Kitabı oku: «Louis Philippe», sayfa 4
At Buffalo the travellers crossed the head of the Niagara River, and, passing down the Canadian shore, visited the world-renowned falls. On their way, they passed a night in the huts of the Chippewa Indians. The following extracts, written by the Duke of Montpensier to his sister, throw much light upon the character of these excellent young men. It was dated August 14, 1797:
Letter from the Duke of Montpensier.
"I hope you have received the letters which we wrote to you from Pittsburg about two months ago. We were then in the midst of a long journey, which we have terminated only fifteen days since. It occupied us four months. We journeyed during all that time a thousand leagues, and always upon the same horses, except the last hundred leagues, which we performed partly by water, partly on foot, partly on hired horses, and partly by stage, or the public conveyance.
"We have seen many Indians, and we remained even many days in their country. They are, in general, the best people in the world, except when they are intoxicated or inflamed by passion. They received us with great kindness; and our being Frenchmen contributed not a little to this reception, for they are very fond of our nation. The most interesting object we visited, after the Indian villages, was certainly the Cataract of Niagara, which I wrote you word from Pittsburg that we were going to see. It is the most astonishing and majestic spectacle I have ever witnessed. I have made a sketch of it, from which I intend to make a water-color drawing, which our dear little sister shall certainly see at our beloved mother's home.
Hardships of travel.
"To give you an idea of the agreeable manner in which they travel in this country, I must tell you, dear sister, that we passed fourteen nights in the woods, devoured by all kinds of insects, often wet to the bone, without being able to dry ourselves, and our only food being pork, a little salt beef, and maize bread. Independently of this adventure, we were forty or fifty nights in miserable huts, where we were obliged to lie upon a floor made of rough timber, and to endure all the taunts and murmuring of the inhabitants, who often turned us out of doors, often refused us admission, and whose hospitality was always defective. I should never recommend a similar journey to any friend of mine; yet we are far from repenting what we have done, since we have all three brought back excellent health and more experience.
"Adieu, beloved and cherished sister – so tenderly loved. Receive the embraces of three brothers, whose thoughts are constantly with you."
As the travellers were proceeding from Buffalo to Canandaigua, over a country so rude that they suffered more than on any other part of their journey, they met Mr. Alexander Baring, afterwards Lord Ashburton, whose acquaintance they had made in Philadelphia. Mr. Baring was on a tour to Niagara, from which the princes were returning. His patience was quite exhausted by the hardships he was enduring on the way; and he expressed the doubt whether the sight of Niagara could repay one for such excessive toil and privation. His experience must, indeed, have been different from that of the modern tourist, who glides smoothly along in the palace-cars. Arriving at Geneva, they took a boat and sailed up Seneca Lake to its head; whence they crossed over to Tioga Point, on the Susquehanna. The last twenty-five miles of this trip they accomplished on foot, each one carrying his baggage. Passing through the country, in almost a direct line, by the way of Wilkesbarre, they returned to Philadelphia.
Return to Philadelphia.
Soon after their return the yellow-fever broke out in Philadelphia with great malignity, in July, 1797. The princes had expended on their long journey all their funds, and were impatiently awaiting remittances from Europe. They were thus unable to withdraw from the pestilence, from which all who had the means precipitately fled. It was not until September that their mother succeeded in transmitting to them a remittance.
With these fresh resources they commenced a journey to the Eastern States, passing through the States of New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, to Boston; and it is said that they extended their travels to Hallowell, in the District of Maine, to call upon the Vaughans, an illustrious family from England, then residing there.
Crossing the Alleghanies.
Louisiana at that time belonged to Spain. The exiles decided to cross the country to the Ohio, descend the river to New Orleans, and thence to proceed to Havana, on the island of Cuba, by some Spanish vessel. Returning to Philadelphia, they set out, on the 10th of December, 1797, to cross the Alleghanies. Upon those heights and gorges winter had already set in, and the cold was very severe. Just before leaving, they learned that the Directory had passed a decree banishing every member of the Bourbon family from France, including their mother, who was a Bourbon only by marriage, and that their mother had taken refuge in Spain. At that time Spain was in alliance with France, and the British Government was consequently at war against it.
