YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl

Louis XVIII.

THE RETURN OF
LOUIS XVIII

FROM THE FRENCH OF
GILBERT STENGER
BY
MRS. RODOLPH STAWELL

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1909

Printed in England

PREFACE

In this volume the reader will find a study of the Bourbons, on
their return to France after twenty-five years of exile ; a study
that is full of interest, for there was a great contrast between the
habits and thoughts of these princes who settled down in the
Tuileries, and those of the great soldier whom the allied Powers
of Europe had defeated. And, moreover, the society of which the
Emperor was the centre had vanished in 1814. It might have
been sought in vain in the salons of the aristocracy. It had made
way for the grands seigneurs who had returned from exile, and for
those who had succeeded in being forgotten in their complete
seclusion, during the days of the Empire.
The princes and their associates, in this their hour of triumph,
gave the tone to society. These are the people whom I have en
deavoured to paint, without concealing any of their characteristics
or faults. In most works on the Restoration the picture of the
Court is subordinate to, and indeed almost effaced by, the events
and facts composing the history of the period. I have dealt with
that Court, with its princes and dignitaries, faithfully but
ruthlessly ; without injustice, but at the same time without the
flattery that is too common among royalist writers. It is not
because they were Bourbons that I have exposed their faults
of character, their egoism, meanness, and vanity, but because exile,
misfortune, and poverty had no effect upon them, and made them
no better than they had been when they left France. No sooner
had they recovered their rank and wealth than they began to
take advantage of their position, without making any attempt
to win the approval or the love of a nation that had forgotten
even their name. Instead of thinking of the native land to which
they had at last returned, they thought of nothing but themselves,
and of making the most of their happiness and dignity and royal

PREFACE
position ; while they neglected their servants and the host of petty
nobles who had been sacrificed for them, and were now abandoned
to the good pleasure of their ministers. Their egoism was glaring
and detestable : I have exposed it ; their appetite for power was
immense: I have unmasked it. They might have been great;
they might have been generous ; they might have reconciled,
beneath their banner, the friends and enemies of the Revolution.
They showed themselves to be narrow-minded and vindictive.
When they travelled about France it was with the object of being
cheered and flattered and admired. Not one of them was
concerned with the needs of the districts through which he passed.
They were never seen except in church, or at the theatre, or at
table. They might have imitated their ancestor, the ancestor
whose name they mentioned in their speeches at every halting-
place — Henri IV, the noble King whose great-heartedness stilled
all the factions that raged about his throne. They contented
themselves with boasting that they were his descendants. It was
not with fine words that France could be healed of the ills from
which she was suffering. So the nation, rinding itself at the mercy
of these inconsequent, incapable, indifferent masters, and their
arrogant ministers, began to regret the monarch who, in spite
of all his despotism, never neglected in the days of his most
dazzling renown to concern himself with the smallest interests
of his subjects.
Finally, both in the provinces and in Paris, the people were
forced to submit to foreign conquerors, whose presence was most
painful for patriots everywhere, but was perpetually under the eyes
of the Parisians in their enforced idleness. I have attempted, with
the help of the memoirs and journals of the time, to give a living
impression of these hordes of invading Germans, Prussians,
Austrians, Russians, Cossacks, and Bashkirs.
Such is this book. There will be found in it certain facts
of social life which have been neglected by political historians, and
which I have rescued from oblivion, with the object of throwing
further light on the temporary resurrection of the Monarchy
of the Bourbons.
G. S.
September, 1908.

VI

CONTENTS

PAGE
Preface . . . . . . v
CHAPTER I
THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
I. — Leipsic, October 19, 1813. — Napoleon reaches Paris three weeks later. —
He comes to reorganise his army. — Public opinion in France at that
time. — The Senate ; The Legislative Body ; Lame's report. — Louis
XVIII's Declaration to the French. — The Emperor admonishes the
commissioners of the Senate and Legislative Body. — Napoleon's
troubles. — Panic caused in Paris by Sebastiani's intemperate language
on returning from Germany. — The upper ranks of society refuse to
defendthemselves against the invaders .... 1
II. — Hartwell. — Louis XVIII's correspondence with his partisans in
France. — The Bourbon princes in exile. — The Comte de Provence. —
His incapacity for action. — Spends his time writing verses and
madrigals. — He is well versed in Latin. — His mania for writing; his
cowardice ; his egoism ; his need of favourites. — Montgaillard's
portrait of Louis XVIIL — His characteristics are dignity, and respect
for his own birth as a prince of the legitimate race. — He is always
King, even in the most adverse circumstances. — His manners of life;
his habits ; his readings ; his costume. — His associates at Hartwell :
d'Harcourt, de Saint-Priest, d'Havre-Croy, de la Vauguyon, de
Jaueourt, de Fleury. — His favourite, d'Avaray. — Death of d'Avaray at
Madeira. — His favourite, Mme. de Balbi . . . . 9
III. — The Comte d'Artois : his youth, his character, his frivolity, his love
of pleasure. — His duel with the Due de Bourbon. — He emigrates ; joins
his father-in-law, the King of Savoy, at Turin. — His journey to Coblenz,
and then to Russia. — His cowardice ; Charette's letter. — He flies from
his creditors to Holyrood Palace. — His life in Scotland. — The Due de
Berry's visit there . . . ... 39
IV. — The Due d'Angouleme and Due de Berry.— Difference in character of
the two princes. — The Due d'Angouleme's education by Louis XVIIL —
Lamartine's portrait of the Due d'Angouleme. — Louis XVI's son,
Louis XVII. — The Duchesse d'Angouleme ; her correspondence with
her uncle ; she arrives at Mittau ; her marriage to her cousin the
Due d'Angouleme ; the rejoicings at Mittau on the occasion . . 48
V. — The Orleans princes ; the three brothers, the Due d'Orleans, the
Due de Montpensier, the Due de Beaujolais. — The Prince de Conde ;
the Due de Bourbon ........ 61
vii

CONTENTS CHAPTER II
HARTWELL
PAOE
I.— Gosfield, the Bourbons' first residence in England.— The Comte d'Avaray
is all-powerful there.— Death of the Queen, Louis XVIII's wife.—
Change of residence. — Hartwell. — Arrival thereof the Comte de Blacas,
recommended to the King by his first favourite, d'Avaray. — Ante
cedents of the Comte de Blacas d'Aulps. — The King's impressions of
the new-comer. — Description of Hartwell ; the royal family's life there ;
visits from foreign princes ; visits of Louis XVIII to neighbouring
houses. — Why the English protected and considered the exiled
Bourbons. — Effect on the latter of the bad news of the French army. —
Moscow and Leipsic ..... .66
II. — The effect on the royalists in France of the disaster of Moscow. —
Bordeaux declares for the King ; the causes of this. — Laine the
lawyer. — His conversation with Ro vigo. — The anxiety of the Bourbons
and their courtiers at Hartwell. — The King sends emissaries to
Bordeaux. — Visit to Hartwell of M. de Tauzia, deputy-mayor of
Bordeaux. — Comte Lynch, Mayor of Bordeaux. — Letter to the King
from Comte Lynch. — The great news of the Restoration arrives at
Hartwell on Easter Eve, 1814 . . .... 77

CHAPTER III
THE COMTE D'ARTOIS IN PARIS
I. — No one in France thought of the Bourbons, except a few intriguers
and young aristocrats. — The nobles who formed the Comte d'Artois'
escort in France. — De Vitrolles : a description of him. — What the
peasants thought at this time. — The appearance of the outskirts of
Paris. — The Comte d'Artois, in the track of the invading armies,
passes through the towns unobserved. — The show of enthusiasm only
begins at the Comte de Damas' house at Livry . . . .85
II. — Appearance of the Chateau de Livry. — Great crowd of petty provincial
nobles to greet the Prince. — Their costume on the occasion. — The
Comte d'Artois harangued at Bondy by M. de Talleyrand. — After
this, the procession is formed. — Arrives on the boulevards of Paris
amid loud cheers. — Decorated houses. — Procession goes to Notre
Dame, where a Te Deum is sung. — Goes on to the Tuileries, where the
crowd has invaded all the rooms. — The Due d'Angouleme in the
South. — Proclamations.— Answer of Soult, who is fighting Wellington. —
Wellington's opposition to the Duke's proceedings.— The South is not
so royalist in feeling as the royalists would have it believed. — As for
the Due de Berry, he waits three months in the Channel Islands before
being able to land in France ....... 93

CHAPTER IV
ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
-The recognition of Louis XVIII by the allied monarehs as King of
France took Paris by surprise.— Talleyrand was the chief factor in the
Restoration.— His intrigues with regard to Rovigo ; he persuadeB him
viii

CONTENTS

to let events shape themselves as they will. — Talleyrand's accomplices :
Dalberg, de Pradt, Baron Louis. — Talleyrand and the Comte de
Maubreuil . ........ 101
II. — The disturbed state of Paris. — Rapine and violence on the part of the
allied troops in the provinces. — Desertion of Paris by Marie Louise, in
spite of the opposition of Boulay de la Meurthe. — Armistice and
capitulation signed by Marshal Marmont . . . . .112
III. — On entering the capital the allied monarchs do not know whether
Paris desires the return of the Bourbons. — Determination of certain
young nobles to persuade the foreign monarchs that Paris desires »
monarchy under the legitimate princes. — The entry of the allies into
Paris.— The attitude of the Czar Alexander. — Behaviour of the royalists
in the streets. — Sosthene de la Rochefoucauld tries to pull down the
Emperor's statue from the top of the column in the Place Vendome. —
Conference at Talleyrand's house in the Rue Saint-Florentin, on the
subject of forming a provisional government, and the conduct of the
allied monarchs with regard to Napoleon. — It is decided that they will
have no further dealings with the Emperor, nor with any member of
his family. — This declaration placarded in the streets by Morin,
formerly employed in the police department. — Morin secures the
management of all the papers, and puts them in the hands of royalists. —
Publication of Chateaubriand's brochure De Bonaparte et des Bourbons. —
Analysis of this brochure, with extracts . . . . 118
IV. — On Talleyrand's initiative the Senate ratifies the declaration of the
allied monarchs. — Formation of a provisional government, with
Talleyrand as president. — Report of Bellart the lawyer, member of the
Municipal Council of Paris. —The Emperor's deposition decided upon
by the Senate and accepted by the Legislative Body. — A commission
appointed to draw up a Constitution to be accepted by the future
King. — The Abbe de Montesquiou, a member of this commission,
stands firm. — Adulation of the Czar by some sections of the Parisian
population. — Shameful behaviour of intriguers seeking posts. — De
scription of the provisional government deliberating in Talleyrand's
house. — Beugnot ; Baron Louis. — Dudon's expedition to Orleans, to
seize the funds and valuables taken away by Marie Louise . . 129
V.- — The appearance of Paris while occupied by the Allies. — Behaviour of
the Cossacks. — Cossacks in the Champs-Elysees. — Rue Saint-Honor^ ;
Palais Royal. — Guizot's impression of Paris at this time. — Normal life
resumed in Paris. — Life in Paris of the two monarchs, the Czar and the
King of Prussia ..... . . 144
VI. — Life of the Comte d'Artois at the Tuileries ; his frivolity, his in
difference. — He enjoys the homage he receives ; does not concern
himself with serious matters. — The royalists blame him for his phrase :
that when he arrived he saw no change in France, except that there was
one more Frenchman there. — The Senate refrains from doing homage to
him till he has accepted the Constitution drawn up and submitted to the
Czar by the Senate. — Intervention of the Czar to make him accept it. —
The Comte d'Artois yields. — The Senate gives him the title of
Lieu tenant-General of the Kingd om. — In this capacity Talleyrand makes
him sign the treaty concluded with the foreign plenipotentiaries, as a
preliminary to the signing of the Peace. — Disastrous concessions
ratified by the Comte d'Artois, April 23, 1814. — Talleyrand accused of
accepting large sums of money for securing this signature. — Arrival in
France of the Due de Berry ....... 154
ix

CONTENTS CHAPTER V
KING LOUIS XVIII PAGE
I. — King Louis XVIII prepares to return to France. — The Prince Regent
repairs to Stanmore to receive the King of France, who is to break his
journey in London. — At the hotel in London the Prince Regent pre
sents English nobles and ministers to Louis XVIIL — Compliments
exchanged by the princes. — Exchange of decorations. — The departure
from Dover for Calais. — The flotilla ; the arrival at Calais. — The King's
journey to Compiegne, where he remains ..... 165
II. — The Prince de Conde precedes the King to Compiegne. — Arrival of
the King. — Talleyrand's letters to the King. — Receptions. — The
marshals ; they dine with the King and his suite. — The Czar comes to
Compiegne, to urge Louis XVIII to adhere to the Constitution drawn
up by the Senate. — Interview between the two monarchs. — Louis
XVIII's superiority to the Czar. — The King of France consents to
sign the Declaration of Saint- Ouen. — Portrait of the Czar Alexander . 171
III,— The Chateau de Saint-Ouen. — Forming of the procession to enter
Paris. — The great Crown officers. — The deportment of "Louis XVIII
and the Duchesse d'Angouleme during the drive. — At the Porte Saint-
Denis ; at the statue of Henri IV on the Pont Neuf ; at Notre Dame.
— The attitude of the Old Guard on the occasion. — The King
installed in the Tuileries. — The crowd at the presentations. — The
Bourbonists . . . . . . . . .180
IV. — Arrival of the Emperor of Austria in Paris. — His visits to public
buildings and the museum. — Fete at Saint-Cloud, given by the com
mander-in-chief of the allies, Prince Swartzenberg.' — Louis XVIII's
haughty behaviour to the allied monarchs. — Mme. de Stael's im
pressions on returning to Paris. — At the Opera; at the Th^atre-
Francais. — Bernadotte ; his unnoticed departure . . . .187
. V. — Formation of the King's household.— The officials who compose it. —
r The arrangements for receptions. — The anger of the ladies of the im
perial nobility on being excluded from the room to which ladies of
the old nobility are admitted. — Representation of Les Hiritiers Michau,
at the Opera Comique .... .... 195
VI. — Louis XVIII abandons himself to the joys of power. — Formation of
the Ministry.— The ministers appointed ; portraits of them.— General
Dupont and M. de Talleyrand . . . . . . .200
^ VII. — The King at last appoints the Commission of the Charter. — The
Charter includes liberty of the press. — Joy among the bourgeoixie. — The
Treaty of Peace ; the losses of France ..... 205
VIII. — Departure from Paris of the two monarchs, the Czar and the King
of Prussia. — Arrival of the Due d'Angouleme, — The reception in Paris.
— Rush of foreigners to the capital. — Their interest in Napoleon's
favourite palaces . .... 209
IX. — Convocation of the Chambers. — The King's speech ; commentary on
the Charter, read by Chancellor Dambray. — Mme. de Stael's impres
sion of this opening sitting. — Creation of peers to the number of a
hundred and fifty-four . ...... 213
X

CONTENTS CHAPTER VI
THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
-Rivalry between the King and his brother the Comte d'Artois. — The
reason of it. — The Comte d'Artois installed in the Pavilion de Marsan.
— The nobles who associate with him. — The Comte de Bruges. — The
Little Bureau. — The Baron de Vitrolles ; the Comte de Maisonfort ;
M. Terrier de Monciel.— Louis XVIII obliges his brother to suppress
the Little Bureau. — The Due d'AngouMme's life at the Tuileries ; his
habits ; his budget ; his aides-de-camp. — Life of the Duchesse
d'Angouleme ; her habits ; the ladies of her household. — The Due
de Berry. — His coarse ways and language. — His hatred of Napoleon's
renown . ' .

217

II. — The Emigre's. — Letter from a lady in the provinces to her cousin in
Paris. — The invasion of Paris by the petty provincial nobles ; their
ambition.— The Messrs. Ghdl. — The lists they furnished of their past
services. — Visit of an imigre" to the office of a minister. — Pretensions of
the upper noblesse. — Change of officials in all branches of the adminis
tration, notably in the Navy. — The nobles of the old regime and those
of the Empire. — The bourgeoisie : how it was treated. — The Vendeans :
how they were forgotten, and ill-rewarded by the Bourbons . . 225
III. — The King's Military Household. — Its formation and organisation. —
Six companies of bodyguards. — The Civil Household ; its duties. — The
King's drives ; the equerry-outriders. — The rooms of the King's
favourite, the Comte de Blacas. — The guard he mounts over the King ;
he lets no one approach the King without his knowledge. — The King's
habits ; his life at the Tuileries ; excessive eating in the kitchens. —
Desire of all the officials to obtain titles of nobility. — Officials of the
Empire forced to be content with subordinate posts . . . 237
IV. — The first months of the Monarch}'. — Beugnot's ordinance on the
keeping of Sunday. — The creation of fifteen Knights of the Holy
Ghost on Whitsun Eve. — Service held in St. Paul's Church to com
memorate the execution of Georges Cadoudal. — Travels of the princes.
— The Due d'Angouleme visits the provinces of the West ; the Due de
Berry goes to Normandy and Artois.— The King's expeditions. — The
King holds a Council of State. — Procession of the Vow of Louis XIII.
— The King's fete at the Hotel de Ville in Paris ; the King's fete in the
provinces. — Journey of the Duchesse d' Angouldme ; a cure at the spa of
Vichy. — Her journey in Auvergne. — Her walks in Paris, on her return
from the provinces ........ 250
V. — Journey of the Comte d'Artois. — He visits the eastern provinces. — •
Account of this journey in the royalist papers ; their adulation. —
The Prince stays at Lyons and Marseilles. — The Marseillais demand
exemption from harbour-dues. — The Prince's visit to Grenoble. —
Results secured by all these journeys. — Comparison between journeys
of the Bourbons and those of Napoleon. — An evening at the Theatre
Francais . ... ... 264
VI. — The King's ministers. — Bills submitted to the Chambers. — Ferrand's
preamble; what he called the straight path. — The Ministry an in
congruous assembly. — The Abbe de Montesquiou. — Discord between
Soult and the other ministers. — Brochures sold by the booksellers. —
Carnot's memorial to the King ; extracts from it. — Chateaubriand's
answer in his Reflexions politiques. — The Nain Jaune ; Order of the
Extinguisher . . . . . . . . " 273
xi

CONTENTS

VII. — Spirit of reaction grows more marked in the government. — Death of
Malouet, Minister of Marine. — Competition for his office. — Soult,
Minister of War; his character; his ambition. — Royalist delirium
everywhere. — Events in the provinces. — Commemoration of Louis
XVI's death ; his will read. — Talleyrand's conduct at Vienna on
the occasion. — De Jaucourt's letter to Talleyrand. — Composition of the
Almanach Royal. — Funeral of Raucourt the actress. — Desaugiers' verses 286
VIII. — The nation becomes estranged from the Bourbons. — General dis
content. — None the less the carnival of 1815 is very gay. — Caricatures
of the Bourbons published. — -Memorial by the Comte de Blacas. — Waste
of the public funds . . 296
IX. — Napoleon arrives from Elba. — News of his landing is spread through
France. — Royalist journals contradict the news. — The Comte d'Artois
and Due d'Orieans set out for Lyons. — They return at once on learning
that Napoleon's arrival at Lyons is imminent. — Soult removed from the
Ministry of War. — Feelings of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. —
Mme. de Stael's impressions. — Premium offered for the assassination
of the Emperor. — Meeting of the Chambers ; the King's speech ;
demonstrations of the Comte d'Artois. — The Comte d'Artois reviews
the National Guard of Paris. — Government prepares to arrest some
eminent Bonapartists, notably Fouche. — The salons of the Tuileries ;
schemes for resisting Napoleon. — Suggestion of the Comte de Blacas. —
Philippic of Benjamin Constant ...... 305
X. — Last hours of the Monarchy. — The King, on learning from the Comte
de Blacas of the imminent arrival of Napoleon, resigns himself to a
fresh emigration. — His departure in the night of March 19th. — His
flight on the road to the North. — Paris does not hear till the next
morning of the departure of the Court and ministers. — Napoleon's
decrees of Lyons published by the Moniteur. — The Due de Bourbon's
failure in La Vendee. — Proclamation of Marshal Augereau. — Attempt
of the Baron de Vitrolles to set up a Royalist government at Toulouse. —
Vain efforts of the Duchesse d'Angouleme at Bordeaux : her departure
in an English sloop. — The Due d'Angouieme's campaign in the South. —
His capitulation ; his exile in Spain. — D'Allonville's opinion of the
restored Monarchy . ...... 319
CHAPTER VII
THE FLIGHT OF THE KING
The flight of the King. — Difficulties of the journey. — Sufferings
endured on the way by the King's household troops. — Persistent rain ;
mud. — The King avoids Lille and goes direct to Brussels. — From
Brussels he goes to Ghent, and accepts the loan of M. d'Hane de
Steenhuyse's house. — Description of the house. — The Comte de Blacas
more powerful at Ghent than in Paris. — The police entrusted to
M. d'Eckstein. — The King reconstitutes his council. — His ministers
inpartibns. — French royalists repair to Ghent. — The latest arrivals. —
Reactionary policy triumphs at Ghent. — Intrigues and jealousies among
the courtiers. — Louis XVIII's habits in his new residence. — The
Emigre's at Ghent in the Kauter. — Chateaubriand at the Convent. —
Baron Louis and Beugnot. — Strop-stew. — The Rotunda. — The Duke
of Wellington. — Disagreements among the unemployed courtiers. —
Letter from Talleyrand at Vienna to de Jaucourt at Ghent, concerning
Montrond's journey to Vienna. — Not many ladies come to Ghent.—
Louis XVIII produces his Moniteur, which he calls the Journal
Universel. — Editors of this official paper. — Articles printed in it. —
Publication of Chateaubriand's Rapport au roi. — Article on the Champ
de mai in Paris. — The Emigre's at Ghent suspect the Due d'Orieans of
disloyalty  331
xii

CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII
THE RETURN FROM GHENT

PAGE

I. — Public feeling in Paris after Waterloo. — Napoleon at Malmaison. —
Excitement of the Parisian populace at Montmartre. — The Federates. —
Montlosier's brochure. — Brochure by Malleville fits. — Opinions of some
of the nobles. — Fouche; his intrigues. — Reasons for his behaviour
towards Napoleon. — How he succeeded in deceiving everyone. —
Guizot's opinion of the ex-Minister of Police. — Fouche's arduous task.
— Capitulation of Paris signed with 'Bliicher. — Fouche's discussion with
Carnot. — The Baron de Vitrolles set at liberty. — The Duke of
Wellington's triumph ... . 356
II. — Public feeling in France. — The resistance of the provinces to the
Bourbons. — Round Orleans. — Behaviour of the women . 374
III. — At Ghent. — The Bourbons' alarm, when they hear of Napoleon's
early successes. — Chateaubriand takes a walk on the day of Waterloo.
— After the victory of the allies Louis XVIII is reassured, and gives a
large dinner ; his toaat. — Coalition of the Court against the Comte de
Blacas, to separate him from the King. — Louis XVIII decides at last
to part from him. — The King leaves Ghent for Paris. — Follows
Wellington's army. — Talleyrand and the King. — Proclamation of
Cateau-Cambresis. — Discussion of the ministers on the proclamation.
— They persuade the King to modify it. — Fouche to be minister ; the
feeling of the noblesse is favourable to Napoleon's former minister,
even among the ladies. — Louis XVIII continues his journey. — His mind
concerned with matters of the table. — He signs a decree re-establishing
the Ministry of Police, and appoints Fouche to it. — Pasquier . 379
IV. — -The King sets out to Paris from the Chateau d'Arnouville, where he
has paused on his way.— Is received at the barrier by the Prefect,
M. de Chabrol. — Arrival of Louis XVIII at the Tuileries. — Delirium
of the population ; frenzy of enthusiasm ; wild dances in the Champs-
Elysees ; the ladies and the people. — Fouche in the salons of the
Tuileries.— Royalist intrigues. — Bliicher's arrogance. — Sycophancy of
the royalist papers. — Beginning of the reign of the ultras . ' . 396
;appendix I
THE COURT IN 1815
Extract from the Almanach Royal ..... 405

APPENDIX II
On the Comte de Blacas .... . 409
INDEX ...... .413

Xlll

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
To face page
louis xviii  Frontispiece
THE COMTE D'ARTOIS  12
DUC DE BERRY  50
THE DUC DE TALLEYRAND-PERIGORD, PRINCE OF BENEVENTO ... 126
THE DUCHESSE D'ANGOULEME  166
THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER  192
THE DUC D'ANGOULEME  212
MARSHAL SOULT, DUKE OF DALMATIA  276
ARTHUR WELLESLEY, DUKE OF WELLINGTON  298
MADAME DE 8TAEL  310
CHATEAUBRIAND  352
NAPOLEON LEAVING FOR ST. HELENA  366

XV

ERRATA.
Page 141, for " Dufont " read " Dupont."
Page 200, for " Dumbnt" read "Dupont.'

CHAPTER I
THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
The Battle of Leipsic was fought on the 19th October, 1813.
Three weeks later Napoleon left Mayence for St. Cloud, where he
arrived on the 9th November. All the special characteristics of his
genius — his energy, his will, his intelligence — were unimpaired; and
his object in returning was to prepare for the disasters which the
European coalition against France would surely bring to pass.
Bernadotte had joined Bliicher ; the troops of Saxony had changed
sides in the thick of the fight, and turned their guns against the
French ; and the latter had been forthwith pursued in forced
marches by the armies of their enemies, all eager to cross the Rhine
and invade the venerable soil of Gaul. Nothing but Napoleon's
presence in Paris could restrain the hostility with which the air was
charged, and which was liable at any moment to break out against
him. For during his struggle with England,1 during the twelve
years that he had been combating that insatiable and treacherous
nation, and forcing Europe to help him, he had clashed with many
important interests, had disturbed the peace and comfort of the
nations living under his laws, and had made misery everywhere.
The countries that had been sacrificed to his patriotism, if not to
his ambition, were trying to break away from his control. It was
imperative to evade these threatening dangers, imperative to make
the nation understand that the hour of peril had struck, that their
country would be lost unless she awoke from the torpor into
which she had sunk in her self-satisfied confidence that victory
must still be hers.
1 The Duchesse d'Abrantes observes in her Memoirs (Vol. IX., p. 382) that
England never gave up her designs upon France ; that the English Government
always wished to secure a share of France by re-taking Calais and Dunkirk,
and so realising in 1813 the unfulfilled desires of the Tudor, Plantagenet, and
Stuart kings — of all the kings, indeed, who ever reigned in England.
1 ' B

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
As for him, he did not despair. There was no misfortune that
could weary or dishearten him ; and he felt that if he could
only secure money, troops, arms, and officers as enthusiastic as
himself he was quite capable of mastering the coalition of kings
whom he had so often defeated individually. He summoned the
established authorities, and said to them with uncompromising
frankness : " Last year the whole of Europe was marching with
us ; to-day the whole of Europe is marching against us." But he
was speaking to men who cared only for their pockets, and for
the honours they had secured. In twenty years France had not
enjoyed a single year of peace. The men he was addressing took
no interest in the causes of these ceaseless wars. They had lived,
secure from danger, through all the fortunate years of his reign ;
they had grown rich ; they had added titles to their names — titles
that made them the equals of the oldest families in France ; and
now they wished to enjoy in peace the gifts that had been
bestowed upon them so liberally. They were simply dumfounded,
then, when they heard Napoleon's words. And the case was exactly
the same with the military officers of high rank : they had reached
the summit of their ambitions. " The greater number of them,11
said Napoleon at St. Helena, " were infected by weariness and
j discouragement. My officers became slack, awkward, unskilful, and
' therefore unfortunate. The great generals had had enough. I had
fed them too generously ; they were surfeited with attentions
and honours and riches. They had drunk of the cup of pleasure.
Then I saw the critical hour drawing near. . . . My star was
growing dim. ... I felt that the reins were slipping from my
hands, and I was powerless to prevent it. Nothing but a clap
of thunder could save us.'" x
There were, however, no more thunderclaps. Victory, though as
necessary to him now as at Marengo or Austerlitz, was no longer
to be his. France, it appeared, had suddenly grown old : she was
breathless, rebellious, disturbed. The royalist nobles whom
1 Due de Vicence, Mimoires, Vol. I., p. 290. After the disaster of Leipsic a
certain great lady said to Caulaincourt : "Your hero has fallen from his pedestal ;
he has been defeated, and that is a crime that the world does not forgive. . . .
Those who have asked favours of him will be conspicuous for the bitterness of
their abuse and the violence of their language. . . . There are the people, too,
whom he has lately ennobled, the senators with grants of a hundred thousand
francs, the duchesses, countesses, baronesses, and what not — silly women who
imagined they were going to be high and puissant dames for ever ! They cannot
endure the idea of becoming the ordinary Jennies they used to be ; the mere
thought of this second transformation sends them into a syncope. . . "
2

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
Napoleon had robbed of their hereditary titles had never ceased to
regret them, and were, moreover, still jealous of the great nobles\
of the Empire ; the lesser nobility of the provinces, who since the.
Emigration had lived a life of poverty in the dilapidated country
houses they had never been able to repair, hoped for the dawn ot
a happier day when the conqueror should have fallen : the middle
classes, whose interests were commercial, were being ruined by the
crushing effect on commerce of the Continental blockade, and were
hoping for a new Government to put a stop to their losses. None
but the people — the brave-hearted people — and the peasants who
had been enriched by the wealth of the seigneurs, and therefore
feared the return of the Monarchy, remained faithful to the
Emperor, and willing to forward his designs and help him to
defend the conquests of the Revolution. Great indeed were the
difficulties in the way of raising a powerful force in a country as
unfavourably disposed as this !
Such, at the end of this year 1813, was the state of public
opinion in France. The invasion of the Allied Powers accentuated
this feeling of opposition, this weariness and hostility on the part
of one stratum of society, and roused the patriotic enthusiasm
of that other stratum — the lowest of all — which suffered most
from the exactions of the invaders. And if there were more military
defaulters than before it was because the veterans were being called
upon to serve ; men who had thought their years of service were
over, and had settled down, with larger families to support than
those of the younger men. The young conscripts, on the other
hand, eagerly responded to the summons of the authorities, and
achieved marvels in the final battles of the Empire. These beard
less boys, known as les Marie-Louise, were as heroic as the
grenadiers of the Guard ; and it was with them that Napoleon, during
his splendid French campaign, fought the Battles of Brienne, La
Rothiere, Champaubert, and Montmirail.
In order to enroll these new troops of old and young soldiers it
was necessary to secure the acquiescence of the Senate and the
Legislative Body. On the 19th December the Emperor addressed
the latter in a tone of sorrowful resignation that should have
roused the enthusiasm of all who heard him ; but he met with no
response but bitter words from those who were deputed to speak
for the assembly. Among other things he said :
" I conceived and carried out wide schemes for the prosperity
and happiness of the world ! ... As a monarch and a father I
3 b 1

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
realise how greatly the safety of the throne, as well as that of
private individuals, is increased by peace. Negotiations are being
carried on with the Allied Powers. I agreed to the preliminary
terms suggested by them, and hoped that the Congress of
Mannheim * would have been convened before the beginning of
this session. But fresh delays, for which France cannot be held
responsible, have postponed the hour that we all so eagerly
desire. I have given orders that you shall have access to all
the original documents, which are in the portfolio of my Depart
ment of Foreign Affairs. You will deal with them through
the intermediary of a commission. The official representatives
of my Council will inform you of my will in that matter."
The Senatorial Commission recorded the demands of the
Emperor without comment ; but the Commission of the Legislative
Body opposed the imperial policy. The men chosen to sit on
this Commission had long been known for their animosity towards
the Empire. They were Raynouard the dramatist ; Gallois, who
had been a member of the Tribunat ; Flaugergues, a friend
of Chateaubriand ; Maine de Biran, the metaphysician ; and finally
Laine, a lawyer from Bordeaux who had lately come on the scene,
a friend of the Comte Lynch, the mayor of that great commercial
city. Laine, who had been ruined by the blockade, was an ambitious
man, and had been won over to the cause of the Bourbons. To
him was entrusted the drawing up of the report. It opened with an
analysis of the despatches exchanged between the Allied Powers and
the imperial Chancellor's office. So far, so good ; but the infer
ences deduced were aggressively hostile to the Emperor's designs
and to the prerogatives he claimed. Napoleon declared him
self to be the sole representative of the nation. This report
asserted that the Legislative Body was the nation's natural organ;
and then proceeded to enlarge upon the necessity for peace,
and to demand guarantees that the peace should be established
on a lasting basis. The French nation, added Laine, wish to
be assured that "their blood will no longer be shed except in
defence of their country and the laws that are their only safe
guard. But these comforting words peace and country will be
uttered in vain unless we have some guarantee for the safety of :
those institutions that secure us the benefits of both." Then :
Laine, repeating himself, became still more definite. "If, j
1 It was in this little town that the plenipotentiaries of the Congress were to j
hold their meetings. ° !

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
in circumstances of profound importance, his Majesty's first
thought was to gather the nation's representatives round his
throne, is it not their first duty to respond worthily to the
summons by laying the truth before their sovereign, and telling
him of the people's desire for peace ? "
Six copies of this report were printed for the elected com
missioners. When the Emperor read it he fell into a violent
rage, for he foresaw the harm the publication of this document
would do to the country by encouraging the enemy. It was in
vain that he gave orders for the printers' formes to be broken up
and the type dispersed ; the contents of the report were known
everywhere none the less. Its carping spirit, and the impertin
ence — considering the circumstances — of certain passages in it,
were advertised in the salons of Paris by the friends of the
Bordeaux lawyer, and even the staff-officers of the allied armies
heard the news. In this way they were made aware that France
desired, and indeed demanded, peace, and that if they should
be forced to fight the still redoubtable Emperor the nation at
large would not be hostile to them. And the fact that the man
who had been brave enough to formulate this demand was speaking
in an official capacity, in the name of the nation's representatives,
was a surprising revelation which could not fail to make the
enemy doubly daring and doubly effective.
Was it not sufficiently significant that after the retreat from
Moscow, in the February of this year, the King of Hartwell,
prompted by the English, should have addressed to the people of
France a Declaration in which the words usurpation and
legitimacy were flung at the Emperor ? Lord Liverpool had
rapturously seized this opportunity of attacking his personal
enemy. He could not forget those biting articles, attributed to the
imperial pen, which had appeared against him in the Moniteur.
Some little English ships were laded with royalist papers, and
distributed them along the whole coast of Normandy. They
were conveyed into the towns in parcels of music or books, and
were intended to remind the royalists that there was no need
for them to despair.1
1 This Declaration was as follows: — "Louis XVIIl., etc. . . . The moment
has apparently come when Divine Providence is ready to crush the instrument of
His wrath. The usurper of the throne of St. Louis, the devastator of Europe, is
in his turn suffering reverses. Are they to have no effect but to aggravate the
ills under which the country is groaning ? Will not France dare to overthrow a
hateful power that is no longer protected by the prestige of victory? What
5

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
On the 1st January, 1814, when receiving the Legislative
Body at the Tuileries, the Emperor did not fail to show his
annoyance to the deputies who came to pay him their respects.
The majority of them, he said, were well-intentioned men and per
sonally devoted to himself, but there were among them certain
factious persons whose conduct aimed at backing up the foreigners.
M. Laine, he added, was a mischievous man to whose craftiness
he was quite alive, and whose report would do more harm to the
country than the loss of two battles in Champagne. " What ! Do
you suggest that adversity must have brought me to a wiser
obstacles, what dangers are there now, that can prevent her from throwing
herself into the arms of her King, and recognising that the establishment of his
legitimate authority is her only assurance of the unity, peace, and happiness that
he has so often promised to his oppressed subjects ? Since it is their love alone,
and his own rights, that can make his throne secure, it is from them alone that
he either can or will accept it. Who is there, then, whose prayers will not echo
his own ? What doubt can there be of his paternal intentions ? The King has
already said in previous Declarations (those of March 10th, 1799, and Dec. 2nd,
1804), and now repeats his promise, that the administrative and judicial bodies
shall be maintained in all their authority ; that he will remove no man from anj
office he already holds, provided he will take the oath of fidelity; that the tri
bunals, the depositaries of the laws, will prohibit all legal proceedings connected
with the unhappy past, which must sink into oblivion for ever on the King'B
return ; and finally, that the Code which is sullied by the name of Napoleon, but
is to a great extent composed of the ancient laws and customs of the kingdom,
shall remain in force, with the exception of the clauses contrary to that religious
dogma which, together with the people's liberty, has so long been subject to the
caprices of the tyrant. Can the Senate, which is composed of men justly distin
guished for their talents, men whose many services must make them illustrious
in the eyes of France and of posterity — can this body, whose full usefulness and
importance can only be known after the Restoration, fail to see how glorious is
the destiny that makes it the first factor in that grand and beneficent event which
will be the strongest and best guarantee of its own continued existence, and of
its prerogatives with regard to property ? The King, who has already announced
his intention of employing the best means of reconciling the interests of all, is of
the opinion that the many transactions which have taken place between the old
and the new proprietors have made his intervention almost superfluous ; and he
now engages to put a stop to any legal proceedings tending to override such trans
actions, to encourage amicable settlements, and with his family to lead the way
in making every sacrifice that can contribute to the peace of France and the true
union of the whole French nation. The King has guaranteed to the army the
continuance of all the ranks, official posts, pay, and appointments that it at
present enjoys. He also promises that all generals, officers, and privates, who
shall distinguish themselves in his cause — which is inseparable from the interests
of the nation — shall receive more solid rewards and more honourable distinctions
than any they could have won from a usurper who has always been inclined to
misinterpret, and even to disavow, their services. The King again undertakes to
abolish that fatal system of conscription, which destroys domestic happiness and
undermines the future of the country. Such have always been, and such still are,
the King's intentions. To the French nation his restoration to the throne of hia
ancestors will be but a happy transition from the disasters of a war designed to
perpetuate tyranny, to the benefits of a lasting peace ; and in the eyes of other
powers this peace can have no true guarantee save the word of the legitimate
sovereign. — Hartwell, Feb. 1st, 1813." 6

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
way of thinking ? " he answered eloquently. " How can you reproach
me with my misfortunes ? I have borne them with dignity because
nature has endowed me with a character full of strength and pride ;
and if I had not had that pride within me I should never have raised
myself to the first throne in the world. Do you think reproaches
such as these are likely to enhance the glory of the throne ? What,
after all, is the throne ? Four bits of wood, covered with a piece of
velvet. All depends upon the man who sits on it. The throne
rests on the nation. Are you not aware that it is I, I above
all, who represent the nation ? It is impossible to attack me
without attacking it also. Four times it has called me ; four times I
have had the votes of five millions of citizens. I base my claims
upon a right : you have none. You are merely the deputies of
the departments of the Empire. . . Is this the moment to
remonstrate with me, when two hundred thousand Cossacks are
crossing our frontiers ? "
This lecture made those who heard it somewhat uneasy. If they
could detect no signs of discouragement in the Emperor's mind
they were at least conscious that he was sorrowing for the sorrows
of his country, and that his pride as head of the State was
wounded. None of the kings to whom France owed her greatness
— not Francois I, not Louis XIV — could have expressed himself more
nobly or with greater pride. The voice of the angry monarch
was pleading the claims of the country for which he was responsible,
and pleading them with power. Laine's friends, fearing he would
be arrested, besought him to fly. But whatever Theodore Anne
may say in his Memoires (p. 304), Laine was undismayed : his
imprisonment, following on the Emperor's outburst, would have
made too much commotion. The lawyer had returned to his
own province to join the malcontents who were preparing the
next startling move, the defection of the great town of Bordeaux.
The conspirators in that city were corresponding with the exiled
princes. Two hundred thousand Cossacks were invading France, the
Emperor had said. Their advance must be checked. But he
must first appeal, in a solemn audience, to the courage and
devotion of the officers in command of the National Guard,
which had just been re-organised. He received them in the
Tuileries on the 24th January, the day before his departure for
the front, and, expressing his confidence in their loyalty, placed
7

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
his wife and son in their care.1 " I leave you the Empress and
the King of Rome— my wife and my son," he said, in a voice
full of feeling. " I shall go away with a mind free from care,
because they will be under your protection. I am placing in
your hands all that is dearest to me in the world, after France."
Then, bidding them hope for his speedy return, he left them.
Was there ever a prince with a heavier burden of care than
Napoleon's when he started out to meet the enemy, leaving his
capital in the hands of the Empress Marie Louise, the frivolous
woman whom he loved in spite of her indifference and indolence ;
of King Joseph, his incapable representative ; of ministers like
Cambaceres, wrapped up in themselves ; of proved traitors like
Talleyrand, who would not shrink from making terms with the
foreigners, nor with those royalist factions which had suddenly
sprung up, as enterprising as ever ? There was nothing hidden
from him of all this semi-anarchy, this disorganisation of his
authority, the authority that had been so strong, so awe-inspiring,
when he exercised it in person. What could he do ? He was
suffering from the consequences of what he had always called his
" policy," that is to say, his insistence on being the sole inspiration
and sole master of his Empire's destiny. Possibly he dismissed
the subject from his mind. These consequences could only last
for a time, if he were again victorious. And why should he not
be so ? 2 Meanwhile those whose business it was to serve him
foresaw the fall of the dynasty, and concerned themselves with
nothing but their own future and the means of making it safe.
Those who were well posted in the facts of the case, and knew of
the stampede of the troops after Leipsic, of the crowding of the
hospitals, of the infectious diseases which the wounded were
spreading wherever they went, thought only of how they could
1 De Stael. Considerations, Vol. II., p. 406. " A man who is altogether trust
worthy told me that he had a talk alone with Bonaparte on the eve of hia
departure for the front in January, 1814, when the allies were actually on French
soil, and that the Emperor confessed in the course of this private interview that
he had no means of resistance. . . . and then, marvellous to relate, fell asleep
while discussing this important subject. . . . He had grown heavy," adds Mme.
de Stael further on, "in mind as well as body."
2 The royalists quite understood what would be the result of decisive victories
won by the Emperor. After Montmirail and Montereau they said : " . . . Let
the allies beware ! If they retreat from France and make peace with Napoleon
they will consolidate his power permanently, and bring about the restitution
of the 360,000 French prisoners and the horrible vengeance of the soldier-emperor
upon Vienna, Berlin, Munich, and the whole of Europe." — {Comtesse Fausse-
Landry, by Lamothe-Langon, Vol. II., p. 345.)
8

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
most quickly leave Paris ; those who had country houses thought
only of how they could fly to them and protect them from
pillage ; those who had relations in the provinces thought only of
how they could join them. They hid their valuable jewellery,
and their gold and silver, in the depths of their cellars, and
hurried away. Sebastiani, who had come from the front, spread
the most alarming rumours in Paris. La Valette pointed out to
him that this intemperate speech might have the dangerous effect
of paralysing any attempt at resistance, and the alarmist, with
a quick change of attitude, began to preach the organisation of a
carefully planned defence.1 But instantly, from the salons of the
royalists, who anticipated the end of the Empire, and knew that
the princes had left Hartwell to join the invading armies, there
arose a general outcry against these futile resolutions. A defence ?
And how, they asked, could they defend themselves ? Where
were their armies ? The National Guard was a force that would
avail them little against the hordes of barbarians that were
descending upon Paris.

II
For the last four years the prince who had lately changed his
name from the Comte de Lille to Louis XVIII had been living
at Hartwell, in England, surrounded by a little Court of exiles,
the devoted friends of his family. Here, at Hartwell, the
sorrows of France were a source of the greatest delight. Fauche-
Borel, in his Memoires, quotes the Due d'Havre's letter.2 To
these men their country was nothing, and they themselves were
everything. Why should they mourn the sorrows of the land
whence they had been driven by fear and even hatred, when perhaps,
1 It was no doubt owing to him that the following unsigned address was
placarded one morning on the walls of Paris. (Lubis : Histoire de la Restaura-
tion, Vol. I., p. 144) :— " Shall we let ourselves be robbed ? Shall we let ourselves
be burnt ? While the Emperor is attacking the enemy in the rear twenty-five or
thirty thousand men, led by an audacious raider, are actually threatening our
gates? Shall they overawe a hundred thousand citizens who could quite well
exterminate them ? . . . We must set up barricades ; we must use our carriages
and everything else that will obstruct the roads ; we must crenelate our walls,
and dig trenches, and carry up paving-stones to every storey of our houses. ..."
2 "We are overjoyed," wrote d'Havre to Fauche, " at "the good news of the
recapture of Moscow, the advantages previously won, and the retreat ; in the
course of which, it seems, there is no doubt that the Cossacks are harassing
Bonaparte's army. " 9

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
as a result of those sorrows, they might shortly be able to
return thither and retrieve the privileges and honours they had
enjoyed of yore ? After the retreat from Moscow the Comte de
Blacas d'Aulps, the King's favourite, was ordered by his master
to despatch certain papers to the secret agents employed by
the Bourbons in France and other parts of Europe. In these
documents this King in partibus recalled the fact of his existence
to the people, who must surely, he thought, be discontented with
the imperial rule ; promised to forget their past errors, to reward
their past services, and to make their fortunes secure ; enumerated,
in short, with many fine phrases, all the delights that would
follow if France were willing to restore the Monarchy of which he
was the head. The places for the recipients' names were left blank,
to be filled in by the agent of the little Court. Then the master
of Hartwell wrote a letter to the Czar, which was published in the
English papers. In this he made a great show of sympathy with
the prisoners of war, imploring the Emperor of Russia to treat
them generously. This claimant of the throne did not waste a
single opportunity of bringing himself to the notice of the French
nation whenever he could appear in a favourable light. This
benevolence and sympathy with humanity can hardly be considered
to represent the inmost feelings of this conceited prince, whose
actions never gave evidence of any quality but cunning and
hypocrisy, and whose one deep conviction was that he was superior
to other men because he was born a prince,1 and superior to other
princes because he was born a Bourbon.
When Napoleon married an archduchess of Austria the King
and his courtiers had resigned themselves to their fate. The
dominion of France had grown so wide, so strong, so transcendent
in glory and wealth, that a change of public opinion in their favour
seemed impossible.2 But after Leipsic, when the whole of armed
1 The Abbe de Montgaillard, in his Histoire de France (Vol. I. , Introduction),
says: "I have heard him say that Massena, Kleber, Jourdan, Hoche, Ney,
Mortier (who had rendered great services to the Comtesse de Provence when she
was on the right bank of the Rhine), Bernadotte, Soult, and all such persons,
ejusdem farince, were raised from the gutter." And further on in the same intro
duction he says : " When, on the occasion of the conference at Blankenburg on
the 21st January, 1797, I spoke to Louis XVHI of the brilliant victories won
by the armies of the Republic, he answered : ' And yet these men whose arms
have been so successful are brigands, rebellious subjects, scoundrels ! It is enough
to make any Frenchman blush for their idea of honour and courage.' "
2 Capefigue tells the following story in his Histoire de la Reslauration, Vol. I. :—
" It was Louis XVIII's habit to read all the French newspapers, especially the
Moniteur. On the 12th April, 1810, the news reached him of Napoleon's marriage
with Marie Louise. Louis XVIII was walking in the garden when he received
10

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
Europe poured across our frontiers, and horsemen from the wilds
of the Russian steppes came to water their little horses at our
village-fountains, these exiles, who had grown old in their seclusion
and their constant longing for all that they had lost, made ready
to second the efforts of the allied armies, our enemies, and to return
to their country with her conquerors. They saw nothing to be
ashamed of in this.
These princes and courtiers were very numerous. Let us count
them. Louis XVIII, King of France and of Navarre, as he styled
himself, by the grace of God and his own will, was born at
Versailles in 1755. Being the elder of Louis XVI's brothers he
had been known at Court as the Comte de Provence. Round
him, the head of this royal race, were grouped the other princes,
who acknowledged his authority and had a great respect for his
position as King, their lord and master, but had little love for
him. These princes included his brother the Comte d'Artois,
two years younger than himself, and like himself born at Versailles ;
the Prince de Conde, who was a descendant in the fourth degree
of the great Conde, and was an old man, having been born in 1736 :
his son the Due de Bourbon, born in 1756 : the two sons of the
Comte d'Artois, the Due d'Angouleme and the Due de Berry, who
had been quite young — still in the care of their tutor, the Due de
Serent — at the time of the Emigration, but in the course of
twenty years of exile had become grown men : and finally Philippe
EgaJite's son, Louis Philippe d'Orieans, who had been reconciled
with the Bourbons at Mittau, and was the first prince of the blood.
He was born in 1773, and his marriage with a princess of Naples
kept him in Italy.
Of the women, the most important was the Duchesse
d'Angouleme, " Madame Royale," the daughter of Louis XVI,
who had endured three years' imprisonment in the Temple, and
after an involuntary visit to the Court of Vienna had married her
cousin the Due d'Angouleme in 1799. Like her cousins she was
the packet of papers that contained the account of the marriage ceremony. He
summoned his little Court, . . . and read aloud to them the programme of the
state ceremonial ; and it is said that at every sentence he paused, and although
prepared for all the blows of fortune could not restrain a fresh feeling of surprise
at each new proof of the entire oblivion into which his cause had fallen. The
account of Napoleon's marriage testified to the complete submission of all who
had been regarded as essentially belonging to the Monarchy. . . . For the next
few days the King received no one : but at last he summoned his little Court
and offered passports to all who might wish to return to France. So impossible
did it seem now that the cause of the Bourbons could ever be triumphant ! "
11

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
no longer young in 1814, for she was born in 1778. Then there
was the Duchesse d'Orieans, the Dowager, widow of Philippe
F^galite and daughter of the Due de Penthievre. The duke had
lived and died without losing his popularity, in the beautiful house
at Sceaux that he had inherited from his father, one of Louis
XIV's legitimatised sons. The duchess had for a long time lived
in great poverty in Spain, separated from her sons, who were
proscribed by the Convention and were wanderers on the face of the
earth. There was also her daughter-in-law, whom we have already
mentioned, the young Duchesse d'Orieans, who was married to
Louis Philippe in 1809 ; and her daughter, well known as Louis
Philippe's sister Madame Adelaide, who was also of mature age,
having been born in 1777. There was another member of the
Orleans family, too, Philippe Egalite's sister Louise Marie Therese
Bathilde (1767 — 1822), the Due de Bourbon's wife, and the mother
of the Due d'Enghien who was shot in the moat of the Chateau de
Vincennes. Finally there was Louise de Conde, Mademoiselle, the
Due de Bourbon's sister, who was born in 1757 and was Abbess
of the Chapter of Remiremont. In 1814 the King granted her
the house of Val-de-Grace, whither she retired with her
companions. We must make the acquaintance of these princes and princesses.
The Comte de Provence, who became Louis XVIII, was thoughtful
and shrewd, and extremely proud of his aptitude for study and
his good memory.1 His teachers praised his fluent speech, his
clear style, and his memory of the classical authors, whose works
formed his favourite study. Being very corpulent even in his
youth, no form of activity, neither hunting nor ordinary riding,
gave him pleasure. He sought his distraction rather in the
intimate conversation of his favourites, in the companionship of
the ladies of the Court and the writing of madrigals for them, in
the composition of little verses for the Almanach des Muses and
of scenarios of operas, which, by his orders, were signed by his
comptroller Morel. He was the bel esprit of the Court of Versailles.
He was told so, and he did not deny it. He thought himself,
then, very superior to his brothers ; to the King, at whom he
laughed behind the scenes, and to the Comte d'Artois, whose grace,
ease, and skill he none the less envied. He spent all his time
reading, and thinking, and writing, so great was his desire for
\." A Pril»oe who keeps his own counsel, as the Queen says, and is very ready
to listen to the reforming party . "—Marquise de Laage. Souvenirs.
12

The Comte d'Artois.

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
literary fame. But the studies that delighted him were not such
as could make him really superior to other men : it was neither
the historians, nor the philosophers, nor the economists, nor the
great French poets who attracted him : and among the authors
he read it was not the works of Virgil, nor of Lucretius, nor of
Ovid 1 that he remembered, but the verses and maxims of the
epicurean Horace. He quoted him on all occasions. He was
himself, indeed, an epicurean. He loved his ease, the luxuries
of life,2 the satisfaction of his desires; he enjoyed dissolute talk
with his favourites, this being his only offering at the shrine
of Venus. For he was chaste — though chaste somewhat after
the manner of Origen, says Arnoult, who had been employed
in his house. None the less he liked the society of women —
liked it extremely ; but he confined his attentions to harmless
caresses, and constant gracious acts of kindness.
His lofty views of his personal importance led him 'to live
apart from his brothers, surrounded by courtiers - who hoped to
turn his pride to account. He was convinced that he was more
fitted than Louis XVI to govern the State, and he never opposed the
idea — rather popular at the Court — that the King, who was ruled
by his too frivolous and giddy wife, should be placed under
the care of a guardian, or made to abdicate the throne. The
Comte de Provence would then be lieutenant-general of the
kingdom. This was his dream ; and the Marquis de Favras' plot
to seize the King and confine him at Peronne was devised by the
King's brother quite as much as by the unfortunate man who, in
his desire to screen the chief conspirator, held back the truth at
1 The following lines, which were inscribed on a fan that he gave to Queen
Marie Antoinette, have often been quoted : —
" Au milieu des chaleurs extremes
Heureux d'amuser vos loisirs,
Je saurai prds de vous amener les iiphyrs ;
Les amours y viendront d'eux-memes. "
2 In his comments on Louis XVIII, Martin Doisy observes that, for an exile,
the King thought a great deal too much of his personal comfort. A servant-
girl's failure to recognise him, the beer that was set before him, the bad coal-fire
by which he had to sit in the company of Tom, Dick, or Harry, the badly-lighted
staircase that led to his bedroom — all these things surprised and annoyed him !
And he was especially indignant that an Englishman should have dared to call
his brother a fool — a word so much more offensive than the French fou. Doisy
also observes that when the King was with Conde's army he contrived, with the
imperturbable assurance peculiar to royalty, to arrange his daily life to suit
himself in spite of the difficulties to be overcome. He was delighted when he
was told that the vegetables and other dishes on his table came from his country.
He was supplied with flowers picked in France.
13

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
his trial, and paid for his silence with his life. The letters that
are still in existence, inciting Favras to action, and the prince's
audacious effrontery in declaring publicly at the H6tel-de-Ville,
before the assembled members of the Commune, that he had not
seen the marquis for fifteen years, when everyone knew it was
untrue, form very compromising evidence of his connivance.1
1 The Abbe de Montgaillard's words on this subject are very suggestive :
"Favras was one of those men that make their living out of intrigue, mix
themselves up in every sort of business, and find their way on to every road
that can possibly lead to fortune. . . . We cannot say how far Monsieur (after
wards Louis XVIII) concurred in Favras' counter-revolutionary schemes. But it
was firmly believed at the time, and even after the restoration of the House of
Bourbon, that the accomplishment of a counter-revolution and the removal of
the King were among Monsieur's political schemes. It is certain that the prince
had wished for a long time to be at least appointed regent of the kingdom. He
had bought land in several different provinces, and was credited, before the
Revolution, with the design of reviving feudalism. Favras was employed to
negotiate a loan on the prince's account. . . . Under the date of Feb. 19th,
1791, Montgaillard wrote: "The Marquis de Favras was executed in the
Place de Greve by torchlight, on a very high gallows, and with an extra
ordinary amount of solemnity, to satisfy the people. Favras left a memorial
in which he said : ' I do not doubt that an invisible hand is reinforcing
my accusers in their pursuit of me. But what matter ! I have my eye
always on the man whose name has been mentioned to me. He is my
accuser, and I expect no remorse from him. An avenging God will act in my
defence, or at least I hope so ; for never, no never, do crimes like those of this
man remain unpunished.' In his will he speaks of a great personage whose
name he, the condemned, is forbidden to mention. It was noticed, while Favras
was in the Hotel de Ville before his execution, that several horsemen went to the
Palace of the Luxembourg from the Place de Greve, and as soon as the execution
was over two men rode to the Luxembourg at full speed. It has always been
said that Favras' will was not published in the form in which it was written.
The most important sheets were kept back and placed in the registrar's office.
After 1814 Louis XVIII granted Favras' widow a pension out of his private
income." In Louis XVIII's correspondence, published in 1815, we read on p. 13:
"To attain his ends Monsieur required a war. But neither Prussia nor
Austria wished to fight. So he undertook to corrupt the men who surrounded
the King, in order that war might be declared against Prussia and Austria.
As for the necessary money the princes secured it in Holland by means of a
loan of two millions. They then waited for the King's death. Monsieur
prompted the influential members of the Convention to work to that end ; and in
one night Pelletier de Saint-Fargeau won two hundred votes for the King's
death. . . . Monsieur was not unacquainted with Robespierre himself. It is now
known that the great republican kept up a brisk correspondence with the prince,
and that his plans were all founded, apparently, on the wishes of Monsieur, who
superintended their execution. Robespierre was surrounded by Monsieur's
agents, and it was these agents who pointed out the people whose remorse might
be dangerous, and those who had found out the prince's plans, and those who
were known to be unfavourable to him. . . . The fact that the Marshal de Mouchy
had revealed the emigration scheme to the King was more than enough to cause
his death. Madame Elizabeth was guillotined for the simple reason that she had
promised her brother to reveal all these horrors to his son when the boy should
be old enough to understand them. It was the same in the case of an endless
number of others, whose deaths Monsieur caused through his connection with
Robespierre." But what faith can one put in these revelations ?
14

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
He was ambitious, but lacking in courage. He urged forward the
men who served him, without being prepared to support them,
and always had some reason to give for his inaction. When the
English took Toulon he informed the Royalists that he had
decided to land there, in order to forward the rebellion and make
the south of France his own. He was only waiting for the
approval of Spain, who would lend him a ship for the voyage.
Did he really mean this ? Did Spain know anything about it ?
We may feel some doubt on the subject when we hear from
Montgaillard that the King received from the Court of Spain the
funds necessary for a descent on La Vendee, and frittered away
the money on his agencies and plots in Verona, which were very
expensive to maintain. Intrigue was more to his taste than fight
ing. At Coblentz, where he was surrounded by the officers of the
Prince de Conde's army, he at first made some resistance to the
Austrian Government's decision that he must leave the place.
But the moment he was threatened with forcible ejection he
hastened to depart. He wished to appear brave and haughty and
full of daring ; he had a solemn Mass sung, with a Te Deum and
Domine salvum fac regern ; but when confronted by Marshal von
Wurmser he instantly capitulated. In the month of Fructidor
he had sent Dandre, one of his agents, to Paris, with two million
francs for the royalists. His partisans should have been there in
a body, to overthrow the authority of the Republicans ; and he
i anxiously awaited the news of the victory. But the Govern-
i ment anticipated the attack of the conspirators, and arrested all
who were concerned in the plot, whose failure was due to the
inactivity of Pichegru and Willot. The royalists were deported,
1 with a large number of priests ; and the young princes of the Orleans
branch, who were at that time imprisoned in France, were exiled.
j Louis XVIII hastened to decline all responsibility for this check,
i and to cast the blame of his party's defeat upon others. Pichegru
had some grounds for his lack of faith in the King's honour and
', courage, for when he himself had been ready to cross the Rhine and
•¦ march upon Paris to reinstate the fallen Monarchy he had in vain
j implored Louis to join his army. The letter Pichegru wrote was
i not very flattering to a man who was for ever invoking the
J memories of Francois I and Henri IV, for he told him it was far
i better to be a King at the head of an army for twenty-four
; hours, and even to die thus, than to be a perpetual claimant
pensioned by other sovereigns, begging for hospitality from
15

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
kingdom to kingdom. The letter and its appeal had no
effect.1 The King had not changed his habits since then. He had
written to Pichegru before the affair began, renewing all his former
promises. To the traitor general he granted in advance an ac
cumulation of good things, supposing he were to succeed. Louis
had also written to d'Harcourt in London, justifying his absence
from La Vendee, and blaming the English because they had not
come to fetch him. And moreover — he added in excuse — even if
he were a descendant of Henri IV, he had not borne arms, hke his
ancestor, ever since he was sixteen ; neither had he won the Battle
of Coutras. He had written to Charette, too, at the time of the
Quiberon disaster, which he merely called " an unfortunate affair,"
though all the noblesse had been sacrificed ; and he added, as if it
were to his credit, " that he was labouring to prolong the war beyond
the frontiers, which he regarded as a necessary evil, since it pre
vented the rebels from opposing too large a mass of troops to the
army of La Vendee." For the only thing he was capable of doing
was this kind of clerk's work, this everlasting writing : writing to
his spies and writing to his agents — those nobles of the Emigration
whom he kept within reach of the Chancellors' Offices of the
capitals of Europe, and called ambassadors. In this way he fed
the hatred of other nations for France, recoiling from no kind of
intrigue that he thought likely to restore what he called his patri
mony, the throne on which his ancestors had sat. And yet not
1 A brochure called Les Secrets de la Cour de Louis X VIII, which was published
during the Hundred Days, in 1815, contains a crushing indictment of this prince
based on ascertained facts. Here, among other things, we read: "He left
France on the 21st June, 1792, to join the imigris at Coblenz, and on the 19th
of the following September we find him threatening his unhappy brother,
who is already in prison, and forbidding him to accept the Constitution laid
before him. 'If motives that we cannot see,' he wrote, ' were to force you to
sign an acceptation which is expressly contrary to your duty as King, we must
warn you that we should protest against such an ineffectual action. ' On hearing
of the death of Louis XVI and the weakly condition of the Dauphin — the child
whom he had called illegitimate and nevertheless professed to have succeeded—
he was seen to smile while writing to the Comte d'Artois : ' You will not forget'
how greatly this death will tend to the good of the State ; let that thought consols1
you ! ' And when the Dauphin died on the 8th June, 1795, he deplored, in a;
document meant for publication, the fate of a king who only reigned in prison)'
but whose childhood seemed to promise that he would be a worthy successor to
the best of Kings."
Again, we read in Martin Doisy's Mimoires inidits de Louis XVIII, p. 33:
"... Louis XVIII did actually correspond with Robespierre, and during the
Champagne expedition of 1792 also corresponded with Dumouriez ! " And in a
note : " The conventionist Courtois, to whom it fell to draw up a report on
Robespierre's papers, found several letters from Louis XVIII among them ..."
16

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
one of the Emigres who had remained in exile for the sake of this
cowardly prince escaped poverty and loneliness ; not one, when the
Restoration came, found all his kinsfolk alive or all his possessions
intact. What did he care — this vainglorious king who thought
of nothing but the privileges of his sovereignty, and imagined that
a cross sent from Verona or Mittau was quite enough to console
these men who were homeless for his sake ? 1
The truth is that he was an egoist — an inveterate, instinctive,
remorseless egoist — who imagined that the persons, the possessions,
the peace, and the happiness of others should be offered up as a
sacrifice to his claim of sovereignty. France mattered little to
him, but he never ceased to regret his crown : the royal crown
that his forehead lacked, while other princes who perhaps, as in
Prussia, had been kings for less than a century, were not so bereft.
In his eyes his country did not consist in this group of provinces
in arms against Europe, defending the moral conquests of the
Revolution. Oh no ! it was not this land, the product of centuries
of struggle, that his eyes were fixed upon when he incited his
followers to civil war ; it was rather all that he had lost by emi
grating — his wealth, his palaces, his bodyguard. His humiliating
i position was death to him, and he would have willingly raised
I himself on the very ruins of the nation. His egoism was always
present, always prominent, limiting his point of view and stifling
his humanity. As long as Europe was not utterly crushed by
Napoleon's iron hand he never ceased inciting the nation to form
coalitions against France, whereby that already exhausted country
[ was forced into one war after another, each more cruel and terrible
I than the last. The funds he obtained from Russia and England only
j served for his criminal schemes. He was allied with all the enemies
\ of his country ; with General Moreau, who came from America to
: fight under the Russian flag, and was killed at Dresden ; with the
; English ministers who had sworn to destroy the conqueror Napoleon,
I ' From the Mimoires secrets of Montgaillard. "The pretender, as well as the
i Comte d'Artois, had borrowed a great deal of money during his stay at Coblenz.
i Madame de Vergennes had pledged all her diamonds, the last remnant of her
I fortune, to supply the princes with the means of leaving Coblenz, and even,
: I believe, to prevent them from being arrested by their creditors. Yet after this
; the pretender hardly deigned to answer Madame de Vergennes, although she had
i his royal promise in writing that the sum would be returned in a short time.
He allowed the pledged diamonds to be sold at Frankfort for much less than their
j value, and was very little concerned that she and her two sons were lacking the
j necessaries of life at Hamburg. Madame de Vergennes showed the greatest
: nobility of character throughout, and in all their wanderings her two sons
iwere consistently moderate in speech and admirable in conduct, and always
[patriotic."
17 . c

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
so detrimental to the commerce of their city. France might go to
wrack and ruin if only his throne were restored to him! He
promised to restore France to his courtiers, moreover, exactly in
her former state, unchanged by the evolution that had taken place
in thought. If in the old days he had supported the pretensions
of the Tiers Etat in the States General, it was entirely for his own
ends, with a view of making himself more popular than the King;
for no sooner was he out of the country than he protested, with
his brother d'Artois, against Louis XVI's concessions to the
National Assembly. The France of feudalism would have suited
him much better than modern France.
He left nothing behind him but some little verses in imitation of
Dorat or Gentil-Bernard,1 and some letters addressed to his friend
d'Avaray, who was parted from him by illness. In these letters he
writes of nothing but himself, his pleasures and his pains. The
princess his wife having died in England, he complains that she
who relieved the tedium of his purposeless hours is no longer with
him ; but not a line of these letters records the virtues or affection
of the woman he professes to regret ; not a line recalls her simply
for her own sake. If in his bereavement he admires the flowers in
his park and laments being alone, it is because she shared with
him the pleasure of seeing them, and in sharing it made his pleasure
greater. He does not regret that she can no longer enjoy the
flowers ; he merely regrets she can no longer enjoy them with him.
This appears very plainly in his letters to d'Avaray. The funeral
was magnificent ,• 2 but we who know him must suspect that the
1 Ernest Daudet, who owns Louis XVIII's papers, and has based on them
three interesting volumes on the Emigration, publishes the following notes in the
second volume: '"It is quite true,' wrote Louis XVIII, 'that I have alwaji
loved literature, but it is not true that I have written some historical note,
and still less that I am a historian. In 1772, however, I took a fancy to write
some memoirs. ... I have also done some verses that were not bad. ... The
only work of any size that my pen has produced is an unpublished translation
of a book by Mr. Horace Walpole, entitled : Historical Doubts on the Lift ad
Reign of Richard III.'" "In this list," adds Ernest Daudet, "the King forgot
to include the story of his flight from Paris, which he wrote at Coblenz in 1791
but had not yet published ; and the diary of his journey from Verona to Riegel,
which we have found among his papers. During his secluded winter in the
Chateau of Mittau he began to write once more. At this time (1798-99) he wrote
his Reflexions historiques sur Marie-Antoinette (which appears in the King1!
collected writings), some thoughts suggested by books he was reading, »
dissertation on Horace that shows his knowledge of Latin, and — not to speak
of a story called Oalante Aventure — an interesting study on the duties ol
a king. ..."
2 Extract from the Times of November 28, 1810. Princess Josephine of Savoy,
daughter of Victor Amedee III, King of Sardinia, had been married on the 14th
May, 1771, at Versailles. She died on the 13th November, 1810, at the age ol
18

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
honours were paid in the main to the King of France, as he called
himself, rather than to the unfortunate woman who had been
removed by dropsy.1
fifty-seven. Her funeral took place in London, the service being read in the
Catholic Chapel in King Street.
" At nine o'clock on Monday morning the service for the dead began at the
Roman Catholic Chapel, King Street, Portman Square. The French Princes
arrived at ten, the Foreign Ambassadors between eleven and twelve. The coffin
was placed in the middle of the chapel, covered with crimson velvet, and highly
ornamented : on an escutcheon were the arms of France and Savoy, and the
Crown of France was placed at the head ; it was surrounded by forty lighted
tapers. At the head of the coffiu stood the Duke d'Avaray, as having the charge
of the Crown ; and near him Pere Elisee, as Surgeon to her Majesty ; at the foot
next to the Altar stood the Comte de la Chartre, as Commissary of the King
of France, and near him the Comte de Nantouillet, as Master of the Ceremonies.
On the right, on a row of raised seats, were the French Princes, Monsieur the
Duke d'Angouleme, the Duke de Berry, the Prince de Conde, and the Duke de
Bourbon ; and below them their respective officers. M. de Broval, as representa
tive of the Duke of Orleans, sat on the left of the Princess. On the left of the
coffin, and opposite the French Princes, was another row of seats for the Foreign
Ambassadors. Below them were the great dignitaries of the ancient French
military and ehivalric orders. The service was performed by Mgr. Dalbignac,
. Bishop of Angouleme ; there were also present the Archbishop of Reims,
the Bishops of Sisteron, Digne, Nantes, Tarbes, Rhodez, Aix, Usez, Blois, and
Montpelier. " The cards of admission for the Abbey were simply for ' The Funeral of the
Comtesse de Lille.' From the Chapel to the hearse the coffin was borne
: by twelve Knights of St. Louis, and the pall supported by four Dames d'honneur.
" The procession then began in the following order : —
' " Thirteen men on horseback ; a mute, with feathers, on horseback ; a coach and
. six with four Dames d'honneur. Mesdames la Duchesse de Pienne, la Duchesse
: de Coigny, la Comtesse de Narbonne, and la Comtesse de Mesnard.
" Another coach and six, with persons of the household.
f " Gardes de Corps on foot, headed by one of their officers.
: "A mourner on a fully caparisoned horse, carrying on a cushion the Crown of
' France, covered with black crape. The hearse drawn by six horses, and adorned
with a profusion of plumes.
" In the Chapel the same ceremonial was observed as at St. Denis, and the cards
"' of admission were for ' The Funeral of the Queen of France. '
" Then followed the French Princes in mourning coaches and six, followed by
''¦ the principal French Nobility. After the mourning coaches came that of his Royal
': Highness the Prince of Wales, drawn by six horses, and conducted by his High-
' ness's state coachman, with three footmen and two pages ; the coaches of all the
!!Royal Dukes followed, according to their seniority ; as also two coaches and six
i'!of the Marquess of Buckingham, those of the Marquess of Wellesley, of
&Mr. Perceval, and all the Ministers ; those of the Foreign Ambassadors, and of
(several English Noblemen and Gentlemen.
i. " The Dean of Westminster at the head of the Chapter received the body at the
Sentrance of the Church ; the avenues and the aisles being guarded and lined by
(the battalion of volunteers of St. John and St. Margaret, commanded by Major
iJones. A requiem was sung by the full choir, accompanied by the organ ; and
after the ceremony the remains of the Princess were deposited in the same vault
ii with those of the Duke of Montpensier, on the south-west side of King Henry
liVH's Chapel."
(The above is copied verbatim from the article in the Times, and differs in one
i! or two unessential matters from the French version given by the author. The
(name de Pienne, however, should evidently be de Rohan. Translator's Note.)
¦i l Mimoires de la Comtesse de Boigne, Vol. I, p. 36 : — " The Comtesse de Pro-
19 c 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
At last the time came for him to ascend the throne of France.
The Constitution framed by the Senate was submitted to him, and
he accepted it without the least intention of keeping his promise.
No sooner had he reached Saint-Ouen than he corrected the text of
the Constitution, and wiped out all Napoleon's glorious years from
the history of France. He dated his reign from the year 1795 j
and when he opened the new Parlement it was neither a Constitution
nor a Charta of Concessions that he presented to it, but an ordinamx
of reformation. For with his egoism he combined hypocrisy. It
was only on the surface that he was good-natured. He called
the French his children, and prided himself on being their father;
but all the benefits he bestowed upon them were derived from the
national treasury. If, after Waterloo, he sent half a million francs
to the victims of the war, it was because he had carefully arranged
for the Minister of Finance to follow him to Ghent and bring him
the money he dispensed in this way, leaving nothing in France but
bills of exchange. Always and everywhere he was lavish of fine
academic periods : of these he was positively prodigal. But his
generosity of mind and heart ended on his lips. His hand was
full of gifts, but only opened for the men and women whom he
made his favourites — that is to say for his own pleasure — that is
to say for himself.
Montgaillard has given us a portrait of this prince at the time of
the Emigration, which we cannot pass over in silence. " The Comte
de Lille, who always had a tendency to employ none but dilatory
methods, and to adopt no measures that could expose his person
to danger, was very careful to avoid such circumstances as might
frustrate this policy. For this reason he had just refused to cross!
the Rhine at the head of Conde's army, or to follow Pichegru's j
advice, which was to the effect that it was better to be a king for
twenty-four hours than to be a hundred years in exile. But I had
already appraised the Comte de Lille's character, and it was quite
plain to me that this prince was entirely lacking in courage, energy,
and good faith ; that he himself would always be the greatest:
obstacle in anything that might be undertaken in his cause ; and
that the happiness of the French and other nations counted for
nothing in his ambitions. He has read much, his mind is cultivated,
his manners are gracious, but he is essentially false and treacherous.
vence consoled herself (for her husband's infidelities) with the friendship of het
women-of-the-bedchamber, and, if one may dare to say so, with drink— carried
to such a pitch that it was apparent to the world at large."
20

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
He has the pedantry of a rhetor, and his ambition is to be con
sidered intellectual. I do not believe him capable of a generous
sentiment, nor of a firm resolve. He has never forgotten anything ;
he never forgives an insult, nor a wrong, nor a reproach.1 He
fears the truth ; and he fears death. Surrounded as he is by
flatterers, he has preserved nothing of his former state except the
pride and the vices that robbed him of it. Misfortune cannot
altogether crush him, because he dares not meet it face to face.
However hardly he may be treated by adversity, none but the
cowardly and mean will champion him. We shall see him die in
his bed in exile, after having wearied and worn out the pity and
generosity of all the sovereigns of Europe. This prince trembles
at the sight of a bundle of pikes or darts. He has the name of
Henri IV constantly on his lips, and shudders at the sight of a
weapon. He is an intriguer in times of peace, unskilful in war,
ambitious to excess of literary fame, greedy of riches, yet no less
devoted to display, the enemy of his true friends and the slave
of his courtiers, easily offended yet defiant, superstitious and vin
dictive, always double-faced in his policy, and treacherous even
where his heart is concerned. Such is the Comte de Lille, the
prince whom fortune placed so near to the first throne in the
world, without endowing him with any of the qualities that win the
love of the people. There is not a doubt that, even in the happiest
times, he would have allowed the reins of empire to slip from his
hands. His reign would have been a reign of favourites ; and
France would have been subjected at the same time to all the
meannesses of King James and all the prodigality of Henri III."
We must, however, grant him one good quality that is not
possessed by every prince : he respected himself, and exacted re
spect from his own circle and from all who came near him. And
this self-respect gave him an inherent personal stateliness ; it lent
1 The hatred of the Bourbons for the authors of the Revolution led them to
draw up a list of representatives of the nation on whom they intended to vent
their rage. The list was printed in London. Those whose guilt was the
most heinous were to be quartered, broken on -the wheel, hanged, or sent to the
galleys. Thirty-five were to be quartered, among whom were Treilhard, Sieyes,
Merlin de Douai, La Reveillere-Lepeaux, and Buzot Alquier. A hundred and
three were to be condemned to the wheel, among whom were Bailly, Barnave, de
Custine, Freteau, Garat, La Fayette, the two Lameths, La Rochefoucauld,
Montesquieu, Noailles, Pilatre, Roederer, Talleyrand, Target, Vadier, and
Volney. Those who were to be hanged numbered a, hundred and ninety-two,
among whom were Thibaudeau, Praslin, Montmorency, Collot, de Chateau-
Regnault, and de Tracy. Nearly two hundred were to be sent to the
21

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
dignity to his expression, and graciousness, mingled with cold
civility, to his manner of receiving visitors. On any man who was
accustomed to society, and not merely a casual observer, or one of
the vulgar herd to whom the appearance of wealth is all that
matters, Louis XVIII, even in poverty and exile, left an impres
sion of truly regal majesty. He was conscious of being derived
from the most ancient and illustrious race of kings in Europe, and
wherever he went he instantly felt himself to be the first in rank.
This feeling of supremacy gave him his very noticeable dignity,
In the most critical circumstances he was every inch a king ; he
assumed the attitude and uttered the word that raised him above
his companions ; he was dignified, always dignified.1
At Verona he held a Court, to the indignation of Bonaparte's
victorious armies, by whom Venice was at that time threatened.
The Venetian Republic, of which Verona was a vassal, intimated
to him that he must go. Louis XVIII answered that he would
seek an asylum elsewhere, but he demanded — he whose forefathers
had left so many marks in Italy of their generosity and valour—
that the book of the Doges should be brought to him, that he
might erase the names of his ancestors, the benefactors of Venice.
Some time after this his niece Madame Royale, having been
released from the Temple, was retained at the Court of Vienna,
where it was desired to marry her to the Emperor's brother, the
Archduke Charles. Louis XVIII demanded that the young
princess should be sent to him at Mittau, where he was then
living. But the Court of Vienna had schemes of its own. This
marriage with an Austrian prince, which it so much desired,
would bring Alsace and Lorraine to the German Empire, as the
dowry of Louis XVI's heiress. If Louis XVIII would consent to
the marriage and renounce his right to these provinces, Austria
would recognise him as king of France and Navarre — which she
had never done, nor ever did — and would by every means in her
power assist him to recover his kingdom. When this proposition
was laid before him the King of France summoned all his dignity,
He haughtily rejected the insulting suggestion ; not from considera-
i Chateaubriand wrote : " Louis XVIII never forgot the pre-eminent position of
his cradle. He was a King everywhere, as God is everywhere, in a manger or a
temple, on an altar of gold or of clay. ... He had the air of saying : You can
kill me — but you cannot kill the centuries. This fixed idea of his, of the dignity
and the majesty of race, gave to Louis XVIII a real power over other men, who
were conscious of being dominated. Even Bonaparte's generals confessed it.
They were more intimidated by this infirm old man than by the terrible master
who had led them to a hundred victories. ..."
22

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
tion for the unfortunate girl whose hand was being treated as an
article of commerce, but because he felt himself answerable to all
his kingly ancestors, who had transmitted to him a heritage that
was incorporated with their House, and therefore inalienable. " I
cannot cede those provinces," he answered ; " the surrender would
be null and void. The example of Francois I is evidence in point.
And as for the marriage, King Louis XVI, before he died, made
his daughter swear that she would never marry any man but her
cousin the Due d'Angouleme." After the execution of the Due
d'Enghien he felt his princely dignity assailed by the fact that he
wore a certain illustrious order, which had been reduced to a
degrading vulgarity by being given to Bonaparte. He desired
to have nothing in common, he wrote, with " that great criminal,"
who had received the insignia of the Golden Fleece from Charles IV,
King of Spain ; and he returned his own to his cousin of Madrid.
He seized the opportunity of giving a lesson to this king, his
junior. " In the present century," he added, " it is more glorious
to deserve a sceptre than to carry one"; and he would never, what
ever the risk, whatever his misfortunes, show himself unworthy of
occupying the throne of his ancestors. At Warsaw, when Bona
parte's emissaries from Berlin proposed that he should exchange
his rights to the French crown for a kingdom on Italian soil,
he once more stood on his dignity. He refused to listen for
another moment to those strange ambassadors, and his answer
to them is one of the noblest he ever made. " I am not afraid
of poverty. If it were necessary I would eat black bread with my
family and my faithful servants. But do not deceive yourselves ;
I shall never be reduced to that. I have another resource, though
I do not believe I shall ever have to employ it as long as I have
powerful friends ; it is to let my condition be known in France,
and to hold out my hand, not to the Government of the usurper —
never that — but to my faithful subjects. And, believe me, I should
soon be richer than I am." (Lubis : Histoire de la Restauration.)
He was in the habit of expressing himself, in his sonorous,
resonant voice, with an eloquence that was both imposing and
attractive, an eloquence born of this belief of his in his own claims.
Men who were the products of the Revolution, and Sovereigns —
such as the Czar — whose thrones were less ancient than his, and
who were less closely bound up with their people, could not under
stand it. It was this conviction, in a man who had so long been a
stranger to France, that constituted the power of Louis XVIII,
23

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
and was so enchanting to the Royalists, who accepted everything
he said with the cheerful readiness of a Sunday-school class. If he
had not been sustained and uplifted by this ineradicable conviction,
is it possible that he could have persistently hoped for twenty-five
years to see the resurrection of his rights and his race ? " I am
waiting for the moment that will inevitably come," he said to his
courtiers. This was the secret of his philosophical, uncomplaining
endurance of his misfortunes. He was driven from every town in
which he took shelter. He left Verona in a little carriage, with
one only of his intimate attendants ; he travelled, in the greatest
discomfort, across unknown countries, but he never flinched; he
was unshaken in his truly royal dignity. At Blankenburg he
lived in a little suite of rooms under the roof of one of the
local grocers; yet, in spite of the modesty of his establishment,
he superintended all his affairs himself, maintaining personal
relations with his ambassadors in various parts of Europe, and
with the ministers who were living close at hand.1 At Mittau, at
last, he enjoyed the semblance of a Court, with a palace and guards.
The Emperor Paul of Russia had yielded to the prayers of Saint-
Priest. Then suddenly Bonaparte lifted his finger, and the Court
vanished. Louis was- forced to leave the country, without knowing
where he should find shelter. He started off7 in the direction of
Prussia;2 and the story of his journey, with all its cruel vicissi-
1 With regard to Blankenburg, Montgaillard writes (vol. I., Discours prdlimm-
aires, p. 17) : "I saw Louis XVIII coming to join Conde' s army with a waggon-load
of ordinances and decrees of the Council that were waiting for registration by the
Parlement. While he was at Blakenburg he was holding councils day and night,
appointing ambassadors and ministers, and making numbers of promotions in his
naval and military forces, though he had not a single soldier, nor yet a single
ship. . . . Some day I will describe what he meant by promising the French a
liberal constitution. . . . Here I will confine myself to quoting some words used
by Louis XVIII in his Council, or else said to me personally in his private room.
' You can seal these letters of pardon, M. le Garde des Sceaux ! (The men to be
pardoned were nineteen conventionists who had voted the King's death. ) As you
say, I am exceeding my royal rights; but when I am on my throne my
Parlement of Paris will find it quite easy to prove to me that I exceeded those
rights, and the men I am pardoning will be broken on the wheel in the Place de
Greve with my letters patent round their necks.' 'As for the press and the
philosophers, and irreligion, and active revolt, I shall stand no nonsense from
them when I am restored to my kingdom, and these worthy writers may depend
on a Chamber of Syndics with » good strict right of censure. No nation
should be allowed to talk, and the French nation least of all.' "
2 M. de Beauchamp has given us a very detailed account of the journey from
Mittau. "... At Frauenburg the King and his suite slept in the posting-house;
It was a tavern— and what a tavern ! At least sixty peasants were collected in
the public room which constituted nearly the whole house. Without knowing
the country and its customs it is impossible to form an idea of this crowd, of the
intolerable stuffiness, as well as the nauseating smell of tobacco, beer, and brandy
24

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
tudes, fills one with admiration for the exile in his discomfiture.
When at last the continent failed him, he crossed the sea and took
refuge in England. He resigned himself to being merely a private
gentleman, the Comte de Lille, without any of the attributes of
royalty, since those were the terms on which he was received as
a guest. But he abandoned none of his claims. His courtiers
gathered round him and formed a Court for him, and were lavish
in their marks of respect. He maintained in his house at Hartwell
the dignity of a sovereign prince; and, in spite of the insignificance
of his domain and the slenderness of his resources, he never showed
any signs of weakness before his household.1
with which they were reeking. The little shed in which I passed the night was
next door to a kind of wash-house where our adorable princess (the Duchesse
d'Angouleme) slept. She said : ' This is a robbers' cave ! ' . . . The inn was so
small (at Ilmagen) that d'Avaray and the Abbd Edgeworth slept in the King's
rooms, and in the Duchess's were Madame Hue, the Duchesse de Serent and the
woman-of-the-bedchamber. I must not forget to say that, on account of the
intense cold and the dampness of the room, a stove had been hastily put into it,
and heated to such a degree — no doubt with the best intentions — that the
princess's health was in greater danger all through that dreadful night than in
the wash-house she had occupied the night before, damp and icy as it was. At
last we arrived at the house of the Baron de Sass, in Courland. Before crossing
the frontier the Due de Fleury was sent on in advance, for fear of difficulties, to
feel the way and sound the Russian troops. The King said : ' If all goes well,
approach the carriage on my side ; but if anything is wrong, ride up to the side
where my niece is sitting.' — 'Oh mon Dieu !' cried Madame, 'is my side always
to be the unfortunate one ? ' — ' You are right, my child,' answered the King ; ' if
there is misfortune, it must be for me alone. Due de Fleury, if things go badly,
you must come to my side of the carriage.' Everything went well, however.
We arrived at last at Memel. ... On reaching Prussian territory the King took
off all his orders and assumed the strictest incognito, under the name of the
Comte de Lille ; while the Duchesse d'Angouleme called herself the Marquise
de la Meilleraye. They were well received at Memel. The Danish Consul was
most obliging. The Duchess, who had never seen a, ship, wished to go on board
the Fortune, whose captain's name was Witt ; and she accepted some cakes and
a cup of coffee there, by way of breakfast. Five of the King's bodyguard
arrived from Mittau. The King said to them : ' It is a great comfort to me to
see you, but my pleasure is mingled with very bitter sorrow. . . . You see me
thus ;(he showed them his left side bereft of all his orders) ; I cannot even wear a
single order. I have nothing but advice to offer, and the best I can give you is
to go to Konigsberg, lest there should be too many of us here, and we should give
umbrage. I have just been arranging for your journey to Hamburg, where all
of you will easily be able to make further plans.' The money being all spent, the
Duchesse d'Angouleme bethought her of selling her diamonds. They were en
trusted to the Danish Consul, who advanced two thousand ducats on them. . . .
At Memel, as we were on the point of leaving, the Abbe Marie was found dead
in his bed. He had plunged a dagger into his heart. The reason was never
known. ... At Warsaw Keller, the Governor, was waiting for the King in the
Maison Wassiliewicht, in the suburb of Cracow. ..."
During this journey from Mittau to Memel the Duchesse d'Angouleme was
holding on her knees the dog that had become dear to every feeling heart,
the prison-companion of the unfortunate little prince, Louis XVII.
1 Certain events that took place at Mittau and were described in the Comte
de Beauchamp's Memoirs should not be passed over. " Early in 1799, Souvarow
25

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
When he became King he invented a costume for himself, which
aimed at combining a military appearance with the requirements
of his bodily infirmities. As soon as he rose he was dressed by his
valet in a coat of blue cloth, whose cut was something between that
of a modern frock-coat and court-dress. Two little epaulets of
gold cord were sewn to the cloth. Under the coat was a white
waistcoat, which was almost entirely hidden by the ribbons and
wide sashes of his orders. His satin breeches ended in a pair
of high boots or gaiters of red velvet, which came above the knee
and were more supple than leather ; for the thickness of leather, on
legs that were often painful from gout, would have created too
much friction. He made a great point of these boots. Perhaps he
thought that they were the proper things for a gentleman to wear,
or that they made him look like a general, ready at any moment to
spring upon a horse — though this was a physical impossibility to
him, since he was much too fat and too infirm. At his side there
hung a sword that he never laid down, not even when he seated
himself in his armchair to receive visitors. Every morning the
barber curled his hair with the tongs and turned it back in rolls
above his ears, gathering it together at the back in a little queue
which hung down over his coat-collar. He used powder, as formerly,
with a view to hiding the white locks of age ; and this gave his
complexion an appearance of youth. In his well-developed but
receding forehead — sign of a deceitful nature and of an imagination
ever ready to harbour chimaeras — in his large, wide-open, pale blue
eyes ; in his aquiline nose, disdainful mouth, and thick, heavy
double-chin, it was easy to detect intelligence, pride of race, and
the desire to rule that never forsook him, even in his darkest days.
On the whole the impression he gave was that of a person of dis
tinction, with an attractive face, and a very strong likeness, it is
said, to his grandfather Louis XV.
went through Mittau to rejoin his troops, and was granted an audience by the
King. Louis XVIII left his study, and walked a few steps to meet him. The
Marshal knelt on one knee, and kissed the skirt of the King's coat. . . . The
Marshal's visit lasted for an hour. As he left the guard-room, he said : ' For
the King's faithful servants, honours and protection : for the Jacobins, no
quarter ! ' Having returned to his hotel, he undressed himself and went into a
little room, stark naked, where he was repeatedly sprinkled with cold water.
Then, having donned a pelisse, he entered the public room. Here, on a fairly
large round table without a cloth, he was served with a big dish of millet and
several other dishes, of which one was of herrings. Of this he and his four
aides-de-camp partook standing. They were then served with punch."
" Dumouriez came to Mittau too. He was short and fat, and wrapped up in an
enormous pelisse which made him twice his natural size. . . . During the first
meal Madame Royale nearly fainted. " ...
26

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
From the day that he arrived at Verona, after leaving the roof
of his mother's brother Wenceslaus, Elector of Treves and Prince
of Saxony, to fly across Europe before the victorious armies of the
republic, his way of living never varied. Wherever he was living
his habits were always the same ; whether at Blankenburg, Mittau,
Warsaw, or in England. He began the day at 8 o'clock, and
devoted the morning to his political affairs, working with his
chancellor or ministers, reading, or writing despatches to his
ambassadors, whom he always answered with his own hand. He
allowed no one to fulfil this duty for him, believing it to be of
considerable importance. At 11 o'clock he attended Mass. After
this he dined, eating very largely, though his table, owing to his
limited resources,1 was supplied with none but the homeliest dishes.
After the meal he took a walk, leaning on the arm of one of his
gentlemen — generally the favourite — for as long as his strength
and health would permit. When the walk was over he received
any visitors he was expecting ; and after another meal, not as
heavy as the last, he began the evening, before nightfall, at a whist-
table with his courtiers. He did not play himself; he merely
looked on. At midnight the party broke up.
Of the French journals that Louis XVIII read every day the
Moniteur was the one to which he gave most attention. He tried
to glean from it the secrets of Bonaparte, the schemes of the
enemy whose mere name made his blood boil. Then letters would
be despatched from the King's study to the Due d'Harcourt, who
was interviewing the English ministers in London in the King's
interests ; or to the Comte de Saint-Priest, who represented him
at St. Petersburg ; or to the Due d'Havre, who was at Madrid,
engaged in appealing to the feelings of the Bourbons, the King's
relations. Letters were sent, too, to all the agents employed in
his intrigues ; to de Precy, de Puisaye, Imbert-Colomes, Dunant,
La Vilheurnois, Dandre, d'Antraygues, Fauche-Borel ; even to
Georges Cadoudal, whom he had made a general and a knight of
St. Louis. He was prodigal, indeed, of his decorations, and also of
promises — realisable at the Restoration. Talleyrand complained
in 1815 that he was obliged to grant the requests of absolutely
1 While he was at Verona, the Spanish Bourbons paid him a subsidy of
20,000 frs. a month, and gave his wife, the Princess of Savoy, who was living
apart from him at that time, a pension of 10,000 frs. The Czar, who was either
richer or more generous, gave him 600,000 frs. and a free lodging in his palace at
Mittau, in Courland. England followed this example when he took refuge there,
first at Gosfield and afterwards at Hartwell.
27

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
insignificant people, because they produced written promises, given
to them by the princes during their exile. This was often their
way of ridding themselves of importunate petitioners, or too-
exacting creditors.
D'Harcourt, de Saint-Priest, and d'Havre-Croy were his most
devoted ambassadors. D'Harcourt, who came of an ancient
Norman family, was an old man at the time of the Emigration,
for he was born in 1726. He had been tutor to the Due de
Normandie, Louis XVI's elder brother. His pupil died young,
and when the Revolution broke out the duke emigrated to
Germany. He afterwards settled in England, to be near the
younger branch of his family, the English Harcourts.
Louis XVIII often wrote to him,1 and the letters — or at least
such of them as may still be read — are far from being creditable
to the writer. The old duke died in 1802. His nephew the
Comte d'Harcourt, who was barely five-and-twenty, had emigrated
like himself and settled in London on the disbandment of Conde's
army, in which he had served. He was as much in favour as his
uncle with the princes, and was on very intimate terms with the
Due de Berry, who made him one of his gentlemen-of-the-
bedchamber, on finding him to be as light-hearted and as wayward
as he was himself.
The Comte de Saint- Priest, like the Due d'Harcourt, was an old
man at the end of the century, for he was born at Grenoble in
1735. His life had been full of incident. He had distinguished
himself in the Seven Years' War, and had been sent as ambassador
to Portugal ; then to Sweden, where he married Mile, de Ludolph ;
next to Constantinople, where he replaced M. de Vergennes ; and
1 Extract from the papers seized in the house of Durand-Maillane, late member
of the Constituent Assembly, by order of the Directory. Letter from the prince
to d? Harcourt in London : " What is left to me then? La Vendue. Who can
take me thither? The King of England. Go on insisting, then. Tell the
ministers I am asking them for my throne or my grave. Point out all these
things to the cabinet at St. James's. And add — but this is less important since
it concerns me personally— that it will give me the greatest pleasure to owe my
glorious position and the well-being of my kingdom to so virtuous a sovereign
as the king of England and to such enlightened ministers as his." The author of
the brochure in which this letter is quoted makes this comment : " It was thus
he addressed the English, who for so long had been wasting, rather than invading,
French territory, who had decimated the population of France by every sort of
crime, crushed her commerce by every sort of piracy, burnt her ships in their own
harbours, incited her people to rebellion, and supplied the means for her civil
wars ; it was thus he addressed George Ill's ministers — William Pitt, whom the
many triumphs of France reduced to a state of delirious fury, and Lord Grenville
who had voted for a war that aimed at exterminating the French ' "
28

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
finally to Holland. Afterwards he became one of Louis XVI's
ministers, and being in consequence an object of popular hatred he
emigrated to England, and thence joined his brother-in-law, who
represented the Court of Naples in Sweden. Louis XVIII sum
moned him to Verona, and made him his Minister for Foreign
Affairs. But Saint-Priest would not follow the King to Blanken
burg. He asked Louis to send him to St. Petersburg, to beg the
Czar, in the name of the Royal Family, for an asylum in the
palace of Mittau in Courlande, and for funds to hold a Court
there. Moreover he would try, he said, to persuade the Emperor
Paul to intercede with the Court of Vienna for the young
princess — Louis XVI's daughter — the " Orphan of the Temple,"
who was being kept a prisoner, it was thought, among her
Austrian relations. This idea that the Czar should intervene was
suggested by d'Avaray. Saint- Priest was uncongenial to the
Russian Court, whom he repelled by his appearance, by his large
face with its resemblance to the Roman Emperors, by his
domineering, meddling character,1 and moreover by the fact that
he represented a prince whose desire for Court ceremonial created
much merriment at St. Petersburg ; yet he succeeded in carrying
out Louis XVIII's wishes. The King at last was able to establish
himself in the palace of Mittau, and to receive, first his wife, who
came to join him there, and then his niece, who was delivered from
the bondage of Austria. A week had not passed before he married
the young princess to his nephew the Due d'Angouleme.2 The
1 D'Allonville, in his Mimoires, vol. V., p. 88) deals rather unmercifully with
Saint-Priest. " When he was minister at Constantinople," he says, " he had
brought about the cession of the Crimea to Russia by Turkey, which cost him
the Order of St. Andrew and cost his wife a great many diamonds. . . . During
his first democratic enthusiasm he had tried to show a good example by hastening
to drop his title and call himself Guignard, the original name of his family. But
the foreign courts foolishly imagined that those who had begun by approving of
the Revolution were more competent to judge of it than were those whose superior
foresight had always made them disapprove of it ; and M. Guignard was wel
comed everywhere. As for Mme. de Saint-Priest at St. Petersburg, she had
contrived to make friends with the young princess Lapoukine, who was at that
time paramount in the affections of the Emperor Paul. . . . She told the
Princess's fortune by cards. But she did so many silly extravagant things, and
meddled with so many intrigues, that the Emperor finally interfered and sent
her away from St. Petersburg."
2 De Barante : Preface to Les Lettres de Louis X VIII. au Comte de Saint-
Priest: "The hospitality granted by the Emperor Paul I contained no element
of sympathy. The royal title was never recognised, no visit of any French prince
to St. Petersburg was ever authorised, neither the Emperor nor his sons ever
came to Mittau to condole with this royal family of exiles, who were constantly
obliged to claim privileges and consideration. The Court of St. Petersburg made
fun of the ceremonial at the little Court of Mittau; the official receptions, the
King's Mass, the bodyguard, the two tables at dinner ; . . ," Beauchamp in his
29

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
letters written to Saint-Priest by this ever wandering, never
satisfied monarch show a very singular state of mind which neither
poverty, nor wretched and unexpected journeys from one German
town to another, nor the results of Bonaparte's great victories, nor
the sorrows of the fallen dynasties had altered in the least degree.
This prince persistently lived in a state of illusion, picturing the
France of that day with all the customs and ideas of the century
before, and dreaming that Europe intended to support, by force of
arms, what he called his rights and his legitimate claims. Bona
parte's victories seemed to him a kind of monstrous prodigy, the
vengeance of Heaven, fallen upon an infidel people who had
forsaken the paths of righteousness ; and he always imagined that
if Bonaparte were out of the way everything would be as before.
Saint-Priest, feeling the hopelessness of these obsolete ideas, deter
mined to stay in Vienna, where he settled down on leaving Russia.
It was only at the Restoration that he returned to France, and
accepted a seat in the Chamber of Peers.
Of the King's servants the Due d'Havre (d'Havre-Croy) though
wanting in acuteness was one of the most honest. He came of an
illustrious stock, for the Kings of Hungary were his ancestors ; for
more than five hundred years his name had been distinguished in
the annals of France ; and his age — for he was born in 1744 — had
combined with his serious disposition to give him wisdom. The
exiled princes had the greatest confidence in him, as had also the
Bourbons of Madrid, to whom he was repeatedly sent. But being
quite under the influence of the King's mind, he followed wherever
his master led, and was imbued with all the same prejudices and
illusions. His fidelity never faltered for an hour. To the end he
shared the exile and misfortune of the royal family, and never
returned to France till he left Hartwell in one of the royal
carriages, and landed at Calais with his King.
As soon as Louis XVIII arrived at Verona, or at Blankenburg,
or at Mittau, or wherever he was establishing himself for the time
being, he organised a mock-government, with a Minister of the
Interior, a Minister of Foreign Affairs, a Minister of War, and a
Chief of Police. There were changes on several occasions among
these various ministers, but Europe was unaware of it. It was
only in the world of emigres, and especially in the King's little
Memoirs also alludes to Mittau : " The King and the Due d'Angouleme found
their own rooms furnished at Mittau, but the rest of the place denuded of every
thing. There was no linen ; nothing that was wanted for the King's table. ..."
30

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
Court, absorbed as it was in the intrigues and petty gossip of idle
people, that the matter was considered of the least importance.
For several years the Due de La Vauguyon was one of the
principal members of this miniature government ; and the various
plots that were devised for the restoration of the French Monarchy
emanated from his bureau. The family of Quelen, to which he
belonged, sprang from the princes of Bourbon-Carency, and his
father had been tutor to the Children of France. He himself was
born in 1746, and his punctilious, prudent character won the
esteem of Louis XVI, who gave him a post in his household, and
afterwards sent him as ambassador to Spain. Louis XVIII sum
moned him to Verona, interested him in his political schemes, and
made him a minister. But certain indiscreet revelations, which
could only have come from someone connected with the duke,
caused the failure of La Vilheurnois' royalist plot, and the King
was obliged to part from his minister. The perpetrator of these
indiscretions was discovered. The correspondence with the
royalist committee in Paris had been sold at Basle by the Prince
de Carency, the duke's son, an unscrupulous and dissolute intriguer.
The price of this treacherous action was the erasure of the vicious
prince's name from the list of imigris, a good round sum, no
doubt, and the kind offices of the republican police. As for the
father of the wretched man, seeing that his career was over and his
name disgraced, he fled with his sorrow to Spain, and was there
forgotten.1 The Baron de Flachslanden also counted for something among
ministers of the exiled prince. When the Revolution broke out
he was in command of a regiment in Alsace. He emigrated, joined
Conde's army and took part in the campaigns of 1792, and when
the emigres were disbanded was placed by Louis XVIII at
the head of his military affairs — not a very onerous post. He was
also made Minister of the Police and of the Interior, in place of the
Due de Vauguyon. He did not enjoy all these favours for long,
for he died at Blankenburg, in 1797. The old Marshal de
Castries, who had been the Duke of Brunswick's opponent, was
1 In his private Mimoires Montgaillard wrote :;" This minister said to me in his
hovel at Blankenburg < ¦' I confess to you, monsieur, that I am by no means
hostile to the Revolution, nor to the principle of equality.' (He was very par
ticular, however, about wearing his cordon ; though not quite so punctilious as
M. de Barentin, who had had a cordon bleu made of oil-cloth, and wore it even
in his bath, because he had taken an oath, he said, when he received the order,
to wear it always on his breast.) 'And if you wish to know my principles,'
added Vauguyon, 'I am a cosmopolitan.' "
31

