Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

BLACKWOOD’S

Edinburgh

MAGAZINE.

VOL. LXI.

JANUARY-JUNE, 1847.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH;

AND

37, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

1847.

BLACKWOOD’S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCLXXV. JANUARY, 1847. VOL. LXI.

CONTENTS.

THE COURT OF LOUIS PHILIPPE, 1

MILDRED; A TALE. Chaps. IV., V., VI., 18

EUGENE, MARLBOROUGH, FREDERICK, NAPOLEON, AND WELLINGTON, 34

LAYS AND LEGENDS OF THE THAMES, 49

PRUSSIAN MILITARY MEMOIRS, 65

LAPPENBERG’S ANGLO-SAXONS, 79

SCOTTISH MELODIES, BY DELTA, 91

GENERAL MACK--A CHRISTMAS CAROL, 92

REFLECTIONS SUGGESTED BY THE CAREER OF THE LATE PREMIER, 93

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PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD’S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCLXXV. JANUARY, 1847. VOL. LXI.

THE COURT OF LOUIS PHILIPPE.[1]

The schoolboy, agape at the tinsel splendour and seeming miracles of a holiday pantomime, longs for a peep behind the pasteboard parapets that limit his view. When the falling curtain puts a period to Clown’s malicious buffoonery and to the blunders of persecuted and long suffering Pantaloon, he marvels as to the subsequent proceedings of the lithe and agile mimes who have so gloriously diverted him. He is tempted to believe that Harlequin sleeps in his motley skin, that Columbine perpetually retains her graceful rose-wreaths and diaphanous muslin. He can hardly realize the relapse of such glittering apparitions into the prosaic humdrum of every-day life, and would gladly penetrate the veil of baize that shrouds from his eager eyes the mirth-provoking crew. Better that he should not. Sadly would his bright illusions fade, sore be his disenchantment, could he recognise the brilliant Harlequin in yon shabby-genteel gentleman issuing from the stage door, and discern her of the twinkling feet rewarding herself with a measure of Barclay for the pirouettes and entrechats that lately ravished his youthful vision.

Not unlike the boy’s desire for a peep behind the scenes, is the popular hankering after glimpses of royal privacy. The concealed is ever the coveted, the forbidden the most desired. Keep an ape under triple lock, and fancy converts her into a sylph; it was the small key, the last of the bunch, that Bluebeard’s bride most longed to use. For the multitude, the Chronicles of Courts have ever a strong and peculiar attraction. With what avidity is swallowed each trivial detail concerning princes and their companions; how anxious are the humble many to obtain an inkling of the every-day life of the great and privileged few, to dive into the recesses of palaces, and contemplate in the relaxation of the domestic circle, those who in public are environed by an imposing barrier of ceremony, pomp, and dignity. In the absence of more precise and pungent particulars, even the bald and fulsome paragraphs of a court circular find eager readers, who learn with strange interest the direction and extent of a king’s afternoon ride, and the exact hour at which some infant principule was borne abroad for an airing. Less meagre and more satisfactory nourishment is afforded to popular inquisitiveness by the writings of those who have lived in the intimacy of courts. Seldom, however, do such appear during the lifetime both of the writer and of the personages to whom they chiefly refer, and when they do they are often valueless, further than as a sop to public curiosity. Truth is rarely told of kings by those who enjoy, seek, or hope aught from their favour. These split upon the reefs of flattery, as a disgraced courtier does upon those of spite and disappointed ambition. And again, history affords us examples of men, who, having, through misconduct or misfortune, lost the countenance of their sovereign, resorted, to regain his good graces, to shameless adulation and servile panegyric.

We do not include in any of the three categories just named, the author of the book before us. We should not be justified in attributing to interested motives his praises of his former patrons; but believe, on the contrary, that, although familiar with courts, he is no mere courtier. Had he been more of one, his fortunes might now be better. From a very early age, Monsieur Appert devoted himself to the prosecution of philanthropic plans and researches, having for their chief objects the amelioration of the condition of the lower classes, the reform of convicts, the education of the army, and that of children who, by the desertion or vices of their parents, are left destitute and unprotected. He has frequently been employed by the French government, and has occupied various important posts. When only one-and-twenty, he was appointed director of a model-school for the army. With reference to his humane schemes, he has published many volumes on the education of soldiers and orphans, on the prisons, schools, and other correctional and benevolent institutions of France. With these we have nothing to do. His present book is of a lighter and more generally interesting character. For ten years he held the office of almoner to the Queen of the French, and to her sister-in-law, Madame Adelaide. The charities of these royal ladies are, as we shall presently show, on a truly princely scale. To this almonership no salary was attached; M. Appert performed its arduous duties gratuitously, and esteemed himself well rewarded by the confidence and good opinion of the illustrious persons he served. His income from other sources was ample; his position honourable, and even distinguished; his friends, true or false, were reckoned by hundreds. But misfortune, swift of foot, overtook him in the zenith of his prosperity. Heavy pecuniary losses, chiefly resulting, as he implies rather than informs us, from ill-advised loans and generous assistance to unworthy persons, impaired his means. Concerning his disgrace at court, he is more explicit. He attributes it to the envy and intrigues of courtiers, against whom, as a class, he bitterly inveighs. That his office was one well calculated to make him enemies, if he conscientiously fulfilled its duties, is made evident by various passages in his book. During ten years that he was in the daily habit of seeing them, and of distributing the greater portion of their charities, the queen and Madame Adelaide, he tells us, never made him the slightest reproach; but, on the contrary, invariably approved his proposals and requests, none of which, he adds, tended to his personal advantage. The king, on various important occasions, showed great confidence in him, and a strong sympathy with his philanthropic labours. Nevertheless, the occult, but strong and persevering influence employed against M. Appert, at last prevailed, and he was removed from the court, laden with costly presents from the royal family, who assured him that they would never forget, but always acknowledge, his long and devoted services. After his disgrace, he sold a villa he possessed at Neuilly, and left Paris, with the intention of founding an experimental colony of released convicts, and of the children of criminals. Whether this experiment was carried out, and how far it succeeded, he does not inform us. He is now travelling in Germany, visiting the schools, prisons, and military institutions, and writing books concerning them. The King of Prussia has received him favourably, and given him every encouragement; the sovereigns of Belgium, Denmark, Bavaria, Saxony, and Wurtemberg, have written him flattering letters, and promised him all facilities and assistance during the stay he proposes making in their respective dominions.