Floating down the river.
At Pittsburg they found the Alleghany still open, but the Monongahela was frozen over. They purchased a small keel-boat, which they found lying upon the ice, and with considerable difficulty transported it to a point where they could launch it in the open water, though the stream was encumbered with vast masses of floating ice. Then the three brothers, with but three attendants, embarked to float down the Ohio and the Mississippi, through an almost unbroken wilderness of nearly two thousand miles, to New Orleans. When they arrived at Wheeling, Virginia, where there was a small settlement, they found their way hedged up by solid ice, which filled the stream, from shore to shore. They drew their boat upon the land, to wait for an opening through this effectual barricade. Louis Philippe, with characteristic energy, impatient of delay, ascended an eminence, and, carefully surveying the windings of the river, found that the obstruction of ice occupied only about three miles, beyond which the stream was clear.
Watching their opportunity, they forced their way through some miles of broken ice, and continued their adventurous voyage. An American military courier, less energetic, was detained three weeks by the obstructions which the French party thus speedily overcame. At Marietta, Ohio, they found another small village. Here they landed to lay in supplies; and they spent some time in examining those Indian mounds so profusely scattered there – interesting memorials of an extinct race.
Continuing their voyage amidst the masses of ice which still encumbered these northern waters, they one day, through the negligence of their helmsman, ran against a branch of a tree, termed a snag, and stove in their bows. The boat was immediately unloaded, drawn upon the shore, and in twenty-four hours was so repaired as to enable them to continue their journey. As they entered more southern latitudes the floating ice disappeared, and the voyage became more pleasant, as they rapidly floated down the tortuous stream, by forests and headlands, and every variety of wild, sublime, and beautiful scenery, until they reached New Orleans, on the 17th of February, 1798.
Welcome in New Orleans.
Here they met with a very friendly welcome, not only from the colonists generally, but from the Spanish governor, Don Gayoso. They were detained in New Orleans five weeks, awaiting the arrival of the corvette which was engaged in conveying passengers and light freight from that port to Havana. Impatient of the delay, as the packet did not arrive, they embarked in an American vessel. England was then truly mistress of the seas. She made and executed her own laws, regardless of all expostulations from other nations.
Arrogance of the British Government.
As the American vessel was crossing the Gulf of Mexico, she was encountered by an English frigate, which, by firing several guns, brought her to, and immediately boarded her. The British Government had adopted the very extraordinary principle that an English ship might stop a ship, of whatever nationality, on the seas, board her, summon her passengers and crew upon the deck, and impress, to serve as British seamen, any of those passengers or crew whom the officers of the frigate might pronounce to be British subjects. From their decision there was no appeal.
"The princes," says the Rev. G. N. Wright, "had an opportunity of witnessing one of those violations of international law which not only marked but degraded the maritime history of that period, by the gross sacrifice of public law and private liberty. This was the seizure and impressment of men employed on board neutral vessels, and compelling them to enter the navy of a foreign country. The crew, being mustered on the deck, Captain Cochrane selected the ablest hands from among them – taking them on a service in which they not only had no interest, but with which some of them were actually at variance, and might, therefore, be compelled to fight against their own country.
"It is not the least strange, of all the strange events which have occurred in those days of change, that a young man, a passenger on board an American ship, and who was brought by circumstances in contact with the practical operation of the iniquitous claim which Great Britain set up – of taking out of vessels sailing under the American flag any person they pleased – should have been called upon subsequently, when upon the throne of France, by the English Government to disavow the forcible abduction of a seaman from an English ship."
Action of the French Government.
Many years after this, when Louis Philippe was king of the French, a French frigate, from a squadron blockading Vera Cruz, boarded an English packet-ship, and took out of her a Mexican pilot. All England resounded with a burst of indignation. Both Houses of Parliament passed a decree that such an act was a gross outrage upon the British flag, which demanded immediate apology from the French Government.
The "right of search."
