The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X Part 9

Not far from there an altar had been erected under a tent before the royal tent. All the road from Chalons, opposite the lines, was covered with a shouting and cheering crowd. Charles X. was accompanied by the princes and a brilliant staff. The carriage of the princesses followed him. He distributed to the officers, sub-officers, and soldiers the crosses of the Legion of Honor which he had accorded to them. The review, which was magnificent, lasted from noon to 3 P.M. Before returning to the palace, the sovereign visited the bazaar established along the promenade of the lawn. He dismounted, and the princesses descended from their carriage to traverse the shops.

At five o'clock the cortege, which had set out at 10 A.M., returned to the palace. On each of the four nights that Charles X. pa.s.sed at Rheims, the streets of the city were illuminated. It was clear weather, and by the light of the illuminations, amid the crowd in the streets, there were everywhere to be seen the generals, the officers of the King's household, and the great personages of the court in grand uniform. Charles X. set out from Rheims the morning of June 1, and the city, after some days of dazzling pomp, resumed its accustomed calm.

Things had pa.s.sed off well, and the monarch was fully satisfied.

The poets had tuned their lyres. Barthelemy, himself, the future author of the Nemesis, celebrated in enthusiastic verses the monarchical and religious solemnity; Lamartine, future founder of the Second Republic, published Le Chant du Sucre ou la Veille des Armes; Victor Hugo, the future idol of the democracy, sang his dithyrambic songs. Yet, in this concert of enthusiasm there were some discordant notes. Beranger circulated his ironic song Le Sacre de Charles le Simple.

As for Chateaubriand, the most ill.u.s.trious of the royalist writers, he was to close his chapter of the MSmoires d'outre-tombe as follows:--

"So I have witnessed the last consecration of the successors of Clovis.

I had brought it about by the pages in which in my pamphlet, LE ROI EST MART! VIVE LE ROI! I had described it and solicited it. Not that I had the least faith in the ceremony, but as everything was wanting to legitimacy, it had to be sustained by every means, whatever it might be worth."

XVI

THE RE-ENTRANCE INTO PARIS

Charles X. made a solemn re-entrance into Paris, June 6, 1825.

According to the Moniteur, Paris was divided between a lively desire for the day to come and fear that the weather, constantly rainy, should spoil the splendor of the royal pomp. At the barrier of La Villette there had been erected amphitheatres and a triumphal arch. The streets were hung with white flags and the arms of the sovereign, with the inscription: "Long live Charles X.! Long live our well-beloved King!"

The Rue Saint Denis, the Rue du Roule, the Rue Saint Honore, presented a picturesque spectacle. The merchants of these business streets had converted the facades of their houses into an exposition of the rich tissues of their shops, and the cortege was thus to traverse a sort of bazaar. What a pity if the rain was going to spoil so many fine preparations! By a good luck, on which every one congratulated himself, the weather in the morning ceased its gloomy look, and a merchant of the Rue Saint Denis inscribed on his balcony these two celebrated lines,--

"Nocte pluit tota, redeunt spectacula mane, Divisum imperium c.u.m Jove Caesar habet."

At 1 P.M. a salvo of one hundred and one guns announced the arrival of the monarch at the barrier of La Villette. The Prefect of the Seine addressed him an allocution and presented him the keys of the city. The King responded: "I feel a great satisfaction in re-entering these walls. I always recall with lively emotion the reception given me eleven years ago when I preceded the King, my brother. I return here, having received the holy unction that has given me new strength. I consecrate it all, and all that I have of life and all my resources, to the happiness of France. It is my firm resolve, gentlemen, and I give you the a.s.surance of it."

The cortege then took up its march. It was formed of a squadron of gendarmerie, several squadrons of the lancers and cuira.s.siers of the royal guard, the mounted National Guard of Paris, the staff of the garrison and of the first military division, a numerous group of general and superior officers.

The Count d'Haussonville wrote on the subject:--

"I was in the cortege, and as the staff of the National Guard followed pretty close to the royal carriage, I had occasion to note how far below what had been hoped was the reception at the gate of La Villette, where a triumphal arch had been erected. Some groups, plainly soldiers, after the discourse of the Prefect of Paris and the response of the King, uttered some huzzas that found no echo. When we approached the boulevards, the public warmed up a little. The windows were lined with women, of whom the greater number waved their handkerchiefs in sign of welcome. Around Notre-Dame, whither the cortege proceeded on its way to the Tuileries, the crowd was enormous behind the line of soldiers charged with restraining it. There was nothing offensive in their remarks; neither was there any emotion or sympathy. The magnificence of the equipages and the costumes, the beauty of the military uniforms, particularly of the CORPS D'ELITE, such as the Hundred Swiss and the body-guard, were the only things spoken of. The spectators sought to guess and name to each other the prominent persons."

