Photo: Pierre Petit, Paris.ADOLPHE THIERS
Photo: Pierre Petit, Paris.ADOLPHE THIERS
Photo: Pierre Petit, Paris.
Photo: Pierre Petit, Paris.
ADOLPHE THIERS
Photo: Walery, Paris.MARSHAL MACMAHON
Photo: Walery, Paris.MARSHAL MACMAHON
Photo: Walery, Paris.
Photo: Walery, Paris.
MARSHAL MACMAHON
Photo: Pierre Petit, Paris.COMTE DE CHAMBORD
Photo: Pierre Petit, Paris.COMTE DE CHAMBORD
Photo: Pierre Petit, Paris.
Photo: Pierre Petit, Paris.
COMTE DE CHAMBORD
Photo: Carjal, Paris.LEON GAMBETTA
Photo: Carjal, Paris.LEON GAMBETTA
Photo: Carjal, Paris.
Photo: Carjal, Paris.
LEON GAMBETTA
there was something else than the desire to remain himself at the head of the State. There was a tacit pledge which he had given to the Orleans dynasty to support its pretensions, and also the feeling that he did not enjoy sufficient popularity among the army to enforce a change of government, and to bring back a dynasty which had been driven out of the country by its own faults. MacMahon was not clever, not far-seeing, but he knew very well what the troops thought of him, and also that at that moment the disaster of Sedan was not sufficiently forgotten for him to risk being punished for it under another pretext, which his lending his hand to an attempt at a monarchical restoration would have furnished.
The Comte de Chambord returned to Frohsdorf a sadder though not a wiser man. He was not fortunate in his advisers; the leaders of the Legitimist party did not understand either the feelings of France nor the strength which they undoubtedly wielded at that particular moment. Instead of doing their best to effect a reconciliation between the different opinions that divided the country, they tried, on the contrary, to exasperate them, and prevented their own triumph by the insolence with which they proclaimed everywhere that its hour had struck. France, at that time, was like a man recovering from a severe illness, whose whole body is sore, and who wants to be handled with the greatest gentleness. The Legitimists ignored this condition, and loudly boasted that the time had come when all past grievances would be avenged, and when they should be allowed to rule according to their own prejudices, bringing back to power with them all the old traditions against which the saner elements in the land had risen in revolt eighty-five years before. They wanted to make a clean slate, and wash out the remembrance of everything that had taken place since Louis XVI. had been murderedon the scaffold. The feeling might have been a natural one; the utterance of it was stupid in the extreme.
Many have wondered at the want of initiative shown by Henri V., as he was called by his partisans. I, who have known him well, saw nothing extraordinary in this. As I have already hinted, he was quite willing to be carried to the throne, but he had no desire to occupy it, and still less to step upon it bound by promises and pledges, which would have interfered with his liberty of action, a thing of which he had always been extremely jealous. He had in him all the authority of the Kings his forefathers, and would no more have submitted to the advice of his courtiers than he would have sacrificed his principles to win back his lost inheritance. He wanted, above all things, to keep hislibre arbitre, and this explains the apparent apathy with which he witnessed the overthrow of what had been the hopes of his followers rather than his own.
Two years later I called upon the Comte de Chambord at Frohsdorf, during an absence of the Comtesse, in whose presence it was always more or less difficult to discuss political questions, and we talked over those days. Every hope of a monarchical restoration had faded then, and the Republic was more or less an accomplished fact. He seemed to take it as a natural consequence of all the mistakes committed by the different governments that had ruled in France, and if the truth be told, I think he preferred its having overcome all opposition, to the possibility of its being superseded either by the Bonaparte, or the Orleans dynasty, which he recognised, but could not accept as the successor of his own rights. The grand seigneur that he was could not adjust himself to this hankering after a “popularité de bas aloi,” as he described it, which had ever distinguished the younger branch of the house of Bourbon since the days of Philippe Egalité. Herefused to profess the theory that it did not matter with whom one shook hands, provided one washed one’s own afterwards. On the contrary, he was of opinion that certain contacts can never be got rid of, no matter how much soap and water one uses to efface them. It was partly on account of that feeling that he did not regret circumstances had interfered with the monarchical restoration, for which so many people had hoped, and he made me understand what he thought of it by saying, among other things, that: “A royalty that has once come down into the street is no longer royalty such as it was understood in the days of old, when the principle of the ‘droit Divin’ was the foremost among those one had been taught to respect and to worship. We Bourbons of the old stock cannot bow before the popularity of the mob, and try to make it accept our own. We can work for the people, act in unison with the nation in all grave questions where its welfare is in question; we cannot accept its sovereign right to dictate to us its laws. I know that my ideas are out of fashion, ‘que je suis démodé,’ but whom do I hurt by clinging to my old traditions, to the ancient glories of my house, which have also been those of France, it must not be forgotten? If I had had children, I might have acted differently; I might, or I might not; and perhaps God has done well in refusing them to me, as they would have been the source of much conflict in my mind. As it is I shall die solitary and alone, and with me shall die the Bourbons of Louis XIV., those who have learnt nothing, and forgotten nothing, as our enemies aver.”
He said the last words smilingly and jestingly, and I could not help smiling, too, though I well knew the latent sadness that was hiding under his apparent mirth. He was still a handsome man at that time, though far too stout, and his lameness, although not interfering with the dignity of hismanners, still took away from what otherwise would have been an imposing figure. But the eyes had a wonderfully kind expression, the noble, intelligent forehead revealed a grand nature and a beautiful soul. One could not have passed him in the street without being struck by his appearance, and without noticing him, so completely “grand seigneur” was he, even in his most trivial gestures. Everyone who knew him liked him, respected him, bowed down before the purity of his life, and the earnest, simple manner in which he performed all his duties, even the most trifling ones. He was one of those characters one meets with but seldom, and which reconcile one with humanity.
I never saw him again alive after that conversation, and only looked upon him once more when he lay on his bier, having hurried to Frohsdorf to attend his funeral. The face had an expression of great calm, and bore but few traces of the sufferings he had endured in his last illness. Bunches of roses were scattered on the linen sheet, that covered him up to his chin, and over his feet was draped the white flag that his ancestors had carried to victory; that flag over which he had watched all his life, and which was to be buried with him in the little chapel of Goritz near the Adriatic Sea, far away from that France he had loved so well, from those vaults of St. Denis, whence his race had been excluded for ever.