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Flachslanden's successor. He died in 1801, and was replaced by
the Comte de la Chapelle.
The Marquis de Jaucourt, too, was one of the King's followers—
a minister without a portfolio. He has often been confused with
his cousin the Comte de Jaucourt, whom Bonaparte made a member
of the Tribunat on the advice of Talleyrand. The Marquis did not
care to hear his cousin's name mentioned. The Comte, however,
who was a friend of Joseph Bonaparte, became later on one of the
most influential agents in the restoration of the Bourbons.
De Vitrolles in his Memoires speaks of him as the honoured leader
of the French Protestant churches, and adds: "He had the
honeyed gentleness that is characteristic of them, and so often
hides harshness ; but he had none of their rigidity."
These ministers, who were concerned in the political affairs of
the emigres, were necessarily subject to the influence, and even
embroiled in the quarrels of those who composed the King's House
hold : the officials, and the favourites of both sexes. Moreover,
most of these gentlemen of the household were old, and had all the
morose, grumbling, discontented ways common to old men ; and,
indeed, this Court was once described as a " bear-garden." There
were the Due de Guiches, the Captain of the Guard, and the Due
de Villequier, originally Due d'Aumont, the King's First Gentle
man. The latter was ten years older than the King, and being an
old man of no ambition, refused when he returned to France in
1814 to sit in the Chamber of Peers. There was the Vicomte
d'Agoult, a native of Provence, who had been in the bodyguard,
and followed Louis XVIII everywhere, from Verona to Hartwell,
and finally to Paris, which he entered in 1814 as one of the royal
escort. There were also the Chevalier de Montaignac, the Chevalier
de Botherel, M. de Guilhermy, M. de Courvoisier, and the Comte
de la Chatre, who came of an old family in Berry and was born in
1745. During the wars of the Emigration he commanded the
regiment called the Royal Emigrants, and afterwards went to
Portugal in the pay of the English Government. In 1807 he was
accredited by Louis XVIII to the Court of George III as
"confidential agent," and, at the Restoration, he was created a
duke and sent to London as French Ambassador.
Another member of the household was the Due de Fleury, the
great nephew of the Cardinal and the divorced husband of the
beautiful Aimee de Coigny, a man whose name appears on every
page of the story of the King's wanderings across Europe. The
32

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
Due de Serent was over sixty, and came of a family who boasted
that their patent of nobility dated from the Battle of the Thirty in
Brittany. He was tutor to the Comte d'Artois' children, and
joined the King at Hartwell, where he remained till Louis returned
to Paris. The Due de Lorges was of the house of Durfort ; and
the Comte de Damas, of the same family, was ten years older than
the King, and was attached to the Due d'Angouleme, whom he
accompanied to Mittau, Warsaw, and England in turn, and finally
to France in 1814.
Superior to all these conflicting wills was the man from whom
the greatest nobles of the Court took their orders : the favourite,
the Comte d'Avaray, who had been with the King longer than any
of them. Louis XVIII, who was bound to his arm-chair by his
infirmities, who was afflicted with legs that were too heavy and a
body that was too unwieldy, who could neither take part in
the gatherings of the Emigres nor visit his supporters and friends,
felt the need of having an alter ego, a confidential friend with whom
he might share his most intimate thoughts. By this means, he
thought, the echo of all the rumours of the outer world would
reach his ear ; he would be fully aware of the traps laid for him by
intriguers or adventurers, and would know better how to act in his
political enterprises. The Comte d'Avaray was born in 1759, and
was therefore about his own age. He came of the Bearnais family
of Besiade, who had followed Henri IV, and, when that prince came
to the throne, had settled on the manor of Avaray, in the province
of Orleanais. Having been Monsieur's Grand Master of the Ward
robe, he had been led by his office into intimacy with the prince.
This was the beginning of their friendship. It had been greatly
strengthened by the fact that the Comte de Provence, when he
wished to emigrate, had owed to this friend the success of his
escape from the Palace of the Luxembourg. This made a bond
between them that the years only served to strengthen. They
remained together, sharing the ordeals of their precarious fate ;
and the more heavily misfortune weighed upon the King the more
prominent was the place his friend occupied in his life, since he was
so much the more necessary to him. Indeed, all their correspond
ence was read by both of them ; and so great was their mutual
confidence that the letters were only opened when both were
present, in order that neither should hide anything from the other.
D'Avaray, who had all the subtlety of the South, showed nothing
but gentleness and submission in dealing with the royal caprices,
33 d

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
but none the less, his bland remarks were all-powerful in determin
ing the King's line of conduct. If the latter showed generosity or
daring, timidity or evasiveness, it was d'Avaray 's thought that he
was expressing. He clothed it in elegant phrases that were all his
own ; but there were two people at the back of the idea. It
is recorded that Louis carried his mimicry of this intimate friend to
such a pitch of affectation as actually to copy his costume. Mont-
gaillard saw the King, he says, in trousers and boots and a cloth
coat of mixed colouring such as d'Avaray wore, and with his hair
arranged in the same way, smoothed down on the top of his head.
This can only have been a passing fancy.
It was not without difficulty that the gentlemen of the house
hold endured this exaggerated condescension on the King's part
towards his favourite. They had to pay court to this personage,
who was as important as his master. They all knew that nothing
was to be secured without the consent of the Grand Vizier. He
was the dispenser of favours, the inspiration of political ventures.
The King had lost his personality. Infirm though he was, if he had
been left to himself, guided only by his own feelings, he would not
have shown himself so devoid of courage, so temporising, so
quibbling, so fond of empty words. Sooner or later the day would
have dawned, the hour would have struck, when he would have
appeared as a prince and a soldier. But his friend was always
beside him, begging him to be careful, and to discuss the chances
and dangers of the venture, whatever it might be ; and meanwhile
the time was flying and the psychological moment gone beyond
recall. Moreover, everything that was harmful to d'Avaray was
also indirectly harmful to the King. D'Avaray suffered from a
chest complaint that affected his courage ; it was impossible for
him to be a man of energy and resolution when he was weakened
by fever, and his mind depressed by the thought of his brief and
hopeless future. Being ill, too, he often delayed the King's flight
across the icy plains of the North of Europe. On leaving Mittau,
on arriving at Memel, and again at Warsaw his attacks of
haemorrhage were very alarming to the master with whom he
travelled. At Warsaw the unfortunate man took to his bed, and
the King, being thus deprived of his companionship, showed the
sincerity of his feeling by sitting every day beside his dying friend,
and reading aloud to him in the hope of dispelling his melancholy
thoughts. At last the victories of Bonaparte chased the royal family from

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
the continent. They were forced to cross the sea and take refuge
in England. The climate of that country, being too severe for a
consumptive patient, exiled the favourite on whom the King
depended so much to latitudes further south. D'Avaray went to
Madeira. Louis XVIII heaped honours upon him, gave him
the title of Duke, granted him the right of quartering the arms of
France with his own, and of using the motto Vicit iter durum
pietas ; and during the ten months of separation that passed before
death finally parted them there was a constant flow of letters from
the King to his friend. These letters are full of feeling ; as
anxious, as eager, as affectionate as though written to a sister.
The invalid set out on his voyage in June 1810, and died in the
August of the following year.1
D'Allonville has not dealt too kindly with the memory of this
favourite. " D'Avaray " he writes, " was foolish, proud, and credu
lous. In his arrogant ignorance of men, he was irritated by every
fact that conflicted with his own views, and was fired with
implacable hatred for any one who tried to enlighten him. This
made him guilty of a number of mistakes — mistakes that were
often stupid and sometimes criminal. Witness the case of de
Puisaye, whom he persecuted, and whose death he would gladly
have compassed." As for Louis XVIII, his regret lasted exactly
as long as it took him to make another favourite, the Comte de
1 Louis XVIII thought it his duty to defend the name ol favourite, flung at his
friend by those who envied him. ' ' One of the most painful things about being a
king," he said, " is that as soon as we make a friend he is attacked and decried
by calumny, either in the hope of injuring him with us, or of injuring ourselves.
I know only too well that my friend is subjected to this unjust treatment. I am
quite aware that he is given the title of favourite, a cheap insult that has no
significance in itself but is insulting through the arbitrary meaning attached to
the word. If I were only concerned to defend my own choice, my defence would
be short and unanswerable. I should say : / exist; and there would be nothing
more to be said. But that is not enough ; it is my friend whom I wish to defend,
and I can do that in no better way than by giving him weapons with which to
repel the calumnies that will certainly reach his ears sooner or later, if they have
not already done so."
The King then proceeded to justify his friend's pretensions to a distinguished
career, by reference to his birth and his personal qualities ; recalling once more
that it was to d'Avaray that he owed his own safety. Then he goes on : "I ask
his enemies themselves whether he was anything but modest, and whether I ever
had a more respectful subject in public. In private he is the most sympathetic
friend, and (which I value still more) the most severe. ... Of all my affairs
there have only been two in which he has openly concerned himself and taken an
active part. One was connected with my reputation, the other was very near my
heart. It was with him that I braved the perfidy and overcame the obstacles
that separated me from my cousin the Prince de Conde ; it was through him that
I achieved the marriage of my children. . . . This is the whole of his public life.
He has my entire confidence, and far from hiding the fact I declare it openly : I
have just proved that his public actions show how worthy he is of it."
35 D 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Blacas d'Aulps, whom his friend had recommended to him before
going away.
Louis was not content with having a favourite of his own sex,
and a fair friend had been found for him by the Marquis de
Jaucourt. In the old days at Versailles the domestic circle of the
Comte de Provence had been very austere. The countess his wife
was of a haughty, cold disposition, and her frigidity restrained the
amusements of her household, and had a chilling effect on conver
sation. In the salon of the favourite there was a sudden and
delightful sense of freedom, and even a slight suggestion of that
graceful immorality that was so much affected at the time in good
society. Was not this exactly what was wanted by a man to whom
locomotion was so difficult ? Women, like the butterflies they are,
darting here, there, and everywhere, have means that are denied to
men for finding out their neighbours' secrets. In their inquisitive,
insinuating, charming way they win confidences that are not
entrusted to men. They are more observant, too ; their ears are
open to all comers ; they insist, they implore, they sulk, to attain
their end. So the Comte de Provence, in spite of his physical
unwieldiness, was kept informed of the intrigues at the Court of
Versailles. Among the ladies-in-waiting of the Comtesse de Provence
was a Mile. Caumont-Laforce, who had lately married a rich
Genoese, the Comte de Balbi, Colonel — on half pay — of the
Bourbon Regiment. The prince first observed the young woman
some time after she came to the Court in 1780 ; and the relations
that began then lasted for a long time, for she was fairly
accommodating. She was born in 1758, and was therefore young,
like the prince himself. Her beauty was by no means dazzling ;
her face bore the indelible marks of smallpox, and her teeth were
very bad ; but her eyes shone with irresistible brilliancy, and her
whole countenance was so full of mischief and gaiety that it made
a lasting impression. People did not admire her, yet they could
not leave her side. Her conversation sparkled with lively sallies,
with caustic remarks provocative of laughter, and her quiet wit
often became bitter. Woe to him who was its victim. For the
rest, she was daring to the point of irreverence, giddy, capricious,
the life and soul of a party, even if her temper were none of the
best. She had, then, a powerful attraction for the prince, who
liked nothing so much as witty and amusing — and even ribald —
conversation, to which the favourite had not the least objection
36

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
At the Comte de Provence's charming country house at Brunoy
she shared the duties of the hostess at the princess's receptions ;
and in the palace of the Luxembourg she had her own suite of
rooms. Those that the prince first offered her did not please her,
though they were luxuriously furnished. She insisted on their
being entirely changed throughout; and in order to justify the
alterations the place was set on fire intentionally during the night.
The countess then ordered new furniture to suit her own taste,
upholstered in green and white damask, with a trimming of gold
fringe. The expense of the first furnishing had been two hundred
thousand francs. This was thrown away — but what matter ? Her
adorer obeyed her blindly and dared not resist any of her caprices.
The princess at last became jealous of all these attentions, and
one night when the prince had stayed at the Luxembourg she
arrived in a great hurry from Versailles, thinking to surprise the
two lovers. But they had doubtless been warned, and were not to
be found.
When the Revolution broke out and the Comte de Provence
determined to leave the country, he told the favourite of his
intention, and she, taking time by the forelock, preceded him to
Belgium. When he and his inseparable companion d'Avaray
arrived at Mons, at the inn that had been agreed upon, they found
Mme. de Balbi. The giddy, thoughtless woman had ordered
neither supper nor rooms, and the inn was full ; but she repaired
her mistake by giving up her own room to the prince, while
d'Avaray accepted that of the chambermaid. The prince was
going to stay with his uncle the Elector of Treves in his chateau
at Schoenverlust, where the princess, his wife, was to join him.
Mme. de Balbi followed him thither, and had her own suite of
rooms on the ground floor of the chateau,1 where she showed her
1 The Comte de Neuilly in his Souvenirs tells the following story : — " Mme. de
Balbi had a son, a spoilt child, who, after squandering all he had, took to bad
ways, became a pirate, and died miserably in some wreck or fight. Balbi used
to take us to his mother's rooms, where there was an excellent supper ; and
Monsieur (Louis XVIII) was never absent. We always enjoyed ourselves there.
I ended by spending nearly all my evenings there. Every evening, when the
Comtesse de Balbi had performed her duties in Madame's room, she returned to
her own, where her guests assembled. But first she changed her gown. Her
hair was dressed at a little table that was brought in from an adjoining room :
her gown and even her chemise were put on in our presence. It was an accepted
thing, and seemed so natural to us that we did not even give it a thought. I
ought to say that — though my eyes are fairly observant — she might as well have
had ten screens round her. There we were, Pere, Balbi, and I, little boys of no
importance, though we wore the uniform and were grown men ; but Monsieur
was there too, and he paid as little attention as we. Usually he sat with his
37

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
usual independence, indulging freely in the malicious satire that
gave so much annoyance to the old emigres, the noble residue left
by the wars of the monarchy. It was at Coblenz, the headquarters
of the royal army, that she next displayed her attractions and lier
luxury to the crowd of nobles who lived there — and lived, for the
most part, in utter destitution, while she drove about in a carriage
with four horses. These luxurious ways almost amounted to an
insult in the presence of so much poverty, and caused a good deal
of scandal ; but the prince dared not treat his favourite with any
severity, nor thwart her expensive whims. He meekly accepted any
kind of rebuff from her. One day, however, he wrote to her in
moving terms, with many cajoling phrases, that there were vexa
tious rumours abroad on the subject of her reputation ; that he
thought it right to warn her, though he believed nothing against
her, but the wife of Caesar should be above suspicion. She promptly
answered him — effectually crushing any wish he might have to
reopen the subject — that in the first place he was not Caesar, and
in the second he knew very well that she had never been his
mistress. It was a proverb among the women that the attentions
of the Comte de Provence had no consequences. They made
jokes among themselves on the subject. Allusions of this kind
reached his ears and gave him much annoyance, but he could do
nothing to put a stop to them.
This lady's despotic rule continued at Blankenburg. But when
the prince, having assumed the title of King, settled at Mittau,1 it
back turned towards her, in an armchair before the fireplace, with his hand rest
ing on the knob of his walking-stick. The prince's shadow, when it was soon as
a silhouette, was exactly like the profile of Louis XVI. He had a trick of poking
the point of his stick into his shoe. During Mme. de Balbi's toilet, which hardly
took ten minutes, the conversation went on as usual. She kept up the same gay,
intimate tone after the arrival of M. d'Avaray, the Comte de Verac, and the very
few others who were habitually admitted to her soirees. The conversation was
of plays, music, the news from Paris, songs, nonsense, and scandal. Monsieur
told anecdotes most delightfully, and was very skilful in skating over thin ice.
Intellectual games were sometimes played, such as bouts-rime's, and Monsieur
liked us to play with the others. There was also reading aloud. It was some
times my turn, and I read well. Monsieur would pass me the book : Achille, read
me this. Sometimes we had to make verses, and Monsieur deigned to give us
lessons in prosody. The subjects were drawn by lot."
1 Ernest Daudet's U Emigration, Vol. II., p. 226. "The palace of Mittau,
where Paul I. generously offered him a retreat, was formerly the residence of
the Grand Dukes of Courland. In 1798 it was, as it is now, a huge and
magnificent building, erected by one of them on the site of the old ducal
castle on the banks of the Aa. It was surrounded with groves and pondB.
Its gigantic size, its huge rooms, its architectural style — not unlike that of
Versailles — made it a dwelling worthy of a king. The view from its high
windows comprised an immense expanse of gloomy dunes, broken here and there

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
came to a sudden end ; partly because the Comtesse did not care
for such harmless attentions, and partly because Louis did not
wish to injure his political schemes by keeping up his compromis
ing relations with her. So she disappeared with Archambaud de
Perigord, who took her to Holland. At Rotterdam she became
the mother of twins. As for her husband she had rid herself of
him long ago, by having him shut up as a lunatic. In spite of
her flagrant infidelity the King was grieved at parting from her,
and never altogether deserted her. He sent some money to her in
England, whither she retired on leaving Holland. She went to Paris
under the Consulate, and tried to gain an entrance into the society
of which the First Consul was the centre ; but he refused to admit
her to his circle, and dismissed her to the provinces. Later on,
after the Restoration, she sought admission to the Tuileries, which
was denied her. Such was her passion for gambling that she would
spend the whole night at play, only returning home in the morning.
In 1841 she died in such obscurity that not a single journal
reported the death of this woman who had roused so much jealousy
and reprobation among the emigres. To many of them she had
always seemed " an impertinent schemer." 1
III.
The Comte d'Artois, the younger brother of the Comte de
Provence, was born two years after him, in 1757. Never were two
brothers more unlike in character. The elder was studious and
grave ; the younger thoughtless, volatile, impatient of study and
of the society of serious people, impetuous and indeed unrestrained
in the indulgence of his desires and passions, and disposed to think
himself, as a prince, superior to other men ; good-natured, with a
view to gaining approbation ; recklessly wasteful of his means ; and
by fertile tracts and forests, and beyond them, in the distance, the Baltic Sea.
Nearer at hand was the town. ... Of all the residences occupied by the King
since leaving Paris there was none so congenial to his tastes as this."
1 De Veron, Memoires cVun Bourgeois de Paris, Vol. II., p. 389. "For
several weeks before his death Louis XVill was unable to hold his head up.
It was constantly falling upon his chest, and it could not be raised except with
the careful help of his servants. Even in this desperate condition the King
went regularly to Mass every day, and on Sunday remained in his study on his
return, for the reception of ceremony. . . . Louis XVTTT's politeness and
gallantry never left him till he breathed his last. It was his custom to receive
ladies in the evening of the first Monday in each month. At his last reception
the King was unable to raise his head, or look at the faces of the ladies present.
The first gentleman-in- waiting announced the name of Mme. de  . ' I should
have known her by her pretty foot,' said the King. . . "
39

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
greatly given to paying court to women of all sorts and conditions,
though not very generous towards them. The popularity he had
won at Court by his pleasing appearance, high spirits, and skill in
every kind of physical exercise, increased his natural indiscretion in
the pursuit of pleasure. He counted on his personal charm to
counteract the effect of his pranks, which were sometimes rather
too outrageous ; for wherever he appeared he was invariably well
received as the most accomplished gentleman in the kingdom.
When he left the care of his governess he was entrusted to the
Bishop of Limoges, Mgr. de Coetlosquet, a worthy divine of the
best intentions and much learning, but so benevolent that he
could not make his authority felt by a conceited little prince who
loved flattery and greatly disliked being reprimanded. Was he
not a Prince of the Blood ? What more was required of him ?
It was all very well for obscure middle-class people to grow pale
over books, and stain their coarse fingers with ink ; but as for him,
he could live among his courtiers without knowing more than how
to sign his name. These were the days of Queen Marie
Antoinette's reign at Versailles, when none of the young nobles
thought of anything but gaiety and show, and hunting in the
forest, and running after women, and making love. While the
young prince was still a mere boy he was attracting notice by his
attentions to Mile. Michelot the ballet-dancer, and spending his
time in gossip with " la Contat " of the Theatre Francais. The
distant thunders of the approaching storm, though audible to
every intelligent person, failed to disturb the serenity 1 of this
brainless youth. He paid no attention to them. The notorious
fall of successive ministers, the misery of the people, even the
famine by which the whole country was overrun, had no effect
upon him. As long as he could play with the Queen at Trianon,
and contrive to keep up with the fashions, and cut a dash, and
flirt, and wear his ribbons and flowers, and ride a horse with
such admirable grace, why should he trouble about the rest ? If
he had been asked to give his views on Monarchical Govern
ment, he would at first have been extremely surprised ; then
he would have answered, in accordance with the practice of his
ancestors, that a monarchy was a government in which the King's
good pleasure was paramount ; 2 a government under which the
1 See Lord Broughton's letters on the Hundred Days.
2 Abbe de Montgaillard : Histoire. Discours priliminaire, p. 24. " The Comte
d'Artois said when he was in London : ' I would rather be a cab-driver than King
40

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
sovereign's will should be all-powerful, so that he could impose the
taxes necessary for the replenishment of the treasury. Ah yes !
if there were nobles then at Versailles who supported the doctrines
recently taught by the economists and philosophers, there were as
many others who, like the Comte d'Artois, thought that none but
the noblesse should count for anything in the State ; that they
alone were capable of leading armies and fleets ; they alone were
always ready to die in defence of the royal prerogatives.
The prince's marriage did not make any great transformation in
him. The wife they gave him was a princess of Savoy, the sister
of the Comtesse de Provence. The two brothers married two
sisters. But the Comte d'Artois was still so young, and his wife
such a fragile, immature girl, that the two children gained little
in common-sense. Marie The'rese of Savoy was charming ; small
and well-proportioned, graceful and pleasing, altogether unlike her
elder sister, who was serious from morning till night. The prince,
if he did not make her unhappy, did not love her long. He was
always preoccupied by some other woman ; constantly making
quarrels by his unseemly behaviour towards ladies of the Court.
On one occasion he took the part of Mme. de Canillac, a person of
somewhat doubtful reputation, against the Duchesse de Bourbon,
and was obliged to atone for his foolish and ill-advised conduct by
giving satisfaction to his cousin the Duke in a duel in which his
honour rather suffered.1
The women, however, adored him none the less. At the
opening of the States General he was more noticed, and discussed,
and admired, than any one else. The Marquise de Lage, writing
to one of her friends, gloats over the beauty of his French
chevalier's costume, and his personal grace and charm, and laughs
at the old Due de Villequier, sitting like a Wise Man of the East
on a footstool at the King's feet. D'Artois never ceased to be
of England. I would not even care for the crown of France at the price of a
Charter or any kind of Constitution. Out upon it ! '"
1 Le Doyen: Vieprivie de Charles X. " The Comte d'Artois was blamed for
having taken the part of a woman of very doubtful reputation whom the Duchess
de Bourbon had very rightly dismissed. People were indignant at his insulting
a Princess of the Blood in such a way, and at the same time felt for his
humiliation in having to make public reparation to her for this serious offence.
His duel with the Due de Bourbon, which seemed the best means of rehabilitating
him in a country that is inclined to forgive anything to a brave man, only had
the effect of doing him further harm, because it was asserted that the fight had
been the merest mockery, the two combatants being so far from one another that
their weapons could hardly cross. This assertion, whether true or false, threw
doubt upon the prince's personal courage, and entirely ruined him in the opinion
of the public." 41

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
the adored, admired, fascinating knight, whom no woman could
resist ; and his head was turned by all the compliments, and
seductive glances, and attentions of which he was the object.
We cannot be surprised that the taking of the Bastille, the
riots in Paris, and the disturbances in the Faubourgs should have
frightened him, and prompted him to fly from France with his
friends. He and the Condes fled together, being the first of the
nobles to emigrate. He took his family and household to Turin,
to a palace set aside for his use by his father-in-law the King, who
also gave him a pension of twenty-five thousand francs a month,
which was raised to thirty thousand when his horses and carriages
arrived. He was deeply in debt ; he owed twenty-two millions,
eight hundred thousand francs, and, to pay them off", was obliged
to sacrifice all the revenue derived from his patrimony, that is to
say three and a-half millions. These events did not modify his
ideas in the least. He did not yet feel himself defeated ; he per
sisted in hoping, and declined to enter into any negotiation with
men who wished to apply constitutional principles to the State, or
desired a monarch bound by laws to which the nation's represen
tatives had given their sanction. He could easily, he thought,
rouse the noblesse to demand the restoration of the old monarchical
privileges. He would summon them — the nobles — to his aid, he
would make them leave their country and try to disorganise, by
their absence, the machinery of the government, the navy, and the
army, and so bring about a state of anarchy. He hoped that the
penitent nation would then recall the royal family and the nobility,
and would let themselves be led as heretofore.
When his brother the Comte de Provence in his turn took
fright, and deserted the palace of the Luxembourg, the Comte
d'Artois hastened to join him at Coblenz ; and there they gathered
round them the grands seigneurs of Versailles, and the petty
provincial nobility who were already being terrorised by the
peasantry. The intention was to form a royal army of these
nobles, and, with the help of foreign allies, to restore the shattered
foundations of the ancient structure over which the Bourbons had
ruled. The two princes, surrounded by courtiers, steeped them
selves in illusions ; they fortified themselves with hopes that were
only chimaeras. There was not a monarch in Europe who seri
ously intended to help them or furnish them with troops wherewith
to enter France as conquerors. The Germans openly showed that
they would turn any such conquest to their own advantage. They
42

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
had their eye on Alsace and Lorraine, and never allowed Conde
and the army of the emigres to enter those provinces in advance of
the allied troops. The French princes, indeed, were obliged to
leave Coblenz at the instance of the Germans. The Comte de
Provence was soon wandering across Europe, wearing a crown that
no other king would recognise ; while the Comte d'Artois, at
Vienna, was vainly seeking to extort a definite promise from
the Emperor. Defeated, but not discouraged, he made his way
to St. Petersburg,1 where, in the Czarina Catherine, he found a
woman on whom he could exercise the full influence of his charm
ing manners, his distinguished bearing, and all the princely quali
ties that had conquered Versailles. She made him no more
promises, it is true, than the other sovereigns, but she gave
him a magnificent sword, of which the hilt was studded with
enormous diamonds, by way of exhorting the young prince to be
resolute, and not to let his energies die down into indolence, or
into schemes of no practical value. She believed in the vows he
made, and gave him the most virile counsel. At last, however,
her eyes were opened, and she understood the worthlessness of the
man to whom she had given an asylum in her palace. She saw
him, on the occasion of the funeral service celebrated in one of the
churches of her capital after Louis XVI's execution, so much
absorbed by his own pleasure and worldly affairs, and by such
futilities as questions of precedence, that she would have no more
to do with him. She let him go, and thenceforward was indifferent
1 Extract from the correspondence of the Comte de Vaudreuil with the Comte
d'Artois. " The Comte d'Artois, . . . arrived at St. Petersbourg on the
23rd March, 1793. . . . He wrote to M. de Vaudreuil : ' I feel as if I were in a
fairy's palace. Everything is beautiful, everything is large, everything is new ;
but there is nothing so charming as the fairy. I know she is pleased with me.
I rouse her amour-propre and excite her pride ; in fact I employ every means I
can devise, and really and truly I think I am succeeding. In other respects you
have no idea what this country is like. The people and the soldiers are perfect,
because they are slaves. But the greatest nobles are vile, low, and greedy.
They lick the feet of the favourite (at that time Platon Zoubow). But that
favourite is charming, for he behaves perfectly to us.' " And in a note : " While
the Comte d'Artois was at St. Petersburg the news arrived that Dumouriez had
gone over to the Austrians and was marching upon Paris at the head of twenty
thousand men, to restore the King (the youthful Louis XVII). Kropowitzky
{Saint Petersburg, 1875, p. 425), the Empress Catherine's confidential secretary,
says in his journal that the Comte d'Artois was greatly disturbed by this news,
and expressed a fear lest the regency should be placed in the hands of the
Queen." At the same time Rostopchine wrote from St. Petersburg on the
25th April, 1793, to Count Woronzoff in London: " The emigre's here were not
pleased at Dumouriez's treason. . . . The prospect of having as their sovereign
the son of the man they forsook so basely did not give them any great hopes." . . .
(Archives Woronzoff, Vol. VIII., p. 67.)
43

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
to his fate. And what did he do then ? He returned to those who
were awaiting his arrival to begin a fresh series of fetes ; to those
whom he had been entertaining from afar with accounts of the
pleasures of his journey and of his imaginary triumphs. And with
these companions of his, who were no more capable than himself of
appreciating the drift of events, he dissipated in folly the money
derived from the Czarina's presents. The Comte de Vauban, who
had been with him on his travels, insisted that he should go to
La Vendee. That was the right place for him, among his partisans,
among those who were so bravely facing death in support of his
cause. But he avoided the dangers of such an heroic resolve by
announcing that all he asked for now was a peaceful retreat.
" A retreat ! " replied the Comte de Vauban indignantly.
" What ? A retreat ! Monseigneur, what would you think of
any gentleman who should say that to you ? And you are the
first gentleman of the kingdom. Henri IV prided himself on that
title, and you force me to tell you that for you there is no
honourable retreat but a hole in the ground, with twenty feet
of earth over your head. You must be ready to die, sword in
hand, for your honourable cause. It is the cause of your family
and of the whole of France. We must all be ready to die in
support of it, and you must be the first to give us an example.
Our duty, Monseigneur, is to follow you ; yours is to go before us.
And why should you be so discouraged ? We have as yet
attempted nothing. Promise me, Monseigneur, to weigh these
words of mine, which are prompted by my zeal and devotion.
Carry out the suggestions of the Empress and all will be well. It
will cost nothing to make the attempt. For pity's sake, Monseig
neur, think over it well; do not resent what I say, and excuse
my frankness. I have left all to follow you. It was my duty,
and I fulfilled it. It was also my duty to speak to you in this
way, because of my devotion to you. I owed it to the Empress,
who, I confess, Monseigneur, enjoined upon me to do so. I have
acted towards you, and towards her, as I was bound to act. May
my devotion be useful to your cause." x
These vehement words had no effect whatever on the callous
mind of the prince. He did not go to La Vendee, but to
England, being unwilling, as he said, to chouanner. The priva
tions suffered by the people of La Vendee, the daily perils they
incurred, the forced marches through thickets, the nights spent
1 Le Doyen : Vie de Charles X, t>. 201.
44

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
under the open sky in flooded fields, the necessity of being braver
than the private soldier, and of always fighting in the foremost
rank — all this, to the Comte d'Artois, seemed the worst of disasters.
He only understood fighting with well-dressed soldiers, not with
men in blouses and sabots, like the noble peasants of the Bocage ;
he could not picture a commander-in-chief except on horseback,
protected from blows by the serried and perfectly regular ranks of
a large body of infantry, with a well-covered table and a luxurious
lodging at every halting place. That was the way he would have
consented to fight, the way that all the princes fought. Mean
while, the Vendeans never ceased demanding the presence of a
Bourbon. Plots against the French Republic were being organised ;
the English were offering ships, the nobles were flocking together
for a descent on Brittany. The prince was obliged to make up his
mind, and he allowed himself to be taken to the Island of Yeu,
whence he was to sail to the neighbouring coast. However, he
found one pretext after another to postpone the venture, and so
gained time enough to have himself summoned to England, where,
he said, urgent business demanded his presence. Meanwhile the
noblesse, having too much faith in their prince, took up their post
in the peninsula of Quiberon and were annihilated.
Charette wrote to the Comte de Provence :
" Sire, — Your brother's cowardice has wrecked everything. It was
impossible for him to appear on the coast without losing or gaining
everything. His return to England has decided our fate. Soon
there will be nothing left for me to do but to die uselessly for your
cause. I am respectfully, " Your Majesty's, etc., " Charette." 1
In London the Comte d'Artois was beset by relentless creditors,
who insisted that he should pay for the supplies sent to the army
of Conde. He repudiated these debts, with which he had nothing
1 Mimoires de la Comtesse de Boigne, Vol. I., p. 35 : — " M. le Comte d'Artois'
tastes and defects were only those of the young man of his day, but he exhibited
them on a stage so high that all the world could see them ; and his personal
courage, that last resource of men of the world, was not enough to hide
them. At the siege of Gibraltar (1782), at which he took a fancy to be present,
his conduct was so deplorable that the general in command actually used to send
word to the English batteries when the prince was going to visit the works, and
they left off firing. It was said that he knew nothing of it, but that sort of
thing is always known except when people prefer to be ignorant. I know that
M. de Maillebois was remonstrated with, and answered : ' But after all it was
not so bad as the grimace he made the first day ! ' "
45

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
to do, and for which he had given no guarantee. The creditors
prepared to bring the matter into the Courts, and the expense of
the action would have been so great that the funds of the
defendant, at that time very low, would have failed to cover them.
The length of the affair, too, and the circumstances unavoidably
connected with it, would have been a source of many worries for the
unfortunate prince, who was certainly in no position to free himself
from such a tangle. The English ministers advised him to leave
London secretly, and take refuge in the palace of Holyrood, near
Edinburgh, which, being a royal residence, would give him the
privilege of being safe from the molestations of his persecutors. It
was not only the creditors of the Prince de Conde who followed
him so remorselessly, for his own creditors from France joined in
the inconvenient pursuit.
He was obliged to resign himself to a life of retirement, and to
shut himself up in this ancient palace, which differed little from
a prison, since he was only able to go out on Sundays, on which day
it was not legal to arrest for debt. But this prison, once the
residence of the Kings of Scotland, was a sumptuous place. The
park was large and admirably laid out, and the English Regent had
ordered the rooms destined for the prince's use to be tastefully
furnished. There were living in the palace, in addition to the
Governor, several Scottish families of noble birth, who from
the first formed a pleasant circle for the prisoner. He was
accompanied, too, by the Comte d'Escars, the Chevalier de Puyseger,
M. de Saint-Paterne, the secretary and interpreter, and Pichard the
valet ; and as soon as the compulsory retreat of the King's brother
became known among the noble emigres, several of them joined him
in Scotland, and stayed there for a long time. Among these were
the Comte de Vaudreuil, the Comte de Coigny, the Comte de
Maille, the Bailli de Crussol, M. de Grailly, who had been the
prince's chief equerry, Edward Dillon — le beau Dillon — who had
shared his amusements in Paris, the Baron de Roll, and several
ladies, friends of Mme. de Polastron, who had never deserted the
man she loved. This young woman had gathered round her,
at Holyrood, her aunt the Comtesse Armand de Polignac, the
Marquise de Laage, Mme. de Poulpry, and Mme. de Guiche,1 one
1 Mimorial. Chapter II. On the subject of the visits received by Mme.
Bonaparte from various members of the aristocracy in the matter of the restora
tion of the Bourbons, this is what Las Cases writes of the Duchesse de Guiche: 
" M. le Comte d'Artois' overtures were still more delicate and refined. He de
spatched the Duchesse de Guiche, a charming woman, whose gracious personality
46

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
of the Polignacs, who was fated to die tragically in 1803 in this
very town of Edinburgh. One day, while she and her daughter
were staying in the hotel, the child went too close to the fireplace
and set her frock on fire, and her mother, rushing to rescue her, was
herself wrapped in flames. They both died from the effects of
terrible burns. A single carriage and two horses were the whole
contents of the Comte d'Artois' stables. His guests used them
during the week ; he reserved them for himself on Sundays, the
only days when he was safe from his creditors. On those days he
visited the Scottish families who lived in the neighbourhood. He
made full use of his freedom.1
After all, need we waste much pity on this man who was so
far from being forgotten that he had the companionship of his
mistress, the young Vicomtesse de Polastron, who adored him ? She
was the ornataent, and the delight, and the life of the little circle.
Melancholy and tenderness were written on her features. Her
gentle and rather timid voice hardly dared to make her presence
too evident among the other women ; she effaced herself in every
gathering ; she always chose a secluded seat. But all the women
respected and admired her on account of the charm of her character,
the distinction of her manners, and the disarming grace of her
whole person. Her slender, supple figure gave her the effect
of being a pretty woman, though her features were not regular.
was calculated to make her important negotiations a matter of pleasure. She
had no difficulty in seeing Mme. Bonaparte. . . . She told how a few days before
she had been with the Comte d'Artois when someone, discussing public affairs,
had asked the prince what would be done for the First Consul if he were to
restore the Bourbons. The prince had answered : ' First he would be given the
office of Constable and all that goes with it, if he cared for it. But we should
not consider that enough : we should raise a high and magnificent column in the
Carrousel, with a statue of Bonaparte on it, crowning the Bourbons.'
" The First Consul arrived shortly after breakfast, and Josephine lost no time
in telling him the story. 'And did you answer,' said her husband, 'that the
pedestal of the column would be the dead body of the First Consul ? ' The pretty
duchess was still present, and used all the charms at her command — of face and
eyes and speech — to make her mission successful. . . . But all was in vain. That
night the Duchesse de Guiche received an order to leave Paris. "
1 Mimoires de la Comtesse de Boigne, Vol. I., p. 179: — "When, in the early
days of the Emigration, the Comte d'Artois wished to have an almoner in Scot
land, where he was then living, Mme. de Polastron wrote to Mme. de Laage to
find him a priest to read Mass, of a somewhat inferior class, so that he should not
expect to be admitted to the dining-room, since the Comte d'Artois intended
him to have his meals with the valets. Mme. de Laage applied to M. de Sabran,
who answered : ' I have the very man for you ; a little priest who is the son of a
concierge at my house. He is young, and not bad-looking ; I do not think he
would give trouble in any way, and no one need be inconvenienced by him.' The
matter was explained to the Abbe Latil in question : he joyfully accepted the
post and was packed off in the coach to Edinburgh, where he was established on
the desired footing."
47

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
The Due de Berry came several times from Mittau to see
his father, and contrived by his gaiety to bring fresh life into this
group of elderly men. He loved music, and they played to him ;
he loved laughter, and they acted little comedies on a stage set up
in his room. The Comte de Vaudreuil in his Memoires tells us
that the theatre was made of shutters and curtains taken from the
windows. The caudles from the billiard-room were the footlights,
and a piano was the whole orchestra. There were no spectators
but the servants of the house, the valets and housemaids. On the
day to which M. de Vaudreuil refers two pieces were acted, Le Sourd
and Le Veuf and the principal roles were assigned to the Comte de
Maille and the Due de Berry. This was a very gay evening, and
several times the Comte d'Artois burst into peals of laughter, which
seldom happened at Holyrood. As for the Due d'Angouleme, he
rarely appeared in Scotland, being retained at Mittau by his uncle,
who was training him, he said, for his future position as King.
Completely as the prisoner in this palace was cut off from the
world at large, he by no means lost his interest in the political
intrigues organised by his elder brother — plots whose object was
the downfall of the Republican government. He brought to bear
upon them, as upon everything, his exaggerated views, and the
prejudices and illusions that he borrowed from the agents and spies
in his pay. The two brothers corresponded through their friends,
who carried despatches and important papers from one to the
other. In this way they evaded the police of the Directory, and —
which was harder — the more vigilant and better organised police of
Bonaparte ; and so the recluse of Edinburgh was enabled to
express his opinions at Mittau.

IV
When the Due d'Angouleme and Due de Berry left Paris at the
time of their father's emigration, they were very young. The elder
of the two was sixteen years old ; the younger, the Due de Berry,
thirteen. Their tutor, the Due de Serent, took them to Turin, and
put them in charge of the Comte Gain-Montaignac, who found that
their precocious talent for the profession of arms only needed to be
developed. To join Conde's army with their father was the desire
of both, but especially of the Due de Berry, whose irascible,
wilful, almost churlish nature was very different from that of his

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
thoughtful, deliberate, docile elder brother. At their ages,
however, it was enough for them to become good horsemen ; and
four times a week they went off on reconnoitring expeditions, which
accustomed them to long rides, and to jumping hedges, ditches, and
streams as coolly as staff-officers. At last their dream was realised.
They were sent to Coblenz, and took their place in the army by the
side of the Comte d'Artois. In a very short time the Due de Berry
gathered round him a group of mettlesome young soldiers, who
found his gay vivacity and his rough, decided speech congenial
to them. The Due d'Angouleme attracted more attention from
the old gentlemen : his sympathies were with wisdom and
discretion ; and, either from shyness or from want of self-confidence,
he was always ready to listen rather than to give his own opinion.
He seemed old ; much older than his brother.
Circumstances separated them. The King, that is to say the
Comte de Provence, who was a true pedagogue, wished to keep his
elder nephew by his side, under his own influence. In his leisure
hours, he said, he would initiate him into the political views that
the head of a State should hold, since after himself and the Comte
d'Artois the young prince was destined to be King. And, more
over, in accordance with the last wishes of the martyr-king — or so
at least the Comte de Provence persuaded his household to believe
— the prince was determined to marry " Madame Royale " his
cousin ; and the young couple, thus united by misfortune, would
add a touch of youth to the wandering Court and, in their uncle's
old age, would comfort and cheer the sadness of his exile. The
Due d'Angouleme's resignation to so dull a fate showed the
goodness of his heart. As for the Due de Berry, he followed his
father to London ; then spent some time at Mittau while the
Comte d'Artois was in seclusion at Holyrood ; but he was never
long in one spot. London was the place he preferred, for in
London it was possible for him to live the dissipated life he loved,
the life of vicious joys and easy pleasures. He was often to be
seen in the music-halls, and oftener still in the house of a certain
Miss Brown, whose regular features, pale complexion, and simple
tastes attracted him so strongly that he made her his mistress, and
had two daughters by her.1
1 Mimoires de la Comtesse de Boigne, Vol. I., p. 175 : — " M. le Due de Berry
had settled in London, where he lived a life very inappropriate to his rank and
still more so to his misfortunes. . . . M. le Due de Berry was often unseemly in
his conversation as well as in his actions, and he gave way to fits of rage in which
he completely lost control of himself. So much for the bad side of him. He had
49 e

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Those who knew him at this time compared him to Charles II.
But though the two were equally vicious and passionate, the Duke
lacked the grace and distinction, the caressing manner and attrac
tive speech of the English prince, who, if he had enemies, had as
many partisans. The freedom of his bachelor life amid daily
temptation led the Due de Berry into egregious follies ; and his
ill-chosen companions taught him a coarse mode of speech. He
relapsed, after his unfinished education, into the degraded customs
of past centuries ; forgetting the courteous and chivalrous manners
of Louis XIV's Court, and the brightness, and grace, and smiles of
Louis XVs. There was a touch of the dragoon in him, a shade of
despotism and of the grand seigneur's insolence, which combined
the reserved manner of the gentleman with the unrestrained
mockery of the people.
His person, too, gave this same impression of inconsistency,
almost of vagueness. He was short, with broad shoulders and a
massive frame, without any visible neck to divide the heavy head
from the large body. With his prominent chin, thick mouth, and
flat nose, he had the appearance of a moneyed peasant. Only his
eyes, which were large and bright blue, recalled the Bourbon race
from which he sprang. A careful education would have refined his
rustic appearance ; but this he never had. He was uncultivated
and ignorant, and the most that could be said for him was that he
had a certain natural animation which sometimes led him to make
happy repartees. Throughout his life he was surrounded by
courtiers, not by friends ; men attracted by his rank, not by his
mental qualities.
There was no use in asking him for his political opinions. . He
cared for none of these things ; but on the whole he was inclined
to agree with the absolute views of his father, rather than with
those of the King, whose theories had been modified by circum
stances. He thought much of his amusements, and very little of
serious matters ; and the only excuse for him is that at the end of
the century he was only twenty-two years of age.
a great deal of natural intelligence : he was good-natured, gay, a good fellow.
He told a story in the most charming way ; it was a real gift ; he knew it well,
and in spite of being a prince he waited for opportunities to arise naturally,
instead of seeking them. He had an excellent heart : he was liberal, generous,
and yet careful. ... As long as he had any money he was ready to open his
purse for the unfortunate as widely as for his own whims ; but as soon as it was
empty he denied himself everything until such time as it was filled again. He
did not share the foolish political views of the Emigre's. I have seen him genuinely
indignant with the people who excused the attempt made on the First Consul's
life with an infernal machine. ..."
50

Due de Berry.

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
The Due d'Angouleme acquiesced, at all events ostensibly, in his
uncle's theories. He always approved, for he was not sufficiently
daring to contradict. None the less, according to a chapter in
Ernest Daudet's L 'Emigration, the King and d'Avaray discovered
to their dismay that the young prince's ideas were modelled on
those of the English, and that he preferred a representative
government to an absolute one. It was said of him that he was
mentally indolent ; but surely he must have been much less so than
he was reputed to be, since he was able by dint of thinking to
acquire a conviction of his own, which the King tried to uproot.
Young as he was, he had compared — and to some purpose — the
advantages of the liberal government in England with those offered,
according to the people who held the old views, by the government
that ruled France before the Revolution ; and he showed, by the
very pertinent questions he put to his uncle, that he understood
the evolution of thought and the needs of modern nations.
" Supposing," he asked, " a party were to spring up in the
Republican government, sufficiently strong to treat with the King
and to inspire a certain degree of confidence, would it be possible,
would it be right, to begin by rejecting the absolute subversion of
our ancient constitution ? If the King were required to sacrifice
a large proportion of the royal prerogative and of the prerogatives
of the three ancient orders, this double sacrifice being put forward
as indispensable for the re-establishment of the Monarchy, would
he absolutely refuse to subscribe to it ? In less stormy times would
it not be possible to assemble the people and find out their wishes
with regard to the constitution that would be most to their
advantage ? " At this time, before the end of the century, Louis
XVIII regarded these questions as so many heresies, and said to
his nephew : " You have a naturally good heart, a fair mind, and
an aptitude for work. The facility, the really surprising facility,
with which you learnt geometry is proof positive of this. By what
misfortune is it due that these good qualities of yours are thrown
away, and that you have clung, or rather have returned, to a state
of ignorance that makes me shudder ? The cause of the trouble is
easily found : it is your indolence of mind." Was it the young
prince or the old King who had clung to his ignorance ? The old
King had not changed one of his ideas in the smallest degree since
'89, whereas the mind of the young prince had followed the
progress of modern thought and had accepted the principles which
the Revolution had brought into prominence. Further on Ernest
51 e 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Daudet quotes a passage from a letter written by the King to his
niece the Orphan of the Temple, who was now his nephew's
betrothed : " I have already depicted my nephew's character to you.
I hope you were pleased with the portrait, and am certain you will
see the likeness. It will be all the easier for you to be happy with
him that his heart, guarded by his virtue, has never been given to
anyone but yourself, and that his principles, aided by your own
worth, will make it absolutely certain that this first affection will
also be the last. But if I know you at all you will not be content
with a happy home : you will also wish your husband to fulfil all
that circumstances demand of him, and for my own part I confess
that I found my hopes in this respect far more upon you than
upon anything I have been able to do myself. The difference in
age, and the habit of respect and even of a little fear always make
a young man see a touch of pedantry in the lessons of his elder
relations ; whereas in the mouth of a charming wife who is
esteemed as much as loved, logic becomes sentiment, and its
empire, if sweeter, is for that very reason stronger." In this letter
the old King seems to recognise, but only in his heart of hearts,
that his lessons in politics have not changed the views of the young
prince. He counted on his niece ; and he was justified. Thence
forward the Due d'Angouleme had no convictions but those of his
wife. Lamartine gives us a cruel portrait of him. He regarded him
as one of those incomplete beings who are wanting in reasoning
power and have not the full use of their minds, like the children
who are born in the shadow of Alpine summits and remain
children all their lives — timid, incoherent, weakly, made to obey
rather than command. Was he not the son of a princess of
Savoy ? Nevertheless he had the air of distinction that the Due
de Berry lacked, though he could only express himself hesitatingly,
as if he were absent-minded. He faltered and stammered ; and
while speaking his face showed signs of an intense and painful
effort of memory. He had no lack of good intentions nor of
application. It is even said that he had a wide education, but did
not know how to exhibit his knowledge — he did not dare to do so,
indeed, for being questioned put him out of countenance at once.
His face was characteristic of the nervous, self-absorbed man. His
eyes blinked constantly, and his convulsive laugh gave to his
mouth an idiotic expression, which did not inspire confidence. He
had the submissive character of the disciple, the eager deference of
52

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
the subordinate ; he reflected the thoughts of others, but never
expressed his own. He was, however, brave — braver than his
father had been ; and would have made a good private soldier
though a bad general. Fifteen years later, at the time of the
Restoration, when he was forty years old, he might have been
popular on account of his modesty and his regular life ; but un
happily he had married a vindictive woman, who despised humble
folk. He obeyed Madame Royale blindly, and was included in
the aversion with which this princess, after her return from exile,
always inspired the people. The Abbe de Montgaillard, referring
to the two brothers, the Due d'Angouleme and the Due de Berry,
rightly says : " They did not understand that having had kings
for ancestors is not all that is needed, if a man wishes to be worthy
of having Frenchmen for subjects."
It was on the 10th August, 1792, that the young princess,
Louis XVI's daughter, when she was barely fourteen years old,
was imprisoned in the Temple with the King and Queen, her aunt
Elizabeth and her young brother the Dauphin, Due de Normandie.
At the age when a girl is leaving childhood behind her, and all
her feelings are painfully acute, she was imprisoned in a gloomy
cell, cut off from all the joys of life and delights of youth when
they would have seemed so especially sweet to her. As time passed
her sorrows increased. Louis XVI was condemned to death, and
summoned his family to say a last farewell ; then her mother and
her aunt left her for the scaffold, and there was none to comfort
her, none to dry her tears of despair during these terrible hours of
final separation. All that she suffered under these cruel blows, all
the terror of her young heart, she had to bear alone, while her
brother was dying from the tortures of his gaolers.1 Soon the
lonely girl was the sole surviving child of the dead King.
1 Lamartine wrote a touching passage on the subject of the young prince
(Histoire de la Restauration, Vol. II., p. 92). "This poor child, wrote his sister,
lay rotting amid dirt and rags in his poisonous room. It was only swept once a
month. The child, whose senses were nearly gone, had a horror of the place,
and lived like some foul creature in a sewer. No one entered it save when his
food was taken to him : bread and lentils and a piece of dry, hard meat, in an
earthenware bowl : never any wine or fruit. Such was the diet of this child who
was alone with his own thoughts. After Robespierre's death these brutalities
were rather moderated. None the less were they fatal. We found him, says
Harmond, the representative of the department of the Meuse, in a little room
that was quite bare except for a faience stove which communicated with the next
apartment. His bed was in the little room. The prince was seated before a
little square table. ... He was occupied with his cards when we came in, and
did not leave his game. He was dressed as a sailor, in slate-coloured cloth. . . .
53

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Her correspondence with her uncle Louis XVIII from the day
she left her prison in the Temple till her marriage with her cousin,
which was placed in the hands of Ernest Daudet and published in
the second volume of his L 'Emigration, alters nothing in the
verdict of history with regard to this princess. These letters show
her to be grateful and cordial to her relations, even on the German
side of her family. She felt no aversion, apparently, from the
Court of Austria ; she thought her cousins the archduchesses were
pleasant and kind to her ; she enjoyed their companionship ; and
on the other hand she responded heartily and feelingly to the long
and affectionate letters of her uncle the Bourbon King. She was
seventeen years old. She had only just been released from her
narrow cell in the Temple, where she had lived in complete isola
tion, cut off from the world, unconscious of current events, ignorant
of life. Suddenly, owing to the intervention of her uncle the
Emperor of Germany, she was set free ; she could not have been
anything but exactly what she was — affectionate to all who were
concerned with her fate, whether absent or present. This was as
it should be, and committed her to nothing in the future. So
much for the state of her heart ; her mind was another matter.
She was absolutely unyielding in her opinions ; and when those of
the King did not coincide with hers she argued with him — sweetly
of course, and tactfully, and courteously — and held to her own
view. To tell the truth, on these occasions her ideas were more
It is well known that Simon cruelly disturbed his prisoner's slumbers. Without
any regard for the fact that sleep is an absolute necessity to a child, he repeatedly
called him during the night. ' I am here, citoyen,' answered the child, soaked
with perspiration or stiff with cold as the case 'might be. ' Come and let me
touch you,' replied the gaoler, and the poor child went to him. The brutal
gaoler sometimes gave him a kick that stretched him flat on the floor, saying,
' Go and lie down, you young whelp ! ' I went up to the prince, but my
movements seemed to make no impression upon him. We begged him to walk,
to talk, to play. . . . He seemed to understand, but he gave no answer. We
were told that ever since the day when the Commissioners of the Commune had
taken advantage of his ignorance to wring from him those infamous depositions
against his relations, and he had understood the sorrows and crimes he had
unwittingly caused, he had determined not to utter a word, lest it should again
be put to a bad use. . . . We asked him to stand up. His legs were long and
thin, his arms shrunken, his body short, his chest hollow, his shoulders high and
contracted : only his head was beautiful in every detail, his skin white but
sickly, his hair long and curling. He had difficulty in walking. . . . We gave
orders that he should be better treated ; and sent for some fruit to add to his
meal. We asked him if he were pleased, and after he had eaten the grapes, we
asked if he would like some more. He was still silent. We asked if this
obstinate silence really dated from the day when he had been forced by violence
to make the monstrous deposition against his mother. They told us that it was
on that very day that the child had ceased to speak. Remorse had preceded
understanding."
54

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
judicious than those of the old King, who was ruled and obsessed
and dominated by one only desire, which prejudiced all his views :
the desire that she should marry her cousin, the Comte d'Artois'
son. This was a scheme after his own heart, since he hoped for
the happiest results from it for his own interests. He and
d'Avaray together bethought them of a device that he employed
throughout ; . the assertion that this marriage had been the wish of
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Who would dare, after such
a revelation, to refuse submission to this solemn parental
injunction ? Louis XVIII's fear was that the intriguing Emperor
would make the girl marry his own brother, the Archduke Charles.
If Germany were to win Alsace and Lorraine, and even Champagne,
by force of arms, would not this ^marriage reconcile the French
nation to their loss, since the Emperor might give the prize to the
young couple by way of appanage ? This was what Louis XVIII
greatly feared ; and to bring this matrimonial scheme to nought
he would have sacrificed anything. His letters to the girl are
sweetly, tenderly paternal. He tries to win her over to his
scheme. He pities her ; praises her ; extols her ; pours incense at
her feet ; repeats ad nauseam, that he longs to be a father to her,
that she must be his daughter, that he dreams of nothing but her
welfare, and that, with him and his nephew, she will be the
happiest of women. Did he really love her as much as all this ?
He only knew her through her letters ; but he assured her of his
feelings very definitely, none the less. There was nothing about
her that failed to please him. Whether she adopted his suggestions
or rejected them he always accepted the decisions of this idealised
niece : he always thought them both right and pleasant. The
reason was that he believed the realisation of his dreams to depend
upon this marriage. He was sure that if he could approach the
French nation, and above all the royalists, with a young prince and
princess of Bourbon blood at his side, he would greatly increase his
chance of ascending the throne of his ancestors. Rights and
memories alike would be united in the young couple.
This is the whole secret of his affection for the girl he hardly
knew; an affection that only sprang into existence when the young
princess was released. As for her, as soon as she was free, she
confirmed the first impulsive expression of her feelings. Had she
but had a little happiness she would never have become surly,
sullen, and hard. It was her experience of life only that changed
her heart, and developed the bad instincts of her nature and her
55

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
resentment against the republicans she called "monsters." But
there were qualities in her that one glance at her letters must
reveal, qualities that never changed ; her steady immovable will,
her sane and penetrating judgment. Indeed, there were many
occasions when she set her uncle right. The old King wished her
to write to the Abbe Edgeworth, Louis XVI's confessor,1 dating
her letter the very day of her release from prison — antedating it,
that is to say — and thanking the saintly priest for all that he had
done for her parents. The exiled prince desired to publish the
letter, in order that the whole of France might read it. The
princess refused, without any beating about the bush. She de
clined, she wrote, to wound the Emperor of Austria, who had
welcomed her to his Court. For the letter would be a political
matter. " It is a thing some people might do," she added, " if
circumstances required it, but it is natural to my age and character
to be as simple and accurate as the truth itself." Another time
the French Republic was about to send some ambassadors to
Vienna to negotiate the treaty of peace. Louis XVIII, knowing
the princess was at Prague, wrote and told her to stay there, in
order to avoid meeting those odious Frenchmen. Again she refused
to follow her uncle's advice. On another occasion — and this vexed
the old King most of all — he wished to send the Due d'Angouleme
incognito to Vienna in order that the betrothed pair might meet
and be the sooner attached to one another. Once more the
princess refused her consent. " At the Court of Vienna," she
wrote, " there are no mysteries, and everyone who comes to see me
is known. On the other hand, if my cousin's identity should be
recognised, and the Emperor were not to treat him with all
the honours that are his due, he — the Emperor — would be
behaving rudely, and the blame would fall upon me, the innocent
cause." She never failed, then, to speak frankly to the King, and she
always acted as she thought best. A woman of strong will, energy,
and resolute character — it was thus that she was known later on.
These were the qualities — not tenderness nor gentleness, and
especially not coquetry nor womanly charm — that formed the basis
of her character. It was this fact that made Napoleon say she was
1 The Abbe Edgeworth, after wandering about France for three years to elude
the persecutors of the unfortunate monarch whose last moments he had consoled,
succeeded in escaping to England. Afterwards he went to Blankenburg. He
died at Mittau in 1807, from the results of an infectious illness.
56

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
the only man in her family. Young as she was, it was not difficult
to judge from these beginnings who would have the upper hand in
the household of the royal couple.
After three years of imprisonment she was no longer considered
dangerous by the Republican Government, and was exchanged at
Richen, near Basle, on the 29th December, 1795, for the five con-
ventionists whom Dumouriez had surrendered to the Austrian
general Clairfayt : Camus, Lamarque, Quinette, Bancal, and
Beurnonville. She was handed over to the emissaries of the
Court of Vienna, and started on her journey accompanied by a
numerous guard of hussars, who were ordered to escort her to
Austria without allowing a single emigre to approach her. Some
who followed her were chased away with sword-cuts; and her
uncle's emissaries, M. de Saint-Priest and M. de Grammont, were
never even presented to her. An artist who made a portrait of her
for the French royal family was shut up, and no one knew what
had become of him. The reason of all these precautions, apparently,
was that she was desired to marry her German cousin, the Archduke
Charles, the Emperor's brother. When she persisted in refusing to
do so, the irascible and spiteful Empress of Austria ill-treated her
to the point of tearing out some of her hair. There is no saying
what would have become of her had it not been for the prince in
question, who was so indignant at this cruelty that he gave up his
suit and began to fight her battles for her.
The intervention of Russia was necessary before she was taken
to Mittau to join the expectant King, and the Due d'Angouleme
her betrothed, who was in a fever till he could make her
acquaintance. It is a long way from Vienna to Mittau. The month was
June, 1799, and the road was thickly covered with dust. The
princess found the journey very tiring, but the delight of seeing
her French relations sustained her, and made her forget the tedium
of her travels. The King came to meet her, followed by the Due
d'Angouleme and a few of the courtiers. When the royal carriage
came within sight the young princess ordered her own to draw up,
stepped lightly to the ground, and ran to meet' her uncle. On
reaching him, she flung herself at his feet, crying : " At last ! —
we have met again — it is really you ! I shall never leave you
again : do not desert me : be a father to me ! " The King was
much moved, and, raising her to her feet, pressed her to his heart,
responding to her impulsive outburst with the tenderest caresses.
57

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Then the Due d'Angouleme, who was even more upset than herself,
took her hands in his and covered them with kisses and tears.
After this the procession was re-formed, and went on its way to
Mittau, where the King and his family and the officers who had
accompanied them dined quietly together. The first person whom
the princess visited in the palace — after the Queen, who had
arrived on the previous day1 — was the Abbe Edgeworth, who
had been her father's confessor, and had stood by him at the foot
of the scaffold. This was a visit of deepest sadness. Notwith
standing the consoling words of this good priest, his face could not
fail to recall the sinister walls of the Temple prison, and her
father's last caresses and last loving look. These sad pictures,
however, were at last effaced by the eager affection of her relations,
who listened to all she had to say, and admired her, and gave her
new hope. At Mittau, too, there was a little Court, a simulacrum
of Versailles, with bodyguards in the vestibules, and courtiers all
1 Ernest Daudet: L' Emigration, Vol. II. "Her journey (the Queen's) had been
the subject of long negotiations, and had given rise to painful discussions between
her and her husband. When she was leaving Budweiss (where she was living)
she insisted on travelling with a degree of luxury and pomp that was quite
incompatible with the slender resources of the royal treasury. It took a great
number of letters, some cruel admissions, and all the King's determination
to make her give up her pretensions. This difficulty solved, she raised another.
She wished to bring her reader with her, Mme. de Gourbillon, to whose bad
influence we have already referred ; but Louis XVIII had determined not to
tolerate her presence at Mittau. The Queen's obstinacy and the King's opposition
gave rise to a voluminous correspondence. She had written to the Czar to ask
that the King might be forced to receive ' the Gourbillon. ' But Louis had also
been taking active steps, and had secured an order from the Czar forbidding
Mme. de Gourbillon to live at Mittau, and confining her to a town on the frontier.
Paul I did not answer the Queen's request, but sent it to the King. On the
12th June Louis XVIII wrote to thank him : . . . ' I entreat you to regard as
null and void,' he said, ' all future steps relating to Mme. de Gourbillon that may
be taken without my knowledge ; if indeed I am to believe it possible that
anything more will be done in the matter.' . . . The Queen took her own way.
Mme. de Gourbillon, at her request, accompanied her, and was bold enough
to enter Mittau in her suite. She suffered for it, however. While the Queen's
carriages were passing through the town to the palace one of them turned and
drove straight to the Governor's house. In this carriage was the Queen's reader.
At the Governor's house she was informed of the order that required her return
to the frontier. She gave vent to piercing shrieks ; and, standing on the steps of
the Governor's house, she abused the King in grossly insulting terms. A crowd
gathered, and commented on the affair with much excitement. The scandalous
scene only ceased with the incarceration of the Gourbillon, who was taken
to Vilna that very night. Meanwhile the Queen, still in her travelling dress, was
indulging in a violent and tearful scene at the palace, refusing to enter her rooms,
and crying out that she would go away rather than be parted from the woman
whom the King wrongly blamed for the misunderstanding that had too long
existed between them. She only calmed down when Louis XVIII, bringing his
will and energy to bear upon the situation, declared that he would 'not allow her
to go away. Madame Royale's arrival, which took place on the following day,
effaced the painful impression created by this affair."
58

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
showing their respect for the King. And, after all, she was only
twenty !
In person she was tall, but rather short- waisted, which detracted
from her dignity — a quality much needed by a princess of the blood
royal. Her regular features recalled those of her mother, but the
neck that supported her small head was not the graceful, slender
neck of Marie Antoinette. Her harsh voice and curt speech and
short sentences failed to charm her audience. The silence of her
prison life in early youth had staunched for ever the abundant
flood of words natural to a girl. She only spoke when she had
something important to say, as though she always went in fear of
a spying gaoler. But all this mattered little ; to the royal family
she was none the less " the orphan of the Temple," the absent
princess, the long desired princess ; and they were all pleased with
the marriage, which was certain, in the eyes of the Royalists, to
increase the prestige of the Bourbons who were struggling to be
restored. The religious marriage was celebrated ten days after her arrival
at Mittau, before a little flower-decked altar in a room of the
palace, with the Cardinal de Montmorency, the King's Grand
Almoner, as officiating priest. On the previous day the marriage
contract had been signed before the Comte de Saint-Priest ; and
at the religious ceremony all the officials of the little Court, all
the gentlemen-of-the-bedchamber, and all the royal guards were
present, and gave a touch of dignity to a scene which woidd other
wise have been merely a family party. The Due de Villequier was
there, and the Dues de Guiche and de Fleury, the Comte de Saint-
Priest, the Marquis de Nesles, the Comte d'Avaray, and the Comte
de Cosse ; and among the ladies were Mile, de Choisy and Mme.
de Damas, who were afterwards ladies of honour to the bride.
The Comte d'Artois and the Due de Berry were absent, being
detained in Scotland.
The King seized the opportunity of writing to his ambassadors
at the European capitals :
" This alliance gives me the greatest pleasure. But great as is
the personal happiness which I hope to derive from it, my pleasure
is not nearly so much for my own sake as for the sake of my
faithful subjects. Their hearts will surely be moved when they
see .the only child of the martyr-king we deplore, permanently
seated beside the throne. And I, when death shall have put an
end to my labours on their behalf, shall at least have given them
59

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
a mother, who can never forget her own sorrows except in making
her children happy, and to whom Providence has granted all the
virtues and qualities necessary for success."
How this prince loved to delude himself ! France, of course,
was completely indifferent to this event of which he spoke so
fervently. The Consulate was being inaugurated, and the fate of
the Bourbons was altogether forgotten in enthusiasm for the genius
of the young soldier who had won the battle of Marengo.
After the marriage a few happy months were passed at Mittau.
The young bride was the object of a great deal of respectful
flattery on the part of the old nobles of the Court, where the laws
of etiquette were more strictly observed than before. There were
two tables for the King's dinner. The bodyguard lined the
passages when their master went to hear Mass in jthe chapel.
Louis XVIII, the ruler of this world of courtiers, grew thoroughly
cheerful and at his ease among all these essentials of royal life. It
should have been his misfortunes that were pitiable ; but those who
saw his beatific happiness in these trifles could only pity his
contentment. It was Barante who made this observation. And
then, suddenly, by a caprice of the eccentric Paul I, who reigned
at St. Petersburg, all the fabric of petty grandeur and shabby
royalty fell to the ground. On the 21st January, 1801, the King
must perforce leave Mittau, and seek another asylum. This fresh
misfortune roused in the princess all the energy she had gained
from her sufferings in prison. She hid her uncle's valuable papers
among her clothes, armed herself with the remains of the
fortune left to her by her aunt the Princess of Saxe-Teschen, and
started off across the icy northern plains, first to Memel 1 and then
1 De la vie de Louis X VIII, by de Beauchamp : — " At Memel, when they were
on the point of going away, the Abbe Marie (cf. supra, p. 27, note) was found
dead in his bed. When the surgeon arrived and uncovered the dead man he
found a knife plunged in his breast, and drew it out. The Abbe Marie was no
more. It created a great sensation in Memel that this should have happened in a
Protestant country to a Catholic priest in the immediate circle of the King of
France ! It would have taken very little to produce the most unfortunate con
sequences, and it was with the greatest difficulty that M. Hue obtained leave
from the authorities at Memel to have the body buried. This horrible event was
attributed to an attack of fever. But what was the cause of it ? The situation
of the King and Madame, which was really terrible at that time ? But this same
state of things had existed since the 22nd, when M, l'abbe Marie showed so much
coolness and presence of mind. I have never been able to account for this shock
ing affair. I knew M. l'abbe Marie very well, as a priest ; and he always seemed
to fulfil his duties perfectly. In society there was no one more charming. His
knowledge was surprising, his wisdom admirable, his character gentle and free
from all exaggeration."
60

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
to Warsaw, facing every discomfort bravely and sustaining the
failing courage of the King. It was she who led to the desired
haven this wretched Court whose trials had begun again. When
the King's purse was empty she handed over her diamonds to the
Danish Consul in exchange for two thousand ducats ; she was a
stoic and a heroine ; she showed what she might have been,
if misfortune had not crushed her youth and cast a shadow over her
very soul. The Memoirs that record this march through hurricanes
and snow make mention of none but her. The Due d'Angouleme
was there ; yet it was her arm that upheld her infirm uncle, and
it was she who gave an example to everyone of strength and
resolution. As we have said before, all that she lacked on entering
upon her new life in France was gentleness, womanly attractions, a
touch of lightness and frivolity : the gifts that charm the masses.
She had no idea of making the best of herself, nor of dressing well ;
indeed, she despised dress and the pretty trifles invented by fashion.
She was too serious, and above all too extravagant in her religious
exercises ; and, far from winning the hearts of the people when her
family was restored to the throne, she repelled them by her
severity. She was not unconcerned in the final fall of her race.1
The history of the time leaves us no doubt on this point.

During the years of the Emigration the members of the House
of Orleans were scattered in various parts of the world. Philippe
Egalite's widow, the daughter of the Due de Penthievre, was living
in poverty in Spain, apart from her sons. The eldest of these,
after serving in the republican armies under Dumouriez, was forced
to leave his country and wander about Europe disguised as a
professor, under a false name. His young brothers the Due de
Montpensier and the Due de Beaujolais had been imprisoned at
1 These notes on Hue, Louis XVI's valet-de-chambre, who followed Madame
Royale to Mittau, are taken from the Biographie de Michaud. "Francois Hue
was born at Fontainebleau, of a family who had held magisterial posts for nearly
two hundred years. In 1787 he became usher of the bedchamber to the King ; in
1791 first valet-de-chambre of the Dauphin. He was several times within an ace
of- being guillotined, and he could not escape from prison. Finally, when
Madame Royale left her prison, Hue, at the princess's request, obtained leave
from the Directory to follow her to Vienna, and joined her at Huningue, where
he gave her a garter the Queen had plaited in prison. He followed the princess
to Mittau, and afterwards entered Louis XVIII's service as Commissary-General
of his household. Hue returned to France in 1814 with Louis XVIIL"
61

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Marseilles, notwithstanding their youth ; they were barely twenty
years old. The three, however, were afterwards together in
America, whence they returned in the days of the Empire, though
France was still closed to them. The Due de Montpensier died in
1807, from a disease of the chest; and the Due de Beaujolais died
in Malta, in 1809. In this same year the Due d'Orieans, who was
to become King of the French in 1830, married an Italian princess,
Marie Amelie, daughter of Ferdinand IV., King of the Two Sicilies.
She was born in 1782.1
Personally the Due d'Orieans was a man of noble bearing, with
features as regular and imposing as those of Louis XIV, from
whom he was descended through his mother. The circumstances
of his adventurous life and his wide education had given him
sympathy, an open mind, and an active will. Those who met him
for the first time were immediately attracted by him ; while his
visitors and intimate friends delighted in his conversation, which
showed a great deal of knowledge and acute observation. In
a word, he was so different from the other Bourbons, and so
universally praised, that his cousins were jealous, and even afraid of
him. They regarded him as a serious rival in the struggle for the
throne of France. He had, however, become reconciled with the
head of the House of Bourbon, by his mother's desire, it is said.
One evening in June, 1799, after the Due d'Angouleme's marriage,
a young man with long flowing locks, and an air of mingled charm
and pride, was mysteriously received at Mittau by Louis XVIII, at
the instance of the Czar. The audience was long ; and the unknown
departed as he had come. The King made no reference to this
visit and none of the courtiers knew the truth of the matter. It
was only in 1813 that a letter to the Due d'Harcourt solved the
mystery, and it became known that the young man of twenty-five
1 The Due d'Orieans was born in 1773 ; the Due de Montpensier in 1775 ; the
Due de Beaujolais in 1778.
De Vaulabelle : Hislorie de la Restauration, Vol. I., p. 112 : — " The prince who
at this time bore the title of Due d'Orieans . . . was the same Due de Chartres
whom the republic had numbered for some months among its generals of division.
. . . The active and often influential part taken by his father in the over
throw of the Monarchy and the condemnation of Louis XVI, and the revolution
ary principles that he had himself publicly professed, closed the ranks of the
Emigre's to him, and excluded him from every foreign Court. . . . After having
spent several years in visiting the north of Europe and travelling in America he
grew tired of wandering about the world, and determined to ask Louis XVIII for
his forgiveness. . . . Louis XVIII welcomed the repentant prince. It was on the
27th June, 1799, a fortnight after the marriage of Louis XVI's daughter to the
Due d'Angouleme, that the reconciliation took place."
62

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
or so who had been seen at Mittau was the Due d'Orieans, who had
flung himself, weeping, at the King's feet, and begged that the
crimes of his father Philippe Egalite might be forgotten, and his
own mistake in fighting for the Republic under Dumouriez might
be forgiven.
His aunt, Louise Marie Therese Bathilde d'Orieans, his father's
sister, who had married the Due de Bourbon, was the mother of
the Due d'Enghien. She was born in 1750, and did not die till
1822. Mile, de Chastenay, in her Memoirs, gives us a bewitching
portrait of this princess. She depicts her as a woman of true
worth and keen intellect, with a lively imagination that caused her
the intensest suffering from jealousy, though she never ceased to
love her husband. She was resigned, and independent of worldly
possessions and vanities ; for she felt that her religion was the
worthiest object for her affections. Her charity was boundless.
Under the Restoration she entirely provided for young Cazales,
whose mother was unable to support him.
During the years of the Emigration the name of Conde was
popular among the royalists. As commander-in-chief of the army
raised to oppose the Revolution he had all the exiled nobles under
his orders, and his predominant position was a cause of anxiety to
the claimant of the throne. Conde was a hero's name ; and this
prince was invested with the halo of his ancestor, while he himself
was not wanting either in courage or intelligence. All these
qualities gave him a degree of prestige that the invalid prince who
was called Louis XVIII could not hope to eclipse. The King
went to Coblenz to make a demonstration of his authority, and
confirmed certain appointments in the army ; but in the eyes of
the nobles Conde was always incontestably their leader, the man
from whom emanated all the strength of the reactionary move
ment, the man whom they would all have followed if he had been
sufficiently skilful and resolute to carry out his projects. For the
projects of the Prince de Conde were by no means those of
Louis XVIIL Conde wished to be the first 4to enter Strasburg,
and to enter it alone ; for the possession of that fortified town
seemed to him the first step towards the acquisition of the crown
for himself. He paid a host of agents and spies in the town, and
employed them to fling coins into the barracks, and distribute
among the soldiers royalist papers inciting them to rise, and
deliver up the town to him. Once he had it in his possession he
hoped he should be able to keep it. These men who were in his
63

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
pay had persuaded him that the people desired him for their King,
and would accept him with acclamation the moment he returned
to France. Under the influence of such hopes as these he found it
impossible to enter into the scheme of Pichegru, whose only object
was the overthrow of the Republican Government.
The Kings who had united to oppose the Revolution were at
first inclined to distrust this army of ardent, resolute, disciplined
men who, as an advanced guard, might prove a rather formidable
check upon their designs on France. But when they saw the
Prince de Conde wasting his time in the management of regimental
affairs, concerning himself with little details of expenditure,
worrying over the possible dishonesty of his contractors, caring
perhaps even more for money than for fame, they were quite willing
to leave him to these harmless little activities. So the prince had
to resign himself to being merely an unvalued auxiliary to the
imperial army, forbidden to exercise any initiative ; and finally his
army was disbanded by the Emperor of Germany without the
least consideration or sympathy for the fate of all the poor emigres
who had absolutely no resources of their own. Conde and the
remnant of his troops were exiled to Volhynia. However,
according to Montgaillard, he took with him a chest containing
several millions of francs, the fruit of his economies.1
In a brochure published in 1815 with the title Correspondance
de Louis XVIII we may read some edifying pages on the subject
of this soldier-prince, who was even then an old man — since he was
born in 1735 — and was certainly a miser.
" His constant fear of poverty condemned him to the position of
a mere outlaw chief. This prince could have faced death, but he
feared the scaffold. . . . He was mistrustful and insincere to the
very bottom of his heart, even towards his own family ; for his son
was for a long time the person of whom he was most jealous. He
never took the Due de Bourbon nor the Due de Berry in the least
into his confidence, to which he admitted none but men whom he
could count upon to flatter him. For a long time this prince
1 In his private Memoirs Montgaillard says positively : " M. le Prince de Conde
had a very large sum at his disposal : at the time of the disbandment of his army
he realised about 6,000,000 fr. in specie. During the last twenty four hours be
fore the prince's departure from Uberlingen, on the banks of Lake Constance, he
had forty thousand pounds sterling in English notes changed by the hotel-keeper
of the Sauvage at Bale— at any rate he could get— for louis and ducats ; so I am
certain the funds of M. le Prince amounted to about 8,000,000 francs when he
was exiled to Volhynia."
64

THE WANDERINGS OF THE BOURBONS
employed a number of informers in Paris ; and Lyonnais, Franche
Comte, and Alsace were full of his agents. This crowd of petty
paid conspirators inspired him with great confidence, and led him
to aim openly at the throne. It was, he said, the general wish of
the people that he should do so. He was persuaded at that time
that a wide-spread movement in his favour was about to take
place in France ; that he had but to show himself to receive the
fruits of it ; and that this would be the least dangerous and least
costly way of restoring the Monarchy. He was much less con
cerned to find the best means of reaching Paris than to fix upon
the most convenient way of administering the Government of
France. The constitutionalists were regarded as the chief danger,
and every conceivable measure was taken in advance to prevent
them from having any share in the conduct of affairs. The only
topics of conversation were Rheims, and the coronation, and fetes,
and the office of Grand Provost ; and unless one had actually seen
it one could hardly imagine the state of illusion in which these
people lived."
Later on, however, the Prince de Conde and his son joined the
Bourbons in England and were constant guests at Hartwell.
Misfortune united the two families, and the Condes followed the
King when he returned to France in 1814.

65

CHAPTER II
HARTWELL
The protestations of Louis XVIII, on Bonaparte's elevation to
the supreme rank of Emperor, met with no response. Europe
remained relentlessly silent. It was in vain that the ambassadors
of the pompous little Court at Mittau despatched to all the
Chancelleries long letters drafted by their master in the most
correct style. They only received evasive answers. For the
crowned heads of Europe were bowed beneath the hand of an
irresistible conqueror, who possessed not only military strength
but transcendent genius.
After the victory of Jena the Bourbons were obliged to leave
the Continent and seek retreat elsewhere. They applied to
England. Louis XVIII wished to be received there as a king.
The Regent would have consented to this, but the Ministry
refused. They offered the proscribed family the use of the
palace of Holyrood, where the Comte d'Artois had been living
a short time previously. Louis declined this rather contemptuous
hospitality, preferring to accept the courteous suggestions of the
Duke of Buckingham,1 who offered his house at Gosfield, in the
county of Essex, near the borders of Suffolk. The house was
magnificent and dignified, but its distance from London was great.
It was there, however, that the King, thenceforward known as
the Comte de Lille, settled down in 1807 with such of his courtiers
as remained faithful to him. In the spring of the following year
he was joined by the Queen and the Duchesse d'Angouleme, and
they renewed their family life. They were no longer, as at Mittau,
surrounded by a bodyguard and treated with all the ceremonial of
a Court, but possibly were all the happier and the more affec
tionate on that account ; and it is certain that they were rather
1 (He was Marquess of Buckingham. Translator's Note.)
66

HARTWELL
forgotten by the royalists in France, who were fascinated by the
glory of the Empire, the luxury of a military Court, and the
brilliant victories of Napoleon. Many members of the great
French families had accepted posts at the Tuileries. Each year
as it passed added another of the old aristocratic names to those
already enrolled in the Imperial Almanack. Those whose ancestors
had figured at the Courts of the Valois and the early Bourbon
kings became ambassadors or prefects, or filled some high office
in the administration.1 The exiled princes at Gosfield heard of
these defections with a pang that is quite comprehensible. Idleness
and boredom, moreover, were beginning to depress their gentlemen
of the household, who sadly compared their almost destitute
condition with that of their friends who were serving the Emperor.
And as Napoleon's victories succeeded one another in quick succes
sion the greatest potentates in Europe submitted to the over
whelming spell of the great leader; whereas the Comte de Lille
had nothing to offer to his friends but the most illusory hopes.
Could anyone have imagined that the day would come when this
prince, whose gout-ridden feet could only move in spasms, would in
his turn be acclaimed in Paris as though he too were a conqueror ?
No, Gosfield was not a gay place.
Another circumstance that added to the melancholy of the
place was the increasing weakness of the Comte d'Avaray, the
King's favourite, whom frequent pain had reduced to a pitiable
state. His sufferings could not be concealed : he was often seen
1 In his Histoire de la Restauration (Vol. I.) de Vaulabelle makes the following
observations: "The National Almanach for 1802 (year X) does not contain a
single name from the old Court. But among the minor officials of the various
departments there are to be found a fair number of the lesser nobility. The
invasion of the once privileged classes is more apparent in the almanach for
1803 (year XI). . . . In the almanach for 1804 the transformation of the royalists
increases steadily. In 1805 the invasion is still more pronounced. We find
Archamboult de Perigord and Mercy-Argenteau in the office of chamberlain ;
and in the Empress Josephine's household we find Ferdinand de Rohan, formerly
Archbishop of Cambrai, as almoner. ... In 1805 there was not a single judge
of the old regime on the bench, but by 1811 ... .all the judges of the Haute
and Moyenne Magistrature of the old monarchy who had survived the storms of
the past twenty years, or whom age did not oblige to retire, had entered the
Emperor's service. ... In the list of chamberlains for 1808 we observe one
omission ; the names are printed without the particle. In 1809 the particle is
restored. . . . The old nobility demanded the recognition of their titles by the
imperial government, which consented, but only allowed one title, always dif
ferent and often inferior to the one formerly held. Among these nobles there is
not a prince to be found, nor yet a single duke. Hence the persistent opposition
and discontent of the old nobility, which preserved, in the very heart of the
Empire, the royalist agitation that burst out and came to a climax in the early
days of April, 1814."
67 f 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
with blood upon his lips. In his presence no one might show
pleasure nor make plans for the future ; and this comatose state of
things lasted until his departure for Madeira. Then the Queen
contracted dropsy, and died ; and the gloomy little Court was
plunged anew into compulsory mourning of the deepest kind.
The Court of St James's, indeed, seemed perfectly willing to
countenance the solemn ceremonial with which Louis desired to
honour the dead ; and to a prince so vain as the Comte de Lille
all these marks of respect, and the record of them in the principal
London journals, were very consoling. The Times reported all
the details of the ceremonial, and named the most important
personages in the kingdom as being present on the occasion. Not
once, during the past twenty years, had the French exiles received
such a tribute of respect.1
However, no impression is permanent ; and the echo of these
funeral-dirges was soon over-powered by the thunders of
Napoleon's great victories. This royal family, who every day
had a shorter future before them, seemed to have sunk into utter
oblivion as far as the French royalists were concerned. The Comte
de Lille bethought him about this time of moving nearer to
London, in the hope of calling attention to his claims, those
claims to a royal position that he never forgot. He came to
terms with a certain Mr. See,2 the owner of a comfortable house in
the county of Buckingham, about forty or fifty miles from London ;
and this family who had so often wandered across Europe once
more changed their dwelling-place, and established themselves at
Hartwell. Their life here was very different from their life at Gosfield,
because the favourite was another man. The Comte d'Avaray,
before leaving his master and going to his death in Madeira, had
sought for someone to take his place. He remembered having
once met in Germany a certain royalist soldier, who carried his
haversack and musket with an air of pride; a man of stately
height and impressive countenance, and of a cold, dignified,
reserved nature ; who was so devoid of geniality that he never
cared to meddle in his neighbour's affairs, yet who won respect by
his martial bearing and look of power. D'Avaray made inquiries
about him, and found he was a native of Provence, and the last
scion of the once powerful family of the Comtes de Blacas d'Aulps :
1 Cf. p. 19.
2 (The name of the owner of Hartwell was Sir George Lee. Translator's Note )
68

HARTWELL
and learnt moreover, that this royalist's greatest passion was for
antique medals, rare porcelain, and engraved gems. These artistic
tastes, combined with his distinguished presence, led d'Avaray to
summon him to Hartwell before the time came for his own parting
from the King, who was always in his thoughts. The Comte de
Blacas, in the course of his peregrinations, had formed close friend
ships with a great number of Emigres and royalist nobles who had
followed the Comte d'Artois to Italy. He had visited the smaller
capitals of that country, Turin, Venice, and Florence, where through
the agency of a certain grande dame he had been introduced to the
Comte Joseph le Maistre. It was only natural, then, that d'Avaray
should have every confidence in him.1
On the day of his arrival at Hartwell the King made him dine
at his own table, and placed him between the Duchesse de
Narbonne and the Comtesse de Gontaut. It was at once obvious
to everyone that the new-comer found favour in the royal eyes :
his reserve, his cold manner, his discretion, perhaps even his shy
ness towards the two fine ladies who were expecting pretty speeches
from him, and above all his air of dignity and distinction, impressed
the master of the ;house. When the meal was over the King,
approaching the two ladies who had been sitting next to the
stranger, asked the Duchesse de Narbonne :
" Well, what do you think of him ? "
" He is superb, Sire," answered the great lady, with a mischievous
smile, "and most suitable for the post your Majesty requires
him for. He is quite dumb — the very person for a confidential
secretary ! "
This laughing satire surprised the lady's royal interlocutor, but
did not disillusion him. That very day the Comte de Blacas was
installed in the house, and filled the place of the Comte d'Avaray ;
filled more than his place, indeed, and won more than his favour,
great as it was ; for de Blacas understood his master's mind so well
that he dominated it entirely, and nothing was done at Hartwell
that had not earned the approval of the despotic favourite.
He was no longer young. Having left France at the time of the
Emigration, when he was twenty-five, he had now reached the
age when love yields to ambition ; and verily he was ambitious —
filled with an immense longing for the splendour and wealth that
he had lacked since his childhood. Not that he had a very high
1 See, on the subject of Blacas, the appendix that Ernest Daudet's last publi
cations have made necessary.
69

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
order of intelligence, or any profound knowledge to justify his
ambition. His mind was mediocre, as is usual with collectors, and
had been cramped by constant admiration of the old things found
among the ruins of Italy ; he had none of the breadth and inde
pendence and clear judgment that go to the making of a states
man's ideas. He was sufficiently intelligent to do the work of a
secretary, or a major-domo, or a confidant ; but when, on the
Restoration, he became one of the King's chief ministers and had
to deal with politics, he soon showed his inadequacy. Even if he
had understood such matters he would have troubled himself little
about them ; he had other cares. From the moment of his arrival
he was always an immaculate dandy, smart and spruce even in the
early hours of the morning, lest he should appear at a disadvantage;
always careful to avoid irritating the man whose will it was his
business to do ; receiving every confidential disclosure in the way
most agreeable to the person who made it ; sparing the King every
sudden decision, because he knew how much his royal patron dis
liked forming hasty opinions ; always bowing to the least word or
wish or order, that it might be quite plain that the royal authority
could not be impugned nor discussed ; sharing the sympathies and
resentments of the prince he served ; and, as far as possible, keeping
away the earlier friends and even the relations of the King, whose
affection and confidence he refused to share with anyone. By
these methods he set himself to found his position as favourite on
so firm a basis that nothing could overthrow it ; and as a matter
of fact he became all-powerful at Hartwell, where he established a
system of the strictest domestic economy. On the other hand he
made life very disagreeable for the rest of the household, who had
to make way for this new favourite. De Vitrolles, who had much
to endure from this haughty idol of the King during the early
months of the Restoration, took his revenge in his Memoirs by
painting an almost grotesque portrait of the individual in question;
describing his long body and short legs, his sallow face, his bald
head, and colourless flaxen wig, his dry, crushing, authoritative
manner, his blindness to the social changes made by the Revolu
tion, his belief that France had not altered since the days of
Louis XV, when the sovereign's will was law. The Comte d'Artois
and the Due de Berry came no more to Hartwell, except from a
sense of duty. And all the members of the little Court felt much
aggrieved by the overbearing authority that was so outrageously
abused. The Due d'Havre and the Comte de Blacas had the
70

HARTWELL
greatest antipathy for each other. D'Havre, as Captain of the
Guard, had hitherto been entrusted with the King's most intimate
secrets; but this affectionate tie was gradually relaxed as the
Comte de Blacas assumed the right of nearly always making a
third in any interview with his royal master, and the Due d'Havre
grew jealous of the favourite. Casual visitors, after a day at
Hartwell, being struck by the courtesy of their reception, but quite
unconscious of the emulation and intrigue and petty hostilities that
agitated all these gentlemen, went away with the conviction that
the favourite was the only wise man among the King's associates.
Compared with that courtier's positive and trenchant statements
the more modest and unassuming ideas of the others appeared
unimportant. And so it happened that even in the outer world
it was still de Blacas who outshone his rivals. It was his name that
was oftenest heard ; the others were seldom mentioned.
Hartwell was a fine country house ; it was not a mediaeval castle.
The grounds were huge, and the park well laid out. Those who
refer to it in the memoirs of the time describe it as a most
attractive place. The gardens were full of flowers ; the kitchen-
garden was planted with fruit trees. The King wrote to d'Avaray
in a letter dated April 1st, 1811 :
" Everything is in bud, it is indeed ! The apricots are set, the
peaches are nearly so, and the lilacs are quite green. One can see
the colour in their flower buds, and there are some chestnuts in
leaf, with the flowers already formed. You know how I love this
beautiful season, how I delight in the first fine days, the first
leaves, the first flowers. . . There is at this moment before my
eyes a white camellia that is finer this year than it ever was
before. ... I walk round the garden, and look at my roses,
which are coming on nicely."
This year the King's mind was sufficiently at leisure to attend to
the cultivation and worship of Nature, for he had put his hopes
behind him more definitely than ever before. Napoleon's marriage
with an Austrian archduchess seemed to him even more likely than
the consecration by the Pope in Notre Dame to secure the duration
of the Empire. The presence at the Imperial Court of great
nobles such as the Larochefoucaulds, the Montmorencys, and even
the Rohans, would have made his claims seem ridiculous if they
had been in any way aggressive. So he lived like an English gentle
man, only displaying his royal dignity for the benefit of illustrious
visitors, such as the Condes, for instance, or the dethroned King of
71

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Sweden, Gustave III, who had once been his unfaltering champion.
He occupied his leisure with systematic reading, and especially with
the study of the documents published in the French papers.
Sometimes, accompanied by his niece the Duchesse d'Angouleme,
he wandered about the fields on foot ; rarely on horseback, because
that exercise was painful to him on account of his infirmities. On
such occasions it pleased him to see the people of the village near
his demesne hurrying up to express their gratitude for the
duchess's various bounties. And when the church bells pealed in
honour of the fete-days of his family he was greatly gratified, for
this was a recognition of his royal birth.
In the evenings the whole party sat together in the drawing-
room. The old King led the conversation, which almost at once
became general. Literature, the drama, and public events in
France were the chief topics, and it was a happy day for the little
Court when some visitor brought the latest news from their own
country. Among these was the Due de Duras, who came whenever
his period of service, as gentleman-of-the-bedchamber, fell due.
" It was a dull place at best," say the memoirs of the time. More
over, the most amazing rumours found credit with these aimless
folk, who always supported their credulity with some plausible
reason born of their hopes or fears. At one time they were all
repeating the news of the poisoning of the Queen of Prussia, as to
the truth of which they had no doubt, " because," they said, " she
was the only person who could put any energy into her husband,
and therefore her death was necessary to Bonaparte." Soon after
wards there was a quarrel between the Emperor and his brother
Lucien, which made a great sensation. " A case of thieves falling
out," said the King ; " their interests are the same, and that is the
only bond between people like that." Then came an announce
ment of marriage between Melchior de Polignac and Mile.
Levasseur, a niece of the Comte Dillon, the Comte d'Artois' friend :
and the news of the Due d'Orieans' departure for Sicily, after being
turned out of Spain by the Cortes — "a monstrous assembly,"
commented the King, "in which there were not three men with
titles." When the name of the Emperor of Germany was
mentioned in this circle the Comte de Lille did not fail to observe
that that monarch would suffer the same fate as the Prussian king.
His unworthy sale of human flesh — which meant the marriage of
Marie Louise with Napoleon — would not make him safer than the
others. Gustave, King of Sweden, came to spend three weeks at
72

HARTWELL
Hartwell after his deposition ; and throughout his visit his mental
disturbance and distress were plainly visible in his face. In regard
to this the King was most indignant with the freemasons and the
Illuminati, whom he called the freemasons' worthy offspring and
blamed for all his guest's troubles. " Since he lost his throne they
have done him a great deal of harm," he said, " and they will do
him still more."
Of all the ladies who lived in exile with the rest of the Court
none was treated with so much deference and attention as the
Duchesse de Narbonne, a charming and clever woman whose quick,
incisive, mirth-provoking speech made her very attractive to the
King. Of her power to amuse, the Comte de Blacas had some
experience ; for he was subject to frequent attacks of colic, and the
duchess made his ailments the occasion of many jokes. A certain
French painter, Huet, made a fresh distraction for some time by
painting the King's portrait and those of his friends. That of the
King was intended for d'Avaray, who never came back from
Madeira. And one day there came to Hartwell a visitor from the Court of
the Tuileries, a friend of the exiles. The secrets that were confided
to him had the effect of drawing him out, and in return he
described an adventure of which one of Napoleon's sisters was the
heroine. The next morning he was rather inclined to regret his
expansiveness and indulgence in scandal : but the King loved this
kind of story, and proceeded to read his night's work — the tale in
question re-told in verse — by way of soothing the indiscreet
visitor's remorse. For Louis still kept up his youthful habit of
writing madrigals, and anecdotes in rhyme, and letters in the
manner of Horace. The moment a French translation of the Latin
poet appeared he hastened to buy it, and he wrote to d'Avaray
that he possessed Desfontaines' version, and had lately acquired
the translation by Daru — Daru the tribune, the Comte Daru, he
added mockingly.
In such ways as these the days passed with occasional relief to
their monotony in the form of visits to various noblemen's houses :
to Stowe, Bristol, Bath, Cheltenham, Warwick,1 and to Lord
1 He wrote to d'Avaray on the 9th June, 1811 : " I set off to St. Albans, where,
as I passed, I saw an ancient and beautiful church (it was founded 1018 years
ago) ; and I saw Lord Salisbury's fine house and park at Hatfield. From thence
I went to Stony-Stratford for the night. On the Tuesday morning I went a
little out of my way to see the fine canal I told you about last year, which
crosses a, valley ; then, returning to my route through Northamptonshire, one
73

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Salisbury's house at Hatfield. At this time, and after the birth of
the King of Rome, the old King seemed resigned to his obscure
fate. He allowed his friends to believe that he was never going
to leave England again, and begged them to return to France.
When he visited Warwick Castle it was because he heard it was
to let, and thought he would like it as a permanent dwelling better
than Hartwell. Yet he always had a deep inward conviction,
which nothing could shake, that the role of a prince would some
day be his again.
One day when the Duchesse d'Angouleme was reading a French
newspaper aloud to him she suddenly hesitated and blushed, and
could not hide from her uncle that she had omitted several lines.
Her uncle looked at her, asking the reason of her embarrassment,
and she finished the passage in which this journal from France
announced that the Comte de Lille had abdicated in favour of his
nephew, the Due d'Angouleme.
of the finest counties of England, I arrived at Warwick at about three o'clock.
As one approaches one sees the town, which is pretty, and through the trees, two
ancient towers. Crossing a bridge one discovers, attached to these towers,
the castle, if one can give that name to an old facade of no particular archi
tecture, in which there is hardly a window to be seen, and which, in short,
strongly resembles the old houses on the Paris bridges, as seen from the river.
The Vicomte d'Agoult called out : ' Oh, here we are at M. Desmasure's house.'
Personally, if anyone had said to me, Here is Adolphe, I should not have been
surprised. The entrance to the castle is beyond the bridge, at the end of the
street. There, a man looking like a beefeater told us we might go in, but only
on foot. We left the carriage, and by an approach that would be quite suitable
to the Bastille, through a path sunk between two banks lined with enormous
stones, we reached a bridge over the moat, and entered the castle court. ThiB
court is quite different from the entrance, and is turfed and well-gravelled. On
one side is the castle, old, but grand. On the other are some tall trees, which
are awful * without being gloomy. The housekeeper came to meet us, schaked
very schaked* and received us very well, taking us into a fine hall where I was
first made to go to the window,»for there are none inside ; and from this window
we saw the earthly paradise. From the middle of this hall one sees the whole
series of rooms, not so long as at Stowe, but in better proportion. The rooms are
a fine size and richly furnished. There are some beautiful pictures ; among
others Vandyck's portrait of the famous Montrose, whose face is as beautiful as
his soul (he was a supporter of Charles I) ; and some vases that belonged to the
Chevalier Hamilton. All these rooms are very fine, and the series ends in a
charming study. In a word, the whole suite is rich and grand, and (as is not
always the case) comfortable. There are some more pretty rooms above this
storey, not to speak of a great number I did not see. From the house we went
into the pleasur-ground,* which is of a very pleasing size, with a marvellous
wealth of flowers and a magnificent number of trees, and lies on the bank of the
river, having in the middle of it a fine orangery, a beautiful sight — in which is
a huge and magnificent antique vase — and being connected with a walk that is a
mile and a half long. What a temptation Warwick is ! With the charms I have
described to you it combines the advantage of being quite close to a town of five
or six thousand inhabitants : so that one can be secluded or not according to
one's wishes, and one has all the resources of a town without its annoyances."
(* The italicised words appear in the original. Translator's Note.)
74

HARTWELL
" Not yet ! " cried the King energetically. " If it were a crown
of roses I should give it up to you, my children ; but for the
time being it is but a crown of thorns. I shall keep it : you
must wait ! "
No indeed — he was not in the least likely to abdicate ! He had
shown from his youth up that his one ambition, his one desire, his
one dream, his one craving, was to attain the rank of King;
and why should he abdicate before he had enjoyed that long-
desired position, for which he thought himself particularly well
fitted ?
His funds at this time were very low. He now received nothing
from Spain : England and Russia were the only contributors to
his support. Their united subsidies hardly amounted to 600,000
francs, of which he gave 100,000 francs to the Due d'Angouleme,
100,000 to the needy emigres, and 100,000 to the Archbishop of
Rheims for charity. There remained 300,000 francs for the
expenses of his establishment and the needs of those who lived
under his roof. Deserted as he was, however, by all the other
European sovereigns, he was always treated by the English Regent
with a degree of kindness and consideration that was flattering to
his vanity. The Regent and his ministers cherished the Bourbons
of Hartwell as a useful threat to hold over Napoleon's head. To
assist the Comte de Lille was to prevent the disruption of the
factions hostile to the Empire ; to encourage union and hopefulness
among the Royalists ; and to force upon the conqueror a ceaseless,
implacable, relentless war, which must drain the resources of that
redoubtable enemy. It was for this reason that, in 1811, when
the Regent gave a fete in London to celebrate the English King's
birthday, the Bourbons were invited to be present, and rooms
were reserved in the palace for them and their suite. The exiles
were welcomed with marks of greatest respect, in the hope that
an account of these honours might reach Paris and disturb the
peace of the usurper.
And whatever may be said the fact remains that the Emperor
was always greatly disturbed by the knowledge that the Bourbons
were irrepressible and that the English did not desert them. The
Europe he had conquered was his ; but he already felt his power
tottering. Russia was escaping him ; and to force the autocrat of
that vast empire to submit to his laws he found it necessary to
cross its icy plains. This was his undoing. The elements broke
the colossus : his army was annihilated. 75

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Moscow, the holy city, was set on fire by the defeated Russians
and was evacuated in consequence ; and this news, when it reached
Hartwell, revived the hopes of the Bourbons. This disaster — the
destruction of the French army by hunger and cold — gave the
greatest delight to the idlers at the little Court. It is true that
the King assumed a pose of the most profound grief, and wrote to
the Czar begging him to treat the French prisoners mercifully.
This was done entirely for effect. Napoleon had returned to Paris
to organise the defence of his Empire ; and this letter written by
the exile made him appear more humane than the Emperor, for he
was concerning himself with the fate of the soldiers whose leader
had deserted them. They were roofless, unclothed, unfed; and
the Emperor meanwhile was warming himself at the Tuileries, and
forgetting those who had sacrificed themselves to his ambition.
The letter from Hartwell was not so explicit as this : but this was
its meaning none the less. No one imagined anything else.
There was never a prince who so often had recourse to pen and ink
as this Bourbon bel esprit. He was not likely to miss this chance
of expressing himself, of letting it be known that there was still in
existence a descendant of the legitimate Kings of France, the
father of the subjects whom he loved to call his children. They
had suffered, and were suffering still ; it could not fail to be a
sorrow to him. Ah — if this had only been true !
This letter, however, was merely a political document. There
can be no possible doubt of it.
From that moment the Court at Hartwell lived in a constant
state of expectation, waiting for bad news from France.
And indeed there was no lack of bad news. After Moscow
came a second disaster ; the loss of the Battle of Leipsic through
the treason of the Emperor's allies, the hatred of Bernadotte for
Napoleon, and the defection of the troops of Saxony, who in the
heat of the battle turned their guns against the French, their
former brothers in arms. And after Leipsic the Due d'Havre
wrote : " This is the first note of 'Bonaparte's passing-bell.'"
De Blacas hastened, in the King's name, to inform the officials
of the Empire that Louis, should he ascend the throne, would
make no change in their position and would scrupulously respect
their interests. (See p. 5, note 1, for the King's Declaration.)
By this method the announcement that the restoration was
imminent was combined with an attack on the devotion and
fidelity of the servants of the Empire. These were joyful days at
76

HARTWELL
Hartwell ! The invasion was beginning, the towns were taken by
armies of barbarians ; the fields were wasted ; the people
destitute. What did it all matter to these princes? As the
Due de Rovigo said to Laine :
" The Bourbons would have sacrificed the glory of their country.
They would have accepted a kingdom composed of Aquitaine
alone ! "
They determined to follow the invaders ; they were not ashamed
to become the enemy's auxiliaries. They held a council at Hart
well, and dispersed — to the north, to the east, to the south. All
the traitors, all the conspirators whom the great general had ever
humbled, renewed their old feelings of hostility and set themselves
to ruin him. Hyde de Neuville, who had taken refuge in the
United States, persuaded General Moreau to return to Europe and
fight in the ranks of his country's enemies. Moreau was killed at
Dresden by a French bullet. Louis XVIII, who had at first been
delighted by the treacherous action, easily consoled himself for the
man's death. " After aU,n he said, " Moreau was a republican. So
his loss is not so very deplorable.'"
This was all the regret he gave to the man who had crossed the
sea to die for him.1

II
A man who bore one of the great names of the Monarchy, Alexis
de Noailles, who had lately attached himself to the Empire but
had been exiled for an indiscretion connected with the Pope's Bull
of Excommunication against the Emperor, had spent a few days at
Hartwell, after a series of visits to the countries of Europe. His
object was to report the intentions of the European sovereigns,
who were now determined, he said, notwithstanding their recent
hesitation, to pursue the war till a lasting peace were established.
At Vienna, Francis II had deserted his son-in-law because he hoped,
if there were a general upheaval, to recover the Italian and Flemish
provinces he had lost. At St. Petersburg, the Czar Alexander was
determining to free his Baltic provinces from the commercial
restrictions that were so injurious to them. In Sweden, Bernadotte
was nursing his hatred, and had no intention of forgiving Napoleon
1 Fauche-Borel records in his memoirs the proclamation that Moreau, when he
returned to Europe, felt called upon to make to the French nation.
77

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
anything. In France, even, the royalist party was growing
restive. There was now no need to fear the military strength of
the Emperor, whom the deputies of the Legislative Body in the
person of Laine had dared to lecture. The royalists had as yet no
organisation, no combative force. They were not conspirators.
But it was admitted in conversation, in some of the Parisian salons *
and still oftener in the gathering of friends in country houses, that
the fall of the Imperial power was imminent. At the Chateau
d'Usse in Touraine, where the Due de Duras lived, he and his
friends — the Due de la Tremo'ille, the Due de Fitz James, MM. de
Polignac and Ferrand, Adrien de Montmorency, and Sosthene de
la Rochefoucauld — exchanged, during that autumn of 1813,
prophecies of evil things for the Empire. They were vaguely
aware of the truth as to the Emperor's almost hopeless situation ;
they knew enough of it to dream, like the Court at Hartwell, of
giving a final blow to the government that had so long made them
of no account. As the invasion spread, even La Vendee revived.
The Comte de Suzannet, without hesitation, assumed the command
of Bas-Poitou ; d'Autichamps that of Angers ; the Due de Duras
that of Orleans and Tours. The Marquis de Riviere appropriated
Berry.2 Then Bordeaux broke away from the Empire. Among all the
large towns that were discontented, this was one of the most
bitterly hostile. The bad times of the Directory had returned to
this great port, whose harbour was full of merchant-ships no longer
laden with cargoes for distant seas. The wine-trade, which had
been so active when the seas were free, and the quays of the
1 These salons were still rare. De Vitrolles writes in his Mtmoires (Vol. I.,
p. 47). " • • • The enthusiasm of France as a whole, and especially the oourse of
events in the south and west, soon showed how ready the hearts of the nation
were to welcome our legitimate princes. But in Paris it was different. One of
several experiences that showed me this was a conversation with the Comte de
Montlivaut.j a guest of Mme. de Vaudemont and my own fellow-4m*gr& . . .
When I suggested the return of our royal family as conceivably possible in the
future, he seemed as much surprised as if I had referred to Louis XIV's
resurrection. He looked at me as if rather uneasy about the state of my
brain." 2 The Due de Riviere came from La Ferte-sur-Cher, and was born in 1763,
His family name was Riffardeau. At the age of seventeen he entered the French
Guards. He emigrated and went to Turin, where the Comte d'Artois took
a fancy to him and made him his aide-de-camp. He was often to be seen
at Charette's side in Brittany and La Vendee. He joined in Pichegru's
conspiracies, was arrested and condemned to death, but reprieved and finally
deported. He returned to France in 1814 with the Bourbons, who raised him
to the rank of duke. It is to him that we owe the discoverv of the Venus
of Milo in 1822.
78

HARTWELL
Gironde were heaped with foreign merchandise, in exchange for
which the produce of the soil was carried to the ends of the earth —
this trade, lately so flourishing, had been ruined by the prohibitive
laws against England. The merchants no longer watched the
gradual depletion of their storehouses, but piled cask on cask of the
wine that would not sell ; and the droits reunis, or indirect taxes,
which were collected with great rigour, put the final touch to their
exasperation. Moreover, in this country of finished orators, of
jurists and lawyers, a feeling of violent opposition had arisen
against the military leader who had so often shown his want of
sympathy with rhetoricians, and had kept them out of his govern
ment. Since the town had once had a Parlement the traditions of
the higher bourgeoisie, the members' children, still governed the
society of the place, which mourned its lost liberty of speech ; and
since it was moreover the town of the Girondins, whose political
orators had been so famous at the time of the Revolution, its young
men, to whom the army was uncongenial, were in love with the
idea of a constitutional government which should make it possible
for them to win repute and wealth. Some, therefore, desired the
rule of the Bourbons as a means to freedom of trade ; others were
thinking of the personal liberty that was at present denied to them.
In their eyes the unknown was the desirable.
Among these many lawyers was one of about the same age as
Napoleon, a man of over forty, who in the course of twenty years
had acquired a great reputation. His name was Laine. At the
beginning of his career he had attached himself to the party of the
Mountain ; he had even, as prefect of the department, given
expression to his hatred of royalty in a solemn vow ; but later on,
like others, he had broken away from a regime of proscriptions and
confiscations and reconciled himself with the moderate party,
though at the bottom of his heart he cherished the cult of liberty,
which had seemed so beautiful to him in the early days of the
Revolution. His oratorical gifts were remarkable ; his ideas were
lofty and inspiring ; his eloquence never failed to sway his audience.
His austere morals, his generosity to the poor, his devotion to his
own relations, in short his strictly honourable life, had given him a
widespread and unassailable reputation in his province, and a very
strong influence at the bar of Bordeaux. His report to the
Legislative Body at the end of 1813 created a great sensation,
therefore, and made his influence stronger than ever.
Those who knew him never dreamt for a moment that he would
79

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
yield to the entreaties of Napoleon's adherents ; and Rovigo com
pletely failed when he undertook to make him moderate his attacks
on the Emperor.
" What is it you want then ? " said Rovigo.
" What we want," answered the lawyer, " is that the Emperor
should hold out his hand to a prostrate nation, and raise it from
the ground."
His resentment against the Empire was genuinely due to his
liberal principles, quite as much as to his vexation at his brother's
ruin. His brother was a merchant. He had failed in his specula
tions, and the lawyer, who was unmarried, had come to his rescue
and was giving him permanent help.
One look at his face, of which there are prints in the National
Library, is a clue to his character and views. The conjunction of
the huge, receding forehead, the small eyes, the long thin nose,
and the tightly compressed mouth, points to a restless, fastidious
mind of very obstinate convictions, a mind that believes only in
itself, and can accept no modification of the ideal that lies behind
that high forehead. Liberty, in his eyes, is a spiritual dogma.
He preaches it in his own magnificent language ; he argues with
those who do not see it in the same light ; so much so that we may
suspect him of holding, in combination with his large views, some
that are very narrow. There is honesty in his face, no doubt.
But it is not the face of a statesman : he cannot support the
structure he has built. He showed this during the Restoration ;
for he opposed the doctrines of that government after having taken
an active part in restoring the Bourbons to the throne of France.
At the time with which we are concerned, after Napoleon's out
burst of anger at the Tuileries, he had but one thought : to check
the Imperial power, and summon the descendant of the legitimate
kings from his place of exile. He left Paris without any inter
ference from the police, and was at Bordeaux when that town,
declaring for the Bourbons, sent a deputation from the municipal
body to Hartwell.
Louis, from his retreat, was anxiously watching the course of
events on the Continent. It was with eager, trembling hands that
he unfolded every morning — not now the French journals, which
were dumb on the subject of the royalist schemes, and the
advance of the allied armies — but the English journals, which
concealed nothing of the truth, and, indeed, even exaggerated it.
None of the disastrous results of the invasion seemed very grievous
80

HARTWELL
to him ; he consoled himself with the thought that they were
shortening the days of his exile. The gentlemen of his household
took the same view.
The news of a victory for the Emperor, of the retaking of
Troyes and Rheims by the French, of the continuance of the
Congress of Chatillon, where a peaceful settlement was under
discussion, reduced this little band of emigres to a state of
agonised uneasiness. It was not that they desired the ruin of
their country ; they merely accepted it, without blushing, as the
turning-point in their own fortunes. Had they not suffered
enough ? Had they not lost all they possessed through the
confiscations of the Jacobins ? Had they not grown old joylessly,
with no happiness but the 'consciousness of their unfailing devotion
to their princes ? Did they not deserve some compensation ?
Every day as it dawned brought them a fresh influx of hopes
or of illusions. The Comte d'Artois and his sons had left England
to give practical help on the battlefield to the invaders ; and news
was rare. Little was heard of passing events ; but it was known
that Bordeaux was demanding the presence of one of the princes,
and that Laine, after reading his hostile report, had left Paris to
rejoin his friends at home. These were but vague rumours, of
which no more would be heard were the usurper to return to Paris
in triumph.
It was now the month of February, 1814. The old prince,
prompted by anxiety, informed the Comte de La Chatre, his
confidential representative in London, that it would be agreeable
to him to send a certain M. Sebastien Rollac, who was the agent
of the Bordeaux royalists and had lived in England for the past
three years, to renew relations with all his friends in France.
Meantime he privately despatched M. Pefaut de la Tour to
Bordeaux, armed with secret instructions, with a view to en
couraging the rebellion of that great city. Finally, he entrusted
to another commissary, M. de Perrin, a note addressed to the most
influential inhabitants of Bordeaux, containing these words : " The
best of fathers pines to be among his children.'''' This sort of language
might be effective with the petty provincial nobles, who believed
implicitly in a patriarchal monarchy ; but the men of the Revolu
tion, the men who had mingled with the heroes of the Empire and
heard the sonorous, energetic, vivid speech of the great General to
his soldiers, could only be repelled by these words " father " and
" children " on the lips of a prince who seemed to regard France as
81 G

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
a big nursery full of babies whom it was his business to pamper.
Bordeaux — we know why — abjured the Empire from motives of
self-interest, and not with any idea of hiding behind the aegis of a
father. On the 12th March the Due d'Angouleme received an
enthusiastic welcome to the town because he had sent the following
announcement before him : " No more conscription : liberty and
peace : no more droits reunis^ A deputation started for Hartwell
instantly. One day towards the end of March, while Mass was being said,
the Duchesse d'Angouleme glanced through the window of the
little chapel, and saw some carriages driving up to the house with
coachmen and horses wearing large white cockades. Such carriages
and cockades could only bring good fortune. As soon as Mass was
over the royal party hurried to the drawing-room, where the
Comte de Blacas informed the King of the arrival of M. de Tanzia,
deputy-mayor of Bordeaux, with a letter for his Majesty, and of
M. Labarte with some despatches from the Due d'Angouleme.
The King, seated in his armchair, with the Duchesse d'Angouleme
standing opposite to him, allowed the visitors to be announced.
Round him stood his deferential courtiers ; the Archbishop of
Rheims, the Dues de Lorge, d'Havre, de Serent, and de Castries,
the Vicomte d'Agoult, the Comte de Pradel, the Chevalier de
Riviere, and M. Durepierre, with the princess's ladies of honour,
the Comtesse de Damas and Mile, de Choisy. M. Tauzia handed
to the King a letter from the Comte Lynch, mayor of Bordeaux,1
who announced that the town had recognised him as the legitimate
king. Louis, very much moved, drew the envoy of his new subjects
towards him and embraced him. He then presented him to the
duchess and the rest of the circle.