During the pa.s.sage the King received bouquets offered him by the market men and women, as well as by a number of workmen's corporations preceded by their banners. At the entrance of the Cathedral he was congratulated by the Archbishop of Paris at the head of the clergy. A te Deum was sung and the Marche du Sacre of Lesueur was played. Then the King returned to his carriage and directed his course to the Tuileries.

As the cortege drew near to the Chateau, the welcome grew more and more cordial. The balconies of many of the houses were draped. Women of the court, in rich toilet, threw bouquets and flowers to the King. The Count d'Haussonville says:--

"The untiring good grace with which the King returned the salutations of the crowd, and by gestures full of Bonhomie and affability, responded to the cries of persons whom he recognized as he pa.s.sed, added every moment to his personal success. In fact, when, June 6, 1825, at evening, he descended from the magnificent coronation coach, to mount the stairs of the palace of his fathers, Charles X. had reason to be content with the day. I doubt whether among the witnesses of the splendid fetes that had followed without interruption at Rheims and at Paris, there were many who would not have been strongly surprised if there had been announced to them by what a catastrophe, in five years only, an end was to be put to the reign inaugurated under the happiest auspices."

The 8th of June, the city of Paris offered to the King a fete at which there were eight thousand guests. The sovereign made his entry, having the Dauphiness on his right, and on the left the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry, who opened the ball. A cantata was sung with words by Alexandre Soumet, and the music by Lesueur.

The 10th of June, the King went to the Opera with the Dauphin, the Dauphiness, and the d.u.c.h.ess of Berry. The back of the stage opened and showed, in an immense perspective, the most ill.u.s.trious kings of France; at the farthest line were the statue of Henry IV., Paris, its monuments, the Louvre. The 19th of June, Charles X. again accompanied by the family went to the Theatre-Italien. Il Viaggio A Reims was played. Le Moniteur, apropos of this work, said:--

"It is an opera of a mould which, under the forms of the Opera Buffa, presents some ideas not dest.i.tute of comedy, in which homage of love and respect is at times expressed with an art that French taste cannot disavow. The author, M. Bellochi, has conceived the praiseworthy idea of introducing personages of all the nations of Europe, joining with the French in their prayers for the happiness of our country and of the august family that governs us. The composer is M. Rossini. The Morceaux are worthy of the reputation of this celebrated master. Madame Pasta displayed all the resources of her admirable talent. Bouquets of roses and lilies were distributed to the ladies."

There was an endless series of fetes, receptions, b.a.l.l.s at court, at the houses of the ministers of the foreign amba.s.sador, theatrical representations retracing the incidents of the coronation. The cities of the provinces imitated the example of Paris. All this movement stimulated business, and France appeared happy. But to an acute observer it was plain that the pomps of the coronation and the fetes that followed it pleased the people of the court more than the bourgeoisie. The Count d'Haussonville says, apropos of the n.o.bility at that time:--

"I had the feeling--educated as I was at college, and provided early with a sort of precocious experience, the precious fruit of public education--that the n.o.bility was a world a little apart. I instinctively perceived how much the preoccupations of the persons with whom I was then pa.s.sing my time were of a nature particular, special to their cla.s.s, not opposed--that would be saying too much certainly--but a little foreign to the great currents that swayed the opinion of their contemporaries. They had their way of loving the King and their country which was not very comprehensible, nor even, perhaps, very acceptable, to the ma.s.s of the people and the bourgeois cla.s.ses, who were rather inclined to remain cold or even sullen in the presence of certain manifestations of an ultra-royalism, the outward signs of which were not always at this time entirely circ.u.mspect."

To one regarding the horizon attentively there were already some dark spots on the bright azure of the heavens. The struggles of the rival cla.s.ses of French society existed in a latent state. The white flag had not made the tricolor forgotten. Charles X., consecrated by an archbishop, did not efface the memory of Napoleon crowned by a pope, and beneath royalist France were pressing upward already Bonapartist France and Revolutionary France.

XVII

THE JUBILEE OF 1826

The dominant quality of Charles X., his piety, was the one that was to be most used against him. There was in this piety nothing morose, hypocritical, fanatical, and not an idea of intolerance or persecution mingled with it. Conviction and feeling united in the heart of the King to inspire him with profound faith. In 1803, before the death-bed of a beloved woman, he had sworn to renounce earthly for divine love, and from that time he had kept his vow. The woman by whom this conversion was made was the sister-in-law of the d.u.c.h.ess of Polignac, Louise d'Esparbes, Viscountess of Polastron. The d.u.c.h.ess of Gontaut recounts in her unpublished Memoirs the touching and pathetic scene of the supreme adieu of this charming woman and of Charles X., then Count d'Artois. It was in England during the Emigration. The Viscountess of Polastron was dying with consumption, and the approach of the end reawakened in her all the piety of her childhood. A holy priest, the Abbe de Latil, demanded the departure of the Prince. "I implore Monseigneur," he said, "to go into the country; you shall see the poor penitent again; she herself desires it, having one word to say to you, one favor to ask, but it cannot be until at the moment of death."

