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 MADAME TALLIEN (PRINCESSE DE CH1MAY
 
 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN 
 
 France 
 
 UN- 
 
 MRS. CHALLICE, 
 
 Author <iK " Memories of French Palaces," &c, &c 
 
 1790 
 
 1 87 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 SCRIBNER, WliLFORD, & CO. 
 1873. 
 
 I lit,- Ki^ht ></ Trmis/ii/iiv « ><•.* vv,</. ]
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 u What has been is : 
 What is, has been. " 
 
 jfe* N history it is often remarkable how 
 circles and cycles of time reproduce old 
 
 events under new forms ; in genealogy 
 it is still more indisputable that various types 
 of the human race repeat themselves ; say, in 
 four generations, sometimes more and some- 
 times less, after having lain dormant during the 
 intermediate time. 
 
 The late well-known Dr. Knox, of physiolo- 
 gical celebrity, gives various instances of this 
 last-named fact in his popular work on the Races 
 of Man ; and almost every family, possessing a 
 portrait-gallery of its own ancestry, can attest 
 the truth, that there is nothing new under the 
 sun ; that, for example, the picture of some 
 brilliant brunette, smiling down upon you, re-
 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 sembles not her own flaxen-haired mother, but 
 either her great-grandmother, or some still more 
 distant ancestress, who, thanks to immortal art, 
 irradiates the place long since assigned to her 
 by some Vandyck, or Peter Lely* of her day, 
 from which place she looks down as though 
 amused at the modern beholder's astonishment 
 that such grace and beauty as hers can never 
 die. 
 
 Likewise, do moral and physical diseases re- 
 produce themselves ; so that when humanity at 
 large is warned by the Decalogue that the sins 
 of the father shall be visited upon future gene- 
 rations, it is not, as some have presumed, an 
 unjust decree against the yet unborn, but a mer- 
 ciful warning of appeal to parental love — one of 
 the least generally selfish instincts of humanity ; 
 — for, since the days of Adam and Eve, the 
 origin of death and this life's hereditary suffer- 
 ing- — is it not sin ? 
 
 Students of peerages, or any authentic family 
 history comprising four, or more than forty 
 generations, cannot fail to be struck by this
 
 PREFACE. v 
 
 system of resuscitation, which Nature reveals in 
 the highest, as in the lowest, of earth's creatures. 
 In personages of royal or historic race, it is 
 easy to trace the origin of a virtue or a vice, 
 of qualities noble or ignoble, of beauty or 
 deformity, simply because the chronicles of 
 such race have been carefully preserved. 
 Amongst families of lower rank, scattered by 
 misfortune, or any other circumstance, the clue 
 to one's own identity is often lost, so that it may 
 not only be " a wise child who knows his own 
 father," but, though of undoubted faith as to 
 his own immediate parentage, there is such a 
 want of genealogical trees, of maps, to guide 
 him along the stream of his own life, back 
 through the mists of time, to the real source or 
 sources of such life, that the only lesson to be 
 learnt from the vain attempt to explore its 
 origin is that of mercy to his own brethren at 
 home, who, though born of the same parents as 
 himself, resemble neither him nor either of 
 them, morally or physically, some other type 
 having been caught up by the way through the
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 unknown past. In such a case imagination may 
 supply a large margin for facts ; but it is an un- 
 doubted privilege for all human beings, desirous 
 of knowing themselves, to count their charac- 
 teristics by centuries. 
 
 Henri V., by hereditary right king of France, 
 can do this. Known only to the present (1873) 
 world at large as the Comte de Chambord, he 
 is the one surviving representative of nearly a 
 thousand years of French royalty — dating by the 
 threefold annals of French legitimists — and it is 
 remarkable how in some things he resembles 
 not only his great-uncle Louis XVI., who, as 
 the " son of Saint Louis/' was exhorted on the 
 scaffold by the Abbe Edgeworth to "ascend to 
 heaven," but also how his character recalls that 
 of his pious ancestress, Marie Lecskinska, of 
 whom it was said by her contemporary, Madame 
 de Pompadour, "the Queen is indeed enviable, 
 for she lays down the burthen of all her trou- 
 bles at the foot of the cross." Still more does 
 he resemble his great grand-parents, who, in the 
 midst of the corrupt court of Louis XV., were
 
 PREFACE. vif 
 
 noted for their devotion to the decrees of the 
 church. Son of the popular Duke and brilliant 
 Duchess de Berri, the Comte de Chambord is 
 like unto neither of them. This may be attri- 
 butable to the fact of his earlier life having been 
 spent under the guidance of his aunt, the saintly 
 Duchess of Angouleme ; but neither did she 
 resemble her naturally vivacious mother, Queen 
 Marie Antoinette, except in courage, which 
 quality was so signally, though unavailingly, 
 displayed at Bordeaux by the Duchess of 
 Angouleme when striving (by her own presence 
 and that of the Drapeau Blanc) to incite the 
 nominally royal troops there to arrest the pro- 
 gress through France of Napoleon, after his 
 escape from Elba, that the great Conqueror, 
 just named, declared this princess to be " the 
 only man of her family/' 
 
 Indeed, it is observable that ever since the 
 days of Clothilde, first Christian queen-consort 
 of France, in answer to whose prayers the Fleur 
 de lys is traditionally declared to have been 
 accorded to that country by a heavenly mes-
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 senger, French princes have generally deve- 
 loped qualities inherited from the female rather 
 than the male line. It is even so in this our 
 own day amongst princes of the house of Or- 
 leans, who (since the revolution of 1848 dis- 
 played the undaunted courage of the widowed 
 and ordinarily meek Helene, Duchess of Or- 
 leans, ere exiling her and them from France), 
 have variously manifested the noble qualities of 
 Queen Marie Amelie (mother of the elder, 
 grandmother of the younger of them), she again 
 having (like her kinswoman, the Duchess of 
 Angouleme) inherited the heroic characteristics 
 of her grandmother, Maria Theresa, Empress 
 of Austria, surnamed " King of Hungary." 
 From the same source, likewise, did the 
 Duchess de Berri derive her heroism, various 
 proofs of which are given in the following 
 pages. 
 
 In the Imperial family of France, it is not less 
 remarkable that the type of statuesque beauty 
 distinguishing many of its members, famed both 
 for valour and intellect, is inherited from Laetitia
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 Bonaparte, the " Madame Mere" of Napoleon I., 
 his brothers and sisters. 
 
 Any guest at the Palais Royal, until recent 
 events drove forth Imperialism from France, 
 can remember how, in the person of Prince 
 Napoleon, the host of that historic and hos- 
 pitable abode, the memory of " Madame Mere' 
 is revived ; and here it may be said that in Italy 
 and the South of Europe, whence came the Na- 
 poleonic race, nature seems to delight in repro- 
 ducing the same type more frequently than in 
 northern climes, and amongst people of a more 
 mixed race. 
 
 In the person and character of Caroline 
 Bonaparte, sister of the first Emperor of the 
 French, the attributes generally assigned to 
 noble Roman matrons, ere Rome's decline and 
 fall, are discoverable. On the other hand, the 
 fair Queen Hortense, mother of Napoleon III. 
 in no way personally resembles her creole mo- 
 ther, the Empress Josephine ; and yet it was in 
 the name and by an eloquent tribute to the 
 memory of that Empress, so dear to the heart of
 
 x PREFACE. 
 
 France, so loving and beloved, yet unfortunate, 
 that Napoleon III. first announced his approach- 
 ing marriage to the now widowed Empress 
 Eugenie. 
 
 Emperors and kings propose, but God dis- 
 poses. Napoleon I. might well have spared 
 himself the agony of divorce from Josephine, on 
 account of her presenting him with no son to 
 perpetuate his dynasty, when it was destined 
 that in the person of her grandson (son of Hor- 
 tense, her daughter by a former marriage) the 
 Empire would be revived. Indeed, the best 
 claim of Napoleon III. to the sympathies of 
 France lay in his descent, not from the first 
 Emperor, but from " the good Empress," as 
 Josephine is still called in the land where the 
 courtesy and urbanity of manner displayed by 
 her grandson, were known to be inherited 
 from her.* 
 
 * Of this courtesy the present writer has grateful cause to speak, for 
 it was originally extended to her by the Emperor Napoleon III. when, 
 some few years since, her first work on French Affairs (" Secret 
 History of the Court of France under Louis XV.") was published. 
 And here it may be remarked that as the work just named was mainly
 
 PREFACE. xi 
 
 Concerning Madame Tallien, the republican 
 heroine now presented to English readers, it 
 need only here be said that she was typical of 
 her time. 
 
 At no other period save that of rapid dynastic 
 changes, resulting from the chaos of a blood- 
 red revolution, could the strange drama of such 
 a life as hers have been enacted. 
 
 But in the case of each and all the illustrious 
 women of France who occupy this present 
 volume, it will be seen how — despite the old 
 Salic law, which precludes female succession in 
 its own right to the throne of France — woman 
 has ever been dominant in that country, let the 
 banner waving over its palaces and its armies 
 have been what it may. 
 
 Whence this supreme influence of Woman 
 
 favourable to France under Monarchy, the Imperial recognition of it 
 was the more signally generous. 
 
 That the Empress Eugenie, when yet at the Tuileries, participated in 
 her august Consort's encouragement of English literature on French 
 subjects, the present writer has also, with many thanks, reason to 
 affirm ; for it was from her Majesty's genial acceptance of an opuscule 
 entitled " Trianon and Malmaison," that' " Memories of French 
 Palaces " eventuated.
 
 xii PREFACE. 
 
 over France ? Certainly it was not derived 
 from any Act of Parliament, but from the in- 
 vincible force of love — the mighty love out of 
 which springs heroism ; the love, whether of 
 wives, or mothers, or daughters ; the noble and 
 self-sacrificing, love of woman 
 
 A. E. C. 
 
 Uiter Wimpole Street, 
 May, 1873.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MADAME TALLIEN i 
 
 EMPRESS JOSEPHINE, QUEEN HORTENSE, AND 
 
 CAROLINE BONAPARTE 49 
 
 DUCHESSE D'ANGOULEME AND DUCHESSE DE 
 
 BERRI 119 
 
 QUEEN MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESSE 
 
 D'ORLEANS . . . ' 213 
 
 EMPRESS EUGENIE AND PRINCESS 
 
 MATHILDE 323
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MADAME TALLIEN Frontispiece 
 
 EMPRESS JOSEPHINE to face 51 
 
 QUEEN HORTENSE to face 79 
 
 S. A. R. MADAME DUCHESSE DE BERRI . to face 121 
 
 QUEEN MARIE AMELIE to face 215 
 
 S. A. R. DUCHESSE D'ORLEANS . . to face 267 
 
 THE EMPRESS EUGENIE ? 2 i
 
 MADAME TALLIEN, 
 
 THE VENUS OF THE CAPITOL 
 
 AND 
 
 EGERIA OF THE MOUNTAIN, ETC.
 
 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN 
 OF FRANCE. 
 
 MADAME TALLIEN. 
 
 T was in the Parisian studio of Madame 
 le Brun, not long before the outburst 
 of " the great " French Revolution, that 
 a portrait was one day exhibited of a 
 young lady, who, though not long 
 since arrived in Paris from Spain, was 
 already married to a French nobleman 
 of the ancien regime. 
 
 The maiden name of this lady was 
 Terezia Cabarrus; she was the daughter 
 of a rich Spanish banker, whose extensive and varied 
 speculations — always more or less successful — had 
 caused him to be regarded both in France and Spain 
 as the successor of the notorious John Law, of 
 Mississippi paper-money fame. She was the wife of
 
 4 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 the elegant, though somewhat aged, Marquis de 
 Fontenay, the cut of whose lace ruffles, the shape of 
 whose newest of a hundred or more fantastic snuff- 
 boxes, the colour of whose favourite horses, the repu- 
 tation of whose latest bon mot, and the splendour of 
 whose recent fetes given at his chateau near Versailles 
 in honour of his marriage, were each and all of them 
 favourite themes of conversation amongst the then 
 " gilded youth " of Paris. 
 
 But far beyond the enthusiasm aroused by any of 
 these things appertaining to the Marquis de Fontenay 
 was that inspired in the hearts of his most aristocratic 
 countrymen by the beauty, the grace, the intelligence 
 of the young wife he had recently espoused and pre- 
 sented to the then still fastidious society of his class 
 in France. 
 
 In her the voluptuous grace of a Spanish woman 
 was united with the brilliant vivacity of a French 
 woman ; she had been educated with her brothers in 
 Spain, and this with such effect that she was clever 
 enough to conceal the amount of her learning. She 
 had been entrusted by her still young father to the 
 care and diaperonage of a distinguished French lady, 
 and from her house and hands she had passed into 
 those of the Marquis de Fontenay, whose eyes were 
 charmed with the sight of her beauty, and whose wit
 
 MADAME TALLIEN. 
 
 was fascinated by the esprit which, in her every word 
 and action, unconsciously revealed itself. 
 
 The chief charm of the young Marquise was that of 
 extraordinary mobility of character ; she was every- 
 thing by turns, but nothing long ; her outward form 
 and features were expressive of the rapid evolutions 
 of an ardent soul ; she danced like a sylph — Spanish 
 dances, castanets in hand ; she walked like a queen, 
 conscious of the majesty of womanhood ; she rode 
 like Diana, but looking forth from under her plumed 
 hat with a pair of provoking eyes scarcely consistent 
 with some other attributes of that goddess en Ama- 
 zone ; she played on various instruments in a way to 
 madden all the Gluckistes and Piccinistcs of her time, 
 for Nature rather than either of those rival great 
 masters had been her teacher ; and she loved — well, 
 how did she love ? The few following pages may in 
 some sort answer this question ; albeit, volume 
 would not suffice to do so fully. 
 
 She, Ter^zia, Marquise de Fontenay nee Cabarrus, 
 believed that she loved her husband just at that time 
 when, as herebefore said, she was having her portrait 
 painted by Madame le Brun, that gifted perpetuator 
 for posterity of queens of the right and queens of the 
 left hand. 
 
 But Madame le Brun, a charming figure herself in
 
 6 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 the midst of her own studio — a loving woman, who 
 had been disappointed by her marriage with a cold- 
 hearted spendthrift who, without appreciating her 
 genius, had appropriated to himself the pecuniary- 
 results of it, was puzzled ; for every time she glanced 
 at the Marquise de Fontenay, sitting there before her, 
 the countenance and character of that fair model 
 seemed to change, from grave to gay, from smiles to 
 tears, from plaintiveness to merry mockery. What 
 was Madame le Brun to do ? Many brave and still 
 more brilliant Frenchmen were admitted to her atelier 
 that day, and it was by her wish that they all, more 
 or less, conversed with Madame de Fontenay, so as 
 to keep her countenance — statuesque in repose, like 
 her flexible form when at rest — in full play ; and it 
 was just this that dazzled the portrait-painter, for 
 every time that she looked up from her canvas to the 
 individual she was endeavouring to portray upon it, 
 that individual had, Proteus like, changed. Yes ; the 
 artist had requested her most distinguished " conver- 
 sationalist " countrymen to " draw out " the Spanish- 
 born Madame de Fontenay, and this request had been 
 so rapturously complied with by them, that neither 
 they, nor she, nor the Marquise herself had calculated 
 on its consequences. Hence, all sorts of different 
 opinions concerning the portrait itself began to find
 
 MADAME TALLIEN. 
 
 utterance in the atelier of the gifted but much per- 
 plexed Madame le Brun. One amateur critic, looking 
 over her right shoulder, first at the picture and then 
 at the original, declared concerning the former that the 
 eyes were too large ; another, that they were too small; 
 a third, over poor Madame le Brun's left shoulder, 
 protested that the mouth on canvas was too smiling ; 
 a fourth, eagerly peering forward to catch a glimpse 
 of the picture, asserted that it was too sad. These, 
 growing angry in their critical disputes, but moving 
 off, and eventually taking snuff together in their 
 fingers sparkling with rings but none the less 
 capable of wielding the sword (indeed, too capable, 
 considering the then frequency of duels), a fifth and 
 a sixth took their places by the easel, and quickly 
 discovered a form of difference in the rendering of 
 Madame de Fontenay's exquisite little nose, which 
 combined the dignity of the aquiline with the saucy 
 and retrousse" characteristic of that feature. The 
 colour of Madame de Fontenay's eyes, whether black, 
 blue, or grey (according, perhaps, as she turned to 
 or from the light, or as a sad or merry thought alter- 
 nately animated or shaded them) ; the exact hue of 
 the dark hair, concealing yet revealing her noble 
 brow and classic head ; the successive animation 
 and languor of her various gestures, each one, for the
 
 8 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 moment, more graceful than the other ; even the pro- 
 portions of her figure, so full yet slender, so majestic 
 yet youthful, so tall yet so mignonne, that even its very 
 neight seemed either to increase or decrease according 
 to the emotions of the mind which unconsciously 
 dictated every attitude : — each point in that portrait 
 of Madame de Fontenay was one of argument to 
 those who beheld it, and no unanimity of opinion was 
 possible amongst those who gazed on it that day in 
 the atelier of Madame le Brun ; none, save as to the 
 beauty, the something more than beauty — the name- 
 less charm, the fascination of its original, who was still 
 seated in full view of these amateur and amatory critics. 
 
 Amongst them was a certain Count de Rivarol, a 
 would-be author, for at that time, and indeed since 
 the time of " le Roy Voltaire," men of fashion in 
 France were ambitious of becoming men of letters. 
 M. de Rivarol had written a political pamphlet, which 
 was still in the printer's hands ; but, however eager 
 he had been for its publication — eager as noble but 
 not yet distinguished authors are wont to be, — he had 
 that day forgotten it in his charmed contemplation of 
 Madame de Fontenay, of her infinite variety, and of 
 the canvas which refused to give but one and not a 
 thousand Mesdames de Fontenay. 
 
 But an intelligent young printer named Tallien,
 
 MADAME TALLIEN. 
 
 not having yet seen this lady so far above him in rank, 
 had not forgotten his duty to the pamphlet of which 
 the writer was, for the moment, oblivious ; and failing 
 to find him at home when he called upon him with 
 the " proof," or first copy of it, but being told by one 
 of his " liveried lackeys," and especially by his favorite 
 housekeeper, where he was, hastened after him to the 
 studio of Madame le Brun. The Count, thus suddenly 
 reminded of his literary bantling (which, in general, 
 is more difficult for an amateur author to forget than 
 for a " sucking child" — the first one — to be forgotten 
 by its mother), requested Madame le Brun's permis- 
 sion to invite the young printer into her atelier. 
 Consent "was granted, and in a moment afterwards 
 Tallien stood in the midst of that distinguished com- 
 pany, and, for the first time, in presence of the 
 Marquise de Fontenay. 
 
 M. de Rivarol, or Madame le Brun, or perhaps 
 both, already knew something of the young printer's 
 capacity as an [art-critic — thanks to the good old 
 French custom of each critic signing his published 
 criticism with his name, and Tallien was therefore 
 requested to give his opinion of the [Marquise de 
 Fontenay 's portrait, just at the moment when such 
 opinion was wanted. He looked at the portrait and 
 then at the living subject of it, seated there in full
 
 io ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 view of him ; she looked at him, and saw a remark- 
 ably handsome and apparently intelligent man, with 
 all the fire of youth, and genius, and courage beaming 
 in his fine countenance — a young man below her in 
 station, as proved by the mission on which he came, 
 but equal, to say the least, in elegance of manner to 
 any one of the many noble and distinguished men 
 who stood around him, eagerly awaiting his opinion 
 of her own portrait. At last Tallien spoke. 
 
 " Madame," said he, addressing himself to Madame 
 le Brun, but still furtively glancing at the Marquise 
 de Fontenay, " Madame, I just now heard the utter- 
 ance of an opinion amongst some of the illustrious 
 critics near me" (bowing to them) "that you had made 
 the eyes of this portrait too small and the mouth too 
 large ; but it seems to me that if you lower the upper 
 eyelid just a little, and if you open, almost impercep- 
 tibly, the corner of the lip, you will define — as nearly, 
 perhaps, as art can define inimitable nature — some- 
 thing of the charm and the character of this counten- 
 ance, the outline of which is so firm, but in which 
 expression plays the chief part. The sun is best seen 
 through the branches of a tree ; and therefore it 
 also seems to me that those eyes will be none the less 
 brilliant because seen through their long eyelashes. 
 This mouth will be none the less handsome, and all
 
 MADAME T ALLIEN. ir 
 
 the more eloquent of wit and intellect, if the corner 
 of it be turned and united to the cheek. Concerning 
 minor details," he hastily continued, " you could not 
 have done better than shade this radiant countenance 
 with the hat you have placed upon the head above it, 
 for by this article of costume you produce an effect 
 similar to those never to be forgotten in the portraits 
 by Velasquez." 
 
 At the name of this great artist, her countryman, 
 Madame de Fontenay spoke for the first time to 
 Tallien. "You know Velasquez?" asked she. Tallien 
 bowed in reply, and then retreated to the back- 
 ground, where the Comte de Rivarol was reading his 
 proofs. 
 
 Whilst Tallien stands there with seeming humility, 
 awaiting the Count's literary directions, but secretly 
 gazing from afar on the Marquise de Fontenay, on 
 whom not one word of his criticism regarding her 
 portrait had been lost, it may here be asked who 
 were his parents — what his origin ? 
 
 The story of his early life, though a doubtful one, 
 is soon told. He was, so some said, the son of a noble- 
 man's porter; but by others it was declared that he was 
 the son of this nobleman himself, by the porter's wife. 
 
 In any case, a good provision for his education was 
 made. The porter grew tired of the presence in his
 
 12 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 home of a studious, or, as he considered, a lazy 
 youth, and the youth himself felt that, for some 
 reason best or worst known, perhaps, by his mother, 
 he by no means — despite his beauty and intelligence — 
 was a subject of concord under his parental roof. 
 Wherefore he was glad at last to find that means 
 were somehow provided for the continuance of his 
 education in Paris, and thither he came from his 
 provincial home, it having been mysteriously indicated 
 to him that, at a given time, he must pursue one of 
 the learned professions — embrace one of " the three 
 black-robed graces," in fact — for a livelihood. 
 
 At first the gaieties of the capital distracted him 
 from his studies, but presently recovering from the 
 vertigo into which these had plunged him, he even- 
 tually, as here already told, became a printer's 
 assistant, then a compositor for the press, and, about 
 this same time, an art critic. 
 
 He was singularly handsome, easy and graceful in 
 manner, and of ambitious intellect. He watched the 
 signs of his times with keen intelligence, and soon 
 became remarkable for the boldness of his political 
 opinions, although by no means affecting the ex- 
 aggeration of either speech, or manner, or costume 
 which then gradually displayed itself amongst young 
 men of his class — that citizen class to which he did
 
 MADAME T ALU EN. 13 
 
 not seem in any way to belong, save by the revolu- 
 tionary doctrines which were rife in it. 
 
 From the moment he beheld T6r£zia Cabarrus, 
 Marquise de Fontenay, far removed from him in 
 station though she was, and seemingly separated from 
 him by insuperable obstacles, his life was at her ser- 
 vice, for an unacknowledged love for her had taken 
 possession of him — a love of which she could have no 
 suspicion at first, even though she soon again met him 
 at the house of the politically celebrated brothers 
 Lameth. The signs of the coming Revolution re- 
 vealed themselves ; the first bloodjwas shed, — that best 
 blood which was soon to deluge France ; and in the 
 year 1792 Tallien, already a conspicuous advocate of 
 revolutionary measures, his zeal for which had kindled 
 almost at the same time as his secret passion for the 
 wife of an aristocrat, was appointed Secretary-General 
 of the Commune. He was sent out on several 
 political missions, and by one of these was trans- 
 planted from Paris to Bordeaux in 1793. The Mar- 
 quis de Fontenay, like most other French nobles 
 determined to escape from the guillotine, had already 
 fled from France, and found a refuge in Spain, the 
 native land of his wife. Thither, though not by 
 this time too happy in her marriage, she was 
 travelling in order to rejoin him, when at Bor
 
 14 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 deaux she was arrested as an aristocrate, and cast 
 into prison. 
 
 The offence alleged against her was that she had 
 paid money to the captain of an English ship in order 
 to expedite the departure of several French emigrants, 
 the list and names of whom were concealed in her 
 bosom. A mob surrounded her, the brutal leader of 
 this mob had endeavoured to thrust his coarse hand 
 within her dress in order to secure this list ; proudly 
 Madame de Fontenay defended herself, and, fearing 
 for the safety of those whom she had generously 
 assisted, tore the paper with her teeth, and scattered 
 it to the winds. 
 
 Tallien, acting then at Bordeaux as pro-consul, was 
 called forth into the principal square of that city 
 there to calm the riot ; and, gazing with astonish- 
 ment at the accused, he again beheld Madame de 
 Fontenay. " Stay," he shouted to the crowd, in the 
 revolutionary language of the time, "stay, I know 
 this woman. If guilty, she belongs to justice ; you 
 are too magnanimous to strike an unarmed enemy, 
 and especially when this enemy is a woman." The 
 fury of the sans-culottes and bonnet rouge mob was 
 stayed ; though not even Tallien himself could pre- 
 vent her being conveyed to prison. But, on the other 
 hand, nothing could prevent his visiting her in that
 
 MADAME T ALLIEN. 15 
 
 prison, for even his official duties facilitated his so 
 doing ; and, therefore, it came to pass that one day 
 when she was wondering as to the fate awaiting her ; 
 when rats, crawling forth from dark corners, threatened 
 to gnaw her feet (those feet which might in their 
 beauty have served as models for a modern Phidias) ; 
 when, crouched on the damp ground, she was thinking 
 not only of the possible guillotine awaiting her, but of 
 her past life, which had bitterly, despite its fugitive 
 splendour, deceived her, — for her husband had 
 gradually become known to her as a libertine and a 
 gambler, — the door of her dungeon suddenly creaked 
 on its hinges, and Tallien, in all the plenitude and 
 strength of his manly beauty and political power, but 
 followed by a gaoler, stood before her. Who can say 
 with what thrill at his heart he again identified her ! 
 But it was not there that her final examination as a 
 supposed offender against the French Republic could 
 take place. Was this apparition of Tallien only a 
 dream on the part of Terezia de Fontenay, ncc 
 Cabarrus ? 
 
 No ; this " terrible Tallien, this Tallien pro-consul, 
 who was then reigning imperiously at Bordeaux," was 
 he who, in presence of his " fellow citizens," must 
 examine her as to the guilt or innocence of the 
 political offence attributed to her.
 
 1 6 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 Pale, with her large dark eyes distended by suffer- 
 ing, and her black hair flowing like a mantle on her 
 shoulders, she stood in his presence. 
 
 " Citizen," asked Tallien of her, in the jargon of the 
 time, "why are you at Bordeaux ?" 
 
 " Because," answered she, " everybody is imprisoned 
 in Paris, — everybody, even revolutionists ; and I," she 
 added, raising her proud and beautiful face, " yes, I, 
 too, am a revolutionist." Afterwards she added, " It 
 is strange, but here, as in Paris, true Republicans are 
 chained and captive." 
 
 " Citizen," asked he, " do you know of what you are 
 accused ?" 
 
 " Of everything," she answered, sarcastically ; 
 " most likely of everything because I am guilty of 
 nothing." 
 
 " It is affirmed," he replied, gravely, " that you 
 were about to emigrate from France with the Marquis 
 — that is the ci-devant Marquis de Fontenay." 
 
 " If to rejoin my father in Spain, accompanied by 
 my husband, be to emigrate," she replied, " I certainly 
 ivas about to do so." 
 
 " You will have to appear before our tribunal," he 
 observed. 
 
 "Merciful Heaven!" she exclaimed, first raising 
 her hand, and then letting it fall lightly on Tallien's
 
 MADAME T ALLIEN. 17 
 
 right arm. "Appear before a tribunal, when this 
 hand of mine has done nothing politically, except to 
 prepare and cut lint for the wounded of the 10th of 
 August" 
 
 Tallien trembled at her touch. 
 
 "Do you recognise me?" she asked of Tallien, 
 and so as not to be heard by the gaoler or " turnkey " 
 present. "Do you recognise me," pointing to her 
 prison-dress, "in this disguise ?" 
 
 Tallien bowed ; it was not there that he could tell 
 her of the passionate love with which she had inspired 
 him since that first moment when he beheld her in 
 the studio of Madame le Brun. He ordered the turn- 
 key to summon his secretary, who had accompanied 
 him to the prison, but who had not entered the cell of 
 Terdzia with him. 
 
 " I am not a tyrant," said Tallien to her, when thus 
 at last alone with her ; " but were Robespierre to 
 know that I had betrayed my mission for the sake of 
 a beautiful woman, his vengeance would know no 
 bounds." 
 
 The woman standing before Tallien was something 
 more than beautiful, for she was faithful and courageous 
 in answering. 
 
 " I desire my liberty ; but even more than that I 
 implore at your hands ; for being uncertain at this
 
 1 8 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 instant whether my husband escaped with his freedom 
 to Spain, I desire his liberty : I should regard it as a 
 greater boon than my own." 
 
 Tallien regarded her with admiration ; then, in a 
 voice soft with emotion, he said, " I was told that you 
 had divorced him." 
 
 " Perhaps such was my intention," she answered, 
 " but at this moment of misfortune I have felt so much 
 his wife. If he be guilty politically, then I will share 
 his fate by pleading guilty also. And yet, to prove 
 my patriotism, I here declare that if you give me a 
 robe of serge I will work in hospitals as a sister of 
 charity and nurse to the Republican sick and 
 wounded." 
 
 Whilst thus speaking, she had sunk on her knees 
 before Tallien. 
 
 He raised her, and then for the first time pressed 
 her to his heart. 
 
 " My own head is at stake in playing this game," 
 said he, as soon as he could speak, " but liberty is 
 yours, — nay, all that you ask." 
 
 The turnkey who had been sent for Tallien's 
 secretary, but does not seem to have found him, re- 
 turned at this moment, and that same day he wrote to 
 Robespierre, " The Republic is betrayed : aristocrats 
 are in favour with Citizen Tallien."
 
 MADAME TALLIEN. 19 
 
 TeV^zia Cabarrus, liberated on the day following, 
 despite the tribunal where her cause was already 
 gained, ere she appeared before it, quickly became, as 
 Tallien expressed it, "the Egeria of the party then 
 called the Montagne, as Madame Roland * had of the 
 
 * The name of Madame Roland is so well known to general readers 
 that it is scarcely necessary here to remind them that she, the daughter 
 of a clever but dissipated engraver, early displayed extraordinary talents. 
 Her chief taste was for classical literature, and, doubtless, whilst making 
 herself intimately acquainted with it, she imbibed an admiration for the 
 ancient republics of Greece and Rome. Her motherless life was soli- 
 tary ; in education she was so superior to her station in society that it 
 seems to have formed another element of her dawning antagonism to 
 existing facts, especially when, on a youthful visit in the neighbourhood 
 of Versailles, she found herself far removed in class and custom and 
 costume from the Court life, of which she caught a glimpse, and which 
 formed a strange contrast to the ruined home of her spendthrift father. 
 When she was between twenty and thirty years of age she married 
 Roland de la Platiere, commonly called M. Roland, a staid, by no 
 means young, man for whom she had a great respect. He was in- 
 spector of manufactories at Lyons ; had travelled, studied much, and 
 written a little, but in a way to manifest his power of appreciation. 
 By this marriage survived one child, a daughter, but her ultimate fate 
 is doubtful. At the time of the Revolution Madame Roland became 
 vividly interested, the more so — it is said by some — because, though 
 untainted in reputation, she had conceived, or rather reciprocated, a 
 passion (probably, a first love) for one of the Girondins, to which political 
 party her husband belonged, and of which she soon became the centre. 
 In 1792 she had to give evidence before the bar of the National Con- 
 vention, where her extraordinary eloquence, her expressive countenance, 
 illumined by splendid dark eyes and shaded by black hair, attracted 
 much admiration. Unaccustomed to society as she had been before 
 the Revolution, her house in Paris (after her husband had, for a brief 
 space, occupied the post of Cabinet Minister to Louis XVI.) became 
 the rendezvous of the chiefs of his party. In her entertainments the 
 
 c 2
 
 20 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 Gironde." There was no longer any question of the 
 Marquis de Fontenay's liberty, as long as he did 
 not return to France, and henceforth all the mercy 
 still to be found in that distracted country seemed to 
 concentrate itself at Bordeaux. 
 
 Tallien was constantly in the society of Terezia, 
 and in proportion as her influence increased over him, 
 the guillotine became inactive and prison doors were 
 opened. 
 
 The Marquise de Fontenay, availing herself of the 
 then new law of France, was divorced from her 
 husband, whose liberty she thus doubly secured ; but 
 desirous of conferring all things possible on Tallien — 
 her second husband and first love — she wrote to the 
 Marquis for restitution of her diamonds which he had 
 carried off to Spain with him. 
 
 tastes displayed by her were more Athenian than Spartan, — the result, 
 possibly, of stem classical study and poetic love combined. When the 
 downfall of the Girondins took place (May, 1793) sne was > as they 
 were, imprisoned, and it was then that she wrote great part of her 
 " Memoires." When conveyed to the scaffold she displayed dauntless 
 fortitude, and turning from her executioners towards a statue of Liberty 
 near, exclaimed, ironically, "Oh, Liberty ! what crimes are committed 
 in thy name ! " Her husband was at Rouen when the news of her 
 death reached him, and, sitting down beneath a tree as though to 
 reflect what to him the world would be without her, he stabbed himself 
 to the heart. After death the attitude and appearance of this " philo- 
 sopher" were so calm that various passers-by believed him to be merely 
 asleep, until attention was roused by a paper, which he had attached to 
 his coat, telling who he was, and why he had committed suicide.
 
 MADAME TALLIEN. 21 
 
 " Madame," was the old reprobate courtier's answer, 
 — " madame, as my wife you have forfeited all right to 
 them ; but I will restore them to you when you are 
 my mistress." 
 
 If in her heart there had lingered any regret for the 
 step she had taken, this insulting answer cured her 
 of it ; and henceforth she and Tallien appeared in 
 public at Bordeaux. 
 
 But Robespierre was watchful ; he waited his time, 
 and Tallien was recalled to Paris. Here a terrible 
 experience awaited Terezia, who, at Bordeaux, had 
 endeavoured to stop the Reign of Terror whilst yet 
 it was raging in the heart, the capital, of France. 
 
 In love with the Republic from a classical point of 
 view, and regarded as a modern Aspasia (not only 
 because of her devotion to Tallien, the Pericles of the 
 Republic, but on account of her fervid eloquence in 
 pleading justice and mercy, her exquisite taste and 
 urbanity of manner manifested in the various recep- 
 tions she held, her Grecian costume, which revealed 
 rather than concealed the perfection of her form), she 
 shuddered at the thought of blood still flowing from 
 the guillotine in Paris, at the contact of brutal sans- 
 culottes, at the sight and sound of unsexed women, of 
 infuriated poissardcs, awaiting her there. 
 
 With and for Tallien, however, she was willing to
 
 22 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 bear and share any fate ; but this was not to be, for 
 before she could appear by his side in Paris, and whilst 
 yet the Convention was thrilling with her brave and 
 beautiful words, spoken through him, in favour of 
 charity, she was arrested as the " Citizen Cabarrus 
 Fontenay " and conveyed to the prison of La Force, 
 where she was thrown into a dungeon. It was at 
 Versailles she was arrested : Tallien was detained by 
 duty in Paris. The next day a friend met him in the 
 Champs Elysees there, so wretched and dejected, so 
 full of terror as to the fate of the woman adored by 
 him, that his friend said, " Courage, Tallien, it is not 
 possible that the Citizen Cabarrus will have to appear 
 before the Revolutionary tribunal to-day. Who can 
 tell what the morrow may bring forth ?" 
 
 Nothing could be more horrible than the prison in 
 which Terezia now found herself, to judge from the 
 accounts of the few, who, once incarcerated there, 
 survived to tell the tale of their sufferings. Damp 
 and dripping walls and floor of brick or mud ; gaolers 
 more devils than men ; bloodhounds, sometimes more 
 merciful than these wretches, to aid them ; iron- 
 barred windows, likely to let in wind, hail, and rain 
 through broken panes ; scanty food unfit for human 
 use ; and (that which struck the ci-devant Marquise 
 de Fontenay with most horror) a torn and hard
 
 MADAME TALLIEN. 23 
 
 mattress, over which spiders were wont to crawl, 
 whilst hungry rats, of which Ter^zia had already had 
 terrible experience, could be heard scratching for a 
 hole in the wall by which they might escape into the 
 prisoner's cell. 
 
 At Bordeaux she had been worshipped as " the 
 Goddess of Pardon : " was there now no mercy for 
 her ? Above all, had Tallien, to whom — although 
 gradually more and more in open assembly opposed 
 to Robespierre — great political power was still as- 
 cribed, had he, formerly a solicitor's clerk, then 
 corrector and contributor of the Moniteur newspaper, 
 then secretary for the Commune, then fierce Repub- 
 lican, even to opposing a grant of legal counsel to 
 Louis XVI., then pro-consul at Bordeaux, and now, 
 with a voice still strong and eloquent to speak at the 
 Jacobin Club and elsewhere in presence of Robes- 
 pierre, — had Tallien, who, because of his adoration for 
 herself, had disarmed the military tribunals, and had 
 caused the guillotine to languish for want of blood at 
 Bordeaux, — had he forgotten or forsaken her ? 
 
 Sickened, perhaps, more by the thought of this 
 possibility than by the physical misery she was 
 forced to undergo, her health so evidently languished 
 that her tyrants, not wishing that death should 
 deprive them of so beautiful and illustrious a victim,
 
 24 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 granted permission for her at evening time to take 
 occasional air and exercise in one of the high-walled 
 courts of her prison. 
 
 The first evening that she availed herself of this 
 favour a stone suddenly fell, from some unknown 
 upper region, at her feet. Unobserved, she picked up 
 the stone, and found that a small shred of paper was 
 bound around it. Eagerly she detached and opened 
 the paper, upon the inner part of which were written 
 some words, which the fast-fading twilight prevented 
 her deciphering. She secured it in her bosom, and 
 was reconducted to her cell. In fever and anxiety 
 she spent that night, for it was impossible to do aught 
 but feel the touch of this mysterious paper in the 
 darkness by which she was encompassed. At last, 
 when the first rays of morning came struggling through 
 her narrow window, she rose and strained her eyes to 
 read the words which, to her, might be those either of 
 life or death. They were more, for they were words 
 of love— the love of Tallien. " I watch over you," 
 said these words, — " I watch and wait. Go into the 
 courtyard as often as you can at nine o'clock in 
 the evening ; I shall be near you." 
 
 Near her ! What an electric flame of life — what a 
 flood of joy in her heart and brain at these words ! 
 Near her ! but how ? It was not until afterwards
 
 MADAME T ALLIEN. 25 
 
 that she knew how Tallien had rented a topmost 
 garret in the neighbourhood stifling around her 
 prison, which garret was a little above, but hardly so, 
 the lofty walls of the yard where she had gained per- 
 mission to take exercise. 
 
 It is impossible to say how Robespierre gained 
 information of this fact, but suddenly Terezia was 
 transferred in one of the common " tumbrils " of the 
 time — a cart generally used for conveying victims to 
 the guillotine — from the prison of La Force to that of 
 the Carmelites, where Josephine de Beauhamais, 
 Madame d'Aiguillon, and other distinguished women, 
 in daily expectation of their death, were incarcerated. 
 But the re-assurance of Tallien's love had given fresh 
 strength to her soul, and she no longer thought of the 
 possibility of self-destruction as she had done since 
 her first arrest, from which time forth she had kept 
 concealed about her — how, it is impossible here to 
 say — a small dagger — a mere toy, so it seemed — 
 which she had originally brought from her native 
 Cadiz, but which, whether used by her as paper-knife 
 or in private theatricals, had been often seen in her 
 hands by Tallien. Her kind heart (for, with all the 
 versatility of her talents and beauty, the benevolent 
 generosity of her character was unchangeable) was 
 agonized not only by her own woes, but by the sight
 
 26 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 of sorrow in others. She was a witness to the suffer- 
 ing of Josephine de Beauharnais, caused by the 
 execution of her husband, the father of her children. 
 Neither of these beautiful and loving women, fellow- 
 prisoners, could then foretell that " the citizen-widow 
 Beauharnais," as she was called, would one day 
 ascend from her dungeon to the throne of imperial 
 France ; but in prison they learned to appreciate each 
 other. 
 
 The heat in Paris at that time was oppressive, the 
 heavy air seemed laden with the fumes of blood 
 which had deluged the earth, when suddenly one 
 morning Tallien entered his study, and there, 
 amongst private and political papers awaiting him, 
 to the exclusion of general visitors, he found the 
 glittering, toy-looking, but mortally dangerous dagger 
 which he had often seen in the hands of his adored 
 Terezia. He made inquiries ; nobody of his house- 
 hold could, or would possibly, tell how it had come 
 there. He looked at and felt it. The touch of it 
 gave him strength, as though by some electric 
 current. What did it mean ? That day he met 
 Robespierre at the Commune. Animosity, on 
 political grounds, had long been growing up between 
 them, and this at last displayed itself even in public 
 debate. Robespierre accused Tallien, in a tone bitter
 
 MADAME TALLIEN. 27 
 
 and ironical, of having lost his strength, like Samson, 
 since he had fallen into the soft hands of a woman. 
 Stung by the insult more to Terezia than himself, 
 Tallien suddenly comprehended the full meaning of 
 the dagger ; — its strength flashed into his mind. He 
 accused Robespierre of making women and children 
 his victims. The sound of the tumbrils, still ever and 
 anon passing on and on in the street without, on their 
 way to the insatiable guillotine, formed a tragic 
 chorus to the few and seemingly incomprehensible 
 words he uttered ; indignation for the wrongs even at 
 that moment endured by the woman he adored, and 
 a horribly sickening fear at the possibility of her too 
 being crushed out of life by the cold-hearted tyrant 
 who was called his colleague, — all these thoughts 
 nearly maddened Tallien to crime. Did the dagger 
 of Terezia, dear to him because something belonging 
 to her, lie heavily on his breast ? Why not plunge it 
 in that of the tyrant ? But, as though by some 
 instinct, Robespierre turned to leave, in company 
 with his admirer and follower, David the painter^ 
 who, when studying the contortions of victims during 
 the previous " massacres of September," had been 
 wont to say, whilst mixing his palette for such life — 
 or death — studies, " Rub in more of the red — much 
 more of the red."
 
 28 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 Tallien watched Robespierre, and gazed at that 
 tyrant's careful and bloodless countenance as he 
 moved away. The time was close at hand, but the 
 hour had not yet struck. Who did Tallien take into 
 his confidence ? It would seem that nobody now can 
 exactly answer this question, for the deed he medi- 
 tated was, if confided to anybody, necessarily 
 regarded as a profound secret by any agent he 
 required in it. At that hot season of Thermidor, 
 when the tears of widows and orphans were flowing, 
 when France was decimated of her best and bravest 
 men, her most lovely women, Tallien (humanized by 
 love, and agonized by anxiety as to the fate which at 
 any moment might overtake the beloved of his soul — 
 the one who had silently but eloquently suggested to 
 him the means of deliverance for France and herself) 
 by his own agony of mind expiated the guilt, attri- 
 buted to him by some, of having urged on the 
 martyrdom of Louis XVI. and the massacres which 
 quickly followed. Robespierre the " Incorruptible," 
 the bloodless-looking tyrant who was steeped in 
 blood, must die. Marat had died by the hand of a 
 woman, and already that woman, Charlotte Corday, 
 was spoken of with reverence by the people who 
 dared to utter her name. Should his hand flinch 
 when armed by a woman whom he believed to be
 
 MADAME TALLIEN. 29 
 
 noble-hearted as was Judith, when, for the salvation 
 of her country, she slew Holofernes ? 
 
 The end is well known. By the 9th Thermidor, a 
 confederacy was formed against Robespierre, although 
 whence, with whom, or how commenced, and to what 
 immediate result tending, it would have at first been 
 impossible to say. Tallien, perhaps, alone knew that 
 its real origin was his own love for a woman, who had 
 not only inspired but armed him. A stormy dis- 
 cussion in open assembly took place between him and 
 Robespierre. The Moniteur newspaper of that time 
 gives an animated account of this, and the (presumed) 
 causes which immediately provoked it. To this news- 
 paper it will here be remembered that Tallien was 
 formerly a contributor. Out of doors, also, there was 
 an epidemic feeling of mingled hope and fear. Paris, 
 long dismayed by the doings of the " Committee of 
 Public Safety," established by Robespierre, felt, rather 
 than knew, that a crisis of some sort was at hand. At 
 length, on the 9th day of July, 1794, the crisis took 
 place ; but here let M. Thiers speak : " The end of 
 that frightful system had arrived. People had such 
 an idea of the resolution of the conspirators, and so 
 astonished to find them sitting almost motionless when 
 they approached the Hotel de Ville, that they were 
 almost afraid of approaching. Had Robespierre been
 
 30 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 a man of decision, had he ventured to show himself 
 and march against the Convention, he would have 
 placed it in a dangerous position ; but he was a man 
 of words, and he perceived, as did all his partisans, 
 that public opinion had forsaken him." 
 
 He went forth from the Assembly, where he had 
 been met with powerful opposition : he knew that his 
 time of power had passed ; and suddenly he attempted 
 to blow out his brains. The ball of the pistol he had 
 placed to his head entered his lip. The National 
 Guard rushed into the room where " the leaders of the 
 revolt " were seated. Robespierre was there — a most 
 horrible spectacle. He was conveyed to the hall of 
 the Committee of Public Safety, in the name of which 
 so many crimes had by him been committed. The 
 next day a vast crowd assembled round the scaffold 
 in the Place de la Revolution. It was the ioth 
 Thermidor, and Robespierre was to be executed. The 
 soldiers pointed at him with their swords, so as to 
 distinguish him in full view of the mob from other 
 victims of his own tyranny. A bandage was round 
 his jaw. A cry escaped him when this was torn 
 away, and immediately afterwards the executioner had 
 done his work. Even into the midst of still densely 
 crowded prisons, as throughout all France, the news 
 of Robespierre's death conveyed a thrill of hope for
 
 MADAME TALLIEN. 31 
 
 the future. It was upon the morning of that eventful 
 day — as in this volume elsewhere told — that the 
 widowed Josephine de Beauharnais, standing at the 
 window of her prison-cell, beheld a woman outside, 
 who attracted her attention by frantic attitudes of joy. 
 At first Madame de Beauharnais (future Empress of 
 the French) thought the woman mad ; but not so when 
 she watched her take up a stone {pierre) and roll it in 
 her dress {robe), and then, with a gesture of joyful 
 deliverance, fling the stone away from her, even by 
 tearing her dress asunder. But it soon became known 
 that to Madame Tallien, henceforth called " Notre 
 Dame de Thermidor," the honours of that day of 
 deliverance were due, and the real " reign of Tallien," 
 as her husband, began the same evening that her 
 marriage with him was openly proclaimed. It is 
 Arsene Houssaye, the enlightened biographer, who 
 well remembers the conversation, so charming to him, 
 of Madame Tallien's daughter (the Marquise du 
 Hallay), that the following description of the first home 
 in Paris of " Notre Dame de Thermidor," after her re- 
 lease from prison, is partly due. In a sheltered 
 nook of Elysium, not far from the Tuileries, stood a 
 building which, because of its thatched roof and other 
 attributes (reminding the beholder of the palace of the 
 " Little Trianon "), had doubtless once been a favourite
 
 32 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 resort of Queen Marie Antoinette. It was near the 
 AlMe des Veuves and the then Cours de la Rcine. Em- 
 bosomed in flowering shrubs, and surrounded by lofty- 
 trees, it was the home of homes for conjugal love, and 
 for re-union after misfortune. But, in Madame 
 Tallien's time, it likewise soon became the most 
 favourite gathering-point for politicians, musicians, 
 poets, and artists ; indeed, for all men and women still 
 left by the revolution to distinguish France by their 
 talents or their beauty. It was here that Sophie 
 Gay (the gifted mother of the " tenth Muse " of 
 France, Madame £mile de Girardin) became ac- 
 quainted with Madame Tallien ; and it seems to have 
 been here that Talleyrand uttered some of his best 
 mots. It is impossible to enumerate Madame Tallien's 
 guests, including Bonaparte, on the eve of the first 
 empire, and his future wife and empress, Madame de 
 Beauharnais ; nor is it possible to describe her happi- 
 ness in this " cottage," as it was called, for the period 
 of her residence in it was probably the most happy of 
 her eventful life. Does it not seem profane to attempt 
 to clothe either joy, or love, or sorrow in words ? Be 
 that as it may, Tallien, the " Lion Amoureux," as 
 M. Arsene Houssaye calls him, was at this time so 
 happy in his home that the first signs of coming events 
 casting their shadows before him and his lovely, gifted
 
 MADAME TALLIEN. 33 
 
 wife lay in his too great adoration of her. Indeed, it 
 now almost seemed that in Robespierre's taunt there 
 had lurked a prophecy when he, the tyrant, declared 
 that .Tallien, reposing at the feet of a modern 
 Delilah, was shorn of his strength. 
 
 Terezia was ambitious for him : the circumstances 
 of the times which had called him forth from the 
 class to which he belonged by birth were exciting 
 to her active and ardent mind. She took an earnest 
 interest in politics, in literature, in art. She became 
 the queen of a republican society ; and there were 
 many who owed their fortunes to her. Amongst 
 them, one Ouvrard. He possessed a magnificent 
 abode in the Rue de Babylone ; and, at a later date, 
 he presented this fairy palace, with its golden key, 
 to Madame Tallien, who delighted in the wonderful 
 gardens by which it was surrounded. The " Cottage " 
 in the Elysian Fields was deserted ; and not long 
 afterwards it would seem that Madame Tallien 
 was deserted by her husband. But there were 
 reasons for this, not at all derogatory to the cha- 
 racter of Madame Tallien ; for Tallien, who had 
 lately assumed, or resumed, more the role of a 
 litterateur than a political man, had travelled to 
 Egypt, there to illustrate some scenes of Napoleonic 
 glory with his pen.
 
 34 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 Madame Tallien could not at that time well leave 
 Paris, where prevalent forgetfulness of the absent 
 would have been a social death for her and her 
 husband. Gradually she had found that their mutual 
 position was becoming a difficult one, for Bonaparte 
 — though at a later date himself divorced — feared 
 that the presence of a divorcee at the court he was 
 hoping to form around his wife would be prejudicial 
 to the society he was secretly anxious to re-establish, 
 divorce never having been tolerated in France before 
 the Revolution. The generous Josephine at first 
 passionately resisted this attempted separation be- 
 tween herself and her friend, Madame Tallien, ci- 
 devant Marquise de Fontenay ; but she was com- 
 pelled to submit, and perhaps at last the less un- 
 willingly because by some it was said that Bonaparte 
 in his heart exceedingly admired Madame Tallien, 
 " the Venus of the Capitol." Together these two 
 women — sharers of the same hard fare in prison, and 
 sisters there in agonised hope and fear — had since 
 danced at the directorial Palace of the Luxembourg, 
 and elsewhere, the same dances then new to Paris, 
 but in which they both excelled, the one by Spanish 
 and the other by Creole garce. 
 
 Both of them were generous in heart and deed ; 
 nay, it had even been Madame Tallien's privilege to
 
 MADAME TALL/EN. 35 
 
 assist Madame de Beauharnais and her children in 
 their time of adversity. They had helped to in- 
 augurate the same fashions by setting an example 
 in their own handsome persons to cast aside the 
 cumbrous costume of the ancien regime in favour of 
 the classic and flowing robes of Greece and Rome 
 under glorious republics. The past lives of both of 
 them had been tinged by sorrow ; their first marriages 
 had not been happy ; in the heart of each of them 
 was a strong yearning instinct of maternity. By 
 their second marriages they had each, as it seemed 
 at first, descended in the social scale, yet mounted to 
 a superior elevation than they had originally at- 
 tained by their titles, those " accidents of accidents." 
 So close a friendship between two such fascinating 
 women was a social phenomenon which might have 
 done honour to the " First Empire ;" but Napoleon 
 was but human when he committed a first domestic 
 mistake, and sundered the links of it. Josephine's 
 rise, therefore, may almost be said to have been 
 Terezia's fall, for when, at the dawn of a new cen- 
 tury, all the world from far and near prostrated 
 itself before the morning star of Napoleonic glory, 
 what must " Notre Dame de Thermidor," have 
 felt to find herself gradually excluded from the 
 Tuileries ?
 
 36 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 Tallien had been made Consul at Alicant, but this 
 appointment seems to have given little or no satisfac- 
 tion either to her or himself. 
 
 Spain had nothing but painful memories for her of 
 that young time of life when the world lay before her 
 like some fair paradise, some abode for the loves of 
 angels, and unshadowed by evil. 
 
 She could not go back to her own native land ; the 
 force of contrast betwixt the past and present was too 
 strong upon her. So was it likewise, albeit in a 
 different sense, in France. She wandered about in 
 the gardens of her splendid home in the Rue de 
 Babylone, and often, doubtless, sat down there and 
 wept, — wept, even like the Biblical women of old, 
 " by the waters of Babylon." For in those gardens 
 of hers, where Art and Nature vied with each other 
 in producing marvels, there were sparkling fountains 
 and what, in antique and oriental phrase, were called 
 " hanging " — let it rather be said " floating " gardens. 
 
 The place was beautiful, and so was its owner ; but, 
 despite the distinguished crowd of guests who were 
 wont to gather around her, she was desolate, because 
 a second time divorced, in heart, though not yet, 
 perhaps, by legal fact — and this time from the one 
 man really loved by her. 
 
 By what caprice of ill-fortune had this happened ?
 