1 De Vaulabelle (Histoire de la Restauration, Vol. I., p. 233), gives the
following notes on Lynch : — " M. Lynch had received several pecuniary marks of
the satisfaction of Napoleon, who had moreover made him a Knight of the
Legion of Honour and a Count of the Empire. It would be difficult, indeed, to
go further than M. Lynch in expressing admiration for the Emperor personally,
and attachment to the imperial dynasty. ... On the 29th February, 1814, on
the occasion of a presentation of colours to the National Guards of Bordeaux, he
reminded his subordinates of 'their duty to their august sovereign.' He spoke
of the temerity of the armies that had invaded our territory, and promised, if the
danger were to approach Bordeaux, ' to give an example of fidelity and devotion.'
(Moniteur, 6th March, 1814.) We repeat, it was on the 29th February that
M. Lynch spoke in this way ; and two days before, on the 27th, in an interview
with M. Taffart de St. Germain, royal commissioner for the Province of
Guienne, ... he had arranged to send M. de la Rochejacqueline and Bontemps
Dubarry to Wellington's headquarters."
82

HARTWELL
He hastened to respond to this appeal. These were his words : —
" Hartwell : 31 March, 1814.
" Monsieur le Comte Lynch, it is with such feelings as none
but a father's heart can know that I have learnt of the noble
impulse by which my good town of Bordeaux has been restored to
me. This example, I do not doubt, will be followed in every part
of my kingdom ; but neither I nor my successors, nor the French
nation, will ever forget that the first to be set at liberty, the
Bordelais, were also the first to fly to the arms of their father. I
express feebly what I feel keenly, but I hope that before long
I shall be able, within those walls where — in the words of the
good Henri — "my hour first began," to give a truer picture of
the feelings that fill my heart. I desire your fellow-citizens to
know this through you ; this first prize is your due, for, in spite
of your modesty, I have heard of the services you have rendered
me, and it gives me true happiness to pay my debt. I pray, etc.,
Louis."
From that day forward there was never an hour at Hartwell
when France was not the topic of conversation. The recent
course of events seemed so extraordinary, notwithstanding the
persistent efforts of twenty years, notwithstanding the European
alliance against Napoleon, who was only yielding to numbers,
notwithstanding the many hostile forces at work, and the treachery
of marshals and ministers, that it was difficult to believe in it.
The King, however, found it easy. How often had he not said
that this blessed hour must strike ? He was only awaiting the
arrival of the official announcement before despatching to his
subjects the proclamation that he had long ago thought out,
for he foresaw that the Senate would impose conditions.1 As for
the Due d'Havre, sleep forsook him. He wrote to Fauche-Borel
that his agitation was so great that he could think of nothing
1 The ideal of the royal circle would have been to have a monarchy of the kind
that existed before the meeting of the States General. About this time the Due
d'Havre wrote to Fauche Borel : " In the present state of things we cannot tell
what is likely to happen, but assuredly if I had any influence with the Senate
I should advise them, for the good of the country at large, to give up all idea of
imposing terms, and, knowing the just and loyal intentions of the King, and his
wise views, to summon him without any conditions. I should depend upon him
to heal the wounds of his empire, and to give it the happiness which he
himself can only hope to gain through that which he bestows on his
kingdom."
83 g 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
else. Most of the courtiers spent their time in making guesses as
to their future fate. What would their luck be ? How much of
their patrimony were they likely to recover ? The minds of the
women were occupied with their gowns, and those of the men with
their incomes. The King, though always full of confidence, had
some fears lest his future position should be compromised by
the impulsiveness of the Comte d'Artois, whom he had appointed
his lieutenant-general. He was afraid that his brother, in these
first days of joyous expansiveness, might make rash promises.
He had no faith in anything but his own pen and his own
diplomacies. The hours seemed very long now at Hartwell, where, in the
course of three years, the King's little Court had grown used to
their monotonous life. So eager were they for the great news that
was to transform that life that they postponed the hour for going
to bed. But the news did not come. At last one day — it was on
Easter Eve — some couriers crowned with leaves appeared outside
the Exchange in London and announced that the Senate in Paris
had decided on the deposition of Napoleon and the return of the
legitimate King. As the news spread through the town the people
were seized with delirious excitement, so great was their delight at
the restoration and its consequences.
As soon as it was absolutely certain that the legitimate King of
France was to return to his country the Regent hastened to send a
courier to Hartwell. This messenger arrived there before dawn on
Easter morning, and placed the Regent's despatch in the hands of
the Comte de Blacas, who had been awakened. The courtier,
having groped his way through the dark passages by the light of
a little lantern, entered the King's room without hesitation. Then,
at that untimely hour, standing at the foot of the bed that was
entirely filled by the sleeper's unwieldy form, under the curtains
that protected the infirm prince from the cold, the favourite
informed him of the resolution of the French nation, now officially
announced. He was a King at last, after twenty-five years of
exile ; and his faithful servants, whom neither misery nor ruin
had discouraged, who, like their master, had always been sustained
by hope, would now, like him, recover their fortunes and their
honours ! After the King, the Duchesse d'Angouleme was
awakened. But it was not till the morning that the courtiers
heard the entrancing news. 84

CHAPTER III

THE COMTE D AIIT0IS IN PARIS

The Bourbons imagined, perhaps, that by joining the allies
in attacking France they were precipitating the fall of the man
they called the Usurper. They decided on this measure in
January, 1814, when the country had already been invaded in
every direction ; in the south by the English and Spanish ; in the
east by the Russians, Prussians, and Austrians. Behind these
great armies they would have nothing to fear from Napoleon ;
they might, without a qualm, face the enemy who had terrified
them for so long.
This was the merest illusion. There was, at that time, nothing
less probable than the return of these exiled princes to France.
The people did not even know their names ; did not know what
had become of these fugitives from Versailles who had been away
for a quarter of a century ; did not know where they were living :
knew only the Emperor, Napoleon of the great victories, the man
who dominated Europe and had lately pitched his camp in every
capital of the Continent. If the people wished for peace, they
wished it to be made in the Emperor's name. It was the Emperor,
always the Emperor, that they desired to serve ; for they were
dazzled by his genius, and hoped that the tide of fortune would
turn and the prosperity of the country revive after this stupendous
struggle. Moreover, the sovereigns in command of the invading
armies had no love for the Bourbons, whose pride and incapacity
they found repellent ; and they believed, not without reason, that
France was not demanding a change of dynasty, but simply craved
for peace. If Napoleon had not been so uncompromising ; if, at
Chatillon, he had not forced his plenipotentiary Caulaincourt to
gain time, by various manoeuvres, for him to recover his position,
85

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
peace would have been concluded and the Bourbons would certainly
never have seen the banks of the Seine again. It was to a few of
their partisans, such as de Vitrolles ; to traitors and intriguers
such as Talleyrand, Pradt, and Dalberg; to all those ambitious
men who had lost their heads in the recent medley of victories and
disasters, and had compromised themselves by their indiscretions,
that the royal family owed, far more than to themselves, their
return to France.
In January, 1814, the Due d'Angouleme left Hartwell to join
Wellington near the Pyrenees; the Due de Berry landed in
Jersey, with a view to appearing on the coast of Normandy as
soon as the danger should be quite over ; the Comte d'Artois
sailed for Holland, and thence proceeded — always screened by the
Germans and Russians — first in the direction of Basle and after
wards to Dauphine, as the invading armies gradually spread
themselves over the eastern provinces. The Comte d'Artois'
suite, when he left England, comprised the Comte Francois
d'Escars, a friend whose devotion no trial could chill ; the Comte
de Bruges, one of the King's wandering ambassadors, who spent
his time travelling between Berlin and St. Petersburg or Vienna ;
the Comte de Trogoff, a Breton, who had left the Austrian service,
which gave him an assured livelihood, to throw in his lot with the
French prince ; the two Polignacs ; Alexis de Noailles, who had
eluded the vials of the imperial wrath ; and the Abbe Latil, the
almoner. On entering Franche-Comte this little band was re
inforced by some fresh adherents : the Comte de Scey, the Comte
de Champagne, M. de Manciel, and a number of other nobles, who
were delighted to proclaim their devotion, even if it should mark
them out for Napoleon's vengeance.
It was at this moment that de Vitrolles appeared.
He was ambitious — for only those who combine ambition with
energy are always successful. He came from the South, was forty
years old, and had acquired a small official post under the Empire
— nothing more important than an inspectorship of National Sheep-
folds. This new-comer, Eugene d'Arnaud, Baron de Vitrolles,
determined to join the Comte d'Artois in the east, and take him
to Paris. This was certainly the surest way of restoring the
Bourbon dynasty to the throne. He had left his own province
after the disaster of Leipsic, and in Paris had renewed his friend
ship with the Baron de Dalberg, another ambitious man. They had
known each other years before in Germany, when de Vitrolles had
86

THE COMTE D'ARTOIS IN PARIS
just left Conde's army, and Dalberg had just finished his education
at the University of Gottingen. De Vitrolles' German friend had
become a Parisian, and even, after being naturalised, a Councillor
of State under the Empire, and was now on confidential terms with
Talleyrand. The latter wished to attach himself once more to the
Bourbons, who would, he hoped, pardon his scandalous and revolu
tionary past, and give him fresh honours and profitable posts to
console him for the disgrace put upon him by Napoleon. Talley
rand and Dalberg were in communication with most of the im
portant foreign ministers, who accompanied the allied armies in the
capacity of diplomatists ; and Dalberg gave de Vitrolles a sign by
which he might make himself acceptable to them, and a permit
made out in the name of Saint- Vincent. The ambitious Baron
started on his journey, fortified by his audacity, his energy, his
personal attractions, his desire to succeed, and his faith in the
monarchy.1 And indeed his appearance made a pleasant impression, in spite
of his rather large head, his proud and very direct way of looking
people in the face, his long nose, his thin lips and square chin, all
of which were signs of a resolute character and apt to be rather
alarming at first sight. His words always received attention,
because his seductive voice seemed to give them a delightful
meaning, and the very sound of it enthralled and convinced his
listeners, who were ready to talk for any length of time with this
stranger who spoke so sympathetically. He made the acquaintance,
then, of Count Nesselrode and Count Stadion, who received him on
the strength of the password that had been given to him. He was
even received by the Czar Alexander, and half persuaded him that
the peace for which the allies were fighting so strenuously could
not be achieved without the Bourbons.
He carried the news of his good fortune to the Comte d'Artois
at Nancy ; and the prince, surrounded by his little Court, continued
his journey to Paris at the rear of the allied armies. He travelled,
not as a prince, for the allied sovereigns refused to recognise his
rank, but as a private individual ; a right that no one could
deny him.
1 The sign M. de Dalberg gave to de Vitrolles for Count Stadion, the Austrian
Minister, was the names of two Viennese ladies written on de Vitrolles' port
folio. These names, says de Vaulabelle, were a memory of youth and love : the
Austrian plenipotentiary and de Vitrolles had been acquainted with the ladies at
the same time. The sign for Count Nesselrode consisted of the brief recom
mendation : Have confidence.
87

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Here is the Baron de Vitrolles' account of his journey, a very
moving picture of the invaded provinces :
" The places through which I passed," he writes (Vol. I., p. 353),
" were half deserted ; the open houses seemed forsaken. The most
prosperous of the inhabitants wore torn waistcoats and worn-out
linen smocks, and handkerchiefs on their heads instead of hats ;
they wandered like ghosts round their houses. The arrival of a
carriage attracted a little crowd, and although only eight or ten
leagues from Paris they asked me if the town were still in existence,
and if it had not been pillaged, destroyed, and burnt. It was in
vain that I tried to reassure them, promising them peace for
certain, and a happier future; no one believed me. 'Is the
Emperor dead?' asked one of them — 'No,' I answered, 'he is at
Fontainebleau.' ' In that case,' they replied, ' you may whistle for
peace ! ' When I went away I left them the leaflets and papers
with which I was surrounded (the King's proclamation).1 But
they had reached the state of misery and discouragement that robs
a man of all curiosity, because he is bereft of all hope. The
1 The following are the most important passages of this proclamation. " I am
a prey to every emotion that the heart can feel, and imbued with the most
solemn and profound affections by which a man can be influenced : my position is
novel, and I believe it to be without a parallel in the history of the world. . . .
Who can express the ineffable emotion of the father who keeps an intelligent
watch on the preliminary steps that will eventually restore to him the finest
crown in the Universe? . . . One anxious thought intrudes. How is it
possible to wear that crown with the dignity befitting circumstances of such
grandeur and events of such historic renown ? It is a splendid career, but a
difficult one. A great man is needed to govern a great people. ... I feel
this anxiety, but it does not overwhelm me. If I am not a hero I shall be an
enlightened prince, a good King ; and for States and people alike, goodness is the
most important thing, and I have intelligence enough to be good in an efficient
way, surrounded by the moBt distinguished intellects. . . . There is no hatred
in my heart for anyone. . . . The only feeling in my heart is the desire of doing
good and the heavenly joy of bestowing an immense benefit. . . . My position
being what it is I can only live in the present. I hardly remember the past ;
and in the past, I shall fix my eyes upon my own illusions rather than on the
mistakes which, in every class, and in so many different ways, have agitated
France and all Europe. For twenty-five years contempt and misunderstanding
have reigned supreme ; violence has been universal. The fatal cup has been
drained. . . . Europe longs for peace. Every State is demanding quietness and
security for all, and all that is asked of a sovereign is goodness, firm and
courageous goodness, that everything may be repaired and restored. . . .
Prudence, wisdom and goodness are ultimately the most enduring ornaments of the
diadem whose destiny it is to make a nation shine. To ward off danger, to give
or maintain good impulses, to win confidence, and the power that is one with
goodness — these are the duties of royalty. . . . These duties 1 will endeavour to
fulfil, and my strong will is one of the means by which I shall succeed. I will
cherish France like Louis XII and Henri IV, and will combine the ideals of
greatness that animated Louis XIV with the pacific sentiments and the goodness
of my brother Louis XVI,"
88

THE COMTE D'ARTOIS IN PARIS
traces of the war were terrible everywhere. The road was en
cumbered with fallen trees, and broken wagons, and dead horses ;
and one's gorge rose at the sight of the plundered corpses. One
saw them sometimes on the very spot where death had overtaken
them ; and sometimes they lay in a row of ten or twelve, having
fallen without breaking rank. Others were scattered here and
there, some of them actually on the road, so that it was difficult
to avoid driving over them. Death had made them all alike ; one
could not tell the Frenchmen from the foreigners. The mud of the
road was drenched in blood wherever they lay, and even the
bodies themselves had become mud-stained in the convulsions of
the death-agony. No one thought of burying them ; they served
as food for dogs and birds of prey, and the air one breathed was
tainted by them. Desolation reigned everywhere, in the most
hideous forms."
Near Chalons he announced to the peasants that peace was at
hand. " They listened in silence, and astonishment, and stupefaction,"
he writes again. " There was a change of expression on every
face. It would be a mistake to attribute the effect of my words to
any feeling of hostility to the name I had mentioned : there was
no such feeling. But these poor folk understood no peace that
was not made by Bonaparte, and with Bonaparte. They could not
conceive of a real peace, made without him and against him. To
them the name of Bourbon was simply incompatible with the idea
of peace. I must confess that I was myself surprised, since I could
not understand what had made these good people so cold."
What had made the good people so cold was neither more nor
less than the name of " Bourbon," which to them meant persecu
tion and misery. Those of them who had lived under the rule of
the legitimate kings remembered the exactions to which they had
been subjected, the injustices they had endured, the oppressions
they had suffered at the hands of their seigneur, and the feudal
dues they had been forced to pay. The Baron de Vitrolles did not
think of that. He was himself one of the seigneurs to whom the
privileges had belonged ; his journey had been undertaken on
behalf of these Bourbon princes from whom he was hoping to
receive his reward. Whereas, in the eyes of the peasants, the
Emperor was their protector. Under his despotic hand the
equality of all citizens had been maintained ; no privilege was
recognised by law, and the taxes had affected all classes of society
89

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
alike. As for the liberty they heard so much about, it mattered
little to them. What could they do with it ?
Wherever the prince went he smiled graciously and affably, and
pressed the hand of everyone he met. He spoke quite affection
ately, as though he felt himself united, after an absence, with
relations he had much regretted.1 Well, it was probably true
enough that after so many years of exile he was glad to tread the
soil of his native land. At Vesoul 2 he said very loudly to his
visitors : " At last I have come back to my own country, which
was always so dear to me ! I hope never to leave it again." These
words were false ; for he had been the first to incite the nobles to
leave their country and fight against her. The sentiment was all
for show : it was not rooted in his heart. At that moment, with
the Emperor still in France and close at hand, it behoved the
Bourbons to make themselves popular. Their one aim was to
create an effect ; they made wild promises ; their manners were
free-and-easy, genial, and devoid of pride ; their words were all
very florid in style. The wandering prince would have been
willing to act as lieutenant-general of the kingdom, to scatter
proclamations, to play the master instead of courting the mob.
He had a natural taste for adulation, and the necessity of yielding
to the demands of the foreign sovereigns and remaining incognita
was painful to him. He fell back upon another role, the role of a
charming prince descending to the level of his people ; feeding
their vanity by his familiar condescension ; encouraging them to
approach him, touch him, question him ; and lavishing the most
alluring promises on those who withheld their support or who
represented the village population. For the village people hardly
looked at him. Who was he? No one had heralded him. It
was only among the officials, who were accustomed to bending the
knee, that he met with humble attitudes and flattery. At Chalons,
when he was dining with de Vitrolles and his suite in a hotel, the
1 In the brochure he published in the early days of the Restoration
Chateaubriand gives an exaggerated portrait of his prince. " Monsieur, the
Comte d'Artois," he writes, " whose character is so frank and loyal and French,
is as much distinguished to-day, by his piety, gentleness, and goodness, as he was
in his first youth by his dignified bearing and his royal charms."
- At Vesoul the Emperor of Austria, by way of marking the fact that his
sympathies were once more with the Bourbons, sent the Comte d'Artois a hat
decorated with a white cockade. Menneval, who records the circumstances,
adds: "We have all heard the cold and cruel sarcasm of this prince (the
Emperor of Austria) when he learnt in Bohemia of the reverse suffered by the
French army in Spain, at the Battle of Vittoria : ' It appears that the heat
agrees with my son-in-law no better than the cold.' "
90

THE COMTE D'ARTOIS IN PARIS
prefect, who had been unable to entertain him at his own house,
would not be cheated out of standing behind the Comte d'Artois'
chair, like a courtier at the old Court. After the manner of good
officials he bowed down before the rising sun. At Meaux, in the
inn where the little band of travellers was to spend the night,
the prince received less attention than did the chiefs of the allied
armies. Not a sound of sympathy nor welcome greeted his arrival
in the town. To the owners of the hostelry he was merely a
traveller like the rest, or even less important than the rest. He
had no aides-de-camp, no plumed generals to do his behests.1 In
the eyes of these bourgeois his faithful companions, with the
accent they had brought back after their long absence from France,
seemed merely foreigners. He had been overjoyed to leave England
with the title of lieutenant-general, which almost made him a king,
the equal of the other princes ; but he found that in their presence
he was always treated as a private gentleman. He would have liked
to feel independent of his brother, the King, the real King, who
was still at Hartwell. He understood now that the King was
missed, and that his presence would have given another colour
to this journey that had become so commonplace. He tried to
improve his position by a few felicitous phrases, suitable for
repetition. When someone expressed surprise at seeing him with
out a guard, he answered : " Do I need a guard, when ever since
leaving Vesoul I have been marching between two lines of white
cockades ? " From Meaux the Comte d'Artois went to the Comte
Etienne de Damas' chateau at Livry, and here at last there was an
outburst of enthusiasm such as had been lacking since the prince
left Vesoul.
It was hardly possible that a province where the crushing
exactions of the enemy had been accompanied by acts of unheard-
of barbarity should feel much enthusiasm for the Bourbons. The
villages and little towns were demoralised, and Beugnot, the
prefect of Lille, who decamped from his department and went
to Paris, declares in his Memoirs that wherever he went he met
nothing but conscripts reeling with drink and shouting revolu
tionary songs at the top of their voices. The nobles were every
where the objects of unbridled fury and hatred, and were blamed
for all the misfortunes of France. The great town of Amiens,
however, owing to the energy of the prefect, La Tour du Pin, and
1 " No one had come from Paris to meet us at Meaux,'' writes de Vitrolles,
"except Alisson de Chazet, formerly valet-de-chambre to the prince."
91

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
the influence of his clever and charming wife, had become royalist.
Nearer to Paris the scene was changed : isolated bands of old
soldiers were sadly returning from the field of battle, weary and
dispirited, and cursing their generals. Their miserable faces
showed plainly enough what they were feeling ; they were re
gretting their Emperor ; they were ashamed of their defeat and
of their leaders' treason, they said. Still nearer to Paris, in the
plain of St. Denis, were several detachments of the enemy's troops,
Cossacks who, in the open fields, were tearing down the stacks
of corn and forage to feed their horses.1 And everywhere the air
was sickeningly tainted by the dead bodies of animals and of the
heroic soldiers who had been left unburied in the ditches after
every fight. Some of the passers-by had adorned their hats with
white cockades. There were not very many of these as yet, but as
soon as the Restoration was a matter of certainty they would be
multiplied to infinity. On the other hand, Paris was being rapidly
deserted by all those anxious, discouraged folk who were unwilling
to forsake the Emperor, those who still hoped to see him retrieve
his fortunes, and still admired his genius, his mighty will, and the
great things he had done.
They fled, sickened by the recantations that filled the air, and
1 De Gain-Montagnac, in his Souvenirs, describes the appearance of the
outskirts of Paris in 1814 in these words : " When I had passed through
Arpajon I saw in the distance, spread over the plains and everywhere else,
immense camps of cavalry. Their number made it impossible for me to count
them. On all sides the soldiers were bivouacking round the cornstacks, the rich
produce of this fertile country, and most of these stacks were either wholly or
partially pulled down to serve as litter for the horses and beds for the men.
Degraded-looking Cossacks, armed with lances, were galloping about as though
they were on the plains of Tartary. Every moment Russian or Prussian officers
would pass along like lightning, on their way to or from Paris. Near Antony
the cavalry camps were still larger. When I saw the fields of Sceaux again,
where I had passed many peaceful hours, I was struck by more than one contrast.
Tartars were trampling, too, upon the rose-fields of Fontenoy, as if the place
belonged to them. All along the route the houses were deserted. On the one
hand was plenty of movement of a sad, insistent kind ; on the other were
solitude and desolation. I drew near to the Barriere d'Enfer. Everyone was
wearing a white handkerchief on his arm, and the foreign soldiers I met were
wearing it too, in token of an alliance between them. I expected to find Paris
greatly changed. Everyone was going and coming and attending to his business
as usual. Near the Luxembourg there was neither more nor less traffic than is
customary, and I saw no more foreign faces, and had it not been for the guard I
had passed at the barrier I might have doubted whether Paris were really
occupied. On approaching the Quay I began to meet soldiers of various
nationalities. They were mingling peaceably with the Parisians. I perceived a
few patrols of the National Guard. It was still impossible to tell that this was a
town that had only been taken barely five days before. I crossed the Place
Vend&me : a great white cloth entirely covered Bonaparte's statue. ... it
looked like a solemn execution confirming the deposition.
92

THE COMTE D'ARTOIS IN PARIS
the carefully planned isolation in which the man was left who
could no longer distribute honours and wealth. These fugitives
were unimportant bourgeois, or even artisans, who had had no
experience of the Emperor's favours, but whose patriotic hearts were
grateful for the halo of glory he had given to their country. They
fled because, among all the ambitious adulators of the princes who
had been forgotten for twenty years, they dared not profess their
Napoleonic faith.1

II

On the morning arranged for the Comte d'Artois' entry into
Paris the agitation of the intriguers, which grew more active day
by day, had succeeded in drawing a fine number of people to the
Comte de Damas' house at Livry. Not a man was missing from
the companies of the National Guard summoned to escort the
prince. Both the horse-guards and the foot-guards were complete.
They were followed by the greater number of the high officials who
were still in office, and of the rich members of society 2 ; but not by
the people, not by that great mass of workmen whom the last
battles of the Emperor had electrified and reduced to a state of
paralysis that was due, not to their want of will, but to their
want of arms and ammunition. And after the first worshippers of
the dawning day came several hundreds of old nobles, who had
emerged from no one knew whence ; officers who had fought in the
American War and for the old monarchy, and had donned for the
occasion their long-skirted coats with the projecting rapier, and
cocked hats decorated with a large white cockade. They all wore
short breeches and coloured stockings, and rode cart-horses that no
quack, said the Duchesse d'Abrantes, would have harnessed to the
carriage he hawked his medicines in. They waited outside the
chateau, to cheer the prince as he came out. In the avenue and
the courtyards tables were set, and kept constantly supplied with
dishes and wine, even champagne. Meantime Mme. de Damas
1 " Reaching from the Parisian barrier to Chartres was one immense procession
of carriages of every kind. The southern part of Paris was quite deserted. It is
impossible to form any idea of this sight without having seen it." (Mimoires de
Beugnot, Vol. II., p. 5.)
2 Les Dibats mentions M. de Vaudreuil, the Bailli de Crusol, the Due de
Laval, the Prince de Poix, and Mesdames de Damas, d'Avaray, and de
Noailles.
93

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
and her friend Mme. de Chatellux were cutting up endless pieces of
white ribbon, with which to adorn the buttonholes of everyone
present, especially of the National Guards. This was the origin of
the Order of the Lys, which was greatly sought after at this time
by those who possessed neither the Cross of the Legion of Honour
nor that of St. Louis.
The new arrival was met at the barrier of Bondy,1 at about two
o'clock, by the members of the provisional government. It was
the 12th April ; and the sweetness of spring filled every heart with
happy emotion. The crowd at Bondy was still greater than it had
been at Livry. The old gentlemen had absolutely declined to
leave the prince. They crowded round him, blessing him and
embracing, not only his own knees, but his horse's chest — that
magnificent white horse that an old emigrS had brought him from
a riding-school because there was not one left in the imperial
stables. They clung to his person as though they were his shadow.
He was forced to disperse them before the members of the
provisional government could approach to congratulate the King's
lieutenant.2 When the whole ceremony was over a procession was
formed, in the middle of which the high officials and foreign officers
took up their position, with such of the aristocracy as were then in
1 Mimoires de la Comtesse de Boigne, Vol. I., p. 399. It had occurred to the
Comte d'Osmond, father of the young Comtesse de Boigne, to form a guard of
honour for the Comte d'Artois' entry into Paris. "My brother was the first,"
she writes, " to go and give in his name to Charles de Noailles, whom my father
had selected as the most suitable captain for him and his friends. Charles de
Noailles was delighted at this, and could not have been more grateful. He and
his daughter came to thank my father very affectionately. But by the next day
war was in the camp. We were not yet emancipated, and already ambition and
emulation were to the fore, and the intrigues of the courtiers agitating them
greatly. It was Charles de Damas and his people who began it. However, in
the end, they collected fifty young men who equipped themselves, armed them
selves, and mounted themselves within four days, and were ready before
Monsieur's entry. From that day forward the seigneurs of the old Court
thought of nothing but the best means of improving their fortunes and securing
their own advancement. . . . "
2 The Comte d'Artois was obviously the King's lieutenant, but none the less
his claim to this title was contested by the Senate, who did not wish to
recognise the Bourbons as the reigning family before Louis, Comte de Provence,
had accepted the Constitution drawn up by the Senators. This was the reason
that the Senate sent no deputation to receive him. It was Talleyrand who
addressed him in the name of the government, in a meaningless phrase that
compromised no one. " Monseigneur," he said, "the happiness we feel to-day
is beyond all expression,[if Monsieur, with the celestial goodness that characterises
his august House, will accept the homage of our reverent emotion and our
respectful loyalty." Monsieur, says de Vitrolles (Vol. II. of his Mimoiret),
answered in suitable words. Segur says of the occasion : " His words were
really most appropriate to a son of Henri IV," and records them. "Yes,
Messieurs, the blood of Henri IV flows in my veins. I would I had his talents,
but I am quite certain I have his heart, and his love for the French nation."
94

THE COMTE D'ARTOIS IN PARIS
Paris ; the Due de Mortemart, for instance, and the Due de
Luxembourg, and MM. de Crillon, de Chabot, and de Labour-
donnaye, most of whom wore the uniform of the imperial army.
Among them were even some of Napoleon's marshals, of whom
some came compulsorily and others on their own initiative. Keller-
mann, Serrurier, Moncey, Marmont, were all present — and Ney,
whose face was convulsed with anger, and whose hands were
perpetually clutching at the hilt of his sword spasmodically, as
though he would have gladly cut the whole royalist crowd to
pieces. The procession 1 passed through the suburbs of Saint-
Martin and Saint-Denis, where the houses were few, and the
staring spectators not very numerous. Such quarters as these, far
from the heart of the capital, were inhabited by the people whose
hands were black with labour, the people of the factory and the
mill, who were not royalists. The people did not love the
Bourbons. As soon as the Comte d'Artois reached the great boulevards the
demonstration became delirious. The windows overlooking his
route were crowded with gaily-dressed women, waving white flags ;
the walls of the houses were covered with tapestry and garlands
and white draperies, as on the Feast of Corpus Christi under the
monarchy ; the ground was strewn with flowers ; and from all
sides simultaneously rose the sound of the clapping of hands, and
cries of welcome, and protestations of devotion to the royal cause.
Those who were on foot near the prince crowded round his horse,
and fought lustily for their places, as though they considered it a
pleasure to be hustled and kicked and crushed by the crowd ; which
was increasing every moment. The Comte d'Artois bowed and
smiled at this sea of courtiers and adorers. Ney, who was always
1 The following, according to the journals of the time, was the order of the
procession (de Vaulabelle). "A band playing the air of Vive Henri IV; a fairly
large detachment of mounted National Guards, among whom M. de Chateaubriand
was observed, and all of whom wore hats adorned with the white cockade and
surmounted by a long white plume ; several battalions of the national foot-guards,
wearing the white cockade; then the Comte d'Artois and his escort forming
a Btaff ; after them a strong detachment of mounted National Guards, and then,
at the rear of the procession, a large body of Cossack cavalry, who formed the
real military escort of the prince, and whose presence constituted, with the
mingling of the two cockades, the chief characteristic of the event and of the
whole situation." The Comte d'Artois wore the cordon bleu with the Star of the
Holy Ghost, and the Cross of St. Louis, and the Order of the Golden Fleece with
Mile, 'de Chastenay writes in her Mimoires : " When Monsieur appeared at
Saint-Denis as under the old regime, the fish-wives, in accordance with tradition,
hastened to embrace him, and nothing could exceed their transports of delight at
the familiar and charming kindness of his greeting."
95

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
irascible and always exasperated by this kind of idolatry, cried :
" The thing is past comprehension. Here is a man who has fallen
from the sky, a man who only yesterday was a stranger to them,
and they are in a fever about him already ! " 1
They proceeded to Notre Dame, where the Chapter was to
present the holy water and intone the Salvum fac regem in the
absence of Cardinal Maury, who was considered to have com
promised himself too seriously in the eyes of the " very Christian "
Bourbons.2 From Notre Dame the crowd led the way to the
Tuileries, where the Comte d'Artois was to take up his abode. As
he entered the palace an immense white flag was hoisted over the
central pavilion. On taking possession of this building, where
the Empress Marie Louise and her Court had been living only a
fortnight before, the descendant of the legitimate kings could not
hide his admiration for the beautiful rooms and luxurious furniture ;
but it was with the greatest difficulty that he succeeded in
reaching the salons of the ground floor, where he was to receive the
homage of the Parisians. For many hours past these rooms had
been invaded by a crowd of generals, and officials, and men craving
for a glance, only one glance, from the individual who was now the
source of all favours ; and indeed by women as well, who came to
see what they thought of this man, of whom, during the past few
days, they had been hearing so many things — tales of his good
fortune with the fair sex in his youth, and glowing accounts of his
personal charms and attractions, his gracious, courteous manners,
his fluent speech and flatteries, all the polish, in short, that he had
acquired at the Court of Versailles. In this first emotional hour
all were agreed in thinking the prince agreeable, personable, and
1 De Vitrolles : Mimoires, (Vol. I., p. 408). Although he must be suspected
of exaggeration we must quote him none the less. ' ' Words fail one to describe
the manifestations of the universal feeling. The transports of the spectators'
hearts were shown on their faces, in their gestures, in their tears. The feeling
was so great that many a one will die without experiencing anything to equal it,
and centuries will pass before such a thing is seen again. Men, and still more
women, broke through the line that marked our route. They precipitated
themselves on the prince's person, embracing his knees and his boots ; and those
who could not reach him covered his horse with caresses. It is positively known
that three or four people paid with their lives for their emotions, which were too
much for their physical strength."
2 The Abbe d' Astros, Vicar-General, being absent, it was the Abbe Lamyre-
Mori who received the prince. The latter replied to the words of the Abbe:
" The King will only be happy when his people are happy." He was then led
into the sanctuary, under a canopy carried by four canons. The canopy was
adorned with white embroidery. The prince remained on his knees for more than
a quarter of an hour. He then received the incense standing. After the Salvum
fac regem tears were seen to be streaming from his eyes.
96

THE COMTE D'ARTOIS IN PARIS
full of charm. He had preserved the slenderness of youth, and
his face was attractive despite the wrinkles of age and the white
ness of his hair ; and in the uniform of the National Guard, which
he had worn since passing through Nancy, his easy bearing and
kindly manners were especially engaging. A certain phrase was
passed from mouth to mouth, a phrase of which he had not made
use at Bondy, though Beugnot, its inventor, had fathered it upon
him. " He saw no changes in France," ran the phrase, " save that
there was one Frenchman the more — himself." This was a most
fortunate saying : everyone hastened to repeat it : it has passed
into a legend.
Several important private houses were illuminated that night,
and the theatres announced La Partie de Chasse de Henri IV, in
the course of which not a single allusion to the existing state of
things was allowed to pass by the pit without an outburst of
cheering. The Parisians welcomed these free entertainments as
they always do welcome any change that gratifies their love of
noise and pleasure : they took part in the rejoicings as though, for
the future, their lives were to be all happiness and prosperity.
The stream of visitors continued for several days to flow through
the salons of the Tuileries. No one was turned away from the
door : but neither could anyone enter without struggling through
the crowd that was already there. Once in that crowd, it was
impossible to advance or retreat.
In the meantime the Due d'Angouleme, who left England in
January, reached Saint-Jean-de-Luz a week or two later ; and on
the 2nd February following, being protected by the English troops
of the Duke of Wellington, who was in the field against Soult, he
issued a proclamation to the French army and had it distributed
as widely as was possible.
He said : " I have come ; I am in France ! I have come to
break your fetters ; I have come to unfurl the white flag, the
spotless flag that your fathers followed with such rapture. Rally
round it, heroes of France ! Let us all march together to the
overthrow of tyranny. Soldiers ! my hope will not be vain ; I am
the son of your kings, and you are Frenchmen ! "
This document, which bore the signature of the Due d' Angou-
leme, came into the hands of Soult. This name Bourbon was
unknown to him. It was such a long time now since the royal
family, and especially the sons of the Comte d'Artois, had been
mentioned in France ! Their names had not once appeared in any
97 h

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
official document while all the dazzling scenes of the imperial
drama were being enacted. In a marshal's eyes these princes were
less important than any general who had fought under Napoleon.
It was a Bourbon, was it, who had signed this proclamation?
Soult thought his English adversary was trying, by a subterfuge, to
discourage the old veterans who were faithful to their glorious
chief ; and his answer was an address to his army, expressing the
most ferocious hatred for traitors who could stoop to preach
sedition, and tell lies about it to boot.
" Implacable hatred," he proclaimed, " both for traitors and for
the enemies of the name of France ! War to the death for all who
shall attempt to make divisions among us, for our destruction !
Let us remember the prodigious efforts of our great Emperor, and
his remarkable victories ; let us always be worthy of him ; let us be
true Frenchmen, and die weapon in hand rather than live to our
dishonour ! 8th March, 1814."
Wellington, who felt that this violent attack was directed
against himself, would no longer allow the prince to shelter
himself behind the English while agitating in the interests of
his dynasty.1 The allied sovereigns were still negotiating with
Napoleon at Chatillon, and his duty as a general required him to
remain neutral. The Bourbon prince, finding his royalist effusions
checked and himself reduced to the position of a spectator, was
meditating a return to exile, when Bordeaux, in its desire to open
its harbours to trading vessels — for in this town money was
more important than glory — offered to surrender to the English.
Wellington at first declined the suggestion. The pressure of the
royalist faction, however, decided the English general to send a
contingent of fifteen thousand men under Lord Beresford to occupy
the town in the name of the King of England. This event altered
the Due d'Angouleme's intentions. Instead of returning to his
uncle at Hartwell he penetrated further into France, following
Beresford's army step by step. Forty young men, all idle and
rich, formed themselves into a mounted guard of honour, and
started out to meet him ; and the prince, preceded by his youthful
1 Wellington wrote to the authorities in England at this time (Lamartine's
Histoire de la Restauration, Vol. II., p. 220) : — " Twenty years have passed since
the princes of the house of Bourbon left France. They are more unknown
in France than the princes of any other royal house in Europe. It is no doubt
necessary for the peace of the world that Europe should expel Bonaparte, but it
matters little whether he be replaced by a prince of the House of Bourbon, or by
a prince of any other kingly house. "
98

THE COMTE D'ARTOIS IN PARIS
escort and surrounded by English soldiers, entered the town and
installed himself in the royal palace. Here he received all who
cared to come, among whom there were many belonging to the
commercial and upper classes, but only a few of the people. The
nameless crowd, the mass of the people, remained in the streets,
and were somewhat lukewarm and indifferent. They cried half
heartedly : Vive le roi, Vivent les Bourbons. The prince answered :
" No more conscription, no more war, no more droits reunis ; but
liberty ! " whereupon the reserve that had been so noticeable
yielded to the wildest and most enthusiastic cheers. "No more
conscription, no more droits reunis,'''' they cried untiringly. The
officials who were still faithful to the Empire had retired to
Libourne, and had been at once replaced by the prince, who
entrusted the administration of the department to the lawyer
Laine, and retained the traitor Lynch as mayor. On receiving
the Due d'Angouleme outside the gates of the town he had
torn the insignia of the Legion of Honour from his breast and
replaced them by the white cockade. This was on the 12th
March, 1814.
Wellington gained nothing by the surrender of Bordeaux and
the treachery of its'' Mayor. The peace was signed, and Soult
was still opposing his advance beyond the upper Garonne. More
over, the surrounding country was not following the example
of Bordeaux. Notwithstanding the long sojourn of Henry IV's
descendant in the southern provinces of France, there were only
two little towns, Roquefort and Bazas, in whose streets, as he
passed through them, some feeble cries of Vive le roi were raised.
De Vaulabelle, in his history, makes an observation that is
justified by the facts. This Insurrection of the South that was
made so much of by the royalists had after all, he says, none but
these trifling consequences. The legend was very different from
the history. It was amplified, partly by the exaggerations natural
to the southern character, which is always apt to magnify the
importance of any event, and still more by the agency of the
Bourbons, who were interested, for the sake of their own reputa
tion, in spreading a belief that the entire south of France had risen
as one man to support them, and that they had been in no way
beholden for their restoration to foreign arms.
As for the Due de Berry he was vainly waiting in the English
Channel Islands a summons from the royalists to the coast of
Normandy. He remained in Jersey for three months, and only
99 h 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
landed in France after the fall of Napoleon and the arrival of the
King, his uncle, in Paris. To excuse his inertia his partisans
declared that he was obliged to stay in his island to avoid the trap
laid for him by the imperial police, who were watching for his
arrival. They wished to seize his person, it was said, and use him
as a hostage.

100

CHAPTER IV
ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
How far Paris was really royalist in sentiment before the Comte
d'Artois — or Monsieur as he was called — was installed in the
Tuileries, is open to doubt.
The crowd's enthusiastic welcome of the King's representative on
the day of his solemn entry gave an impression of genuine royalist
feeling ; but, notwithstanding these noisy demonstrations, it is
certain that the capital had only accepted the Bourbons on com
pulsion. There were no royalists in France except the aristocracy
of birth and the aristocracy of wealth. Among the townsfolk and
the peasants Napoleon was still revered and idolised. It was the
salons of Paris, and more especially the fashionable, idle young
men and women, who, with no support beyond that of a few
intriguers, precipitated the fall of the Empire, set aside the regency
of Marie Louise, and persuaded the allied sovereigns to recognise
Louis XVIIl. The nation was simply taken by surprise.
And when Monsieur, the King's lieutenant-general, appeared at
the Tuileries, this state of amazement became permanent. Every
eye in Paris was fixed upon this prince of the royal house, who
eclipsed the most illustrious men of the Empire, and brought with
him all the prestige of birth and all the charms of high estate.
Such of the aristocracy as had given their allegiance to Napoleon,
and the officials and nobles of the Empire, all of whom feared the
effect of a change of government upon their own fortunes, professed
the most ardent zeal for the King's cause. Shopkeepers whose
trade was gone, capitalists who mourned the decrease of their
capital, factory-hands who were out of work, all the idle loafers
who modelled their lives on the conduct of the upper classes — in a
word, the whole population of Paris, who had been half delirious
ever since the Moscow disaster, and found their fears and their
101

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
hopes equally agitating, were easily persuaded that the royal
famdy was an improvement on the Empire. So Paris became
royalist till further orders. De Vitrolles' policy had been shrewd.
To estabhsh the legitimate Monarchy firmly the presence of a
Bourbon in Paris was necessary — and he had brought one thither,
despite all the obstacles created bv the allied sovereigns, who would
not have rejected a regency, nor even Bernadotte, Crown Prince of
Sweden. Of all the intriguers who worked for this restoration, the
most active and important was Talleyrand. He had been set aside
by Napoleon, who had doubts of his devotion and discretion, and
even suspected him of treason ; and Talleyrand, actuated partly
by resentment and partly by weariness of the oblivion in which he
bad been living for some years, made his malevolent influence felt
at the fatal moment when the great soldier's power was tottering.
He was not alone in this enterprise. He found accomplices and
supporters among those who were as ambitious and greedy a* him
self, and as eager to make their intrigues and ostentatious services a
means of securing fresh honours and riches, bv creating claims on
the gratitude of the Bourbons. Among them were Dalberg and
the Abbe de Pradt and the Abbe Louis, and all the men whose
pride or fortunes had beeu injured bv the Emperor ; men of
letters hke Chateaubriand, the Bertins, and Michaud ; and, finally,
the ardent royalists, who had not dared to show their faces while
Napoleon was in power, but attacked him riotously and pelted him
with insults and calumnies, now that he was trodden underfoot by
all the armies of Europe.
And how was it, one may ask, that the police did nothing to rid
the capital of all these domestic foes ? There is no doubt that the
police failed in their duty. They disobeyed Napoleon's urgent
injunctions. He wrote from the field of battle to Savarv, Due de
Rovigo, one of his ministers, to expel Talleyrand from Paris, and
prevent him from joining forces with the royalists, or with the
malcontents and adventurers from the dregs of society who always
spring into prominence in moments of political crisis. Rovigo
disobeyed his master's orders. He dared not take any pre
cautionary steps against Talleyrand, who was as stealthy and
crafty in his methods as a serpent. He was afraid ; or it may be
that he was hypnotised bv the insidious suggestions of this man,
whose reputation for ability and diplomacy had suffered no eclipse ;
who was skilful in hiding his baseness and perfidy and hatred, and
102

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
knew well how to inspire respectful confidence by his unctuous,
persuasive ways. If Talleyrand was not arrested, if Talleyrand
did not follow Marie Louise to Blois, it was the Due de Rovigo
who must bear the blame. But, for the fact that Rovigo was
Minister of Police during this fearful crisis through which the
Empire was passing, it is the Emperor whom we must hold
responsible. He should have known him, surely ; and known him
to be incapable of initiative, a man of hesitations and fears,
of feeble will and credulous mind. His courage and devotion
were incontestable, it is true ; but his courage was that of a
private soldier. He was firm in the face of danger, that is to say,
and obedient and submissive, but nothing more : he had no moral
enterprise. Talleyrand cajoled the duke in the hope of ruining him. He
succeeded in making Napoleon's courtier uncomfortable, by explain
ing to him that the royalists were strong, and were threatening
the stability of the Empire more than ever ; that the Bourbons
would succeed Napoleon, and would remember the services that
the duke's persistent good-will would have rendered them. It was
best to let things take their own course, in whatever direction
were ordained by fate. If Napoleon were to return in triumph,
despite all the dangers that were threatening his power, he would
be grateful to Rovigo for his generosity towards the royalists,
who would only have been exasperated by undue severity. If, on
the other hand, Napoleon were to fall, these same royalists would
reward the duke for shutting his eyes to certain things from which
they had derived advantage. The Due de Bassano said of Savary :
" He was a great dupe." He was not such a dupe as he was
thought to be ; he was duped with his eyes open, because he
was unnerved by the ominous sounds of cracking that he heard in
the roof over his head ; he was duped because he had not the
courage to be resolute, or to reject the advice of men who showed
one face to the imperialists and another to the royalists. If the
Emperor had been at Savary's side he would have forced him into
action, as on the occasion of the Due d'Enghien's execution.
Savary would have listened to nothing but the voice of his
imperious master, and would have cared little for the consequences
of his action. His devotion was great enough to overpower his
own conscience. But in the Emperor's absence Savary no longer
felt his ascendency : it was the ascendency of Talleyrand that won
the day. 103

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Moreover the duke had been in office too long ; and this is the
explanation of his unworthy conduct. When a man becomes part
of the machinery of government, whether as Minister of Police, or
as a head clerk under the orders of his superior, he gradually grows
weaker and weaker. His will-power is no longer what it was.
The place he has earned is precious in his eyes, and he yields to any
one who speaks authoritatively.1 Any man less demoralised than
Savary would have seen at once that it was his duty to remove
from Paris, at all costs, the intriguers who were secretly agitating
there ; and to make himself feared by every man who was a menace
to the established order of things. The imperial power would then
have been preserved intact, and Napoleon's son would not have
been replaced by rulers whose only subjects hitherto had been the
emigres, and who, in their ignorance of modern France, subjected
her to fifteen years of futile unrest before they were finally exiled
in 1830.
La Valette, in his memoirs, makes a clear statement of the
unhappy consequences of Rovigo's weakness. He accuses him
roundly of causing Napoleon's fall. This is what he says : — " After
the affair of Montereau the Emperor gave orders in writing to
Rovigo to remove Talleyrand from Paris, and expressly insisted
that he should be cut off' from all communication with his friends
in the capital. I was in Rovigo's room at the time he opened the
despatch ; he was in despair. ' What is the Emperor thinking of ? '
he cried. ' Have I not enough to do to keep all the royalists in
France quiet ? Does he want to saddle me with the Faubourg
1 De Rovigo's Mimoires, Vol. VI. , p. 347. In the following passage he professes
to have discovered that Talleyrand was plotting, yet he took no measures against
him. "I was anxious about this (about Talleyrand's possible plots, that is to
say) when it occurred to me one day, when I went out riding, to pass by the
prince's house. I saw the carriage of the Archbishop of Malines at the door. I
had seen it from a considerable distance. I thought they must be conferring
together about something ; and, being determined to make sure, I left my horse in
the street instead of having the gate opened for me, and walked quickly into the
house. The porter, who recognised me, dared not stop me. I mounted the
stairs slowly and reached M. de Talleyrand's private study without meeting a
soul in the antechamber. He was closeted with the archbishop. I entered so
abruptly that I produced the same effect on them as if I had made my appearance
through the window. Their conversation, which was animated, stopped
instantly ; both of them seeming suddenly to have lost the power of speech.
The archbishop was the more disconcerted of the two. I guessed the subject _of
their discussion from their discomposure, and could not refrain from saying to
them : ' This time you needSnot try to defend yourselves. I have caught you
plotting.' I had guessed rightly ; they began to laugh, and tried to put me off
the scent. But it was in vain that I begged them to go on with their conversa
tion : they could not pick up the thread. I went away convinced that they were
hatching some plot, without exactly knowing the object of it."
104

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
Saint-Germain as well ? It is Talleyrand who keeps it quiet and
prevents the people from doing silly things. I shall not carry out
that order, and later on the Emperor will be grateful to me.'
Nevertheless it would have been a wise measure," adds La Valette.
" The royalists would have been left without a leader, and the
enemy without guidance or encouragement. Possibly the latter
would not have risked that march on Paris that was so fatal to the
Emperor. Marmont would not have signed the armistice of the
30th March ; and the twelve hours that Napoleon needed, to reach
the capital, would not have been wanting."
Henry Houssaye, in his volume on the year 1814, declares that
Savary was not only a dupe, but was also incapable and ignorant
of the most essential things for the preservation of the imperial
power. " There was a touch of the simpleton," he says (p. 444),
" in this clever man. Rovigo was incapable of foreseeing anything,
or of seeing anything ; of preventing anything or stopping
anything." He then gives a list of measures carried out by the
royalists and never discovered by this Minister of Police. I do not
agree with him. It is impossible to accuse Savary of such
incapacity. A Minister of Police has so many ways and methods of
obtaining information, that he should have been aware of all the
intrigues set on foot by the ambitious royalists. If this eminent
writer's assertion be true, one can only suppose that the entire body
of police, led by Savary, had covered their eyes to make sure of
seeing nothing. Towards all the royalists, as towards Talleyrand,
he was patient, discreet, and unaggressive, because he feared the
results of any attack upon them. What would the Emperor say
if these ambitious schemers were suddenly to unmask and make
disturbances in Paris ? Surely it would be better to soothe them
into a sense of security, as Talleyrand had been soothed. All this
secret agitation, this running backwards and forwards, these
drawing-room conclaves, this whole wave of revolt, would subside
if the Emperor were victorious. Such must have been Rovigo's
line of argument.
He was, moreover, no less than the great dignitaries and officials
of the Empire, filled with a keen desire for rest, for an opportunity
of enjoying his honours and wealth. He dared not refuse to serve
the Emperor, but he longed for his subjection to come to an end,
longed to live at liberty under some other government, like a duke
of the monarchy, on the money he had earned. He was found
playing billiards with Real on the eve of the capitulation of Paris.
105

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
It was hardly a good moment to choose. And when he left Paris
two days after the young Empress — so lately the last vanishing
ghost of the Empire— in a berline surrounded by twenty picked
gendarmes, it was his desire for safety rather than his loyalty that
led him to Blois.
He had as his subordinates, too, a couple of officials who were
no wiser than himself. One of them, Pasquier, the Prefect of
Police, was related to the old parliamentary families of the
monarchy, who were nearly all royalists ; and he had a sharp,
sneering, peevish nature, as was plainly indicated by his feline
countenance and square chin. The other, M. de Chabrol, Prefect
of Paris, was an official of the most rigid type, who was upset
by the least emergency, and filled with anticipations of the
direst disasters by every police report he received, even though
it were written, as he well knew, by the lowest kind of agent.
Such were the guardians of Paris on the eve of a royalist
revolution. These being the officials he had to deal with, Talleyrand felt
perfectly safe. Napoleon's absence from Paris enabled him to
indulge, quite freely and almost quite openly, in all the intrigues
likely to restore him to his lost position of pre-eminence in the
State. Should he favour a regency, he wondered, or the return of
the Bourbons ? It was of the Bourbons that he thought first. His
memories of his youth, and his early connection with the Court life
of Versailles, combined with the influences of his parentage to make
him regret the past, as everyone who has experienced a change of
condition regrets it sooner or later. The past began to assume
great value in his eyes. All that he wanted was a pardon from the
head of the House of Bourbon, and forgetfulness for his mistakes.
Might he not secure these boons by holding out hopes to the
exile of Hartwell of a possible return to a repentant country
which should summon him to the throne of his ancestors ? He
despatched Mile. Aimee de Coiguy to London. At one time she
had been the Duchesse de Fleury ; then, after a divorce, the wife of
Montrond ; and in consequence of a second scandal had become
simple Aimee de Coigny again, whom Andre Chenier's love had
once distinguished. She was deputed to explain to her grand
father, the old Marshal de Coigny, who was still in exile in London,
the propositions of the arch-intriguer, and it would depend upon
the answer of Louis XVIII whether Talleyrand should become
converted to the cause of the legitimate monarchy, or should
106

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
oppose it. " I will accept anything, if my throne be restored to
me," was the answer of the expectant King.
From that day forward the effort of the crafty diplomatist con
tributed greatly to the restoration of Louis XVIIL
He was, moreover, being incited to action by the other intriguers
whom we have already mentioned ; the Due de Dalberg, the Abbe
de Pradt, the Abbe Louis — Baron Louis, as the historians prefer to
call him.
The Abbe de Pradt x was the most zealous, the most uncompro
mising royalist of them all ; though he had once been an ardent
admirer of the Emperor, who had made him Archbishop of
Malines and ambassador to the Court of Poland. The consequences
of his embassy had brought him into disfavour at the very moment
when Napoleon's fortunes began to decline, and a writ being issued
against him he was forced to remain in his diocese, where he was
impatiently waiting to be set at liberty. The disasters by which
the Empire was so soon overwhelmed gave him his opportunity.
In his seclusion he had been feeding his resentment by reading the
English journals, with which he was supplied by the custom-house
officers ; and in these somewhat acrimonious columns he was able to
read a perfectly frank account of all the events that were revolu
tionising Europe. Was it possible, he asked himself, to stay at
Malines while the fate of France was being decided at Paris ? He
had already been concerned in the affairs of Spain, and had, in
accordance with Napoleon's wishes, brought about the fall of the
Bourbon dynasty in that country. He had also been the official
exponent of the imperial policy in Poland ; and it seemed to him,
in his vanity, that it behoved him in the present crisis to declare
definitely for or against the Empire.
He published several brochures to explain his reasons for leaving
Malines. At that time, he wrote, after the disasters of Moscow,
and Dresden, and Leipsic, the remnants of our vanquished armies
were to be met on all the high-roads of Europe. Our exhausted,
dying soldiers were forced to seek shelter in the hospitals, which
1 The Abbe de Montgaillard, in the first volume of his history, gives us these
notes on de Pradt — " De Pradt was descended from a peasant called Dufour, who
belonged to the little town of Allenche in the Auvergne. To this peasant the
curi. of the place left, when he died, a property called Prades, which became
Pradt. . . . Duroc brought the Abbe de Pradt to the notice of the First Consul,
and from that moment he received every possible favour from Napoleon. When
the Emperor fell he became of no account to de Pradt, who nicknamed him
Jupiter-Scapin. He declared that Napoleon had said : ' If one man were gone
(meaning de Pradt) I should be master of the world.' "
107

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
they infected with typhus ; and the greater number of them died.
Wellington was approaching Bayonne ; Holland was shaking off
the yoke of France ; the allied armies were advancing, by forced
marches, upon the Rhine, and were about to cross it unopposed.
France was left without an army ; for all her troops were occupied
elsewhere, from Hamburg to Corfu.
Napoleon had rejected the terms proposed by the enemy after
the Battle of Dresden, and also those offered at Frankfort ; and
de Pradt was indignant at this obstinacy, which he attributed to
inordinate ambition. He would have liked to see, in the columns
of the Moniteur, a few reassuring words as to the future. Instead
of finding any comfort of this kind he read one day — it was after
the Battle of Dresden — that the King of Rome had taken his usual
walk on the terrace of the Tuileries. "Then," he says, "my
irritation could no longer be restrained. My countrymen were
being insulted ; all their labours and their life-blood were being
paid for with mockery and outrage. I saw my country being
horribly maltreated in the present, and doomed in the future to
suffer every kind of disaster that the whims or personal needs of
one man could bring to pass. I heard, in the depths of my heart,
the voice that tells every man that he is not the property of any
other man, but that there are rights and duties existing on both
sides. Napoleon, now that he had ceased to act as the head of the
nation and had begun to use it for his own ends, seemed to have
abdicated, to have altogether broken his contract with us, to have
ignored the meaning of the 18th Brumaire. He was given the first
place in France to heal the country's wounds, not to aggravate
them.1 From that moment it was obvious to me that we must
choose between his downfall and our own. From that moment 1
1 All these rhetorical phrases were the merest exaggeration. The answer to
these allegations, which was much simpler, is to be found in the Journal des
Dibats for January 4th, 1814, that paper being still imperialist at the time. " The
Powers," we read, "are not making war on France, they say, but on Napoleon's
ascendency outside the limits of his Empire. We would ask the Allies if it be
not to their imprudent attacks that the French Empire owes this ascendency.
Ever since the famous epoch of the Treaty of Pilnitz have they not, one after the
other, forced us to fight them and defeat them ? In 1796 France, as the mistress
of the Rhine and the Alps, and the ruler of Holland and the Milanese, was al
ready a dominant power on the Continent ; and her ascendency, the result of the
first coalition, was recognized and sanctioned by the Treaties of Basle and
Campo-Formio. No doubt the Emperor increased it, and every fresh war
strengthened it. But who provoked these wars ? Those who, in 1804, 1806,
and 1809, broke the Treaties and attacked France, at that time occupied in fight
ing the ascendency of England. The Allied Powers should keep faith ! Always
aggressive and always defeated, they have brought about the miserable state of
108

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
declared for his deposition with all the energy that was in me, and
I firmly resolved to work for the destruction of a power which
had taken its rise among the laurels, but must finally end in
the mud."
These being his sentiments, he arrived in Paris in the morning
of January 24th, 1814. Stocks were daily going down ; the funds
in the bank were diminishing ; the financial crisis was making the
crisis in trade more acute. De Pradt lost no time in visiting
Talleyrand and the Due de Dalberg, with whom he had formerly
been well acquainted. The three men were in close sympathy :
they were all irritated with the Emperor and profoundly hostile
towards him, for different reasons. They determined to oppose,
nay to overthrow, his hateful omnipotence. The desire was
universal, they declared. " Without any explanation, without
even attempting any," adds the Abbe de Pradt further on,
" everyone was agreed on that initial point ; one glance of under
standing was enough. There was a nameless, undefinable breath
of conspiracy pervading the whole town. When things have
reached that point they are far advanced and not easily suppressed ;
and it is always the case in conspiracies like this, conspiracies
prompted by the wish of the nation, that the secret shared by all
is the most sacredly guarded. Everyone talks, but no one is
treacherous, no one is indiscreet. It was assuredly many years
since anyone had been tempted to make light of Napoleon's power.
A man thought himself very lucky to escape the Emperor's eye, or
to be forgotten by him. At this period the fear of him had not
grown less, but possibly greater ; and on every side the most
dangerous discussions and indiscretions were indulged in, without
any attempt at restraint. ' This cannot possibly last — the tension
is too great — there will soon be a change.' Such were the words
most commonly heard in Paris."
The Due de Dalberg was no less hostile. He was a German by
birth, and notwithstanding the honours and riches lavished upon
him by Napoleon — an income of two hundred thousand francs and
the title of duke — he was still a German in thought and feeling.
He had been educated in the universities of his own country, and
had very worthily and intelligently represented the interests of the
Grand Duke of Baden in Paris. Napoleon had made use of his
intelligence, which was great, and also of his knowledge of Ger-
things that they now wish to represent as the unhappy result of French
ascendency.'' 109

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
many, in connection with the demands of the numerous families
who had suffered from the French victories. Germany, for many
reasons, was still the object of Dalberg's strongest attachment.
France was only the land of his adoption, though he filled the
office of Councillor of State in that country. His true fatherland
was the country where he had left his kindred and all the memories
of his youth. The incessant marching of our troops through the
land of his youth, the sufferings that resulted from it, the victories
of Napoleon, the consequent loss of prestige to the time-honoured
States of Germany, had filled him with chagrin. He gave expres
sion to his grief in a brochure, which was published at the
beginning of the century, and suggested that Europe should
combine in a general attack upon France, and, having crushed her.
should restore the various continental States to their former
condition. It was not so strange a coincidence as it may appear
that the views expressed in this brochure were similar to those that
prevailed in 1814. Dalberg, then, derived the keenest pleasure
from Napoleon's defeats. He deserted his benefactor, and gave all
his attention to the undoing of that formidable power that held
Germany in a state of vassalage. He and Talleyrand understood
each other at once ; and their reinforcement by the Abbe de Pradt
merely gave a fresh impulse to the resolution they had already
formed. As for the Abbe Louis — Baron Louis — he had long been on
intimate terms with the Prince de Benevent. The priestly office
they both held drew them together, inspired them with the same
hostilities, and prompted them to the same treasons ; for the
Abbe Louis had also received favours from the Emperor. Like
Dalberg he had been appointed a Councillor of State in 1811, and
he was also solicitor to the public Treasury.1
Talleyrand would have accepted a Regency. He saw a great
role for himself in those conditions, and could easily make sure of
playing it. Under a Regent he would be Prime Minister, as
1 It was in his capacity as an official of the Public Treasury, that he said
to the Legislative Body, when laying before them a bill dealing with the sale of
property belonging to the communes : "If anything could add to the nation's
gratitude to the Restorer of Monarchy would it not be the unvarying carefulness
and strict economy, which he'brings to bear on the smallest details of administra
tion. ... If a contemporary of the Medicis or of Louis XIV were to return to
earth, and, seeing so many wonderful things were to ask how many glorious
reigns, and how many centuries of peace it had taken to produce them, you
would answer that it had only required twelve years of war and one man." It
was on the 11th March, 1813, just a year before the Allies' entry into Paris, as
de Vaulabelle points out, that M. Louis used these words.
110

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
Mazarin and Richelieu had been. But, unfortunately, while
Napoleon lived that semi-royal position could only be ephemeral.
Napoleon could never remain inactive. His death was imperative.
Who would undertake the abominable murder?1
Among the people with whom Talleyrand was often in contact
was a creature of his own named Roux-Laborie, whom he had once
employed in the department of Foreign Affairs. This man knew
a certain Comte de Maubreuil, Marquis d'Orvault, who was very
deeply in debt, and compromised in several discreditable affairs :
the kind of adventurer who is glad to undertake a crime in the
hope of recuperating his lost fortunes. Maubreuil had filled an
honourable post at King Jerome's Court in Westphalia ; but his
vices had lost it for him. His past connection with the family of
Napoleon disturbed his conscience very little, apparently, for he
accepted the infamous task offered to him by Roux-Laborie. He
was promised an income of two hundred thousand francs, with the
title of duke and other favours ; and the prospect put an end
to any hesitation he may have felt. And Talleyrand — according
to the depositions taken in the course of the trial instituted later
on against this degraded nobleman — had not refused to give
his open sanction to this enterprise of trapping the Emperor
and assassinating him. As he passed through the room where
Maubreuil was awaiting him he smiled, and made the movement
that had been agreed upon as the sign of his approval.2 The
enterprise came to nothing, however. Maubreuil — quailing, it may
1 De Rovigo in his Mimoires (Vol. VI. , p. 352) says in a note : " I was told by
some one who had heard them that the following words were spoken in the
Princess Elisa's drawing-room before the occupation of Paris : " Madame,
there is but one way of saving you, and that is to kill the Emperor without
delay." 2 Extract from de Vaulabelle's Histoire de la Restauration, Vol. II., p. 22.
"The princess travelled in very short stages. It was not till the 21st April
1814, at about 7 o'clock in the morning, that her carriages appeared on the road.
Maubreuil, at the head of his horsemen, stopped the carriage of the ex-Queen,
and obliged her to get out and enter a sort of stable, whither all the boxes with
which the carriages were loaded were eventually carried. There were eleven of
them, of which one contained forty thousand francs in gold, destined for the
expenses of the journey. A second held the princess's jewels and those of her
husband. . . . Nine cases were handed over the next day to M. de Vanteaux,
who had for some days borne the title of Inspector of the Movable Property of
the Crown. Maubreuil took the two others to the most unfrequented room of an
obscure lodging-house in Versailles, and they were only returned three days
later, nearly empty. . . . The diamonds had entirely disappeared." And de
Vaulabelle gives the following note : ' ' Maubreuil put the keys into the right-
hand pocket of his breeches. While waiting for the second detachment of
troops, for which he had asked at Montereau he sat down to breakfast, with
Dasies, in a room on the ground floor of the inn. The Princess refused to enter,
111

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
be, before the enormity of the crime he hud undertaken — contented
himself with highway robbery. He stole the diamonds and money
which the unfortunate Queen Catherine, the wife of King Jerome,
was carrying away with her into exile.

II

Events followed one another in rapid succession. Napoleon, in
spite of the heroism of his conscripts and his veterans, was out
flanked by the armies of the invaders. Every day they drew
nearer the capital, and the great eity was beginning to yield to
panic. The noblesse, however, in their social gatherings, assumed
a pose of calmness which was far from being an expression of their
real feelings. Many people hid their valuable possessions in secret
holes and corners; and the inhabitants of the suburbs, disturbed
by the inertia of the government, were growing feverishly restless.
Paris had no defences but a very limited body of troops, a few
and remained in the yard, whither a woman carried a ohair for her to sit on.
Between nine and ten o'clock, in the courso of this meal, a lieutenant arrived
from Montereau with twelve men, Mamelukes and chasseurs. These soldiers
were told that the princess had just been arrested boetiuwi she was taking away
the Crown diamonds. Four sentries were posted outsido the inn, to prevent
travellers from approaching. . . . Tho Princess then said to Maubreuil, whom
she recognised as one of her former oquerrios : ' When a man has eaten a person's
bread he does not usually undertake a mission like this : what you are doing is
abominable.' — ' I am merely acting by the King's ordors,' answered Maubreuil;
' speak to the Commissary ; I will do whatevor he orders.' She thon addressed
Dasies. ... 'Do you take us for thieves f ' answered Dasies : ' I will show you
that wo have orders. All these cases must go.' . . . ' Is it possible,' oried tho
princess ' that you mean to take my jewels and money like this, and leave mo
helpless on the road with my whole suite 1 ' Hor eyes filled with tears. She
asked for a word with Maubreuil, and begged him to give back her money, even
if he took her jewels. ' Madame,' he answered, ' I am merely tho agent of tho
government. I must take your cases to Paris as thoy stand. All loan do for
you is to give you my belt : it contains a hundred gold napoleons.' In accord
ance with the advice of the Count von Furstenstein, who was with her, tho
princess accepted this offer. At the next posting house, when Furstenstein
counted the coins, he found only forty-four. . . . The patache drove rapidly
away. At mid-day the princess was made to get into her carriage and despatched
willy-nilly to Villeneuve-la-Guyare, escorted by two chasseurs. After her de
parture Maubreuil enjoined upon the postmaster at Fossard to supply no one
with horses for three hours after he — Maubreuil — had gono away. He and
Dasies then left the village in their carriage and rejoined the patache on the
road. "
(Extract from the Conclusions read before the Royal Court of Douai by the
Solicitor General Maurice in the Maubreuil lawsuit, Dec, 19th and 20th, 1817.)
112

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
regiments of national guards from which workmen were excluded.
The latter, therefore, descended upon the wealthy quarters of the
town, dressed in ragged clothes and crying : " Down with the
nobles ! Arms ! Give us arms ! " The most alarming rumours were
rife, owing to the publication, in certain papers, of letters written
from the invaded districts, describing endless murders, robberies,
and fires.1 It is true that the story of these horrors was followed
1 In the Journal des Dibats for Jan., 1814, we may read the following. " As
soon as his troops arrive at any place the officer in command of the enemy makes
a fine proclamation on the subject of respecting the inhabitants and their
property. But the pillage is over before the proclamation is published.
Money, provisions, horses, cattle, wine, poultry — in the twinkling of an eye all is
gone. In the countries through which the enemy has passed there is not a horse,
nor a bullock, nor a sheep to be found. They may be said to pillage radically.
And when there is nothing left to take from the inhabitants they seem desirous
of taking the inhabitants themselves. Russian agents are busy everywhere
making lists of locksmiths, carpenters, and all kinds of artisans, and they say
quite openly that it is with the intention of carrying them off into the depths of
Russia. "
From Chdlons-sur-Marne, Jan. loth : "Yes, let us believe the Cossacks;
they have come to bring us money, science, and art. Meanwhile they have
pillaged Bourg and Lons-le-Saulnier ; they have assaulted women in the streets at
mid-day. Bourg behaved well, but Macon was poor spirited enough to yield to
eighteen horsemen."
From Chagny, Jan. 16th : " Chalons is making a firm defence, and is right to
do so, for the enemy are laying waste every place in their route. In the town of
Villeveire they took all the silver they could find, beat all the inhabitants, and
in their brutal rage cut up the curtains of the beds and windows before they went
away, burning the furniture and staving in every cask of wine after drinking all
they wanted. These gentleman require very white bread, with chickens, coffee,
and liqueurs. They make horrible demands, always holding a pistol at their
victim's head."
From Lyons, Jan. 22nd: "The enemy have entirely devastated the Pope's
chateau. Although it is near the wood they have burnt the doors and wood
work. They were iniquitous enough to make fires of the pictures."
From Troyes, Feb. 25th : " The inhabitants of Troyes have been horribly
distressed. There were fresh requisitions every day. The women's shawls were
taken from them : men were stopped in the streets and robbed of their watches,
and even deprived of their boots and shoes. These outrages occurred in full
daylight." From a commissioner of the government, March 22nd : " There is not a farmer,
not an innkeeper, not a single inhabitant who has not had his cattle, his
agricultural implements, his provisions, and his furniture taken away, destroyed,
and burnt. The churches and ministers of religion have been spared no more
than the rest. At Nangis I visited several ravaged farms and houses, which were
formerly supplied with everything that could contribute to ease and comfort.
When I entered the courtyards of these houses, or any of the rooms, I saw
nothing but torn mattresses and featherbeds, the wool and feathers of which were
scattered about everywhere. It was with the wooden furniture, the carts, and
agricultural implements, and the fruit-trees in the orchards and gardens that they
lit the fires for their bivouacs, and for the cooking of the animals they had stolen
and killed. I saw dwellings whose roofs and woodwork they had removed, and
whose ceilings they had broken down. Nothing is left, in short, but the four
walls. At Rheims the spinning-mill of Messrs. Jaubert and Ternaux has been
burnt, by order of M. de Saint-Priest, a Russian general."
113 i

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
by a statement that the province in question was making an
attempt at organised resistance.1 The whole of France, said the
papers, was rising at the summons of the generals and retired
officers ; yet the enemy, in the north and south, was advancing
rapidly, was already known to have reached Meaux, and was said
to have set fire to that town. The patriots who still clung to the
Emperor, still put their trust in his genius, still believed that some
fortunate chance might at any moment make him more terrible
and formidable than ever, spent their time on the roofs of the
houses overlooking the plain. Whenever they saw a galloping
horse in a cloud of dust they exclaimed : " Here he is, here he is !
It is he ! " They knew well that if Napoleon were in Paris the
town would be valiantly defended.
The poets were engaged in writing vindictive verses and setting
them to revolutionary airs, which were sung in the streets.
Berenger composed Les Gaulois and Les Francs? and all the organs
played the Marseillaise. There was not an author, not a dramatist,
who did not make some opportunity of quoting Charles Martel's
speech before the battle of Poitiers. One morning, too, an
anonymous placard appeared on the walls of the faubourgs,
referring to the menacing armies in terms of ferocious hostility.
The people, it was plain, were perfectly ready to fight. It was not
the people who failed Napoleon and deserted the cause of their
country ; it was the officials of all ranks, the men who feared to
1 As soon as the enemy appeared at a place, said the Dibats, the bells rang and
answered one another from village to village, announcing the strength of the
enemy by means of a prearranged signal.
In Paris on the morning of Feb. 6th there were twelve hundred cabs waiting
at the Barriere de Charenton to carry the soldiers as far as the first posting house.
The soldiers were to post in this way throughout their journey. They were
veterans of the Army of Spain.
On the 4th March the Dibats wrote thus of the allied monarchs : " While the
enemy were at Troyes each of the three sovereigns lived a life of his own.
Alexander spent nearly all his time with the King of Prussia. They only saw
the Emperor of Austria on one occasion, on his birthday, when they paid him
a short visit. The King of Prussia went to the play every evening, accompanied
by his two sons. The Emperor Alexander seldom left the house where he was
staying, and the Emperor of Austria only left his on two occasions, to attend
Mass. Everyone perceived how uncongenial the Austrians were to the Russians.
The latter boasted a great deal of their sovereign's liberality. The fact is that
a small number of poor people gathered round his door every morning. He
regularly gave each of them four kreutzers, that is to say a little less than three
sous. The King of Prussia gave nothing to anyone, and did not even pay his
expenses in the house where he lodged."
* The street-singers had a selection of songs modelled on those of the Revolu
tion, and it was very ridiculous to hear the air of the Marseillaise bawled at the
cross-roads to the words : Sauvons la France et V Empereur. (Chastenay's
Mimoires, Vol. II., p. 276). 114

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
compromise themselves and were incapable of acting except in
obedience to orders ; it was the great officials at the Court of the
Empress Marie-Louise, — Joseph, Jerome, Cambaceres, Clarke, and
Marmont, Due de Raguse, who were sunk in luxury and pleasure.
These were the men who fled, or signed the capitulation.
Paris, at this time, was a pitiable sight. In the hospitals the
crowding of the sick and wounded was indescribable ; all was
confusion and neglect. There was no wood for the warming of the
rooms, nor even enough for cooking the food ; there was no linen
for dressing wounds. Broken window-panes were not replaced ;
and this circumstance, which may have been beneficial to some of
the patients, was fatal to the phthysical. At the Salpetriere
typhus was raging to such a degree that of the six doctors attached
to the institution, three died of it. There were above twenty
thousand sick and wounded soldiers in Paris.1
All the widest streets, the suburban squares, and the boulevards
were crowded with carts, laden with the household goods, clothes,
and provisions, of peasants seeking protection from the enemy.
Children, women, and old men were huddled together on the top
of every load, while cows, horses, and donkeys stood motionless at
the side, tied to the wheels. On the other hand all the work-yards
were silent and deserted. In the Rue de Rivoli, then in process of
construction, there was nothing to be seen but heaps of stones,
piled round the bases of the houses, of which only a few courses had
been laid. It was heartrending.
What was still more heartrending was the desertion of Paris by
Marie Louise. A certain republican, Boulay de la Meurthe, alone
had the courage to protest, in the council held by the principal
officials of the government. " Take the King of Rome in your
arms, Madame," he said, " and like your august ancestress Marie
Therese show yourself to the people of Paris, and ask them to
defend their country and the inheritance of your son. Do not
imagine you will not be heard." 2
1 It was necessary to appeal to the compassion of the public in each munici
pality for mattresses, bedsteads, linen — especially lint — and other aids. It
filled one with despair to meet wagons in which the dying were propped against
the dead — wagons that sometimes had to wander about for half a day from one
hospital to 'another because of the want of organisation in the arrangements.
Marie Louise sometimes met them on her drives. Their progress was delayed on
account of her carriage, but she never gave them a sign of compassion.
(Chastenay's Mimoirs, Vol. II., p. 286).
2 This council of magnates was composed of King Joseph ; Princes Cambaceres,
Lebrun, and Talleyrand ; the Dues de Massa (Regnier), de Gae'ta (Gaudin), de
115 i 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Talleyrand, who was still hesitating between the Regency and
the return of the Bourbons, supported the opinion of Boulay de la
Meurthe, and after some reflexion advised against the flight of
Marie Louise. The success of his schemes depended on his
presence in Paris, and if Marie Louise were to fly he would be
obliged to follow her, in his capacity of adviser of the Crown.
The Council having decided, after putting the matter to the vote,
that the Empress should fly, he contrived to have himself stopped
at the barrier, and returned to his house to prepare for the
reception of the advancing Allies. As he left the Council he spoke
to Rovigo in a deprecating, rather melancholy voice, and tried to
hide his joy by complaining of the Emperor. "Well," he said,
" so this is the end of it all ! Do you not agree with me ? Ma fai,
he has had a fine run for his money ! But does it not show where
the foolishness of a few ignorant folk may lead when they use their
influence persistently and every day ? Pardieu ! the Emperor is
very much to be pitied, but no one will pity him, because his
obstinacy in keeping his present advisers is beyond the bounds of
reason. It is the merest weakness, and is quite incomprehensible
in a man like that. Just think, monsieur, from the historical
point of view, what a collapse ! That he should have given his
name to a series of adventures, instead of giving it to his century ?
It makes one groan to think of it. And now what is one to do ?
It will not suit everyone to let himself be buried under these ruins.
Well, well, we shall see what happens. The Emperor would have
been better advised if, instead of insulting me, he had criticised the
men who made him suspect me. He would have seen that friends
like that are more to be feared than enemies. What would he have
said of anyone else who had allowed himself to be reduced to such
a state ? "
This was a plain declaration of his intended recantation and
treachery. It was on the morning of the 29th March that Marie Louise
left the Tuileries, followed by such an immense number of vans
and carriages that the procession was filing through the streets all
day. The young painters who were studying art in the Louvre
took up their position at the windows to watch this half-sad, half-
interesting sight. As for the members of the Council of the
Rovigo (Savary), de Feltre (Clarke), and de Cadore (Champagne) ; and the
Comtes Mollien, Montalivet, Daru, Doulay de la Meurthe, Regnault de-Saint-
Jean-d'Angely, Defermont, and Sussy. 116

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
Regency, the greater number of them had vanished by the following
day, leaving the capital to take care of itself. Meanwhile the
Allies were speeding towards Paris. Some of their troops had
actually reached the heights of Romainville, and the only way of
avoiding a bombardment was to dislodge them.1 Marmont, with a
few thousand men — the remnant of the troops that had been
fighting ceaselessly for three months in the plains of Champagne —
spent the 30th March in an almost unaided struggle with the
enemy.2 When at last he was driven back upon the walls of the
custom-house he knew that resistance was vain, and begged for a
few hours' armistice, that he might consult with the Government,
which he believed to be still in the full exercise of its authority,
watching over the safety of the Empire. Now the Government, as
I have just said, was gone.
After the signing of the armistice the marshal went off to
his house in the Rue Paradis-Poissonniere. On entering he found
the rooms full of merchants, bankers, and members of the
upper bourgeoisie. They were greatly startled by Marmont's
appearance ; for his face was harassed and tragic, his unkempt
chin had not been shaved for a week, his clothes were in disorder
and riddled with bullets, one of his arms was broken and was still
in a sling, and his whole bearing showed the most profound
despair. He was utterly demoralised, for he foresaw only too
plainly the cruel results of his defeat. He announced to the
assembled company that an armistice of several hours had just
been signed, and that it was for the Government to follow up that
step, which had been quite inevitable. He was told that the
1 A shot fell into a tract of waste land behind Tivoli, among a number of children
who were playing there, and who ran after the projectile and picked it up.
Another ball wounded a man in a house in the Rue Saint Nicolas-d'Antin. A
shell burst in the gardens of the Hotel Thelusson, and another fell into M.
Greffulhe's gardens in the Rue de Clichy. And a spent shot, after having
knocked down a chimney at No. 8 Rue Basse-du-Rampart, fell into the garden of
the H6tel de Gontaut, Rue Louis-le-Grand.
2 While the battle was in progress, and the Russian prisoners were passing
along the boulevards, a beautiful actress from the Theatre Francais, named Mile.
Bourgoin, wishing to show her gratitude for the generous way she had been
treated in Russia, drove to meet them with a supply of provisions which she
distributed among them herself. Mile. Regnault of the Opera Comique followed
her example, declaring that her friend Boieldieu the composer had been very
well treated at the Court of St. Petersburg. Throughout the whole course of the
battle the Boulevard des Italiens and the Cafe Tortoni were crowded with idlers
of both sexes, who were seated as usual on the chairs there, and gazed with
complete indifference at the wounded Frenchmen and foreigners that went by,
and at the officers who were carried past them on mattresses. A black flag had
been hoisted above each of the hospitals in order that no shells nor bombs should
be aimed in that direction. (Journal d'un dUenu.)
117

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Government no longer existed ; that the Empress had gone to
Blois, and the members of the Council of Regency with her.
What could he do ? he asked. It was impossible for him, a mere
chef-de-corps, to do any more than he had already done. They
answered that a capitulation was inevitable ; he must resign
himself to it, since he had already consented to an armistice. The
marshal held out for a long time, being keenly alive to the disgrace
of the position, and to the stain on his own name. And yet, was
it his fault that Paris had been left with no means of resistance,
and no Government to take the lead; that King Joseph, the
lieutenant-general, had fled like a coward ; that Cambaceres and
the rest had thought it right to rid themselves of all responsibility
and abandon the great town when it was in such a state of
disorder ? Had he not risked his life a hundred times during this
last day of continuous fighting, which had been so bloody a
victory for the enemy ? Had he not been seen, at the head of
a few cavalry, driving away some of the enemy's troops who had
ventured into the Rue de Belleville ?
He had had several horses killed under him ; he was worn out,
completely shattered by fatigue ; he longed to rest and recruit
himself ; and now he must face this trial that was so much worse
than anything he had already suffered. His room seemed full of
hands stretched out to him in prayer, entreating him not to
condemn the town to the horrors of an assault. He was bidden to
think of the scenes of destruction that would follow if he refused
to take this step, which was no disgrace when fate was stronger than
courage. Marmont yielded at last. Two of his officers were sent
to the enemy, to draw up the document by which the capital of
France was surrendered to the Russians and Prussians. On the
following day, the 31st March, the two monarchs, the Emperor
Alexander and the King of Prussia, were to make their solemn
entry into Paris. Ill
On the day of that entry neither of the monarchs, nor yet any of
their ministers, knew whether Paris were royalist and prepared to
accept the Emperor's deposition, or no. During the two
months that they had been travelling with their armies they had
not witnessed a single demonstration in favour of the Bourbons.
By chance they had heard a few enthusiasts cry : Vive le roi !
118

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
Vivent les Bourbons ! but no one had echoed the words. What did
the country really wish? Nesselrode recalled M. de Vitrolles'
arguments in favour of the exile at Hartwell, and wondered what
facts there were to support this isolated appeal. On the morning
of the 31st March, before the entry of the allied troops, the
Russian minister paid a visit to Talleyrand, with a view to
obtaining some light on the sentiments of the Parisians. Was it
really true that Napoleon had lost all his supporters and that his
dynasty was to be replaced by that of the Bourbons ? Talleyrand
evaded and hesitated, and took good care not to give a plain
answer to that question. The two diplomatists agreed to discuss
the subject on some future occasion.
Meantime the royalists, the young intriguers who had for several
days been forwarding their cause by a variety of means, were quite
conscious that the sympathies of Paris were not with them. Some
of their relations and friends had made it the fashion to wear rings
engraved with the words : Domine salvum fac regem. The idea
was considered ingenious in aristocratic circles, and the ornament
was widely adopted. This demonstration, however, was purely
sentimental. Among the old noblesse at this date there were
many young people who knew absolutely nothing of the Bourbons,
for it was only during the past few weeks that they had heard the
name mentioned. Who were these princes, they wondered ; what
were their names and habits and characters ? They knew nothing
of them. They had seen, as they passed the column in the Place
Vendome, a placard bearing the words : Pass on quickly, he is
going to fall ! What did it mean ? Whereupon the dowagers
gave them their own version of contemporary history. The two
Newerkerques, the Comte de Lauris, and the Baron de Maistre
spent several nights in composing Louis XVIII's proclamation and
distributing it in the streets. Several ladies — the Vicomtesse de
Quinsonnas, Mme. Eugene de Montesquiou, and the Comtesse
Achille du Cayla — had helped them to circulate these papers. It
occurred to one of them, as she was returning home in the evening,
that if she were to slip copies of the King's manifesto between the
shutters of the shops the tradesmen would find them in the
morning when they took their shutters down. This measure had
no results, however. On the morning of the 31st March the Due
de Fitz-James tried to corrupt his own battalion of the National
Guard by bidding them cry : Vive le roi ! but he met with no
response whatever. In the face of all this indifference the con-
119

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
spirators determined to arm themselves with white standards and
cockades and meet the allied troops ; to shout Vive le roi ! at the
top of their voices, to distribute white cockades as they passed
along the streets, and to encourage the crowd to follow their
example. This would impress the foreign monarchs. They
arranged to meet in the Place Louis XV (now Place de la
Concorde). Sosthene de la Rochefoucauld and the Comte de
Frossade kept the tryst, and the Due de Crussol arrived with
two valets carrying a supply of cockades. A few ladies were there,
too ; Mme. de la Rochefoucauld, Mme. de Cayla, and Mile, de
Rastignac, who was afterwards Duchesse de Liancourt.1 Then
the little band, as the allied monarchs rode through the streets
followed by their staffs, went forward to meet them, shouting their
royalist sentiments. The crowd remained dumb, for the com
motion conveyed nothing to their minds beyond surprise. A few
workmen were angry, and threatened violence ; but when the
Austrian soldiers appeared, wearing white arm-bands to distinguish
them from the Russians and Prussians, whose uniforms were almost
identical with their own, all the spectators with whom the streets
were lined imagined that these arm-bands were a symbol of peace.
Instantly they waved their handkerchiefs, and accepted the
proffered cockades as a sign of reconciliation between victors and
vanquished. At this painful moment, after all the recent disasters
and sorrows, peace seemed so fair a boon that no one any longer
resisted the enthusiasm of the royalists. So great was the
enthusiasm that the young and beautiful Comtesse de Perigord
quite lost her head in her loyal excitement, and insisted on being
lifted on to the crupper of a Cossack's horse, and so taking part in
the procession, with a white flag in her hand. The thought that
the Allies were not opposed to the idea of peace, that they would
be generous, and would respect the lives and properties and exist
ing rights of the inhabitants, had an exciting effect on everyone.
The crowd clashed forward, almost throwing themselves under the
horses' feet in their haste to greet the allied monarchs as their
saviours, and to cry : Vive la paix ! As yet there was no cry of
Vivent les Bourbons ! 2 It was the Emperor Alexander who was
the object of the most ardent demonstrations.
1 In his Souvenirs (Vol. I. , p. 46) Sosthene de la Rochefoucauld gives the names
of those who mnstered in the Place Louis XV on this occasion.
2 On the 3rd April the Journal des DeTmts, having become royalist, wrote as
follows: — "At dawn of day the whole population of Paris hastened to the
districts through which the armies of the Allies were to pass. Such a sight had
120

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
As for him, he smiled at the crowd and at the young women in
the windows, and waved his hand to them. The other important
personages in the procession paid little heed to the prevailing
delirium, leaving all the honour of the triumphal entry to the
Czar, because he had commanded the largest army, and had
suffered the most from the wars of Napoleon. He was deceived
by all the shouts and flags, all the cockades in the hats of the
crowd, all the white handkerchiefs that fluttered in the air in token
of welcome and joy. He attributed this popular excitement to the
royalist sentiments of the inhabitants, who, he supposed, had only
been restrained hitherto by their fear of Napoleon ; and when he
entered Talleyrand's house to join his minister Nesselrode, he was
convinced that Paris was asking for the return of the Bourbons.1
He said so to Talleyrand. Talleyrand knew better. And more
over he had not quite abandoned the idea of a Regency, although,
that very morning, he had been stimulated and exhorted and even
excited by the two Abbes, de Pradt and Louis, whose royalist
never been seen before in all the world's history. Six hundred thousand citizens,
in perfect safety, surrounded by an army of amazing strength and splendour !
The population of a whole city mingled on that occasion with men of ten
different nationalities, as naturally as they usually mingled with their own
brothers. ... At about midday the allied army entered Paris. . . . Then the
Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia appeared, accompanied by the
generalissimo of the Allies, Prince von Schwartzenberg, and the English
Ambassador Lord Cathcart. The market-women went to pay their respects to
the Emperor Alexander at the Prince de Benevent's house. Then a great num
ber of young men, some on foot, some on horseback, with white cockades in their
hats and white flags in their hands, were admitted to an audience by the King
of Prussia. In the church of the Madeleine the Salvum fac regem was sung. A
lady cried Vive le roi! and in a moment the vaulted roof of the church was ring
ing with the words."
In the second volume of his Mimoires (p. 95) Lafayette adds : " As the pro
cession advanced towards the boulevard of the Madeleine the crowd gradually
swelled. It was composed of the most distinguished society of the salons.
Women, dressed as though for a fSte, intoxicated with joy, and indeed tempor
arily mad, waved their handkerchiefs and shouted : Vive Vempereur Alexandre !
The windows and open carriages were crowded with them. I was not too far off
to recognise among them many ladies whose husbands had, for a long time, filled
high offices at the Emperor's Court."
, 1 The Emperor Alexander had wished to stay, not at the Tuileries, but at the
Elysee. After being there only a few hours, however, he accepted the offer of
the Prince de Talleyrand, who had eagerly placed his house in the Rue Saint-
Florentin at the Czar's disposal. With regard to the King of Prussia the follow
ing note was contributed by Edmond Bire to the Mimoires of Chateaubriand :
" The King of Prussia occupied the Hotel de Villeroi, Rue de Bourbon (now Rue
de Lille). Princes Henry and William of Prussia dismounted at the H6tel de
Salem, on the Quai d'Orsay ; the house which, since 1802, had been the head
quarters of the Legion of Honour. Prince von Schwartzenberg, the general
issimo, who represented the Emperor of Austria on the occasion of the Allies'
entry into Paris, was staying in his own house in the Rue du Mont-Blanc, now
the Rue de la Chaussee d' An tin." 121

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
desires were far more deeply rooted than those of the most frenzied
enthusiast in the street. De Pradt had taken part, on the previous
day, in an episode of the battle, at the Barriere du Trone. He had
seen the Russians attack a battery of guns and take them ; then
lose them again in a renewed attack by the French ; he had seen
soldiers dying of ghastly wounds, and had returned in a state of
collapse.1 But Talleyrand, with the idea of a Regency still at the
back of his mind, never lost his serene imperturbability. To the
Emperor Alexander, who was now become a royalist, he answered,
as he had already answered Nesselrode, that this question would
form the subject of a conference sometime in the course of
the day.
In the streets and boulevards the royalists were still active.
The Comte de Maubreuil rode about with the cross of the Legion
of Honour fastened to his horse's tail. Sosthene de la Roche
foucauld, who had a rabble of ruffians at his heels, suggested that
they should drag the Emperor's statue from the top of the column
in the Place Vendome. He distributed money among these tatter
demalions, and sent them to fetch cables for the impious work.
Using planks and battering-rams they broke open the bronze door
at the foot of the pediment, and the door in the lantern at the
top ; then a man in a blouse clambered to the shoulders of the
hero and struck Napoleon in the face, or rather boxed his ears. It
was in vain that the cables round the figure were strained by the
efforts of the mob that clung to them. Horses were harnessed to
the cables, but were beaten unavailingly ; the statue remained
unmoved upon its pedestal. The infuriated and persistent count
had the effrontery to turn to the Grand Duke Constantine, the
Czar's brother, who was indignantly watching the sacrilegious
performance, and ask if the Russian soldiers might help him to
overcome the resistance of the monument. He received an insult
ing answer, but showed no sign of shame. There are hours when
1 De Pradt, Ricit historique, p. 55 : —
" On the day of the attack M. le due de Dalberg and I visited several of the
places where the fight was going on. We happened to be at the Barriere du
Trone at the moment when the Russians took possession of the battery that was
stationed outside the gate." ... He returned to Talleyrand's house. " I found
M. le due de Plaisance there," he writes, "and M. le baron Louis. I spoke
vehemently to them on the subject of the critical position of Paris, and the
necessity of saving the town by capitulating on the best terms we could secure.
. . . From that moment no one thought of anything but capitulation. The
retreat of the French army began. The Allies took possession of the heights of
Montmartre. . . . It was a novel and strange scene. Paris was taken; yet the
town had never been more peaceful."
122

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
a man's conscience seems paralysed by the grip of some violent
passion, when his eyes are blinded, and his reason is incapable
of seeing the hatefulness of his actions. One of these hours had
come to Sosthene de la Rochefoucauld. And yet he had received
countless favours from Napoleon, who had restored to him as much
of his family property as had not been sold. The Emperor had
made his happiness secure, and was repaid with infamy. At last,
tired of the struggle, the crowd abandoned this noble effigy of a
great soldier, without abandoning their intention of removing it
from its pedestal. A few days later, indeed, the founder by whom
Chaudet's admirable work had been cast in bronze was ordered to
undertake its removal, on pain of being shot.1
It was not until about seven o'clock in the evening that the
conference demanded by Talleyrand took place in the great salon
in his own house. The two monarchs were present, and with them
were the Emperor Alexander's minister, Count Nesselrode, and his
councillor, Count Pozzo di Borgo ; the Austrian generalissimo,
Prince Schwartzenberg, and his councillor, Prince von Lichten-
stein; and MM. de Talleyrand and de Dalberg. The Emperor
Alexander was the first to speak, which he did in a low voice
because he was deaf. He recalled the fact that the Allies were
not making war on France, but on Napoleon ; pointed out that his
provocation had been great, the Emperor having actually invaded
his ancient and holy city of Moscow, which was now a heap of
ruins ; and declared that he and his allies had but one desire — to
secure peace to Europe and the rest of the world by depriving
Napoleon of his military power.
1 De Launay's Relations des faits. "... Had it not been for the intercession
of the foreigners some Frenchmen, or rather some Vandals, would have destroyed
the column entirely, as well as mutilating the statue that crowned it. . . .
These men, who had the taste for destruction without the knowledge required
to carry it through, began by fastening cables to the figure, and attaching horses
to the ends of the cables. They forgot that the angle at which they were pulling
merely increased the resistance. Being tired of their useless efforts, they were
actually thinking of undermining the column when the founder by whom the
statue had been cast (and that is myself, Launay) came and offered his services.
(In a brochure written in 1825 Launay contradicts this, and proves in support
of his second statement, that, far from having offered his services, he simply
obeyed a certain general and M. de Montbadon, on pain of being shot. ) Some
cranes were set up on the summit of the column, and after the legs had been
sawn through below the ankle (it was above the ankle that they were sawn) the
figure was successfully, but not without trouble, removed and taken down, and
carried away to the very workshops where it had been cast. This was not the
end of the sacrilege. Later on some bronze was wanted for the casting of another
monument, and one of the finest works of the sculptor, which had long been
regarded as the masterpiece of the French school, was relentlessly broken up and
melted as though it were raw material. . . ."
123

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
As he spoke he looked interrogatively at the King of Prussia
and Prince Schwartzenberg, who represented the Emperor of
Austria. Neither of them answered ; but their silence was very
significant. " Then," continued Alexander, " we will put Napoleon
out of the question. As for the Regency  " Here the Due
de Dalberg intervened. Knowing the secret thoughts of his
confidant, Talleyrand, he defended Marie Louise warmly. Pozzo
di Borgo replied with the objection that there would be absolutely
no difference between a Regency and the Empire as long as
Napoleon were in the background : he would very quickly resume
his supreme position of authority and power, and it was useless to
think of a Regency if the peace and happiness of France were
truly and earnestly desired. Silence followed. Pozzo di Borgo
had carried the day. Talleyrand, seeing that his hopes were
vanishing, promptly became the champion of the Bourbons ; and,
wishing to add weight to his opinion, begged that a hearing might
be granted to two persons who had lately mingled a great deal
with the political society of Paris, men of some importance, whom
he knew to be awaiting a summons in an adjacent room, the Abbe
de Pradt and the Abbe Louis. He ran to fetch them. " We are
all royalists ; the whole of France is royalist," declared the
vehement Abbe de Pradt. "Yes," the whole of France is
royalist," echoed the Abbe Louis with equal energy. "The
country rejects Bonaparte ; she has had enough of him. The
man is a mere corpse ; he is not actually decayed yet — that is
all ! " It was thus that the first stones were laid of the structure
of the Monarchy.1
One question remained, as important as the others. Who would
undertake to announce the coming restoration of the ancient
dynasty, and to secure the consent of the country ? When the
Emperor Alexander made this remark there was a pause — a
general air of hesitation. Then Talleyrand, who had resigned
1 De Vaulabelle (Vol. I., p. 315), from whom these details are taken, quotes, in
a note, a passage from the Abbe de Pradt's Pieces Historiques : — " The suggestion
having been accepted (that he and the Abbe Louis should appear), M. de Talley
rand showed us into the room where the council was being held. The seats were
arranged so that, on the right-hand side, the King of Prussia and Prince Schwart
zenberg were the nearest to the ornamental piece of furniture that stood in the
middle of the room. M. le due de Dalberg was on Prince Schwartzenberg's
right, and M. de Nesselrode, M. Pozzo di Borgo, and Prince von Lichtenstein
came next. M. le prince de Talleyrand was seated on the King of Prussia's left,
and M. le baron Louis and myself were near him. The Emperor Alexander, who
faced the others, was walking up and down."
124

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
himself to the Bourbons, spoke of the Senate, the chief assembly
of the Imperial Government, whom he would convene in his
capacity of vice-president, and would persuade to accept the
resolutions that had just been formed. The little conclave was
about to break up, when the astute diplomatist, desiring the
monarchs to be irrevocably committed to their decision, observed
that it was essential to have material evidence of their delibera
tions, and that a formal report of the conference should be drawn
up. This he did. After recording that the allied sovereigns
pledged themselves to reject Napoleon's offers and to negotiate
with him no more, Talleyrand paused. "And the Emperor's
family," he asked ; " should we not also exclude them ? " Once
more there was a profound and unbroken silence. " Very well,"
said Alexander at last ; " neither with Napoleon, nor with any
member of his family.'1'' When the report was finished the Prince
of the Empire, Napoleon's ex-minister, who had just outlawed the
man whom he had so long fawned upon, insisted that the docu
ment should be printed instantly. Alexander appeared surprised
at this haste. Personally he was not in such a hurry ; and,
besides, he wished to propose Bernadotte as a candidate for the
throne of France. He had promised to do so. Talleyrand easily
disposed of this tardy suggestion. " If we are to have another
soldier for our king," he said, " we might as well keep Napoleon,
the first soldier in the world. There are no alternatives but
these : Napoleon, or Louis XVIIl." The conference unanimously
confirmed its first decision. There happened to be, as though by
chance, a printer in the house, one of the Michaud brothers ; and
to him was entrusted the text of the report, which altogether
favoured the Bourbons.1
1 The declaration was as follows : — " The armies of the Allied Powers have
occupied the capital of France. The allied sovereigns are willing to fulfil the
desire of the French nation. They hereby declare that though it was necessary
for the conditions of peace to include the very strongest securities when it was a
matter of restraining Bonaparte's ambition, those conditions ought to be more
favourable now that the French nation, by reverting to a, wiser government, is
itself prepared to give guarantees of peace. The sovereigns therefore declare
that they will treat no more with Napoleon Bonaparte, nor with any member of his
family ; that they will respect the integrity of ancient France, as she existed
under the legitimate kings ; and that they will do even more that this, since they
will always uphold the principle that it is necessary for the happiness of Europe
that France should be large and powerful. They will recognise and guarantee
the Constitution chosen by the French nation for themselves. They therefore
call upon the Senate instantly to appoint a provisional government to carry on
the administration and to prepare a Constitution that shall be suitable for the
people of France, The intentions I have just announced are shared by all the
allied powers. Alexander. Paris, March 31, 1814."
125

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
A few hours later the announcement was composed, and placarded
in the streets of Paris.
This was not enough. The next step was to secure the support
of the newspapers, and especially of the most important. By this
means public opinion would be easily headed, so to speak, and
turned in the direction of the royal family. There was a
certain man who was very well posted in all matters connected with
the police. In the secret meetings that were so frequent in these
unhappy days, in the cafes, in the little groups of tradesmen and
bourgeois who discussed the future on the thresholds of their shops,
he was constantly to be seen. This man, whose name was Morin,
was the son of a public prosecutor in the Seneschal's Court of Lyons,
and had himself, during the Revolution, been a public prosecutor
in military trials by jury, and afterwards the head of a department
in the Ministry of Police. He made the acquaintance of a
certain Comte de Semalle, whom the Comte d'Artois had sent from
Vesoul to rouse the zeal of the royalists, and the two men
confided their schemes to one another. Being altogether in accord,
they determined to fight for the same cause, the count undertaking
to work in the salons of the aristocracy while Morin influenced the
bourgeoisie. Their efforts were not very successful, apparently,
for the young intriguers of the Faubourg Saint-Germain were
not accompanied by the prince's emissary. As for the active
and ambitious Morin, he succeeded in making himself acceptable
to the Marquis de Lagrange, a friend of Sosthene de la Rochefoucauld,
and securing the management of the press. He instantly made
himself master of all the most important Parisian journals,
replacing their editors by royalist writers such as Michaud, Salgues,
and the Bertins, who were allowed to resume the proprietorship of
the Journal des Debats ; and the Chevalier de Mersen and Berryer,
who on the following day published the announcement that was
already placarded upon the walls, and began a violent, perfidious,
slanderous war against the vanquished Napoleon. They seemed
half frenzied with hatred for the man whom every journal,
only the day before, had been worshipping and lauding to the
skies. This bold measure had a far more important effect than all the
noisy acclamations of the royalists and their friends. Without
the newspapers Paris would not have been won. To the artisans
of the suburbs the processions of the white cockades would have
seemed unmeaning antics, to be put down with blows. The army
126

The Due de Taeleyrand-I'ekigord, Prince of Beneventu.

