Marie Antoinette and Her Son Part 84

Seven years the unhappy prince spent in the Austrian prison, without once being summoned before a judge--seven years of solitude, of darkness, and of want. But the son of Marie Antoinette had learned in his youth to bear these things, and his prison-life in Milan was not so cruel as that in the Temple under Simon. Here there were at least sympathizing souls who pitied him; even the turnkeys of the prison were courteous and kind when they entered the cell of the "King of France;" and one day, beyond the wall of his apartment, was heard a voice singing, in gentle, melodious tones, a romanza which Louis had composed, and written on the wall when he occupied the neighboring cell.

This voice, which sounded like a greeting from the world, was that of Silvio Pellico. The celebrated author of "Le Mie Prigioni,"

relates in touching words this salutation of his neighbor:

"My bed was carried," he said, "into the new cell that was prepared for me, and as soon as the inspectors had left me alone, my first care was to examine the walls. There were to be seen there some words, recollections of the past, written with chalk, with pencil, or with a sharp tool. I found there also two pretty French lines, which I am sorry I did not copy. I began to sing them to my melody of 'The Poor Mugdalen,' when a voice near me responded with another air. When the singer ended, I called out, 'Bravo!' He replied with a polite salutation, and asked me if I was French.

"'No, I am Italian, and am called Silvio Pellico.'

"'The author of Francesca da Rimini?'

"'Yes, the same.'

"And now there followed a courtly compliment, with the usual regrets for my imprisonment. He asked in what part of Italy I was born, and when I told him in Saluzzo, in Piedmont, he awarded the Piedmontese some words of high praise, and spoko particularly of Bodoni (a celebrated printer, director of the national printing establishment at Parma). His compliments were brief and discriminating, and disclosed a finely cultivated mind.

"'And now, sir,' said I, 'allow me to ask you who you are.'

"'You were just singing a song that I wrote.'

"'These pretty verses here upon the wall, are they yours?'

"'Yes, they are.'

"'You are therefore--'

"'The Duke de Normandie.'

"The watchman was just then walking past my window and so I was still. After some time we resumed our conversation. When I asked whether he was Louis XVII., he responded in the affirmative, and began to declaim hotly against Louis XVIII. his uncle, the usurper of his rights.

"I implored him to give me his history in brief outlines. He did so, and related to me all the details connected with the life of Louis XVII., which I knew only in part. He told me how he had been imprisoned with Simon the cobbler, been compelled to sign a calumniating charge against his mother, etc. He then related to me the story of his escape and his flight to America, of his return to reclaim the throne of his fathers, and his arrest in Mantua.

"He portrayed his history with extraordinary life. All the incidents of the French Revolution were present before him; he spoke with natural eloquence, and wove in piquant anecdotes very apropos. His manner of expression smacked once in a while of the soldier, but there was no lack of the elegance that disclosed his intercourse with good society.

"'Will you allow me,' I asked him, 'to treat you as a friend and leave off all t.i.tles?'

"'I want exactly that, 'he answered. 'Misfortune has taught me the good lesson to despise all the vanities of earth. Believe me, my pride does not lie in this, that I am a king, but that I am a man.'

"After this we had long conversations mornings and evenings, and I recognized in him a n.o.ble, beautiful soul, sensitive to all that is good. He knew how to win hearts, and even the turnkeys were kind to him. One of them said to me on coming from the cell of my neighbor: 'I have strong hopes that he will make me chief porter when he is king; I have had the boldness to ask him for the position, and he has promised it.'

"To the veneration of the turnkeys for the king of the future I owe it that one day when I was led to trial, and had to pa.s.s by his cell, they opened the doors that I might see my ill.u.s.trious friend.

He was of medium size, from forty to forty-five years of age, somewhat embonpoint, and had a thoroughly Bourbon physiognomy."