It was at Berlin, in the spring of the present year, that M. Appert completed, after very brief labour, his three volumes of Memoirs. He confesses that they were written in haste, and whilst his mind was preoccupied with the objects of his German tour. This is to be regretted, for the result proves that the work was too quickly done to be well done. The motive of his precipitation is unexplained, and we are not told why it was necessary to complete, by the 15th of March, a book destined to appear but in late autumn. Did the _snail-wagen_ pace of the German _buchdruckerei_ need half a year for the printing of a thousand pages? Surely not; and surely M. Appert might have given himself a little more time,--have indulged us with more detail,--have produced, instead of a hasty outline, a finished picture. His materials were ample, his subject most interesting; he is no novice in the craft of authorship. Besides his opportunities of observation at court, he has enjoyed the acquaintance, in many cases the intimacy, of a vast number of notable persons, military, diplomatic, scientific, literary. Ministers and deputies, peers of France and nobles of the old regime, generals of the empire and distinguished foreigners, were reckoned upon his list of friends; many of them were regular partakers of his periodical dinners at his Paris hotel and his Neuilly villa. It was in his power, we are convinced, to have produced a first-rate book of its class, instead of these hasty and unsatisfactory sketches. Each night, he tells us, especially since the year 1826, when he was first attached to the Orleans family, he wrote down, before retiring to rest, the events of the day. And yet such is his haste to huddle over his work that he cannot wait to receive his voluminous memoranda and correspondence, but trusts entirely to his memory. As far as it goes, this serves him pretty well. “Whilst correcting the last page of these _souvenirs_, I have received the enormous mass of notes and autograph letters which ought to have been of great utility in the composition of the book; and, on referring to the various documents, I am surprised to find that my memory has served me faithfully upon every subject of interest, and that I have nothing to rectify in what I have written.” Nothing, perhaps, to rectify, but much, we should think, to add. Monsieur Appert’s notes, judging from one or two verbatim specimens, were both copious and minute, and must include very many interesting particulars and anecdotes of the remarkable persons with whom he came in contact during the varied phases of a busy and bustling life. Could he not, without indelicacy or breach of confidence, have given us more of such particulars? His memoirs would have gained in value had he deferred their publication some ten or fifteen years; for then many now living would have disappeared from the scene, and he might have spoken freely of things and persons concerning whom he now deems it prudent or proper to be silent. But personal recollections of the present French court, even when loosely and imperfectly set down, cannot fail to command attention and excite interest. And much that is novel and curious may be culled from M. Appert’s pages, although we regret, as we peruse them, that they should have suffered from too great haste and an overstrained discretion.

