Chapter XI: Part V: Continued

PRINCE LOUIS NAPOLEON

By Anna Erwin Woods

In after years the Emperor Napoleon III often said to great personages who visited Paris during his reign: “Go to the _Conciergerie_; it is very interesting.”

Notwithstanding the sadness which filled his heart, the future sovereign of France retained his faith in his star. Madame Récamier, the friend who, at nightfall, in the Coliseum at Rome, had given words of sympathy to his mother, came to visit the captive. He had also the consolation of receiving a kind message from his father, King Louis.

At the Conciergerie, September 6th, 1840.

_My Dear Father_: I have not yet written you because I was
afraid of causing you distress. But to-day, when I learn what
interest you have manifested in me, I come to thank you and to
ask your blessing as the only thing which now has any value for
me. My sweetest consolation in misfortune is to hope that your
thoughts sometimes incline toward me....

King Louis had always disapproved of what he considered the vain hopes of his son, and had never spared him censure or remonstrance. On October 7, 1840, the captive was sent from Paris to the fortress of Ham, condemned to be incarcerated there for life. He was carefully guarded; four hundred infantrymen occupied the barracks of the fortress and sixty sentinels, scattered on every side, obeyed strict orders.

In the beginning his captivity was solitary. After a time the government accorded him the precious favor of having three faithful friends beside him. Gen. Count de Montholon came of an old and distinguished family, a hero in the campaign in Italy, at Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Wagram; at the Emperor’s side at Waterloo; accompanying him to St. Helena; and in whose arms he died. He was one of the executors of the Emperor’s will, and the depository of his manuscripts. Devoted to the nephew as he had been to the uncle, before the Court of Peers he spoke these words: “I received the Emperor’s last sigh; I closed his eyes; that is enough to explain my conduct.” He requested and obtained permission to be incarcerated with the prince. His wife accompanied him to the fortress of Ham, as she had done to St. Helena.

Dr. Conneau had been secretary to King Louis. He studied medicine in Florence and intended to establish himself in Paris as a physician, but after going to visit Queen Hortense at Arenensberg, he never left her. These words occur in the Queen’s will: “I give to Dr. Conneau a present of twenty thousand francs and a watch as a souvenir of his devotion in coming to attend me. I greatly desire that my son may retain him.” This last wish was piously observed. During the trial of her son, Dr. Conneau sat on the bench at his side; he had never left him, and asked to share his captivity. Blondel was not more faithful to Richard of the Lion Heart than Dr. Conneau to Louis Napoleon.

Charles Thelin’s prayer to those in authority was not for liberty, but for captivity with a master to whom he was not a valet, but a friend; to that level the prince had raised him.

The prince was simply lodged. He wrote: “I have a good bed, white curtains, a round table and six chairs.” He had also a looking glass measuring thirty-six inches. In after years, in looking into mirrors in palaces, he many times recalled this looking-glass. Upon two wooden shelves were placed his silver toilet articles marked with the imperial arms. After a time he was allowed another room to be used as a study, and in this were placed some of his family souvenirs. Some wooden shelves fastened on the wall held the books and papers allowed for his use; on one of these shelves he inscribed the letter “N,” and said it would bring him good luck. That plank was destined to be the plank of his salvation.

Everything intended for his personal service was daily subjected to the minutest examination. An allowance of seven francs apiece was made for the nourishment of the captives, and their cooking was done by the gate-keeper. The prince was allowed to cultivate a little garden of about a hundred feet on the rampart. “I am occupied a good deal just now gardening,” he writes. “The pleasure I find makes me think that our nature has many resources and consolations unknown to those who are happy.” The inhabitants of the town were always asking for flowers from his garden, and he took great pleasure in sending them.

He gave collations to the school children under an enormous lime tree which has become legendary, and he distributed medals among them, as well as alms among the poor. The curé of the town was the medium of his bounty and became sincerely attached to him. By his gentleness, affability, simplicity and great kindness he made friends even of his jailers; captivating all with whom he came in contact, beginning with the commandant of the fortress. The soldiers were forbidden to speak, stand or salute in his presence; but they contrived means of secretly showing their sympathy. On this account the garrison had often to be changed, and the sentry boxes to be washed to efface inscriptions of “Long live Napoleon!” “Long live the Emperor!”