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
would have revolted. But the people and the army, though
so long opposed to the Bourbons, could not help being impressed
by the flood of abuse that poured from the newspapers. Has
it not been said : " If you persevere in slander, some of it will
stick " ?
Chateaubriand served as an auxiliary force. In those early
days of April he published his brochure, Buonaparte et les Bourbons,
an extremely violent pamphlet which carried adulation of the
princes to the point of fatuousness, and hatred of Napoleon
to the point of extravagance. The Bourbons, as described
by his gilded pen, appeared in the guise of remarkable men,
the equals of their great ancestors. He carefully recorded every
fault that Bonaparte possessed, and began by criticising his
method of governing. " The principles on which his administration
was based," he wrote, " infected every class of society. For a
wrong-headed government will make a nation vicious as surely
as a wise government will develop virtue. Irreligion, the love
of pleasures and expenses in excess of income, contempt for moral
restraints, the spirit of adventure and violence and tyranny,
spread downwards from the throne into every private family. A
little longer under such a rule as this, and France would have
been nothing but a den of brigands." Then he proceeded to
reproach Napoleon for his neglect of the navy, his contradictory
laws, his enormous taxation, his robbery of France, his system
of conscription, and of taxing quotations from authors of
non-copyright works, &c. ; and, speaking of the violence of the
authorities in the matter of conscription, he added : " More than
once a father has brought the corpse of his son to prove that
he could not produce that son alive." And in conclusion — " Being
accustomed from their cradles to regard themselves as victims
doomed to die, children no longer obeyed their parents. They
became lazy, idle, and debauched, while awaiting the day when
they must go forth to rob and murder others."
Each page of the brochure was more aggressive than the last.
" And how did the destroyer of our fathers and brothers
and sons act, when he had mowed down the flower of France ?
He fled. He came to the Tuileries, and there, rubbing his
hands beside the fire, he said : ' It is pleasanter here than on
the banks of the Beresina.' Not a word of consolation to the
weeping wives and mothers who were round him everywhere ; not
one regret, not one sign of feeling, not a word of remorse, not
127

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
a single admission of his folly ! Said the courtiers : ' There was
one lucky thing about this retreat from Russia : the Emperor
wanted for nothing ; he was always well fed and well wrapped
up in a comfortable carriage ; in fact, he did not suffer at all ;
that is a great comfort.' And he, amid his Court, was all gaiety
and triumph and splendour, with the royal mantle on his shoulders
and the hat a la Henri IV upon his head : he glittered at ease
upon his throne, practising the regal attitudes that Talma taught
him." And again : " He is the most ungracious of men ; his great
pleasure is to wound everyone who comes near him — forgetting
that our kings never insulted any man, because no man could take
his revenge — forgetting that he is addressing a nation whose.
honour is the most sensitive in the world, a people who were
educated at the Court of Louis XIV and are justly famed for the
elegance of their habits and the perfection of their manners. In
short, Buonaparte shone only in prosperity : as soon as adversity —
which does but develop true virtue — touched the man whose
greatness was a sham, the prodigy collapsed : the monarch was
seen to be no more than an adventurer, and the hero merely a
successful upstart."
The last pages are devoted to a eulogy of the Bourbons, by way
of emphasising the contrast.
" What shameful caprice tempted us to present the son of an
Ajaccio usher with the inheritance of Robert le Fort ? This
Robert le Fort was probably a descendant of the second race,
which in its turn was connected with the first. He was Comte de
Paris. Hughes Capet, a Frenchman himself, brought to the
French the town of Paris that he had inherited from his father,
with vast possessions and domains. France, which was so small
under the first Capets, grew rich and great under their descendants.
To replace this ancient race we went to seek a king, as one of our
senators has said, among a people from whom the Romans would
not take slaves. It was in favour of an obscure Italian, who was
penniless till a fortune was made for him by despoiling the whole
French nation, that we set aside the Salic Law, the palladium of
our Empire. Our fathers' sentiments and principles were very
different from ours ! On the death of Philippe le Bel they granted
the crown to Philippe de Valois, rather than to Edward III, king
of England. They preferred to doom themselves to centuries of
war rather than allow a foreigner to reign over them. This noble
128

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
resolution was the cause of the glory and greatness of France.
Yet surely there was nothing unworthy of honour in Edward III
or Henry V, in the Due de Guise or the Infante of Spain. Great
Heavens ! What has become of the pride of France ? In her
anxiety to preserve her own royal race she rejected these great
sovereigns — and chose Buonaparte ! "
It would not be hard to point out the contradictions of this
author, to compare with these passages quotations from other
writings of his, in which he had extolled the Emperor's genius, or
from those of a later date, which recognised the grandeur of the
ideals of Napoleon's reign. This brochure of more than a hundred
pages had an air of sincerity because it described the sufferings and
sorrows of France ; and as, for the last fifteen years, no one had
read a single word that was derogatory to Napoleon or his family,
it is easy to imagine the effect of this inflammatory and rancorous
attack upon the man whom the European coalition had just
crushed. The royalists exulted. They feted Chateaubriand ; they
lavished praises and admiration on him ; they magnified his
courage, though there was now nothing left for him to fear. He
took part, in these early days, in all the royalist demonstrations ;
he was taken to see the Emperor Alexander by the delegates of the
meeting which had taken place in M. de Morfontaine's house on
the evening of March 31st. Nothing came of this meeting, as a
matter of fact, because Nesselrode would not take the visit
seriously.

IV
Talleyrand had undertaken that the Senate should confirm the
resolutions passed in his house in the Rue Florentin. Of the
hundred and forty members who composed that great political
body, which was so sadly degraded by its servile dependence on the
Emperor's will, ninety were in Paris at this moment. Not one of
them was anxious to commit himself ; the state of affairs was not
yet sufficiently definite. The capital was occupied by the Allies,
it was true ; but Napoleon was at Fontainebleau, surrounded by
his guard, his marshals, and the troops who were flocking to the
place. Might he not even yet drive out the enemy, overwhelm
them in one decisive battle, and seize the reins of government once
more ? Talleyrand, anticipating their anxiety and their arguments,
129 k

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
adjured them on the morning of the 1st April to attend the
meeting he was convoking. Pastoret was not to be found, and was
only discovered after five hours of searching. Finally, at four
o'clock in the afternoon, sixty-four senators appeared in the
Assembly Hall.1 The first step to be taken by all these men — who,
though they had come in their garb of ceremony, gathered round
their president's table and entered into conversation quite lightly
and informally — was the acceptation of the provisional government
proposed by Talleyrand. He had kept the presidency for himself.
The other members were the Due de Dalberg, whom we already
know ; the Comte Francois de Jaucourt, who was descended from
Duplessis-Morney through the female line and was a friend of
Mme. de Stael ; 2 General de Beurnonville, who, like Talleyrand,
was a renegade, had once been an ardent republican, had been
surrendered to the Austrians by Dumouriez, had represented the
Consulate at the Courts of Berlin and Madrid, and finally had
become a senator and count of the Empire ; 3 and the Abbe de
Montesquiou, the devoted confidant of the little Court of
Hartwell, whom Louis XVIII afterwards appointed Minister of the
Interior. This acceptation was in no way compromising. But it
was not all. Alexander had begged the Senate to consent to draw
up a new Constitution, which should form the basis for the future
government. Some of the senators objected that it was impossible
to do this in a few hours. The assembly merely sketched a rough
outline of the fundamental points of the liberal government they
desired, of which the first clause was a guarantee that the senators
should not lose their places nor the honours attached to them.
Religious liberty, liberty of conscience, and the freedom of the
Press only figured in the last paragraph. These were not the
things nearest to the senators' hearts.
1 The Abbe de Pradt has described how Talleyrand went to the meeting of the
Senate with two different speeches ; one written by him, de Pradt, and the other
by someone whose name he does not give. If the Prince de Benevent read the
draft of the Archbishop of Malines it was not, adds the latter, because of any
special preference on his part, but simply because he put his hand into his left
pocket instead of into the right. — De Vaulabelle, Vol. I., p. 324
2 There is an account of the Comte F. de Jaucourt in de Vitrolle's Memoirs,
Vol. II., p. 36.
3 Beugnot in his Memoirs (Vol. II., p. 260) speaks of him thus : "Pierre Kiel
Marquis de Beurnonville, . . was only the son of a labourer of Champigneule, a
village of Champagne. . . He enlisted in a colonial battalion quartered in l'tle de
France, . . and returned to France with three hundred thousand francs, with which
sum he bought a second-lieutenant's commission in the Comte d'Artois' guard of the
Hundred Swiss. The Republic and the war took him to the top of the tree."
130

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
Something still remained to be done. Napoleon must be
deprived of his title of Emperor ; he must be deposed. However
debatable, however illegal this measure might be, it was necessary.
It was an action from which other measures would necessarily
result ; it would emancipate Paris and the rest of France from the
imperial authority, and would liberate the army, the legislative
and judicial bodies, and all the officials who were still bound to
Napoleon by their oaths and were maintaining the law and order
of the State.
Who would propose the deposition ? No one dared to do
it, and Talleyrand least of all.
But in times of revolution one must be prepared for all the
happenings of chance, and it was chance that lent a little courage
to these timid souls who so greatly feared to commit themselves.
A lawyer named Bellart, a member of the Municipal Council
of Paris, whose violently royalist principles afterwards made
him detested, persuaded the prefect, M. de Chabrol, to convene
that municipal assembly. Of the twenty-four members thirteen
appeared, and these at all events formed a majority. Bellart
read to them a composition of his own, an indictment of the
Emperor, couched in still more violent terms than that of
Chateaubriand ; x and the meeting unanimously passed his
1 This attack on the Emperor began thus : Men of Paris, your Councillors would
be acting as traitors to you and their country if they should be tempted any
longer by base personal considerations to smother the voice of their conscience.
That conscience tells them that you owe all your present overwhelming sorrows to
one man. ... It is he who decimates our families every year by conscription.
Which of us has not lost a son or a brother, relations or friends ? For whom did
all these brave men die ? They died for him alone, and not for the country. And
in what cause did they die ? They were all sacrificed for no reason but his insane
desire to leave behind him the memory of the most appalling tyrant that ever
oppressed the human race. Whereas France used to pay four hundred millions
under our former kings to secure liberty, happiness, and peace, he has burdened
us with taxes amounting to fifteen hundred millions, and has threatened to add
to them. It is he who has closed the seas of both hemispheres to us, who has
exhausted all the sources of our national industry, and has taken all the labourers
from our fields and the workmen from our manufactories. It is to him that we
owe the hatred with which every other nation regards us, though we do not
deserve it, since like them we are the unhappy victims of his fury, even more
than we are his melancholy instruments. And is it not he, too, who has violated
all that men hold most sacred, who has made a captive of the venerable head of
religion, has deprived of his kingdom, by an act of detestable perfidy, a king
with whom he was allied, and has brought complete destruction upon the Spanish
nation, our faithful friend of old ? We are told of his past victories. What
good did they do us, those fatal victories ? The hatred of the nations, the tears
of our families, the enforced celibacy of our daughters, the loss of our fortunes,
the premature widowhood of our wives, the despair of our fathers and mothers,
who have but one child left to them of their numerous offspring, one child to
close their eyes when they are dead : that is what these victories have brought us.
131 K 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
resolution, that the General Council of the Seine — which was
also of course the Municipal Council— formally renounced all
obedience to Napoleon Bonaparte, and declared their most ardent
desire for the restoration of the monarchical government under
Louis XVIII and his legitimate successors.1 The Journal des
Debuts, which had been in the hands of the Bertins for the
previous two days, reproduced this bitter diatribe on the following
morning. The other journals dared not do so. The effect on
Paris was considerable, and the provisional government found
themselves obliged to come to a definite decision once for all.
The Senate was again convoked, and Lambrecht, one of Napoleon's
most persistent opponents, one of those idealistic philosophers who,
like Garat, Gregoire, Lanjuinais, and Destutt de Tracy, had been
systematically ridiculed by the Emperor, demanded that the
deposition of the imperial dynasty .should be put to the vote. It
was carried without more ado, and in the evening the fact was
publicly proclaimed by torchlight.
Hitherto the Legislative Body had held aloof from these
intrigues. Talleyrand was aware, however, that since the reading
of Laine's report and the indefinite adjournment by the Emperor
of this assembly, the feeling of the public had greatly changed
towards it, and from being despised it had grown almost
popular. He considered it essential, therefore, that it should confirm
the decision of the Senate, and contrived that it should be
convened on the following day, the 3rd April. Rather less than
And to-day they have brought to our very walls — the walls that were never
violated under the fatherly government of our kings — the foreigners whose
generous protection demands our gratitude, when it would have been so
pleasant to us to offer them a disinterested alliance, etc." The signatories were
MM. Bodinier, Barthelemy, Bellart, Boutonnet, Boscheron, Delaiatre, Gauthier,
d'Harcourt, de Lamoignon, the President Lebeau, and the Secretary Montanion.
1 Notes on Bellart by the Abbe1 de Montgaillard (Histoire, voL I, p. 376). " M.
Bellart was a vehement and bombastic orator, almost always influenced by
passion and party spirit, and rarely guided by reason, judgment, or truth. His
talents as a writer were less than mediocre. ... It was to the lawyer Bellart's
enthusiasm, no less than to that of the Academician Quatremere de Quincy, for
the genius and virtues and benevolence of Bonaparte, that the General Council of
the department of the Seine owed the first suggestion that a triumphal monument
should be erected in honour of the usurper of the throne of the Bourbons. At
the time of the King of Rome's birth M. Bellart was so much intoxicated with joy
and devotion to the imperial dynasty that he suggested to the Municipal Council
at the H6tel-de-Ville that an income of ten thousand francs should be voted to
the first page who had brought the news of the birth of Napoleon H. Snch
were the sentiments of M. Bellart in 1811, but he hastened, none the less, in 18H
to propose to the Municipal Council that Napoleon should be deposed and his Kin
excluded from the succession."
132

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
a hundred members obeyed the summons : and these, with better
feeling than the Senate, made no demands for themselves, but
merely subscribed to the deposition of the imperial dynasty.
Upon this every organised body in the country declared against
the Emperor, denied his authority, and refused obedience to
him. The magistracy, the university, the departmental and
municipal assemblies vied with one another in submitting to the
provisional government, repudiating the Empire, and giving their
allegiance to the royal family whose names had been before
the public for the last few days — the Bourbons whom no one
knew, but whom the royalists, with their flags and their cockades,
were gradually making popular.
The army was still inviolate. Round Fontainebleau there were
nearly fifty thousand men at Napoleon's disposal. Marmont's
defection with the troops under his command was a serious loss
to the Emperor, who had already recovered his self-confidence
and was meditating a crushing descent upon the invaders.
Talleyrand had resorted to his usual duplicity, his machiavellian
tactics, to separate Marmont from the other marshals, and from
the redoubtable man whose fortunes even now might be retrieved.1
This marshal, being of a suspicious, proud, and rather discontented
temperament, was more vulnerable than some men might have
been. Schwartzenberg the generalissimo undertook the negotia
tion, which was promptly successful. The Due de Raguse
deserted his chief ; and under the specious pretext of preventing
fresh slaughter declared himself ready to bring about an under
standing between the people and the army, and " to leave, with
his troops (these are his own words) the army of the Emperor
Napoleon." Whatever may have been the reservations in his
letter, whatever the securities he demanded for the man he was
forsaking, the fact remains that by this desertion he crushed
the Emperor's last hope and forced him to abdicate.
Meanwhile, during the last day before the abdication at
Fontainebleau, while there was still some reason to fear that
Napoleon might march upon Paris, the more compromised of
the royalists, and such servants of the Empire as had already lavished
insults upon their fallen master and smiles upon the new-born
1 It is known, as a matter of fact, that Talleyrand sent Colonel Montessuis to
him with letters from General Beurnonville, who was entrusted with the military
affairs of the provisional government ; from General Dessolles, who had been
appointed to the chief command of the Parisian National Guard ; and from
several of the marshal's personal friends. 133

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
government, ^yore an air of dazed bewilderment and helplessness
that made them appear positively imbecile. They ran about
begging for news, and trying to find out from the rumours they
heard whether it would be advisable to hide or to fly. They
were a pitiable sight. In their haste to welcome their new
masters they had forgotten to be prudent ; and now what was to
be done?
The abdication reassured these desperadoes. They were soon
as bold, as untruthful, as shameless as before; and presently
these Parisians were reinforced by all the provincial malcontents
who had reaped no benefit from the imperial government, and
intended to use this grievance in pleading their right to some
long desired but never granted favour. Thenceforward the
provisional government had nothing to fear. It was quite at liberty
to complete the Constitution demanded by the Emperor Alexander,
and to negotiate with the exile of Hartwell.1 The members of
the government collaborated with a commission of five senators :
MM. Barbe-Marbois, Destutt de Tracy, Eymery, Lambrecht,
and Lebrun, Due de Plaisance. They afterwards added to their
number the Russian Minister of State, Count Nesselrode, for the
Senate had no authority behind them but that of the Emperor
Alexander, supported by his army. It seems strange that a
body of honourable Frenchmen should have accepted a Russian as
their collaborator, in drawing up fundamental laws for their
country's government. Nesselrode, however, was a mere super
numerary in this commission ; there was only one member of it
whose ideas were in the least interesting or logical. This was the
Abbe de Montesquiou.
He was a native of the south of France, and was born in
1757 in the Chateau de Marsan, near Auch. He loved to talk,
loved to enliven his conversation with witty touches, and was
very particular about using the right word ; and, as is the case
with such men, was very leisurely in action, and was apt to
allow the countless documents relating to his various concerns to
accumulate upon his writing-table. His education had been
excellent ; and, having frequented Louis XV's court in his early
youth, he had never lost the agreeable manners and social charm
that had once been the rule in the salons of France, but were
1 This still-born Constitution, which was to be accepted by the people but was
never submitted to them, was adopted on the 6th April, published in Paris on
the 7th, inserted in the Moniteur on the 8th, and in the other papers on the 9th.
134

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
now seldom to be seen. He had sat in the States General as
a clerical representative, and had held his own against Mirabeau
in circumstances that had become famous. When the Terror
drove him from Paris he had taken refuge in England, where
he had become one of the most influential of the emigres. He
returned to France after the events of Thermidor ; and
Louis XVIII, taking advantage of his devotion, addressed to
him all the letters intended for the faithful royalists who were
working for the King against Napoleon.
His strongest and most pressing claims on the regard of the
Bourbon prince were his hatred of the Revolution and the
Jacobins, and his affection — not to say weakness — for the royalists
and the men of the old regime.1 Talleyrand, therefore, could
not have devised a more convincing proof of his conversion,
nor a better means of cajoling the royalists and making them
his own, than his choice of this amiable abbe as his coadjutor
in the government. He was well aware of the abbe's unsteady
and frivolous character ; but he knew him to be a man born to
please rather than to rule. For the moment, this was all that
was necessary.2
The two, moreover, were likely to be congenial, since both
of them were courtiers and conversationalists rather than men
of action. Talleyrand, that skilful intriguer, had the gift of
saying whatever he had to say in the most gracious and spontaneous
manner, of turning every trivial circumstance to account with
incomparable art, and achieving his greatest triumphs by these
means. Like M. de Montesquiou he had no fertility of
1 The following passage on the Abbe de Montesquiou is from the Souvenirs
of Barante (Vol. II., p. 40). " The Restoration was to him the old regime made
reasonable. Being a grand seigneur rather than a courtier he held by the
superstitions of the monarchy. No one could have been more ready to tell the
King what he believed to be true, and in that respect he was free from the
intriguing servility into which the nobility had fallen. But when once he had
fulfilled this duty the King's will became sacred to him. To oppose it in any
way seemed to him a subversion of all morality. The Revolution and everything
to do with it was hateful and revolting to him. . . . Moreover, the Abbe
Montesquiou, though he was a man of sound judgment, or rather of correct
impressions, and though he had remained in France all through the Revolution,
sometimes in the country and sometimes in Paris, mixing with all sorts of people,
travelling in the diligence, living simply and in poverty, was nevertheless
completely ignorant of the sentiments of the country and the habits that had
taken root there. "
2 From the Mimoires of Mile, de Chastenay (Vol. II., p. 310). "M. de
Montesquiou lived hidden in a little entresol in the house of Mme. de Poix,
without so much as one servant ; but he was always delightful and gentle and
clever, and formed the charm of the circle he never deserted."
135

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
imagination : it was not his habit to conceive a scheme in advance
and follow it out systematically, but rather to extricate himself
from a difficulty on the spur of the moment, by silence, evasion,
or epigram. He had no knowledge but such as he had picked
up in his course through the world ; but his long intercourse
with men of every rank of society had taught him how to gain
their confidence and influence their minds. In short he depended
less on a wide statesmanlike outlook than on his knowledge of
the viejs of humanity, to which he appealed with the most
profound discernment. These were the methods, then, by which
these two men controlled the government that had been called
into being by Talleyrand — by the intriguer whose strenuous
efforts of the last few days for the overthrow of the Empire
had been prompted, not by any wise foreknowledge of the
future, but by his keen desire to escape life-long imprisonment at
Vincennes, which would certainly have been his fate if Napoleon
had been victorious.
The commission appointed to prepare a Constitution had
already sketched a rough draft, introducing the clauses for
which the senators had stipulated, but omitting to mention
what monarch was to sit upon the throne of France. The
Abbe de Montesquiou was surprised at this omission. He
insisted that the mistake should be rectified, and a plain
statement made at the outset that France was submitting herself
once more to the sceptre of the Bourbons. Lambrecht wrote
that Louis Stanislas Xavier, brother of the last king, was
freely called to the throne by the French nation.
" What ! " cried Montesquiou, " the people calling Louis XVIII
to the throne ! But that is a lie — it would be a monstrous thing
to say ! The King has never lost his rights ; he has never ceased
to reign. It is not as Louis XVI's brother that he owns the
crown, but as Louis XVII's uncle, as the immediate successor of
the young prince whose long martyrdom could not deprive him of
the title of King of France. Do you, by any chance, contest
his Majesty's right to the name of Louis XVIII ? "
" You do not take into account, then," answered M. de Tracy,
" any of the intermediate events ? Has nothing happened since
1789?" " Events are powerless against rights," replied the Abbe.
These words, which are quoted from some papers found in
Louis XVIII's room after his flight to Ghent, are very character-
136

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
istic of the uncompromising spirit shown by the Abbe in his
battles with the senators. Both sides, indeed, were equally
tenacious. Agreement seemed impossible until one day, when the
unending discussions of the senatorial commission were in full
swing, Count Nesselrode entered and announced that it was highly
probable that a Regency would be established, in accordance with
the proposals of Napoleon's envoys. Upon this the two factions in
the commission quickly agreed that Louis Stanislas Xavier of
France, that is to say Louis XVIII, should be freely called to the
throne by the French nation.
M. de Montesquiou, in the despatch that announced this
reassuring news to the prince at Hartwell, added : " The Constitu
tion need not stand in his Majesty's way. He can say to the
Senate : c You profess to give me these laws in the name of the
nation : who told you what the nation's intentions were ? Where
are your instructions ? What are your credentials ? You have
none but those that were granted you by Napoleon. I, on the
other hand, have those of my fathers ; I have the whole of our
history, filled with their good deeds ; I have, moreover, the history
of all your misfortunes : how can either of these histories have
given you stronger rights than mine ? This same Constitution,
far from ignoring my rights, consecrates them ; for does it not say
that the law cannot be made without me ? (art. 5).' "
And again : " M. de Talleyrand said to me yesterday that his
Majesty, on returning to France, ought to publish an edict
declaring his intentions and at the same time announcing his
assumption of the sovereign power. This way of proceeding
independently of any Constitution has the advantage of setting
aside, not only the Senate's Constitution, but the Senate itself, and
of leaving with the King the whole credit of any privileges he may
grant to the nation. The Senate is not meditating obedience ; it
is meditating the denunciation of its president, because M.
Barthelemy is not a party man, and the great republican
Lambrecht is wanted to take his place. The Senate has no
influence ; it is despised ; but all the malcontents are ready to side
with it, so it would be as well to come to terms with some of the
members. These individual negotiations would have a marvellous
effect. It would certainly be the best thing, then, to publish a declara
tion, full of goodness and generosity, on entering the kingdom.
There is no doubt about using the words : King of France and of
Navarre. I even think it should be headed : The King's Edict.
137

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
The nation is wanting the old things. Everything connected with
the past suits them quite as well as it suits the royal family
themselves." The advice, apparently, did not fall on stony ground, for this
was exactly the course of conduct pursued by Louis XVIIL
Instead of accepting the Constitution of the Senate he granted a
charter to the nation he was going to govern.
While awaiting the King's arrival the Senate lavished the most
extravagant eulogies upon the Emperor Alexander. Formerly,
when this political body had ratified some measure emanating from
the imperial government, they had been in the habit of presenting
the document personally to Napoleon ; and they now wished, in
the same way, to announce to the Emperor Alexander that the
future Constitution of the Kingdom, which had been drawn up at
his instigation, was completed. He had become the centre of
public attention, the object of every senseless compliment ; and was
beset by countless petitioners for his influence, to secure them some
place or favour. These petitions were so numerous and urgent
that the prince was reduced to publishing in the papers that he
had no right to interfere in the administration of a country where
he was merely a visitor, and that there was a provisional govern
ment in France, to which petitioners should address themselves
rather than to him.
This is an example of the degradation into which an
intriguer may fall when he desires position or money : especially
money. These miserable creatures did not hesitate to beg from
a foreign monarch whose army had sacked and wasted the towns
upon its route ; did not hesitate to set their own advantage above
their country's independence. In the presence of the conqueror
they were no longer Frenchmen, but Russians ; they were ready
to kneel in the mud, if only they might gain something thereby.
Alexander's self-restraint was admirable. Seeing that the
Parisian populace was at his feet and the Senate was humbling
itself before him, and that his position in the capital was as
omnipotent as that of the heroic adversary he had replaced, he
might well have been a little intoxicated or foolishly puffed up,
and have thought himself greater than he really was. But he
took no undue advantage of his victory, nor of the prostrations
that were made before him as though he were a god. He lived
quietly and quite unceremoniously during these early days, in
Talleyrand's house, and usually went out in a simple costume that
138

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
disguised his rank ; avoiding the rapturous acclamations of the
mob, and everything else that might remind the vanquished town
that he was its master by right of conquest. He put in practice
the lessons of his teacher, the Swiss philosopher who had brought
him up. He was free from vanity and had no extravagant tastes.
He was generous, gentle, and good-hearted, and was wise enough,
when in France, not to think and act as he did in Russia. He
knew that the people round him were, at that time, the most
polished and courteous nation in Europe, and he made a point of
showing that he appreciated all their refinement and delicacy,
as well as all their misfortunes. He succeeded in making himself
loved rather than feared. Mme. de Stael, who hated Napoleon,
has given us a portrait of Alexander, which by contrast, is
extremely eulogistic. She praises his conversation, which was
quite different from the senseless strings of questions, the silly
trivialities, the knicknacks, as she calls them, that composed the
usual intercourse of society. There was a certain amount of
solidity in his conversation, inspired by his desire to please and his
love of humanity, which made him really wish to know the true
sentiments of others. This seems to indicate that this prince had
generous impulses and was worthy of the rank to which he had
been born. Napoleon, however, gave a very different unflattering
portrait of the same person to a certain English nobleman in
Elba. " He was crafty and false," he said, " like a Greek of the
Lower Empire, absolutely untrustworthy. With him everything
was on the surface — all his generosity and greatness. He made a
parade of his instructor's philosophical maxims ; but he cannot
possibly believe in them." For instance — said Napoleon, when
describing the evenings he had spent with Alexander at Tilsit —
he thought it advisable that the sovereign of an empire should be
elected ; he preferred that system to the right of heredity, though
the latter was his only title to the sovereignty of Russia. He,
Napoleon, disapproved of this, for election is merely a matter of
chance, and that is the worst that can be said of hereditary right.
Montgaillard the historian is inclined to agree with Napoleon's
estimate of the Russian prince. He grants him a subtle and
acute intellect, but does not consider him a genuinely great man,
because his entire want of solid knowledge made him a prey to
the doctrines of mysticism and illuminism. His ambition, more
over, was as great as Napoleon's — the whole of his subsequent
reign proves it — but he was skilful in dissimulation, and often

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
reached his goal by unseen paths. Napoleon, on the other hand,
aimed at his ends quite openly, and this was his undoing.
When the Russian monarch took measures to rid himself of the
crowd of petitioners they followed his advice, and paid their court
to the provisional government. The seat of this government was
the entresol of Talleyrand's house in the Rue Saint Florentin, of
which the first floor was set apart for the Emperor Alexander, and
the second for Count Nesselrode and his secretaries.
Beugnot, in his memoirs, has described the arrangements of this
entresol. There were six rooms, he says, which, as in all the houses
in the neighbourhood, were rather low. Three of them overlooked
the inner court, and the three others — a large salon, a bedroom,
and a library — faced the Tuileries. It was in the bedroom, which
was Talleyrand's, that the members of the Goverment held their
sittings. The salon served both as a waiting-room for the
petitioners and beggars, and as an office for the heads of depart
ments, ministers, or officials, who had a report to write or instruc
tions to take down. It was here, says Beugnot, that the princes
of intrigue met together, to wrangle as to who should plunder this
government of a day. The library was set apart for Talleyrand's
private audiences. But to reach it he was obliged to cross the
intervening salon, and here the people were so closely packed that
sometimes the unfortunate man, limping on his club-foot, struggled
vainly to penetrate the crowd, and at last was forced to give up
the attempt, and leave his important visitor to pass the time as
best he could in the unapproachable room. Often, if the door of
the bedroom were opened, it could not be closed again, and all
the deliberations of the ministers were audible in the salon. There
was no such thing as a state secret.
The scene in the rooms that overlooked the court was no less
strange. Beyond the antechamber were two other rooms, a bedroom
and dressing-room which were used by Dupont de Nemours and
Roux-Laborie, the ministerial secretaries. The antechamber was
reserved for the " rabble of intriguers," as Beugnot calls them ; for
those whom no difficulty could stop, and no past, however com
promising, could disturb, who were always barefaced and some
times threatening, and could hardly be persuaded to go away with
out compensation. In the next room were another set of petitioners,
less shameless than these, but equally boastful and greedy. Among
themselves and in the presence of the minister they made the most
of a devotion which only dated from the previous day, but which
140

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
they professed to have cherished for years ; boasted of treachery of
which they were innocent ; posed as hypocrites and traitors rather
than miss a good windfall ; and tried to outshine their neighbours—
their rivals in this race for favours — by the fervour of their pro
testations. It was they, so they said, who had raised the first cheers
in honour of the Bourbons, who had incited the people to attack
the imperial column that bore Napoleon's statue, who had dis
tributed the largest number of white cockades on the occasion of
the entry of the Allies. No one, they declared, had done more
than themselves to win converts to the royal cause, and rouse
enmity against the usurper, the tyrant, the Corsican. They were
the most disreputable crowd in Paris, adds Beugnot. He o-0es on
to describe the approaches to the house. "The soldiers of the
Russian imperial guard lined the stairs, and some Cossacks belong
ing to the same guard filled the court-yard and the street. There
was no difference between day and night. At all hours there was
the same crowd, and the same air of disturbance. The only quiet
people to be seen were the Cossacks, who slept wherever thev
could." J
Beugnot, on his return from Lille, where he had been Prefect of
the Empire, had been appointed Minister of the Interior ;J General
Dufont, a man of much cultivation but little character, the
capitule de Baylen, as he was called under the Empire, received the
portfolio of War ; Baron Louis,2 whose ideas were simple — because
there was so little of them, said de Vitrolles — became Minister of
Finance; de Bourienne, Bonaparte's old schoolfellow and
secretary, who had been dismissed after many ill-deeds, was
1 De Barante's Souvenirs (Vol. II., p. 46). — "M. Beugnot was a man of con
siderable intellect, ability, and education. His pleasant, animated conversation
was full of vivacity and sparkle, and this was his chief charm. His wit,
however, was a little lacking in refinement and distinction. . . . He was a man
whose character was not equal to his intellect. Without ever straying from the
path of honesty he was lacking in political courage." He was prefect at Rouen
for six years ; then Councillor to King Jerome in Westphalia ; then Governor of
the Grand Duchy of Berg ; and finally, after Leipsic, prefect of Lille.
2 De Barante's Souvenirs (Vol. II., p. 52). — "There is no doubt that M. Louis
had none of the qualities of a politician ; he had no oratorical gifts, being incapable
of putting two sentences together in public, and confused and laboured in
conversation ; he had no mental subtlety, and no tact in dealing with individuals ;
there was nothing complex about him, but he was true to his opinions and his
friends, and this in itself constitutes a force, and one of the best. In a Cabinet
Council he had the inconvenient habit of making himself odiously unpleasant to
everyone who disagreed with him, He was hard and rude in dealing with
objections, which he refused to discuss or even to hear ; was deaf to the
entreaties of all his ministerial opponents ; looked at everything from the
financial point of view, and was not to be moved by any other consideration.
Good and evil meant nothing to him except in their relation to utility."
141

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
appointed to the Post Office ; and Angles, a Provencal who had
served Napoleon in the police department, fulfilled the same func
tions under the government that was so hostile to that great man.
And — strange to say — the Grand Chancellorship of the Legion of
Honour was given to a priest, to the Abbe de Pradt, formerly
Archbishop of Malines.
To this government it was especially important to have money,
and there was none to be had in the public coffers. The Minister
of the Treasury, M. de la Brouillerie, had with the other ministers
followed the Empress Marie Louise to Blois, and had cashed
and carried off all the money that was available, together with the
Crown diamonds and Napoleon's personal resources. Yet the
requirements of the Allies must be met, and their daily expenses
paid ; and it was especially urgent to provide for the pressing need
of those who were never really convinced except in the presence of
hard cash. Revolutions are apt to be short-lived unless they are
well supported by money-bags. At this crisis money was essential,
and the only way to secure it was to seize the wagons and chests
in the train of Marie Louise. An energetic man, fiercely hostile to
the Empire, was found to carry out the enterprise : a prisoner at
Vincennes, who had been an official attached to the army of Spain,
but had left it without orders, and had, as he fled, infected the
places on his route with his own panic. It was this M. Dudon 1
who set off in haste to Orleans, where the Empress was expected.
A few hours later the unfortunate Marie Louise and M. de
Talleyrand's agent met there. It was easy enough for the man
who longed for revenge, and had nothing to fear from a fallen
1 Menneval, Vol. II., p. 182:—". . . To justify the odious theft the pro
visional government professed to have been informed that funds to a considerable
amount had been taken out of Paris before the occupation of the town by
the Allies, and had been further increased by robbing the coffers of the
municipality, of the Mont-de-piete, and even of the hospitals. The decree that
was passed in connection with this matter required all the trustees of these
various funds to declare the amount for which they were responsible, and pay it
immediately to the general and municipal receivers, on pain of being themselves
declared despoilers of the public funds and pursued as such by the law in their
persons and property. . . . Armed with this document, M. Dudon proceeded at
once to Orleans, where the imperial treasure, the object of the provisional
government's decree, was then lying. . . . That evening, aided by the special
police officer in charge of the treasure (he) seized the wagons in which it was
packed. These wagons were standing in the market square, and contained ten
million francs in cash ; three millions' worth of silver and silver-gilt plate, about
four hundred thousand francs' worth of snuff-boxes and diamond rings intended
for presents, all the imperial ornaments and garments, which were laden with
gold embroidery, and even the Emperor's pocket-handkerchiefs, marked with
N and a crown. The Russian General Schouvaloff, who was called upon to
interfere, made no opposition whatever to this revolting deed."
142

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
power, to seize all that remained of the Emperor's great wealth, of
the gold he had saved from his civil list and had hoarded in the
cellars of the Tuileries, whence, latterly, he had taken it for the
needs of the State, for the clothing and arming of his new troops.
The remnant was trifling : a little over ten million francs, perhaps,
of the two hundred and fifty million, and more, that he had
once possessed. As for the Crown diamonds, no one would defend
them. Dudon had the masterfulness that is born of effrontery and
hate ; and the men he was dealing with were stricken with the
fear and weakness that arise naturally from the demoralisation of a
dying government. The entire contents of the waggons and chests
became the spoil of this vindictive hireling ; everything, even the
Emperor's court suits, his linen, his jewellery, and the sumptuous
dinner-service that was used by the Empress. Dudon left nothing
that was of any value. Marie Louise was as completely despoiled
as if she had been robbed by highwaymen ; so much so that
she was obliged to borrow some china for her table from the
bishop with whom she lodged. The booty of the thief, said the
chronicles of the day, amounted to nearly fifteen millions.
While this audacious robbery was being perpetrated the Comte
d'Artois was establishing himself in the Tuileries with his
little court. It was to the Tuileries, therefore, that Dudon
brought his spoil, which was taken by his orders to the prince's
rooms. The chests were opened on the spot, and the gold
they contained dazzled the eyes of the newly arrived courtiers.
They promptly took possession of it, regarding it as compensation
for the losses endured by themselves and their families during
the Revolution. And moreover this gold had belonged to the
usurper. How had he come by it if not by violence — that is
to say by unlawful and unrighteous means ? It was the
merest justice to deprive him of it. There would have been none
of it left had not Baron Louis heard what was going forward, and
hurried to the palace to plead the claims of the State. Not
more than a few millions, about a third of the whole, was
secured for the Treasury, where the arrival of the money was
awaited with feverish anxiety. This was the kind of reasoning
that obtained among all the returned exiles, who were ineradicably
convinced that it was the simple duty of the country to restore
the fortunes, titles, and honours they had formerly enjoyed.
This was the spirit, if not the letter, of the Bourbon government
for fifteen years. The Court of the Tuileries was peopled with
143

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
these impoverished noblemen, who looked to the royal favour
to bring about the resurrection of their departed splendour.
They argued as the Jacobins had argued in the days of their
triumph. " Since we are now the stronger party," they
said to the owners of wealth, " we shall do as you did."
To meet his liabilities the Minister of Finance had been forced
to appeal to the Fermier des Jeux x to relieve his most pressing
needs.2 These were by no means trifling ; but this happy-
go-lucky government spent all its time in endless conferences
and vacillations, and allowed practical affairs to drift. These
first April weeks have left no mark on history but a vague
impression of futile measures, unfulfilled ambitions, vanished hopes,
and above all, of incapacity on the part of the arch-intriguer,
Talleyrand !

Paris was quite unconscious of the net of intrigues in which
the provisional government was entangled. Paris, with its
usual frivolity and love of novelty, was content to gaze its fill
at the foreigners who were camping in the streets or occupying
all the principal rooms in the houses, since the barracks could
not contain them.3 The Cossacks were particularly attractive
1 A monopolist in gambling- houses. (Translator's Note.)
2 Beugnot, who records the fact in his Memoirs, adds : " I had seen the
country quite as destitute on the 18th Brumaire, and long before that again at the
time of the retreat of the Archbishop of Sens." (Vol. II., p. 117.)
3 Reboul's Souvenirs. Reboul, who at this moment arrived in Paris, knocked
at the door of one of his friends and asked to be taken in. His friend replied :
" My house is full, from the ground floor to the attic. I am no longer master
here. I have at least one regiment of Prussians staying here. Look for a lodging
in one of the neighbouring houses, and if you cannot find one I can put up a bed
for you in the room of two Prussian officers, who seem to be good fellows and
very quiet. " There was no room to be found anywhere, and Reboul returned to
his friend, who put up the promised bed. " From their possessions," continues
the narrator, " which were scattered over the floor, and the Prussian books and
papers that I saw lying about on the table and chimney-piece, I gathered that my
companions were two officers of the Landwehr. On their bed was a copy of
Cassini's map of France — a terrible implement of war. If it had not been for
that map how many hamlets and villages, how many towns, even, that were not
near the military roads, would have escaped the ravages of the invasion. ..."
And further on : "As I went about Paris I seemed to be in the camp of all the
armies of Europe. Our streets and promenades, our public squares, and even the
porches of our churches, were overflowing with soldiers. Our theatres, our
museums, our libraries, were full of generals. I was told that a few days
previously the garden to the Palais Royal, which had never been opened except
for pedestrians, had been full of horses and had all the appearance of a bivouac
of cavalry. This gathering together of nations and peoples no longer contained
144

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
to the idle crowd, who stared in astonishment at the intrepid
little horses with their high saddles, and at the men coming
into the courtyards to fetch water, and trying vainly to make
themselves intelligible in an incoherent medley of words. As
they groomed their horses they sang the touching, melancholy
songs of their own land, and every ear was strained to hear
them. There were Cossacks everywhere; on the banks of the
river, on every tract of waste land, in the Champs-Elysees, and
in the Carrousel, where the ammunition and store wagons
were drawn up in rows, with the unharnessed horses tied to
the wheels, and the soldiers lying asleep in the midst of it all,
with no light, as a rule, to safeguard them through the night.
On the quays much interest was shown in these Cossacks as they
gathered round their fires to cook their food ; while others
cleaned their linen by turning them rapidly round and round
above the flames to kill the vermin with which they were infested.
Sometimes patrols of cavalry passed by, and the roadway rang
under the horses' heavy hoofs. Or perhaps it would be a long
line of Prussian grenadiers marching by on their way to
barracks, or a battery of Austrian guns returning to quarters,
with the officers in the middle of the road, showing off their
arched chests to the best advantage in their extremely tight
uniforms. The fair ladies of the aristocracy, now that all fear
of a bombardment was past, were laughing at the slight results
produced by the shells and bullets of all these enemies, and
gossiping in their salons of the rumours that came from the
provinces, the terror inspired by Platoff, the great chief of the
Cossacks, and the way these barbarians were threatening Paris,
which had been described to them as a marvellous town where
they could all fill their pockets.1
On the day of the Allies' entry into Paris a Russian band
might have been seen, at the Barriere des Martyrs, disturbing
any element of hostility or menace : it was simply melancholy and savage. All
the despotism of northern discipline weighed upon these masses of people and
kept them passive and obedient. ... I myself have seen a young Russian officer,
who was barely seventeen years old and was so childishly small and weak that he
could hardly wield his sword, stretch a Cossack dead at his feet with a pistol-shot,
for stealing a pound of sugar— the Cossack being six foot tall, as strong as a
Hercules, and covered with wounds and decorations. These terrible executions
surprised and revolted the Parisians, but reassured them as to the safety of then-
persons and property. " . .
1 Mile deChastenay relates that Platoff was said to have promised his daughter
to any man who should secure Napoleon alive or dead. . . And the Prussians
said in their bad French : Moscou brO.16 ; Paris brMi ; Moscou brUi; Pans caput.
It seemed as though civilisation had come to an end.
145 L

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
the neighbourhood with its belligerent roulades. The musicians
were surrounded by Russian soldiers, among whom were even a
few French women and children, who are never tired of listening
to any kind of music. In these remote quarters, for several days
after the battle, the bodies of the dead were left in the streets,
lying in a row by the walls of the houses. The beggars came and
hunted in the dust for any little trifles or coins they could find,
or for any scraps of food thrown away by the invaders after their
meal. At the Pre Saint-Gervais the slopes of the hill were
covered with dead soldiers and horses, closely packed one against
the other. In the little gardens here the shrubs and fruit-trees
had been shattered by grape-shot, and there was nothing left
but broken stems, beneath which the owners of the gardens
buried the victims of the battle, after thoroughly rifling them.
The inner courtyards of the houses, and the passages of the
ground-floors were obstructed with the rigid corpses of those who
had crept in to die in peace, undisturbed by the vengeance of their
enemies. Far away across the plain the fields were strewn with count
less empty bottles, left by the troops who had been bivouacking
there.1 Such was the scene of the recent battle. And while it was
still raging, while on the heights of Montmartre and on the plain
near the Porte de Vincennes Frenchmen and Russians were killing
one another, the clients of the Cafe Tortoni were seated as usual at
their tables, for it was the hour of the daily promenade. Young
men and women of fashion, therefore, sat here watching the long
procession of the wounded on their way to the hospitals, or the carts
loaded with those who were too seriously injured to walk. On the
1 Journal d'un ditenu, an eye witness of the events of this time in Paris.
2 De Vaulabelle's Histoire de la Restauration, Vol. I. , p. 389. " The women of a
certain set were seen lavishing attentions and admiration and caresses on the
soldiers of the allied armies, while our own unfortunate men who had been
wounded the day before, and sent away from the ambulances and hospitals for
want of space, were dying from neglect in the streets and roads."
The Journal des Dibats, on the other hand, noted the following instance of
noble devotion on the part of a priest. "A certain ecclesiastic," it says,
" was in a public vehicle that stopped at Bondy, near an inn. His attention was
soon attracted by the plaintive cries of several wounded men. He ran to the un
fortunate creatures, asking to be supplied with linen and lint ; then, as no one
responded to his appeal, he pulled off his clothes, tore his shirt into strips, and
made them into bandages and lint. The first he helped was a young man whose
left arm had been broken by a ball. After having bandaged it, the priest paid for
a place in a carriage and had the young man conveyed to Paris. In the same way
he dressed three other grenadiers who were seriously wounded, gave each
of them some money, and after having entirely emptied his slender purse, left
them, laden with their blessings."
146

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
following day all the shops of the Palais Royal were open, and the
officers of the foreign armies crowded thither to buy gloves,
scent, or jewellery, and flung down handfuls of gold in payment
for their purchases.1 In the cafes — with the exception of the
Cafe Lemblin, the soldiers' cafe — Russians sat drinking their fill
of punch side by side with the Parisian townsfolk, the habitual
customers of these places, who could not resist the desire to
see a foreigner close at hand, with his uniform and all his
orders, and to hear him speaking their own language correctly.
There was laughter at every table, and a merry interchange of
speech, and as much friendliness as if the Parisians and Russians
had formed a single nation. The fashionable ladies who generally
filled the galleries in the evening had absented themselves in
the hope of being missed ; while the working girls who had
crowded into the gardens were surprised to find that the foreign
officers took no notice of them, and protested against this undue
modesty. As a matter of fact the foreign officers were still
feeling a little anxious : Paris alarmed them. The people, whom
they saw gathered in crowds as they passed along the boulevards,
and the inarticulate mutterings of the working-men, seemed to
them a terrible danger, and a danger that would be increased
a thousandfold if the Emperor, who was still capable of action,
were suddenly to appear in Paris. The Parisians might rise
and destroy them in an outburst of irresistible patriotism. This
was their principal topic of conversation.
During these first weeks there were many novel sights to be seen.
In the avenues of the Champs Elysees, for instance, the Cossacks
had built huts for themselves against the trees, with bundles of
straw fastened to their long lances — their object being rather
to hide their loot than to shelter themselves. In the middle of the
paths a number of hawkers walked up and down, selling oranges,
apples, wine, herrings, and small beer. The Cossacks liked nothing
so much as brandy.2 When the time came for paying, however,
1 Mile, de Chastenay's Mimoires, Vol. II. , p. 314. " The. restaurants could not
accommodate the numerous foreign officers who visited them, all of whom spoke
French and would have considered themselves true barbarians if they had shown
the least want of civility. Every article of luxury, fashion, and commerce was
bought by them at the price that was asked. Paris, which had been gloomy
for so long, began to entertain the guests without delay."
2 " Some of these soldiers," wrote the Dibats, " were seen cutting up the meat
into joints with their swordu, while others split the wood on which the meat was
to be cooked : one man would be repairing his horse's shoes, another cleaning and
polishing his weapons, and others again resting themselves against their recum-
147 L 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
there were always violent and endless discussions between buyer
and seller as to the value of the different coins. To such of the
townsfolk as ventured to visit this strange bivouac the Cossacks
offered watches for sale, and other valuable or rare objects that
they had taken from the towns through which they passed ; and
there were actually Parisians who were not ashamed to buy these
things for next to nothing, like receivers of stolen goods. In this
district of Paris, this centre of luxury, a Tartar village had
suddenly sprung up. In another part of the town, the Gros-
Caillou, the laundresses' quarter, some ruffians incited the looters
to take the linen from the clothes-lines outside the houses,
promising to pay a very good price for it. But when the deed was
done some National Guards, who were patrolling and had witnessed
the theft, arrested these mischievous reprobates and took them off
to the office of the Prefect of Police.1
There was more traffic at this time in the Rue Saint-Honore
than in any other street ; for it led to the Rue Saint-Florentin,
where the Czar was living. Here Germans and Russians walked
side by side with Asiatics born in the shadow of the Great Wall of
China or on the shores of the Caspian Sea ; here were Cossacks,
with sheepskins on their backs and little whips, which they called
knouts, twisted round their necks ; flat-nosed Kalmucks, with
bronzed faces ; Bashkirs and Tingous from Siberia, armed with
bows and arrows; Circassian chiefs, wearing pointed helmets like
those of the twelfth century, and shining coats of mail wrought in
polished steel ; and officers covered with crosses and ribbons.
Bliicher wore seventeen upon his breast, and wherever he appeared
was followed by a staring crowd, amazed to see so many proofs of
courage and ability. Suddenly, perhaps, this motley crowd would
be pushed aside by the passing of a number of little light one-
horsed carriages, drawn in the Russian manner by traces made of
bent horses. Many of them were amused at the observations made by the
spectators with regard to their clothes and customs."
1 Another spectacular event was the religious service that was celebrated in
the Place Louis XV with great pomp. The Comte d'Artois had not yet arrived
in Paris. On the day of this service the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia,
and Prince Schwartzenberg as the Austrian Emperor's representative, held a
review of their respective troops, who were drawn up in line, to the number of
80,000, from the Boulevard de 1' Arsenal to the Boulevard de la Madeleine. At
one o'clock Mass was read in the Place Louis XV by a bishop and six priests of
the Greek Church. A Te Deum was sung in gratitude to God for having given
peace to France and the world at large. The allied troops filed past the altar,
which was surrounded by the Parisian National Guard under their commandant.
General Dessoles. (Note by Edmond Bir6, founded on the Journal des D(bats
of Ap. 11, 1814.) 148

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
rope, and driven by coachmen with large red beards, long brown
great-coats, and small low hats. Lying back in these carriages
would be Russian officers, easily recognisable by the long hair that
hung down to their shoulders — a sign of noble birth that
distinguished them from the private soldiers, whose hair was
cut close to their heads. And sometimes in one of these carriages
General Sacken, Governor of Paris, might be seen on his way to
visit the Emperor Alexander.
Much curiosity was roused in the Palais Royal by the numerous
placards affixed to the pillars. One day there was an immense
placard signed by the son of Brissot de Warwille, who, having been
expelled from the Polytechnical School at the instance of Napoleon,
was taking his revenge in the form of the most disgraceful insults.
The police tore out the inner part of the placard, and finally
removed the whole sheet, leaving nothing on the walls but the
advertisement of Chateaubriand's brochure De Buonaparte et des
Bourbons. Under the galleries the Knights of St. Louis were
walking up and down triumphantly with their crosses on their
breasts — the crosses that so long had lain hidden at the back
of a drawer. These were happy men that day : they felt twenty-
five years younger, while the Empress Josephine was flying from
Malmaison to her house in Navarre, and some of the officials
in Paris were also preparing to fly, urged partly by fear and partly
by disgust. They were afraid of the reprisals of the royalists, and
disgusted by the recantations of men whom Napoleon had benefited.
Some of these officials were sad, like Real ; others were indifferent,
like Dacres, who consoled himself by thinking of the large fortune
he had secured during the reign of the Emperor. " Are you rich ? "
he asked Real. — " No." — " So much the worse for you ! / am ! " —
These words were enough to show how little the disruption of the
Empire meant to the man who had been created a duke, and
chosen by his master to fill the honourable office of Minister of
Marine. Guizot, who left the capital at this time, describes in his Memoirs
(Vol. I., p. 25) the impression that he took away with him of the
moral anarchy from which France was then suffering. For nothing
less than anarchy was the result of all these incongruities, all these
opposing interests, all this brandishing of royalist emblems in the
faces of the imperialists and republicans — for republicanism had
latterly gained ground among the people, as the sorrows of their
country increased. And what was still more plainly to be seen was
149

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
the universal hopelessness that was sapping the energy of the whole
population. They were weary and nerveless, and looked for no
future but the unexpected. The nation, said Guizot, was com
pletely crippled, which is the only explanation of its submission to
the Bourbons, those unknown princes who had been out of the
country for a quarter of a century and could only make themselves
acceptable by promising peace and an end to the general distress.
It explains, too, the desertion of so many officials, who had had no
reason for any feeling but self-congratulation, having received
nothing but favours from the Emperor. In every class the prevail
ing feeling was fatigue, and even satiety of military glory. All the
most energetic men had died upon the field of battle. Those who
were left found that all their valour was required to support
the women and children and old men. The days of the Directory
seemed to have returned.1
If at this moment public life resumed its normal course, it was
not the provisional government that gave it the initial impulse.
As a bough that is bent back will straighten itself when the hand
that holds it is removed, so everything that had been arrested by
the war returned to its usual state. The roads being again
open the stage-coaches resumed their regular service ; the letters
that had been accumulating for three months in the post offices,
because the post-masters had taken their horses and fled before the
enemy, were delivered at their destinations. Provisions arrived in
1 There were, however, some people who regretted the establishment of peace
and the fall of Napoleon. They preferred war. De Rougement in Le Rodew
Francais (Vol. I., p. 69), gives an imaginary dialogue between two bourgeois.
He had borrowed the spirit if not the letter of it from a conversation he had
heard. "As he spoke M. Duperre' drew us towards the chftteau. When we
entered M. de Leyre was still holding his son's letter in his hand. I congratulated
him on his son's return. ' Eh ! monsieur,' he said ; ' you should, on the contrary,
pity me. I don't know what to do with the boy, now. His occupation is gone.'
— 'But was it not against his wish and yours that he entered the service?'—
' Certainly ; but after all, the thing was done, and I thought that with our
interest and a little luck he might have made his way as well as anyone. Did
not one of his brothers die a major ? ' — ' But that is a reason for being glad that
he should escape a similar misfortune. ' — 'You may say what you like ; one is very
much pleased to have a field-officer in one's family.' — ' Yes, indeed,' said Mme.
de Germany quickly, ' and here is a mother who is robbed of that happiness,
In the old days we could at least marry generals, colonels, councillors of state,
and especially judges. I know very well that as a rule these gentlemen do not
necessarily bring happiness to their wives, but their name and rank flatter one's
pride and vanity, and that is a pleasure not to be despised. One might begin by
marrying a captain, and by a series of widowhoods one might attain to a general
of division. Changes of that kind had their advantages. Nowadays one must
spend one's whole life with the man one first marries. Oh ! ' said Mme. de
Germany with a sigh, 'an ambitious career for women is a thine of the
past !'..."
150

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
Paris as usual, and the markets of Sceaux and Poissy were
abundantly supplied. By April the 6th the Treasury was issuing
money and cheques ; and the names of the lyc&es were changed.
The Lycee Napoleon was called Lycee Henri IV; the Lycee
Bonaparte Lycee Bourbon; and the Lycee Imperial was named
Lycee Louis-le-Grand, and replaced its drum by a bell.
The Conservatoire de Musique summoned its pupils to their
neglected exercises. Defaulting conscripts were released from the
hulks ; General Lecourbe was reinstated in the distinguished
military position that his talent and courage deserved ; and certain
prefects who were unpopular in their departments were removed.
The political prisoners in the Chateau de Saumur, the Abbe
d'Astros and the Abbe Perraut, were set free after four years
of captivity ; as were also the cardinals confined at Alais, and the
priests at Ham. Others who were released were the two hundred
and thirty-six seminarists of the diocese of Ghent who had been
forced to serve in the artillery because they took the Pope's part
against the Emperor; and the Marquis de Puyvert, the King's
agent in the South, who had been arrested at Belleville on the
12th March, 1804. Cardinal de Maury, on the other hand, exiled
himself from Paris and went off to his diocese of Montefiascone.
The seals of the government were immediately affixed to the doors
of the Archbishop's Palace.
Another sign of the times was a series of silly demonstrations.
The market-women demanded an audience of the Emperor
Alexander that they might pay him their respects, and the students
made the same request to the King of Prussia, who was living
in the Hotel de Villeroi, Rue de Lille ; the regiments of the
National Guard adorned their hats with the white cockade ; fifteen
hundred French prisoners were taken by some Prussian soldiers to
the Boulevard de la Madeleine, and liberated there in the name of
the King, shouting " Vivent les Bourbons " ; Louis XVIII's portrait
was engraved, and exhibited in the libraries and shop windows, side
by side with low pamphlets directed against Napoleon ; the
generals vied with one another in their haste to send in letters of
eager submission to the provisional government ; all the young men,
whether bourgeois or aristocrats, added their names to M. de
Noailles' list of volunteers for the royal guard ; and Cambaceres,
even Cambaceres, who had only just arrived from Blois, enlisted
under the new flag as a petty official. He had been heard to say :
What do I care for History? An address that was presented
151

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
to the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia contained these
words : " You were summoned hither by our prayers, which
furthered your holy crusade against the scourge of nations, against
that monster who was no countryman of ours." Finally, on
April the 10th, the Chateau de Vincennes opened its gates to the
enemy. The theatres were thoroughly in touch with this movement.
The Theatre des Varietes announced Le Souper cTHenri IV and
La Chaumiere Bearnaise ; the Vaudeville Les Clefs de Paris or Le
Dejeuner dHenri IV ; the Opera Comique revived Henri IV, ou la
BataUle dlvry ; the Opera gave La Vestale instead of Trajan, and
Tivoli advertised the attractions of its rural walks.
There were at that time only two monarchs in Paris : the Czar
Alexander and the King of Prussia. The Emperor of Austria,
who was following them, preferred to do so at some distance, being
embarrassed by the presence of his daughter, the Empress Marie
Louise, at Orleans. At Dijon he had led an isolated life in the
Hotel de Dampierre, where he spent his days in his own room with
his face glued to the window-panes, trying to find some distraction
in the scene without. The inhabitants of the town, observing this
peculiarity, nicknamed him the Emperor under glass. After this
he had travelled by short stages towards Rambouillet, skirting
round Paris, which he apparently wished to avoid, possibly because
he regretted that his daughter no longer reigned there. The
deposed Empress had come to meet him at Rambouillet, and he
did not leave her till he felt assured that if she were carefully
watched she would allow herself to be taken to Austria, and would
not join the Emperor Napoleon. It was for this reason that he
only arrived in Paris on April 15th, three days after the Comte
d'Artois. The two other sovereigns had arranged their lives on the model
of the rich bourgeoisie. The Emperor Alexander, who was a
lover of pleasure, made himself agreeable to the beautiful women
of France, and would gladly have won favour from them. The
Empress Josephine, whose fears were now allayed, succeeded in
attracting him to Malmaison, where he visited her frequently.
He was greatly charmed by the grace, the caressing manners, and
the languishing voice of the sympathetic Creole.
All this did not prevent him from being compassionate. He
visited the hospitals where the wounded were being cared for,
and assuaged their sufferings with generous gifts. The King of
152

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
Prussia's tastes were more peculiar. He sought distraction in places
of popular amusement, such as the Montagues Russes,1 where he
would seat himself in the car besides strange ladies, who were
quite unaware of the identity of this phlegmatic and unsociable
individual. Frederick William cherished the memory of his wife,
Queen Louise, from whom he had been parted by death ; and if he
entered one of the cars in question, or followed some alluring
petticoat in the street, it was always because he was attracted by
a resemblance to the woman he still mourned. De Vitrolles
describes in his memoirs how the Prussian monarch at this time
often made a tryst on the terrace of the Tuileries with the
beautiful Comtesse de Saint-A. who had, he thought, the same
expression and the same endearing manners as his dead wife. De
Vitrolles only gives us the lady's initials. (Vol. II., p. 153).
The monarchs never visited the small theatres. They were
present at the performances given in their honour at the Opera
Comique and the Opera, where the Imperial Eagle on Napoleon's
box had been swathed in a large piece of white cloth. At the
Mint they were received by Denon, who had a medal struck in
their presence, bearing their effigies, and below them the date of the
visit. Alexander was very religious, and went to Mass every day
in the chapel that had been built on purpose for him at the
Ministry of Marine. The King of Prussia made his Easter
Communion at the Temple de l'Oratoire, where he declined the
arm-chair that was provided for his use during the service, and
seated himself on a bench. He was more literary in his tastes
than Alexander, and when he visited the buildings of the Legis
lative Body the library was open at his request, and Cicero's De
Officiis brought for him to see. This was the copy whose margins
had been covered with manuscript notes by the Dauphin, Louis
XVIII's father. The Prussian King lived a solitary and quiet life,
and took a less active part in the Parisian movement than
Alexander, who received complimentary visits from the royalist
nobles, and admitted to his table not only the Montmorencys and
de Noailles, but even Bellart the lawyer, whose famous manifesto
had decided the fate of Napoleon.
1 The Montagnes Rtisses somewhat resembled the switchback railway.
(Translator's Note.)

153

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII

VI
As soon as the Comte d'Artois was installed in the Tuileries the
Emperor Alexander left the house in the Rue Florentin where the
provisional government held its meetings, and took up his abode in
the Elysee Bourbon. This tactful step was intended to show that
he had no wish to interfere with the prince's influence. But the
King's brother concerned himself very little with politics during
these first days of his life in Paris, being altogether ignorant of
French affairs. The pleasure of being surrounded by his little
Court in the sumptuous rooms of the palace of his ancestors was
quite enough for him : he thought of nothing but his princely
position, and the enjoyment of the passing hour. The deputa
tions sent from the provinces read addresses to him, in which the
towns recalled their royalist traditions in simple, heartfelt terms —
speeches such as the sheriffs and bailiffs of old days had addressed
to the Kings of France on their travels. To these naive and
affectionate expressions of devotion the prince responded — why
should we not admit it? — with the genuine emotion that his
happiness inspired. Every word that was spoken breathed
of hope and confidence; and it rested with the Bourbons alone
to endow these first signs of reconciliation and oblivion of
the past with a character of permanence. This they were not
willing, or were not able, to do. The absence that had made
them lose touch with the people had made it impossible for them
to understand the people's new ideals.
But for the moment the outburst of joy and devotion was
universal. Every general in Paris wished to be presented to the prince, and
the officials of the imperial Court of Blois, having returned with
all possible haste, demanded the same honour. They could not
live without doing homage to someone. The vestibule, staircases,
and rooms of the Tuileries were constantly swarming with a
clamorous crowd. They were never empty. Receptions followed
one another in quick succession : there was a reception for
Monsieur's old bodyguard and that of the Comte d'Artois; for
the former officers of Conde's army; x for those who had held any
1 Among these old officers the Baron de Queville, the Chevalier de Combettes,
and the Chevalier Deslandes were especially noticeable. The Comte d'Artois
said to them : " The heart of the Bourbons is your guarantee that nothing that
has been done for them can be forgotten."
154

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
command in the Royal Navy or in any of the regiments of Louis
XVI ; and, as at Livry, they appeared in their antique costumes.
The prince recognised none of them ; but what matter ! They
were made happy with a smile and a bow. They had seen the
prince again — their prince ! On the day that was consecrated
to the ladies many an intriguing, pushing woman, trusting to the
magnificence of her gown, came to swell the already crowded
ranks of the grandes dames. Pasquier, who had been Prefect of
Police under the Empire, and was present in a professional capacity,
recognised several to whom no drawing-room in Paris would have
been open — Mme. Montansier among others, the manageress of
the Theatre des Varietes, a woman of no reputation. He
hastened to point them out to the prince's first gentleman-in-
waiting, M. de Maille, who told the ushers to beg these ladies to
go away, which they did without making a scene.
It was a delight to him — to the Comte d'Artois, the new host at
the palace — to be the object of all this flattery and homage. He
felt himself a prince at last, and in the joy of it forgot the
tragedies of the times, forgot the presence of the foreign armies,
who were as arrogant and exacting, as rapacious and destructive,
as though the war had been still raging. Perpetual complaints of
oppression and robbery poured in from the people to the
provisional government. The prince knew nothing of all this
distress. He gave all his attention to his own happiness, imagining
he could make it permanent. He said to his familiars that as his
brother was so infirm that he could neither mount a horse, nor
review the troops, nor walk about a drawing-room throwing smiles
to the ladies, it would be to himself, as the King's brother, that
these honours would fall. The elder brother, being tied by his
sufferings to an arm-chair or a writing-table, would have only an
illusory kind of authority, and it would necessarily be in his own
active and healthy person that the ideals of the reign would find
expression. And his opinions were well known !
His own associates, the men whom he had brought back with
him from exile, said nothing to disillusion him. They all thought
that the old monarchy of the last century had been restored ; and
when, in the Moniteur, they read the phrase in which the prince
was reported to have answered the address of welcome, — that
nothing was changed in France ; there was merely one more French
man than before — there was an outburst of wrath among them.
What — nothing changed ! Were the infamous laws of Bonaparte
155

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
to rule the kingdom still ? Was divorce still to be legal ? Was
not the law of primogeniture to be restored ? Was the education
of the young still to be tainted with hateful doctrines ? And had
not the Senate, the degraded body that was composed of the
usurper's supporters, dared to present a Constitution for the King's
acceptance ? And was the tricolour, the rag that was stained with
the blood of so many innocent victims, still to defile the public
buildings and royal palaces? All this, they said, would merely
be a repetition of the Revolution to which they had refused to
submit, preferring to resign themselves to twenty-five years of
misery !
Many royalists, especially those of the south and west, were
obsessed by this hatred of the modern spirit ; and in the salons
of the lesser noblesse, whose moderate incomes obliged them almost
to live the lives of hermits, there was a very strong feeling of
opposition to the untoward phrase, which seemed to put an end to
all hope of change. The Comte d'Artois himself, seeing so much
agitation among the royalists, became troubled by the memory of
the unhappy phrase, and sent the Comte de Bruges to Hartwell to
warn his brother that the modern party in France intended to
oppose every kind of change. The Emperor Alexander, however,
who was better informed on the subject of public opinion in France
— partly through his own shrewdness and partly through his
intercourse with men of all parties — despatched his own councillor
Pozzo di Borgo to the King, begging him to hasten his return and
by no means to refuse a liberal Constitution to his re-captured
country ; the Constitution, in short, that had received the sanction
of the Senate. Almost at the same moment Fouche, having
returned to Paris from Illyria, where his term of governorship had
just expired, eagerly involved himself in public affairs ; not openly,
for he had not the right — to his great regret — but clandestinely,
by addressing a memorial to the King. Lubis, in his history of
the Restoration, has given us the most important passages in this
document. " It is because we genuinely wish for the restoration of the
Bourbons to the throne of France," wrote Fouche, " that we must
wish them to be deaf to those stupid or false advisers who urge
them to become the centre of a party rather than the fathers of
an entire nation, to demolish the work they find accomplished and
oppose the ideas they find established, at the risk of re-kindling
the passions of the people, of irritating and embittering their self-
156

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
esteem, and of diffusing an atmosphere of distrust whose conse
quences would be incalculable."
" It will certainly be the fault of the advisers in question if the
nation be once more plunged into a state of bewilderment, agitation,
and distress, and it will not be owing to them if these misfortunes
do not soon arise. The shops are papered with their lampoons
and constitutions. Bonaparte, who was not noticeably liberal in
the matter of concessions, left us none the less two consolation
prizes : trial by jury and national representation. Our modern
purists will have none of them. Happily the King will be less
royalist than these folk. His mind is too much cultivated and his
soul too lofty for such views. His studies and his taste for science
and literature have brought him so closely into contact with
educated men that one need have no fear lest his reign should have
a reactionary influence upon the nineteenth century. The war that
will be waged in our day against liberal opinions will certainly cost
the country more than the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes ; and
in any case will be more dangerous for the aggressors than for
those who are attacked."
Lubis adds that this paper made a great impression on Louis
XVIII ; but, in the face of all this contradictory advice, his
characteristic indecision prevented him from making up his mind.
The provisional government, of course, was at this time the only
legal and official authority, the only authority invested with
sovereign power. But it was upon the Comte d'Artois, though
he had as yet no authorised position, that the eyes of the ambitious
were fixed. This was an equivocal state of things, from both points
of view. The authority of the men whom the Senate had entrusted
with the supreme power was now really nominal. It was therefore
necessary that this power should be conferred upon the King's
brother ; and that the Senate should make some official recognition
of his claims. Now, between the Comte d'Artois and the Senate
stood the Constitution that the prince refused to accept. He had
returned to France as a " legitimate " prince ; he was the repre
sentative of the King, and the King, like himself, was " legitimate,"
and not a constitutional King. Both sides stood upon their
dignity. The Senate entrenched itself behind the Constitution :
it had abstained from paying its respects to the prince, and the
prince did not show the least desire to receive it.
The Emperor Alexander watched these skirmishes discon
solately, and even irritably. He was well-disposed towards the
157

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Senate, whose protector he had tacitly constituted himself. It
was to him that this political body had announced the completion
of its labours ; and he had accepted the compliment without any
further remark, or indication of his own opinion. In his eyes the
Constitution was the corner-stone on which the dynasty must lean.
He hesitated no longer. He felt it his duty to intervene, and
reconcile these two rival powers. He visited the Comte d'Artois
at the Tuileries, and gave him two alternatives : to return to
London, or to submit, at all events ostensibly, to the decisions to
the Senate. He spoke loudly : he spoke firmly. The Comte
d'Artois yielded without a struggle, and the Senate, on being
received at the Tuileries, gave him the title of Lieutenant-
General of the kingdom. From that moment the recently-formed
government acted only in the name of the Lieutenant-General. A
provisional Council of State was created, by the addition of
Marshals Moncey and Oudinot to the members of the Government,
with General Dessolles, commandant of the National Guard of the
Seine, and de Vitrolles as Under Secretary of State. The next
step was to despatch special commissioners to the provinces, with
instructions to soothe the prevailing anxiety, to carry the hope of
better days into the devastated districts, and to atone for past
injustice by removing certain unpopular officials. " Take Hope
to the people," said the Lieutenant-General to the commissioners,
" and bring back Truth to the King." The Due de Doudeauville
was sent to Mezieres ; Marshal Kellermann to Metz ; Roger de
Damas to Nancy ; the Chevalier de Lasalle to Strasbourg ; the
Marquis de Champagne to Besancon ; Auguste de Juigne^ to
Grenoble ; the Comte de Boisjelin to Toulon ; the Vicomte
d'Osmont to Montpellier ; the Comte Jules de Polignac to
Toulouse ; the Comte Dejean to Bordeaux ; Gilbert des Voisins to
La Rochelle ; the Comte de Ferrieres to Rheims ; de Begoulx to
Rouen ; the Due de Plaisance to Caen ; Marshal Mortier to Lille ;
General de Nansouty to Dijon ; de Noailles to Lyon ; General
Marescot to Perigueux ; Otto to Bourges ; Mathieu de Mont
morency to Tours.
Most of these men, however, were aristocrats imbued with all
the prejudices of their order, and had little influence to boast of.
They had never lived among the people, and the majority of them
had recently returned from exile. Yesterday they had been
private citizens of no account ; to-day they were all-powerful. As
they travelled through the country they must have seemed to the
158

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
people to be brilliant creatures, indeed, to be stared at and envied,
but not to be trusted. They returned, having done more harm
than good ; having aroused the royalist passions in the districts
where they slumbered, and excited distrust among the undecided.
It was too early for a step of this kind. In these first weeks of
chaos, when every heart was disquieted and the whole country was
trembling with misery or passion, the interests of the State were
subordinated to the interests of the individual. Every district
thought only of its own concerns. Bordeaux had declared for the
monarchy because the cellars of her merchants held the fruits of
five harvests still unsold, and the Bourbons promised peace, which
meant the opening of the trading-ports, and had also promised the
suppression of the droits reunis, which were a source of much annoy
ance to the owners of wine-estates. The merchants and shipowners
already, in imagination, saw the trading-vessels once more taking
their flight towards the high seas, laden with enormous casks full
of the delicious wines of Medoc, and returning with a cargo of
wool, and timber, and sugar, and the colonial produce that the
blockade had made so rare. It was for this reason that the streets
and buildings of this splendid town were decked with white flags.
The neighbouring town of La Rochelle had an equal number of
reasons for accepting the ancient dynasty. For the last ten years
her harbour had been blockaded by English ships. When the
news of Napoleon's abdication came from Paris, the crews of the
English ships landed and fraternised with the French. There were
fetes on board the English ships for the ladies of La Rochelle, who
returned the compliment by sending fresh provisions to the sailors.
For English and French alike, it was a day of jubilation. Past
hostilities were forgotten in unanimous cries of Vivent les Bourbons !
Lyons had escaped bombardment by opening her gates to the
Allies. Augereau, who was in command there, had declared
against Napoleon, and the reassured townfolk rallied round the
white flag. Marseilles, which had always been neglected by
Napoleon, lost no time in throwing down all the statues of the
Emperor ; and in response to the salutes and fluttering white flags
of the English vessels the people of the Canebiere crowded into
little boats and boarded the ship of the officer in command, whom
they carried ashore in triumph. The mob shouted : Vive Louis
XVIII! Vive le roi Georges ! In the theatre that evening the
actors sang a song set to the air of 0 Richard, 6 mon roi ; the
words being O Louis, 6 mon roi, Funivers te couronne ! The same
159

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
state of things prevailed at Nantes, and in every place where per
sonal grievances had aroused violent political feeling.
In Burgundy, on the contrary, which had been terribly
devastated by the invasion, there was still a passionate desire to
wreak vengeance on the Allies ; and as it was felt that none but
Napoleon was capable of thus retaliating upon the invaders, the
whole province remained faithful to imperialism. So also did the
districts that were traversed by canals, where the barges had been
in full work ever since the beginning of the blockade. Here
Napoleon's popularity was undiminished, and the cheers for the
Bourbons met with no response. In Paris, too, in the quarters
inhabited by working-men, the first feeling of surprise had worn
off, and the foreigners were regarded with the liveliest hostility.
The prisoners who had returned from Germany or England told
their friends in the little cafes and taverns that the defeat of the
French armies was entirely due to treason. They gave a heart
rending account of their sufferings in the wretched gaols where they
had been imprisoned ; and if any of the foreign soldiers ventured
alone into the more remote places of entertainment they were
attacked, and often killed. Every evening someone was missing
when the roll was called. The French officers, moreover, found it
intolerable to have heavy Germans and long-haired Russians
elbowing them at their tables in the restaurants, and constant
provocations arose, which always resulted in deadly duels.
Much ridicule, too, was aroused by the pious habits of the
Lieutenant-General, who went to Mass every day attended by his
almoner the Abbe Latil. The Abbe carried the prayer-book,
presented the holy water, and took the prince's hat, which he held
throughout the service. And there was another sign of the times.
The bourgeoisie, while well-disposed towards the Bourbons, were
still somewhat unsatisfied and inclined to Jacobinism, and gave an
enthusiastic reception to a brochure recently published by M. de
Durbach, a member of the Legislative Body, and a brother-in-law
of General Mortier. The auther demanded a fresh contract ; a
contract between the Bourbons and the nation. This was a
reflection on what the royalists called the " the legitimacy " ; it
was a recognition of the need for a Constitution ; it was practically
saying to the Bourbons : " The nation is the sovereign power.
You are to reign, not in virtue of an innate right, but in virtue
of the people's consent. Your princely title gives you no rights
whatever." 160

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
However, all the journals in Paris were royalist in sentiment,
and overpowered these premonitory sounds with their songs of
triumph. The imperialist press had disappeared, owing to the
bold action of Morin the police officer, who had placed all the
newspapers under the supervision of a strict censor. And a
torrent of lampoons aimed at the fallen Emperor diverted atten
tion from the Bourbons and saved them from unduly penetrating
eyes, by making Napoleon the most common subject of discussion
and disagreement. The royalist papers used every means for the
aggrandisement of their princes.
Every evening at the theatres, they declared, the least episode
bearing on the history of the dynasty was made the occasion of
an outburst of cheers. Three days after his arrival in Paris the
Comte d'Artois attended a performance at the Opera, which was
also honoured by the presence of the two allied sovereigns. The
imperial box, transformed into a royal box, was draped with
blue velvet with a pattern of golden fleurs-de-lys. When the
orchestra played the national anthem the Comte d'Artois un
covered ; and a voice cried : " Stand up, stand up ! The King is
there ! " The whole house rose, said the newspapers with much
emotion on the following morning.
Lieutenant-General the Comte d'Artois assumed the responsi
bility of all the actions of the provisional government, accepting
it with a light heart. Never was there a more useless prince,
nor one who served his country less, than this returned exile
who had brought all the prejudices of Versailles back with him.
He could talk of nothing but white plumes and white cockades,
and his ancestor Henri IV, whose heart he claimed to possess,
if not his talent. He signed all the ordinances and decrees that
were set before him; signed them blindly and trustingly, nor
ever asked how much good or evil might result from his signature
on a piece of paper. He never reasoned, nor asked for informa
tion ; and he postponed every serious decision to the morrow.
His whole time was spent in receiving congratulations. It was
on April 23rd, ten days after his arrival in Paris, that the prince
was asked by Talleyrand — since the treaty of peace between
France and the allied Powers was not yet concluded — to sign
the temporary agreement that had been made with the foreign
plenipotentiaries. By this agreement France was sadly diminished;
her frontiers became those of 1792. Fifty-three fortified places
occupied by French troops, all the materials of war that they
161 m

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
contained, everything that was not private property, all the
stores of artillery and ammunition, provisions of every kind,
archives, inventories, plans, maps, models, all became the spoil
of the victors ; and by a single stroke of the pen 1,500,000,000
francs were lost to the country. The Ionian Islands, the strong
holds of Belgium and the Rhine, of Piedmont and Lombardy, and
the great fortified towns of the North, Hamburg and Dantzig,
which still contained thirty thousand men, were delivered to
foreign garrisons. At Mayence there were five hundred mounted
guns : these were lost. The fortified harbours of France contained
thirty-two ships of the line, twelve frigates, and many other war
ships. All these men-of-war hoisted foreign flags, and changed
their nationality. Nothing was forgotten. "Contemporary
writers," says Vaulabelle, " declared that several millions were the
price of this egregious surrender, made by Talleyrand to the Allies.1
Is this a calumny ? We do not think so."
Talleyrand had the strongest reasons for being anxious about
the future. King Louis XVIII was less complacent and more
acute than his brother ; and from the King Talleyrand expected
no good. Moreover his public honour and his personal reputation
had been dragged in the mud. He was treated everywhere with
disrespect ; indeed, he was not only despised, but hated by the
populace. The people would gather round his windows, shouting :
" Down with the Bishop of Autun ! Down with the renegade ! "
Was it likely, when the King saw this kind of thing taking place,
that he would accept Talleyrand's services ? The royalist
journals, too, were delighted to strike a blow at the cynicism of
this much-discussed individual, and made him feel the extreme
precariousness of his position in the Ministry.
They reminded him that he was married, and that his wife was
in the habit of going to his house quite openly. Nothing annoyed
him so much as the exposure of this disgraceful circumstance.
When he betrayed Napoleon and sided against him he had not
thought of all this. Feeling himself in danger be took precautions
against a possible fall. The change of dynasty had robbed him
of the greater part of his immense revenues, and therefore it was
only just, he considered, that it should yield him enough to
1 De Vaulabelle adds (Vol. II., p. 51) : "Still more than this was done. The
import duties on various commodities, on cotton among others, were reduced at
one blow. There were towns and whole provinces, sucn as Normandy, where the
entire commercial world was obliged to go bankrupt. . . . Wherever one turned
one's eyes, one could see nothing but ruin, disorder, and confusion."
162

ROYALIST FEELING IN PARIS
redeem his losses.1 The giddy, volatile Lieutenant-General was a
mere plaything in the hands of the cunning diplomatist.
On the 21st April, two days before the signing of the convention,
the Due de Berry had arrived in Paris, where he had been received
very affectionately by his father the Comte d'Artois. He had left
Jersey for Cherbourg on the 15th April, accompanied by the
Comte de la Ferronays, his first gentleman-in-waiting, the Comte
de Nantouillet, his chief equerry, and the Comtes de Clermont and
de Menars, his gentlemen-of-honour. As soon as he was installed
in the Prefecture Maritime all the authorities of the town called
upon him, to assure him of their devotion to the new dynasty.
The consciences of all these officials, it would appear, were as supple
as those of the officials in Paris. The prefect made a point of
presenting to the young duke not only his own family, but some
ladies of the noblesse, Mesdames de Moncas and de Laurency.
During the dinner it was impossible to prevent the crowd from
invading the room where the prince was sitting at his meal. As
they passed they looked at him with a sort of delirious joy. After
dinner the town was splendidly illuminated, and a kind of Court
was held, to enable this scion of the Bourbons to enjoy the
enthusiasm of his new admirers. After this he drove through the
streets of the town in an open carriage, which was followed by the
enraptured crowd. From Cherbourg he journeyed to Bayeux
surrounded by a guard of honour recruited from the department
of Calvados, and by the National Guard of Cherbourg. From
Bayeux he took the road to Caen, still accompanied by his guard
of honour, who refused to leave him. In that ancient Norman
city there were some political prisoners whom he set at liberty ;

1 The senators thought their ConsV.tution would save them from the conse
quences they feared. M. de Talleyrand did not share this illusion. With the
price of a house that he had sold to the Emperor he had bought a country house
called Saint-Brice, near Saint-Denis. He saw how impossible it would be for
him to keep this house, which would entail a considerable annual outlay. He
tried to get rid of it. No one offered to buy it ; but he was able to secure a
purchaser none the less. He sent for the fermier giniral des jeux and suggested
to him to buy the house. He rejected the suggestion. But it was pointed out
to him that the prince had not sent for him with a view to suffering a refusal :
that he must buy the house, and that if the agreement were not signed within
twenty-four hours his license would be annulled and given to someone else.
The fermier was helpless ; he was dealing with the head of the provisional
government. He asked what price was being put upon the house. The answer
was : two hundred and fifty thousand francs. He paid the amount that same
evening, intending to reimburse himself out of the pockets of the gamblers. M.
de Talleyrand's presentiments cannot have been very reassuring if he found it
necessary to use such means as these to get rid of everything that might prove
difficult to realise. (De Rovigo's Mimoires, Vol. VII. )
163 m 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
and in the theatre that evening the prefect, a shrewd courtier and
fatuous official, made them appear on the stage. When the
curtain was raised they were seen upon their knees, surrounded by
their wives and children, with their hands stretched out in gratitude
towards their liberator. The Journal des Debats records these
facts without wincing ; yet the incident was mean and vulgar, and
might have pleased a Roman Emperor. From Caen the Due de
Berry proceeded to Rouen, where he entered the town to the
ringing of bells, and was welcomed by a new guard of honour,
commanded by M. de Slade, of the Norman noblesse.
The next day's journey took him to Paris. His elder brother the
Due d'Angouleme was to arrive there later, when there should be
no more incense to be had from the people of Bordeaux, among
whom he was living in almost kingly state.1
And now France was awaiting the King — the King who was
already called Louis le Desire.
1 The Journal des Dibats recieved the following communication from Agen
on the 26th April : — " M. le prefet returned from Bordeaux on the 23rd and left
Agen again on the evening of the 24th for Casteljaloux, in order to receive Mon
seigneur le due d'Angouleme on the borders of the department. His Royal
Highness, who is going to Toulouse, on the left bank of the Garonne, slept at
Casteljaloux on the 25th. He dined to-day at Nerac, where so many memories
of the good Henri are still alive in the contemporary monuments of that great
king, and in the hearts of the faithful Gascons. H.R.H. will sleep to-night at
Condom, will spend part of the 27th at Auch, and will proceed to Toulouse in
the evening of the same day. As he is to travel back to Bordeaux, on the right
bank of the Garonne, the inhabitants of Agen hope to be favoured with the
Prince's presence on the 30th April, or the 10th May at latest. On Saturday
last the Comte de Pressac, colonel of the army of his Austrian Majesty, knight of
the royal and military order of St. Louis, appointed by H.R.H. the due
d'AngoulSme to the special and provisional command of the departments of Gers and
Lot-et-Garonne, registered his commission at the Prefecture of Lot-et-Garonne,
and also the King's letters patent of the 14th January last, containing the
plenary powers of Mgr. the due d'Angouleme. These letters-patent begin thus :
Louis, by the Grace of God King of France and Navarre."

164

CHAPTER V
KING LOUIS XVIII

Louis XVIII's chief characteristic was indecision. In forming
a resolution he was apt to exercise so much prudence that the
matter was indefinitely postponed. During his exile he had
often pondered over the form of government most suitable to the
kingdom for which he was waiting, but he could not make up
his mind on the subject ; and when he received the news from
France that he was at last about to be King — a real King,
recognised by all the European powers — his indecision became
greater than ever. He would willingly have left Hartwell at once
if he could have been sure of landing on his native soil without
being confronted too soon with the conditions of those who
were recalling him. For he regarded the authority of the King as
a matter that was above discussion. This was his creed, and
could by no means be altered. Moreover, Lamartine has told us
how M. de Blacas and the Duchesse d'Angouleme, " the one a man
of reactionary views, and the other an embittered and strong-
minded princess, encouraged him in his superstition that his
sovereign power could be shared with none." When he wrote
to the town of Bordeaux that he was about to return like a father
concerned with his children's happiness he was not employing
a figure of speech, nor describing the form of his future government
in metaphor ; he was stating what he believed to be a fact. He
intended his reign to be that of a good, well-meaning -monarch,
who would refuse to be harassed or argued with, because he knew
better than his subjects what was good for them. What more
could France desire ?
He knew nothing of the changes that had been brought about
in France by twenty-five years of war, and imperial administration,
165

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
and the glory of a hundred victories. It was hardly likely that
this kind of paternal government would be acceptable to a people
who had marched victoriously across Europe, and had made
their laws the laws of the world. This nation had broken the
yoke of Napoleon : would it accept that of an unknown old
man ? Between Paris and Hartwell the emissaries of the Emperor
Alexander and the Comte d'Artois were running backwards
and forwards with urgent despatches in their pockets. The
King could not make up his mind. Paris, which was tired of
war, was growing angry, and the Comte de Montalembert was
sent across the Channel to bring back the King's definite
decision and an assurance that he might be expected to arrive
shortly. On the morning of the 19th April Madame de Gontaut, who
was staying with a friend in London, heard four post-horses
galloping down the street. They were adorned with white
cockades, and were bringing back the Comte d'Artois' envoy from
the King's house at Hartwell. She rushed out, she writes, and
in a moment recognised the noble courier. " I have the King's
promise," he said to her. " He has given in. To-morrow he
will be in London, and soon afterwards in Paris. He is wanted
there." The passers-by in the streets of London, seeing the
white cockades of the envoy and his servants, knew that the
restoration of the Bourbons was an accomplished fact, and
instantly broke out into the wildest manifestations of enthusiasm.
The Exchange and the streets in its neighbourhood rang with
cheers. The deposition of 'Napoleon and the recall of the
Bourbons meant the beginning of a new era for England, whose
treasury had been drained, in the course of the past twenty-five
years, in sustaining a Titanic war : it meant the suppression
of crushing taxes ; it meant peace, and the return to British
shores of the merchant fleets that had been kept inactive
by the blockade; it meant the development of the interrupted
commercial enterprises which this nation of shopkeepers was
so unwearied in pursuing. It was the triumph of English policy
and English pride — the pride that is so deeply rooted even in the
lowest strata of the nation.1
1 Lamartine, in his Histoire de la Restauration (Vol. I. , p. 254), says : " The fallof
Napoleon, and the restoration to the throne of France of a brother of Louis XVI
was regarded by the English as one of the greatest achievements in their
history. . . . The King's entry into London was as solemn and as regal as his
entry into his own capital."
166

'Ai
The Duchesse d'Angouleme.