M. Appert opens his memoirs in the year 1807, in the prosperous days of Napoleon, whose ardent admirer he is. The earlier chapters of his book, relating to the Empire and the Restoration, have less to recommend them than the later ones, and we shall pass them rapidly over. At the age of fifteen he became a pupil of the imperial school of drawing. Here he carried off the first prizes, was made sub-professor, and hopes were held out to him that he should take a share in the education of the King of Rome. But this was in 1812; the decline of the empire had begun, Russia had given the first blow to Napoleon’s seemingly resistless power;--the hopes of the young professor were never realized. Upon the return of the Bourbons, after Waterloo, he lost his sub-professorship, on account of his well-known Bonapartism; and because, whilst giving a lesson in mathematics, he employed, to mark the curves and angles of a geometrical figure, letters which made up the words “_vive l’Empereur!_” Soon afterwards, however, he again obtained occupation, although of a far humbler description than that to which he had once aspired. He was employed in the organization of elementary and military schools, upon the plan of mutual instruction. In this he was most successful, and his reports to the Minister of war proved that, in three years, one hundred thousand men might be taught to read, write, and cipher, at the small expense of three hundred thousand francs, or half-a-crown per man. In 1820, although then only twenty-three years old, he was intrusted with the inspection of the regimental schools of the royal guard and first military division; and his connexion with the army brought him acquainted with many of the Bonapartist plots at that time rife. Although often confided in by the conspirators, who were aware of his attachment to the Emperor, he took share in none of their abortive schemes for placing Napoleon the Second on the throne of France; but, nevertheless, he was looked upon with suspicion by the government of the Bourbons. Still, however, he was permitted to become the director, without a salary, of a school established in the prison at Montaigu, appropriated to military criminals. To this prison, in the year 1822, were sent two non-commissioned officers, by name Mathieu and Conderc, implicated in the conspiracy for which General Berton lost his head. Yielding to his sympathies and to the prayers of these two young men, who were bent upon escape or suicide, M. Appert promised to assist their flight. He did so, successfully, and the consequence was his own imprisonment at La Force, where he was placed in the room subsequently occupied by the poet Beranger. Pending his trial, he had for servant a celebrated thief of the name of Doré, of whom Vidocq, the thief-taker, more than once makes mention in his curious books. This Doré, who, for a robber, was a very decent fellow, and who served M. Appert with the greatest punctuality and fidelity, once had the audacity, alone and unassisted, save by his own ingenuity, to stop a diligence full of passengers. With a skill that would have made him an invaluable confederate for a London or Paris _kite-flyer_, he constructed several excellent men of straw, the size of life, and quite as natural--at least in the dark. These he invested with the needful toggery--neither fresh nor fashionable, we presume, but serving the purpose. Finally, he fastened sticks, intended to represent muskets, to the shoulders of the figures, which he posted in a row against trees bordering the high road. Up came the diligence. “Halt!” shouted Doré, in the voice of a Stentor; “Halt! or my men fire!” The frightened driver pulled up short; conductor and passengers, seeing a row of figures with levelled fire-arms, thought they had fallen into the power of a whole army of banditti, and begged for mercy. Doré came forward in the character of a generous protector, sternly ordered his men to abstain from violence and remain where they were, and collected from the trembling and intimidated passengers their purses, watches, and jewels. “I forbid you to fire,” he shouted to his quaker gang, whilst pocketing the rich tribute; “they make no resistance; I will have no useless blood-shed.” The conductor, delighted to save a large sum of money secreted in a chest, quietly submitted: the passengers were too happy to get off with whole skins, and the women thanked the spoiler, called him a humane man, and almost kissed him, out of gratitude for him sparing their lives. The plunder collected, the driver received permission to continue his journey, which he did at full speed, lest the banditti should change their minds and forget their forbearance. Doré made his escape unmolested, leaving his straw regiment on picket by the road side, a scarecrow, till daybreak, to the passing traveller.

The few persons acquainted with M. Appert’s share in the escape of Mathieu and Conderc, proved stanch upon his trial: nothing could be proved against him, and he was acquitted. The affair gave rise to long and bitter controversy between the Liberal and Royalist newspapers. Of course M. Appert lost his place under government, and he now had full leisure to busy himself with his philanthropic investigations. To these he devoted his time; but the police looked upon him as a dangerous character, and, in May, 1823, orders were again issued for his arrest. Forewarned, he escaped by the garden-gate at the very moment that his pursuers knocked at the front door. The cause for which he was persecuted, that of Bonapartism and liberal opinions--the anti-Bourbon cause, in short--made him many friends, and he had no difficulty in concealing himself, although prudence compelled him frequently to change his hiding-place. One of his first retreats was the house of Lafayette, then looked upon as an arch conspirator, and closely watched by the police, but who, nevertheless, afforded a willing shelter to young Appert. A happy week was passed by the latter in the hotel and constant society of the venerable general.

“I had his coachman’s room, and a livery in readiness to put on, in case of an intrusion on the part of the police. I dined with him _tête-a-tête_, and we spent the evenings together; the porter telling all visiters, excepting relatives and intimate friends, that the general was at his country house of La Grange.

“Monsieur de Lafayette’s conversation was most interesting, his language well chosen, his narrative style simple and charming; his character was gay and amiable, his physiognomy respectable and good. His tone, and every thing about him, indicated good humour, kindness, and dignity, and the habit of the best society. He had the exquisitely polished manners of the old regime, blent with those of the highest classes of the present day. His vast information, the numerous anecdotes of his well-filled life, his immense acquaintance with almost all the celebrated persons in the world, his many and curious voyages, the great events in which he had borne a leading part, the historical details that he alone could give on events not yet written down in history, constituted an inexhaustible conversational treasure, and I look upon it as one of the happiest circumstances of my life to have passed a week in the intimacy of that excellent and noble general.”

All, however, that M. Appert thinks proper to record in print of these anecdotes, historical details, &c., consists of a short conversation with M. Lafayette, who predicted the final downfall of the Bourbons, and the advent of a more liberal order of things. In 1828, many besides Lafayette were ready with the same prophecy. M. Appert then asked the general whether, in the event of a revolution, the Duke of Orleans, who appeared sincerely liberal, who encouraged the progress of art and science, sent his sons to the public colleges, cultivated the opposition members, and was generally popular with the advocates of the progress, might not become King of France.

“‘My dear Appert,’ replied the general, ‘what you say is very true, and I myself greatly esteem the Duke of Orleans. I believe him sincere in his patriotism, his children are very interesting, his wife is the best of women. But one can answer for nothing in times of revolution. Nevertheless, the Duke would have many chances in his favour; and for my part, were I consulted, I should certainly vote for him.’

“Seven years after this curious conversation, which I wrote down at the time, General Lafayette still entertained, and expressed at the Hotel de Ville, the same opinion of the Duke of Orleans, now King of the French.”

From Lafayette, M. Appert transferred himself to the Duchess of Montebello, the ex-lady of honour and confidential friend of the Empress Maria Louisa. In her hotel he abode a month, and then went into the country. After a while, the police, who, by not capturing him, had shown great negligence or impotence, discontinued their persecutions, and he was again able to appear in public.