"The pilot," said Lord Lyndhurst, "had come on board, under the protection of the British flag. But in this instance it was no protection. A more grave and serious outrage was never committed against our country."
"Any man," said Lord Brougham, "on board a British merchantman is as much under the protection of the British flag as if he were on board the queen's ship. The gravemen of the charge is that a man has been taken from an English ship."
Louis Philippe, who deemed it essential to the stability of his throne to maintain friendly relations with the British Government, humbly disavowed the act in the name of his country, while he considerately forbore from taunting the British Government with its own opposite and arbitrary course, or from congratulating it upon the happy change of principles which it had so suddenly experienced.
Narrow escape.
Captain Cochrane, learning that the Duke of Orleans, with his brothers, the Duke of Montpensier and Count Beaujolais, were on board the small and uncomfortable American vessel, politely invited them to continue the remainder of their voyage in the enjoyment of the superior accommodations of his large and commodious ship. The deck of the frigate towered far above that of the humble American merchantman. A rope was lowered to assist the travellers in their ascent. The Duke of Orleans slipped his hold and fell into the sea. Being an excellent swimmer, he swam around to the stern of the ship, where a boat was lowered, which rescued him from his unwelcome bath. On the 31st of March, 1798, the British frigate landed them safely in Havana.
Chapter IV
The Tomb and the Bridal
1799-1809
The antagonistic parties.
The position of the French princes was peculiarly embarrassing. Both of the parties into which all the nations of Europe were then divided suspected and feared them. The Royalists could not forget that the father of the princes had taken the title of Egalité, had renounced all feudal privileges, had voted for the death of the king, and had placed himself at the head of the democratic movement in France.
The liberal or democratic party could not forget that the young princes were by birth in the highest ranks of the nobility, that by blood relationship they were nearly connected with the crown, that their whole family had been so utterly crushed by democratic rule that they could not but hate that rule, and that there was a party in France, sustained by many of the courts in Europe, in favor of reaction and of re-establishing the throne with the young Duke of Orleans as king. Thus the Orleans princes were alike suspected and feared by both parties.
Driven from Cuba.
The government in Madrid was in entire sympathy with the aristocratic party in Europe. Though the Orleans princes had been received in Cuba, by the Spanish authorities and leading citizens, with much attention, as the victims of democratic fury, the government of Madrid, remembering only the democracy of Egalité, and fearing that the princes, retaining their father's principles, might unfurl the dreaded tri-color in Havana, sent an order dated May 21, 1799, ordering the captain-general of the island not to permit any longer the presence of the dukes of Orleans and of Montpensier, and of their brother, Count Beaujolais, but to send them immediately to New Orleans, without any regard to their mode of subsistence.
Under these circumstances the exiles, withdrawing from Cuba, succeeded in reaching the Bahama Islands, which belonged to England, and thence sailed for Halifax. The Duke of Kent, son of George III., and father of Queen Victoria, was then in Halifax, and received them with guarded and formal courtesy. Not certain what might be the feelings of the British Cabinet in reference to them, he did not feel authorized to grant them a passage to England on board a British vessel of war. They, therefore, embarked in a small vessel for New York, and there took passage in a regular packet-ship for England.
Take refuge in England.
In the first week in February, 1800, the ship reached Falmouth. Immediately the princes forwarded a request to George III. that they might be permitted to land in England and proceed to London. The request was promptly granted, and on the sixth of the month they reached the capital. To convince the court and the nobility of England that they were entirely weaned from all those democratic tendencies which had brought such awful ruin upon their house, they selected Twickenham as their place of residence. It was a beautiful and salubrious site in the midst of the family seats of the English aristocracy, and in the vicinity of Windsor Castle, the ancient and world-renowned palace of the British kings. Here every movement would be open to the eyes of the British aristocracy, and the mode of life of the princes, their associates, and their manner of spending their leisure hours, would all be known. The spotless and amiable character of these young men rapidly secured for them the confidence and esteem of all their acquaintances.
Courted by the Bourbons.