Itmust be owned that the Orleans Princes, at the time of which I am speaking, had far more adherents than the Comte de Chambord.
Whilst the latter kept aloof from the world in his haughty attitude, his cousins sought popularity by all means in their power, and wherever they could hope to find it. They had in their favour, first their number, the beauty of their women, their incontestable bravery, their unwearying energy, and their courting of the mob. Against them was their excessive avarice, and the eagerness with which they had hastened, as soon as the doors of their fatherland were opened to them once more, to claim their confiscated millions without allowing their thoughts to dwell for one moment on the sad state in which their country was finding itself, nor on the tremendous sacrifices it was voluntarily making in order to pay the enormous war contribution exacted by Germany, in accordance with the Treaty of Frankfurt. In the claim they had put forward they had been encouraged by M. Thiers, who, shrewd politician that he was, wanted to make them unpopular as pretenders, and to minimise the influence they might otherwise have acquired. The fact was that this hasty step, which would have passed unnoticed had they attempted it later on, made them lose considerable ground among people who would otherwise have looked up to them, because the idea of a Republic had not yet become familiar to the public mind, and because theOrleans dynasty was essentially a democratic and middle-class one, whose instincts did not clash with those of the governing and intellectual classes of France after the war that had driven the Bonapartes out of the country. The reign of Louis Philippe had not left bad memories; many even regretted it. The King as well as his family had known how to appeal to the mob, and France had reached an epoch in her history, where the mob held the first place and had to be reckoned with. The King’s sons had frequented public colleges, associated with other young men of their age, and thus had given satisfaction to the snobbish leanings which are perhaps more developed in Frenchmen than in any other nation, in spite of all their outcries for equality and the abolition of all the privileges enjoyed in former times by the upper classes.
The Duc d’Aumale had even made himself popular, with a low kind of popularity of which he never succeeded in getting rid during the whole course of his life; but still he was popular in his way. I shall talk of him later on, as he deserves a chapter to himself, and Chantilly, too, is worthy of a description not embodied in a few words. He was always considered to be the clever man of his family, and was the most respected by his numerous nephews and nieces, partly on account of his large fortune, the inheritance of the Princess de Condé, and bequeathed to him by the last of that name and race. He had become the master of the old home of the Condés, made illustrious by the Connétable de Montmorency, and the brave warrior known to his contemporaries by the name of Monsieur le Prince, and to history under that of the Great Condé. There was much of chivalry in the nature of the Duc d’Aumale, more so, perhaps, than in the character of his brothers, who were less princely in their manners and ways.
The head of this historic family, the Comte de Paris can be described in very few words: he was essentially an honest man, but devoid of initiative; timid in the manifestation of his opinions; an excellent soldier, as he proved himself to be during the American war in which he took part as a volunteer, but a mediocre officer—one born to obedience but not reared to command; weak in character, but firm in his convictions; an excellent father, a devoted husband, a dutiful son; a perfect King had he ever become one, so long as his country was prosperous, but an incapable one had it found itself in difficulties; a man always careful to fulfil his duties, but certainly not one who inspired love for those duties outside his own immediate family circle. He did not possess any of the qualities of a Pretender, except domestic virtues, which no one asked of him, and which even his best friends did not require. Though he was head of his house, he never could divest himself of an excess of deference to the advice of his uncles, and could rarely muster enough courage to speak or to act independently of them.
The only time he allowed himself to indulge in politics was at the period of the famous Boulangist agitation, when he made the rather naïve remark that he had been induced to take part in that intrigue because a great Christian like the Count de Mun, and a great lady like the Duchesse d’Uzès, were attracted to it. This attempt to restore the throne of Louis Philippe by the help of an adventurer with a white feather in his cap had, as is known, ended in a ridicule that had considerably shaken the personal position of the Comte de Paris, already made insecure through his own and his partisans’ many mistakes. The Comte had essentially a reasoning mind, but was always filled with abstract ideas; he could never put things on a practical ground. He had few illusions but a false look out, as well as a wrong pointof view. Instead of adopting one of two lines of conduct which would have been equally dignified—submission to the Comte de Chambord, or brave adherence to the principles of his ancestors and those of that dynasty of July, “la monarchie de juillet,” as it was still called in France—he had taken a middle course, that of recognising the personality but not the rights of his cousin. This made him bow down before the universal suffrage that had proclaimed the Republic in the kingdom of which he would in any case have been the lawful heir. He thought that by his attitude of absolute submission to the wishes of the nation he would have inspired it with the desire to call him to its head. A false reasoning if ever there was one, that was to cause him to take many erratic and undignified steps, and which at last exiled him anew; an exile in which he remained until his death.
The only time that the Comte de Paris ventured openly upon a step which could be construed as a manifestation of his pretensions to the throne of France was on the occasion of the wedding of his eldest daughter, Queen Amélie of Portugal, when he gave in his Paris residence, the Hotel Galliera, a reception at which all the pomp that attended royalty in former days was displayed. It was as ill-timed as useless, and was the pretext for his expulsion from his country, an expulsion that had been asked for a long time since by the Republican leaders, who did not care for the nation to become used to the continued presence of the descendants of its former Kings. He did not attempt to resist, though it is said that some of his partisans begged him to allow them to make a manifestation in his favour; he embarked for British shores with a resignation that would have been admirable in a private person, but which was very near akin to cowardice in the representative of the Divine rights of Kings, those rights that Henri IV. knew howto impose, even on such great lords as the members of that powerful house of Lorraine, who also, at one time, aspired to the throne that belonged to him, and which he conquered at the point of his sword.
Philippe VII. was of a more pacific disposition than his illustrious ancestor. He bade good-bye to his lovely castle of Eu, and settled at Stowe House, the old residence of the Dukes of Buckingham, where he ended his life, after cruel sufferings, borne with the patience that was the distinctive feature of his honest, straightforward, and distinctly middle-class character. With the Comte de Chambord had disappeared a principle together with a man; when the Comte de Paris expired in his turn, there died a good and virtuous person but nothing else. He represented in the world his own estimable self, but not the royalty to which he had been born.