To arrive the sooner at the reign of Louis Philippe, M. Appert does little more than briefly recapitulate the principal events of the last few years of the Restoration, introducing, however, here and there, a remark or anecdote not unworthy of note. Take the following, as a Frenchman’s opinion of the military promenade of 1823, and of its leader, the Duke d’Angoulême.

“The battles were unimportant, our troops showed themselves brave as ever; but, in order to flatter the prince, so much fuss was made about the military feats of this campaign, about the passage of a bridge, for instance, that all sensible men in France and throughout Europe, laughed to hear so much noise for such small conquests. At last the Duke of Angoulême returned to Paris; entertainments were given him, triumphal arches erected, Louis XVIII. and the Count d’Artois told him he was the greatest captain of the age; the old generals of the empire, now become courtiers and flatterers, added the incense of their praise to the royal commendations. The poor prince came to believe that he really was a great warrior. A lie, by dint of repetition, acquires the semblance of a truth, especially when it flatters our self-love, our vanity and pride. Behold, then, Louis Antoine, _Fils de France_, a greater captain than Bayard or Turenne. Napoleon I do not name; of him the Restoration had made _a Corsican marquis, who had had the honour to serve, with some distinction and bravery, in the French army under the orders of the princes, during the reign H.M. Louis XVIII., King of France and Navarre_.

“Before his departure for this famous war, the Duke of Angoulême’s disposition was simple, modest, and good; when he returned he was subject to absence of mind and to fits of passion, and his understanding appeared weakened. Exaggerated praise, like a dizzy height, often turns the head.

“Louis XVIII., long a sufferer from the gout, at last died, and MONSIEUR became king under the title of Charles X. The priests and ultra-royalists rejoiced; they thought their kingdom was come.”

In another place we find a description of the personal appearance of the valiant commander, who, duly dry-nursed and tutored by his major-general, Count Guilleminot, won imperishable laurels in the great fight of the Trocadero. “Short in stature, and red in the face, his look was absent, his gait and shape were ungraceful, his legs short and thin.” M. Appert describes a visit paid by the duke, then dauphin, to his cousins at the Palais Royal. “This visit, a rare favour, lasted about twenty minutes, and when the Duchess of Orleans, according to established etiquette, had replaced the dauphine’s cloak, the duke and duchess conducted their illustrious visiters to the first step of the grand staircase. Here the dauphin had a fit of absence, for, instead of saying adieu, he repeated several times ‘word of honour, word of honour.’ The dauphine took hold of his arm and they returned to their carriage.” This absent man is next shown to us in a very unprincely and unbecoming passion, for which, however, he received a proper wigging from his royal dad. The anecdote is worth extracting.

“The sentries at the gates of the château of St. Cloud had orders to allow no person in plain clothes and carrying a parcel, to enter the private courts and gardens. One of the dauphin’s servants, not in livery, wished to pass through a door kept by the Swiss guards. The sentry would not allow it, and the servant appealed to the subaltern on guard, who was pacing up and down near the gate. ‘You may be one of Monseigneur’s servants,’ the officer politely replied, ‘and that parcel may, as you say, belong to His Royal Highness, but I do not know you, and I must obey orders.’ The lacquey got angry, was insolent, and attempted to force a passage. Thereupon, the officer, a young man of most estimable character, pushed him sharply away, and told him that if he renewed the attempt he should be sent to the guard-house.

“From his window the dauphin saw admission refused to his servant. Without reflection or inquiry, he ran down stairs like a madman, went up to the lieutenant, abused him violently, without listening to his defence, and at last so far forgot himself as to tear off his epaulets, and threaten him with his sword. Then the officer, indignant at seeing himself thus dishonoured in front of his men, when in fact he had done no more than his duty, took two steps backwards, clapped hand on hilt, and exclaimed, ‘Monseigneur, keep your distance!’ Just then, the dauphine, informed of this scene, hurried down, and carried off her husband to his apartments. ‘I entreat you, sir,’ said she to the officer, ‘forget what has passed! You shall hear further from me.’

“The same evening the king was told of this affair, which might have had very serious consequences, for all the officers of the Swiss guards were about to send in their resignations. As ex-colonel-general of the Swiss, Charles X. was too partial to them not to reprimand his son severely for the scandal he had caused. To make the matter up, and give satisfaction to the corps of officers, he desired the dauphine to send for the insulted lieutenant, and, in presence of that princess, who anxiously desired to see her husband’s unpardonable act atoned for and forgotten, the king addressed the young officer with great affability. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘my son has behaved most culpably towards you, and towards me, your former colonel-general. Accept these captain’s epaulets, which I have great pleasure in offering you, and forget the past?’ With much emotion the dauphine added a few gracious words, and the officer, not without reluctance, continued in the royal guard as captain. The dauphin, who was good in the main, did not fail, the next time he saw the new made captain, to offer him his hand in sign of reconciliation, and, by a singular chance, this officer was one of the last Swiss on duty with the royal family when it departed for Cherbourg on its way into exile.”