 MADAME TALLIEN. 37 
 
 None can exactly say. Such love as that of Tallien 
 for her is apt to be over-sensitively jealous. Such 
 pride of heart as hers, especially if unjustly suspected 
 or suspicious, is apt to quicken with indignation. 
 
 It would seem that Tallien ought not to have left 
 her : but he was a politically disappointed man ; he 
 knew that she was ambitious for him, and it may be 
 that to regain his position in her high esteem he had 
 left her in order to seek a new and loftier destiny 
 than any he had yet been able to offer her. 
 
 All this, and much more concerning them both (for 
 it, whatever that it was, could only be known to each 
 other, and even then must have been a point of 
 mutual controversy), need not be here discussed. She 
 was desolate and depressed, and, possibly, with all 
 her extreme generosity and sweetness of disposition, 
 indignant at the cause of her desolation, her depres- 
 sion, and her consequent temptation. 
 
 For suddenly in her presence appeared, and for the 
 first time, the brilliant Joseph, Count de Caraman, 
 and Prince de Chimay. He was indeed almost laden 
 with titles, for he was a "grand d'Espagne" of the 
 first class, &c, &c, not less than fourteenth Prince de 
 Chimay. He was rich, for he had lately succeeded to 
 a large inheritance, and was also first peer of 
 Hainault.
 
 38 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 More than all this, which gave him influence in 
 Spain and France and Holland — including Belgium — 
 he was, for his own sake, worthy to be loved, and he 
 quickly gave his love to Terezia Tallien, late Marquise 
 de Fontenay. 
 
 In her desolation she responded to it. She was a 
 skilled musician, so was he ; and this to such an 
 extent, that during his emigration from France and 
 Spain, at the time of the "great Revolution," and 
 before his recent accession to fortune, he had sup- 
 ported himself at Hainault and elsewhere by his 
 musical talents. Spain — to a great extent the native 
 land both of Madame Tallien and himself — offered 
 innumerable points of sympathy. Did Terezia love 
 this brilliant and accomplished Prince, who came to 
 her in the midst of her " Babylonian " though gloomy 
 splendour, as she had loved Tallien after he had 
 come and released her from prison at Bordeaux ? 
 The best answer to this is at once, " Yes and No ;" as 
 to all such questions, after the circumstances of an 
 eventful life are changed, and the character of the 
 chief actor in it has been developed by sheer force of 
 griefs which do not kill — they are not merciful enough 
 for that — but resuscitate. 
 
 Amongst legal men it is, according to common 
 report, believed that one crime begets another.
 
 MADAME TALLIEN. 39 
 
 According to the then new and anti-ecclesiastical 
 law of revolutionized France, it cannot here be 
 said that divorce was a crime ; but, in the case 
 of Madame Tallien, one divorce brought forth 
 another, difficult though it be to decide whether 
 the proposal for it on the second occasion originated 
 with herself or Tallien. In any case Tallien ought 
 not to have separated himself from her, had he not 
 desired such a result ; and, at all events, the divorce 
 having been pronounced, Terezia, ii6e Cabarrus, 
 formerly Marquise de Fontenay, and late wife of 
 Jean Lambert Tallien, citizen, soon became Prin- 
 cesse de Chimay. 
 
 Terezia was soothed by the love and intelligent 
 society of her new husband, with whom she went to 
 reside at Brussels, and sometimes at his splendid 
 estate of Chimay. Yet misfortune, like some jealous 
 woman, was not yet tired of persecuting her, for two 
 things troubled her, — first, the knowledge, in course of 
 time, that Tallien had returned to Paris poor, and 
 suffering from the neglect of political ingratitude, and 
 almost, if not quite, blind ; secondly, because she was 
 excluded from the court of her newly-adopted 
 country, where it was considered that, if not thought 
 worthy to be received at the court of a Bonaparte, 
 she could scarcely be admitted to that which, by long
 
 40 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 precedence, had a still sterner right to be inflexible in 
 its prejudices. 
 
 Her husband, the Prince de Chimay,'\vas compelled 
 to absent himself often from her on account of the 
 duties which his rank assigned to him at this same court. 
 The Prince of Orange avowedly regretted a decree by 
 which the Princesse de Chimay was kept away from 
 it — she who ought to have been its chief ornament ! 
 
 Doubtless jealous women who had heard much of 
 " Notre Dame de Thermidor " and " the Venus of the 
 Capitol," had much secretly to do with this exclusion 
 of a formidable rival who was still beautiful in person 
 and notorious for her varied talents, her eloquence, 
 her wit, and fascination. 
 
 A new generation, including some of her own 
 children (it is difficult here to give the exact dates of 
 their births), had sprung up about her. Events with 
 which the world had rung in her own early youth — 
 events in which she had played an extraordinary 
 part, but which were already fading away from Euro- 
 pean memory — were no longer considered of such 
 importance as they are even now when circles of time 
 have again brought them out to view, and even, in 
 some cases, reproduced, and are likely to reproduce, 
 them. 
 
 But she was more woman in heart than heroine,
 
 MADAME TALLIEN. 41 
 
 and as woman she keenly felt for the destitution into 
 which had fallen Tallien, the first really beloved of her 
 heart, whose adoring and adored wife she had been. 
 She could feel no happiness in her own splendour, 
 when thinking of his destitution. Why had he left her ? 
 Why were they not now sharing poverty, if need 
 be, together ? The kindness of her heart was unalter- 
 able. Versatile in her style of beauty, versatile in her 
 accomplishments, quick to laugh or prone to weep, 
 swift in all emotions, but generously eager to forgive, 
 she who, at Bordeaux, had been worshipped as the 
 " Goddess of Pardon," and who was capable of loving 
 as few women can love — with powerful brain but 
 tender heart, and both apt to kindle with all the impe- 
 tuosity of her native southern clime, — it was horrible 
 for her to think of Tallien suffering and deserted. 
 But she was a woman of action not less than of senti- 
 ment. There is no doubt that she, by some delicate 
 means which such a woman could alone imagine, sent 
 him aid ; and it is certain that she implored him to 
 occupy a domicile in Paris still belonging to her. 
 
 Let a curtain here be drawn over a sight which she 
 could not have borne to see — the sight of Tallien 
 selling for bread the books which he had collected, 
 the files of newspapers to which he had contributed — 
 of Tallien, blind and poor, but still so proud that
 
 42 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 he refused help from the newly-restored king, 
 Louis XVIII., as having no claim to it in his cha- 
 racter of ex-republican. 
 
 The king sent his confidential minister, M. Decazes, 
 to Tallien, who was then living in the remains of 
 " The Cottage," where the happiest part of his life had 
 been spent with the former Marquise de Fontenay. 
 Over the door Tallien, as though in mockery of his 
 fallen condition, had caused Cabaret Tallien to be 
 inscribed ; it was in the avenue, since most known 
 as the Avenue Montaigne, named after that philo- 
 sopher, the result of whose vast researches was 
 best expressed, perhaps, in his own words — " Que 
 sais-je ? " 
 
 There was a painful and tacit satire on the ambi- 
 tion of human life in the ruined abode to which clung 
 Tallien in the last days of his life, during which, 
 though not yet nearly numbering the "threescore 
 years and ten " allotted ordinarily to man, he had 
 beheld his country pass from antique monarchy to 
 blood-red revolution ; from a republic to an empire ; 
 from an empire back again to royalty restored. 
 
 "What do I know ? " he might well, like Mon- 
 taigne, have asked. " Which is best ?" He was weary 
 of life ; its inspiration had passed away from him 
 with his love. To him the object of that love could
 
 MADAME TALLIEN. 43 
 
 never more return on earth. Her splendid and his- 
 toric palace of Chimay was still the gathering point 
 for poets, artists, musicians ; the muses, in the form 
 of their most gifted sons — or, if muses be not mothers, 
 their most cherished favourites — clustered round her. 
 She was still beautiful ; for, whatever may be the real 
 nature of the mystery of life, there still burned within 
 her that Promethean fire which, whether stolen from 
 the gods, or conferred as a choice gift by them to 
 some few favoured mortals, resisted the withering 
 clutch of Time. So Time rested on his scythe, and 
 turned his hour-glass, as though the motto of her life 
 was always a recommenccr. 
 
 Her husband, that brilliant Prince Caraman de 
 Chimay, who had come to her like some fairy prince, 
 when she was sitting weeping alone in her "Gardens 
 of Babylon," shared her artistic tastes and loved 
 her ; but it was not upon his breast that she had 
 fallen when she was a prisoner in her youth at Bor- 
 deaux ; it was not he who had twice risked his own 
 life for her sake ere she appeared before the excited 
 world of Paris as " Our Lady of Thermidor." It was 
 not this man who had first helped to reveal to her 
 the secret of her own beauty when he criticized her 
 portrait chc-z. Madame le Brun ; it was not this prince 
 who had first taught her the vast difference 'twixt
 
 44 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 friendship and love, when, by the overwhelming 
 strength of the new life of love with which she was 
 imbued, she was convinced that for her first husband, 
 the Marquis de Fontenay, she had never felt but the 
 tender and grateful regard due to a father. 
 
 No ; Tallien was now poor, and blind, and forgotten 
 by many as he sat in his miserable " Cabaret Tallien," 
 — amid the ruins, in fact, of her first abode of love 
 with him. But nothing could deprive him of his 
 memory. " What has been, is ; what is, has been." 
 And yet some memories — are they not torture ? 
 
 Tallien was probably experiencing this torture when 
 M. Decazes, confidential minister of Louis XVIII., 
 came to him as an emissary from his Majesty, and 
 offered him a liberal pension, assuring him at the 
 same time that the king bore no political resentment, 
 that he admired genius wherever he found it, and that 
 in the matter now present he had " forgotten every- 
 thing," except the fact of Tallien's mental endowments. 
 
 But Tallien, the " Lion Amoureux " of former days, 
 was proud in his adversity, and answered with some- 
 thing like a satire on the Bourbons (of whom it was 
 generally said that they could neither forget nor 
 forgive) — 
 
 " But / have forgotten nothing ; and I cannot, as a 
 republican, receive a pension from the king."
 
 MADAME f ALLIEN. 45 
 
 M. D^cazes then ventured to entreat this lion, 
 whom he had " bearded in his den," to accept at least 
 a more suitable abode than the ruined one inhabited 
 by him. But this was touching on a most sensitive 
 chord ; for had not this been the abode of its now 
 desolate owner's love ? 
 
 " No," replied Tallien, with dignity ; " no. Were 
 the king to offer me the Tuileries, or any other of his 
 palaces, in which to dwell, I would refuse. My reli- 
 gion is that of broken idols ; and yet I thank Heaven 
 for the part I have played. For me now no home 
 
 remains but the tomb. My place is there " A 
 
 moment afterwards he proudly added, " And in 
 history." 
 
 The king's emissary could say no more ; and Tallien 
 was left to die, or, rather, to be immortalized. For 
 a brief space he, too, had been king of France ; king* 
 as says M. Arsene Houssaye (to whom the thanks 
 of the present writer are due), at the Convention, at 
 the Comite de Saint Piiblic, at the Jacobin Club, in the 
 street, in the cafes, — everywhere king, even in the 
 presence of his wife and over her. 
 
 At Bordeaux, under the blood-red republic, and 
 during the Reign of Terror, she, emerging from a 
 dungeon, had made him king over his fellow-men, by 
 allowing him to be so over her own heart. But all
 
 46 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 that had passed away with her. The memory of it 
 alone remained, and this memory it was which, doubt- 
 less, killed Tallien ; for it was the memory of the one 
 woman from whom, since that first moment when, as 
 art-critic, he beheld not only her portrait, but her- 
 self, all his life, his love, his inspiration had flowed. 
 
 Let it not be said that Tallien died — " here lies 
 Tallien ; " rather, in the antique Roman phrase to 
 which, as classic student, he was much and elo- 
 quently addicted, let it be known that Tallien " hath 
 lived." 
 
 The Princess, who, despite her first lord and last 
 illustrious legalized lover, must ever and best be known 
 as Madame Tallien, had the misfortune to survive until 
 the dawn of the year 1835. Time, that ordinarily 
 ruthless sage, refused, even to the last, to touch her 
 with his scythe, and she was supposed to be, by 
 those who perhaps had never even heard of " Our 
 Lady of Thermidor," the eldest but handsomest sister 
 of her own three daughters. 
 
 So, at least, implies the here oft-quoted M. Arsene 
 de Houssaye, who, as before said, was a great ad- 
 mirer of one of the latter — Madame la Marquise du 
 Hallay. 
 
 But at last came a day for the release of the gifted 
 Princess, best known as the republican Madame
 
 MADAME TALLIEN. 47 
 
 Tallien. The early spring, — or, perhaps, more correctly- 
 speaking, the late winter, — sunlight was shining on a 
 January day. She was then at the palatial chateau 
 of Chimay. Her son, known to the world as Doctor 
 Cabarrus, was with her, and likewise some other of 
 her children. Did the sunlight remind her of her 
 native Spain, or of her once own nascent glory in 
 her adopted country, France ? Probably, for, 
 albeit recently suffering and needing care, she sud- 
 denly entreated to be conveyed out into the open air, 
 on a lawn — anywhere, so that the sun might shine on 
 her. Her wish was obeyed. She looked round on 
 the splendid territory of which she was mistress ; but 
 far beyond all gardens, or park, or forest land she 
 gazed ; for, raising herself from an attitude of repose 
 on her invalid couch, she looked with eyes which 
 revealed her inmost soul towards Spain and Paris. 
 The yearning of her heart in its last pulsations was 
 for the past. Not less, let it be hoped, for a future 
 in which no earthly short-sightedness, no passing 
 cloud which veils the earth, can obscure the light of 
 love. By the rapid panorama of memory reviewing 
 her eventful life, she wondered in her last moments 
 whether indeed it were but one long dream. " Turn 
 me to the sun," she said, and then died — or rather, 
 perhaps, began to live.
 
 THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE, 
 QUEEN HORTENSE, 
 
 AND 
 
 CAROLINE BONAPARTE 
 
 (GRANDMOTHER, MOTHER, AND AUNT OF NAPOLEON III).
 
 THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE.
 
 THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE, 
 QUEEN HORTENSE, AND 
 CAROLINE BONAPARTE. 
 
 AGLIOSTRO shuffled the 
 cards and spread them out 
 on a dark table — large cards, 
 and of vast cabalistic pre- 
 tensions, like himself. He, 
 " the Seer," shuffled the cards 
 again, and looked up from 
 where he sat, in the midst of 
 a large and lofty room, splendidly fur- 
 nished, artificially lighted, and with a 
 conservatory full of exotic plants in the 
 background. Before him stood a beauti- 
 ful Creole woman ; her hair was black, her form was 
 flexible, and her eyes, — of deep violet hue, — were 
 fixed with intense anxiety upon his own swarthy face 
 and dark orbs, which, nevertheless, did not seem to 
 look straight into her own. Me kept her in suspense 
 
 K 1
 
 52 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 for a moment, whilst seeming to consider something 
 in reference to her, but beyond her ; and, with the 
 minuteness of observation peculiar to moments of 
 terrible anxiety, she observed that his dress, of black 
 velvet, was cut according to the fashion of the noblesse 
 of France before the Revolution, and that his hands 
 were beautiful. 
 
 Again he consulted the cards before him, and then, 
 in rich and melodious tones, he slowly said to her — 
 
 " Thou shalt be more than .Queen, but yet thou 
 wilt die on a dunghill." 
 
 The lady started back appalled ; for the first part 
 of the prediction had already been made to her in a 
 distant land, in a manner impossible for Cagliostro 
 by ordinary means to know, but the latter portion of 
 the prophecy was so far off from any chances of her 
 life, even at that time, that she might well be inclined 
 to laugh at it. 
 
 For it was to Josephine, Vicomtesse de Beau- 
 harnais, that Cagliostro uttered those words, soon 
 after, or about the time, of her return to Paris from 
 her native Martinique, in 1790. 
 
 She was the daughter of a French gentleman, 
 formerly Lieutenant of Marine Artillery, named 
 Joseph Tascher de la Pagerie, who had settled at 
 Martinique, and there married (in 1761) a lady named
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 53 
 
 Rose Claire de Vergers de Sannois, also of French 
 extraction. Until ten years of age, Josephine, the 
 first born child of this marriage, lived with her parents 
 upon their Martinique estate, and then she was sent 
 for her education to the Convent of Fort Royal, where 
 most young Creole ladies of her social position were 
 presumed to receive a suitable instruction. 
 
 In what this instruction consisted may be inferred 
 from a letter of her father to M. le Marquis de Beau- 
 harnais at the time when, she being not yet seventeen 
 years of age, an overture of marriage was made by 
 that French nobleman, then resident at Paris, to 
 M. de la Pagerie at Martinique, — a marriage (originally 
 mooted by mutual friends of the two families) be- 
 tween the young Josephine and Alexandre (the 
 brave Vicomte) de Beauharnais, who was himself but 
 a youth, and who had never seen the bride thus 
 selected for him. 
 
 " She has a fine skin," wrote M. de la Pagerie, 
 " beautiful eyes, handsome arms, and a remarkable 
 talent for music. I have taken care to have this 
 talent cultivated by providing her with a guitar 
 master during the time she was in the convent ; she 
 has profited by his lessons, and has a very pretty 
 voice." 
 
 Some delays occurred with regard to this projected
 
 54 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 marriage between two young persons who were quite 
 unknown to each other, but at last, in the course of 
 the year 1779, M. de la Pagerie conducted his daughter, 
 Josephine, to France, and she soon afterwards became 
 the wife of Alexandre de Beauharnais. . 
 
 But before her departure from Martinique, an old 
 negress, who was regarded as a witch or " wise 
 woman " amongst her tribe, had met Josephine, and, 
 having carefully scrutinized the lines within her small 
 hand, " told her fortune " thus : 
 
 " Thou wilt soon be married, but not happily 
 married. A widow thou wilt become, and — after- 
 wards — more than Queen." 
 
 When, therefore, Cagliostro repeated part of this 
 prediction in Paris, years afterwards — as here already 
 told — the Vicomtesse de Beauharnais was naturally 
 startled at the coincidence ; and all the more so 
 because her marriage had not, in the meantime, 
 proved a happy one. So far indeed was it from such 
 during its earlier years that, although the mother of 
 a son and daughter, she had sought a separation from 
 her husband, and found a refuge in the home of her 
 childhood at Martinique. Thence, however, she re- 
 turned to Paris, at the earnest entreaties of her husband 
 and his family, during the year 1790; and she was 
 the more induced to do so because her two children,
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 55 
 
 Eugene and Hortense, were already at an age to need 
 their father's and her own united care. 
 
 Eugene had been placed at school in France by 
 his father, but Hortense had accompanied her to 
 Martinique. 
 
 Josephine desired that this brother and sister should 
 know and love each other ; and their father repented 
 of the errors of his youth which had parted him from 
 his wife, for but youthful errors they doubtless had 
 been. For example : At the time when Josephine 
 became his bride, " society " in Paris was at its highest 
 (or lowest ?) pitch of artificial extravagance ; the 
 Vicomte de Beauharnais was one of the yamesse 
 doree of that period ; welcome was he at the brilliant 
 Court of Marie Antoinette, at Versailles ; welcome in 
 the midst of the witty circle at the Palais Royal ; 
 welcome in the celebrated salons of Madame de 
 Montesson, where modes and morals, unknown to the 
 world at large, were decreed ; welcome in the camp, 
 where Lafayette, the Marquis de Segur, and other 
 juvenile nobles of the day, were promulgating novel 
 ideas of Liberty. The Vicomte de Beauharnais found 
 himself married according to the family conventions 
 then in vogue amongst the Aiicien regime of France ; 
 but what could his Creole-wife do in the midst of 
 the fastidious company to which this marriage intro-
 
 56 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 duced her ? What was her colonial and convent- 
 taught playing on the guitar to the playing on the 
 harp of Madame de Genlis ? In Paris the guitar was 
 already out of fashion, and her sweet, though untutored, 
 voice could have but little chance of being heard to 
 advantage in assemblies where operatic discussions as 
 to the respective merits of " Gluckistes " or " Pic- 
 cinistes" were rife. In her sunny Martinique, under 
 blue skies, with waving palm-trees in the background, 
 and with enthusiastic beholders, black and white, 
 tenants and slaves of her parents' estate, in the fore- 
 ground, she had danced with ease and grace ; but 
 what was such dancing as this to the contortions then 
 emulated by Parisians who delighted in the "great 
 Vestris " as their master, and to whom the several 
 merits of the corps de ballet introduced by him on 
 the stage were of tip-toe importance ? How could 
 she judge of the satire of Beaumarchais (" Figaro "), 
 or comprehend the political rivalries betwixt Versailles 
 and the Palais Royal ? 
 
 In person she was already lovely, but not so as 
 afterwards in the tropical splendour of her full woman- 
 hood. By disposition she was loving, but by her yet 
 undisciplined nature she was jealous. The popular 
 Vicomte de Beauharnais grew discontented with his 
 wife ; he tried, or pretended to try, to " finish her
 
 JOSEPHINE, NORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 57 
 
 education," but she craved for love rather than for a 
 preceptor, who soon evinced impatience at his self- 
 imposed task, and was incapable by his own worldly- 
 pursuits of appreciating the as yet only half-developed 
 treasures of the mind desirous of responding to his 
 own. His wife presented him with a son, but, as yet, 
 he was himself too young to comprehend the duties 
 of a father. He told his own father that he was 
 " eager for glory " (an epidemic eagerness amongst 
 youthful French nobles since the date of the American 
 War of Independence) and in the year 1782 he 
 embarked, by a strange coincidence, for Martinique, 
 under the orders of the brave M. de Rouille. Here 
 he found himself a welcome guest in the midst of his 
 wife's family, but her relatives were soon scandalized 
 by reports — whether true or untrue — which floated 
 about them as to his infidelity to her. 
 
 The echo of these scandals reached her in France 
 just when, some few months after his departure, she 
 had given birth to a daughter (April 10th, 1783), and 
 then it was that she sued for a separation from him. 
 This was obtained ; she caused her new-born child to 
 be baptized by the names of Hortense Eugenie, and, 
 when her husband was on the eve of returning to 
 France, she set sail for Martinique. 
 
 But " time brings wisdom," quoth the old French
 
 58 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 proverb, and by the year 1789, the Vicomte de Beau- 
 harnais so much regretted his alienation from his wife, 
 that he implored her to return to him. Josephine did 
 so, bringing with her his little daughter, who was yet 
 a stranger to him. 
 
 Upon the eve of Josephine's departure from Mar- 
 tinique a shocking but sudden revolution amongst the 
 slaves of the colony against their white masters broke 
 out there. The home of her earliest years was burnt 
 down to the ground, and it was only by extreme 
 courage and the force of maternal love, which insti- 
 gated her to protect her child Hortense, that she 
 reached the port. Exhausted, scarcely clothed, but 
 with her daughter still clasped to her breast, Madame 
 de Beauharnais was found more dead than alive by 
 some people about to embark on board a French 
 merchant-ship lying near. She was conveyed to one 
 of its cabins, and not until she had fairly set sail for 
 France did she realize the temporary destitution of 
 her position. 
 
 Upon this point she will herself presently speak 
 more fully in these pages. 
 
 She reached France ; her husband received her with 
 delight : the years since she had been parted from 
 him had ripened the charms of her person and 
 matured those of her mind. She was rejoiced at
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 59 
 
 finding herself re-united to him, and with tender 
 thankfulness embraced her son, Eugene. The Vicomte 
 de Beauharnais clasped his hitherto unknown daughter, 
 Hortense, to his heart ; and henceforth there seemed 
 nothing but happiness in store for the home of 
 Josephine. 
 
 But, alas ! the Revolution only too soon compelled 
 her husband's departure from her. He had acted as 
 President of the National Assembly, but his sword 
 was at the service of his country. 
 
 He displayed much courage, and was made 
 General of the Army of the Rhine, but being sus- 
 pected by the then ascendant Revolutionary party as 
 an aristocrat, he was arrested and conveyed to the 
 Luxembourg, which palace was, for the time, con- 
 verted into a prison. 
 
 The news of his captivity quickly reached his wife, 
 and she sought by every means, and at the risk of 
 every danger to herself, to gain access to him. 
 
 At that time, the gardens of the Luxembourg pre- 
 sented terrible scenes of daily distress ; for wives, 
 daughters, lovers, friends, and mothers were wont to 
 assemble there ; hoping, almost against all hope, to 
 catch a glimpse of the beloved one incarcerated within 
 the walls. Sometimes this glimpse would be afforded 
 by the tumbril which conveyed the prisoners to the
 
 60 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 guillotine, for amongst them would be beheld the 
 being most dear — whether husband, lover, brother, 
 son, or friend — of some one of the weary watchers 
 without, and in this case the watcher would perhaps 
 swoon away upon the ground, or be found crushed 
 there in the agony of despair. 
 
 Ladies of the highest rank, disguised as beggars, 
 would stand there — unconscious of hail, rain, storm, 
 or wind — waiting, waiting mostly in vain, for some 
 signal of sympathy from the prison windows ; and 
 Josephine was one of them. She staked her own 
 existence on the chance of gaining a look from, a 
 word with, the father of her children ; and in her 
 desire to impart consolation to the husband, from 
 whose recent re-union with her had sprung a mutual 
 love, she was unconscious of all fear for herself. But, 
 alas ! no opportunity was accorded to her of minister- 
 ing to him in the time of need, for she, also, was 
 arrested — merely because of the fact that she was 
 recognized as his devoted wife — and cast into the 
 prison of Ste. Pelagic. 
 
 There she found many aristocratcs like herself, but 
 she was in a constant agony of doubt, not only as to 
 the fate of her husband, but concerning that of her 
 children. Of the latter it may at once here be said 
 that by the arrest of their parents, and the consequent
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 61 
 
 confiscation of their property, they were literally 
 without either a home to shelter them or food to 
 eat, but they soon owed both to the courageous 
 charity of Madame Holstein, a beneficent friend of 
 their mother. 
 
 This excellent lady, however, could not avert from 
 them their individual share of suffering under the 
 Reign of Terror. Eugene de Beauharnais was ap- 
 prenticed to a carpenter, and his sister, Hortense, had 
 to take her part in Republican processions, or in honour 
 of " the Goddess of Reason." 
 
 Of the fate of their parents these children could 
 know nothing ; and it was more of her husband — the 
 man whom she had learnt to love only too late — that 
 their mother thought than of them or of herself. 
 
 She was conveyed from the prison of Ste. Pelagie to 
 that of the former convent of the Carmelites. It was 
 there that only too certain tidings of the Vicomte de 
 Beauharnais reached her, though, by some strange 
 and prophetic instinct — or rather, by the simple force 
 of love, for there is no love without fear for the 
 object of it — she had felt from the first moment of 
 his being called away from her side on military duty 
 that they would meet no more on earth. And yet, 
 when the intelligence came that her husband was 
 dead upon the scaffold, such anguish ovenvhelmed
 
 62 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 her that she fell down as though life had departed 
 from her also. Blood streamed from her lips, and, 
 when eventually recovered from imminent danger, 
 she seemed to hope rather than to fear that it would 
 soon be her fate to submit to the guillotine, although 
 she still felt anxiety as to what, in such a case, would 
 become of her orphan children. 
 
 One morning, Josephine sat at the barred and 
 narrow window of her prison cell, not knowing 
 whether ever again she might behold another sunrise. 
 She was still weak from recent illness, and so be- 
 numbed by depression that, although able to look 
 upon an open space below her cell and outside the 
 prison, it was difficult to attract her attention to any 
 external object. Presently, however, she was roused 
 to observation by the sight of a woman performing, 
 as it seemed, some wild antics within her view ; and, 
 so persistent was this unknown and coarsely-clad 
 individual in her movements, that, at last, the captive 
 Josephine regarded her with curiosity. 
 
 The woman looked up to the prison window ; 
 then she took a stone (pierre) from the ground, and, 
 after having held it up to view, rolled it in her gown 
 {robe) ; then displayed them both together, so as to 
 give the idea of the name of Robespierre ; after which 
 she made a rapid motion with her hand across her
 
 JOSEPHINE, //OR TENSE, AND CAROLINE. 63 
 
 throat, and gave other signs to make it understood 
 that the tyrant himself was dead. 
 
 It was true. Robespierre had ceased to exist ; the 
 Reign of Terror was therefore over. Prisoners under 
 sentence of death were released ; and, first amongst 
 them, Josephine, Vicomtesse de Beauharnais. 
 
 She hastened to find, and then to rejoin, her father- 
 less children. Penetrated with gratitude towards their 
 benefactress, she resolved at once to undertake the 
 care of them herself, and to work with them for a 
 livelihood. She did so, and the extreme indigence of 
 Madame de Beauharnais during a prolonged time is 
 the best answer that can be made to aspersions which 
 anti-Imperialist biographers have dared to cast upon 
 her virtue as the widow of the father of the two 
 children who shared her penury and her scanty gains. 
 
 But Madame Tallien, formerly known to Josephine 
 as Madame de Fontenay, became, under the sobriquet 
 of Notre Dame de TJicrmidor, the goddess of the 
 French Republic in the time of Barras. The Luxem- 
 bourg was re-converted from a prison into a palace, 
 and there Madame Tallien, Madame de Stael, and 
 Madame Recamier attempted to reconstitute French 
 society. Madame Tallien, the beautiful and notorious 
 wife of the celebrated republican chief, gave a splen- 
 dour to the festivals inaugurated at the Luxembourg
 
 64 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 by the taste with which she presided over them, for 
 she strove to revive in Paris all that was glorious 
 and poetic in antique Athens or Rome ; she desired 
 to be herself regarded as a modern Aspasia ; but 
 although her feet were clad in golden sandals, and 
 the style of her head with its partially unbound raven 
 tresses would have made a worthy study for a Greek 
 sculptor, the magnificence of her costume and customs 
 generally more resembled that of Imperial Rome. 
 
 She had many faults, but she was heroic and kind 
 of heart. She sought her former fellow-captive, 
 Josephine de Beauharnais. She insisted on her 
 taking part in the entertainments at the Luxem- 
 bourg ; and thither the widowed Vicomtesse, who 
 only possessed a few lines of farewell written on the 
 eve of his execution, and a lock of his hair, as tokens 
 of her husband's last thoughts of her, went — not 
 without sad memories of the time when he was a pri- 
 soner within the very walls where she was now invited 
 as a guest. It was her duty to accept such invitation, 
 for the future interests of her children would probably 
 depend upon her doing so. 
 
 Madame Tallien was delighted to receive her, for 
 low as were now the fortunes of the Vicomtesse de 
 Beauharnais, the republican goddess did not forget 
 how, under the regime of French royalty, she had
 
 JOSEPHINE, HOE TENSE, AND CAROLINE. 65 
 
 regarded her acquaintance as an honour. She inter- 
 ceded with the potent Barras for restitution of the 
 Beauharnais property ; and this being in some sort 
 effected according to various elastic clauses of newly- 
 made laws, Josephine was delivered from the bonds 
 of poverty, and rejoiced at being thus at length 
 enabled socially to reinstate her children, Eugene 
 and Hortense. This she was the better enabled to 
 accomplish because her claims upon certain property 
 in Martinique were at that time adjusted ; and one of 
 her first duties fulfilled was to provide for the educa- 
 tion of her daughter Hortense — an education too 
 long retarded by the Revolution, which had deprived 
 Mademoiselle de Beauharnais of her father, and 
 which at one time, during her mother's imprisonment, 
 had caused her fair young hands to assist as a 
 blancJiisscusc. 
 
 Hortense was confided to the care of Madame 
 Campan, formerly lady of the bed-chamber to Queen 
 Marie Antoinette, who, since the martyrdom of her 
 Royal mistress, had established a school at St. 
 Germain for the education of the daughters of the 
 noblesse of France. The titles of that grand old 
 nobility were still in abeyance, but the chief wish of 
 those who severally had an hereditary right to them 
 was to behold their children grow up, not according 
 
 v
 
 66 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 to revolutionary misrule, but subject to the con- 
 ventional social traditions which in France had for- 
 merly produced great heroes and great ladies. 
 
 During the brief but happy reunion with her 
 husband, Madame de Beauharnais had resided with 
 him, when in Paris, at his splendid residence in the 
 Rue de l'Universite, and it was there that the Vicomte 
 learnt to appreciate the finished elegance of that wife 
 who, in former years, had somewhat shocked his 
 fastidious tastes by her nai've simplicity. Society had, 
 therefore, become habitual to Josephine before the 
 period of her widowhood ; it was no longer necessary, 
 now that she was again rich, to labour with her hands 
 for the bread of her children, and she bought the 
 Maison Talma, Rue de Chantereine in Paris, where 
 a society formed of all persons elegant, excellent, art- 
 istic and distinguished, still to be found in the revolu- 
 tionized capital of France, quickly formed itself about 
 her. 
 
 In February of the year 1796, BONAPARTE had 
 been named General-in-Chief to the armies of Italy ; 
 but despite this appointment he was still but a strug- 
 gling soldier of fortune, already celebrated for deeds 
 of valour, but with a very uncertain future before him. 
 The sections of Paris were disarmed after the 13th of 
 Vendemiaire 1795, and then it was that he first
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 67 
 
 became acquainted with the woman who was destined 
 to exercise the most extraordinary influence, not only- 
 over his own life, but over the dynasty of the future 
 founded in his name. But, here let him speak for 
 himself : " A youth one day presented himself to me 
 and entreated that the sword of his father (who had 
 been a General of the Republic) should be returned. 
 I was so touched by this affectionate request that I 
 ordered it to be given to him. This boy was Eugene 
 de Beauharnais. 
 
 " On seeing the sword he burst into tears. I felt 
 so much affected by his conduct that I noticed and 
 praised him much. A few days afterwards the 
 mother came and returned me a visit of thanks. I 
 was much struck with her appearance, and still more 
 with her Esprit!' .... 
 
 So speaks Bonaparte upon this much disputed 
 subject of his first introduction to Josephine de 
 Beauharnais.* From the time of that introduction he 
 became a frequent guest at the Rue de Chantereine, 
 and no evenings were so agreeable to him as those he 
 spent there. The seductive grace of Josephine had a 
 special charm for him. In society he was still shy 
 himself ; in the camp he was brave, but he had never 
 
 * " Napoleon in Exile," by Barry O'Meara, his surgeon at St. Helena. 
 Vol. I., p. 180. 
 
 y 2
 
 68 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 been trained to courtly manners 'as she had been, — 
 (here let it be said that the Vicomtesse de Beau- 
 harnais had been a welcome guest within the circle 
 of Queen Marie Antoinette), — and whilst the natural 
 abandon of her manners, the splendour of her raven 
 tresses, reminded him of his own Southern country- 
 women, the refinement of her conversation was some- 
 thing new to him, the traces of sorrow, visible in 
 her expressive, though not strictly handsome face, 
 evoked his chivalrous sympathy, and the exquisite 
 flexibility of her Creole movements appealed to his 
 heart as man. 
 
 Bonaparte loved Josephine de Beauharnais. Pre- 
 viously, he had entertained the idea of a marriage 
 between himself and Mademoiselle Clary, sister-in- 
 law of his brother Joseph ; but that idea had ceased 
 to be, and henceforth his one desire was to unite 
 himself to the widow of the Vicomte de Beauharnais. 
 She was then at least thirty-three years of age, and 
 he was considerably younger ; but she did not look 
 as old as he did, for his prematurely grave, though 
 handsome face was impassive, and hers was full of 
 vivacity. He was a brave man, but it required some 
 courage on his part to ask her to wed him. 
 
 At first she hesitated, but he was not easily 
 daunted ; and upon the 9th day of March, 1796,
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 69 
 
 Bonaparte and Josephine were married, her son and 
 daughter being present upon the occasion, as also 
 Barras, Tallien, and other political celebrities of the 
 time, who signed the civil contract, then the only- 
 legal code of matrimony in France. 
 
 In dictating this contract Bonaparte had purposely 
 taken at least four years from the age of Josephine 
 and added more than one to his own — believing per- 
 haps in the French proverb, that " One is always of 
 the age one seems to be." Josephine was touched by 
 this polite, if not " pious fraud," and quietly walked 
 home with her husband, who, as her solicitor had 
 warned her, possessed nothing but " his cloak and his 
 sword to offer her." 
 
 Never did Josephine seem further removed from 
 the realisation of the double prediction made of her 
 (first by the negress fortune-teller, and since by 
 Cagliostro) that she would be " more than Queen,' 
 than on this, her second wedding-day. The future ot 
 Bonaparte was quite uncertain, but his love for her 
 was so ardent, that when he had to part with her, 
 twelve days after their marriage, to take the command 
 in Italy, it was with a regret which not even his hopes 
 of glory — his desire to place his laurels at her feet, 
 could subdue. 
 
 He longed for her to join him in Italy, as soon as
 
 jo ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 he himself was established there ; but by that time his 
 wife had reason to expect that, ere long, he would 
 become, through her, the father of a child, and she 
 feared to risk this hope by travelling. The hope was 
 delusive ; but, whilst it held her separate from him, 
 he wrote constantly to her, and the style of his corre- 
 spondence may be judged by the following quotation 
 from one of his letters : 
 
 " Thou art ill ! Thou lovest me ! . . . . And I see 
 thee not ! This idea prostrates me. I accused thee 
 of remaining in Paris, and thou wert suffering there ! 
 Pardon me, my dear love. The passion with which 
 thou hast inspired me robs me of my reason. I shall 
 never regain it, for the malady from which I suffer 
 is incurable." 
 
 At the end of the month of June, however, Jose- 
 phine rejoined her husband at Milan, and some of the 
 happiest days of both their lives were there passed 
 at the Palazzo Serbellone. But the fortunes of war 
 soon again obliged these wedded lovers to separate 
 for a time. The whole story of their rapturous meet- 
 ings and sorrowful partings at that period would 
 involve the history of Bonaparte's campaigns during 
 the latter years of the last century. 
 
 About the middle of September, 1797, Josephine 
 followed Bonaparte southward. Upon the 17th of
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 71 
 
 October, the treaty of Campo Formio having been 
 signed, she flew to Rome, there to congratulate and em- 
 brace her son Eugene, who was entrusted with some 
 diplomatic mission in the Holy City ; and then she 
 returned to Paris, just a week after her husband had 
 arrived there. She sped towards her abode in the 
 Rue Chantereine, where he awaited her, but she 
 found the name of that street changed, as though by 
 magic, to that of the Rue de la Victoire, in honour of 
 her husband's conquests. Her salon henceforth be- 
 came the centre of re-union for all persons most 
 distinguished in arms, or arts, in France. 
 
 In the month of May, 1798, Bonaparte started for 
 the campaign of Egypt. Eugene de Beauharnais 
 accompanied him, and Josephine followed him as far 
 as Toulon, whence she wrote to Hortense : 
 
 " My dear Daughter, — Bonaparte will not allow 
 me to embark with him, as he is anxious (on 
 account of my health) that I avail myself of ' the 
 waters ' ere my departure for Egypt. In two months 
 he will send for me." 
 
 Here again is an indication of Bonaparte's hope 
 (ever to be frustrated in the case of his beloved 
 Josephine, his "guiding star," as he called her), that
 
 72 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 he would some day be the father of a son who would 
 follow out his own heroic career. 
 
 She went to Plombieres, there to " drink the 
 waters," and it was during this period of suspense 
 that she purchased the Chateau of Malmaison of a 
 M. Leconteux for the sum of 100,000 francs. She 
 returned to Paris, for the arms of her husband, 
 hitherto universally successful, having been reversed 
 upon the Nile,* there was no longer any question of 
 her following him into Egypt. She occupied herself 
 in preparing Malmaison as a delicious retreat for 
 them both ; a place where, away from Paris, though 
 within easy reach of that capital, her husband might 
 find rest from the tumult of war. But, meantime, she 
 did not neglect her active duties towards him at the 
 seat of government, for she still continued to hold 
 her receptions in Paris, until just before the time 
 named for his return thither. 
 
 And yet, when he arrived, she was absent. Accord- 
 ing to. the statement of her son Eugene, she had gone 
 forth to meet Bonaparte ; but, having taken one 
 route, whilst he was pursuing another, she had failed 
 to encounter him, though it was not more than forty- 
 eight hours after his arrival in Paris that she rejoined 
 
 * See article on "Queen Marie Ame'lie and the Duchesse 
 d'Orleans," here succeeding.
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 73, 
 
 him there. For the first time in his life, Bonaparte 
 then manifested symptoms of irritation against her. 
 She succeeded in soothing him and restoring his 
 entire confidence in her, although flatterers of his, 
 who were envious of her power over him, and there- 
 fore inimical to her, had tortured the simple fact of 
 her absence at the time of his arrival, and even her 
 efforts to increase her social popularity — efforts made 
 for his sake before that event — into crimes against 
 her. 
 
 Soon, however, Bonaparte had reason to be thank- 
 ful regarding those efforts ; for when, after a brief 
 residence at the Luxembourg, he went (February 9th, 
 1800) to reside as First Consul with his wife at the 
 Tuileries, many of the old nobility of France, long 
 opposed to him, flocked thither to pay their respects 
 to her. 
 
 Not much happiness did Josephine derive from this 
 ovation, for she affectionately remembered the " last 
 Queen of France," who had been kind to her in the 
 days of her first marriage, and, from the fact of that 
 fair Queen's martyrdom, she had lost confidence in 
 the durability of human greatness. 
 
 As wife of the "First Consul," Josephine neverthe- 
 less performed her part to perfection, and with the 
 inimitable grace peculiar to her.
 
 74 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 When Talleyrand, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
 introduced her to the various illustrious strangers 
 present at the first diplomatic reception under the 
 Consulate at the Tuileries, she charmed all hearts by 
 the modesty of her demeanour, the dignified affability 
 of her kindly greeting. Talleyrand, with his " limp- 
 ing gait," his abundant white hair, his livid face, and 
 inscrutably experienced air, afforded upon that day 
 a strange contrast to Josephine Bonaparte, with her 
 earnest violet eyes, her flexible form clad in a simple 
 white robe ; her black hair, restrained in its luxuriant 
 flow by a few cameos ; her beautiful hands and arms, 
 the action of which seemed to aid the expression of 
 her vivid sympathy and rapid thoughts. 
 
 She went the round of the diplomatic circle, and 
 then a door opened and displayed her husband, 
 Bonaparte, arrayed in his well-known simple uniform 
 of First Consul, with military boots, black neck-tie, 
 tri-coloured scarf twisted round his waist, buttoned 
 coat, white pantalon, and cocked hat, which, being 
 under his arm and not on his head, allowed the latter 
 to be exposed to view with its (then) dark lank hair 
 overshadowing a face of almost perfect beauty in 
 feature, but concealing rather than revealing the 
 workings of the mighty soul within. 
 
 By the aid, or rather chiefly by the agency of
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 75 
 
 Josephine, the etiquette of a Court was soon esta- 
 blished at the Tuileries and other palaces of France, 
 inhabited by Bonaparte as Consul. But no child was 
 born to him, and the greater his successes, the more 
 unbounded his ambition, the more anxious he became 
 for an heir to his glory. 
 
 Hortense de Beauhamais was by this time with- 
 drawn from the educational care of Madame Cam- 
 pan. Caroline Bonaparte, the third sister of "the 
 Conqueror," had been her schoolfellow. They both 
 appeared at the side of Josephine at the Tuileries. 
 
 In point of matrimonial date, precedence must here 
 be given to Caroline Bonaparte, afterwards Queen of 
 Naples. Born at Ajaccio, in 1782, she was scarcely 
 eleven years of age when she first found herself in 
 France, over which her brother Napoleon was destined 
 to reign. In the year 1800, she emerged from her 
 school-girl life, and appeared before the world as a 
 beautiful woman, for in her face and form were com- 
 bined the classic and imperial dignity of her mother 
 Laetitia (Madame Mere) with the Hebe-like graces of 
 youth. A few years later Talleyrand declared that 
 in Caroline Bonaparte he beheld the head of a 
 diplomatist on the pretty shoulders of a sensibLe 
 though sensitive female, for her intellect was not 
 inferior to her beauty, and by love she had been
 
 76 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 taught to exercise her fine intelligence concerning 
 affairs of State. 
 
 The head of a true woman is always subservient 
 to her heart, and by the latter was the former 
 guided in the case of Caroline Bonaparte as politi- 
 cian ; for she early learned to love, and the object of 
 her love became subsequently her husband — JOACHIM 
 MURAT. 
 
 It was just after the Egyptian expedition that 
 Joachim Murat accompanied Napoleon to Paris. 
 His father was but the son of a country innkeeper, 
 who was also a sort of steward to the Talleyrand 
 family. Originally, Joachim was destined for the 
 Church ; but his individuality early displayed itself 
 rather in amorous adventures, skill in horsemanship, 
 and a combative faculty for fighting duels, than in 
 aught that could eventually lead to ecclesiastical pre- 
 ferment. 
 
 General Bonaparte was his salvation ; under him 
 Murat bravely fought as a soldier of fortune in 
 various campaigns, and this with such prowess that 
 he soon became a distinguished member of his per- 
 sonal staff. After this he quickly won his way to the 
 rank of General of Brigade, and in that capacity 
 arrived with his heroic patron in Paris. 
 
 There he beheld Caroline Bonaparte, and from the
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 77 
 
 first time of their meeting she acknowledged to her- 
 self that in this man she had encountered her destiny. 
 For not only was Joachim Murat extremely hand- 
 some — of that classically-antique, yet modern mobile 
 type of beauty which well accorded with her own, — 
 but he was brave — he was courteous ; and where is 
 the woman who does not adore courage, and is not 
 subdued by a brave man's courtesy, reminding her 
 of chivalrous deeds and days when woman was the 
 guiding star to all that was good and great in man ? 
 
 Caroline Bonaparte and Joachim Murat were 
 worthy of each other, and at the dawn of the new 
 year 1800 they were married. 
 
 When the First Empire was established, Murat was 
 made Marshal of France ; in 1806, the grand duchy 
 of Berg and Cleves was given unto him, and after- 
 wards, by the then omnipotent will of his brother-in- 
 law, he was declared King of Naples. 
 
 But this is anticipating. Let the reader here go 
 back for a short space, and behold Josephine installed, 
 in earlier days, at the Tuileries, as First Consul's wife, 
 with Caroline Murat (Bonaparte) and her own 
 daughter, Hortense, near her. 
 
 Hortense was lovely, but resembling neither her 
 mother (conspicuous for her dark hair, her sweet eyes, 
 her seductive grace, and the fascination resulting from
 
 78 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 the union of genuine kindness of heart with high cul- 
 tivation of manners) nor Caroline Bonaparte, whose 
 sculpturesque beauty was at that time animated by- 
 all the vivid hopes of life, and softened by the most 
 voluptuous dreams of love — albeit a righteous and 
 consecrated love. 
 
 Hortense de Beauharnais was then a fair, poetic 
 vision, more at home in her own apartment, playing 
 upon the harp soft music, and singing sweet songs, 
 both of her own composition, than amidst the brilliant 
 and military Court which began to assemble around 
 her mother and step-father. 
 
 But, nevertheless, that Court had for her its own 
 especial attraction, for ere she had been long at the 
 Tuileries she loved General Duroc, Bonaparte's first 
 aide-de-camp, and to please him, doubtless, were first 
 developed in her that ineffable charm of manner, that 
 exquisite taste in dress, that perfection of all feminine 
 mental accomplishments, which are inseparably asso- 
 ciated with the name of this illustrious woman, artiste, 
 queen, poetess, and musician. 
 
 She loved Duroc, and that at an age when to doubt 
 his sworn love for her would have been a dishonour 
 to herself. Napoleon was aware of this mutual affec- 
 tion, but it scarcely suited his increasing ambition to 
 authorize the marriage of his step-daughter with
 
 QUEEN HORTENSE.
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 79 
 
 Duroc, for already he had other views concerning 
 her. He therefore sent the lover of Hortense on a 
 mission to St. Petersburg, there to congratulate the 
 new Czar, Alexander I., on his accession to the 
 throne ; but a diligent correspondence was neverthe- 
 less secretly maintained between them, Bourrienne, 
 private secretary of Napoleon (and afterwards his 
 chief chronicler), being its medium. Josephine and 
 Napoleon had then been married many years. Time 
 had done nothing to abate affection on either side, 
 but it had brought no child to them, and Bonaparte, 
 knowing that an imperial diadem was about to rest 
 on his brow, felt already anxious that an heir should 
 be born to the destiny awaiting him — to the dynasty 
 of which, through all generations, he would be re- 
 garded as the founder. 
 
 He therefore conceived the idea that, by marrying 
 Josephine's daughter, Hortense de Beauharnais, to 
 his own third brother, Louis Bonaparte, the united 
 blood of the being most beloved by him and 
 of himself would flow into futurity, and he resolved 
 that this union should take place, if possible. With 
 him, indeed, at that time nothing seemed impossible, 
 and Josephine was the more readily persuaded to 
 yield her consent because she already foresaw the 
 necessity of an heir to the throne of France, which
 
 So ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 was about to be reconstructed, and because she had 
 always found in her brother-in-law, Louis, a kind friend 
 (and there were not many for her) in her husband's 
 family. 
 
 She did not believe that there was anything really 
 serious in the affection of her own daughter for 
 Duroc ; but, whether or not, Napoleon resolved to 
 test it, which he did in the following manner, as 
 related by de Bourrienne : — 
 
 Duroc returned to Paris from his embassy to 
 Russia, and Bonaparte said to de Bourrienne con- 
 cerning that young general, " Tell him that if he 
 wed my step-daughter, he will only have with her a 
 dowry of some five or six hundred thousand francs, 
 that I shall at once give him an appointment which 
 will necessitate his residence at Toulon, whither he 
 must take his wife, and that, henceforth, he and I are 
 personally strangers to each other." 
 
 Josephine had meantime spoken to Hortense of 
 the difficulties impeding her union with Duroc ; but 
 Hortense, joyful as she at that moment was as to the 
 return of her lover from St. Petersburg to Paris, 
 believed that nothing in this world could ever again 
 separate them. Had such a glorious belief in man's 
 fidelity only rested on a fidelity worthy of it, how 
 happy might not Hortense and the object of her
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 81 
 
 choice have been ! But Duroc, brave man in battle 
 though he was, had not strength enough to stand the 
 test of the ordeal to which he was subjected, and 
 he resigned all claims to the hand of his lately- 
 betrothed, Hortense de Beauharnais. Wherefore, it be- 
 came Josephine's terrible duty to inform her daughter 
 that such was the case. And here let it be said, that 
 if (as some historians assert) she was the prime agent 
 in this cruel affair, she must have suffered at that 
 moment more deeply than words can tell, for none 
 can deny that Josephine was of most tender heart, 
 and a mother who, in the time of adversity, had per- 
 formed heroic acts of self-sacrifice in behalf of her 
 children. 
 
 Hortense listened to the decree ; she uttered no 
 complaint, but her heart was none the less broken ; 
 the spell of all her sweetest illusions as to love and life 
 was broken for ever, when she heard that Duroc had 
 deserted her. 
 
 Henceforth, she cared not what became of her, and 
 pride alone sustained her. It was therefore not too 
 difficult a task to induce her to wed Louis Bona- 
 parte, for anything was better than to play the 
 part of a forsaken maiden, not only in the eyes 
 of Paris, but in full view of the man for whom she 
 would willingly have sacrificed her life ; and upon
 
 82 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 the 7th day of January, 1802, she married Louis 
 Bonaparte. 
 
 They were almost strangers to each other. His 
 disposition was amiable, his habits studious, but he 
 was allowed no time before marriage, either to soothe 
 the wounded heart or to ascertain the various accom- 
 plishments and merits of the wife forced, against her 
 will, upon him. 
 
 They regarded each other more as enemies than 
 riends, though each, in his, and her especial way, 
 was excellent. 
 
 Splendid were the festivities by which their union 
 was inaugurated, but amidst all the gay guests who 
 flocked to the Tuileries in honour of this alliance, the 
 bride and bridegroom were mournful. The Cardinal 
 Caprera had solemnized their union, and this, by many 
 of the old noblesse, then lately returned from exile, 
 was regarded as a happy omen, considering how long 
 all religious ceremonial had been abolished in France. 
 
 Many points of intellectual sympathy there were 
 between Louis Bonaparte and his young wife, Hor- 
 tense ; but it was not until they were about to 
 become parents that any sign of reciprocity was 
 evoked between them. A male child was born to 
 them, all sorts of calumnies having been meantime 
 set afloat.
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 83 
 
 Had that child lived, the future life of Hortense 
 might have been happier than it was ; but the child 
 died, and henceforth she sought to amuse herself in 
 art, in literature, in society, in all that can impart 
 brilliance to the outer life of a woman, young, beau- 
 tiful, accomplished, as she was ; but a life apart from 
 all for which she had yearned — the real life of heart 
 and home. 
 
 When Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned Emperor, 
 and Josephine Empress, the latter derived no happi- 
 ness from the dignity which had accrued to her, 
 neither did her daughter Hortense feel pleasure in 
 being henceforth styled a Princess of France, and 
 addressed as " Imperial Highness." 
 
 The double prediction was fulfilled respecting 
 Josephine — that prophecy which, first uttered by the 
 negress of Martinique, had since been repeated by 
 Cagliostro, that she would be " more than a Queen." 
 
 In the month of December, 1804, Napoleon and 
 Josephine were crowned at Notre Dame. The 
 presence of the Pope in Paris at that time was 
 welcome to the Empress for other reasons than those 
 appertaining to any thought of worldly ambition or 
 earthly pomp ; for — although still extremely lovely in 
 person, and much loved by the imperial husband 
 whom she had wedded when he had only, as a soldier
 
 84 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 of fortune, his " cloak and his sword " to offer her, 
 and although her marriage with that husband (ori- 
 ginally performed according to civil contract only) 
 was renewed, or rather solemnized, in the Chapel 
 of the Tuileries, on the "eve of her coronation as his 
 Empress, she was haunted by vague presentiments, 
 and felt in much need of consolation beyond the 
 power of this world to give. 
 