The Prince, who, even at the time of his greatest errors, had never ceased to love and honor religion, obeyed the command of the priest. He awaited in cruel anguish the hour when he should be permitted to return. It was authorized only when death was very near. The d.u.c.h.ess of Gontaut says:--

"The doors of the salon were opened. Monsieur dared not approach; I was near the dying woman and held her hand; it was trembling. She perceived Monsieur. He was about to rush toward her. 'Come no nearer,' said the Abbe, in a firm voice. Monsieur did not venture to cross the threshold.

The agitation redoubled; the agony increased. She raised her hands to heaven, and said:--

"'One favor, Monseigneur, one favor--live for G.o.d, all for G.o.d.'

"He fell upon his knees, and said: 'I swear it, G.o.d!' She said again, 'All for G.o.d!' Her head fell on my shoulder; this last word was her last breath: she was no more. Monsieur raised his arms to heaven, uttered a horrible cry: the door was closed."

The Count d'Artois was then but forty-five, but from that day he never gave occasion for the least scandal, and led an exemplary life. As Louis XIV. had held in profound esteem the courageous prelates who adjured him to break with his mistresses, Charles X. was attached to the truly Christian priest who had converted him by the death-bed of the Viscountess of Polastron. The Abbe de Latil, the obscure ecclesiastic of the Emigration, became, under the Restoration, the Archbishop of Rheims and Cardinal. It was not without profound emotion that the very Christian King saw himself consecrated by the priest who twenty-two years before had caused him to return to virtue. This memory was imposed on the mind and heart of the monarch, and under the vault of the ancient Cathedral, he certainly thought of Madame de Polastron, as of a good angel, who, from the height of heaven, watched over him, and who, by her prayers, had aided him to traverse so many trials, to reach the religious triumph of the coronation.

Charles X. was happy then. Profoundly sincere in his ardent desire to make France happy, he believed himself at one with G.o.d and with his people, and rejoiced in that supreme good, so often wanting to sovereigns,--peace of heart. Could he be reproached for having taken the ceremony of his coronation seriously? A king who does not believe in his royalty is no more to be respected than a priest who does not believe in his religion. Charles X. was convinced, as the Archbishop of Rheims had said in his letter of 29th May, 1825, that kings exercise over their subjects the power of G.o.d Himself, and that they have that sacred majesty, upon which, in the fine expression of Bossuet, G.o.d, for the good of things human, causes to s.h.i.+ne a portion of the splendor of divine majesty.

This disposition of mind in Charles X. fortified his piety, so that, at the time of the jubilee of 1826, he seized eagerly the opportunity to affirm his religious faith, and to return thanks to the G.o.d of his fathers, who at this epoch of his life was loading him with favors.

The jubilee is a time of penitence and pardon, when the Pope accords plenary indulgence to all Catholics who submit to certain practices and a.s.sist at certain pious ceremonies. The grand jubilee was formerly celebrated only once in a hundred years; afterwards it took place every fifty, and then every twenty-five years. 1825 was the time of its first celebration in the nineteenth century, and it drew to Rome that year more than ten thousand pilgrims. The Pope had celebrated the close of it the 24th of December, 1825, but yielding to the prayers of several Catholic powers, he accorded to them, by special bulls, the privilege of celebrating the same solemnity in 1826.

The opening of the French jubilee took place February 15, 1826, at Notre-Dame de Paris. The papal bull, borne on a rich cus.h.i.+on, was remitted to the Archbishop for public reading. The nuncio chanted the Veni Creator. Ma.s.s was said by the Cardinal, Prince of Croi, Archbishop of Rouen, Grand Almoner of France. The relics of the apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul were borne around the Place du Parvis, in the midst of a cortege, in which were present the marshals of France, the generals, and the four princesses. The order of the Archbishop of Paris prescribed four general processions. The first took place with great pomp the 17th of March, 1826. The King and the royal family, the princes and princesses of the blood, all the court, the marshals, a mult.i.tude of high functionaries, peers of France, deputies, officers, a.s.sisted at this ceremony in which appeared the Archbishop of Paris and his grand vicars, the metropolitan chapter, the pupils of all the seminaries in surplice, the priests of all the Paris churches with their sacerdotal armaments. It was a veritable army of ecclesiastics that traversed the capital. In the midst of the cortdge, the reliquary containing the relics of Saint Peter and Saint Paul was the object of the devotion of the faithful. Surrounded by the Dauphin, the Duke of Orleans, the young Duke of Chartres, the great officers of the crown, of the Hundred Swiss, and of the body-guard, Charles X., in a costume half religious, half military, walked between a double hedge formed by the royal guard and the troops of the line. The Place du Parvis-Notre-Dame was hung with draperies in fleur-de-lis, and all the streets to be traversed by the procession had been draped and sanded.

