head of the house of Bonaparte, represented republican principles based on universal suffrage, as well as the glories of France.
One fine morning in October, 1836, Louis took leave of his mother at Arenenberg, telling her that he was going to visit his cousins at Baden. Stéphanie de Beauharnais in the days of the Empire had been married to the Grand Duke of that little country. Queen Hortense knew her son's real destination, no doubt, for she took leave of him with great emotion, and hung around his neck a relic which Napoleon had taken from the corpse of the Emperor Charlemagne when his tomb was opened at Aix-la-Chapelle. It was a tiny fragment of wood, said to be from the True Cross, set beneath a brilliant emerald. It seems possible that this may have been the little ornament found on the neck of the Prince Imperial after his corpse was stripped by savages in Zululand.
With this talisman against evil, and with the wedding-ring with which Napoleon had married Josephine, upon his finger, Prince Louis Napoleon set out upon an expedition so rash that we can hardly bring ourselves to associate it with the character popularly ascribed to the Third Emperor Napoleon.
His plan was to overturn the government of Louis Philippe, and then appeal to the people by a plébiscite,—i. e., a question to be answered yes or no by universal suffrage. This same plan he carried out successfully several times during his reign.
He went from Arenenberg to Baden-Baden,[1] where he made his final arrangements. Strasburg was to be the scene of his first attempt, and at Baden-Baden he had an interview with Colonel Vambéry, who commanded the Fourth Regiment of Artillery, part of the Strasburg garrison.
[Footnote 1: Louis Blanc, Dix Ans.]
Louis Blanc, the republican and socialist historian, writing in 1843, speaks thus of Louis Napoleon:—
"Brought up in exile, unfamiliar with France, Louis Bonaparte had assumed that the bourgeoisie remembered only that the Empire had curbed the Revolution, established social order, and given France the Code Napoléon. He fancied that the working-classes would follow the eagle with enthusiasm the moment it appeared, borne, as of old, at the head of regiments, and heralded by the sound of trumpets. A twofold error! The things the bourgeoisie in 1836 remembered most distinctly about Napoleon were his despotism and his taste for war; and the most lasting impression of him amongst the most intelligent in the working-classes was that whilst sowing the seeds of democratic aspiration throughout Europe, he had carefully weeded out all democratic tendencies in his own dominions."
But though Louis Blanc is right in saying that the evil that Napoleon did, lived after him in the memories of thinking men, it is also true that those born since the fall of the Second Empire can have no idea of the general enthusiasm that still lingered in France in Louis Philippe's reign, round memories of the glories of Napoleon. Men might not wish him back again, but they worshipped him as the national demigod. After Sedan he was pulled down literally and metaphorically from his pedestal; and the old feelings about him which half a century ago even foreign nations seemed to share, now seem obsolete and extravagant to readers of Lanfrey and the books of Erckmann-Chatrian.
Even in 1836, when Louis Napoleon in secret entered Strasburg, he was surprised and disappointed to find that those on whom he had counted to assist him in making the important "first step" in his career, were very doubtful of its prudence. He had counted on the co-operation of General Voirol, an old soldier of the Empire who was in command of the Department in which Strasburg was situated; but when he wrote him a letter, in the most moving terms appealing to his affection for the emperor, the old general not only declined to join the plot, but warned the Prefect of Strasburg that mischief was on foot, though he did not mention in what quarter. The Government in Paris seems, however, to have concluded that it would be best to let a plot so very rash come to a head. There was a public singer, calling herself Madame Gordon, at Baden, who flung herself eagerly into the conspiracy. Louis Napoleon on quitting Arenenberg had expected to meet several generals of distinction, who had served under his uncle, at a certain trysting-place between Arenenberg and Strasburg. He waited for them three days, but they never came. He then resolved to continue his campaign without their aid or encouragement, and entered Strasburg secretly on the night of Oct. 28, 1836. The next morning he had an interview with Colonel Vambéry, who endeavored to dissuade him from his enterprise.
Vambéry's prudent reasons made no impression on the prince, and he then promised his assistance. Having done so, Louis Napoleon offered him a paper, securing a pension of 10,000 francs to each of his two children, in case he should be killed. The colonel tore it up, saying, "I give, but do not sell, my blood." Major Parquin, an old soldier of the Empire, who was in the garrison, had been already won. On the night of the prince's arrival the conspirators met at his lodging.