About his son, little need be said. Gifted with a more adventurous spirit than that of his father, the Duc d’Orleans began his career by risking imprisonment in France, when he appeared there to enrol himself in the ranks of her army. He has never made the least attempt to secure a crown which does not even tempt him. He has led the life of an idle man of means, travelling about, playing at science when it suited him, ignorant of the great aims of life; a man not even to be pitied, because misfortune has never touched him; one who has never known what society, his country, and the great name he bears required of him; who has laughed at what his forefathers have always respected; who calls himself the heir to all the Bourbons that have left their impress on history, but who would be very sorry had he ever to follow in their footsteps; the Republic can well afford to ignore him, because he would be the first to be embarrassed by its fall.
The Duc d’Orleans had no children by his marriage with an Austrian Archduchess, from whom he parted very soon after they had been united. His only brother, the Duke of Montpensier, is still unmarried, and at present the grandchildren of the Duc de Chartres constitute the hope of the partisans of the Orleans dynasty.
The Duc de Chartres was the one brilliant figure among the descendants of King Louis Philippe. There was something dashing about him that appealed to the imagination of people. When the Franco-German War broke out, he at once offered his services first to the Imperial, afterwards to the Republican, government, and when they had both refused them, he succeeded in entering a regiment of volunteers, under the assumed name of Robert Le Fort, only the Comtesse de Vallon and one or two other friends being aware of his identity.
When the campaign was over he remained on active service, until the proscription that fell on his brother had also an influence upon his fate, and obliged him to retire into private life. He had been a great favourite in Parisian society; men appreciated his wit, and women his chivalrous devotion to them. It is not an indiscretion to say that his love affairs with the Princesse de Sagan were at one time a general subject of conversation. He was always a welcome guest at a dinner table, and a conspicuous figure in the hunting field, and succeeded better than any of his uncles and cousins in winning for himself the sympathies even of Republicans, who secretly feared his popularity among the army and in his own regiment.
He was a born soldier, with all the intrepidity of the fighter who never shirks a battlefield. People liked him and respected him, because with all the sterling qualities of his elder brother, the Comte de Paris, he had none of the latter’s apathy. Perhaps, if he had not been a younger son, he might have made an effort to win back the throne for his race. But reared in principles of absolute submission to the head of his house, he never criticised anything his elders did, and though I have known him intimately and well, the only time when I have heard him talk politics was one afternoon at his little country home of St. Firmin on the borders of the Forest of Chantilly, when the conversation turned on the trial of Marshal Bazaine, over which the Duc d’Aumale had presided. The Duc de Chartres happened to be in a communicative mood, and expressed the opinion that he thought it had been a mistake on the part of his uncle to have accepted the task of judging the unfortunate commander-in-chief of the army of Metz. He said that a member of the house of Bourbon ought not to have consented to appear before the public as a kind of avenger of wrongs in which politics had had so great a part. And he added these significant words: “We Orleans, more than even members of other royal houses, ought to avoid showing ourselves as arbiters of another man’s fate. It is quite enough to have to carry into history the stigma that attaches to us ever since the trial of Louis XVI.”
I looked up to him rather in astonishment.
“Yes,” he said, “I understand what you mean, and that you are surprised to hear me talk in the way I do, but you must not think that I have not often given a thought to that fatal act of my ancestor, when he helped an ungrateful nation to murder its legitimate King. You see, I belong to another generation than the one which saw all those horrors, and I cannot consider them without deep regret and shame. I can understand a good many things—cruelty, ambition, ingratitude, wickedness even—I cannot admit crimes against nature, and the vote of the Duc d’Orleans belonged to thatkind of crime. Beside it, the so-called—because I cannot look at it in that light since it was the result of the free choice of a great nation—the so-called usurpation of my grandfather was a small matter. It only offended and sinned against a principle, it did not offend the natural feelings that ought always to be sacred to every man, no matter what position he holds in life. And when I reflect on the trial of Marshal Bazaine, I cannot help thinking that my uncle would have been better advised if he had kept aloof, and left to others the task of asking from that victim of his ambition or of circumstances—which it was, it is not for me to say—an account of his actions and an explanation of his deeds.”
The Duc de Chartres had married his cousin, the daughter of the Prince de Joinville and of a Brazilian Princess. His wife was a very distinguished woman, who by her tact and her cleverness made herself universally liked. They had several children, and their eldest daughter, the Princess Marie, who was married to a Prince belonging to the Royal House of Denmark, played at one time rather an important part in European politics, thanks to the influence which she exercised over the mind of the Emperor Alexander III. of Russia. She died young, and the Duc did not survive her long. The Duchesse de Chartres, widowed and past middle age, now spends her time in her little home at St. Firmin, having sold the house in the Rue Jean Goujon, where she had lived with her husband, and which at one time was a centre of reunion for a certain portion of Paris society. The only members of the family of Orleans whom one can meet in the salons of the French aristocracy are the Duc and the Duchesse de Vendôme, who live at Neuilly, and go about a good deal. The Comtesse de Paris comes sometimes to the capital, but never stays there longer than for a few days, spending the rest of her time either in her palace of Villamanrique in Spain, or in her castle of Randan, near Vichy, where her life is entirely given up to practices of devotion and good deeds. All her daughters are married. Tragedy has broken the life of her eldest daughter, Queen Amélie of Portugal, but the Comtesse is placid by nature, possessing something of the fatalism that ruled the Comte de Paris, and that never disputes the decrees of a Providence it has learned to bless whether it sends good or evil to mankind.
The future of the Orleans family, that promised to become so important on returning to France after the fall of the Empire, proved to be quite insignificant in so far as the destiny of France was concerned. The Orleans had neither the courage nor the energy, nor especially the unselfishness, to try to win back for themselves the position which they had lost. They never had enough initiative, much less determination to brave public opinion, and eat humble pie before the Comte de Chambord. These things alone could have put them back on the height whence they had fallen. But the descendants of Louis Philippe never could make up their minds to any resolution, whether grave or frivolous. They always professed the fallacious opinion that the will of a nation ought to be respected, no matter how or in what way expressed. France was for them a master before whose decrees they never for one moment felt the temptation to rebel. They accepted those decrees so well that now no one dreams of looking upon them as pretenders to anything, be it a throne, or simply the wish to have their word considered at times when the vital interests of their country are at stake. They always talk, or rather allow their followers to talk, of their duties, of their fidelity to the principles that made their ancestors great, but in reality they have not the slightest wish to put forward their persons in order to secure to their race anything beyond the millions which they alreadypossess. The Comte de Paris was a dreamer; the Duc de Nemours a saint; the Duc de Chartres a soldier, never looking beyond the field of a soldier’s activity; the Duc d’Orleans a man of the world; the Duc d’Aumale a scholar, immersed in his books and his artistic tastes. Among them all a man was wanted, and a King could not be found.