Prince Louis Napoleon was a magnificent horseman. He was permitted to buy a horse and ride in the courtyard. He amused himself by galloping up the glacis at full speed and stopping suddenly on the summit of the ramparts, on the very edge of the precipice, the boldness of the rider never failing to arouse the admiration of all passers-by. Every detachment of troops passing through the city halted at the foot of the fortress to catch a glimpse of the prisoner. It would have been safer to have kept in captivity forever, on distant seas, this man so impassioned in feeling, so calm and unmoved in expression, so daring in action, so soft and gentle in manner. What wonder that none could understand him nor reconcile the rash temerity of his deeds and the impassive calmness of his attitude. The prisoner of Ham made his prison a place of meditation and study, silently preparing his political future. He wrote a great deal, and from these written words can be comprehended best his character, his ideas, his hopes, his illusions, his sadness and concentrated enthusiasm. These papers written in imprisonment show the most remarkably complex nature; the politician, the conspirator. The man determined to wield tremendous power looks upon his prison as a vestibule to the palace; the poetic, melancholy dreamer breathes forth in every word a sad, sentimental longing for love and happiness.

* * * * *

The great captive lived six years at St. Helena, converting his rock into a monument, of imperishable glory. Memory once more brought kings, as suppliants, into his presence. The mighty conqueror saw again all nations tremble at his approach. The captivity at St. Helena is an epilogue; that at Ham a prologue.

The sad, poetic prisoner, filled with dreams of a wonderful future, sustained by unshaken faith in the star of his destiny, had also passed six years in his dreary prison; so far as men could see, calmly accepting whatever fate might bring. He had said: “I prefer to be a captive on French soil rather than a free man in foreign land.”

* * * * *

In the year 1845 he received a letter which changed his mind and influenced his destiny. It was from his father, for whom he had a profound veneration, and towards whom he had ever been faithful in the discharge of filial duties. King Louis had not been sparing in his blame of the vain hopes which had led his son to the escapades of Strasbourg and Boulogne. With a gloomy memory, replete with bitterness, of all the tempestuous glory of his family, he looked with anger and compassion upon this audacious soul—his son who could throw himself into the stormy ocean of human greatness. A king against his will, an unhappy husband, a loving father deprived by fate of his children, his life had been one of sadness and disappointment.

In August, 1845, he wrote:

My son, you deceive yourself strangely if you believe me
indifferent to your position and your sufferings. Doubtless I
am unable to forget that you placed yourself in this position
out of mere wantonness, but I suffer from your sufferings
because I had hoped for some solace in your happiness, a
happiness which should be independent of all the glories of
life. Moral sufferings have reduced me to the point of being
no longer able to stand upright, or even to rise from my chair
without assistance; and yet I have no one who can assist me. I
cannot even write any more, and you will see from my signature
how I can sign. I have taken some measures for you, but it is
only too probable that they will be useless, like all which
have been attempted hitherto.

The Prince replied:

Fortress of Ham, September 19th, 1845.—My Dear Father: The
first real joy I have felt in five years I experienced in
receiving the friendly letter you were so kind as to write me.
M. Poggioli succeeded in reaching me, and I was, at last, able
to talk with someone who is entirely devoted to us and who
saw you not long ago. How happy I am to know that you always
retain your tenderness for me!... I am of your opinion, my
father, the older I grow, the more I perceive the void around
me, and the more convinced I am that the only happiness in this
world consists in the reciprocal affection of beings created
to love each other. What has touched me, affected me most, is
the desire you manifest to see me again. To me this desire
is a command, and henceforward I will do all in my power in
order to render possible this meeting which I thank you for
desiring. Even the day before yesterday I had determined to
make no effort to leave my prison. For where should I go? What
should I do, alone again in foreign lands, far from my own
people? A grave in one’s native land is better. But to-day a
new hope lights up my horizon, a new aim presents itself to my
endeavors; it is to go and surround you with attentions and
prove to you that if for the last fifteen years many things
have come between our hearts, nothing has been able to uproot
filial piety, the first foundation of all virtues; I have
suffered much. Sufferings have destroyed my illusions and have
dispelled my dreams; but happily they have not weakened the
faculties of the soul, those faculties which permit one to
comprehend and love all that is good.