Three regiments of infantry, three regiments of artillery, and a battalion of engineers formed the garrison at Strasburg. The wisest course would have been to appeal first to the third regiment of artillery; but other counsels prevailed. The fourth artillery, whose adhesion to the cause was doubtful, was chosen for the first attempt. All depended upon the impression made upon this regiment, which was the one in which Napoleon had served when captain of artillery at Toulon.
The night was spent in making preparations. Proclamations were drawn up addressed to the soldiers, to the city, and to France; and the first step was to be the seizure of a printing-office.
At five o'clock in the morning the signal was given. The soldiers of the fourth regiment of artillery were roused by the beating of the assemblée. They rushed, half-dressed, on to their parade-ground. Louis Napoleon, whose fate it was never to be ready, was not prompt even on this occasion; he was finishing two letters to his mother. One was to be sent to her at once if he succeeded, the other if he failed.
On entering the barrack-yard he found the soldiers waiting, drawn up in line. On his arrival the colonel (Vambéry) presented him to the troops as the nephew of Napoleon. He wore an artillery uniform. A cheer rose from the line. Then Louis Napoleon, clasping a gilt eagle brought to him by one of the officers, made a speech to the men, which was well received. His cause seemed won.
Next, followed by the troops, but exciting little enthusiasm in the streets of Strasburg as he passed along them in the gray dawn of a cloudy day, Louis Napoleon made his way to the quarters of General Voirol. The general emphatically refused to join the movement, and a guard was at once set over him.
Up to this moment all had smiled upon the enterprise. The printing of the proclamations was going rapidly on, the third regiment of artillery was bringing out its guns and horses, and the inhabitants of Strasburg, roused from their beds, were watching the movement as spectators, prepared to assist it or to oppose it, according as it made its way to success or failure.
The prince, and the troops who supported him, next marched to the barracks of the infantry. On their road they lost their way, and approached the barracks in such a manner that they left themselves only a narrow alley to retreat by, in case of failure.
On the prince presenting himself to the guard, an old soldier of the army of Napoleon kneeled and kissed his hand, when suddenly one of the officers, who had his quarters in the town, rushed upon the scene with his sword drawn, crying: "Soldiers, you are deceived! This man is not the nephew of the Emperor Napoleon, he is an impostor,—a relative of Colonel Vambéry!"
This turned the tide. Whilst the soldiers stood irresolute, the colonel of the regiment arrived. For a few moments he was in danger from the adherents of the prince. His own soldiers rushed to his rescue. A tumult ensued. The little band of Imperialists was surrounded, and their cause was lost.
Louis Napoleon yielded himself a prisoner. One or two of the conspirators, among them Madame Gordon, managed to escape; the rest were captured.
News was at once sent by telegraph to Paris; but the great wooden-armed telegraph-stations were in those days uncertain and unmanageable. Only half of the telegram reached the Tuileries, where the king and his ministers sat up all night waiting for more news. At daybreak of October 30 a courier arrived, and then they learned that the rising had been suppressed, and that the prince and his confederates were in prison.
Meantime the young officer in charge of Louis Napoleon's two letters to Queen Hortense had prematurely come to the conclusion that the prince was meeting with success, and had hurried off the letter announcing the good news to his mother.
How to dispose of such a capture as the head of the house of Bonaparte was a great puzzle to Louis Philippe's ministers. They dared not bring him to trial; they dared not treat him harshly. In the end he was carried to Paris, lodged for a few days in the Conciergerie, and then sent off, without being told his destination, to Cherbourg, where he was put on board a French frigate which sailed with orders not to be opened till she reached the equator. There it was found that her destination was Rio Janeiro, where she was not to suffer the prince to land, but after a leisurely voyage she was to put him ashore in the United States.
As the vessel was about to put to sea, an official personage waited on the prince, and after inquiring if he had funds enough to pay his expenses on landing, handed him, on the the part of Louis Philippe, a considerable sum.
On reaching Norfolk, Virginia, the prince landed, and learned, to his very great relief, that all his fellow-conspirators had been tried before a jury at Strasburg, and acquitted!
He learned too, shortly afterwards, that his mother was very ill. The shock of his misfortune, and the great exertions she had made on his behalf when she thought his life might be in danger, had proved too much for her. Louis Napoleon recrossed the ocean, landed in England, and made his way to Arenenberg. He was just in time to see Queen Hortense on her death-bed, to receive her last wishes, and to hear her last sigh.
After her death the French Government insisted that the Swiss Confederacy must compel Louis Napoleon to leave their territory. The Swiss refused, repaired the fortifications of Geneva, and made ready for a war with France; but Louis Napoleon of his own free will relieved the Swiss Government from all embarrassment by passing over into England, where it was not long before he made preparations for a new attempt to overthrow Louis Philippe's government.