TheDuc d’Aumale was certainly the one member of the Orleans family who made the most friends for himself, and had the greatest number of admirers. Whether this was due to his personal merits, or to the millions which he inherited from the last Prince of Condé, it is not for me to say. He had plenty to give to others; it is but natural that these others praised him in the hope he would give them a little more than he had intended. He courted popularity, made sacrifices of pride, principles, and sometimes personal affections, in order to win it; and he succeeded in a certain sense, at least from the point of view of those who measure praise and blame according to the social standing of the person to whom they deal it. He was more learned than clever, more clever than brilliant; his wit was inferior to his intelligence, but he had cunning, a singular way of at once finding his personal advantage out of an entangled situation. He put his own wellbeing beyond everything else, and cared in reality only for his comforts and being left alone to lead an easy, indolent existence among his books, his pictures, his flowers, his manuscripts, all the magnificences of the old home of the Condés. This he had restored with care and a singular artistic knowledge, and had succeeded in endowing it with some of its past glories.
He was a perfect host, even though, perhaps, a little dull; and one enjoyed a first visit to Chantilly more than a second, onaccount of the necessity it entailed to perform with its master what is called “le tour du propriétaire,” to admire what he admired, to look only upon what he showed you himself, and not to be allowed to roam at will in the avenues of the park, or in the vast halls full of lovely things, and of remembrances of the past. One would have liked to spend hours contemplating the wonders of art gathered under that roof, to examine the sword of the Great Condé, or to look through the quantity of interesting documents, historical and otherwise, that were kept in businesslike order in the great cupboards of the long library, whose windows opened on the meadows, where probably the lovely Madame de Longueville had roamed together with one or other of her numerous admirers.
This solitary place required silence rather than the casual remarks which echoed through its corridors as the motley crowd generally met at the Sunday breakfasts which the Duc liked to give. These breakfasts were quite a feature in the life of the master of this palace, and the queerest assemblage of people could be met at them—Academicians, colleagues of the Duc, military men, foreigners, scientists, diplomats, men of letters and men of the world, ladies of the highest rank and actresses. He made no distinctions, and never cared whether he brought together people who agreed with each other or not. There was no link between his guests, who forgot all about those who had been their companions of the afternoon at Chantilly after that afternoon was over; they never chatted together, and perhaps their host did not care for them to do so. He liked to concentrate around his own person the attention of those who had partaken of his hospitality; he would have felt offended had he caught them talking to each other, and not listening exclusively to himself. He was full of attention to those whom he guessed were admirers of his deeds or works, and took a deal of troubleto show to self-made people that he esteemed them more than those who were his equal in birth if not in rank. For instance, I remember one day when having at lunch the Duchesse de Noailles and Madame Cuvillier Fleury, the widow of his old tutor, he put the latter on his right and the Duchesse on his left. The fact was instantly noticed by a few Academicians, of what I would call the inferior ranks of the Academy, and instantly it was remarked what a kind, noble and attentive nature was Henri d’Orleans, Duc d’Aumale, who thus ignored the high standing of one of the noblest amongst the noble Duchesses of France in order to show gratitude to the relict of the man to whom he owed his moral training. This action of the Duke was just one of these things he was so fond of doing, in order to provoke admiration. He liked to forget the exclusive traditions of his race whenever he thought that it would ensure for him the sympathies of the mob; that mob which his family had ever courted, to which it owed in part its fame and its successes, and which despised it for the very facility with which it bowed down licking the very dust. Among all the opportunist Orleans the Duc d’Aumale was foremost.
Since the death of his wife and children all his affections had concentrated on his splendid Chantilly, the reconstruction of which had entirely absorbed him from the day of his return to France after the revolution that had overthrown the Bonaparte dynasty. In spite of all that has been said he had no political ambitions. He knew that he had no right to the crown of France, and that he could not pretend to it without foregoing all the principles which he did not possess, but which he was supposed to represent. Having been sounded as to whether he would accept the Presidency of the Republic, he had consented to do so, because he had been told that he had to do it, but he did not regret that, as eventsturned out, the candidature of Marshal MacMahon was preferred to his own. He returned to his country home, to his roses, his pictures, his works of art, his horses, and his dogs, and took up again his easy, happy, careless life as a grand seigneur of olden times, absorbed in his books and studies, able to gather his friends round him whenever he liked, and to do the honours of his stately domain. Fond of hunting the stag in his vast forests, he was not above coming to Paris whenever he wanted amusements that would have been incompatible with the grandeur of Chantilly—to kiss the hand of a Leonide Leblanc, or to enjoy an hour’s chat with the lovely Countess de Castiglione, whose beauty then was on the wane. He was an amiable talker, rather dry in his remarks, but always ready to make use of his many remembrances and his vast erudition to add to the enjoyment of those with whom he was conversing. He told an anecdote pleasantly, and related an historical fact with a grand eighteenth-century manner, without offending the Republican instincts of those who were listening to him.
His appearance was entirely that of a grand seigneur of old, no matter whether he was dressed in his uniform or evening clothes, with the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour across his chest, or whether he was met walking in his park in corduroy trousers, and gaiters rather the worse for wear. His thin, delicate features, with the white tuft on the chin, the long, soft, silken moustache, and eyes with a haunted look, reminded one of a picture by Velasquez or Van Dyck. The figure was slightly bent, but wiry and agile, and had kept much of the elasticity of its younger days.
He talked quickly, sometimes sharply, but always with extreme courtesy, and even when disagreeing did so in most measured tones, and with the utmost care not to wound the feelings of those with whom he was in discussion. He hada sympathetic manner, but not a kingly one by any means. There was nothing regal about him, but there was also nothing that was not gentlemanly in the fullest sense of the word. And sometimes, when one saw him leaning against the pedestal of the statue of the Connétable of Montmorency, which he had had erected in front of his palace of Chantilly, or handling with love and reverence the sword which the Great Condé had carried at Rocroy, for one short, flitting moment he gave one the impression that he was only the guardian of those historical relics of which he was master.
