The Catholic World Volume Ii Part 39

From The Month.

THE DAUGHTERS OF THE DUC D'AYEN.

The stirring events, political and military, which followed on the outbreak of the great French revolution, giving a shock to every inst.i.tution, secular and religious, and leaving their mark on the history of every civilized country, affected also, to an unexampled degree, the fortunes of families and individuals throughout Europe.

The troubles that overwhelmed the thrones of kings, and seemed to threaten the Church herself with destruction, penetrated even to the very lowest cla.s.ses of society. The great were ruined as well as their princes; the wealthy and n.o.ble were proscribed and exiled; new families arose as well as new dynasties; and if the cottage was spared persecution, it did not escape the conscription, while in many cases its inmates died on the guillotine by the side of the tenants of the neighboring palace. By this great and universal convulsion hearts and characters were tried to the utmost; and if many in every cla.s.s sank under the ordeal which called for courage, patience, and prudence, and other virtues in the heroic degree, it is no less true that many others, who seemed to have been born for a life of quiet and ordinary duty, for unbroken and uneventful happiness, displayed unexpected strength of character, great qualities of heart and mind, and revealed graces of the highest order under the blows of affliction. We are in some respects fortunate in living just at the distance we do from a period like this; for it has not yet pa.s.sed into the region of pure history, in which we can feel no practical concern; and yet time enough has elapsed since its close for us to reap a part at least of the rich inheritance that it has left behind it of memoirs and correspondence relating to those who played an actual part in its scenes. It was crowded with lives that deserve to be written, full of interest and instruction.

Let us confine ourselves to France alone. That country produced a number of most remarkable men, brought to the surface, as it were, by the breaking up of the great fountains of her national life, who, for bad or for good, played the chief part in the political changes which so powerfully affect Europe to the present day, or, as the soldiers of a new era of military glory, bore her flag in triumph into every capital on the continent. These men figured in events which write themselves sooner than any other on the pages of history; and every one, therefore, has heard of the names and exploits of the emperor and his marshal. More n.o.ble and heroic, more beneficial, and more truly glorious to their country, were the lives of hundreds--men and women-- who took a part in the great outburst of fresh religious activity which followed upon the restoration of freedom to Catholicism, of whose piety, charity, and devotion the present Church of France is the fruit and the monument. A great deal remains to be done as to the biography and history of this great religious restoration, in many respects already equalling, in others even outs.h.i.+ning, the earlier glories of the French Church, for a moment submerged by the revolution. Lastly, there is another department also in which literary labor will be well repaid--the history of the sufferers in the revolution, whether ecclesiastics or secular, whether they perished on the guillotine, were transported to Cayenne, or claimed as emigrants the hospitality of England and other European countries.

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Many of these emigrants were persons who had never known what it was to have a whim ungratified; who had lived all their lives amidst the frivolous dissipation of the highest society in Paris, infected as it was with the withering influences of Voltairianism; and who had shared in the illusive enthusiasm with which the earlier steps of the revolution had been welcomed. Exile, poverty, forced inaction, obscurity, and the utter want of all that had before been the occupation of their lives, came upon them as a far more severe, because more wearing and protracted, trial than if they had had to bear the short agony of the ma.s.sacres or the revolutionary tribunal.

Yet, under an ordeal such as this, great and wonderful virtues often unfolded themselves, which bore witness to the sound religious training that so many of them had received, of which their patience and courage were the natural fruits. In this way their history furnishes us with many characters of wonderful interest; and the effect of it is not only to enlist our sympathies for individuals, but to give us also a higher idea of the upper cla.s.ses in France than is generally derived from the annals of that dreadful period.

I have been led to these remarks by reading a little volume lately published in Paris, under the t.i.tle "_Anne Paule Dominique de Noailles, Marquise de Montagu_," There may, perhaps, be many more such memoirs: this, at all events, though written without pretension or ambition, certainly gives the history of a very beautiful character, drawn out by continual misfortune, and it contains incident enough to furnish the plots of three or four romances. Although it deals chiefly with the history of Madame de Montagu, it gives us incidentally the outline both of the lives and characters of her sisters. There are also, of course, other subordinate figures in the picture; and the author has shown great skill in giving us a very graphic account of each in a few words or lines. I shall proceed, without further prologue or apology, to use the materials furnished by this volume for a short sketch of Madame de Montagu and her sisters.