KING LOUIS XVIII
The Comtesse de Gontaut returned to the house, where she and
her friend hastily began to manufacture white cockades, which
they threw into the street. The crowd demanded a constant
supply, and fastened them to their coats and hats in such numbers
that the heart of the old city was soon full of these badges. " In
a few hours," says the Comtesse de Gontaut, " as if by magic, the
hat of every man, woman, and child, and all the carriages and
omnibuses were adorned with the white cockade, and were carrying
it away to distant parts of the town."
The Prince Regent heard the news. On the following day he
left London for Stanmore, near Hartwell, with three royal car
riages, in which the new King and his gentlemen were to accompany
him on his return. The Regent's brothers formed his escort, and
were followed by a brilliant staff. The postilions were dressed in
white tunics, and wore white hats with cockades. The little town
was decorated with flags — the oriflamme of France — and the
inhabitants were waiting impatiently at the windows. A number
of distinguished men had formed a cavalcade, and went forward to
meet the illustrious traveller, on a road that was almost blocked
with foot-passengers, and vehicles full of sight-seers, all eager to
watch the unwonted spectacle. Soon the carriage from Hartwell
was signalled ; the English Regent went forward to help the King
to alight, and the two princes embraced each other effusively.
After this everyone took his appointed place. In the Regent's
carriage were Louis XVIII and the Duchesse d'Angouleme ; and in
the next were the Prince de Conde and the Due de Bourbon ;
and in the first of the others were the Dues d'Havre and de
Grammont and the Comte de Blacas. From Stanmore to London
the carriages drove at a foot's pace, amid a crowd that grew larger
every moment. They arrived at last at the Hotel Crillon, where
the Regent had engaged the finest suite of rooms. Louis XVIII
found the entrance to the hotel lined with a guard of a hundred
men, who were there by the English prince's orders, and had white
flags in their hands and white cockades in their hats. As the
carriages passed through the streets they had been greeted from
the windows with the shrill acclamations of young ladies in
gala dress. Everywhere the joy was intense, and Louis XVIII
was greatly moved. He sat in an armchair in the middle of the
hotel's largest room, with the Regent and the Duchesse d'Angouleme
at his right side, the Regent's brother, the Duke of York, on
bis left, and the Prince de Conde and Due de Bourbon facing him,
167

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Round him were the French emigres who were his special friends
and had been presented by him to his host ; and with them were the
English ministers, and the Austrian, Spanish, Russian, and
Portuguese ambassadors (Nettement's Histoire de la Restauration.)
Silence was requested, and the English prince addressed
Louis XVIII :
" Your Majesty will allow me," he said, " to congratulate you
on the great event that has always been one of my most sincere
desires, and must immensely contribute, not only to the happiness
of your Majesty's people, but also to the peace and prosperity of
other nations. I can confidently add that my personal feelings
and wishes are in accord with those of the entire British nation.
The trophies and transports of delight that will mark your
Majesty's entry into your own capital can hardly surpass the joy
that your Majesty's restoration to the throne of your ancestors
has produced in the capital of the British Empire."
Louis XVIII answered :
"I entreat your Royal Highness to accept my heartiest and
most sincere thanks for the congratulations you have just expressed.
My gratitude is especially due for the prolonged attentions I have
received, not only from your Royal Highness, but from every
member of your illustrious house. It is to the counsels of your
Royal Highness, to this glorious land, and to the confidence placed
in us by its inhabitants, that I shall always attribute, under Divine
Providence, the re-establishment of our house upon the throne of
our ancestors, and this happy state of things that makes it possible
to heal the wounds and calm the passions of the past, and to
restore peace, repose, and happiness to every nation."
Before leaving the hotel the King wished to give the Prince
Regent a more tangible mark of his gratitude. He took the
ribbon of the Order of the Holy Ghost, which he was wearing
himself, and hung it round the prince's neck ; whereupon the
latter invested him with the Order of the Garter, and insisted on
fastening it with his own hands. Notwithstanding all his good
will, the Regent said afterwards, maliciously : " When I clasped
his knee, it was exactly as if I were fastening a sash round a young
man's waist ! " 1 The King then enumerated the names of those
1 The Duchesse d'Abrantes gives, in her Mimoires, some interesting details of
Louis XVIII's investiture with the Garter. "The moment that the Prince
Regent saw Louis XVIII," she writes, "he went to meet him and gave him his
arm, and although he (the Regent) was already very fat and had lost the youthful
good looks that had justly won him the name of being the handsomest man in
168

KING LOUIS XVIIl
who were to accompany him to France ; an honour that was craved
not only by all the emigres who had been received at Hartwell,
but also by certain English ladies, of whom Lady Clarendon was
one. The crossing from Dover to Calais was arranged for the following
morning, at eight o'clock. In the evening the Comte de Blacas
contrived to celebrate his marriage with Mile, de Montsoreau,
sister-in-law of the Comte de la Ferronays, who was the Due de
Berry's first gentleman-in-waiting, and became his aide-de-camp
after the Restoration. By dint of much haste and effort he had
brought from France all the documents necessary for the marriage,
which had the King's approval. The Comte de la Ferronays and
his wife, who was a de Montsoreau, had been in the habit of
accompanying the Due de Berry when he visited Hartwell ; and in
the intimacy of the prince's circle, aided by the quietness of the
place, the Comte de Blacas had succeeded in making his love
acceptable to the girl, who was nearly always with her sister on
these occasions. Before midnight, thanks to the foresight and
energy of his young friend, all the preparations were made for the
marriage ceremony, and the bride was ready in her wedding-gown,
with a wreath of orange-blossom on her head. They were married
by a priest in a Catholic chapel, and by eight o'clock on the
following morning were at Dover with the King, who was about to
embark in the Lys, a ship that had been sent to him from France.
The Prince Regent, and the ministers and ambassadors who had
been present on the previous day when the King arrived, were
waiting on the quay to give a last farewell to the exile who had
recovered the throne of his ancestors. The Regent's brother, the
Duke of Clarence, was to go to Calais in the Jason, with a fleet of
eight large vessels.
The sea was covered with light craft, which surrounded the little
fleet, some sailing in the wake of the larger ships and some pre
ceding them. The sea that morning was as gay a sight as the
streets of London had been on the previous day. White pennants
England, he did this with so much grace and distinction that every eye was
upon him. He took Louis XVIII into another room, where he remained with
the two princes (the Duke of York and the Duke of Kent). While the Regent
was holding the chapter of the Order of the Garter the chancellor announced to
such members of the order as were present that his Royal Highness had a Knight
to propose to them, and Louis XVIII was elected. The Duke of York and the
Duke of Kent then went at once to fetch the King, who, for a King who could
not walk, entered the room with a fairly firm step. He knelt down on a velvet
cushion, and the Prince Regent gave him the accolade with his sword and
fastened the garter with his own hand. "
169

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
were fluttering at every mast-head, and the officers of the fleet were
wearing the cockade of the Bourbons. The crossing lasted for two
hours. A few moments before reaching the quay the English ships
ranged themselves in two lines, and allowed the French ship to
pass between them. The beach was crowded with spectators, who
demonstrated their joy noisily in cheer after cheer; and in the
background were the ranks of the whole garrison of Lille, whom
General Maison had brought to Calais, by a forced march, in time
to do honour to Louis XVIII.1 At the head of the regiments the
King found Marshal Moncey, whom he embraced. All the most
distinguished royalists had hastened from Paris : they came to
take up the offices they or their fathers had formerly held at
Louis XVI's Court at Versailles — such of them, at least, as were
privileged, in accordance with the order of service, to take part
in the day's procession. As the royal carriage, drawn by sixteen
richly dressed citizens of Calais, passed on its way to the church,
where a Te Deum was to be sung, a great number of women
crowded round it, most of whom were weeping.2 The King lifted
his hat, and laid his hand upon his heart. The mayor of the town
had done homage in his own name and that of the people he
represented, and the King had answered " that, since the days of
Philippe de Valois, the town of Calais had given endless proofs to
its Kings of its love and fidelity. He counted upon its attachment,
and the town might count upon his protection."
In these hours of thoughtless enthusiasm and obsequious servility
men who in other circumstances were capable of showing pride and
strength of mind degraded themselves by actions of the most
outrageous sycophancy. For instance, by the mayor's suggestion,
a bronze plate was sunk in the ground on the spot where Louis
XVIII's foot had first pressed the soil of France. Some time after
wards Reboul saw this plate when he was visiting Calais ; and in his
anxiety to find an excuse for such undignified servility he reminded
himself that Calais, since the Bourbons' restoration, had recovered
her commercial activity and prosperity. A short time before, the
1 Memoirs of Mme. de Gontaut. " There was one general who seemed to me
enthusiastic in the extreme. He could hardly stand still. This was General
Maison, who was in command of the Army of the North at Lille, and had come,
from patriotism and without orders, to escort the King. We were told that he
would be in command all the way. 1 did not like him ; he had no manners."
2 The Journal des Dibats says : "Forty young ladies were waiting on the
quay to receive the Duchesse d'Angouleme. When the King landed on the quay
the crowd, with one voice, cried : 'Here he is — it is be — here is the King !,'
The guns were firing from all. the forts." 1TO.

KING LOUIS XVIII
harbour had only been frequented by the corsairs who came to
dispose of the spoils they had won from the English ships ; but
since the peace the port had been full of trading vessels and the
hotels of the town full of travellers, the streets full of movement
and the shops full of merchandise and customers. Formerly
poverty and ruin had reigned on every hearth, where now there
was enough and to spare.
After the Te Deum the King entertained all his courtiers at
breakfast. He then retired into a salon where he received
petitions — for the petitioners would not allow an hour to go by
before they made their desires known. In the evening he dined in
public, in accordance with the wishes of the crowd, who are always
as anxious to watch a prince eating as if he ate differently from
other men.
On the 26th April Louis XVIII slept at Boulogne. As at
Calais, the inhabitants unharnessed the horses from his carriage
and dragged it to the cathedral. It was preceded by a guard of
honour commanded by the Comte de Saint- Aldegonde, and the
sub-prefect, the Comte de Casteja. On the 27th he slept at
Abbeville, where some flowers were presented to the Duchesse
d'Angouleme by young ladies dressed in white. The King's
carriage was dragged from one end of the town to the other by
the boatmen. He arrived at Amiens on the 28th. At the
frontier of the department of the Somme he had been received by
the prefect of La Tour du Pin, and the guard of honour that
encircled the King and his retinue had been decorated with white
ribbons by the Duchesse d'Angouleme. At the entrance to the
town the horses were unharnessed, as elsewhere, and the carriage
was dragged by boatmen. Marshal Moncey rode beside the
carriage, next to the King. At last, on the 29th April, the
newly made monarch arrived at the Castle of Compiegne ; and
here he paused, as much to recover from the fatigue of all this
pomp and ceremony to which he was unaccustomed, as to consider
what his first actions were to be in relation to the government of
Paris and the Senate.

II
When it became known at Compiegne that the King's arrival
was imminent the whole town was astir. Every hour a courier
rode in to give the latest news of his progress.. Suddenly the
171

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
drums began to beat a salute, and a carriage drawn by six horses
drove into the court of the castle, where the Swiss and National
Guards were drawn up, wearing white scarves. The carriage
stopped at the peristyle, and out of it stepped the old Prince de
Conde, supported by his son, the Due de Bourbon. The Condes1
old retainers, who had hastened to Compiegne, recognised their
former lord and master, and crowding round him seized his hands
and kissed them. Some of them kissed the skirts of his coat, and
many burst into tears. Soon the rolling of the drums began
again. It was the King. As soon as his carnage and its eight
horses came into sight a confused uproar arose on every side.
There were no articulate cheers, for everyone was weeping. But
after this first moment of surprise and emotion the whole crowd
cried : Vive le roi ! Vive notre pere !
The King, helped by his gentlemen-in- waiting, alighting from
his carriage with difficulty, dressed in the costume we have already
described — a cloth coat with little gold-lace epaulettes, and upon
his legs the red velvet gaiters bordered with gold-lace. He
entered the castle. His gait, says an eye-witness, was touching and
dignified. It was touching, no doubt, since walking gave him pain ;
but that being the case it can hardly have been dignified. His
glance, says the same witness, was that of a King, and at the same
time that of a genius ; but he omits to tell us how we may dis
tinguish the glance of a King from that of any other man. That
genius can be detected in the expression of the eyes is still more
wonderful ! And was Louis XVIII indeed a genius ? He was
certainly endowed with intellect, and with a biting wit that was
almost spiteful. He had a good memory, too, and a sense of appo-
siteness, which are qualities that imply mental capacity ; but this
is the most that can be said for the old Bourbon whom the chances
of fate were bringing back to France. All these observations are
intended, not to disparage this monarch who was at last restored
to the throne of his ancestors, but merely to call attention to the
servility of the courtiers, who were incapable of preserving their
dignity and self-respect. From the same source we learn that when
Louis XVIII was seated in his armchair, with his hands resting on
his stick between his knees, he was exactly like Louis XIV at fifty
years of age. It is quite possible ; and there is no flattery in the
observation. Louis XIV was his ancestor, and the two Bourbons
may very well have resembled one another. But there was nothing
surprising nor extraordinary in this, neither was there any merit !
172

KING LOUIS XVIII
The Duchesse d'Angouleme walked beside her uncle, exclaiming
aloud : " Oh, how glad I am, how glad I am, to be surrounded by
good Frenchmen ! " This unfortunate exclamation was often re
peated by the princess, who seemed to regard Frenchmen as being
divided into two classes, the good and the bad. The latter were
those who were not royalists. She apparently expected the
presence of the Bourbons, by some kind of magic, to awaken a feel
ing of devotion for the returned exiles in the hearts of the whole
nation. Talleyrand, when he heard of the King's departure from Hart
well, did not feel altogether at ease with regard to the Senate.
The King's reticence in the matter of the Constitution disturbed
him considerably. As the royal procession, stage by stage,
approached Paris, he despatched couriers to Louis XVIII with
memoranda and notes urging the King to capitulate, and accept
the Constitution that had recently been drawn up. This was
really necessary, wrote Talleyrand, as a means of keeping a hold on
public opinion. To accept the Constitution and fix a day for the
taking of the oath would bind all classes to him, and especially
all ranks of the army, among whom much opposition to the
monarchy was observed, and seven symptoms of mutiny. At the
same time the writer did not forget his own interests. His notes
contained many protestations of personal devotion to the
Bourbons, and referred to the pleasure it would give him to serve
them ; and he even offered himself for the post of Foreign
Minister, an office for which he thought himself more fitted at
that time than any other man. Moreover, he begged a personal
favour ; the office of lady-in-waiting for his niece the Comtesse
Edmond de Perigord, upon whose piety and excellent behaviour he
enlarged. The behaviour of this lady had certainly shown her
devotion to the Bourbons ; for it was she who rode in the
procession of the allied armies on the crupper of the Cossack's
horse, with a white flag in her hand. As for her piety we need
only recall the fact that she earned considerable notoriety as
Duchesse de Dino. Talleyrand was wasting his time. He
obtained no answer whatever from Louis XVIII, who was firmly
resolved to refuse the Constitution of the Senate. He wished to
make his own concessions ; to give a constitution, not to receive
one ; for the sovereign power was vested in his person, not in the
nation. The nation was subjected to him ; he was King, King
173

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
by the Grace of God, King of France and of Navarre, like his
ancestor Henri IV. This title had been his for nineteen years,
and his reign had begun on the death of Louis XVII. The
royalists who came to Paris to pay their court to him thought as
he did, and his impracticability was strengthened by his inter
course with them. Moreover he very accurately remembered the
substance of the letters he had received from Montesquiou at Hart
well, on the subject of the Senate. The only form of government
he considered worthy of him, and suitable for France, was that of
the old Bourbon Monarchy. His favourite, the Comte de Blacas,
encouraged his infatuation.
Full of himself, and more than ever in love with his kingly
title, he occupied himself entirely in giving a theatrical reception
to every fresh arrival at Compiegne. His visitors were many.
Lyons, being jealous of Bordeaux, sent a deputation composed of
the mayor of the town, the Comte d'Albon, and three aldermen,
MM. de Cazenove, de Laurencin, and de Varaz, with four retired
officers. Then the marshals arrived, led by Berthier, who came to
bear witness that his companions in arms were full of beautiful
devotion for the most ancient dynasty in Europe. He did not
forget to recall the generosity of Henri IV, who fed the Parisians
when he was besieging them. This allusion was inevitable. In
all the speeches of the period the name of this ancestor appears.
Berthier ended his oration as if he were addressing Napoleon :
" Your armies, Sire, whose marshals are representing them to-day,
consider themselves happy in being called upon to second your
valiant efforts with their devotion and fidelity." Louis XVIII
then requested that the marshals should be presented to him one
by one : Macdonald, Ney, Moncey, Serrurier, Brune, and Marmont.
He only knew one or two of them, but their names enabled him to
address a flattering word to each. To Marmont he said : " You
nearly lost your arm in Spain, Marshal." — " True, Sire," answered
the Due de Raguse, " but I found it again to serve your Majesty
with." These servants of the Emperor, these men who had so often
bowed before the genius of the great soldier, were heard repeatedly
muttering : " He will see how we shall serve him ; there shall be
no more hesitation ; we are his for the rest of our lives."
(Journal des Debats, May, 1815.) How sad it is to recall these
words — a tragic revelation of the weakness of the human
heart! Presently the King wished to rise from his chair, but
his sufferings made him totter. His gentlemen-in-waiting sprang
174

KING LOUIS XVIII
forward to support him, but he seized the arms of the two
marshals who stood nearest to him, saying: "It is upon you,
Messieurs les Marechaux, that I shall always wish to lean. Come
here and stand round me. You have always been patriots. I hope
that France will need your swords no more. If ever we are
forced— which God forbid— to draw them, I shall march with you,
gouty as I am."
He kept them for dinner that evening, and invited them to his
own table, where he conversed with them pleasantly and kindly,
interested himself in their adventurous lives and exploits, and grew
very sympathetic over their wounds. The dinner, it is true, was
conducted with all the etiquette that was usual at the table of the
Bourbons,1 but at all events the marshals were not treated with
open contempt by the representatives of the old nobility who had
returned with the King. The grands seigneurs mingled with the
marshals, and the conversation between them soon became cordial
and pleasant, every man making it a point of honour to smile and
look pleased, and to forget the past in thoughts of the future. In
accordance with the custom at the King's dinner when he was on a
journey, the people of the place were allowed free access to the
dining-hall. To the marshals, who were unused to this custom,
the greatest diversion of the evening was the expression of amaze
ment and admiration on the faces of the townsfolk, and especially
of the young women, as they passed silently round the table.
(Journal des Debats, May 1814.)
After the presentation of the marshals the first gentleman-in-
waiting had introduced to the King a deputation of twenty-five
members of the Legislative Body, headed by the Chevalier Bruys
de Charly, of Saone-et-Loire. In his oration the head of the
deputation tried to make it plain to the new monarch that he was
only to exercise such rights as were necessary for the maintenance
of the royal authority. Louis XVIII pretended not to understand
this allusion to a parliamentary government, founded on an
accepted Constitution. He answered in vague terms, insisting on
the necessity for union between the King and the nation's representa
tives. The meaning of his words was plain to everyone : the will
of the nation was to yield to the will of the King. The Senate
abstained from visiting Compiegne, being unwilling to welcome a
prince who affected ignorance of his duty as a constitutional King,
1 At this dinner the King was the only person who had an arm-chair. The
other princes — both Bourbons and princes of the Empire — had ordinary chairs.
175

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
when the acceptance of that position had been the chief condition
of his recall. His answer to the deputation from the Legislative
Body brought the agitation of the senators to a head. They
appealed to the Emperor Alexander, who was as much interested
as themselves in the Constitution, whose liberal and wise spirit had
earned his approval. The Emperor determined to go to Compiegne
at once, to insist upon Louis XVIII's submission ; and on the
following day he set out, accompanied by a single aide-de-camp,
General Czernicheff. On his arrival at the castle he was received
at the foot of the stairs by the Prince de Conde, who escorted him
to the King's rooms. The two monarchs embraced each other, and
had a long conversation without witnesses. Of the substance of
this conversation nothing transpired at the time, except that Louis
had consented to conciliate the Senate who had secured his return
to France by voting Napoleon's deposition.
When Alexander went to Compiegne he had only expected
to find a feeble old man, who would be easily convinced, and
ready to sacrifice his personal dignity for the sake of acquiring
power. But Louis XVIII was filled with a sense of the supremacy
of his race over all the royal races of Europe ; was very conscious
of the right that had been transmitted to him by his ancestors ;
was convinced that the throne of France belonged to him
unconditionally, because his sovereignty was vested in him in
virtue of an unbroken tradition of eight centuries, and he had
been King by right, by the grace of God, since the death of
Louis XVII, the son of Louis XVI. This being the ease he
expressed his lofty views and majestic feelings with the greatest
eloquence, and gained over the Emperor all the advantage that
is the natural result of superior intelligence and a strong and
unalterable conviction. His opponent, not knowing what to
answer, remained silent. Lubis, Nettement, and de Vaulabelle, in
their histories of the restoration, have all described this almost
dramatic scene in the same way.1
1 The Comtesse de Boigne in her Mimoires (Vol I., p. 383) describes the dis
comfiture of the Emperor of Russia when he visited Louis XVIII at Compiegne.
" He was received with chilling etiquette. . . . He was shown through three or
four magnificent rooms on the ground floor of the castle, which were being kept,
he was told, for Monsieur, and the Dues d'Angouleme and de Berry, who
were not there. After a regular journey by corridors and back-staircases his
guide paused at a little door that led into a very modest suite of rooms. It was
used by the governor of the castle, and was quite separated from the principal
apartments. This was assigned to the Emperor. . . . He made no comment, but
merely said, curtly : ' 1 shall return to Paris this evening. Have my carriages
ready as soon as dinner is over. ' Pozzo led the conversation round to this sin-
176

KING LOUIS XVIII
Alexander asked what the King's scruples could possibly be.
Was the theory of Divine Right comprehensible to his subjects ?
Modern ideas being what they were, did the words by the Grace of
God add anything to the dignity of royalty ? Why should he wish
to antedate his reign ? Would not history record that the
Convention, the Directory, the Consulate, and Napoleon had
reigned over France ? Why would he not recognise what he owed to
the Senate? Had not that body decreed the deposition of
Bonaparte and the recall of the Bourbons ?
Louis XVIII answered that the members of the Senate had
no kind of right to dispose of the crown of France ; that it would
not have been to him, in any case, that they would have offered
it if they had the power to bestow it according to their good
pleasure; that the right called divine, in accordance with the
religious spirit of the old monarchy, was only the natural
consequence of the law of the country ; a law that had been made
for the general good of society and had already given the French
monarchy more than eight hundred years of glorious life ; a law
in virtue of which, since the death of Louis XVII, he was King of
France. " If my right to the throne," continued the King, " were
not altogether founded on that law, what claim should I have
to it ? What am I, apart from that right ? An infirm old man,
a miserable outlaw, reduced to begging, far from his country,
for shelter and food ! That is what I was only a few days ago ;
but that old man, that outlaw, was the King of France. That title
alone sufficed to make the whole nation, when at last it understood
its real interests, recall me to the throne of my fathers. I have come
back in answer to the call, but I have come back King of France."
It had been arranged that Talleyrand should draw up the
declaration which the King was to sign on the following day, be
fore entering Paris. Talleyrand, possibly in obedience to the
Emperor Alexander, or else with a view to pleasing the Senate,
laid before Louis XVIII a kind of manifesto containing these
words : " Convinced of the necessity of preserving at our side the
Senate to whose inspiration we partly owe, as we are aware, our
return to our kingdom." Louis threw down the paper and refused
to sign. The matter was urgent, and fresh negotiations were set
gular accommodation, and attributed it to the King's invalidism. The Emperor
answered that the Duchesse d'Angouleme was sufficiently like a housekeeper to
be able to attend to such matters. This little witticism, of which Pozzo made
the most, cheered him up, and he returned to the salon in a more contented
state of mind. But the dinner did not compensate for the accommodation."
177 k

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
on foot between Paris and Saint-Ouen. The Emperor Alexander,
who was already annoyed by his visit to Compiegne, where he had
suffered all the bitterness of a defeat,1 made it known at Saint-
Ouen that the King should not enter Paris the next day unless he
signed the Constitutional Act whose acceptation he, the Emperor,
the head of the coalition, had guaranteed. This threat, and this
threat only, induced the King to yield. With Talleyrand's help
the fundamental contract of the monarchy was drawn up afresh,
with a preamble containing certain restrictions intended to soothe
the pride of the King. None the less Louis XVIII subscribed to
the following conditions : the government to be representative and
divided into two bodies ; taxation to be voluntary ; public and
individual liberty to be maintained ; the press to be free ; religious
liberty to be maintained ; the rights of property to be sacred ; the
sale of national goods to be irrevocable ; ministers to be respon
sible ; the office of judge to be permanent and the judicial power
independent ; every Frenchman to be eligible for any office ; the
National Debt to be guaranteed ; all pensions, ranks, and military
honours to remain in statu quo, as well as the old and new nobility ;
the Legion of Honour to be preserved ; the opinions and votes of
every individual to be respected. And, as words always impress the
human mind more than facts, the Constitution of the Senate, which
was thus laboriously pulled to pieces and converted into a few short
articles, received a new name in order that neither Senate nor King
should take offence. It was called the Declaration of Saint-Ouen.
1 Pasquier's Mimoires (Vol. II., p. 401). "When Alexander arrived at Com
piegne he could not help seeing that. ... he was no longer the indispensable,
unique person, upon whom everything hinged and everything depended. There
was another influence that rivalled his. . . . He had come with an idea that he
had long cherished, the idea of a close union between Russia and France,
cemented by the marriage of his sister with the Due de Berry."
2 A letter written by the Abbe de Pradt in 1836 throws some light on the
troublesome negotiations between the Senate and Louis XVIIl. "... M. de
Talleyrand conducted this affair as he conducted every other : to arrive at great
results he used none but petty means, petty intrigues, petty abilities. One day
when Alexander went to the window of the house in the Rue Saint-Florentin a
crowd gathered at once, and cried -.Vive VEmpereur de Russie! Vive Alexandre!
But when M. de Talleyrand appeared on the balcony some of them called out : A
bas le Sinat! A bos Viveque d'Autun! A basle renigat! M. de Talleyrand, who
left the balcony quickly and was much disturbed, assured the Russian Emperor
that this had been schemed by the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and was the first
step towards the subversion of all they had achieved. . . . The Emperor
Alexander tried to calm him with promises, and at last said to him in desperation ;
' I will put thirty thousand men at your disposal, to stop him (the King) as soon
as he lands ; and he shall not be allowed to go until everything has been arranged,
and he has consented to do everything that is desirable.' The truth of this
story is known to many people who are still alive. "
The following extract is from the Mimoires of La Fayette (Vol. V., pp. 309-311)
178

KING LOUIS XVIII
Before parting from Talleyrand the King, who lost no
opportunity of indulging the mocking spirit that was so often
irritating, though always polite — his way of showing, when he
yielded, that he was right after all — said to the diplomatist with
genial malice : " Well, M. de Talleyrand, was I not right ? If I
had accepted a Constitution from my subjects, on the occasion of
my swearing to observe it you would be seated, while I should
have to stand. Whereas now it is for me to say : sit down and
let us have a talk ! "
As the Emperor Alexander had left Compiegne, so Talleyrand
left the Chateau de Saint-Ouen — bewildered and irritated. It was
no longer Napoleon's garrulous fury that he had to contend with,
the fury that he could baffle by his mocking silence ; the King's
light words, whether ironical or caustic, could only be successfully
met by superior wit or more scathing irony. In the art of biting
repartee Talleyrand was less skilled than the King ; and to
be humbled and reduced to a sense of inferiority made him feel
dissatisfied with himself. He was conscious that, even if his good
fortune were not at an end, he would never gain the influence at
this Court — sacred to the memory of the old monarchy and the
old traditions — that his reputation for ability had won for
him at the imperial Court of Napoleon. He would always be
checkmated by the King — the King whom, in his vindictive
jealousy, he privately called King Nichard, or the King of Tricks.
He was no longer the great Talleyrand of the Consulate and
the Empire. The King could easily do without him.
On his return to Paris he summoned the Senate. There was no
longer any reason to postpone the journey to Saint-Ouen ; and
that every evening at nine o'clock, the chastened negotiator
conducted the whole body of senators to pay their respects to the
King. He read an address composed of stereotyped compliments,
" In May 1814 I spent in Mme. de Stael's house an evening of which I must here
record a few details. Alexander's simple, dignified manner in his intercourse with
this select circle pleased me very much. ... He signed to me to follow him into
another room. . . . He complained. . . . that the Bourbons were entirely given
over to the prejudices of the old regime, and when I merely answered that in the
course of their misfortunes they must have learnt something, he cried ; ' Learnt ?
They have learnt nothing, and they are incapable of learning ! There is only one
of them, the Due d'Orieans, who has liberal ideas— as for the others, you need
have no hopes of them.' ' If that is your opinion, Sire, why did you bring them
back ' ' 'ft was not my fault ; they were forced upon me from every direction
simultaneously. I desired at least to keep them away till the nation had time to
make them accept a Constitution : but they gained on me like a flood. ... The
affair is a failure, and I am going away in great distress.' '
179 n 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
to which the King responded in a single laconic phrase : " I am
gratified by the expression of the Senate's sentiments." Then,
with a movement of his head he dismissed them. They deserved
the humiliation onlv too well. It was a well-merited consequence
of the shameless intrigues of these men, who had thrown no light
upon anything but their own degradation.1

Ill
The Chateau de Saint-Ouen, where the King broke his journey,
had formerly belonged to the Due de Nivernais and afterwards to
Necker, and at the time of which we are writing it was owned,
says Pasquier in his Memoires, bv a Polish lady. On the morning
of his departure Louis XVIII received the members of the
provisional government ; and Pasquier and Beugnot are loud in
their praises of the new King's apposite questions. Everyone was
determined to think him clever ; and according to his courtiers in
this first hour of his reign there was never a prince possessed of
such tact, such perspicacity, or such gracious cordiality. They all
declare he had a sonorous voice and expressed himself easily and
well ; the truth being that they were hypnotised by the charm of
the man, who was after all merely an unwieldy invalid, always
chained to his chair, and dressed incongruously in a cloth coat,
red gaiters, and a hat with white feathers — a costume so strange
that it was almost grotesque. Ney had sent for his three sons,
and presented them to the King. " Be brave like vour father,"
said Louis when he saw them, " and love the Bourbons well."
At ten o'clock the procession left the gardens of the chateau.
The Prince de Poix, who was formerly captain of the guard, and
the Due de Duras, first gentleman-in-waiting, took possession of
the places that had been theirs at the old Court of Versailles.
The King was seated in a carriage with very low seats, and beside
him, by his own wish, was the Duchesse d'Angouleme, wearing a
simple high white gown, embroidered with sdver spangles, and an
English toque, trimmed with white feathers. Facing them sat the
Prince de Conde and the Due de Bourbon. Not a single jewel was
to be seen on the duchess's austere toilette : she saw no need for
1 See Chateaubriand's Mimoires, Vol. m. ". . . . The ungrateful conduct of
those who owed their elevation to the Revolution, towards the man whom they
now pretend to regret and admire, was abominable. "
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KING LOUIS XVIII
such things. There was nothing attractive in her style of dressing,
and her carelessness in this respect accentuated the ungracefulness
of her figure, her short waist and long legs. A white parasol
sheltered her from the sun. In the carriages that followed were
the Court officials, who had come from London with the King ; and
after these, separated from the royal procession, came the carriages
of those who had arrived from Paris that morning to do homage to
their new master. The eight white horses that had been taken
from the Imperial stables for the King's carriage were led by
grooms who were still wearing the livery of Napoleon. The road
way was crowded with people, among whom the carriage could only
move at a foot's pace. The windows of every house were filled
with young women, while the young men were perched on the trees
or clinging to the roofs. Far away, on the hills overlooking
Sain-Ouen, masses of spectators were watching the stately pro
cession. The faces of the two chief actors in the scene were grave to the
point of severity, and by no means encouraging. They were
expected to smile and look sympathetic, to be joyous and pleased ;
and any sign of graciousness on their part would have been greeted
with cheers. As for the Prince de Conde and the Due de Bourbon,
they were gazing in amazement at the altered appearance of the
crowded capital, which had been changed from end to end since
their emigration. It may perhaps have been with the view of
impressing their new subjects that the King and the Duchesse
d'Angouleme, throughout their slow progress to the Tuileries,
remained absolutely unbending, with faces of stone. When the
Comte d'Artois had arrived a month earlier, the enthusiasm had
been universal and almost delirious ; whereas, though the crowd
on this occasion was equally large, it was by no means equally
excited nor equally joyous. In the words of Pasquier, the
chancellor, " there was no heart in it." There were some whose
indignation was roused at the sight of Berthier, Napoleon's
favourite, heading the procession in front of the King's carriage,
and with him Clarke, the Due de Feltre, late Minister of War, who
had organised the defence of Paris so badly. " As long as one
village remains in the Emperor's hands," he had said to Marie
Louise at Blois, " it is there that I shall be found, rallying round
me all the troops that are still faithful." And now he was escort
ing his former master's enemy to the Tuileries. There were voices
raised in the crowd to protest against the shamelessness of these
181

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
two men in appearing among all these royalists. " To Elba,
Berthier ! Go to Elba ! " they cried ; for the people have more
sense of propriety than they are credited with, and they showed by
this exclamation that they respected the misfortunes of their fallen
idol more than they respected the courtiers. If they crowded into
the streets to see the princes pass it was because they loved sight
seeing above all things, and delighted in anything new. They
were not there to give an ovation to the Bourbons, but to form an
opinion of their behaviour and appearance. They wished to be
able to express that opinion later on, in the tavern ; and, as the
King did not smile, they abstained from cheering the imposing
procession. This first ceremony was certainly not calculated to
weaken the love of the people for the Emperor. As for the middle-
classes, they seemed to be satisfied and hopeful. The Declaration
of Saint-Ouen, which had been made public in the morning, had
fulfilled their desires for liberty, and set at rest all their fears with
regard to their possession of national property.
In the commercial quarter of the town the streets through which
the procession passed were decked with hangings and garlands.
At the barrier a portico had been raised, and covered with
festoons and emblems. Near it there was a band, and military
bands were placed at intervals along the route, playing bellicose
airs. On the pediment of the Porte Saint-Denis were the arms of
France, and the royal crown was hung beneath the vaulting, with
the words Ludovico Magno. At the Marche des Innocents the
market-women and charcoal-burners claimed their immemorial
privilege of addressing the King.
Like his brother the Comte d'Artois Louis XVIII drove first
to Notre Dame, where the Cathedral Chapter congratulated him
and the clergy sang a Te Deum and Domine salvum fac regem.
The procession then went on its way, but paused before the statue
of Henri IV, which Houden had re-erected in plaster on the terre-
plein of the Pont Neuf. Beugnot does not forget to inform us in
his Memoirs that the Latin inscription on the pedestal was evolved
from his brain on the spur of the moment : Ludovico reduce, Henri-
cus redivivus. The statue stood between two temples, one dedicated
to Concord and the other to Peace, which had been raised under
the eye of Bellanger, the architect who in the old days had been
employed by the Comte d'Artois to design the house and gardens
at Bagatelle. As the procession passed the Conciergerie the
Duchesse d'Angouleme was overpowered by the terrible memories
182

KING LOUIS XVIII
of the past ; she grew pale and began to tremble convulsively, and
was on the point of fainting.
There were others who were suffering that day, suffering, no
doubt, as much as she : the grenadiers of the Old Guard, who
were drawn up in line before all these distinguished personages.
The crowd relieved their indignant feelings by cheering the heroes
in their humiliation. On this subject Chateaubriand wrote a
passage that can never be forgotten : " I remember, as vividly as
if it were still passing before my eyes, the scene I witnessed when
Louis XVIII, on his entry into Paris on the 3rd May, was about to
alight at Notre Dame. With the view of sparing the King the
sight of the foreign troops the Quai des Orfevres was lined, from the
Pont Neuf to Notre Dame, with an infantry regiment of the Old
Guard. I do not think that human faces can ever have expressed
so much that was menacing and terrible. The grenadiers covered
with wounds, these conquerors of Europe, who had seen so many
thousands of bullets fly over their heads, who reeked of fire and
powder, these men who were robbed of their leader were forced to
salute an old King whose infirmities were those of age, not those of
war — for they were under the eyes, in Napoleon's invaded capital,
of an army of Russians, Austrians, and Prussians. Some of them
contrived, by wrinkling their foreheads, to shake their large bus
bies over their eyes so that they could not see ; others drew down
the corners of their mouths to express their scorn and rage ; others,
through their moustaches, showed their teeth like tigers. When
they presented arms it was with a movement of fury, and the
noise of the weapons made one tremble. Never, it must be
admitted, were men subjected to such an ordeal ; never did men
suffer such a martyrdom. If at that moment they had been called
upon to take their revenge it would have been necessary to
exterminate them to the last man, or they would have laid every
thing waste before them. At the end of the line was a young
hussar on horseback : he was holding a drawn sword and was
making it jump and dance, as it were, by his convulsive movements
of rage. He was pale ; his eyes were rolling ; his mouth opened
and shut alternately, his teeth chattered, and he stifled the cries
that he could not altogether repress. He caught sight of a
Russian officer, and the glance he shot at him cannot be described
in words. When the King's carriage passed him he made his
horse prance, and there is no doubt that he was tempted to fling
himself upon the King." 183

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
It was not till six in the evening that the procession drew up
at the Tuileries. The drive through Paris had lasted for three
hours. The crowd was denser here than anywhere else. Everyone
who professed to be a royalist had come to welcome his King : not
the people, but the lesser bourgeoisie, the merchants and clerks,
and the Knights of St. Louis, the obscure nobility who had come
up from their castles in the country and would by and by be
hurrying noisily into the salons to make their bow to the restored
monarchy. Such of the spectators as were not in the first row
pointed out to one another that, near the King's carriage, there
was an empty but very splendid coach drawn by a pair of horses.
This coach, which was gilt all over, had three windows on each
side. The Regent had presented it to Louis XVIII when he left
London. The old monarch took possession of the state apartments in the
Tuileries; the Duchesse d'Angouleme occupied the Pavilion de
Flore ; the Pavilion de Marsan was assigned to the Comte d'Artois
and the Due de Berry ; and the little Bourbon Palace to the Prince
de Conde and Due de Bourbon. The twelve municipal bodies of
Paris had each chosen twelve distinguished and attractive ladies
belonging to the most important families of their respective
districts, to receive the Duchesse d' Angouleme and present her
with baskets of flowers. But the duchess was so much upset at
the sight of the palace from which she had gone, with her parents
and her brother, to the Temple prison, that she fainted away.
She sent .her excuses to the ladies who were expecting her, by
one of her ladies-in-waiting. She had been a mere child when
she left the Tuileries long ago on the day of a riot ; but she had
never forgotten her sensations when the palace was invaded by
men with bare arms and mouths full of curses, who dashed from
room to room with loaded weapons, seeking the King as he fled to
the Assembly. This vision terrified her still. She had not the
strength to put away from her the memory of this long-past
revolt of the people.
Meantime the crowd round the King's chair was so dense that
the gentlemen-ushers found it impossible to maintain etiquette.
Everyone, without distinction, without being presented, without
being even announced, insisted on seeing the new idol, bowing to
him, receiving a gesture of acknowledgment, and then retiring.
People were hustling one another in the doorways, says Mme. de
Gontaut in her Souvenirs. The rooms were invaded by women,
184

KING LOUIS XVIII
both distinguished and obscure, and by all the men who could
force an entrance — by the people at large, in short. Mme. de
Gontaut who had returned from England in the royal suite, wished
to thank the King and pay her respects to him ; but on the first
day she gave up the attempt. On the second day she waited for
an opening in the ranks of the impatient mob ; but it was as dense
as on the first day. At last, she tells us, an amiable lady spoke to
her. " If you wait so patiently," she said, " you will never get
there. If you don't push, you stay where you are. If you follow
me I will take care that you see the King and the Princes." Where
upon, by dint of pushing the stubborn to left and right, and
making themselves as thin as possible, and squeezing themselves
between any two persons between whom there was a gap, they
both succeeded in reaching Louis XVIII's chair. The lady turned
to Mme. de Gontaut. " Curtsey, curtsey ! " she commanded. Mme.
de Gontaut could not tell whether she obeyed or not. She passed
on, bewildered and disconcerted, and left the Tuileries with her
mind a blank.1 It is no wonder that the Bourbons, seeing how they
were idolised, thought they could act as they chose.
In the evening many of the principal houses were illuminated,
and some of them exhibited transparencies with three fleurs-de-
lys shining in the middle and the crown of France above. On the
following day the ladies were wearing rings with this inscription :
God has given them back in answer to our prayers. The Parisian
theatres, too, did honour to the King's return by announcing plays
that celebrated the virtues and glory of Henr^ IV. The following
quotation will show, more plainly than anything else, how great
was the excitement that found expression in all this enthusiasm
for the princes. Charles Nodier, when describing the play at the
Varietes, Le Retour des Lys, wrote : " These houses adorned with
hangings and garlands, these harvests of flowers, this music, these
perfumes, these eager, impatient, reverent crowds, who flung them
selves before these magnificent steeds and envied them the honour
of drawing the paternal chariot, — of all this no artist's brush, nor
poet's pen, nor orator's genius can give even the most imperfect
idea." These words, doubtless, were written in the first heat of the
1 Ducis, who had never consented to accept a favour from Bonaparte, contrived
to be presented a few days after Louis XVIII's arrival at the Tuileries. "I
hope, Sire," he said, " that you have not forgotten one of your oldest servants,
at one time secretary to His Royal Highness Monsieur."— ¦" Here is a proof that
I remember him very well," said the King to the author of Othello ; and recited,
without hesitation, some apposite lines from (Edipe chez Adm&e. . . ' See,
Marco Saint-Hilaire. Vie de Louis X VIII.
185

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
exiles' return, and were published in the journals that were read by
none but the Bourbons' friends, to whom the description did not
seem exaggerated, since the writer only expressed their own senti
ments. But we cannot help thinking that Nodier's imagination
added a good deal to the demonstrations of welcome. The royalists
saw enthusiasm everywhere, and reported events as they wished them
to be. But we have, on the other hand, Chancellor Pasquier's
words : There wa,s no heart in it.
It might be imagined that the most ardent royalists, during
these first weeks, were the partisans of the Bourbons. From
Chateaubriand we learn that this was not the case.
" Imperialists and liberals," he exclaims, " it was you that had
the power in your hands, you who bowed down before the sons
of Henri IV. It was only natural that the royalists should be
glad to recover their princes, and see the reign of the man they
considered a usurper brought to a close ; but you, who are the
creatures of that usurper, were more exaggerated in your senti
ments than the royalists themselves. Ministers and high officials
vied with one another in vowing fidelity to the legitimate King ;
all the civil and judicial authorities trod on one another's heels in
their eagerness to vow hostility to the proscribed dynasty, and
devotion to the ancient race that they had a thousand times
comdemned. Who was it who inundated France with proclama
tions and flattering addresses full of insults, to Napoleon ? The
royalists ? — No : the ministers and generals and officials whom
Napoleon had chosen and supported. Who schemed and intrigued
for the Restoration ? The royalists ? — No : M. de Talleyrand.
With whom ? With M. de Pradt, the almoner of the god Mars,
the mitred mountebank. With whom, and in whose house, did
the lieutenant-general of the kingdom dine when he arrived ? In
the house of royalists, with royalists ? — No : in the house of the
Bishop of Autun, with M. de Caulaincourt. Where were fetes
given to the infamous foreign princes? In the chateaux of the
royalists ? — No : at Malmaison, in the house of the Empress
Josephine. To whom did Napoleon's dearest friends — Berthier,
for example — give their most zealous devotion ? — To the legitimate
princes. Who spent their time with the autocrat Alexander, with
that savage Tartar ? The members of the Institute, the men of learn
ing, men of letters, philanthropic philosophers, theophilanthropists,
and the like, who came away charmed, and laden with compliments
and snuff-boxes. As for us poor devils, us legitimists, we were
186

KING LOUIS XVIII
received nowhere, we were of no account. At one time we would
be told in the street to go home to bed ; at another we would be
advised not to shout Vive le roi ! too loudly. It was reserved for
others to do that. Far from forcing anyone to be a legitimist the
authorities declared that no one would be obliged to change his
behaviour or manner of speech ; that the Bishop of Autun would
find it quite as unnecessary to say Mass under the Bourbons as he
had found it to attend Mass under the Empire. I saw no
chatelaine, no Joan of Arc, proclaiming the sovereignty of right,
falcon on fist or lance in hand ; but Mme. de Talleyrand, whom
Bonaparte fastened to her husband like a label, drove through the
streets in an open carriage, singing hymns about the pious house
of Bourbon. Some draperies hanging from the windows of the
familiars of the imperial Court made the good Cossacks believe
that the converted Bonapartists had as many fleurs-de-lys in their
hearts as they had white rags at their casements. Contagion is
a marvellous thing in France, and any man would cry Off with
my head! if he heard his neighbour crying it. The imperialists
even came into our houses, and made us — us Bourbonists — use,
as spotless banners, everything white that was left in our linen-
cupboards : that is what happened at my own house. But Mme.
de Chateaubriand would not hear of it, and defended her muslins
valiantly." IV
Three weeks before these events the Emperor of Austria had
arrived in Paris and established himself at the Hotel de Charost,
near the Elysee Bourbon. The house had belonged to Princess
Pauline Bonaparte when she returned from San Domingo, after
the death of her husband General Leclerc ; and before her
second marriage, with Prince Camille Borghese, she had decorated
and furnished it magnificently. The Emperor of Austria — the
Emperor Francis, as he was called familiarly — lived a life of
great retirement, almost of isolation, in this house. He never
left it except for expeditions that had some scientific interest, for
his accurate and inquiring mind was much attracted by science.
It was considered that his misfortunes gave him a right to guard
his privacy in this way, seeing that his daughter Marie Louise
had shone in this town as the wife of the most illustrious
potentate of Europe, and was now on her way to Vienna, to live
187

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
there in forlorn insignificance, like a poor widow. This exile of
hers, however, had been brought about by himself. He had used
all his paternal authority to separate the young Empress from
her husband, and to dissuade her from following him to Elba:
employing for the purpose every vulgar scandal that was likely
to alienate her affection from the man who was the father of her
child. If Napoleon were deserted by everyone, even by his wife,
the Emperor of Austria hoped that he would the more easily
reconquer his Italian provinces, and possibly Flanders. He
excited the jealousy of the young wife by telling her she had been
betrayed — that at Fontainebleau, while she was sadly travelling
from Blois to Orleans and writing to him every day, her faithless
husband had been visited by one of his mistresses, Countess
Waleska. This vengeance of the conquered upon his conqueror had begun
from the moment that the former had entered France and
reconciled himself with the Bourbons, whom he had never been
willing to receive in his domains during Bonaparte's rule as
First Consul or his reign as Emperor. It was for this reason
that he sent to the Comte d'Artois at Nancy, at the beginning of
the French campaign, a hat adorned with a white cockade ; it was
for this reason that he made his troops wear the cockade in Paris
— the ubiquitous cockade that had become the emblem of the
Restoration, that every shop and every commercial prospectus
placed at the head of its advertisements, that every ballad-singer
on the stage celebrated in his verses.
The Emperor of Austria was well aware that the fall of the
Napoleonic empire was likely to make him unpopular in Paris,
and did his best to be forgotten. The papers only alluded to
him on the occasion of his visits to public buildings. The
Journal des Debats reported that he had been seen at the Museum
of Arts and Crafts, where he was especially interested in the
valuable specimens of clockwork by Ferdinand Berthold ; in
Vaucanson's bran-mills ; in the machines for making chains of
iron- wire invented by the same famous mechanician ; and in all
the other useful inventions pointed out to him by M. Mollard,
the curator. His second expedition was to the Museum of the
Petits-Augustins. A few days later he went to the Mazarine
Library, where he admired the fine globe in polished bronze that
Louis XVI had ordered for his own use, and examined with much
emotion and respect a copy of Lapeyrouse's sketch of his projected
188 "

KING LOUIS XVIIl
voyage, with Louis XVI's manuscript notes in the margin.
Palissot, the curator of the Library, who was then eighty-five
years old, came to make his bow to the Emperor. He received
the distinguished old man very graciously, and showed by certain
remarks of a very detailed nature that he was by no means
ignorant of the writer's fame. He then visited the catacombs, his
guide for this subterranean excursion being the chief engineer of
mines, Hericart de Thury.
Reboul in his Souvenirs gives us a very pleasing portrait of this
monarch. " I saw him," he writes, " in the conservatories of the
Jardin des Plantes, surrounded by MM. Desfontaines, de Jussieu,
and Thoin, professors of botany. He was talking to them as any
ordinary student of botany might talk, who had a theoretical and
practical knowledge of the subject ; and he congratulated the pro
fessors in the most flattering terms on the order and method with
which they had classified these countless plants. He spoke of his
superb garden at Schonbrunn as though it were before him at the
moment ; mentioned the rarest of the plants he had put in it ;
described his conservatories and the way they were heated and
lighted ; and even entered into the details of the methods of culti
vation. He knew all that botany owed to Bernard de Jussieu, and
enjoyed talking to his nephew de Jussieu of his classification of
plants in families, the system that had been adopted by nearly
every school. The interest I took in this extraordinary meeting
became still greater when I heard the Emperor say, with an air of
secret satisfaction : ' I have a private little garden and a little con
servatory that I take care of myself. I have my own spade and
rake, and when I can get enough leisure to exercise my arms there,
I am nearly as happy as you.' He begged, but only in exchange
for others, that he might have some plants and shrubs he did not
possess to take with him to Vienna."
When his master came to Paris Prince Schwartzenberg had
moved to Saint Cloud ; and early in May this superb and powerful
diplomatist gave a fete at that delightful spot to the allied
sovereigns and princes. There are accounts, in contemporary
journals, of the magnificence and taste of this fete, at which the
Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia were present, though
not the Emperor of Austria, who avoided all social gatherings of
the kind. And moreover the entertainment was almost, in a sense,
given by himself, since it was arranged by the prince and general
issimo who had been his substitute all through the French campaign,
189

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
The grand dukes of Russia, the Prussian princes, and the Due de
Berry attended it, in the hope of amusement. The generals and
principal officers of the French and allied armies were invited ; as
were also the aristocrats of the Faubourg Saint-Germain and all the
great ladies — especially the English ones — who happened to be
staying in Paris. At eight o'clock the company of the Theatre
Francais played Le Legs and Les Suites oVun bal masque on a stage
that had been erected in the course of the day at the end of the
great gallery. After the play there was a ball, in which the
Emperor of Russia and the Due de Berry took part very energeti
cally ; for both these young men loved pleasure and enjoyed the
society of young women, whose smiles they found altogether
irresistible. During an interval they had supper in a huge hall,
full of shrubs and flowers, the general effect of which, say the
memoirs of the day, was like that of the hothouses in St. Petersburg.
After supper dancing was resumed. It was one of those fetes, said
de Vitrolles, " at which one elbows kings, hustles princes, and spits
on ministers."
During this month of May there were a great many sovereigns
and princes of royal blood in Paris : thirty-one, according to the
Journal des Debdts, which gives a list of them : the King of France ;
Monsieur (the Comte d'Artois) ; the Due de Berry ; the Due
d'Orieans, the Prince de Conde, the Due de Bourbon ; the Emperor
of Austria ; the Emperor of Russia and his three brothers, Constan-
tine, Nicholas, and Michael ; the King of Prussia and his two sons,
the Crown Prince and Prince William ; his brothers, Henry and
William, and his nephew Prince Frederic ; his cousin Prince
Augustus Ferdinand ; the Crown Prince of Bavaria ; the Crown
Prince of Wurtemburg and his brother Prince Paul ; the reigning
Grand Duke of Saxe- Weimar and the reigning Grand Duke of
Baden ; the reigning Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin ; the
three brothers-in-law of the Emperor of Russia, the Princes of
Holstein, Oldenburg, and Mecklenburg-Strelitz ; and the Prince of
Saxe-Coburg. After Louis XVIII's arrival, the Emperor of Russia, who was
waiting for the treaty of peace to be actually signed, took no
further part in politics.1 He declined to sign the treaty or to
1 See the sketch of Alexander in Chateaubriand's Mimoires, Vol. III. " There
was an air of calmness and melancholy about Alexander. He went about Paris
on horseback or on foot, quite simply and with no suite. He seemed to be
surprised at his own success ; he looked at the people with eyes full of feeling,
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KING LOUIS XVIII
allow his troops to withdraw from Paris until the Constitution
that he had guaranteed to the French nation was really secured.
He had given his word, and his resolution was not to be
shaken. Louis XVIII did not hurry himself, and Alexander was
patient. In the meantime his house was open to the grands seigneurs
with whom the affairs of France had brought him into contact, to
men of letters, both royalists and liberals, and to the philosophers.
It was at this time that he fell so completely under the influence of
Mme. Krudener, whom he used to visit at the Hotel de Montchenu,
the dilapidated and scantily furnished old house in which she lived.
It gave him pleasure, too, to spend the lovely days of that radiant
spring of 1814 with the Empress Josephine at Malmaison. This
genial Emperor had grown very friendly with the ex-Empress, who
still was full of grace and charm ; and they were often to be seen
walking and talking together, with no thought but of themselves,
along the flowery paths of the park where Bonaparte had spent the
happiest years of his life. Alexander saw little of the Bourbons.
His character and theirs were not congenial. Intoxicated as he was
by his own omnipotence he found himself opposed, in Louis XVIII,
by a still greater pride, and by an inflexible stubbornness that
irritated him. He was perpetually made to feel that Louis thought
himself his superior, both in intelligence and ancestry. All these
Bourbons, said the Russian monarch, were egoistical, narrow-minded,
and suspicious. He believed his own views to be wider, and he
was certainly more free-and-easy with his inferiors. He went to
the Tuileries as seldom as possible. La Vallette describes (Vol. II.,
pp. 126 and 127) the difficulty with which Alexander obtained the
title of Duchessede Saint-Leu for Queen Hortense, to whom he had
promised it. It was only by repeatedly sending his aide-de-camp
to importune the Comte de Blacas that he secured this modest boon ;
and indeed he found it necessary to instruct his messenger to spend
the night at the Tuileries rather than return empty-handed. On
the day of his departure he said to Prince Eugene, who happened
to be in Paris : " I am not sure that I shall not be sorry some
day for having put the Bourbons on the throne. Believe me,
my dear Eugene, they are worthless folk. We have had them
and seemed to think them his superiors. . . . Possibly he may have been thinking,
too, how these same Frenchmen had been seen in his burnt capital. ..."
In another passage Chateaubriand says : " It was suggested to him that the name
of the Pont d'Austerlitz should be changed. ' No,' he said, ' it is enough that
I have crossed that bridge with my army.' "
191

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
in Russia, and I know just how much they are to be relied
on." x
The King of Prussia's chief care was to fill his coffers, by remov
ing from the fortresses that Talleyrand had surrendered, at the time
of the armistice, all the munitions of war they contained — guns,
muskets, shot, and powder. Some of these he sold for ready money,
but the most portable he packed into carts that had come from
the plains of Silesia for the purpose, and sent them off to replenish
his own fortresses. He wasted no time in social amenities. He
filled his own pockets, and enriched his country.
Simple and unassuming as all these princes were, however, and
proud as the Bourbons were, especially the King, no mere exhibi
tion of pride was the sort of retaliation that could console the
French for their country's abasement. Since the capitulation of
Paris the heart of every true patriot had been suffering the most
overwhelming sorrow and depression, at the sight of these foreigners
amusing themselved in the capital. They shut themselves up
sadly in their own houses, in their determination to share nothing
with their conquerors. The only people who took pleasure in the
existing state of things were the little shop-keepers, who were
chiefly concerned with money-making, and the lawyers, who are
always liable to be callous to the sorrows of others. Both these
classes had suffered grievously under the imperial government.
The former were able to feather their nests by selling the little
knicknacks in their stock at exorbitant prices ; while the latter
were at least free to say as much as they wished on any subject —
which was some compensation. As they pointed out, moreover,
the foreigners would not stay for ever. But it is worth while to
read Mme. de Stael's account of what proud and courageous hearts
like her own had to endure from the sights that were to be seen in
1 Nettement, in his Histoire de la Restauration (Vol. I., p. 346), gives other
instances of Louis XVIII's pride. "This powerless, disarmed monarch," he
says, " who had no troops and whose capital was occupied, made himself so
formidable to the Emperor Alexander, the head of the European Coalition, that
the latter went twice to the Tuileries without daring to ask for a seat in the
Chamber of Peers for the Due de Vicence, whom he had promised to befriend in
this matter. . . . Those who sometimes made him (Louis) feel they were his
conquerors, were sometimes made to feel that his was the oldest of the royal
houses. Thus, when the Emperor of Russia, the Emperor of Austria, and the
King of Prussia dined with him, he was the first to enter the room and take his
place. On another occasion, when he and the foreign sovereigns were watching
the troops march past his balcony, he had an armchair provided for himself and
ordinary chairs for them. This was his way of treating conquerors. He would
have treated ordinary guests otherwise. This distinction has been overlooked by
those who have criticised his conduct."
192

The Emperor At.exandee.

KING LOUIS XVIII
France during these first weeks of the occupation. After ten years
of exile she arrived at Calais from England, and her eyes were
instantly offended by the sight of Prussian uniforms. It seemed to
her, she writes, as though she were living in those long past ages
when the conquering tribes of ancient Germany oppressed our
country, and forced the owners of the soil to cultivate it for their
advantage. As she approached Paris, she saw Germans, Russians,
Cossacks, and Bashkirs at every turn : our roads, our public build
ings, were guarded by barbarians. She went to the Theatre de
l'Opera. Alas, the staircases were lined with Russian grenadiers !
The opera was Psyche. The graceful ballet was danced with the
same lightness and ^spirit as in the glorious days of the Empire,
and the music seemed to her as sweet and full of feeling as ever.
But the boxes and all the best places in the house were filled with
foreign uniforms, while in the pit she saw a few lonely old Parisian
bourgeois who could not do without their favourite pastime. " Oh
France ! " she cries, " you who were once so great, so powerful — did
you think then that it would ever be your lot to amuse your
conquerors ? " At the Theatre Francais, where, as at the Opera,
swords and moustaches were the most prominent objects, she
sought in vain for a face she knew, for some members of the social
set to whom her salons had once been open. She heard the
beautiful lines of Corneille and Racine recited before this
heterogeneous crowd, who were more inclined to be jealous of our
literary glory than to admire the genius of our authors, and it
made her miserable. " One hardly knew," she writes, " how to keep
oneself from blushing as one listened ! "
She was full of sympathy, too, for the French officers who
shunned these places of amusement, where the sight of their
triumphant enemies filled them with rage and despair. They hid
their speechless humiliation under the disguise of plain-clothes.
" Oh," she cries, " to see Paris occupied by them (these barbarians),
to see the Tuileries and the Louvre guarded by troops from the
confines of Asia, to whom our language, our history, our heroes,
are all less familiar than the last Khan of Tartary, was an insuppor
table sorrow ! If this was what I felt, I who could never have
returned to France while Bonaparte reigned, what must have been
the feelings of our warriors, covered as they were with wounds, and
all the prouder of their military glory because it was so long since
they had been able to gain another wound for France ? " No one
could better describe the nameless, indefinable chagrin that
19S o

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
oppressed the people of Paris during the desecration of their country
than this noble woman, Mme. de Stael. She returned from her
exile full of hope, after reading the Declaration of Saint-Ouen, in
which her own ideas, her own views of liberal government, were
incorporated. She believed that the King of France, who was
being restored to his kingdom like Charles II of England, was going
to govern like William III. She founded her belief, her confidence
in the good faith of the Bourbons, on the fact that they had
endured a severe ordeal during their years of exile. It was possible
that their promises might be kept ; and so she dreamt of a France
that should be free, a France in which talent, and the artistry of
words, which meant so much to her, should exercise the greatest
influence ; a France in which mental development should no longer
be hindered by the censorship of the press. But when she stood at
last upon her native soil it was not the breath of liberty that fanned
her cheek ; the first sight she saw was the uniform of a foreign
nation ; the first sound she heard was the clanking of iron — she who
abhorred all such manifestations of brute force. At that moment
she must indeed have suffered, as she said, from a cruel sense of
oppression. Even the King himself, haughtily as he bore himself towards the
allied sovereigns, must have suffered a severe blow to his pride when
the monarchs who were staying in Paris — professing, forsooth, a
desire to do him honour — insisted on riding past him and saluting
him with their swords at the head of eighty thousand men, drawn
up in order of battle from the Quai de 1' Arsenal to the Tuileries.
A military fete, it was called, and a mark of the greatest courtesy.
A mark of disdain, rather, for the King who had no army.
These demonstrations, far from calming popular feeling, made it all
the more hostile ; and the presence of the unemployed officers
who had returned from foreign prisons, and were living obscurely
in poverty-stricken rooms in Paris, added fuel to the fire. Russians
who wore the Moscow medal had it torn from them savagely by our
discharged soldiers ; and whether these differences resulted in duels
or some other form of quarrel there was not one of them but ended
fatally. The journals and memoirs of this period pass lightly over an
event that was recorded in the Moniteur on the 2nd May, two
days before the King's arrival : the departure of Bernadotte for
Sweden. On the 29th April he had left Paris, whither he had
hastened with all possible speed as soon as he learnt of the
194

KING LOUIS XVIII
capitulation of that town to the Allies. His motive in coming
was not disinterested, for he was relying upon the Emperor
Alexander, who had promised to put him forward as a candidate
for the throne of France. As is well known, no one would
consent to take the suggestion seriously. He was regarded with
suspicion by the marshals, his former companions in arms, who
were jealous of him and considered him a turncoat ; by the leaders
of the allied armies, who blamed him for his two months of inertia
in Holland ; and by the princes, in whose eyes he was simply a
parvenu. He was greeted with the cold shoulder everywhere ; and
soon left Paris. " If ambition does not kill a man's conscience,"
writes de Vaulabelle in his history, " Bernadotte's remorse when he
returned to his adopted country must have been very keen ! "
Remorse ! To believe that Bernadotte was capable of that
sentiment is to know him very little. Thoughout his life, from
the day that he won the rank of sergeant to the day that he was
created Crown Prince of Sweden, he had no motive but ambition.
In him that quality did indeed overpower everything, even con
science itself.

The first orders signed by the King's hand in this unhappy
land of France, while the Cossacks with their horses and tents,
their munitions of war and all their paraphernalia, were posted
threateningly round the Tuileries, related to the constitution of
his Court and not to the formation of a ministry. This is a very
characteristic fact. Nothing was so important to the King as
the dignitaries who were to be in his immediate circle. His
Almoner was to be the Archbishop of Rheims, M. de Talleyrand-
Perigord ; his Gentlemen in Waiting the Due de Duras, the Due
de Richelieu, the Due de Villequier, and the Due de Fleury ; his
Captains of the Guard the Due d'Havre, the Prince de Poix, the
Due de Grammont, and the Due de Luxembourg. His Grand
Marshal of the Royal Palaces was the Marquis de la Suze ; his
Grand Master of the Ceremonies the Marquis de Dreux-Breze ; his
Grand Master of the Wardrobe his favourite the Comte de Blacas ;
and his Master of the Wardrobe the Marquis d'Avaray, a relation
of his old friend. They all came of the most illustrious families
in France : their ancestors had all been marshals, governors of
195 o 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
provinces, or academicians. The family of Duras was a branch
of the distinguished house of Durfort, one of the oldest in
Guienne. One of the duke's ancestors had married a niece of
Pope Clement V, and through her had become possessed of the
Duras property, which was made into a dukedom. Louis XVIII's
gentleman-in-waiting had been married in England during the
Emigration, to the daughter of Admiral de Kersaint, who died on
the scaffold. The duke had been a member of Louis XVI's house
hold during the years 1790 and 1791, and was not likely to influence
Louis XVIII in the direction of liberal measures. His father, who
was a marshal and had succeeded du Belloy in the Academy, was
attacked on one occasion in the journal of the lawyer Linguet, and
having abstained from making an answer was addressed in the
following quatrain :
Monsieur le marichal, pourquoi cette riserve,
Lorsque Linguet hausse le ton ?
N'avez-vous pas votre bdton ?
Au moins, qu'unefois il vous serve!
For he had never been in command of an army.
The Due de Richelieu was a grandson of the marshal who had
been so famous in Louis XV's time for his frolics and visits to the
Bastille ; and his oval face, prominent Bourbon nose, fine, highly
developed forehead, and sagacious intellectual expression made him
extremely like his grandfather. He had been an officer in Conde's
army, and had then offered his services to Russia. The Emperor
Alexander made him Governor, first of Odessa, whose fortunes he
founded, and afterwards of New Russia. At the Restoration he
returned to France with a view to serving Louis XVIII, but he
found it impossible to infect him with liberal views among so
many uncompromising royalists. The Due de Villequier l and the
Due de Fleury were two emigres who had no recommendations but
their ancient blood, and their faithful service to the King in all the
1 The Due de Villequier, who was born in 1736, bore this title till 1799, when
on his brother's death he became Due d'Aumont. He was the only person who
was in the secret of Louis XVI's projected flight. The illustrious fugitives left
the palace through his rooms. The duke emigrated after the 21st June and went
to Brussels, where he became the secret agent of the King's brothers. When
Belgium was invaded by the French he retired to Munster, and after Louis XVI's
death joined Louis XVIIL He became one of the King's first gentlemen-in-
waiting, went with him to Blankenburg, and Mittau, and returned with him to
France in 1814.
(Lenotre says that the Due de Villequier emigrated before the 21st June, and
that his rooms were unoccupied when the royal family escaped through them.
See Le Drame de Varennes, p. 39. Translator's Note. )
196

KING LOUIS XVIII
dwellings of his exile, from Verona to Hartwell. In the salons of
Paris they were merely regarded as antique caryatides supporting
the Court.
Great personages, too, were the Prince de Poix and the Due de
Grammont. The former, originally Due de Mouchy, belonged to
the family of Noailles ; the latter had married a daughter of that
house and had thus become La Fayette's brother-in-law. The
Prince de Poix had been attracted by the liberal theories of the
National Assembly in 1789 ; but being alarmed by the excesses to
which that body was urged by its leaders he retired to Coblenz,
and afterwards emigrated to England. During the Consulate he
returned to France, but had no dealings with the Imperial Court.
At the Restoration he was rewarded for his self-denial and fidelity
to the Bourbons by being restored to the post he had occupied, as
captain of the guard, before the Revolution. The Due de Gram
mont did not emigrate, but he had never accepted any favour from
Napoleon. He had been one of the first of the aristocrats to
acclaim the Bourbons on the entry of the Allies into Paris, and in
acknowledgment of this action he was given the command of a
company of the guards. In spite of his connection with the
Court he preserved his independence, and as a member of the
Chamber of Deputies sided with the opposition. His biographers
describe him as being of a kindly and loyal nature, with a character
of great sincerity and generosity. The Due de Luxembourg was
a Montmorency. I have already given an account of the Due
d'Havre.1 The appointment of these four captains of the guard
showed that there were to be four companies. Later on there
were six ; but at present these officers had no men under them.
Notices were published inviting such as felt themselves in a position
to serve in this aristocratic and privileged corps to send in their
names to the four officers in question.
Another of the King's first cares was to arrange the details of
his receptions. He was anxious to lose no time in exacting for
his person all the respect that was due to the majesty of the Crown,
and in resuming the habits of the old Court of Versailles. The
Due de Duras, first gentleman-in-waiting, made it known through
the press that the King would admit the great dignitaries of the
Court, but no one else, to the throne-room at half-past twelve ;
all others would be received in the Salon de la Paix. The
1 In the first chapter of this volume.
197

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
evening was to be reserved for the wives of dukes who were
grandees of Spain, and these also would be received in the throne-
room ; which meant that the duchesses of the Empire, whose
husbands were not grandees of Spain, were to be relegated to the
Salon de la Paix with the wives of generals and senators.1 Every
woman who was presented was to wear a train ; 2 the men were to
be in uniform or court-dress. Perukes and powder were prohibited
— a concession on the King's part to his nephews the Due
d'Angouleme and Due de Berry, who had acquired a taste for
simplicity during their exile in England.
The King and the royal family began at once, too, to attend
the daily celebration of Mass in the chapel of the palace, where
the ceremonial was exactly the same as it had been in the old days
at Versailles. To reach the chapel the King passed through the outer
gallery that led to it, between two lines of French grenadiers (the
Old Guard), and as soon as he was in his seat the doors of the
chapel were closed and the service began.
A miracle of speed and sycophancy was performed by the artist
Cadet. He had formerly been in the employ of Louis XVI, and
had kept in his portfolios several sketches for a portrait of the
Comte de Provence, who was now King. With the help of these
sketches the artist painted a full-length portrait of Louis XVIII,
which was hung the instant it was finished, in the state apart
ments of the Tuileries. The intention, no doubt, was to efface
the memory of Napoleon, and wipe out the twenty-four years of
exile. At the same time a bust of Pichegru, the traitor general,
was exhibited in the Rue des Fosses-Montmartre. Then a public
subscription was opened, with the object of substituting bronze
for the plaster of Henri IV's statue, lately replaced on the Pont-
Neuf. The company of the Theatre Francais subscribed twelve
hundred francs. The Due de Larochefoucauld obtained the right
of using the title of Due d'Estissac, which belonged to his family ;
1 "I do not think I ever heard," writes Mile, de Chastenay, "anything to
equal the outcry that was made at that time, and the insulting way that the
King was abused."
2 See Mimoires de la Comtesse de Boigne, Vol. I., p. 394. " A court-dress had
to be fixed upon. Madame wished to revert to the paniers that were worn at
Versailles, but there was such a general revolt that she yielded, But all the
accessories of the old style were added to the imperial fashions, which made
a strangely incongruous costume. ... At first Madame insisted on the strict
observance of these rules. A model that was sent to the shops she dealt with
had to be copied exactly, and she showed her displeasure to anyone who varied
from it. Later on Mme. la Duchesse de Berry emancipated herself from this
slavery, and others followed her example. ..."
198

KING LOUIS XVIII
and by the 8th May the Opera Comique was able to announce
the play Les Heritiers Michau. On the subject of this play
Charles Nodier wrote as follows : " The family of the worthy
Michau, who gave shelter to Henri IV when he lost his way in
the chase, and had the honour of receiving him under his own roof,
has always remained in the same spot, and in the same condition
of life. The Michaus still own the mill, the land, and the patri
mony of their ancestors. All the furniture and utensils that were
used for the King's repast are still kept religiously and used on the
anniversary of the memorable occasion. The party gathers round
the table at which the King sat ; they speak of his virtues, drink
to his memory, and repeat his songs. A young man sings the
famous air : Si le roi m'avait donni
Paris, sa grande ville.
A girl sings the entrancing melody :
Charmante Gabrielle !
And it is Mile. Regnault who has the good taste to sing it with
out any artificial ornaments. The meal ends with the air :
J'aimions les filles
Et faimions le bon vin ;
which is answered by a chorus outside the house, a chorus of the
entire people, who acclaim the descendants of Henri IV, and
express their own joy in the hallowed words of
Vive Henri IV!"
The next measure was to change Bonaparte's effigy on the cross
of the Legion of Honour to that of King Henry. As it was
advisable to pay some attention to the Old Guard, whom it was
desired to imbue with royalist sentiments, the King, from his
balcony overlooking the Carrousel, held a review of them ; and,
when the colours were lowered to salute him, he rose, and said in
a loud voice : Honour to the brave ! The newspapers were very
enthusiastic on the subject of the King's words, but said nothing
of the Old Guard. The latter had made no response to the King's
act of courtesy.
These details of the King's first actions are all very trivial, no
doubt ; but they formed an unmistakable prophecy of the retro
grade measures that were to be expected from this government of
the Restoration, on which the liberal party had founded all their
hopes. The prophecy was fulfilled. 199

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII

VI
For ten whole days Louis XVIII revelled in his happiness in
the Tuileries, and thought more about himself than about France.
His study was inundated with addresses from municipal bodies,
swearing eternal fidelity to him. He was enjoying the privileges
of kingship without its cares. He was obliged, however, to sacrifice
this unmixed delight, for France was demanding peace, which was
not yet actually concluded ; and not only was France demanding
it, but the Emperor Alexander, who declined to leave Paris till
this satisfaction had been granted to the Parisians. Moreover, the
sovereign power was still in the hands of the provisional govern
ment under Monsieur the Comte d'Artois, who had not yet lost
his post of lieutenant-general. On the 13th May, this abnormal
situation came to an end, and the first ministry was formed.
Thenceforward the King not only reigned but governed.
The signing of the treaty of peace being dependent on the
acceptation of the Constitution — since this was Alexander's will —
the ministry began by giving their entire attention to the prepara
tion of that document, which was to be called a Charter, though
Louis, to spare his kingly pride, preferred to name it an Ordinance
of Reformation. After the publication of the Charter, Alexander
would sign the treaty of peace with France, and, after the signing
of the treaty, Louis XVIII would open his Parlement. This was
the first stage in the journey of the government of the Restoration,
which, having set out upon so dark a road, could not fail to end
in an abyss.
M. Dambray1 was appointed Chancellor of France, but his
father-in-law M. de Barentin, the last chancellor of Louis XVI,
kept all the honours of the office. Talleyrand, as he desired, kept
the Ministry for Foreign Affairs ; the Abbe de Montesquiou
received the portfolio of the Interior ; General Dumont became
Minister of War ; Baron Louis, Minister of Finance ; Malouet,
Minister of Marine. Beugnot was transferred from the Ministry of
'De Barante's Souvenirs, VoL II., p. 44. "M. Dambray had no personal
dignity. He was ugly in a vulgar, insignificant way, and his manners were those
of the middle classes. . . . He had no conversation, and he had lived in such
seclusion that he never knew what was being talked about. ... If not actually
devout he at least had pious habits. . . . but when he was in good spirits he
delighted in unsavoury stories. ... a sure way of succeeding with the
King. ..." 200

KING LOUIS XVIIl
the Interior to the lower office of Director-General of Police, and
Ferrand1 became Postmaster-General. As for the Comte de
Blacas the King created a portfolio for him. He became Minister
of the Household, with a seat in the Council.
For a country as grievously burdened as France these were very
inadequate minsters. This Dambray, for instance, who was made
chancellor, was a poor man who had been living in oblivion since
the beginning of the Revolution in his father-in-law's chateau in
Normandy. When he returned to Paris he seemed to be awakened
from a heavy slumber, for he knew nothing of any laws but the old
ones that had been abolished twenty years before, nor of any
procedure but that of the Parlements he mourned. He was up
right and honest, no doubt, but intellectually he was frivolous,
weak, and indolent, unenlightened and illogical ; and as he sat
dozing on the president's seat in the Chamber of Peers it was very
evident that he was quite unequal to directing the important
debates of that critical time. The new chancellor, like many
another worthy man, succeeded in nothing because he had not the
courage to form any strong resolution ; was amusing in society be
cause he had an endless supply of gossip — which is not at all the
same thing as conversation ; and knew nothing of his neighbours'
characters because he was not acute enough to discern them. He
was poor, as I have already said, and had no personal dignity. His
appearance was insignificant and bourgeois. Chateaubriand, who met
him at Ghent on his way to see the King, during the Hundred
Days, writes : " I met M. Dambray wearing a green coat
and a round hat, with an old novel under his arm." It is thus
that one always pictures him ; in these unattractive garments, with
nothing to distinguish him from any other man in the street, on
his way to play the courtier. Such was the man who re
placed Bonaparte's great judge, Regnier ; such was the grotesque
and retrograde lawyer who sat in the seat of L'Hopital and
Seguier.2 The Abbe Louis, who had been raised to the rank of Baron
under the Empire, had a certain amount of right to keep the port-
1Be Barante's Souvenirs, Vol. II., p. 51. " His book L'esprit de Vhistoire had
been much spoken of. This work had a great reputation, though thoughtful
men as a rule regarded it merely as a big pamphlet in four volumes, containing no
evidence of historical study. ... In 1804 he was insignificant and ridiculous to
the last degree. The poor man was deprived of the use of his legs by paralysis,
but in spite of this he had a mania for being taken everywhere. ..."
2 On the subject of Dambray see the Mimoires of Fleury de Chaboulon (Vol. I.,
p. 18), of Pasquier, of Lamothe-Langon, and of Mile, de Chastenay.
201

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
folio of Finance. He had been a member of the provisional govern
ment after working very energetically for the deposition of the
Emperor, and had then been Minister of Finance under the
lieutenant-general of the kingdom, the Comte d'Artois. His
intelligence was equal to the duties of the office. Not that he was
to be compared with Gaudin or Mollien, who had conducted
Bonaparte's financial affairs. His reputation was exaggerated.
He was considered at that time as something very special ; but
Chateaubriand declares he was by no means unique, and might
easily have been replaced. But he seemed very surprising to people
who were not accustomed to find a knowledge of business in a
member of the ministry ; for Baron Louis' ability was that of a
banker ; he was skilful in using credit as a means of procuring
money for the needs of the government.1 Moreover, he overawed
all his opponents by his savage, crushing, callous manner in
discussion. He triumphed by sheer violence of speech, for no one
had the force to oppose his resolutions. Chateaubriand could not
endure him. He declares that the Abbe, before beginning to
speak, shook his great jaw as if he wished to bite ; and certainly
the engraving by which we know the face of this cross-grained,
irascible, obstinate man does a good deal to confirm his reputation.
The nose is long, and very large, with wide nostrils — two fiery
caverns dividing the eyes, which are deeply sunk beneath the eye
brows and have a concentrated piercing expression of anger. The
forehead is prominent at the top : the bump of obstinacy. As for
the mouth the lips are large ; the lower one is enormous, and
closes fiercely over the upper one — a sign of resolute will. He had
been a deacon under Talleyrand, who treated him without
ceremony ; and he was on intimate terms with Fouche under the
Empire. We may judge of him by these two friends : like them
he was hard and heartless. But there was rough work to be done
just then in the Ministry of Finance. It was necessary to provide
for the needs of the allied troops, and for the exactions of the
penniless courtiers who had returned from their exile with very
large appetites. The baron's unyielding will was by no means out
of place.
I have referred elsewhere to the Abbe de Montesquiou; but
1 Vitrolles describes him in his Mimoires, Vol. I., p. 34. " While he was in
England he studied the financial methods of that country. But he learnt nothing
but the machinery of administrative operations. ... On returning to France,
almost penniless, he accepted some trivial post as a means of livelihood, obtained
promotion, and became Maitre des Requetes. . . "
202

KING LOUIS XVIII
there is more to be said. At the time of Napoleon's deposition he
had a reputation in society for statesmanship. He expounded his
theories of government in soft and dulcet tones that won the
hearts of all the old dowagers. If he were to be believed his
methods of administration, should he ever become a minister,. would
produce miracles ; and the women he had cajoled and courted
forced him upon Talleyrand. Now that the Bourbons had been
brought back, where could a more suitable man be found than this
ardent royalist? So the old Abbe — for he was sixty years of
age — was appointed Minister of the Interior. His reputation as a
great man was altogether undeserved, and his incapacity became
apparent at once. He was unable to work quickly, and when he
found that his subordinates were outstripping him he ordered them
to be less energetic. His character changed, too, either from
illness 1 or because power had a deteriorating effect upon it. In
private life, says Fleury de Chaboulon, he had been gentle, simple,
and modest, but as soon as he was a member of the government he
became contemptuous, irascible, and intolerant. No one could
gain his favour who had ever had the least sympathy with the
principles or the men of the Revolution. He conceded nothing to
any but the staunchest royalists, nor indeed to any except those
who were obsequious enough to overcome his inertia. Far from
the promised miracles being performed the department of which he
was the head was unequalled in its chaos of contradictory measures,
and business delayed by negligence. He would refuse in the
evening what he had promised and authorised in the morning. In
his offices, says Mile, de Chastenay, no questions were ever answered
and nothing was ever despatched in time. Everything, she adds,
was in a regular muddle. If he were hurried he forgot the most
important facts ; and Mile, de Chastenay finally admits that " the
1 Reboul, who obtained an interview with him, describes him in his Souvenirs :
" 1 was shown into his Excellency's presence through a back door. It was at
the time of his lever, and he was still in his dressing-gown and night-cap. I
hoped much from this piece of good fortune, and my hopes were raised still
further by the simple and gracious way he received me. ... He seemed to me
to have lost the brilliant faculties that he showed in his noble and courageous
opposition at the beginning of the Revolution. . . . One would have thought he
had made a great sacrifice to his country in accepting office. . . . Summer was
at its height and the heat was intense ; yet I found Monseigneur poking a fire, to
hasten the boiling of a jug in which some kind of drink was being prepared. I
briefly described my position to him. ... He listened to me with one ear, was
silent for a moment, and then, with his eyes fixed on the decoction on the fire, to
which he was paying far more attention than to my words, he answered irritably :
' I am besieged by men of intellect and merit, and I don't know how to escape
them!' At these words I fled. " 203

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
very attitude of inflexibility assumed by the late government gave
an idea of capacity that might be vainly sought in this one." It
was this government, however, whose views prevailed when the
Charter was drawn up.
As for the other ministers it is hard to find any reason for
their introduction into this government, at a time when even
the great statesmen of the Consulate, who had had to reorganise
France after the cataclysm of the Revolution, might have found
it hard to disembroil the chaos that resulted from the presence
of the Allies in Paris. In the War department everything had
to be created anew, and organised methodically and impartially.
General Dupont had a cultivated mind, but no character, and he
was obsessed by the disgrace that had been brought upon his name
by the capitulation of Baylen. He was in his present position
because he hated the Emperor, who had removed his name from
the army list, and deprived him of all the privileges of his rank,
and even of the right to wear uniform ; he hated, too, all those
loyal servants of their country who had been deputed to inquire
into his conduct. In this much-coveted office all his favours
were for the courtiers of the Bourbons. If an emigre came to
him with some story of imaginary claims he neither investigated
nor disputed them. He merely answered : " What rank do you
want ? " and his visitor departed, satisfied. Beugnot obtained
nothing more important than the police department ; but even
that was too great a responsibility for his special type of mind, a
mind that was nimble and witty enough, but exercised itself
chiefly in stinging repartee, and charades, and riddles. He said of
himself, writes de Vitrolles in his memoirs, that all he needed
to make him a man of mark was to have a character equal to his
intellect. " M. Beugnot," adds de Vitrolles, " accorded to no one,
not even to the King he served, the respect that he denied to
himself; and yet in all the outward forms of it he was extravagant.
and never did so tall a man make such profound bows." But he
had seen the birth of the Monarchy ; he had witnessed the base
ness of the great dignitaries of the Empire and the indecent
behaviour of many of the royalists ; he had been a member of the
provisional government ; and he remained in office under the
Monarchy because it was safer for the ministry to have him with
them than against them. Ferrand, an old man whose frequent
attacks of gout made him almost an invalid, and whose hands
were so helpless that he could not even unseal a letter with them,
204

KING LOUIS XVIII
was^ironically^made Postmaster-General. On the fall of Napoleon,
whom he never served, he had shown great enthusiasm for the
Bourbons, and had been one of the little band of aristocrats who
perambulated the boulevards crying Vive le roi ! He had served
in Conde's army, and he came of an old parliamentary family. In
the eyes of the royalists these were serious reasons for granting
him honours and favours. Moreover, he had published numerous
political brochures, and even composed operas, it is said ; and
Louis XVIII was a patron of letters. This was why he was
chosen, with the Abbe de Montesquiou and Beugnot, to represent
the King in a discussion, with a commission of senators and
deputies, on the articles of the long-desired charter. As for the
Comte de Blacas he was the favourite, and the King, being chained
to his chair and anxious to be informed of all that occurred in
every department, found him indispensable as a witness. Talley
rand had forced himself into office by exaggerating the difficulties
that were to be expected at the initiation of the new regime.
The difficulties were great, no doubt; but as we follow the
course of events we shall see how unconcernedly this egoist,
this covetous, ambitious libertine, sacrified the interests of
France. VII
After a week's delay Louis XVIII, being greatly harassed by
the Emperor Alexander's determined will, was induced to appoint a
commission to inquire into the Charter. The Chevalier Dambray
was chosen to preside, and the King's three commissioners, as we
know, were the Abbe de Montesquiou, M. Ferrand, and M.
Beugnot. The senators were MM. Barthelemy, Barbe-Morbois,
Pastoret, Semonville, Vimar, and Marshal Serrurier. The deputies
were MM. Blancard de Bailleul, Bois-Savary, Chabaut-Latour,
Clausel de Coussergues, Duchesne de Gillevoisin, Duhamel, Faget
de Baure, Felix Faulcon, and Laine.
The King's representatives brought with them an incomplete
draft of the Charter. It was ill-constructed and full of omissions,
and was subjected to a very lively discussion ; first, with regard to
the method of election to the Chamber of Deputies, and secondly,
on the liberty of the press. In the end these matters were amicably
settled. The liberty of the press was definitely established by this
Charter, in the first draft of which it was specified that laws should
205

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
be passed to prevent and suppress all abuses of that liberty. If the
word prevent had been left it would practically have restored the
censorship. The word was erased. The affair was carried through
very hurriedly, after all, and the deliberations curtailed as far as
possible; for Alexander was adjuring the ministry to conclude,
without further delay, this business upon which all the subsequent
political negotiations were dependent. In five days it was finished,
on the 27th May, 1814.
It has been frequently believed that all the merits of this freely-
conceded Constitution were due to Louis XVIIL A certain artist
who painted him when he was King represented him sitting at his
writing-table at Hartwell, with his head in his hands, meditating
profoundly on the rights that should be granted to his people, and
the liberties necessary for his future government. Nothing was
ever further from the truth. The Charter was imperfect, no doubt,
but, such as it was, it was the work of the commission whose
members were so strangely chosen. They were all men of the
Empire, all nourished on Napoleonic ideals ; and with the possible
exceptions of the Abbe de Montesquiou, and MM. Dambray and
Ferrand, were altogether ignorant of the obstinate and autocratic
views of the Bourbons. The Charter was the product of current
events, and of the ideals that obtained among the politicians of
the day. Liberty had too long been denied to the press by
Napoleon, and freedom of expression was passionately desired
by every enlightened Frenchman. When it was granted there was
universal joy.
Three days later, on the 30th May, the treaty of peace between
France and the European Powers that had combined against her
was definitely concluded. The treaty between France and Austria
was signed on the part of France by M. de Talleyrand, and on the
part of Austria by Counts Metternich and Stadion. On the same
day, and in the same terms, treaties were signed with England,
Prussia, and Russia, the representatives of England being Lord
Castlereagh, Lord Aberdeen, Lord Cathcart, and General Stewart ;
those of Prussia, Prince von Hardenberg and Baron von Humboldt ;
and those of Russia, Counts Nesselrode and Razumowski. There
were four supplementary articles. The first was in favour of
Austria, and referred to the annulment of the treaties of 1805 and
1809. The second concerned England, and in it France engaged
to carry out the following three measures : the abolition of the
"slave-trade" — the payment of the French prisoners' debts in
206

KING LOUIS XVIII
England, without reciprocity as regards English prisoners in France :
the restoration of all real and movable property of individuals
of both nations, which had been sequestered since 1702 : and the
conclusion of a commercial treaty. The third article annulled the
engagements into which Prussia had entered with France at the
Peace of Bale ; and the fourth, which concerned Russia, related to
the claims of the Duchy of Warsaw on the French government.
This was not all. There were some secret articles making
it obligatory upon France to sanction in advance: first, any
distribution which the Allies might make among themselves of the
territory France was surrendering ; secondly, the enlargement
of the kingdom of Sardinia; and thirdly, the free navigation
of the Rhine and the Scheldt. France further engaged to give up
all the endowments and grants accruing to „. Legion of Honour,
and all the senatorships, pensions, and other charges with
which the allied powers had been burdened during Napoleon's
reign. Even this was not all. France surrendered to England her
colonies of Tobago, St. Lucia, file de France, Rodrigues Island,
and the Seychelles ; left Malta and its dependencies in the hands
of the same power ; and gave her the Ionian Islands as well, which
had been garrisoned by 14,000 French soldiers for many a long
year. General Lemarrois and his garrison of 20,000 were to leave
Magdeburg, and Marshal Davout and his 40,000 men were to retire
from Hamburg and its neighbourhood and return to France.1
These enormous sacrifices were the disastrous consequences of the
Convention of April 23rd, which Talleyrand had submitted to the
Comte d'Artois. " Disgraceful inadvertence on the part of the
minister," says Stein in his memoirs. " The loss of the securities
France still possessed made the conditions of peace less favourable
for her." These words of Baron von Stein were charitably
1 In the Lanterne Magique of the Restoration a certain naval officer wrote as
follows : "Nothing but repeated orders and the desire of saving bloodshed
induced the Prince d'Eckmul to leave Hamburg and hand over his command to
General Gerard, after defending it so long against a large army. . . . This fine
defence would have been enough to make another man famous, but added very
little to the fame of Marshal Davout. . . . The other fortified towns of Germany
were surrendered. . . . Cristin, Stettin, and other fortresses had already been
evacuated, and also Dantzic, beneath whose ruins the intrepid Rapp would have
preferred to be buried. The Belgian fortresses were also handed over to the
Allies. . . . Maestricht was surrendered by General Merle to the English, who
took possession of the whole of Belgium. ... In Italy, too, the troops evacuated
all the fortified towns and strongholds, and returned to France. Prince Eugene
would of course have been out of his element at the Court of Louis XVIIl. He
preferred to return to that of his father-in-law." 207

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
euphemistic. Talleyrand knew very well what he was doing on
the 23rd April, for most of the historians, notably de Vaulabelle,
accuse him of having secured a substantial commission by his
inadvertence. And it is certainly a fact that Talleyrand
reciprocated — and did it quite openly, it must be owned — when he
signed the treaty of peace on May 30th, by consenting to draw
a sum of eight million francs from the national treasury to be
divided among the foreign plenipotentiaries. Four days earlier an
unfortunate wretch had been executed in the Place de Greve
for making false coins worth ten and fifteen sous apiece. Such
is human justice !
Who can wonder at the mingled anger and despair with which
all the patriots of France read clause after clause of this treaty
that the French minister had signed ? Who can blame them if
they cursed him — this degraded aristocrat, this unfrocked priest,
who had defended the interests of his country so badly, and his
own so well ? Not for a single year, not for a single day, had this
man ever served his country, or thought of anything but himself.
There was never a government that owed him gratitude. He had
betrayed the Directory to become Bonaparte's minister; he had
betrayed Bonaparte to win the Bourbons' favour and secure a place
in the government of the monarchy ; and he betrayed the Bourbons
to support the house of Orleans. Yet, in his Memoirs, he
declared he had always worked for his country. He lied : he had
never any motive but his own interests. If at any time he
seemed to be profound, and able, and bold in action, it was when
he was receiving advice from Mme. de Stael or orders from
Bonaparte. What a miserable exhibition he made of himself at
the time that the Allies came into Paris ! How he changed his
mind every day, negotiating at the same time with the enemy and
with the Bourbons, and keeping on good terms with everyone, even
with Napoleon ! How he kept his counsel to the last, and waited
for some definite success before he would declare for the stronger
side ! Fortunately for him he was at Vienna during the Hundred
Days, and was able by his intrigues to rouse the allied powers
against France once more. How he would have fallen in
fragments from his pedestal if Napoleon had won the Battle of
Waterloo !

208

KING LOUIS XVIII

VIII

Two days after the signing of the treaty the Emperor Alexander
and the King of Prussia left Paris, where they had been living for
the past two months, and went to England, where an academical
honour awaited them. They were both to receive, at Oxford,
the degrees of Doctor of Civil Law and Doctor of Divinity :
not very overwhelming honours for such great monarchs, but
valuable in their eyes none the less. Three days earlier they had
sent their aides-de-camp to represent them at the funeral of the
Empress Josephine, who had died at Malmaison of inflammation of
the throat. She had been ill when the Emperor Alexander, in
the course of the week before her death, had paid her one of his
frequent visits ; but she had insisted on receiving him, and walking
with him in her lovely garden, where the flowers had just been
copiously watered and the ground was damp. When the walk was
over she retired to bed, and no efforts on the part of her doctors
or her children — Queen Hortense and Prince Eugene — could check
the progress of the malady. She died on the 30th May, and was
buried in the church of Rueil. In spite of the recent upheaval of
society and the prevailing sense of uneasiness the ceremony was
very imposing ; for all Josephine's friends hastened to Malmaison,
remembering the many kindnesses of this good-hearted woman
who was never deaf to an appeal. The crowd of carriages that
followed one another along the main avenue to the chateau was so
great that those who were approaching on foot could hardly reach
the gateway of the court. " One would have thought," says an
eye-witness, " that it was some great reception-day at the Court
that no longer existed." There were marshals and generals
there ; there were senators, deputies, ambassadors, learned men,
artists, officials of every degree, and ladies wearing deep
mourning to show their grief. The young Empress Marie Louise,
in all the heyday of her youth and power, had lately left Paris
with a few old men, and unconcerned officials, and women whose
chief care was the preservation of their gowns and jewels : this
woman who lay in her coffin and could grant no more favours left
her home amid the regrets of a multitude, and was followed
by the most distinguished men in the country. Josephine had
a warm heart ; Marie Louise was never anything but hard and
selfish. 209 r

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
On the day following the departure of the allied sovereigns the
foreign regiments that were encamped in the boulevards and
quartered in the barracks of Paris packed up their baggage and
departed likewise, leaving their vermin behind them. It was one
of those dark, hazy mornings that we so often see at the beginning
of June, when Pasquier, the late Prefect of Police, came out to see
the noisy departure of the guns, horses, and armed men that had
been keeping Paris constantly on the alert, though they had given
no cause for alarm. He took up his position on the Pont de la
Concorde, and thence, leaning on the parapet, watched the
measured tread of the soldiers as they marched away to the shrill
sound of the fifes. All the surrounding streets and quays were as
much deserted as if nothing unusual were going forward : Pasquier
was almost the only witness of the final scene in the great historical
drama that had begun on the 31st March. He felt as if he could
breathe more freely as he saw the last ranks of the enemy disappear
ing ; he was happier, and the weight lifted from his heart ; for it
seemed to him that the great town was her own mistress again,
now that the guardians of her palaces and museums were her own
troops. He feasted his eyes upon the scene. He could look
wherever he chose : the conquerors' uniforms were gone. Gone
were the Cossacks with the bushy beards, and the nervous little
horses picketed among the trees of the Champs-Fdysees. How
ever hard the terms of peace might be, deliverance had come at last.
The Due d'Angouleme had been in Paris since the 28th May.
He had spent the month in the south, living like some feudal
prince, travelling from one department to another and being
received in all of them with immense pomp by the prefects,
who were everywhere zealous in preparing ovations for the
duke, and in fanning the ardour of the people. In this way
he visited Agen; then Casteljaloux; then Nerac, where, as the
Journal des Debats expressed it, " so many memories of the good
Henri were to be found in contemporary monuments of the great
king, and in the hearts of the "aithful Gascons." From Nerac the
duke went to Condom, where ne spent the night ; thence to Auch ;
and then to Toulouse, where he stayed. Here the walls of the
houses were draped with magnificent hangings, and decorated with
lilies and garlands. A triumphal arch had been erected at the
entrance to the Rue Nazareth. The prince repaired first to the
cathedral, where the clergy offered prayers in i,us -iame. In the
evening there was a ball at the Capitol ; and four nundred ladies,
210

KING LOUIS XVIII
according to contemporary journals, were presented to his Royal
Highness, who was seated in an armchair on a platform, near a
bust of Louis XIV. The town was splendidly illuminated, and
the crowds in the streets cheered the duke incessantly. The
rejoicings were really delirious; the royalist demonstration was
carried on with the ardour that the people of the south always
exhibit in their popular festivities. But if the duke attended the
balls that were given for him by the various municipal bodies, he
also attended Mass daily. This was a rule with all the Bourbons.
In virtue of his plenary powers he made a few appointments
during his stay, which were recorded in the Parisian gazettes. For
instance, he gave the command of the departments of Gers and
Lot-et-Garonne to the Comte de Preissac, " a colonel," said the
Debats, "in the service of His Very Christian Majesty, and a
Knight of the royal and military Order of St. Louis." At Toulouse
the prince received a visit from the Due d'Albufera (Souchet), who
said when he was presented : " Monseigneur, my army and myself
are at the service of the Bourbons, for life or death." Not one of
the marshals who owed their fame and their titles to Napoleon
had the courage or decency to be faithful to him.1
At last, when the prince had had his fill of these almost royal
honours, he decided to proceed to Paris ; for nearly four months
had passed since he parted from Louis XVIII at Hartwell. At
two o'clock the Duchesse d'Angouleme drove out of Paris to meet
him at Bourg-la-Reine, in a carriage drawn by eight white horses.
The Due de Berry left Paris an hour later, followed by an escort
of marshals. By five o'clock the duchess had returned ; and it was
barely a quarter of an hour later when the duke appeared at the
head of an imposing procession, riding a white horse, with his
brother the Due de Berry at his right hand, and at his left the
Due d'Orieans, who had arrived from Palermo ten days earlier.
They were followed by a little army of twelve thousand men, and
from Montrouge to the Tuileries the duke was escorted by a
vociferous crowd. After dinner the King and the royal family
appeared at the windows of the palace, and were greeted with
cheers. The refrain was the same at all these royal exhibitions.
Throughout this month of May Paris had been crowded with
foreigners, of whom the greater number were English. They
made a point of visiting the great palaces whither Napoleon had
1 It is still more surprising to learn from the Parisian papers of this time that
General Carnot and Admiral Verhuel were presented to the King.
211 p 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
been in the habit of retiring for rest : Saint-Cloud and Compiegne :
and those that were famous on account of their associations, such
as Trianon, where the splendid furniture was much admired. It was
during these first weeks of the Monarchy that the town of Lyons
resolved to restore Louis the Great's statue to its position in the
Place Bellecourt ; and that there were some riots in Nantes to
protest against the droits reunis, or indirect taxes, which were still
levied, in spite of many promises to the contrary. On May 14th
a service was held in Notre Dame de Paris to commemorate
the death of Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette, and Madame
Elizabeth. In the centre of the choir a catafalque of chastened
splendour had been set up, enclosing a single coffin. The Duchesse
d'Angouleme was present in deep mourning, entirely enveloped in
a very thick black veil. After the reading of the gospel the Abbe
Legris-Duval preached the funeral-sermon of Louis XVI, which
lasted for an hour and a half.1 Three orders of missionary priests
received permission at this time to resume their ministry : the
order of Foreign Missions in the Rue du Bac, the priests of Saint-
Lazare, and the priests of the Saint-Esprit. The Abbe Desmazures
was set at liberty. For four years he had been confined in the
Chateau d'lf, having been arrested at Toulon after paying a visit
to Pope Pius VII, who was at that time a prisoner at Savona. The
following appointments were made : the Marquis de Champcenetz,
an old emigre, was named Governor of the Tuileries ; Monsieur (the
Comte d'Artois) Colonel in command of the Swiss Guards ; the
Prince de Conde, Colonel in command of the infantry and of the
line ; the Due d'Angouleme received the command of the light
cavalry and lancers, the Due d'Orieans that of the hussars, and
the Due de Bourbon that of the light infantry. And during this
same month the King and the royal family visited the Opera and
the Theatre Francais more than once. On one of these occasions
the audience were surprised to see the Duke of Wellington — recently
appointed English Ambassador — in a box with Lord Castlereagh,
and behind them, half hidden in the shadow, the fair Grassini.
These two cynical Englishmen were evidently not afraid of scandal.
1 De Vitrolles in his Mimoires (Vol. II., p. 34) says : " Marshal Soult, being
the last to arrive, felt obliged to do more than the rest. I saw him for the first
time in Notre Dame, where we had all assembled to hear the panegyric of Louis
XVI. The marshal was so much touched by this discourse that tears, real tears,
streamed from his eyes, and he repeatedly turned round to speak to me in broken
accents, lest the depth of his emotion »should escape my notice. . . A kind of
deliberate roughness took the place of frankness in him. The fox's skin was
hidden under a few lion's hairs. . . " 212

The Due d'Angouleme.