 Louis Bonaparte was first made Co7inctable of 
 France, and "subsequently King of Holland. Other 
 brothers of Napoleon gladly accepted the various 
 crowns of Europe offered by him to them, but it was 
 not without extreme reluctance that Louis permitted 
 that of Holland to be placed upon his brow, and in 
 this reluctance his wife, Hortense, sympathized with 
 him ; for by their elevation to power they were neces- 
 sarily removed from Paris, and therefore thrown more 
 than hitherto into the society of each other. 
 
 Another son had been born to Hortense about the 
 time of the coronation of her mother, as Empress. In 
 this child the Emperor took great delight, and it was 
 generally believed that he would succeed to the throne 
 of France ; but just as the boy (Napoleon Charles he 
 was called) began to be an object of interest to all 
 around him, he died of croup ; and by this event King 
 Louis and Queen Hortense at the Hague, the Em-
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 85 
 
 peror Napoleon with the Empress Josephine in 
 France, were enshrouded in gloom. 
 
 The malady of which the child had died was not 
 then a subject of professional study such as it has 
 since become in France, and it seemed to the imperial 
 and royal family of France and Holland that destiny, 
 as to the matter of succession to the two thrones, was 
 against it. 
 
 Yet none the less did Queen Hortense and King 
 Louis well perform their duties to the people over 
 whom they had been commanded to reign. King 
 Louis had taken a solemn oath to respect the liberties 
 and defend the just rights of the nation which had 
 voluntarily accepted him as sovereign, and none 
 better than his accomplished consort, Hortense, could 
 infuse into the mind of that nation how to blend 
 grace of form with utility of fabric ; how to combine 
 sturdiness of character with elegance of manner ; nor, 
 whilst thus unconsciously imparting new life to Dutch 
 manufactures and society, did she forget the poorest of 
 her subjects, for, even after two other sons were born 
 to her, she seemed to find consolation where she 
 sought it — in the homes of her grateful subjects. 
 
 During this time the royal abode at the Hague was 
 often desolate, for, when not chained there by the 
 duties he owed to his people, King Louis travelled
 
 86 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 about Europe, sometimes resting in some sheltered 
 nook of the Pyrenees, sometimes taking up his tem- 
 porary abode at the Chateau de St. Leu (which he 
 had purchased, and whence he derived his title of 
 Comte de St. Leu), whilst his wife and her two surviv- 
 ing children found a refuge in Paris. The youngest 
 of those children (since known to the world as 
 Napoleon III.) was born at the Tuileries upon the 
 20th day of April, 1808, but gloomy at that date were 
 the forebodings of Hortense regarding her beloved 
 mother Josephine, for it was already rumoured that 
 the Emperor Napoleon was so far misled by the 
 erratic star of ambition beyond the guiding star of 
 love (for he had never ceased to love Josephine), that 
 he intended to divorce her and to enthrone in her 
 place another, who might give unto him a legitimate 
 heir to the Empire which he had founded. 
 
 Josephine felt, rather than knew, that such was her 
 husband's intention, but she tried to disbelieve the 
 possibility of it. In October, 1809, she was at St. 
 Cloud when he returned to France after the only too 
 celebrated negotiations of Schonbrunn : he went 
 straight to Fontainebleau, but she hastened thither to 
 greet him. 
 
 She found him much engaged with his generals 
 and secretaries ; he tried to find fault with her be-
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 87 
 
 cause of the lateness of her arrival ; she soothed and 
 fascinated him by endearing words ; that day she was 
 even more than usually elegant in her attire, so much 
 so that it drew flattering words from the Emperor, ere 
 conducting her from his study, where she had rejoined 
 him, to the dining-room. There, she sought to keep 
 up an animated conversation, though her heart was 
 sorely ill at ease ; and during her evening reception 
 she was most singularly conspicuous for the grace of 
 her demeanour and the affability by which, without 
 derogating from her dignity, she habitually charmed 
 everybody who approached her. 
 
 But she knew that the decree was already pro- 
 nounced against her ; she felt that she was no longer 
 the wife of Napoleon save in name and by law. By 
 love also on his side and on hers, but he strove to 
 shun all evidence of that love, and her pride was 
 roused by his avoidance of her. 
 
 To Queen Hortense, then in France, the Emperor 
 made a request that she would calmly speak to 
 Josephine of the divorce rendered necessary by 
 political circumstances, but Hortense declared herself 
 incapable of " plunging a dagger " into her mother's 
 breast. Prince Eugene, her son, was likewise unequal 
 to the occasion. It therefore fell to the lot of Fouche, 
 the crafty minister, whom (speaking years after-
 
 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 wards at St. Helena) Napoleon declared to have been 
 worse than Robespierre, — Fouche, with his faithless 
 heart and pallid face — it fell to his lot to inform 
 Josephine, during her last stay at Fontainebleau, of 
 the destiny awaiting her. After her interview with 
 him, she sent for her kinsman, Count Lavallette (he 
 had married one of the Beauharnais family), who 
 happened to arrive just then at Fontainebleau, and in 
 broken accents, repeated the substance of her recent 
 interview with Fouche thus : — 
 
 " He told me that I must offer to France and the 
 Emperor a great proof of devotion ; . . . that my hus- 
 band must leave behind him children who may per- 
 petuate his name, and give to France a family that 
 may deprive the Bourbons of all hope of return. . . . 
 ' Madam,' added he, ' you are in this respect the only 
 obstacle to the enduring happiness of France. . . . 
 Your noble mind will easily learn resignation for the 
 sake of a man who is wholly devoted to you. . . . Be 
 greater than even the Emperor is great, and give this 
 last token of devotion to your husband, your country, 
 and your sovereign.' " 
 
 Much more did Fouche say upon this point ; but 
 already was the Empress Josephine resolved on self- 
 sacrifice ere she sent for Count Lavallette to come to 
 her at Fontainebleau in her own private apartments,
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 89 
 
 where lately she had passed days and nights of agony. 
 It was sympathy that she sought in her kind kins- 
 man, rather than advice from him. Wherefore it 
 matters little what Lavallette said to her ; she believed 
 herself prepared to endure the coming stroke ; she 
 armed herself with all a woman's pride ; she took her 
 place at table, as usual, at the evening dinner-hour, 
 and, to all outward appearance, seemed much more 
 gay there than either the Emperor or her daughter 
 Hortense. 
 
 Josephine played a brave part, but the tension of 
 nerves enabling her so to do was too intense in its 
 agony ; for, presently, when the various members 
 of her Court and Queen Hortense having retired, 
 she found herself alone, tete-a-tete, with her husband, 
 she could scarcely endure the pain of his presence. 
 There was no longer any concealment between them 
 upon the subject uppermost in both their minds. His 
 hand — that hand which had so bravely borne the 
 sword in battle, trembled to such a degree that he 
 found himself incapable even of holding a cup of 
 coffee which had been handed to him. He advanced 
 towards her ; he took her hand and placed it on his 
 heart, so that she might feel its terrible pulsations ; 
 but Josephine felt outraged by this act, and she 
 quickly receded from the being whom she most
 
 90 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 adored in this world, although at that moment so 
 great was the anguish of separation from him that 
 she fainted, and fell at his feet like one dead. 
 
 Many hours elapsed ere she was restored to con- 
 sciousness. She found herself in her own apart- 
 ment, whither she had been conveyed, with her 
 daughter Hortense and Napoleon near her. Dr. 
 Corvisart, her medical attendant, felt that he had 
 done a cruelty in helping to restore her to life ; but 
 she turned to the husband, who in fact was hers no 
 longer, and said, with a forced smile even worse than 
 his tears to behold, " Oh, if you had not made me 
 wear a crown ! " 
 
 In the feverish dreams that followed did she think 
 of her careless and happy childhood at Martinique, 
 when the negress predicted that she should be more 
 than Queen ? Did she again behold Cagliostro shuf- 
 fling his gigantic cards, and spreading them out 
 before him, as he repeated that same prediction ? 
 
 Who can tell ? The facts of the case alone re- 
 main, and these are only too easily told ; for very 
 soon afterwards, that is to say, upon the 15th of 
 December, in that same fast expiring year, at nine 
 o'clock in the evening, the divorce of Napoleon from 
 Josephine was formally pronounced at the Tuileries. 
 
 " Madame Mere," the sybil-looking mother of the
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 91 
 
 Emperor, was there. The King and Queen of Holland 
 (Louis and Hortense, who seldom met elsewhere) 
 stood the're also ; Caroline Bonaparte (newly created 
 Queen of Naples) and her husband, Murat, King of 
 Naples, were there. Other members also of Napo- 
 leon's family, and Prince Eugene, his brave stepson, 
 to whom the Emperor, when only a soldier of fortune, 
 originally owed (as in these pages already told) his 
 introduction to the woman he was now about to put 
 away from him. The chief officers of state and civil 
 law were likewise present, prepared to do their part ; 
 but when Napoleon, in presence of Josephine, read, 
 with a tolerably firm voice, the deed by which his 
 marriage with her was dissolved, it was sad for those 
 who heard him to behold the misery that contracted 
 his features. Every word uttered by him did all 
 justice to her virtues, and to the great happiness 
 which had accrued to him from his union with her ; 
 but the greater the justice he thus rendered to 
 Josephine, the more he seemed to stab her broken 
 heart ; for, when it came to her turn to read the 
 document prepared for her, her voice was unable to 
 sustain itself; sobs impeded her usually sweet and 
 clear utterance, and she handed the paper to M. Reg- 
 nault de Saint Jean d'Angely, with a motion of the 
 hand which authorised his conclusion of its perusal
 
 92 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 aloud. This mournful ceremonial finished, Napo- 
 leon turned to Josephine ; all ties were severed for 
 ever between them in this world, — ties of law, civil 
 and ecclesiastical, — but those of love were not to be 
 so easily sundered. He kissed her ; in a voice of 
 intense emotion he tried to thank her ; but, for her, 
 utterance was impossible ; and, supported by her 
 two children, Hortense and Eugene, she quitted 
 his presence, leaving many mournful hearts behind 
 her. 
 
 A few hours afterwards she started for Malmaison, 
 that chateau upon which, at the time of Napoleon's 
 expedition into Egypt, she had lavished all that 
 woman's love, and artistic taste, and newly-acquired 
 wealth could suggest to her, so that it might be a 
 haven of repose for the one being most dear to her 
 in this world. 
 
 She entered it now without him ; she beheld the 
 study where he had written — the maps still lying on 
 that study-table, marked out for his various cam- 
 paigns ; the pen he had used ; the arm-chair in which 
 he had rested, and chatted to her in happy leisure 
 hours. She looked at the walls, and beheld a fine 
 portrait of herself in gleaming diadem and imperial 
 robes. She looked again, and saw a case containing 
 the hair of her once husband-hero, cut off from his
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 93 
 
 head in the long past happy time of their marriage, 
 when he was only " dear Bonaparte," and which she 
 had caused to be arranged in fantastic form most 
 flattering to him. 
 
 All this, and much more, she saw ; * and seeing, 
 she felt that nothing had changed but her own sad 
 self. Yet, not in heart ! for she forthwith resolved 
 that no hand but her own should ever arrange that 
 special chamber sacred to the past ; and thus it 
 came to be that though, in time, a miniature court 
 was formed about her at Malmaison, and though the 
 conventions of that court compelled her to smile and 
 act in society as formerly, yet all things personally 
 connected with the husband who had separated him- 
 self from her remained exactly as he had left them 
 in the sanctuary — for so she deemed it — consecrated 
 to mutual memories. 
 
 She heard of the arrival of her successor, the 
 Austrian Marie Louise, in Paris, and she helped to 
 prevail on her daughter, Hortense, to comply with 
 the urgent wish, or rather command, of Napoleon 
 
 * Lest the writer of the text above should be suspected of exaggeration 
 regarding the much-disputed, (according to political party-feeling), cha- 
 racter of Josephine, it is as well here to state that the facts recorded are 
 originally due to the statement of more than one English visitor at 
 Malmaison in the time of the ex-Empress, from whose memory Time 
 has even yet not obliterated the objects, &c, conspicuous there.
 
 94 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 that she should repair to the Tuileries so as to render 
 all honour to the new Empress about to reign there. 
 For a time Josephine repaired to her Chateau of 
 Navarre, the other home assigned to her by Imperial 
 will ; but she soon returned to that of Malmaison, 
 which, being within easy reach of Paris, allowed her 
 to enjoy the frequent society of her daughter Hor- 
 tense, and that Queen's sons. 
 
 Josephine was no longer happy herself, but she 
 succeeded in making those around her so ; and yet, 
 fearful lest the younger members of her Court should 
 believe too much in the stability of earthly things, 
 Avhich, to her, had been but illusions, she sometimes 
 tried to teach them a lesson in her gentle and unpre- 
 tending way, — as the following anecdote, recorded by 
 one of her hearers, may show. 
 
 " One day we, with the cruel indiscretion of crude 
 youth, asked the Empress to let us look at her dia- 
 monds. These, which the Emperor had refused to 
 receive back from her hands, when she offered them 
 to him, formed — with other gems in her possession — 
 one of the most, or rather the most, superb collection 
 in Europe — for many of them had been offered to 
 Napoleon by various cities in the various countries of 
 Europe which he had conquered. They were usually 
 kept in a cavcau secret, of which two personages in
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 95 
 
 the service of the Empress were constituted guardians. 
 But, always willing to comply with the requests of 
 those about her, she ordered that these wondrous 
 gems should be brought forth and displayed on a 
 large table prepared to receive them. They were 
 wonderful, magnificent ; diamonds, oval-shaped pearls, 
 opals gleaming like rainbows, rubies, emeralds ; the 
 celebrated brignolettes (each one a priceless pear- 
 shaped diamond), which once had belonged to Queen 
 Marie Antoinette. 
 
 " We were almost speechless with astonishment, 
 just as though some fairy tale were enacted before us. 
 The Empress Josephine looked at us with her tender 
 eyes and smiled a sweet smile, whilst we eagerly 
 touched and examined the wonders before us. Then 
 she said, — 
 
 " ' It is true that these baubles have given me 
 pleasure in my time, but not an enduring pleasure, as 
 these may bear testimony ' (and, so saying, she took 
 up the brignolettes of Marie Antoinette, mournfully). 
 4 Yea, more,' she added, ' for I declare to you, young 
 ladies, that not one of these ornaments ever gave 
 such happiness to me as did once the unexpected 
 possession of an old pair of shoes.' 
 
 " 'An old pair of shoes ! ' we cried ; ' but what can 
 your Majesty mean ? '
 
 96 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 " ' I mean,' said she, ' that when I was forced to 
 quit Martinique with my daughter Hortense, before 
 my perfect reconciliation with her father, I was so 
 poor that the kindness of those on board who supplied 
 many of my wants can never be effaced from my 
 heart* 
 
 " ' Whilst I was resting in my cabin below, the 
 child, who had been taught strange, fantastic, yet 
 graceful dances by the natives of Martinique, used to 
 go on deck, and, for the sake of exercise, perform 
 some of these — much to the delight of the passengers 
 in general, but especially so to that of an honest old 
 sailor, who called her his ' little love.' One day the 
 child entered my small miserable cabin with bleeding 
 feet. She could not conceal the fact from me, for 
 every footstep she took stained the floor. 
 
 " ' Hortense,' said I, ' what is the matter ? ' She 
 tried to soothe my alarm ; but, upon examination, I. 
 found that the shoes which she had worn on leaving 
 Martinique (the only ones she still possessed) were in 
 tatters, and that one of her feet had been wounded 
 
 * It will here be remembered how, as recounted in a previous page 
 of this present narrative, Josephine — when about to rejoin her first 
 husband, the Vicomte de Eeauharnais, in France — was compelled to 
 quit her native Martinique suddenly (and without adequate preparation 
 for the voyage) by the negro insurrection which threatened her life and 
 that of her daughter.
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 97 
 
 by an iron nail so badly that perhaps the flow of 
 blood was the best remedy for the evil. 
 
 " ' She was brave, but I began to cry, and presently 
 we were both in tears, for I saw no way by which I 
 could possibly allow her to continue her healthy 
 exercise on deck. Just then, down came the old 
 sailor to look after his " little love." 
 
 " ' We told him the cause of our distress. " Is that 
 all ? " cried he ; " why, I have an old pair of shoes 
 in my sea-chest." He then continued, turning to me, 
 apologetically, " You see, Madame, we must not be 
 too dainty aboard ship ; we must accommodate our- 
 selves to circumstances, and, provided we have what 
 is necessary, why — c est le plus principal ! " 
 
 "'Away he went, without giving me time to an- 
 swer, and back he soon came triumphantly, bringing 
 with him a coarse old pair of shoes, the sight of 
 which was hailed by Hortense with joy, and upon 
 them I, assisted by our friend, at once set to work 
 successfully. My daughter was thus enabled to re- 
 sume her dances, and, as for me, I only regret that, 
 in the midst of all my subsequent splendour, I have 
 never been able to testify my gratitude to that honest 
 old sailor ; for all I know about him, more than I 
 have told you, is that his name was Jacques.' 
 
 " Some of the young ladies in waiting who had
 
 98 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 listened to this little anecdote from the lips of their 
 gentle, though Imperial mistress, were impressed by it, 
 but others still seemed fascinated by the sight of the 
 superb gems displayed before them ; whereupon the 
 Empress said : 'It is well that it should be so, if 
 indeed the memory of these things should make you 
 discontented with similar, though inferior, baubles 
 hereafter.' " 
 
 At this time Napoleon wrote constantly to 
 Josephine, and she made no concealment of the 
 eager joy with which his letters were received. When 
 the one reached her by special courier, telling her of 
 the birth of his son, the infant " King of Rome," her 
 own son, Prince Eugene, happened to be near her. 
 For some time she was alone with him, but — what- 
 ever the agony of mind undergone by her during 
 that hour, — she presently came forth, and, whilst 
 courteously confiding a congratulatory answer to the 
 bearer of the despatch, presented him with a diamond 
 pin. 
 
 During her residence at Malmaison, especially in 
 the earlier period of her divorce, Napoleon used fre- 
 quently to visit her there ; but the interviews which 
 then took place between them must have been a 
 source more of pain than pleasure to her, for it was 
 so arranged that, though out of hearing, they were
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 99 
 
 never beyond the sight of her court. Sometimes 
 lookers on could guess, by the action of her elegantly 
 mobile hand, or a glimpse of her expressive face, that 
 the conversation between them was either painful or 
 pleasing, though generally her demeanour after his 
 departure was naturally overshadowed by an air of 
 melancholy. 
 
 She loved him better than she loved herself, as was 
 only too well demonstrated after his abdication. She 
 thought of others more than of herself, as the follow- 
 ing particulars concerning her last days may testify. 
 
 It was in the month of May, 18 14 ; Napoleon I. was 
 banished to the Isle of Elba ; the Allied Sovereigns 
 had just entered Paris ; his second wife, Marie Louise, 
 and his young son, had taken flight from France, 
 and sought a refuge in Vienna ; the Ex-Empress 
 Josephine was at her suburban chateau of Mal- 
 maison ; her son, Eugene de Beauharnais, was with 
 her there ; likewise her daughter, Queen Hortense, 
 and that daughter's two surviving sons, the younger 
 of whom has since become known to the world as 
 Napoleon III. 
 
 The Emperor Alexander of Russia was an assi- 
 duous guest at Malmaison. He was chivalrous in 
 heart and conduct, a brave man, but none the less of 
 an imaginative temperament; so much so, indeed,
 
 ioo ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 that by many of his contemporaries he was regarded 
 as a mystic, a seer of visions, and a believer in more 
 things than are generally supposed to belong to this 
 world's philosophy. It has before been stated in 
 these pages that Josephine was not free from super- 
 stition. The reader has here seen her listening to the 
 prophecy of the old negress in her native Martinique, 
 to the effect that she would some day be crowned 
 both Queen and Empress : that prediction had come 
 true. Cagliostro had also foretold strange things to 
 her, which had since been realised ; but one part of 
 his prophecy, viz., that she would " die on a dung- 
 hill," seemed as unlikely as ever to be fulfilled, even 
 though she had descended from the throne, when she 
 received, in that month of May, 1814, her illustrious 
 guests at her chateau of la Malmaison. Amongst 
 these guests was Lord Beverley, and to him Josephine 
 expressed her extreme respect for and admiration of 
 the English character generally. The battle of 
 Waterloo had yet to be fought, but from the utter- 
 ances of Josephine it seems that to England's honour 
 she would rather confide the safety of one dear to her 
 than to that of any other nation. Little could she 
 tell that her daughter's youngest son, Louis Napo- 
 leon, would in after years not only succeed her own 
 Imperial but then banished and divorced husband on
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 101 
 
 the throne of France, but eventually find a refuge 
 and an exile's grave in the land of which she had 
 formed so exalted an opinion ! He, the child then, 
 the Emperor in long after years, was present at 
 Malmaison when Josephine there expressed her pre- 
 dilection for England ; and the time when she did so 
 express herself was never likely to be forgotten by 
 him, for he cherished and revered her memory. 
 
 Josephine, who had rejoiced less in her titles of 
 Empress and Queen than in that which gratefully 
 proclaimed her " Friend of the poor and unfortunate," 
 played a brilliant part as hostess at Malmaison in that 
 year of Imperial misfortune, 1814 ; but her heart was 
 breaking with sympathy for the husband who had 
 put her away from him, and yet who was still pas- 
 sionately beloved by her. 
 
 When she heard that Marie Louise had deserted 
 him in his misfortune, she cried, " Oh ! had I still the 
 right to be near him and console him, how happy I 
 should be in sharing his exile ! " But this was impos- 
 sible, and though surrounded by illustrious guests, 
 though soothed in a measure by the presence of her 
 children by her first marriage, the Ex-Empress was 
 evidently suffering acutely ; and, despite her heroic 
 efforts to conceal her intense unhappiness, despite her 
 wish at that time to conciliate the Allied Sovereigns
 
 102 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 in behalf of the man still regarded and adored by her 
 as her husband in sight of Heaven — notwithstanding 
 the fictitious letter of human law which had divorced 
 her from him — the strain upon her sensitive nature 
 was too strong for human endurance, and as the 
 month of May progressed, and the flowers in which 
 she seemed to take a sympathetic delight bloomed 
 more and more, it was impossible for her any longer 
 to deny that a severe illness had taken possession 
 of her. 
 
 This illness, what was it ? By some it was called 
 a " quinsey," because it affected her throat and im- 
 peded the breath of life. By others it was regarded 
 as nothing but that nameless thing of common name, 
 a " severe cold." Yet the fact of intense suffering, no 
 longer concealable albeit patiently borne, remained 
 the same, and on Friday, the 24th of May, whilst 
 entertaining the Russian Emperor Alexander and 
 other invited guests at dinner, the symptoms were 
 such that a sudden feeling of alarm pervaded the 
 circle around her. 
 
 So restrained, however, had she been in uttering 
 either a fear or complaint as to her own health, that 
 the resident physician appointed to attend her (M. 
 Horeau) had that day gone to Paris. To her children 
 and her guests, however, it became painfully evident,
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 103 
 
 as evening advanced, that no time was to be lost ; 
 and M. le Docteur Horeau being still absent, a local 
 practitioner in the near neighbourhood of Rueil was 
 hastily summoned to attend the Empress. But it 
 was already too late ; and although all the usual 
 remedies for inflammation of the chest and lungs 
 were duly applied, the real cause of the malady was 
 beyond the reach of human aid ; for the Empress 
 Josephine, though seemingly brilliant and gay but a 
 few hours since, was fast dying of what is vulgarly 
 but expressively called a broken heart. 
 
 She knew that she was dying, and she did not wish 
 to live ; but, to the last, her thought was all for others 
 rather than for herself. This was evident, even in 
 her conduct towards the much-alarmed village-doctor 
 who had been so suddenly summoned to attend her. 
 She saw that he was afraid of the grave responsi- 
 bility which had unexpectedly devolved upon him ; 
 speech was every moment becoming more difficult to 
 her, but she gave signs of kind encouragement to 
 him ; and when at last Dr. Horeau — having been 
 fetched from Paris — arrived, she pressed his hand in 
 a way to assure him that she was happy, and not at all 
 appalled by the fate awaiting her. With another day 
 there dawned some signs of amendment ; speech was 
 again possible to her, and when she heard that M.
 
 104 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 Redoute, a celebrated flower painter, had arrived at 
 Malmaison, by appointment, to take a sketch of some 
 exquisite and rare flowers then blooming in one of 
 the conservatories there, she made those around her 
 understand that she wished to see him. At the mo- 
 ment of his approaching her she kindly stretched 
 forth her hand to greet him ; but quickly remember- 
 ing that the sore throat from which she was suffering 
 might be infectious, she gently warned him not to 
 come nearer to her, and said, " Next week, dear sir, 
 I even now hope to see you at work on a new chef 
 cPceuvre? 
 
 Not long after the utterance of these few kind 
 words, she fell into a state of lethargy ; her son and 
 daughter, Eugene and Hortense, were present, and 
 the Cure of Rueil was summoned to administer the 
 last Sacraments to her ; but, not expecting such a 
 summons, the Cure was absent, and the tutor of the 
 young Prince, Louis Napoleon, being in holy orders, 
 but having for some time past ceased to officiate as 
 priest, was called upon to supply his place. 
 
 In answer to the usual questions on such solemn 
 occasions, and still in possession of her faculties, 
 the Empress Josephine made her last confession. 
 Every moment her voice became more and more 
 weak ; but her countenance was calm and her
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 105 
 
 manner quite free from any evidence of fear or ex- 
 citement. 
 
 Her children were sorrow-stricken and would not 
 leave her. Queen Hortense, that loved daughter who 
 in years long past had shared the sorrows and 
 poverty of the beloved and gentle mother, now fast 
 passing away from her sight, was in despair. 
 
 Her own unhappy marriage had thrown her back, 
 as it were, into her mother's arms ; and the very fact 
 of her having been forced to become, in some sort, a 
 political rival of that mother, as the unloving and 
 unloved wife of her stepfather's younger brother, was 
 — strange to say — a bond of union, a tie of sympathy 
 the more ; for Josephine loved the children of Hor- 
 tense as though they had been her own. 
 
 Just as the flickering flame of life was fast expiring 
 the Emperor Alexander of Russia, shocked at the 
 news which had reached him that the kind and 
 brilliant hostess, who, but a few days since, had wel- 
 comed him to Malmaison, was now lying at the 
 point of death there, gained admission to the apart- 
 ment where the awful mystery of separation between 
 soul and body was impending. Josephine recognised 
 him, and, by a great effort, articulated the words, " I 
 
 have always desired the happiness of France 
 
 I can say with truth, in these my last moments, that
 
 106 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 I, the first wife of Napoleon, have never willingly 
 caused a tear to be shed." 
 
 Soon afterwards, just before mid-day of the 29th 
 day of May, 18 14, the Empress Josephine expired; 
 and it may be affirmed — let science call her last 
 illness by any name that it may — she died of a 
 broken heart ; for her life, and happiness, which is 
 the essential breath of life to such an ardent and 
 loving nature as she possessed, were inextricably, 
 though mysteriously, involved in her love for her 
 second husband, who, when he married her, when he 
 first linked her passionate though faithful nature to 
 his own, had nothing, as he himself said, — nothing 
 but a torn cloak, a blood-stained sword, and the 
 reciprocity of love, to offer her. 
 
 The death of the Empress Josephine caused pro- 
 found sorrow in France, and especially in Paris, the 
 very heart of France . . . The road from the capital to 
 the neighbourhood of Malmaison was crowded by all 
 sorts and conditions of people, who seemed to take a 
 melancholy pleasure in making a pilgrimage thither. 
 More than twenty thousand men and women of all 
 classes flocked to the neighbourhood consecrated by 
 the residence there of the Empress, who, in the midst 
 of her own deep sorrow had, as she herself in her last 
 moments said, " never voluntarily caused a human
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 107 
 
 being to shed a tear." Tears enough, however, were 
 dropped at the sight of her lying calm and beautiful 
 in death, though her kind eyes could no longer shine 
 on those who wept, nor her once smiling lips speak 
 words of comfort, as had been their wont, to the 
 afflicted. 
 
 The poor, who had long gratefully regarded her as 
 their benefactress, claimed a large place in the cor- 
 tege which mournfully followed "Josephine the Good" 
 to the parish church of Rueil, where she sleeps her 
 last sleep. Queen Hortense was agonised by grief; 
 for a long time she remained absorbed in prayer in 
 one of the chapels of the Church of Rueil, but when 
 she awoke, as it were, to the dread reality that the 
 mortal remains of her mother were about to be 
 lowered into the grave, she flung herself down upon 
 the spot like one distracted, and it was with difficulty 
 that she was at length removed from it. 
 
 There, where such passionate tears of sorrow were 
 shed, a white marble monument has since been 
 erected — a monument of filial love and piety (repre- 
 senting Josephine, clad in Imperial robes, kneeling as 
 though praying for France) — and inscribed " From 
 Eugene and Hortense to Josephine." 
 
 Henceforth the best love of Hortense was given to 
 her own surviving sons, of whom one, Louis Napoleon
 
 108 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 (the other having perished in an Italian revolutionary 
 movement) eventually alone remained to her. 
 
 When the first Emperor Napoleon escaped from 
 Elba, " knocked," as he himself said, " at the gates of 
 Grenoble with his snuff-box," and found all France 
 gladly prepared to welcome him — or, in the more 
 figurative language of the time, the Imperial Eagle 
 flying from tower to tower, from steeple to steeple, 
 and resting at last with folded wings on the historic 
 heights of Notre Dame — his step-daughter was ready 
 to welcome him in Paris at the Tuileries. But their 
 meeting was mournful, for the one object of their 
 mutual love, Josephine, was dead ; and when Napo- 
 leon, during the " Hundred Days " which followed, 
 and before his own final banishment from France to 
 St. Helena, after the battle of Waterloo, revisited 
 Malmaison — the scene of his domestic happiness in 
 brighter days, and the still more recent scene of 
 Josephine's death for love of him — he exclaimed, 
 "Ah ! she would never have deserted me, as the 
 mother of my child has done ! " 
 
 For the Empress Marie Louise was not in France 
 to hail his appearance in that land to which he had 
 given glory ; she was not there to cheer him by words 
 of hope — woman's most heavenly utterance to the 
 man beloved — nor to manifest to him the growth of
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 109 
 
 life from his life in the person of their young son. 
 Already was the proud head of " the Conqueror " 
 bowed with anxiety and sorrow ; in heart depressed 
 he went forth to the battle of Waterloo, after the 
 " Hundred Days " in France were over ; and when he 
 momentarily returned, defeated, the last hours of his 
 stay in France ere going into new and more terrible 
 exile at St. Helena, were spent at Malmaison, the 
 scene of Josephine's last days and death. Here, he 
 wandered about disconsolate ; and this not so much, 
 as it seemed, for the loss of his glory but rather for 
 the loss of the love — the love of the one woman who, 
 when he was a mere soldier of fortune, had gladly 
 " condescended," as her proud relatives deemed, to be- 
 come his wife ; and who, though he had put her away 
 from him because of ambitious motives, had died 
 because she could not survive his misfortunes — un- 
 shared by her. 
 
 Her daughter Hortense, and her then two still sur- 
 viving sons, were with him at Malmaison to the last 
 moment ere his departure into renewed and fatal 
 exile. By the lips of Josephine's daughter, words of 
 comfort were spoken to him ; by her hand, help in 
 case of need (help taking the form of a splendid dia- 
 mond necklace enclosed in a belt to be invisibly worn 
 by him) was provided, and the youngest son of
 
 no ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 Hortense, Louis Napoleon, — favourite grandson of 
 Josephine, — clung about his knees, and seemed to 
 regard him with almost superstitious reverence. 
 
 After she had wept her last farewell to her Imperial 
 step-father, dreary years ensued for Hortense. Sepa- 
 rated from her husband, banished from France, 
 shocked, as time went on, at the intelligence of her 
 step-father's death at St. Helena, and resident chiefly 
 in the chill region of Arenenberg, she devoted herself 
 to the education of her two sons. Of these, as here 
 before said, the elder fell during an Italian insurrec- 
 tionary movement in 1830 at Forli ; after which event 
 she obtained an English passport, and, accompanied 
 by her then sole surviving son, Louis Napoleon (unre- 
 cognisable in early manhood as the young Imperial 
 child long banished from France), ventured to Paris, 
 and, once having arrived there under various disguises, 
 made the fact of her presence known to King Louis 
 Philippe. She besought an audience of him in refer- 
 ence to some property to which she had a claim. 
 The audience was granted, but nothing can here be 
 said with certainty as to the restitution of Imperial 
 property on the part of the Orleanist king. Cross- 
 ing over to England, the ex-Queen Hortense was 
 most cordially and courteously received in this 
 land, for which, as here narrated in a previous page,
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE, in 
 
 her mother, the Empress Josephine, had expressed a 
 strong predilection. 
 
 Three months Queen Hortense and her sole sur- 
 viving son, Louis Napoleon, remained in England, 
 and it was then that the Prince, destined at a later 
 date to become Emperor of the French under 
 the title of Napoleon III., first learnt to appreciate 
 English institutions — social and political. Even 
 at that date, the Napoleonic Prince believed, so 
 some affirm who remember his conversation of the 
 time, that he was born under a peculiar star, and 
 predestined to extraordinary circumstances ; but in 
 this belief it was difficult for even his accomplished 
 and devoted mother, Hortense, to coincide, when, 
 after having passed a few years of comparative tran- 
 quillity at Arenenberg, the news reached her there of 
 her son's arrest at Strasbourg (October 30, 1836) on 
 the charge of political conspiracy against the French 
 Government. Queen Hortense again left her solitary 
 home at Arenenberg, and it is most probable that 
 during her absence from it she, ever eager to prostrate 
 herself at her mother's tomb whenever some rare 
 occasion allowed her to do so, became acquainted 
 with the singular manner in which the final clause of 
 Cagliostro's prediction had become fulfilled ; for the 
 Chateau of Malmaison was by this time dismantled,
 
 112 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 its once beautiful grounds and parterres were fur- 
 rowed by the plough ; and — strange, though surely- 
 enough — it was discovered that this, the last resi- 
 dence of the Empress Josephine, the place where she 
 died, was built upon what had formerly been a refuse- 
 heap — in fact a dunghill — and hence was derived the 
 strange name given long since to the elegant Chateau 
 of Malmaison. Cagliostro's prophecy, "Thou shalt 
 be more than Queen, but thou shalt die on a dung- 
 hill," had literally therefore been fulfilled (though the 
 latter and revolting clause, unconsciously) by the 
 Empress Josephine. 
 
 But, to return to her daughter Hortense ; she again 
 addressed a letter in behalf of her son, the Stras- 
 bourg political offender, to Louis Philippe, dating 
 that letter from Viry, where the Imperialist Duchesse 
 de Ragusa, whose guest she was at the time, had a 
 country-house. But in vain was this appeal made by 
 Queen Hortense, for the only answer to it was a brief 
 note from one of his Orleanist Majesty's Ministers, 
 advising her to induce her son at once to take up his 
 abode in the United States of America for the term 
 of ten years. 
 
 To part her from her son was death to Queen 
 Hortense ; for she, — poetess, musician ; a most accom- 
 plished, and still personally attractive woman ; a
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 113 
 
 woman who had caused many brave men to acknow- 
 ledge only too sincerely the potent magic of her 
 charms, was devotedly attached to this one son now 
 alone remaining to her, on whose education, when a 
 child, she had bestowed the most sedulous care, and 
 who, as a man, had grown to be the best-loved com- 
 panion and consoler of her stricken life. 
 
 But she was compelled to submit, and when she 
 returned to her lonely home at Arenenberg her health 
 was visibly suffering from the pain of his absence. 
 
 At last, on the 3rd day of April, 1837, she wrote 
 to him that she believed her days were numbered, 
 and that she could not die peacefully save in his 
 presence. 
 
 Immediately upon receipt of this sad letter, Prince 
 Louis Napoleon, who, it was said, had four months 
 previously reached New York, determined to risk 
 every danger and rejoin his mother in Switzerland ; 
 but to do so he necessarily incurred great danger, not 
 only in escaping from the land of his banishment but 
 in traversing Europe ; for Italy, France, and Austria, 
 were all equally closed to him. To England, there- 
 fore, he came at first ; and, after passing through 
 Holland, then up the Rhine to Carlsruhe, he at length 
 reached his mother's abode beyond the frontiers of 
 the canton in which it was situated. He was there
 
 U4 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 at last, but it was almost too late. In April she had 
 written to him, but it was not until the month of 
 October that he once more clasped her to his heart. 
 It seemed as though she could not die until he came ; 
 but once having heard his voice, and felt herself en- 
 circled by his arms, Queen Hortense breathed her 
 last sigh, at five o'clock in the morning, just as the 
 dawn of a new day began to illumine the peaks and 
 pinnacles of the snowy mountains near the abode of 
 her exile. 
 
 Her fifty-four years of life were, each of them, more 
 or less eventful ; but the great misfortune of that life 
 was her having been early wedded to a man who, un- 
 loved by her, had — notwithstanding his many noble and 
 excellent qualities — never sought sufficiently to soothe 
 the acknowledged anguish which her compulsory 
 union with him caused her. Yet, in her last will, she 
 did noble justice to him, and desired that he might 
 know how great was her regret that she had never 
 been able to make him happy. " As for my son," 
 she added in this testamentary document, " I have 
 no political counsel to give him, for I know that he 
 knows his position, and all the duties imposed upon 
 him by the name he bears." 
 
 Queen Hortense desired to repose in death by the 
 side of her mother, and when her son became a cap-
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 115 
 
 tive at Ham, he consecrated some of the days of his 
 imprisonment there by designing a monument to the 
 memory of the one parent whose devotion to him was 
 a cherished remembrance during the remainder of his 
 eventful and strangely-chequered life — that life so 
 recently ended in the land of his last exile, — the 
 land beloved both by Josephine and Hortense. 
 
 More sad even than the latter days of these two 
 illustrious women, were the closing years of their 
 kinswoman, Caroline Bonaparte, the adored wife and 
 afterwards the inconsolable widow of Joachim Murat, 
 Bonapartist King of Naples, who, when condemned 
 to die by the Bourbon monarch whose throne he 
 had mounted, held her portrait to his breast until 
 that fatal moment when the death-shot entered his 
 heart. 
 
 Taken prisoner, and conveyed to Trieste when 
 King Ferdinand was restored to Naples, Caroline 
 Bonaparte was eventually compelled to take up her 
 abode in the Castle of Hairnbourg, near Vienna ; and 
 it was there that the awful intelligence of her husband's 
 death reached her, in the month of October, 18 15. 
 Although originally richly endowed by her brother, 
 Napoleon I., when, as the happy wife of her brave and 
 beloved Murat, she was proclaimed Queen of Naples, 
 the whole, or nearly the whole, of her fortune was
 
 Ii6 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 confiscated by Ferdinand after his restoration to the 
 throne. 
 
 In widowhood and comparative poverty, she resided 
 for many dreary years at Trieste, where, and else- 
 where, she consecrated her remarkable talents to the 
 education of her four children — the living representa- 
 tives of the husband she had devotedly loved, and 
 never ceased to mourn. At last, in the month of 
 June, 1838, a pension was voted to her by the French 
 parliament, the Chambers having been memorialised 
 in her behalf ; but this release from poverty came too 
 late, for sorrow and anxiety had done their murderous 
 work ; cancer in the stomach, the same disease which 
 •had been fatal to her illustrious and exiled brother 
 at St. Helena, had manifested itself; and this brave 
 and beautiful woman, who, in her early youth, was 
 said by Talleyrand to have the head of a diplomatist 
 on the shoulders of a goddess, died at Florence the 
 same year in which France had tardily granted her 
 a pension. 
 
 After her husband's death she was generally known 
 in Italy by the name of the Countess Lipona, the 
 Italian name of Naples (Napoli) reversed. 
 
 The name of Murat was familiar as a household 
 word under the " Second Empire " in France ; and as 
 the two daughters of Caroline Bonaparte, who once
 
 JOSEPHINE, HORTENSE, AND CAROLINE. 117 
 
 as a happy wife bore that name, were married, one to 
 the Marquis Pepoli and the other to Count Rasponi, 
 it is to be hoped that the noble type of womanhood 
 personified in the gifted sister of Napoleon I. may not 
 cease to exist in the land of poetry, love, and song, 
 not less than of heroic aspirations.
 
 THE 
 
 DUCHESSE D'ANGOULfiME 
 
 AND THE 
 
 DUCHESSE DE BERRI, 
 
 (AUNT AND MOTHER OF THE COMTE DE CHAMBORD, CALLED 
 BY LEGITIMISTS "HENRI V. OF FRANCE.")
 
 S.A.R. MADAME DUCHESSE DE I'.KRRI.
 
 THE DUCHESSE DANGOU- 
 LEME AND THE DUCHESSE 
 DE BERRI. 
 
 HILD ! thou art my daughter ! 
 As such thou art altogether 
 mine. Thou dost belong to 
 me, and not to the nation ! " 
 
 Such were the words with 
 which Queen Marie Antoinette 
 greeted her first-born babe, 
 after more than eight years 
 of childless marriage. It was winter-time 
 at Versailles ; the old year 1778 was fast 
 dying out, but the dawn of a new life had 
 been anxiously awaited within the palace 
 walls, and now their Majesties of France were parents, 
 though not yet of a Dauphin, as all loyal French 
 subjects had ardently hoped and prayed would have 
 been the case. The Queen knew that the sex of her 
 child was a disappointment to the nation ; and it was,
 
 122 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 therefore, with an intense, almost prophetic yearning 
 of commiseration, as of love, that she first gazed 
 upon her infant daughter, and again exclaimed, " Poor 
 woman-child ! Thou art especially my child. My 
 son would have belonged to the State, but it will be 
 thy lot to share my pleasures, and mine to soothe thy 
 sorrows." 
 
 The infant Princess was styled, from the moment 
 that her cry was first heard in this world, Madame 
 Royale, and in due time she received the baptismal 
 names of Maria Theresa, after her maternal grand- 
 mother the Empress of Austria and Queen of 
 Hungary. 
 
 By the Salic law of France, excluding women in 
 their own right from the throne, it was impossible 
 that this first-born child of Louis XVI. and Marie 
 Antoinette could ever become Queen, save as Queen- 
 Consort, of the country over which her ancestors had 
 reigned for nearly a thousand years : but in the uni- 
 versal disappointment as to her sex, the King's 
 younger brother, the Comte d'Artois,* could not be 
 expected to share, as, in default of a dauphin, his own 
 son, the Duke d'Angouleme, then about three years 
 of age, would some day be heir to the Crown. 
 
 The young Prince just named, was much associated 
 
 * Afterwards Charles X.
 
 DUCHESSES UANGOULEME AND DE BERRL 123 
 
 with his cousin, the little Madame Royale, from her 
 earliest days ; bright to them both was their child- 
 hood, and vivid in after years were their mutual 
 memories of the sunny gardens of the little Trianon, 
 and of scenes of pageantry at Versailles, at which 
 they were, as children, accustomed to be present. 
 One scene especially they were neither of them likely 
 to forget — that in which two children, a boy and a girl, 
 stood side by side during some ceremonial in which, 
 though mainly then unconscious of its full purport, 
 they felt they both were taking a solemn part. The 
 girl had a veil on her head, and in its corners she 
 nervously twined her fingers, whilst longing, perhaps, 
 to escape to the birds and flowers in which she 
 delighted ; and the boy wore epaulettes and a 
 diamond -hilted sword, with which sword he was 
 thinking, perhaps, some day to fight for France. 
 The girl was Madame Royale, the boy was the Due 
 d'Angouleme, and the scene here glanced at in which 
 they stood side by side was that of their betrothal. 
 
 But ere they could either of them realise what was 
 meant by this fact of their betrothal, they were sepa- 
 rated. In the summer of 1789, when the little 
 Trianon was looking brightest, and the leaves were 
 thickest on the old forest trees of Versailles, Madame 
 Royale mourned the loss of her first playmate ; for
 
 124 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 the coming Revolution had already declared itself, 
 and the Comte d'Artois, with his two sons, the Dues 
 d' Angouleme and de Berri, were among the first to 
 fly from before the threatening storm — to fly, not from 
 motives of fear, but in the hope of finding beyond 
 the frontiers such help as might yet sustain the tot- 
 tering throne of France. 
 
 The Due d'Angouleme had gone, and a sea of 
 blood would surge up between himself and the young 
 Princess to whom he was affianced before they could 
 meet again. He had looked for the last time upoji the 
 radiant face of his aunt, the Queen of France, and 
 for the last time had listened to the pious counsels of 
 the King. The Due d'Angouleme had gone, and 
 with him the brightness of childhood suddenly 
 vanished from Madame Royale. 
 
 Two sons and another daughter had been born to 
 Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette since Madame 
 Royale first saw the light, but she and one (the 
 younger) brother, commonly called the Dauphin, 
 alone survived to share the sorrows that were in store 
 for their parents ; and it was in the month of October, 
 1789, when the palace of Versailles was invaded by 
 the furiously discontented mob from revolutionary 
 Paris, that the terrific nature of these sorrows was first 
 revealed to this brother and sister. They were both
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 125 
 
 near their mother when, standing in the central bal- 
 cony of the palace, she dauntlessly, and in immediate 
 danger of death, confronted the menacing insurgents 
 who crowded in the great marble court just below her. 
 They were seated in the same carriage with the King 
 and Queen, when, a few hours later on that day, their 
 majesties were compelled by the savage mob to quit 
 Versailles, in order to take up their abode in Paris. 
 During the frightful journey thither they beheld the 
 bleeding heads of the recently-murdered Life Guards 
 carried, in derision of all loyalty, on pikes, by wretches 
 who, mad with fierce, unholy triumph, danced on the 
 way like madmen, covered with mud. 
 
 They heard the coarse threats of the poissardes, 
 when those vile and unsexed monsters jeered at the 
 King and Queen through the windows of the coach 
 in which they sat exposed to view. Madame Royale 
 and her brother saw and heard all this, and much more 
 that appertained to this first stage of their parents' 
 martyrdom, and when in after life, recalling the cir- 
 cumstances of that horrible journey, the "woman- 
 child," who when born the Queen had hailed as espe- 
 cially her child, remembered also the pious resigna- 
 tion of her father and the dignified calm of her 
 mother, for from the appalling day of their forced 
 departure from Versailles, the King and Queen were
 
 126 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 worshipped as beings above mortality by their 
 daughter. 
 
 The imagination of a young girl, reared as this 
 Princess had been, is naturally exalted. Hitherto she 
 had beheld her mother bright of countenance, brilliant 
 in costume, and fascinatingly animated in manner ; 
 but now she regarded her as a saintly heroine, and as 
 such she never afterwards ceased to reverence her. 
 For at the Tuileries, the henceforth compelled abode 
 of their Majesties — a prison rather than a palace to 
 them — she became the constant companion of her 
 mother, whose tears, wrung from her by daily and 
 unmerited insults, were often only checked by the 
 fear of imparting premature sadness to that first- 
 born child, who then began to worship her. All the 
 sunshine of this young Princess's life was left behind 
 her at Versailles, and when the day came that she 
 partook of her first communion, her father spoke to 
 her in solemn words of the true meaning of the Cross 
 to her faith, in which he conjured her to cling fast — 
 words never to be forgotten, and the less so because 
 Madame Royale was already aware that the religion 
 of her ancestors was at that time no longer gene- 
 rally reverenced in France. For when returning to 
 Paris with her parents from Varennes, when their 
 attempted flight beyond the frontiers was frustrated
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 127 
 
 (June 21 — 25, 1 791), a village cure, who had the loyal 
 rashness to approach the King's coach, so as to gain 
 the honour of speaking a word with his Majesty, 
 was knocked down by the brutal crowd assembled 
 by the road-side for the purpose of insulting the re- 
 captured royal family, and would have been murdered 
 had not one of the popular commissioners in charge* 
 of the King cried out, " Tigers ! have you ceased to 
 be Frenchmen ? From a nation of brave men are 
 you changed to a horde of murderers ? " 
 
 It was during the preceding night of terrible 
 suspense at Varennes that the Queen's hair turned 
 white, and her daughter there shared, as much as her 
 still tender age permitted, all the anguish of disap- 
 pointment, the scorn of treachery, and the royal sense 
 of right against the fast-increasing might of an 
 insolent populace, which her Majesty displayed when 
 (at the house of M. Sausse, a grocer, and the Mayor of 
 the Commune, whither the illustrious fugitives had, 
 after betrayal and recognition, been conducted) she 
 exclaimed to the jeering bystanders, " Frenchmen 
 and Frenchwomen, since you recognise my husband 
 and your King, speak, if you speak at all, with the 
 respect that you owe to him." 
 
 From the date of her parents' re-capture at Va- 
 rennes, and their being conducted as State prisoners
 
 128 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 back again to the Tuileries, Madame Royale was 
 inseparably involved in all the well-known circum- 
 stances which heralded the fast-coming " Reign of 
 Terror." She loved her father devotedly ; and 
 never, perhaps, as yet had she venerated him more 
 than when she beheld him wearing the boiuiet 
 rouge, which a ruffian had placed on his head 
 upon the occasion of the maddened multitude first 
 breaking into the Tuileries for the purpose of ex- 
 torting concessions from the King by threats and 
 insults, for she knew that upon that day he had dis- 
 played a sublime courage of which the people 
 had hitherto not thought him capable, and that 
 sooner than flinch before these most degraded of his 
 subjects he had, in answer to the taunting request 
 of one of them, who carried a bottle of wine with a 
 glass attached to it, drank the very dregs of a 
 draught which he had reason to suppose was poi- 
 soned. 
 
 By the time that the final storming of the Tuileries 
 came, Marie Antoinette had wept so much that her 
 eyes, rarely visited by sleep, were no longer the 
 brilliant orbs which had shone a few years before on 
 the courtly circle at Versailles ; but still they lighted 
 up with magnanimous determination when upon that 
 memorable day (August 10, 1792) she declared that,
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 129 
 
 then, finding outrage and indignity around her on every 
 side, she would rather be nailed to the palace walls 
 than fly. And yet, as her daughter, Madame Royale, 
 never afterwards forgot, the Queen was finally com- 
 pelled to yield to her love and fear, as wife and mother 
 — fear, not for herself, but for the menaced safety of her 
 husband and children. With difficulty, and through 
 the midst of danger, the King and Queen were con- 
 veyed to " the bosom of the National Assembly," and 
 there for fifteen long hours of stifling heat, stormy 
 discussion, and agonised suspense, the young Princess 
 — whose joys her mother had fondly hoped to share, 
 and whose pains to alleviate — was seated by that 
 same mother (the Dauphin having fallen asleep on 
 the knees of the latter), whilst crimes and massacre 
 sufficient to rise up against France for ages, were com- 
 mitted at the Tuileries. No ; the joy of Marie 
 Antoinette at the birth of the daughter who now 
 anxiously watched her, her own eyes streaming with 
 tears, had not been prophetic ; or rather the predic- 
 tion was reversed, for it was the fate of the young 
 Madame Royale to soothe her mother's sorrows, 
 because to that mother no pleasure any longer re- 
 mained for her daughter to share. 
 
 Only a prison — the gloomy prison of the Temple, 
 to which, on the 13th day of August, 1792 (the third
 
 130 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 day after the storming of the Tuileries), the dethroned 
 King and Queen, with their children, also the King's 
 sister Elizabeth, and a few immediate followers, were 
 conveyed. Madame Royale thus, when just on the 
 threshold of womanhood, passed from a palace into a 
 prison, and within this dreary abode she soon beheld 
 her parents forced to part with the few faithful 
 adherents who had hitherto been permitted to remain 
 near them, until at last she found herself left alone 
 there with her father, her mother, her brother and her 
 aunt — the saintly aunt who was destined so soon to 
 die the death of a virgin martyr on the scaffold, the 
 Princess (or, as she was commonly called Madame) 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 But even this state of things was not long to last ; 
 for, first, the King and Queen were placed in separate 
 compartments of the tower of the Temple, and only 
 permitted to meet each other, or to greet their chil- 
 dren in presence of brutal gaolers who, upon these 
 few and far between stated occasions, took every 
 means of openly insulting them. Their privations 
 grew more and more severe. The Queen, with her 
 children and Madame Elizabeth, occupied the storey 
 above that in which the King was imprisoned. Days, 
 weeks, months passed, and there came that Sunday 
 (the 20th of January) when the King, being sentenced
 
 DUCHESSES HANGOULEME AND DE BERRL 131 
 
 to die on the morrow, a last interview with his family 
 was to be allowed to him. 
 
 The speechless agony of that meeting was only 
 broken by tears and sobs. It was about eight 
 o'clock in the evening when Louis XVI. was thus 
 allowed to bid a last farewell to all whom he loved 
 on earth. At last he essayed to speak to these 
 dear ones, from whom he was about to be parted for 
 ever in this world. He sought to console them. His 
 faithful servant, Cl^ry, was at hand, having with 
 difficulty gained permission to remain with his royal 
 master to the last ; and he it^ is who tells us that 
 when at length the King sat down, as though over- 
 come by his own emotion for the moment, the Queen 
 was on his left hand, Madame Elizabeth on his right, 
 the little Dauphin stood between his legs, and Madame 
 Royale stood opposite him. They all continually 
 embraced the King, but his words during that terrible 
 hour were never forgotten by his daughter, who was 
 destined to survive him the longest, and who thus, 
 with a reticence almost painful to read, records the 
 substance of them. 
 
