The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X Part 3

When she was accused of want of tact in the numerous receptions of which one had to undergo the monotony, it was often the fault of her immediate companions, who neglected to give her suitable information as to the various persons received. How many times I have hinted to her to speak to some devoted man, who regarded a word from the Princess as a signal favor, to yield to requests, perhaps untimely, to visit some establishment, to receive the humble pet.i.tions of a mayor, a cure, or a munic.i.p.al council. I will not deny that she had a sort of brusqueness, partly due to an exceedingly high voice, and moments of ill humor, transient no doubt, but which nevertheless left a painful impression on those who were subjected to them. Madame the Dauphiness made no mistake as to the state of France; she was not the dupe of the obsequiousness of certain men of the court, and merit was certain to obtain her support whether it had been manifested under the old or the new regime; but she had not the influence she was supposed to have, and I doubt if she tried to acquire it."

One day the Princess was talking to the Prefect of the Oise about the great n.o.blemen who had possessions in the Department.

"Have they any influence over the people?" she asked him.

"No, Madame, and it is their own fault. M. de La Rochefoucauld is the only one who is popular, but his influence is against you. As to the others, greedy of the benefits of the court, they come to their estates only to save money, to regulate their accounts with their managers, and the people, receiving no mark of their interest, acknowledge no obligation to them."

"You are perfectly right," replied the Dauphiness, "that is not the way with the English aristocracy."

"She saw with pain," adds M. de Puymaigre, "the marriages for money made by certain men of the court, but not when they allied themselves with an honorable plebeian family; her indignation was justly shown toward those who took their wives in families whose coveted riches came from an impure source."

The extraordinary catastrophes that had fallen on the daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette had been a great experience for her, and she was not surprised at the recantations of the courtiers. The Hundred Days had, perhaps, suggested even more reflections to her than her captivity in the Temple or her early exile. She could not forget how, in 1815, she had been abandoned by officers who, but the day before, had offered her such protestations and such vows. In the midst of present prosperity she had a sort of instinct of future adversity.

Something told her that she was not done with sorrow, and that the cup of bitterness was not drained to the dregs. While every one about her contemplated the future with serene confidence, she reflected on the extreme mobility of the French character, and still distrusted inconstant fortune. The morrow of the birth of the Duke of Bordeaux one of her household said to her:--

"Your Highness was very happy yesterday."

"Yes, very happy yesterday," responded the daughter of Louis XVI., "but to-day I am reflecting on the destiny of this child."

To any one inclined to be deceived by the illusions of the prestige surrounding the accession of Charles X., it ought to have sufficed to cast a glance on the austere countenance of the Orphan of the Temple, to be recalled to the tragic reality of things. The King had for his niece and daughter-in-law an affection blended with compa.s.sion and respect. The pious and revered Princess gave to the court a character of gravity and sanct.i.ty.

VII

MADAME

The d.u.c.h.ess of Angouleme and the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry lived on the best of terms, showing toward each other a lively sympathy. Yet there was little a.n.a.logy between their characters, and the two Princesses might even be said to form a complete contrast, one representing the grave side, the other the smiling side of the court.

Born November 7, 1798, and a widow since February 14, 1820, Madame (as the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry was called after the d.u.c.h.ess of Angouleme became Dauphiness) was but twenty-five when her father-in-law, Charles X., ascended the throne. She was certainly not pretty, but there was in her something seductive and captivating. The vivacity of her manner, her spontaneous conversation, her ardor, her animation, her youth, gave her charm. Educated at the court of her grandfather, Ferdinand, King of Naples, who carried bonhomie and familiarity to exaggeration, and lived in the company of peasants and lazzaroni, she had a horror of pretension and conceit. Her child-like physiognomy had a certain playful and rebellious expression; slightly indecorous speech did not displease her. This idol of the aristocracy was simple and jovial, mingling in her conversation Gallic salt and Neapolitan gaiety. In contrast with so many princesses who weary their companions and are wearied by them, she amused herself and others. Entering a family celebrated by its legendary catastrophes, she had lost nothing of the playfulness which was the essence of her nature. The Tuileries, the scene of such terrible dramas, did not inspire her as it did the d.u.c.h.ess of Angouleme, with sad reflections. When she heard Ma.s.s in the Chapel of the Chateau, she did not say to herself that here had resounded the furies of the Convention. The grand apartments, the court of the Carrousel, the garden, could not recall to her the terrible scenes of the 20th of June and the 10th of August. When she entered the Pavillon de Flore, she did not reflect that there had sat the Committee of Public Safety. The Tuileries were, to her eyes, only the abode of power and pleasure, an agreeable and beautiful dwelling that had brought her only happiness, since there she had given birth to the Child of Europe, the "Child of Miracle."