How striking the picture of regal dignity here presented to us! The heir to the French throne scuffling in his own palace yard with a subaltern of foreign mercenaries, and rescued by his wife from possible chastisement at the hands of his opponent. The king compelled to apologize for his son’s misconduct, and almost to crave the acceptance of a captain’s commission as plaster for the wounded honour of the Swiss guardsman. There is an unmistakeable Bourbon character about the story. And truly, both in great things and small, what a pitiful race of kings were those older Bourbons! Fit only to govern some petty German state of a few dozen square miles, where they might revel in etiquette, surround themselves with priests and flatterers, and play by turns the tyrant and the fool. High time was it that a more vigorous branch should oust them from the throne of a Francis, a Henry, and a Napoleon. The hour of their downfal was at hand, although they, as ever, were blind to the approaching peril. And little thought the glittering train of gay courtiers and loyal ladies who thronged to Rheims to the coronation of Charles the Tenth, that this ceremony was the last sacrifice offered to the last descendant of St. Louis, and that the corpse of Louis XVIII. would wait in vain, in the regal vault at St. Denis, for that of his successor.[2]

In 1826, M. Appert was elected member of the Royal Society of Prisons, of which the Dauphin was president, and about the same time he became a frequent visiter at the Palais Royal. The Duke of Orleans took much notice of him, and begged him to pay particular attention to the schools and prisons upon his extensive domains. Madame Adelaide (Mademoiselle d’Orleans, as she was then styled) desired his assistance for the establishment of a school near her castle of Randan; and the Duchess of Orleans craved his advice in the distribution of her charities. He passed some time at Randan, where the whole Orleans family were assembled, and he describes their rational, cheerful, and simple manner of life. It was that of opulent and well-educated country gentlemen, hospitable, charitable, and intellectual. Kingly cares had not yet wrinkled the brow of Louis Philippe; neither had sorrow, anxiety, and alarm furrowed the cheeks of the virtuous Marie Amélie. “At that time, both Mademoiselle and Monseigneur were gay and cheerful. Since royalty has replaced that life of princely retirement, I have never seen them enjoy such calm and tranquil days; I might say, never such happy ones.” From Randan, M. Appert started on a tour to the south of France, and to visit the galleys. When he returned to Paris, he undertook to assist the Duchess of Orleans and Mademoiselle in their charities; and from that time he saw them every two or three days, sometimes oftener. At last came the July Revolution. The Orleans family were at Neuilly, and whilst the result of the fight between king and people was still uncertain, the duke, apprehensive of violence from the royalist party, shut himself up in a little pavilion in the park. There his wife and sister secretly visited him, and took him the news as it arrived from Paris. From his retreat, he plainly heard the din of battle raging in the streets of the capital. On the 28th of July, a cannon-ball, fired from Courbevoye, fell near the palace, and at a short distance from the duchess and her sister-in-law. There could be little doubt of the intention of the shot. This circumstance made Mademoiselle think, that in their fury the royalists might attack Neuilly, and carry off the family. Accordingly, the duke, accompanied only by his faithful adherent Oudard, left his retreat, and crossed the country on foot to Raincy, another of his seats, situated near Bondy. This was on the 29th July; the duke was dressed very simply, and wore a gray hat with a tri-colored cockade. As soon as the cannon shot was fired from Courbevoye, Mademoiselle said to the duchess, “My dear, we cannot stand by those people any longer; they massacre the mob, and fire at us; we must take a decided part.” Hastening to her wardrobe, she tore up several silk dresses, white, blue, and red, made them into cockades, and distributed them to the household. From that moment, it is evident, that if the royalists had had the upper hand, the house of Orleans was ruined.

On their way to Raincy, the duke and Oudard fell in with a peasant, digging his field as if nothing extraordinary was occurring. They asked him the news. “_Ma foi, Monsieur_,” replied the man, “they say that the people are thrashing the royal guard, that those stupid Bourbons have run, and that liberty will once more triumph.”

“And the Duke of Orleans?” was the next question. “What do they say of him?”

“No doubt he is with his cousins, since he has not shown himself at his Palais Royal. He’s no better than the rest; a fine talker, and nothing else.”

Not overpleased at the peasant’s reply, the duke asked no more questions, but continued his pedestrian journey. Forty-eight hours afterwards, however, he was at the Palais Royal, with the men of July for his body-guard; and ten days later he was King of the French. How far he owed his elevation to intrigues and manœuvres of his own--how far he had aimed at the crown which thus suddenly settled upon his brows--are questions that have been much discussed, but never satisfactorily elucidated. M. Appert’s opinion is worth recording. To us it appears a temperate and rational one.

“I consider it proved that the Duke of Orleans did not, as many believe, work for the overthrow of his cousins. As a shrewd and clever man, he could not forget the chances given to his family by the retrograde policy of the Bourbons; he remembered that he had five sons, brought up in the public colleges, partaking the intelligence and opinions of the rising generation, and therefore secure of public sympathy; he bore in mind also, that the Duke of Bordeaux, who alone stood above his sons, in the sense of legitimacy, but far below them in the opinion of the masses, was still very young, and liable to the diseases of childhood. All these were so many motives for him to court that popularity which the Tuileries each day lost. He did not omit to do so. He showed himself cordial and affable with the popular members of the Chambers, adopted and sustained the system of mutual instruction, which was protected by the liberal section of the nation, in opposition to the priests, and founded schools on that plan on his estates. A generous patron of artists and men of letters, for political refugees, Poles, Greeks, and Italians, he was ever ready to subscribe. In short, without conspiring, the Duke of Orleans did as much to advance the royal destiny of his family as the elder branch, by a completely contrary line of conduct, did to compromise theirs.”