The Duc d’Aumale had never had the initiative to fight for the privileges to which he had been born. In 1848, he was in command of an important army in Algeria, with which he might have fought the insurrectional government with advantage. He either lacked courage, or didn’t think it worth while to risk his own personal position as a factor in the France of the future to do so. He resigned his command, with more alacrity than dignity, and accepting as the decision of his country the rebellion of the few, retired to England, and with occasional stays in his Sicilian domains, near Palermo, he awaited in retirement and silence for the dawn of another day which would allow him to return to the France he liked so much and to the Chantilly he loved so well.
When at last that moment came, his first care was to use his efforts to avoid the possibility of a new banishment. In order to do this he opened his doors wide to all political men and to all the literary celebrities of the day. His hospitality was unbounded; he flattered the middle classes, who had suddenly become the leading force in France, with consummate skill. He tried as much as he could to make others forget that he was a member of the ancient house of Bourbon, with whose destinies those of their country had been inseparably associated for centuries. He strove alwaysto appear to those whom he welcomed under his roof as a private gentleman, the owner of an historical place, and as a member of that Academy to which he was so proud to belong, the membership of which was dearer to him than all the glories of his race. He democratised himself, if such an expression can be pardoned. He came down from the throne, on the steps of which he had been born, into the crowd with which he liked to mix himself, quite forgetting that this crowd could at any minute descend to the gutter, whither they would drag him too whether he liked it or not.
There came, however, a day in the career of the Duc d’Aumale when he felt constrained to assert himself, when for once the blood of Henri IV. spoke in him. It was when he wrote to the President, Jules Grévy, that famous letter which resulted in his being sent to join his nephew across the frontiers of France. This letter was penned after the government had sent the Comte de Paris into an exile whence he was never to return, and he himself had been deprived of his rank and command. The shock was terrible to him, and bitterly did he regret the attack of indignation that had made him speak when he should have remained silent. As he said himself many years later: “J’ai laissé parler mon cœeur, tandis que j’aurais dû écouter ma raison” (“I listened to my heart when I ought only to have heard my reason”).
He retired to Brussels, which was nearer than England to the royal home he had adorned with such loving care, in the hope to bequeath it to his race, a living memento of the glories of their ancestors. When he saw himself parted from Chantilly, especially when it became evident to him that he would remain in exile until death released him, he took a resolution which, better than anything else, proves that in his heart and mind his family held but a small place.
He made a will by which he left Chantilly, its collections, its treasures, its library, its historical documents, its park and forests to the French Academy. And he divulged his intention in the hope that, as a reward for the splendid gift he was making to her, France would once more admit him within her doors, and by restoring him to his home thank him for having given it to her.
This act of selfish generosity has been very differently commented upon. Whilst many have admired it, a few old men and women, born and bred in ideas of an age when traditions, love for one’s race, and desire to help it to keep its high position and its inheritance were uppermost, have bitterly reproached him for having thus transgressed traditions that ought to have been sacred to him.
This attack of “Christian generosity,” as someone wittily termed it, which made him not only forgive the injury that had been done to him, but even reward by a kingly gift the injustice of a country which had used him so mercilessly, not only estranged him from his family, which, though it said nothing, thought a great deal, but also made him lose the sympathies of many former partisans of the Orleans dynasty. This alienation of the home of the Condés, in favour of a Republican government, made all realise that whatever were the qualities of the Duc d’Aumale, they were obscured by his unlimited selfishness.
France also felt the degradation of this gift, and did not hasten to reward the donor of it as he had expected. She left him for some months in Brussels, alone with the shame of his unworthy action, until at last an advocate of talent, Maitre Cléry, succeeded in obtaining from President Carnot the repeal of the decree which had banished the Duke from France. He thereupon returned in haste to his beloved Chantilly, where he took up again his former existence, withthe difference that when he received at his table the members of the Academy he used to tell them: “Maintenant vous êtes ici chez vous, messieurs” (“Now you are at home”). It was related at the time that a member of the learned Assembly took this opportunity to entreat the Duke to change the place of a certain picture which he thought had not been put where it ought to have been hung. Henri d’Orleans’ eyes flashed with indignation at this audacity, and drawing himself up very haughtily he said: “Vous vous oubliez, monsieur” (“You forget yourself, sir”), to which, nothing daunted, the impertinent visitor remarked: “Mais, puisque vous venez de dire que nous sommes chez nous, monseigneur” (“But you have just said that we are at home, sir”).
Maitre Cléry, to whom the Prince owed his return from exile, did not know him personally, and had never been among those whom he had invited to his receptions. Consequently his action when he undertook to plead the cause of the Duc d’Aumale with the President of the Republic was absolutely disinterested. He had, however, expected a word of thanks for his intervention in the matter. That word was a long time in coming, too long, perhaps, in the opinion of some people. When at last the celebrated advocate received an invitation to lunch at Chantilly, he remarked that it came like mustard after dinner—“comme de la moutarde après dîner.”
The last years of the life of the Duc d’Aumale were saddened by uncongenial family stories and incidents, in which his nephews—so gossip said—figured in rather an unpleasant light. Angry beyond words at these rumours, his relations with his people became more and more distant and estranged, and the big family parties that he liked to gather round him in former times took place no more. He kept himself among a small circle of friends, and in the society of Madame de Clinchamps, a former lady-in-waiting of the Duchesse d’Aumale, whom he married secretly, and who—and this is very characteristic of him—he left very badly off after his death, with nothing but a small pittance out of his many millions. Madame de Clinchamps was invariably amiable. She appeared at the lunches given at Chantilly, and visitors found her sitting by the fire in the tapestried drawing-room, where the Duc used to receive his guests. She did not put herself forward in any way, and never attempted even to do the honours of the place. She must have really loved the Duc, or else she would never have put up with the slights he showered upon her, or accepted the false position in which he left her, and her devotion to him never failed up to his death, after which she retired to a small house on the edge of the Forest of Chantilly, where, at the time I am writing, she lives in strict retirement and in comparative poverty.
I have met most of the celebrities of modern France at the Duc d’Aumale’s lunches. He was very catholic as to the people whom he invited, and only required them to be amiable and to listen well to him, without attempting to interrupt. Among his great friends was Jules Lemaitre, the Academician, an amusing, intelligent little man, rather void of manners, who buzzed about in a way that would have been aggressive had it not been so funny. He was full of wit, but sometimes said gauche things, the value of which did not appear to strike his otherwise critical mind. For instance, one day, whilst the Duc was showing to his visitors a lovely collection of miniatures of the Royal Family of France, from the end of the eighteenth century, he interrupted him with the question: “And where, sir, do you keep the letters of M. Cuvillier Fleury?” The late Duc de la Trémouille was standing next to me; we looked at each other, and smiled. Evidently a member of the French Academy of the end of thenineteenth century could not feel the slightest interest in anything else but Cuvillier Fleury, the bourgeois tutor of a bourgeois pupil, such as the Duc d’Aumale had proved himself to be in the eyes of a certain number of the people whom he had made his friends.