The d.u.c.h.ess of Berry thought that a palace should be neither a barracks nor a convent nor a prison, and that even for a princess there is no happiness without liberty. She loved to go out without an escort, to take walks, to visit the shops, to go to the little theatres, to make country parties. She was like a bird in a gilded cage, which often escapes and returns with pleasure only because it has escaped. She was neither worn out nor blasee; everything interested her, everything made her gay; she saw only the good side of things. In her all was young--mind, character, imagination, heart. Thus she knew none of those vague disquietudes, that causeless melancholy, that unreasoned sadness, from which suffer so many queens and so many princesses on the steps of a throne.

Gracious and simple in her manners, modest in her bearing, more inclined to laughter and smiles than to sobs and tears, satisfied with her lot despite her widowhood, she felt happy in being a princess, in being a mother, in being in France. Flattered by the homage addressed to her on all sides, but without haughty pride in it, she protected art and letters with out pedantry, rejuvenated the court, embellished the city, spread animation wherever she was seen, and appeared to the people like a seductive enchantress. Those who were at her receptions found themselves not in the presence of a coldly and solemnly majestic princess, but of an accomplished mistress of the house bent on making her salon agreeable to her guests. There was in her nothing to abash, and by her gracious aspect, her extreme affability, she knew how to put those with whom she talked at their ease, while wholly preserving her own rank. She was not only polite, she was engaging, always seeking to say something flattering or kindly to those who had the honor to approach her. If she visited a studio, she congratulated the artist; in a shop she made many purchases and talked with the merchants with a grace more charming to them, perhaps, than even her extreme liberality.

If she went to a theatre, she enjoyed herself like a child. The select little fetes given by her always had a character of special originality and gaiety.

The Dauphiness had a higher rank at court than Madame, because she was married to the heir of the throne. But as she took much less interest in social matters, she did not s.h.i.+ne with so much eclat. The d.u.c.h.ess of Berry was the queen of elegance. In all questions of adornment, toilet, furniture, she set the fas.h.i.+on. A commission as "tradesman of Madame"

was the dream of all the merchants. Sometimes, on New Year's Day, her purchases at the chief shops were announced in the Moniteur. There were hardly any chroniques in the journals under the Restoration. A simple "item" sufficed for an account of the most dazzling fetes. If the customs of the newspapers had been under the reign of Charles X. what they are now, the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry would have filled all the "society notes," and the objective point of every "reporter," to use an American expression, would have been the Pavillon de Marsan, the "Little Chateau," as it was then called. There indeed shone in all their splendor the stars of French and foreign n.o.bility, the women who possessed all sorts of aristocracy--of birth, of fortune, of wit, and of beauty. This little circle of luxury and elegance excited less jealousy and less criticism than did the intimate society of Marie Antoinette in the last part of the old regime, because in the Queen's time, to frequent the Pet.i.t Trianon was the road to honors, while under Charles X. the intimates of the Pavillon de Marsan did not make their social pleasures the stepping-stone to fortune.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Berry never meddled in politics. Doubtless her sympathies, like those of the Dauphiness, were with the Right, but she exercised no influence on the appointment of ministers and functionaries. Charles X. never consulted her about public affairs; the idea would never have occurred to the old King to ask counsel of so young and inexperienced a woman.

It is but justice to the Princess to say that while wholly inclined toward the Right, she had none of the exaggeration of the extremists in either her ideas or her att.i.tude, and that, repudiating the arrogance and prejudices of the past, she never, in any way, dreamed of the resurrection of the old regime. She was liked by the army, being known as a good rider and a courageous Princess. When she talked with officers she had the habit of saying things that went straight to their hearts. There was no difference in her politeness to the men of the old n.o.bility or to the parvenus of victory. The former servitors of Napoleon were grateful for her friendliness to them, and perhaps they would always have respected the white flag--the flag of Henry IV., had it been borne by the gracious hand of his worthy descendant. To sum up, she was what would be called to-day a very "modern" Princess; her role might well have been to share the ideas and aspirations of the new France.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Berry led a very active life. When she came to France she was in the habit of rising late. But her husband, who believed the days to be shorter for princes than for other men, showed that he disliked this, and after that the Princess would not remain in bed after six o'clock, winter or summer. As soon as she was ready she summoned her children, and for half an hour gave them her instructions.

On leaving them, she went to hear Ma.s.s, and then breakfasted. Next came the walks, almost always with a useful object in view. Sometimes it was a hospital to which Madame carried relief, some times an artist's studio, a shop, an industrial establishment that she encouraged by her purchases and her presence. On her return she busied herself with the tenderest and most conscientious care in the education of the two daughters whom her husband had left to her, and who have since become, one the Baroness of Ch.o.r.ette, the other the Princess of Lucinge.