If these were the sole arts and conjurations used by Louis Philippe to compass his ends, certainly no crown was ever more fairly come by than his. And verily so uneasy a station, so thorny a seat as that of King of the French, was scarce worth more active efforts; it would have been dearly bought by a sacrifice of honour and principle. The life of Louis Philippe, is one of incessant toil and anxiety; his leisure is less, his work harder, than that of his meanest subject. Late to bed, he rises early, rarely sleeping more than four hours; after a careful, but rapid toilet, his day’s labour begins. He seldom breakfasts with his family; it would take too much time; but has his frugal repast brought on a tray to the room where he happens to be. When he was Duke of Orleans, he read all the letters and petitions addressed to him, writing upon each an opinion or an order for the guidance of his secretaries. This practice he was of course obliged to discontinue when he became king. At the commencement of his reign, the number of letters and applications of various kinds, sent to the different members of the royal family, amounted to the astonishing number of a thousand or twelve hundred a-day. Although, upon an average, not above fifty of these possessed the least interest, or deserved an answer, the mere reading and classing of such a chaos of correspondence gave employment to several secretaries. After a while, the flood of petitions abated, but M. Appert estimates them, in ordinary times, at six to eight hundred daily. Of the letters, only the important ones are laid before the King, who answers many of them himself. He examines the reports, projects, and nominations brought to him by his ministers, and, at least twice or thrice a-week, presides at the council-board. Private audiences occupy much of his time; his conferences with architects, with the intendants of the civil list and of his private estates, are of frequent occurrence. The galleries of Versailles, and the improvements at Fontainebleau--all made after his plans, and in great measure under his personal superintendence--court-balls and dinners, diplomatic audiences, correspondence with foreign courts, journeys of various kinds, visits to the castle of Eu and to military camps--such are a portion of the innumerable claims upon the time of the King of the French. But, by a clear-headed, active, and earnest man, endowed with the faculty of order, which Louis Philippe possesses in a very high degree, much is to be got through in a day of twenty hours; and, after doing all that has been enumerated, and many other things of less importance, the king still finds time to devote to his family, for the necessary healthful exercise, and for the perusal of the principal newspapers and publications, both English and foreign. “Each morning, either before or after breakfast, _all_ the newspapers, political pamphlets, even caricatures, were laid upon the table, and the king and the princes were the first to read aloud the articles published against them. They examined the caricatures, and passed them to the bystanders, saying, ‘What do you think of this?’”

The taunt of parsimony has ever been prominent amongst the weapons of offence employed against the July monarchy by the French opposition press. The avarice of the Civil List, the candle-end economies of the Château, the _maigre chère_ of M. de Montalivet, have been harped upon till they have become bywords in the mouths of the mob, always eager to detect the petty failings of their superiors. They have been a fertile subject of pun, sneer, and witticism for those pasquinading periodicals which care little for truth or justice so long as they can tickle the popular palate, and keep up their circulation; a perfect treasure for such loose and ephemeral prints as the _Charivari_ and the _Corsaire_, the _Figaro_ and the _Tintamarre_. Even graver journals, the dull and fanatical organs of the Legitimatists, have, in a graver tone, made scornful reference to degrading and unkingly avarice, whilst that witty monomaniac, the editor of the “_Mode_,” has launched the keen shafts of his unsparing ridicule against the _mesquinerie_ of the usurping princes. It is easy to get up and sustain such a cry as this, against which it would be beneath the dignity of the persons assailed, and of their newspaper organs, to contend; and, when supported by a rattling fire of squib and jeer, daily printed for the reading of a people who, of all others, are most apt to prefer their jest to their friend, it is any thing but surprising that a fabrication should acquire credit, a falsehood be accepted as truth. We believe there is no ground for accusing the Orleans family of avarice. True, they do not, in imitation of some of their predecessors, indulge in a reckless prodigality, and squander enormous sums upon profligate courtiers and lewd women. They better understand the proper distribution of their great wealth. They do not gamble, or maintain _petites maisons_, or establish a _Parc-aux-cerfs_, or commit any other of the disgraceful extravagancies for which so many Bourbons have made themselves conspicuous. In this respect they have improved upon the traditions even of their own house. Louis Philippe must be admitted to be a great improvement, both as a private and public man, upon his dissolute and disreputable forefathers, even by those bitter and malicious foes who convert his habits of order and proper economy into a grave offence. We learn from M. Appert to what extent he sins in these particulars. To preserve his health, which is excellent, he lives very simply. At dinner, he rarely eats any thing but soup and a solid slice of roast beef; but the twenty-five or thirty persons who daily surround his board are subjected to no such frugal diet. The royal table is perfectly well served; the wines, especially, are old and delicious, and the king takes as much care of his guests as if he were a private gentleman giving a dinner. The intendant of the household submits each day’s bill of fare for the queen’s approval. Such, at least, was the custom in the time of M. Appert, whose personal experience of the court, as far as we can judge from his Memoirs,--for he is sparing of dates,--extends up to the year 1837.

