Part 2 (1/2)
The Duke of Orleans never made war on France.
The Duke of Orleans fought at Jemappes.
The Duke of Orleans will be a Citizen-King.
The Duke of Orleans has worn the tricolor under fire: he will wear the tricolor as king.”
Meantime, early on the evening of the 29th, Neuilly had been menaced by the troops under the Duc d'Angouleme, and Madame Adelade had persuaded her brother to quit the place. When M. Thiers and the artist, Ary Scheffer, arrived at Neuilly, bearing a request that the Duke of Orleans would appear in Paris, Marie Amelie received them. Aunt to the d.u.c.h.esse de Berri and attached to the reigning family, she was shocked by the idea that her husband and her children might rise upon their fall; but Madame Adelade exclaimed: ”Let the Parisians make my brother what they please,--President, _Garde National_, or Lieutenant-General,--so long as they do not make him an exile.”
Louis Philippe, who was at Raincy (or supposed to be there, for the envoys always believed he was behind a curtain during their interview with his wife and sister), having received a message from Madame Adelade, set out soon after for Paris. The resolution of the leaders of the Revolution had been taken, but in the Munic.i.p.al Commune at the Hotel-de-Ville there was still much excitement.
There a party desired a republic, and offered to place Lafayette at its head.
At Saint-Cloud the d.u.c.h.esse de Berri and her son had been sent off to the Trianon; but the king remained behind. He referred everything to the dauphin (the Duc d'Angouleme); the dauphin referred everything to the king.
The dauphin's temper was imperious, and at this crisis it involved him in a personal collision with Marshal Marmont. In attempting to tear the marshal's sword from his side, he cut his fingers. At sight of the royal blood the marshal was arrested, and led away as a traitor. The king, however, at once released him, with apologies.
When the leaders in Paris had decided to offer the lieutenant-generals.h.i.+p of France to Louis Philippe during the minority of the Duc de Bordeaux, he could not be found. He was not at Raincy, he was not at Neuilly. About midnight, July 29, he entered Paris on foot and in plain clothes, having clambered over the barricades.
He at once made his way to his own residence, the Palais Royal, and there waited events.
At the same moment the d.u.c.h.esse de Berri was leaving Saint-Cloud with her son. Before daylight Charles X. followed them to the Trianon; and the soldiers in the Park at Saint-Cloud, who for twenty-four hours had eaten nothing, were breaking their fast on dainties brought out from the royal kitchen.
The proposal that Louis Philippe should accept the lieutenant-generals.h.i.+p was brought to him on the morning of July 30, after the proposition had first been submitted to Talleyrand, who said briefly: ”Let him accept it.” Louis Philippe did so, accepting at the same time the tricolor, and promising a charter which should guarantee parliamentary privileges. He soon after appeared at a window of the Hotel-de-Ville, attended by Lafayette and Laffitte, bearing the tricolored flag between them, and was received with acclamations by the people. But there were men in Paris who still desired a republic, with Lafayette at its head. Lafayette persisted in a.s.suring them that what France wanted was a king surrounded by republican inst.i.tutions, and he commended Louis Philippe to them as ”the best of republics.” This idea in a few hours rapidly gained ground.
By midday on July 30th Paris was resuming its usual aspect. Charles X., finding that the household troops were no longer to be depended on, determined to retreat over the frontier, and left the Trianon for the small palace of Rambouillet, where Marie Louise and the King of Rome had sought refuge in the first hours of their adversity.
The king reached Rambouillet in advance of the news from Paris,[1]
and great was the surprise of the guardian of the Chateau to see him drive up in a carriage and pair with only one servant to attend him. The king pushed past the keeper of the palace, who was walking slowly backward before him, and turned abruptly into a small room on the ground floor, where he locked himself in and remained for many hours. When he came forth, his figure seemed to have shrunk, his complexion was gray, his eyes were red and swollen. He had spent his time in burning up old love-letters,--reminiscences of a lady to whom he had been deeply attached in his youth.
