Louis Philippe - John Abbott 2 стр.


Popularity of the Duke of Orleans.

This course rapidly increased the popularity of the duke among the people, and the Parliament was unceasing in its solicitations for his recall. The court became embarrassed, and at length gladly availed itself of the opportunity of releasing him, in response to a petition from the Duchess of Orleans.

The current of the revolution was now beginning to flow with resistless flood. The hostility between the court and the people was hourly increasing. Famine added its horrors to the general tumult and agitation. A winter of unparalleled severity the winter of 1789 terribly increased the general suffering. The Duke of Orleans was profuse in his liberality, opening a public kitchen, and supplying the wants of famishing thousands. The duke, having thus embarked, without reserve, in the cause of the people, added to his own popularity and to the exasperation of the court, by publicly renouncing all his feudal rights, and permitting the public to hunt and shoot at pleasure over his vast domains. His popularity now became immense. The journals were filled with his praises. Whenever he appeared in public, multitudes followed him with their acclaim.

Assembling of the States-General.

On the 4th of May, 1789, the States-General, or National Assembly, met. The duke, followed by about forty others of the nobility, renounced all his aristocratic privileges, and took his place as an equal in the ranks of the tiers état, or third estate, as the common people were called. The clergy, the nobility, and the people then constituted the three estates of the realm.

The French Revolution was now advancing with rapid strides, accompanied by anarchy, violence, and bloodshed. The court party was increasingly exasperated against the popular duke, and many stories were fabricated against him to undermine his influence. The situation of the king and royal family became daily more irksome and perilous. He endeavored to escape, to join the armies of Austria and Prussia, which were marching to his relief. He was arrested at Varennes, brought back to Paris, and held as a prisoner in the Tuileries. The question was now discussed of deposing the king and establishing a regency under the Duke of Orleans.

Commotion in Paris.

The first National Assembly, called the Constituent, which was convened to draw up a constitution for France, having completed its work, was dissolved; and another assembly, denominated the Legislative, was chosen to enact laws under that constitution. The allied armies of foreign dynasties were on the march to rob the French people of their constitution, and to impose upon them the absolute despotism of the old régime. Fearful riots ensued in Paris. The palace of the Tuileries was stormed. The king, with his family, fled to the Legislative Assembly for protection, and was imprisoned in the Temple. On the 20th of January, 1793, he died upon the scaffold.

Flight of the nobles.

Petition of the Duke of Orleans.

The National Convention, which speedily succeeded the Legislative Assembly, brought the accusation of treason against the king tried, condemned, and executed him. The Duke of Orleans, a member of this Convention, voted for the death of the king. The abolition of monarchy and the establishment of a republic immediately followed. The question was with much interest discussed, whether the republic should be federal, like that of the United States, or integral, like the ancient republics of Greece and Rome. The Duke of Orleans advocated the concentration of power and the indivisibility of France. Fanaticism usurped the place of reason; the guillotine was busy; suspicions filled the air; no life was safe. The Duke of Orleans was alarmed. He sent his daughter, under the care of Madame de Genlis, to England. The nobles were flying in all directions. Severe laws were passed against the emigrants. The duke, who had assumed the surname of Egalité, or Equality, excited suspicion by placing his daughter among the emigrants. It was said that he had no confidence in the people or in the new order of things. To lull these suspicions, the duke sent a petition to the Convention on the 21st of November, 1792, containing the following statement:

"Citizens,  You have passed a law against those cowards who have fled their country in the moment of danger. The circumstance I have to lay before you is peculiar. My daughter, fifteen years of age, passed over to England in the month of October, 1791, with her governess and two companions of her studies. Her governess, Madame de Genlis, has early initiated them in liberal views and republican virtues. The English language forms a part of the education which she has given to my daughter. One of the motives of this journey has been to acquire the pronunciation of that tongue. Besides that, the chalybeate waters of England were recommended as restoratives of my daughter's health. It is impossible, under these circumstances, to regard the journey of my daughter as emigration. I feel assured that the law is not applicable in this case. But the slightest doubt is sufficient to distress a father. I beg, therefore, fellow-citizens, that you will relieve me from this uneasiness."

Domestic discord.