 " He related the circumstances of his trial to the 
 Queen, whilst excusing [the wicked men who con- 
 demned him to death He gave pious 
 
 counsel to his son, and above all things enjoined
 
 132 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 him to pardon those who were causing his death ; 
 he gave his benediction to him and also to me, his 
 daughter." 
 
 And that daughter was so utterly overcome when 
 receiving this farewell blessing, that she fainted like 
 one dead at the feet of her father. In that uncon- 
 scious condition she was carried forth from his 
 presence ; but about six o'clock on the following 
 morning she was aroused to all the anguish of acute 
 apprehension, for somebody entered the chamber, or 
 rather the cell, which she occupied, in search of a 
 Mass-book for the King's use. For a short time she 
 hoped that the Queen, with herself and brother, were 
 about again to be summoned to the presence of her 
 father. It seemed to her impossible that the deadly 
 crime of regicide would be permitted in France. 
 Surely it was all some hideous dream ! But too soon, 
 alas ! the frantic shouts of a maddened populace, 
 piercing even the heavy prison walls, and then the 
 noise of beating drums, smote upon the heart of 
 Madame Royale, with the appalling conviction that 
 the deed which suddenly made her fatherless was 
 consummated. Yes ; she felt herself to be fatherless, 
 but even at that dread moment — a moment which 
 influenced her whole future life — she did not believe 
 France, even though already Red Republican France,
 
 DUCHESSES UANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 133 
 
 to beKingless. For her brother still lived ! He, though 
 but a poor little captive child — a child already ailing 
 sadly for want of fresh air and free exercise, and for 
 lack of all the pleasant things to which he had been 
 accustomed, still lived, though sleeping at that moment 
 unconsciously by his newly widowed mother's side. 
 His father's blood was flowing upon the scaffold ; his 
 mother's tears would henceforth flow before him con- 
 tinually ; his sister desolate, watched, with wrung heart 
 — and so watching, prayed — prayed, even then, for her 
 father's murderers. But, still, looking upon him, her 
 helpless and imprisoned brother, she hailed him in her 
 young stricken heart as King of France ; for, true to 
 the creed of loyal France in days gone by, she believed 
 that " the King can never die," and echoed the cry of 
 immortal French chivalry under the Fleur-de-lys> " Le 
 Roi est mort. Vive le Roi ! " What, then, did this 
 imprisoned and fatherless Princess think and feel 
 when, not long afterwards, she beheld this beloved 
 brother of hers — this King of France, albeit a King 
 most youthful and quite captive, torn from his and 
 her mother's arms, in order to be consigned to a 
 compartment of the Temple far removed from that 
 still occupied by the Queen ! 
 
 Marie Antoinette, worn by grief, and attired in 
 deepest mourning, implored the ruffians who had
 
 134 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 come to take her son from her, at once to kill her, 
 sooner than inflict this fresh cruelty upon her, and 
 Madame Royale besought the wretches to desist in 
 their attempts to remove her brother ; but all in 
 vain. The men thus addressed were infuriated by 
 delay, and threatened at once to kill the child if he 
 were not instantly consigned to their hands. 
 
 The Queen still sought to protect her son (he was 
 undressed and in bed J from these ruffians. She stood 
 over his bed with menacing aspect, in the vain 
 attempt to defend him ; but, watching this frightful 
 scene of her mother's agony with streaming eyes, 
 Madame Royale perceived that in truth her brother's 
 life would be cut short by murder if her mother did 
 not yield. Her aunt, Elizabeth, who was also 
 present, dreaded the same result; and when, there- 
 fore, the Queen presently sank down exhausted by 
 the side of her terrified boy, these two Princesses 
 caught him up, and proceeded to reclothe and to 
 soothe him as well as their own agitation would 
 permit. 
 
 The Queen then rose, for at length the conviction 
 had flashed upon her that, to save her son's life, she must 
 then and there part from him. She rose, and with a 
 forced calmness, more dreadful than any tears to wit- 
 ness, she herself placed her fatherless boy — nay, her
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 135 
 
 King, as she also secretly regarded him — in the hands 
 of the men, imploring them at the same time to submit 
 to the Municipal Council her humble entreaties some- 
 times to be allowed to see him. Then, with the tears 
 of his widowed mother on his head, and whilst his 
 own tears were still flowing, the Dauphin (or rather 
 Louis XVII., as proscribed royalists called him), 
 bewildered with terror, and faint with the struggle, 
 was led forth from his mother, — never to behold her 
 again. 
 
 But, from time to time, she furtively saw him ; for 
 the Queen was occasionally allowed to [breathe the 
 fresh air upon the battlemented height of her prison, 
 and there her daughter, Madame Royale, with an 
 aching heart, sometimes beheld her only surviving 
 parent wait and watch as long as possible near a 
 chink in the wall, which ever and anon, though only 
 at rare and long intervals, gave her a faded vision of 
 the child who was at one time radiant with beauty 
 and intelligence, when playing by her side amongst 
 the roses of Versailles. 
 
 Day after day passed, and Madame Royale had 
 the agony of perceiving the deep gloom which had 
 taken possession of the Queen since her widowhood 
 intensified by separation from her son. Marie 
 Antoinette was not unconscious of the tender soli-
 
 156 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 citude of her daughter ; for as no menial assistance 
 was at this time allowed to the diminished group of 
 the royal prisoners of the Temple, that Princess herself 
 waited upon her with watchful care, and, with a love 
 which in her case stood in the] place of experience, 
 did all that could be done to alleviate the daily mise- 
 ries and privations of the position to which they were 
 mutually exposed. But even this self-sacrificing 
 privilege was soon denied to her, for before dawn on 
 the morning of August 2, 1793, the dethroned Queen 
 was removed from the prison of the Temple to the 
 dungeon of the Conciergerie. 
 
 When Madame Royale heard the decree read aloud 
 that was to sever her from her mother, she implored 
 the Republican emissaries, who had come instantly to 
 enforce it, to take her also — either to a dungeon or 
 the scaffold — to subject her, in short, to any torment 
 rather than inflict that of this terrible separation upon 
 her ; but her passionate entreaties only met with rude 
 repulse, and it was therefore as though spell-bound 
 by some hideous dream that she watched her mother, 
 whilst the latter, with an outward appearance of 
 almost superhuman calm, set about the few prepara- 
 tions for immediate departure as though for a long 
 journey. With her own hands the Queen packed up 
 some few articles of necessary clothing that her new
 
 DUCHESSES D'ANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 137 
 
 jailers, who were looking on all the time, consented 
 that she should take with her ; and at last, when the 
 moment of her going forth with them could no longer 
 be deferred, she turned towards the two beloved 
 beings she was about to leave — her martyred hus- 
 band's sister, and her own daughter. First she 
 embraced the Princess Elizabeth, who was over- 
 powered by an agony of woe beyond even her 
 disciplined powers of restraint to control ; but, 
 quickly regaining self-command, she yielded her 
 place in the arms of Marie Antoinette to that 
 Queen's child. Mute was the agony of Madame 
 Royale, but when the Queen folded her for the last 
 time to her heart she said, " My daughter, my first- 
 born child ! thou knowest in what consists thy faith ; 
 cling to that faith, and be courageous ! " 
 
 The girl could scarcely be detached from her 
 mother, whom she embraced again and again with 
 speechless sorrow, but the Queen gently extricated 
 herself from her, and then, turning to the ruffians 
 who were waiting impatiently to take her away, she 
 exclaimed, " My son ! my son ! May I not bid him, 
 too, farewell ? " 
 
 But this was not to be, and in another moment 
 the dethroned Queen — the heart-stricken mother, was 
 led forth to the dungeon of the Conciergerie, which
 
 138 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 awaited her. " Nothing more," she declared, " can 
 hurt me now." 
 
 Day after day, week after week, month after month 
 elapsed, and Madame Royale, still a prisoner in the 
 Temple with her aunt Elizabeth, hoped that as no 
 tidings reached her of her mother, she herself was 
 not altogether an orphan. And doubtless this hope, 
 though delusive (for the Queen had perished on the 
 scaffold), still helped to sustain her, even after her 
 aunt was forcibly separated from her (May 9, 1794) 
 to die the death of a virgin martyr. 
 
 From that time forth Madame Royale was a soli- 
 tary prisoner in the Temple. Alone ! always alone ! 
 Sometimes from afar she could hear the voice of 
 her brother, until that voice also was silenced by 
 death. But even when this once cherished voice 
 met her ear, it was as though listened to by her in 
 the midst of some delirium of fever, for the child 
 who, but a few years before, had sparkled with life 
 and intelligence at Versailles, was now brutalized and 
 degraded as far as such a child could be, in the 
 hands of his jailers, whose horrible task was, not to 
 kill the boy by steel or poison, but by every means 
 in their power to tear down and trample upon his 
 princely nature. From afar, his captive sister could 
 hear his young voice raised in some coarse republi-
 
 DUCHESSES HANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 139 
 
 can song, and by the unsteady tones of that voice, 
 which once was music to her now dead parents, she 
 knew that the child was drunk. And yet that child 
 was not only her brother, but her King ! 
 
 As for herself, she heroically strove to occupy 
 the wearisome hours of her solitary imprisonment 
 as best she might. Not long since in a palace she 
 had been waited upon by some of the most illus- 
 trious women in Europe ; her every want had been 
 anticipated ; but now she had to sweep her own 
 prison floor. She had no light, save that which came 
 struggling through barred windows ; no food, save 
 that which was rudely pushed by a rough hand 
 through a momentarily unbolted door — but a door 
 which seemed eternally closed against her ; no mental 
 resource, save that of repeating her prayers ; no 
 means even of calculating time, save by counting the 
 heavy nights and days as they passed, or by suffering 
 from either the oppression of heat or the pain of cold, 
 as the seasons slowly succeeded each other. 
 
 She was scarcely sixteen years of age when she 
 found herself thus absolutely alone ; but in the midst 
 of this seeming death of her life in its early spring-time 
 she learned to be thankful for small mercies — such as 
 a warm and sunny day, instead of a bleak and stormy 
 one ; for clean water, wherewith to perform her
 
 140 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 most meagre toilette ; for the occasional society of a 
 little dog, which, at a later date, was allowed to creep 
 through her but seldom unbarred door ; and for being 
 still allowed to keep a piece of knitting, at which 
 she worked occasionally, though, perhaps, it only 
 helped to weary her. 
 
 Upon few and far-between occasions the municipal 
 authorities of the prison entered her cell on a brief 
 visit of inspection. She knew not as yet that her 
 mother and her aunt were both dead, and she there- 
 fore implored the Government emissaries to tell her 
 of those dear ones. "Tell me of my mother," she 
 would exclaim, " tell me of my aunt. It is most 
 horrible," she one day added, " to be parted thus 
 from the one for just a year, and from the other for 
 months, without knowing what has become of either 
 of them." 
 
 " You are not ill ? " asked one of the officials. 
 
 " Sir," she answered, " the most cruel sickness is 
 that of the heart." 
 
 " Hope," he exclaimed, in vague reply. " Hope in 
 the goodness and the justice of the French." 
 
 And what a hope for this Princess, who knew that 
 her father had fallen a victim to such goodness and 
 justice ! Her only real hope was in the faith im- 
 parted to her by that same revered father, for she
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. i 4I 
 
 never forgot how, at her first communion, he had 
 conjured her to hold fast to it in adversity. 
 
 At last, by counting the dreary days and nights, 
 she knew that her birthday had come round again, 
 and that she was seventeen years of age. Then, un- 
 expectedly by her, she was suddenly delivered from 
 prison, and told that, owing to an exchange of 
 prisoners between France and Austria, she was forth- 
 with to be sent to Vienna, there to 'claim a shelter 
 from strangers, for such personally were her maternal 
 Austrian kinsfolk to her. 
 
 Then, too, she was at length fearfully convinced 
 that all whom she had loved in France were dead ; 
 and never did this long captive Princess feel more 
 utterly alone in the world than when, ere being led 
 forth by municipal authority from her prison of the 
 Temple, she turned and wrote upon one of the walls 
 of her cell — 
 
 " Oh, my God ! forgive those who caused my parents 
 to die ! " 
 
 Yes ; after nineteen months of absolute isolation, 
 she was to find herself an exile, though at liberty. 
 She was now a woman, though she had been scarcely 
 more than a child when first she entered the prison 
 which at length she was about to leave. But what 
 was life to her now that her hitherto brave heart was
 
 142 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 broken by the assurance that her father, her mother, 
 her aunt, her brother — all, in short, who had made life 
 most dear to her — were dead ? What was liberty, 
 when (still as State prisoner until she crossed the 
 frontiers of her native land) she was to leave the 
 country which, despite its recent blood-stains, she 
 loved as that over which her ancestors had reigned 
 for centuries, and in the eventual redemption of which 
 she believed as an article of its antique and glorious 
 faith ! 
 
 Did the betrothed companion of her childhood 
 still survive ? As yet it was difficult for her to 
 certify this ; and even were the Due d'Angou- 
 leme still alive, all things had changed since last 
 they met, for then she was but a child, and now 
 she had become a woman, and therefore a stranger 
 to him. 
 
 At night-time she was conveyed away from the 
 prison of the Temple, and upon the 9th day of 
 January, 1796, she arrived at the Imperial Palace of 
 Vienna — the home of her dead mother's early girl- 
 hood. Francis II. (son of the late Emperor Leopold) 
 reigned over Austria when the orphan daughter of 
 Marie Antoinette — the grand-daughter and name- 
 sake of the late heroic Empress Maria Theresa — 
 arrived at Vienna. She was clothed in deepest
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 143 
 
 mourning, and when, after some weeks of seclusion, she 
 appeared in the midst of the Imperial Court, it was as 
 though a pale and saddened vision of what her mother 
 once was had risen up near the throne. A household 
 was formed for her on the same 'footing as that of an 
 Archduchess of Austria. A legacy from her aunt, the 
 Duchess of Saxe Teschen, was restored to her, and by 
 the Emperor and Empress of Austria she was regarded 
 also as heiress of Lorraine. The durability of the 
 French Republic was not believed in by them, and 
 soon it therefore came to pass that Madame Royale 
 found herself sued by them to be the bride of her 
 cousin, the Archduke Charles. 
 
 But to this she would not consent ; for although 
 now become a stranger to her other cousin, the Due 
 d'Angouleme, she had learnt that he still lived, and 
 she had never forgotten that by the — to her — sacred 
 will of her parents, she was betrothed to him. 
 
 Her heart was still sore with deep sorrow, and in 
 much need of sympathy, and the one who best knew 
 how to soothe her with tender care was the bright 
 and brave relative who, nevertheless, she would not 
 wed. 
 
 Madame Royale was, by bitter discipline trained to 
 acts of self-sacrifice ; the fate of her parents had cast 
 a pall over every feeling of her heart ; but, neverthe-
 
 144 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 less, there is only too much probability that that 
 same heart of hers was quickened in its pulsations by 
 the would-be wooing of her cousin Charles, and it is 
 quite certain that when she inflicted upon herself the 
 possible pain of rejecting him as her husband she so 
 seriously offended her, and his, Austrian relatives, 
 that her position at the Court of Vienna became 
 henceforth irksome in the extreme to her. 
 
 She believed herself to be consecrated to the 
 memory of her martyred parents, and to France ; and 
 in this belief she was sustained by recent correspond- 
 ence with her uncle, the elder surviving brother of 
 her father, who, although an exile like herself, was by 
 all French royalists regarded, since the death of her 
 brother, as King of France. 
 
 LOUIS XVI II., as proscribed Legitimists called 
 him, was residing at Mittau, in Courland, having — 
 after many adventures as an exile — been invited to 
 do so by the Emperor Paul of Russia, whose prover- 
 bially erratic sympathies happened at that time to be 
 in favour of the ancien regime of France. 
 
 The Due d'Angouleme and his younger brother, 
 the Due de Berri, were then also at Mittau, and the 
 chief wish of Louis XVIII. was to behold the elder 
 of these his two nephews united in marriage to the 
 orphan daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette.
 
 DUCHESSES D'ANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 145 
 
 The future fate of this Princess became, there- 
 fore, an object of contention betwixt the Court of 
 Vienna and the royal household at Mittau, and this 
 to such a degree that although Madame Royale was 
 at first treated with extreme kindness, as the guest of 
 her imperial relatives, the Empress of Austria, albeit 
 naturally of gentle disposition and elegant manners, 
 was so incensed against her by her persistent refusal 
 to become the wife of the Archduke Charles, that she 
 did not hesitate in letting her feel the weight of her 
 displeasure. 
 
 When, therefore, by intervention of the Czar of 
 Russia the young Princess was, after a stay of more 
 than three years at Vienna, at length permitted to join 
 her uncle at Mittau, it was with painfully mixed feel- 
 ings that she set forth on her way to that capital of 
 " dull and ducal Courland," where, in a dreary-looking 
 castle, more resembling, in its oblong form, a barrack 
 than a palace, the exiled French monarch lived in 
 the midst of a miniature Court, which, for the most 
 part, was composed of proscribed nobles and some- 
 what aged gentlemen, who, in their exile, still clung 
 to the customs and creed of France before the Re- 
 volution. 
 
 In the midst of these devoted adherents of French 
 monarchy — adherents who had shed their blood and
 
 146 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 lost their fortunes in behalf of the cause which they 
 regarded as that of divine right, lived the Abbe 
 Edgeworth, he who at the risk of his own life had 
 sustained the martyred Louis XVI. on the scaffold, 
 and who there, whilst piously exhorting that monarch 
 to the last, and exclaiming " Son of St. Louis, ascend 
 to Heaven ! " had been sprinkled by the royal blood, 
 which was to him as a new baptism. 
 
 Madame Royale yearned to kneel at the feet of 
 this ecclesiastic, and had long desired to feel her 
 uncle's protecting arms around her ; but when, in the 
 month of June, 1799, she arrived at Mittau, and was 
 most enthusiastically welcomed there, she wept so 
 much that at first it was difficult for the loyal and 
 eager bystanders, many of whom remembered her as 
 a joyous child at Versailles, to discern how far she 
 now resembled either of her late parents. 
 
 "Be to me a father," she implored of the King, 
 who fondly embraced her ; but although she knew 
 that her affianced husband, the Due d'Angouleme, was 
 standing by the side of his exiled Majesty when she 
 thus threw herself in the arms of the latter, it was not 
 at first to him that she turned for consolation, but 
 rather to the Abbe Edgeworth, with whom she soon 
 requested to be left alone, " for to him," she added, 
 " I owe my most sacred gratitude."
 
 DUCHESSES D'ANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 147 
 
 The pious priest was allowed to lead away this 
 daughter of the monarch whose courage he had up- 
 held on the scaffold, and now she said to him, " In 
 your presence I find it soothing even to shed these 
 bitter tears." What other words she uttered — what 
 avowal she made, when kneeling at his feet in the 
 sanctity of the conversation, or rather, confession, 
 which ensued, none on earth can say, although the 
 Abbe afterwards declared, " She wept so much that I 
 feared for the safety of her health ; but not one murmur 
 did she make against the decrees of God." 
 
 The Due d'Angouleme was a brave Prince, but had 
 become somewhat ascetic in mind and manner during 
 his long exile. He had been the pupil of the Abbe 
 Edgeworth, and when at length he beheld his future 
 bride at Mittau, and when, after her conference with 
 the ecclesiastic so much reverenced by them both, she 
 stood calmly in presence of him — her long-affianced 
 husband, — he, too, had memories more than sufficient 
 to impart an air of solemnity to their meeting after 
 years of separation. For Madame Royale resembled 
 her mother, Queen Marie Antoinette, in face, and 
 form, and dignified grace of manner, albeit all the 
 vivacity of youth had been crushed out of her by 
 the misfortunes of that mother, one of whose great 
 charms, at the time when the Due d'Angouleme
 
 148 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 could most vividly remember her, lay in brilliant 
 animation. 
 
 A prison, a scaffold, a sea of blood had risen and 
 surged up between this betrothed Prince and Princess 
 since the happy days when he was her favourite play- 
 mate at Versailles ; but, though the bright and heroic 
 Archduke Charles had meantime stood before her at 
 Vienna, and striven to win her for his wife if he 
 could, the " Orphan of the Temple " had resolved to 
 be true to the engagement which her parents had 
 made for her. 
 
 Wherefore it came to pass that in the month of 
 June, 1799, the Due d'Angouleme was married to his 
 cousin, Madame Royale, at Mittau, in presence of 
 their uncle, Louis XVIIL, the childless and exiled 
 King of France, and in presence, too, of French pro- 
 scribed royalists, who flocked from all parts of Europe 
 to witness the ceremony, by which it was hoped that 
 future generations of French Kings would be con- 
 tinued. 
 
 " Were my crown a crown of roses," said 
 Louis XVIII. to the bride and bridegroom, " how 
 gladly would I at once give it to you ! But it is 
 a crown of thorns," he added, " and so I keep it." 
 
 Upon that summer's day when Madame Royale 
 and the Due d'Angouleme stood side by side, bride
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 149 
 
 and bridegroom, before the marriage-altar, erected in 
 one of the vast galleries of the Castle of former and 
 feudal Dukes of Courland, the long-suffering hearts 
 of Frenchmen, of every class, who had either fought 
 or suffered for the cause of the Crown of France, 
 were animated by joy. The altar was profusely 
 decked with flowers, and most conspicuous amongst 
 them was the white lily of the Bourbons, which 
 gleamed forth from a background of laurels. The 
 Cardinal de Montmorency, formerly Grand Almoner 
 of France, pronounced the nuptial benediction, but 
 the Abbe Edgeworth, whose voice was the last on 
 earth to console the martyred father of the royal 
 bride, was the first now to pray for her happiness, 
 and to hail her as the Duchesse d'Angouleme. 
 
 The Comte d'Artois (afterwards Charles X.) was 
 unavoidably absent at Holyrood when this marriage 
 took place at Mittau between his eldest son and the 
 daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, and 
 no especial mention is made here of the then still 
 surviving consort of Louis XVIII., because she was, 
 it would seem, though present at the ceremony, suffer- 
 ing at that time from illness — consequent, perhaps, on 
 sorrow and exile — which not long afterwards termi- 
 nated her life, that was never one of political import- 
 ance.
 
 150 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 " Happy," it is proverbially said, " happy are the 
 people who have no annals ; " and it is therefore to be 
 hoped that as the following year at Mittau has no es- 
 pecial records of the Duchesse d'Angouleme's life, save 
 those presented by her various works of charity, she 
 had at least found the peace of mind which had so 
 long been denied to her. 
 
 But at the beginning of the year following, and on 
 the, to her, most sacred anniversary of her father's 
 death, news arrived at Mittau which compelled the 
 immediate flight of the illustrious exiles from that 
 retreat, for by a sudden change of politics on the part 
 of the Czar, on whose hospitality they had hitherto 
 been dependent in Courland, and who Would have 
 found himself compromised with Bonaparte if he still 
 harboured them there, they were compelled to depart, 
 and that in the midst of coldest winter. 
 
 It was to England that they, even then, perhaps, 
 looked for eventual shelter ; but, meanwhile, on their 
 way into Prussian Poland, they had to pass through 
 vast and dreary tracts of land, covered with snow so 
 deep that the journey was fraught with danger and 
 distress. 
 
 It was then that the Duchesse d'Angouleme 
 was first called by her uncle, " the Modern An- 
 tigone." It was by her heroic love for him, and
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 151 
 
 the strength of her resignation — a resignation learnt 
 by her at the foot of the Cross — that she sustained 
 him under the trials by which he found himself beset 
 on every side during this bleak and humiliating 
 period ; for sometimes, through the density of the 
 frigid air, they could scarcely see their way over the 
 snow-covered and cold ground ; and, being compelled 
 — as likewise were their faithful adherents — to de- 
 scend from their carriages because the roads were 
 invisible, they were compelled to walk more than 
 ankle-deep in snow, over ground undermined by 
 cavities, into which they might sink at any moment. 
 
 The Duchesse d'Angouleme had to support her 
 already somewhat aged and infirm uncle through 
 this horrible journey, but though she herself were 
 suffering from it sorely, and even if, though at night 
 she could rarely find a place wherein to lay her head, 
 dreading all the time that this place — some remote 
 and far-off village on the desert plains — might be a 
 den of thieves and murderers, her courage never failed ; 
 and it was her voice (penetrating in its sweet tones of 
 encouragement even through the occasionally fierce 
 hurricanes), which soothed the King, and cheered on 
 as many of his long-tried adherents who had con- 
 trived to follow him. Nor was her husband with her 
 to sustain her under this new trial, for, by the duties
 
 152 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 of his royal and military rank, he had been compelled 
 to join the loyal but small army of French legitimists, 
 who had then placed themselves under the " last 
 Great Conde," as their chief. 
 
 In the Cracovian vicinity of Warsaw, Louis XVIII. 
 and his " Antigone " at length again found a refuge, 
 being then reduced to such painful vicissitudes in 
 behalf of some of the exiled King's devoted body- 
 guard, who had voluntarily joined him in his wan- 
 derings, that the Duchesse d'Angouleme, through the 
 friendly intervention of the Danish Consul, pawned 
 her diamonds (for two thousand ducats) in behalf of 
 these loyal but long-exiled sons of France. 
 
 It is said, and upon good authority, that Bonaparte, 
 knowing of the straits to which the rightful ruler of 
 France was reduced, tried to tempt him, through the 
 medium of Prussia, to the formal and final surrender 
 of all claims to the throne of France, by grants of 
 more than enough to secure a regal fortune to him, 
 but Louis XVIII., and every surviving Prince of the 
 scattered House of Bourbon, proudly refused this 
 concession ; and that most indignantly it was re- 
 garded by the Duchesse d'Angouleme. To the latter, 
 when quite a child at Versailles, the future Emperor 
 Paul of Russia had expressed a hope that " some day 
 when she became a woman, he might have the honour
 
 DUCHESSES D'ANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 153 
 
 of receiving her in his dominions ; " that honour in 
 the then most unexpected way, had been conferred 
 upon him, when, as already here told, she joined her 
 uncle in exile. Since then she had, as also here seen, 
 been driven forth by him into fresh exile ; but at last, 
 in the year 1801, this politically capricious monarch, 
 vulgarly called " Mad Paul," died, and by his son, 
 Alexander, who succeeded him, some of the privileges 
 formerly accorded by Paul to the Bourbons were 
 restored. 
 
 Thus it came to pass that when, in the year of war 
 and bloodshed, 1806 — 7, numbers of wounded and 
 dying French prisoners were carried to Mittau, the 
 Duchesse d'Angouleme was enabled to repair thither 
 in aid, not only of them, as a Sister of Charity, but 
 also of the Abbe Edgeworth, whose most earnest 
 cares were there devoted to them. 
 
 In the military hospital of Mittau he found con- 
 stant occupation, until a frightfully epidemic fever 
 there breaking out amongst his patients and peni- 
 tents, he himself caught it, and it now became the 
 task of the Duchesse dAngouleme to watch over him, 
 even though at the risk of her own life. 
 
 The Abbe Edgeworth, though devoted to the royal 
 cause of France, was a confessor and not a courtier. 
 He had never sought favour on the steps of a throne,
 
 154 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 though he had breathed consolation into a King's ears 
 on those of a scaffold. He had helped to cheer the 
 exile of the proscribed monarch of France, and had 
 followed him through the cold and dreary plains 
 which that monarch had lately been made to 
 traverse, and now, having returned to Mittau, he 
 lay dying because, though not himself a Frenchman 
 born, he had shown no earthly mercy to himself in 
 his earnestness for the faith of France — the faith 
 which had there been proscribed and profaned by 
 the blood-stained worshippers of the Goddess of 
 Reason. 
 
 But at his side stood to the last that royal 
 daughter of France, by the blood of whose martyred 
 father he had been sprinkled. It was she who 
 smoothed his pillow, and who, in her turn, whispered 
 words of heavenly hope to him. The illness of which 
 he lay dying was, as beforesaid, a contagious illness, 
 and one which might disfigure her if imparted to her. 
 This Princess who, in his last days, fulfilled the 
 double duties of a daughter and a nurse to him, was 
 still young and handsome. She was a wife anxious 
 to preserve the admiration of her husband, desirous 
 of becoming a mother, and — though long exiled — it 
 was hoped by loyal Frenchmen, that some day she 
 would shine conspicuously in the palaces where once
 
 DUCHESSES D'ANGOULEME AND DE BERRL 155 
 
 her mother had reigned supreme. But the Duchesse 
 d'Angouleme never hesitated in the risk she ran of 
 danger or disfigurement to herself; for, whilst kneeling 
 reverently at the side of the dying Abbe Edgeworth, 
 she forgot not that it was his voice which had spoken 
 the last words of exultant hope to her father, and for 
 the sake of this memory she, in her turn, became to 
 him an angel of consolation. 
 
 " Our Angel," was another epithet of endearment 
 by which Louis XVIII. henceforth distinguished his 
 heroic niece. In his youth this crownless King of 
 France had been somewhat of a Voltairien in principle, 
 an anonymous pamphleteer in practice, and now, in 
 his premature old age, he was a pedant, and fond 
 rather of Pagan than of Christian philosophy. 
 
 But none the less he revered the niece who taught 
 him by her own conduct, rather than by words — for 
 of these she was not abundant — to endure adversity, 
 and when at last she arrived with him in England, 
 there to lay claim to British protection, and a provision 
 generously granted by the British Government, she 
 was, indeed, regarded as " Our Angel" by innumerable 
 French emigrants, who, in the " one free isle " un- 
 conquercd by Napoleon, had sought a refuge. 
 
 For about five hundred pounds of annual rent, 
 Louis XVIII. was enabled to live at Hartwcll Hall,
 
 156 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 an agreeable residence, not far from Oxford, apper- 
 taining at that time to Sir George Lee. 
 
 The amiable consort of • Louis XVIII. was now 
 dead ; the Comte d'Artois, sole surviving brother of 
 the King, was generally absent with his younger son, 
 the Due de Berri, either at Holyrood or on the con- 
 tinent, striving to evoke aid for the restoration of 
 monarchy in France. A large suite of faithful 
 followers was necessarily sustained by his proscribed 
 Majesty, and as the health of the latter had suffered 
 much during years of vicissitude, the Due and the 
 Duchesse d'Angouleme found themselves already 
 placed in a position of responsibility and one requiring 
 much discretion. 
 
 To them, as yet, no child was given. The husband, 
 who was not less saintly than he was brave, venerated 
 the many virtues of his wife, but, though those around 
 her called her " Angel," she found herself in need of 
 woman's patience, for all French royalists had fixed 
 their hearts upon her bringing forth an heir to the 
 legitimate throne of France (the eventual restoration 
 of which to its rightful owners they never doubted), 
 and, though now married for many years, the daughter 
 of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette had given no 
 signs of maternity. 
 
 She was devoted to her husband and he to her,
 
 DUCHESSES UANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 157 
 
 but she became melancholy in aspect, albeit never 
 losing that of a dignified princess. Affable with the 
 poor, but reserved in presence of the rich and noble, she 
 seemed ever to be awaiting, as an article of her creed, 
 some great event which would restore her to the land 
 of her birth — the land over which her ancestors had 
 reigned for almost countless generations, and which 
 she now regarded as given over, temporarily, to " the 
 usurper," because of that great crime of regicide which 
 had made her an orphan. 
 
 Though by no means a political intrigante, this 
 pious Princess used the great influence which both 
 her high social position and the respect due to her 
 exalted character accorded to her in England, in order 
 to effect the return of the Bourbons to France, and 
 at last this event (in 18 14) came to pass, when, mainly 
 by the efforts of the Allied Sovereigns of Europe, 
 Louis XVIII. was restored to the throne of his fore- 
 fathers, after an exile of nearly a quarter of a century's 
 duration. 
 
 With him reappeared in Paris his brother, the 
 Comtc d'Artois, and the two sons of the latter — the 
 Dukes d'Angouleme and de Bern. The two elder of 
 these Bourbon Princes were still young men when'they 
 were forced to emigrate from France, but now they 
 were old men— the King even prematurely so infirm
 
 158 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 as to be quite unable to show himself on horseback, as 
 did still his brother d'Artois. 
 
 In the Dukes d'Angouleme and de Berri great 
 interest was manifested when all the surviving 
 members of the royal family of France re-entered 
 Paris, but it was the Duchesse d'Angouleme, the 
 daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, who 
 most excited public attention upon that occasion, for 
 it could not be forgotten that when she last quitted 
 the Chateau of the Tuileries, towards which she was 
 now journeying by the side of her uncle, she was 
 scarcely more than a child under the protection of her 
 since martyred parents, and that now she was a 
 woman — the woman, though at that moment very 
 pale and sorrowful, — upon whom the hopes of France 
 were fixed. For this Princess herself nothing seemed 
 just then to remain to her but the overwhelming 
 anguish of memory ; and when the State carriage in 
 which she rode came in sight of the Tuileries, she 
 fainted. Like one dead was she carried into the 
 palace where once she had dwelt with all those, since 
 dead, who then were dear to her ; and though on the 
 following day she appeared before the public, stand- 
 ing between her two uncles (Louis XVIII. and 
 Monsieur the Comte d'Artois, afterwards Charles X.), 
 the cries from below of " Vive le Roi ! " seemed but
 
 DUCHESSES D'ANGOULEME AND DE BERRL 159 
 
 to recall to her the remembrance of her father, who, 
 long since also standing there, had been insulted by the 
 mob at whose blood-stained hands he was doomed 
 to perish. 
 
 Nevertheless, she quickly held a reception at the 
 Tuileries. All who attended that first Court of the 
 Duchesse d'Angouleme wore white, the emblem of 
 the fleur-de-lys, the lustrously-pure banner of which 
 was then floating high over the Tuileries, where, for 
 the moment no recollection either of the tricolour or 
 the eagle seemed to remain. The Duchesse d'Angou- 
 leme was herself clad in spotless costume ; white were 
 the feathers waving over her queenly head, and 
 white was the long dazzling train she wore ; but, 
 as her uncle, the newly-restored King, wittily ob- 
 served to her, when passing through the salons and 
 galleries of the Tuileries, " My dear Antigone, ennemis 
 (enemies) here are round us everywhere," and in 
 order better to explain himself, he pointed to the 
 cypher N. placed {mis) by Napoleon on the ceilings 
 and the walls of the palace now re-entered by the 
 Bourbons. 
 
 After the restoration of the latter began one of 
 the bitterest trials to which the already much-tried 
 daughter of Marie Antoinette had been subjected ; for 
 upon every side she was made to feel the importance
 
 160 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 of an heir to the antique though newly re-established 
 royal race of France, and she began utterly to despair 
 of ever crowning the hopes of the nation in this 
 respect. 
 
 When in England, she had entertained an idea that 
 in France alone, a future King of France would be born, 
 but time robbed her of this fond illusion, and though 
 she became most popular with all French royalists by 
 her heroism in inciting the troops at Bordeaux at the 
 time of Napoleon's escape from Elba, for the cele- 
 brated " Hundred Days " preceding the battle of 
 Waterloo, she would rather have been hailed as the 
 most august mother in France than regarded as such 
 a heroine that even Napoleon himself — afterwards 
 speaking of her at St. Helena — called her " the only- 
 man of her family." 
 
 Louis XVIII. was again brought back to Paris, 
 after the battle of Waterloo, but he became more 
 than ever sensible that his own health was failing fast, 
 and that from his much-loved and devoted niece, the 
 Duchesse d'Angouleme, who had then been married 
 sixteen years, he could scarcely hope for a continua- 
 tion of his race. 
 
 And therefore it came to pass, that a marriage was 
 immediately projected between the Due de Berri, the 
 younger and more popular brother of the Due
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 161 
 
 d'Angouleme, with the young Neapolitan Princesse, 
 Marie Caroline (grand-daughter of King Ferdinand), 
 who was already connected by numerous ties of blood 
 with both France and Austria. 
 
 The Duchesse d'Angouleme had long been accus- 
 tomed, whether in a prison or a palace, to practise 
 self-abnegation, but perhaps even if her saintly friend 
 and confessor, the Abbe Edgeworth, had been still 
 alive, he could scarcely have estimated how much she 
 needed to exercise the doctrine of the Cross, when, 
 during the summer of 1816, she found herself sup- 
 planted at the Court, and likewise in sight of the 
 populace, by a Princess who, as yet, had never done 
 or suffered aught in behalf of France, who was com- 
 paratively ignorant of the trials to which, for the sake 
 and by the faults of France, she, the hereditary royal 
 daughter of that nation, had been exposed, but for 
 whom she was nevertheless compelled to prepare 
 with smiles and welcome. 
 
 It was at Fontainebleau that the two Duchesses 
 d'Angouleme and de Berri first met. The latter had 
 never, as yet, beheld her husband, to whom she was 
 already wedded by proxy. He was many years 
 older than she was, and he had written to her on her 
 way from Naples through the southern provinces of 
 France — a way which, to her, was a triumphal pro- 
 
 M
 
 162 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 gress, — " Press my hand when you see me, if you 
 dislike me not too much." 
 
 At length, on the afternoon of a bright summer's 
 day, she came — eager and impatient — though at- 
 tended by all royal etiquette, through the forest of 
 Fontainebleau, where, on an open greensward space, 
 stood Louis XVIII., his nephew the bridegroom, Due 
 de Berri, with the Due and Duchesse d'Angouleme, 
 ready to receive her. 
 
 A carpet had been placed on the ground, and, 
 according to punctilio, the King ought to have 
 advanced upon one-half of this carpet, and the bride 
 to have met him upon its centre. But, before his 
 Majesty — slow in movement from complicated infir- 
 mities — could perform his part of this ceremony, the 
 bride — a small but ardent creature, with blue eyes, 
 quick tiny feet, and fair floating hair — came swiftly 
 towards him, and, with all the passion of her Italian 
 nature, flung herself into his arms. Then, discerning 
 quickly, by some womanly instinct, which was the 
 Prince who, although personally yet unknown to her, 
 was already her husband, she did " press his hand " in 
 a way to please him much, and instantly after this she 
 seemed to seek a shelter for her blushing face upon 
 the bosom of the woman, the Princess, whom she had 
 come to supplant.
 
 DUCHESSES HANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 163 
 
 The Duchesse d'Angouleme embraced her with 
 tender emotion, and the Due d'Angouleme also 
 proved himself nobly worthy of this occasion, which 
 was likely to give his younger brother a lasting 
 ascendency over him ; and when, a few days after- 
 wards, the marriage of the Due and Duchesse de 
 Berri was celebrated in public, with great pomp, at 
 Notre Dame, most conspicuously, yet meekly, stood 
 the Due and Duchesse d'Angouleme near the newly- 
 wedded pair, whilst prayers for posterity were being 
 invoked in behalf of the latter. 
 
 In honour of this marriage splendid fetes fast 
 succeeded each other at the Tuileries ; but though 
 the Duchesse d'Angouleme presided at the festivities, 
 the Duchesse de Berri shone forth as their chief central 
 charm, for this young Princess was happy in her 
 newly-wedded life. 
 
 The brilliant little palace of the Elysee, in 
 the near neighbourhood of the Tuileries, was ac- 
 corded as a residence to the Due and Duchesse de 
 Berri, and the receptions there held by them, in- 
 cluding all the chief nobility of France, and not ex- 
 cluding illustrious champions of literature, art, and 
 science, soon helped to make the youthful hostess 
 popular. 
 
 She had as yet lived only seventeen summers of a 
 
 si 2
 
 1 64 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 bright life, and her husband, though in fact almost 
 old enough to be her father, was of such gay and 
 buoyant disposition that" he was quite ready to share 
 with her all the animated amusements in which she 
 delighted. Sometimes they rejoiced in escaping from 
 the formalities of royalty which surrounded them, 
 and, arm-in-arm, would pass through the gates of 
 their own gardens, into the public thoroughfares of 
 Paris, where, being unrecognised on the pavement by 
 the crowd, they were pleased to observe the various 
 characteristics of the people, and if such observation 
 happened to bring any remarkable case of human 
 distress to their notice they were afterwards still more 
 pleased to send some agent of theirs to relieve the 
 sufferer, even though to the possible mystification 
 of the latter as to the source from whence such aid 
 could come. 
 
 It was well known that, at some time during his 
 exile preceding the Restoration, the Due de Berri had 
 formed domestic ties for himself, though not (accord- 
 ing to his royal rank) of a legitimate nature, and that 
 with all due generosity he had provided for the 
 mother of the children born to him ere yet he was 
 forced, for motives already here named, to marry 
 the Neapolitan Princess, whose best known baptismal 
 name was Caroline. This political marriage, however,
 
 DUCHESSES HANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 165 
 
 soon became to him such a matter of personal felicity 
 that, having done all that it was possible to do respect- 
 ing the companion of his earlier days, whose Christian 
 name was Virginia, he readily forgave the current 
 mot against him — a joke more American than 
 Parisian, — to the effect that " it was unfortunate after 
 all which France had done in former times for the 
 independence of the United States, Virginia should 
 now be superseded by Carolina." 
 
 As for the royal little Duchesse de Berri herself, 
 she loved her husband so much that sometimes when 
 she heard the sounds of his " coming home " from 
 some military review in which he had had to take part, 
 — sounds such as those of drums and trumpets from 
 without, mingled with the music of some joyous band 
 in the court-yard below, — she would rush forward to 
 meet him at the foot of the palace staircase in a way 
 which set at defiance all the courtly etiquette of her 
 appointed attendants, and this merely for the pleasure 
 of being carried up that staircase in his arms like a 
 child ; for although a woman in strength of feeling, 
 she was then scarcely more than a child in age and 
 size. 
 
 Soon the hope of her bringing forth an heir to the 
 throne of France, seemed on the point of realization ; 
 but, without here entering into all the details of
 
 166 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 disappointments regarding royal children, who were 
 born only to die, or whose premature births were sub- 
 jects only of regret to French loyalists, one little 
 daughter alone survived to the Due and Duchesse 
 de Berri after four years of otherwise happy union. 
 
 Henceforth they seem to have agreed not to allow 
 publicity to any renewal of expectation which 
 might, in its end, only frustrate the wishes of the 
 King and the people. No bulletins were for some 
 time issued of the health of her royal Highness the 
 Duchesse de Berri, but nobody doubted the fact of 
 that perfect health, because, during the Carnival time 
 in Paris of 1820 she was not only cheered in public 
 wherever she appeared — cheered as the most radiantly 
 happy of princesses, — but at the balls and entertain- 
 ments, both at the Tuileries and the Elysee, she was 
 the first to enter into the spirit of the scene, and, with 
 her overflowing life, to animate it by the fascination 
 of her graceful presence. 
 
 Political storms often menaced France, but from 
 these the popular Prince and Princess, who here just 
 now stand foremost, had all the less to fear, because 
 their, as yet, only surviving child was a girl, and 
 therefore by no possibility, according to the Salic law 
 of France, an heir to the throne. 
 
 Unclouded, therefore, seemed their happiness when,
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRL 167 
 
 on Shrove Tuesday — the last day of Lent, in the 
 year - i820, — they determined to show themselves that 
 night at the Opera, where three pieces ( " Le Carnaval 
 de Venise" "Le Rossignol" and " Les Noces de Ga- 
 mache") were to be performed. 
 
 It is true that, unknown to the Duchesse de Berri, 
 her husband had previously received some letters of a 
 menacing character, but as these were anonymous and 
 seemingly altogether beneath notice, he had paid no 
 heed to them, save by laughingly saying to one of his 
 attendants : " Well, all that these affirm is that I, 
 like my revered ancestor, Henri IV., am to die in 
 Paris." But with the Carnival and by the force of 
 some new hope illuminating his whole being, the cause 
 of which will presently here be seen, — the Due de 
 Berri went, on the 13th day of February (Shrove 
 Tuesday), to dine with his uncle, the King, at the 
 Tuileries, ere proceeding to the Opera to join his wife 
 there. 
 
 During dinner he seemed in the highest spirits, 
 chatting merrily in a way to enliven Louis XVIII., 
 whose strength was failing fast, but whose mental 
 powers were still in sufficient force to enjoy and share 
 the brilliant conversation of his nephew, until the 
 latter went forth on his way to the Opera, and his 
 Majesty retired to rest.
 
 1 68 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 Almost all the members of the Royal Family were 
 at the Opera that night, and most pleasing of them 
 all to behold was the Duchesse de Bern, in full even- 
 ing costume, with diamonds and flowers upon her 
 head and breast. 
 
 "Le Carnaval de Venise " was just then a great 
 success in Paris, and the excited audience was all the 
 more delighted with this representation of the piece 
 because between its acts public curiosity was gratified 
 by observing how the Due and Duchesse de Berri left 
 their own box to pay visits to that of the Due 
 d'Orleans (afterwards Louis Philippe, King of the 
 French) and other of their Royal relatives. 
 
 Presently, when the Duchesse de Berri had returned 
 to her own seat, she complained of fatigue, and her 
 husband recommended her instant departure, pro- 
 mising that he himself would remain to the end of 
 the entertainment. 
 
 This being agreed upon, she left her box, leaning 
 upon his arm, and thus reached her carriage, which, 
 with her attendant suite, awaited her at the corner of 
 the four streets that flanked the theatre, one of 
 which was the Rue Richelieu. A sentinel on guard 
 had to 'turn his back to this street whilst present- 
 ing arms in honour of the Prince and Princess as 
 they issued forth upon the steps and under the
 
 DUCHESSES HANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 169 
 
 portico of the theatre. The chief aide-de-camp of 
 the Due de Berri also turned his back in the same 
 direction, whilst the first equerry of the Duchesse de 
 Berri stood by the open door of her carriage, ready to 
 present to her his left hand, so as to assist her Royal 
 Highness in ascending its steps, the right hand of the 
 Princess being held by that of her husband. 
 
 Unprophetic of evil, the happy Princess quickly 
 entered her carriage, the Comtesse de Bethisy being 
 her lady-in-waiting upon that occasion. 
 
 " Adieu," or " Au revoir," merrily cried out the 
 Due de Berri as his wife was about to start for what 
 they both supposed would be but an hour's separation 
 from each other. " Adieu, Caroline, we shall quickly 
 meet again." 
 
 The carriage was about to start, its royal occupant 
 leaning forward to wave her hand playfully in answer 
 to her husband's cheerful words, when suddenly she 
 saw him stagger backwards and supported against the 
 wall of the theatre, as though struck by a fatal blow, 
 signs of which she had also perceived, like one who 
 sees things in a moment of time during some horribly 
 vivid dream, for an assassin had rushed round the 
 corner of the Rue Richelieu, and stabbed her hus- 
 band to the heart. 
 
 Forgetful of danger to herself, she leapt from her
 
 170 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 carriage, and in another instant, having flown up the 
 steps of the theatre, she flung her arms round the 
 being most dear to her on earth, and, clinging to him 
 thus, she was, together with him, dragged into the 
 vestibule of the Opera House ; he, gasping some 
 attempted words of comfort to her, and she, bathed in 
 his blood, which, flowing profusely from the wound he 
 had received, stained her hair, her dress, the flowers 
 and the diamonds which she wore. 
 
 For the Prince himself had withdrawn the dagger 
 from his heart by an instantaneous movement, crying 
 at the same moment, " I am assassinated." 
 
 Pursuit of the assassin was also immediate, al- 
 though it was reserved for a pastry-cook's boy, who 
 happened to be in the adjoining street, to capture him. 
 
 Meantime the gay scene of the opera was still 
 going on. Music and laughter resounded from the 
 orchestra and audience within the walls, and nobody, 
 save those in immediate attendance upon the Due 
 and Duchesse de Berri, was yet aware that the former 
 had already exclaimed to the latter, " My love, let me 
 die in your arms." 
 
 The blow was mortal none could doubt, and, as 
 it was quite impossible to remove the stricken Prince 
 to his home, he was at once conveyed back to the 
 ante- chamber of the opera box, which, only a few
 
 DUCHESSES UANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 171 
 
 minutes before he had quitted in all the fulness of 
 life and joy. 
 
 Still the opera went on, on, on to its close. The 
 people of Paris had not as yet the slightest idea of 
 what had happened ; albeit an instant message was 
 despatched to the aged King at the Tuileries, to 
 other members of the Royal Family, and the best 
 surgical aid had immediately been summoned. 
 
 A mattrass and other necessaries — all theatrical 
 properties long used in imaginary tragedies — were 
 quickly transported to the small compartment of the 
 theatre for the use of the Prince, who lay dying there. 
 
 His wife knelt beside him whilst more than one 
 operation was performed upon him, in the desperate 
 hope of saving the life so precious to France, but 
 precious beyond all things on earth to her. She 
 desired even to suck the wound, thinking that it was 
 poisoned. 
 
 During agonized periods of scientific test as to 
 whether, indeed, there were the slightest chances of 
 eventual recovery, she held her husband's hand within 
 herown,hoping thereby to sustain hisfainting strength, 
 though her own courage was more and more appalled 
 by the sight before her. The Prince himself knew 
 that life was fast ebbing from him, and desired to 
 receive the last sacraments of his religion, and to
 
 T72 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 embrace once more his little daughter. The child 
 was quickly brought to his side, having been conveyed 
 thither by her governess, Madame de Gontaut. 
 
 The various members of the Royal Family were 
 at length also present, and amongst them the 
 Due and Duchesse d'Angouleme. The last-named 
 Princess, accustomed all her life to sorrow, and sorrow's 
 only alleviation — prayer, was welcome as an angel of 
 mercy and consolation to her young and, until now, 
 most enviable sister-in-law, whose fortitude was 'sus- 
 tained by her presence. Monsieur (afterwards 
 Charles X.), the father of the Due de Berri, was also 
 there ; he, too, some years since, had experienced 
 an immense sorrow in the death of Madame de 
 Polastron, a lady to whom he was most tenderly 
 attached, and who, in her last moments, so earnestly 
 recommended him to the love of God; that, from the 
 time of her decease, he had, though restored to the 
 palace of his ancestors, led therein a life more befitting 
 a cloister. 
 
 The King came last, it having been necessary, on 
 account of his health, to use much precaution in dis- 
 turbing him from his slumbers at the Tuileries in 
 order to break to him the news of his nephew's as- 
 sassination. When the Due de Berri recognised his 
 Majesty, the one favour he implored was that his
 
 DUCHESSES D'ANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 173 
 
 murderer might be pardoned ; but upon this point the 
 King could only, even in the midst of his grief, make 
 an indefinite reply. The Due and the Duchesse 
 d'Orleans were also present ; and as the wounded 
 Prince seemed to gasp for air, he was, after midnight, 
 transported by his weeping attendants to another and 
 more spacious part of the theatre, from whence the 
 gay audience had vanished, never dreaming of the 
 frightful tragedy which was going on there, now that 
 the lights were dim, and the flowers fading in that 
 scene of the brilliant spectacle witnessed but an hour 
 since. 
 
 The chill dawn of a February morning was 
 approaching, and the cold hand of death pressed 
 more and more heavily on the Due de Berri, by 
 whose wounded side his wife still crouched in despair. 
 Her husband's sympathy was with her more than 
 with himself at that dread time ; the King and all 
 the Royal Family stood or knelt in various attitudes 
 of misery near the blood-stained couch of the dying 
 Prince, when suddenly the latter said aloud to his 
 wife, " My love, be not thus overwhelmed by 
 grief, but control yourself for the sake of the child, 
 the yet unborn child, within thee." 
 
 As though by an electric shock everybody present 
 was startled at these words, for by them was pro-
 
 174 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 claimed that all hope of legitimate succession to the 
 throne of France would not expire with the Prince 
 who uttered them,— the Prince, who was thus the first 
 to announce in his own hour of death the coming 
 hour of the birth of his posthumous son, now (1873) 
 called by French legitimists Henri V., but best 
 known to the world at large as the Comte de 
 Chambord. 
 
 Paris masqueraders returning from the last scenes 
 of the Carnival were still lingering about the streets, 
 quite unconscious of the public calamity which 
 had taken place, when the Duchesse de Berri was 
 conveyed home a widow from the side of her dead 
 husband to the Palace of the Elysee, where, until yes- 
 terday, she had been so happy in his society. 
 
 Until the last she was most anxious to fulfil every 
 possible desire of his soul, and, remembering that he 
 was the father of two little daughters, besides her own 
 infant girl (children born of the union unconsecrated 
 by marriage here before spoken of) she had caused 
 these children to be summoned to his death-bed, and 
 presenting them in her own arms to him, had volun- 
 tarily declared to him that she would herself be a 
 mother to them. 
 
 " Charles, Charles," she cried in her anguish, " I 
 have already three children instead of one," and then
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 175 
 
 catching up her own daughter, she said to the two 
 young strangers, " Embrace your sister." 
 
 It was then that the Duchesse d'Angouleme, having 
 heard these words and watched the conduct of the 
 Duchesse de Berri, said, " She is sublime." 
 
 And heroically sublime was doubtless the younger 
 of these two Royal women at that supreme moment ; 
 but no sooner had she reached her widowed home 
 than the agony of her desolation overwhelmed her. 
 Always upheld by the great sympathy of the 
 Duchesse dAngouleme, and accompanied by her own 
 weeping attendants, she was passing a large mirror at 
 the Elysee on her way to such rest as might possibly 
 be granted to her fearfully overtaxed strength, but 
 when in this mirror she beheld the haggard reflection 
 of herself, and saw also how her hair was still stained 
 with her husband's blood, she caught up a pair of 
 scissors, which he himself had only used a few hours 
 previously, and suddenly cut off the whole of that 
 beautiful hair, crying out, " Charles, Charles, no hand 
 but thine, which so often hath caressed it, shall ever 
 touch it upon my head." Then turning to her lady-in- 
 waiting, Madame de Gontaut, she said, " Give that 
 hair to my daughter when she shall become a woman, 
 and tell her that it ceased to adorn her mother on 
 the terrible day of her father's death."
 