[Footnote 1: All the Year Round, 1885.]
The mob of Paris having ascertained that the fugitive royal family were pausing at Rambouillet, about twelve miles from the capital, set out to see what mischief could be done in that direction. The d.u.c.h.esse de Berri, her children, and the Duc d'Angouleme were at the Chateau de Maintenon, and the king, upon the approach of the mob, composed only of roughs, determined to join them. As he pa.s.sed out of the chateau, which he had used as a hunting-lodge, he stretched out his hand with a gesture of despair to grasp those of some friends who had followed him to Rambouillet, and who were waiting for his orders. He had none to give them. He spoke no word of advice, but walked down the steps to his carriage, and was driven to the Chateau de Maintenon to rejoin his family.
The mob, when it found that the king had fled, was persuaded to quit Rambouillet by having some of the most brutal among them put into the king's coaches. Attended by the rest of the unruly crowd, they were driven back to Paris, and a.s.sembling before the Palais Royal, shouted to Louis Philippe: ”We have brought you your coaches.
Come out and receive them!” Eighteen years later, these coaches were consumed in a bonfire in the Place du Carrousel.
At the Chateau de Maintenon all was confusion and discouragement, when suddenly the dauphine (the d.u.c.h.esse d'Angouleme) arrived.
She, whom Napoleon had said was the only man of her family, was in Burgundy when she received news of the outbreak of the Revolution.
At once she crossed several provinces of France in disguise. Harsh of voice, stern of look, cold in her bearing, she was nevertheless a favorite with the household troops whose spirit was reanimated by the sight of her.
From Rambouillet the king had sent his approbation of the appointment of the Duke of Orleans as lieutenant-general during the minority of Henri V. Louis Philippe's answer to this communication so well satisfied the old king that he persuaded the dauphin to join with him in abdicating all rights in favor of Henri V., the little Duc de Bordeaux. Up to this moment Charles seems never to have suspected that more than such an abdication could be required of him. But by this time it was evident that the successful Parisians would be satisfied with nothing less than the utter overthrow of the Bourbons. Their choice lay between a const.i.tutional monarchy with Louis Philippe at its head, or a renewal of the attempt to form a republic.
The populace, on hearing that the abdication of the king and of the dauphin had been announced to the Chamber of Deputies, a.s.sembled to the number of sixty thousand, and insisted on the trial and imprisonment of the late king. Hearing this, the royal family left the Chateau de Maintenon the next morning, the king and the d.u.c.h.esse d'Angouleme taking leave of their faithful troops, and desiring them to return to Paris, there to make their submission to the lieutenant-general, ”who had taken all measures for their security and prosperity in the future.”
During the journey to Dreux, Charles X. appeared to those around him to accept his misfortunes from the hand of Heaven. The d.u.c.h.esse d'Angouleme, pale and self-contained, with all her wounds opened afresh, could hardly bring herself to quit France for the third time. Her husband was stolid and stupid. The d.u.c.h.esse de Berri was almost gay.
Meantime old stories were being circulated throughout France discrediting the legitimacy of the Duc de Bordeaux, the posthumous son of the Duc de Berri. He had been born seven months after his father's death, at dead of night, with no doctor in attendance, nor any responsible witnesses to attest that he was heir to the crown. Louis Philippe had protested against his legitimacy within a week after his birth. There was no real reason for suspecting his parentage; n.o.body believes the slander now, but it is not surprising that in times of such excitement, with such great interests at stake, the circ.u.mstances attending his birth should have provoked remark. They were both unfortunate and unusual.
Charles X. was the calmest person in the whole royal party. He was chiefly concerned for the comfort of the rest. The dauphine wept, her husband trembled, the children were full of excitement and eager for play. Charles was unmoved, resigned; only the sight of a tricolored flag overcame him.
He complained much of the haste with which he was escorted through France to Cherbourg; but that haste probably insured his safety.