Bonnat, the painter, was also a frequent visitor at Chantilly, and his portrait of the Duc is one of the best pictures that ever came from his brush. The Prince is represented in the uniform of a general, perhaps the same which he wore on the day when, with a cruelty one would have preferred not to have seen in him, he condemned Marshal Bazaine to an ignominious death.
It is related that the Duc d’Aumale used to say that he would like to die at Chantilly, and that he had even left directions how his funeral was to take place. In them he expressed a wish to lie in state in the chapel for a day or two, near the hearts of the Princes de Condé, buried there and respected by the Revolution of 1789. This desire was not destined to be fulfilled. He breathed his last in Sicily, at his castle near Palermo, and his mortal remains were brought back straight to the family vault at Dreux. Chantilly stands empty and deserted now, save on the days when tourists invade it, and roam in the rooms which have rung with women’s soft laughter and listened to so many momentous and interesting conversations. No one, even among the old servants still left in charge of the place, ever talks of the Duc d’Aumale, and mention is only made of the former lords of the Castle, of those illustrious and unfortunate Princes de Condé, the souls of whom still fill the old walls their fame has immortalised for ever. In the Gallery des Batailles, as it is called, the sword of the hero of Rocroy still hangs, tarnished with age, but now no reverential hand ever lifts it; only the heavy fingers of a sleepy housemaid dusts it now and then. Thepictures, the portraits, the works of art are in the same place they occupied when an intelligent master had arranged them with loving care. In the long dining-room the table at which so many celebrities and high-born people sat is still there, with chairs standing round it; in the drawing-room the two arm-chairs the Duc and Madame de Clinchamps used to occupy are in the same place; and in the library the inkstand has been left open with its pen lying beside it. Everything seems a little dingy, a little empty, a little forsaken, everything has the appearance of one of those vast temples of old, whence, according to the words of the Russian poet, “the idols have fled.”
Whena coalition of the different parties who constituted the Right in the National Assembly overturned M. Thiers, it was felt everywhere, though perhaps none would say it aloud, that this event was but the first step towards the re-establishment of a monarchy, which could only be that of the Orleans family. In fact, the Chamber was almost entirely composed of Orleanists. The few Bonapartists were too timid to come out openly as such after the catastrophes that had accompanied the fall of the Empire, but they were determined nevertheless to do their best to bring the Prince Imperial back to France as Emperor. There were but few extreme Radicals in the Assembly. Gambetta was perhaps the most advanced member in that direction, together with Jules Ferry and Jules Favre, and their Radicalism would be considered Conservatism nowadays. In fact, the Left, or what was called the Left, resembled rather an opposition as it is understood in England, than a revolutionary party such as later on tried to snatch the government of the country into its hands. France was still under the influence of the eighteen years of Imperial regime it had gone through, and respect for authority had not yet died. The elections, which had been conducted under the eyes of the enemy, had brought back a large monarchical majority to the Assembly. That majority knew very well that so long as M. Thiers remained at the head of the Republic, a restoration, either of the Comte de Chambord, the Comte de Paris, or the Prince Imperial, was not to be thought of. The little man would have defended his own person in defending the Republic. His manner of crushing the Commune, indeed, had shown that he would not hesitate before a display of force, and would be quite capable of sending to prison the leaders of any movement to destroy the government over which he presided.
But when M. Thiers had been put aside, the field was free to the Royalists, and in order to pave the way to a restoration they offered the Presidency of the Republic to the Duc d’Aumale, in the hope that he would see his way to resign his functions to his nephew, and be strong enough to bring him back in triumph to the Elysée.
The Duc d’Aumale accepted. Whether he would have fulfilled the hopes that had been centred in him is another question. My opinion is that he would have shown himself even more respectful of the Republic who had called him to her head than M. Thiers or Marshal MacMahon. But we need not go into suppositions, as his election did not take place on account of the Bonapartists refusing to vote for him, being frightened at the thought that he might feel tempted to accomplish anothercoup d’état, and at all events would exclude them from the ranks of his advisers. The Duc d’Aumale once put aside, there remained but two people whose names could have rallied around them the different parties that constituted the Assembly; they were Marshal Canrobert and Marshal MacMahon.
The last mentioned was chosen partly because some believed he was more favourable than his illustrious colleague to the idea of an Orleanist restoration, partly because it was hoped that he would allow others to govern in his name. They forgot that, being used to obedience in military matters,he would insist on being listened to on political issues, and that his very honesty would not allow him to associate himself with intrigue in governing the country, whose welfare he would consider it was his duty to promote above all other considerations.
Marshal MacMahon was essentially a gentleman. Not superabundantly gifted with intelligence, not, perhaps, possessing much strength of character, he had, nevertheless, a keen sense of right and wrong, a horror of anything that approached intrigue, a great respect for his duty, before the accomplishment of which he never hesitated no matter how painful it might be for him to perform it. He was a brave soldier, an honest man, but he was no politician, and whenever he tried to interest himself in politics he failed utterly in his attempts, partly through want of experience, partly through want of knowledge, and especially because he never knew how to find among the people who surrounded him a majority of supporters.
He never understood why he had been elected President of the Republic, and always imagined that he owed it to his personal merits. This illusion was carefully fostered by his entourage, and by ministers who wanted to persuade him to adopt their own views. It was a great mistake on their part, because had the Marshal been less sure of the infallibility of his own judgments, he might not have risked thecoup d’étatof the 16th of May, which threw France into the arms of the extreme Republican and Radical parties, which have ruled it ever since.
The first ministers of MacMahon were Orleanists of the purest water, and they did their best to bring the Orleans dynasty back to the throne, especially after the publication of the famous letter of the Comte de Chambord, which sealed for ever his fate as a Pretender. They were all, too, gentlemen by birth and by education, and men of learning and experience. Two among them, the Duc de Broglie and the Duc Decazes, have left their impress on the history of France, and deserve its gratitude for the services they have rendered to her. But all of them were utopian in the sense that they believed in the triumph of the opinions they held. They never admitted the possibility of new people coming to the front, new ideas developing so quickly that they would have to be reckoned with by every government no matter to what shade it belonged. More especially did they fail to foresee the triumph of the Radical and revolutionary elements. They considered them as of no serious importance, perhaps because they had never troubled to study them carefully, and so appreciate their strength.