The first stop of the cortege was under the peristyle of the Hotel-Dieu, where an altar had been erected; the second, at the Church of the Sorbonne; the third, at that of Sainte Genevieve. The two other processions had no less eclat, and their pauses being fixed in the churches of the princ.i.p.al parishes, they pa.s.sed through the busiest and most populous quarters of Paris.

The fourth and last procession, that of the 3d of May, was the most important of all. It was to close by an expiatory ceremony in honor of Louis XVI., by the laying and benediction of the corner-stone of the monument voted by the Chamber of 1815, and which still awaited its foundation. It is at the very place where the unfortunate sovereign had been executed that the monument was to be constructed. The cortege left Notre-Dame and directed its course first to the Church of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois. The Chamber of Peers, the Chamber of Deputies, all the functionaries, all the authorities of the Department of the Seine, followed the King and Dauphin, who advanced, accompanied by the ministers, the marshals, the officers of their houses, cordons bleus, cordons rouges. Never since the end of the old regime had such a mult.i.tude of priests been seen defiling through the streets of Paris.

The pupils of all the seminaries, the almoners of all the colleges, the priests of all the parishes and all the chapels, stretched out in an endless double line, at the end of which appeared the Nuncio of the Pope, Cardinals de Latil, de Croi, and de La Fare, the Archbishop of Paris, and a crowd of prelates. After the station of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, there was a second at Saint-Roch, then a third and last at the a.s.sumption. When the special prayers of the close of the jubilee had been said at this last parish, the immense cortege resumed its march to the place where Louis XVI. had brought his head to the sacrilegious scaffold. The day chosen for the expiatory solemnity was the 3d of May, the anniversary of the return of Louis XVIII. to Paris in 1814, and then a political idea was connected with the religious ceremony. A vast pavilion surmounted by a cross hung with draperies in violet velvet, and enclosing an altar, which was reached on four sides by four stairways of ten steps each, occupied the very place where, the 10th of January, 1793, the scaffold of the Martyr-King had been erected, in the middle of the Place called successively the Place Louis XV. and the Place de La Concorde, and which was thenceforth to be called the Place Louis XVI.

The account in the MONITEUR says:--

"A first salvo of artillery announced the arrival of the procession. It presented as imposing a tableau as could be contemplated. This old French nation--the heir of its sixty kings at the head--marched, preceded by the gifts made by Charlemagne to the Church of Paris, and the religious trophies that Saint Louis brought from the holy places.

The priests ascend to the altar. Three times in succession they raise to heaven the cry for pardon and pity. All the spectators fall upon their knees. A profound, absolute silence reigns about the altar and over all the Place; a common sorrow overwhelms the people; the King's eyes are filled with tears."

In this mult.i.tude the absence of the Dauphiness, the daughter of Louis XVI., is remarked. The Orphan of the Temple had made it a law for herself never to cross the place where her father had perished. She went to the expiatory chapel of the Rue d'Anjou-Saint-Honore, to pa.s.s in prayer the time of the ceremony.

M. de Vaulabelle makes this curious comparison:--

"Behind Charles X. there knelt his Grand Chamberlain, Prince Talleyrand, covered with gleaming embroideries, orders, and cordons. It was the ecclesiastical dignitary whom Paris had beheld celebrating the Ma.s.s of the Federation on the Champ-de-Mars, the wedded prelate who, as Minister of the Directory, had for some years observed as a national festival the anniversary of this same execution, now the subject of so many tears."

Religious people rejoiced at the ceremony that was celebrated; but the Voltairians and the enemies of royalty complained bitterly at the sight of the quays, the streets, the squares of the capital furrowed by long files of priests, chanting psalms and litanies, dragging devout in their suite the King, the two Chambers, the judiciary, the administration, and the army. Yet was it not just that Charles X.

should cause an expiatory ceremony to be celebrated at the place where his unfortunate brother had been guillotined? Was not that for a pious sovereign the accomplishment of a sacred duty? It matters not; there were those who reproached him with this homage to the most memorable of misfortunes. They would have forbidden to Charles X. the memory of Louis XVI. Yet a king could hardly be asked to have the sentiments of a conventionnel, of a regicide. In their systematic and bitter opposition, the adversaries of the Restoration imputed to the royal family as a crime its very virtues and its piety.