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ALL the great artists, musicians, actors, and literary people who had returned to Paris after the Terror came to the salon of Mme. de Genlis; and many were the strange and terrible stories they had to tell of their escapes and adventures.
Talma had, in the kindness of his heart, concealed in his house for a long time two proscribed men. One was a democrat and terrorist, who had denounced him and his wife as Girondins. For after the fall of Robespierre the revolutionary government, forced by the people to leave off arresting women and children, let the royalists alone and turned their fury against each other. Besides this democrat who was hidden in the garret, he had a royalist concealed in the cellar. They did not know of each other’s presence, and Talma had them to supper on alternate nights after the house was shut up. At last, as the [467] terrorist seemed quite softened and touched and polite, Talma and his wife thought they would venture to have them together. At first all went well, then after a time they found out who each other were; and on some discussion arising, their fury broke forth—
“Only a royalist would say that!”
“Only a terrorist could speak so!”
“You speak like a villain!”
“You think like a scoundrel!”
“If ever we get the upper hand!”
“If ever we get our revenge!”
They both sprang up, declaring it was better to die than to stay with such a monster, and left the room.
After this Talma kept them separate; they were in the house several weeks unknown to each other until it was safe for them to be let out. [136]
Even among the revolutionists there was sometimes a strange mixture of good and evil. The Auvergnat deputy Soubrany was proscribed by his friends, and met Fréron in the street, who said—
“What are you doing here? We have just proscribed you!”
“Proscribed me?”
“Yes. Save yourself; come to my house, you can hide safely; they won’t look for you there. Only make haste.”
“I can’t. I must go home.”
“Why? It will be putting your head in the wolf’s mouth.”
“I must go back to my house. An emigré is [468] hidden there. I alone know the secret of his hiding-place; if I do not let him out he will be starved to death.”
He returned in time to save the emigré, but not himself.
Mme. de Genlis was very happy at the Arsenal with Casimir and a little boy named Alfred, whom she had adopted.
Casimir was already seventeen, a great comfort, and very popular. He had been on a visit to London, when, as he returned with Prince Esterhazy, who had a boat of his own, he had a message at Dover from Pamela begging him to go to her. Since the arrest and death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, she had married Mr. Pitcairn, American Consul at Hamburg, but was overwhelmed with debts, and for some reason insisted on coming to Paris. She was hiding from her creditors, and appealed to Casimir, who gave her fifty louis and hid her on board the boat. She had with her her daughter by Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and stayed some time at Paris, in spite of the representations of Mme. de Genlis that she ought to go back to her husband at Hamburg.
For nine years Mme. de Genlis lived at the Arsenal, and then moved to another apartment, but was always surrounded with friends and consideration. Except amongst her immediate relations and adopted children, she was not so deeply loved as Mme. Le Brun, or even the eccentric Mme. de Stael, but her acquaintance and friendship was sought by numbers of persons, French [469] and others, who were attracted by her books, conversation, musical, and other talents.
With the fall of the Empire departed her pension and all assistance from the Government.
She had long renounced and repented of her proceedings of former days, and was now extremely royalist, but the daughter of Marie Antoinette was not likely to receive one who had been, if not implicated, at any rate hand-and-glove with the enemies of her mother.
With the deepest reluctance Louis XVIII. yielded to what he was assured to be an absolute necessity and allowed, as Napoleon had found it necessary to allow, more than one even of the regicides, who had survived and were powerful, to hold office during his reign. Their powerful support was declared to be indispensable to the safety of the monarchy, and the union of parties which he hoped to achieve.
But, except in cases of absolute political necessity and at the entreaty of him, who was now not only her uncle and adopted father, but her king, the Duchesse d’Angoulême would receive no one who had in any way injured her mother. She would have nothing to do with Mme. de Stael, and would not even receive Mme. Campan, because she did not believe she had been always thoroughly loyal to her; though in that many people said she was mistaken. Mme. Campan, in her memoirs, professes the greatest affection and respect for her royal mistress, and during the Empire, she always kept in her room a bust of the Queen.
On the other hand, any one who had been faithful and loyal to her parents, now met with their reward.
There was at Versailles a certain Laboullé, coiffeur to Louis XV., and to Marie Antoinette when the Dauphine. He invented a perfume which he called eau Antoinette, and which was so much in vogue that he opened a perfume shop at Versailles, which was patronised by Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette when they came to the throne. He married, and the Queen was very kind to his wife, whom she used to employ in her various charities; and was devoted to her.
It is satisfactory to know that the brutal, dastardly conduct of the Versailles populace was at any rate punished, in a way they probably had not thought of. The departure of the King and court ruined the place, before so prosperous. The population shrunk to a third of its former numbers.
The Laboullé moved to Paris, and opened a shop at 83, rue de la Roi, afterwards rue Richelieu, which soon became the centre of Royalist plots.
During the captivity of the Queen, Mme. Laboullé was always trying to get to her and very often succeeded; when she always took her some of the perfume. These excellent people saved the lives of numbers of royalists, and how they themselves escaped the guillotine, only Providence can tell. When the surviving members of the royal family returned, the Duchesse d’Angoulême sent for her, expressed her deep gratitude, and always loved and protected her.