But by this time the Convention began to look upon the Duke of Orleans with suspicion. Rumors were in circulation that many of the people, tired of republicanism which was crowding the prisons, and causing blood to gush in an incessant flow wished to reinstate the monarchy, and to place the Duke of Orleans upon the throne. The Duchess of Orleans, the child of one of the highest nobles, was not in sympathy with her husband in his democratic views. His boundless profligacy had also alienated her affections, so that there was no domestic happiness to be found in the gorgeous saloons of the Palais Royal.

Robespierre wished to banish the Duke of Orleans from France, as a dangerous man, around whom the not yet extinct spirit of royalty might rally. He moved in the Convention, "That all the relatives of Bourbon Capet should be obliged, within eight days, to quit the territory of France and the countries then occupied by the Republican armies."

The motion was, for the time, frustrated by the following expostulation by M. Lamarque:

"Would it not be the extreme of injustice to exile all of the Capets, without distinction? I have never spoken but twice to Egalité. I am, therefore, not open to the suspicion of partiality, but I have closely observed his conduct in the Revolution. I have seen him deliver himself up to it entirely, a willing victim for its promotion, not shrinking from the greatest sacrifices; and I can truly assert that but for Egalité we never should have had the States-General we should never have been free."

Flight of General Dumouriez.

Thus public sentiment fluctuated. An event soon occurred which brought matters to a crisis. General Dumouriez, a former minister of Louis XVI., was in command of the army on the northern frontier. Disgusted with the violence of the Convention, which was silencing all opposition with the slide of the guillotine, and apprehensive of personal danger, from the consciousness that he was suspected of not being very friendly to the Government, he resolved to abandon the country which he thought doomed to destruction, and to seek safety in flight. Louis Philippe, the eldest son of the Duke of Orleans, then a lad of about 16, was on his staff. They fled together. This aroused popular indignation in Paris to the highest pitch. This young prince, Louis Philippe, then entitled the Duke of Chartres, and who, as subsequently King of the French, is the subject of this memoir, had written in a letter to his father, which was intercepted, these words: "I see the Convention utterly destroying France." It was believed that Dumouriez had entered into a plot for placing the Duke of Orleans on the throne, and that the duke was cognizant of the plan.

Arrest of the Duke of Orleans.

A decree was immediately passed ordering the arrest of every Bourbon in France. The duke was arrested and conveyed to Marseilles, with several members of his family. Here he was held in durance for some time, and was then brought to Paris to be tried for treason. Though there was no evidence whatever against him, he was declared guilty of being "an accomplice in a conspiracy against the unity and indivisibility of the Republic," and was condemned to death.

The duke, as he heard the sentence, replied: "Since you were predetermined to put me to death, you ought at least to have sought for more plausible pretexts to attain that end; for you will never persuade the world that you deem me guilty of what you now declare me to be convicted. However, since my lot is decided, I demand that you will not let me languish here until to-morrow, but order that I be led to execution instantly." His request was not granted; but he was conducted back to the cells of the Conciergerie, to be executed the next day. The next morning he was placed in the death-cart at the Conciergerie, with four others of the condemned, to be conveyed to the guillotine, which stood in the Place de la Concorde. He was elaborately dressed in a green frock-coat, white waistcoat, doe-skin breeches, and with boots carefully polished. His hair was dressed and powdered with care. As the cart passed slowly along in front of his princely abode, the Palais Royal, and through immense crowds, lining the streets, who formerly had been fed by his liberality, and who now clamored for his death, he looked around upon them with apparently perfect indifference.

Execution of Egalité.

At the guillotine the executioner took off his coat, and was about to draw off his boots, when he said, calmly, "It is only loss of time; you will remove them more easily from my lifeless limbs." He examined the keen edge of the knife, and was bound to the plank. The slide fell, and his head dropped into the basket. Thus perished Louis Philippe Egalité in the 46th year of his age. It was the 6th of November, 1793, ten months after Louis XVI. had perished upon the same scaffold. The immoralities of the Duke of Orleans were such that it has often been said of him, "Nothing became his life so much as his manner of leaving it." Louis Philippe Egalité, inheriting from his ancestors vast opulence, had become, by his marriage with the daughter of the immensely wealthy Duke of Penthièvre, the possessor of almost royal domains. His wife, the duchess, though aristocratic in all her prepossessions, and sympathizing not at all with her husband in his democratic views, was a woman of unblemished character, of amiable disposition, and of devoted piety.