These ladles were the daughters of the Duc and d.u.c.h.esse d'Ayen. The duke was the eldest son of the last Marechal de Noailles; his wife was the daughter of M. d'Aguesseau, son of the chancellor of that name.

They had five daughters, called, as the custom was, Mdlle. de Noailles, Mdlle. d'Ayen, Mdlle. d'Epernon, Mdlle. de Maintenon, and Mdlle. de Monclar. The eldest married her cousin, the Viscount de Noailles; the second became Madame de la Fayette, wife of the celebrated marquis; Mdlle. d'Epernon was twice married, but died young, and we shall have no occasion to mention her name again; Mdlle.

de Maintenon is the princ.i.p.al subject of the volume we have before us, having married the Marquis de Montagu; Mdlle. de Monclar became Madame de Grammont. The sisters probably owed more to their mother than to any one else in the world, and were formed by her; a short notice of her is, therefore, the natural introduction to their history.

Many who have been acquainted with the effects of the influence of the French emigrants who came to England at the time of the revolution have remarked that some of the most devout and religious among them must have had a certain tinge of strictness and rigor about them which betrayed the distant influence of Jansenism, even over those who were in no sort of way its disciples. This may be seen even in some of their ascetical works. The d.u.c.h.esse d'Ayen seems either to have been brought up in this school, or to have taken up its teaching from something in her own character congenial to it. As was natural in a granddaughter of d'Aguesseau, she loved order and prudence with hereditary instinct, and was, moreover, acquainted with suffering; her piety was most genuine, and as wife and mother none could surpa.s.s her.

The {254} due was a man of the world, a thorough gentleman, with all the dilettante learning that befitted his high station. He had pa.s.sed through several brilliant campaigns, was a member of the Academy of Sciences, and shone even in Paris in the art of conversation. His time was mostly spent at court, or in gay circles away from home; but when he did return the most delicate attentions were lavished on his wife; and she, on her side, had taught their five children to greet his visits with love equal to their respect. And in truth, though their father's quick temper inspired the girls with some natural fear, his many amiable qualities could not fail to call forth their deepest affection.

Madame d'Ayen they dearly loved. The free unbroken intercourse which is natural to English homes was not in accordance with the rules of those stately Parisian families, but the first act of the day was to go and salute their mother; next, they were sure to meet her going to or returning from ma.s.s, when they were taking their morning walk; afterward, they all dined together at three, and then came the pleasant hours spent in her bedroom, while she instructed and amused them by turns in gentle maternal converse. They had other instructors I but she really formed their minds.

A bright worldly future opened before these young girls, with their good birth, high connections, and splendid fortune. Who would have dreamed of coming storms? But the pious mother did not wait for misfortune to teach them companions.h.i.+p with sorrow; they began when children to visit the suffering, and two poor people of the parish stood sponsors for Mdlle. de Maintenon at the baptismal font. She was born in 1766, and the parish church was St. Roch; opposite stood the family hotel, with its s.p.a.cious gardens reaching up to the Tuileries.

After their marriages the sisters became brilliant stars in Parisian society, and the tenderest union ever reigned between them. The eldest, Madame de Noailles, was admired by every one for her sweetness and grace, being commonly called either "that angel," or the "heavenly viscountess." Even the family confessor, the saintly Abbe Edgworth, writing of her after her death to Madame de Montagu, says, "The fate of that angelic soul, which I knew so intimately on earth, can inspire no uneasiness. For my part, I acknowledge in all simplicity that she seems now to return me ten-fold all the good I formerly wished her.

The mere remembrance of her strengthens me, and would keep me from loving earth, could it still offer any enjoyment."