The unhappy son of Louis XVI., whom the Legitimists regarded as their sovereign under the title of Louis XVII., had perished of brutal treatment in his dungeon, on the 6th of June, 1796.7 The Legitimists now recognized the elder brother of Louis XVI., the Count de Provence, as king, with the title of Louis XVIII. The Count de Provence, assuming all the etiquette of royalty, and recognized by nearly all the courts of Europe as the lawful sovereign of France, held his court at Mittau, in Courland, surrounded by a crowd of emigrant courtiers. His only brother, Count d'Artois, who subsequently ascended the throne of France as Charles X., resided in London, punctiliously maintaining court etiquette.
The Count d'Artois, anxious to secure the open and cordial co-operation of the Duke of Orleans in behalf of the Royalist cause, sent him an earnest invitation to come to London, assuring him of an affectionate greeting on his own part and that of his friends. The duke repaired to London, and was received on the 13th of February with princely hospitality by the count and other members of the Bourbon family, at his residence in Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square.
Reconciliation.
"The king, Louis XVIII.," said the Count d'Artois, "will be delighted to see you; but it will be proper and necessary that you should first write to him." The Duke of Orleans did so. In this letter he must have recognized the sovereignty of Louis XVIII., a sovereignty founded on legitimacy, for he received a courteous and cordial reply. Thus there seemed to be a perfect reconciliation, social and political, between the elder and younger branches of the Bourbon family.
General Dumouriez had visited the court of the exiled monarch, pledged to him his homage, mounted the white cockade, and, receiving a commission in the Russian army, was marching with the Allies against republican France. All his energies were consecrated to the restoration of the house of Bourbon-Orleans.
Count d'Artois left no means untried to induce the Duke of Orleans and his brothers to enlist under the standard of emigration. But an instinctive reluctance to unite with foreigners in their war against France, and the entreaties of their anxious mother that they should not, in those dark and perilous hours, commit themselves to the apparently hopeless cause of the royal confederacy, led the cautious duke to adhere to the life of privacy upon which he had entered. But it is scarcely possible but that, under the circumstances, both he and his brothers must have longed for the restoration of the Bourbons, which would have enabled them to return to France and to enter upon the enjoyment of their exalted rank and their vast estates.
Embarrassments of the princes.
Still, the princes were subject to many humiliations and annoyances. The partisan press, on both sides, assailed them with every species of calumny. "The leading ministerial journals in London declared openly that they suspected the sincerity of the young Duke of Orleans in his late repentance; and that his past exemplary conduct should not be accepted as any security against his future treachery."
Aristocratic attentions.
But the emigrants in London generally, and the British Court, assumed to place full reliance in the reconciliation between the Bourbon and the Orleans branches of the royal family. All the arts of flattery were employed to cement this union, and to lead the princes to commit themselves irreparably to the royal cause. England, under the ministry of William Pitt, was waging relentless warfare against revolutionary France. On the 20th of February the princes were invited to meet England's most renowned prime minister, and the most implacable foe of republican institutions in France, at a dinner-party, at the town mansion of the Count d'Artois. Lord Grenville gave a magnificent entertainment in their honor, on the 1st of March, 1800; and the next Sunday the exiles were presented to his majesty George III. at a levee held especially for that purpose.8
On the 13th of March the Russian ambassador, Count Woronzo, following in the train of these marked civilities, invited them to a princely banquet, which was attended by all the aristocracy of London, at his mansion in Harley Street; and on the 13th of March his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales honored them by an invitation to Carlton House to meet all the foreign ambassadors.
Fashionable life in London.
The Orleans princes were now fully introduced to fashionable life in London. Their presence was deemed essential to the completeness of any soirée or banquet. The Marchioness of Salisbury, then the arbitress in London of fashion and elegance, invited the princes to meet at her house four hundred guests of the highest rank and distinction, among whom was the Prince of Wales. Then the Lady Mayoress of the city, Lady Harvey Combe, threw open to them Egyptian Hall in as magnificent an entertainment as the times could furnish. Immediately following this brilliant scene, the Duke of Clarence, subsequently William IV., invited them to a dinner-party, which in many respects surpassed all which had preceded it in splendor. All these people who thus fêted them were combining their energies to overthrow revolutionary principles in France, and to reinstate the Bourbons.