KING LOUIS XVIII

IX

As soon as Paris was free of the foreign troops the King con
voked the Chambers, which met on the 4th June in the Palais
Bourbon. The Senate was no more. The Charter had replaced it
by a Court of Peers, of a different constitution from the imperial
Senate. The regicides were excluded from it, and there were only
a few members of definitely republican opinions, chosen from among
those who had brought about the fall of the Emperor — the price
of their ingratitude. But all the members of the Legislative Body
were summoned, except M. Bonnet de Treyches, the regicide, who
had sent in his resignation.
When the King, preceded by his family, entered the hall where
this assembly was seated, all the members rose to their feet.
Without uncovering, Louis seated himself on the throne that had
served Napoleon for so long, and with a sign invited the members
to sit down. Then, slowly but clearly, he read his speech. He
congratulated himself, he said, on being the dispenser of the
benefits that Divine Providence had deigned to grant to his
people. He congratulated himself, moreover, on all the recent
events ; on the peace signed with the great European Powers ; on
the position that France had succeeded in keeping among the
nations ; on the untarnished glory of the French army ; on the
revival he foresaw in the art, commerce, and industry of the
country. In his opinion all the clouds had passed away. The
time had come to sing Hosanna. He ended his speech by saying
that his only ambition was to carry out the wishes of King
Louis XVI, as expressed in the immortal testament written
by that monarch when he was about to die. Such were his
paternal intentions. Louis XVIII had been using this expression
for twenty years.
When the King had finished speaking M. Dambray, the
chancellor, read a verbose commentary on the origin and spirit of
the Charter known as the Ordinance of Reformation, graciously
granted by Louis XVIII to his kingdom. He then fixed the
date of the King's accession in accordance with " legitimate "
views, that is to say at the time of Louis XVII's death. The
current year was therefore the nineteenth of Louis XVIII's reign.
" The breath of God," he added, " has overthrown the formidable
colossus of power that was a burden to the whole of Europe, but
213

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
under the ruins of that gigantic structure France has at least
discovered the immovable foundations of her ancient Monarchy.
The King, being in the full possession of his hereditary rights
over this noble kingdom, will only exercise the authority he
holds from God and his fathers within the limits that he
himself has set." The sense of these words was clear. The
nation had no rights but such as were conceded by the sovereign ;
and having become an infant in the eyes of the law was to be
guided according to the good pleasure of the paternal authority.
Mme. de Stael was present at the opening of the Chambers,
and in her graphic description of the scene tells how the men
who had once served Napoleon applauded these speeches as
enthusiastically as if they had been uttered by the Emperor.
" The difference was," she adds, " that the audience bowed towards
the east instead of towards the west. The whole Court was
in the galleries, shouting itself tired in the King's honour. The
members of the Imperial Government, the ex-senators who had
become peers, the marshals and the deputies, were surrounded on
all sides by these transports, and were so much accustomed to
submission that the smiles with which their faces were habitually
wreathed served the usual purpose of admiration for the powers
that be."
M. Ferrand, following M. Dambray, read the official text of the
Charter that had been so laboriously produced under the lash
of the Emperor Alexander's threats. But the excitement of the
audience was so great, and their joy so profound, that it is
certain not one of them was struck by the reactionary expressions
used by M. Dambray and M. Ferrand. The members of the
excluded Senate, who were present at this first sitting, were as
much carried away and as prodigal of cheers as the rest of the
spectators. It might be worth while, they argued. Perhaps
their good will and quick conversion might be observed, and they
might some day reap the benefit. Ambition, it would seem,
leaves no room in a man's heart for anything but hypocrisy and
servility. When the assembly had become calmer M. Ferrand read the
royal ordinance that named the new peers, of whom there were
one hundred and fifty-four, though their numbers were not limited
by the Charter. The survivors among the old ecclesiastical peers
were the first to be named : the Archbishop of Rheims, M. de
Perigord ; the Bishop of Langres, M. de la Luzerne ; and the
214

KING LOUIS XVIII
Bishop of Chalons (Marne), M. de Clermont-Tonnerre. The peers
who sat in the Parlement of 1788, or their direct descendants,
took rank after these three in the order of the creation of their
peerages. There had been thirty-six of them in 1788, but in
1814 there were only twenty-six, namely : 1572, the Due d'Uzes ;
1582, the Due d'Elbceuf; 1595, the Due de Montbazon; 1599,
the Due de la Tremoille ; 1619, the Due de Chevreuse ; 1620,
the Due de Brissac ; 1631, the Due de Richelieu ; 1652, the Due
de Rohan ; 1662, the Due de Luxembourg ; 1663, the Due de
Grammont; 1663, the Due de Mortemart; 1663, the Due de
Saint- Aignan ; 1663, the Due de Noailles ; 1665, the Due
d'Aumont; 1710, the Due d'Harcourt; 1710, the Due de Fitz
James ; 1716, the Due de Brancas ; 1716, the Due de Valentinois ;
1736, the Due de Fleury ; 1757, the Due de Duras ; 1759, the
Due de la Vauguyon ; 1762, the Due de Praslin ; 1770, the
Due de Larochefoucauld ; 1775, the Due de Clermont-Tonnerre ;
1787, the Due de Choiseul ; 1787, the Due de Coigny. The next
to be named were the Prince de Talleyrand and eleven hereditary
dukes who were not peers ; the Dues de Croy, de Broglie, de
Laval-Montmorency, de Beaumont, de Lorges, de Croi-d'Havre,
de Polignac, de Levis, de Maille, de Saulx-Tavannes, and de
Laforce ; six dues d brevets, which meant that their titles were
personal, the Due de Castries, the Due de Noailles (Prince de
Poix), Due de Doudeauville, Prince de Chalais, Due de Serent,
and Due de Montmorency ; then the Due de Plaisance (Le Brun) ;
and after him six general officers in the royal armies, the Comte
de Viosmenil, Comte de Vaudreuil, Bailli de Crussol, Marquis
d'Harcourt, Marquis de Clermont-Gallerande, and Comte Charles
de Damas. These were the great nobles of the old monarchy.
After these came fourteen marshals of the Empire; the Prince
de Wagram (Berthier), the Due de Tarente (Macdonald), the
Prince de la Moskowa (Ney), the Due d'Albufera (Suchet), the
Due de Castiglione (Augereau), the Comte Gouvion-Saint-Cyr,
the Due de Raguse (Marmont), Due de Reggio, (Oudinot), Due
de Conegliano (Moncey), Due de Trevise (Mortier), Due de
Dantzic (Lefebvre), Comte de Perignon, Due de Valmy, (Keller-
mann), and Comte de Serrurier. Ninety-one senators represented
the illustrious men of the modern world. Among them appeared
the name of the Comte Volney, in the handwriting of the King
himself. Twenty-three senators had ceased to be French subjects,
and were therefore disqualified. Thirty were eliminated : Camba-
215

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
ceres, Chaptal, Chasset, Cochon de Lapparent, Curee, Demeunier,
Dubois-Duboy, Dizez, Fallette-Borel, Cardinal Fesch, Fouche,
Francois de Neufchateau, Garan de Caulon, Garat, Gregoire,
Gueheneuc, Jacqueminot, Lagrange, Lambrescht, de Laville-
Lejeas, Rigal, Roger-Ducos, Roederer, Rousseau, Saint-Martin-
Lamothe, Saur, Sieyes, Villetard, and Very. To these last a
pension was granted of 36,000 francs for hfe, with a reversion of
6000 francs to their widows.
The next thing to be done was to govern the country. The
above nominations and exclusions showed the tendencies of the
restored monarchy, and the probable goal of its efforts in the
making and administering of tie laws.

216

CHAPTER VI
THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
The rivalry between the King and his brother was hardly
perceptible to the casual observer, but to the discerning, and
especially to the members of the two princes' households, its
existence was obvious. Louis XVIII could not forgive the Comte
d'Artois his graceful figure, his exhibitions of horsemanship, his
success with pretty women, nor all the personal charms that gained
him spontaneous admiration — the kind of admiration that Louis,
with his bulky figure and helpless invalidism, could never hope
to win. Moreover he feared the effects of his younger brother's
frankness and thoughtless speech, and would not allow him to take
any part in the deliberations of the government. Both of them
detested the Charter, of course ; but the King was skilled in
hypocrisy, cunning, and prudence ; he could talk without making
promises, and listen, agree, and smile, without conceding anything ;
whereas Monsieur was perfectly open in his hatred of liberal ideas.
The good effects of the King's deliberate and cautious conversation
were counteracted by his brother's self-assertion. Their object was
the same — the restoration of the old regime ; but the elder
proposed to spend years in accomplishing it, whereas the younger
wished to revert to the old state of things at once.1
Finding it impossible to agree they had separated. The Comte
d'Artois had established himself in the Pavilion de Marsan with
the Due de Berry, and the gentlemen who composed his Court and
shared his political zeal. These were : first, the oldest of his
intimate friends, who had never left him since the time of the
1 Chancellor Pasquier relates in his Mimoires (Vol. III., p. 40) that the Comte
d'Artois said to him at Court one day ; " They insisted on it, and the experiment
must be made ; but the result will soon be seen, and if, at the end of a year or
two, we find it does not work well, we shall revert to the natural order of
things." By which he meant the old regime. 217

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
Emigration, the Comte Francois d'Escars ; secondly, the Due
de Maille, who came of one of the oldest houses in Touraine, and
prided himself on the distinguished marshals and gallant admirals
figuring in his farruTv-tree ; the Due de Fitz-James. the great-
grandson of James LTs natural son the Duke of Berwick, a man of
warm heart and ardent imagination, who had cried Jive le roi .' with
the other royalists on the boulevards at the entry of the Allies ;
and the Marquis de Riviere, who had followed the prince to Turin,
had fought with Charette in La Vendee, had taken part in
Pichegru's plot against Bonaparte, had been condemned to death,
pardoned and deported — the noblest-hearted man, wrote Hvde de
Neuville, that he had ever seen. Among Monsieur's courtiers, too,
were Sosthene de La Rochefoucauld, and the two Polignacs,
Armand and Jules, who had both been favourites of the prince at
Versailles, where they were brought up. Another of the aristocrats
that habitually figured at this little Court — an ultra, according to
the expression of the time* — was the Comte de Bruges, who had
often been employed by Louis XVIH while at Hartwell, in his
negotiations with foreign Courts. This interesting diplomat, having
been welcomed very effusivelv by the Comte d'Artois, was more
frequently seen in the Pavilion de Marsan than in the King's state
apartments. He had emigrated in his youth from his native
province, and joined Conde's army; and on the disbandment of the
latter, had saded to San Domingo, where the English gave him
a regiment of negroes to lead against the republican troops of the
Consulate. He became exceedingly rich in this colony, but the
sources of his wealth were never known. That he could spend it
generously on occasion is shown by the fact that he put 100,000
crowns at the Comte d'Artois' disposal, when that prince was
returning to France in 1814. Being energetic, intelligent, and
brave, fluent with his pen, skilful in business, and proficient in
reading the minds of men, he was very useful in matters of
diplomacy, though he was rough and even violent, and was liable
to fits of obstinate sdence, with no apparent cause. Monsieur
thought very highly of him and his counsels, which corresponded
with his own views ; but he did not as a rule receive him at the
same time as the more worldly and frivolous courtiers, whose
memories of Versailles were the prince's delight. (De Chastenay's
Mimoires.) These were the dignitaries of the little Court, and the prince's
habitual associates. They all belonged to the old nobility, and
218

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
were related to most of the families of the Faubourg Saint-Germain;
and they took with them to the Pavilion de Marsan the spirit of
the emigres they met in society. Every department of the ad
ministration, they declared, ought to be purged ; and the nobles
who had been despoiled by the Revolution should have restored to
them as much of their property as had not been sold, and should
receive an indemnity for the rest of their lost fortunes. The
latter scheme was carried out later. The laws, according to these
counsellors, should be inspired by the clergy, who would thus
recover the influence over the people of which they had been
robbed by the Jacobins. Thus the royalist opposition, which
took its rise among the Comte d'Artois' friends, was created and
cultivated. There was also the Little Bureau. There, in the rooms where
the Emperor's maps had/once been stored, a little band of emigres,
by their united efforts, condensed all the intelligence that reached
them from various parts of the kingdom. Baron de Vitrolles, who
had been the moving spirit of the lieutenant-general's provisional
government, was the organiser of this bureau, whence there issued
encouraging words to the royalists of the provinces, and instruc
tions as to the guidance of public opinion. In short, this bureau
was the soul of the restored monarchy.
The Baron de Vitrolles had two colleagues in this work who
were by no means to be despised : the Marquis de la Maisonfort,
and M. Terrier de Monciel.1 The Marquis de la Maisonfort, who
was a native of Berry, and had the subtle intellect of a Rivarol or
a d'Antraygues, was perfectly suited to his duties. He had had
rather a chequered career, having been at one time connected with
Fauche-Borel's printing-house in Germany, and associated with all
the somewhat dubious undertakings of that enterprising Swiss.
The latter introduced him to Louis XVIIl., whom he persuaded to
intrigue with Barras for the restoration of the monarchy. The
attempt might perhaps have succeeded had it not been for the
coup-oVetat of Brumaire ; after which the marquis took refuge in
England with the Comte d'Artois, whose careless spirit of adventure
seemed to him likely to lead to fresh political intrigues. The
composition of countless manifestoes, memoranda, and reports was
1 It was then, when he had all the State papers in his possession, that de
Vitrolles wrote : (Mimoires, Vol. II., p, 112) " We were able to refer to all the
secret documents (of the Empire). . . . Everywhere we found contempt for the
human race, and for all the principles of justice and of political morality. ..."
219

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
an easy matter to him, and whenever a negotiator was required
between London and Mittau, or later between London and Hart
well, it was always the marquis who was called upon to act.
De Blacas sent him to the Courts of European sovereigns on
missions for the King, who, as we know, never wearied of corre
sponding with foreign ministries. To sum him up in a few words,
de la Maisonforte was an adventurer, a rufHcr, an unquiet spirit,
an agreeable conversationalist ; he was clever and amusing, but not
sufficiently sound to inspire confidence in others. At St. Petersburg
he had become intimate with the Comte do Maistre, and had
imbibed his ideas. His royalist convictions, therefore, were
passionate and dogmatic, and if the correspondence with the
officials of the provinces reflected Monsieur's intentions, it must
certainly also have been tinged with his own. The constitutional
government that the Charter had promised, and the liberty of the
press, were necessarily represented in very dark colours ; and this
laboratory of ultra-royalist policy could not. fail to hinder the
establishment of a moderate monarchy such as the nation desired.
Terrier de Monciel, who helped la Maisonfort in his work, was a
man of more balance and discretion than himself, lie had been
one of Louis XVI's ministers during the last months of tho old
Monarchy ; a member of Laineth's party, that is to say, a con
stitutionalist ; l but he was not a man of sullicient, weight to make
a successful stand against his colleagues in this questionable agency,
where the tendency was to listen to the denunciations and countless
lies that are always aimed against new governments, rather than
to the advice of loyal opponents.
Monsieur would not admit it, but be was often greatly em
barrassed in his relations with the King by this secret correspondence,
in which the measures that it was his duty to support ostensibly
were opposed by stealth.2 For good or evil, however, this little bureau
1 On the 10th August, fearing for hiH life, he thought it best to go to the
Jardin des Plantes, to which, during his ministry, he had appointed Bernardin
de Saint-Pierre as director. The latter received him very coldly. Monoiel
then left Paris for his own department, where he lived in seolusion till tho
invasion of the Allies in 1814.
3 To understand fully the antagonism between the two brothers the reader
should refer to Hobhouse's memoranda on the Hundred Days, in whioh he gives a
portrait of the Comte d'Artois." . . . The Comte d'Artois won a momentary
popularity, but on closer acquaintance he exhibited absolute ignoranoe of affairs
and hopeless incapacity ; the illusion that had deceived those whom big engaging
manners had captivated, vanished in an instant. . . . A littlo weparate govern
ment, it is said, was formed in his private rooms : a government with its own
ministers, and officials, and judges, and agents in France. It paralysed the
220

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
continued to exist until it was made the dupe of various fictitious
conspiracies and so became a menace to the public peace. It was
then suppressed by order of the King, to whom this hot-bed of
discord appeared dangerous.
It was not regretted by the Baron de Vitrolles. Autocratic
as he was he had a wiser and more generous conception of
politics than this : he aimed at higher ideals. He had desired the
Monarchy, and had been the chief agent in restoring it ; but his
object had been to benefit France, not to satisfy the vanity of a
royal family whose only wish was to return to the past, to rebuild
a structure that had long ago crumbled into dust. Louis XVIII's
speech at the opening of the Chambers seemed to him very
commonplace and very narrow. It merely announced what had
already occurred and was very reticent as to the future. The
government seemed to have no fixed plan of campaign, no schemes
for increasing the prosperity of the country ; nothing but fine
sentiments beautifully expressed, and frank self-satisfaction, and
hereditary good-nature, and — already — restrictions of liberty. De
Vitrolles groaned, but continued to hope for the best.
In order to hide from the public the domestic differences that
divided the Tuileries into two camps Louis XVIII heaped favours
upon his brother, begged him to surround himself with all the
pomp of a great military household, and made him commandant
of all the National Guards of the kingdom, leaving to General
Dessolles the command of the department of the Seine.1 He
wished Monsieur's position as a great prince to depend on his
personal magnificence : he meant him to occupy himself with his
pleasures, but to have no share in the government. On the subject
of the government the King brooked no criticism.
The Due d'Angouleme, when he settled in Paris with the
duchess, arranged his life on a plan that showed the influence of
his years of exile and solitude. His wife, too, was entirelv absorbed
by her sad memories, and it was verv rarely that thev held recep-
administration of the King's authority, preventing, or at least retarding by its
secret influence the execution of published orders, and blaming the concessions
that Louis XVIII had felt himself obliged to make to the nation."
1 In his memoirs (Vol. IL, p. 37) de Vitrolles gives the following notes on
General Dessolles. " The remarkable capacity he had shown, as Chief of the
Staff of Scherer's great armies, and especially under Moreau, seemed to domin
ate his reputation as a soldier. He had shared with General Lecourbe the glory
of the splendid expedition that checked the success of Souvarow. ..." After
saying a great deal in his praise, however, de Vitrolles adds : — " He fixed his
eyes on a point so distant that it was almost out of sight ; his observations were
microscopic ; his calculations were concerned with the infinitely little."'
221

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
tions. This royal couple lived after the fashion of the bourgeoisie,
quite simply, quite quietly, without any ostentation. The duke
rose at half-past four in summer, at five in winter, and immediately
applied himself to his studies. He wished to appear well-informed
when talking with his household, and indeed he really was so.
Those who had heard and believed the legend of his ignorance and
lack of inteUigence were surprised, when they talked with him, to
find how much he knew.
He was by no means rich with an income of a million francs,
of which one-fifth was devoted to the districts that had suffered
most from the invasion ; and his personal expenses were extremely
small. His greatest extravagance was his stables, which were the
finest in Paris and contained some magnificent horses. His personal
attendants were three valets called Gouverna, Mosquart, and
Bresson, to whom he was always kind and gentle, the youngest of
them having served him for fifteen years, while Gouverna had
been with him for twenty-five. The expenses of his household
were regulated as carefully as those of a commercial house, in
proportion to his resources, and he never owed the smallest
sum. There is some reason, therefore, for saying that the life of
this prince resembled that of the bourgeoisie. His two aides-de
camp had been his companions in exile. The Due de Damas, who
had followed him everywhere — to Mittau, Warsaw, and England
— was a man of dignified and gracious manners and very perfect
tact, but was much older than the prince. So too was the
Due de Guiches, of the house of Grammont, who had been a
captain of the guard before the Revolution, and was held in great
affection by the prince, being not only a splendid rider and a
person of many attractions, but also a man of principle and
honour. He had the charge of the duke's stables, and his
knowledge of horses ensured the exclusion of all but the finest
animals. (Theodore Anne, Souvenirs, Vol. II.) Sometimes, after
dinner, the prince woidd go down into the court of the Tuileries
and stride to and fro by himself; then, when he grew tired,
he would return to the palace and have a chat with the
sentinel on duty, asking him about his battles and exploits
and the marches of his regiment. On leaving the man he would
give him a coin or two. Indeed his gifts and charities occupied a
very large place in his budget ; and his generosity was due, not
to ostentation, but to natural goodness of heart, for, of all the
Bourbons, he was the most sympathetic with the sorrows of

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
the poor. He would have been still more so, it is said, if his
mind had not been engrossed by the observances of his unenlightened
and bigoted form of religion.
The duchess was equally compassionate, and spent much in
charity ; but her generosity, which was often exercised in secret,
was mainly prompted by the piety that she carried to excess.
She sacrificed nothing to the world, but everything, even her
leisure, to religion. Those leisure hours were spent rather
childishly. At her request the blank sheets that enveloped
the letters received at the chancellor's office were handed over to
her, with the wax that sealed them ; and having melted the
wax, and made the paper into little note-books, she sold them for
the benefit of such emigres as were still in poverty. In her eyes
there was no title that carried such claims with it as this word
emigre ! She received them all with kindness, sympathising with
their poverty and entering into their ambitions, for she knew
the bitter suffering entailed by adverse fortune in a foreign
land. And the little pieces of embroidery and woolwork with
which she occupied her hours of relaxation were destined for
the lotteries that were organised for their benefit. They and the
clergy ! She knew of no needs more urgent than theirs. All her
sympathy was given to families who had suffered from their long
exile in England or Germany, to churches and parsonages that had
cracks in their walls, and to chapels whose ornaments were
incomplete or mean. Her reward for all this devotion was
her great influence in the nomination of bishops, and even cardinals.
Her equerry was the Vicomte Mathieu de Montmorency. He
had been succeeded as the Comte d'Artois' aide-de-camp by the
Marquis de Vibraye, who spent all the years of the Emigration in
foreign lands, and returned to France in 1814. The Duchesse
de Serent, who had shared with the princess all the hardships of
exile, kept the post of lady-of-honour, which had been hers since
the days of Mittau. The Duchesse de Damas succeeded her in this
much-coveted office. This young duchess, who had been quite a
child at the time of the Emigration, had brought back with her to
France the fashions, deportment, and habits of the English,
which gave to her splendid beauty a peculiar air of distinction and
to her expression a charming piquancy that never palled. Her
voice was so sweet and so full of variety that it dwelt in the ear as
a delightful memory long after she had ceased to speak. Her
slight figure and delicate complexion gave her the appearance of a
woman of weak will ; but as a matter of fact her moral strength

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
was inflexible, as she showed very plainly a few months later at
Bordeaux, whither she accompanied the duchess after Napoleon's
return from Elba. The princess's lady-in-waiting was the emigree
Mile, de Choisy, a good, pious, charitable woman who afterwards
became the Vicomtesse d'Agoult. The Comte d'Agoult, a man of
noble character, was the duchess's chief equerry, had been one of the
King's musketeers before the Revolution, and had afterwards served
in the bodyguard. He had emigrated with all the princes and had
been in their suite through all their wanderings. The duchess, in
appointing the members of her household, was careful to choose men
who had taken part in the great drama of Versailles and Paris at
the beginning of the Revolution. Acting on this principle she had
chosen for her private secretary the Baron Chariot, the son-in-law of
a guardsman who had defended the Queen's door during the night
of the 5th October and had been seriously wounded. And if she
honoured those who had been faithful to her house she would have
no dealings with any one who had injured it. She declined to make
any response to the courtesies of Fouche, Due d'Otrante, who had
become one of her uncle's ministers. She abhorred and avoided him,
and forbade him to enter her rooms. With this political rancour
she combined a dislike for the reformed religion that almost
amounted to aversion. One day she received at the Tuileries a
deputation of protestants who came to pay their respects to her,
but her manner was so repellent and haughty that they never came
again. Her dress was always plain and commonplace. On state
occasions she was obliged, to her great regret, to be more
ceremonious ; but she never wore diamonds nor any kind of
jewellery except when it was absolutely unavoidable, and then
she used the jewels of the Crown. She often walked through the
streets of Paris accompanied by only one of her ladies, and would
pass unnoticed by the crowd on her way to a distant suburb,
to relieve the wants of some poor family. In spite of all her
good intentions and good deeds and charities she was never
popular. She was greeted with cheers because the people are
generous with their salutations, but she had no charm. Her
expression was too constantly severe for so young a woman. The
pride she had inherited from her mother was plainly to be seen
upon her brow and in her eyes ; and her hard metallic voice and
stern curt speech were more surprising than pleasing. Among
her friends she openly showed that she had forgotten nothing
of the past violence of the populace, and the word revolution
224

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
aroused in her all the hatred that a woman's heart can
feel. The Due de Berry, in Paris, kept up the habits he had adopted
in exile. He was too old to change either his character or his
style of speech, and being still a bachelor he persisted in paying
attentions to every woman who attracted him. Even in public,
even at balls, he cared so little whether his partners were com
promised by his tactlessness that he nearly always danced with
the same ladies, who on the following morning would be mentioned
in the gazettes as having received attentions from him. It was
his ambition to look and behave like a soldier, and to frequent
the society of generals, though he never scrupled to annoy the
heroes of the Empire by his coarse and insolent speeches. Stories
of his insulting manner to the most distinguished officers were
passed from mouth to mouth. He asked one of them what
campaigns he had been through. "All the campaigns of the
Empire, as aide-de-camp to the Emperor," was the answer;
whereupon the prince shrugged his shoulders contemptuously and
turned upon his heel. To another soldier, who said he had served
for twenty-five years, the duke retorted : " Twenty-five years of
brigandage ! " Being dissatisfied with the Old Guard on one
occasion he shouted out to them that they ought to have been
drilled in England. When a colonel was being degraded he
actually tore off the man's epaulets with his own hands ;
and he would strike a private on parade. He exhibited all
these incongruous traits within the first few weeks after his
arrival. II
It was thus that the royal family began their life in France.
Matters became still worse when the ante-rooms of the Tuileries
and the salons of the ministers were inundated by the emigres.
On the 29th May, 1814, the Debats published a letter which
purported to be written by a lady in the provinces to her cousin
in Paris.
It is only a satire, and is full of exaggerations ; but it is a clever
and amusing picture of the inmost thoughts of a royalist of the
day. " How delighted I am, mon ami? writes the lady to her
cousin, " at the events that have restored our illustrious princes to
the throne ! What a joy it is ! You have no idea of the
225 q

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
importance these events and your stay in Paris have invested me
with in this place ! The prefect is afraid of me, and his wife, who
never used to bow to me, has twice asked me to dinner. But no
time must be lost, and we are counting on you. Would you
believe that my husband has not yet taken a single step towards
getting himself reinstated in his post, and gives as his reason that
the post no longer exists and that he received compensation in
assignats ? He is the most apathetic man in France. My
brother-in-law has taken the Cross of St. Louis. It would have
been due to him in nine years when the Revolution broke out, and
it would be unjust to refuse to count, as years of service, the
twenty years of unrest and misfortune that he spent at his place
in the country. He depends on you to see that his patent is sent
to him promptly. I enclose in my letter a memorial in favour of
P. F., my eldest son. He had the right of succession to his uncle's
office. You can easdy obtain it for him. I should hke his
brother, the Chevalier, to enter the Navy, but it must be with a
rank worthy of his name and the long services of his family. As
for my grandson G. he is just the right age to become a page, and
a word from you will be enough to secure the position for him.
We are going to Paris earlv next month, and I shall take my
daughter with me. I should hke her to have a post at the Court.
You will not be refused that favour if only you are a little
persistent, and really do your best. Give a thought to poor N.
It is true that he was rather conspicuous in the davs of the
Revolution, but I assure vou he has quite changed his views
during the last month. As you know, he is absolutely destitute,
and is ready to sacrifice everything for our royal famdy. Such is
his devotion that he is willing to serve them in the position of a
prefect, and he would fill the post well. You may remember the
pretty songs he wrote for me. M. de B., the son of the former
intendant of our province, is going to see you. Do what you can
to be useful to him. He is a friend of the famdy. If the
intendancies are not re-established he will content himself with a
receiver-generalship. That is the least that could be done for a
man who is so devoted to his sovereign and was in prison for six
months during the Terror. I must not forget to say a good
word for B. He has been accused of serving everv party, because
he has been employed by all the governments that have ruled in
France during the last twenty years. But he is a good fellow ;
you can take my word for it. He was the first person here to
226

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
wear the white cockade. And besides, all he asks is to keep his
place as postmaster. Be sure you write to me under cover to him.
I am herewith sending you my father-in-law's papers. The States
of Languedoc owed him a sum of forty-five thousand francs,
which has never been paid. I hope you will not be kept waiting
for the payment of the money, and that you will not refuse to
make use of it, if you should be temporarily embarrassed ; though
that is hardly probable in the position to which you have doubt
less attained.
" Farewell, dear cousin. I embrace you in the name of the
whole family, and am looking forward to the pleasure of seeing
you soon in Paris."
Every royalist, whether a recent convert or no, every failure,
every malcontent who had been out of favour with the imperial
government, was suddenly seized with a kind of mania for
demanding posts, offices, and honours ; and leaving his ancestral
towers, sent his big wooden trunk to the nearest town, where
he climbed on to the coach or diligence that would take him,
stage by stage, to Paris. Being short of money he lodged in
some wretched little hostelry in the great town, and on the
following day, having uncorded his trunk, he took from it the
suit of clothes that had been packed with such tender care —
clothes of the fashion of twenty years before — and the little
lieutenant's or captain's epaulets that had been obtained so long
ago, through interest, in a regiment of cavalry. Dressed in
these ancient garments, with his powdered hair arranged in
side-curls, and his rapier thrust through the skirts of his coat,
he started off to make his bow to one of the princes or ministers,
and beg for some new post in the army, or some decoration 01
pension.1 1 Interr&gne des Bourbons, by Baruel-Beauvert (Vol. II., letter XIV.). " A
countless flock of gulls from all the provinces has come to Paris, not merely to
see :the King and the royal family, but to block up the ante-rooms of all the
ministers and beg for employment. The greater number of these royalists of
to-day or yesterday have every right, according to themselves, to the favours of
the government. Every one of them, if he be treated with justice, will shortly
be appointed to an important post. And these gulls think, too, that everything
they say should be believed, and that places should even be created for them.
They have presented at least 200,000 petitions in the course of six weeks. They
do not know that every lunatic in the PetiteB Maisons takes the opportunity of
his first lucid moment to write to the King. . . . The southern provinces, it
must be admitted, have furnished their share of the simpletons. One hears them
muttering their rustic French everywhere ; and they seem greatly surprised that
in Paris the quails do not fall ready roasted from the sky."
227 a 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
There were hosts of such men. There was no end to them.
They came from the depths of the tiniest villages ; they came
from the heights of the everlasting hills : they came from every
decrepit manor-house that possessed a ruined dovecote. Their
poverty had made them practically peasants ; but now they began
boasting of all their aristocratic alliances, in their eagerness to
share the privileges of the most intriguing and powerful of their
rivals. Having lost their little fortunes in the Revolution
they were treated with contempt by the bourgeoisie, who respected
nothing but wealth, and they had come to be the most exacting
section of the nobility. They loudly bewailed their lot and,
after the restoration of the Monarchy, highly approved of the
reactionary spirit of the King's ordinances and the ministerial
decrees, because they hoped this return to the old conditions
would give them back all they had lost. They imitated the
exclusiveness of the princes and the great nobles of the Court, and
cared for nothing but their own interests. The sorrows of France
were of little moment to them ; they thought only of themselves ;
they were unconscious of everything that was external to them
selves, of everything that was going on under -their eyes. On
all sides the great manufacturers were lamenting their troubles,
and the great merchants bemoaning the cessation of their sales.
The French ports being now open to foreign vessels the articles
of commerce — especially those of England — that had been so
rare of late were being unladed on the quays with feverish haste,
and offered in the markets at a reduction. It mattered little
to them. The holders of colonial wares were suffering consider
able losses ; the manufacturers of beetroot-sugar were being ruined
by the arrival of heavy cargoes of cane-sugar; the cotton-
weaving industry, iron-works, and in short all the important
manufactories that had depended for their support on the conti
nental blockade, had been brought to a sudden standstill by the
peace. The unemployed artisans were living on charity. It
mattered little to the unsatisfied Emigres. Their demands never
ceased. Some of the more reasonable, whose lands were their chief
concern, merely wished to recover the price of their sold property,
both capital and interest, to the uttermost sou ; others claimed
the money they had spent abroad in the service of the princes ;
others again, of the vainer sort, begged that the mayor of
their commune (they called it parish) might be instructed to burn

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
incense before them at Mass, after the reading of the gospel.1
There was a gentleman of Carcassonne who — say the journals —
demanded of the government the instant restitution of his rights
of the bakehouse, the chase, and the dovecote, which had all been
abolished by the Revolution.2
The spectacle of these gentlemen mincing along the streets
on tiptoe as though treading the parquet of a drawing-room, with
their short breeches showing the calves of their legs, moved the
satirical journals to hold them up to ridicule as the Messrs. Gull,
or the Light Infantry of Louis XIV. But they were so much
absorbed by their wishes and claims and all-important thoughts,
and their expeditions from their hotels to the minister's house or
to the Tuileries, that they took no heed of these jests. Caustic
journalism made little impression on men who carried in their
pockets the list of their services, drawn up in their very best
handwriting. In their eyes their business was of the greatest
importance, and it was the only thing that was so. Here is one
of the lists in question, taken from a contemporary brochure.3 Years.
1. Emigrated with his parents, Jan. 26th, 1791 ; M. le
Comte joined the regiment of the French Guard ; one
year of service in time of peace : viz. .... 1
2. Served in the campaign of 1792, to the satisfaction of
his superior officers, in the capacity of aide-de-camp to
M. the Marshal de Broglie ; one year of active service :
viz  2
Carried forward ...... 3
1 De Vaulabelle, in his Histoire de la Restauration, Vol. II., p. 131, relates this
anecdote. ". . . . On All Saints' Day, in the parish church (of Darnac) during
Mass, at the very moment of the Elevation, the beadle was approaching the
municipal pew to offer the pain binit to the mayor, in accordance with custom,
when M. de Blons, the former seigneur of the commune, who was in his pew
with his brother-in-law M. de Fornel and several other relations, rose to his feet
and called out loudly : Sacristan, bring the pain binit here, bring it here, bring it
here ! The embarrassed beadle hesitated. The mayor, who was on his knees,
said : You know quite well, sacristan, that you ought to give the pain binit to the
mayor before anyone else. Accordingly the basket was about to be handed to
him, when M. de Blons in a fury left his seat, seized the sticks of a villager who
was near him, and struck the pew repeatedly, still calling for the sacristan. The
latter, horrified, came forward with his basket at last ; whereupon the ex-seig
neur snatched it from his hands, and only returned it when he and all his
relations had helped themselves iargely. The basket was then handed to the
mayor, who pushed away the pain binit. ..."
2 Mimoires de la Comtesse de Fausse- Landry, by Lamothe-Langon, Vol. III.,
passim. 8 The Lanterne Magique of the Restoration.

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII Years.
Brought forward ...... 3
3. Served in the campaigns of 1793, 94, 95, 96, 97, in the
army of Conde. Aide-de-camp to his uncle ; years of
war ; five years of active service : viz. . . . .10
4. Served in Prussia and England, from 1798 to 1806
inclusively ; nine years of service in time of peace : viz. . 9
5. Four extra years granted by the King for distinguished
service, and for being wounded when in Conde's army,
in the famous battle of Oberkamelach, Aug. 13th, 1796 :
viz. .......... 4
Total of years of service ...... 26
" The King at this time gave M. le Comte de  a captain's
commission in a cavalry ^regiment. To his twenty-six years of
service, his eighteen years as captain of cavalry, and his wound,
must be added the fact that the extremely profound knowledge of
military tactics and the art of war acquired by M. le Comte de 
secured him the post of instructor to the regiment raised by
Marshal de Broglie at the expense of the English, and to the
regiment in which he served in Prussia. As his brave comrades
can testify, this post was so arduous that he was spitting blood for
three days."
It was always, if possible, to someone who had held a position of
command in the army of La Vendee, or else to some officer who
had served in Conde's army, that the applicant appealed. He
presented his paper at the bureau of the officer in question, who
noted its contents.
Having read it — " You wish for the Cross of St. Louis ? " he
would say to the noble supplicant. " You must have four chevaliers'
signatures. Three will do, because I will sign it myself. See if
there are any of them in the ante-room, and beg them to put their
names to your application." Another man wanted a pension,
perhaps, on the grounds that he had always openly expressed his
desire for the return of the Bourbons. A third wished for a higher
rank than he had held before the Revolution. The Vendean general,
after a few minutes of thought, would ask his visitor :
" Have you any money ? Did you make a rich marriage ? "
" So-so ! Fifteen thousand francs a year " was the answer.
230

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
" That's not so bad ! Well, we shall see. There are so many
applicants to satisfy."
A fourth would come in jauntily, as though nothing could be
refused him, and would say in a tone of complete assurance : " There
is my petition : there is the list of my services. I have been to
X  , I saw the Comte de X  , and the Marquis de T  , and
they told me to come and see you. Did they not mention me to
you ? " — " No. And what is it you want ? " — " I want a place in
the King's household, or else to be attached to one of the princes."
— " That is no easy matter, monsieur," the Vendean general would
answer. " His Majesty has so many faithful subjects to reward
that it is almost impossible to find a place that is not filled. Do
you know M. le Comte de  ? " — No, general." — " He is the
person you ought to apply to." — " I will take steps." — " Ah.
Make your position as strong as possible. All the places are so
much sought after that it is almost necessary to take them by
assault, and no one can succeed without a great effort." — " Well,
I'll make a great effort then, for if I succeed, I shall go far." Then
the man in power, overcome by all this confidence and fluency,
would say to the applicant : " Come to breakfast with me to
morrow. We'll talk your business over."
This is very much what occurred at all the audiences on the
official reception-days. But the audiences that were private, and
almost friendly, often produced an immediate result. The favoured
petitioner, being free from the crowd by which the minister's doors
were beset, was able to enlarge at length upon his alleged exploits
in the royalist campaigns. If he were old he would draw himself
up, and stand motionless with his shoulders back and his chest
forward, and say to the prince or minister to whom he was
appealing : " You see I am as vigorous as ever, and still able to face
a sword-thrust in the King's service." And off he would go with
his appointment in his pocket.1
1 De Rougemont, in his Rodeur francais (Vol. I., p. 199) gives us an amusing
picture of a group of petitioners in a ministerial ante-room of the day. " Hardly
had I entered the room when I perceived myself to be the object of my neigh
bours' criticism. Each was trying to hide from the rest the anxiety he was feel
ing at the apparition of a new candidate. One man saw fifty years engraved upon
my face, which prevented me from being a soldier ; another detected an internal
malady that kept me from travelling. One judged of my patrons by my language,
and another«judged of my merits by my clothes. I held my peace, and my
toilette was by no means alarming. However, though these gentlemen's observa
tions by no means tended to reassure them, they could not resist the desire to
find out from myself the object of my visit. . . . ' Ah, yes, of course, I see what
it is ! Monsieur is a member of the household.' ' That is quite possible,' I said,
231

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
There were undoubtedly more candidates than available posts,
and bureaux were established where it was possible, with the help
of a certain amount of money, to secure a favourable answer.
There were men who held important offices at the Court, indeed
there were even great ladies, who did not blush to carry on a trade
in places and honours of all kinds, sheltered by the name of some
subordinate who acted for them. It is recorded in the papers
of the time that there were more than a hundred secret bureaux
in Paris, engaged in this infamous traffic.1 The petitioners whom
chance threw together in the ante-rooms were in the habit, among
themselves, of referring to Napoleon as the usurper, in imitation
of the Bourbon princes ; the chamberlains of the Imperial Court
were merely servants ; the equerries were outriders ; the prefects of
the palace were head cooks. To speak otherwise would have been
to disregard the feelings of those who were now filling these offices
at the Court.
The demands of the great nobles were of another kind. They
required titles of distinction without delay, and moreover made
a point of their being ancient. Thus the old Comte de Viosmenil,
who thought he had a right to a marshalship, insisted that the
appointment should be dated as though it had been made abroad
instead of quite recently, in order that he might take precedence
of the marshals of the Empire. Another of these grands
seigneurs, the Marquis de Breze, Grand Master of the
Ceremonies, was so sad at being denied the finery that had
smiling. At these words everyone rose, and looked at me in the most benevo
lent way. . . . The man next me pushed forward a chair, which I was obliged to
decline in favour of an armchair that was offered me by a lady who would be glad
to have a few words with me, before the arrival of my friend the count. The
matter concerned her son, a charming young man of the most brilliant promise,
with whom she did not know what to do. ... ' When you have finished,'
whispered a lean, dried-up man who had again drawn near, ' you can do me a
great service, monsieur.' He had three orders of the Lys, and wanted the
Legion of Honour."
1 De Vaulabelle writes (Vol. II., p. 156) : "A traffic in places, titles, and
decorations was carried on at this time on the largest scale. . . . The value of
places was assessed in accordance with what they produced. Every title of
nobility, too, had its market-price. The Order of the Legion of Honour was listed
at 250 or 300 francs. . . . One need only refer to the Moniteur of 1814 to learn
that during the months of August, September, October, November, and December,
there were more patents of nobility and more titles of count and baron granted
than during the last two centuries of the monarchy. During the same time more
crosses of the Legion of Honour were distributed than Napoleon had given in
twelve years of his reign. ... It was given so lavishly that the public regarded
the profusion of decorations as a deliberate attempt to belittle — to the advantage
of the order of St. Louis — the order of knighthood founded by Napoleon : which,
by a strange confusion of ideas, had been placed under Henri IV's patronage by an
ordinance dated July 5th, 1814." 232

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
pertained to the office at the Court of Versailles that he begged
for military rank equivalent to his official rank, and was made
lieutenant-general. Juste de Noailles, ambassador to the Court of Russia, obtained
the rank of brigadier-general ; the Comte de Sabran — because he
was a Sabran, says de Vitrolles in his memoirs, and was very
assiduous in giving information to the government — received first
the rank of lieutenant-general, then the cross of St. Louis and the
title of duke, and shortly afterwards the emoluments attached to
that rank.1 And whenever any servant of the Empire, such as
Regnault de Saint-Jean d'Angely, passed by a group of the old
emigre's, these nobles who were rich and pampered, whatever their
degree, would sneer at him and insult him. " Away with the
rascal ! " they would cry.'2
This invasion of place-hunters, impatient to exchange their
mediocrity, their nameless obscurity, for posts that would bring
them both money and honour, produced great changes in the
army list and in every department of the administration. Excel
lent officers were forced to retire to make room for the country
squires who had emerged from their village homes. Men who had
been mere captains in Louis XVI's time, and had lived in obscurity
in the country for twenty years, suddenly found themselves colonels
or lieutenant-generals, in command of a brigade or a regiment.
In the navy, where, before the Revolution, nobles were to be
found in every rank, the scene was changed indeed. The service,
which had already been brought very low by the great naval
disasters under the Empire, was still further injured by this sudden
influx of pretentious officers, whose insufficient and incomplete
training in no way fitted them to deal with modern tactics. Long
years of idleness had killed their energy and initiative — but this
was the least of their cares !
In society, at this time, all these men who had emerged from
oblivion to be decorated with epaulets, and honoured with ranks
that not only enriched them but gave them a fine title as well,
were sought after, and flattered and made much of. They repre
sented the resurrection of the old noblesse, who had disappeared
under the Empire, but were now shining with renewed lustre.
Thenceforward no one else was of any account. All the old
princes, dukes, marquises, counts, barons, and chevaliers resumed
the titles of which, until lately, they had been bereft, and disdain-
1 Vitrolles' Mimoires, Vol. I., p. 204. 2 Chancelier Pasquier, Vol. II., p. 424
233

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
fully took precedence, in the drawing-rooms of society, of the
imperial nobility whom they had assiduously courted a few months
earlier. The women introduced an element of malicious spite into
these petty insults, and insisted on addressing duchesses and
princesses of the Empire, whose husbands' merits had raised them
to that position, by the bourgeois family-name, or even the
Christian name, by which they had formerly been known in the
Queen's service. The Prince de Poix never called the Prince de
Wagram anything but Berthier, and even said to him on one
occasion : " It's funny, all the same, Berthier, that just because of
the Revolution you should be able to call yourself a prince like
me." This contemptuous chaff was accepted by Berthier as a
compliment. A countess of the Empire wrote to a friend : " My
dear, I never really felt like a countess till the King came to the
throne." This being their point of view the nobles of the Empire were
themselves responsible for much of the humiliation they endured,
for they lent themselves to the folly of the old courtiers of
Versailles whenever they were in the same room with them. The
dignitaries of the Monarchy held forth to their hearts' content
on the laws of etiquette and the prerogatives of rank, and on
the tact, fine manners, easy bearing, and dignified gait that were
hereditary in noble families. These families alone, according
to themselves, had preserved the traditions of perfect manners,
the manners of the Court of Louis XIV and Louis XV, which
were so charming, so dignified, so attractive in their simplicity.
They related how the great nobles of those days were classified
according to their rank and dignities. Theodore Anne repeats
their gossip in his Souvenirs. They enumerated those who were
privileged to hand the King his shirt, and those who were entitled
to give him his napkin ; they told how many steps a duke might
take in the royal bedroom, and how many were allowed to a
marquis, and how many to a count ; and what clothes had to be
worn if the King were going out shooting, and what clothes if
he were going to hunt ; and what title would secure for a courtier,
when on a journey, the honour of having his name prefaced by
the fourrier des logis 1 with the glorious prerogative of the peers.
They pointed out, too, what a good thing it would be if the
Court were to revert to the old custom of carrying a comb in the
1 (It was the business of the fourrier des logis to find accommodation for those
who travelled with the King. Translator. )
234

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
pocket, to serve the double purpose of tidying the hair and of
scratching on the King's door, seeing that it was indecorous to
knock. And the heroes of our great wars, who had faced
powder and shot twenty times over, these marshals of the Empire
for whom death had no terrors, stood listening, open-mouthed,
to these childish details, which were as interesting to them as a
fairy-tale. The bourgeoisie were treated with still greater disdain.1 The
nobles, full of pride and boasting, had forgotten the difference
shown to them in the past by the old families of the middle-
classes, and the services rendered to them during the darkest and
most terrible days of the Revolution. They forgot that an
ancient, if modest line, whose members had always been honest
and widely educated, was at least as respectable as one whose only
glory was its title, too often won by shameful services or guilty
compliance. It was to the middle-classes that the nobles attributed
the initial impulse of the Revolution and the excesses of the
Terror, and they could not forgive those classes for having enjoyed
all the resulting benefits while they themselves had had only
sorrow for their share.
So it became a common thing, in the villages and little towns,
for the nobles to mix with the people and rouse their hostility
against those they called le Tiers. Meetings were held, to which
the poor people, who are easily cajoled, came to voice their
grievances, tell the tale of their struggles, and recount the
vexations and injustices to which they were subjected. The
recruiting emigres then cross-examined them with regard to the
prefects, sub-prefects, mayors, and all heads of departments
appointed under the Empire, who were still in office and were
mostly of bourgeois extraction. The people gave any answers
that were"required of them. " That is all right, my friends," said
the lordlings working in their interests, or rather in the interests
of the Parisian politicians who were seeking an excuse to revive
the conditions of the old Monarchy. " Do not be uneasy ; the
1 "Never," says Theodore Anne in his Souvenirs, "was the contemptuous
class-feeling of the aristocracy better exemplified than in the followiug anecdote.
A young man entered a drawing-room in the district frequented by the nobles.
He was well and carefully dressed, and his manners were excellent. This being
the case the duke, and the . two counts, and three marquises who were paying
court to the lady of the house were about to rise and return the young
man's bow. But the lady stopped them with a gesture and, without
lowering her voice, said : ' Do not move, messieurs ; it is nothing ; it is the
drawing-master.' " 235

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
King is your father ; these people here are low rascals ; they shall
be dismissed — on the faith of a gentleman." The influence of
which they boasted was no illusion, for very few of the
functionaries of the Empire remained in office. They were
removed, and replaced by men who prided themselves on their
titles of nobility and their insolence.
After all, can we blame these men who were demanding the
reward of their fidelity ? They had sacrificed everything, in the
past, to their princes : peace, fortune, and happiness. They had
left their homes and their country at the summons of the Comte
d'Artois and the Comte de Provence; and when they returned
from exile, bereft of everything, not only of fortune but even of
kinsfolk, their devotion to the Bourbons remained unaltered.
They spent all their energy in keeping alive the memory of the
time-honoured Monarchy to which France owed her greatness.
They had always stood in the breach. Under the Empire they
had suffered terrible persecutions at the hands of Napoleon. It
was thanks to them, and them alone, that Louis XVIII, the
leader of the Emigration, had recovered the throne of his
ancestors. He had recovered his palaces, his civil list, and all the
privileges of kingship ; while they who had served him with
untiring devotion received nothing, recovered nothing, except
perhaps some slight compensation for their great losses.1 " Ah ! "
said some of them, who were still looking in vain for some
acknowledgment of their services. " Ah, if we had only known ! "
They accused the ministers of the Restoration of having taken as
their motto : Forgetfulness of services, and as their principle of
action : Ingratitude. So write the Comte de Marcillac, who was
one of them. (Souvenirs de Vemigration.)
In their indifference to the prevailing distress they relieved their
feelings by threatening the men who had bought their property.
They demanded that it should be restored to them, and accused
the new owners of stealing, on the grounds that they had paid for
1 See Theodore Anne's Souvenirs. " The Vendeans were scantily rewarded. So
many people had received such large rewards that there was no money left. So
pensions of 30, 40, 50, or 80 francs at most, were all the King's delegates could
find for the men who had sacrificed everything for the legitimate line. ..."
And d'AUonville wrote (Vol V., p. 298) : " While the Noailles were overwhelmed
with honours, and Blacas, forgetful of his humble past, received an accumulation
of offices that gave him an income of more than 400,000 francs, the heroes of the
Vendee were dying of hunger. . . " And again: "The Emperor Alexander
never forgave the King for neglecting to give him his Order of the Holy Ghost,
and his officers the decoration of Saint-Louis. ..."
236

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
their lands with assignats that did not represent the price of a pair
of turkeys, at a time when a louis was worth twenty-seven
thousand francs in assignats. The whole country was disturbed,
and there seemed to be no way of appeasing all this rancour and
recrimination and wrath. From the Pavilion de Marsan came
the suggestion that a large military household should be formed on
the old model, as a means of reducing the number of malcontents
by giving them a place in this privileged body. The dissatisfied
young idlers of the provinces would gather round the King like the
young soldiers years before at Coblenz ; those whose elation had of
late been making them aggressive would become more reticent ;
and the Monarchy would acquire a new prestige and a new
element of splendour. The scheme met with approval and was
adopted.1 Ill
In addition to the four companies of bodyguards commanded by
the four captains already appointed, two others were raised, the
two new captains being the Prince de Wagram (Berthier) and the
Due de Raguse (Marmont). There were also two companies of
Monsieur's guards ; one of a hundred Swiss ; one of gendarmes ;
one of light-horse ; two of musketeers ; one of mounted grenadiers ;
one of Gardes de la Porte ; and one of Gardes de la Prevote de
l'Hotel. The musketeers were commanded by two generals, the
Marquis de Lauriston and the Comte de Nansouty ; the gendarmes
by the Marquis de Lagrange; the light-horse by the Comte —
afterwards the Due — Charles de Damas ; Monsieur's guards by the
Comtes de Puysegur and d'Escars, who were succeeded by the Due
de Riviere ; the mounted grenadiers by the Marquis de Laroche-
jacquelein ; the Hundred Swiss by the Due de Montemart ; and
the two remaining companies by the Marquis de la Suze.
The ordinary bodyguard was composed of cavalry lieutenants ;
Monsieur's guards and the Gardes de la Porte were second-
lieutenants ; the Hundred Swiss and the Gardes de la Prevote were
sergeants ; and the mounted gendarmes were cavalry sergeants.
The bodyguard was posted inside the rooms of the palace ;
1 "And then," adds the Chevalier Pasquier in his Mimoires (Vol. II., p. 418),
"... they flattered themselves that they could make this measure acceptable by
giving the command of some of the companies to general-officers of the national
army ..." 237

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
the Hundred Swiss guarded the head of the staircase near the
entrance ; the Gardes de la Porte stood under the inner archways,
and the Garde de la Prevote kept watch in the gardens. The
gendarmes, musketeers, and light horse had no fixed posts. Every
day at twelve o'clock an officer of each of these companies inter
cepted the King as he went to Mass, and received the orders of the
day from him in person. It was the special privilege of these
three corps. Louis XVIII always said to them : " Nothing
fresh." He said this even on the morning of the 19th March, 1815,
the day he left Paris for Ghent. It was a grand sight, cries
Theodore Anne, to whom we owe these details, to see all these
bodies of men drawn up in order of battle. The splendour of the
uniforms, the fine proportions of the men, the strength and beauty
of the horses, all combined to delight the eye and make a deep
impression on the people.1
The bodyguard presented arms to no one. In the capacity of
sentinels they had to stand with shouldered arms ; and when
certain great dignitaries of the Court passed by it was their duty to
give three distinct blows on the floor with one heel, to inform
the people in the next room of the approach of an important
personage, such as a minister, a cardinal, a knight of the Holy
Ghost, a peer, a marshal of France, or a high official of the
Court. Those who were thus warned had time to assume an
attitude of respect.
When this military household was established the civij. house
hold was already in existence, and comprised the departments of
the Master of the Ceremonies and Master of the Horse, and the
1 See Mile, de Chastenay's M imoires, Vol. II., p. 397. " . . The provincials
who were at first so full of zeal soon became offended at the suggestion that their
height should be measured before they were admitted. It was often necessary to
disregard this rule, with the result of somewhat disfiguring the companies. They
were all determined to be enrolled in none but the original companies, as though
the new ones were not to guard the King at all. . . There was.no one now who was
contented to serve in the bodyguard for five-and-twenty years for no reward but
the Cross of Saint Louis and a little retiring-pension. . . "
See also the Mimoires of Eleury de Chaboulon, Vol. I., p. 25. "... The men
of the line regiments and the national guards on duty at the Tuileries were most
unwilling to consider the bodyguards their superiors, and generally omitted to
present arms to them. The bodyguard complained, and an order was issued, to
the troops of the line only, to accord them, on pain of punishment, the honours
that were their due. Some of the young guardsmen, in their pride at this victory,
amused themselves by perpetually passing and repassing the sentries, whom they
obliged each time to pay respectful homage to their epaulets. . . "
De Vitrolles, being a royalist, saw the matter differently : "It is difficult,"
he wrote in his Mimoires, " to describe the pleasure that the restoration of these
figures of the past gave to the people. . . "
238

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
officials connected with the chase, the bedchamber, and the table.1
For the first few weeks they had no special costume. Those who
had served in the army wore full-dress uniform with the epaulets
of their rank ; the rest wore cut-away coats of any style that
pleased them. The appearance of this motley crowd was made the
subject of many irreverent jests, for during Napoleon's reign
the civil household had been extremely sumptuous. This irregular
state of things did not last long, however. The new costume was
all magnificence and splendour, with a special colour for each set
of officials ; and the populace greatly admired the uniforms, whose
gold and silver embroideries, and shining gold lace, and brilliant
buttons produced a gorgeous effect worthy of the royal
dignity. The officials who had the most trying duties were those
concerned with the daily drive. Louis XVIII, like most people
who are comdemned to inactivity, enjoyed great speed, and he
indulged in it every day, between the mid-day meal that took
place after Mass, and dinner. He had at first six, and afterwards
twelve equerry-outriders, whose duty it was to ride each in his
turn before the royal carriage. The outrider was provided with a
fresh horse at the end of every ten kilometres, and the two horses
of the king's carriage were also changed. They drove out by
Choisy, the Forest of Senart, and Grosbois, and returned by
Vincennes. The Comte de Neuilly, who was one of these outriders,
says he nearly always tired out six horses, for they were never
spared. " The king's horses," he says, " were half-killed, but they
were well cared for, and went as fast as ever next time." The
difficulty was to get the King into the carriage. Some of the
officials of his household supported him, while another held out
his hand from the box to help his Majesty into his seat. The
Marquis de Lauriston devised another expedient. " The King,"
writes Theodore Anne, " was seated in a chair with wheels. This
chair was pushed through the rooms by a page-of-the-chambers.
When they reached the head of the stairs they found a kind
of railway arranged on the steps, with grooves into which the
chair was fitted. Then the chair, guided all the while by the
same page, was gently lowered to the level of the carriage, into
1 "When we were at Compiegne or Fontainebleau," says the Comte de Neuilly
in his Souvenirs, "the bourgeois of both sexes were allowed to walk round the
table. Sometimes we saw little faces that were quite pleasing. We made
jokes about them, and that flattered them. They went round at intervals of
four feet, without pausing." 239

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
which it was lifted bodily, part of the seat having been removed
to make room for it. On the King's return the operation was
reversed. Batiste, the page-of-the-chambers, removed the King
from the carriage and took him to his room by means of the
apparatus on the stairs. When Louis was in a good humour all
went well, but when he was in pain he made Batiste suffer for
it. He swore like a heathen. ' Batiste, you  creature, will you
kindly not push me so fast ! You — ¦ — -, do you want to kill me ? ' "
But Batiste, being accustomed to these outbreaks, continued to go
at his own pace.
The King did not join in the sports of his courtiers, although,
say the memoirs of the time, he was a good shot. He followed the
hunt in his carriage, and in the evening dined at Compiegne or
Fontainebleau, where such of his household as were privileged by
their rank or office to wear the white-plumed hat and the collar
with the golden fleur-de-lys were admitted to his own table.1
Etiquette was very much relaxed on these expeditions, and the
conversation, though carried on in low tones, ranged over a
great variety of subjects. Louis XVIII, whose infallible memory
was very rich in reminiscences of the past, told charming
anecdotes in a delightful way, and had a gift of mimicry that
would have done honour to a professional actor. The two first
dishes were placed on the table opposite to the King, who offered
them in turn to each person present, addressing the courtiers by
name according to their precedence. After dinner the
attendants on duty carried in two ice-pails of silver containing
bottles of very choice wine, of which all the guests partook.2
Louis XVIII would not tolerate moustaches in his circle. He
had a horror of them. The Vicomte de Briche, general in
command of the 19th division, and the Due de Guiche, who
commanded a company of the bodyguard, were ordered by him to
suppress them.3
1 The King was as punctual as a descendant of Louis XIV might be expected
to be. One day, when the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia were to
dine with him, he was driving at a great distance from Paris. It was necessary
for the whole suite to be back at the palace by six o'clock precisely. The King
spoke to the Comte de Neuilly, who was in charge of the expedition that day ;
and after this the pace was terrific. . . . When driving at such high speed the
King was happy, and he arrived exactly at the hour of his State dinner. . . .
2 De Neuilly's Souvenirs, p. 388. "In Paris the King nearly always dined
alone with the members of his family. Eor all that we were not reduced to
dining in a tavern. There was a regular table kept by the King for the high
officials (the white plumes), which was presided over by the Comte de Cosse, the
Grand Pantler.
3 One of the finest Court ceremonies was the one that took place every year on
240

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
All these domestic concerns, these questions of costume and
precedence and etiquette, gave constant occupation to the King
and his favourite, the Comte de Blacas. That ever-present friend
was lodged in a little entresol above the King's great suite of rooms,
and thus the two were able to communicate with one another at
any hour. The Comte had arranged a kind of office for himself,
where he employed as secretary a sickly-looking abbe called Fleuriel,
whom he completely dominated. It caused some surprise that an
ecclesiastic should have strayed into this mill of politics and Court
secrets, for it was a long time since such a mixture of the sacred
and profane had been seen. The Comte de Blacas, Minister of
the King's Household, was as paramount in Paris as at Hartwell
over all who frequented the palace, whether ministers or courtiers.
Through the agency of his confidant de Pradel, in whom he had
boundless faith, he had, according to his custom, introduced the
most rigid economy into the daily expenditure, and a system of
constant surveillance over the servants ; while from others he
received reports of all that went on in the ante-rooms. In the end
this jealous interference in all the King's activities and duties
became positively despotic. Nothing was of any account in the
Tuileries but the will of M. de Blacas. It was not the custom for
the ministers to meet together under the presidency of the King :
the latter gave private audiences to each of them, usually in the
evening, at which the favourite was present and made his great
influence felt. It was to him that they presented their reports and
memoranda. M. de Blacas read them, annotated them with his
own views, and then handed them on to his master.
His devotion to the King being what it was, if he had but been
a statesman, or had understood the French nation, the ministers
might have congratulated themselves on his omnipotence. But he
Holy Thursday, in commemoration of the Last Supper. The King, followed by
the officers of the household who were on duty, presented twelve children
representing the apostles with twelve dishes, which we brought to him one by
one. We were in full uniform, with a piece of cambric by way of a napkin, and
an enormous bouquet ; and thus attired we went to a buffet for the food, which
was given to us on wooden dishes. The food was all maigre, and consisted of
Rhenish carp, fresh water trout, gigantic shellfish, water fowl and so on. . . .
Before this ceremony the King washed the feet of the apostles, who were
young, the children of servants of the household. They were ali on a plat
form wearing red tunics, with their feet bare and well washed beforehand, as
may be imagined. The King's first valet-de-chambre poured the water out of a
golden 6wer upon their feet, and the King wiped them with a piece of cambric.
This brilliant ceremony took place in the Galerie de Diane, and attracted an
enormous crowd, of ladies especially. "
241 r

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
was in Paris as he had been at Hartwell, a petty provincial emigre
with a suspicious restless mind, always occupied with the things of
the past and absorbed in details that bore no relation to modern
life. Nothing seemed urgent to him but his master's interests and
his own. He was unaware that hatred of the old Court and
nobility, indifference to religion, and derision of the clergy had
received a fresh impulse under the Empire.1 His chief occupation
was the search, in second-hand shops, for old medals, cameos, and
china, which he collected and paid exorbitant prices for, now that
the King's generosity had made him rich. Being engrossed in the
little incidents of the domestic life of the Tuileries he paid no
attention to the events that were taking place in France, nor to
those that were at hand in foreign countries. The gossip of the
Court interested him more than the wiles of diplomatists. His
sole object in life was his master's ease at the passing moment, for
bis own depended on it. Under this system of watchful care and
cajolery Louis XVIII's life became like that of some fat canon who
must be preserved at all costs from anxiety and distress of mind.
At Hartwell the favourite had annoyed the King's friends by his
intolerable assumption. They had submitted to it because at that
time nothing could be changed. But in Paris, when they found
that the jealous courtier was always at hand, they absented them
selves from the Court ; and finally the Abbe de Montesquiou said
to the King : " Your Majesty must remember that if the French
have always overlooked all their King's mistresses they have never
been able to endure a favourite." The King was annoyed by this
remark, and determined to part with the abbe-minister on the first
opportunity. Beugnot and Dupont made common cause with the
favourite, but the Abbe Louis and Malouet both took the side of
his opponent. Talleyrand remained neutral.
No provincial royalist was ever admitted to the King's presence
without the intervention of the Comte de Blacas. It was
necessary to inform him of the object of the visit; and then,
if the audience were granted, the favourite proceeded to instruct
the visitor. "The King," he said "was a lover of peace and
quiet. He had confidence in his loyal subjects. The Monarchy
was now unassailably and permanently established in France. It
was therefore useless to report to the King such things as a
few hostile comments on the part of the Jacobins. These little
troubles were inevitable. The ministers were informed of them,
1 So Lavalette observed.
242

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
and knew their duty. Had not the King suffered enough? It
was the duty of the royalists to bring signs of respect, not
signs of hostility, to his notice. There was a time for every
thing." This was the King's own view, moreover.1 He greatly
disliked thinking of serious matters. Whenever he received a
visitor he was careful to lead the conversation himself, and
spent all the time of the audience in relating one anecdote after
another, drawn from his own experiences. The visitor was charmed,
and went away without having mentioned the object of his visit.
The King was really delightful, he thought. And yet his reason
for coming had not been to hear about the little intrigues of
the old Court of Versailles. The important business in hand
was postponed, it seemed, to another occasion ; and he said to
himself that though the King was a courteous gentleman, endowed
with brains and a wonderful memory, he was not born to be a
King, nor yet a statesman. Guizot, who knew him well, and had,
as Montesquiou's secretary, and afterwards as under-secretary of
State at the Ministry of the Interior, been brought much into
contact with him, wrote of Louis XVIII : " He had, as a King,
great qualities of the negative and waiting kind : but few of
the active and effective kind : he had few ideas and no passions ;
and had too little energy of soul or body to be a ruler of men.
He allowed things to drift as they would. The conclusion of the
whole matter is that he was too old for a nation full of vigour, full
of valour, full of hopes, a nation that had been led in triumph
across Europe by a man who was both a warrior and a genius.
The habits of the old King had not changed since he came
to Paris. He lived in the palace of his ancestors as he had
lived at Hartwell ; rising early, reading the papers for the
day first of all, then receiving the favourite, who informed him
of all the little incidents that had occurred in political and
social circles, every detail of which the King liked to discuss.
He did not sleep in the room that contained the state bed,
but in a little salon next to his study : the room that was
occupied during the day by the first valet on duty. Into this
room at half past ten at night the valets pulled a little iron
bedstead, covered with curtains of green silk ; and the King,
1 The little Abbe1 Eleuriel was deputed to receive the Comte de Blacas' importun
ate visitors, and to send them away. " M. le Comte is out ! M. le Comte is
overwhelmed with work, and can see no one ! " Such were the invariable answers
of the Abbs' to visitors, whatever their office or rank. And if they wrote, the
letters were never opened.
243 a 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
donning an immense cotton nightcap that made his rubicund
face look like that of a huge baby, proceeded to cover the entire
width of the bed with his enormous person, completely flattening
the mattress in the process. When the hour of dSjeuner arrived,
the dishes, wines, and utensils were carried in a basket from
the kitchens, through the corridors and rooms, by two valets
accompanied by one of the bodyguard with arms at the shoulder,
who was preceded by an usher of the palace. The door-porter,
says Theodore Anne, waited at the entrance of the room, and
threw open both sides of the folding-door as the usher approached.
The latter announced in a loud voice : The King's breakfast,
Gentlemen! whereupon everyone rose and remained standing, in
honour of the food that was destined to satisfy his Majesty's
appetite. When the procession had passed they seated themselves
again. As a rule the royal family were with the King at this
hour of the morning, and shared his meal.
After breakfast the King attended Mass, the ceremonial being
as follows. The King having taken his seat, the priest and his
assistants left the vestry in procession. After having bowed
to the altar the priest bowed respectfully to the King also, and
the service began. At the end of the service the priest observed
the same ceremonial and returned to the vestry. The courtiers
attended Mass, and their austere deportment, as they bent over
their prayer-books and made the responses in loud tones, was
very edifying to all who beheld them. In the evening all these
men who were so much absorbed in piety and goodness, and in
the reverent performance of religious exercises, were to be seen
enjoying themselves in the theatres in the company of pretty
" opera-girls " — the fashionable expression — who had no reputation
to lose.
In the Court theatre no one applauded : the play was performed
in absolute silence. The upper and lower boxes were reserved for
those who had not been presented ; the principal tier, which
formed an amphitheatre round the house, for the ladies who had
had that honour. The King's box was in the middle, and on his
left was the ambassadors'. The floor of the theatre was occupied
by marshals, peers, deputies, generals, and even officers of inferior
rank, who had no special places assigned to them. Here the
spectators were mingled without distinction.
Since Mme. de Balbi's departure the King had had no favourite
of the fair sex. As soon as he was settled in the Tuileries that
244

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
intriguing lady tried to reinstate herself in his good graces ; but
her efforts were in vain ; she obtained no more than a single
audience, but was granted a sum of money and a pension that she
sorely needed, being in great distress. Her name was finally
altogether forgotten. She died in Paris in 1841, so entirely
unknown that no mention of her death is anywhere to be found.
During this first year of the Monarchy M. de Blacas' companion
ship was enough for the King, who sought for no woman's affection.
A measure of the royal favour, however, was bestowed on Mme. de
Serre, whose husband was Keeper of the Seals. She was ousted by
Mme. du Cayla, who obtained admission to the Tuileries with the
intention of giving up certain papers relating to the Marquis
de Favras. These papers, which were now in Mme. du Cayla's
possession, had been carefully preserved by her father, M. Omer
Talon, solicitor-general to the Parlement, who had received the
last confidences of the unfortunate marquis when he was about to
die. Favras, it will be remembered, was sentenced to death in
connection with the conspiracy against Louis XVI, in which
Louis XVIII, when Comte de Provence, was implicated. The
young woman possessed secrets, therefore, that it was necessary
to suppress at all costs. She surrendered everything, her papers
and herself. She was fairly pretty, too, and still at a very
attractive age, having been born in 1785. :
This life that the King led was, no doubt, very simple and
inexpensive. But the same cannot be said for the lives of the Court
officials who were provided for in the palace. They compensated
themselves amply for all the privations of their exile. These long-
1 Chancellor Pasquier in Vol. V. of his Mimoires, gives some interesting details
with regard to this favourite of the King. " . . The King's weakness for this
woman became more marked every day. When he did not see her he wrote to
her — more often twice in the day than once. It soon transpired that a very fine
house, which was being built at Saint-Ouen on the site of the house where the
King stayed in 1814, and where he granted the Declaration of Saint-Ouen, was
destined for her. . . "
Sosthene de Larochef oucauld addressed her thus in his memoirs : ' ' The King
Baid to you one day : ' My child, I must give you a portfolio for such of my
letters as you wish to keep. ' And the portfolio he offered you was surrounded
with the most valuable diamonds. It was a fresh device on the King's part to
leave you a fortune. It was impossible to persuade you to accept it. . . At
every fresh refusal the King said to you : ' Well, well, my child, I have taken
precautions. I have recorded my wishes, and after my death all you have
refused during my lifetime will be yours.'. . . After Charles X came to the
throne he obtained undoubted proof of a disinterestedness so great that at first he
found it incredible, and he then begged you to accept a pension of 25,000 frs. for
life, and from respect to Louis XVIII's memory, wished to guarantee the main
tenance of Saint-Ouen." 245

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
famished creatures, and all who were admitted to the common table,
succeeded in baffling the favourite's vigilance in a thousand ways,
and indulged in carousals on a large scale. This one table
by itself entailed considerable expense. It was impossible to enter
the Tuileries without being made aware of the close proximity of
elaborate sauces, by the savoury whiffs that rose from the kitchens.
The journals of the time did not fail to express disapproval of
this permanent state of revelry ; and Chateaubriand mentions it in
his memoirs. He was shocked, a few weeks after the King's
arrival at the Tuderies, by the careless attendance in the rooms
and the smell of cooking that pervaded the passages ; for he
remembered the order and cleanliness, and indeed the distinction,
that had reigned in the imperial palace.
If none but the royalists had been aware of this scandal little
harm would have been done. They would merely have chattered
among themselves, in their jealousy, of the good luck that had
befallen some of their fellow-royalists whde they themselves were
unable to enjoy these orgies. But the rumour of them passed
beyond the palace courts, and, spreading among the people of the
town, who were already in distress, roused their wrath against
these courtiers who were gorging themselves so shamelessly. It
was thus that disaffection against the dynasty began. And an
additional cause for hostility among the people was the determina
tion of the clergy to recover their past ascendancy, and to exact
the honours and privileges of which they had been deprived
by Napoleon, though he was always ready to recognise personal
talent and piety even in the humblest of priests. It was
impossible to be blind to the fact that the clergy were making
a great effort to dominate society at large, to take the education
of the young entirely into their own hands, to return to all the old
magnificence of religious observance, to muzzle reason, and to
encourage a very narrow ideal of morality.1 That this was the
case was shown by the ordinance of the Prefect of Police with
regard to the legal observance of Sunday and the regulation
of processions in the streets. It was not long before the discon-
1 "The clergy," says Lamothe-Langon in his memoirs, " being bent on domina
tion. . . inspired even the owners of movable property with the greatest alarm.
A certain artisan who wished to sell a mattress called it a patrimonial mattress,
to avoid detracting from its value. "
And the Abbe de Montgaillard writes (Vol. I., p. 354) : "... Most of the
churches in Paris have private funds which enable them to give a good number
of pensions — 5, 10, 15, or 20 francs a day to people of means and distinction, on
condition that they attend the services of the church assiduously. . . "
246

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
tented and suspicious feelings of the people towards the Bourbons
were shared by the bourgeoisie, who were especially irritated when
they found that all the vacancies in the Council of State were being
filled by nobles ; by M. de Balainvilliers, late intendant of
Languedoc, M. de Labourdonnaye, M. de Blossac, late intendant of
Soissons,and M. d'Outrement, formerly a councillor of the Parlement.
From that time forward it was the rule, in this chaotic society
that was being reorganised, for a title of nobility to be the sole
guarantee of success ; and those who desired a post in the govern
ment tried to secure the distinction of the particle. No office could
be found for M. Durand, but the claims of the Chevalier Durand
were taken into consideration, while those of the Baron Durand
were stronger still. Both titles and decorations were put up to
auction, as we have seen ; 1 for those who sought them were very
numerous, being men who had held offices under Napoleon and had
no means of livelihood but the service of the State, since they were
without private fortune. In addition to the Smigris, therefore, a
host of candidates for titles of nobility came from all parts of the
country : prefects, judges, custom-house officers, postmasters,
registrars, collectors of direct and indirect taxes, all of whom had
been dismissed from districts that no longer belonged to France,
and were the more eager in pursuing their object because their
lives depended on it. They had neither the daring nor the energy
of the private citizen who has devoted his life to industry or com
merce. They knew no art but that of bowing and scraping and
assuming silly complimentary smiles, and playing the assiduous
courtier. Self-abasement, and even servility, had become their
second nature, and they cultivated these qualities in order to make
themselves acceptable.
Mme. de Stael waxes wroth over the compliance shown by the
government in ennobling these commoners in return for money.
" For," she said, " what does ennoblement mean if it be not a
statement that the Tiers Etat, that is to say, the nation, is com
posed of commoners, and that the position of an ordinary citizen
is not honourable, and that it is right to raise from that state of
abasement all those who deserve better things. But as a rule those
who are thus raised are those who are notoriously inclined to
sacrifice the rights of the nation to the privileges of nobility."
She goes on to ridicule these recently ennobled commoners, as well
as the old emigre's who affected the military airs of the great
1 Cf. page 232.
247

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
warriors of the Empire. " It was in vain," she adds, " that the
government after the Restoration, while neglecting officers of the
second rank a great deal too much, heaped favours upon those of
the highest. As soon as Bonaparte's soldiers began to aspire to be
courtiers it was impossible to satisfy their vanity in that respect,
for no number of titles will turn a self-made man into a man of
old family. A general who wears his hair powdered as in the days
of the old regime is an amusing sight to the old veterans who
vanquished Europe ; but a chamberlain who is the son of a
bourgeois or a peasant is no less ridiculous in his own way."
A large number of these bourgeois, none the less, whether com
moners or newly ennobled, were accepted by the King's ministers,
because they were more intelligent and hard-working than the
others, and quicker in learning the business of administration.
It was the prevailing opinion in the salons, and the oft-expressed
view of the Minister of the Interior, the Abbe de Montesquiou,
that all the subordinate posts should be assigned to these men,
and the higher ones to the aristocrats, to those who bore the most
illustrious names of the nobility. To these latter were to be
accorded all the honours ; to the others all the hard work. They
were to be the hacks, said Mme. de Simiane, in whose house the
Abbe lodged.
This system was adopted. The old aristocracy appropriated
the posts of the officials of the Empire, who had td content them
selves with the less important functions of the administration. The
embassies, military commands, bishoprics, and free schools were
without exception given to the nobles ; their empty purses were
filled with pensions and gratuities, and their sensitive vanity was
flattered with honours and all the best sinecures. It was as
though the clock had been put back for thirty years ; and if the
privileges abolished by the Revolution had been re-established, the
nation, like a Sleeping Beauty, would have been able to detect
no difference between the existing state of things and the much
abused days of the old Monarchy.
In spite of the acts of generosity and weakness by which the
government was so greatly injuring the dynasty, the nobles were
as grasping as ever. Their desires were unappeased and unappeas
able. They felt themselves too poor for the names they bore, and
most of them were ready to take part in the most dubious enter
prises in their eagerness to re-gild their coats of arms. They
monopolised the tobacconists' shops and the lotteries, and flung
248

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
themselves headlong, with their eyes shut, into the business of
contractors and merchants. During these first months of the
restored Monarchy society was polluted with every kind of unre
strained cupidity, with every kind of monopolist and stock-jobber,
as in the days of the Directory. The Abbe de Montgaillard in
his memoirs tells us of the large numbers of nobles who played
the part of informers, or invented mythical conspiracies, or
trafficked in posts, or gambled in stocks. " We could name," he
adds, " several people connected with the Court who hold two or
three tobacco shops at the same time. We could easily mention
marchionesses and countesses who, under assumed names, manage
three or four of these same shops, or sell brandy anonymously, and
even shoe-blacking and brushes. We could even point to dukes
who lend money at 18 or 20 per cent interest, and carry on the
business of brokers like professional stock-broking thieves. All
these trades are good and honourable and glorious in their eyes,
since they are remunerative. . . . M. Cesar de la Panouze formerly
filled a subordinate post in Egypt, in the department of finance ;
and under the Restoration this knight of Malta, before he
recovered his office, carried on a trade in second-hand trimmings
and melted bullion ; and since then there have been great digni
taries and princes of the Restoration who dabbled in trade and
carried on a retail business quite openly. People in society nowa
days make fortunes by every means, and enter into competition
with the most obscure professions. They tread on the heels of the
people everywhere, whenever there is a question of profit, how
ever disgraceful the business may be."
By the time of the second Restoration the descendants of the
great families that had shone at Louis XIYs Court had almost
entirely recovered their ancient splendour, and with the return of
wealth and prosperity they became proud and vicious. Those who
possessed nothing but threadbare titles married into the families of
wealthy regicides, and settled down in the chateaux that the latter
had bought as national property. Nothing more was heard of
their demands for the restitution of this property by its new
owners, after they had married those owners' heiresses.1
1 De Montgaillard gives a list of men who were brought into prominence by
the Revolution ; such as Chateaubriand, Frayssinous, Bellart, Dupont, Deeases,
Vitrolles, Blacas, Marcellus, de Pradt and many others. . . . With regard to
M. de Marcellus, Montgaillard declares that at the States General the Baron de
Bridas secured his exclusion from the assembly of the nobles, on the ground that
he was not noble. 249

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII

IV
In those days the press did not possess the influence that it has
in ours : the journals were limited in number and high in price.
None the less everything was known to the public. Violent protests
against these outrageous scandals were published in the form of
brochures, and piled in the windows of every bookshop. Michaud,
the censor, was regarded as dangerously incapable or blindly
negligent, and was replaced by Royer-Collard, a young philosopher
and theorist, who was less yielding and more discreet.
Interference was necessary. The aggressive tone of these printed
controversies produced long discussions in the fashionable cafes, and
bloodshed in the public-houses of the slums. There were a great
many unemployed workmen — ten thousand from the spinning-
mills alone, say the journals of the day ; and these, together with
the disbanded army, and the prisoners who had come back from
Germany and England with hearts sore from defeat and misery,
formed a dangerous combination of forces which the government
allowed to remain entirely unrestrained. It even seemed determined
to alienate them altogether. A few days after the opening of the
Parlement, when the feast of Corpus Christi was approaching,
Beugnot, the Director-General of Police, published an ordinance
insisting on the importance, for the nation, of resuming the practice
of virtue, the only foundation upon which a people can found
lasting prosperity. On these grounds he forbade to every
individual, on pain of the severest penalties, the performance of
any work whatever on Sundays and feast-days ; forbade tradesmen
to open their shops to sell their goods, carriers to harness their
horses for the purpose of conveyance, and pedlars to carry on
their little itinerant trade. The ordinance applied to the whole
kingdom, and the Parisians were ordered, in addition, to decorate
their houses on the Sunday of the Corpus Christi festival, and on
the octave, for the procession of the Holy Sacrament; while
carters were forbidden to work between the hours of three in the
morning and three in the afternoon.1 The poor of Paris, who
1 To prove the peaceable reception of this order by the people the Journal des
Dibats, which had become royalist, wrote as follows : " The procession of the
Feast of Corpus Christi took place to-day in Paris (June 12). . . . Order and
decorum reigned everywhere. . . . Early in the morning the Parisians had
hastened to clean their streets, to strew them with flowers, and to adorn their
house-fronts with hangings and garlands. Altars had been prepared at various
250

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
were thus forced to decorate their walls, the unbelievers who were
forced to bow their heads to pious symbols, and the workmen who
were forced to be idle whether they would or not, protested violently
with invective and ridicule, against this unfortunate ordinance
of the police ; in which action they were only following the lead of
the middle classes, who were still Voltairian in opinion. Those
who were leisured and prosperous laughed at the ordinance, and
turned it into ridicule. They were half angry, half amused, for
their rights as citizens were not yet attacked. It gave them very
little trouble to hang out a few pieces of old tapestry and garland
them with flowers ; it was a novel sight for them, this exhibition
of oriflammes and banners that had been brought from the
churches to decorate the streets. A month later, however, these
very people were attacked in a bill that was laid before the
Chamber of Deputies. The Abbe de Montesquiou, Minister of
the Interior, in a few very short articles, re-established the censor
ship unconditionally for all brochures of less than thirty sheets,
that is to say, all publications of less than 480 pages.
This time the bourgeoisie understood that the new Monarchy
was about to falsify all its promises, and that the constitutional
government so enthusiastically welcomed was no more liberal in its
intentions than the absolute rule of Napoleon had been. There
was an outburst of wrath in the independent papers, and the
leisured, prosperous folk who had so lately been making merry
over the observance of Sunday could find no words of sufficient
violence to apply to these reactionary tendencies. On the day
that the bill was to be discussed in the Chamber of Deputies, all
the seats reserved for the public were occupied. Well-dressed
women of all classes of the bourgeoisie crowded to hear the orators
who were to defend the threatened liberty of the press. The art
of oratory had been practised so little of late, however, that there
were no speakers worthy of attention : they all read their dis
courses. Not one could speak spontaneously. None the less the
government yielded, being warned by the prevailing hostility to
the bill, and convinced by the excitement in the public galleries.
The number of sheets to be subjected to censorship was reduced
from thirty to twenty. Two-fifths of the deputies and half of the
points in each arrondissement. ... In each procession a long file of young ladies,
dressed in white, and adorned with all the modesty appropriate to their age
and sex, preceded the clergy ; while prominent members of society, judges, and
notables of the parish, followed the Host and gave an example of devotion."
251

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
peers remained inexorably faithful to their liberal convictions.
Thus an opposition party was formed : a danger-signal, a menace
for the future. The ministers were not in the least disturbed by
the number of these refractory individuals, who evidently intended
to exact respect for the Charter. The King and the princes were
equally calm. Their lives were now sweet as the heart of man
could desire. Every little unpleasantness was counteracted by the
flatteries of their courtiers. They cherished all the illusions that
are born of power, and thought themselves unassailable.
Such was the mental attitude of all these princes, who returned
to France — so it has been said — without having learnt anything or
forgotten anything. That they were conscious of their want of
harmony with the nation, of the gulf that separated them from
modern France, is most improbable. They had received comforting
news from the provinces, where the central towns were awakening
from their indifference to espouse the cause of the House of
Bourbon. Lucas, the physician, inspector of the waters at Vichy,
took the initiative in having a solemn service celebrated in memory
of the Princesses Adelaide and Victoire of France, who had built
the hydropathic establishment there in 1785. After the service
the active doctor gathered together all the local officials and
influential men of the neighbourhood, and replaced upon a pedestal
the busts of the two princesses, which he had saved from being
mutilated in the Terror. At the same time the municipal body at
Clermont-Ferrand ordered a religious service to be celebrated in
the cathedral, in memory of Louis XVI and those of his family
who had fallen victims to the Jacobins. The bishop of the
diocese, M. Duvalk de Dampierre, the brother of the Comte de
Dampierre who was killed under the King's eyes during the return
from Varennes, officiated on the occasion. In nearly all the towns
of the kingdom — each following the example of its neighbour — a
similar service was held. And meanwhile the courtiers were
spreading a rumour that Bonaparte had just gone out of his mind
in Elba.
These courtiers, as we can easily believe, were rewarded for their
zeal. On Whitsun Eve, Louis XVIII, in accordance with custom,
created fifteen Knights of the Holy Ghost, of which Order, the
cordon bleu, there had been ninety-five members in 1784, whereas
in 1814 there were but eight. The traitor Lynch, mayor of
Bordeaux, received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour. On
the following day there was a brilliant reception at the Tuileries,
252

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
the Duchesse d'Angouleme appearing for the first time in court-
dress, with a white silk gown, a long train, and a lace cap with
lappets. No lady was admitted except in court-dress. Peers,
deputies, and generals of division were only received in the Salon
de la Paix, not in the throne-room. On that same Whitsun Day
all the theatres, without exception, were closed ; but there was a
concert at the Odeon. In Notre Dame a sermon was preached at
vespers by the Abbe de Boulogne, the eloquent Bishop of Troyes
to whom the pulpit had been forbidden for three years under the
Empire as a punishment for a few imprudent words.
Various other little incidents occurred to show that the royalist
and pious attitude of mind was becoming increasingly marked
among the officials connected with the Court. An announcement
was made to the effect that the bishops who had been in London
since their emigration, and Pere Hannon, superior of the com
munity of Priests of St. Lazare, and the sisters of charity who had
never submitted to the imperial rule, were all about to return to
France. Bishops were re-endowed with all their ancient rights
relating to the gift of cures : the priests they nominated were
entitled to take possession of their benefices without waiting to be
authorised by the government. The catechism that had been used
under the Empire was done away with, and, as had formerly been
the case, each diocese was allowed to have one of its own. Dom
Eugene de Prada, Abbot of La Trappe, the Abbe Laffon, and the
son of General Mallet, were all presented to the King. The Abbe
Laffon had suffered six years' imprisonment on account of his
fidelity to the Holy See and his relations with Alexis de Noailles.
Others who were presented were the Marquis de Riviere, the
Comte de Polignac, Major Russillion, M. Rochette de Brecy, the
chartist d'Hozier, and MM. Armand Gaillard and Bouvet de
Lozier,1 who had escaped the death to which they had been
sentenced after the conspiracy of Pichegru and Georges Cadoudal.
A few days later Mass was celebrated in the parish church of
St. Paul, Rue Saint- Antoine, for the victims of the conspiracy who
had been executed in the Place de Greve. On the same day, at
nine o'clock in the morning, the remains of Georges Cadoudal,
which had been preserved by the care of an anatomist, were buried
with great pomp in a chapel of that church, in the presence of
1 Some time afterwards he was appointed governor of the island of Bourbon :
his father had been governor there under Louis XV. And the decoration of the
Lys was given to the two sons of the "Comte de Baruel-Beauvert, who were
boarders in a lycie. 253

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Cadoudal's brother, Mme. and Mile, de Lajollais, and Louis XVIII's
surgeon, Pere Elysee. After the absolution, an offertory was
collected by Mme. Armand de Polignac and the Marquis de
Riviere; and six hundred officers and others signed the death-
register behind the altar. The King paid the expenses of the
ceremony from his privy purse. Towards the end of this month
of June the new companies of the bodyguard, which had now
reached its full complement, were substituted at the Tuileries for
the National Guard, hitherto employed as sentries at the gates.1
A few days later the Due de Berry held a great review of the
cavalry, the infantry of the line, and the legions of the National
Guard. The King watched the scene from his balcony, with the
Duchesse d'Angouleme at his side.
This family of Bourbons made daily efforts to acclimatise
themselves to Paris. The Due d'Orieans established himself in
the Palais Royal ; the Duchesse d'Angouleme drove in the Bois
de Boulogne ; the Due de Berry hunted at Saint-Germain ; the
Due d'Angouleme visited Les Invalides. As for the Comte
d'Artois the change of climate and his altered mode of living
affected his health. He fell ill, and as soon as he was convalescent
established himself at Saint-Cloud. The King, being less sensitive,
and accustomed to a life of complete inactivity, was as unfailingly
good tempered as ever. One of his first expeditions in Paris
was to the picture-gallery in the Louvre, where he justified
his reputation as a man of artistic taste. He at once appointed
Isabey to the post of court-painter; while the Due de Berry
sat for his portrait to the artist Gerard. It was at this time that
the gentlemen-of-the-chambers were charged with the administration
of subsidised theatres, as under Louis XIV.
The provinces, which were as eager as Paris itself for fetes
and fine sights, were clamouring to make the acquaintance of
the young princes. The Due d'Angouleme, who had already
proved his discretion and tact during his visit to Bordeaux, was
the first to leave Paris. He visited Dreux, Mortagne, and Laval,
and was everywhere greeted with cheers and illuminations and
popular rejoicings. From Laval he proceeded to Brest ; thence
to Lorient ; and afterwards to Nantes. In that great town, which
had seen so many heroic struggles during the war in La Vendee,
the Due d'Angouleme was received with the greatest enthusiasm.
1 The barracks of the guards were those on the Quai d'Orsay. On the pediment
were inscribed these words : " H6tel of Messieurs the King's Bodyguard."
254

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
Mass was sung in the cathedral, the troops of the garrison were
reviewed, and the duke drove through all the principal quarters
of the town. There was not a window without a white flag, not
a house without some motto expressive of welcome and devotion
to the Bourbons. The procession advanced at a foot's-pace,
forcing its way through a compact mass of people, whose
determination to see the prince was such that nothing would
induce them to move. He noticed with satisfaction that the town
was recovering its prosperity, as was evident from the large
number of merchant ships in the harbour. In the evening the
theatre gave a special performance, while out of doors the air was
filled with the bright sparks and shrill hisses of rockets, and
sounds of joy and amusement rose from the crowd as they danced
in the squares. On another day the duke visited the foundry at
Indray, in a magnificent barge. The banks of the river were
crowded with spectators, whose loud and repeated cheers gave
evidence of their royalist sentiments ; and the royal barge was
followed by numerous other boats, containing the escort of
national guards and the band. On reaching his destination the
illustrious traveller landed, and was taken first to the building
where the boring-machines were to be seen, and then to the
warehouse where the casts were stored. After this he saw the
working of various ingenious machines used for manipulating
enormous masses of metal, by means of a small expenditure of
force. The furnaces were glowing, the metal was melted ; then
the doors of the furnaces were opened, and the fiery stream, under
skilful guidance, took form as a piece of ordnance. After having
seen the breaking up of an old gun that was about to be melted
down the prince went away. From Nantes he continued his
journey by way of La Rochelle, the road by which he travelled
being lined, according to contemporary journals, by forty or
fifty thousand of the peasants who had fought so bravely for the
cause of the legitimate king and of religion. He spent a few
days at Bordeaux, where he had stayed for some weeks when he
first came from England ; and on leaving this town was welcomed
at Pau with transports of delight. Here, in the castle, he was
shown the cradle in which the infant Henry IV had lain. From
Pau he went to Toulouse by way of Tarbis and Auch, and then
to Brives, where he decorated his whole retinue with the order
of the Lys. He returned through Limoges, Chateaudun, and
Chartres, where he was entertained at a magnificent fete; and
255

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
finally reached Paris with eyes dazzled by the fireworks that
had lighted his journey, and ears deafened by the salutes and
cheers that had echoed in his honour. Having been unaccustomed
since his earliest days to the demonstrations of excited crowds he
was deeply impressed by all this enthusiasm, and imagined it would
last for ever.
It was now the Due de Berry's turn to leave Paris. While his
elder brother was travelling he had been reviewing the troops
quartered in the capital and the neighbouring towns. At
Fontainebleau he was received by the Due de Reggio ; in the
Champs-Elysees he reviewed the hussars of the guard, and in the
court of the Tuileries the 15th regiment of light infantry, which
had arrived from North Germany. On this last occasion he was
accompanied by some of the marshals, and the King watched the
review from his balcony. The journals that supported the
Bourbons declared the troops had cheered Louis XVIII — as
though such a thing were possible to men who had just left the
fortresses they had been keeping for the Emperor ! A few days
later the Due de Berry again visited Fontainebleau, where the
colours destined for the Royal Grenadiers and Chasseurs of
France — the Emperor's Old Guard — were to be blessed by the
clergy. The ceremony was followed by a banquet. The table of
the " son of France " was in a tent, which was decorated with
portraits of the royal family and various ingenious emblems ; the
tables for the officers were arranged in a semi-circle opposite to the
prince ; and beyond them were those of the grenadiers and chasseurs.
When the meal was over a number of the soldiers sang some
verses that had been improvised by the poets of the regiments,
after which the Due de Berry rose from the table, and strolled
about unceremoniously among the townsfolk who had come to the
palace to see him. A ball by the water's side was the next thing
on the programme, and having taken part in this for an hour the
prince drove back to Paris. This was not the end of his military
inspections : he visited the barracks of the Rue Popincourt,
La Courtille, and the Rue du Temple. At last, however, thinking
he had paid enough attention to the army, and had made
himself popular with the men by his rather slovenly appearance
and frequently coarse language, he left Paris for London early in
August, with a suite of four aides-de-camp. His first stop was at
Cambrai. At the gates of the town he left his carriage and
walked, surrounded by the crowd, to the cathedral ; after which
256

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
he breakfasted at the bishop's palace, and received complimentary
visits from the civil and administrative authorities. He then
drove on, with the Due de Trevise, to Bouchain, and thence to
Valenciennes, being met by detachments of troops at various
points of the road. At Valenciennes he dined, and attended a
ball given by the corporation in the play-house ; but as soon
as the first quadrille was over he made the tour of the room and
retired amid respectful salutations. On the following day he
visited Quesnoy, Landrecies, Avesnes, Maubeuge, and Bavai, which
he entered on horseback, escorted by a guard of honour specially
formed for his reception. At Lille an immense crowd had
gathered on the ramparts to welcome him. In the evening
he attended a special performance of Les Heritiers Michau,
to which admission could only be obtained by invitation of
the corporation. The men were relegated to the pit and
stalls, the boxes being all reserved for ladies, whose elaborate
toilettes were adorned with lilies. Meantime the streets were
brilliantly illuminated, and the houses decorated with emblems
and allegorical transparencies. On his arrival in London the
Comte d'Artois' son was welcomed by the French emigres who
were still living voluntarily in exile.
The King required a great deal of fresh air ; but he was able to
enjoy as much as he needed on his long, quick drives in the country
round Paris, and was sometimes content to trot quietly about the
boulevards within the confines of the town. He visited Sevres and
its manufactory, and also Versailles.
On the latter occasion he was met at Viroflay and escorted to
the palace by Baron d'Oullembourg, commandant of the depart
ment, and Baron de Viel-Castel, commandant of the National Guard.
He felt none of the emotion on entering the place that any other
man, more tender-hearted than he, would have experienced. He
walked through the rooms supported by his gentlemen, and
inspected the gardens with the air of an ordinary visitor — a
visitor who was a little weary, and accustomed to all the pomp of
royal surroundings. He left the palace without uttering a word
to show that he regretted his old hfe there. His mind at this
time was entirely occupied in fixing upon the correct distinction
to make between his own majesty and the people he received.
When, after the opening of the Parlement, a deputation from
the legislative chamber was admitted to the Tuileries, Louis XVIII
remained seated and did not remove his hat. When he attended
257 s

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
the Council of State for the first time he did so with a degree of
ceremony that proved his vanity, and his exaggerated estimate of
his regal dignity. On his arrival an usher-of-the-cabinet announced
to the assembled council : " The King, Gentlemen ! " upon which
the ministers and councillors rose to their feet. The chancellor
left his place and went to receive the King outside the entrance
to the hall. The King appeared preceded by his brother Monsieur
and accompanied by his captain of the guard, his first gentleman-
of-the-chambers, the grand-master and master of the wardrobe, the
grand-master of the ceremonies of France, and the major of the
bodyguard. He seated himself on a raised throne at the end of the
hall. Monsieur sat at a table to the right of the platform, and on
the left there was another table for the absent princes. Behind
the throne sat the captain of the guard upon a bench ; on his right
was the first gentleman-of-the-chambers, and on his left the grand
master and master of the wardrobe ; on the right of the gentleman-
of-the-chambers was the master of the ceremonies, and on a stool
behind the captain of the guard sat the major of the guard. The
King, without rising or uncovering, read his speech, and added :
" The chancellor will inform you of my instructions." And the
chancellor, dropping on one knee, received the King's orders. This
account, as one reads it in the journals of the day, seems like a
description of some oriental Court, some ceremony in China or
Persia. When this occurred the month of August was drawing near. The
Procession of Louis XV's Vow took place on the 15th of that
month, outside the precincts of Notre Dame. The royal family,
surrounded by the great governmental bodies, followed the
procession on foot with tapers in their hands, escorted by a large
detachment of troops. Between the hours of two in the afternoon
and seven in the evening no vehicle was allowed in the streets,
except the carriages of the great dignitaries who had been invited
to the ceremony, and mail-carts and diligences. As a mark of
respect for this solemn occasion the Journal des Debats did not
appear on the following day, the 16th August.
The next event was the festival of St. Louis. In accordance
with an ancient custom, the vendors of toys and cakes set up their
little stalls in the principal pathway of the gardens of the Tuileries,
and held a fair there. A band played beneath the windows of the
King, who showed himself several times on his balcony. As was
only proper on the fete-day of a very Christian prince, say the
258

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
journals of the time, " the shops were closed at a very early hour,
without any action being taken in the matter by the ecclesiastical
or civil authorities, and the churches were filled with the faithful,
as on the greatest religious anniversaries." At half past nine in
the morning the royal family visited the King ; and, after Mass,
the crowd of notable people who came to pay their respects and
offer their good wishes to his Majesty was so great that it was
difficult to force a way into the rooms. At two o'clock the Duke
of Wellington appeared, bedizened with all his orders and sur
rounded by all his attendant officers. At six o'clock the state
dinner began. Those who were allowed to walk round the table
were admitted by one door, and having made their bow to the
royal family, left the room by another. At eight o'clock in the
evening the crowd in the rooms of the Tuileries was as great as
ever ; for everyone wished to watch the fireworks on the Pont
Royal from the palace windows.
Three days later the King was entertained in the Hotel de Ville.
The Parisian journals described the festivities as follows. " Our
old Hotel de Ville, enlarged though it is by the building that was
formerly the Hospital of the Saint-Esprit and is now the Hotel de
la Prefecture, would have been too small for yesterday's fete.
Two additional rooms, therefore, were built of wood in the garden.
The one, opening on the Rue du Martrois, formed the vestibule,
and provided the King with an entrance that was more convenient
for him than the steps to the main doorway. The other was the
reception-room, at the end of which a platform had been raised,
with a throne and four seats arranged upon it. Next to this was
the banqueting-hall, a huge room of a fairly good style of archi
tecture, originally built, from Blondel's design, as a communion-
chapel for the church of Saint-Jean. The room reserved in the
Hotel de la Prefecture for the use of ' Madame ' and her circle,
l;he concert-room in the great gallery of the Hotel de Ville, and
the ball-room, which temporarily covered, as usual, the whole of
the courtyard, were connected on all sides, by means of a wooden
flooring, with the portico of the first storey of the buildings. To
avoid confusion, and the inconvenience of everyone crowding to
wards the same point at one time, the invitation-cards indicated
the room in which each guest was expected to remain. A certain
number of ladies were admitted to the salon where Madame was to
hold her Court and receive the King ; and by the time the royal
family arrived every room was lined with radiant guests, who stood,
259 s 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
without any crowding or confusion, in front of the benches that
were placed against the walls. After the presentations, the guests
were bidden to the banquet. It was the King's wish that he should
not sit by himself, and at his table forty guests were placed, of
whom thirty-six were ladies of the Court. The prefect waited on
the King, the prefect's wife on Madame, and the members of the
municipal council on the princes and ladies of the Court. The
banquet was followed by the concert ; and finally the ball was
opened by the Due de Berry and Mme. de Chabrol, the prefect's
wife. At ten o'clock the royal family retired ; but the guests con
tinued to admire the ballroom and the banquet-hall, which was
decorated with gold and silver gauze upon a background of various
colours, and the centre-piece on the dinner table, which had the
effect of a picture in pastels, though really composed of sand of
many colours. The principal subject was Henri IV's supper at
Michau's house. Among the guests was the Duke of Wellington,
who, for some reason, excited more interest among the Parisians
than any other individual."
All the towns in the kingdom celebrated the King's fete with
every mark of joy. It was the first time it had occurred since the
Revolution ; and notwithstanding the bad impression made upon
the thinking world by the recent acts of the government, the
people of the villages and little towns were delighted to seize the
opportunity of singing and dancing and holding high festival in
the taverns. At Rouen, whither several officers of noble birth had
already been sent to command the garrison, there was a banquet,
followed by an excited walk through the streets to the accompani
ment of cheers for the King, which were gladly echoed by the
mob, to whom a noise is ever the greatest of pleasures.1 This
was a slight foundation on which to build the theory, put for
ward by the royalist journals, that France was devoted to the
1 In his memoirs M. de Vaublanc, prefect of Metz, makes the following just
observation on the subject of the soldiers' revels. ' ' They showed their
enthusiasm on the day of the King's fite in the most unequivocal way. It
could not be otherwise. Dancing and drinking, and eating and shouting, and
getting drunk, are very agreeable ways of spending a day. . . . but all this kind
of thing has no meaning beyond the pleasure of drinking and shouting and
dancing." But he adds : "I observed among the men of the Old Guard that
were at Metz, not merely the most perfect discipline, but a degree of discretion
and quietness that showed them to be all of one mind. . . . They walk about
silently. No one is in a hurry. An artillery officer of high rank said to me :
' It is like a convent. . . . They have only one soul among them, and that is
dominated by a superior influence.' Which meant that they regretted the
Emperor." 260

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
Bourbons. The nation had only too much cause to be incredulous
with regard to the fine promises of the ministers. Every day
the gazettes recorded some fresh fact significant of a return to
the old regime. Members of ¦ the old nobility were invested, in
quick succession, with the order of Saint-Louis. Provincial
academies chose the eulogy of Louis XVI as a subject for
literary competitions. The widow of General Moreau, who had
met his death on the field of Dresden in the ranks of the enemy,
received the title of " Marechale." At Saint-Denis a tomb was
being made ready in the vaults of the basilica, for the remains of
the Queen of France who had died in England. All the com
munes, whose names had been changed in the Revolution,
resumed those they had borne before 1790.
A title of nobility was conferred on the lawyer Bellart, the
author of the proclamation against the deposed Emperor. The
Abbe Frayssinous, inspector of the Academy, preached on the 19th
August in the chapel of the Higher Normal School, to anathe
matise the fall of the Monarchy. At Verneuil (Eure) a funeral
service was held in memory of the Comte de Frotte, who had
been executed under the Consulate as one of the leaders of the
royal army. The police arrested two Parisian lawyers, Maitres
Dard and Falconnet, for writing a letter to the King on the
subject of the sale of national property. The King received a
deputation from the vestrymen of the Parisian parishes; and
another from the communes of Jales and its neighbourhood,
which were celebrated for their invariable fidelity to the royal
cause, and constant efforts on behalf of the altar and the throne,
and also for the gatherings they had mustered in the plains of
Ardeche with these ends in view in 1790, 1791, and 1792. This
provincial deputation was composed of M. de Malbos, the
president, and MM. Graffard, Fabrigat, and La Vernede, whose
fathers had succumbed in the struggle. All these ambitious
spirits from the country were as full of eagerness and eloquence
as those that lived in Paris. To such a pitch was the prevailing
sycophancy carried at Nimes that the churchwardens vowed to
make a votive offering of a solid silver statuette, of the weight
of a new-born child, if Madame, Duchesse d'Angouleme and
daughter of Louis XVI, should give birth to a " son of France."
The vow was published in the parish church of Saint-Castor and
in a chapel dedicated to St. Francis de Sales.
Of the five orphanages that had been founded under the
261

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Empire for the daughters of knights of the Legion of Honour,
four had been suppressed : those of Paris, Ecouen, Barbeaux, and
Les Loges. None remained but Saint-Denis. More than eleven
hundred heroes had been dismissed from the Invalides on the
ground that they were foreigners, owing to the recent mutilation
of French territory ; and fifteen hundred were sent to their own
homes, with nominal pensions. There was even some talk of
suppressing the branch establishments. Napoleon had founded
some scholarships at the military schools for the sons of officers
on active service, and of those who had died or the field pf
battle. This favour was now reserved for the sons of men
whose titles of nobility were a hundred years old ; and, as
Vaulabelle remarks, as there was no fixed system of promotion in
the army the military schools were the only legal means of
obtaining the rank of officer. As a climax to all these measures
it was noticed with surprise that the formulae at the beginning
and end of the royal ordinances were worded thus : Accordingly,
of our plenary power and royal authority, we ordain and declare
. . . for such is our pleasure.1
Towards the end of July the Duchesse d'Angouleme determined
to go to Vichy for the waters. When her course of treatment
was over she yielded to the prayers of the town of Riom, which
desired the honour of a visit from her. She was escorted by
the mayor, M. de Chabrol, to the corn-market, where she was
presented with baskets of flowers, and heard the peasant women
sing the songs of the country in the language of the Auvergne.
From thence she was taken to the Hotel de Ville, where she was
welcomed by fifteen girls under the age of fourteen. In the
streets through which she passed sand had been laid down, and
the houses were decorated with hangings and garlands of foliage.
From Riom the duchess proceeded to Clermont-Ferrand, through
villages and towns all gaily decked with flags and white hangings.
1 The following events happened at this time. The bones of the victims
of Quiberon were buried, after lying exposed in a, meadow at a short distance
from La Chartreuse d'Auray. The Bishop of Vannes presided at the ceremony,
and twenty-eight prominent men of the district acted as pall-bearers. The
government restored to M. de Mortemart the house in the Rue de Grenelle,
recently occupied by the Minister of the Interior. Prince Eugene left Paris for
Munich. The English cavalry quartered on the banks of the Garonne marched
across France and embarked at Calais. The Grand Lodge of Freemasons of
France subscribed the sum of a thousand francs towards the erection, in bronze,
of Henri IV's statue on the Pont Neuf . Chateaubriand was appointed ambassador
to Sweden, etc. , etc. 262

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
From her carriage she could see, on the hill tops, the turrets of
the ancient castles of the Auvergne, with the oriflamme and the
fleur-de-lys fluttering from their flag-staffs.
On her arrival sixty men dressed in white unharnessed her
horses, and dragged her carriage to the cathedral, and thence to
the Prefecture, where she was to stay during her visit. Along the
corridors of the building tiers of steps had been placed, and
covered with cloth of dazzling whiteness ; and on these steps stood
three hundred ladies, waiting to welcome the princess. In the
salons she received the local authorities, who came to pay their
court to her. She dined with the prefect, and after dinner
received with "celestial kindness," say the royalist journals, every
one who wished to be presented to her. Lyons secured a visit
from her, too, in the course of the autumn ; and there, as every
where, the fetes in her honour comprised concerts, fireworks,
illuminations, and plays. She agreed to the suggestion that she
should visit the island of Sainte-Barbe, and was taken thither in a
magnificent gondola, escorted by a crowd of little boats amid
ceaseless cheers.
On her return to Paris the duchess, having acquired a taste for
movement, often appeared in the Bois de Boulogne on horseback ;
and at Auteuil, where she visited Mme. de Boufflers' gardens ; at
Saint-Germain, when the duke was hunting there ; at Issy, and
Meudon, and the Gobelins' manufactury at Sevres, which had
been rather neglected by the royal family since their return. The
fact that it had been founded by Henri IV, however, was a
sufficient reason to induce the princess to visit it. A piece of
tapestry was unrolled for her to see, representing Sully at the feet
of Henri IV ; and another that was a reproduction of Mme.
Vigee-Lebrun's picture of Queen Marie Antoinette with her
children, in which the duchess herself figured. Sometimes, too,
she would leave her carriage on the boulevards, near the Rue
Saint-Denis, and return to the Tuileries on foot. But, whatever
she did or attempted to do, however graciously she accepted the
presidency of the maternity society, however generous she was in
her charities, she could never make herself popular. Her austere
expression, and hard, curt speech were positively repellent. There
was nothing in her personality to warm the heart. Such of the
people as greeted her with cheers were paid by the police. The
Empress Josephine had been so gracious and gentle, her manner
and bearing and her every movement so attractive, so devoid of
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THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
pride and affectation ; and though the other Empress, the youthful
Marie Louise, was a foreigner, she seemed so naive and was
believed by the people to be so innocent, that the Bourbon
princess, despite the halo with which her sorrows had invested her,
could not blot out the memory of the two faces that were
enshrined in every woman's heart.