The sisters vied with each other in love and veneration for their mother and Madame de Noailles especially had the happiness of being scarcely ever separated from her. The young wife, however, espoused with ardor her husband's political opinions; and he was much more liberal in his views than the d.u.c.h.esse d'Ayen. Like many other n.o.bles of the time, both about court and in the provinces, M. de Noailles hailed with enthusiasm the first dawn of the revolution, believing it would bring about a new era for France, a grand national reform.

Madame d'Ayen, on the contrary, looked on events with some mistrust; her experience, her natural prudence and cautious character, made her more anxious, more inclined to circ.u.mspection.

Even after the Bastille had been taken, and when so many families began to emigrate, M. de Noailles, like his brother-in-law M. de la Fayette, continued to hope. The events of 1792, however, induced him to seek refuge in England. The Duc d'Ayen had taken refuge in Switzerland; but when he heard of the attack on the Tuileries in June, 1792, he flew to the aid of the king and the royal family, considering that though his post of captain of the royal guard had been abolished, the danger of Louis had created it anew. He was with that {255} small band of devoted adherents who would have defended the king on the fatal 10th of August--the last day of the real monarchy--when Louis'

heart failed him, and he took refuge in the a.s.sembly. The Duc d'Ayen managed again to get away into Switzerland; the other members of his family, quitting their splendid hotel, hid themselves in a wretched dwelling of the nearest feubourg. Madame de Noailles was to have joined her husband in London, where they intended shortly to embark for America; but she lingered with her mother, first to a.s.sist her grandfather, the Marshal de Noailles, in his dying moments, and next to console his aged widow, now well-nigh reduced to second childhood.

The result was captivity and death for all time. Madame de Noailles'

virtue shone forth with l.u.s.tre throughout these trying hours, and it is as a meek victim of the revolution that she especially deserves remembrance.

At first the three ladies were simply detained as "suspected" in their own hotel, during the winter of '93; but in April following they were transferred as prisoners to the Luxembourg. There they found in a room below them their relatives, the Marechal de Mouchy and his wife, who had already suffered a detention of five months. Not far off was a cousin, the d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans, widow of Philippe Egalite, lately executed. These were sad recognitions, few or no prisoners being ever set at liberty, though many went through the mockery of a trial. Soon after Madame d'Ayen's arrival, M. and Madame de Mouchy were guillotined. From the first she and her daughter prepared for death.

Both did all they could to alleviate the suffering around them. Madame d'Ayen gave up her bed to the d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans, who was very ill, and treated with even exceptional cruelty. Madame de Noailles shared her mother's attendance on this lady, and on several others. She made the beds for all their relatives, helped them to dress, and washed up the dishes; in short, waited upon the whole party as if she had been accustomed all her life to servile occupations. With true virtue, she even showed no repugnance at anything, but preserved throughout her usual sweet serenity of temper. Her consolation was to mount up twice a week to an upper story, under pretence of breathing the fresh air, but in reality to obtain a view from the window of her children in the garden beneath. She had contrived to keep up some correspondence outside, and they came at the stated hour, under the care of their tutor. Occasionally she managed to receive notes from him, or to send him one. An extract from the last she wrote, and when she _felt_ an eternal separation impending, shows the strength of her piety:

"G.o.d sustains me, and will, I am convinced, to the end. Farewell! Be a.s.sured that my grat.i.tude toward you will accompany me above. But for you, what would have been my children's fate? Farewell, Alexis, Alfred, Euphemia! Bear G.o.d in your hearts every day of your lives; attach yourselves steadfastly to him; pray for your father, and for his true happiness; remember your mother also, and that her sole desire has been for your eternal welfare. I hope to be re-united with you in the bosom of G.o.d, and in that hope give my last blessing to you all."

These words show a soul which could not be ill prepared for death.

When hastily summoned one day to leave the Luxembourg for the Conciergerie, a certain road to execution, both Madame de Noailles and her mother were quite ready. Madame d'Ayen had the "Imitation" open at that beautiful chapter on the cross. Hastily writing on a sc.r.a.p of paper--"Courage, my children, and pray"--she put it in as a mark, and begged the d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans, if her life were spared, to give it to them. This commission was faithfully executed, and the little book still exists, showing {256} traces of Madame d'Ayen's last tears as she named her daughters.