At this time the British Cabinet was preparing an armed force for the invasion of France by a descent on the southern coast. The report was circulated that the three Orleans princes were to assume the white cockade and accompany this military expedition against their native country. At the same time, the Bourbon princes renewed their solicitations to the Orleans princes to range themselves, with arms in their hands, under the standard of emigration. But the great victory of Marengo just then took place, which threw into the power of the First Consul all of upper Italy, and compelled the utterly discomfited Austrians to withdraw from the British alliance. It was a dark hour for the Royalist cause in France.
The exiled princes, who found but little in the festivities of London to alleviate their world-weariness, or to cheer them in the peculiar embarrassments and trials of their position, after several minor adventures, withdrew to their retreat in Twickenham, where they endeavored to seclude themselves from observation and from all participation in public affairs.
Domestic habits.
The Duke of Orleans devoted himself to the study of English institutions, visiting the prominent establishments of learning and of industry. The irreproachable character of this virtuous prince, his high intellectual culture, dignified bearing, amiable disposition, and persistent refusal to involve himself in any intrigues, secured for him general admiration. Months of tranquillity, almost of happiness, glided away. But sorrow is the doom of man. The Duke of Orleans had not yet drained the cup which was prepared for his lips.
Death of the Duke of Montpensier.
The health of the Duke of Montpensier had been for some time rapidly failing. His constitution and that of his brother, Count Beaujolais, had been quite undermined by the hardships they had endured during their imprisonment. All the remedies which the best medical advice could administer proved unavailing. It soon became manifest that death was approaching by slow but resistless strides. The young duke, conscious that his end was approaching, bore all his sufferings with the most amiable and uncomplaining resignation, until, on the 18th of May, 1807, he fell asleep.
The grief of the Duke of Orleans and of the Count of Beaujolais, in the loss of so gentle and tenderly-beloved a brother, was very great. The funeral ceremonies were attended in London with almost regal pomp. The Count d'Artois was present as one of the principal mourners. The gloom of twilight had begun to fall upon the city as the imposing procession approached Westminster Abbey, to convey the remains of the long-suffering prince to the darkness of the tomb. The procession was led by mules bearing plumes of white feathers. A mourning-carriage, containing the heart of the deceased in an urn, was drawn by six horses, decorated with the richest funereal caparisons, and led by postilions in the mourning-livery of the house of Orleans. The hearse followed, preceded by a herald with a coronet on a velvet cushion.
The empty private carriage of the deceased was followed by many other carriages filled with the noblesse of France, each drawn by six horses. The state equipages of the Prince of Wales and of the Dukes of Sussex and York, with postilions in state livery, closed the procession. With such mournful pageants were the mortal remains of the exile consigned to the ancient mausoleum of the kings of England.
Sickness of Count Beaujolais.
"Sorrows," says the poet, "come in troops." Scarcely were the remains of the Duke of Montpensier placed in the tomb, ere his brother, Count Beaujolais, began rapidly to fail. He was urged to seek a milder climate in Malta or Madeira. To the solicitations of his fond and anxious brother he replied:
"I feel that my life is soon to terminate as Montpensier's did. What is the use of going so far to seek a tomb, and thus to lose the consolation of dying in this retreat where we have at last found repose. Let us remain in this hospitable land. Here, at least, I shall be permitted to die in a brother's arms, and share a brother's tomb."
Death of Count Beaujolais.
Still, amiably yielding to the anxiety of his brother, he consented, against his own judgment, to accompany him to the island of Malta. The climate not agreeing with him, and his strength rapidly failing, the Duke of Orleans wrote to Ferdinand IV., king of Naples, soliciting permission to visit the salubrious clime where he had established his court. Ferdinand IV., flying from the revolution beneath which his throne had crumbled, had sought refuge, protected by the British fleet, in the old Moorish castle, called the Palazzo Reale, near Palermo, on the island of Sicily. To the application of the duke to repair with his dying brother to those genial skies, a very cordial consent was returned. But before the reply arrived, the gentle spirit of Beaujolais had taken its flight to join the spirit of Montpensier in the eternal world. With tearful eyes and an almost broken heart, the bereaved Duke of Orleans deposited the wasted remains of his dearly-beloved brother in the vaults of the church of St. John, in Valetta.