It is said that the Duc d’Aumale, when sounded as to whether or not he would accept the Presidency of the Republic, and under what conditions, had replied: “Je veux bien être une transaction; une transition jamais.” Marshal MacMahon was to form the bridge of transition from the government of a gentleman to that of a political man, such as the Presidents who have succeeded him have all essentially been. He brought with him to the Elysée traditions that are still respected, and customs that have become a dead letter since his fall. His tenure of office was attended with great dignity, and an amount of state that savoured a little of real Court life such as he had known and understood how to represent. He did not indulge in petty economies unworthy of his high position, and kept open house for his followers and friends, dispensing at the same time a generous and unbounded hospitality in regard to all who came to pay their respects to him in his capacity as First Magistrate of the French Republic. His wife, too, the Duchesse de Magenta, was a really great lady, by birth as well as by education, and sheseconded him to the best of her ability—entertaining for him on a grand scale, receiving foreign ambassadors with a queenly grace combined with the affability of a truegrande dame. La Maréchale, as she was familiarly called by her friends, was a remarkable woman in her way, and it is very much to be regretted that she refused the whole time that her husband remained in office to interest herself in public affairs, from which she kept aloof as much as she possibly could; she was exceedingly generous, and the poor of Paris remember her to this day.
When the Marshal had to retire into private life, it was found that he had not only spent all the allowance that he received from the State, but also a great deal of his own private fortune, so that when he gave up his high office, he was a poorer man than when he had entered upon it. The Duchesse de Magenta, when she became a widow, was left with less than moderate means, and had to lead a simple existence, devoid of accustomed luxuries. She was a very modest woman, and it is related that she was often to be met in the morning riding in an omnibus, with a basket on her arm, doing her own marketing in company with her cook or housemaid. France did not show herself grateful for the services which, in spite of his many political errors, Marshal MacMahon undoubtedly rendered to her, and did not trouble itself as to the fate of his widow or his children. The Duchesse only received the pension attached to the military position which her late husband had occupied, and had her son, the present Duc de Magenta, not married the daughter of the Duc de Chartres, the Princess Marguerite of Orleans, he would have hardly had enough to live according to the exigencies of his rank as a captain in the French army. The example is rare, and ought not to be forgotten, especially nowadays, when the first preoccupation of people in poweris to lay aside as much money as they can against the time when they have to abandon office.
During the whole time that Marshal MacMahon remained at the Elysée he kept beside him, in the quality of private secretary, the Vicomte Emmanuel d’Harcourt, one of the pleasantest, most amiable, and most intelligent men in Paris society. He was perhaps the only real statesman among the many politicians who surrounded the President, and, had he only been listened to, it is probable that the monarchical restoration, so much desired at that time by all the sane elements in French political life, could have been brought about. Unfortunately, the majority did not credit him with being in earnest, and the few who did so were too much afraid of him not to do all that was in their power to counteract his influence on the Duc de Magenta. It is related that one evening when the President happened to be irritated by all these perpetual hints he was receiving concerning Monsieur d’Harcourt, he asked him abruptly: “Pourquoi, est-ce que vous tenez à rester auprès de moi, et que vous ne cherchez pas à faire partie d’une combinaison ministérielle?” (“Why do you care to stay with me, why don’t you try to enter into a Cabinet?”) The Vicomte simply replied: “Parce que j’ai de l’affection pour vous, Monsieur le Maréchal, et que je ne tiens pas à vous abandonner aux mains de ceux qui n’en ont pas” (“Because I have an affection for you, Monsieur le Maréchal, and I don’t care to abandon you to those who haven’t”).
MacMahon became very red, but never more after that day did he try to wound the feelings of a man in whom he recognised a sincere friend.
The Republican party has always accused Monsieur d’Harcourt of having inspired the famous letter which the Marshal addressed to Jules Simon, and which brought aboutwhat is known as “the crisis of the 16th of May.” This reproach was partly true and partly unjust. It is quite certain that the Vicomte encouraged the President to dismiss a Cabinet which he considered far too advanced in its opinions, and especially because he could not agree with the ideas of Jules Simon, its chief, notwithstanding the great intelligence and the sincere patriotism of the latter. But, on the other hand, it must be said, and it cannot be repeated too loudly, that Emmanuel d’Harcourt always told the President that he could not venture upon such a grave and important step without every possible precaution to ensure its success. First of all he advised the exercise of a considerable pressure on the new elections that were bound to follow upon such a step and the imprisonment of a few leaders whose influence might make them turn against the government. He was a partisan of strong measures, and had that contempt for legality that all daring statesmen have ever professed. The Marshal, on the contrary, would never have dreamed of defying the law, and he refused to adopt any of the measures which not only his secretary but also his ministers—with the exception of the Duc de Broglie, whose rigid Protestant principles, which he had inherited from his mother, prevented him from resorting to any violent actions—recommended to him. I have heard that on the eve of these elections, which had such an enormous influence on the future destinies of France, the Vicomte d’Harcourt was discussing them with M. de Fortoul, who was Minister of the Interior, and they were both deploring the obstinacy of the President of the Republic, who would not understand that once he had entered upon the road of resistance to the wishes of the Chambers, represented by the ministers whom he had dismissed, he was bound to go on and to enforce his wishes upon the nation. Fortoul knew he hadbeen called by the confidence which the Duc de Magenta had in his honesty to the difficult post which he occupied, but he was well aware that he did not possess the latter’s sympathies, so asked the Vicomte d’Harcourt whether there was no means by which the Chief of the State could be convinced that it would be cowardice not to see to the bitter end the adventure in which he had engaged himself. He got from him this characteristic reply: “No! One cannot convince him; because he is a man who, though in a position to command, has never forgotten how to obey.”
Fortoul understood, and did not attempt further to shake the convictions of the President, but prepared himself to lose the game which with a little energy might so easily have been won.