The poor old marechale scarcely knew what was going on, but followed mechanically. The Conciergerie was crowded, and afforded small accommodation for new-comers. Madame de Noailles thought it useless to sleep that night. When her mother pressed her to lie down a little, she said, "Why seek repose on the brink of eternity?" Early next morning all three were astir, and persuaded each other to break their fast, for no dinner had been provided on the previous evening. Madame de Noailles insisted on dressing both her mother and grandmother, whispering, "Have good courage, mamma; there is only one hour more!"

But nearly the whole day pa.s.sed in terrible expectation. Not till five in the afternoon came the open carts that were to carry forty condemned prisoners to the Barriere du Trone for execution. Long previous to detention, Madame de Noailles had secured, in case of danger, the services of a good priest--Pere Carrichon, of the Oratory.

News of their coming fate reached him, and, faithful to his promise, despite the personal risk, he arrived at the prison door in time. The first cart filled and pa.s.sed out. It contained eight ladies, of whom the last was the old marechale. In the second were Madame d'Ayen and her daughter; after whom six men took their places.

The account given by Pere Carrichon of this closing scene is our last view of Madame de Noailles, and tallies with what has gone before.

Serene and gentle, her thoughts appeared wrapt in G.o.d. Pere Carrichon tried to make himself seen as the cart came out. Evidently Madame de Noailles was looking for some one; but her glance did not rest on him.

Having made a great circuit, he posted himself in a conspicuous place at the opening of a bridge. Again Madame de Noailles anxiously scanned the crowd around, and again without discerning the face she sought.

Pere Carrichon was tempted to give up the effort in despair. Priestly charity prevailed, however, and he hastened forward to the Rue St.

Antoine. A violent storm had come on; thunder and lightning raged, the wind blew furiously. The poor victims were drenched; the ladies' hair streamed about their faces, and their hands, closely tied behind each, could give no relief. What with the jolting and wind, they could hardly keep their seats on those narrow planks. The savage curiosity of the populace yielded to the violence of the storm; the crowd dispersed; windows and doors closed. Pere Carrichon ventured nearer the cart, amid the very escort of soldiers intent on guarding themselves from the storm. Suddenly Madame de Noailles' countenance lighted up with her own sweet smile; her eyes were thankfully raised to heaven, and then she leaned forward, whispering to her mother. She had seen him, Pere Carrichon felt sure of it. A grateful smile stole over the d.u.c.h.ess's face also.

Pere Carrichon continued walking beside the cart; his heart raised in prayer; the mute confession was made, the silent absolution given.

Solemn, touching scene!--those two heads, one so fair, reverentially bent down with looks of mingled contrition and hope; the priest fulfilling his errand of mercy; and the storm raging on.

At length the carts stopped. The executioner and his a.s.sistants came forward, one carelessly twirling a rose between his lips. The guillotine fell on the marechale; afterward on Madame d'Ayen; and Madame de Noailles suffered next. Up to the last moment both mother and daughter employed themselves in exhorting their companions to Christian repentance. The vicomtesse devoted herself especially to a young man whom she had overheard blaspheming. One foot was already on the b.l.o.o.d.y ladder, when, turning round a last time, she {257} murmured, with imploring accents, "I conjure you, say--Forgive me!"

Their own sweet countenances spoke only of heaven. So beautiful were these deaths, that, despite the horrors of the scene, Pere Carrichon could but raise his full heart in praise and thanksgiving to G.o.d. Thus lived and died the eldest of these five sisters.

The second, Madame de la Fayette, is a beautiful character; so enthusiastic in spirit, so warm and generous in heart. Endowed with good natural powers, her mind had been highly cultivated, she could reason well, and possessed a ripe judgment. Prompt and decided on great occasions, she was then energetic enough in carrying out her resolutions; but by a strange contradiction of nature, doubts often a.s.sailed her in little matters, and she would hang back, uncertain what course to pursue. Ardent in her piety, she was yet tormented with scruples; and unfortunately Madame d'Ayen had so far condescended to these as to allow her daughter not to make her first communion till after marriage. Naturally enough, at that late period the great act was accomplished with much mental suffering. Madame de Montagu said with truth that this beloved sister was not sufficiently interior, and thirsted too eagerly after the consolations of human affections; but for sincerity, faith, zeal, and submission to the divine will Madame de la Fayette was most admirable. Her greatest quality was self-sacrifice, unshrinking devotion to those she loved--the virtue of a wife and a mother. M. de la Fayette attests that he owed to her unalloyed happiness during a wedded union of thirty-four years.

"Gentle, tender, virtuous, and high-souled, this incomparable woman has been the charm and pride of my existence."

She too was imprisoned, but was afterward released. Her first thought was to join her husband, a captive at Olmutz. Other duties detained her for a while; but the ultimate object was kept steadily, though silently, in view. Madame de la Fayette sent her young son out of France across the Atlantic, confiding him to Was.h.i.+ngton's protection; then she hastened to look after her daughters in Auvergne, and settle money accounts there. Happily, she was able to buy back Chavaniac, the property of an old aunt who had brought up her husband. Business concluded, she sought for Madame de Grammont; the two sisters had not met since the tragic death of their relatives. Madame de Noailles'

orphan children were living with their aunt. Tearing herself from them, Madame de la Fayette--who could only obtain a pa.s.sport for America--then went round by sea to Altona, in Denmark, where her other sister, Madame de Montagu, and many French exiles, had fixed their residence for a while. This also was a meeting in which bitter pain was mingled with joy. "Did you see them?" were the only words Madame de Montagu could sob forth, after a long, mute caress. "Alas! I had not that happiness," replied Madame de la Fayette, whose filial heart was choking with the same remembrances.

Proper measures having been taken for obtaining an audience of the emperor, Madame de la Fayette announced her intention of proceeding to Vienna forthwith, that she might solicit permission to share her husband's captivity. The simple words in which she mentioned her generous purpose thrilled through the little circle; vain attempts were made to dissuade her from it; she gently, but firmly, persisted.

Her sister could best understand the feelings that guided her, and that she did so was expressed by silent repeated pressures of her hand.

Madame de la Fayette--accompanied by her two girls, aged thirteen and fifteen--reached Vienna under an a.s.sumed name. The emperor granted her request, and she hastened joyfully to Olmutz. Such was her enthusiasm at sight of the gloomy fortress in which her husband was confined, that she began repeating Tobias' beautiful canticle (c. xiii.), and entered with it on her lips.

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It was the 15th of October, 1795. M. de la Fayette had already been a close prisoner for three years; during the last eighteen months especially he had received no tidings of what was going on in the world without. A vague rumor of excesses committed in France had indeed reached his unbroken solitude, but not the name of one victim; he knew nothing of the fate of his wife and children. Now, without one word of preparation, the door of his cell was unlocked; figures darkened the threshold. Could it be? His heroic wife and their two children! Yes; they had come to share the hards.h.i.+ps of his prison life.

The emperor of Austria had spoken to Madame de la Fayette of her husband's place of confinement in a manner which showed her afterward that he was quite ignorant of the rigorous treatment to which the prisoner was subjected. Two little cells, with a wretched bed and a table and chair in each, formed the sole accommodation. As for eating, there was one pewter spoon, no such luxury as knife or fork being allowed. Pens, paper, and ink were only forthcoming on rare occasions, and then the open letter had to be written under the eye of an official. Madame de la Fayette endured all these annoyances for two years; and truly the abnegation of her young daughters during this long period is nearly as admirable as her own. The girls employed themselves very usefully in concocting new articles of clothing out of old materials. Madame de la Fayette, like her husband, soon began to suffer from such close confinement; but when, after eleven months'

illness, she applied for leave to go and consult a physician at Vienna for a few days only, the answer was that, once outside the fortress, she would never be re-admitted. The prison doctor could only exchange conversation in Latin with her husband, and neither of them appear to have been adepts in that language; moreover, his hurried visit was obliged to take place in the presence of an officer.