 176 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 Foremost amongst those who sought to soothe the 
 great anguish of the Duchesse de Berri was the 
 Duchesse d'Angouleme, who, seemingly quite forget- 
 ful that her tender cares were in this case lavished 
 upon a rival, became, indeed, to her a Sister of 
 Charity, by whose forethought much danger was 
 averted from the expectant mother of an heir to the 
 throne. 
 
 And when, at last, the child was born, a male child, 
 to the immense joy of the aged Louis XVIII., who 
 himself, as here already shown, had owed so much in 
 exile to the care of his elder niece, it was she, the 
 Duchesse d'Angouleme, who received the babe into 
 her arms with as much apparent love and pride as 
 though he had been her own, and she it was who first 
 exhibited him from the windows of the Tuileries — the 
 place of his birth — to the eyes of the delighted multi- 
 tude assembled in the gardens below. 
 
 By her he was presented at the font of baptism, 
 and it was her voice which pronounced the names 
 there given to him of Henri Dieudonne — Henry, 
 Godgiven — the first in memory of his ancestor, 
 Henri IV., and the second in gratitude to the King 
 of kings for the advent of this child, whose coming 
 birth had been proclaimed by the last words of his 
 dying father.
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 177 
 
 To the world at large the infant Prince was 
 known as the Due de Bordeaux, although at a later 
 date, under circumstances here presently to be 
 explained, he took his other title of Count de Cham- 
 bord. 
 
 His mother had mournfully secluded herself during 
 the seven months and fifteen days of her widowhood 
 before the date of his birth (Sept. 29, 1820), and 
 although residing at the Tuileries it was but rarely 
 that she was seen. Pale, careworn, clad in deepest 
 mourning, she was a melancholy spectacle to the few 
 who were privileged to approach her ; but after the 
 birth of her son, it was as though a new life sustained 
 her ; and, re-animated by hope, inspired by a strong 
 resolution to win popularity, to confront every danger 
 for his sake, she at length re-appeared in the Parisian 
 world, of which she eventually again became the bril- 
 liant centre. Popular discontent concerning various 
 political measures of the day were rife in the capital 
 of France. The Duchesse d'Angouleme, reverenced 
 as a saint, was more fit for a cloister than a court ; 
 the health of the King was failing fast ; his brother 
 and successor, the Comte d'Artois, was likewise more 
 than ever a recluse since the death of his son, the 
 Due de Bern, and it therefore needed all the energy, 
 the renewed life, the fascination of the Duchesse de
 
 178 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 Berri to sustain popularity in behalf, as she fondly 
 hoped, of her posthumous son's future. 
 
 Her hair, cut off by her own hand in the first 
 passionate agony of her widowhood, grew again ; her 
 robes of black were gradually replaced by those of 
 more cheerful hue, and by the time that Louis XVIII. 
 was dead and her father-in-law (Charles X.) succeeded 
 to the throne, she had again made herself celebrated 
 for the splendid, and even somewhat fantastic, fetes 
 inaugurated by her at the Tuileries. 
 
 By the death of Louis XVIII. the Duchesse 
 d'Angouleme, as wife of the elder son of the new 
 King, Charles X., became Dauphiness of France. 
 This title was to her but a hollow sound, considering 
 that it was to her nephew and not to any son of hers 
 that the crown of her ancestors would descend when 
 her father-in-law should also be called upon by death 
 to resign it ; but, nevertheless, she occupied by right 
 of her exalted rank a prominent position on the 
 day when her uncle, Louis XVI 1 1., was interred (with 
 all the pomp which antique usages of Church and 
 State could bring to bear upon the occasion) at St. 
 Denis. 
 
 In his society she had passed a long exile ; to her 
 he had been as a father ; he had loved her well. 
 She, his "Antigone," as he had been wont to call
 
 ^DUCHESSES D'ANGOULEME AND DE BERRL 179 
 
 her, had nursed him through many an illness, and 
 sustained him under many vicissitudes. He had not 
 shared her extreme religious opinions, having prided 
 himself, with even a pedant's pride, on those which 
 " philosophy " — so called in his youth of the time of 
 Voltaire — had taught him ; but the old King and his 
 orphan niece, his childless heroine, had loved each 
 other well, and upon the day of his burial she stood 
 forth as a monument of sorrow in the sight of 
 all beholders, for when she then, as Dauphiness, 
 appeared " in the accustomed sanctuary of her pious 
 griefs," there was a tribune draped in black, like the 
 rest of the cathedral, prepared for her, and upon this 
 she stood, isolated, whilst her husband, the Due 
 d'Angouleme — or Dauphin, as he was now called — 
 acted as chief mourner in the splendid though sombre 
 scene below. 
 
 Not long since he had waited in that tomb of St, 
 Denis to receive the coffin of his brother, the Due dc 
 Bern', and now when that of his uncle, Louis XVIII., 
 was solemnly carried by the Gardes du Corps to the 
 sacred spot, the solemn ceremony of offering holy 
 water to the Royal dead and the Royal living of his 
 family was performed by him. 
 
 The Duchesse d'Angouleme, declares one who per- 
 sonally knew her, was a holy martyr. To her, the 
 
 N 2
 
 180 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 daughter of martyred parents, belonged the sad 
 privilege of weeping over every fresh misfortune of 
 her family ; she had regarded the death of her 
 brother-in-law, de Berri, as a fresh crown of thorns, 
 a new palm of saintly life. She had, as here seen, 
 taken his child in her arms and presented him to the 
 people in proof of her own self-abnegation ; she had 
 done all she could do first to welcome in joy, and 
 then to console in affliction, her young sister-in-law, 
 de Berri ; but when the latter, during the earlier period 
 of the reign of Charles X., showed herself ardent in 
 the pleasures befitting her age, — for, although a widow 
 and a mother, she was still in years scarcely more 
 than a girl — when she proved herself even extravagant 
 in her renewed patronage of art and artists, and in all 
 ways manifested herself most eager to win popular 
 favour for her son, the growing hope of every loyal 
 French heart, the Duchesse d'Angouleme, or the 
 Dauphiness, as she was now styled, objected to what 
 seemed to her serious mind the levity of the Duchesse 
 de Berri, and a slight estrangement arose between 
 these two Princesses, who by age, disposition, here- 
 ditary tendencies, and education, were naturally 
 opposed to each other. 
 
 The fetes of the Duchesse de Berri became noto- 
 rious, and not less so the ascetic seclusion of the
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 181 
 
 Duchesse d'Angouleme. The former grew more 
 and more popular, the latter more and more un- 
 popular ; and not all her nun-like visits to hospitals, 
 her noble deeds of charity, could prevent mischievous, 
 nay, profane, " anti-jesuit " calumnies being propa- 
 gated against her, as also against the King, her 
 father-in-law, who was supposed to be under the 
 absolute influence of his Confessor, and chiefly bent 
 upon bringing France back, not to religion in its true 
 sense, but to the tyranny of ecclesiastical authority 
 before the "Great Revolution," such as that which 
 could excommunicate any citizen of Paris if he did 
 not believe in the infallibility of the Pope, or the 
 " Bull Unigenitus." 
 
 Although extremely young when she was first 
 married, the Duchesse de Berri had even then seen 
 enough of political strife and popular resistance in 
 her native land of Italy not to dread the consequences 
 of a people's discontent with regard to supposed 
 bigotry on the part of Royalty, wherefore it was 
 with extreme pleasure that in the year 1828, just 
 when her son was withdrawn from the hands of his 
 governess, and formally consigned into those repre- 
 senting male authority, that she set forth on a tour 
 through various localities, significant of his various 
 titles, in order to visit the ancient Chateau de
 
 i82 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 CHAMBORD, for from this he derived one of his 
 appellations (the Comte de Chambord), and it had 
 been freely presented to him by loyal Frenchmen, 
 who, having purchased it, declared that their conduct 
 in this matter was only "to do homage to .S. A. R. 
 Monseigneur le Due de Bordeatix." 
 
 In the month of June, 1828, the Duchesse de Berri 
 approached Chambord (which is situated about a 
 hundred miles south of Paris, on a plain not far 
 from Blois, and in the Department of the Loire 
 et Cher), and with her advance towards the Castle 
 she seemed to bring sunshine with her, for a storm 
 had only just before darkened the atmosphere, and 
 this having passed away, all nature had put on a 
 joyous air, as though to salute her. 
 
 Flowers were scattered in her path, and, says one 
 of her then attendant friends, " Madame " was much 
 struck by the imposing aspect of the Chateau, for the 
 innumerable domes and turrets of Chambord give to 
 that stately residence rather the air of a royal city 
 than a feudal palace. Its terraces are thrown up- 
 wards, " like graceful crowns," upon the heights of the 
 edifice. It was built by Francis I., and upon the 
 turrets of this palace Catherine de Media's was wont 
 to study the stars, according to her strange belief in 
 astrology ; it was here that Louis XIV. dwelt for a
 
 DUCHESSES UANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 183 
 
 passing time with his gay court, and a legend of a 
 spectre huntsman still recalls the memory of Henri IV. 
 in the neighbourhood. 
 
 The Duchesse de Berri approached this free gift to 
 her son, of once feudal France, quite unattended by 
 her customary guard of honour. At the entrance of 
 the Chateau she was received by M. le Comte 
 Adrienne de Calonne, for he it was who had con- 
 ceived and carried out the loyal idea of causing 
 Chambord (which since the time of the Revolution 
 had passed through various hands) to be offered to 
 the Due de Bordeaux, and by him an address was 
 delivered to the widowed Princess when first she set 
 her small foot upon the threshold of that " Castle- 
 keep, rich in memories." 
 
 Entering the antique dwelling of Chambord, she 
 found it " a sort of colossal history of past ages," 
 but the object which most excited her wonder 
 was its chief staircase, constructed in a spiral form 
 and in such a way that persons may pass in 
 and pass up and down it within sound of each 
 other's voices, yet beyond the range of view one of 
 another. 
 
 A carved Fleur de Lys then formed the highest 
 point of this castle, and the Duchesse de Berri having 
 expressed a wish to ascend to this altitude, gazed
 
 1 84 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 from it with rapture on the magnificent prospect of 
 France, fair and fertile, that it afforded. 
 
 Descending the staircase, on her way down from 
 this summit, she observed various names of historic 
 interest inscribed on its walls. 
 
 " Ah ! " she exclaimed, " I like these old tokens ; " 
 and asking for some sharp-pointed instrument, she 
 forthwith cut with it upon the stone the words, — 
 " 1 8 Juin. Marie Caroline!' '* 
 
 The Duchesse de Berri did not return to Paris 
 from that pilgrimage of hers in the year 1828 until 
 the month of October, for during it she visited various 
 localities renowned in the history of French royalty, 
 and amongst them Pau, the birthplace of Henry IV. 
 
 Meantime Charles X. had made a progress through 
 the east of his kingdom, and when at last they met 
 again at the Tuileries, neither of them had any reason 
 to dread the change of fortune awaiting them, for 
 they were both inspired by the enthusiasm which had 
 everywhere greeted them in the provinces. 
 
 * By a curious coincidence of dates, it was on the 18th of June, 1832, 
 exactly four years after her visit to the Chateau de Chambord, that 
 Government officials arrived at that feudal palace in order to arrest the 
 Duchesse de Berri, who was supposed to be concealed there. It is also 
 remarkable that her son, the prince who derives his title of Chambord 
 from this abode, never visited it until the recent downfall of the " Second 
 Empire " enabled him, after long exile, to do so.
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 185 
 
 The Comte de Chambord had not accompanied his 
 mother on this journey, and it was with joy, upon her 
 return to Paris, she noted his growth and improvement 
 under the educational regime instituted for him ; 
 whilst a feeling of just maternal pride mingled with 
 that joy when she presented him to some of her 
 Neapolitan relatives, who not long afterwards visited 
 the capital of France. 
 
 Political discontent amongst various parties op- 
 posed to successive Ministries, there always had been, 
 more or less, in France since the Restoration ; but, 
 without here attempting to unfold the various real or 
 fancied causes of that discontent, it need only be said 
 that seldom had the Duchesse de Berri appeared 
 more beloved by the French people than when the 
 Revolution of 1830 suddenly proclaimed itself. 
 
 She was at St. Cloud with her son, when during 
 those "three July memorable days," familiar to most 
 readers, Paris was in a turbulent state of anarchy, and 
 a new government was demanded in the person of 
 Louis Philippe, Due d'Orleans. 
 
 The Duchesse d'Orleans was the aunt of the 
 Duchesse de Berri, and such kindly relations had 
 always subsisted between these two Princesses that, 
 whatever differences may have occasionally clouded 
 the political horizon around them, differences which
 
 1 86 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 made the King suspicious of the good faith of his 
 cousin d'Orleans, a marriage was already spoken of 
 as some day to take place betwixt the Due de 
 Chartres, eldest son of the Due d'Orleans, and the 
 daughter of the Duchesse de Berri. 
 
 When the latter heard at the Chateau of St. Cloud 
 that, by the sudden revolution in favour of the Due 
 d'Orleans, all hope for her own son was fast being 
 lost, she implored Charles X., who was likewise 
 at St. Cloud, to authorise her at once starting for 
 Paris either with or without her boy, there to invoke 
 the people in his behalf, and to bring them back to 
 that allegiance from which, as though by some out- 
 burst of epidemic madness, they had swerved. 
 
 But the King would not sanction her so doing. Of 
 timid, though obstinate, policy in his old age, he 
 remembered the sanguinary scenes of revolution pre- 
 ceding the Reign of Terror in his youth, and in vain 
 did his daughter-in-law, the Duchesse de Berri, 
 represent to him how the fickle tide of popular 
 favour might be turned in favour of her fatherless son 
 and his grandson, if only he would allow her to take 
 one of his own royal carriages, which, by swiftly con- 
 veying her to Paris, would enable her to face the mob. 
 
 Her entreaties were all in vain, and, condemned 
 during hours of increasingly anxious agony to wait
 
 DUCHESSES D'ANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 187 
 
 inactively at the Chateau of St. Cloud, she at length 
 there planted herself at one of its upper windows, 
 through which, from a telescope, she could perceive 
 the topmost dome of the Tuileries gleaming athwart 
 the clear air of a warm summer day. Her son was 
 near her as she knelt, telescope in hand, and watched. 
 
 The King, perhaps almost irritated at her persistent 
 courage, was doubtless already thinking of flight as 
 he went to and fro through the salons and galleries of 
 St. Cloud ; for the Due d'Angouleme had gone forth 
 with royal troops, and his messengers brought any- 
 thing but encouraging reports from the road towards 
 the capital. The Duchesse d'Angouleme was, so to 
 speak, re-united to her sister-in-law under the force 
 of their mutual apprehension, although long since had 
 she — the elder Princess — laid all her former hopes of 
 a crown at the foot of the ever-present Cross. 
 
 Anxiously the Duchesse de Berri watched and 
 watched, until at last the telescope fell from her hand, 
 as she exclaimed, " My God ! all is lost ! " For in 
 the distance she had beheld the tri-coloured flag 
 hoisted in place of that of the Fleur-dc-Lys (" the 
 Drapeau blanc") upon the topmost height of the 
 Tuileries. 
 
 It is well known how Charles X. at once fled from 
 St. Cloud, how he abdicated in favour of his grand-
 
 1 88 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 son, and how his cousin, Louis Philippe, was quickly- 
 hailed by Paris as "King of the French." To fly 
 whilst attempting to treat with one's foes is generally 
 bad diplomacy, but yet the aged monarch, who in 
 his youth had been the brilliant and chivalrous Comte 
 d'Artois of the Court of Marie Antoinette, had still a 
 grand sense of dignity left in him when, during the 
 course of his continued flight towards the coast of 
 France, the standards of the country over which he 
 had reigned were presented to him by his gardcs-dn- 
 corps, and the rest of his military escort, who were then 
 compelled with much sorrow to take leave of him. 
 
 Said the fugitive King, " These standards are 
 untarnished, and I hope that my grandson will some 
 day restore them, spotless, to you. My friends, I 
 thank you for your fidelity and devotion, and never 
 in exile shall I forget the proofs of attachment which 
 you have given to me." * 
 
 On the following day, August 16, Charles X. and 
 all his family embarked at Cherbourg on board an 
 American vessel, for England. The Duchesse d'An- 
 gouleme, plunged in profound melancholy during this 
 
 * Whatever may be the politics of the reader of the text above, who 
 can wonder at the fact of the Comte de Chambord (for that prince 
 himself heard the words here quoted as they fell from his grandfather's 
 lips) clinging, in this, our own day, to the idea of the " Drapeau Blanc," 
 to sustain the purity of which his ancestors had suffered much ?
 
 DUCHESSES VANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 189 
 
 journey to the coast, exclaimed, from time to time, 
 " What a reverse ! " But, under all vicissitudes of 
 life, she evinced resignation. The Duchesse de Berri 
 clasped her fatherless son to her heart with passionate 
 vehemence, and it was then, perhaps, whilst her tears 
 flowed for his sudden loss of a glorious crown which 
 had been firmly set on the brows of his heroic ances- 
 tors, that she secretly resolved to win it back for him, 
 if she could, even at the cost of her own life. 
 
 Arrived in England, the various members of the 
 exiled royal family of France first found a refuge in 
 Dorsetshire, but, by the hospitality of his Britannic 
 Majesty, they soon repaired to the Castle of Holy- 
 rood, which had been offered to them as a resi- 
 dence. 
 
 The Duchesse d'Angouleme there interested herself 
 much in the education of her niece and nephew, the 
 children of the Duchesse de Berri ; but the mother of 
 those children herself was preparing for the execution 
 of great plans, by which she hoped to regain the 
 throne of France for her son. In her exile, or even 
 perhaps before that date, she had met again the 
 Comte Lucchesi-Palli, a Neapolitan nobleman, who is 
 said by some of her contemporaries to have formed 
 an attachment for her during her early youth in 
 Sicily. Be this as it may, she, after more than ten
 
 190 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 years of widowhood, was not unmindful of his devo- 
 tion to her ; but none the less did she consecrate 
 herself to the cause of her son, whose father she had 
 loved with the ardour which had since been turned 
 to grief. 
 
 She was a woman in much need of sympathy, and 
 she believed that she had found it, though not in one 
 of her own royal rank ; but, putting aside her own 
 personal feelings for the moment, she instigated M. le 
 Due de Blacas, the long-tried servant of the Crown, 
 to act as ambassador in gaining over the various 
 Cabinets of Europe, in a way which might eventually 
 lead to her own destruction. 
 
 And thus it came to pass that, contrary to the will of 
 the royal exiles at Holyrood, she embarked one April 
 night of the year 1832, on her way to Marseilles, from 
 which place, as from every other locality in France, 
 she was forbidden entrance by that law of proscription 
 which had exiled her and her family, but where she 
 knew that an active feeling of loyalty was rife in 
 behalf of her son, the rightful King of France ; since 
 his grandfather had abdicated in his favour, and the 
 Due d'Angouleme had renounced the succession to the 
 throne. 
 
 Though personally disguised, and journeying through 
 various perils under many an incognita, she carried in
 
 DUCHESSES UANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 191 
 
 her small but determined hand the fiery brand of 
 civil war. 
 
 Undaunted by first failures, uncomplaining under 
 terrible privations, in constant danger as to her life 
 and liberty, corresponding by secret agency in cyphers 
 which, being written in white ink, sorely tried her 
 eyes to read, she nevertheless lit up in La Vendee and 
 elsewhere a glorious enthusiasm for what she believed 
 to be the rightful cause of France, in a way to prove 
 that the chivalry of France was, despite all revolutions, 
 yet ardently alive. 
 
 If her followers suffered, the Duchesse de Berri, 
 always as far as possible in the midst of them, suffered 
 still more ; and, not discouraged by frequent repulses, 
 she made her way through the country from which 
 she was banished by law, and in Brittany found brave 
 men who eagerly armed themselves in behalf of 
 " Henri V.," as her son was, and still is, called by 
 French royalists. Such increasing faith indeed had 
 this Princess in the loyalty of man — a faith which 
 had been strengthened by her residence in " La 
 Vendee, the incorruptible," — that she forgot the possi- 
 bility of treachery lurking near her ; and, conse- 
 quently, it was at Nantes that she, in the month of 
 November 1832, was at length captured. 
 
 For a Jew of Colmar, sometime resident at Rome,
 
 192 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 and who had been recommended to the Duchesse de 
 Berri by the Pope as a convert to the Romish faith, 
 found means to penetrate into the house of a Made- 
 moiselle Du Guigni at Nantes, where the disguised 
 Princess had taken refuge, and upon the 7th of 
 November, 1832, the heroic mother of the Comte de 
 Chambord found that she was betrayed. 
 
 Her immediate followers at that time were Messieurs 
 de Mesnard and Guibourg, also Mademoiselle Stylite 
 de Kersabiec. The Duchesse de Berri was wearing 
 the dress of a peasant, and her attendants were like- 
 wise travestied. The latter had dreaded her granting 
 audience to the converted Jew, whose name was 
 Deutz ; not that they doubted his probity — coming 
 as he did, specially recommended to her — but because 
 they feared that he, being a stranger in the locality, 
 would draw the especial attention of the police to her 
 dwelling, by his visit. 
 
 But, as says one of the friends who knew and 
 loved her well, " Madame was unsuspicious as loyalty 
 itself," and though somewhat reserved in her first 
 interview with Deutz, he contrived so to insinuate 
 himself into the good favour of a pious nun, who was 
 in the daily confidence of the Duchesse de Berri, and 
 who sincerely believed him to be a convert to " the 
 true Faith," that her Royal Highness was quickly
 
 DUCHESSES UANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 193 
 
 induced to admit him a second time into her presence, 
 and, regarding him as an envoy of the Pope, whose 
 good favour was in every way precious to her, to 
 confer with the traitor so candidly as to convince him 
 beyond all doubt both as to her identity and the 
 continuance of her residence in the house, or rather 
 chateau, where first he had found her. Whilst she 
 was speaking to him a letter in cypher was brought 
 to her, written in the usual white ink ; he saw her wet 
 this despatch with some chemical preparation, which 
 looked like water, and perceived how her countenance 
 wore an air of concern as she swiftly read the words 
 that were thus revealed to her ; but so far above 
 suspicion was the character of this Princess, that in a 
 moment she said laughingly to him, " Deutz, these 
 lines forewarn me that I shall be betrayed by some- 
 body in whom I place confidence." 
 
 But the wretch only replied, " Oh, Madame, your 
 Royal Highness would never suspect me of such 
 infamy ! I, who have given so many pledges of 
 fidelity and devotion to Madame ! " 
 
 She did not suspect him ; and, immediately after- 
 wards, he went forth from her presence and betrayed 
 her, first to the civil, and afterwards to the military 
 authorities of the place. 
 
 General Dermoncourt was just then in Government
 
 194 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 command of the military forces in that locality, and 
 therefore it eventually became his painful task to 
 arrest the Duchesse de Bern, as is now about to be 
 seen. 
 
 By six o'clock that November evening, troops sur- 
 rounded the abode where she still believed herself to 
 be safe. Two battalions, divided into three columns 
 of armed men, had already cut off all possibility of 
 escape ; but " Madame," as her devoted adherents 
 ordinarily called her, was quite unconscious of imme- 
 diate danger. She was sitting in an upper apartment 
 of the chateau, where, thanks to loyal friends, she be- 
 lieved herself to be safe, and was talking pleasantly 
 to those about her of the calmness of the cold atmo- 
 sphere, and of the singular effects produced by the 
 clear moonlight in reflecting various objects upon 
 which it shone. M. de Guibourg, who was listening 
 to her remarks, came forward to look out of window 
 upon the objects to which they referred ; when sud- 
 denly he stepped back, exclaiming in a voice of alarm, 
 " Save yourself, Madame, save yourself ! " For, by 
 the light of the moon, he had beheld bayonets 
 gleaming, as the third column of soldiers, led on by 
 Colonel Simon Lorriere, was advancing towards the 
 chateau. 
 
 Swiftly, though without any cry or sign of terror,
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 195 
 
 the Duchesse de Berri sprang up and darted forth 
 upon the staircase. Her attendants did the same. 
 
 In a garret of the house there was a sort of cup- 
 board, four feet long and not much more than 
 eighteen inches wide, the door of which was concealed 
 in the wall ; and towards this narrow retreat the 
 Princess and her followers rapidly made their way. 
 
 Together they mounted the stairs leading to it, 
 and, according to a sign made by Madame, Monsieur 
 Mesnard and Monsieur Guibourg were the first to 
 enter ; but Mademoiselle Stylite de Kersabiac hesi- 
 tated as to taking precedence, even at that moment, 
 of her royal mistress ; whereupon the latter laughed, 
 saying, "Go in, dear Stylite, for by good stratagem 
 we are taught that in a retreat the commander 
 marches last." 
 
 There was not an instant to lose ; the doors of 
 the house opening upon the street were being broken 
 open, and the noise of their fall resounded upward 
 as Mademoiselle Stylite entered the narrow hiding- 
 place, and the Duchesse de Berri quickly followed 
 her into it, closing the panel which concealed it 
 behind her. 
 
 It was almost impossible for either M. de Mesnard 
 or Ms de Guibourg to stand upright in so small a 
 space, and even Madame and her lady attendant,
 
 196 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 though of shorter stature, were compelled to adopt 
 cramped positions. They heard the tramp of armed 
 men coming higher and higher, nearer and nearer ; 
 they heard the hammers of a troop of masons sound- 
 ing every wall of the building, and breaking into 
 every room ; they heard these men pass through the 
 garret contiguous to their caclictte, and ascend to the 
 top of the house, there to continue their demolishing 
 work of inspection ; they heard the oaths of soldiers, 
 and the asseverations of police commissioners, each 
 one of whom was armed with a pistol. 
 
 Sentinels were placed in every room, and two gen- 
 darmes were made to occupy the apartment close to 
 the place where the Duchesse de Berri and her 
 companions were concealed, the panelled and as yet 
 unsuspected door, which opened from the inside, 
 alone screening them. The night wore on ; it was 
 bitterly cold. In the fruitless search for her upon the 
 roof of the house, bricks and mortar had been 
 loosened just above the spot where the Princess found 
 herself caged in. She shivered, not from fear, but 
 from cold ; yet her first thought was that of regret 
 for the discomfort to which the loyalty of her fellow 
 sufferers had exposed them. She, having entered last, 
 was nearest to the closed panel of the cackette, and 
 could distinctly hear every word uttered by the gen-
 
 DUCHESSES UANGOULEME AND DE BERRL 197 
 
 darmes on the other side of it ; these two men often 
 complained to each other of the freezing atmosphere, 
 and presently, having found materials for a fire, they 
 proceeded to light one in the large stove, which was 
 immediately behind the hiding-place of Madame. 
 
 She and her companions were at first thankful for 
 the warmth which quickly pervaded their retreat, for 
 their limbs were not only cramped but nearly frozen ; 
 but soon they had reason to fear that their cachette 
 was likely to act as an oven to the stove close by it, 
 for the more the fire burnt, the more and more hot, 
 even to suffocation, became the small space where 
 they were concealed. 
 
 Air could only reach them through the chinks pre- 
 viously made by the masons during their rough search 
 on the roof, and trying to look up to these apertures, 
 the Princess and her adherents gasped for breath, 
 although afraid of uttering the slightest sound which 
 might betray them. At last came a short respite, 
 for, from certain sounds, it seemed that one of the 
 gendarmes had fallen asleep by the fire, whilst the 
 other paced up and down on duty, and gradually the 
 terrible heat decreased. The hours of the night, heard 
 pealing from church steeples, slowly succeeded each 
 other, until at early morning time the moment had 
 come for the gendarmes to change places with each
 
 198 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 other, and then it was that the one just awakened, 
 finding that the fire had burnt low, threw upon it a 
 quantity of old newspapers (" Quotidiennes ") which 
 had been heaped up in the corner of the room, and 
 this with such effect that the flames leapt up, and 
 the prisoners, invisible but close at hand, soon found 
 themselves in danger of being burnt to death. 
 
 Just then the search for them upon the roof was 
 renewed, but through the gaps upon it came smoke 
 and flame from the fire, whilst the loud sounds of 
 falling masonry convinced the Duchesse de Berri that 
 if not burnt she must be crushed to death. 
 
 Twice her clothes caught fire, and her hands were 
 scorched by putting it out. The smoke was dense to 
 suffocation ; the heavy blows of iron bars, wielded 
 by the workmen above in the work of destruction, 
 came nearer and nearer over her head ; the door or 
 panel against which she crouched was lined with 
 metal, and this having become red-hot, she began to 
 be in bodily agony, although refusing to change 
 places with any one of her fellow-prisoners. 
 
 Outside, the soldiers had continued to pile up the 
 newspapers on the fire, and the more they did so, the 
 more leapt the flames into the cacJiette adjoining ; but 
 all at once the attention of the gendarmes was caught 
 by the sound of a click or scratch close to them, for
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 199 
 
 in her terrible anxiety to render assistance to her 
 royal mistress, Mademoiselle de Stylite, who occu- 
 pied the place next to her, had struck against the 
 heated panel from within. 
 
 " Rats ! rats ! " cried the gendarmes, who, not being 
 able to perceive from whence the sound came, be- 
 lieved that the workmen on the roof had dislodged 
 rats, and thinking also that the latter might have 
 taken refuge in the chimney, they began to probe it 
 with their bayonets in a way not only to stimulate 
 the fire, but to increase the peril of those who were 
 close within its reach. 
 
 It was about half-past nine in the morning, when 
 again came a strange noise from some place invisible 
 to the two gendarmes. 
 
 " Who is there ? " cried one of them. 
 
 And it was the voice of Mademoiselle Stylite de 
 Kersabiac which replied, — 
 
 " We surrender. We are about to open the door : 
 put out the fire." 
 
 Immediately afterwards, the concealed door of 
 that burning prison cell was opened from within, and 
 forth from it first issued the Duchesse de Bern. Her 
 dress — a simple Neapolitan brown peasant dress — 
 was in tatters from recent burning ; her hands, the 
 beauty of which courtiers had once praised and poets
 
 200 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 had sung, were disfigured by their having clutched in 
 agony at that dress ; her fair hair was disordered and 
 singed, and her feet, clad in a tiny pair of slippers, 
 had to suffer fresh pain from the necessity of crossing 
 the surface of hot metal in her egress. But she 
 uttered no murmur, and only said to one of the 
 astounded gendarmes before her, " Go, summon your 
 General." 
 
 General Dermoncourt was in the house below, and 
 when he appeared before the Princess, she said to 
 him, — 
 
 " General, I surrender myself to you, and trust to 
 your loyalty." 
 
 " Madame," he respectfully answered, " your Royal 
 Highness is under the guard of French honour." 
 
 He courteously conducted her to a resting-place 
 in one of the lower rooms, when, in a voice of emotion, 
 yet proud in tone, she added, — 
 
 " General, I have fulfilled the duty of a mother 
 who desired to re-conquer the inheritance of her 
 son." 
 
 Concerning those who had just passed sixteen 
 hours of voluntary imprisonment with her, she mani- 
 fested much solicitude, and when at a later time of 
 the day it was intimated to her that she must be led 
 forth to captivity in the Fortress of Blaye, they en-
 
 DUCHESSES HANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 201 
 
 treated not to be separated from her. The request 
 was granted for a time at least, and it was with many 
 expressions of gratitude on the part of Madame to- 
 wards the loyal owners of the house (Mademoiselle 
 Duguigny and her sister) where for five months she 
 had found a refuge, that her Royal Highness now 
 prepared to leave it. 
 
 Military troops still surrounded the dwelling, and 
 the whole populace of Nantes was in a frantic state 
 of excitement, but the departure of the Princess on 
 her way to prison was effected so quietly that scarcely 
 anybody but those immediately about her was aware 
 of it ; for as General Dermoncourt apprehended diffi- 
 culty in procuring a carriage, she herself caused a 
 mantle to be thrown over her, and then, when the 
 moment for starting had come, she took the General's 
 arm, and proposed to issue forth on foot, merely 
 saying to her followers, "My friends, let us start." 
 General Dermoncourt did not regard this action as 
 the least heroic on the part of the royal woman 
 whom it was his painful duty to capture, for he knew 
 that she was still suffering fearfully, although helping 
 him thus in the performance of that duty. 
 
 .She uttered no word of complaint, quite the con- 
 trary ; for when, arm-in-arm, they were about to 
 descend the staircase, on their passage out, she cast a
 
 202 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 last upward look towards her recent hiding-place, and 
 laughingly said — 
 
 " Ah, General ! if you had not made war against 
 me in the style of St. Lawrence " (the martyr who 
 was fried on a gridiron), " I should not now be leaning 
 upon you for support." 
 
 The citadel of Blaye was soon reached, and within 
 its walls the Duchesse de Berri found herself a 
 prisoner. Her conduct was as undaunted by dreary 
 captivity as it had ' been in face of death, and 
 under the various vicissitudes which had befallen her. 
 But, though a heroine, she was "woman in spite of 
 herself;" for, in the course of some months, it was 
 intimated to the world . at large, by means of a letter 
 published in the Mouiteur, but dated from her prison, 
 and signed by her name, that she had for some time 
 past been privately married to Count Lucchesi Palli, 
 and that she was about to become a mother. 
 
 In these pages it has been already intimated how 
 the Count, a Neapolitan nobleman, and son of the 
 Prince Lucchesi Palli, had loved her, ere yet she 
 became the bride of the Due de Berri, and at a time 
 when, by the fact of her royal rank, he dared not 
 proclaim his love. It has been here also hinted how, 
 after the abdication of Charles X., and when she, a 
 woman, a mother, and a widow, was consequently
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 203 
 
 driven forth from France into exile, he sought and 
 found her ; and that then, much needing sympathy, 
 she found it in the heart of this, her countryman, and 
 the lover of her youth. Her girlhood had long since 
 fled ; she was the mother of two royal children, the 
 younger of whom had recently become, by the abdi- 
 cation of his grandfather in his favour, rightful King 
 of France. She had been ten years the widow of 
 the Due de Berri, whom she had passionately loved, 
 and earnestly lamented ; personally, for her, nothing 
 but memories remained ; but, in years, she was still 
 but a young woman ; her son and daughter were, so 
 to speak, "taken possession of" by their grandfather 
 and aunt, the Duchesse d'Angouleme. 
 
 Was the Duchesse de Berri, therefore, so much to 
 blame because her much-stricken woman's heart re- 
 opened itself to receive the love of the man who from 
 a distance had watched her whole career, and — 
 having not only watched, but admired — came to her 
 v in her misfortune and implored her to link her fate 
 with his ? 
 
 Upon this point, human nature answers "No." 
 But royal prejudice was probably of a different 
 opinion, although it must here still further be re- 
 marked that all which the mother of the Comte de 
 Chambord (Henri V.) had suffered for the cause of
 
 204 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 French royalty embodied in the person of her son, 
 derives fresh lustre when it is remembered that at the 
 very time she was courageously facing death in La 
 Vendee — at the very moment when she was self- 
 exposed to all sorts of tortures at Nantes, her own 
 life had become of fresh value to her, for the life of 
 such a woman is — love/ 
 
 Politically, she had done as she supposed that her 
 murdered husband, the Due de Berri, would have 
 done under the same circumstances ; and in so doing, 
 she had peformed an act of self-consecration to his 
 memory, which occupied a tender place in her heart. 
 As though determined not to take her own life and 
 happiness into her own hands until she had, at all 
 costs, done her last duty to him, she had, under all 
 perils, re-entered France in favour of his son. But 
 now, there was nothing more to do, for France re- 
 fused to recognise her son as King, and she was 
 languishing in prison. So she proclaimed her wo- 
 manly secret, and was forthwith liberated from the 
 citadel of Blaye, though not to go back to her royal 
 relatives at Holy rood, for she turned her face towards 
 Sicily, where a home and her husband awaited her. 
 It was upon the 8th day of June, 1833, that she went 
 forth from Blaye, and in twenty-four days afterwards 
 she again set foot upon her native land, which, since
 
 DUCHESSES D'ANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 205 
 
 seventeen years of some joy, but much sorrow, she 
 had not seen. 
 
 Henceforth, her royal son, the Comte de Chambord, 
 was under the direction of his grandfather, Charles X., 
 and that of his uncle and aunt, the Due and Duchesse 
 d'Angouleme. Voluntarily, the Due d'Augouleme (or 
 Dauphin, as he was called) had renounced all claims 
 to the throne upon the abdication of his father in 1830, 
 and long since had the Duchesse d'Angouleme (or 
 Dauphiness, as she was called) resigned all hope of 
 becoming Queen Consort of France, for it was to the 
 service of the Cross and not to that of any earthly 
 crown that she devoted herself. 
 
 But the traditions of her ancestors were precious to 
 her, even as a part of her religion, and from her 
 lips the then young Comte de Chambord doubtless 
 learnt to regard the " Drapeau Blanc," the white flag 
 of the Fleur-de-Lys, as appertaining to the traditions 
 of the faith inculcated by her. 
 
 The air of Holyrood was too keen for the Duchesse 
 d'Angouleme, and, after the marriage of the Duchesse 
 de Berri with Comte Lucchesi Palli, the exiled royal 
 family of France, long resident in Scotland, travelled 
 much on the continent, residing successively at 
 Vienna, Prague, and Goritz. 
 
 At the last-named place died Charles X., in 1836,
 
 206 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 and that venerable monarch, who was born at Ver- 
 sailles ere yet the preceding century had grown old, 
 lies buried in the vaults of the convent of the 
 Franciscans, situated on the woodland heights of 
 Goritz. His death was a fresh source of sorrow to 
 the Duchesse d'Angouleme, who, in exile, had been 
 to him a daughter of consolation ; and in the month 
 of February, 1844, she was stricken by a fresh grief, 
 for she knew then that the husband of her youth, 
 the playmate of her childhood, the companion of her 
 advanced life and exile, was about to be taken from 
 her. 
 
 The Due d'Angouleme, always an ascetic from his 
 early manhood, had suffered much from attacks of 
 illness which, though accompanied by acute pain, he 
 had borne with the patience which had always charac- 
 terised him. 
 
 In the years long past his illustrious consort may 
 have had cause to regret — for have not all lives their in- 
 subordinate moments ? — her act of obedience to the will 
 of her martyred parents, in becoming his wife — mo- 
 ments when, in memory, she looked back with a yearn- 
 ing of womanly regret to the love of her other cousin, 
 the Archduke Charles, who had in vain sought to win 
 her for his bride during her sojourn at Vienna, after 
 her release from the prison of the Temple.
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRL 207 
 
 But that regret, if it ever existed, had long since 
 been "lived down," and during the many years of 
 sorrow and proscription which she had passed with 
 her husband during both the earlier and the later 
 period of their married life, she had been his de- 
 voted companion. Their sentiments were identical 
 respecting the religion of their forefathers, and it was 
 by mutual consent that they had renounced the crown 
 of France in favour of their nephew, the Comte de 
 Chambord. 
 
 The last illness of the Due d'Angouleme began on 
 Ash Wednesday, 1844, and as one result of his mala- 
 dies was to make him almost blind, the voice most 
 necessary to him, either in speaking or reading, was 
 that of his wife. The room he ordinarily occupied 
 was more like the cell of a monk than the chamber of 
 a Prince, but when enabled, as the Spring returned, to 
 be removed into the open air, he rejoiced, despite his 
 own fast-declining strength, in the sights, and sounds, 
 and scents of reviving nature. Upon Trinity Sunday 
 in that year he was released from his sufferings, and 
 the Duchesse d'Angouleme became a widow. 
 
 " With her arms outspread, she hurried into the 
 still chamber where he lay— he who should have 
 worn a crown and died a King. She flung herself at 
 his feet, and of those who crowded in around her, she
 
 208 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 urgently asked for prayer. The usual prayers were 
 recited, .... and when the officiating priest 
 uttered the closing deep Amen, all there looked upon 
 the face of the Prince, and they saw that he was 
 dead. The Duchesse d'Angouleme turned from 
 gazing at this sad sight to raise her hands to Heaven, 
 as if to express her willingness, for Heaven's sake, 
 to offer up this one more sacrifice. She then gently 
 bent down, and, taking the now unconscious hand of 
 her husband, kissed it repeatedly, bathing it with her 
 tears. That hand had rested in hers more than 
 half-a-century before in the gay galleries of Ver- 
 sailles Versailles and Goritz ! Those 
 
 two words express two great extremes," and between 
 them, for the Duchesse d'Angouleme, there had been 
 a lifetime of tribulation. 
 
 The Comte de Chambord and his sister, "the 
 children of France," were near their aunt, the 
 Duchesse d'Angouleme, at the time of this her new 
 and irreparable sorrow ; she took their hands within 
 her own, and they, too, rendered homage to the dead. 
 
 The Due d'Angouleme was buried by the side of 
 his father, in the Franciscan convent, upon the 
 heights above Goritz, and, not long afterwards, his 
 widow repaired with her nephew and niece to 
 Frohsdorf.
 
 DUCHESSES DANGOULEME AND DE BERRI. 209 
 
 A purchase had been made of the chateau and 
 domain of Frohsdorf (about a dozen leagues from 
 Vienna) by the Duchesse d'Angouleme, in the name 
 of the Due de Blacas, that well-known devoted ad- 
 herent to the royal cause of France. 
 
 The chateau of Frohsdorf is nothing more than 
 a plain, white country house, the pointed roof of which 
 is pierced by windows. Those most familiar with it 
 describe it as a building two stories high, each storey 
 presenting nine windows of a row, the centre one, 
 over the chief entrance, having a balcony in front 
 of it, flanked by pilasters. On the western side of 
 the chateau is a tower, the base of which is in the 
 fosse, or moat. An unbroken plain extends towards 
 the west, " reaching to the foot of the mountain 
 chain which divides Styria from the Archduchy of 
 Austria, and which unites the Styrian Alps with the 
 Carpathian range." 
 
 In this abode the widowed daughter of Louis XVI. 
 and Marie Antoinette occupied herself in works of 
 charity ; but by her nephew, by her household, and by 
 French royalists who, from time to time, made pil- 
 grimages of devotion to this, her far-off home, she 
 was always treated with the etiquette due to a Queen- 
 
 These pilgrimages had long existed, for when 
 Charles X. was still alive, the celebrated French
 
 210 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 author, Chateaubriand, performed one in order to 
 pay his respects to his exiled Majesty at Prague, and 
 it was there that he beheld the Comte de Chambord 
 — then a boy — and his sister, who, says he, " looked 
 like two young gazelles lying in concealment amidst 
 some old ruin." 
 
 The Duchesse d'Angouleme survived to see this 
 Prince and Princess become man and woman. The 
 latter was wedded to the Duke of Parma, and there 
 are not a few who at this day still have cause to 
 mourn her death, which occurred in 1863; for she 
 was singularly fascinating, amiable and accomplished. 
 
 The Comte de Chambord (or Henri V., as French 
 royalists call him) in due time introduced the Duke 
 of Modena's daughter as a bride at Frohsdorf, and 
 by their united affection the last days of his aunt, the 
 Duchesse d'Angouleme, were soothed. 
 
 Upon the 13th of October, 185 1, that last-named 
 Princess fainted whilst at Mass. She rallied after- 
 wards, but she knew that her last hour was at hand, 
 and she prepared for it with courage and calmness. 
 The 1 6th of that month was the anniversary of her 
 mother's execution, and upon that day her strength 
 rapidly declined ; and still holding her nephew's hand 
 to the last, she, whose birth had been so rapturous! y 
 hailed at Versailles, looked round upon those about her
 
 DUCHESSES UANGOUL&ME AND DE BERRI. 21 r 
 
 in token of a mute, though eloquent farewell. By- 
 other chroniclers, to whom thanks are here due, it 
 has been stated that at the head of her bed hung a 
 picture of " the Angel of Consolation showing to 
 Louis XVI. the splendour of celestial glory," and 
 when the priest in attendance upon the exiled and 
 dying Princess pointed to this picture all present 
 responded in their hearts to the words, " Daughter of 
 St. Louis, ascend to heaven." 
 
 The Duchesse d'Angouleme, ex-Dauphiness of 
 France, was buried by the side of her husband and his 
 father, upon the heights of Goritz. 
 
 The Duchesse de Bern, although with no longer 
 any political part to play in the world for the sake 
 of her royal son, was a welcome guest to the pro- 
 scribed King of France and those around him when- 
 ever it pleased her to issue forth from the comparative 
 seclusion of her henceforth private life, to visit either 
 of the various stations of their exile. She survived 
 until a very few years since, and many there are who 
 have reason to bless her memory ; for, to the last, she 
 was a liberal patroness of art, and the noble-minded 
 friend of misfortune in need of an advocate. 
 
 To her four children by her union with the Comte 
 Lucchesi Palli, the Comtc de Chambord has mani- 
 fested much brotherly affection ; and, strange to say
 
 212 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 it was not until the Revolution of 1870 enabled that 
 Prince to re-enter France — after the downfall of 
 Napoleon III., and after an exile of forty years from 
 the land over which, by inheritance, he is King, — 
 that (as herebefore said), he beheld the Chateau de 
 Chambord, from which he derives his title, now most 
 familiar to the world at large, and of which his heroic 
 mother took possession in his name. It may here be 
 added that, after the Revolution of 1830, this antique 
 chateau fell into a ruined state ; and also that the 
 glorious heights near the exile-home of its royal 
 owner are perpetually crowned with untrodden snow, 
 glistening like the untarnished banner of the Fleur 
 de lys.
 
 QUEEN MARIE AMELIE 
 
 AND THE 
 
 DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 
 
 (GRANDMOTHER AND MOTHER OF THE COUNT DE PARIS/.
 
 OL'EEN MARIE AMELIE.
 
 QUEEN MARIE AMELIE AND 
 THE DUCHESS OE ORLEANS. 
 
 ^»foj|, T was Lady Hamilton, the notoriously- 
 fascinating wife of the English Am- 
 bassador at Naples, who, in 1798, 
 first announced to Caroline, then 
 Queen of that country, the recent 
 victory which Nelson had won over 
 Bonaparte. 
 
 With great joy the Queen received 
 this news, for she was a sister of the 
 
 martyred Marie Antoinette of France, 
 1 
 
 and, though still bound to the last- 
 named country by political treaties of neutrality, 
 she abhorred the land stained by the blood of her 
 own race, and instantly prepared to welcome Nelson 
 as " the Saviour of Italy," and the avenger of royal 
 right against republican might. 
 
 Thrones, even that of the Pope, were just then 
 either tottering or overturned. Bonaparte, of bound-
 
 216 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 less ambition, had declared all Europe to be but a 
 mole-hill, and that there had never been any great 
 empires but in the East ; yet, at last, he had found 
 more than a match for him in the great game he 
 played, for " upon that gigantic chess-board of the 
 Nile, where pawns are obelisks, — castles, pyramids, — 
 knights, sphinxes, — where bishops call themselves 
 Cambyses, — kings, Sesostris, — and queens, Cleopatra, 
 he had been checkmated." 
 
 In spite of all still-existing treaties with France, a 
 glorious reception awaited Nelson at Naples. Bells 
 rang, cannon roared ; the King and Queen, in a 
 splendidly ornamented galley, followed by various 
 smaller vessels, all gaily ornamented, sailed forth to 
 meet him. 
 
 Upon the deck of the galley were their Neapolitan 
 Majesties, surrounded by their children — such of them 
 as were already past childhood. The most illustrious 
 members of their Court were there ; but most con- 
 spicuous in the midst of this brilliant group were the 
 Queen and Lady Hamilton. 
 
 The former was still handsome ; and, on this 
 occasion, she was gorgeously arrayed. She, 
 Queen Caroline, much resembled her late sister, 
 Queen Marie Antoinette of France, in form and 
 feature, but it was an intellectual if not hardened
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 217 
 
 resemblance. Her fair hair, the still golden hue of 
 which gleamed through the powder then worn, her 
 blue eyes, which, notwithstanding their soft colour, 
 were sometimes electric if not severe in expression, 
 her finely chiselled profile, her clear and brilliant 
 skin, her slightly projecting under-lip — then com- 
 monly called the " Austrian lip " — her graceful but 
 well-developed figure, her beautiful hands and arms, 
 all proclaimed her sisterhood to the " last and fairest 
 Queen of France ;" but none the less had some of her 
 determined political acts declared her to be the 
 daughter of Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, and 
 " King of Hungary." 
 
 At sixteen years of age (in the month of April, 
 1768), this Queen Caroline of Naples had been sent 
 forth from Vienna to wed King Ferdinand IV. of 
 "the Two Sicilies," and in him she found a young 
 prince whose education had been intentionally neg- 
 lected by his preceptors — because they wished to 
 keep political power in their own hands — and who 
 therefore excelled in nothing but hunting and fish- 
 ing. In the latter sport he was especially proficient, 
 for he not only caught fish in the blue waters under 
 his dominion, but he sold them ; not so much for 
 desire of gain, but for love of frolic. By the lazza- 
 roni, the beggars of Naples, he was almost lovingly
 
 2iS ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 called "dear king, Nasone," for the principal fea- 
 ture of his face was a long nose ; but, he was not 
 irreverent, for the one book he knew was his mass- 
 book. By his flattering courtiers he was styled " the 
 Modern Nimrod," and had he not, according to 
 other creeds, been superstitious, he might have been 
 irreligious. Such, however, he was not ; and his wife, 
 Queen Marie Caroline, or Queen Caroline as she was 
 more generally called, soon exercised supreme domi- 
 nion over him, and also over his kingdom. By the 
 Italian poet, Metastasio, long resident as poet laureate 
 at Vienna, she had been taught the language of the 
 country over which, at sixteen years of age, she came 
 to reign ; and, in every way, she was well prepared, 
 from earliest youth, to enjoy all the intellectual 
 charms of existence in Southern Italy, — that land of 
 music, poetry, and epic traditions, blue skies, bright 
 seas. Vesuvius, that mighty volcano, with fertile vines 
 twining at its base ; Etna, that fiery mountain, in the 
 deep caverns of which the Cyclops of mythology 
 forged the thunderbolts of Jupiter ; Naples, that 
 capital of " the garden of Italy," with its antique and 
 magnificent temples, its devotional works of art : — 
 all these, and much more, were hers, as Queen. 
 King Ferdinand, was glad from the first for his king- 
 dom to be ruled by such a wife, for she 'speedily
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 219 
 
 took the reins of government into her own fair 
 hands, and not only taught him how to love, but 
 also — say some chroniclers — how to write. 
 
 Various had been the vicissitudes of Naples, or 
 " the Two Sicilies," ere Bonaparte had gained his vic- 
 tories ; numerous children had meantime been born 
 to King Ferdinand and Queen Caroline ; and over 
 her Neapolitan Majesty the Chevalier Aeton had 
 gained political power; but it was to Lady Hamilton, 
 the English Ambassador's wife, that the Queen 
 trusted for the consummation of such an understand- 
 ing with his Britannic Majesty (George III.) that no 
 doubt should any longer exist as to her abhorrence 
 of France, where her sister had reigned and been 
 murdered. 
 
 At the feet, therefore, of Queen Caroline reclined 
 Lady Hamilton, in the attitude of an " esclave reine," 
 upon that day when their Neapolitan Majesties sailed 
 forth to welcome Nelson after his conquest of 
 Bonaparte. 
 
 Her attire was classically simple, but it displayed 
 the perfection of her form, and neither in the dignified 
 repose of her attitude, nor the ingenuousness of her 
 fine countenance, shaded by soft dark hair, could there 
 be read aught to warn the beholder against this Circe, 
 whose enchantments were soon to be fatally exercised
 
 220 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 upon Nelson, and to work out a retributive destiny 
 for the Queen herself. 
 
 Nor could anybody have supposed, looking at Lady 
 Hamilton in the midst of the Neapolitan Court on 
 that bright day aboard the royal galley, that once 
 upon a time she was but a bare-footed beggar-child 
 wandering over stony roads by the side of a vagrant 
 mother, the name of whose husband was doubtful ; 
 nor that during an intervening period she had been 
 nursemaid in the family of a Mr. Hawarden, of 
 Flintshire. In that remote district the celebrated 
 but sometimes itinerant artist, Romney, met her ; 
 and having taken a sketch of her in the act of pass- 
 ing a muddy pool, he told her that if she would come 
 to London he would give her five pounds for every 
 "sitting" as a model; and accordingly she came 
 to London, and — without here entering into other 
 details — she in time found herself so notorious, that 
 Sir William Hamilton had believed it to be his duty 
 to attempt to detach her from a relative of his own, 
 but had ended by marrying her himself and conveying 
 her to Naples. 
 
 Nobody would have believed in the low birth and 
 worse than doubtful antecedents of Lady Hamilton 
 as she reclined at the feet of the Queen of Naples 
 that sunny day when Nelson returned thither victo-
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 221 
 
 rious ; but, looking at the versatile expression of her 
 fine face, noticing the wondrous but ever varying 
 grace of her flexible figure, few people would have 
 doubted the fact that she had been found capable of 
 personifying (as model to the painter Romney, and 
 afterwards in other more objectionable ways) the 
 character either of a Magdalene or a Cleopatra, a 
 Saint or a Bacchante. Nor, listening to her eloquent 
 flow of words, could there have been much doubt as 
 to her capacity for recitation, the earliest proof of 
 which was given many years before, when, as a country 
 girl just come to London, she went to Drury Lane 
 Theatre, was there smitten with wonder at the per- 
 formance of " Romeo and Juliet," and afterwards 
 thrilled all those who came within her reach by her 
 wondrous reproduction of what she had heard on 
 the stage. 
 
 On board the royal galley that day, when Nelson 
 sailed into the port of Naples, was also her husband, 
 Sir William Hamilton, a courtly-looking elderly gen- 
 tleman, noted for his antiquarian researches, and liberal 
 donations of rare objects to the British Museum : his 
 hair was powdered, and his delicate hands were shaded 
 by lace ruffles, through which gleamed rings. 
 