[Footnote: Silvio Pellico, "Le Mie Prigioni," p. 51 et seq. An examination of Silvio Pellico's work will convince the reader that Silvio Pellico was by no means a believer in the genuineness of his companion's claims. Miss Muhlbach seems to have been scarcely just in leaving the impression conveyed in the text.-TB.]

After seven years of imprisonment, the gates opened at last for the Baron de Richemont; and he who had been placed there without the sentence of a judge, was released with as little show of authority.

The son of the queen was free again; the death of King Louis XVIII.

had restored him to the walks of men. But another King of France a.s.sumed his place at once; the Count d'Artois ascended the throne under the t.i.tle of Charles X.

The poor Baron de Richemont bore his sorrows and his humiliation into the valleys of Switzerland. But when, in the year 1830, King Charles X. abdicated the throne, the son of Marie Antoinette again came forth from his solitude, issued a proclamation to the French people, and, in the presence of all Europe, demanded his inheritance.

Yet, amid the clash of weapons and the roar of revolutions, the voice of the unfortunate prince was overborne. He had no soldiers, no cannon, to enforce silence and make himself be heard. But the Duke d'Orleans, Louis Philippe, had soldiers and cannon; and the arms of his dependants, and the magic of his wealth, placed him upon the throne in July, 1830. [Footnote: It was the 9th of August.--Tr.]

The poor Baron de Richemont, the son of kings, the last of the Bourbons in France, had now a single friend, who, perhaps, would receive him. This friend was the Duke de Bourbon--Conde, now an old man of eighty years. One day, some weeks after the accession of Louis Philippe, the Duke de Bourbon received at his palace of St.

Leu a gentleman whom n.o.body knew, who announced himself as the Baron de Richemont.

The duke went out into the anteroom, greeted his guest with the greatest deference, and led him into his cabinet. There the two gentlemen carried on a long and earnest conversation, and the secretary of the duke, who was at work in the library hard by, distinctly heard his master say, with trembling tones: "Sire, I implore you, forgive me. The circ.u.mstances were stronger than my will. Sire, go not into judgment with me--forgive me."

To this an angry voice replied: "No, I will not forgive you, for you have dealt perfidiously with the son, as you did once with the mother! You have not redeemed the oath that you once gave me. I leave you. May G.o.d be gracious to you, and pardon you. Take care that He does not punish you for the treachery that you have shown to me. You swore that you would acknowledge no other king but me, and yet you have taken your oath to the third king. Farewell! May the Almighty protect you! We shall see each other, perhaps, in a better world, and there you will have to give your account to a Judge whom nothing can mitigate. Be happy, and may the dead sleep in peace!"

[Footnote: The very words of Richemont.--See "Memoires du Duc de Normandie," p. 243.]

The secretary then heard the forcible closing of a door, and all became still. After an hour he entered the duke's cabinet, because the silence troubled him. The old duke sat in his arm-chair, pale, and gazing with constant looks at the door through which the stranger had departed. He was reticent the whole day, and in the night following his valet heard him softly praying and weeping. On the next morning, August 27th, 1830, on entering the sleeping-room of his master, he found him dead and already rigid. The duke had hanged himself at the window of his own room.

The last dependant of the unhappy king, who still bore the name of the pretender, was dead, as were all his relations, including his sister, the d.u.c.h.ess d'Angouleme.

But from the dead there came a greeting. She had ordered a large sum to be paid yearly to the Baron de Richemont, and the report was that she had wished to recognize him on her death-bed as her brother. But her confessor had counselled her that such a recognition would introduce new contentions among the Bourbons, and give the pretender Henry V. equal claims with Louis XVII.

Yet the Duke de Normandie was not silent; he spoke so loudly of his rights that Louis Philippe at last held it advisable to arrest him and bring him to trial. The preliminary investigation continued fifteen months; then he was brought before the court, and accused of conspiracy against the safety of the state.