King Louis’ application for his son’s release having proved fruitless, the Prince resolved to make a personal appeal to the French Government.

SENTIMENT AND STORY

There was once a civilization in the beautiful land of the South more brilliant than any that ever flourished in all the tide of time. About its ruins there clings a pathetic story of vanished dreams made holier and sweeter by lips that are dust and hearts that are stilled forever. There is nothing left of that civilization now but the memory of its departed glory lingering among its tombstones and monuments like the fragrance of roses that are faded and gone. It was an imperial civilization, ruled from a throne of living ebony; but like great Caesar, it fell at last, with a hundred gaping wounds, and its bleeding corpse dissolved into ashes long ago on the funeral pile of war. I would not recall those bloody wounds nor wake the hatreds of Civil War, but rather let me lift the curtain and give you a glimpse of the glory and the grave of that civilization.

I lift the curtain and see the old South enthroned amid the luxuries of peace and plenty. Heaven never smiled upon a happier people nor upon a land more beautiful; the eagles never soared under softer skies. I see the white-columned mansions of the masters rising in groves of maple and live oak, where perfect types of Caucasian beauty are wooed and won by men as brave and courtly as ever shivered lances in the romantic days when knighthood was in flower. I see the snowy cotton fields stretching away to the horizon, alive with toiling slaves who, without a single care upon their hearts, sing as they toil from early morn till close of day; and when their task is done I hear them laughing and shouting at the negro quarters in the gathering shadows of the evening. I see them swinging corners in the old Virginia reel to the music of the banjo and the fiddle and the bow, until the dust rises above them and swings corners with the moonbeams in the air. I see the old black mammies soothing their masters’ children to sleep with their lullabies. I see the whole black race rejoicing in their transplantation from darkest Africa and gladly serving the white race who led them into the light of civilization and the Christian religion, leaving not an infidel among all those millions of slaves.

I lift the curtain and look again. I hear the tocsin of war. Unfaltering courage and high-born chivalry with shimmering epaulets of gold and bright swords gleaming proudly rode to glory and the grave; bayonets glittered under the silken folds of the Stars and Bars, the shrill fife screamed and the kettle drum timed the heavy tramp of the shining battalions as the infantry deployed into line; and thunder-tongued batteries unlimbered on the bristling edge of battle; a sea of white plumes nodded to the music of Dixie and ten thousand sabres flashed as the cavalry hovered on the flanks and rear awaiting the bugle signal for the charge. Then came the blinding flash and the awful thunder peals where angry columns in frenzied fury met and the hills were strewn with the dead and dying, and the very furrows of the fields ran blood. They were fighting for their homes and the civilization of their fathers as forward with the fierce and daring rebel yell the intrepid armies of Lee and Jackson rushed into a hundred carnivals of death.

Once more I lift the curtain and see their decimated and half-starved columns, ragged and bare-footed, exhausted and encompassed by overwhelming numbers, reel backward in defeat and anguish at Appomattox; the harp of Dixie is hung on a willow tree and the flag of its hope and glory goes down in a flood of tears. Despair swept the harp strings of Father Ryan’s heart, and the South’s poet priest poured out his soul in song:

“Furl that banner, for ’tis weary,
’Round its staff ’tis drooping dreary,
Furl it, fold it, it is best;
For there’s not a man to wave it,
And there’s not a sword to save it,
And there’s not one left to lave it
In the blood which heroes gave it,
And its foes now scorn to brave it.
Furl it, hide it, let it rest.”