 Nelson at last approached, in his own ship the 
 ' Vanguard,' and immediately the King and Queen
 
 222 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 of Naples, followed by their suite, prepared to go on 
 board that English man-of-war. But it was to Lady 
 Hamilton that her Majesty gave precedence upon 
 this occasion ; nor was it the first time that her lady- 
 ship now found herself in presence of Nelson, for twice 
 before he had " put in " at Naples for assistance, and 
 upon at least one of these occasions he had there 
 come in contact with the fascinating wife of the British 
 Minister. 
 
 King Ferdinand hailed Nelson as the " Liberator of 
 the World," and conferred all sorts of honours upon 
 him ; but when Lady Hamilton beheld him pallid 
 because of the blood he had lately shed, and with his 
 forehead bandaged because of the scalp wound which, 
 recently inflicted, had at first been thought mortal, 
 she fainted, or at least momentarily appeared to do so. 
 
 Nelson did the honours of his ship, and showed how 
 French bullets had inflicted upon it glorious wounds, 
 " which, like his own, were not yet closed," and then, 
 having entered the Neapolitan galley that awaited 
 him with its four-and-twenty gaily dressed rowers, 
 he afterwards accompanied the King and Queen of 
 Naples, with their Court, in a triumphal procession, 
 which made its way through an excited populace, to 
 the residence of the British Minister, where a superb 
 banquet awaited the hero.
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 223 
 
 And here, in a scene of enchantment, Nelson sat 
 between the Queen of Naples and Lady Hamilton, — 
 the King of Naples facing them. Mirrors on the 
 walls multiplied innumerable artificial lights in 
 thousands of dazzling forms ; around the table 
 were eighty distinguished guests, dressed in the 
 showy court costume of the period ; diamonds 
 sparkled ; orders " of merit " gleamed ; feathers 
 waved ; wine flowed : the banquet was worthy of 
 the gods. 
 
 Light, flowers, beauty, flattery, wine, fame, each 
 and all of these assimilated with the joy which was 
 every moment more and more demonstrated. At 
 every course of the banquet, a toast ! It was King 
 Ferdinand who proposed the health of his " well- 
 beloved cousin and august ally, George III., King of 
 England." 
 
 It was the Queen of Naples who, contrary to all 
 precedent, proposed the health of " Nelson, liberator 
 of Italy." But it was Lady Hamilton who touched 
 with her ruby lips the sparkling glass which she 
 forthwith handed to " the hero of the Nile." 
 
 Nelson drank of that glass ; enthusiasm became 
 more and more demonstrative, until at last the 
 solemn strains of " God save the King" pealed forth 
 from the orchestra above — an orchestra which, though
 
 224 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 invisible, was composed of the choicest talent from the 
 Opera of St. Carlos. 
 
 "God save the King!" that English anthem was 
 sung by Italian voices. 
 
 King Ferdinand, his Queen, Lady Hamilton, 
 Nelson, all stood up to do honour to the words ; and 
 with them the eighty guests around the banquet 
 table. 
 
 Other verses were added in honour of the occasion, 
 and it is supposed that Lady Hamilton improvised 
 them ; but at last, amid loud acclamations, the 
 English anthem ceased, and the guests re-seated 
 themselves. 
 
 Then was it that a man suddenly entered into the 
 midst of that brilliant assembly, — a man, who, in his 
 person and dress, presented a strange contrast to it. 
 He was of tall stature and stern countenance. He 
 wore an ill-shaped blue coat, red vest, white trousers, 
 and from the three-cornered hat, which he kept on his 
 head, floated a tri-coloured plume — emblem of French 
 Republicanism. 
 
 It was the Minister Garat, who, in the name of the 
 French National Convention, then represented France 
 at Naples — the same man who formerly had read 
 the sentence of death to Louis XVI. in the prison of 
 the Temple.
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 225 
 
 A profound silence greeted him when thus he came 
 upon the splendid scene in honour of Nelson at 
 Naples ; that silence was broken by Garat's sonorous 
 voice which proclaimed — 
 
 " War ! war, King Ferdinand and Queen Caroline, 
 since you will it. But it shall be a war of extermina- 
 tion, which, notwithstanding the British hero of this 
 festival, and the power he represents, will cost you 
 your lives and your throne. To-night I leave Naples, 
 this city of perjury. Shut its gates behind me ; but 
 assemble your soldiers behind its walls. Bristle your 
 fortresses with cannon, do what you will ; but you will 
 not retard the vengeance of France, for every power 
 must eventually yield before the cry of ' Long live 
 the French Republic !' " 
 
 These words were prophetic ; but whatever faults 
 Queen Caroline of Naples may have committed, 
 politically or otherwise, she expiated them ; for if tears, 
 to say nothing of tears of remorse, can wash away 
 stains of error from the soul, she had cause to shed 
 them in beholding and suffering from the calamities 
 private and political, consequent on her rash deeds. 
 
 She and her family were soon obliged to fly from 
 Naples, where the populace was in a state of insub- 
 ordination, the dockyard in flames ; and she could not 
 forget that it was by her advice that her husband 
 
 Q
 
 226 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 (only nominally responsible, for he had ever placed 
 implicit confidence in her judgment), pressed by the 
 Cabinets of London and Vienna, had committed him- 
 self irretrievably with regard to Nelson, and had 
 entered into the coalition against the French Re- 
 public. 
 
 It was at Palermo that the royal family of Naples 
 sought a refuge. On the voyage thither, in the 
 midst of a terrific storm, Queen Marie Caroline 
 (or Caroline, as she is more usually called) lost her 
 youngest son ; but a very numerous progeny still 
 remained to her, and not the least interesting to her 
 of all her children was her daughter, Marie Amelie. 
 
 This young princess was just then eighteen years 
 of age. In her infancy she had been extremely small 
 and weak, although so precocious in intelligence that 
 by some in Italy it was supposed that a divine grace 
 of understanding had been given to her on account of 
 her having, in her earliest days, received the benedic- 
 tion of the venerable bishop, or rather saint, Alphonse 
 di' Liguori. 
 
 Her mother, although, as here already seen, an 
 ambitious and worldly woman, was not free from the 
 superstitions of her adopted country, and doubtless 
 it was due to her influence that saintly hands had 
 been laid upon the head of her child ; but the Queen
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 227 
 
 also knew the value of a systematic, practical education 
 such as she herself had been subjected to in girlhood 
 under the rule of her own mother, Maria Theresa, 
 Empress of Austria, (King of Hungary,) and the 
 Princess Marie Amelie was therefore soon consigned 
 to the vigilant care of a certain Signora Ambrosia, 
 widow of one of the chief lawyers of Naples, who 
 strenuously and successfully strove to check the too- 
 impulsive nature of the child, and to implant in her 
 those habits of order and mental discipline which, in 
 after-life, became conspicuous in her. 
 
 From what has been here already said, it must be 
 understood that the girlhood of Marie Amelie was 
 passed in the midst of political storms, such as those 
 which were hereafter, in another land, to become her 
 destiny ; but, serious though her character was by 
 education, she none the less enjoyed a visit which she 
 made, with her mother, to Vienna just at the time 
 when, emancipated from the trammels of the daily 
 studies enforced by her much-loved Signora Ambrosia, 
 she became curious to behold other scenes than those 
 which Southern Italy presented to her. 
 
 At Vienna were many young Archdukes, her 
 cousins, and to one of these it would seem, even from 
 her own well-kept journal, that she was inclined to 
 attach herself. She found it pleasant to be serenaded
 
 228 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 by him beneath her windows, to interchange serious 
 thoughts with him en tete-a-tete; but this young 
 Archduke was destined for the service of the church, 
 and so religiously inclined was this princess even 
 then in her early youth, that she put away the thought, 
 as a Satanic profanation, of detaching him from the 
 sacred vocation awaiting him. 
 
 After this visit to Vienna, she returned with her 
 mother to Italy ; she gave her time and attention to 
 the poor, and this to such an extent, that by some it 
 was supposed she would become a professed Sister of 
 Charity by entering the cloister, but another fate was 
 in store for her. Upon this point, however, let her 
 here speak for herself : — * 
 
 " My mother summoned my sister Isabelle and my- 
 self, in order to present to us the Due d'Orleans. 
 He is of ordinary figure, somewhat stout, — neither 
 handsome nor ugly. He has the features of the 
 House of Bourbon, and his manners are very polite 
 and well educated." 
 
 * It is to the local Neapolitan researches of M. Dumas (fils) that 
 some of the facts concerning Nelson's reception at Naples are due, as 
 here recorded. In the following extracts from the journal of the 
 Princess Marie Amelie (since Queen of the French) the writer of the 
 text above is indebted to M. Auguste Trognon, at one time preceptor 
 to his Royal Highness the Prince de Joinville, and a confidential friend 
 of that Prince's mother until her death.
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 229 
 
 These words are somewhat reserved, for, as this 
 well-disciplined princess had determined within her- 
 self not to be carried away by first impressions, 
 she says nothing of the fact that her imagination had 
 already attached itself to this young Due d'Orleans, 
 for she had heard of his courageous feats when fight- 
 ing under General Dumouriez at Valmi. She had 
 heard how he had distinguished himself at the battle 
 of Jemappes ; she had heard how, despite all this, he 
 had protested against the revolutionary crimes in 
 France, and how, consequently, he had been compelled 
 to fly from his own country and quit the army. She had 
 heard how, under a feigned name in exile, he had at 
 one time acted as tutor in the college of Reichenau, 
 and how the terrible news there reached him of his 
 father (" Egalite") having perished on the scaffold of 
 regicide France. She had heard how, since then, he 
 had wandered on foot and almost penniless, through 
 Norway, Sweden, and Lapland. She had heard how, 
 in the year 1795, he set off from the North Cape, and 
 paid a visit to General Washington in America. She 
 had heard how he had more recently founded a home 
 for his exiled brothers and himself at Twickenham, 
 near London, and how devoted he had been to them 
 in the midst of sickness and death. She had heard 
 how his widowed mother was still an exile like him-
 
 230 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 self, — and all these things which she had heard 
 produced a favourable impression on her heart and 
 mind. 
 
 But she had also been told by her mother that this 
 young Prince's father had been mainly instrumental, 
 by those democratic opinions which had gained for 
 him the sobriquet of " Egalite" in bringing about the 
 death of that mother's own sister, the Queen of 
 France, upon that regicide scaffold upon which he 
 himself, by a strange retribution, was afterwards 
 doomed to perish ; she had noticed a shudder of 
 horror accompanying the very mention of the name of 
 Orleans at the Court of her parents ; and she knew 
 that it was merely by the force of political circum- 
 stances, and with an extreme reluctance that this 
 Prince, the son of Egalite, — this Due d'Orleans, her 
 " cousin " and contemporary, — was introduced into 
 the midst of her own royal family at Palermo. 
 
 It was therefore with a double feeling — half pain, 
 half pleasure — that the Neapolitan Princess Marie 
 Amelie first found herself face to face with Prince Louis 
 Philippe, Due d'Orleans, although events soon proved 
 that even then he determined upon making her 
 his wife. He had come alone to Palermo, without 
 followers, and in the most simple of travelling cos- 
 tumes. Their Sicilian Majesties were still exiled
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 231 
 
 from their chief capital of Naples, and to them Louis 
 Philippe said, " The greater the fault of my father, 
 the more I ought to be allowed to prove by my own 
 conduct that I have inherited only the misfortunes 
 which those faults have brought upon my family." 
 
 It was just then (1808-9) when the triumphs of 
 Napoleon were almost universal, and their Sicilian 
 Majesties (or, rather, the Queen, for the King, as in 
 former days, was still chiefly devoted to hunting and 
 fishing) thought to make good use of the Due 
 d'Orleans in politics appertaining to Spain. Of these 
 politics nothing need here be said than that the con- 
 duct of Louis Philippe, though more zealous than 
 successful, convinced King Ferdinand and Queen 
 Caroline of his loyalty to the cause most dear to 
 them ; and their daughter, the Princess Marie Amelie, 
 had become gradually so captivated by his brave con- 
 duct that, notwithstanding the well-trained modesty 
 of her general demeanour, she openly declared, in 
 answer to his matrimonial overtures towards her, that 
 if not allowed by her parents to marry him, she would 
 at once retire from the world and become a nun. 
 
 The marriage, though postponed from time to time, 
 at last took place in the afternoon of the 25th day of 
 November, 1809, at Palermo, and here let the bride 
 give a portrait of herself at that time.
 
 232 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 " I am," says she, " tall and well made. My face is 
 long ; I have blue eyes, which are neither large nor 
 little, but animated ; a very large forehead, and not 
 much hair, but this of a fair and golden hue ; a long 
 aquiline nose ; a mouth of moderate size, but agree- 
 able ; red lips ; teeth, not beautiful, but well set ; a 
 round chin, with a pretty little dimple ; a long neck ; 
 shoulders well placed ; . . . arms and hands rather 
 ugly ; a skin fine and white ; a pretty leg, and a 
 somewhat long foot ; the tout ensemble is noble, 
 modest, and impressive, and of an air to show whom 
 I am. My gait is easy ; I dance lightly ; and ... I 
 am graceful ... So much for my exterior . . . ." 
 
 This self-portrait painting was still in vogue during 
 the youth of this Bourbon Princess, but what she here 
 says of herself is not too flattering, for Talleyrand, 
 when subsequently introduced to her, declared her to 
 be " the last grande dame in Europe," and her virtues 
 were such that Pope Gregory XVI. always spoke of 
 her as " that saintly woman, that holy woman." 
 
 She was about 27 years of age when she married, 
 and happy was Louis Philippe Due d'Orleans to win 
 her as his bride. 
 
 Her father, King Ferdinand, had just met with an 
 accident to one of his legs at the date of her mar- 
 riage, but an altar was arranged at the foot of the
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 233 
 
 couch upon which his Majesty reclined, and there, in 
 his presence, the ceremony was first performed, 
 though, upon the same day, afterwards celebrated 
 with more pomp and publicity in the chapel of the 
 royal palace of Palermo. 
 
 " My legs trembled under me," writes the bride, 
 "knowing as I did the sanctity and the strength of the 
 vows I was uttering ; but my bridegroom uttered the 
 word ' Yes ' in so resolute a tone that it refilled my 
 heart with courage." 
 
 The Princess Marie Amelie, or, as she must hence- 
 forth here be called, the Duchesse d'Orl^ans, wore 
 upon this, her wedding day, a dress of silvery and 
 Sicilian fabric, a diadem of diamonds, and white 
 feathers. At King Ferdinand's request, the bride and 
 bridegroom supped in the room to which his Majesty 
 was confined .by his recent accident, and the Queen 
 was also present ; but the bride, with the thoughtful 
 and pious seriousness even then habitual to her, wrote 
 in her journal : 
 
 " God, placing me in this new state of life, has 
 united me to a virtuous and amiable husband. May 
 He bless the union which He hath formed, and make 
 us to live tranquil and holy lives upon this earth, so 
 that we may enjoy the heaven which awaits us here- 
 after ! "
 
 234 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 In the domestic retreat which they formed for 
 themselves at Palermo, the Due and Duchesse were 
 perfectly happy, and when, at the end of October, 
 1 8 10, the Duchesse placed her first-born son, the Due 
 de Chartres, in the arms of her husband, upon the 
 return of the latter from a journey which the political 
 exigences of the time had compelled him to make, 
 there was no drawback to the married felicity for 
 which the Princess had prayed, except in the fact that 
 her mother had become a martyr to State misfortunes, 
 — a detail of which would here be out of place — that 
 the health of that unfortunate and at one time per- 
 haps too ambitious Queen was failing fast ; and that 
 eventually, for the sake of public tranquillity, and 
 even by the declared wish of the indolent and 
 pleasure-loving King, she found herself compelled to 
 take refuge at Vienna. ' 
 
 Of the two Queens, Marie Antoinette of France, 
 and her sister, Marie Caroline of Naples, the fate of 
 the latter would seem to be the more terrible ; for 
 easier it must be to ascend a scaffold and " rise to 
 Heaven," than to wear out the remainder of an active 
 life which has outlived itself amid scenes that only 
 recall the mocking memories of happiness which is 
 dead, and of loving faces which smile no more on 
 earth.
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 235 
 
 Such was the dreary fate of Queen Caroline, whom 
 Nelson had declared " a Queen to the backbone," and 
 who had been the friend of Lady Hamilton, loved by 
 that English hero, not wisely, but too well. 
 
 By the Restoration of 18 14 the Due and Duchesse 
 d'Orleans were recalled from Palermo to Paris. The 
 fall of Bonaparte and the entrance of the Allies 
 into the capital of France filled their hearts with joy, 
 but the pleasure of Marie Amelie was at this time 
 dimmed by the news received by her from her mother 
 at Vienna, — for, wrote that once proud Queen, — 
 
 " Nothing any longer affects me upon earth. My 
 fate was decided that day when I was hunted and 
 thrown out of Sicily like a.fetnme de theatre. My life 
 is ended in this world, and I am now an object of 
 interest to none but some few old women who only 
 come out of their houses to look at me — the last of 
 the children of the great Maria Theresa. The Prater 
 is in its beautiful garb of green, and all in bloom, but 
 there is nothing any longer beautiful for me." 
 
 In the autumn of the year when this letter was 
 written, the hand that had penned it was cold in death. 
 It was therefore with a sense of depression that Marie 
 Amelie, Duchesse d'Orleans, first entered the world of 
 Paris, for she had loved her mother. 
 
 When Louis Philippe, Due d'Orleans, after a
 
 236 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 quarter of a century's exile, again beheld the Palais 
 Royal, that Paris home of his childhood and early 
 youth, he knelt down, so it is said, and kissed the 
 marble pavement within its entrance. His mother 
 and sister were likewise deeply affected at their return 
 with him to this palace, fraught (especially to the 
 former) with so many memories, that the Duchesse 
 Marie Amelie, who had become extremely attached to 
 them both in Italy, felt that, though weeping for the 
 recent death of her own mother, it was her duty to 
 console these near relatives of her husband. 
 
 But the personage of her own sex in France most na- 
 turally interesting to Marie Amelie was her cousin, the 
 Duchesse d'Angouleme, daughter of her own mother's 
 sister, Queen Marie Antoinette, to avenge whose 
 " martyrdom " that mother, as here already seen, had 
 plunged Naples into war against France, and herself 
 eventually into irretrievable sorrow and a sad death ; 
 for the Duchesse d'Angouleme had returned to France 
 with her uncle, Louis XVIII., from his long exile, and 
 these two Princesses, cousins, and both granddaughters 
 of Maria Theresa, resembling each other strangely in 
 form, feature, and habits of piety, now met for the 
 first time. 
 
 The Duchesse d'Orleans was the mother of 
 children ; the Duchesse d'Angouleme was childless ;
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 237 
 
 but when, about a month after the arrival of the 
 family at the Palais Royal, another son (the Due 
 de Nemours) was added to the infantine group 
 there, the Duchesse d'Angouleme generously sympa- 
 thised in the joy due to the occasion, and after- 
 wards, in the royal chapel of the Tuileries, presented 
 the " nonveau 11c" at the font of baptism, which rite 
 was performed, according to her express wish, with all 
 the ceremonial of the ancienne cour. 
 
 When Napoleon escaped from Elba, in the month 
 of March, 181 5, Louis XVIIL, immediately upon 
 being informed of that startling news, sent for the 
 Due d'Orleans to join him instantly at the Tuileries, 
 and forthwith proceeded to recommend certain military 
 duties to that Prince which rendered his presence in 
 France necessary. 
 
 But the Due d'Orleans remembered the miseries 
 of French revolution in his youth much too keenly 
 not to provide for the safety of his wife and the 
 four children of whom, by that time, she was the 
 mother, and he at once made arrangements for their 
 departure from the Palais Royal for London, where, 
 after a journey of protracted discomfort and danger, 
 they arrived, and took up their temporary abode, 
 pending news from France, at Grillion's Hotel in 
 Albemarle Street.
 
 238 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 Her children were safe at last, but the anxiety of 
 the Duchesse d'Orleans respecting the fate of her hus- 
 band was extreme during her first residence in a land 
 which was destined eventually to become that of her 
 last home on earth. The fame of her virtues had pre- 
 ceded her, and, upon hearing of her arrival, the whole 
 of the royal family of England, and the chief mem- 
 bers of English aristocracy, flocked to pay their 
 respects to her. News reached her from France how 
 King Louis XVIII. had fled from the Tuileries, 
 and how Napoleon had re-entered that palace ; the 
 battle of Waterloo was about to be fought, and upon 
 it would depend the fate of French royal fugitives ; 
 but, meantime, her heart rejoiced, for, upon the morn- 
 ing of the 3rd of April her husband, having found all 
 military and political resistance just then worse than 
 useless in France, suddenly having escaped beyond 
 the Belgian frontier, appeared before her ; and, writes 
 she in her journal, "at that moment I forgot every 
 grief." 
 
 The Due d'Orleans, already familiar with England, 
 was anxious to remove his Italian-born wife from the 
 cloudy atmosphere of London ; and, remembering his 
 own residence in early years at Twickenham, he in a 
 short time transported her thither, to the abode 
 which now (1873) much enlarged, bears the name of
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 239 
 
 Orleans House, and is well known to English society 
 as the hospitable home, in his long exile, of the Due 
 d'Aumale. 
 
 In the year 18 15 this was but a very humble home 
 for the Princesse Marie Amelie d'Orleans, accustomed 
 as she was to Italian palaces and to the splendour of 
 the Palais Royal in Paris ; but she was happy in her 
 English retreat, and especially so in the privacy of 
 domestic life ; she travelled occasionally with her 
 husband through various counties of England ; de- 
 voted herself constantly to the education of her chil- 
 dren ; and it was not without some regret, and a fear 
 for a brilliant though uncertain future that at length, 
 in 1 8 17, she returned to France to take up her abode 
 again at the Palais Royal, and also occasionally at 
 the charming chateau of Neuilly, which property had 
 recently accrued to the Due d'Orleans. 
 
 In after-life, and when seated on the throne of 
 France, this Princess often declared that the years 
 between 1817 and 1 830 were the happiest of her whole 
 life ; the number of her children increased, but not- 
 withstanding her habitual gravity of demeanour, 
 she was joyous in their society. She exacted an 
 account of their several studies, but she voluntarily 
 united herself with their pleasures. Her eldest son, the 
 Due de Chartres, educated by her wish at the public
 
 240 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 college, " Henri Quatre " — a public education remark- 
 able for her, as a Bourbon princess to enforce, and 
 which somewhat shocked the prejudices of Louis 
 XVIII. — carried off all sorts of prizes, with which 
 (they having been fairly won competitively with other 
 youths of his age betwixt whom and himself no con- 
 sideration of superior rank was allowed to interfere) 
 she adorned her private sitting-room. In time the 
 number of these symbols of merit, laurel-wreaths, 
 etc., increased, for the younger princes, — her sons, 
 de Nemours, d'Aumale, and de Joinville — added to 
 them, and in her native soft Italian tongue she 
 would turn to her attendants and say, " I fear to be 
 too happy." 
 
 From her infancy she had been taught to love 
 France, although she abhorred the crimes of France's 
 " Reign of Terror." Whilst still in her cradle she had 
 been betrothed to the " first Dauphin " of France, the 
 elder and short-lived son of her aunt Queen Marie 
 Antoinette ; and, though by her marriage with the 
 Due d'Orleans she had become a representative of 
 the younger branch of the house of Bourbon in France, 
 she still clung to the traditions, familiar to her from 
 infancy, of the elder branch. It was therefore no 
 source of sorrow to her when her niece, the Duchesse 
 de Berri, left a widow by the assassination of her
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 241 
 
 husband, became, in 1820, the mother of a posthumous 
 son (the present Comte de Chambord), although, as 
 rightful heir to the crown in the direct line, his birth 
 negatived the hitherto popular belief that her own 
 eldest son would some day stand in that position. 
 
 When the Revolution of 1830 suddenly pro- 
 claimed itself, and she found that, by the abdication 
 of Charles X. and subsequent quickly succeeding 
 events, the elder branch of the royal family was exiled 
 from France, and her own husband was called to the 
 throne by the voice of the people, under the title of 
 Louis Philippe, King of the French, it was with real 
 pain and even a sort of terror for all most dear to her 
 that with her family she quitted her beloved retreat 
 at Neuilly — where in that summer-time she chanced 
 to be — and found herself forced, by the well-known 
 circumstances of the time, to take up her abode as 
 Queen at the Tuileries. From the splendid saloons and 
 galleries of that historic abode, she yearningly looked 
 back in memory to the flower-gardens of Neuilly, 
 and was even inclined to regret the peaceful hours 
 which many years before she had found at Twicken- 
 ham. She believed that, politically, her husband was 
 right in accepting the throne so as to avert future 
 calamity from France ; but she was strongly attached, 
 by near tics of blood, to both the Duchcsse d'Angou- 
 
 R
 
 242 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 leme and the Duchesse de Berri who were exiled, and 
 must henceforth be as strangers to her, by the fact of 
 her own sudden and, to her, unwelcome elevation. 
 Queen Marie Amelie may be said to have resigned 
 herself to the throne ; she well fulfilled her duties as 
 Queen, for, as said Talleyrand, she was too much 
 " grandedame" and too thoroughly a Bourbon princess 
 to neglect them ; but her happiest hours were still 
 passed in the bosom of her family ; and, despite all 
 the duties of her regal position, she still continued, at 
 stated times, to assemble her sons and daughters 
 around her, and this in a way so agreeable to them 
 that they were wont, when grown to manhood and 
 womanhood, to call their daily afternoon meetings in 
 her private apartment, their " club." Hither some of 
 them brought one occupation, some another ; books, 
 occasionally, were read aloud ; drawings were exa- 
 mined ; conversation flowed ; the Queen, sometimes 
 engaged in writing and sometimes with needle-work, 
 occupied the central place of this family group ; and 
 the King, who frequently joined " the club," one day 
 proudly exclaimed in the midst of it, "All my sons 
 are brave ; my daughters virtuous and beautiful." 
 
 The Princess Louise, one of the most exquisite, the 
 most gifted, and the best loved of these daughters 
 was soon married to Leopold, King of the Belgians,
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 243 
 
 widower of the Princess Charlotte of England. 
 Another daughter, the Princess Marie, the accom- 
 plished sculptress of the celebrated statuette of Joan of 
 Arc and other artistic works, was also soon wedded to 
 the Duke Alexander of Wiirtemberg; but the marriage, 
 which meantime most interested the people of France, 
 as affecting their own political future, was that of the 
 Due de Chartres, — called Due d'Orleans, since his 
 father had become king, — to the young Princess 
 Helene of Mecklenburgh-Schwerin. Her mother was 
 the daughter of the Grand Duke Charles Augustus 
 of Saxe Weimar, distinguished for his noble qualities, 
 for his earnest friendship for Gothe and Schiller, and 
 not likely to be forgotten in the history either of 
 nations or of literature. He was the husband of the 
 gifted and courageous Princess Louisa of Hesse Darm- 
 stadt, who, in the war against Napoleon made a 
 free gift of her diamonds to the States, and was 
 declared by that conqueror, struck by her magna- 
 nimity, to be " the one true princess he had met with 
 in Germany." 
 
 The Princess Helen inherited most of the fine quali- 
 ties which distinguished her grand-parents ; and none 
 the less did she manifest the charm and sweetness of 
 her mother's character, although that princess (Caro- 
 line, daughter of the noble Duke and Duchess above- 
 
 R 2
 
 244 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 mentioned) died, when this child, her daughter, was 
 but two years of age. The Princess Augusta of Hesse- 
 Homburg soon became her step-mother, and when 
 this last-named princess was left a widow after a brief 
 term of married happiness, she dedicated her every 
 thought and care to the son and daughter of her pre- 
 decessor, the late Grand Duchess, whom she had known 
 and loved ; but especially did she consecrate herself 
 to the education of the Princess Helen. 
 
 In seclusion was this child reared. Far away from 
 the tumult of the world, and blissfully ignorant of the 
 scandals either of courts or politics, she grew up, under 
 the watchful eyes of her beloved and widowed step- 
 mother, happy in her studies which were intelligently 
 conducted, and calmly rejoicing in the loyal affection of 
 the "good Mecklenburghers " who surrounded her. 
 
 " From my heart do I love thee, O Lord," was the 
 text of the hymn which, by her own choice, was sung 
 when, in the early summer time of 1830, she was con- 
 firmed in the Lutheran faith, according to which she 
 had been educated. 
 
 Up to that time the whole of her young life had 
 been indeed a perpetual hymn of love to God in nature, 
 of charity towards all human creatures near her, of 
 admiration for all things good or beautiful, even in the 
 simplest and most every-day form, whether in the
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 345 
 
 scent and sight of flowers, or in the song of birds. A 
 visit to Switzerland had been one great event for her ; 
 the vision there of lofty mountains, of rushing cata- 
 racts, of glories which contrasted strangely with the 
 monotonous aspect of her native land and the routine 
 of her daily life, affected her strongly. Much less 
 had a visit to the court of her grandfather, the Grand 
 Duke of Saxe Weimar, penetrated her with emotion. 
 At the time of her appearance in the midst of the 
 brilliant circle of that court she, though scarcely more 
 than a child who had been reared in retirement, was 
 regarded with love and admiration ; for the poetical 
 charm of her dawning womanhood, of her already 
 highly cultivated mind, and of her extreme tender- 
 ness of character, found ready sympathy in a society 
 where the chief prince felt himself honoured by the 
 society of poets who have helped to immortalize his 
 reign and memory. 
 
 In 1834, the Princess Helen mourned the death of 
 her brother Albert ; her sensitive nature suffered much 
 from this event, and also on account of an illness 
 which had threatened to rob her of the good princess, 
 her " mother.'' This death and this illness, her visit 
 to Switzerland and that to the court of Saxe Weimar, 
 were indeed the four chief events in her life ; two of 
 them sad and two joyous, until one May-day in the
 
 246 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 year 1837, when she was called upon to quit for ever 
 the old castle where her childhood had been spent, 
 to bid adieu for ever to the kind friends of almost 
 every class who had loved her and watched her from 
 her cradle, and to proceed at once to France, there to 
 become the bride of the Prince Royal, the Due d'Or- 
 leans, eldest son of Louis Philippe, King of the 
 French. 
 
 It was the then King of Prussia who had recom- 
 mended this marriage to the court of France, for he 
 had seen the Princess Helen at Toplitz, whither she 
 had accompanied her " mother " during the illness of 
 the latter ; and he so much admired and respected 
 her, that, whilst expressing his regret that he had no 
 daughters himself to give to French princes just then 
 in want of wives, he delighted, during a visit of the 
 Due d'Orleans to Berlin, in indicating to him the 
 object most worthy of his choice. 
 
 In 1830 the Princess Helen had manifested an 
 eager interest in the politics of France ; and, in her 
 far-off secluded home, had studied every journal or 
 book that reached her concerning the revolution by 
 which Louis Philippe and his consort, Marie Amelie, 
 had become King and Queen of the French. 
 
 Young and inexperienced, therefore, though she 
 was, this German princess upon her arrival in France
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 247 
 
 was by no means deficient in knowledge of the 
 character and history of the people over whom it was 
 presumed that she would, in her turn, some day reign 
 as Queen. Her ardent imagination was smitten in 
 favour of a land which boasted of heroes and poets for 
 her sons, and when the Due d'Orleans in romantic 
 fashion presented himself to her (at Chalons) on the 
 eve before her arrival at Fontainebleau, where the 
 Royal Family awaited her, she freely gave her young 
 heart to this Prince, her already betrothed husband. 
 
 At the foot of the great staircase in the historic 
 palace of Fontainebleau, she met him again ; royal 
 troops of soldiers were drawn up in the courtyard 
 outside ; cries of enthusiasm from crowds of people 
 who had come from far and near, to witness the arrival 
 of this modest Princess, echoed in the distance. Upon 
 the first landing of the staircase stood Queen Marie 
 Amelie, with the Princesses, her daughters, awaiting 
 the coming of this new member of their family. King 
 Louis Philippe welcomed her as she alighted from her 
 carriage, and in a few moments afterwards she — the 
 German Princess Helen — was folded to the heart of 
 the Italian-born Queen, in whom she then and hence- 
 forth sought and found a mother. 
 
 Their religions were opposed to each other ; in age 
 they were far apart from each other ; but in simple
 
 248 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 purity of heart this Queen and this Princess were 
 equal one with another. 
 
 Agreeable was it from this first moment of their 
 meeting, for her Catholic and Bourbon-born Majesty 
 (called by Talleyrand " the last Grande Dame of 
 Europe") to notice the distinguished manners of 
 her German and Lutheran daughter-in-law ; the 
 Princess Helen exhibited no sign of fear in sudden 
 presence of the brilliant court of France which thus 
 unfolded itself to her view ; for, although hitherto 
 almost a recluse, "she had," says an eye-witness of 
 her arrival at Fontainebleau, " a right royal air ; and, 
 despite her youthful appearance, appeared born to 
 command all who surrounded her." 
 
 The charm of her countenance was chiefly that of ex- 
 pression. Her graceful though somewhat fragile form 
 seemed but to enshrine the vivid soul within. She 
 was scarcely more than twenty years of age, and so 
 childishly impulsive was she still, that when she made 
 her first public entry into Paris with her husband 
 after their marriage at Fontainebleau, she suddenly 
 stood upright in the open carriage conveying her 
 through the crowd (to the acclamations of which she 
 had been responding with meek grace) in her eager 
 desire to catch the first view of the Tuileries, that 
 palatial chateau of which she had read and heard much,
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 249 
 
 and towards which she was now approaching as her 
 own home. She was very happy — too happy, as she 
 sometimes feared— and this especially after her first 
 child, the Comte de Paris, was born. "God is so 
 merciful ! " she writes, after that event ; " a new world 
 opens before me ; a child to love and cherish — the 
 hopes of a nation to realize by the future life of that 
 child!" Upon the 9th day of November, 1840, her 
 second son, the Due de Chartres, was born. Already 
 had she begun to unfold to her elder child the marvels 
 of God in nature ; not a flower, nor a sunset, nor the 
 song of a bird, nor any subject which worthily attracted 
 his dawning attention but had its sweet lesson from 
 her lips. She adored her husband, and all the more 
 so because of the courage demonstrated by him as a 
 soldier abroad.* In her own conduct she was very 
 
 * When the African campaign, which eventually helped to crown 
 him with laurels, called the Duke of Orleans away from France, his 
 consort, resolved to follow him to Port Vendres, the place of his em- 
 barkation. On their way thither they visited Perpignan, the chief town 
 of the province of Roussillon, but there they met with a cold reception, 
 owing to the separate efforts of Legitimists and Republicans to neutralise 
 any manifestation of enthusiasm towards a Prince of the then reigning 
 House of Orleans. The Due and Duchesse d'Orleans proceeded to Port 
 Vendres, where a very different scene awaited them ; for, when arriving 
 at this place, the heart of the Princess — albeit already laden with sadness 
 and anxiety as to her fast approaching separation from her husband — was 
 cheered not only by the sight of Nature in all the luxuriant splendour of 
 a Southern clime, but by the acclamations of the people. 
 
 In an unpretending and open travelling carriage the Princess and her 
 ladies of honour approached Port Vendres. The Due d'Orleans rode
 
 250 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 meek ; but, as she herself said, " I have a great deal 
 of ambition for him." 
 
 on horseback by the side of that carriage ; and, whilst bowing repeatedly 
 to the people in acknowledgment of their welcome, both the royal 
 guests looked with admiration at the blue-tinted mountains and hills 
 here formed by the Oriental Pyrenees into an amphitheatre, where grow 
 the olive and the vine, the citron, and flowers of such bright hue that 
 they seem to reflect the sunshine and the glorious sky above them. 
 With evident delight the Prince spoke to the Princess, and indeed it 
 was a scene to which her poet-heart, that in youth had thrilled at the 
 glowing lines of her great countrymen — Schiller and Gothe, — might 
 well respond. But more to her than hill or mountain, blue skies 
 or neutral-tinted olive groves, or even than the rainbow-coloured waves 
 of the sparkling ocean dancing near, were the signs of loyalty to her 
 husband which everywhere saluted her. Under a triumphal arch she 
 passed with him, whilst acclamations echoed through the sunlit air 
 from mountain and from sea ; for the waters which dashed into the port 
 as though full of joy, were studded by light gondola-looking boats with 
 gay streamers, the armed rowers of which wore the Catalonian costume 
 of scarlet and white, the same brilliant contrast of hue being also often 
 visible amongst the vast and excited crowd on shore. The Princess's 
 carriage stopped and she alighted, as did also her husband, on a space 
 reserved for them ; their equerries and attendants formed a semicircle 
 in the background. The Mayor, whose long disused title (de droit) of 
 Due (formerly Count) du Roussillon, had been acknowledged since the 
 Restoration (a tower, built by one of his ancestors in the year 985, was 
 visible on the olive-crowned heights), came forth to welcome the 
 Orleanist Prince and Princess, as did also his two elder sons, Honore and 
 Francois, who were then and there presented to their Royal Highnesses. 
 But that which seemed most to please the Duchesse d'Orleans was 
 the sight of a troop formed of white-robed young girls, who, emerging 
 from the crowd, approached the Princess ; the foremost of this troop 
 (Mademoiselle Berlan) carried in her hand a dainty satin-lined basket, 
 in which lay a magnificent bouquet formed of flowers indigenous to that 
 bright southern clime, and this she gracefully presented to the fair royal 
 guest with the following words : — 
 
 " Madame, in traversing this France which loves you so much, your 
 Royal Highness has met with innumerable proofs of affection, to which
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 251 
 
 Chiefly on her account, and despite various griev- 
 ances against the Government of Louis Philippe, the 
 Due d'Orleans became more and more popular; he 
 intensely appreciated the rare virtues of his wife, 
 virtues which His mother had originally taught him 
 to admire in her own conduct ; but in the course of 
 the year 1840-41 he had reason to be anxious about 
 her health, for the Duchesse d'Orleans, albeit looking 
 well and feeling happy, playing with her children in 
 summer time amongst the flowers of Neuilly, wander- 
 ing with her husband through the park and parterres 
 of that favourite retreat of theirs, or at the Tuileries 
 organizing receptions (comprising Lamartine, Victor 
 
 this humble offering is united in testimony of the reverence and bound- 
 less devotion inspired by the virtues of the Princess before whom I have 
 now the honour to kneel," &c. &c. 
 
 Graciously the Duchesse d'Orleans received the floral gift, and after- 
 wards caused a magnificent brooch to be presented to the fair speaker 
 of words which evidently pleased her, and which were originally com- 
 posed by Ilonore, the son and present successor (de droit) of the then Due 
 du Roussillon. But only too soon for the royal guests did that happy day 
 come to an end ; together they went on board the vessel which was 
 waiting to convey the husband from the wife, and when she returned to 
 shore without him, there were signs of sorrow on her gentle counte- 
 nance which touched the kindly hearts of the people. — a people ardent 
 and impulsive. 
 
 Long did the Duchesse d'Orleans remember that day, for even during 
 the illness which prematurely closed her widowed life, she bade her 
 elder and fatherless son not to forget the loyalty of the province of 
 Roussillon ; at least so the present claimant of that title was told 
 (when one evening a guest of Sir Roderic Murchison) by the Comte de 
 I'aris.
 
 -:>- 
 
 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 Hugo, and other of their contemporaries) she was far 
 from strong ; or, rather, it seemed as though the very- 
 strength of her felicity, the intense sensitiveness of 
 her nature, were too refined for the wear and tear of 
 daily life, — even though the life of a then peculiarly 
 happy Princess. 
 
 She was recommended by her physicians to journey 
 to Plombieres, there to " take the waters." She could 
 not, or would not, believe in the necessity of following 
 this advice, but her husband insisted upon the change 
 prescribed for her, and accordingly conducted her to 
 Plombieres. For two days he remained with her 
 there, at the end of which time he was compelled to 
 rejoin the Camp of St. Omer. the manoeuvres of 
 which he was then directing. Meanwhile they had 
 met with ovations on their way, for although they had 
 tried to shun recognition, triumphal arches and every 
 outward expression of welcome, harmonious with the 
 bright sun of Midsummer shining over them, greeted 
 them. 
 
 " I am so happy," said the Duchess ; " I am so 
 happy, that if what I feel be illness, I have no desire 
 to get well." 
 
 Poor Princess ! She always seemed prophetically 
 to dread her too great sense of happiness, and yet 
 even in little things she found such pleasure ! For
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 253 
 
 example, the last evening of her husband's stay with 
 her they went out together, and she rejoiced like a 
 child in gathering wild flowers. He, entering into 
 her pursuit, plucked some too ; and making them 
 up into a bouquet, presented them to her. At the 
 moment neither he nor she heeded their nature, or 
 the superstition attached to them ; but afterwards 
 she had only too much reason to remember that 
 they were those (wild scabious) which in France 
 are known as the symbolic " flowers of widow- 
 hood." 
 
 He left her. " We shall not be parted long," said 
 she, with a smile which struggled against the tears 
 caused by even what seemed to be so short a separa- 
 tion. " We shall not be parted long." 
 
 And then, as though determined to get well as soon 
 as she could, she quickly interested herself in the place 
 where she found herself, and within a few days at- 
 tracted the people of that place towards her by her 
 charming affability. 
 
 In attendance upon her were Madame de Montes- 
 quiou, General Baudrand, and M. de Montguyon. 
 One day, about a week after her husband's departure, 
 she went to see, or rather to hear, a poor family cele- 
 brated for its hereditary, though untutored, love of 
 music. She was in high spirits that day, and had
 
 254 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 amused herself, whilst unconsciously fascinating others, 
 by playing upon the quaint instruments she found 
 amongst these peasants. 
 
 She came home with her hands full of flowers, and 
 proceeded to dress herself for dinner. Madame de 
 Montesquiou was likewise performing her toilette when 
 an urgent message from General Baudrand called her 
 downstairs. 
 
 She found him looking aghast, and holding a letter 
 in his hand. His emotion was so great that he could 
 not stand. Madame de Montesquiou was certain that 
 some terrible calamity had befallen the Royal Family ; 
 but even her worst fears did not reach the truth until 
 the General handed the letter to her, and she read, 
 u The Prince Royal is dead." 
 
 What was to be done ? How apprize the happy 
 Princess upstairs that she was a widow ? 
 
 The physician left in charge of her was summoned, 
 and upon his declaring that the news, if too suddenly 
 announced, might kill her, the prefect of the place 
 was also sent for, and with his help a so-called 
 telegraphic despatch was prepared to inform her that 
 her husband was not dead, but dangerously ill. 
 
 Prepared with this, and her own heart sinking with 
 terror and grief, Madame de Montesquiou mounted 
 the stairs towards the Princess's dressing-room, for the
 
 MARIE AM ELI E AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 255 
 
 dinner-hour was about to strike, and her continued 
 absence would in itself have alarmed her Royal 
 mistress. The latter having completed her toilette 
 was just about to issue forth from her chamber, all 
 radiant with smiles, and gems, and flowers, when 
 Madame de Montesquiou presented herself. 
 
 "Not dressed yet?" laughingly exclaimed the 
 Princess. 
 
 Madame de Montesquiou took hold of both her 
 hands ; she had no words to utter at the moment, but 
 her look of sorrow quickly aroused the fears of the 
 Princess, who exclaimed, " Good Heaven ! what has 
 happened ? " 
 
 And it was then that Madame de Montesquiou 
 said, " Dear Madam, the Prince Royal is seriously 
 ill." 
 
 A cry of terror burst from the widow, who believed 
 herself still to be a wife, and then she desired pre- 
 parations to be made for her instant departure, so 
 that she might " nurse " the husband who no longer 
 existed. 
 
 She fell on her knees and prayed to God, exclaim- 
 ing, " Take pity upon me ! Let him not die ! Thou 
 knowcst that I cannot survive him ! " 
 
 Then she asked to see the telegram, and her keen 
 intelligence, even in that moment, seemed to detect
 
 256 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 some irregularity in it ; yet she caught again at hope 
 as the moment of her departure drew near ; for, said 
 she, " If he be well by the time I reach him, how he 
 will scold me ; but how happy I shall feel to be 
 scolded ! " 
 
 Then terror again seized her, and it was with an 
 agonized sense of fear that she journeyed towards 
 Paris through the gloom of that awful night. The 
 triumphal arches which had been erected to greet 
 her husband and herself on that very road only a 
 few days before were still there, and under them she 
 had now to pass with a heart torn by anxiety as to 
 whether he, the one being most dear to her on earth, 
 would still be alive to greet her at the end of her 
 wearisome journey back to him. Madame de 
 Montesquiou, who was at the side of the Princess, 
 was in continual alarm lest some incident on the road, 
 especially when passing through towns or villages, 
 should too suddenly inform her Royal Highness of the 
 horrible catastrophe which had befallen her ; but pre- 
 sently, in the neighbourhood of Epinal, she beheld 
 the General in command of the division of that depart- 
 ment approach. 
 
 " We are on the way back to Paris," said Madame 
 de Montesquiou ; he was silent. 
 
 " The Princess," says one who knew and loved her
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 257 
 
 well,* "prayed and wept in silence. . . . After 
 midnight she was informed by the courier that a car- 
 riage in the direct route from Paris was approaching 
 them. Instinctively she felt that now the moment had 
 come when she would know her fate. 'Open the door !' 
 she exclaimed, and at the instant when, in the eager- 
 ness of her terror, she was with difficulty prevented 
 from rushing out of her own carriage, she became con- 
 scious that M. Chomel, the respected friend and 
 physician of herself and the Royal Family, was 
 walking swiftly towards her." 
 
 " Monsieur Chomel ! " she cried. " Oh, God ! the 
 Prince ! " 
 
 " Madame," gravely replied Monsieur Chomel, " the 
 Prince is no longer in this world." 
 
 " It is not possible ! " catching to the last at hope 
 against all hope, — " it is not possible ! By what 
 malady can he have been killed so soon ? If he be 
 really dead, tell me, and kill me too at once." 
 
 " A dreadful accident," explained the physician, as 
 his emotion would allow him to speak : " a horrible 
 catastrophe — a fall from a carriage. Consciousness 
 instantly left him after the accident, but yet from 
 
 * By the lady alluded to a book (here quoted) was some years since 
 anonymously published in England, entitled " Helen of Orleans," cor- 
 roborating the statement of Madame de Montesquiou — never likely to 
 forget the sad circumstances here above stated. 
 
 s
 
 258 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 time to time he murmured a few words in German ; 
 and, doubtless, these only signs of rapidly expiring 
 life were addressed to your Royal Highness." 
 
 " It cannot be true," she gasped ; " and, ah ! " she 
 continued, as though still, amidst her sobs and tears, 
 seeking some ray of comfort, whilst turning to 
 Madame de Montesquiou, " the sudden illness of 
 which you told me before we started ? " 
 
 " It was best to prepare you," confessed that faithful 
 friend. "Madam, you will forgive the invention." 
 
 And even in that supreme moment of agony the 
 thought for others did not forsake this unhappy Prin- 
 cess, for said she. " What courage you have shown ! " 
 
 A flood of agony then overwhelmed her. The 
 carriage in which she sat was stopped on the high- 
 road amidst the darkness of night, and her attendants, 
 leaning against it or resting on its steps, had no 
 words of comfort to offer her, for their tears also were 
 silently flowing. At last, at dawn of day, she per- 
 ceived General Baudrand near her — the brave and 
 loyal old man who had been the guide of her husband 
 in youth, and who had loved him as though he had 
 been his own son. 
 
 She grasped the General's hand, and exclaimed, 
 "With the dawn of this morning, what a day is 
 beginning for me ! . . . You loved him tenderly
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 259 
 
 . . . but even you did not know all the goodness, 
 the patience, the gentleness he lavished upon me. I 
 have lost everything. France, too, has lost the one 
 being who understood and loved her well. I cannot 
 survive him." 
 
 Presently she spoke of her two children, the Comte 
 de Paris and the Due de Chartres — those children 
 who were so dear to her for the sake of their father. 
 " My poor children ! " she cried ; " but," added she, 
 " lie had my whole heart." 
 
 Again two nights of travel and misery, until, upon 
 the morning of the 16th of July, this newly- widowed 
 Princess arrived at Neuilly, where only quite lately 
 she had been so happy, and from whence all joy, 
 as from life itself, had henceforth fled. 
 
 Her husband's parents and her own young children 
 awaited her there. In the arms of the King and 
 Queen, sorrowing bitterly for the sudden loss of their 
 eldest son, she seemed to seek and find a refuge. 
 " Live for us," said the weeping Queen Marie Amelie 
 to her : " live for your children and for us." 
 
 Her first wish was to kneel by the coffin of her 
 husband, and to gaze upon his loved remains. The 
 coffin was already closed. The chapel in which it 
 stood was hung with black. She entered that chapel, 
 and knelt down in prayer near the unseen body of
 
 26o ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 the beloved husband, who was so near, and yet so 
 unutterably far from her. 
 
 She embraced his children in an agony of woe, and 
 then silently withdrew to her own chamber, where she 
 clothed herself in the mourning garb which henceforth 
 became habitual to her. 
 
 Some Princesses, her sisters-in-law, had met her on 
 the road from Plombieres, and, by every testimony of 
 affection, they sought to alleviate her deep grief for 
 the loss of their brother ; but it was in the society of 
 his mother, Queen Marie Amelie, that the Duchesse 
 d'Orleans found most consolation, and it is in the 
 diary of her Majesty that certain circumstances 
 attendant on the accident by which France and the 
 Royal Family were suddedly stricken are thus 
 recorded (the Queen always speaking of the Due 
 d'Orleans as " Chartres," the name by which she 
 had been accustomed to address him since his 
 infancy) : — 
 
 " Upon the 2nd instant Chartres and Helene 
 started for Plombieres. . . . Upon the 9th he 
 returned, and came to dine with us at Neuilly, much 
 occupied by election affairs, and in his conversation 
 manifesting the quickness of wit and warmth of heart 
 which were habitual to him. The next day, my 
 birthday, he returned . . . with an enormous
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 261 
 
 bouquet, which, he said, was presented to me in the 
 name of all the family. He attended mass and 
 breakfasted with us. He was so gay, ! At dinner he 
 was seated by my side ; he rose up, proposed my 
 health in a joyous manner, and caused the band to 
 play a special march in my honour. . . . Upon 
 the nth he again dined and spent the evening with 
 us, always occupied in mind with his camp and 
 election affairs. . . . Upon the 12th he arrived 
 about 4 o'clock. . . . We talked together about 
 Helene's health, concerning which he tormented him- 
 self . . . and many other points — he pleasantly 
 terminating each one of them by the refrain, " In 
 short, dear Majesty, we always end by being of the 
 same opinion on subjects of importance." After 
 dinner we took a turn in the park, he, his sisters 
 (Victoire and Clementine), his brother (Aumale), and 
 myself.* I took his arm saying, ' Come, dear support 
 
 * M. Trognon, formerly preceptor of the Prince de Joinville, to 
 whom this diary of Queen Marie Amelie (originally written in Italian) 
 was entrusted, explains, in allusion to the above passage, that at the time 
 to which it refers, the Due de Nemours was inspecting the cavalry at 
 Luneville, the Prince de Joinville was at Naples with the Squadron, 
 and the Due de Montpensier at Vincennes, where he was pursuing 
 his artillery studies. The thanks of the writer of the text are also 
 due to the author of a memoir of the Duchesse d'Orleans, a lady who 
 personally knew that Princess, and whose quotations from her diary, 
 &c, were some years since translated into English by Mrs. Austin.
 
 262 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 of my old age.' ... It was somewhat late when 
 we re-entered the drawing-room ; much company had 
 arrived there. He stayed conversing until ten o'clock, 
 when, as he was about to depart, he came to wish me 
 good evening. I gave him my hand, and said, ' Thou 
 wilt come to see us before starting to-morrow (for 
 the Camp), and he answered, ' Perhaps.' . . . 
 
 " Upon the 1 3th, at eleven o'clock (forenoon) we 
 were about to get into the carriage in order to return to 
 the Tuileries. I was following the King into the red 
 drawing-room when I saw Trouessart (Commissioner 
 of Police) speaking in a whisper to General Gourgaud, 
 who, with a gesture of terror, went and spoke in a 
 low voice to the King, who exclaimed, 'Ah ! my God ! ' 
 
 " I then cried out, ' Something has happened to 
 one of my children, I wish to know the truth. Let 
 nothing be concealed from me.' 
 
 " The King answered me, ' Yes, my love ; Chartres 
 in coming hither, has met with an accident, and they 
 have carried him to a house at Sablonville.' 
 
 " Hearing these words, I began to run like a mad- 
 woman, notwithstanding the cries and remonstrances 
 of the King and M. de Chabannes, who followed 
 me. My strength was not in accord with my heart. 
 
 "Happily, the King, in a carriage, and accom-
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 263 
 
 panied by his sister, overtook me, and I mounted 
 with them. His carriage stopped ; we entered the 
 inn ; and there, in a little room, upon a mattress lain 
 upon the ground, was Chartres, who at that moment 
 was being bled 
 
 "The death rattle had just begun I 
 
 said to the King, ' For mercy's sake let a priest be 
 fetched, that my poor child may not die like a dog.' 
 And I went for a moment into the little room upon 
 the right, where, kneeling down, I prayed to God 
 from the bottom of my soul, that if a victim 
 were needed, He would take me, and spare 
 
 the child so dear to us Soon afterwards, 
 
 Dr. Pasquier arrived. I said to him, ' Sir, if you 
 believe the danger imminent, I beg you to tell me, 
 so that my child may receive (the sacrament of) 
 extreme unction.' He bowed his head, and said : 
 ' Madame, it is time.' 
 