Friends wearied both France and foreign powers with solicitations for the release of General de la Fayette. Fox painted the miseries endured at Olmutz in eloquent terms before a British House of Commons; but it was not until October, 1797, that the prison gates opened at length, through Bonaparte's intervention.

The name she bore often proved detrimental to her, but Madame de la Fayette gloried in it. With Robespierre's fall all prisoners in France were set at liberty. General de la Fayette, however, was accused of having betrayed the revolution because he had refused to become privy to its crimes, and his wife was therefore detained. Interrogated by Legendre, who told her how much he detested the very name of la Fayette, she boldly expressed her readiness to defend him and it against whatsoever accuser. Legendre remanded her to prison "for insolence."

This devoted love for husband and children did not suffice to fill her heart. It was burning also with other affections. To Madame de la Fayette we owe a touching life of the d.u.c.h.esse d'Ayen, written while at Olmutz, on the margin of a stray volume of Buffon, with a broken toothpick for her pen and a piece of Chinese ink. When told of the tragic fate that had overtaken her relatives, she could not believe it at first; especially it seemed impossible that men could have been so barbarous to her "angelic sister." On recovering a little from this overwhelming sorrow, she wrote to her children:

"I thank G.o.d for having preserved to me life and reason, and do not regret your absence at such a moment. He kept me from revolt against him; but I could not long have borne the semblance of any human consolation. To follow in the track of such dear footsteps would have sweetened the last pangs for me."

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In the prisons of the revolution her sole thought was how to relieve the wants and sufferings of those around. With her cousin, the d.u.c.h.esse de Duras, at Plessis, she was constantly interceding for the sick and poor among their fellow captives, and this at a time when a chance word sufficed for death, as sixty victims chosen by caprice or at hazard were regularly dragged forth each day for execution. Her spirit never forsook her under trying circ.u.mstances, and she often showed wonderful presence of mind. Once she pleaded her own cause before the tribunal of Puy, and on several occasions harangued the people. Her language at these times was always n.o.bly firm, and sometimes proud even to haughtiness. In a letter addressed to Brissot, after asking for liberty, or at least the favor of remaining a prisoner on parole, which the whole village of Chavaniac volunteered to guarantee, she concludes by saying, "I consent to owe you this service." Her letters to the two ministers, Roland and Servan, or to foreign princes on behalf of her husband, are no less elevated in tone. She never stoops to flatter. No wonder that she exercised a species of fascination over all those who approached her; with whatever feelings the acquaintance began, it was impossible to know and not to love her.

In all her sorrows, ardent faith sustained her. When danger again threatened at Paris, she writes to Madame de Montagu: "We mast abandon ourselves wholly to G.o.d in this critical hour. Let us live like Abraham, ready to start whenever G.o.d calls, and to go wheresoever he appoints." When she felt her end approaching, once more she repeated aloud that canticle of Tobias, singing which she had, years before, entered the fortress of Olmutz. True in death to her character through life, her heart was inflamed with celestial desires, and still overflowing with human affection. Drawing all her loved ones round her, she gave them a last blessing, and gently expired, holding her husband's hands within her own.

Of four daughters of the Duc d'Ayen, Madame de Grammont was the least attractive. Her person was small, her appearance stiff, her features marked; there was nothing soft about her look or manner. Her virtue was of a stern kind; she had schooled herself into a certain absence of feeling, neither right nor lovable; but fortunately her actions often contradicted her professions. Thus her kindness never failed, and her charity to the poor was boundless. There was a contradiction too between what she said and what she wrote--her speeches are always more or less stern, while her letters frequently betray deep affection; like a person who speaks from principle, but dares to let herself out on paper, sure of restraining emotion when necessary.

Sacrifice was the prominent feature of her piety; duty dictated her every sentiment.

Eight out of her nine children she saw carried to their graves in youth, and each time she could say with composure, "The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."