I lift the curtain and look again. I see the clouds roll away. The laughter of other days is hushed; the mansions lie in charred and blackened ruins, and there is nothing left but mourning and requiems above a land of desolation and of new-made graves. I see the triumphant armies of the Union, with flags flying and bands playing the martial airs of victory, marching in pomp and splendor through the grand avenues of their cities, amid the plaudits of rejoicing millions, leaving the weak and helpless race they had emancipated as a charge upon their ruined and impoverished masters. I see the remnants of the Confederate armies giving shelter and food and raiment to this helpless race and furnishing them with land and plows and mules, and building school houses and taxing themselves to promote the education of the negro children at their doors. I see the sturdy veterans at work in every department of life, and new cities and towns rising in the track of war, and the devastated South blossoming like the rose.

Now a vision of the future opens before me. I see the land of Washington and Jefferson, of Jackson and Polk, of Hill and Gordon again the richest land in all the world, not only in material wealth, but in the wealth of brain and courage and manhood, and in the Cabinet and the Congress, wielding again the destinies of the republic. I see generation after generation weaving garlands of the lily and the rose and hanging them about the monuments of those who wore the gray. I see the North and the South clasping hands in eternal friendship and brotherhood, and Old Glory waving above a united people for a thousand years to come.

The knightly spirit of the cavalier, that led their comrades to the opening grave, inspired the heroes who still survived, to face the dark and lowering future as bravely as they had faced the foe in the dreadful past; and buttoning on their tattered jackets of gray, their paroles of honor, they turned their tanned and tear-stained faces Southward and straggled back to Dixie to rebuild their ruined homes and raise the domes and spires of a new civilization in the air above the ashes of the old. Upon their faithful souls there is no stain of treason; upon their noble brows they wore no bloody wreath of conquest, but only the crown of honor. When impartial history shall be written by the truthful and the just, the names of these men who knelt at the shrine of the Old South and laid their hopes, their fortunes and their lives on its sacred altar, shall shine with the names of the world’s greatest heroes, and generations yet to be shall scatter flowers above their hallowed dust, as sweet tokens of their undying love and their devotion to the precious memories that cling about the folded Stars and Bars.

To the jaded politician who has grown weary of fishing for votes and angling for suckers, there is surcease of sorrow in the brawling brooks of the mountains, where the genuine speckled trout plays hide and seek with the sunshine in the shoals, or sleeps in the darkening eddies, under the fragrant bloom of the overhanging honeysuckles. To the overworked public servant upon whose head the snows that never melt have too soon fallen, these bright, leaping, laughing, dashing, buoyant mountain rivers are the symbols of youth and the synonyms of happiness. On their grassy brinks he may sit and listen to the singing of his reel and the swish of his line, and watch the game black bass as he leaps up out of the middle of the stream, with the hook in his mouth, and flashes in the sunlight, and then darts back to make the reel sing and the line swish again. Or, if he wishes a diversity of sport and pleasure, I will lend him one of my shotguns and a pair of my leggings, and we will leave the trout and bass in the brook and brimming river and follow my brace of beautiful Llewellyn bird dogs, “Fiddle” and “Bow,” into the fields, and serenade the vanishing coveys with chilled shot and smokeless powder. In such a life, in such a land there is no snow upon the heart; ’tis always summer there.

We are the product of the labor and sacrifice of age—labor and sacrifice which unknowingly worked out its own destiny in shaping ours. In our turn we toil to-day that future generations may have such heritage as we will to bequeath to them. Shall we permeate their lives with the dreariness of drudgery, the weariness of eternal struggle, the unworthiness of our fellow men and the hopelessness of reward? Or shall we live each day in joyousness of spirit, in happy accomplishment of duty, in serene confidence in the worth of mankind, believing that “God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world,” attracting to ourselves the happiness and sunshine we radiate?

Which is the better legacy to our posterity?

Common folks cannot understand so-called high-class music, nor the figures of these newfangled dances, and, therefore, they are in a condition which is beautifully illustrated by a tale I used to hear before politics snatched me baldheaded. At an old-time country dance, the fiddlers rosined their bows and took their places on the platform. The floor manager rose and imperiously shouted: “Get your partners for a cotillion! All you ladies and gentlemen who wear shoes and stockings will take your places in the center of the room; all you ladies and gentlemen who wear shoes and no stockings will take your places immediately behind them; and you barefooted crowd must jig it around in the corners.”

THE PARADISE OF FOOLS