 " The Cure of Neuilly entered, and administered 
 the Sacrament to him, whilst we all knelt around his 
 pallet, praying and weeping. I unfastened from 
 round my neck a little cross, which contained a portion 
 of the true cross, and I placed it in the hand of 
 
 my poor child M. Pasquier rose and 
 
 whispered something to the King ; whereupon that 
 venerable and unfortunate father, his face bathed in
 
 264 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 tears, knelt down close to his first-born son, and, 
 tenderly embracing him, cried out : ' Ah ! were it 
 but myself instead of this one ! ' 
 
 " I also drew near, and kissed our child thrice — 
 once for myself, once for (his wife) Helene, and once 
 for his children. 
 
 " I placed the little cross, symbol of our redemption, 
 upon his mouth, and afterwards I laid and left It 
 upon his heart." 
 
 As soon as possible the inanimate remains were 
 transported, with all due marks of honour, to the 
 chapel at Neuilly ; the King, the Queen, and other 
 sorrowing relatives following on foot. And there, 
 as here already told, the widow of the Prince Royal, 
 having arrived from Plombieres, knelt down beside 
 his coffin ; there, as said his mother, whither at the 
 moment which proved fatal to his life, he had been 
 travelling in the fulness of health, of youth, of hope, 
 and happiness, so that he might joyfully embrace 
 the parents who now wept for his loss — a loss which 
 France had cause to regret for herself. 
 
 So, at least, it was felt when by the revolution 
 of 1848 Louis Philippe was dethroned as suddenly 
 as by the revolution of 1830 he had been proclaimed 
 king. Like his predecessor, Charles X., he abdicated 
 in favour of his grandson.
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 265 
 
 Louis Philippe, with Queen Marie Amelie, the 
 Duchesse d'Orleans, her two children, and other 
 members of the royal family, were at the Tuileries 
 when the revolution of February declared itself. The 
 Duchesse d'Orleans, since the great sorrow of her 
 life, had devoted herself entirely to the care of her two 
 fatherless children ; and, her sensitive nature over- 
 refined by the suffering consequent on her premature 
 widowhood, she had for some time past " felt rather 
 than knew " that some great trouble was in store 
 for France. 
 
 But when the King, finding the Chateau of the 
 Tuileries surrounded by an insubordinate multitude, 
 and the city in a state of perilous insurrection, de- 
 clared, in presence of the Queen and herself, " I 
 abdicate the crown, which I assumed according to 
 the will of the nation, in favour of my grandson, the 
 Comte de Paris," she earnestly besought his Majesty 
 not to lay such a burthen upon the head of her 
 child. And yet it was not from timidity that the 
 Duchesse d'Orleans implored this ; for, as many 
 readers still remember, it was almost immediately 
 after having uttered words which betokened her 
 shrinking from power that she demonstrated a courage 
 almost unprecedented in one of her gentle manners 
 and fragile appearance.
 
 266 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 It was about mid-day that the King declared his 
 intention to abdicate. Previously, he had ridden 
 forth in view of the troops drawn up in the Place 
 du Carrousel, and in the courtyard of the Tuileries ; 
 but he had soon returned to the presence of the 
 Queen and the princesses, who had anxiously watched 
 him from the palace windows, and expressed his con- 
 viction — which was shared by as many of his sons 
 who were then in Paris, and his aides-de-camp — 
 that revolutionary excitement was already so rife, 
 nothing could save France from self-destruction but 
 his renunciation of the throne. To Queen Marie 
 Amelie, and to her daughter-in-law, the Duchesse 
 d' Orleans, this sudden abdication was terrible. Each 
 of these princesses had experienced the worthless- 
 ness of human ambition ; but they were both of 
 them heroic women, and keenly sensitive in behalf 
 of those they loved as to every untoward incident 
 surrounding them. They threw themselves into each 
 other's arms, speechless with emotion. 
 
 Those about the King, authorised by their official 
 position to give him political advice, urged upon him 
 the instant need of the step he was already prepared 
 to take. " Abdicate, abdicate," said they ; "there is 
 not a moment to lose." 
 
 The King took the pen handed to him, and signed
 
 S.A.R. DUCHESSE D'ORLEANS.
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 267 
 
 the act which dethroned him. The Queen watched 
 this deed done ; but just as it was accomplished, a 
 stranger to the court who, in the midst of fast- 
 increasing disorder, had found his way to the royal 
 presence, cried out, rudely : " At last we have it ! " 
 The Queen suddenly rose, confronted this individual 
 with the lofty determination of her great ancestress, 
 Maria Theresa, and asked, in an accent of inde- 
 scribable scorn : " Who are you, sir ? " 
 
 " Madame," replied the stranger, " I am a pro- 
 vincial magistrate." 
 
 "Well," answered her Majesty, indicating {he deed 
 of abdication, " you ' have it,' as you say, and you 
 will repent it." 
 
 The King believed that by immediately quitting 
 France he might yet save her from anarchy, and he 
 prepared at once to leave the Tuileries. The crowd 
 had already forced itself into the Palace. He gave 
 his arm to the Queen, and together they left that 
 abode of their royalty, on foot, down the steps of the 
 Pavilion de l'Horloge, and across the gardens, hoping 
 to find a conveyance standing for hire beyond the 
 gates. But, ere following them, it is time here to 
 return to their widowed daughter-in-law, the Duchesse 
 d'Orleans. 
 
 She remained at the Tuileries, with her son, the
 
 -68 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 Comte de Paris, on one side of her, and his brother, 
 the Due de Chartres, on the other. 
 
 Some deputies arriving from the parliamentary- 
 Assembly then sitting, begged her at once to assume 
 the regency. She replied that it was impossible for 
 her to do so ; that she had not strength for such a 
 position. They again urged her, in behalf of French 
 monarchy; but there was no time for further discus- 
 sion at that moment, for a ferocious mob had already 
 invaded the Tuileries ; and, with the sense of imme- 
 diate danger to herself and children, her courage rose- 
 She Was just then passing down a long gallery, 
 leading to her own apartments : a portrait of her 
 husband hung there. She took her stand beneath 
 this picture, holding her sons still by the hand, and 
 without an attempt at flight, which still was possible 
 for her and for them, she calmly said : " If we are to 
 die, it must be here." 
 
 Her brother-in-law, the Due de Nemours, was out- 
 side, beyond the palace garden gates, on horseback, 
 unrecognized by the tumultuous throng, and fear- 
 fully anxious for the safety of the princess still 
 within the walls of the palace. He knew that his 
 parents had fled, he having assisted them in that 
 flight ; but his favourite brother's widow, her children, 
 what was to become of them ? Piercing through
 
 MARIE AM ELI E AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 269 
 
 the insurgent mob, at much danger to themselves, 
 MM. Dupin and De Grammont succeeded in reach- 
 ing the princess just at the moment when the sack- 
 ing of the palace in which she stood was about 
 to begin. They hastily made her understand that 
 her brother Nemours was courageously doing his best 
 to ensure safety for her beyond the walls. She felt 
 that it would be madness any longer to resist ; that 
 her doing so would only expose all still dear to 
 her to the risks of a horrible death ; and then, though 
 without a moment's loss of the calm deportment 
 which, in the midst of danger, was nobly evinced 
 by her, she passed out of the palace where she had 
 known great joy and bitter grief, her children still 
 by her side, and the two brave deputies above named 
 still guarding her. Bayonets flashed before her, but 
 she flinched not ; and almost simultaneously with 
 her leaving the Tuileries the mob forced its way 
 into the innermost recesses of that chateau, in a 
 manner which could scarcely have left her a chance 
 of life, had she been still where she was standing 
 but a few minutes before. 
 
 Her black dress, and a deep veil which she wore, 
 helped possibly, by concealing her form and features, 
 to secure her safety in the midst of the mob outside ; 
 but the more she beheld with her own eyes the
 
 270 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 horror and confusion of the capital on her way to 
 the Assembly, the more she heroically determined 
 not to recoil any longer from assuming the regency 
 in favour of her son, should it be there decreed that 
 France might still be saved by her acceptance of the 
 burthen. 
 
 Wherefore, to show herself with her children upon 
 the Boulevards was her sudden wish, for instinctively 
 she clung to the idea of loyalty on the part of 
 Frenchmen, with whose chivalrous characteristics she 
 did not confound those of the turbulent mob from 
 which she had just escaped. But a cry (how began 
 it would be difficult to say, but probably at the 
 instigations of Messieurs Dupin and Grammont — 
 possibly even from Ihe Due de Nemours himself, who 
 was anxiously watching her, though far enough not 
 to increase her peril) — a cry was suddenly heard : 
 " A la Chambre ! To the Assembly !" 
 
 This cry was vehemently echoed, and the Princess 
 turned in the direction thus indicated to her. 
 Whereupon other shouts were heard. " Vive la 
 Duchesse d'Orleans ! " "Vive le Comte de Paris!" 
 And to the Assembly she went on foot, her elder 
 son by her side, and his younger brother carried 
 by M. Scheffer, whose National Guard uniform 
 helped to protect him. The people, impressed
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 271 
 
 by her magnanimity, fell back before her as she 
 advanced. 
 
 Let M. de Lamartine, the poet-politician, whose 
 eloquence in the midst of the Assembly decided the 
 fate of France during that eventful day's sitting, here 
 speak of what he saw and heard there : — 
 
 " The lofty door which faces the tribune, to the 
 height of the most elevated benches of the salle, 
 opens. A woman appears : she is the Duchesse 
 d'Orleans. She is attired in mourning. Her veil, 
 half raised, reveals her countenance impressed by 
 an emotion and sadness which enhance its youth- 
 fulness and charm. Her pale cheeks bear traces 
 of a widow's tears, of a mother's anxieties. It is 
 impossible for man to regard those features without 
 sympathy : all resentment against monarchy evapo- 
 rates at sight of it. The blue eyes of the Princess 
 gaze, as though for a moment dazzled, into space, 
 
 and seem to seek help Her delicate and 
 
 slender form bows in acknowledgment of the accla- 
 mations which greet her. A slight colour, the light 
 of hope in adversity, and of joy in mourning, 
 illumines her cheeks. Her smile of gratitude and 
 her tears break forth together. She sees that she is 
 amongst friends. With her right hand she holds 
 the young king, who trips up the steps, her other
 
 272 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 son, the little Due de Chartres, is on her left hand 
 — children, for whom their catastrophe is a spectacle. 
 They both wear black cloth vests, with turned-back 
 white collars, and look like living portraits by Van 
 Dyck of the children of Charles I. The Due de 
 Nemours is at the side of the Duchesse d'Orleans, 
 faithful to the memory of his brother in his nephews. 
 .... The countenance of this Prince, ennobled by 
 misfortune, is eloquent of the courageous but modest 
 satisfaction of a duty accomplished at the peril of 
 his ambition and his life. 
 
 " Some generals in uniform, some officers of the 
 National Guard, are behind the Princess. With timid 
 grace she bows to the Assembly ; motionless she 
 seats herself between her two children, at the foot 
 of the tribune — innocent, though accused, before a 
 tribunal without appeal, which had just heard the 
 cause of royalty pleaded. At this moment that cause 
 was gaining in the eyes and hearts of all. Nature 
 will always triumph over policy in an assembly of 
 men moved by the three great forces of woman over 
 the human heart — youth, maternity, pity." 
 
 For a minute the Assembly, engaged just before 
 in stormy discussion, was silent : nobody had courage 
 to maintain opinions previously uttered against 
 monarchy in presence of this Princess and her son,
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 273 
 
 who, by the recent abdication of Louis Philippe, was 
 nominally King of the French. Contradictory 
 opinions soon, however, made themselves heard ; 
 when M. Odilon Barrot, who had just been to the 
 Tuileries, entered with, as says Lamartine, the fate 
 of both republicanism and monarchy hanging upon 
 his lips. " Upon the head of a child," he declared, 
 "rests the crown of July." 
 
 "Vive le Comte de Paris ! " was the cry which arose 
 from amongst that vast assembly, but it was mingled 
 with other cries antagonistic to it. 
 
 The Duchesse d'Orleans, however, heard that cry, 
 and being, as it seemed, encouraged to do so by a 
 whisper from the Due de Nemours, she rose to speak. 
 The Comte de Paris had, meantime, bowed, at her 
 suggestion, to the Assembly, which had just echoed 
 his name, and which had already applauded that ox 
 his mother, although hitherto she had not succeeded 
 in making herself heard. 
 
 " She rises again," says Lamartine, "with more evi- 
 dent timidity, and holding in her hand a paper. 
 
 " A voice, clear, feminine, vibrating, but full of 
 emotion, is heard from amidst the group surrounding 
 her. It is the Duchess who demands the right to 
 speak to the representatives of the nation. Who 
 could have resisted that voice'! Who would not have
 
 274 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 felt the tears, which doubtless would have accom- 
 panied it, fall upon his heart ? 
 
 " ' We are come — my son and I are come," began 
 the Princess, but the feeling of dread as to the influ- 
 ence she was about to gain over the Chamber caused 
 various of its members, opposed to monarchy, to 
 interrupt her. 
 
 Lamartine himself was at last called to the 
 tribune. He bowed low towards that in which 
 the Princess was seated. In peaceful days he had 
 avoided her society, because, as a politician, he feared 
 the charm of her influence over him as a poet. As 
 a woman, she possessed his intense sympathy ; as 
 the representative of a cause to which he was strenu- 
 ously opposed, he now found himself in the painful 
 position of her enemy. He had no faith in the 
 regency at that time ; but, as he asked himself in 
 that terrible moment of conflict betwixt his head 
 and his heart — between his nature as poet and that of 
 politician, " Is she not Queen already in imagination ? 
 Is she not equal to her destiny by all the force of her 
 genius, her soul, and her tears ? " Lamartine knew 
 that on his voice that day of Louis Philippe's abdica- 
 tion would most probably depend the future of 
 France ; for, as he himself also says : The presence 
 of the Duchess, her pallor, her beseeching look, her
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 275 
 
 children pressed against her heart, were in themselves 
 more than half eloquent enough to subjugate an as- 
 sembly of sensitive men. There she was before him, 
 placed " between a tomb and a throne," and " what 
 a triumph of the heart over reason, of nature over 
 politics," to have proclaimed his devotion to her ! 
 
 But Lamartine believed that at that moment of a 
 crisis " which had raised the people, carried away the 
 National Guard, overthrown the throne, expulsed the 
 King, invoked universal suffrage, suspended labour, 
 and thrown two hundred thousand starving workmen 
 upon the pavement," a regency would never have 
 developed peace, and have been fatal to the Princess- 
 Regent herself. 
 
 With pain at his heart, Lamartine, summoned to 
 the tribune, began to speak, but he was spared the 
 Brutus-like self-suffering of finishing his speech, be- 
 cause, towards its close, an armed mob burst into the 
 midst of the Chamber, and cut short all further 
 discussion by violence. " Where is she ? where is 
 she ? " was the menacing question ; and almost in- 
 stantly weapons, wielded by bare sinewy arms, and 
 shouldered by ruffians mad with revolutionary epi- 
 demic thirst for blood, black — many of them — in 
 the face with cannon-smoke and successful sacking 
 of the Tuileries ; some drunk, and some revengeful 
 
 T 2
 
 276 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 in cool blood, pointed with deadly aim at the 
 Duchesse d'Orleans and her children. 
 
 She showed no sign of fear, but calmly discussed 
 with those immediately about her, and with some 
 deputies who had succeeded in reaching the place 
 where she sat, as to the course best to pursue. 
 
 The Chamber was quickly empty, most individuals 
 composing its Assembly having sought safety in 
 instant flight. Lamartine still stood in the place 
 where this sudden irruption had found him, but it was 
 not long tenable, despite his popularity. 
 
 The Duchess was advised to go at once to the 
 President's house ; and, in order to reach it, she was 
 guided by M. Jules de Lasteyrie over benches which 
 descended towards an exit unknown to the mob. 
 
 It was impossible to reassemble the Chamber, as 
 she at one time hoped to do. Dangers on every side 
 surrounded her ; but once only did she lose the calm- 
 ness of her courage, and that was when, for a brief in- 
 terval, her son, the Comte de Paris, was snatched away 
 from her, and her other child, the Due de Chartres, 
 was in danger of being trodden to death by the 
 crowd. The one restored to her by loyal friends, and 
 by them assured of the safety of the other, she pro- 
 ceeded to the Military Asylum of the Invalides as a 
 place of refuge, M. de Lasteyrie driving her thither
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 277 
 
 in an open carriage, which he accidentally found, and 
 two National Guards accompanying her. 
 
 At the Invalides, however, there was no rest for 
 her. The governor of that hospital was ill, and she 
 saw that in any case it was not capable of defence, 
 as for the moment she hoped it might have been, 
 when she said, " At all events this loyal abode will 
 do to die in ; " and then, turning to the Comte de 
 Paris, she proudly added, " A king, if only a king 
 nine years of age, ought to know how to die." 
 
 But she would not allow the lives of others use- 
 lessly to be exposed for her or the cause of her son 
 and upon the evening of that terribly eventful day she, 
 still guarded by her brother-in-law, Nemours, and 
 other faithful friends, who gloried in running great 
 risks for her sake, left the Invalides, on her way out of 
 Paris, on foot, having previously refused to disguise 
 herself, " because," said she, " if I be captured I will 
 be captured as myself." 
 
 It was feared that the elegance of her dress, albeit 
 only a black dress, would betray her. She consented 
 to have its costly lace stripped off, and then she set 
 forth on her dreary journey towards the frontier of 
 the land which she had entered in hope and happi- 
 ness as a bride, but which she now left a widow 
 and an exile.
 
 278 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 To the last moment of her stay in France, the 
 land of her adoption and her love, she forgot not 
 her royal duties towards the son of her husband 
 whom she never ceased to mourn ; " For," said 
 she to loyal French friends, who accompanied her 
 on the few first stages of the way, and then were 
 forced to bid her a painful farewell, "if the day 
 arrive, sooner or later, that you need me, I will come 
 back." 
 
 Her prayers were always for France and for her 
 children. She freely forgave the seeming faults by 
 which the former had expulsed her ; and, though of 
 meek and gentle disposition as woman, her one ambi- 
 tion as princess was to train her sons to become some 
 day worthy of the high destiny to which they had 
 been born. 
 
 She turned her face towards the land of her birth, 
 but determined, as a French princess by marriage, 
 that she would accept no favours, either for herself or 
 for her two sons who accompanied her, from German 
 relatives. Whilst journeying on, therefore, under 
 painful vicissitudes, too numerous here to mention, she 
 found herself and her children, at Cologne and else- 
 where, in very straitened circumstances. 
 
 Her step-mother, whom she loved as though she 
 had been her own, journeyed to meet her — a touching
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 279 
 
 proof of maternal devotion on the part of this aged 
 and noble lady. 
 
 By her, and more for her sake than her own, the 
 Duchesse d'Orleans consented to "accept the shelter 
 of a roof," and at last found something like a home 
 at Eisenach. 
 
 Meantime, her " other mother," Queen Marie 
 Amelie, had been cruelly anxious about her, and 
 that there was mutual cause for solicitude let the 
 exiled King Louis Philippe here explain, merely pre- 
 facing that explanation by mention of the facts that 
 after the flight of the aged King and Queen from 
 the Tuileries, after their travelling under dangerous 
 circumstances, in various hired conveyances — after 
 their pausing at the royal burial-place of Dreux, there 
 to bid farewell to the tombs of their dead children, 
 and where the Queen kissed, whilst lingering espe- 
 cially near it, that enclosing the remains of her first- 
 born son, the Due d'Orleans, declaring her belief at 
 this sad moment preceding her exile, that if he had 
 lived, all the horrors of revolution, then rife in France, 
 would not have happened — after a brief, but painfully 
 necessitous separation between these royal fugitives 
 on their way from France — a separation which secured 
 the safety of the King, but tore the heart of the 
 Queen with terror as to his fate (she being mean-
 
 280 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 time condemned to live in an obscure residence in a 
 remote spot, where hours of anxiety were shared only 
 by her one female attendant and General Dumas, 
 the devoted friend of the King), they at last met again, 
 and, disguised, were about to embark from Havre to 
 England, after a short preliminary steamboat journey 
 up the Seine. But let the exiled King, who was tra.- 
 velling under the name of William Smith, here 
 speak : 
 
 " The night was dark, and as we were the first to 
 enter the boat, I placed myself on the starboard, 
 between Mr. Jones and Thuret,* upon a bench backed 
 by ship-netting. The Queen seated herself upon the 
 larboard, and passengers walking to and fro helped 
 to separate us 
 
 "There was one man going hither and thither 
 with a lanthorn, asking to look at the passengers' 
 tickets, and also seeking a sort of subscription in 
 behalf of a band of music, with singers and song- 
 stresses. . . . But to each demand made to me 
 I invariably replied, always in English, that I did 
 not understand French, though Mr. Jones, towards 
 
 * Mr. Jones, of whom the King here speaks, in the text above, was 
 the Vice-Consul at Havre, who had combined with Mr. Feathers- 
 tonhaugh (Chief Consul) in assisting the flight of Louis Philippe on 
 board the "Express," then lying off Havre. Thuret, at whose side 
 the King sat, was his Majesty's valet-de-chambre.
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 281 
 
 whom I pointed, would say or do all that was neces- 
 sary. . . . Upon the quay of Havre were a great 
 many people. Mr. Featherstonhaugh was there 
 awaiting me ; and, said he to me, whilst cordially 
 shaking my hand, ' Well, uncle, how are you ? ' 
 ' Quite well, thank you, George,' replied I to him ; 
 and, continuing to talk in English, we made for the 
 point — the most distant of the quay — where the 
 Express awaited us ; passing, meantime, close to a 
 gendarme, who neither asked me for my passport, 
 nor paid any attention either to me or the Queen, 
 who was following at a short distance behind me. 
 
 " We reached a little covered staircase, down which 
 we descended. At the foot of it we found ourselves 
 in the inner cabins of the Express. Then Mr. Feather- 
 stonhaugh said to me, whilst pressing my hand, 
 ' Now, thank God, you are safe ; ' and I replied by 
 the same expression of gratitude to God and towards 
 those who had so effectually contributed in with- 
 drawing me from the cruel position in which I had 
 found myself for a week past. The Queen arrived 
 almost at this same moment ; her emotion was evi- 
 dent, and she threw herself into my arms. Messieurs 
 Benson and Adolphe d'Houdetot * prostrated them- 
 
 * Brother of Count Iloudetot, the King's aide-de-camp, and the 
 Receiver of Finance at Havre.
 
 282 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 selves at her feet, and joined in our thanks to Provi- 
 dence." 
 
 It was quite time that the King, who thus narrates 
 his own adventures, was on board the British Express ; 
 for close upon his fugitive steps detectives, in service 
 of the newly-cradled Republic, were following. 
 
 Mr. Featherstonhaugh thus rescued his Majesty 
 (who had, since his flight from the Tuileries, succes- 
 sively assumed the names of M. Lebrun and Mr. 
 William Smith, pretending under the latter to be the 
 uncle of Mr. Featherstonhaugh), and now at last 
 assured of the safety of the King and Queen on board 
 an English vessel, he told them that their sons, the 
 Due de Montpensier and the Due de Nemours, with 
 various other members of their large family, were 
 already safe In England. Great was the joy of their 
 Majesties on hearing this intelligence ; but with none 
 the less anxiety did they ask — and for the moment 
 ask in vain — what had become of their daughter-in- 
 law, the Duchesse d'Orleans, and her children. 
 
 The Express sailed forth safely from Havre, but 
 such storms were raging at the time that it was not 
 until the morning of the third day of March, and 
 after a dangerous passage across the Channel, Queen 
 Marie Amelie and her husband arrived at Newhaven. 
 They were greeted by all classes of people with the
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 283 
 
 enthusiastic cry of " Welcome to England ! " King 
 Louis Philippe at once wrote to Queen Victoria that 
 he had ventured to seek shelter on her shores, and 
 that, remembering, as he gratefully did, the hospi- 
 tality formerly rendered in Great Britain to him as 
 the Due d'Orleans, he trusted that now, as Comte 
 de Neuilly, he might still find a home on British 
 territory. 
 
 An answer to this appeal reached the writer of it 
 as soon as possible, and their exiled Majesties were 
 deeply touched by the noble generosity of the Queen 
 of England, who offered the well-known residence of 
 Claremont to them as an instant retreat for themselves 
 and family. 
 
 Thither Louis Philippe and Queen Marie Amelie 
 bent their way, but here, ere entering Claremont with 
 them, let the reader pause on its threshold to remem- 
 ber how an intimate friendship had, some few years 
 before, been formed between them and Queen Victoria, 
 when the latter, at that time radiant with happiness 
 as wife, and mother, and Queen, visited France. 
 
 " What a delightful visit ! " exclaimed she, when 
 speaking 'of it to Lady Cowley, the wife of her own 
 then ambassador ; " what a delightful visit ! " M. 
 Guizot still (1873) declares that never in his life 
 can he forget the look of life, and love, and joy
 
 284 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 which animated her Majesty whilst eagerly entering 
 into all the amusements, simple though some of them 
 were, prepared for her during that brief but happy 
 stay at the Chateau d'Eu. And M. Auguste Tro- 
 gnon, the devoted adherent of the Orleanist French 
 royal family, a sharer in its exile, and the trusted 
 friend of Queen Marie Amelie to the last, here, 
 speaking of that visit, explains that there was some- 
 thing in the intercourse of the septuagenarian King 
 with his visitor, the Queen, then but twenty-four sum- 
 mers old, a mingled expression of paternity and 
 respect which could not fail to impress the beholder. 
 Neither did her Britannic Majesty find herself less 
 happy in the society of the Queen of the French, for 
 the latter was unwearied in her kindly manifesta- 
 tions of affectionate welcome, whilst the charm of 
 her grand though unaffected manners — of that 
 dignity which had caused Talleyrand to style her 
 "the last grande dame of France," gave an air of 
 exquisite refinement to every scene in which she took 
 a part, though that scene lay only in the midst of her 
 own family circle. 
 
 Neither ought it here to be forgotten that a cordial 
 intimacy had subsisted between the Duke of Kent, 
 father of Queen Victoria, and Louis Philippe, when 
 that French prince, during the political proscription
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 285 
 
 of his youth, had resided in England. Nor need any- 
 English reader be reminded that Leopold, King of 
 the Belgians, widower of the Princess Charlotte of 
 England, kinsman to Queen Victoria, and formerly 
 resident at Claremont, had, by his second marriage 
 with the French Princesse Louise, become son-in-law 
 to King Louis Philippe. 
 
 Additional ties of relationship had also been 
 recently formed between the royal family of England 
 and the Orleans branch of the royal family of France, 
 just at the time when the then young and happy 
 Queen Victoria first visited France, by the marriage 
 of the Princesse Clementine with the Duke Augustus 
 of Saxe-Coburg Gotha. 
 
 It is not likely that the Queen of England, loyal 
 as she is in her affections, forgot any of the facts here 
 above glanced at, when, in the generosity of her 
 heart, and in accordance with her noble power ot 
 sympathy, she offered Claremont as a home to her 
 old friends, the King and Queen of the French, im- 
 mediately after their exile from France by the revo- 
 lution of 1848. 
 
 They gratefully accepted the offer ; but nevertheless 
 it was in a state of much distress that they first 
 entered the home provided for them ; for not only 
 were they deprived almost of the daily necessaries of
 
 286 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 life by their unpremeditated flight from the Tuileries, 
 but their hearts were still racked by anxiety as to the 
 fate of some of their children ; for the Due d'Aumale 
 and the Prince de Joinville were in Algeria at the 
 time when their father was dethroned by sudden 
 revolution (both of them having previously manifested 
 great courage in Africa and elsewhere), and, as yet, 
 no intelligence of the fate of these two brave Princes 
 had reached England. 
 
 Upon the night, however, of the 20th or 21st of 
 March, they arrived at Claremont, to the great joy of 
 the Queen, who, just about to seek rest at the 
 moment, ran down into the hall, so as to be the first 
 to welcome them to this home of her and their exile. 
 They found her bereft of all luxuries habitual to her, 
 but she accepted her fate with noble resignation ; her 
 habitual piety forbade complaint ; her mind was too 
 lofty for the expression of any regret about " trifles,' 
 as she deemed most mundane things ; and, still clad 
 in the plain black dress which she happened to be 
 wearing at the moment she quitted her palace of the 
 Tuileries, and compelled — for want of space — to live 
 almost in the midst of her own limited household, 
 she never appeared more truly " grande dame " than 
 at that time ; and, as for the dress just mentioned, 
 she learnt so to respect it as being that last worn by
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 287 
 
 her in France, that here, it may as well at once be 
 mentioned, she now (1873) still wears it in her English 
 grave ; for by her own desire she was clothed in it for 
 her burial. 
 
 Yes ; the Due d'Aumale and the Prince de Join- 
 ville had arrived at Claremont ; others, also, of the 
 French Princes, their children, their wives, and sisters. 
 
 But the Duchesse d'Orleans and her children, where 
 were they ? 
 
 Not until the early summer of 1849 did they arrive, 
 having, as here previously explained, remained at 
 Eisenach after their forced flight from France. Since 
 that time the Duchesse d'Orleans had written (date, 
 July, 1848) the following words, which are strangely 
 applicable to much more recent times : — 
 
 " The men now in power have saved 
 
 France ; they are re-establishing order, they are 
 taking wise and energetic measures ; but .... 
 I fear that the country is destined to pass through 
 many successive crises before it is settled on any solid 
 and stable foundation. Poor France ! Great in her 
 misfortunes, great in her glory ; extreme in every- 
 thing ! " 
 
 When Queen Marie Amelie and her widowed 
 daughter-in-law, Helen of Orleans, at last met again 
 in England, the land of their exile, profound was the
 
 288 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 emotion on both sides. Could either of these royal 
 women — the one still young, the other quite old — 
 forget the grave of the one mutually dear to them — 
 that far-off, and to them inaccessible grave of the hus- 
 band of the one, the son of the other ? The memory 
 of the beloved being reposing in that grave — calm 
 amidst the revolution and fiercely feverish changes 
 of the country over which it was hoped that he would 
 have reigned as King, united these two women — his 
 widow and his mother, — despite all differences in 
 their faith, and age, and native land. His children, 
 also, were living bonds of union between them. 
 
 Queen Marie Amelie delighted in observing the 
 growth and mental development of these two chil- 
 dren, — the Comte de Paris and the Due de Chartres, 
 when their mother brought them to her at Claremont ; 
 nor did her exiled Majesty forget even the loving 
 sobriquet which, in happier days, at the Tuileries, she 
 had given to the Due de Chartres, for, resting her 
 hand upon his young head, she still called him " My 
 little Chevalier." 
 
 The Duchesse d'Orleans, although in religion her* 
 self a Lutheran, was most conscientious in educating 
 these two sons of hers in the faith of their forefathers. 
 Strict in morality, pure as a child herself in conduct, 
 undeviating in the practical exercise of her own faith,
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 289 
 
 she nevertheless was so liberal in that noble heart of 
 hers, which had been deeply wounded, both as woman 
 and as princess, that she was incapable of limiting 
 her belief in the mercies of the God whom she sought 
 as a refuge to any one of the many forms by which, 
 in all sincerity, His numberless creatures seek to 
 worship Him. When, therefore, the time came for 
 her first-born son, the Comte de Paris, to receive his 
 first Communion (July 20, 1850), she, having already 
 shared with him the prayerful observances preliminary 
 to that event, was present upon the occasion. But, 
 thanks to the memory of one (herebefore quoted) 
 who personally knew and loved her. well, let the 
 princess here speak for herself: — 
 
 "To the little French chapel in London we went, 
 followed by the King and Queen, their family, and 
 the many faithful friends who had come expressly 
 from France to witness the event. Paris was placed 
 at the foot of the Altar, before a Pric-Diai sur- 
 mounted with a lighted taper, between the King and 
 me. On his left arm he wore a white scarf, the 
 emblem of purity. After a touching exhortation 
 addressed to him by the Abbe Guellcs, Mass was 
 performed by Dr. Wiseman, who, before the moment 
 of Communion, also addressed some solemn words to 
 him.
 
 290 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 " The dear boy was led to the Altar by the Abbe 
 Guelles* With a devout reverence my son knelt 
 down, and received the body of the Lord. . . . 
 
 " As he was passing back on his way to the Prie- 
 Dieu, the King raised his hand in token of his blessing, 
 but the dear child turned towards me, and never shall 
 I forget the earnest look with which he regarded me. 
 . . . We left the chapel. ... At two o'clock 
 we all returned thither — all except the King, whose 
 health requires great care. 
 
 "Vespers were chanted, . . . after which Paris 
 
 read the renewal of his baptismal vows 
 
 After this we returned home, with hearts full of grati- 
 tude to God, who loves and blesses His children." 
 
 Neither Queen Marie Amelie nor the Duchesse 
 d'Orleans could possibly forget upon this day, which 
 marked an epoch in the life of the young Comte de 
 Paris, how his baptism had been performed with such 
 pomp at Notre Dame, that the ceremonial of it was 
 said to have afforded the first occasion "when the 
 royalty of July showed itself in that cathedral at the 
 
 * Before the departure of the family of King Louis Philippe from the 
 Tuileries, the spiritual guidance of the Comte de Paris was entrusted 
 to the Abbe Guelles. Since then this much reverenced ecclesiastic had, 
 from time to time, resumed his sacred duties towards the young Prince, 
 whether in Germany or in England, according to circumstances 
 attendant on the exile of the Duchesse d'Orleans, and by which her 
 place of abode was dictated.
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 291 
 
 foot of altars " ; and for the Queen there was then 
 a double cause of thankfulness, because the Due 
 d'Aumale, at the head of his regiment in Africa, 
 was about that time saved first from the danger 
 of a severe illness, and afterwards from attempted 
 assassination. 
 
 Memories such as these were closely associated with 
 the event of the Comte de Paris receiving his first 
 Communion " in the little French chapel in London " ; 
 but not long after he had done so, the gravest anxie- 
 ties beset the royal exiles at Claremont regarding the 
 evidently fast failing health of the King, and also 
 concerning that of his daughter, the Queen of the 
 Belgians— that daughter so tenderly beloved by all 
 her family, and so constantly, if possible, present 
 whenever any member of it was in sorrow, need, or 
 sickness, that she was regarded by her parents and 
 kindred as " the angel." 
 
 The Duchesse d'Orleans had, in the course of 
 this year (1850), taken up her abode at Richmond ; 
 far from constitutionally strong herself, various changes 
 of climate were occasionally proposed to and some- 
 times adopted by her, but her anxiety and her duty, 
 as she deemed it, were with her dead husband's 
 relatives, and therefore the country of their exile be- 
 came eventually her country. 
 
 r 2
 
 292 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 Dr. de Mussy, since well known and highly esteemed 
 in London, was the medical attendant of the royal 
 exiles even before the last illness of Louis Philippe ; 
 and the circumstances of his introduction at Clare- 
 mont were originally so remarkable as doing credit to 
 his professional perception, that to relate them it may 
 be pardonable here to go back in point of time. 
 
 Not long after their ex-Majesties had taken up their 
 abode at Claremont, the Queen, the princes and prin- 
 cesses, and various members of the household were 
 seized with a distressing illness, causing constant pains 
 and sickness, but of which the cause seemed inscru- 
 table. By some these miseries were attributed to 
 change of climate, by others to mental distress con- 
 sequent upon exile ; but at last the celebrated M. 
 Chomel (formerly medical adviser at the Tuileries) 
 arrived from Paris at Claremont, and with him he 
 brought his pupil, Dr. Henri Gueneau de Mussy. 
 
 The latter, having investigated symptoms, at once 
 declared his opinion that they were the result of 
 poison. It was a bold thing to say, because if poison, 
 and that to such an extent as to peril the lives of a 
 whole family — guests, so to speak, of the Queen of 
 England — by whom and why administered ? 
 
 Dr. de Mussy was nevertheless inflexible on the 
 point, and forthwith proceeded to examine the sanitary
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 293 
 
 condition of Claremont, its air and water. Having 
 applied various tests in vain, he at last descended into 
 the kitchens of the chateau, and there he found reason 
 to suspect that in the water used for culinary purposes 
 was the source of evil. He consequently caused the 
 pipes through which this water was conveyed into the 
 house to be laid bare, and in them (owing most pro- 
 bably to repairs at some time or other done to them 
 by unscientific workmen) was a deposit of poisonous 
 lead {acetate de plomb), which sufficiently explained 
 the apparently epidemic illness of the royal sufferers, 
 who henceforth became his patients. 
 
 Without further entering here into the particulars 
 of this episode which first taught them to appreciate 
 his keen intelligence, it need only be said that Dr. de 
 Mussy was henceforth inseparably connected with the 
 various events, whether of life or death, awaiting his 
 illustrious friends at Claremont. Therefore, when in 
 the month of August, 1850, the King had reason to 
 suppose that the last scene of his long and eventful 
 life was close at hand, it was Dr. de Mussy who 
 attended him, and upon whom the painful duty de- 
 volved of informing the Queen that no human skill 
 could avert the widowhood which awaited her. The 
 Queen forthwith sought the divine strength which she 
 needed. At the foot of the altar, which had been
 
 294 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 consecrated according to her creed in the abode of her 
 exile, she knelt ; for to her it was of supreme import- 
 ance that her husband, the father of her children, he 
 beside whom she had spent a faithful lifetime of 
 mingled joy and grief since the far-off day of their 
 nuptials at Palermo, should die — if die he must — in 
 full confession, and according to all the rites of the 
 Roman Catholic faith ; and she believed it to be her 
 most solemn duty to do all that she could do in help- 
 ing to achieve this result. She sought strength in 
 prayer; then, kneeling by the bedside of her husband, 
 she revealed to him the immediate danger of his con- 
 dition, and besought him to seek help beyond the aid 
 of man. But it is fitting that one who personally 
 participated in the sad scenes of that eventful time 
 should here speak of it as follows : — " Although never 
 afraid of death he " (the King) " still clung to life ; 
 as head of his family, as husband, even if not as King, 
 he believed himself still to be of some use in this 
 world. He had desired to live ; but from the moment 
 that the testimony of the doctor confirmed that of 
 the Queen, and when, notwithstanding all that gentle 
 language could do to soften the announcement to him, 
 he comprehended the decree which was signified to 
 him, ' That is to say, I may take leave/ said he 
 in a calm tone of gentle gaiety, and henceforth he
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 295 
 
 thought but of dying. Nevertheless, it came into his 
 mind that, some four or five months before, he had 
 left a page of his Mcmoires unfinished .... he 
 wished, ere closing his eyes, to finish this page, and 
 therefore caused his dear and faithful fellow-worker, 
 General Dumas, to be summoned. ' I must be gone,' 
 said he to him, when he entered ; ' I must be gone 
 (il fant partir) ; I have received my sentence ' ; and, 
 with a freezingly cold and tremulous hand, he handed 
 to him the key of his portfolio, so that he might seek 
 his manuscript. Their work lasted some time, and, 
 during the course of it, the sick man displayed the 
 most wonderful precision and firmness of intellect, 
 going even so far as to discuss with the General certain 
 forms of editing it. The work done, he desired to be 
 left alone with the Queen for a quarter of an hour, in 
 order to dictate to her certain testamentary disposi- 
 tions relative to some of his friends. He signed this 
 deed, but in a handwriting no longer legible. He had 
 done with the things of time ; he turned towards those 
 of eternity. The Abbe Guelles, whom he had caused 
 to come from Paris, under the title of his Almoner, 
 was now introduced* It was three o'clock in the 
 
 * The name of the Abbe Guelles occurs in a previous page of this 
 work, as assisting, a short time before the death of King Louis Philippe, 
 at the first communion — in London — of the Comte de Paris, his former 
 pupil at the Tuileries.
 
 296 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 afternoon : the abbe found the King seated in his 
 large arm-chair, and conversing with the Queen. 
 The latter retired, and immediately afterwards the 
 King said, in a very firm voice, despite his weakness : 
 ' My dear abbe, I wish to accomplish that which I 
 have promised. I possess all my faculties ; I am 
 aware of the duties which conscience requires of me ; 
 I have a perfect knowledge of what I do.' * And, 
 before the abbe demanded it of him, he made the 
 sign of the cross, and, in the most explicit and com- 
 plete form, pronounced the profession of the Catholic 
 
 faith When, afterwards, the holy words of 
 
 absolution were uttered over him, the humble penitent 
 accompanied them by an act of contrition, the expres- 
 sions of which were wrung from his heart, and which 
 he articulated slowly, in a tone of compunction and of 
 faith, which attested the entire lucidity of his thought. 
 ' You have done me good,' said he then to the abbe ; 
 ' but hasten to give me the viatique, for I feel that I am 
 going.' 
 
 " Whilst the priest was bringing the consecrated 
 
 * It was the Abbe Guelles himself, who, in obedience to a request 
 of Queen Marie Amelie, made a note of the circumstances above 
 related. Upon the morrow — or upon the next day but one — after the 
 death of the King, this note was made ; and by her Majesty it was 
 subsequently confided to M. Auguste Trognon, to whom thanks are 
 due for the original of the above translation.
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 297 
 
 Host and the holy oils from the chapel, the Queen 
 had returned to the presence of her husband, and, 
 with her, the princes and princesses of the royal family. 
 All knelt, shedding tears in respectful silence, and the 
 dying man received the Holy Communion. 
 
 " 'You do me good,' he repeated ' Now grant 
 
 me extreme unction.' 
 
 "Whilst this sacrament was being administered to 
 him, he followed all its rites with concentrated atten- 
 tion, and even joined with his voice in its prayers . . . 
 then, turning to the Queen, he said to her — 
 
 " ' Thou art well content ? . . . and I am so like- 
 wise.' 
 
 " ' Yes',' replied she, ' I am well content, for I hope 
 soon to rejoin thee ' ; and, whilst uttering those 
 words, her countenance was illumined with strange 
 radiance " 
 
 At eight o'clock on the following morning the King 
 was still alive. During the intervening night he had 
 slept a little, and had seemed pleased with the intelli- 
 gent conversation of Dr. de Mussy ; but the last 
 moments were at hand ; the Abbe Guelles was again 
 at the side of the dying, exiled, monarch ; the aged 
 Queen was kneeling in prayer close to the husband 
 about to pass away from her for ever in this world ; 
 the Duchcsse d'Orleans was also there with her two
 
 298 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 sons ; likewise the other princes and princesses of the 
 House of Orleans then resident at Claremont. 
 
 At a little past eight o'clock King Louis Philippe 
 ceased to breathe. Queen Marie Amelie herself 
 closed his eyes — those eyes which in years long by- 
 gone but doubtless vividly present to her agonized 
 memory at that moment, had looked upon her with 
 love when he and she were both still young under the 
 sunny sky of Italy. 
 
 Louis Philippe, " ex-King of the French," was dead. 
 No revolutions on this earth and amongst all its shift- 
 ing politics, no " madness of the many for the gain of 
 the few " could trouble him more. And, having closed 
 his eyes in loving and pious reverence, his widow 
 turned to his children and grand-children, who were 
 praying, weeping, near her, and said : 
 
 " His last thought, the last wish which he expressed 
 to me, was that you may for ever remain united. 
 Promise me that so it shall be." 
 
 They promised ; and then they all gathered round 
 her, saying, " From this day forth you shall be our 
 centre ; we will never leave you ! " 
 
 Not many weeks after the death of her father, the 
 Queen of the Belgians died. Queen Marie Amelie 
 had exhibited a noble fortitude, a strength so above 
 this world that it had gained for her the title of " the
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 299 
 
 strong woman of Holy Writ," since following the re- 
 mains of her husband to the grave of his exile in the 
 little English chapel of Weybridge ; and now, upon 
 the 8th day of October in the same year she embarked 
 at Ostend in order to be present at the death-bed of 
 her most cherished daughter, the " angel of the family." 
 The Duchesse d'Orleans accompanied Queen Marie 
 Amelie upon this occasion. The sons, and other 
 members of the aged Queen's family also. But it is 
 the Duchesse d'Orleans who here speaks, three days 
 after the death of the much-loved Queen of the Bel- 
 gians, her sister-in-law : 
 
 " It were useless to attempt to describe to you, how 
 desolate we all feel at the loss of our earthly provi- 
 dence. God has taken our good angel from us. He 
 knows what is best, but His designs are impene- 
 trable." 
 
 And it is Queen Marie Amelie who writes : 
 
 " May the will of God be done ! We have an angel 
 the more in heaven ; but I remain more unhappy 
 than ever upon earth." 
 
 And it is one of the brothers of the amiable Queen 
 of the Belgians, a son of Queen Marie Amelie, who 
 writes : 
 
 . . . . " She is dead, with her great heart, thinking 
 only of others until her last moment. She has accom-
 
 300 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 plished her task in this world ; no ordeal has been 
 spared to her ; and it is that which has killed her. 
 But, at least, her death has been surrounded by con- 
 solations. She died happily — happy even in the 
 evident regret of her husband, so cold ordinarily, 
 but whom she loved so tenderly ; happy in seeing us 
 all near her ; happy, after a life of suffering, to be 
 
 delivered from its bondage The grief of the 
 
 Queen" (Marie Amelie) " is immense. But think of all 
 that she suffers ! Yesterday, for example, the sounds of 
 the coffin being nailed down, were audible in her room 
 during all the afternoon. She thinks of preserving 
 herself only but for us — we who have just lost the one 
 whose heart was the refuge of all our griefs !...." 
 
 And again writes the Duchesse d'Orleans about 
 Queen Marie Amelie : 
 
 " Our mother ! Could you but see her ! She 
 astonishes us all by her words of resignation and of 
 faith. In heaven are all her thoughts ; and her sole 
 care is that her children may find a place there, and 
 that she may be prepared to follow." 
 
 When afterwards the Duchesse d'Orleans, then back 
 again in England, heard how France, under the Second 
 Empire, had adopted a government exclusive of her 
 own sons, she not only marvels at the submission of 
 Queen Marie Amelie, but, for a fleeting moment,
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 301 
 
 seems almost irritated by it ; " for," writes she, " every- 
 thing gives me pain ; yes, everything, even the sanctity 
 of our admirable Queen She has a word of in- 
 dulgence and of charity for everybody." 
 
 Yet, not less so the writer of these words herself ; 
 for once when somebody in presence of the Duchesse 
 d'Orleans repeated, or attempted to repeat, some 
 anecdote unworthy of the Empress Eugenie, whose 
 fair fame it concerned, she indignantly demanded 
 silence, and forbade that henceforth anybody should 
 presume to speak to her of that illustrious lady save 
 in terms of the respect due to her. The winter of the 
 year 1856 was passed by the Duchesse d'Orleans in 
 Italy. Her health, never strong, and less so espe- 
 cially since her widowhood, was the subject of anxiety 
 to all save herself. In Italy, she found physical relief 
 and much intellectual joy ; for, although German by 
 birth and Lutheran by religion, she was ardent, poetic, 
 in character, and to her the glorious sights of the 
 south of Europe, its treasures of art and nature, its 
 blue sky and balmy air were so precious that they 
 seemed to infuse in her fresh life. But to England 
 she came back again, and then after a time she took 
 up her abode (always in the neighbourhood of her 
 dead husband's family) at a villa called Cranbourne 
 House, near the Thames. She liked Richmond, but
 
 302 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 this new residence of hers in that vicinity was damp 
 and gloomy. Such impression, however (justly de- 
 clares one who knew and loved this princess well — one, 
 from whose memories of her, quotations have been ac- 
 knowledged in these pages), this impression was soon 
 effaced by the charm, the grace, the cheerfulness, and 
 elegance, which she invariably imparted to every place 
 inhabited by her ; but hitherto she had lived for her 
 two sons ; in their education she had found the ex- 
 alted duties which had sustained her under sorrow ; 
 and both of them had now arrived at an age, and each 
 of them had so profited by her companionship, that she 
 felt a time had come when they no longer needed her 
 constant care. 
 
 Nevertheless, when either of them was in trouble, 
 or sickness, needful in any way of sympathy, she was 
 prompt to aid or to comfort ; and therefore, when 
 during the month of May, 1858, the Due de Chartres 
 fell ill, she was unwearied in her attendance upon 
 him. 
 
 He soon recovered, but his mother seemed sud- 
 denly to have lost much of her own physical 
 strength, never great. In mind, she was as bright, 
 if not brighter, than ever ; and her weakness of body, 
 to which she paid no attention herself, was attributed 
 to her having taken cold. Upon Sunday, the 9th of
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 303 
 
 May, a guest from Paris arrived at Cranbourne House, 
 and so animated was the Duchesse in conversation 
 that it seemed impossible for anything serious to be 
 the matter with her. 
 
 Yet, in the course of the ensuing week, a rapid 
 declension of physical strength was evident ; she was 
 reluctantly compelled to remain in her own sleeping 
 apartment, because change of air brought on fits of 
 coughing with consequent exhaustion. Her chief 
 pleasure was derived from the society of her two sons. 
 " At least, let me look at them," she would say, when 
 warned against too much conversation. 
 
 Dr. de Mussy, whose name has so often occurred in 
 the course of these pages, was in attendance upon her, 
 but no immediate danger was apprehended. Just at 
 that time much anxiety was felt at Claremont on 
 account of an illness from which Queen Marie Amelie 
 was suffering ; and here it must be remembered how 
 both her Majesty and the Duchesse d'Orleans had for 
 some months past been depressed by the sudden 
 ■death of the Duchesse de Nemours, dear indeed to 
 both their hearts.* 
 
 * In the month of November the beautiful and truly estimable 
 Duchesse de Nemours gave birth to a daughter. There was a tradition 
 at Claremont (derived, doubtless, from the well-known unfortunate fate 
 of its former inhabitant, the Princess Charlotte of England) that no 
 mother of a child born there would prosper. The Duchesse de
 
 304 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 In her the Queen had lost a most beloved 
 daughter-in-law, and the Duchesse d'Orleans a sister 
 — all the more prized by her because of the brotherly 
 afifection which had formerly existed between her 
 own ever-lamented husband and the Due de 
 Nemours, who, ever since the days of her widow- 
 hood, had been a true support to her. The know- 
 ledge of his sorrow was painful to her and to the 
 Queen, and it is more than probable that this new 
 family affliction had much affected the health of both 
 the one and the other. When, therefore, the Duchesse 
 d'Orleans lay ill at Cranbourne House, Richmond, in 
 the month of May, 1858, the exiled Queen at Clare- 
 mont was herself so extremely far from well, that 
 whatever anxiety had begun to be felt there concerning 
 her daughter-in-law was concealed from her as much ay 
 possible. " I have been often like this," the Duchesse 
 d'Orleans herself said, with a sweet and patient 
 smile to those of her own household who manifested 
 signs of fear when listening to her cough and witness- 
 ing her frequent fainting fits, — " I have so often been 
 
 Nemours, however, rapidly recovered from the event which added to 
 her already great happiness. On the loth day of November she was 
 conversing gaily with her husband as to her hopes of soon again being 
 in the midst of the family circle ; he had scarcely left her, she being 
 then at her toilette and in the act of arranging her magnificent hair, 
 when he was suddenly recalled to her side, and found that she was 
 dead.
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 305 
 
 like this." And truly — as says one who knew her 
 well — her ardent soul had ever been too powerful for 
 its fragile covering, that delicate body which it 
 consumed. 
 
 On the evening of the 18th of May her two sons 
 came in as usual to wish her good-night. " My 
 children, God bless you ! " said she to them, and they 
 left her, not thinking that her voice, so beloved 
 by them, would never again be heard by them on 
 earth. 
 
 Dr. de Mussy, however, was alarmed at her 
 extreme debility, and determined to remain during 
 that night under her roof, although her thoughts and 
 fears were still all for others and not for herself. 
 With her own hand she offered to the nurse in 
 attendance upon her some wine which had been 
 prescribed for her, saying, " You need strength not 
 less than I do." And when, by the reflection of a 
 mirror in her chamber, she perceived that one of 
 her ladies-in-waiting was standing behind the bed- 
 curtain, she said to Dr. de Mussy, in a tone of tender 
 playfulness, " Dear doctor, pray make her sit down. 
 She forgets that I can see her in the glass, still 
 standing." 
 
 Presently, when roused from time to time to take 
 the remedies needed, and finding Dr. de Mussy still
 
 306 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 in assiduous attendance upon her, she observed his 
 anxious countenance, and seemed surprised to be 
 thought " so very ill." 
 
 " I have a wish to sleep — I should like to rest," 
 she said, with her usual sweetness. " I wish to 
 rest." 
 
 Madame de Beauvoir, her friend and devoted 
 attendant, was possibly deluded by hope of speedy 
 convalescence when hearing these words ; but not so 
 Dr. de Mussy, for, retiring into an adjoining apart- 
 ment, he at once proceeded to write to Claremont 
 and elsewhere his apprehensions of a fatal result. 
 
 Meanwhile, it was hoped that the Duchesse 
 d'Orleans, who had so craved for rest, was sleeping. 
 Not a sound was heard in her chamber, but the 
 stillness was so extreme, that the lady left to watch 
 the invalid felt an ominous shiver of fear pass through 
 her, and she quickly sought Dr. de Mussy, albeit even 
 whilst doing so afraid to awaken the Princess. 
 
 But alas ! no need to fear that ; for when, a 
 moment afterwards, the physician came in and 
 looked at his patient, he saw that she had ceased to 
 breathe. 
 
 He immediately summoned her sons ; but neither 
 the Comte de Paris nor the Due de Chartres could 
 at first realize the fact that their beloved mother
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 307 
 
 was dead. It was difficult even for more expe- 
 rienced eyes to ' discover the awful truth, for this 
 Princess, this once fond wife and faithful widow, 
 this devoted mother and kind friend, reposed in 
 peace, looking younger than she had done in the 
 later years of her troubled and eventful life, because 
 all traces of time and grief were smoothed from her 
 always sweet and still smiling face since that 
 mysterious moment of her noiseless, though sudden 
 passage from earth to heaven. 
 