He lived quietly in London at that period, visiting few persons except Count D'Orsay at Gore House, the residence of Lady Blessington, and occupying himself a great deal with writing. He had already completed a Manual of Artillery, and was engaged on a book that he called "Les Idées napoléoniennes." Its principal "idea" was that France wanted an emperor, a definite head, but that she also needed extreme democratic principles. Therefore an empire ought to be founded on an expression of the will of the people,—in plain words, on universal suffrage. The mistake Napoleon III. made in his after career, as well as in his "Idées napoléoniennes," was in not perceiving that an empire without military glory would become a pool of corruption, while vast military efforts, which would embroil France with all Europe, would lose the support of the bourgeoisie. "In short," as Louis Blanc has said, "he imagined a despotism without its triumphs; a throne surrounded by court favorites, but without Europe at its footstool; a great name, with no great man to bear it,—the Empire, in short, minus its Napoleon!"
During the months that Louis Napoleon passed in London he was maturing the plot of a new enterprise. He was collecting round him his adherents, some of them Carbonaro leaders, with whom he had been associated in Italy. Some were his personal friends; some were men whose devotion to the First Napoleon made them ashamed to refuse to support his nephew, even in an insurrection that they disapproved; while some were mere adventurers.
Very few persons were admitted to his full confidence; the affair was managed by a clique, "the members of which had been previously sounded; and in general those were set aside who could not embark in the undertaking heart and hand."
By all these men Louis Napoleon was treated as an imperial personage. To the Italians he stood pledged, and had stood pledged since 1831, that if they helped him to ascend the throne of France, he would fight afterwards for the cause of Italy. This pledge he redeemed at Solferino and Magenta, but not till after some impatient, rash Italians (believing him forsworn) had attempted his assassination.
In vain he was advised to wait, to let Louis Philippe's Government fall to the ground for want of a foundation. He had made his decision, and was resolved to adhere to it, not fearing to make that step which lies between the sublime and the ridiculous.
The attempt had been in preparation ever since Louis Napoleon had arrived in England. There were about forty of his adherents living in London at his expense, awaiting the moment for action. What form that action was to take, none of them knew.[1] It was resolved to make the movement in the month of August, 1840. The prince calculated that the remains of his great uncle, restored by England to France, being by that time probably on their way from St. Helena, public enthusiasm for the great emperor would be at its height, and that he would have the honor of receiving those revered remains when they had been brought back from exile by Louis Philippe's son. Besides this, the garrisons of northern France happened at that moment to contain the two regiments whose fidelity he had tampered with at Strasburg four years before.
[Footnote 1: In this account I am largely indebted to the interesting narrative of Count Joseph Orsi, an Italian banker, Prince Louis Napoleon's stanch personal friend.]
Of course there were French agents of police (detectives, as we call them) watching the prince in London; and this made it necessary that he should be very circumspect in making his preparations. A steamer, the "Edinburgh Castle," was secretly engaged. The owners and the captain were informed that she was chartered by some young men for a pleasure-trip to Hamburg.
On Tuesday, Aug. 4, 1840, the "Edinburgh Castle" came up the Thames, and was moored alongside a wharf facing the custom-house. As soon as she was at the wharf, Count Orsi, who seems to have been the most business-like man of the party, shipped nine horses, a travelling carriage, and a large van containing seventy rifles and as many uniforms. Proclamations had been printed in advance; they were placed in a large box, together with a little store of gold, which formed the prince's treasure.
At dawn all this was done, and the "Edinburgh Castle" started down the river. At London Bridge she took in thirteen men, and at Greenwich three more. At Blackwall some of the most important conspirators came on board. The boat reached Gravesend about two o'clock, where twelve more men joined them. Only three or four of those on board knew where they were going, or what was expected of them. They were simply obeying orders.
At Gravesend the prince was to have joined his followers, and the "Edinburgh Castle" was at once to have put to sea, touching, however, at Ramsgate before crossing the Channel. Those on board waited and waited, but no prince came. Only five persons in the vessel (one of whom was Charles Thélin, the prince's valet) knew what they were there for.
For some time the passengers were kept quiet by breakfast. Then, having no one at their head, they began to grow unruly. Those in the secret were terribly afraid that the river police might take notice of the large number of foreigners on board, especially as the vessel claimed to be an excursion-boat, and not a petticoat was visible. It was all important to catch the tide,—all important to reach Boulogne before sunrise on the 5th of August, when their friends expected them. But no prince came.