Audiences took up the remainder of the morning, sometimes lasting to dinner time. When some one said to her one day that she must be very tired of them, she replied: "During all that time I am told the truth, and I find as much pleasure in hearing it as people of society do in reading romances."

Madame was very charitable. She devoted to the poor an ordinary and an extraordinary budget. The tenth of her revenue was always applied to the relief of the unfortunate, and was deposited by twelfths, each month, with her First Almoner. This t.i.the was distributed with as much method as sagacity. A valet de chambre, each evening, brought to the Princess the day's pet.i.tions for relief. Madame cla.s.sified them with her own hand in alphabetical order, and registered and numbered them.

Whatever the hour, she never adjourned this task to the morrow. The private secretary then went over these pet.i.tions and presented an a.n.a.lysis of them to the Princess, who indicated on the margin what she wished to give. This was the ordinary budget of the poor, the tenth of Madame's revenue. But she had, besides, an extraordinary budget of charity for the unfortunate who were the more to be respected because they concealed themselves in obscurity and awaited instead of seeking help. It often happened that the Princess borrowed in order to give more. The total of her revenues amounted to 1,730,000 francs,--1,500,000 francs from the Treasury, 100,000 francs in Naples funds, coming from her dower, and 130,000 francs from her domain of Rosny. Madame expended all in alms or in purchases intended to encourage the arts and commerce.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Angouleme and the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry each had in the environs of Paris a pleasure house, which was their Pet.i.t Trianon, where they could lead a simpler life, less subject to the laws of etiquette than in the royal Chateaux. That of the Dauphiness was Villeneuve-l'Etang; and that of Madame, Rosny. The first had been bought of Marshal Soult by the d.u.c.h.ess of Angouleme in 1821. When she rode from Paris, this was always her destination. When she lived at Saint Cloud, she often set out on foot in the early morning alone, and followed across the park a little path known as the "road of the Dauphiness," to a little gate of the Chateau of Villeneuve-l'Etang, of which she carried the key.

Rosny is a chateau situated in the Department of Seine-et-Oise, seven kilometres from Mantes, where Sully, the famous minister of Henry IV., was born, and which had been bought in 1818 by the Duke of Berry. It was the favorite resort of Madame. She went there often and pa.s.sed a great part of the summer. There she lived the life of a simple private person, receiving herself those who came to offer homage or request aid. The village of Rosny profited by the liberality of the Chateau, La Quotidienne said in an article reproduced by the Moniteur:--

"Since Her Royal Highness the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry has owned the estate of Rosny, her sole occupation has been to secure the happiness of this country. Every journey she makes is marked by some act of goodness.

Besides the Hospital of Saint-Charles, a monument of her beneficence and piety, which is open to all the sick of the country, she sends out relief to the homes of the needy every day. The houses that rise in the village replace wretched huts, and give a more agreeable and cheerful aspect to the place. The children of either s.e.x, the object of her most tender solicitude, are taught at her expense. At every journey Madame honors them with a visit and encourages them with prizes which she condescends to distribute herself."

In his Souvenirs Intimes the Count de Mesnard, First Equerry of the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry, writes:--

"The King, Charles X., did not recognize in his daughter-in-law nearly the solidity that she had. He believed her to be light-minded, and only looked upon her as a great child, though he loved her much and her gaiety pleased him beyond measure, being himself of a gay nature. You may have heard that one day Madame rode in an omnibus. That is not correct. But it is true that one day Her Royal Highness said to the King:--

"'Father, if you will wager ten thousand francs, I will ride in an omnibus to-morrow.'

"'It's the last thing I should do, my dear,' replied His Majesty. 'You are quite crazy enough to do it.'"

M. de Mesnard adds this reflection: "What the King regarded as folly was only the appearance of it. There was in Madame a rich fund of reason, justice, and humanity. Independently of all the acts of beneficence daily done here, Madame employs still more considerable sums in the support of young girls in the convents of Lucon and Mantes, and in several other establishments. There are in the colleges a large number of young people of families of modest fortune, whose expenses she pays. The Hospital of Rosny alone costs Madame from twenty thousand to twenty-five thousand francs a year. The exhaustless bounty of this august Princess extends to all. There is no sort of aid that Her Royal Highness does not take pleasure in according: subscriptions without interest for her, for concerts that she will not hear, for benefit performances that she will not see, everything gets a subscription from her, and it all costs more than is convenient with the Princess's revenue. Sometimes it happens that her funds are exhausted, and as her benevolence never is, embarra.s.sment follows."