The saintly character of the Duchess, however, [471] made her forgive and even help those who repented and suffered, even though they had been the bitterest enemies of her family. [138]
During her exile in England, she was in the habit of visiting and helping the French who were poor or sick, and one day being in a hospital, and seeing a French soldier evidently very ill, she spoke to him with compassion and offered him money, which he refused, with a strange exclamation, apparently of horror.
“Take it, mon ami,” she said, “I am your country-woman, you need not be ashamed to receive a little help from me.”
“I know you are French, Madame,” he muttered with embarrassment.
“You know me, then?”
“Yes, Madame.”
“Well, then, that is all the more reason why you should not refuse what I offer you.”
“On the contrary, Madame——” he stammered.
“Comment! on the contrary? What do you mean? Tell me.”
“I cannot explain,” said the man uneasily.
“I entreat you to tell me; have you anything against me?”
The soldier burst into tears.
“You are suffering,” said the Duchess; “come confide in me, we are both French in a foreign land, and ought to help and comfort each other.” [139]
“Alas! Madame, the sight of you recalls to me a [472] recollection so fearful, that I would give my life to blot it out of my memory. I was one of those who beat the drums in the place de la Révolution on the 27th January.”
The Princess turned pale, trembled, and held out the gold, saying—
“In the name of him who is gone, I bring you this help; he loved all Frenchmen.”
And she turned away, leaving the soldier in tears.
When Madame Royale was at last released from prison, she did not know the fate of her brother and her aunt, Madame Elizabeth. On hearing that they were dead, she declared that she did not wish to live herself; but her heart soon turned to her French relations, and her one wish was to get to them.
Madame Vigée Le Brun
MADAME ROYALE
She was, however, first sent to her mother’s family in Austria, where she was received, of course, with great affection, but kept as much as possible from seeing even the French emigrés, of whom there were so many in Austria. The Austrian plan was to marry her to one of the archdukes, her cousins, and then claim for her the succession to Burgundy, Franche Comté, and Bretagne; to all of which she would, in fact, have had a strong claim if France could have been dismembered; as these provinces all went in the female line, and had thus been united to the kingdom of France.
Of course the plan was visionary, and the provinces had been so long incorporated into France, that even if the allies had consented to the dismemberment, the nation would never have submitted to it.
It would have perhaps been no wonder if, after all she had suffered in France, she had identified herself with her mother’s family, and in another home and country forgotten as far as she could the land which must always have such fearful associations for her. But it was not so. Her father had told her that she was to marry no one but her cousin, the Duc d’Angoulême, who, failing her brother, would succeed to the crown; and had written to the same effect to his brother the Comte de Provence.
The Princess had therefore, as soon as she could get away from Austria, joined her uncles and aunts and married the Duc d’Angoulême, concentrating all her affection upon those remaining members of her family, who received her with the deepest joy and tenderness.
Louis XVIII. says of her—
“Madame Royale united all the virtues of her own sex with the energy of ours. She alone would have been able to reconquer our sceptre if, like her grandmother, Marie Thérèse, she had had the command of an army....”
Of their entry into Paris, he says—
“I was in an open carriage with Madame Royale by my side, [140] MM. de Condé were opposite; my brother and the Duc de Berri rode by us ... the Duc d’Angoulême was still in the south.... I saw nothing but rejoicing and goodwill on all sides; they cried ‘Vive le Roi!’ as if any other cry were impossible.... The more I entreated Madame Royale to control her emotion, for we were approaching the Tuileries, the more difficult [474] it was for her to restrain it. It took all her courage not to faint or burst into tears in the presence of all these witnesses.... I myself was deeply agitated, the deplorable past rising before me.... I remembered leaving this town twenty-three years ago, about the same time of year at which I now returned, a King.... I felt as if I should have fallen when I saw the Tuileries. I kept my eyes away from Madame Royale for fear of calling forth an alarming scene. I trembled lest her firmness should give way at this critical moment. But arming herself with resignation against all that must overwhelm her, she entered almost smiling the palace of bitter recollections. When she could be alone the long repressed feelings overflowed, and it was with sobs and a deluge of tears that she took possession of the inheritance, which in the natural course of events must be her own.
“How thankful I was to find myself alone in the room occupied first by my brother, then by Buonaparte, to which I came back after so long an absence: absolute solitude was a necessity to my mind. I prayed and groaned without interruption, which relieved me; then I resolved irrevocably to act in such a manner as never to expose France or my family to the Revolution which had just ended.... I lay down in the bed of Buonaparte, it had also been that of the martyr king, and at first I could not sleep ... like Richard III. I saw in a vision those I had lost, and in the distance enveloped in a sanguinary cloud I seemed to see menacing phantoms.”
With the King returned those that were left of the Orléans family. The best of the sons of égalité, the Comte de Beaujolais had died in exile, so also had the Duc de Montpensier. The Duchess Dowager, saintly and good as ever, Mademoiselle d’Orléans and the Duc de Chartres remained. Both the latter had made their submission and expressed their repentance to the King, who in accepting the excuses of the Duc de Chartres said—
“Monsieur, you have much to do to repair the crimes of your father. I have doubtless forgotten them, but my family, but France, but Europe will find it difficult not to remember them.... In accepting the name of égalité you left the family of Bourbon, nevertheless I consent to recall you into it.... Duc d’Orléans, it is finished, from to-day alone we will begin to know each other.”
The Duke wished to make his excuses to Madame Royale, but she said it would be long before she could bear to see him. [142]
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