V
The Comte d'Artois, having been for some weeks in his usual
state of health, left Saint-Cloud and returned to the Tuileries. His
two sons and the Duchesse d'Angouleme were then in Paris, and
he determined to undertake a long tour across the eastern provinces,
and through the southern provinces to Marseilles. The King,
thinking it would give him pleasure, had suggested the expedition.
He set off in the first week in September, accompanied by the Due
de Maille, first gentleman-in-waiting ; the Vicomte de Laroche-
Aymon, gentleman-of-honour ; the Comte de Puysegur, captain of
his bodyguard ; the Comte de Bruges, and the Due de Fitz-James,
his aides-de-camp. The town of Nogent he found ruined and
desolate, a hundred and thirty houses having been burnt down
during the invasion : yet the inhabitants, according to the news
papers, did not refuse to give him a hearty reception, nor to take
part in the fetes that were arranged for his amusement. He spent
one night there, and on the following day travelled a distance of
thirty-nine leagues, through Mery, Arcis-sur-Aube, Brienne, La
Rothiere, Arsonval, Bar-sur-Aube, and Vandeuvres. At Mery the
illustrious traveller left his carriage, the better to inspect the spot
where the little town had been standing a few months earlier.
Nothing was left of it now but a suburb of twenty-six houses, and,
at the further end, the barracks of the gendarmerie, which were still
standing alone amid the surrounding ruins. The interior of the
building, however, was entirely destroyed. About a hundred of
the inhabitants were living in it, crowded together with their
families on heaps of straw : the rest had taken refuge in the cellars
of the ruined houses. The Comte d'Artois was moved to tears by
this heartrending sight, and was still further saddened by the
lamentations and groans of the unhappy sufferers. He helped
them generously. The town of Arcis, and the villages scattered
264

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
along the route, presented a picture that was hardly less melan
choly ; while at Vandreuvres not a single house had escaped pillage
and burning. Moreover, as a sequel to the war, quite a third of
the inhabitants had died of infectious diseases.
On approaching Troyes the King's brother had the hood of his
carriage lowered for his entry into the town. On the following
day, after attending Mass, he reviewed the national guard, and in
the evening consented to dine with the prefect and to receive ten
principal ladies of the place. At Auxonne he inspected the
artillery and the military buildings, and went to the parade-ground
on foot, in order that the crowd might have a nearer view of him.
After Auxonne he visited Dijon and Lyons. The corporation, and
all the civil and military authorities of this town, welcomed him in
very flattering words, and the royalist journals wrote in their own
artificial style as follows ;
" To the various speeches that were addressed to him Monsieur
responded with his own incomparable French graciousness, and
appositeness, and charming turns of expression. In answer to a
speech by the Mayor he said : ' We were well aware, my brother
and I, of all the sorrows that Lyons endured, and your troubles
made us forget our own.' To another speech by the same
functionary he answered : ' Yes, the fidelity of the men of Lyons
was known to us : when it became possible for us to think of
returning to France it was to them that we wished to hasten first
of all.' His Royal Highness was escorted to his palace, where all
the principal ladies of the town were assembled. The prince
walked between two lines of matrons and young ladies, to the
number of two hundred, addressing them graciously as he passed.
On the pediment of the palace were these words, spoken on so
memorable an occasion : ' Yes, the blood of Henri IV does indeed
flow in my veins, and if I have not his talents I at least have his
love for the French nation.' "
On the day after his arrival the Comte d'Artois reviewed the
National Guard, after which he drove to the harbour of Serin, and
embarked in a richly but tastefully decorated little boat for the
island of Sainte-Barbe. With him were Marshal Augereau, the
prefect, the mayor, and all the generals of the garrison. Following
his boat were two large vessels, on board of which were the
officials and other invited guests ; while a third carried two hun
dred amateur musicians. Following these again was a host of little
boats, decked with white flags. The prince invited Marshal
265

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Augereau and the principal officials of the department to dine at
his own table that evening, in the Archbishop's palace.
After dinner he was present at a performance of La Jeunesse de
Henri IV and Le Nouzeau Seigneur de Village.
"Intoxication had reached its climax," wrote the royalist
papers ; " every heart was thrilled."
The following days were occupied by visits to the warehouses of
M. Bony, one of the most respected silk- weavers of Lyons, and to
those of the Messrs. Grand, Brothers.
"The various kinds of sdk manufactured by them," we read,
" had been brought together : figured velvets, silk with patterned
backgrounds, and brocades. At M. Bony's warehouse the prince
was shown a material for covering furniture, which had already
been submitted to the Duchesse d'Angouleme on her last visit.
The background was purple of a hght shade, and the design took
the form of a rich lace, woven in one piece with the foundation,
and so complete was the illusion that the lace seemed to have been
sewn on to the finished material. At the establishment of the
Messrs. Grand, Brothers, the illustrious traveller was shown a large
and admirable collection of materials of extreme richness, destined
for the furniture of the royal palaces. Here he also admired some
very wide chine velvet, on which it would be impossible to
improve : and saw, still on the loom, a piece of velvet with a
pattern of fleur-de-lvs and an allegorical picture relating to King
Louis XVIIL"
At Marseilles the arrival of the King's brother was celebrated
with extraordinary enthusiasm. The delight of the inhabitants
was shown in a series of uproarious, magnificent, extravagant
festivities. One of the preparations made for the occasion was to
place four thousand barrels of tar and several thousand ldlo-
grammes of powder on the summit of the hill called Notre Dame
de la Garde. In the evening this mass of combustibles was
ignited, and the conflagration produced an amazing effect. " This
volcano," said the men of Marseilles to the Comte d'Artois, " is
but a feeble symbol of the energy and warmth of our love for the
King, your Roval Highness, and all the princes of the house of
Bourbon." It was in Marseilles, we must remember, that these
words were spoken. When the prince arrived, the harbour porters
dragged his carriage to the cross-roads of the Treize Escaliers,
where Marshal Massena was awaiting him. From this point
Monsieur proceeded on horseback, after begging the members of the
266

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
municipal council and all the officials who were on the spot to
accompany him. At the Cours Saint-Louis, one of the principal
markets of the town, the procession was received by groups of
flower-girls, fruit-sellers, fishwives, and workmen of various orders,
who were all dressed well and suitably for their station in life, and
carried in their hands the products of their profession or industry,
as presents for the prince. The house-fronts were all adorned with
white hangings, relieved by brightly-coloured draperies, ribbons,
and other ornaments. At the palace, where he was to stay, he
was welcomed by thirty ladies of the richest local families, the
Marquis d'Albertus, the prefect, and the mayor, the Marquis de
Montgrand. The theatre announced for that evening La Partie
de Chasse de Henri IV and Les Heritiers M'.chau. Marseilles,
however, was still awaiting its exemption from harbour dues, and
the people, being a little disappointed, did not throw themselves
at all heartily into the demonstrations of joy. The prince
observed their backwardness, and, in the course of a speech made
in the theatre, he said :
"The King, my brother, who constantly considers everything
that can add to the happiness of his subjects, and particularly to
that of the loyal and faithful inhabitants of this town, commands
me to tell you that he is giving the most careful attention to the
interests of his good and important town of Marseilles. His work
in this matter is not yet at an end. None the less, the best of
kings deputes to me to-day the honourable and undeserved office of
announcing to you, in his name, that the rights of Marseilles will
certainly be restored."
At these words the excitement and intoxication of the audience
exceeded all bounds. The mayor, carried away by an irresistible
impulse, fell on his knees before the prince in his gratitude for
this favour, which, as soon as it was made known in the town,
created an absolute frenzy of delight. The evening was spent by
the people in dancing, shouting, and singing popular songs without
intermission. On the following day, after Mass, the hospitals
were visited ; and at six o'clock in the evening there was a banquet
in the Exchange, at which the Comte d'Artois admitted forty-
eight of the guests to his own table. This was followed by a
concert and a fresh bonfire of tar-barrels, by which the whole
harbour was lit up. The next day there was a fete in the harbour
itself, with tilting-games and games with the sheers. The illustrious
traveller watched the games from a barge that had been sent from

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Toulon. The crew was composed of twenty-four Marseillais
captains and other officers of the merchant-service, who had
begged for the honour.
After this visit to the southern provinces, which lasted for a
month, the Comte d'Artois returned to Lyons, where he laid the
first stone of a memorial to the men of Lyons who had died
defending their town in 1793. He then went to Grenoble.
Between that town and Romans all the people of the neighbouring
villages came crowding to the road, and everywhere their demon
strations of joy took the form of garlands and decorations. The
village streets were changed into shaded alleys, strewn with flowers
and leaves ; shrubs were brought from the neighbouring hills and
planted in lines that seemed to have no end. The horses were
unharnessed from the carriages ; all the bells were rung, all the
guns were fired. At Grenoble seven hundred people were bidden
to a banquet in the garden of the Prefecture ; and in the great
salon of that building a number of young ladies, divided into
three choirs, sang songs composed for the occasion, and afterwards
presented a pair of gauntlets, a scarf, and some roses to the prince.
A balloon floated overhead. The whole valley of Gresivaudan
was illuminated with Bengal light. Presently the balloon sank,
and dropped at the prince's feet a shining crown, which instantly
burst into flames. A bonfire was formed of the debris, and round
it the spectators danced an improvised faramdole.
After a visit to Besancon Monsieur returned to Paris on the
6th November, with all his suite.
Monotonously alike as these festivities may seem to us, there
were nevertheless certain details peculiar to each. At Grenoble,
for instance, the popular demonstrations had an air of distinction.
They aimed at artistic effect. The choirs were composed of young
women of birth and breeding ; a balloon hovered in the air and
dropped a crown of light at the prince's feet ; a graceful dance
closed the entertainment. At Marseilles the joy was at first
extravagant, unbounded ; neither shouts nor dancing could
express it. The people would be content with nothing less than
the flames of four thousand blazing tar-barrels. Then, suddenly,
the joy died down, for the people remembered that their harbour
was still without its promised rights. They were willing to amuse
their visitor, but desired his amusement to serve their own ends.
At Lyons the demonstrations were dignified, well regulated,
decorous. They took the form of water-parties, music, and passion-
268

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
less reviews of the National Guard ; and this, too, was the method
of Auxonne and Dijon. Further east the poor folk, though
crushed by the horrors of war, would not let their prince pass by
without receiving some mark of their devotion. Truly, the people
would have given their hearts to the Bourbons, if the Bourbons
had had the least sympathy with France. But there was not one
of them that had any true understanding of the spirit of the people.
" They think the country is theirs, not ours," said the Due de
Fleury one day to the Duchesse d'Abrantes.
This is what we learn from these interminable fetes. The
people were courteous ; they were also full of curiosity ; they were
unacquainted with their new rulers, and wished to see them.
Being themselves at home they wished to give their visitors a
cordial welcome. They loved fetes, and threw themselves heartily
into the matter in hand without reasoning, and without any
motive but the wish to do honour to their illustrious guests. They
had as yet no hostile designs upon the Bourbons. On the contrary,
they were ready to appeal to the princes in any case of oppression
by the nobles. They knew nothing of what was brewing in Paris.
They only had a vague impression that their hopes were not
being altogether fulfilled ; and meantime they went on hoping.
As for the princes they had travelled from end to end of France.
They had testified to their own importance and their own vanity ;
but "they had done little else. Some of them had attended Mass ;
others had held reviews, in order to be seen with the great
marshals of the Empire behind them. They had listened blissfully
to the flatteries of a certain number of officials, and had been
honoured by the curtseys of plumed ladies. But did they seek to
know the needs of the districts in which they stayed ? Did they
visit the public works already in progress, or the places where such
works were urgently needed ? Did they show any sagacity, any
devotion to the interests of France ? The Comte d'Artois, when
pressed by the people of Marseilles, answered, as best he could,
their demands that the promises of the government should be
fulfilled. He gave more promises : promises that meant nothing.
He spoke of the goodness of his brother the King, who was study
ing the question of the exemption of harbour-dues ; and at these
ambiguous words the mayor fell upon his knees. The whole affair
was the merest farce. It is obvious that these progresses through
the country were undertaken for the satisfaction of the princes,
rather than for that of the people. Their one idea, their supreme
269

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
favour was to invite a few officials to their table ; but the officials
in question were nearly always returned emigres, nobles who had
secured all they wanted, men whose fortunes had been made by
Bonaparte, or ambitious bourgeois who desired a decoration or even
a title. It was thus that they thought to make themselves beloved, these
Bourbons who came after a man of the greatest foresight, the
greatest activity, the greatest devotion to the glory, and
prosperity, and welfare of France. When Bonaparte travelled he
surrounded himself as he went with all the most important men
of the country — important, not on account of their names or
offices, but on account of their merits or knowledge ; he sum
moned those who knew the district thoroughly, with all its needs
and resources. When he visited a commercial port or the mouth
of a river he was not followed by amateur musicians, but by
engineers who took soundings and told him the depth of the
water. He was followed by his aides-de-camp, who took notes
and wrote down his orders. The Bourbons, wherever they went,
wished to make it plain that they were princes : that was all.
They were only seen at their meals, or in cathedrals, or in
theatres ; and the plays they saw were always the same, always
celebrated the valour or magnanimity of their ancestor Henri IV.
No other plays ministered to their vanity. When Bonaparte
visited the theatre the masterpieces of our classical authors were
performed for him, the great dramas of Corneille, and Racine, and
Voltaire, which celebrate all the noblest feelings of the human
heart. And what resulted from all these journeys and reviews?
Absolutely nothing, either for the princes or for the country. A
few weeks afterwards they were all forgotten.
The Abbe Gregoire, in his disgust at all these inanities, wrote
as follows in his preface to a brochure called : The life of servitude,
in ancient and modern states.
"The French gazettes, which under the old government were
more remarkable for their reticence than for their information, and
learnt in very early days to toady and to lie, have more or less
preserved their characteristics. Consider with what trivialities
they feed the curiosity of their readers : theatrical anecdotes, the
debuts of actresses, Court intrigues, society scandals, the latest
fashions, illuminations, fetes, compliments, addresses — and what
addresses ! &c, &c. (The et ceteras are M. Gregoire's). A
Te Deum in the morning, or some other solemn ceremony, is
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THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
nearly always balanced in the evening by a play, which is patronised
by the same audience. How instructive all these announcements
are ! What a tendency they have to hasten the development of
the human mind and the happiness of the nation ! . . . Every
Christian pulpit, during the last ten years, has resounded with
periodical eulogies, especially on the anniversaries of Napoleon's
birth and coronation. Though occupied by the same clergy
they now resound with curses and anathemas directed against
the same man. Once the journalists sang his praises untiringly,
and the verb to deign, conjugated in every mood and tense, was
a daily proof of the baseness of those who, on the day after his
fall, attacked him in countless philippics. And the same
observation applies to the various administrative bodies, the
protean host who, being always ready to change their livery,
their opinions, and their language, survive all revolutions, and
are certain, whatever the form of government, to win real or
apparent favour — and contempt. Is one not sometimes tempted
to be ashamed of being a man ? "
It was in the spirit referred to by the Abbe Gregoire that
Vernet's equestrian portrait of the Due de Berry was exhibited
in the Salon of the Fine Arts, which at that time opened in the
autumn. A picture by Rcehn was also shown : the Due d'Enghien
arriving at the abode of the blest, represented by the Elysian
Fields of the ancients. He was received there, according to the
artist, by Louis XVI, the Queen, Mme. Elizabeth, Mme. de Lamballe,
the youthful Louis XVII, the virtuous Malesherbes, the Dues de
Cosse, de Mouchy, and de Larochefoucauld, the Duchesse de
Larochefoucauld, the Abbess of Montmartre, MM. Foulon, Berthier,
and de Launay, all of whom were early victims of the Revolution ;
by some of the prelates and priests martyred in the September
massacres, and the murdered " Virgins of Verdun " ; and finally
by the learned Lavoisier, M. de Loiserolle, M. de Laborde,
M. Cazotte, and M. Durosoy.
The Abbe Gregoire did not exaggerate. The artists were no
better than the rest, and plied their brushes busily to produce the
kind of flatteries that were likely to please the princes and mortally
offend the men of the Revolution. The royalist papers followed
their example, and praised the tribunal of Nancy enthusiastically
for refusing to grant a divorce to two catholics, explaining the
matter as follows :
" The Constitutional Charter, while granting protection to every
271

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
form of religion, declared that the Catholic Religion was the
religion of the State. Now, if the Catholic religion be the religion
of the State, it follows that all laws authorising public and legal
infractions of the dogmas of that religion, on the part of those
who profess them, have ceased to exist ; for the State, having
accepted that religion, cannot ratify by its actions nor publicly
authorise the very deeds that it forbids and condemns. It follows
that the tribunals of the State cannot dissolve a marriage that the
religion of the State declares to subsist, nor authorise a union that
that religion regards as non-existent and forbidden ; that they
cannot, in a word, sanction the revolt of those who profess the
religion of the State, against the fundamental laws of that
religion." These journals, moreover, approvingly announced the restitution
to Notre Dame of the pictures originally presented by the
Goldsmiths' Company, which had been moved to the Museum
of Versailles ; the restoration of the equestrian statue of
Louis XIV to the great square at Montpellier ; the King's
communion in the chapel of the Tuileries on All Saints' Day ;
the conferences of the Abbe Fraysinnous on the causes and effects
of the Revolution, and the events that followed it ; and finally told,
in terms of the warmest admiration, how the King had given orders
that there should be no division between his box at the Theatre
Francais and the seats in the pit.
" His Majesty's box," wrote the Debats, " was at the back of the
house, very slightly raised above the pit, from which it was not
separated by any space. Thus the King, inspired by the noble
and well-justified confidence that none but good kings can feel, was
voluntarily connected with that section of the spectators who, in
our theatres, represent the public. The public, therefore, formed
as it were an enlargement of the monarch's august family. There
were no guards nor barriers between his people and himself. He
was no longer metaphorically, but literally, a father surrounded by
countless children, of whom the princes seemed to be merely the
seniors. The best places, that evening, were in the pit."
Which means, in plain language, that the seats in the pit had
been distributed among the courtiers. So it was not exactly a case
— as the paper hinted — of the King being elbowed by the mob.
Another announcement that was made during the last days of
spring was of the death of Malouet, the Minister of Marine, and
of the permission granted to his son to have his father buried
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THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
in the chapel at his own place in the country. It was recorded,
too, that Mme. Louise Adelaide de Bourbon-Conde had returned
to France, and was staying with her sister-in-law, the Duchesse de
Bourbon, in the Rue de Varennes.
" She receives no one," said the royalist papers, " but lives there,
with two of her companions, according to the rules of her order.
Her own wing of the house is, to her, as solitary as a desert, and
there she devotes herself entirely to prayer. This princess, who
spends her whole life in practising the austerities of religion, gives
a fine example of detachment from grandeur and wealth. It
is the second time during the last fifty years that a member of the
royal family has made a magnificent sacrifice of this kind ; and
Mme. de Conde was worthy to follow in the footsteps of Mile.
Louise de France, who joined the Carmelites and exchanged the
palace of the King, her father, for a convent cell. Mme. de Conde,
who became Abbess of Remiremont in 1786, and lived abroad
during the Revolution, has consecrated herself to God as a nun of
the Order of the Perpetual Adoration of the Holy Sacrament ;
strictly observing her Rule, living in seclusion, and spending her
whole life in prayer, and in the service of God and His altar.
For a long time she lived in Germany, until the mourning of her
family drew her to the side of her father and brother, when they
were suffering from an overwhelming blow. She crossed to
England in the hope of consoling them, but as soon as possible
resumed the practices and strict observance of her Rule. She
lived in the Benedictine convent of Mme. de Levis-Pirepoix, who
was so conspicuous for her courage at the beginning of the
Revolution, and who crossed to England with her whole community,
to live there in accordance with her vows." 1

VI
The Chambers having been opened by the King it became
necessary for the ministers to attend to politics, and especially to
publish a budget. Baron Louis, Minister of Finance, drew up
this budget very clearly. The total was ruinous to a degree that
could not have been foreseen, so great were the expenses of the
1 The same journals also announced that a deputation from the ladies who had
offered themselves as hostages for Louis XVI aud his family had had the honour
of being presented to the King, Madame, and the royal family, and had received
the most gratifying marks of satisfaction, and the most touching welcome. T

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
invasion and of the Emperor Napoleon's wars. The estimated
income for 1815 amounted to 618,000,000 francs, and the
expenditure to 547,700,000. But, in addition to the budget,
Baron Louis showed that the arrears of the government's liabilities
amounted to 789,175,000 francs. To liquidate these arrears the
minister was forced to issue, first, bills to be repaid at three years
from the date of the Statute, and secondly, inscribed stock
certificates at 5 per cent. He guaranteed as security the sale of
300,000 hectares of timber belonging to the State, and the surplus
of receipts over expenses during a certain number of years. Such
was the statement of affairs made by the Baron Louis with
perfect frankness and straightforwardness. It did not, however,
win the approval of the uncompromising royalists, who resented
the idea that these arrears should be paid by every Frenchman
alike, whether good or bad : the good ones being those who were
devoted to the Bourbons, the emigre's that is to say, and all
the rest being bad. They demanded that the former should
be exonerated from a portion of the debt; a suggestion that
seemed so inconsequent and so indefensible that not a single
deputy dared to put it forward in the Chamber. The responsi-
sibility for the debts incurred by the royal family during their
exile was accepted by the nation to the amount of 30,000,000
francs.1 The King's civil list was fixed at 25,000,000 ; that of
the royal family at 8,000,000.
Another bill, which most of the deputies considered a justifiable
measure of reparation, was concerned with the restitution of
unsold property to those who had been robbed of it in the
Revolution. The Directory and Bonaparte had not hesitated, in
the past, to restore the patrimonies of a certain number of
proprietors ; but some of these sequestered properties were still
unappropriated, and it was these that were now to be returned.
M. Ferrand, the Postmaster-General, was deputed to draw up the
bill, and prefaced it with a preamble that infuriated a large
proportion of the deputies. M. Ferrand apologised for being
unable to be thoroughly generous and satisfy every demand, and
1 See M. de Jaucourt's letters, published in 1905. The Count observes:
" This list of debts will be furnished by M. the Comte de Blacas, and will
include, if details are required, the sums expended on the army, that is to say,
on fighting French troops. Everything connected with the household and
personal expenses, etc. . . . seems likely to be well received, to judge by what
people say to whom the subject has been mentioned. But that special use of the
money was particularly unpopular." 274

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
especially for not being in a position to reward, by a complete
restitution of property, those Frenchmen who had always kept to
the straight path without deviating from it for a moment, while
others followed, more or less, the revolutionary changes that were
going on round them. This produced a general outcry. Those
who had acquired national property thought that they, in their
turn, were about to be despoiled. The marshals and generals who
had lost their incomes on the conclusion of peace with the Allies
lifted up their voices in the salons of the Tuileries, to ask why
they should not be indemnified as well as the emigres, since they,
like everyone else, had been crushed beneath the ruins of their
country. Was the King merely the King of the emigres, and not
the King of the whole nation ? The excitement was immense.
In the course of a fortnight the price of government stock fell
from 78 to 72. As a climax to his folly M. Ferrand, instead of
trying to minimise the irritating elements in his bill, declared
that the King quite agreed with him and had indicated the lines
on which he wras to work. However, certain changes were made
in the wording of the preamble, and six weeks later the bill was
passed by 168 votes to 23.
This session, with its ill-conceived and ill-expressed bills,
plainly demonstrated the weakness of the government. The
ministers of whom it was composed were incapable, insignificant,
and uninfluential. Having been chosen by Talleyrand because their
mediocrity gave him no cause for jealousy they carried on the
government as best they could from day to day, and were baited
in turn by the friends of the Comte d'Artois, the emigres, and the
late officials of the Empire who wished to keep their posts.
Judging by appearances it seemed as though the only function of
a minister were to bestow places on those who had none. " The
requests for consulships and vice-consulships," wrote de Jaucourt to
Talleyrand at Vienna, " are in inverse ratio to the number there
are to be given away." They lived, too, in an atmosphere of
reaction, these ministers who were the products of the old
Monarchy, Montesquiou, Dambray, Ferrand ; and, far from
trying to satisfy the desires of the nation, their only ambition
now, as in the old days of Louis XV, was to please the Court,
the princes, and the King. They excluded all the notable men
of the Revolution from the administration, reserving the pre
fectures and embassies for the old nobility ; and the nation,
whose spirit was as young and as adventurous as ever, and as
275 2 t

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
eager for liberty, was forced to submit to men who completely
misunderstood it, men who were old and fanatical, the
advisers of a king who was as irresolute and reactionary as them
selves. These ministers, moreover, were an ill-assorted band. No
two of them were agreed on the most important questions ; most
of them distrusted their colleagues ; and all of them distrusted
the Comte de Blacas, who distrusted them in return. De Jaucourt
ridiculed them all ; poor Ferrand, who was liable to attacks of
syncope while the deliberations were in progress ; Dambray, who
cared only for legal affairs, and the King's opinion ; x the Abbe
de Montesquiou, who was in the habit of going to sleep and
snoring, and only waking up to pounce upon the last speaker ; de
Beugnot, with his anecdotes about the Revolution, and the men of
the Consulate and Empire — the gleanings of his felicitous,
infallible, prolific memory, a source of much amazement to de
Jaucourt. The latter laughed at himself with the rest ; laughed at
the patronising, quizzical air with which he regarded the unedifying
picture. The Abbe de Montesquiou was the most pugnacious of the
ministers because he had the most initiative. Being disillusioned
as to the intellectual worth of those importunate petitioners,
the old royalists, whom he had been obliged to appoint to the
vacant prefectures, he desired to recall the men who had till
lately occupied their places. Why should the prefects have been
changed, he asked, when the whole country was decking itself
with fleurs-de-lys ? To this there was no answer ; but none
the less he was thwarted by his colleagues, who feared his weak
ness and his readiness to oblige his flatterers, of whom there
were too many. In the fervour of his royalist zeal he had provided
the prefects with copies of an oath for the mayors of the communes,
and this oath had found no favour in the eyes either of peers or
deputies. "The Chamber of Deputies," wrote de Jaucourt to
Talleyrand, "disliked it and proposed another, which is now
before the Chamber of Peers : there, the men who are opposed to
the use of oaths — always a delicate matter — object to the one
that has been submitted to them, but object still more strongly
to the one in use ; those who wish for one are not inclined to
favour one that seems to them ill timed ; and moreover, they
1 " What we want," said de Jaucourt, and by "we'' he meant Dambray, "is
the mind of a statesman. The chancellor has nothing of the kind "
276

.Marshal Soult, Duke of Dai.maiia.

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
do not fail to recall the ineptitudes of the Minister of the
Interior, both with regard to the liberty of the press and in
this matter. This was the course adopted by Boissy-Porcher
and that fool Lanjuinais. The Prince de Poix stood up and
gave his word of honour that their assertions were false. He
was confuted with the Bulletin des Lois, but was not confounded,
because it is always taken as a matter of course that what he says
is of no consequence." This was a nice way to speak of one of
the King's gentlemen !
Matters became still worse when Dupont had been replaced by
Marshal Soult at the Ministry of War. De Jaucourt has given us
a realistic picture of the ministers and their deliberations at this
period. " This singular royalist," he says of Soult, " desired to change
everything and upset everything." He tells us, too, that d' Andre
— who replaced Beugnot in the police department when the latter
was appointed to the Ministry of Marine after Malouet's death —
allowed himself to be outwitted by the petty police-agencies that
worked behind his back : Monsieur's police, the Comte de Blacas'
police, the police of the Archbishop of Rheims, the police of the
Minister of War. Not a week passed without an alarm of some
kind, caused, perhaps, by a sentence, half heard or misinter
preted, or by the confidences of some over-hasty informer. The
Court and ministers were often panic-stricken by these rumours,
while d' Andre was quite in the dark. Soon such a state of anarchy
prevailed among the members of the government that they began
to wish for some kind of order in their sittings, some reform in their
procedure. De Jaucourt gives a curious account of the situation.
It occurs in a letter to Talleyrand at Vienna. The Brittany affair
was being discussed, in January, 1815.1 " ' But as to this Brittany
affair, M. le chancelier,' I said ; ' are we not going to say a single

1 << '

1 The Rennes affair," he wrote, " has resulted in the dismissal of the prefect,
M. Bonnaire de Forges, a relation of M. Pasquier the prefect of police, and a
man of merit. It was perhaps necessary to sacrifice him, but his successor will
be neither as capable nor as useful. His fault lay in having been for »
long time on friendly terms with some people who refuse to call themselves
Chouans. ..."
Now the Rennes affair was as follows. Soult had appomted as Kings
Commissioners at Rennes MM. Pecquet de Boisgny, Desol de Grisolles, and
Joseph Cadoudal. De Boisgny was a notorious Chouan, and the people of
Brittany, even the royalists, accused him of horrible crimes such as burying alive
a large number of republican soldiers. ... On the day that the Commission met
at Rennes the whole population gathered outside the Prefecture. It was only by
flight that Boisgny escaped being hacked to pieces."
277

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
word about it ? ' — ' Eh, what ? ' said M. Dambray. ' It's finished.'
— ' Is that so, M. le Directeur de la police ? ' — ' I have no informa
tion on the subject,' answered M. d' Andre. (He never knew any
thing, that man !) The Abbe had been away to lie down, and had
said nothing throughout the evening except : ' I am being made to
remove an excellent prefect from Rennes. The man I shall put in
his place is not nearly so good. But otherwise it would be sup
posed that I was unwilling to take a single step towards stopping
these agitations in Brittany : I was obliged to yield.' The truth
is that the Abbe has quite changed his tactics ; he regrets having
removed the prefects, and declares that the new ones are not worth
half as much as the old, whom he now defends so energetically as
to be quite in bad odour with the princes and men in office ; and
far from lending himself to this so-called system of restoration,
that is to say, of change, he is altogether in favour of the Consti
tution and of stability, and even thinks that the men belonging to
the class of the tiers, and the new nobles, and every one who is
used to the work, should be kept permanently in their offices.
This, in short, is how we stand : the Comte (de Blacas) never says
a word on the essence of things, but merely makes appropriate
reflections ; the Marshal (Soult) confides to him everything that he
is going to say ; Beugnot, though he has plenty of ability and
plenty of opinions, submits everything to the excellent judgment
of M. le Comte, whose capacity astonishes him ; d' Andre goes
straight ahead with his inquiries and reports ; Louis sells the woods
of the clergy, and sells them well. . . . The Abbe is attached to
the King, and the King to him, but he is always thinking of the
possibility of retirement, and always has a sally on the tip of his
tongue, and all this worries the King, the Comte de Blacas, and
the chancellor, who thinks, when he has looked at the King and
guessed his opinion — or imagined he has guessed it — that he has
nothing more to do. Meanwhile I am there. And it is very
likely that on Sunday, that is to say to-morrow, I shall read a
little paper on our situation, to salve my conscience. Louis, with
whom I dined yesterday in the Abbe's company, declares that
nothing is ripe yet for an attack on the marshal ; that there are
only three of us ; that if we fail the consequences will be disagree
able. All this is true up to a certain point. But the chancellor
will turn his coat and join the stronger side. The count will not
excite himself about the marshal, whom he only put in his present
position in order to keep out a man who was not his own choice ;
278

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
and the silly things that are being done, and the embarrassments
they create, are all in favour of the men who are not partisans of
that singular royalist (Soult)."
It was thus that the ministers nearly always met : in the evening
in the King's rooms or in those of the Comte de Blacas. None of
them was satisfied. They were all jealous of one another, all at
cross purposes ; and the affairs of the country, which were in such
a complicated and critical state, were left to chance. To this fact
the Comte de Jaucourt bears witness.
After these first barren months, which had failed to produce a
single useful measure, a single measure tending to the prosperity
of France, it was obvious to every thinking man that the
Bourbon dynasty was not destined to live long. Those who
had hoped that the princes, on their return from exile, would
temper their authority with the liberal spirit that was the secret
of England's greatness and strength, were keenly disappointed.
The booksellers' shops were soon inundated with brochures and
lampoons in which hostility to the restored monarchy was very
apparent ; and by this means the excited, uneasy feeling that pre
vailed was kept constantly alive and active.
The most famous of these brochures was one written by Carnot,
the ex-conventionist, with the title : Memorial to the King.1 It was
a vindication of the Convention, and an attempt to justify the
regicides on the ground that Louis XVI, after his trial, was no
longer King. The author then proceeded to express his opinion
of the new government, criticising the measures that had been
adopted and recalling Louis XVIII's words to the English Regent :
" that to him and his people must be attributed, after Divine Pro
vidence, the Restoration of the House of Bourbon to the throne of
their ancestors." He reproached the King for his unwillingness to
owe his throne to the consent and desire of the people, his deter
mination to hold his crown as a birthright, or in virtue of the
divine right of kings. He then addressed the nobles as follows :
" But, you who have returned now that the storm is over, how
can you justify yourselves for your ruthless refusal of help to the
King you profess to pity ? You, to whose cupidity he sacrificed
the public funds ; you, whose treacherous counsels led him into the
labyrinth whence nothing but your efforts could deliver him, how
1 Chancellor Pasquier adds in a note : " M. Carnot's Mimoire was regarded as
such a powerful attack on the House of Bourbon that, during the Hundred Days
it was reprinted and sold in all the streets of Paris. . . . He said afterwards it
was intended for the King's eye alone. ..."
279

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
could you refuse him the free grants for which he asked you, how
could you deny him the increased taxation that your depredations
had made indispensable to him ? What did the Notables do for
him ? What did the clergy do ? What did the nobles do ? Who
provoked the States General ? Who roused the whole of France
to insurrection ? And, when the revolution had begun, who was
in a position to stem the torrent ? If you could have stopped it,
why did you not do so ? If you could not, why do you reproach
others for not having stopped it ?. ... It is force that decides
everything. It is not surprising that the Jacobins should have had
the mastery at first, and then the Directory, and then Bonaparte ;
and finally the Bourbons, whose family had already had the mas
tery once before, for a matter of nine centuries. But, since it is
recognised that there is no real right without force, steps must be
taken to prevent the Bourbons from losing theirs, and moreover,
to prevent that force from being divided against itself. To forgive
everything that is past, to rob no one of his post nor of his honours,
to allow the men who are innocent of flattery to remain in the
Senate, to admit to the less important offices those who have been
led astray by too great a love of liberty, to honour the army with
out seeming all the time to be forgiving its impious victories — that
is what should be done. And what, as a matter of fact, has been
done ? All the men who are known to be patriots have been
regarded as a hostile population, surrounded by another population
which has been indiscreetly treated with marked favouritism. If
you wish, to-day, to be well received at Court, you must be careful
not to say that you are one of the twenty-five million citizens who
defended their country, with more or less courage, against the
invasion of her enemies ; for you will be told that those twenty-five
millions of so-called citizens are twenty-five million rebels, and that
the so-called enemies were always friends. You must say that you
are fortunate enough to have been a Chouan, or a Vendeen, or a
turncoat, or a Cossack, or an Englishman ; or that, though you
remained in France, you never asked for any office under the
ephemeral governments that preceded the Restoration, except with
the object of being in a better position to betray them and acceler
ate their fall. Then, your fidelity will be lauded to the skies ; you
will receive tender congratidations, and decorations, and affection
ate answers from all the royal family." x
1 The following is a note in this brochure : " Certain individuals calling them
selves members of the Parliament of Paris. . . . are already speaking like fanatics
280

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
Another brochure, by Mehee de la Touche, who had been
town clerk at the time of the September massacres, also con
tained a defence of the Convention and the regicides. The
mayors' oath was dealt with by the Comte Felix Lepelletier, who
declared it was the intention of the government to humiliate the
representatives of the communes, in order to facilitate the restora
tion of feudalism and the rights of the seigneurs. The independent
party were positively obsessed by this fear of a feudal restoration !
They were haunted by visions of the dime, the corvee, and all the
old privileges of the nobles. And, after all, they had some reason
for their fears.
Chateaubriand answered all these brochures in his Political
Reflexions. He began by praising the Charter.
"It lays all the foundations necessary for reasonable liberty,"
he said, " and the republican principles it embodies are so well
combined that they serve to strengthen and aggrandise the
Monarchy." " The Charter, he adds, " is not, then, an exotic
plant, nor an accident arising from the exigencies of the
moment. It is the product of our modern modes of life ; it is
a treaty of peace between the two parties into which France
has been divided, a treaty by which both parties yield some of
their pretensions, in order to work together for the glory of their
country." With a view to reconciling the royalists to the Charter,
Chateaubriand pointed out to them that the new form of
government was merely copied from that of the ancient Germans
described by Tacitus ; that therefore it was simply a reversion
to the customs of our fathers; that it was, moreover, a
necessity born of the modern spirit, and that there was no
escape from necessity. Not one of the royalists was convinced,
however. They approved of nothing but the passage relating to
Carnot. " What can be the imprudent motive," wrote Chateaubriand,
" that prompts those who should above all things seek oblivion
to be the first to make themselves conspicuous, and attract the
eye of the public ? Who was thinking about them ? Who was
of vengeance, and the scaffold, and their attorney-generel, and the restitution of
national property, and the necessity for an exclusive religion and for absolute
intolerance. One would think we were back in the reign of Charles IX. The
Parlement would do better to remember, and allow others to forget, if possible,
that it was they who flung down the firebrand of discord, when they demanded
the convocation of the States General. ..."
281

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
accusing them ? Who asked them to defend themselves ? Why
does their faithfulness to the memory of our misfortunes prompt
them to accuse their victims so persistently ? They ask what the
nobles did for the King. The answer is that they shed their
blood for him at Haguenau, and Wissembourg, and Quiberon, and
suffered the loss of all they possessed for him. Conde's army and
its three heroic leaders, who fought at Berstein crying Vive le roi!
did not kill the King in Paris. What did the clergy do ? Ask
the church of the Carmelites, the pontoons of Rochefort, the
deserts of Sinnamarie, the forests of Brittany and La Vendee,
the caves and rocks where the Holy Mysteries were celebrated in
memory of the martyr King ; ask those apostles who disguised
themselves as laymen, and waited in the crowd for the tumbrils
of those who had outlawed them, to bless your victims as they
passed ; ask the whole of Europe, under whose eyes the eldest son
of the Church, through all his sorrows, was followed by the
French clergy, the last remnant of outward state left to the
exiled throne, to which religion clung when all else had forsaken
it. And these Vendeens and Chouans whose honours and distinctions
are so grievous to you ? Let us look around us, and try, if we
can, to be just ! By whom are nearly all the government offices
occupied, whatever their degree of importance ? By Chouans and
Vendeens, Cossacks and emigres, or by the men who were employed
by the last government ? What is it that the authors of these
deplorable apologies really want ? A republic ? They are cured
of the desire for that chimaera. A limited monarchy? They
have got it. If we probe their wound we shall find a sick
conscience that cannot rest ; or some injured susceptibility that
is irritated because they are not summoned alone to the King's
Council, where they would fain enjoy, not equality, but preference;
or, perhaps, a hidden feeling of despair, born of the insurmountable
barrier that rises between Louis XVIIl and the judges of Louis
XVI. Let them enjoy in peace the wages they have earned ; let
them educate their families, and live quietly ! It is no great
hardship, after all, when a man is growing old, and has passed the
age of ambition, and has studied men and things, and has dwelt
amid bloodshed and tumult and storms, it is no great hardship
to have a moment's breathing-space, before going to that bourne
whither Louis XVI has gone. Louis XVI made the journey, not
in the fulness of his days, not slowly, not surrounded by his
friends, nor by every kind of help and consolation, but in his
282

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
youth, in haste, alone, stripped of all he possessed : yet he made
it in peace.1
To the royalists all this seemed ill-judged, ill-timed, and extrava
gant. By what right, they asked, did M. de Chateaubriand lecture
the partisans of the throne of the Bourbons ? No one had asked
his advice ; and the party of the reactionary royalists, still clinging
to their policy of retrogression, continued to drag the Monarchy
backwards. At this period the little journal that was brought out under the
auspices of the Due de Bassano and called the Nain Jaune, or
Yellow Dwarf, had a great vogue. It was in the houses of those
who were devoted heart and soul to the Emperor Napoleon, and
especially in that of the duke, that the editors collected their
material : the facts and ideas that were predominant at the
moment, and every sharp-pointed dart that was calculated to
wound the old nobility who were so completely engrossed in the
defence of their own interests and their own vanity. The editors
in question were Arnaud the academician, the brother-in-law of
Regnault de Saint-Jean d'Angely ; Harel, an auditeur in the
Council of State, who had been sub-prefect of Soissons at the time
of the invasion ; Bory de Saint- Vincent, although he was employed
in the office of Marshal Soult, who had become Minister of War in
December 1814, and others who were proteges of the duke. Louis
XVIII enjoyed reading this witty publication, and was always sup
plied with a copy of it. The Due d'Angouleme discovered the little
paper in the King's study one day, to his great surprise. " What ! "
he said to his uncle, " Does your Majesty read this reprehensible
paper ? " — Certainly I do," answered the King. " It amuses me ;
and moreover it informs me of events and facts of which you would
not tell me."
This journal had invented the order of the Extinguisher, and as
1See de Jaucourt's letters to Talleyrand: "The success of M. de Chateau
briand's work gives him some confidence that he may be equally successful with
his request not to go to Sweden, but to be employed here ; a thing which, it seems
to me, might suit us very well. Tho King allowed me to discuss the work in
question, in which he deigned to take part, having seen it in manuscript and
while it was being printed. He said to me very graciously : ' I have had some
thing to do with it ; I corrected the proofs.' — ' Sire,' I answered, ' you must not
admit it, unless your Majesty wishes to be credited with the whole of its merits.'
It seemed to me that he thought of making M. de Chateaubriand write a good
deal, in which case pray tell me what you would consider a suitable thing to
suggest for him ; for it is quite certain he will not go away. The magnates of
the Emigration run him down, and I think the satisfaction of his ambition —
which is no small matter — might embroil him with those worthy people."
283

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
a rule its columns contained the names of those who — as it declared
— had received that decoration ; that is to say it bestowed the
distinction on them itself, to mark their foolishness and their
reactionary spirit. Men who prided themselves on their dignity
regarded the Extinguisher as a crowning disgrace.
A few quotations will show the nature of this political journal :
its malicious wit and irony, and the keenness of its weapons.
It printed, under the date of December, 1814, the following
appreciations of the royalist writers.
" The AbM Feletz. The good faith, and genius, and candour
of this writer have passed into a proverb : he has been compared
to the animal whose Latin name he bears."
" Duviquet : ex-administrator, ex-contractor, ex-legislator, ex-
literary man."
" Brifaut undertook in the Gazette the noble task of preaching
intolerance, and insulting the power that is no more."
" Jules Merle : literary postilion of the Gazette?
" Colnet (of the Journal de Paris ; a glutton) is one of the very
few journalists who understand the art of giving a flavour to their
chopped logic, and of casting a spice of ridicule upon the follies of
others." It referred ironically to the famous actresses of the day :
"Mile. Mars embraced Mme. Levert with all her well-known
ingenuousness. Mile. Bourgoin and Mile. Volnais are recon
ciled." And to some of the dignitaries of the university :
" It is announced that the courses of Lecretelle and Villemain
have recommenced. The professors of the day are men of the
world ; they only speak with a view to being spoken of, and only
ask for a chair with a view to turning it into a rostrum."
And to men of the world :
" The Petites Ajfiches announces that a certain individual, a
gentleman by birth, is looking for a post in the world of
commerce." Here is an example of the manners of the time :
"The Journal de Toulouse publishes a list of the sentences
passed last month by the police-court of that town. Among
those who were sentenced were two women of loose character, who
behaved indecently in the theatre."
What did they do, I wonder ! It is hardly likely they put their
feet on the ledge of their box. After this it would be a pity to
284

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
omit the following reflection on the ingratitude of men, in
connection with Bonaparte :
" I admit that those who have cause to complain of that man
are nearly ready to hold their tongues ; but several men whom he
benefited have by no means exhausted their abuse of him."
With regard to bigotry it said :
" The following ordinance has been published in a certain
ultramontane kingdom. ' It is expressly enjoined upon all the
inhabitants of the territory under our rule, to supply their
kitchens with two skimmers, one for feast-days and the other for
fast-days.' This may appear to be over-particularity," added the
Nain Jaune, "but, after all, what is one skimmer more or less
in a household, compared with eternal life ? " x
The following humorous passage refers to the appearance of
Paris on the 1st January, 1815.
"It is quite right to say that though the years succeed one
another they do not resemble one another. The walls of Paris this
morning presented a fresh proof of this ancient truth. The houses
that were neglected on the 1st January, 1814, were surrounded
by carriages to-day, and those that were then besieged by a
double line of vehicles were approached this morning by two or
three pedestrians and a shabby hackney-cab. The solution is
simple. It is those in power that have visitors. Although the
latter do not go to the same address they always knock at the
same door."
In the Nain Jaune for March 25th this anecdote appears. At
the beginning of Lent M. Guizot, Secretary of State to the
Ministry of the Interior, notified to all the heads of departments,
1 At the same time an extract was printed from a. Spanish journal, describing
the life of the Bourbon princes whom Napoleon had confined at Valencay.
"This is what we learn from a sermon by Dom Bias Ostolazza, Confessor to the
King of Spain. . . . The King, he says, rose at eight o'clock, heard Mass,
breakfasted, played several games of billiards, returned to his study to have
his letters, or else some passages from the Scriptures, read aloud to him, and
then worked at his embroidery-frame till two o'clock, at which hour he went out
for a short drive. On his return he dined, said a little prayer, received his
brothers and such persons as were allowed to pay their court to him, supped,
and then before going to bed, recited the litany with his whole household,
intoning it himself. An agent of Napoleon, whose impious presence he was
obliged to endure, employed every means to allure the Infante from his holy
occupations. . . . The King was especially indignant at the poverty of the high
altar in the parish church of Valencay, and at the fact that the chateau
contained a theatre, but no chapel nor oratory. . . . The King himself
embroidered a beautiful white silk dress with spangles and gold fringe for the
Virgin. He had a fine gilded high altar made, and sometimes served the Mass
at the feet of the Queen of Heaven. ..." 285

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
with a view to pleasing the minister, that His Excellency would
be gratified if the clerks were to open their work with prayer.
As he did not specify what prayer they were to use, the clerks
composed the following :
Opirez un miracle, et faites, 6 mon Dieu,
Que I'abbi Montesquiou devienne un Montesquieu.
The miracle did not take place. VII
Malouet, the Minister of Marine, died on the 7th September.
He was not replaced at once ; but the portfolio was given pro
visionally to M. Ferrand, the Postmaster-General, " a member of
the old Parlement, a Jansenist, and a devot,'1'' as de Jaucourt says
in a letter to Talleyrand. Ferrand kept the post till the 3rd of
the following December. Never was a place so greedily and
covetously desired as this. Beurnonville, who, it will be remembered,
had held office in the provisional government, importuned the
minister for the portfolio in question, saying that he did not really
want it, but was urged by the navy to make the application, and,
after all, thought he was very suitable for the post. General
Dumas was an equally active candidate. He possessed a pair of
roan horses, which were constantly seen trotting or galloping
through the streets of Paris, or standing at the doors of ministers
and influential courtiers, while Dumas paved the way for his
appointment by paying his daily visit. It was said laughingly
among the ministers, who were much amused by all the excitement
and intrigue, that roan horses must be very fashionable, since they
were oftener seen than any others in the streets of Paris.1 The
Due d'Angouleme supported an unknown person called du
Bouchage, whom he no doubt favoured on account of his piety.
As for Ferrand, who was filling the office provisionally, he would
have been very glad to remain in it permanently. He clung to
it with might and main. But the Abbe de Montesquiou assured
him that he did not wish to keep the portfolio, though as a
matter of fact, says de Jaucourt, he had set his heart on it. De
Jaucourt adds, not without humour : " Ferrand breaks himself up
into the various states of mind that the Abbe thinks best for him ;
and then melts at the thought of the painful fracture." It was thus
that the ministers spoke of each other.
1 De Jaucourt wrote : " Ferrand thinks he has the Marine portfolio in his own
hands. Dumas dogs his footsteps on the chance of his dropping it. "
286

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
The time was passing. After the Comte d'Artois' expedition
the fortunes of the Minister of War were irretrievably ruined.
The prince had reported the discontented spirit that was rife in
the army, and the careless administration of the commissariat ;
the revolting food that was supplied to the men, and the
inferior quality of their garments ; and he had especially noticed,
in spite of the acclamations of the mob, that the officers had
received him very coldly. They were still Bonapartists.1 The
blame for this was laid upon General Dupont, whose weakness
for the emigres and the officers of the old monarchy had made
him scandalously willing to grant them promotion, to the
marked discontent of Napoleon's officers. The government first
thought of Marshal Suchet. De Vitrolles, whose influence in
Monsieur's little Court was always very great, suggested Marshal
Marmont, whom he believed to possess a mind that was both
energetic and cultivated, especially with regard to practical
matters. The Comte de Bruges, who was a friend, and indeed a
creature of the Comte d'Artois, urged the appointment of
Soult, as did also the Duchesse d'Angouleme and the Serents,
who were personally attached to him. This marshal had won
the confidence of the Comte de Bruges by criticising everything
that Dupont had done, and hinting that he could do better
himself; and had conquered the duchess by his fervent demonstrations
of royalist sentiment in Brittany, where he was in command of
the thirteenth military division. Soult, therefore, was appointed
Minister of War, and Dupont was dismissed. The unfortunate
man learnt one morning, from the columns of the Moniteur,
that he had ceased to give satisfaction. Beugnot was then
removed from the police department and entrusted with the
Ministry of Marine. D' Andre replaced Beugnot, and Ferrand
was forced to confine his attention to the Post Office. D'Andre
was not equal to the Directorship of Police, though he was by
no means devoid of intelligence, being skilful in intrigue and
full of tact. During the King's exile he had served him with
devotion, but invariably without success ! And now he was
entrusted with the task of keeping order among the men of the
1 See Henry Houssaye's notes in his 1815, p. 43. " . . . . The troops are not
paid — the Chasseurs de France complain that their pay is in arrears and that
they are sleeping on straw. Many of the royal chasseurs are barefooted and
shirtless. . . . The 14th regiment of the line is well disciplined, but the men are
desperately melancholy. . . . Many of them have had no new trousers for two years,
and the wretched cloth ones that they have were taken from their allowance. —
Their pay has been in arrears for more than a year. ..." Brune to Davout ;
.Marseilles, 1815. 287

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Empire, and even among the men of the Revolution, who were
already giving signs of life, and were publishing their liberal
convictions in violent brochures. The work called for an active
and resolute young man, whereas d' Andre was old, and worn-out,
and weakened by age, and entirely ignorant of modern conditions ;
for his long absence had made France, and more especially
Paris, a sealed book to him. He never knew anything except
what he learnt from the newspapers, He was, however, known
to be on friendly terms with Fouche, whom he had met in Poland,
and Fouche's name earned for him a certain amount of respect,
in spite of the horror in which the ex-Jacobin was held by
the royal family.1
Soult, whose excessive ambition had made it irksome to him to
be of no importance in the State, swore and blustered in his
stentorian voice, in season and out of season, and boasted that he
would very soon reduce the army to meekness and imbue it with
royalist opinions ; that a little firmness was all that was wanted ;
and that before many months were past the agitators who were
stirring up the ranks would be perfectly quiet. Soult had been
the last to enter the royalist fold, not because of his devotion to
the Empire, but because he had been kept employed by Wellington
in the south, and knew nothing of the events that were passing
in Paris ; and for this reason he was anxious to make up for lost
time by exaggerated protestations of fidelity, and much humble
admiration of the princes. When he went to Brittany he lost no
time in organising a subscription for burying the remains of the
victims of Quiberon, and he set up a column in the peninsula in
memory of the royalists' heroic efforts /or their princes. These
hypocritical demonstrations pleased the duchess, who could not
believe that such excellent sentiments could be untrustworthy.
She took Soult under her protection, and it was owing to her that
he replaced Dupont. The other ministers received their new
colleague with cordiality. They knew he was coarse, but they
1 Michaud, in his biography, declares he had a low type of face. He goes
further : he thinks that while Bonaparte wa3 in Elba, at which time d' Andre was
on confidential terms with one of the most devoted supporters of the Napoleonic
dynasty, he was in the habit of sending to Elba the reports that he transmitted
to Louis XVIIL What is quite certain is that Napoleon's partisans were far
from showing the least resentment towards him, and, either from contempt or
some other motive, it was suggested that he should stay in Paris. However, he
preferred to follow the King to Belgium, and he only returned to France three
months later with that monarch. Louis XVIII made him intendant of his
demesnes, and he occupied the post till 1827, in which year he died.
288

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
believed in his energy, military knowledge, and diligence and
welcomed him sincerely. Their enthusiasm cooled very quickly.
They soon found that the covetous, spiteful, false-hearted marshal
was only strong when opposing the weak, and yielded without a
struggle when confronted with the strong. His action in the case
of General Excelmans was sufficient proof of this fact. He began
by fuming and fulminating, and declaring that the letters found
on the person of an English emissary on his way to Murat were
evidence of a vast conspiracy against the Bourbons. This was the
merest mare's-nest.1 Excelmans was tried by court-martial, and
acquitted. De Jaucourt repeats what was said to him at this
time by the injured Dupont, and seems disposed once more in his
favour. " Comte Dupont whispered in every one's ear : ' I sent
Davout home and banished Vandamme from Paris without the
least disturbance or scandal, and they both completely disappeared.
But I see that the punishment of one general, of the sort that are
turned out by the dozen — (imagine Excelmans being thus described !)
— is enough to put Paris and the whole army into a state of
excitement.' " Soult finally calmed down and, fearing the conse
quences of his mistake, tried to win supporters among his
colleagues.2 He became less violent, less reckless, less boastful,
and tried to bring his opinions into harmony with those of the
others. Henceforward this was his only policy. Ambition had
sharpened his wits, and made him understand that he must learn
to be discreet, and regulate his actions according to the
exigencies of the moment. He was conscious that the time was at
hand when reactionary sentiments of the most exaggerated kind
would be the only road to the favour of the royal family ; and he
therefore practised circumspection, and determined to go with the
tide. It was true enough that the partisans of the old Monarchy,
the emigres who had returned to France with the King, were
gradually pushing their way into the first rank. The moderate,
1 Excelmans, knowing that Lord Oxford was going to Naples, had given him a
letter for King Joachim. In it he congratulated the King on the fact that the
Congress of Vienna had recognised him, and confirmed the powers of his
ambassadors. That was all. It was on this basis that Soult founded his imagin
ary conspiracy against the dynasty. , . ,
a " The Due de Berry," wrote de Jaucourt to Talleyrand with regard to the
Excelmans affair, " fell into a violent and immoderate passion, demanded the
head of the guilty man, and tried to persuade the King out of his merciful inten
tions. The King was, what he always is, calm, dignified, and judicious ; but the
duke began raging again at the dinner he gave."
289 u

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
rational men were relegated to the background. The clergy,
who had the support of the provincial seigneurs, were beginning
to threaten the purchasers of national property ; and the
peasants who had attained to the outskirts of the bourgeoisie, and
had for twenty-five years owned these lands and cultivated them,
and improved them, and made them productive by dint of
unremitting labour, were seriously disturbed by these pulpit-
utterances. This arrogance on the part of men who had been
submissive, and resigned, and silent for a quarter of a century
seemed to them really ominous. The small proprietors had
hitherto been quite untroubled. They had accepted the reign of
the Bourbons as long as they had nothing to fear ; but the thought
of losing their newly-acquired properties alienated them from
these princes who had accidentally become their rulers, and
inclined them to regret the fallen Emperor.
The royalists in every part of the country were in a state of
delirium. The announcement that the remains of Louis XVI and
his family were to be exhumed and taken to Saint-Denis, and the
expiatory service of the 21st January, roused all the enthusiasm
of the aristocrats. They were beginning to be regarded as
fanatics, and were christened the ultras. They expected the nation
to wear special mourning on the day in question ; to put crape
upon their hats; to drape their houses with black hangings ; and to
expiate the past in accordance with royalist ideas. Some of them
put up printed placards in" their own names, suggesting these
measures. Paris was like Bedlam broken loose : the opinions of
one day were out of date by the next. Among the people there were
suppressed signs of hostility to the dynasty, the result of this ill-
timed provocation.1
In the villages, however, where the peasant proprietors had
nothing to fear from the demands of the emigres, everyone
showed the most touching zeal in doing honour to Louis XVI's
1 The following order of the day, published by General Heudelet, commanding
the 18th military division (Dijon), will show the kind of instructions that were
sent to every part of the kingdom. ' ' The bishops will have taken measures to
the end that, on the 21st, solemn prayers shall be offered to God, by which it may
be seen how great is the horror that all true Frenchmen have conceived for the
crime which, as on that day, plunged the whole of France into mourning. The
army has at all times shown its indignation against it, and will eagerly join in
this national act of piety."
And General Cassagne, commanding at Toulouse, said on the 14th to the men
of his division : " . . . on this melancholy day the army, ever faithful to its
principles, will experience the sweet consolation of having been tota lly unconcerned
in the cruel crime that destroyed the august victim."
290

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
memory. On the eve of the ceremony the oldest inhabitant of each
commune gathered the rest of the villagers in the market-place, and
said simply : " To-morrow, at ten o'clock, we will meet in the
church to pray, in expiation for the death of the martyr King."
After this brief speech the people, in silent emotion, dispersed to
their own homes, where they spent the winter evening in talking
of the tragic event that had taken place in Paris in 1793. On the
following day no work was done in the fields. Men, women, and
children, dressed in mourning, wended their way to the church
whither the sad notes of the funeral-knell were calling them. In
the choir stood a bier — the bier that was used for the dead of
every age — decorated by pious hands with a number of young
shrubs, which had been sheltered in cellars from the cold. To these
were added some tapers, fixed in candlesticks. After the gospel the
priest read Louis XVI's will from the pulpit :
" With all my heart I forgive those who made themselves my
enemies, without my having given them any reason for being so.
In God's hands I leave my wife and children, my aunts, my brothers,
and all who are bound to me by the tie of blood. . ." Then came
the following words : " A King can only do the good to which his
heart prompts him, in so far as he possesses the requisite authority.
Otherwise, being fettered in his actions, and failing to inspire
respect, he is more harmful than useful. . . Finally, I beg the
gentlemen of the commune to give to Clery my clothes, my books,
my watch, my purse, and the other articles that were deposited
with the Council of the Commune. . ."
When the ceremony was over, many eyes were wet with tears,
and as the congregation dispersed they said : " Those wicked men
murdered the best and most upright of Frenchmen."
In Paris the police feared there might be riots in the streets,
or some kind of indecorous demonstration, for the intemperate
behaviour of the ultras had roused a general feeling of discontent,
and made the restored dynasty hateful to the nation. De Jaucourt,
strong loyalist as he was, could not forgive these fanatics for their
folly, which might so easily interfere with the trend of events.
" To whom," he wrote to Talleyrand, " was the loss of Louis XVI
more disastrous ? To those who had left the country and had
inherited new hopes, or to us in France, who had compromised
ourselves a hundred times for the King, and had seen our genera
tion disgraced by this sinister event, and liberty and every kind of
national happiness buried with the King ? " He added : " that the
291 u 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
mad enthusiasm of the emigres had become a matter of personal
profit, and though they bad lost the Monarchy long ago, their
good star had given them a King again ; and, to tell the truth,
he was tired of hearing about emigres and royalists, and well-
intentioned people, etc. etc., and if there were anything to be
feared from a few fools or over-excited firebrands, the marshals of
the Empire and the lieutenant-generals, and the peers of France
who surrounded the funeral-car, and the national guards, and the
escort of troops of the line, and on the return journey the squads
of gendarmes, drubbing all and sundry without distinction, would
insure order, and the peace of the town and the day."
Talleyrand, the paragon of courtiers, had persuaded all the
members of the Congress to attend the ceremony that took place
that day in Vienna, by way of showing the unanimity of their
monarchical sentiments, and their regret for Louis XVI's violent
death. A sermon was preached on the occasion.1 This action
won for the cunning diplomatist the warmest praise and gratitude
of the Bourbon princes. " It was a fine and a grand idea," wrote
de Jaucourt to him, "to turn a ceremony that was apparently
quite simple and natural into a political event, and to bring the
Congress officiady into an affair that was merely a pious observance.
. . . The King could not.have been more pleased. . . . Monsieur the
Due and the Duchesse d'Angouleme begged me to tell you of their
satisfaction, and assuredly you have not heard the last, by any

1 See a note by de Vaulabelle. "The commemoration of the 21st Jan. was
celebrated at Vienna in the cathedral church of Saint Etienne, in the presence of
the Emperors of Austria and Bussia, the Kings of Bavaria and Denmark, and a
crowd of distinguished foreigners. . . . ' Tears of contrition streamed from every
eye,' say the journals of the time, ' and M. de Talleyrand, infected by the
general emotion, wept also.' . . . " De Vaulabelle also gives some details of
Talleyrand's life at Vienna. Independently of his diplomatic despatches, he
(Talleyrand) wrote little notes to Louis XVIII ; crisp little notes full of racy in
discretions about the amusements of society in Vienna. . . . He gave an account
of a fancy-dress ball at the Court of Vienna " . . . . The colossal rotundity of
the King of Wurtemberg made him unmistakable, in spite of a vast domino all
shining with gold. He had been talking for a long time to the Duchess of Olden
burg, the sister of the Emperor of Russia, with whom he was in love, and who
had hidden herself in a humble grisette's costume. The King of Denmark,
whose gaiety has won for him the name of the wag of the royal brigade, talked
for a long time with M. de Metternich. . . " De Vaulabelle adds that the same
excellent King of Denmark, whom the Congress had robbed of half his domain
to reward the parricidal services of Bernadotte, preserved his gaiety to the last
day. " You have won all hearts," said Alexander when the King announced hia
return to Copenhagen. " Possibly," answered the King ; " but it is much more
certain that I have not won a single soul." He was referring to the division of
the population, which was the chief subject of debate at the Congress.
292

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
means, of their feelings with regard to this fine, dignified, European
expiation." l
Not one of the ministers, except Jaucourt, a protestant, thought
of resisting the stream that was sweeping them back to the old
regime. They all knew that the Charter had merely been a ticket
of admission, and that the princes and the King himself, though he
was more enlightened than they, had no aim but a return to the
mistakes of the past. The development of the clerical spirit,
which was closely bound up with the royalist spirit, was one
means of making these desires and hopes realisable ; and for this
reason the policy adopted by the administration was to allow as
much liberty as possible to the priests, and to give them
precedence everywhere. De Jaucourt gives us the following
facts. When the Marquis de Riviere set sail for Constantinople to take
up his duties as ambassador, he was very careful to have a chaplain
appointed to the ship. Prayers were read morning and evening,
and grace was said before each meal. Every morning, too, Mass
was celebrated, to the great astonishment of Admiral Dumanoir,
the admiral in command, who had never been accustomed to these
pious practices in Napoleon's day. It was about this time that
the following incident occurred. Two cures refused the sacrament
to two dying men, who owned some property that had belonged to
emigres. One of them had refused to make restitution. " You
can guess where he will go," wrote de Jaucourt. " The other con
sented ; but he was so near his last gasp that the priest, in his
anxiety to have the restitution properly witnessed by the people
present, allowed the dying man's soul to escape, without making
the smallest provision for its journey." Thus humorously did the
candidate for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs express himself to
Talleyrand, knowing very well that the renegade grand seigneur
was so entirely disillusioned, so entirely indifferent to everything
but his own interests and his own reputation as a man of intellect,
that he would be secretly amused by this expression of religious
zeal and intolerance. De Jaucourt went on to say that Louis was
1 Chateaubriand, in his Mimoires, writes on this subject : " On the 18th Jan.
the remains of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI were exhumed. I was present
on the occasion in the cemetery (the old cemetery of the Madeleine in the Rue
d'Anjou-Saint-Honore, No. 48) where Fontaine and Percier have since raised— by
the pious wish of Madame la Dauphine, and in imitation of a sepulchral church
at Rimini— what is perhaps the most remarkable monument in Paris. This
cloister, which is formed of a series of tombs, seizes the imagination, and has a
most melancholy effect." 293

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
selling all the woods, even those belonging to the Order of Malta ;
then, returning to the detested Marshal Soult, he fell upon him and
stripped his soul bare, exposing the duplicity into which his
ambition had led him, and describing one of this coarse soldier's
evil actions — a revelation of perfidy, hypocrisy, and imbecile
anxiety to please. What had this detested marshal done ? He
had actually refused to give any command to General Travot, a
gallant man and a good soldier, until he should have restored the
national property that he had bought for two hundred and fifty
thousand francs. It had already passed through two other hands,
says de Jaucourt, and Travot did not think it likely that the
family from whom he bought it would return the money, which
was his whole fortune. The marshal pitied him — (which was a
great deal of use to Travot !) ; but believed, says de Jaucourt
with a touch of incredulity, that it was necessary to make an
example. An example, indeed ! Nothing could have been more
calculated to discourage the officers of the army, and to make them
regret Napoleon. " Whenever you come back," added de Jaucourt
to Talleyrand, " I can promise you that the marshal will be as
meek as a spaniel." Soult at that moment was oblivious to every
thing but his ministerial portfolio, to which he would have
sacrificed everything ; he was too completely blinded by his own
egotism to discern that he was transparent, at all events to the
eyes of de Jaucourt. " He is a man who will be subservient to
you ; who thinks himself superior to his patron (the Comte de
Bruges) ; who cannot shake off the influence of the family council
to which he owes his promotion ; who fears the Abbe (de
Montesquiou) and hates him ; who has little ability and no
views ; who yields to obstacles and collides with difficulties ; whose
eloquence is of the military kind ; who is vain, coarse, artful,
pliant, and fawning, and fulfils the old adage : animal capax,
rapax omnium beneficiorum ; and Madame la Marechale is his
double." This tirade was quite justifiable.
There were unmistakable signs of this tendency to revert to
the past in the Almanach Royal for 1815. The Nain Jaune
published a letter drawing attention to this fact.
" This work, which is generally regarded with pitying eyes by
all intelligent people, deserves this year to be examined with
particular care. The retrograde spirit of the government, under
whose eye it was surreptitiously composed, may be detected on
every page, either in the arrangement of the contents or in the
294

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
method of enumerating names. For instance, the section devoted
to the clergy of France precedes the King's Household, which is
itself placed before the Ministry. In the List of Orders the first
section is reserved for Frenchmen invested with foreign orders.
They are followed by the Orders of the Holy Ghost, St. Michael,
St. Louis, and even those of St. Lazare, Jerusalem, and Notre
Dame du Mont-Carmel, before a hint is given of the existence of
the existence of the eminently national order of the Legion of
Honour. If we turn from the general to the particular, we shall
find some still more interesting details. In the section dealing with
the King's Household you might perhaps expect to see, figuring in
the first lines, the Military Household. That, however, matters
not at all. Where else could you put the clergy ? They are the
important people. You must therefore learn the names of the
Grand Almoner, the First Almoner, the Almoner in Ordinary, the
Confessor, the eight quarterly Almoners, the Chaplain in Ordinary,
the eight quarterly Chaplains, and the Master of the Ceremonies,
before this book deigns to tell you the names of the six Captains
of the Bodyguard. And the Red Companies themselves yield
precedence to the pantler, the cup-bearer, the chief carver, the
chief maitre oVhotel, and the maltre d'hotel in ordinary. If you go
on further, and inquire into the ministries, you will find M. 1'Abbe
Montesquiou as Minister of the Interior, M. 1'Abbe Louis as
Minister of Finance, and the Abbe de Pradt as Chancellor of the
Legion of Honour; not to mention the Minister for Foreign
Affairs, once Bishop of Autun. You will be no more fortunate in
the section dealing with military organisation, and the first colonel-
general on the list is Monsieur, the Comte d'Artois, the King's
brother, colonel in command of the Swiss Guards and the Grisons.
Thus we see that everywhere the Church has the ascendancy as a
temporal power, and everything that is foreign takes precedence of
everything that is French."
It is hardly surprising that the funeral of Mile. Raucourt, who
died in this month of January, 1815, was not allowed to take
place without opposition. The cure of Saint-Roch, the actress's
parish church, had not scrupled to accept the pain binit from her
the month before her death, with a purse of four hundred francs
for the poor. None the less he refused to allow her coffin to be
taken into the church. The mob, on being informed of this
refusal, took the matter into their own hands, and with a vast
amount of clamour and abuse broke open the doors and carried
295

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
the coffin into the choir.1 A police-officer then intervened and
interviewed the curi, who, being alarmed by the hubbub, sent for
one of his priests — the one of least consequence — and four clerks,
and a performer on the "serpent." Absolution was then given,
after which the crowd, receiving reinforcements as they went,
escorted the coffin to the cemetery. It was a happy inspiration on
the part of the police-officer to insist upon the cures submission.
The crowd, which was increasing every moment, was meditating
nothing less than a march to the Tuileries, and a demonstration of
resentment beneath the King's windows. Who can tell what
disastrous consequences might have followed if the cure's oppo
sition had lasted longer, and above all, if the crowd had known
that a certain courtier had suggested firing upon the rioters ?

VIII
Upon the ministers time had no softening nor conciliating
influence. The Abbe de Montesquiou's crushing, violent methods
in discussion raised a storm whenever he was opposed or contra
dicted. It was for this reason that de Jaucourt, and even Soult,
determined to insist upon a degree of solidarity in the Ministry
that would oblige them to carry on their deliberations together,
and to maintain a definite policy, which would gain in liberality,
consistency, and wisdom through the necessity of putting every
measure to the vote. It was unfortunate that de Jaucourt and
Soult had different schemes of reform. Each thought his own the
best, and supported it in opposition to the other; and this
divergency in their aims injured them with their colleagues. As
1 The following verses, on the subject of Mile. Raucourt's burial, are taken
from La Contemporaine, Vol. V., by Desaugiers. Air : Faut de la vertu, pas trop
n'enfaut. Faut it' divot, pas trop ne V faut (bis)
L'exces en tout est un difaut.
Pourquoi 1' corps de c'te pauvre femme
D' 1' eglise serait-il bannit ?
Pis qu' huit jours avant d' rendre l'&me
Elle avait rendu 1' pain benit !
Faut et' devot, etc.
N'y a qu'un devotion qui soit bonne
C'est cell' qui dit d' fair' le bien.
J'aime mieux un paien qui donne
Qu'un chretien qui ne donne rien.
Faut 6t' de>ot, etc.
296

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
for the Abbe, he would have nothing to do with either of their
schemes : he had no desire for solidarity. The moment the subject
was mooted he lost his temper, and struck out to right and left,
flinging a biting word in one direction and a furious repartee in
the other, and losing no opportunity of a thrust at Marshal Soult,
whom he detested as heartily as the marshal detested him. He
ended by saying that it was " absurd to think of any union, of any
definite policy, of any solidarity, in short, between people who had
only been brought together by the force of circumstances and were
not intended by nature to walk side by side." He added that the
resignation of all the ministers was the only way out of the diffi
culty, since the existing state of dissension made useful action
impossible. This was the last thing desired by the marshal, who
was so firmly resolved to keep his portfolio that he declared
nothing would induce him to retire unless he were dismissed.
De Blacas contributed nothing to this tumultuous discussion
except a few unimportant remarks, for he neither desired to
commit himself nor to compromise the King, his master.1
The next subject of controversy was public education, and on
this occasion the Abbe's customary quarrel was with de Jaucourt.
The former had produced from the " little back-shop " kept by
M. Royer-Collard— to quote the Protestant member of the
government — a bill that had not been submitted to a single
member of the executive council of the University, such as Cuvier,
for example ; and this bill was opposed by the majority of the
ministers. Ferrand and Dambray, having learnt their lesson,
supported it. The King, however, had put his finger in the pie,
as de Jaucourt would say, and rather sharply postponed the
discussion to a later date, when de Jaucourt should have had time
to go into the subject. The latter, not being a Catholic, defended
the rights of those who professed the reformed religion, which
were threatened by this bill ; and if this attack, he said, were
unimportant in the eyes of the other ministers, it was important in
his. The Abbe's retorts were ineffectual. For once liberty
1 Chateaubriand has given us, in a few lines, a rather unflattering portrait ot
Marshal Soult : "I was driving with Marshal Soult. A certain simpleton was
telling us about Louis XVIII's exile at Hartwell. The marshal was listening.
To everything that was related he answered : It is historical. His Majesty's
slippers were brought to him : it is historical. On fast-days the King ate three
fresh eggs before beginning his dinner : it is historical. This answer struck
me." And well it might ! Chateaubriand did not know how far the marshal's
sycophancy could go. 297

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
triumphed, and Royer-Collard's "little back-shop" was obliged
to revise its work.
While discord reigned in the official world public opinion was
being influenced by the revelations of the press, and was gradually
becoming hostile to the Court, the princes, the clergy, and all who
were scrambling for favours. Every reading and thinking man
resented the cheapening of decorations, the immoderate trade
in crosses and titles of nobility, the haughtiness of the aristocrats,
and the contempt of the grandes dames for the newly ennobled.
The defects of the old Monarchy began to assume larger proportions
than ever before in everyone's memory. At first the old King's
mania for antedating his reign by nineteen years, and his insistence
on granting a Charter instead of accepting a Constitution, had
seemed merely amusing ; but as time went on, and each measure
inevitably led to another of the same kind, it became plain that
the boasts of the courtiers would end by being fulfilled. The army,
especially, was growing more and more estranged from the princes,
who treated it with exasperating want of consideration. When
the order was given to hand over the Eagles to the Due de Berry
the Old Guard burnt them and swallowed the ashes. It is easy to
imagine the rage that Napoleon's old veterans must have felt,
at the sight of the Cross of the Legion of Honour displayed on
the breast of some beardless fop who could do nothing but dance
well and pay silly compliments, whereas they, to earn it, had faced
death twenty times beneath the rain of grape-shot.
Moreover, at the Court and in the official journals a great deal
of deference was paid to foreigners, and especially to the English,
whose prisoners had had so much cause for complaint. The tale of
their sufferings had roused, among the people, a feeling of hatred
that recoiled upon the dynasty. Had not the King said to the
Regent that he owed his crown to him ? Those who abhorred the
English abhorred the King whom the English had restored. And
Wellington, who was now the English ambassador in Paris, was so
haughty, so disregardful of French customs, so autocratic in his
pleasures that he had alienated all classes of society, from the
highest to the lowest. The rights of the latter he trampled under
foot. When he was hunting in the neighbourhood of Paris he
would ravage an entire district, breaking down fences and
destroying the crops of the newly-sown grain with his horses and
hounds ; and would go away without giving any compensation
to the poor folk whom he had nearly ruined. The Duchesse
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Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington.

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
de Duras gave a well-deserved lesson to the noble islander one day,
when at some private theatricals he was waiting, with the other
guests, for the entertainment to begin. He left his chair, and
raised the edge of the curtain. " Pardon me, my lord," said the
duchess ; " there is nothing behind the curtain for you to take."
She was alluding to the plunder of the duke, who had taken
possession of many magnificent things in the chateaux along his
route. The great painter David, too, put him in his place on one
occasion. " I only paint great men," was the answer of the famous
artist, when the Englishman asked him to paint his portrait.
As the months passed the nation turned more and more
markedly from the men and things that were acceptable to the
Court circle. The princes lived in the Tuileries in a kind of isola
tion, without ever coming into contact with the people. There
was nothing in common between them and the people ; there never
had been, and there never would be anything in common between
them. The Bourbons, though they came of French stock,
were still foreigners in France, still unable to grasp the changes
that had taken place in the habits and social conditions of the
nation in the course of the past twenty-five years. They and
their associates were fast rooted in their prejudices and illusions.
The octogenarian de Viosmenil said one day : " I cannot under
stand why the King has not made any marshals yet. If we
were to have a war, there would only be two of us, de Coigny and
myself." In his eyes the marshals of the Empire were merely
rebels and brigands, as they were described by the Due de Berry.
This old man, de Viosmenil, who was full of his own importance,
and had grown hoary in foreign drawing-rooms, not in camps,
was graciously willing to grant letters of complete naturalisation
to Marshal Massena, who, when he received them, fell into a
fury. " Letters of naturalisation," cried the Prince of Essling,
" to me, Massena ! — to me, Massena ! " Napoleon did not fail
to remind him of this, when he wrote to Massena from Juan
Bay : " Remember that the victor of Zurich was naturalised as
a Frenchman by a Viosmenil."
At the beginning of 1815 the whole nation was infected with
discontent. The people, the small tradesmen, and the small land
owners were furiously indignant because the Droits reunis had
never yet been abolished, in spite of all the promises made by
the princes. Throughout the country there were risings and riots
when the revenue officers came to collect this tax. There was
299

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
the same discontent with regard to conscription. Defaulters were
pursued tirelessly and unmercifully by the gendarmes, with no less
severity than in the days of Napoleon. What had been gained
by the return of the legitimate princes ? This was the question
on every tongue. The price of bread, moreover, was high, and
when, in the ports of the channel, the labourers saw the ships
being laded with sacks of corn, they declared — so quick are they
to run away with an idea — that the princes were trying to make
their fortunes by means of a monopoly, such as had existed in
the days of Louis XVI. The sailors threw the sacks into the
sea rather than carry them on board ships that were bound for
England. The royal family were the objects of constant malediction.
Every resentful word they spoke was repeated ; especially those
of the Duchesse d'Angouleme, who was blamed, too, for her
courteous reception of the famous Langevin, the Vendean woman-
warrior, who came to present her memoirs to the princess.1
Conspiracies were set on foot by the ex-Jacobins and Bonapartists.
in which Fouche took a prominent part. The object of the plots
was nothing less radical than the King's deposition and the exile of
the princes, or even their disappearance in a riot. There were
some who favoured a regency under Marie Louise, and the pro
clamation of Napoleon II, the King of Rome.
And yet, notwithstanding the anxiety and uneasiness that
prevailed so universally, these months of January and February,
1815, were spent in amusement and pomp.2 The Due de Berry
gave a series of great balls ; on which occasion the King, as he moved
about among the guests, would pause before the ladies with whom
he was acquainted to compliment them on their beauty or their
gowns. He made great efforts, during these days of pleasure and
excitement, to inspire the Duchesse d'Angouleme with the desire to
1 "These memoirs have just been published," wrote a royalist journal. "...
They show us the modern heroine fighting alternately on foot and on horseback,
pistol and sword in hand, always in the advanced-guard, and on several occasions
deciding the success of the day herself ; and not once failing in her rare courage
during six years of the most terrible and bloody war."
2 See de Reiset's Mimoires, Vol. III., p. 59. Of the great dinner given by the
King at the Tuileries in Jan., 1815, de Reiset says : " One thing that caused end
less admiration was the way his Majesty did honour to the dinner. He absorbed,
entirely unaided, almost the whole of a dish of cutlets that had been placed
before him, which by no means prevented him from eating several others of the
culinary masterpieces that were offered to him in turn. I remember having
heard, in my childhood, stories of the proverbial appetite of all the Bourbons. I
was able to assure myself yesterday that, in this respect, Louis XVIII has lost
none of the brilliant qualities of his ancestors. . . "
300

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
please. He induced her to rouge her cheeks, in the hope that the
colour might disguise the habitual sadness of her stern features,
which the younger ladies found so repellent. The old King's hopes
were illusory; for the duchess had only yielded in return for a
promise that the Mid-Lenten festival should be prohibited.
Society, in the exclusive meaning of the word, was reverting to the
splendour of the old Monarchy ; women of fashion received their
guests amid masses of flowers and other luxuries, the process of
dining was a very lengthy one, and there were constant balls.
Great attention was paid to the gossip of the Court. If some
petty official, who thought himself settled for life, were replaced by
a count or a marquis whose title of nobility was above suspicion,
the news was received with joy ; and the heads of the young ladies
were as often turned by the fine clothes of the bodyguard as they
had been by the profusion of gold-lace on the uniforms of
Napoleon's hussars and lancers. It was unfortunate, said the Nain
Jaune, when some much-decorated man whom everyone had taken
for a general turned but to be a junior clerk in the post-office ; or
when some majestic and bejewelled lady, whose fortune was a pass
port into the proud world of fashion, was discovered to be the wife
of a transport contractor. The satirical journal's next victim was
a priest. Under the date of Jan. 29th, 1815, the following thrust
at the clergy appeared : " Yesterday I saw, in a brilliant circle, a
well-dressed, powerful looking man to whom everyone was listening
very attentively, although his face was by no means attractive. He
spoke of the paternal intentions of the King, and of the measures
that were to make the coming session of the Chamber of Deputies
a notable one. Hearing the beloved name of the King I drew near
and awaited a pause in the conversation, intending to express my
pleasure at hearing the speaker's masterly exposition of all that
Louis is doing and meditating for the happiness of France ; when,
changing the subject very unskilfully, he began to talk about his
own views. He then retailed to us all the old paradoxes that false
and intolerant and reactionary writers have been repeating for the
last year in the nauseous papers of the anti-liberals. Being greatly
surprised I asked the sycophant's name. He was the Abbe F 
(Feletz), the leader of the reactionaries."
During these weeks of the carnival, when the sound of bells was
always in the air, the King was often to be seen driving on the
boulevards. It cannot be denied that he was enthusiastically
cheered. The people are apt to be enthusiastic at carnival-time :
301

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
they even cheer drunkards. The official journals did not fail to
record the eagerness of the crowd to greet the King; but the
satirical Nain Jaune, in the course of its report, contrived to make
a lively sally against the throne and the altar. It described how
representatives of the various journals of the day had dressed
themselves up and driven about in a fine carriage : " The Nain
Jaune? it said, " was placed, bow in hand, above them all. The
people, who are already familiar with this allegory, easdy recog
nised the representation of each journal. They smiled at the Nain
Jaune, and applauded the grenadier of the Journal de Paris. But
the Cassandra of the Dibats, the Simple Simon of the Journal
Royal, and the dancing -girl of the Gazette were subjected one after
the other to the jests of the mob. It was in vain, however, that
they sought in this quaint assembly for the Nun of the Quotidienne ;
the reason being, no doubt, that no one was found of sufficient
courage to wear so terrible a disguise, and brave the yells and
hisses of the whole of Paris." 1
It is unnecessary to say that no personal caricatures of the
King were exposed to public view, nor yet any of the King's
favourite, the Comte de Blacas. Booksellers and pedlars, however,
contrived to sell printed extracts from old numbers of the Moniteur
relating to the Favras affair, and the declaration made by the
Comte de Provence (Louis XVIII) before the Council of the Com
mune ; and a portrait of the King, traced by the malicious pen of
Montgaillard. Nothing would have given more satisfaction than
a few jokes against the favourite, whom no one defended and every
one disliked. The nobles whose titles were historical and well-
authenticated laughed at the exhibition, in the Salon de Peinture,
of a picture representing one of the count's ancestors, a Blacas
d'Aulps, a troubadour of Provence, receiving his knightly armour
from Huguette de Sabran on the eve of his departure for the Holy
Land. The count began by driving all the princes to make
common cause against him ; the gentlemen-of-the-chambers
followed suit ; and finally he alienated everyone who found it
1 See Henry Houssaye, Vol. II., p. 59. "In Paris, moreover, discontent is far
oftener manifested in epigrams and sarcasm than in shouts and violence. Things
are not taken tragically. . . The Chevaliers du lys are nicknamed les compagnons
d' Ulysse, and the bodyguard called the turkey-herds. . . Wagram's company is
named the company of St. Peter, and the company of Raguse is called the company
of Judas. The poor imigris, who combine arrogance with beggary, are objects of
ridicule. . . Colonels Jacqueminot and Duchamp and three other officers played
the following comedy one day. Dressed and got up like nobles of the old regime
they went into Tortoni's restaurant, and ordered, for all five of them, a single
mutton cutlet, which they gravely divided. . ."
302

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
impossible to approach the King except through the intervention
of the favourite.
He was disparaged and vilified even by men of his own world
and his own opinions. No one could endure him.1 And yet he
never thwarted the unquiet spirits, the ghosts of the past, who
came hurrying from their little country houses or their foreign
inns — never prevented them from receiving all the favours of the
Court, or besieging the civil list, or obtaining the highest ranks in
the army and all kinds of power and honour. De Montgaillard
tells us of a certain imigri who was at the same time a soldier,
a diplomatist, and a priest, and obtained a pension in each
capacity. Of Napoleon's immense wealth, he adds, of his private fortune of
eighty millions, absolutely nothing was left after a few months.
The whole of it had been made away with, squandered by the
princes, the princes' favourites, the gentlemen of their households,
and all the courtiers. There were some officials who, having
emigrated in 1790 and recently returned to France, contrived to
secure their arrears of pay for the past twenty-five years. " Any
one who has seen," says Montgaillard, " a thirsty pack of hounds
1 In a memorial published at this time, and deemed by many to be authentic,
de Blacas tried to acquit himself of all the misdeeds of which he was accused.
The following are some of the important passages: "The King would have
become the strongest supporter of the Charter if he had not been constantly
shaken by the very respectful remonstrances of his relations, and I am happy in
being able to record that I was almost the only person to oppose the King's
yielding to the urgent representations of the Due and Duchesse d'Angouleme, the
Comte d'Artois, the Prince de Conde, and the Due de Bourbon. . . . The Comte
d'Artois . . . was the avowed enemy of all liberal ideas. The devout, ambitious
prince was consumed with the desire to be King, but to be a King like his fathers,
that is to say without any constitutional Charter. The Due d'Angouleme shared
the opinions, habits, and sentiments of his father, but made them still more
intolerable by his total lack of any natural or assumed charm that might have
won him pardon. The Due de Berry would have sided indifferently with his
uncle or his father, on condition that he was allowed to pursue his own way of
libertinism and despotism. The Duchesse d'Angouleme had no ideas but ven
geance, humiliation, and coercion. Her fanaticism and fury, her hatred and
her longing to gratify it were plainly visible in her face, and evident in all she
said. . . The Prince de Conde and Due de Bourbon led a little party of ex-members
of the Parlement, and systematically protested against all the actions of their
sovereign lord and master. . . From this unnatural divergence of opinion among
the most important persons of the State there resulted a struggle that was still
more unnatural. . . . Hence the insane schemes that could not at the time be
concealed from the people,— schemes to force the King, 1st, to revoke the
Charter ; 2ndly, to restore the Parlements ; 3rdly, to punish by death all the
deputies who voted against Louis XVI ; and 4thly, to deport all who had been
employed by the republican and imperial governments. . . . Such were the
schemes of  . Were they carried out? No. Well, I owe it to myself to declare
that it was partly my doing that they came to nothing."
303

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
dash into a stream of running water and drink their fill, will have
a true picture of how the new arrivals and those who awaited them
flung themselves together upon the coffers of the State."
Among the many facts recorded by de Jaucourt in his corre
spondence with Talleyrand — whom he was representing in Paris
while that diplomatist, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, was at the
Congress of Vienna— we may mention those that relate to the news
of the town. He announces that Mme. Recamier is about to reopen
her salon to receive the Duke of Wellington, but does not hide the
fact that the illustrious Irishman is extremely unpopular nearly
everywhere. " His glory is disliked." He has perceived it him
self, and spoken of it ; and the unfortunate de Jaucourt is contrite,
and much disturbed. He describes to his chief the disconsolate
state of the ladies who are accustomed to shine in the circle of the
astute diplomatist, and are desolate in his absence from Paris. De
Jaucourt gives their names : the Princesse de Vaudemont, the
Duchesse Dorothee de Courlande, the Comtesse Tiskiewicks, the
Vicomtesse de Laval, the Duchesse de Bauffremont, the Princesse
Kinski, who later on became the Comtesse de Collorado, and the
Comtesse de Jaucourt. After that he speaks of the Baron de
Vitrolles' visit to his ministry, in search of news for the Moniteur.
De Vitrolles was in Monsieur's good graces, and de Jaucourt mis
trusted him. "I will send the news to the journal myself," said
de Jaucourt. " Nothing will be inserted," answered the other,
" till it has been through my hands. Sauvo prints nothing that I
have not seen." The minister then praised the paragraph relating
to the death of the Queen of the Two Sicilies. " The King revised
it," said de Vitrolles. " I am not surprised to hear it," answered
the minister a little maliciously. De Jaucourt had already
enlarged on the subject of the men connected with the embassies,
and on the general satisfaction aroused by Juste de Noailles'
marked success at St. Petersburg. His behaviour and his stately
manners had won him the entire sympathy of the Czar's Court.
The Prince de Laval had gone to Madrid, with d'Agoult as first
secretary ; the Marquis d'Osmonde to Turin. When writing of a
concert given by the Comte de Blacas in honour of Wellington the
minister cannot quit the subject of the islander without recording
a characteristic fact. He seems to be jealous of the illustrious
general, who is everywhere the only topic of conversation. No one
is famous except the duke, says de Jaucourt ; but he has made
himself so unpopular that he has given up hunting, and has
304

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
offered his pack of hounds to the King, who has graciously
accepted the gift. De Jaucourt does not forget Mme. de Stael.
He announces that she has left her house at Clichy and settled in
Paris, where she has resumed her intrigues in the cause of the
liberal opposition. To rid him of her he counts on the Abbe de
Montesquiou, whom he calls " the choleric custodian of the
archives."