Major Parquin, who had been one of the Strasburg conspirators, was particularly unmanageable; and late in the afternoon he insisted on going ashore to buy some cigars, saying that those on board were detestable. In vain Persigny and Orsi, who in the prince's absence considered themselves to be in command, assured him that to land was impossible; Parquin would not recognize their authority. The rest of the story I will tell in Count Orsi's own words. He wrote his account in "Fraser's Magazine," 1879:—
"The wrath of the major was extreme. There was danger in his anger. I consulted Persigny on the advisability of letting him go on shore, with the distinct understanding that he should be accompanied by me or by Charles Thélin."
The truth, it may be suspected, was that Parquin was drunk, or that, having suspected the object of the expedition, he had some especial object in going ashore, which he would not reveal to his fellow-conspirators.
"Persigny," continues Count Orsi, "consented to the idea, and Parquin and I got into the boat. The vessel was lying in the stream. Thélin was with us. As we were walking to the cigar-shop, the major remarked a boy sitting on a log of wood and feeding a tame eagle with shreds of meat. The eagle had a chain fastened to one of its claws. The major turned twice to look at it, and went on without saying a word. On our way back to the boat, however, we saw the boy within two yards of the landing-place. The major went up to him, and looking at the eagle, said in French, 'Is it for sale?' The boy did not understand him. 'My dear Major,' I said, 'I hope you do not intend to buy that eagle. We have other things to attend to. For Heaven's sake, come away!' 'Why not? I will have it. Ask him what he asks for it.'"
The major paid a sovereign for the eagle, and this unlucky purchase was the cause that endless ridicule was cast on the expedition. It has always been supposed that the eagle was one of the "properties" provided for the occasion, and that it was intended to perch on the Napoleon Column at Boulogne. It may well be supposed that this is not far from the truth, and that Major Parquin had the eagle waiting for him at Gravesend. Eagles are so very uncommon in England that it is unlikely that a boy, without set purpose, would be waiting with a tame one on a wharf at Gravesend. The unfortunate bird became in the end the property of a butcher in Boulogne.
By six P. M. the party in the "Edinburgh Castle" grew very uneasy; the prince had not arrived. Count Orsi took a post-chaise and drove overland to Ramsgate, where Count Montholon (Napoleon's fellow-exile at St. Helena) and two colonels were waiting the arrival of the steamer. Only one of these gentlemen had been let into the plot, and Montholon was subsequently deeply wounded by having been excluded.
About dawn, when this party had just gone to bed, the "Edinburgh Castle" steamed up to the beautiful Ramsgate pier; but it was already the hour when she should have been off Boulogne.
A second time Louis Napoleon had damaged his chances and risked his friends by his want of punctuality. He had not taken proper precautions as to his mode of leaving London. He found that the police were on the alert, and it was late in the day before he contrived to leave his house unseen. He might have made more exertion, but he had quite forgotten the importance of the tide!
What was now to be done? Four hours is the passage from Ramsgate to Boulogne. It would not do to arrive there in broad daylight. They dared not stay at Ramsgate. It became necessary to put to sea, and to steam about aimlessly till night arrived. The captain and the crew had to be told the object of the expedition, the van had to be opened, and the arms and uniforms distributed. This was done after dark, and no light was allowed on board the steamer.
At three o'clock A. M. of Aug. 6, 1840, the "Edinburgh Castle" was off Wimereux, a little landing-place close to Boulogne. The disembarkation was begun at once. The steamer was ill provided with boats. She had but one, and could only land eight men at a time. This was one of the many oversights of the expedition.
At five A. M. the little troop, clad as French soldiers, marched up to the barracks at Boulogne. The gates were thrown open by friends within, and the prince and his followers entered the yard. The reason why it had been so important to reach Boulogne twenty-four hours earlier, was that a certain Colonel Piguellier, who was a strong republican, was sure to be against them. Some French friends of the prince, who were in the secret, had therefore invited Colonel Piguellier to a shooting-party on the 4th, the invitation including one to pass the night at a house in the country; but by the evening of the 5th he had returned to his quarters in Boulogne.
At the moment of the prince's entrance, with his little troop, into the yard of the barracks, the soldiers of the garrison were just getting out of their beds. The few who were already afoot on different duties were soon made to understand who the prince was, and what his party had come for. At the name of Napoleon they rushed up to the dormitories to spread the news. In a short time all the men were formed in line in the barrack-yard.