Having performed these last sad rites, and feeling almost alone and desolate, in a world where he had experienced so many sorrows and so few joys, influenced by the friendly invitation of the Sicilian Court, he embarked for the island of Sicily, and reached Messina in safety. Proceeding to Palermo, he was welcomed with great cordiality to the ancient and massive palace. The commanding figure of the prince, his finely chiselled features, his dignified bearing, united with a frank, cordial, unaffected address, his intelligence and accomplishments, all combined with that nameless charm of a pensive spirit, created by the greatest sufferings patiently endured, secured for him the admiration and the warmest sympathy of the Sicilian family.
The Princess Amelia.
The second daughter of the king, the Princess Amelia, was a young lady whom all unite in describing as possessed of unusual attractions of person and character. A strong attachment almost immediately sprang up between them. But the Duke of Orleans was a wanderer, an exile, deprived of his patrimonial estates, and living upon the hospitality of others or upon those fragments which by chance had been saved from the utter wreck of the possessions which had descended to him from his ancestors. Should he recover his rank and possessions, it would be a suitable match. Should he fail, he would prove but a needy adventurer. The proud queen was perplexed whether to frown upon or to encourage his suit.
Banner of the Empire.
In France the anarchy of the Conventions and of the Directory had given place to the Consulate and the Empire. Under the sagacious and energetic rule of Napoleon, France had risen to dignity and power unequalled by that of any other nation in Europe. Napoleon had seized upon the fundamental principle of the Revolution, Equal Rights for all Men, and, inscribing that upon his banners, had reorganized France with such skill as to enable her to bid defiance to despotic Europe in arms against that principle. All France seemed united in this government of republican principles under monarchical forms, and, notwithstanding the implacable hostility and persistent coalition of foreign dynasties, all hopes of the restoration of the Bourbons seemed to have vanished. Ferdinand of Naples and his queen, who was an Austrian princess, and sister of Maria Antoinette, had, with great determination, espoused the cause of the Allies against France. A revolution in their own kingdom, aided by French arms, had driven them from the continent of Italy to the island of Sicily, where they were protected by an English army of twenty thousand men, and by the invincible fleet of Great Britain, which had entire command of the seas.
The Duke of Orleans in the Sicilian Court.
The position of the Duke of Orleans in the Sicilian Court must have been very embarrassing. Ferdinand, a weak man, and his wife, an intriguing, reckless woman, did every thing they could to entangle their illustrious visitor, and the suitor of their daughter, in the meshes of the intrigues in which they were ever involved. Napoleon had shown a very decided disposition to conciliate the Orleans family, and to restore to them their possessions if he could have any assurance that the vast influence which they would thus possess would not be used in the attempt to overthrow the republican empire which France had so cordially accepted. The cautious duke felt that it would be the height of folly to hurl himself against a power which seemed irresistible.
Spanish intrigues.
The Spanish Court had treacherously, while professing friendship for France, entered into a conspiracy with the Allies to strike her in the back in the anticipated hour of disaster. The Spanish war ensued, into the merits of which we have no space here to enter. The king and queen of Sicily hoped to place upon the throne of Spain their son Leopold; and they urged the Duke of Orleans to go to Spain, and, under the patronage of England, to take command of an army for the invasion of France.
Influenced by these importunities, the duke repaired with evident reluctance to Gibraltar; but seeing no chance for Leopold, he passed over to England to confer with the British Cabinet.9 The duke was a Frenchman, and, instead of being cordially received in Spain, found himself in danger of being mobbed by the ignorant and fanatic populace. Lord Collingwood wrote to the British Government, in reference to this movement, in behalf of Prince Leopold, through the agency of the Duke of Orleans: