Part 10 (1/2)
The whole family went to bed early, that they might be ready to start for the seaside betimes upon the morrow. The children's rooms were in a wing of the building, at some distance from the chambers of their father and mother. The concierge and his wife slept in their lodge. Towards one o'clock in the morning they were awakened by screams; but they lay still, imagining that the noise came from the Champs Elysees. Then they heard the loud ringing of a bell, and starting from their bed, rushed into the main building. The noise had proceeded from the d.u.c.h.ess's chamber. They knocked at the door, but there was no answer, only low moans. They consulted together, and then roused the maid and valet, who were sleeping in the attic chambers. Again they knocked, and there was no answer.
The valet then went to the duke's room, which looked upon the garden and communicated with the dressing-room of the d.u.c.h.ess by a balcony and window as well as by the door. The duke opened the door of his chamber. He was in his dressing-gown. When he heard what was the matter, he went at once through the window into the d.u.c.h.ess's chamber. There a scene of carnage unparalleled, I think, in the history of murder met their eyes. The d.u.c.h.ess was lying across her bed, not yet quite dead, but beyond the power of speech. There were more than forty wounds on her body. She must have struggled desperately. The walls were b.l.o.o.d.y, the bell-rope was b.l.o.o.d.y, and the floor was b.l.o.o.d.y. The nightdress of the d.u.c.h.ess was saturated with blood. Her hands were cut almost to pieces, as if she had grasped the blade of the knife that killed her. The furniture was overturned in all parts of the room.[1]
[Footnote 1: We were then living near the Hotel Sebastini. The excitement in the neighborhood the next morning is indescribable.]
At once the valet and the concierge ran for the police, for members of the family, and for a doctor. The duke retired to his dressing-room.
One of the gentlemen who first arrived was so sickened by the sight of the b.l.o.o.d.y room that he begged for a gla.s.s of water. The valet ran for the nearest water at hand, and abruptly entered the duke's dressing-room. He had a gla.s.s with him, and was going to fill it from a pail standing near, when the duke cried out: ”Don't touch it; it is dirty;” and at once emptied the contents out of the window, but not before the valet had seen that the water was red with blood.
This roused his suspicions, and when all the servants in the house were put under arrest, he said quietly to the police: ”You had better search the duke's dressing-room.”
When this was done there could be no more doubt. Three fancy daggers were found, one of which had always hung in the chamber of the d.u.c.h.ess. All of them were stained with blood. The duke had changed his clothes, and had tried to wash those he took off in the pail whose b.l.o.o.d.y water he had thrown away. Subsequently it was conjectured that his purpose had been to stab his wife in her sleep, and then by a strong pull to bring down upon her the heavy canopy. The bolt he had unscrewed permitted him at dead of night quietly to enter her chamber.
The police were puzzled as to how they ought to treat the murderer.
As he was a peer of France, they could not legally arrest him without authority from the Chamber of peers, or from the king. The royal family was at Dreux. The king was appealed to at once, and immediately gave orders to arrest the duke and to summon the peers for his trial. But meantime the duke, who had been guarded by the police in his own chamber, had contrived to take poison. He took such a quant.i.ty of a.r.s.enic that his stomach rejected it. He did not die at once, but lingered several days, and was carried to prison at the Luxembourg, where the poison killed him by inches. He died untried, having made no confession.
His son, who was very young at the time of his parents' death, married an American lady when he grew to manhood. It was a long courts.h.i.+p, for the young duke's income went largely to keep in repair his famous Chateau de Vaux, where Fouquet had entertained Louis XIV. with regal magnificence. Finally a purchaser was found for the ancestral seat; and relieved of the obligations it involved, the duke married, and retired to his estates in Corsica.
As to Mademoiselle de Luzy, she was tried for complicity in the murder of the d.u.c.h.ess, and acquitted. There was no evidence whatever against her. But popular feeling concerning her as the inciting cause of the poor d.u.c.h.ess's death was so strong that by the advice of her pastor--the Protestant M. Coquerel--she changed her name and came to America. She brought letters of introduction to a family in Boston, who procured her a situation as governess in Connecticut.
There she soon after married a Congregational minister.
It seems hard to imagine how such a tragedy could have borne its part among the causes of Louis Philippe's downfall; but those who look into Alison or Lamartine will see it set down as one of the events which greatly a.s.sisted in bringing about the revolution of February. Mobs, like women, are often swayed by persons rather than by principles.
It was believed by the populace that court favor had prevented the duke from going to prison like any common criminal, and that the same influence had procured him the poison by which he escaped a public execution.
CHAPTER VI.
THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE.
As I said in the last chapter, everything in the year 1847 and during the opening weeks of 1848 seemed unfavorable to Louis Philippe.
Besides the causes of dissatisfaction I have mentioned, there was a scarcity of grain, there were drains on the finances, there was disaffection among the National Guard, and hostility among the peers to the measures of the Ministry. Then came the conviction of M. Teste, a member of the Cabinet, for misappropriating public funds. Even private affairs seemed turned against the royal family.