 Helene, Duchesse d'Orleans, was dead, and in 
 death she was so lovely, that the sight of her could 
 not fail to recall how, in her early youth, the poet 
 Goethe had looked upon her face as on something most 
 pure and ideal in its dawning charm ; how the poet 
 Lamartine had gazed upon that face as expressing 
 something most touching and yet sublime when, as a 
 young though widowed mother, she heroically braved 
 all danger for the sake of the children bequeathed to 
 her care. 
 
 Nor was the sense of sacred trust towards them 
 ever dormant in her ; for, though an exile herself as 
 they were, she had, at a date considerably before her 
 death, gathered together all the worldly treasures 
 still remaining to her, and by a will (which, in its 
 every clause, evinces the justice not less than the
 
 308 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 tenderness of her character) divided these between 
 them. 
 
 At Weybridge (1873) s he lies buried, far away 
 from the beloved husband whose premature death 
 she so passionately mourned, but near to that 
 husband's father, and also to her beloved sister- 
 in-law. 
 
 A mystery did it seem even to the saintly Queen 
 Marie Amelie that that grave at Weybridge had not 
 re-opened to receive her rather than either of her 
 daughters-in-law — the Duchesse de Nemours, or the 
 Duchesse d'Orleans ; and it was a great pain to her 
 aged Majesty not to have been present during the 
 last illness of the latter, for not long since had she 
 travelled from Claremont into Switzerland sooner 
 than be absent from her eldest son's widow when the 
 Duchesse d'Orleans met with an accident (a fall from 
 a carriage) at Lausanne ; and yet, when dying at a 
 short distance from her, she had been — as here 
 already told — prevented from manifesting last tokens 
 of love and sympathy towards her. 
 
 But, with this new and unexpected grief, more 
 duties devolved upon the venerable Queen ; for 
 though the Duchesse d'Orleans had suddenly passed 
 away from earth, her sons remained. The Comte 
 de Paris and the Due de Chartres were con-
 
 MARIE AM ELI E AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 309 
 
 ducted to their grandmother at Claremont. She 
 was confined to her bed by the illness from which she 
 was still suffering, but the sight of these orphan 
 princes, her intense sympathy for youths weeping as 
 they were for the loss of the mother who had 
 consecrated her existence to them, inspired the 
 Queen with a wish still to live on for their sakes, 
 and to continue — as far as her advanced years made 
 possible to her — the care from which they had hitherto 
 derived such great advantages. 
 
 Many readers will here remember the sight of this 
 royal and venerable lady, still taking an interest in 
 works of art and industry at the London International 
 Exhibition of 1862, and if so, they will rightly and 
 readily infer that she delighted in associating herself 
 to the last with all that could charm or elevate the 
 minds of the grandchildren who clustered round her. 
 In travel she had also taken intelligent pleasure as 
 long as her strength permitted, and this never more 
 so than when she paid a long visit to her son, the Due 
 de Montpensier. 
 
 The climate of her native Italy and that of Spain 
 were congenial to her ; and, intensely religious as she 
 was by nature and by the severe discipline of her 
 long and chequered life, she deemed it a great 
 privilege to enter lofty cathedrals where she could
 
 310 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 worship in sun-lit aisles according to the faith of her 
 ancestors. 
 
 But, shut out from France, it was in England that 
 she formed her permanent home, and in the society 
 of England's Queen found frequent consolation. 
 
 It was in the month of July, 1857, that Queen 
 Marie Amelie crossed the Channel for the last time. 
 The voyage was but a short one, for it was only to 
 Belgium ; but the object of it was important, for 
 nothing less than the marriage of the Archduke 
 Maximilian with her granddaughter, child of her own 
 best-beloved child, the late Queen of the Belgians, 
 caused her to undertake it. To her the idea of this 
 marriage was most agreeable, not only 'because she 
 recognized and admired in the bridegroom noble 
 qualities which, she thought, could not fail to ensure 
 the happiness of his wife, but likewise because of the 
 Austrian blood which flowed in his veins— that same 
 blood which he, like herself, derived from their great 
 ancestress, Maria Theresa. Yet, when this young 
 kinsman of hers came some time afterwards with 
 his wife to Claremont, there to take farewell of 
 Queen Marie Amelie ere their departure for Mexico, 
 her Majesty was deeply depressed by gloomy fore- 
 bodings as to their fate in the far-off land over which 
 they were called to reign as Emperor and Empress.
 
 MARIE AMELJE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 311 
 
 That these forebodings were subsequently realized to 
 the most awful extent, the world at large now knows 
 only too well ; but the youthful Emperor and 
 Empress did not share in them, when, full of confi- 
 dence as to a glorious future, full of splendid inten- 
 tions as to doing great things for the people and the 
 land over whom and which they were prepared to 
 rule with a most just and elevated intelligence, they 
 paid their parting visit to Claremont, and there knelt 
 at the feet of their aged and saintly relative in order 
 to receive her blessing. " They will be assassinated," 
 declared Queen Marie Amelie ; and so great was the 
 prophetic emotion of the latter, that at last the brave 
 Archduke was, for a moment, almost appalled by it. 
 His wife, then little dreaming that a fate even worse 
 than assassination was in store for her — a fate worse 
 than death in the midst of life — was so buoyant with 
 hope, that for her was there no pain, save that of 
 parting with her dear and dead mother's kind family 
 at Claremont. 
 
 Thence went forth this Prince and Princess — the 
 one full of life and intellect, courage and mercy, to 
 be shot down dead, like the meanest thing on earth ; 
 and the other, full of love and youth, of magnanimity 
 and intelligence, to come back to Europe in order to 
 plead his cause — a noble cause, pleaded with all the
 
 312 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 eloquence of a true wife's affection, of a high sense of 
 right against barbaric might — but pleaded in vain, 
 and then to sink into the madness of despair, to 
 watch for the return of the husband whom she loved, 
 whom she had tried to serve and to save, but who was 
 dead, though, in the death of her own mind, she knew 
 it not. 
 
 It was with prophetic pain that Queen Marie 
 Amelie parted with the Emperor Maximilian and his 
 wife ; but from the marriages of her two grandsons, 
 the Comte de Paris and the Due de Chartres, she 
 found consolation, as one who had long been honoured 
 by her confidence will here explain. 
 
 " It was with pleasure that the Queen welcomed 
 the return of the Comte de Paris and the Due de 
 Chartres from America, where, in the midst of the 
 perils of a formidable war, her anxiety had followed 
 them during eight months. She was happy that the 
 two Princes, satisfied at having done honour to the 
 name they bore, returned to their family with 
 intentions of marriage. By such they fulfilled the 
 dearest wishes of their ancestress, who every day 
 implored God that as He had left her so long a 
 time upon earth she might be permitted, before 
 her death, to behold the etablissemcnt of her grand- 
 children.
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 313 
 
 " The Due de Chartres, touched by the charms of 
 his cousin, the Princesse Francoise, daughter of the 
 Prince de Joinville, gained her consent, with that of 
 her parents, and, upon the nth day of June, 1863, 
 their union was celebrated in the little chapel of 
 Kingston. . . . Some months afterwards the 
 Comte de Paris started for Seville, for the purpose 
 of demanding from his uncle, the Due de Mont- 
 pensier, the hand of the Infanta Isabella, and, upon 
 the 30th day of May, 1864, the festival day of 
 St. Ferdinand, the little chapel of Kingston beheld 
 the benediction of the Church consecrate this other 
 marriage. One witness was wanting there, and this 
 — as said people to each other in hushed tones and 
 with sadness — was the mother of the young bride- 
 groom." 
 
 Anybody, however, referring to the will of that 
 mother, can see how, by earnest sympathy, she was 
 prepared to rejoice in these events, and how, by the 
 foresight of maternal love, she had provided even 
 the ornaments to be worn by the two daughters-in- 
 law whom she never lived to embrace. Witness the 
 following out of many other similar clauses of the last 
 Testament of the Duchesse d'Orleans : — 
 
 " To THE COMTE de PARIS — my necklace of 
 pearls in four rows, which he will, I hope, give some
 
 314 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 day to the Comtesse de Paris ; the six pendants in 
 diamonds," &c. &c. 
 
 Similar bequests are made by this will (dated 
 January I, 1855, full of forethought and impartiality) 
 to the Due de Chartres, for the use of the future 
 Duchesse de Chartres, and the extreme care taken 
 by the testatrix to apportion certain portraits of their 
 father to each of her sons manifests her earnest wish 
 that the memory of him — a memory sacred to her — 
 should be ever present with them. 
 
 In the year 1865 the aged Queen Marie Amelie 
 had the satisfaction of presenting at the font of 
 baptism the first-born children of the Comte de Paris 
 and the Due de Chartres — two little princesses, both 
 named after her. 
 
 Upon such occasions, and especially upon those of 
 the marriages above recorded, it was astonishing how 
 splendid was the appearance of this royal lady, 
 despite her eighty years of life. " All persons 
 present," says one who then beheld her, " were struck 
 by the majestic beauty of her old age." In daily life 
 her dress was extremely simple, her habits austere in 
 self-denial, but genial and courteous to everybody 
 about her. The self-discipline, which from the time of 
 her early youth in Italy to that of her last sojourn on 
 earth at Claremont was extremely severe, she did not
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 315 
 
 exact from others ; and even her numerous grand- 
 children, clustering round her, always sought, and 
 never found wanting, in her a vivid and tender 
 sympathy, for their joys not less than their sorrows. 
 
 But the time came when she must pass away 
 from the midst of them. Not long before that 
 time it was thought probable that, just as her long 
 pilgrimage in this world was nearly completed, she 
 would have had to leave Claremont, the home of her 
 last exile ; for her son-in-law, Leopold, King of the 
 Belgians, died (1865), and it was to his relationship 
 that the fact of her residence at Claremont was 
 partly due. It was there, as herebefore said, that 
 he had lived in the days of his youth, with his 
 first wife, the Princess Charlotte of England, but, 
 by the deed of his tenure of Claremont, so it is 
 believed, that property returned to the State at his 
 decease. 
 
 Queen Marie Amelie deplored his death, because 
 he had long been a good friend of hers, a constant 
 correspondent, and, still more, because he was the 
 widower of her own late fondly loved daughter — his 
 second wife — and the father of her children. 
 
 But her aged Majesty also mourned over her own 
 consequent departure, as she presumed, from Clare- 
 mont.
 
 316 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 " To quit this room where I lost my King ! " she 
 mournfully exclaimed, whilst looking round upon the 
 sanctuary of her own chamber, — " to leave this place 
 which, upon my first arrival in it, was so dreary, 
 but where every little corner has grown to be so 
 dear ! When I go forth hence it will be as though 
 into renewed exile. I shall kiss the lowest steps 
 of this threshold." 
 
 Bnt neither England's Queen nor England's 
 Parliament allowed the ex-Queen of the French 
 to be thus expulsed from the place in which, by 
 England's hospitality, she had found a refuge. 
 
 Lord Derby, that " Rupert of Debate," paid a 
 grand tribute to her virtues and her misfortunes in 
 the House of Lords. Mr. Gladstone did the same 
 in the House of Commons, and the sympathy of 
 Queen Victoria was altogether and most practically 
 on her side. 
 
 Wherefore Queen Marie Amelie remained at Clare- 
 mont ; but in the middle of the month of March, 
 1866, her long-sustained strength was visibly fast 
 failing. Dr. de Mussy, so often referred to in these 
 pages, was with her, and her faithful attendant, 
 Mademoiselle de Miiser, was constant in watchful- 
 ness ; but it was evident that the cord of life was 
 broken — its mysterious spark fast dying out.
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 317 
 
 And yet upon Friday, the 16th of March, this 
 venerable Queen listened with reverence to the 
 preaching of a Dominican (Father Didon) who had 
 arrived at Claremont, and upon the 19th she partook 
 of the Holy Communion, observing afterwards to 
 Mademoiselle de Miiser that she was so glad to have 
 done so, especially as the day was the festival day of 
 St. Joseph, "patron de la bonne wort." 
 
 But, though she said this, she did not seem at all 
 to suppose that her own death was so near. She 
 felt extremely weak, and possibly having fasted more 
 during the season of Lent than those about her 
 suspected, she attributed her sense of bodily prostra- 
 tion to that cause. 
 
 Be this as it may, she persisted in exerting herself 
 to the last. Various letters there were to write to 
 several members of her family then not at Claremont, 
 and she wrote them. 
 
 Loyal adherents of the Orleans family arrived from 
 Paris, and she received them. General de Chabannes, 
 a guest in her household, had lately been taken 
 seriously ill under her roof ; but he being at last 
 about to return thence to France, she insisted on 
 personally taking leave of him, and this she did, 
 saying, whilst holding out her hand to him, " I have 
 come to say adieu to my friend before his departure."
 
 318 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 In the course of that afternoon she manifested 
 symptoms of increased weakness, though struggling 
 against them to the last : she even tried to read, but 
 was eventually persuaded to desist from doing so. 
 
 The Due de Nemours and his daughter were then 
 her guests ; and in the evening, she having been 
 persuaded to take rest, they conversed with her some 
 time. 
 
 There seemed no cause of immediate alarm ; but 
 afterwards the Princess Marguerite remembered the 
 pathetic tones with which, upon bidding her good 
 night, the Queen said to her, " Pray for me." 
 
 No change was perceptible during that night, but 
 the next morning there could be no doubt that the 
 end of that royal and long life was at hand. The 
 Due de Chartres arrived just in time to receive a last 
 sign of adieu from his grandmother, though she, like 
 his mother had done, only seemed to express a wish 
 to fall asleep. 
 
 A sort of convulsion, however, presently passed 
 over the venerable countenance so tenderly watched 
 by all present. The Abbe Guelles was quickly 
 summoned. He began — as says M. Trognon, one of 
 that anxious household — he began the sacred rites 
 of extreme unction ... he recited the Dc 
 Profundis.
 
 MARIE AMELIE AND DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 319 
 
 Queen Marie Amelie was dead, and scarcely had 
 her soul passed away from its earthly tenement than 
 her face, notwithstanding her extreme age, took an 
 expression of almost supernatural beauty. Accord- 
 ing to her own long-ago expressed wish — a wish that 
 was hers to the last — she was clothed for her burial 
 in the same black dress which she wore when she fled 
 with her husband from the Tuileries. It was the last 
 dress she wore in France. 
 
 And, thus clad, she was seen by Queen Victoria, 
 who came from Windsor to Claremont when the news 
 of the fatal event thence reached her. 
 
 " I have come," said Queen Victoria, — " I have 
 come to embrace my friend for the last time." And 
 her Majesty was accordingly conducted into the 
 solemn presence of the aged and saintly Queen, who, 
 having found rest at last after a life of strange 
 vicissitudes, seemed to smile at the much younger, 
 though already sorrowing, Queen — a smile of thanks 
 for kindness received in the land of exile : the land 
 where she lies buried at the side of her husband, and 
 not far from that of her daughter-in-law, the Duchesse 
 d'Orleans. 
 
 But now (1873) that the sons of Queen Marie 
 Amelie have returned to France, and that the sons 
 of the Duchesse d'Orleans have re-entered that land
 
 320 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 of their birth — the land where their father sleeps his 
 last sleep at Dreux — how long a time will elapse ere 
 these royal remains be transported thither ? For 
 these two much-tried women — this mother of the Due 
 d'Orleans and his widow — both ardently desired to 
 rest near him, the object of their mutual love. 
 
 It may here be added, that during the late war 
 between France and Germany, the Due de Chartres, 
 under the nam de guerre of Robert le Fort, per- 
 formed deeds of valour in behalf of his native land, 
 from which he had been long exiled ; and that his 
 uncle, the Due d'Aumale, being questioned as to the 
 assumed name and volunteer rank of his nephew by 
 a Prussian emissary, who wished to avert from the 
 disguised young Prince any fatal catastrophe, 
 answered : — 
 
 " Chartres is where he ought to be. If you take 
 him prisoner, shoot him, hang him, burn him if you 
 like. He is doing his duty, and we will not reveal 
 the name under which he seeks to accomplish it." 
 
 Here, again, spoke the descendant of the heroic 
 Maria Theresa !
 
 THE EMPRESS EUGENIE 
 
 AND 
 
 THE PRINCESS MATHILDE.
 
 THE EMPRESS EUGENIE. 
 (From a Photograph by W. & D. Downey, Nevvcastle-on-Tyne'
 
 THE EMPRESS EUGENIE AND 
 THE PRINCESS MATHILDE. 
 
 k T sunny Madrid, in a palatial apart- 
 ment, the style of which is familiar 
 to everybody acquainted with the 
 elaborate and splendid architec- 
 ture of, and before, the Moyen- 
 age in the south of Europe, 
 sits a military-looking man, 
 whose various " decorations" — crosses, and 
 other insignia of merit — proclaim him a 
 brave soldier, and at his feet reposes a very 
 young girl, who listens with evidently in- 
 tense attention to the words of her companion — words 
 which tell her of the glories of the battle-field under the 
 first Napoleon, words which make her heart beat quick 
 in response to the idea of victory conveyed by them, 
 and which, even amid the flickering light and shade of 
 the sculptured room around her, cause her in imagina- 
 tion to hear the trampling of innumerable horses, the 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 clear sound of the clarion, the roll of drums, the shouts 
 of an applauding multitude, and to behold the waving 
 of banners, some of which are blood-stained and in 
 tatters, though floating in the sunlit air, triumphant. 
 The speaker at whose feet the young girl sat was 
 her father, who, though a grand d'Espagne, had 
 shed his blood for the cause of the First French 
 Empire. She — Marie Eugenie de Montijo — was the 
 younger of his two daughters, and, in her own right, 
 Comtesse de Teba. Born at Grenada, in the month 
 of May, 1826, she at an early age displayed an in- 
 telligence equal to her beauty, the style of the latter 
 being very remarkable ; for with Andalusian form, 
 features, and the soft eyes peculiar to Spain, it united 
 a coronal of golden hair not often seen in that southern 
 clime. This, and some other characteristics, she 
 doubtless inherited from the northern ancestry of her 
 still beautiful mother, nee Kirkpatrick ; and the blood 
 which glowed in her veins, and illuminated her fair 
 face when she listened to tales of glory and heroism, 
 such as those familiar to her brave father, she derived 
 from laurel-crowned heroes of her Spanish ancestry — 
 amongst whom was Alonzo Perez de Guzman, defender 
 of Tarifa in 1293. 
 
 Her education was varied by its localities ; for, 
 accustomed from her earliest years to the music, the
 
 EUGENIE AND PRINCESS MATHILDE. 325 
 
 mystic poetry of Spain — as she was to the blue skies, 
 the orange and citron groves, the vivid colouring of 
 flowers and of costume in that favoured though oft- 
 distracted land — she was sent for her education first 
 to Toulouse, and afterwards to Bristol. 
 
 With England, therefore, she soon became ac- 
 quainted, as likewise with many of the English people ; 
 although perhaps at this time one of the warmest 
 affections of her pure and generous heart was yielded 
 to the favourite companion of her childhood in Spain 
 — that sister Francisca de Sales, born, like herself, a 
 Comtesse de Montijo, &c, and subsequently married 
 to the Due de Berwick and d'Albe. 
 
 Towards France, however — that France for which 
 her father had voluntarily fought and suffered — the 
 thoughts of the young Eugenie were often turned with 
 keenest interest ; and over that fair land, in her imagi- 
 nation, the eagle of Napoleon — under whose banners 
 her father had marched to victory — was ever ready 
 despite all change of dynasty, to fly from tower to 
 tower, from steeple to steeple, until resting with folded 
 wings on the heights of Notre Dame, in Paris. 
 
 In 1839 her father died at Madrid; less than ever 
 was she likely to forget the legends of French glory 
 by which he had charmed her childhood : and it must 
 consequently have been with a sort of nascent pride
 
 326 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 and earnest sympathy that she heard first of the 
 attempt of Prince Louis Napoleon, on Strasbourg, 
 and afterwards (in 1840) near Boulogne. 
 
 Women adore heroism, and though men may sneer 
 in jealousy at the attempt of an exiled prince to re- 
 enter the land of his birth by the aid only of half a 
 hundred men, and by the light of that star of his des- 
 tiny in which he had implicit belief, there was some- 
 thing heroic in the eventful voyage of this prince 
 across the British channel, in the steamboat called the 
 " Edinburgh Castle," and all the more so because he 
 had already been made to pay the penalty of banish- 
 ment to America for his sudden entry into Strasbourg. 
 From America he had come back, at the risk of his 
 own life, in the hope of soothing the last days of his 
 adored and adoring mother, Queen Hortense ; and 
 latterly, in England, he had not shrunk from the con- 
 sequences of that act of filial duty which had helped 
 to entail upon him consequences, including poverty, 
 from which the soul of a less brave man would have 
 recoiled. 
 
 So it was no wonder if the fair Eugenie, born of 
 heroic race, and early smitten with the legends of first 
 Napoleonic glory, did feel that which many might 
 deem even a romantic interest in the luckless landing 
 of Prince Louis Napoleon at Boulogne. Soldiers on
 
 EUGENIE AND PRINCESS MATHILDE. 327 
 
 the French coast were excitedly ready to hail him 
 with rapture ; other brave men likewise ; but he was 
 captured and imprisoned in the fortress of Ham ; and 
 this with such rigour that it seemed very doubtful 
 whether the beautiful Spaniard, destined one day to 
 become his wife, would ever meet him in this world, for 
 as yet they were personally strangers to each other. 
 
 Those who then knew most of his private affairs 
 (as did elder friends and relatives of the writer 
 of this page), give a curious version of the Prince's 
 eventual escape from Ham — that portentous prison 
 which, as it helped to educate him for the exer- 
 cise of power, he called the " University of Ham." 
 He, never having yet met the Comtesse de Teba, 
 was affianced to a young English lady of high social 
 position and large fortune. At Holland House, 
 and in the midst of some of the most exclusive 
 English circles, the Prince had been eagerly received, 
 not only because of his being a representative of the 
 imperial family of France, but on account of his 
 literary talents, his charming urbanity of manner, and 
 the courage he had already evinced ; not the least 
 striking proof of which was his noble endurance of 
 unmerited misfortune. The Prince was deservedly 
 popular in England, but the young English lady, 
 who believed that she would one day be his wife, be-
 
 323 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 longed to a family in which British prejudices reigned, 
 and when, by the death of her parents, she became 
 the absolute mistress of her own destiny and fortune, 
 she was opposed by her surviving relatives in her 
 determination to share the former with, and confer the 
 latter on, the man she loved. 
 
 Just at that time, the Prince was incarcerated at 
 Ham ; and she, secretly determined to release him, 
 eventually travelled in the direction of the prison 
 which there contained him. 
 
 According to her long-premeditated plan, she arrived 
 in its neighbourhood by means of her own carriage, 
 and accompanied, amongst other attendants, by two 
 footmen, who wore her family livery. At first, 
 when near the fortress, she seemed further off than 
 ever from the Prince within it ; the gates were 
 guarded ; the walls were impregnable ; she had no 
 means of communication with the illustrious prisoner 
 within ! 
 
 Admitted to him, however, was the faithful M. le 
 Docteur Conneau, who had promised Queen Hortense 
 never to forsake the Prince, her surviving son, and 
 who therefore preferred to share his captivity than to 
 enjoy liberty without him. Whether or not the 
 errant lady who had determined to release the Prince 
 from prison, placed herself in communication with Dr.
 
 EUGENIE AND PRINCESS MATHILDE. 329 
 
 Conneau cannot here be affirmed with certainty,* but 
 there seems no doubt that, regarded by the neigh- 
 bourhood scattered around as some fairy princess, she 
 did all she could to conciliate men, women, and 
 children, by gracious words and presents, in case of 
 her needing their co-operation. 
 
 And this not at last without good effect. For, 
 suddenly, some repairs were deemed necessary within 
 the fortress ; and, with joy, she ascertained that these 
 repairs were needed in the very compartment occupied 
 by the Prince. With perception quickened by love, 
 she selected a workman as nearly as possible the same 
 height and size as the Prince himself ; she provided 
 this workman with a new suit of clothes exactly 
 similar to those he wore ; and induced (let it not be 
 said bribed) him to convey this new suit in the midst 
 of his tools, &c, and explain to the prisoner whence it 
 came. By the same hand she sent a tiny note, a 
 cipher, a word, or ring, which convinced the captive 
 that there was no treachery to fear if he would con- 
 descend to array himself in this new oavrier attire, 
 and (giving him also the pass-word) issue forth in his 
 stead at evening time with a plank on his shoulder — a 
 
 * Should the mention above of the admirable Dr. Conneau be observed 
 by any of his relatives, the author would feel obliged either by confirma- 
 tion or rectification of circumstances stated in the text.
 
 33o ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 plank that would help to conceal his face from the 
 sentry nearest to him. 
 
 The Prince did so ; and after sunset on that event- 
 ful day he found himself not only at liberty, but in 
 the presence of the woman who had originated his 
 escape. In the livery of one of her footmen — a livery 
 kept ready for him — he continued his journey across 
 the frontier, and at last, after much suffering and long 
 imprisonment patiently endured and nobly borne, he 
 found himself again in England. But the lady, though 
 strong to help in time of need, was not proof against 
 cruel methods of opposition to her choice on the part 
 of her family (at least so it is affirmed by those of 
 that time who knew her best), and she soon married, 
 not the Prince, who conducted himself with perfect 
 honour in all relating to her, but a celebrated Italian 
 marquis, whose wife she now is. In the course of a 
 few years, just when the Papal throne was most de- 
 pendent on French bayonets for support, the illustrious 
 husband of this lady found himself in a position of 
 considerable danger and difficulty. With the energy 
 of former years, she started off across Mont Cenis 
 from Rome to Paris. The captive Prince of other 
 days had by that time become Emperor of the French ; 
 she sent a messenger to him, telling him of her 
 trouble concerning her husband. The Emperor, who
 
 EUGENIE AND PRINCESS MATHILDE. 331 
 
 never forgot a kindness or forsook a friend (and to 
 this hundreds of grateful hearts can bear testimony), 
 came to her ; his will was then all-powerful at the 
 Vatican ; he heard her tale, and she quickly returned 
 to Italy with the mandate of her husband's liberty in 
 her hand. Long may he live to enjoy it with her ! 
 He could not be jealous that his freedom was a boon 
 from one who had formerly been dear to her, for not 
 only was the marquis convinced of the devotion of his 
 wife towards himself, but he knew that the Emperor 
 was wedded to one who had eclipsed all possible 
 rivalry. 
 
 For from the first moment that the Emperor had 
 beheld Madlle. de Montijo, Comtesse de Teba, after 
 the Revolution of 1848 had given him power over the 
 land from which he so long was an exile, his fate was 
 fixed : and whether at the Presidential festivals, given 
 at the palace of the Elysee, under the auspices of his 
 accomplished cousin, the Princesse Mathilde, or at St. 
 Cloud, or elsewhere, the lovely and graceful Spanish 
 lady was observed by him as the one most worthy to 
 be placed on the throne of France. Accompanied by 
 some of her relatives she had visited that country : to 
 her it was one rife from childhood with thrilling recol- 
 lections, for, although herself hitherto almost a stranger 
 to it, had not her father fought and bled for it ?
 
 332 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 When first she arrived there she found the accent 
 of the French language somewhat opposed to that of 
 her own melodious and more southern tongue ; but 
 at last a day came when the illustrious host of St. 
 Cloud, where she was on a visit with many other 
 guests, said to her, " Is it love that has taught you 
 French ?" And she is reported to have answered, 
 " Non, Sire, c'est le Francais qui m'a appris l'amour." 
 
 In a company such as that then assembled at St. 
 Cloud — the once favourite abode of Queen Marie An- 
 toinette, and afterwards of the Empress Josephine — 
 it is often difficult to trace the real origin of anecdotes 
 such as this, but there can be no doubt whatever that ' 
 in the month of January, 1853, the Emperor Napo- 
 leon III., having convoked an assembly of the chief 
 legislative representatives at the Tuileries, announced 
 his approaching marriage with Madlle. de Montijo in 
 the following words : — " She who has become the 
 • object of my preference is of elevated birth. French 
 in heart, by education, and by the memory of her 
 father's blood shed for the cause of the Empire, she, as 
 a Spaniard, has the advantage of not in France being 
 the member of a family on which it might be neces- 
 sary to confer honours and dignities. Endowed with 
 all noble qualities of the soul, she will be the ornament 
 of the throne, whilst in the day of danger she would
 
 EUGENIE AND PRINCESS MATHILDE. 333 
 
 become one of its most courageous supports. Catholic 
 and pious, she will address the same prayers as myself 
 to Heaven for the happiness of France. Gracious and 
 good, she will, I firmly hope, by being placed in the 
 same position, revive the virtues of the Empress Jose- 
 phine." 
 
 This address having met with most favourable 
 response, the marriage of Napoleon III. with Eugenie 
 de Montijo, Comtesse de Teba, was celebrated at the 
 Tuileries on the 29th of January, 1853, and on the 
 following day at the cathedral of Notre Dame. 
 
 Almost immediately afterwards the Empress-bride 
 gave an indication of that generosity of disposition 
 which has upon various occasions since distinguished 
 her, for the sum of 600,000 francs having been voted 
 by the municipal council of Paris for the purchase of 
 a parure of ornaments, suitable not only to her beauty 
 but her imperial rank, she entreated that, instead of 
 devoting this sum to her own personal adornment, 
 she might be allowed to " consecrate it to the founda- 
 tion of an establishment for the professional education 
 of poor young girls," who, though possibly well-born 
 and gifted with some talent, are precluded from the 
 honest exercise of the latter by lack of special training 
 essential to its development. 
 
 Nor was this the only sign of beneficence given by
 
 334 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 the newly-wedded Empress, for the Emperor, having 
 placed in the " Corbeille de Mariage " a sum of 
 250,000 francs, her Majesty divided the whole of it 
 for the double and humane purpose of increasing the 
 hospital accommodation of Paris, and of alleviating 
 the wants felt by various maternal societies in that 
 city. From the moment that she became his wife, 
 the Empress associated herself with all that was good 
 and glorious in the career of Napoleon III. ; and, 
 whether during his Italian campaign, when her 
 intelligent sympathy invariably displayed itself by 
 government measures at home, or whether, as the 
 companion of his various progresses through France, 
 or in the moment of immediate danger — such as that 
 which threatened his life at the beginning of the 
 year 1858, — or in more recent days — such as those 
 plague-stricken ones when Amiens was devastated by 
 cholera, — the Empress Eugenie has invariably mani- 
 fested heroic characteristics, a lofty courage, a grand 
 power of endurance, a spirit of self-sacrifice, which 
 none but those who personally know her best would 
 expect from so fragile-looking a being, nor from 
 one who, radiant in the midst of brilliant festi- 
 vities inaugurated by her, or when appearing in the 
 midst of Paris outside her own palace-walls, — that 
 Paris which her imperial consort found made of
 
 EUGENIE AND PRINCESS MATHILDE. 335 
 
 brick but left built in marble,T— could have expected. 
 It is difficult to write, fearing any appearance of 
 adulation, concerning an illustrious contemporary ; 
 but still it is only due to the memory of Napo- 
 leon III. to recall the ever-increasing splendour 
 under his reign of Paris, from which, as though 
 by some magic wand, was evoked, not only "ser- 
 mons in stones," but a poem in architecture, in 
 public gardens — a poem like a fairy tale in which 
 the perfume of innumerable flowers, the murmur of 
 sparkling fountains, the symbolic forms of mute 
 though eloquent statues (each one a goddess-like 
 representative of some provincial French city, and 
 carrying, or otherwise displaying the chief product of 
 that city, whether in the arts of peace or war) all bear 
 part — a poem dating, as it were, from the statue of the 
 first Napoleon surmounting the Arc de Triomphe, on 
 the summit of the long and verdant perspective of the 
 Champs FJys^es, — a poem tinged with the antique 
 shadow of the blood-red obelisk imported by that 
 great conqueror from Thebes, standing (on the spot 
 where once stood the regicide and revolutionary guil- 
 lotine) in the centre of the space called the Place de 
 la Concorde — a poem until lately making luminous 
 with historic and social memories the Chateau of the 
 Tuileries, visible through a vista of old trees — a poem
 
 336 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 not excluding from its symmetrical lines either the 
 Church of the Magdalene or the Chamber of Depu- 
 ties, — a poem dedicated, as it were, to the Empress 
 Eugenie, for she was the chief inspiration of the mind 
 from which it emanated. 
 
 Not since the days of Francis I. or of Catherine de 
 Medicis, has any ruler over France achieved so much 
 to make Paris beautiful as did Napoleon III., who in- 
 herited the artist tastes of his gifted mother, Queen 
 Hortense : and, considering the Italian origin of the 
 Medicis as also of the Napoleonic race, it was, or 
 still is, a strange coincidence to behold one of the 
 courts of the ancient Palace of the Louvre inscribed 
 with the words " Commenced by Catherine de Medicis 
 and concluded by Napoleon III." 
 
 Brantome, the contemporary court chronicler of 
 that Italian-born French Queen Catherine, relates 
 how, at some festival of her time, given at the Louvre, 
 and also at the then newly-built Tuileries, a sort of 
 ballet was performed in which the various female 
 dancers symbolized the several provinces of France, 
 by carrying in hand the product of each locality ; 
 but to Napoleon III. it was reserved to perpetuate 
 this idea in marble. 
 
 Did the astrologically-learned Catherine de Medicis 
 foresee, when consulting the stars from the then highest
 
 EUGENIE AND PRINCESS MATHILDE. 337 
 
 points of the Louvre or the Tuileries, that a stranger 
 of Southern race like herself would, centuries after 
 she had passed away from earth, complete the works 
 which she began, although that stranger would occupy 
 an imperial throne of France in place of the regal one 
 which (first as Queen-Consort, and afterwards as 
 Queen-Mother) she graced ? 
 
 The same question may well have suggested itself 
 to the mind of Napoleon III. himself when musing 
 with regard to the star of his destiny — a destiny full 
 of strange vicissitudes. 
 
 Sharer of these vicissitudes was his cousin, the 
 Princesse Mathilde (daughter of Jerome Bonaparte 
 by a Princess of Wurtemberg), niece of Napoleon I., 
 and sister of the present (1873) Prince Napo- 
 leon. 
 
 To the society of Queen Hortense, the Princesse 
 Mathilde was probably first — though unconsciously — 
 indebted for the development of those artistic tastes 
 which still pre-eminently distinguish her. Accus- 
 tomed from her childhood to regard her cousin, Louis 
 Napoleon, with sisterly affection, it was at one time 
 thought by some that she was betrothed to him. 
 Doubtless she was the sharer of many of his ideas, 
 and her sympathy was ever at his command ; with 
 him she united in most tender memory of his accom-
 
 338 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 plished mother Queen Hortense, and had participated 
 in his grief at her death. 
 
 When, after the revolution of 1848, — as here else- 
 where said, — he was made President of the Republic, 
 she helped to inspire Parisian society with enthu- 
 siasm in his behalf by the grace, and charm, and 
 tact with which she did the honours of the then 
 Presidential palace of the Elysee, at one of the fetes 
 of which he became acquainted with his future bride. 
 
 The late Emperor Nicholas of Russia was a great 
 admirer of the gifted Princesse Mathilde, with whom 
 he constantly corresponded, but she was not happy 
 in her marriage with one of that Czar's countrymen 
 — Count Anatole Demidoff, who, although a Russian 
 by birth, resided generally in Italy. Upon the first 
 day of November, 1840, this marriage took place, 
 and it was in consequence of it that the Princesse 
 Mathilde became familiar with the society of St. 
 Petersburgh — that society which, during this present 
 century, has culminated in exquisite refinement, and 
 in the midst of which a growing taste for art — an 
 eager curiosity respecting the literature of the West 
 and South of Europe — awaited her. 
 
 In Florence, the Athens of Italy, the Princesse 
 Mathilde had passed some of the earliest and hap- 
 piest days of her youth. There where Dante had
 
 EUGENIE AND PRINCESS MATHILDE. 339 
 
 lived and loved, where Boccacio had dreamed his 
 dreams of love, she, when only eleven years of age, 
 became inspired as an artist. Not then yet for her 
 the experience so generally terrible for woman of that 
 love which drove Tasso mad, which glows in the 
 lines and lives of Italian poets, and fills the souls 
 even of their readers with Promethean fire ; not yet, 
 then, that for this young artist-Princess ; but kind- 
 ling sympathies for the noble deeds recorded by 
 Florence in her almost matchless monuments which, 
 though only tombs seen through the " dim religious 
 light " of some consecrated aisle, tell not of death, but 
 of a two-fold immortality. 
 
 The house where Dante once dwelt on earth, stands 
 there the same — unchanged — as when he, the great 
 poet, if not inspired prophet, watched down the 
 narrow but picturesque street for the possible ap- 
 proach of his beloved Beatrice — for the first flicker 
 of the white veil which enfolded her as it still does 
 her graceful countrywomen. 
 
 The vast sculpture and picture galleries of flower- 
 crowned Florence, revealed to her the whole his- 
 tory of art from that almost unknown time when 
 the Venus de Medicis first stood forth — thrown, as 
 it were, by the rainbow-tinted foam of an eternal 
 ocean, which holds in its fathomless depths many
 
 340 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 an unrecorded shipwreck, — stood forth, robed but by- 
 innocence, in the sight of man, and on an earthly- 
 shore ! 
 
 To the young Princesse Mathilde — niece of that 
 conqueror who at one time had caused this same 
 Venus de Mddicis to be transported from Italy to 
 France, like a goddess made subject to him by the 
 power of his sword — the Fornarina, with fair hand 
 in repose near a tiger's skin, could not have spoken 
 as did the Holy Family portrayed by Raphael, or 
 that chef d'cctivre of Carlo Dolce (at the Palazzo 
 Pitti) in which faith and art, combined, subdue 
 humanity by the seemingly inspired representation 
 of tears — tears of infinite compassion, shed and 
 welling up from the mystic soul of the Man, who had 
 come down on earth to wipe all tears from all human 
 faces. 
 
 In the year 1831, the Princesse Mathilde first 
 wandered through the art-galleries of Florence, 
 and it was there, where the idea of immortality 
 supersedes that of death, she lost her mother, 
 but not until the year 1835. To the care of the 
 Court of Wurtemberg the young and mourning 
 Princess was then confided ; her education was sedu- 
 lously continued there in company with her young 
 kinswoman, the Princess Sophia, who afterwards
 
 EUGENIE AND PRINCESS MATHILDE. 341 
 
 became celebrated as a Queen, not only of the Pays 
 Bas but of the muses ; for — as Queen Hortense had 
 done — she unconsciously, and by the graces of her 
 mind and manner, imparted a refined and beneficial 
 tone to the society over which she reigned. 
 
 But it was to Florence that the Artist-Princesse 
 Mathilde returned, and this at a time when by many 
 it was supposed that she was the betrothed of her 
 cousin Louis Napoleon, son of Hortense. 
 
 At Florence the news of his imprisonment at Ham 
 (under circumstances already here recorded) reached 
 her; and, after his release, neither political nor 
 private affairs favoured their union, except by the 
 links of a true friendship which, first fostered be- 
 tween them by the one being — Queen Hortense, — 
 whose memory was mutually sacred to them both, 
 could never in this world be sundered. 
 
 The Princesse Mathilde — married, as beforesaid, in 
 1840, to the Russian noble Anatole Demidoff — con- 
 tinued to reside chiefly in Italy — the land not only of 
 her own Napoleonic ancestry but of her artistic predi- 
 lections. In the year when the Crimean war broke out, 
 she feared its influence on her friendship with the Em- 
 peror of Russia, but in a letter to her at the beginning 
 of the new year which threatened terrible bloodshed 
 between the two beings most dear to her on earth —
 
 342 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 between the two countries which she represented, 
 politically and by marriage, the Emperor of Russia 
 wrote to her : — ". ... Of one thing I can assure 
 you, and this is that, under all possible contingen- 
 cies, I shall never cease to have for you those senti- 
 ments of affection which I have avowed to you." 
 
 Here let English readers remember that the word 
 affection, written in the language used by its Imperial 
 writer in this case, by no means necessarily implies 
 the ordinary British interpretation of such a word any 
 more than the fact of the Emperor Nicholas addres- 
 sing this, his fair correspondent, as " My dear Cousin," 
 or " My dear Niece," purports that, in point of fact, 
 she — or anybody else of her rank so addressed — 
 actually stood in such relationship to him ; the bonds 
 of sympathy uniting this illustrious man and woman 
 did honour to them both. 
 
 When by the marriage of her cousin Napoleon III., 
 the Princesse Mathilde was released from those social 
 duties towards him and French society which she had 
 so gracefully and graciously performed, during the 
 Presidency, at the Elysee and elsewhere, she divided 
 her time mainly between France and Italy. Her 
 works as an artist are well-known to the world at 
 large, more especially as the French painter, Charles 
 Giraud, has helped to immortalize them and himself
 
 EUGENIE AND PRINCESS MATHILDE. 343 
 
 in a celebrated picture of her atelier in Paris ; but no 
 picture of the Princesse Mathilde's studio could be 
 complete without a portrait of the gifted and illus- 
 trious artist herself — a portrait often copied, but here 
 sketched in pen and ink by M. Sainte Beuve, dear to 
 the world of more than one generation because of his 
 genial " Caascrics dc Ltindi" and to many private 
 friends, who now mourn for him because of his noble- 
 hearted characteristics, his liberality of manly feeling, 
 which enabled him, though one of the most eminent 
 and accomplished critics of modern times, to discern 
 something good — corresponding with his own fine 
 nature — in almost all his fellow-creatures. Portraying 
 the Princesse Mathilde, he says : — 
 
 " Her clear brown eyes, more intelligent than large, 
 are not of those which know how to dissimulate, for 
 they shine (or are shaded) with every passing thought 
 of the moment. Her whole physiognomy expresses 
 nobility, dignity, and — when she becomes animated — 
 a grace united with strength, a joyousness resulting 
 from a nature in which health, candour, and goodness 
 are sometimes combined with fiery ardour .... Her 
 forehead is lofty and proud ; her fair hair, raised from 
 it and falling luxuriantly upon a neck both full- 
 formed and elegant, reveals an intellectual brow (' les 
 tcmpes larges et pures'). Her features are well de-
 
 344 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 fined, with no trace of indecision in them. One or 
 two moles (' beauty spots '), placed as though by- 
 chance, show that nature has not willed that this 
 classic purity of outline shall be confounded with any 
 other .... The head well placed, and carried with 
 dignity, surmounts a magnificent bust and shoulders 
 resembling alabaster. The hands (those peculiar to 
 the Bonaparte family) are the most beautiful in the 
 world. The figure, of moderate height, appears tall, 
 because it is supple and well-proportioned." 
 
 Many persons now in England (1873) can vouch 
 for the accuracy of this pen-and-ink portrait of the 
 Princesse Mathilde ; for quite recently, in the little 
 church at Chiselhurst, she appeared at the funeral of 
 the man who, from childhood, she had cherished as a 
 loved companion ; the man for whose sorrows she had 
 mourned, and in whose marvellous successes she had 
 rejoiced — the man who at one time was supposed to 
 be her own future husband. All the memories of 
 her own life are linked with his ; and there were 
 some strangers in the sanctuary where he now reposes 
 who will not soon forget the dignified figure of a 
 woman clad in deepest mourning, in whose oft- 
 stricken but generous heart every phase of the cere- 
 mony which consigned the mortal remains of the 
 Emperor Napoleon III. to the tomb, must have pain-
 
 EUG&NIE AND PRINCESS MATHILDE. 345 
 
 fully vibrated ; touching some tender chord of re- 
 membrance in a way to need all the hopes of Heaven, 
 involved in the ceremony, to sustain — for that woman 
 was his cousin, the Princesse Mathilde. 
 
 Upon the sacred grief of the one most near and 
 most dear to the Emperor Napoleon III., no pen as 
 yet may dare to write ; but if, in this world, any 
 solace can be found for affliction such as that which 
 the newly-widowed Empress Eugenie is now called 
 upon to bear, she, of all others, ought to derive con- 
 solation, not only from the universal sympathy felt 
 for her in this land of her exile (a sympathy felt and 
 manifested by her Britannic Majesty, and shared by 
 every class of that widowed Queen's subjects), but 
 from the consciousness of having most nobly done 
 her duty under circumstances of fearful and extra- 
 ordinary trial. 
 
 Too soon it is yet, without an appearance of adula- 
 tion distasteful to the Empress Eugenie, to record her 
 actions — which will shine in the pages of history — 
 from that day when her Imperial husband, even then 
 labouring under the malady soon afterwards fatal to 
 him, went forth to the war only too well remembered 
 by readers — and their name is legion — who sympa- 
 thise with France under her inevitable and bravely- 
 borne reverses.
 
 346 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 When by the speech, already here recorded, the 
 Emperor Napoleon III., announcing his intended 
 marriage with the now widowed Empress Eugenie, 
 declared his belief that in the day of danger to the 
 Imperial throne she would be one of its most cou- 
 rageous supporters, he uttered a prediction which has 
 been fulfilled by her beyond even his most sanguine 
 expectations ; for, though strangely prophetic of 
 many things that have come to pass, he could not 
 have anticipated the sudden and overwhelming storm 
 which would prematurely close his reign — a reign 
 both of peace and glory — and call forth on the part 
 of the Empress those characteristics, which could 
 never have been displayed to the whole world save 
 in the day of such danger that natures of a less 
 exalted type would recoil before it. 
 
 When, true to the spirit of her own brave Spanish 
 ancestry, and speaking the words of Queen Marie 
 Antoinette — speaking those words in the very palace 
 where that fair Queen of France had uttered them 
 — the Empress Eugenie declared that she would 
 " rather be nailed to the walls than fly," she was, if 
 possible, even in greater danger than was the high- 
 souled daughter of the heroic Maria Theresa before 
 her forced departure from the Tuileries ; for near the 
 Empress, when the maddened and infuriated mob
 
 EUGENIE AND PRINCESS MATHILDE. 347 
 
 came pressing onward toward that palace (quickly 
 afterwards destroyed by it), was no crowd of armed 
 defenders, no husband to sustain her. She was 
 alone with one lady attendant, her lectricc, when the 
 probability of her terrible and immediate danger was 
 suddenly imparted to her by a devoted adherent of 
 the Imperial throne, but who, even for the sake of the 
 Empress herself, was compelled to depart the moment 
 after his word of warning had been uttered. So, at 
 least, it is said in Paris. There was not a moment to 
 spare ; the courage of the Empress was undaunted, 
 but, just then, utterly unprotected though she was, 
 the safety of others not present was involved with 
 her own. She could not fail to remember, by a 
 painfully vivid flash of memory, that in case of mortal 
 reverses ensuing to her beloved and absent husband, 
 the hope of a future for the Prince Imperial rested in 
 her decision at this unforeseen instant, when every- 
 thing of most solemn import, not only to herself but 
 to those she loved far more than herself, depended on 
 her discretion. Wherefore, just as the murderous 
 mob approached the chateau of the Tuileries, the 
 Empress receded from it into the ancient Palace of 
 the Louvre from which there was still, possibly, a 
 comparatively safe exit for her and her one faithful 
 lady attendant, whose " privilege " it was to share the
 
 348 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 danger of her gentle, though Imperial mistress. 
 Fortunately, they were both in out-door costume 
 when the alarm was given to them, and, by the help 
 of a thick veil, the Empress might yet hope to pass 
 out into the street through the portal of the Louvre, 
 near which she at length found herself. But, for a 
 moment, there was an agonised suspense ; the key — 
 the key by which alone this portal could be opened 
 from the inside, was missing from the place where it 
 was usually to be found. The Empress neither 
 screamed nor fainted, though there was not an instant 
 to be lost, and even more than her life depended 
 upon her instant escape. 
 
 The key is found (on to the floor it had dropped, 
 owing to some rusty nail — so much sometimes do 
 great depend on small things in this world) — the key 
 is found ! The heavy portal of the Louvre, on the 
 Seine side of that antique and historic edifice, turns 
 on its hinges ; the veiled Empress and her attendant 
 step forth on to the public way, and hail a fiacre — a 
 cab. A gamin — one of those preternaturally-sharp 
 street boys, springing only, it would seem, from the 
 pavement either of Paris or London — calls out in 
 his shrill tones, whilst pointing towards her Majesty, 
 " Mais, voila l'lmperatrice ! " 
 
 Public attention is elsewhere at this moment dis-
 
 EUGENIE AND PRINCESS MATHILDE. 349 
 
 tracted, for all Paris is in turbulent excitement ever 
 on the increase, and the Empress Eugenie escapes 
 from that city over which she had ruled with a gentle, 
 generous hand ; and which her Imperial husband 
 (the man who never forgot a kindness, and who was 
 glorious in his gratitude) found " made of brick but 
 left built of marble." * 
 
 The sudden nature of the events which forcibly- 
 prevented the return of the Emperor Napoleon III. 
 to France, and banished the Empress Eugenie from 
 that land of her love and adoption, only brought 
 forth those noble qualities which the Emperor had 
 
 * Should the above, doubtless imperfect, account of the forced flight 
 of the Empress Eugenie meet the eye of her Imperial Majesty, or claim 
 the attention of any individual personally implicated in the whole 
 circumstances attendant on that flight, the present writer would regard 
 correction as a favour, considering the extreme difficulty of treating 
 events so recent as those involved in the text above. Even the chief 
 actors in such events find it sometimes hard to record every circum- 
 stance connected with them, for the dust of contemporary conflict 
 impedes clear vision. For example, the present writer once knew an 
 aged officer, a Captain of the Guards, who had fought at Waterloo ; 
 and upon being asked whether indeed the Duke of Wellington did, in 
 that memorable battle, call out, "Up, Guards, and at them!" he 
 answered that it was very possible the Duke had done so, but, for his 
 own part, he neither heard him nor scarcely knew on which side lay the 
 chances of victory until it was proclaimed in favour of the English. 
 And yet this aged officer was of remarkable intelligence, quite unim- 
 paired by time, and had won his laurels on the battle-field of which he 
 spoke so modestly. It is believed that the Duke of Wellington himself 
 once made a similar reply.
 
 35o ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 discerned in her when he first presented her to his 
 people as the wife' of his choice, who would grace the 
 throne in time of peace and uphold its honour in time 
 of danger. She has done so. Even in her voyages 
 she has done much, not only for France but for the 
 world at large. It seems but the other day that she 
 was floating up the Nile, and illumining the East 
 with her presence — a graceful type of woman's western 
 civilisation ; but these and other journeys were not 
 undertaken by her for the mere purpose of personal 
 amusement, or even in search of health ; for each one 
 of them, more or less, involved a political purpose for 
 some proposed benefit to France. The same remark 
 may be made in reference to the great Universal 
 Exposition of a few years since on the Champ de 
 Mars, when, with even-handed justice, she desired 
 that Malmaison should be reproduced as far as 
 possible, together with the Little Trianon, just as both 
 these historic abodes had been when the ex-Empress 
 Josephine wept in the one, and the youthful Marie 
 Antoinette — unprophetic of tragic times in store for 
 her — smiled, radiant with happiness, in the other.* 
 
 * No reader, either English or French, can here forget that the 
 original idea of an " Universal Exhibition " of arts, manufactures, 
 science, etc., is due to Albert, Prince Consort of England. This same 
 idea which, practically worked out, has done so much for the arts of 
 peace and for the mental approximation of all nations, is now (1873)-
 
 EUGENIE AND PRINCESS MATHILDE. 351 
 
 As a mother the Empress Eugenie has proved her- 
 self worthy of her high mission, and of the solemn 
 trust reposed in her ; for, however gentle her cha- 
 racter, however tender her general disposition, she 
 has never shrunk from enforcing the discipline 
 essential to the education of her son, the Prince 
 Imperial. 
 
 A thousand well-authenticated anecdotes could be 
 told on this subject, but they all resolve themselves 
 into the one fact, that, just in the same way as 
 Napoleon III. — the cherished son of his devoted 
 mother, Hortense — was early inured to the gradual 
 endurance of this life's hereditary suffering — a suffer- 
 ing all the more inevitable because of a lofty destiny 
 — the Empress Eugenie (daughter of a brave soldier 
 who had bled and suffered in the cause of the Empire) 
 has never shrunk from the enforcement of rules which 
 have already taught her son how to exercise the 
 power of self-government. 
 
 Athenian in her elegant tastes, her artistic love of 
 form and brilliance of colour, evident even in her own 
 personal adornment, she is none the less a Spartan at 
 heart — that heart which has vibrated at the tale of 
 
 being exemplified at Vienna. The English poet Chaucer first mooted 
 this idea in one of his celebrated compositions, but England and France 
 combined have practically established it.
 
 352 ILLUSTRIOUS WOMEN OF FRANCE. 
 
 (and because of her own recent and practical know- 
 ledge and experience of) her husband's various impri- 
 sonments, and which is now as though broken by her 
 sorrow for his death in exile, and under circumstances 
 entailing upon her a heritage of anxiety. 
 
 But upon such a subject nothing more can here be 
 said. Sympathy is sometimes most eloquent when 
 most mute ; and it was even perhaps because of this 
 sympathy, which " maketh the whole world akin," that 
 one of the most welcome and touching tributes lately 
 offered to the Empress, or rather to the memory of 
 the husband snatched from her by death, consisted 
 not in any of the many exotic wreaths woven for her 
 and for him by royal or princely hands ; not even in 
 the profusion of violets (emblematic of the Empire of 
 France since the time of that Empire's heroic founder), 
 but in the simple wreath of Immortelles brought over 
 from France to Chiselhurst by the Ouvriers — the 
 honest workmen — of Paris. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 BRADBURY, ASKEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
 

 
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