Having thus given a brief account of the origin of the Orleans family, we must, at the expense of a little repetition, turn back to the birth of Louis Philippe, the oldest son of the Duke of Orleans, and the subject of this memoir.

Birth of Louis Philippe.

Louis Philippe was born in the Palais Royal, in Paris, on the 6th of October, 1773. In his early years, he, with the other children of the ducal family, was placed under the care and tuition of the celebrated Madame de Genlis. Until the death of his father, he bore the title of the Duke of Chartres.

"The Duke of Chartres," writes Lamartine, "had no youth. Education suppressed this age in the pupils of Madame de Genlis. Reflection, study, premeditation of every thought and act, replaced nature by study, and instinct by will. At seventeen years of age, the young prince had the maturity of advanced years."

His daily journal.

Madame de Genlis was unwearied in her endeavors to confer upon her illustrious pupil the highest intellectual and religious education. The most distinguished professors were appointed to instruct in those branches with which she was not familiar. His conduct was recorded in a minute daily journal, from which every night questions were read subjecting him to the most searching self-examination. The questions were as follows:

1. Have I this day fulfilled all my duties towards God, my Creator, and prayed to Him with fervor and affection?

2. Have I listened with respect and attention to the instructions which have been given me to-day, with regard to my Christian duties, and in reading works of piety?

3. Have I fulfilled all my duties this day towards those I ought to love most in the world my father and my mother?

4. Have I behaved with mildness and kindness towards my sister and my brothers?

5. Have I been docile, grateful, and attentive to my teachers?

6. Have I been perfectly sincere to-day, disobliging no one, and speaking evil of no one?

7. Have I been as discreet, prudent, charitable, modest, and courageous as may be expected at my age?

8. Have I shown no proof of that weakness or effeminacy which is so contemptible in a man?

9. Have I done all the good I could?

10. Have I shown all the marks of attention I ought to the persons, present or absent, to whom I owe kindness, respect, and affection?

These questions were read to him every night from his journal. To each one he returned a reply in writing. He then kneeled, and in prayer implored the forgiveness of his sins, and Divine guidance for the future. Under such training, notwithstanding the enjoyment of almost boundless wealth, the influence of a dissolute father, and the measureless corruptions of the times, Louis Philippe developed a character embellished by the loftiest principles and the purest integrity.

Educational influences.

Mental and physical training.

The Orleans children, consisting of three sons and a daughter, were taught in their earliest years to speak French, English, German, and Italian, so that each of these languages became, as it were, vernacular. At St. Leu, where they resided most of the time, a garden was laid out, which they dug and cultivated with their own hands. A German gardener superintended their work, while a German valet accompanied them in their morning walks. A physician, who was a distinguished chemist, instructed them in botany, pointing out the medicinal virtues of the various plants. They were taught to manufacture numerous articles of domestic utility, and the boys became skillful in turning, weaving, basket-making, and other mechanical employments. The Duke of Chartres became a very skillful cabinet-maker, and, aided by his brother, the Duke of Montpensier, manufactured a bureau for a poor woman at St. Leu which was equal to any which could be found in the market. They were also accustomed to fatigue and hardship, that they might be prepared for any of the vicissitudes of future life. Madame de Genlis, in reference to this training of her pupil, and his subsequent trials and privations, writes:

Testimony of Madame de Genlis.

"How often, since his misfortunes, have I applauded myself for the education I have given him; for having taught him the principal modern languages; for having accustomed him to wait on himself; to despise all kinds of effeminacy; to sleep habitually on a wooden bed, with no covering but a mat; to expose himself to heat, cold, and rain; to accustom himself to fatigue by daily and violent exercise, by walking ten or fifteen miles with leaden soles to his shoes; and, finally, for having given him the taste and habit of travelling. He had lost all that he inherited from birth and fortune; and nothing remained but what he had received from nature and me."

In one of her earlier letters, she wrote: "The Duke of Chartres has greatly improved in disposition during the past year. He was born with good inclinations, and has now become intelligent and virtuous. Possessing none of the frivolities of the age, he disdains the puerilities which occupy the thoughts of so many young men of rank such as fashions, dress, trinkets, follies of all kinds, and a desire for novelties. He has no passion for money, is disinterested, despises glare, and is, consequently, truly noble. Finally, he has an excellent heart, which is common to his brothers and sister, and which, joined to reflection, is capable of producing all other good qualities."

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