“The king takes particular care of his clothes; and I once saw him in a very bad humour because he had torn his coat against a door. The papers in his private study, the books in his library, are arranged with great order, and he does not like to have their places changed in his absence. Whilst conversing, his majesty amuses himself by making envelopes for letters, and often makes those for the large despatches serve twice, by turning them. He has the habit of wasting nothing, not even a thing of small value, that can again be made available. He loves neither play nor field-sports: of an evening, in his domestic circle, he sometimes amuses himself with a game at billiards, but seldom for long together; for it is very rare that he can get more than an hour to himself, uninterrupted by the arrival of important despatches, by the visits of ministers or foreign ambassadors.”

We discern nothing very reprehensible in the harmless little peculiarities here enumerated. It may be stingy and unkingly to dislike being robbed, and in that case Louis Philippe is to blame, for we are told that he keeps a watchful eye over the expenses of his household. On the other hand, he is generous to prodigality in the repairs and embellishments of his palaces and domains; thus giving employment to many, and preparing for posterity monuments of his magnificence and of his princely encouragement of the artists and men of genius of his day. He has no abstract love of gold, no partiality for gloating over money-bags: his expenses, on the contrary, often exceed his income, and entail debts upon his civil list and private fortune. He has an open hand for his friends, a charitable heart for the poor. Party feeling should not blind us to private virtue. Even those who least admire the public conduct of Louis Philippe, who dislike his system of government, and blame his tortuous foreign policy, may, whilst censuring the conduct of the king, admit and admire the good qualities of the individual.

“I remember,” says M. Appert, when speaking of the subordinate officers of the royal household, “that one of these gentlemen, having amassed, a great deal too rapidly, a certain competency, asked the king’s permission to leave his service, and return to his own province, where an _aunt_, he said, had left him a pretty income. ‘I have not the least objection,’ replied his majesty; ‘I only hope that I have not been your _uncle_!’” And with this good-humoured remark, the heir, whether of dead aunt or living uncle, was allowed to retire upon his new-found fortune. Another anecdote, highly characteristic of him of whom it is told, may here be introduced. The burial-place of the house of Orleans is at Dreux. From an exaggerated feeling of regard or friendship, or whatever it may be called, the dowager-duchess, mother of the king, inserted in her will an earnest wish, indeed an injunction, that her intendant, M. de Folleville, should be buried in the outer vault, which precedes that of the Orleans family, and that a slab with his name and quality should close his grave. The king duly complied with his mother’s wish, but caused the inscribed side of the slab to be placed inwards, thus fulfilling the desire of the duchess without exposing her to the ill-natured comments of future generations.

M. Appert takes us even into the royal bed-chamber. He does so with all proper discretion, and we will venture to follow him thither.

“The king and queen always occupy the same bed, which is almost as broad as it is long, but whose two halves are very differently composed. On one side is a plain horse-hair mattress, on the other an excellent feather-bed. The latter is for the queen. The princes and princesses are accustomed, like the king, to sleep on a single mattress. There is always a light in their majesties’ apartment, _and two pistols are placed upon a table near the king_.”

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown!” In this instance, however, the pistol practice is the result probably of an old habit rather than of any apprehension of a night attack upon the Tuileries. We have passed the days when kings were stabbed in their beds or poisoned in their cups; and the attempts of the Fieschis and Lecomtes do not appear to prey upon the robust health or dwell upon the imagination of their intended victim. With Marie Amélie it is very different. The anxieties and sorrows she has experienced since 1830 have been terrible; and doubtless she has wished many times that her husband had never exchanged his retirement at Neuilly, his circle of friends at the Palais Royal, for his present exalted but difficult and dangerous station. “Ah! M. Appert,” she more than once exclaimed, “he who invented the proverb, ‘Happy as a king,’ had certainly never worn a crown!” When we contemplate the careworn and suffering, but benevolent and interesting countenance of the virtuous Queen of the French, and call to mind all her trials during the last fifteen years, the constant attempts on the king’s life, the death of the Princess Mary and of the much-loved Duke of Orleans, and the perils incurred by her other sons in Africa, how can we doubt the sincerity of this exclamation? In unaffected piety, and in charity that blushes to be seen, this excellent princess finds consolation. M. Appert becomes enthusiastic when he speaks of her unassuming virtues, to which, however, his testimony was scarcely needed. None, we believe, not even her husband’s greatest enemies, have ever ventured to deny them.

“The queen disposes of five hundred thousand francs a-year for all her personal expenses; and certainly she gives more than four hundred thousand in charity of all kinds. ‘M. Appert,’ she would sometimes say to me, ‘give those five hundred francs, we spoke of, but put them down upon next month’s list, _for the waters are low, my purse is empty_.’” Imposture, ingratitude, even the insolent form of the petitions addressed to her, fail to discourage her in her benevolent mission. “Madam,” an old Bonapartist lady one day wrote to her, “if the Bourbons had not returned to France--for the misfortune of the nation--my beloved mistress and protectress, the Empress Maria Louisa, would still be upon the throne, and I should not be under the humiliating necessity of telling you that I am without bread, and that the wretched mattress upon which I sleep is about to be thrown out of the garret I inhabit, because my year’s rent is unpaid! I dare not ask you for assistance, for my heart is with my real sovereign, and I cannot promise you my gratitude. If, however, you think proper to preserve a life which, since the misfortunes of my country, has been so full of bitterness, I will accept a loan: I should blush to receive a gift. I am, madam, your servant, Ch----r.”