Apropos of this the Count de Mesnard relates a touching anecdote. One winter exceedingly cold, the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry was about to give a fete in the Pavillon de Marsan. During the day she had supervised the preparations. Things were arranged perfectly, when all at once her face saddened. She was asked respectfully what had displeased her. "What icy weather!" she cried. "Poor people may be dying of cold and hunger to-night while we are taking our delights. That spoils my pleasure."

Then she added emphatically: "Go call the Marquis de Sa.s.senay" (her Treasurer).

The Marquis came promptly.

"Monsieur," said the good Princess, "you must write instantly to the twelve mayors of Paris, and in each letter put one thousand francs to be expended in wood, and distributed this very night to the poor families of each arrondiss.e.m.e.nt. It is very little, but it may save some unfortunates."

The Treasurer responded: "Madame, I should be eager to obey the orders of Her Royal Highness, but she has nothing, or almost nothing, in her treasury."

A feeling of discontent was strongly depicted on the face of Madame, who was about to give expression to it, when M. de Mesnard hastened to say that the funds of the First Equerry were in better state than those of the Treasurer, and remitted to the latter the twelve thousand francs, which were distributed to the poor that evening according to the Princess's wishes.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Berry had the double gift of pleasing and making herself loved. All the persons of her household, all her servitors, from the great n.o.bles and great ladies to the domestics and the chamber-maids, were deeply devoted to her. Poor or rich, she had attentions for all.

Listen to the Count de Mesnard:--

"Madame is incessantly making presents to all who approach her. At New Year's her apartments are a veritable bazaar furnished from all the shops of Paris; her provision, made from every quarter, is universal, from bon-bons to the most precious articles--everything is there.

Madame has thought of each specially; the people of her own service are not forgotten any more than the ladies and officers of her household; father, mother, children, every one, is included in the distribution.

The royal family naturally comes first; next, the numerous relatives of the Palais Royal, of whom she is very fond; then her family at Naples, which is also numerous; and finally all of us, masters and servants, we all have our turn."

No one, we think, has made a more exact portrait of the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry than the Count Armand de Pontmartin, who is so familiar with the Restoration. In his truthful and lively Souvenirs d'un vieux critique, how well he presents "this flower of Ischia or of Castellamare, transplanted to the banks of the Seine, under the gray sky of Paris, to this Chateau des Tuileries, which the revolutions peopled with phantoms before making it a spectre."

How really she was "this good d.u.c.h.ess, so French and so Neapolitan at once, half Vesuvius, half school-girl, whom nothing must prevent us from honoring and loving." The chivalric and sentimental rhetoric of the time, the elegies of the poets, the n.o.ble prose of Chateaubriand, the tearful articles of the royalist journals, have condemned her to appear forever solemn and sublime. It was sought to confine her youth between a tomb and a cradle. But as M. de Pontmartin so finely remarks: "At the end of two or three years her true nature appears beneath this artificial drapery. Amus.e.m.e.nts recommence, distractions abound. The Princess is no longer a heroine; she is a sprite. The beach of Dieppe sings her praises better, a thousand times better, than the chorus of courtiers. She loves pleasure, but she wishes every pleasure to be a grace or a benefit. She creates a mine of gold under the sand of the Norman coast; she pacifies political rancor and soothes the wounds of the grumblers of the Grand Army. She makes popular the name of Bourbon, which had suffered from so much ingrat.i.tude. The Pet.i.t-Chateau, as her delightful household was called, renews the elegant manners, the exquisite gallantries of the court of Anne of Austria, and offers to the romancers the models of which Balzac, later, made so much too free use. There I see our amiable d.u.c.h.ess in her true element, not on the kind of Sinai on which the writers of the white flag have perched her, prodigal in their imitations of Bossuet,--between Jeanne d'Arc and Jeanne Hachette, between Valentine de Milan and the Widow of Malabar."

To sum up, the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry was to the court of Charles X. what the d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy was to that of Louis XIV. Her lovely youth brightened everything. Let us do her this justice: despite a character in appearance frivolous, she carried to a kind of fanaticism the love of France and pa.s.sion for French glory. There was one thing that the gracious widow took very seriously,--the rights of her son. She would have risked a thousand deaths to defend that child, who represented in her heart the cause of the fatherland. Where he was concerned there was in the att.i.tude of this frail young woman something firm and decided.

To a sagacious observer, the amazon was already manifest under the lady of society. She was like those officers who s.h.i.+ne equally at the ball and on the field of battle. Recognizing in her more than one imperfection, she cannot be denied either courage, or intelligence, or heart. By her qualities as by her defects she was of the race of Henry IV. But she was more frank and more grateful than the Bearnais.

Doubtless she did not have the genius, the prodigious ability, the fine and profound political sense, of that great man; but her nature was better, her generosity greater, her character more sympathetic.

VIII