Emmanuel d’Harcourt was the man who best understood that honest, feeble, and in some parts enigmatical character of Marshal MacMahon. Apart from him it is to be doubted whether anyone save the Marquis d’Abzac, who was attached to his person during long years, ever guessed what went on in that narrow but well-intentioned mind. The Marquis d’Abzac was at one time a leading figure in Paris society, and I think that no one who has ever known him has forgotten the charming, amiable man he was, the perfect gentleman he always showed himself, and the true friend he remained to all those who had treated him as such. He was the leading spirit of the little Court of the Elysée, where he organised all the balls and receptions that gave it such brilliancy during the tenure of office of the Duc de Magenta, when all that was illustrious in France, even the most confirmed Royalists, considered it an honour to pay their respects to the Head of the State and to his amiable wife. He had the entire confidence of the President, who, perhaps, was more inclined to give it to a soldier like the Generald’Abzac than to a civilian with whom his military soul had but little in common, and whose subtleties of reasoning appeared too complicated for his simple mind. The Marquis had married a Russian, Mlle. Lazareff, whose mother had been a Princess of Courland, related to the famous Duchesse de Sagan. His wife had vast estates in Silesia, and though he did not live with her yet he visited there often, and always made an appearance at the German Court, where he was essentially apersona grata, ever since he had accompanied Marshal MacMahon when the latter had been sent to Berlin as an Ambassador of Napoleon III. to represent that Sovereign at the coronation of William I. as King of Prussia.
Very often his visits to the German Court allowed him to clear up misunderstandings between the French Government and the Prussian Foreign Office; misunderstandings that were often provoked by the state of antagonism which existed between Prince Bismarck and the French Ambassador, the Vicomte de Gontaut Biron, about whom I shall have more to say presently. The German Chancellor liked the Marquis d’Abzac, and frequently took him into his confidence, well aware of his tact and discretion. I have heard from a person very muchau courantof what was going on in the Wilhelmstrasse, that Bismarck once expressed himself to the aide-de-camp of the President of the French Republic, concerning the monarchical intrigues that were going on in Paris. He spoke with a mixture of contempt and regret of the woeful way they were conducted, and of what small chances they had of being successful. D’Abzac replied that of course it was not for him to venture an opinion on a subject that did not enter at all into his activities, but that he had always imagined that Prussia was very much adverse to the re-establishment of a Monarchy in France. The Prince immediately replied: “You are entirely mistaken, we have nothingagainst it, our objection is to the people who would inevitably come into power and prominence with it. If we could see in Paris a King without those who want at the present moment to proclaim him, we should, on the contrary, feel far more reassured than we do now at the immediate future both of France and of Germany. Neither the Comte de Paris nor the Prince Imperial would, nor could, risk position by declaring a war against us, the price of which might be the loss of the newly recovered throne. But we greatly dread all the councillors and advisers who would be eager to prove before the country who had sent them to represent it, that they had been right in changing the form of the government, because the one whom they had helped to call into existence was ready to win back for the nation the provinces as well as the prestige that it had lost.”
Later on, when speaking of this remarkable conversation with one of his intimate friends, the Marquis d’Abzac had been obliged to own that the German Chancellor had been right in his appreciation of a situation he understood better than did many Frenchmen.
I have already spoken of the obstinacy that was one of the characteristics of MacMahon. Those who induced him so unnecessarily to assert himself in regard to Jules Simon, played on that chord when they persuaded him that it was his duty to check the growing tide of Radicalism, and to attempt to save the Republic from those who were leading it into a path which would alienate from it the sympathy of Europe, at a time when France sorely needed this support. He imagined that by dismissing his Cabinet he was doing a great thing for his country, but being the faithful slave of his convictions, i.e. that the nation ought to be free to express its opinions and its wishes as to the form of government it liked, he did not pursue what he had begun so well, and refusedto allow the Cabinet whom he had called together to fight the battle to the bitter end. For thus he might have ensured, with the help of some moral pressure, the triumph of the step which he had taken more violently than wisely. The result is well known, and though the death of M. Thiers, which happened on the very eve of the elections, carried away one of his greatest and most powerful adversaries, yet the Radical party secured a complete victory. One of the greatest mistakes that Marshal MacMahon ever made in his life was in failing to resign when the result of the elections became known. He sacrificed his ministers, he allowed those who had borne the brunt of the battle to be ousted out of the field and almost out of political life, which for some of them remained fast closed after that experience, and he himself, instead of following them in their retreat, remained still Head of the State, and continued to occupy the Elysée, losing the esteem of those who had considered him, until that time at any rate, a respectable nonentity. He received the new ministers whom his own stupidity had brought into power, he still discussed with them, and he went on trying to push forward his own opinions and his own wishes, unobservant of all the slights that were continually poured upon him. The only time that his Cabinet seriously tried to assure itself of his help in a matter of international politics—the advisability of making some advances to Russia in view of a possiblerapprochementin the future—he violently opposed the idea, invoking the remembrances of the Crimean War, which, as someone wittily remarked, “he had gone through, but not outlived.” After that no one attempted even to keep him in the current of the affairs of the government, and after the elections which took place in the Senate, and which resulted in a majority holding the same ideas as those which already existed in the Chamber, the Marshal himself saw that nothing was left to him but to resign, and, bereft of theprestige which would have attached to his name had he done so after the 16th of May had been condemned by the nation, he retired into private life, and also into obscurity, which is far worse.
By a strange coincidence he died just when that Russian alliance to which he had been so opposed was very near to becoming an accomplished fact. Also, he was followed to his grave by a deputation of Russian sailors, headed by Admiral Avellan, who came to Paris from Toulon during the memorable visit paid to that town by the Russian squadron which had been sent to return the visit paid to Cronstadt by the French fleet a few months before. It was one of those freaks of destiny which occur so often in life, that at his funeral, too, should be represented the nation against whom he had fought in the Crimean fields and at Sebastopol, and whose soldiers he had never expected would, together with those he had commanded, fire the last volleys over his grave. The old warrior, who, in spite of his mistakes and errors, still represented something of the glory of his country, and was one of the remnants of an epoch and of a regime that had given to the world the illusion of a strong and powerful France, was accompanied to his last resting-place by the sincere regrets of all those who had loved the man, while they distrusted and condemned the statesman, and perhaps even despised his capacity as a politician. But his personal honesty had come out unimpaired from the trials of his public career, his honour had never been questioned, his courage had never been the subject of the slightest doubt. He deserved fully the honours which were paid to him at his death, and the homage that France rendered to him at his funeral.