Madame Lafarge murdered her husband, and it was said that the court had attempted to procure her acquittal because she was connected with the house of Orleans by a bar-sinister. A quarrel about an actress led to a duel. The man wounded was a journalist who was actively opposed to the king's Government. It was hinted that the duel was a device of the court to get him put out of the way. But the greatest of the king's misfortunes was the death of his admirable sister, Madame Adelade, in January, 1848. She had been all his life his bosom friend and his chief counsellor. She died of a severe attack of influenza.
In a letter from the Prince de Joinville to the Duc de Nemours, found in the garden of the Tuileries in February, 1848, among many valuable doc.u.ments that had been flung from the windows of the palace by the mob, the situation of things at the close of 1847 and the beginning of 1848 is thus summed up by one brother writing in confidence to another:--
”The king will listen to no advice. His own will must be paramount over everything. It seems to me impossible that in the Chamber of Deputies at the next session the anomalous state of the government should fail to attract attention. It has effaced all traces of const.i.tutional government, and has put forward the king as the primary, and indeed sole, mover upon all occasions. There is no longer any respect for ministers; their responsibility is null, everything rests with the king. He has arrived at an age when he declines to listen to suggestions. He is accustomed to govern, and he loves to show that he does so. His immense experience, his courage, and his great qualities lead him to face danger; but it is not on that account the less real or imminent.”
Then, after further summing up the state of France,--the finances embarra.s.sed, the _entente cordiale_ with England at an end, and the provinces in confusion,--the prince adds: ”Those unhappy Spanish marriages!--we have not yet drained the cup of bitterness they have mixed for us to drink.”
In this state of things the opposition party was divided into liberals who wished for reform, and liberals who aimed at revolution. For a while the two parties worked together, and their war-cry was Reform! There was little or no parliamentary opposition, for the Chamber of Peers and the Chamber of Deputies were alike virtually chosen by the Crown. The population of France in 1848 was thirty-five millions; but those ent.i.tled to vote were only two hundred and forty thousand, or one to every one hundred and forty-six of the population, and of these a large part were in Government employ.
It was said that the number of places in the gift of the Ministry was sixty-three thousand, every place, from that of a guard upon a railroad to that of a judge upon the bench, being disposed of by ministerial favor.
The plan adopted to give expression to the public discontent was the inauguration of reform banquets. To these large crowds were attracted, both from political motives and from a desire in the rural districts to hear the great speakers, Lamartine and others, who had a national renown. Many of the speeches were inflammatory.
The health of the king was never drunk on these occasions, but the ”Ma.r.s.eillaise” was invariably played.
Seventy-four of these banquets had been given in the provinces, when it was decided to give one in Paris; and a large inclosed piece of ground on the Rue Chaillot, not far from the Arch of Triumph, was fixed upon for the purpose. This banquet was to take place on Tuesday, Feb. 22, 1848. Until Monday afternoon opinions seemed divided as to whether it would be suffered to go on. But meantime the city had been crammed with troops, and the sleep of its inhabitants had been broken night after night by the tramp of regiments and the rumble of artillery. Monday, February 21, was a beautiful day, the air was soft and genial, the streets and the Champs Elysees were very gay. Scarcely any one was aware at that time that it was the intention of the Government to forbid the banquet; but that night the preparations made for it were carted away by order of the liberal leaders, who had been warned of the decision of the authorities, while at the same time every loose paving-stone that might help to erect a barricade was, by orders from the police, removed out of the way.
When morning dawned, a proclamation, forbidding the banquet, was posted on every street-corner. The soldiers were everywhere confined to their quarters, the windows of which were stuffed with mattresses; but to residents in Paris the day seemed to pa.s.s quietly, though about noon the Place de la Madeleine was full of men surrounding the house of Odillon Barrot, the chief leader of the opposition, demanding what, under the circ.u.mstances, they had better do. In the Place de la Concorde, troops were endeavoring to prevent the crowd from crossing the Seine and a.s.sembling in front of the Chamber of Deputies. In order to break up the throng upon the bridge, a heavy wagon was driven over it at a rapid pace, escorted by soldiers, who slashed about them with their sheathed swords. At the residence of M. Guizot, then both Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, a large crowd had a.s.sembled and had broken his windows; but the rioters were dispersed the Munic.i.p.al Guard and the Police.
In the afternoon, on the Place de la Concorde, a party of men and boys, apparently without leaders, contrived to break through the troops guarding the bridge, and began to ascend the steps of the Chamber of Deputies. Being refused admission to the hall, they proceeded to break windows and do other damage. Then a party of dragoons began to clear the bridge, but good-humoredly, and the people were retiring as fast as they might, when a detachment of the Munic.i.p.al Guard arrived. The Munic.i.p.al Guard was a handsome corps of mounted police, the men being all stalwart and fine-looking. They wore brazen helmets and horse-tails and glittering breastplates, but they were very unpopular, while the National Guards were looked on by the rioters as their supporters. The Munic.i.p.al Guards, when they came upon the bridge, began treating the crowd roughly, a good many persons were hurt, and an old woman was trodden down. At this the crowd grew furious, stones were thrown, and the soldiers drew their swords. Before nightfall there was riot and disorder all over Paris. Towards dusk the _rappel_--the signal for the National Guard to muster--had been beaten in the streets, and soon many soldiers of that body might be seen, escorted by men in blouses carrying their guns, while the National Guards, unarmed, were shouting and singing.