Here was a pretty letter to set before a queen; a mode of imploring alms that might well have disgusted the most charitable. But what was Maria Amélie’s reply to the precious epistle. She was accustomed to open all the petitions addressed to her--and numerous indeed they were--with her own hand, and to write upon many of them instructions for M. Appert. When the impertinent missive of the Bonapartist reached that gentleman, the following lines had been added to it:--“She must be very unhappy for she is very unjust. A hundred francs to be sent to her immediately; and I beg M. Appert to make inquiries concerning this lady’s circumstances.” M. Appert, indignant at the tone of the letter, ventured to remonstrate; but the queen insisted, and even tripled her intended donation, in case it should be required by her singular petitioner, whom her almoner accordingly proceeded to visit. “I knocked at a worm-eaten door, on the fifth floor of a house in the Rue St. André des Arts, and a lady dressed in black (it was her only gown,) opened it.

“‘Sir,’ said she, much agitated, ‘are you the commissary of police come to arrest me for my shameful letter to the queen? You must forgive me: I am so unhappy that at times I become deranged. I am sorry to have written as I did to a princess whom all the poor call good and charitable.’

“‘Be not alarmed, madam,’ I replied, taking her petition from my pocket. ‘Read her majesty’s orders; they will enable you to judge of her better than any thing I could tell you.’

“Madame C. read the affecting words added by the queen; then, bursting into tears, she pressed the paper to her lips. ‘Sir,’ she exclaimed, ‘give me nothing, but leave me this holy relic. I will die of hunger with it upon my heart.’

“Madame C. proving in all respects worthy of the queen’s generosity, I left her the three hundred francs, but had much difficulty in prevailing on her to give up the petition, which I still preserve with respect and veneration. This trait of the Queen of the French is only one of ten thousand.”

Madame Adelaide d’Orleans vies in charity with her sister-in-law; and, although she has no separate establishment at Paris, but lives always with the king, her generosity and the expenses of frequent journeys, and of a certain retinue which she is compelled to maintain, have sometimes caused her temporary embarrassments. “Thus is it,” she one day said to M. Appert, with reference to a loan she had contracted, “that royalty enriches us. People ask what the king does with his money, and to satisfy them, it would be necessary to publish the names of honourable friends of liberty, who, in consequence of misfortunes, have solicited and obtained from him sums of twenty, thirty, forty, and even of three hundred thousand francs. They forget all the extraordinary expenses my brother has had to meet, all the demands he has to comply with. Out of his revenues he has finished the Palais Royal, improved the appanages of the house of Orleans, and yet, sooner or later, all that property will revert to the State. When we returned to France, our inheritance was so encumbered, that my brother was advised to decline administering to the estate; but to that neither he nor I would consent. For all these things, people make no allowance. Truly, M. Appert, we know not how to act to inspire the confidence which our opinions and our consciences tell us we fully deserve.”

This was spoken on the 23d January, 1832, and written down the same evening, by M. Appert. Madame Adelaide had then been too short a time a king’s sister, to have become acquainted with the bitters as well as the sweets of that elevated position,--to have experienced the thorns that lurk amongst the roses of a crown. Doubtless she has since learned, that calumny, misrepresentation, and unmerited censure, are inevitable penalties of royalty, their endurance forming part of the moral tax pitilessly levied upon the great ones of the earth.

So liberal an almsgiver as the Queen of the French, and one whose extreme kindness of heart is so universally known, is of course peculiarly liable to imposition; and the principal duty of M. Appert was to investigate the merits of the claimants on the royal bounty, and to prevent it, as far as possible, from passing into unworthy hands. For this office his acquaintance with the prisons and galleys, with the habits, tricks, and vices of the poor, peculiarly fitted him. He discovered innumerable deceits, whose authors had hoped, by their assistance, to extract an undeserved dole from the coffers of the queen. Literary men, assuming that designation on the strength of an obscure pamphlet or obscene volume, and who, when charity was refused them, often demanded a bribe to exclude a venomous attack on the royal family from the columns of some scurrilous journal; sham refugees from all countries; old officers, whose campaigns had never taken them out of Paris, and whose red ribbon, given to them by _l’Autre_, on the field of Wagram or Marengo, was put into their button-hole on entering the house, and hastily taken out on leaving it, lest the police should inquire what right they had to its wear: such were a few of the many classes of imposters detected by M. Appert. One insatiable lady sent, regularly every day, two or three petitions to various members of the royal family, considering them as so many lottery tickets, sure, sooner or later, to bring a prize. She frankly confessed to M. Appert the principle she went upon. “Petitions,” she said, “like advertisements in the newspapers, end by yielding a profit to those who patiently reiterate them. Persons who constantly see my name, and hear that I have eighteen children, come at last to pity and relieve my distress, which is real.” This woman was, as she said, in real difficulties, but nevertheless it was impossible to comply with all her demands. When, by M. Appert’s advice, the queen and Madame Adelaide refused to do so, this pertinacious petitioner got up a melodramatic effect, borrowed from the Porte St Martin, or some other Boulevard theatre. She wrote a letter, announcing that if she did not receive immediate assistance she had made every preparation to suffocate herself with charcoal that same evening. “Then this good queen would send for me, and say, ‘Mon Dieu! M. Appert, Madame R. is going to kill herself. It is a great crime, and we must prevent it. Be so good as to send her forty francs.’ And to prevent my raising objections to this too great goodness, her majesty would add immediately, ‘I know what you are about to say: that she deceives me, and will not kill herself; but if it did happen, God would not forgive us. It is better to be deceived than to risk such a misfortune.’”