The Gazette des Tribunaux of the 3d, 4th, and 5th of November, 1834, gave the details of this trial. Spectators poured in from all sides, and also, in an unexpected manner, witnesses who declared themselves ready to prove the ident.i.ty of the Baron de Richemont with the Duke de Normandie, son of Louis XVI. The accused appeared entirely calm and dignified before the bar, and when the counsel for the government accused him of appropriating a name that did not belong to him, he asked quietly,

"Gentlemen, if I am not Louis XVII., will you tell me who I am?"

No one knew how to reply to this question; but many eminent legitimists had come to solemnly declare that the accused was in truth their king, and that he was the rescued orphan of the Temple.

Even the president of the court seemed to be convinced of this, and his closing words in addressing the jury were these: "Gentlemen, who is the accused who stands before you to-day? What is his name, his lineage, his family? What are his antecedents, his whole history? Is he an instrument of the enemies of France, or is he, much more, an unfortunate who has miraculously escaped the horrors of a b.l.o.o.d.y revolution, and, laid under bans by his birth, has now no name and no refuge for his head?"

The jury, however, were not called upon to answer this question; they had simply to reply to the question whether the accused was guilty of a conspiracy against the state. This they answered with a "Guilty," and condemned the accused to an imprisonment of twelve years.

The Duke de Normandie, or King Louis Charles, as we may choose to call him, was taken to St. Pelagic; but during the next year, through the a.s.sistance of powerful friends, which his trial had gained over to him, he was released from prison, and again spent some quiet years in Switzerland.

Then came the year 1848, the year of revolutions, whose storm-waves drove Louis Philippe to England, never to ascend again the throne of France.

Again Louis Charles issued from his solitude, and this time not alone. A swarm of rich and powerful legitimists thronged around him, a journal--L'Iflexible--was secured to the interests of the Duke do Normandie, and La Vendee, with a thousand loyal voices, summoned King Louis XVII. to herself. There, as he was on the point of hastening to his faithful ones, G.o.d laid his hand upon him and held him back; a stroke of paralysis crippled his limbs. After recovering from this attack, the strength of his mind was taken away, and the decided, fiery, indefatigable pretender became a gentle, pious monk, who fasted and prayed, and wandered to Rome to have an interview with Pope Pius IX., and received absolution from him for all his sins.

The pope met the Duke de Normandie at Gaeta on the 20th of February, 1849, and had a long and secret conversation with him; and, when Louis Charles withdrew, it was as a quiet, pious, smiling man, who never denied his high extraction, but who had no longer a wish to be restored to the inheritance of his fathers. More and more he withdrew from the world, and lived only in the circle of a few n.o.ble-born legitimists, who never addressed him excepting as "sire."

He accepted the t.i.tle as one that was his due, and never refused it even when approached by many adherents of the new Napoleonic dynasty. At that time he wrote to his friends:

"You ask me what I wish, what the end of my struggle is, which has now lasted more than a half century? I will tell you. You do not suppose, I trust, that I am still determined to ascend the throne of France: to do this would be a great misfortune for me, but it would certainly be a greater one for France, and it would rightly be said of both of us that we merit our misfortune; still less do I hope to attain to wealth and high station by being recognized. You know that I need very little for my support, and that this little is amply provided for. What else should I strive for? To avenge myself? My friend, I am at an age when the blood flows slower through the veins, and when one finds an inexpressible charm in forgiving. What, then, do I wish? What could I have? Why do I incessantly strive?

This is the reason, my friend: I should like, before my death, to convince all who have disinterestedly believed in me, that it is not a political adventurer, but the royal 'orphan of the Temple,' who owes them his friends.h.i.+p, and gives them his grat.i.tude."

And this last goal of his life was within his reach. The friends and legitimists who surrounded him believed in him, and when he died his dependants and servants mourned for him as for a departed king. They bore him with solemn pomp to his grave, at the dead of night.

Some fifty persons followed his coffin, and a priest went before it.

He was buried in the churchyard of Villefranche, and his tombstone bears the following inscription:

Here rests Louis Charles of France Born at Versailles, March 27, 1785. Died in the Chateau of Vaux-Renaud, August 10, 1858.