IX
At this time certain very vague rumours were rife in Paris.
The whole family of Napoleon was regarded with suspicion ; and
the j house of the Duchesse de Saint-Leu (Queen Hortense) was
believed by the royalists to be a hotbed of conspiracy. These
people who had been hatching plots perpetually for twenty-five
years were constantly on the alert for some sudden attack. They
spoke of the intrigues of Joseph Bonaparte in Switzerland, and of
the war for which Murat was preparing. They told one another
that, at the Congress of Vienna, the plenipotentiaries were
discussing the necessity of exiling the Emperor Napoleon to the
Azores ; and these confused, inaccurate, but disturbing rumours
roused the indignation of the Bonapartists without in the least
ruffling the perfect calm of Louis XVIII's ministers. The Abb£ de
Montesquiou, indeed, professed himself entirely confident in the
loyalty of the Parisians ; and assured one of his questioners that
he would be willing to send Bonaparte a passport to leave the
Island of Elba, if Bonaparte were to ask for it. In official circles
and among the partisans of the Court it was asked : " And what,
pray, should bring the usurper to France ? Has he forgotten the
insults that were flung at him as he passed through the towns of
the south on his way to exile ? "
Then suddenly the news burst upon France, and spread like
wildfire from south to north, and to the utmost confines of
Brittany, that Napoleon had landed in Juan Bay, and was
preparing to march upon Paris. His glowing proclamations soon
appeared in all the great towns. They had eluded the police,
having entered the country as wrappings of parcels ; and all along
the coach-roads they had awakened the patriotism of those who
were still faithful to the deposed Emperor. As in the glorious
day* of Marengo, the peasants came down from their mountains
305 x

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
to await the passing of Napoleon and his troops, and add their
shouts to those of the soldiers. For to them he was still the prince
of the Revolution, the defender of their rights against the
encroachments of the nobles. First Grenoble opened its gates to
him ; then Lyons ; then the whole of France came back to
its allegiance. At Lyons he felt that he was Emperor indeed, the
ever- welcome leader of the French nation, and his response to the
defiance of the Bourbons, to the princes' order that he should be
hunted down like a wolf, was a decree which suppressed, in a few
lines, this ephemeral dynasty whose partisans were the imigres.
Every edict of Louis XVIII was declared null and void. He and
all his works were swept away, like chaff before the wind.
The royalist journals, when they were no longer able to
deny the truth of the news, did their best to give it the most
favourable appearance possible, in the eyes of the old King,
Napoleon, they declared, was merely a brigand, an adventurer,
whom the Congress of Vienna would soon hold up to the
execration of the nations. The army, of course, would promptly
do its duty, and would defend the monarchy against the deposed
tyrant, whose insane action must undoubtedly rouse Europe
to renewed anger against France.1 They went further than this :
they announced the defeat of Napoleon's troops. The particularly
devoted journals declared that there was no truth in the tale
of the regiments' defection ; they were faithful to the King. In
the sympathetic welcome, they added, that the ursurper had
received at Autun, Chalon, Tournus, and Dijon, no one had any
share but the dregs of the people — the expression they always
used to denote the working-classes. There was nothing to be
feared from people of that sort : they were the merest lay-figures,
1 Villemain, in his Souvenirs (Vol. II.), describes a salon where he was a
frequent guest at the time of Napoleon's approach after landing at Cannes. The
salon was that of Mme. de Rumfort, afterwards Comtesse Courvoisier, and he
met there. . . . Ramond, formerly prefect of Puy-de-D6me, whose conversation
on the evening in question interested him so much that he recorded it.
" Everything is ominous here," said Ramond : the return of that man, and this
farcical conquest of France by the Island of Elba means the resumption of war
to the death against the whole of Europe. . . . The sight of Napoleon being
carried back to the imperial throne on the shoulders of the army is of such
ominous import to kings, is such a menace to the liberty of the human race, that
a desperate attack is bound to follow. ... If he wins I shall be all the better
pleased. He will only bring upon himself a louder hue-and-cry from every part
of Europe, and bring into the field every armed man outside France. ... I
know the bravery of our soldiers. Woe to the first English or Prussian that
Napoleon encounters beyond the frontier ! But this is a duel between one man
and ten, a duel between one nation and the world."
306

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
moved at the will of others. Until the very eve of the Emperor's
entry into Paris the royalist journals continued to add lie to lie.
They asserted that Napoleon's cavalry was reduced to a few
hundred dragoons ; that Grenoble and Lyons had shaken off the
yoke of the tyrant as soon as he was gone. In the meantime the
immortal soldier was following the road that he had marked
out for himself. In all the towns he was met by the submission
of the prefects, or at least of those prefects — his own nominees —
whom the Abbe de Montesquiou had not replaced ; and from
Dijon to Auxerre, and from Auxerre to Fontainebleau his whole
journey was a series of enthusiastic ovations. At Fontainebleau
he halted. The concierge had been informed of his coming, and
his rooms were ready for him.
Monsieur, acting under the influence of de Vitrolles, with the
Due d'Orieans, who was mistrusted by the royalists and was chosen
for this service on that account, arrived at Lyons, accompanied by
MacDonald, a short time before Bonaparte. They left the place
very hastily on the following day, however, flying before the
terrible invader along the road to Moulins.1 It was in vain that
Monsieur harangued the garrison and appealed to their honour
as soldiers : not a man was affected by the exhortation. When
the officers were questioned they said that the princes had be
haved too badly towards the army, which was not inclined to
make any sacrifices for them.2
It was at Lyons that the government had hoped to frustrate
the schemes of this redoubtable enemy. The troops that had
been drawn up in echelon on the frontiers of Savoy and Switzer
land, in the fear of a rising in Italy being organised by Murat,
had been combined into an army-corps. Monsieur was to
establish his headquarters at Lyons ; the Due de Berry was to
command the left wing at Besancon, and the Due d'Angouleme,
who was then at Bordeaux, was to proceed rapidly to Marseilles
to take up the command of the right wing. Thus a circle was
formed, which was gradually to be contracted round Bonaparte
1 A journalist in the south reported Monsieur's expedition thus :
Monsieur d'Artois, comme un lion,
Saute de Paris a Lyon ;
Mais, I'aigle troublant ses esprits,
II court de Lyon a Paris.
Monsieur d'Artois, dans les dangers,
Est un Achille aux pieds ligers.
2 Letter from de Jaucourt to Talleyrand, dated 14th March, 1815.
307 x 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
and would eventually force him to take refuge among the
mountains of Savoy. Soult was still Minister of War, and had
chosen all the regiments of this army that was to take the field
against Bonaparte. Not one remained faithful ! There seemed to
be no way of accounting for this general defection, except by the
existence of a plot to which the minister was a party. Being
warned beforehand of his old chiefs intentions he had sent none
but Bonapartist regiments to the south. The case against him,
it was said, was clearly proved. Soult was unpopular, and
received little support from his colleagues. They had often tried
to drive him into resigning office ; but the ambitious, tenacious
old soldier declined to yield to their impatience. He irritated
them by his rough and bullying manners, his contempt for the
law, his overweening conceit, and his sycophancy towards the
Comte de Blacas, the King's favourite, and Monsieur's favourite,
the Comte de Bruges. This feeling of animosity was now
strengthened by suspicion, and was the cause of his fall. The
King removed him from the Ministry of War, and the Comte de
Blacas gave his portfolio to the Due de Feltre (Clarke),
Napoleon's last minister and an indefatigable bureaucrat. Clarke,
imitating Soult, devised extravagant preventive measures, and called
out the reserve and all the national guards in the kingdom. If
Napoleon had given this minister time to carry out all his
schemes, the entire nation would have been in the field against
the enemy of the Bourbons.1
1 While the Moniteur was publishing the addresses in which all the great public
bodies of the State swore to the King that they were ready to die in his defence,
Soult inserted in the same paper the following order of the day to the army.
" Soldiers, this man who lately abdicated, under tbe eyes of all Europe, the
usurped power of which he had made so fatal a use, this Bonaparte has returned
to the soil of France, which he had no right ever to see again. . . . Bonaparte
despises us enough to believe that we could abandon a legitimate and beloved
sovereign, to share the fate of a man who is the merest adventurer. . . . Let us
rally round the banner of the lys, at the summons of this father of his people,
this worthy heir of the great Henri's virtues. . . . Paris, March 8, 1815.
Minister of War : Marechal due de Dalmatie."
The proclamation was followed by this ministerial note: "Many officers who
ask for the royal and military Order of St. Louis omit to accompany their
request by a declaration of their religion. ..." Here we recognise the reign of
the imigris. Nothing will be given to those who do not profess the Catholic
Religion, even when Napoleon is advancing upon Paris in forced marches.
The following words occur in the memorial published by the Marshal to defend
himself against the accusation of treason. " I am accused of having provoked,
by various unjust and untimely measures, the discontent of the officers of the
army. First: by neglecting them in favour of officers who are chouans,
Vendeens, or imigris. The Court well knows that the places and favours granted
on both hands were granted by its own orders. None knows better than I how
many French officers have not received the pensions and places they well
308

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
The Due de Berry remained in Paris with the King, instead
of going to Besancon to assume the command of the troops
assigned to him. Marshal Ney was summoned from Normandy
to take his place. Louis XVIII flattered and coaxed the marshal,
and paid him every possible attention in the course of the audience
he accorded him : indeed, several contemporary memoirs assert
that a million francs were given to him, by way of strengthening
the fidelity that he swore to the dynasty of the Bourbons. As he
parted from the King he said the words with which he was so
often reproached : " I will bring Bonaparte to you in an iron cage."
But as a matter of fact neither he nor the other generals made the
smallest attempt at resistance to their former leader. The glamour
of his name, and the magic words he so well knew how to use,
dazzled them as much as ever, and one and all they submitted to
his will. So it was he who brought them back to Paris, in his
suite. Meanwhile the King continued to hold his receptions at the
Tuileries. One of these was attended by Mme. de Stael, she
tells us, on the evening of the 9th March ; when she found the
rooms crowded with courtiers, and observed the sadness of Louis
XVIII's expression, which was less pleasant than usual, as though
he were resigning himself to renewed exile. As she went out she
noticed that the imperial eagles were still on the walls of the
ante-rooms. They appeared to her more redoubtable than ever.
On the same evening, in another house, she met a young woman
who was well known for her frivolity, and was as gay and smiling
as usual. This silly little creature asked the cause of the anxiety
by which Mme. de Stael's features were distorted, and on receiving
the answer exclaimed, still smiling : " What ! Are you really
afraid that the French will not fight for their legitimate King
against a usurper?" Among the old nobility who attended
Mme. de Stael's receptions — which, since the dates had been
fixed some time before, she did not wish to postpone — the same
confidence reigned ; indeed, it was more than confidence, it was a
sort of joy that they felt at the news of Napoleon's landing ;
for, said these old emigres who never doubted the devotion of
the army, the man would be taken prisoner and shot, and no more
deserved. I have constantly worked with the Comte de Bruges, and have
profited by his intelligence. He knew both my work and my thoughts. My
association with him, and his reputation, should have been enough to preserve
me from the reproach of [treason." (pp. 9 and 10) This was the man, alas !
whom Napoleon, on his return, appointed as his Chief of the Staff.
309

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
would be heard of him.1 They seemed bent on ignoring the
truth, and shutting their eyes to the evidence, lest they should
be made aware of the terrible consequences of this event. One
day when Hyde de Neuville was in the Princesse de la Tremoille's
house he tried to oppose this consoling view of the future.
The Comte de Rouge had just joined the party, and had
confirmed the rumours that were current in the town. His
fellow-guests burst into peals of laughter ; whereupou Hyde de
Neuville, amazed at their frivolity, said: "Gentlemen, it is
a great event. God grant that it may not be a most disastrous
one." When the news from the south became more grave, and the
road to Paris was open to Napoleon, the aristocrats overran the
faubourgs and visited all the taverns, where they fraternised, glass
in hand, with the working-men. They thought to convert them
thus into champions of the King. The workmen accepted the
drink, but kept to their own opinion. They were devoted to the
Emperor. What the bourgeoisie called despotism did not affect
them. In the Emperor's time, they said, they were never in want
of work ; they always had a full purse and a happy life. They
awaited his return impatiently. (From the Lanterne magique de la
Restauration.) At this time a great many addresses were pouring into the
Tuileries from the communes, swearing fidelity and devotion to the
King. Hope began to revive ; the royalists buoyed themselves up
with fresh illusions, and felt sure that some sudden event would
arrest the triumphant march of the adventurer. By a sudden
event, it must be owned, they meant the Emperor's assassination.
A subscription-list was opened for the reward of the assassin
(Fleury de Chaboulon, Vol. I., p. 202), and candidates for the
crime wrote to accept the terms offered. A dagger-thrust had
always been among the cherished dreams of the exiled princes and
the other imigris. Napoleon was little concerned by the danger
that threatened him : his life had been menaced time after time,
even in the island of Elba. He continued his advance, escorted
1 See the Nain Jaune of March 1815. "' What is there to complain about?'
asked a certain retired general a few months ago. ' After all her labour and
fatigue France should be glad of the rest she is enjoying.' What, Monseigneur!
Is lying in the mud your idea of rest ? " The same paper records the following.
" Two days before the departure of the Bourbon family from Paris this notice
was posted on the door of the Tuileries : ' The Emperor begs the King not to
send him any more soldiers. He has enough. ' "
310

Madame de Stall.

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
only by two colonels and a few Polish lancers. Putting his trust
in his star he rode to Paris as fast as his horses could carry
him. What was to be done ? asked the King. Where should he look
for help? He offered officers' commissions to all the royal
grenadiers on condition that they remained faithful to him, and
titles of nobility to the officers. No one responded to the offer :
it came too late. It was the Emperor, now, to whom they looked.
He could be trusted to give them compensation. The government
then turned to the representatives of the nation, and tried to win
the country at large by measures of redress. The Minister of the
Interior proposed to convoke the General Councils of all the
departments, and to decree that they should sit in permanence.
The Chambers were convened, and were made to pass a bill
stipulating that the arrears of pensions of the Legion of Honour
should be paid in full, as in 1813, to all the military members of
the order. Finally, on the 15th March, the Minister of War ordered
an army to be formed at Melun, the command of which was to be
given to the Due de Berry.
The King did even more. He sent a message to the effect that
on the 16th March he would visit the assembled Chambers. What
was the use of this ? No one could tell. On the date in question
he appeared before the representatives of France, surrounded by a
large retinue of marshals, great dignitaries of the Court and
gentlemen-in-waiting, and by all the princes of his house. He
seated himself on the throne that had been made ready for him,
and read the following discourse :
" Gentlemen, at this crisis, when the national enemy has
actually entered a portion of my kingdom, and is threatening the
liberty of all the rest, I have come to you, with the view of drawing
still closer the bonds that, by uniting you to me, constitute the
strength of the State. I have come in order that, in addressing
you, I may make my sentiments and desires known to the whole
nation. — I have seen my country once more, I have reconciled her
with all the foreign powers, who will — do not doubt it — be faithful
to the treaties that have given us peace. I have worked for the
happiness of my people ; I have received, I am every day receiving,
the most touching signs of their love. How could I, at sixty years
of age, end my career better than by dying in their defence ? I
have no fears for myself, then ; but I have fears for France. The
man who has come among us to light the torch of civil war brings
311

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
with him, too, the scourge of foreign war ; he comes to place our
country once more under his iron yoke ; he comes, in fact, to
destroy the constitutional Charter that I have given you, the
Charter that is my first claim on the regard of posterity, the
Charter that is dear to the heart of every Frenchmen, and that I
swear, here and now, to maintain. Let us rally round it ! Let us
make it our sacred standard ! The descendants of Henri IV will be
the first to muster beneath it. They will be followed by every true
Frenchman. Finally, Gentlemen, let the two Chambers concur in
giving to the authorities all the power that it is necessary for them
to have, and this war, which is a truly national undertaking, will
prove by its happy issue what can be done by a great nation that
is bound together by its love for its King, and for the fundamental
laws of the State."
No one was expecting all this zeal for the law, nor all this
fervour for the Charter, of which nothing had been heard for
months. The peers and deputies rose as one man, in a transport
of enthusiasm, and flinging out their hands towards the throne,
cried time after time : Vive le roi ! The King— for life or death !
When silence was restored the Comte d'Artois rose in his turn, and
approaching the King, his brother, swore in his own name and in
that of his family to be scrupulously faithful to the Charter. The
King gave him his hand to kiss, and then drew him into his arms.
The two brothers clasped each other in a long embrace, a fraternal
demonstration which provoked a renewed outburst of cheering, and
a considerable amount of emotion. This was the first time
that Monsieur had visited the Assembly of peers and deputies,
the first time he had sworn to respect the Charter, which he
secretly denounced as a detestable concession to the spirit of the
age. This scene, which was doubtless arranged beforehand,
produced a great effect. But it was hardly a charm of sufficient
power to repel a man who was being welcomed enthusiastically by
the army, a man whose name was flying from mouth to mouth as an
omen of victories to come, as a safeguard against the overweening
arrogance of the nobles.
The Comte d'Artois, who had been in a very uneasy state of
mind since his misadventure at Lyons, determined to hold a review
of the national guards in Paris, on the following day, and to
appeal to their patriotism. He hoped to raise several ligions of
volunteers. The royal family had great faith in Paris, for they
knew that a number of young men were giving in their names at
312

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
the Tuileries, and begging to be allowed to fight in defence of
the King and the Monarchy. At certain hours there was such a
crowd of them that tables were carried into the court, where they
all wrote their names and addresses in a register. Moreover, the
majority of the students of the Law School,1 young men who
frequented some of the liberal salons, had made profession of their
royalist faith by ranging themselves among the defenders of the
throne. The costume of these volunteers of the middle-classes was
very smart, and included a white plume in the hat, which no doubt
partly accounted for all this ardent devotion.
On the day of the review the Comte d'Artois assumed a very
martial and resolute air. He gathered round him the colonels of
the various legions, and asked them how many volunteers would
be furnished by the National Guard. One of them, M. Gilbert des
Voisins, remained silent during the vociferous demonstrations of
his colleagues. He did not hide from the prince that very little
would result from the appeal : the enlistments would be few. The
cheers for the Bourbons as they passed by in the street were
very encouraging, no doubt ; but they were no more than
superficial effervescence. Was it likely that fathers of families,
men established in trade, such men, in short, as composed the
existing National Guard, would sacrifice themselves for a cause
whose claims upon their gratitude they had not had time to realise
in the course of a few months ? Enlistment as a volunteer meant
ruin and perhaps death — and in exchange for what ? The prince
turned his back upon the prophet of evil, who was perfectly
right, for it was only with difficulty that two companies of
volunteers were raised from the National Guard.
During these closing days of the Monarchy the palace was as
constantly besieged as it had been at the beginning of the
Restoration, by everyone who was in a hurry to satisfy some last
unfulfilled ambition, to secure some long-solicited post ; impor
tunate mendicants who offered nothing but words, the price of
which they insisted on taking away with them. Generals,
councillors of state, judges, prefects, elbowed one another in troops
upon the stairs of the Pavilion de Flore. On their faces one
obsessing thought was printed : Would they arrive in time ? The
generals were there in force, each with his own plan for defeating
the enemy. The ministers, too, were there at all hours, disappear
ing into the Comte de Blacas' room, and emerging disappointed.
1 See Edmond Bire's edition of Chateaubriand's Mimoires, Vol. III., p. 482.
313

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
They asked for some resolution, some act, that should reheve the
depressing state of anxiety in which they were sunk. Each of
them placed " his life and fortune at the King's disposal " ; but
no one wished, and indeed no one intended, to be taken at his word.
The greatest firebrands among the royalists suggested instituting
a Reign of Terror against the Jacobins and Bonapartists.
D' Andre had been replaced as Director of Police by Bourrienne,
who was known to be Bonaparte's enemy ; but this appointment
did not suffice them, although Bourrienne had in his possession a
list of suspicious persons who were to be arrested. Of these the
first was Fouche, who had refused the directorship of police, a post
he had formerly desired greatly ; and this refusal showed him to be
a member of the league which was known to be hatching a con
spiracy, and had been betrayed by Barras, the converted royalist.
After Fouche's name came those of Joseph Tburot, Lecomte (who
had all Fouche's characteristics), Gaillard (a judge of the royal
court), Hinguerlot, Norvins, Bouvier-Dumolard, Duviquet, Patris,
Sieyes, Pierre-Pierre, Arnault, Davout, Rovigo, Real, Bassano, La
Valette, Flahaut, and Excelmans. Fouche's name and Davout's
were marked with an asterisk. They were important. When the
police-inspector arrived at Fouche's house to arrest the ex-Jacobin
he was received with perfect self-possession by that indefatigable
conspirator, who examined the sinister document very carefully,
and observed that, as it lacked a certain essential formula, he would
retire to his study and write a formal protest. He then locked the
door behind him, hurried down into his garden by a secret stair
case, placed a ladder against a waU, and disappeared into a neigh
bouring garden.
These rigorous measures were accompanied by a complete dis
organisation of the Institute. In the midst of all the agitation,
and all the danger that threatened the Monarchy, the King and
his ministers found time to wreak a paltry vengeance on men of
letters. At a time when every influential person, every man who
still held or ever had held a distinguished position in society,
should have been treated with marked consideration, the papers
announced that the fourth class of the Fine Arts was suppressed ;
that Prince Lucien Bonaparte, Cambaceres, Garat, Cardinal Maury,
Merlin, Rcederer, and Sieyes were expelled from the Academie
Francaise and replaced by the Bishop of Alais, the Due de Levis,
the Due de Richelieu, and MM. de Bonald, de Choiseul-Gouffier,
Ferrand, and Lally-Tollendal ; that the names of Napoleon,
314

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
Monge, Guyton de Morvaux, and Carnot were erased from the
list of members of the Academie des Sciences ; and that Joseph
Bonaparte, Lakanal, and Gregoire had ceased to be members of
the Academie des Inscriptions. These were the last sparks from
the dying fire. The Monarchy's death-agony had begun. It had
but a few more days to live.
In the salons of the Tuileries the circles of the Court officials
were equally agitated. Excitement reigned supreme. Great
ladies gathered round them groups of bodyguards, and officers of
the National Guard, and their own relations and friends, and
carried on stormy, frenzied, distracted discussions on the best
means of safeguarding the King's person and preserving the
Monarchy from an irremediable fall. They reproached the young
men who came to see them, for not having enrolled themselves as
volunteers, and threatened to forbid them the house unless they
did so. They preached this new crusade as enthusiastically as the
ladies had once preached the Emigration. They were indignant
with the Duchesse de Duras, whose attendance at the Tuileries
was less frequent than before, and were bold enough to say
she deserved a whipping. The violence of their language,
feelings, and manners recalled the scenes that took place at the
time of the Allies' entry into Paris. D' Andre was accused of
neglecting to arrest certain individuals of whose compromising
words and actions they had informed him. These self-constituted
spies observed everything, listened to everything, reported every
thing. Uncertainty, and agitation, and noise reigned everywhere,
without any result whatever.
" Everyone," says Chateaubriand in his Mimoires (Vol. III.),
" was inquiring what was to be done. No one answered. The
Captain of the Guard was appealed to ; the chaplains, precentors,
and almoners were questioned. No result. Fruitless discussion,
ineffectual gossip — that was all. I have seen young men weeping
with rage, and demanding orders and arms in vain. I have seen
women fainting from anger and contempt. To reach the King
was impossible : etiquette closed the door." The reason of this
was that the Comte de Blacas, the favourite, refused until the eve
of the flight to believe that peril was imminent. Moreover he did
not wish to agitate Louis XVIIl. He persuaded him that there
was no cause for alarm ; that Clarke, the Minister of War, was on
the alert ; that the Due de Berry's army would remain faithful.
And had not General Dessoles and Marshal Marmont declared
315

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
that, if they were allowed the free control of their actions, Paris
would never fall into Bonaparte's hands ? Dessoles was con
fident of the energy and devotion of the Parisian militia ; and
the marshal, who had arrived in all haste from his place at
Chatillon, offered to convert the Tuileries into an intrenched
camp, within which the King would become the life and soid of
the defence. " We are passing through the crisis of a fever," said
the marshal. " We must let it pass. A few days' resistance will
give the generals and troops time to recover themselves, and will
enable the princes to muster the numerous volunteers, and the
national guards of the departments, and lead them to his Majesty's
defence." De Vitrolles was more discerning, and thought other
wise. He advised Louis XYIII to leave Paris and take refuge at
La Rochelle in La Vendee, which was more rovalist in feeling than
anv other part of France, and was near Gascony, where the Due
d'Angouleme's presence was keeping the people faithful to the
King. And supposing the Monarchv were still in danger in spite
of all that could be done, the open sea was at hand, and the King
might cross to England again. No one listened to this reasonable
advice. The Comte de Blacas rejected it in these terms, according
to Vaulabelle. " I do not believe in the efficacy of any military
measures. Our only resources are moral : we must rely entirely on
the force that the King derives from his undoubted rights and his
own virtues. My advice, supposing Napoleon were to succeed in
approaching Paris, would be that the King should drive out in an
open carriage, accompanied by the members of the Chamber of
Deputies and the Chamber of Peers, all on horseback, some on
each side of the carriage, and that he should await, with this
retinue, the arrival of the usurper and his troops. The sight of
the King, thus escorted, would stop even the most audacious.
Who would dare to pass ? " Amid so much conflicting advice the
King, according to his usual habit, remained in a state of weak and
cowardly indecision, hiding as best he could the longing that
possessed him to leave Paris on his enemy's approach. Some of
the courtiers had already sent their families into the provinces ;
wtule they themselves, less undecided than the King, secretly
prepared for flight and furnished themselves with funds. Thanks
to de Vitrolles the crown diamonds, and drafts to the value of
fourteen million francs, had been despatched to London.1
1 The value of the diamonds amounted to 13,834,046 frs., the regent alone be
ing worth 6,000,000. The Intendant of the Treasure of the Civil List had been
316

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
Louis XVIII's life, to all appearances, remained unchanged.
On the 19th March, the day of his departure, the mattre dhotel
gave a large dinner at the Tuileries to the Spanish ambassador, an
entertainment which was known in Court language as a traitement ;
and the King had invited all the members of the diplomatic corps
to a large evening-party on the 21st. De Blacas continued to
delude his master with deceptive arguments ; quoting Clarke's
reassuring words to the bodyguard, whom he had advised to take
off the boots they had worn for a week.1 The favourite was as
ingenious as the King in finding reasons for being confident. He
never reasoned ; he never looked at both sides of the question.
To him the King was a sacred being, whom the " usurper " would
not dare to approach. He always saw " moral obstacles " to the
fall of the dynasty. As was said to him by Fouche, whose opinion
he had asked, he was guided by sentiment alone, whereas the only
wisdom lay in the consideration of the facts. Having spent his
life among imigris, in a cloud of incense, with a chorus of flattery
always in his ears, he had no conception of the power of the great
leader, nor of his energy and prestige. De Blacas believed in the
divine right of kings, and his eyes were not opened during this
first reign of the restored Bourbons.2
But when, on the 18th March, one blow succeeded another, when
he learned of the insubordination of the regiments sent against
the Emperor, of Ney's submission to Napoleon's message, of the
irresistible influence of the Conqueror of Europe in every province
through which he passed ; when the couriers brought him the
news of Labedoyere's defection, and the submission of the mayors
and prefects to their former sovereign; when he heard how the
roads were crowded with peasants awaiting the passing of the
conqueror, he was overwhelmed with panic. He no longer hesitated
dispossessed of them by an ordinance of the 13th March, countersigned by de
Blacas. (The " regent " was the diamond known in England as the Pitt Diamond. It
was sold by Thomas Pitt to the Regent Orleans. Translator. )
1 " Gentlemen, for the last week you have had no sleep. Now you can take
off your boots, i shall sleep to-night as peacefully as I did three months ago.
I arrived a week too late ; but now everything is set right. The staffs, which
were not organised, are now complete. The officers answer for their regiments.
General Marchand has taken possession of the country in Bonaparte's rear, and
has returned to Grenoble, where he has recovered all the artillery left by the
latter." 2 See the Mimoires of Hyde de Neuville, Vol. II., p. 84, with regard to
Fouche's interviews with the King and the Comte d'Artois. "... He (Fouche)
was the kind of man who serves a government, not so much in order to support it,
as with a view to being necessary to it when it falls before a new power."
317

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
to warn the King,1 and he sent away his own family. Suddenly
all the houses in the Faubourg Saint-Germain were closed. The
towns of Normandy were crossed by files of berlines, staggering
under their load of trunks and passengers. The posting-houses
were besieged, and as time passed the means of transport became
more difficult to obtain. Hyde de Neuville relates in his memoirs
how, when he, like the rest, wished to fly before the tyrant, his
only possible method of leaving Paris was to hire a hackney-carriage
to take him to Saint-Germain, and thence to Pontoise, whence he
reached Beauvais. " My driver," he says, " had a very broad pair
of shoulders, but was none the braver for that. The byroads were
crowded with fugitives ; the high-roads with troops on their way
to Paris ; the people everywhere were silent ; uneasy curiosity was
the only feeling they showed. . . Night was falling just as I reached
Pontoise. An immense stream of fugitives, pedestrians, and riders
blocked the streets. Some were seeking shelter, others a vehicle of
some kind." 2
The upper strata of society were in a state of distraction from
which the labouring classes were altogether free. The faubourgs
of Paris remained unmoved. The workshops echoed as usual
with the songs of the workmen, who laughed among themselves
over the " fine trick " that the Emperor was going to play upon
the whole of "the gilded set." The housekeepers occupied
themselves with their customary marketing. The news of the
1 Fauche-Borel tells this anecdote in his memoirs, ". . . At about 11 o'clock
at night I met the Comte de Saint-Didier. ' You absolutely must help me,' he
said, ' to obtain access to the King this instant, for I have matters of the highest
importance to communicate to his Majesty.' . . . We went to M. Hue, who
was just going to bed. ' I cannot go into the King's room without waking him,'
he said to us. ' Go to M. de Blacas.' We were admitted to the count's room and
informed him that Bonaparte was going to enter the capital. ' Tell me what you
know about it,' saidM. de Blacas. M. de Saint-Didier replied that the lancers who
were advancing by order of the King were, everywhere along the road, showing
the tricoloured cockades that they wore hidden beneath white ones ; and that
several of them, when he gave them breakfast in the country, had confirmed the
news of Bonaparte's arrival. M. de Blacas regarded us as visionaries, and
addressing himself especially to me, said mockingly : ' And do you really think,
my good Fauche, that Bonaparte will be mad enough to come to Paris to be cut
to pieces ? ' I went sorrowfully away. "
2 Chateaubriand in his Mimoires (Vol. III., p. 491) describes the demoralised
state of Paris and its neighbourhood at this time. " It was obvious," he says,
" that flight was meditated : in the fear of being detained they did not even warn
those who, like myself, would have been shot an hour after Napoleon's arrival in
Paris. ... I had just gone to bed when M. Clausel de Coussergues came in. He
told us his Majesty had gone, and was on his way to Lille. Mme. de
Chateaubriand pushed me into her carriage on the 20th March, at 4 o'clock in
the morning. I was in such a rage that I did not know where I was going, nor
what I was doing ..." 318

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
Emperor's return to Paris seemed so extraordinary that many
people considered it incredible: it provoked laughter and jesting
among the working classes, rather than enthusiasm. They were
waiting to see what would happen.
Meanwhile the royalist journals were as mendacious and as
insulting to Napoleon as ever.1 They argued and discoursed
on the impossibility of his return ; and on the 19th March the
Journal des Dibats published the famous philippic of Benjamin
Constant,2 an insulting attack on the despot whom, a few days
later, he was worshipping and even serving. But, after all, this
was the course adopted by all the men who had been the Emperor's
most irreconcilable enemies at the time of the Restoration. They
were the first to return to him ; and were followed by the
most ardent royalists, such as Ferrand, who was the first to beg
La Valette for a safe-conduct, with the object of seeking, not the
King, but peace and safety on his estate in L'Orleanais.

X
The King, when his favourite had revealed to him the state of
affairs, instantly resigned himself to renewed expatriation, and
agreed to follow the advice of De Blacas and Clarke. The latter
persuaded him to go first to Lille, where the garrison, though
numerous, was not disaffected and seemed inclined to be firm in its
royalist faith. Lille was near the frontier, and not far from
the ports of the Channel ; it would be easy, therefore, to escape
thence if pursued by Bonaparte. The scheme was kept secret ; and
1 There were caricatures, too. Napoleon's head and shoulders were depicted,
with the face composed of the skeletons of the Grand Army. . . . (Lamotte-
Langon, Vol. III., p. 17). On the other hand there was one that represented him
as an eagle flying into the Tuileries through the window, and chasing a flock of
geese out of the palace.
2 See Mimoires of de Barante, Vol. II., p. 127. . . . The article in question
ended thus: "The King will give us constitutional liberty, security, peace;
Bonaparte will give us slavery, anarchy, war : who can hesitate between them ?
. . . If your ministers have made many mistakes, you have been noble, good, and
full of feeling : fewer tears have been shed in a year of your reign than in a
single day of the reign of Bonaparte. YetShe has reappeared on the confines of our
country ; he has reappeared — the man stained with our blood and only the other
day cursed by us all with one voice. He appears ; he threatens : and not all our
vows can hold us back, not all your trust in us can touch us, not all your years
can win our respect. You thought to find a nation, and you only found a troop
of slaves. ... I refuse to crawl from one government to another like a miserable
turncoat, to hide infamy beneath sophistry, or stammer desecrated words to win
for myself a life of shame." 319

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
though it was impossible to hide the truth entirely from the
frequenters of the palace, who were aware of the unusual activity
among the valets as they packed the King's trunks, yet whatever
their suspicions might be there was no certainty on the subject.
Even on the very day of departure, though the King's intentions
were discussed, nothing was known officially : not even whether the
flight would take place by day or by night, nor whether it
would be in a few hours' time or not till several days had passed.
It was only at nine o'clock in the evening, when the Prince de
Poix, the captain of the guard, came to obtain the pass-word, that
the departure was announced for midnight. As the only energetic
and resolute royalist of them all, de Vitrolles, had been heard
to whisper, no sunshine was needed to expose the disgrace of that
flight. De Vitrolles himself, armed with plenary powers by the
King, repaired to Toulouse, with a view to rousing the royalist
provinces to oppose Napoleon's new usurpation. The Due de
Bourbon was in La Vendee ; the Due d'Orieans had been at
Lille since his return from Lyons ; Monsieur and his son the Due
de Berry were to follow the King. The Due d'Angouleme was in
command of an army in the south, and hoped to recover the
towns that had gone over to the Emperor. The duchess was
endeavouring to keep Bordeaux.
At midnight the national guards in the reserve guard-house of
the Tuileries heard the sound of approaching carriage wheels.
One of the carriages — it was the King's, as was easily seen by
its low, wide seat — drew up besides the entrance steps of the
Pavilion de Flore. The men in the guard-house had come out
when they heard the carriages, and were standing together, staring
silently at the great doorway, waiting and watching. The least
sound within drew all their eyes to the same point — the door
through which the old monarch was expected at any moment to
appear. Without, the gale was blowing fiercely, and the cold
rain beating heavily upon the paving-stones of the court. At
last the folding doors were flung open, and Louis XVIII
came out, supported by the Comte de Blacas and the Due de
Duras. He walked slowly and with difficulty, and, being dressed in his
warmest clothes, looked like some convalescent leaving a hospital to
return to his own home. A servant carrying two large candle
sticks preceded the royal group. The flames flickered in the
high wind, and several were blown out. It was a melancholy
320

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
scene. The national guards were so deeply moved by the sight
that they flung themselves on their knees at the King's feet, and
gave affectionate expression to their respect and grief. The King,
notwithstanding his coldheartedness and egotism, was touched by
these signs of sympathy, though still more touched by his own
misfortunes. " My children," he said, " in mercy spare me ; I
need all my strength ; I shall see you again soon. . . Return to
your homes. . . My friends, I am touched by your attachment."
Surrounded as he was1 he reached his carriage with difficulty,
and, as soon as he and the favourite were seated, the door was
closed and the coachman whipped up his horses vigorously. The
carriage rolled away, and was soon speeding, with all possible haste,
upon the road to the north.
A post-chaise took Monsieur in the same direction. The Due
de Berry and Marshal Marmont rode off to the Champ de Mars,
where the King's military household had assembled before starting
for Beauvais. According to Sosthene de la Rochefoucauld it
comprised four thousand men. La Rochefoucauld's grenadiers
formed the advance-guard, and the black musketeers the
rearguard. They crossed the Pont d'lena, and marching through
the town by way of the Allee des Veuves and the Champs-Elysees,
took the road to Saint-Denis.
After the King's departure the gates of the Tuileries were
closed. The rest of the night passed in the most profound silence.
The palace, with all its windows dark, was a melancholy sight.
Paris was unaware of the King's flight, and of that of the
ministers, who had decamped with equal haste, having first
provided themselves, according to some memoirs, with a sum of a
hundred thousand francs. They had deserted their official rooms
and aU the papers they contained, including the most important
documents. Baron Louis left a considerable number of millions
in the coffers of the Ministry of Finance ; and de Jaucourt left the
1 De Jaucourt to Talleyrand : "I was at hand when the King passed by, near
the door that leads out of his rooms. He whispered to me : ' Let my ministers
know I am going to Lille, andwish them all to come there. Tell the ambassadors
I shall be charmed to see them at Lille, but they are quite at liberty, if they
prefer it, to return to their respective Courts. '" De Jaucourt then hastened to
the Marquis Alfieri. The ambassadors had wearied of waiting, and were gone.
He then repaired to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs ; and, he adds, " I wrote
the circular letter, and made poor Mornard, my only comrade through this sad
night, set to work writing, while Rinhard was burning and sorting papers, and I
was occupied at my desk. At 5 o'clock the letters went off; at 6 I was driving
away after the King, having only had one hour to see to my own affairs, which
are none the better for it."
321 y

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
copies of some secret official documents that had been sent from
Vienna by Talleyrand.
All the Bourbons, like the King, took the road to the north.
The Prince de Conde arrived at Lille at the same time as
Chateaubriand. The illustrious writer says : " The Due d'Orieans
came close upon the heels of the Prince de Conde. In spite of his
ostensible dissatisfaction, he was glad at heart to be out of the
fray : the ambiguity of his declaration and his conduct was ex
tremely characteristic of him. As for the old Prince de Conde, it
was only in exile that he was truly at home. He was not in the
least afraid of M. de Bonaparte ; he would fight if he were asked ;
he would take his departure if he were asked ; matters were slightly
mixed in his brain. He was not quite sure whether he were going
to stop at Rocroy to give battle, or going to dine at the Grand
Cerf. He struck his tent several hours before us, charging me to
recommend the coffee at the inn to those of his house whom he had
left behind him. He forgot that I had resigned on the death of
his grandson ; he only felt that the glory of his name had increased;
a fact that might well be owing to some Conde whom he did not
remember." 1
The Moniteur, on the following day, published a proclamation
to the Parisians, written by the King. It was different from all
its predecessors. The tone of it was almost tearful ; it expressed
the deepest discouragement, it begged for pity. Louis XVIII
fissured the Parisians, however, that he would return to them,
to restore their " peace and happiness." He closed by declaring
the session of the Chamber of Deputies and Chamber of Peers at
an end until they should meet, at an early date, at the provisional
seat of government. And on the 21st March the same paper, after
giving all Napoleon's proclamations, published the decrees dated
from Lyons on the 13th March : " All the changes effected in the
judicial tribunals after the abdication at Fontainebleau were
annulled ; all emigrated officers were dismissed from the army ; the
white cockade, the decoration of the Lys, and the orders of St.
Louis, the Holy Ghost, and St. Michael were abolished ; the tri-
coloured cockade and flag were restored, and the latter was to be
1 The King's flight was so precipitate that he had no time to take away his
private papers, nor a quantity of documents that would have seriously com
promised a number of people if the Emperor had not definitely declared his
intention of knowing nothing that had passed during the preceding ten months.
Several people who slept in the palace were unaware of the King's departure till
the following day. 322

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
hoisted again on the town-halls and village churches ; the imperial
guard was to have all its honours and functions restored to it,
while the Swiss guard was to be removed to a distance of forty
leagues from Paris and all the imperial palaces ; the King's house
hold troops were to be disbanded, and their horses and equipment
placed at the disposal of the State ; the estates of the Bourbons
were to be sequestered, national property restored, the nobility
abolished, and the laws of the constituent Assembly put in force
against them ; feudal titles were declared extinct ; all imigris who
were not included in previous amnesties were to leave France
within a fortnight ; all the changes that had been made in the
Legion of Honour were declared null and void, and the order was
replaced upon its former footing ; the peers were suppressed, the
Chamber of Deputies was also abolished, and all members who had
arrived in Paris since the 7th March were ordered to return home ;
and the electoral assemblies were convoked for the following May.
Finally, the Moniteur was to keep its position as the official organ
of the Empire, and was placed under the supervision of the Due
de Bassano."
There was nothing dilatory about Napoleon.
It was not until ten o'clock in the morning that Paris heard, on
the 20th March, of the flight of the King and his courtiers. The
closed gates, the silent palace, the deserted courts, were in them
selves a sufficient sign that the Bourbons had abandoned their
dwelling. The crowd gathered round the gates, questioning the
national guards of the outer guardhouse and demanding the
surrender of the palace, that the people might take possession of
it in the Emperor's name. The national guards made no answer
to these demands, and even checked the enterprise of certain
youths who had clambered to the top of the gates and were
meditating a descent into the courtyard. Quarrelling soon began ;
insults were exchanged, and were on the point of being followed
by violence when new sounds arose — the distant tramping of
troops, and cries, and beating drums — and calmed the rising
irritation. These sounds came from a portion of the troops who
had mutinied against the Due de Berry, and had left Villejuif to
join the Emperor's supporters. General Excelmans' intention had
been to incite the troops in the camp to mutiny, but as he was on
his way to Villejuif in the morning he met them ; whereupon he
took command of them and returned to Paris at their head.
When he reached the Tuileries the tumultuous crowd and the
323 y 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
defiant national guards yielded to the orders of the general, who
commanded the gates to be opened and took possession of the
palace in the Emperors name. The white standard of the
Bourbons was hauled down : and the tricoloured flag, hoisted in
its place above the Pavilion de 1'Horloge, announced to the
Parisians that the Emperor was expected at the Tuileries.
At the office of the Postmaster-General a different kind of
scene was being enacted between M. Ferrand and the Comte de la
Valette, his predecessor under the Empire. M. Ferrand was
unaware, on the morning of the 20th March, of the King's
departure during the night. He only learnt of it at the moment
of the ex-Postmaster's visit, and imagined, on seeing him at so
early an hour, that La Valette had come to take bis place. He
was mistaken ; the count had merely come for the latest news ; he
had no other object. But the incredulous Ferrand was absolutely
determined to yield his post to him. Finding that the other
ministers had deserted him, that the King had fled, and that the
Court had broken up and dispersed, he feared for his personal
safety and only wished to fly hke his colleagues. Being bereft of
his authority he regarded himself as having retired, and appealing
to his predecessor begged for a safe-conduct, to authorise him to
demand horses at the posting houses, so that he might find an
asylum on his property in Orleanais, where he meant to hide
himself. As for the King. Ferrand showed no desire to join him.
The coward thought of no one but himself. Now La Valette had
no right to substitute himself for this royalist official, and pointed
out that fact. His signature for the moment was of less value
than Ferrand's. The latter, however, insisted, for he thought
himself lost ; and his family, his wife and daughters, joined their
entreaties to his so effectually that the harassed man yielded, and
signed his name to the paper that the royalist desired. He was
signing his death-warrant. But as soon as Ferrand was gone
the new Postmaster-General gave all his thoughts to Napoleon,
and to the imperial cause that he meant to serve with the
sincerest devotion. He stopped the despatch into the provinces of
the Moniteur that contained Louis XVHTs last proclamation and
all the official announcements of the fallen Government ; and sent
off numerous couriers to the Emperor at Fontainebleau, informing
him of the events of the previous day and of the morning, the
flight of the King and his Court. The Tuileries were empty;
they were ready for the Emperor. 324

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
The last signs of life in the dying monarchy occurred in La
Vendee and the southern provinces, under the auspices of the Due
de Bourbon, the Baron de Vitrolles, and the Due and Duchesse
d'Angouleme. As soon as the Due de Bourbon arrived at Angers
on the 14th March, he was surrounded by all the surviving leaders
in the great Vendeen wars; the Comte de la Rosiere, and MM.
Suzannet, de Sapineau, and August de la Rochejacquelein. But
as the news from Paris became more alarming the enthusiasm of
both leaders and people, which had at first been very fervent, began
to decrease. No one dared to give the signal of revolt. The Due
de Bourbon soon perceived that his efforts would be in vain and
the struggle hopeless, and that though a civil war might be begun,
it would come to an end with the first shot, leaving fresh misery
and disaster behind it. He yielded to the representations of the
colonel of gendarmerie, Noireau, who offered to guarantee a safe
retreat for himself and his officers. He accepted forty passports
for his officers, but declined all help for himself, being determined
to owe nothing to the man who had ordered his son to be shot in
the moat at Vincennes. He started off' alone, and went from farm
to farm to a spot below Nantes, where a boat, sent by the
royalists, was awaiting him. A short distance away he found the
ship that was to take him to Spain.
Louis XVIII's Government had counted on Marshal Augereau,
who was in command of the fourteenth military division, to
promote the revolt in the west under the orders of the Due de
Bourbon. Augereau had grossly insulted the Emperor when he met
him upon the road to Valence, on his way to the island of Elba ;
and had written, when announcing the abdication at Fontainebleau :
" the coward did not know how to die ! " When, however, he learnt
that the Emperor had returned to the Tuileries, he hastened,
in the hope of winning forgiveness for his offences, to post a
placard at the headquarters of the division, bearing the following
proclamation to the men under his command : " The Emperor is
in the capital ! The name that so long was a pledge of victory
has sufficed to scatter all his enemies before him. There was a
moment whenxfortune was faithless to him ; and we vowed then to
defend other rights than his. His rights are indefeasible.
Soldiers, during his absence your eyes sought in vain, upon your
white flags, for the marks of honourable deeds. Cast your eyes
upon the Emperor! Beside him are displayed, in renewed
splendour, his immortal eagles. Let us rally beneath their wings,
325

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
for they, and they alone, will lead to honour and victory. Let us
therefore wear the colours of the nation ! "
Need we be surprised? Benjamin Constant, Soult, Ney, and
a host of others acted with equal cynicism and shamelessness.
During the first few days after his return to the Tuileries
Napoleon received, simultaneously, letters from various individuals
to Louis XVIII in which he, Napoleon, was violently insulted,
and letters, with the same signatures, addressed to himself, in
which Louis XVIII, after an interval of two days, was equally
maltreated. When his secretary showed him these letters side by
side, he shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and answered:
" Such are men ! "
The Baron de Vitrolles had determined to establish a royalist
government at Toulouse, where he arrived on the 28th March ;
but in spite of his energy and spirit and faith he was only able to
remain there for a few days, barely a week, until the 4th April.
Everything that it was possible to do he had done ; he had put
himself in communication with the prefects of twenty-seven depart
ments ; had established a Moniteur to be his official organ ; had
appealed everywhere for volunteers to fight the King's battles;
and, when four thousand had offered themselves, he had sent them
to Albi. He then appointed as his Minister of War the old
Marshal de Perignon, who only accepted the office in order to
invest the measures he was meditating with the glamour of his
past fame. Being in want of money, de Vitrolles sent an order to
the receiver-general of Albi to pay the expenses incurred for the
volunteers. The man refused, and de Vitrolles was about to have
him arrested — and shot, no doubt, for he said he must make an
example — when he himself was arrested on the strength of an
order brought from Paris by General Chartran, and was taken to
Vincennes. With him was one of the Due d'Angouleme's aides-de
camp, the old Comte de Damas-Crux ; but that gentleman's talents
being considered too slight to be dangerous, he was set at liberty.
Such was the end of the mock-government of de Vitrolles. He
had not taken into consideration the inertia of men who had
nothing but the public weal to defend.
The Duchesse d'Angouleme's efforts at Bordeaux were no more
successful. She and her husband the duke had arrived there on
the 5th March, after passing through all the great towns of
Central France — Chateauroux, Limoges, Perigueux — amid a
passionately enthusiastic crowd, beneath triumphal arches orna-
326

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
mented with oriflammes and garlands of foliage. At Bordeaux
their carriage had been drawn through the streets by white-robed
girls, while others flung flowers before them as though they were a
religious procession. Everywhere there were demonstrations of
royalist ardour that quite intoxicated the princely couple ; and on
the 9th March there was a great fete at Bordeaux, ending with a
ball, at which not only the duke, but the duchess, appeared with
a beaming countenance. As soon as the entertainment was over,
however, the duke drove off in a post-chaise on the road to Nimes,
to assume command of the army that was intended to prevent
Napoleon's advance. For on the previous day a courier from
Paris had brought the news — hitherto kept secret — of the landing
of the " usurper." The duchess was left alone. " You must keep
all the departments along the coast true to the King," she said to
her husband ; " I will undertake Bordeaux and the departments
round it."" She felt herself energetic enough and brave enough to
rouse all the inhabitants of the loyal towns and villages of
Gascony ; and when Napoleon heard what she had done he could
not help saying that she was the only man in her family. The
princess's hopes, however, quickly yielded to disillusionment.
For news came from Paris to Bordeaux; the news of the
Emperor's unopposed march across the eastern provinces ; the
defection of the troops and their generals, who instead of fighting
Napoleon fell into rank behind him ; his arrival at the Tuileries,
and the prompt formation of his government. The partisans of
the Empire awoke from their torpor, and the regiments of the
garrison wavered — like others elsewhere — and became less sub
missive and less firm in their royalist allegiance. The duchess, in
spite of all her efforts, in spite of all the nights she passed in
writing despatches and reading reports from the neighbouring
towns, was conscious that the enthusiastic frenzy of the preceding
days was losing some of its warmth. She thought that by holding
a review, and addressing the officers eloquently and earnestly, and
reminding them of their oaths, she would recover her influence
with the troops, who were already almost hostile to the Monarchy
of the Bourbons. The troops preserved absolute silence : not a
cheer was raised in her honour. General Clausel had come from
the Emperor to Saint- Andre de Cubzac, where he was preparing to
enter Bordeaux ; and it was he whom the troops now wished to
obey rather than the princess, whose beauty and grace they could
not admire — since she had none — and whose narrow bigotry and
327

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
offensive prejudice in favour of the nobles were all they knew of
her. In her uncertainty as to the good faith of the regiments at
Bordeaux she appealed to the National Guard, and to the volunteers
who had rallied round her on the approach of the Emperor's
representative. She sent these volunteers to defend the bridge and
little town of Cubzac ; but they were repulsed by the first shot
that was fired, and returned in disorder. To fight soldiers she
needed soldiers. She visited the barracks and harangued the
officers. She was met by silence, or by the announcement that
they would not fight their comrades ; that to do so would be civil
war, to which they would never consent. In her chagrin she
adopted a tone of aggression and insult, called the soldiers rebels,
and told them they were not Frenchmen. In her eyes, as in those
of all the Bourbons, a Frenchman was simply a man who recognised
their authority and was willing to sacrifice himself in its defence.
Those who worked, and suffered, and thought, should only do so
for the monarch and his family. For one moment she broke down,
when she realised that no efforts of hers could be of any avail ; but
it was her own fate that moved her, not the fate of the country she
professed to love. " Ah God ! " she cried, " it is cruelly hard,
after twenty years of exile and sorrow, to leave one's country
again ! " No doubt it was hard ; but why had she neglected to
win the nation's love ? Being completely disillusionised, and
realising that she could count on no one and that the National
Guard's enthusiasm would yield to the first serious attack of the
imperial troops, she made up her mind to leave the country ; and
on the 2nd April sailed from Pauillac for Plymouth on board the
Wanderer, an English sloop.1 She was accompanied by Count
Lynch, the mayor of Bordeaux, who had betrayed the Emperor a
year earlier.
Throughout these days of defiance the duchess's efforts had
been seconded by the counsels and proclamations of Laine, the
president of the dissolved Chamber of Deputies. On the 28th
March he published a declaration, in his capacity of president, for
bidding tax-payers to pay their taxes to Napoleon, and enjoining
upon the young men to disregard the recruiting and conscription
laws. This protest, he said, was to be placed among the archives,
1 Baruel-Beauvert, Vol. II., p. 23 : "Some of the people of Bordeaux begged
the duchess to give them tokens of the regard with which she honoured them.
With tears in her eyes she gave them her gloves, her shawl, and the feathers
from her bat The Bordelais folk divided these tokens of confidence between
them " 328

THE REIGN OF THE EMIGRES IN 1814
that it might be safe from the grip of the tyrant. Meanwhile the
tyrant in question allowed him to enjoy his leisure in peace, in the
seclusion of his little country-house near Bordeaux.
The Due d'Angouleme, in the south, was as powerless as the
duchess. He had removed the generals whose zeal seemed doubt
ful to him ; he had replaced them by his friends, his aides-de
camp and gentlemen-in- waiting ; he had gathered a large number
of volunteers round him, and moved several regiments to rein
force his army. None the less he was defeated, and surrounded,
and forced to capitulate. Napoleon could have held him prisoner.
But here again he showed more magnanimity than the princes.
Though they had given orders that he should be tracked down
like a wild beast, though they considered him a mere usurper,
though they never referred to him except as that man, yet he
did not retaliate. He allowed the Due d'Angouleme to remain
at liberty : the prince who was so little of a patriot that he
summoned to his defence the troops of his cousin, the King of
Spain ; x and so half-hearted a Frenchman that he was on the
point of selling Toulon to the English, to procure some money.2
Napoleon, on the other hand, charged Comte Grouchy to protect
the Due d'Angouleme and send him in safety to Cette, whence he
would set sail to Spain. " You must be sure, however," he
added, " to recover from him the funds that were taken from the
public coffers, and to ask the prince to guarantee the restitution
of the crown diamonds, which are the property of the nation."
In this matter, as in every other, the Bourbons were governed
by the spirit of the Emigration.
D'Allonville, criticising the Monarchy after it had had a year's
practice, wrote as follows : " The Monarchy at this moment stands
alone ; it has no hold upon the landed interest, which is too much
divided ; it has no help resembling the abolished corporations,
which always supported the throne. The princes are not beloved,
but ridiculed. The Duchesse d'Angouleme is never referred to
1 Letter from the Due d'Angouleme to the King of Spain. (Moniteur of April 8,
1815). 2 The Due d'Angouleme, who had already taken three regiments away from
me, also wanted those that were at Toulon, and told me through M. de Riviere
that it was his intention to put the harbour into the hands of the English, who
would in return furnish the King of France with money. In this difficult situa
tion I determined, after putting Antibes into a state of siege so as to remove it
from the authority of the prefect of Var, to repair to Toulon, in order to preserve
that town and its shipping for your Majesty.
Report of Marshal Messena to the Emperor.
Moniteur of April 19th.
329

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
except by the nickname of Madame La Rancwne ; and the Comte
d'Artois is called the ci-devant young man. The courtiers who
are so proud of their own restoration are distinguished for
nothing but their rapacious greed for every kind of office, and
for gold. They are a mere drawing-room rabble," he added ; " more
polished, but less truthful than the rabble of the streets ; less
coarse, but more ignoble." The dream of the royal courts of
justice was to become sovereign Parlements again ; and their
jurisprudence would have won the approval of Louis XI and
Henry VIII. The clergy, the only hierarchical corporation still
in existence, were worthy of respect as far as their way of living
was concerned, but did themselves harm by their intrigues and
their ranting. Secret societies multiplied, because they gave
occupation to fools, who are always more numerous than the wise.
The administration was costly and extortionate. Parisian society
regarded the officers in the higher grades of the army as monsters,
and the ministers heaped mortifications upon them. This un
deserved contempt embittered them against the princes. The
national guards that were so universally created preached
democratic doctrines, even in drawing-rooms, where their officers
were received, and brought the habits and language of counter-
jumpers into a society of metaphysicians, and doctrinaires, and
political theoriests : " headstrong folk," says d'Allonville, " whom no
experience can enlighten, who are familiar with books and
ignorant of men, who think that the work of the world is done
by talking and writing : men who are strong when opposing the
weak, and weak when opposing the strong, like Camille Jordan
and Royer-Collard." Side by side with these were the bankers
and merchants, who considered themselves the soul of the State,
though all their thoughts were concerned with money-making, and
called themselves patriots, " though really their interests made
them the merest cosmopolitans."

330

CHAPTER VII

THE FLIGHT OF THE KING

Louis XVIII fled through the night. The sky was gloomy, the
rain beat upon the windows of his carriage, and the stormy dark
ness added to the sadness and discouragement of the King's
thoughts. He was flying, panic-stricken, before the approach of
Napoleon. His advisers had been in such a state of indecision on
the day before his departure, and all his household so demoralised,
that his most intimate correspondence and several objects of value
had been left forgotten in his study.1 Among them was a little
table, brought from Hartwell, at which he usually wrote, and with
it. were the portfolios that held his letters from his relations, from
the princess his wife, and the Duchess d'Angouleme. There were
letters, too, from certain fair ladies of the Court who were in his
good graces, and others containing denunciations from his
courtiers.2 On the tables were books of hours and various objects
1 Letter from Jaucourt to Talleyrand, 14th March, 1815. ". . . . The ser
vants at Fontainebleau are making the place ready for Bonaparte. . . . M. de
Blacas said : ' As you can imagine, this means that there will be a lot of posts to
giveaway.' I said to him: 'Promise them to a hundred different people: it
will not compromise you. ' I still think Bonaparte will take in M. le Due de
Berry, and will get to Paris without fighting. ..."
2 Mimoriai; by Las Cases, Vol. I., p. 212. " The Emperor glanced at some of
these papers. He found some letters from the King to M. d'Avaray. ... He
also found some other very confidential letters from the King, and these too were
written with his own hand. . . . but the most absolutely base, lying, and
villainous records were those found in the rooms of M. de Blacas. ... In most
of these documents the writers praised themselves at the expense of Napoleon,
who was certainly the last person they expected there. . . . Among others was
a long letter from one of Princess Pauline's women. This voluminous epistle was
very uncomplimentary to the princess and her sisters, and painted that man (the
Emperor) in the blackest colours. This was not considered enough. A portion
of it had been erased, and interlined by another hand, so as to drag Napoleon
himself into the matter in the most scandalous way ; and in the margin the same
hand had written : This might well be printed. A few days later, probably, the
little pamphlet would have been published."
331

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
of devotion ; on the chimneypiece were busts of his relations at
Naples, the Bourbons of Italy. When Napoleon arrived, he sent
away the busts and pious books, and spread out his maps and
plans of campaign in their place. The other things were burnt.
As for Blacas, " the great Blacas, the divine count," as de Jaucourt
called him, he contrived to save the wagons that he had filled
with his medals, his cameos, his pictures, and, no doubt, his
millions. De Jaucourt informed Talleyrand of the fact, with all
the more bitterness that he himself had saved nothing ; for all his
possessions in France were sequestered by the Emperor, and he
was only able to carry off 50,000 francs in cash, which, for the
time being, formed his whole fortune.
In spite of all the efforts of his postillions and the great speed
at which he travelled, it was five o'clock in the evening before the
King reached Abbeville, where he intended to stay until he was
joined by his household troops. But Marshal Macdonald and
Berthier, his travelling companions, pointed out to him that the
troops of the surrounding garrisons were not altogether to be relied
on, and might cut off his line of retreat to Lille, and that it would
be safer to hasten on to the great town of the north, where the
prefect, young Simeon, would welcome him enthusiastically. The
princes and the household troops, therefore, were instructed to
proceed to Lille without pausing at Abbeville. Unfortunately, at
Lille, a fresh disappointment awaited Louis XVIIl. Marshal
Mortier and the Due d'Orieans, who were in command of the
town, declared they could not answer for the behaviour of the
troops now that the news of Napoleon's arrival in Paris had
reached them. Far from fighting for the King's cause, it was
greatly to be feared that they would hold him a prisoner. The
marshal advised the King to proceed to Dunkirk, which would be
a safer place for the establishment of a royal residence.
To reach Dunkirk it was necessary to cross the frontier into
Belgium, where the roads were more practicable. It was every
where difficult to secure fresh horses, which were scarce ; and at
Menin the King waited for more than half an hour before his
carriages were ready. An Englishman who happened to be there
offered his services as courier, and arranged, at each posting-house,
that thirty horses should be placed at Louis XVIII's disposal.
Flanders at this time was full of English people, who were hurrying
away in the fear that Napoleon's return would mean a renewal of
the coercive measures of the Empire against them. The King,
332

THE FLIGHT OF THE KING
now that he was on Belgian soil, determined to fly to Brussels ; for
he heard that his guards had been harassed by some imperial
troops, and had only escaped them by taking refuge in Belgium
also.1 It was not without annoyance that Napoleon heard of this
last resolution on the part of the King, whom he had caused to be
followed very closely in the hope of forcing him to cross the straits.
Had he returned to England the event would have seemed like a
new emigration, and he would have been forgotten, no doubt, by
the sovereigns assembled in Congress at Vienna, where everyone
was jealous of the Bourbons.2
The household troops had found the greatest difficulty in
supplying themselves with necessaries on their journey. Their
arrival was unexpected everywhere, and neither lodging nor food
was prepared. Each of them provided for himself as best he could.
The King's instructions had diverted them from their intended
route ; and being, moreover, in a great state of alarm lest they
should come into collision with Napoleon's troops, they had
ventured into the by-roads, which were sodden with the rain that
fell unceasingly. Men, horses, and wagon-wheels sank deeply in
the mire, and were only freed with the greatest difficulty.3 Those
who had been in the ranks of the Grand Army during its retreat
from Russia declared that they had suffered less on that occasion.
When at last the best horsemen, and those who were the best
1 De Reizet's Mimoires, Vol. III., p. 125. "During the journey to Lille the
King was very calm. Indeed he always avoids emotion, which is very bad for
his health. Until now he has always shown, apparently, the most admirable
presence of mind in everything. . . . Would anyone believe that amid the
general disorder (at Lille) the Prince de Conde, who had joined the King, was
sufficiently demented to ask whether his Majesty on the following day, Holy
Thursday, would perform the ceremony of washing the feet of twelve poor people,
in accordance with the old custom of the Kings of I) ranee ? The King looked at
him without a word, and merely shrugged his shoulders. The poor prince is not
always quite clear in his mind. ... In the general flurry the portmanteau was
lost or stolen, and the King was left without shirts or shoes. The whole town
was searched for some slippers large enough to relieve the King's tortures from
gout. His poor feet can only bear soft shoes of enormous size. "
2 Letter from Talleyrand to de Jaucourt, writter from Vienna.
* Lamartine's Histoire dela Restauration, Vol. III., p. 339. The historian gives
an account of this flight. ". . . . The carriages laden with the young and the
old, who were overcome by the unusual fatigues of a long journey ; the luxurious
state-carriages full of the mothers, wives, and daughters of ministers, generals,
and imigris ; the wagons and guns that were mingled with these vehicles ; the
servants and strings of chargers and hunters belonging to the princes, interrupted
and broke up and delayed the regular march of the troops at every step. The
Comte d'Artois, and his son the Due de Berry rode beside the troops, exposed to
the inclement weather, drenched with rain and covered with mud ; and conversed
familiarly with the young men of the noblesse, all of whom they knew by sight
and by name."

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
mounted were able to muster at Ypres, there were only a few
hundred left of the four thousand that had started from Paris.
There, at Ypres, every man was allowed to choose whether he
would return to France or follow the Comte d'Artois. Follow
him whither ? He did not, himself, know the King's destination,
nor which town would be chosen for his residence. Most of the
troops fell back upon Armentieres ; and a few days later, on the
27th March, they were disbanded by order of the Emperor.
The greatest sufferers were the volunteers, youths or old men
who were not strong enough for the weight of musket and haver
sack, and were unaccustomed to these painful marches through
mud and rain, these sleepless nights spent under hedges, exposed
to all the winds of heaven. " I saw," writes the Comte de Baruel-
Beauvert,1 " some of these good, unfortunate servants of the King
returning to Paris. They had come back in small bands, by
different roads. The Comte de Narp returned as he had started,
on foot, with his arms and a haversack on his back. Many of
them were obliged to sleep on straw under the hedges, in their
wet clothes, and they could secure no food but black bread, cheese,
and bad beer."
Meanwhile, on their arrival at Brussels, all the defenders of the
Monarchy, both volunteers and cavalry, were received as allies by
the inhabitants, by order of the King of the Netherlands, and
were billeted upon the town. After a few days of rest Louis
XVIII proceeded to Ghent, his appointed residence, and the
troops to Alost, where the Due de Berry was to form a little army
of the remnant of all those companies that had lately been so
arrogant, so proud of their position as the King's bodyguard, but
were now brought very low. Of the marshals who had set out
with Louis XVIII none but Berthier had crossed the frontier, and
no sooner was he in Belgium than he, too, left the King, to join
his father-in-law in Bavaria, whither he was summoned, he said,
by urgent business. He was simply repeating his treatment
of Napoleon at Fontainebleau. He was incapable of being either
false or true to the end.
It was Louis XVIII's firm and unalterable conviction that he
owed this sudden catastrophe to the secret action of the
Bonapartes. The drawing-room of the Duchesse de Saint-Leu in
Paris, he was persuaded, had served as a secret centre for the
successful conspirators. Joseph in Switzerland, Elisa in Italy,
1 Interrigne des Bourbons, Vol. II., p. 57.
334

THE FLIGHT OF THE KING
Murat at Naples, had all plotted against the restored Monarchy ;
and the sovereigns, urged by Talleyrand, were on the point of
obliging Joseph to retire to Austria, when Napoleon appeared at
Cannes. It did not occur to the King to blame himself; neither
did he blame his servants, ministers, and courtiers for his bad
policy, for his failure to keep his word, and for the insults put
upon the bourgeoisie and people by the emigres and clergy. He
blamed the Bonaparte family for everything ; and this did but
add an additional pang to his fall, which, during these first days
of his exile, seemed to him irremediable. As for Talleyrand, he
was in despair at having written so many frivolous little notes
from Vienna, so many irreverent remarks about the sovereigns, and
at having revealed all the secrets of the diplomacy by which he
meant to serve the ends of Louis XVIII, whose object was to
restore to the Bourbons the territory that the Revolution had
taken from them. He despatched numerous urgent letters to de
Jaucourt, whom he besought to destroy his correspondence. What
would become of him if that correspondence were brought to light ?
How could he dare to face the Emperor Alexander, whose
interests he had injured by forming an alliance between France,
England, and Austria, against Russia ? L The Czar was already
very unfavourably disposed towards the Bourbons. He had hoped
to arrange a marriage between his sister and the Due de Berry.
But all the princes had ignored Alexander's amiable hints. The
princess in question was not pretty ; she came of a royal house
that was of too recent an origin and had not always been of sound
mind; and finally she professed a schismatical religion. Talley
rand's letters, combined with this thinly-veiled refusal, would
be more than enough, he felt, to win for Bonaparte the sympathies
of the Russian autocrat. The diplomatist was uneasy. Matters
turned out otherwise. Bonaparte was left without allies, and
Louis XVIII's minister was skilful enough to keep in favour with
the kings.
The exiled monarch wished to live in the Chateau de Laeken.
1 This is what Talleyrand wrote from Vienna to de Jaucourt in Paris, on the
27th Feb. 1815. " The Emperor of Russia had formally promised me that we
should have his support (in the matter of depriving Murat of Naples). It has
come round to me, however, that in his own circle he speaks in a way that is not
at all in accord with that promise. . . . Indeed, he makes endless difficulties in
everything. When, unfortunately for Europe, Russia meddles in this way in
every concern, and takes a tone of authority, and seems inclined to dictate to
everyone else, it is really deplorable and scandalous that not a single power ex
cept France should dare to object, not even England ; which is content to grumble
about it."

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
The King of the Netherlands refused to consent to this ; and the
town of Brussels being unpleasing to the French King he deter
mined to establish himself at Ghent, where a local magnate, a
member of the good old family of d'Hane de Steenhuyse, offered him
his house. The King reached Ghent on the 30th March, 1815,
at five o'clock in the evening. The Comte d'Artois and the Due
de Berry had arrived two days before him, and were awaiting his
entry into the town. He was dressed in his usual regal attire,
and was seated in a state carriage drawn by six horses. The
burgomaster, Comte Philippe de Lens, accompanied by one of his
deputies, made him a complimentary address at the Porte de
Bruges. The royal carriage was escorted by Belgian and
Hanoverian soldiers ; and the Dues de Raguse and Bellune, who
had just arrived from Paris and were the only marshals that had
emigrated, followed the carriage on horseback.1 In the other
carriages were the Comte de Blacas, the gentlemen-of-the-chambers,
the captains of the guard, and some of the officers of the military
household. The people of Ghent, flattered by the King's pre
ference of their town, welcomed him warmly, and their enthusiasm
was shared by some French refugees from Paris, among whom was
observed the younger Lacretelle, the historian.
It was not the first time that a prince had chosen the Hotel
d'Hane for his dwelling. Others had taken refuge there. The
owner was of sufficiently good birth to make it possible for a
Bourbon to accept his hospitality without loss of dignity. The
house of d'Hane was connected with the Montmorency family;
and their name had figured in the municipal registers since the
fifteenth century. As for the kindly host of the King of France
he was Chamberlain to the King of the Netherlands and Intendant
of East Flanders.
The house was in the Rue des Champs, in the heart of the
town. Without having any air of feudal magnificence it was
sumptuous in appearance : a large building that had been
restored in the preceding century, and was shown to visitors on
account of its fine mural paintings and the floor of Italian
1 " Marshal Victor," writes Chateaubriand in his memoirs, " came to live near
us in Ghent, in the most admirable simplicity. He never asked for anything,
nor ever troubled the King with his attentions. He was hardly ever seen. I do
not know if he ever received the honour and compliment of a single invitation to
dine with his Majesty." As for Marmont, he lived in melancholy solitude in
Ghent ; but, being offended because he had never been summoned to the
councils of the King, he left that town and went to take the waters at Aix-la-
Chapelle. He was overwhelmed with remorse for his sins."
336

THE FLIGHT OF THE KING
marquetry in its great reception room. The King's suite of five
rooms included the great salon with the splendid floor, a bed
room, an audience-chamber, and a second salon, adorned with
ancient tapestry and some very valuable and beautiful porphyry
vases. The dining-room was on the ground floor and overlooked
the street ; and it was here, with the windows open, that Louis
XVIII dined on the first day, in full view of the passers by, who
were amazed at the old man's prodigious appetite. The menu,
long though it was, failed to satisfy it.
The princes were not under the same roof as the King. The
Comte d'Artois and the Due de Berry went to an hotel in the
Place Royale, where they paid a thousand francs a day for them
selves and their attendants. The Prince de Conde had remained
at Brussels, at the Hotel de Bellevue. As for their suites they
were billeted in the town.
In accordance with the advice of de Blacas, who was more
powerful in the second exile than he had ever been at Hartwell
or in Paris, the King determined, before forming his ministry
anew, to protect himself by a very strong system of police. Since
Bonaparte had entered France he had not felt safe. Flanders had
until lately been French, and some of the inhabitants still
favoured the hero of the Revolution, who was the idol of the mob.
It was possible therefore that this place might become the
centre of a conspiracy, the scene of some sudden attempt upon
the King's life, or at least upon his liberty. Once he were a
prisoner he would be kept as a hostage : so the favourite
feared. D'Eckstein, " Blacas' ame damnee,"" writes Fauche-Borel in
his memoirs, was at that time the governor of Ghent for
Holland, and never was gendarme nor sbirro more suspicious,
more meddlesome, or more inquisitive than this son of a
jockey of Holstein. Later on Louis XVIII gave him the title
of baron in reward for his services. He was not wanting in
intelligence, nor yet in education. His knowledge of literature
was wide ; and it was on that account, no doubt, that he won the
sympathies of the old monarch who was himself so distinguished a
scholar. De Blacas had entrusted to this Dane x the protection of
the Court, that is to say the surveillance of every foreigner staying
in Ghent, because d'Eckstein had for a long time during
1 Edmond Bire in his edition of Chateaubriand's Mimoires, has given some
notes on d'Eckstein.
337 z

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Napoleon's reign been connected with the secret societies of
Germany, and was therefore likely to know all the adventurers who
would be willing to sell their services to the highest bidder, what
ever the business in hand might be. The governor of Ghent felt
obliged to justify the favourite's confidence, and was careful to
accuse the most inoffensive people of spying and other misdeeds.
In acting thus he was only following the suggestions of the
courtiers who had gathered round the King to show their devotion,
in the hope of securing a fortune if Louis XVIII should ever
recover his kingdom. The royalists mistrusted each other, and
the prisons of Brussels, declares Fauche-Borel, were full of
Eckstein's victims. These victims were of all sorts and conditions :
generals, lackeys, merchants, women, children, all of whom were
suspicious in his eyes, all spies or agents of Bonaparte, if they did
not happen to be in the good graces of the favourite. Blacas even
wished the Due d'Havre's huntsman to be removed from the
Hotel d'Hane, although he had been for sixteen years in the
service of d'Havre, who knew him to be a perfectly trustworthy
man.1 The King's Council at first was only composed of the gentlemen-
of-the-chambers : the Due d'Havre, the Prince de Poix, the Due
de Luxembourg : all venerable old men, who had been emigres
at HartweU. As for his ministry during these first days, de
Blacas represented him all alone. Soon Comte Francois de
Jaucourt came to reinforce " the divine count," and others arrived
successively ; Beugnot and Baron Louis, with several millions ;
Lally-Tollendal, who was Minister of Public Education, and, says
Chateaubriand, " made speeches that were even ampler and more
swollen than his person ; " 2 Chateaubriand, Minister of the
Interior in place of the Abbe de Montesquiou, who had stayed
in Paris to drink possets ; and the Due de Feltre, Minister of War,
1 Monbreuil, the famous Marquis d'Orvault, arrived at Ghent. He hoped,
doubtless, among all these imigris, to be employed in the same kind of mission as
he had carried out in the preceding year against the Princess of Wiirtemberg, and
against Napoleon. But he was in every respect an adventurer of the most
dangerous kind, and d'Eckstein forbade him to stay in Ghent, and made him go
away as quickly as possible.
2 " He referred," says the famous memorialist, "to his illustrious ancestors the
Kings of Ireland, and mixed up the trial of his father with those of Charles I and
Louis XVI. He sought relaxation in the evening, after pouring out tears and
sweat and words in the Council Chamber, with a lady whose enthusiasm for his
genius had brought her all the way from Paris. He tried virtuously to cure her
but his eloquence was stronger than his virtue, and only plunged the dart still
deeper." 338

THE FLIGHT OF THE KING
who before Beugnot's arrival had administered the Department of
Marine. D' Angles was made Prefect of Police to the discomfiture
of d'Andre, who was at Brussels, waiting to be summoned. The
functions these ministers fulfilled were of course purely imaginary ;
and the absence of work left them with so many empty hours that
they were driven to fill them with gossip and intrigues. Hence
arose the pettiest jealousies, and an atmosphere of sycophancy that
was truly detestable. The Court, says Villemain in his Souvenirs,
was exactly like that of James II, when he was an exile at Saint-
Germain in Louis XIVs reign.
At first the King was quite cut off from the outer world. Even
the French papers were denied to him, being stopped at the
frontiers, and he was deserted by his partisans because he seemed
to be finally dethroned ; but soon he was joined by many royalists,
who had recovered their self-possession in the belief that Napoleon's
power in Paris was shaken. Moreover, they had read the declara
tion of the powers dated from Vienna on the 13th March, in which
Napoleon was put under the ban of Europe. Talleyrand, who had
everything to fear from Napoleon's restoration — life-long exile,
without the least doubt — had instigated and inspired this declara
tion.1 The foreign armies were already far from France, but
at their sovereign's word they retraced their steps and, as soon
as they were all mustered, prepared to invade the country that had
so lately been delivered from them. The ambassadors that were
accredited to the Court of Louis XVIII left Paris one by one, and
repaired to his Court at Ghent. Finally a royalist Moniteur,
the Journal Universe!, was established under the management
of Bertin, who had been forced to give up the Journal des Dibats
in Paris. In this Journal Universel Lally-Tollendal and
Chateaubriand used their pens untiringly to discredit the
Emperor, and to dispute every word of every statement in the
Moniteur of Paris. The future of the Bourbons seemed to be
already secured ; Napoleon's fall seemed imminent ; and this was
the reason of the sudden change of front on the part of the royalists.
1 "One thing that is certain," says Sainte-Beuve, "is that M. de Talleyrand at
the Congress of Vienna did not miss the opportunity of secretly resuming his
habit of trading and bargaining. Six millions were promised him by the Bourbons
of Naples, on condition that he supported their restoration. . . . Difficulties
were raised because Talleyrand, apparently, did not make the agreement with
Ferdinand till after he knew of the decision of the Congress to restore the
Bourbons of Naples. However, to make a long story short, de Perray brought
back the six millions. . . . Talleyrand kissed him for joy, on his arrival. ..."
Sainte-Beuve ; Nouveaux lundis, Vol. XII., p. 80.
339 z 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Thenceforward a constant stream of travellers poured along the
roads from Paris to Belgium to pay their court to Louis XVIII ;
of whom some were persistent flatterers, with no thought but their
own interests, while others had higher motives and were sincere
patriots, whose intention was to inform the King of the sentiments
of modern France, and her desire for peace and liberty.1
Louis XVIII remained unconvinced. He believed himself to be
adored by the French. He had granted them a charter. What
more did they want? Had he not, in the course of one year,
restored to his kingdom not only security but the respect of the
other powers ? In his eyes this first year of his reign was an
indissoluble bond between him and his subjects. But for the
criminal audacity of the "usurper" he would still be in the
Tuileries, directing the progress of the Monarchy. His illusions
were unshaken, and were encouraged by the Comte de Blacas,
whose arrogance was now completely restored, and who held
as firmly as ever to his faith in his master's legitimate right, the
right that the Bourbons derived from their birth and their long
possession of the throne. From Ghent, de Jaucourt wrote to
Talleyrand at Vienna : " De Blacas is quite elated at finding
himself once more in possession of an imigres privileges. He
understands the business ; he is an expert on the subject* Petty
contrivances, petty subterfuges, false confidences, studied phrases —
he does these things to perfection. To do everything, to see
everything, to make the King the centre of his little sphere
of activity — that is all he aims at." Hence arose his great
influence with the King.
The later arrivals, moreover, were not men who were likely to
1 Guizot, who was one of the latter, described in his Memoirs this visit to
Ghent, Vol. I., p. 83. He left Paris on the 23rd May. His exit from the
capital and his journey were effected without difficulty. ... He begged the
King for an audience, which was granted at once : and the impression he re
tained was of the King's combined helplessness and dignity. The King began
by making some amiable remarks to him ; then spoke of his hopes of returning to
France. ' The unfortunate thing,' said Guizot to the King, ' is that those
who believe in the restoration of the monarchy have no confidence in its
duration. . . . The disunion, or at least the lack of cohesion in the ministry, is
greatly feared.' The King did not answer. Guizot insisted. HenamedM.de
Blacas. . . . ' I shall fulfil,' said the King, ' all that I promised in the Charter.
Individuals are of no consequence. How is France concerned with the friends I
have in my palace? . .'On the whole the King seemed to him careful of
appearances, but not very intelligent in deeper matters. Guizot asked to see
Blacas. He describes him as "dignified, but rather stiff," and adds: "lam
very much mistaken if most of his faults are not due to the mediocrity of his
mind." As for Chateaubriand, Guizot appraises him thus: "He wished to be
regarded as Napoleon's rival, as well as Milton's. ..."
340

THE FLIGHT OF THE KING
destroy the royal prejudices that had taken such deep root.
Among them were Comte Lynch, the ex-mayor of Bordeaux ; M.
Deseze, first president of the court of Cassation ; the Comte de
Beurnonville, formerly a member of the provisional government ;
Baron Capelle, prefect of Ain ; the Comte de Vaublanc, prefect of
Moselle ; M. Mounier ; and General Donadieu, one of the Duchesse
d'Angouleme's gentlemen-in-waiting at Bordeaux.1 There were
some of the great nobles of the Court, too, such as the Due de
Levis and Chancellor Dambray — Agnelet Dambray, as De Jaucourt
calls him— royalists who were all in favour of the old order of
things, and violently opposed to the idea of a constitutional
monarchy and a responsible, united ministry. "Many people,"
says Guizot in his Memoirs, " have delighted in laughing, and in
making others laugh, at stories of the dissensions and rivalries,
schemes, and hopes and fears, that were discussed by this handful
of exiles gathered round an infirm and helpless king ; but their
pleasure is neither intelligent nor creditable. It matters little
whether the theatre be large or small, whether the actors
represent a state of good or evil fortune, or whether the sorrows of
humanity be depicted in splendid or squalid forms : the really
important matters are the questions that are argued and the
destinies that are worked out. At Ghent the question under
discussion was how France should be governed when this old King
who had neither kingdom nor troops should be summoned for the
second time to stand between her and Europe. The problem and
the anticipated event were of sufficient importance to be a worthy
subject of discussion for serious men and good citizens."
The Comte d'Artois was not without some influence in the
fostering of this reactionary spirit, which reigned almost supreme
in the King's circle. During the preceding months he had been
ceaselessly preaching a return to the old traditions of the country,
to the view that the King's good pleasure should be the law of the
State. The Comte de Bruges, who had followed him to Ghent,
was as passionate a royalist as himself, and encouraged his opposi
tion to the enlightened men who were determined to influence the
1 Baron Capelle had been prefect of Florence and of Geneva, under Napoleon.
He had been the favourite of Elisa. No one knew the obscure origin of this
excellent man, who was still young and remarkably handsome. He combined
shrewdness with simplicity, and was capable of doing good work in a subordinate
position. (Lamartine's Histoire de la Restauration. ) M. de Vaublanc at that time
had no more than a slight and unacknowledged influence with the Comte d'Artois.
He promised that prince to subjugate the Chambers by his gift of speech, and
the opposition of his resolute will.
341

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
King in the direction of a form of government that should
harmonise with the modern aspirations of France. The Comte
d'Artois bestirred himself, therefore, and hindered rather than
helped the cause of the restoration. As for the Due de Berry he
divided his time between Ghent and Alost, where he reviewed his
little army, which was every day reinforced by fresh arrivals.
Some volunteers had returned ashamed of their previous defection ;
and some of the bodyguard also arrived. Emissaries of the King,
moreover, were placed in some of the Belgian towns, with orders to
establish, as far as possible, communications with the interior of
France. Thus M. de Saillan was at Furnes ; M. Berthier de Bizy
at Courtrai ; M. Gouvello at Tournai ; M. de la Poterie at Mons ;
de Castries at Namur ; the Comte d'Arblay at Luxembourg ; the
Baron de Vassimont at Deux-ponts ; the Comte de Quinsonnas at
Spire ; M. Rcesch at Kelh ; and Comte Gaetan de Larouchefoucald
at Bale. And all these officers were deputed to receive any well-
disposed men who should cross the frontier.
All these intrigues and arrivals, which were the source of endless
discussions at the little Court of Louis XVIII, made hardly any
impression upon his confident serenity. He had faith in his destiny,
and he soon assumed all the regular habits of his life at the
Tuileries. He had, as in Paris, his personal household and attend
ants, his Grand Almoner, M. de Talleyrand-Perigord, and even
his surgeon, the mysterious Pere Elysee, whom he had brought
from Hartwell, and could not live without.1 The King rose at six
o'clock in the morning. He went immediately into his study,
where he opened his letters, read the papers that had arrived from
France, and looked at the reports of his ministers. When this
was done he walked between two lines of bodyguards to another
room, where Mass was read. He breakfasted at ten o'clock. After
this first meal he drove in his carriage along the ramparts, whence
there was a fine, wide outlook, and a great variety of pretty views.
If, while he was driving, says Chateaubriand, he happened to meet
the Duke of Wellington, he nodded to him as he passed. Some
times his greediness prompted him to drive out of the town to a
tavern that was celebrated for a certain dish composed of white
fish, which the people of the country called strop ; but this did not
1 Pere Elysee's real name was Taluchon. He had studied chemistry with the
Brothers of Charity, under Brother C6me. He emigrated in 1792, and went to
England with the Comte de Provence (Louis XVIII) who made him his principal
surgeon. He had been doctor to the Chevalier d'Eon. He died in 1817
342

THE FLIGHT OF THE KING
prevent him from dining at his usual hour, six o'clock. At this
meal he was always good-humoured, always forgetful of his bad
fortune : he sat among his guests with a smiling face, mindful of
etiquette and of the degree of consideration that was due to each,
offering the dishes before him graciously and brightly, and carving
the joint himself with enviable dexterity. Meanwhile a military
band played beneath the windows of the dining-hall, and charmed
the ears of his guests ; and the ladies of the place, who were
allowed to walk round the royal table, gave an additional touch
of ceremonial to the occasion by their presence and their naive
admiration. After dinner the King went upstairs to the salon,
where the card-tables were set out. At the Comte d'Artois' table
the game was whist, which the prince played with the Due de
Luxembourg, the Due de Duras, and M. Beugnot. Louis XVIII's
chair was pushed close to the table that he might watch the pro
gress of the game, at the end of which he would show the excellence
of his memory by naming the cards that remained in the hands of
the players. Baron Louis, a silent spectator on these occasions,
marched about the room with no occupation but his own thoughts,
and, says Chateaubriand, was greatly bored at being debarred from
dealing his " blows with the jawbone," and swore each time that
he would not be caught repeating the experience. At four o'clock,
before dinner, the statesmen of the Emigration sat in council. On
Sunday the council was held after High Mass, which the King
never failed to attend on that day, at the cathedral of St. Bavon.
He repaired thither, escorted by his whole household and the
princes, whose religious fervour, especially that of the Comte
d'Artois, edified all devout Christians.
The presence of this little Court had a very enlivening effect
upon the society of the town, and the young ladies of Ghent showed
a distinct advance in coquetry.1 They were constantly to be seen
in the Kauter — a little park that took the place, in Ghent, of the
Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris — seated in the avenue that bordered
the high road opposite the Grand Cafe. This cafe was the meeting-
place of all the young nobility of France who had followed the
1 De Chateaubriand's Mimoires : " The customary quietness of Ghent was made
more noticeable by the crowd of foreigners who enlivened it at this time, and so
soon afterwards dispersed. Belgian and English recruits practised their drill is
the squares and under the trees of the public walks. . . Politicians might be
seen gesticulating on the banks of a canal, side by side with a motionless fisher
man ; while the imigris trotted from the King's house to Monsieur's, and from
Monsieur's to the King's." 343

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
King ; all the marquises and viscounts who, according to the
memoirs of the day, wore on their heads a kind of cocked hat
adorned with an enormous cockade of shining whiteness, and carried
a long sword protruding from their coat-tails. Conspicuous among
the rest were a few abbes in cut-away coats and round hats, some
officers of various nationalities, some volunteers, and some Parisian
law-students who had determined to cast in their lot with the
King. In the evening the same people met in the theatre, where
Mme. Catalini sang in the operas of Gretry, Nicolo, and Dalayrac.
Pere Elysee, who had a marked weakness for sprightly actresses,
never failed to flutter about behind the scenes.1
Those who were more seriously disposed, or less wealthy, sought
relaxation in the Chateau de l'Ermitage, or the public library. It
was in these almost deserted spots that Chateaubriand tried to wile
away his melancholy. " My refuge from the idle and the vulgar," he
writes, " was in the enclosure of the Beguinage. I roamed about this
little world of veiled or wimpled women, consecrated to divers
Christian works : it was a region of calm, lying like the African quick
sands on the verge of a region of storms. Here there were no incon
gruities to disturb my thoughts, for religious feeling is so lofty that
it is never out of place in the most serious revolutions : the hermits
of the Thebaid and the barbarians who destroyed the Roman world
are not discordant facts, nor mutually destructive personalities. I
was graciously received in the enclosure as the author of the Genie
du Christianisme. Wherever I go, among Christians, the curis
gather round me." Further on he says : " I was invited fairly
often to family festivities at the house of M. and Mme. d'Ops, a
venerable couple who were surrounded by about thirty children
and great-grandchildren. At M. Coppen's house an entertainment
at which I was obliged to be present lasted from one o'clock in the
afternoon till eight in the evening. I counted nine courses. We
began with preserved fruit and ended with cutlets. Only the French
understand how to dine methodically ; as only the French under
stand how to construct a book."
Beugnot, too, has given us in his memoirs some reminiscences
of his exile at Ghent, and though he was no richer than Chateau
briand he describes his experiences with less dejection. He and
Baron Louis, having arrived together, shared a room. The same
servant made their beds, and brushed their clothes, and cleaned
their boots. They dined at the same hotel, with several other
1 Romberg, Louis X VIII h Gand.

THE FLIGHT OF THE KING
Frenchmen, Beurnonville, Mounier, and Capelle, at a charge of
three francs per head ; but their breakfast was a bowl of milk,
and their supper a glass of eau sucrie. They all practised the
strictest economy, in order to avoid the lamentable struggles of
the first Emigration, and the wretched consequences of indulging
in a degree of luxury that they could not maintain. In spite of
this austere life Beugnot and his companions in exile spent some
happy days in Belgium. Baron Capelle organised expeditions for
them, to the country inn where the strop stew was to be found.
Only one of the King's ministers was in a position, owing to his
great wealth, to live in solitary luxury. This was the Due de
Feltre, Minister of War. Beugnot, when he first visited him,
was received in a room that was quite as magnificent and
luxurious as it would have been in Paris. The duke always
drove in a carriage, and had fixed days for giving ceremonious
dinner-parties. This was why Beugnot was so much distressed
by the emptiness of the royal treasury. He was resigned, how
ever ; whereas de Jaucourt and General de Beurnonville never
ceased lamenting this lack of money.1 They appealed to the
Comte de Blacas, who was entrusted with the King's financial
affairs ; but the pay of the troops encamped at Alost, and the
salaries of the great dignitaries of the Court, and the require
ments of the princes, made a large hole every day in the few
millions that Baron Louis had saved. It was a severe shock to
these needy ministers when they learnt that the funds at Ghent
would only suffice for a few months. The Comte de Blacas had
counted on the eight millions, in bills of exchange, that had
been deposited with the banker Perregaux ; but when they fell
due payment was refused in London. What would happen
if Napoleon were not driven out of Paris ? The ambassadors
and consuls were equally loud in their complaints of poverty.
The greater number of them, having no private fortune, begged
to be relieved of their functions, since the royal finances could
not support them nor pay for the maintenance of their
official houses. The future of this little Court, then, was
very precarious, notwithstanding the serene confidence of the
King. In spite of their uncertain situation all the courtiers continued
1 What disturbed Beurnonville more than anything else was the thought that
his sheep were in the hands of Lucien Bonaparte and Carnot. (Lettres de Jau
court & Talleyrand. ) 345

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
to attend Louis XVIII's convocations every day ; and even when
there was no convocation they assembled in the Hotel d'Hane,
in a large room known as the Rotunda, with the ambassadors
accredited to the Court of Ghent.1 As this room opened directly
upon the street they were able to enter it without passing
through the house. Here they read the papers of the day ; here
ministers and ambassadors exchanged the latest news ; and if all
the revelations that were made in this room had been worthy
of belief the second restoration of the Bourbons would not have
been long delayed. All these diplomatists and ministers, how
ever, affected an air of absolute detachment from political events
in Paris, and gave their exclusive attention to the foreign armies
that were marching towards France.2 In the eyes of the
frequenters of the Court Napoleon was simply a brigand, against
whom the whole of Europe was united. To these people a march
upon Paris did not seem to be a march upon France, but merely a
march upon Bonaparte. To oppress the people of France, and rob
them, and exterminate them, was a meritorious work. Those who
supported such a brigand as Bonaparte must be brigands them
selves. As soon as a man left off being a royalist he was not,
properly speaking, a Frenchman any longer.
This was the spirit that reigned supreme in the Rotunda : the
spirit that the ambassadors were expected to exhibit : the spirit by
which the nobles who came to pay court to the King were entirely
governed. This attitude of mind, however, was hidden by the
urbanity of their manners, and the outward courtesy that they never
neglected. As the weeks passed the arbitrary views of the
Emigration had resumed their sway among the exiled aristocrats.
The cries of the mob, far away in Paris, reached their ears no
more. They made common cause, and supported the suggestion of
the Comte d'Artois' friends that a new Pavilion de Marsan should
be established. It became more active, more powerful, and more
unmanageable than in Paris.
In all this disingenuous, small-minded circle there was but one
man who held to his convictions and won respect for them. This
was the Duke of Wellington, on whom the deposed Bourbons
concentrated all their attention and fixed all their hopes. His
1 Beugnot's Mimoires, Vol. XL, p. 348.
2 M. de Fagel for the Netherlands ; General Pozzo di Borgo for Russia ; Lord
Stewart for England ; and Baron Vincent for Austria, were all the ambassadors
accredited to Louis XVIII's Court at Ghent. 346

THE FLIGHT OF THE KING
repution impressed everyone ; his military science was considered
infallible. All the sarcasm of which he had been the object in
Paris during the previous year was forgotten. The arrival of the
famous general made a great sensation in Ghent, and his influence
with the King was sufficient to prevent M. de Talleyrand's recall,
to which the jealousy of M. de Blacas and the reactionary views of
the Comte d'Artois had persuaded Louis XVIII to consent. The
Duke of Wellington combated the enemies of the Prince de
Behevent, who was still in Vienna, by pointing out the bad
impression that this virtual dismissal would make in England.
Talleyrand was the author of the secret treaty, signed on the
3rd January, 1815, by which France, England, and Austria were
combined against Russia. To dispense with him at this moment
would be ungrateful. And who could replace him at Vienna?
Who would have his authority ? Were all the negotiations of the
allied Powers completed ? Had the last word been said ? Was
there no other question to be debated ? Blacas and the Comte
d'Artois were forced to yield. Their day had not yet come.
They had attacked Talleyrand because they blamed him for the
concessions of the Charter, to which they attributed all the
misfortunes of the dynasty. Had it not been for that accursed
Charter the Bourbons' hands would not have been tied : they
would have established a strong government of indisputable
authority, and Bonaparte would never have returned to France,
would never have re-entered his capital, because he would have
found no treacherous officials nor generals there.
The royalists, excited by the news that was spread abroad from
Ghent, continued to flock to the King : prefects, sub-prefects,
officers — everyone whom Napoleon had discarded as incapable
or untrustworthy. The Nain Jaune explained how the fabrications
that emanated from the Hotel d'Hane reached even the most
remote parts of the provinces. " Louis XVIII," it said, " being
unable to furnish any contingent of men to the coalition, makes up
for it by providing agitators, and hawkers of evil tidings.
Napoleon's government is not sufficiently alive to the dangerous
influence of this contingent. It is impossible to form any idea of
it without observing how the agitators work upon the minds of the
public. The salons of all the large towns give the tone. The
spies of the party visit them openly, bringing dispatches from
Ghent; and from each centre these dispatches are instantly
circulated through the province with which it is most closely
347

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
connected. Men in official positions lend themselves to these
infamous practices ; and patriots, perceiving that the Emperor's
enemies are treated with consideration and even favouritism, do
not dare to declare themselves as supporters of a government that
cannot be established on a firm basis by the efforts of one man, if
those efforts be not powerfully seconded by energetic patriots."
The clergy, too, repaired to Ghent : vicars-general hoping for a
bishopric, and parish priests fleeing from the revenge of parishioners
who had incurred their wrath by buying national property. So
great was the general demoralisation at this time that cowardice
passed for honour, and traitors masqueraded as men of their word.
The princes were the centre of attraction, for in them, it was said,
France was incarnate. Those same princes, meanwhile, could be
seen by everyone in their true colours, for the Moniteur published
intercepted letters from which it was plain that they thought of
nothing but vengeance, and the overthrow of the patriots whom
they called Jacobins, and the re-establishment of the feudal laws,
and the predominance of the nobility and clergy over the other
classes of society.1 All these things were the subjects of conversa
tion in the Hotel d'Hane, as were also the contents of the letters
written to the King by MM. Royer-Collard and Becquey,
who had resumed the epistolary confidences of bygone days at
Hartwell. There were also other matters to be discussed. The ambassa
dors received letters from Paris, and reported the impressions of
their correspondents, the trivial incidents in the streets, the gossip
of the salons2 — whence the gaiety was gone — the activity of
Carnot, the intrigues of Fouche, the patriotic ardour of the new
1 The Nain Jaune, to show the passionate feeling displayed by the royalists,
professed to have received the following ironical letter: "My sister, having no
longer any lovers to quarrel with, has fallen out with her children and grand
children. She has sworn never to see her daughter again, because her husband
the colonel did not leave the service after the 20th March, 1815, and she, the
daughter, did not instantly determine to be separated from him : never to see her
son the deputy, because he was not a sufficiently good Frenchman to become an
Englishman : and never to see her brother, the custom house officer, because he
smiled in an equivocal manner when she said (the words have been remembered) :
' I hope the King will raise a good army, and will be careful to have no soldiers
in it.' "
2 An example of this gossip was given in the Nain Jaune for May, 1815. The
conversation, in a certain house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, turned on the
devotion of some aristocrats who had followed Louis XVIII to Ghent, and
refused to return to France. " They have done their duty, they have paid
their debt to honour," said one of the party. " Then it's the only debt they did
pay ! " answered a worthy draper, who doubtless had his reasons.
348

THE FLIGHT OF THE KING
confederates. Mon frond's journey to Vienna, too, was reported at
Ghent, and became the subject of endless conversations. What
was he going to do there ? He was known to be on familiar terms
with Talleyrand. What disagreeable surprise would result from
this mysterious embassy ? 1 Had Napoleon some secret support in
Vienna ? Was a sudden change of front on the part of the
sovereigns to be feared ? Everything was possible ! Napoleon
was so clever ! A letter from Talleyrand to de Jaucourt, dated
April 13th, 1815, came to reassure these distracted folk. Talleyrand
wrote from Vienna to Ghent as follows :
" Monsieur le Comte, two emissaries whom Bonaparte has sent
hither give me the impression that he is in great difficulties ; and
this is confirmed by all the news that comes from France. One of
them, M. de Montrond, arrived here without any despatches or
ostensible mission, being simply instructed to converse with M. de
Metternich, M. de Nesselrode, and myself. His business was to
sound M. de Nesselrode on the subject of the Emperor Alex
ander's intentions ; to ask M. de Metternich whether Austria had
decided to assist, for the second time, in overthrowing the
Emperor's son-in-law ; and to discover from him the intentions of
the Austrian government with regard to the scheme that it is
supposed to have had in March, 1814. Their answers were
everything we could wish. As for me, he asked me if I could
make up my mind to stir up a war against France. I answered
him by the declaration of the 13th, to the effect that a war
against Bonaparte was not a war against France, but was much
more truly a war in defence of France. M. de Montrond was also
instructed to make sure whether the powers were quite determined
to fight. In order that he should be left in no doubt on this
subject he was informed of the treaty of the 25th of March last,
and of the number of troops that are to be immediately employed.
He has gone back to Paris with this information. The second emis
sary sent by Napoleon was M. de Flahaut. He was not allowed to
reach this place. By order of the King of Wurtemberg he was
1 " He was, moreover, known to be one of those shameless traders in political
intrigue who take money from any hand," writes de Vaulabelle, "and sell every
thing and everyone, and are skilled in the art of securing a big place from every
government for their audacity and immorality." When he crossed the French
frontier on his return from Vienna he was seized by some soldiers of the allied
army, and caned by order of a Prussian officer. A few days afterwards he was
dining with some friends in Paris, and his first words were : "I bring the news
of the commencement of hostilities." 349

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
stopped at Stuttgart, and taken to^the frontier. He was bringing
despatches to M. de Metternich and the Archduchess Marie Louise,
as well as to the Emperor of Austria, the Emperor of Russia, and
the King's Embassy. These three letters were probably merely
letters of recall. . . . " Talleyrand."
The ladies of the Court did not emigrate to Ghent. The
Duchesse d'Angouleme was not there. When she left Bordeaux
she had crossed to England, where she remained. She visited
Belgium for a time, however, but she did not settle there — as
though she resented the King's precipitate and unresisting flight.
Bonaparte's startling arrival had taken Parisian society by surprise.
No one had had time to prepare for flight ; so the dwellers in the
Faubourg Saint-Germain contented themselves with shutting up
their great town-houses and burying themselves in their country
chateaux, where they remained lost to sight in the hope of being
forgotten 1 by the Emperor. Only the wives of the most com
promised men had set out, with all possible speed, to London :
the Duchesse de Talleyrand, the Comtesse de Jaucourt, the
Comtesse Hyde de Neuville : and a few others — the Duchesse de
Duras, the Duchesse de Levis, the Duchesse de Bellune, the
Marquise de la Tour du Pin, the Duchesse de Rauzun and her
daughter — whose fears for the future prompted them to seek
seclusion, had followed their husbands to Ghent. " And the
Duchesse de Levis," writes Mme. de Chateaubriand in her
Souvenirs, " was very late in arriving with her husband, who came
so poorly equipped that M. de Chateaubriand was obliged to lend
him everything, including stockings, before he could wait upon the
King. The stockings fitted well enough, but the rest of his
1 This was the course adopted by Pasquier. See Villemain's Souvenirs.
" Pasquier applied to Fouche, who was Minister of Police during the Hundred
Days, for a passport to his chateau at Conflans, near Le Mans. ' Bah ! ' said
Fouche, ' why are you going away? There is nothing like being on the spot. Is
not the course of events interesting and instructive to watch ? . . . I will give
you my view of the matter. It is quite simple. That man has come back
madder than he went away. He is making a great effort, but it can't last
three months. ' It's as clear as daylight, you know. The whole of Europe being
still in arms none of the soldiers were disbanded ; and the kings and ministers
were still in congress. . . . He may perhaps win one or two battles, and destroy
a few divisions of the allies : but he cannot win in the end. ... So you may feel
quite safe, my dear Baron. Go or stay ; use your passport or keep it in your
pocket. The fate of that man is sure, and nine-tenths of his course are run. . .'
Pasquier went away with the conviction — which became more general in
Paris every day— that the re-establishment of the Empire was a phantom rather
than a government on a firm basis. " 350

THE FLIGHT OF THE KING
costume would have done very nicely for the Carnival. The
worthy duke troubled himself as little at Ghent as at the
Tuileries, where his wardrobe was no better furnished. There was
always a deficiency of shoes, for instance. He was supplied with
old shoes by contract, because, he said, he had a wound on his
heel that prevented him from raising the heel of his shoe. Mme.
de Vitrolles, in the hope of saving her husband's life, had remained
in confinement in the Abbaye. She came to Ghent, it is true, to
see Chateaubriand, with a safe-conduct signed by Fouche ; but her
object was to be presented to the Comte d'Artois, from whom she
obtained a document promising eternal gratitude to anyone who
would save the life of the enthusiastic royalist.
The newspaper that Louis XVIII founded at Ghent seemed to
him to be the most striking manifestation possible of the
persistence of his authority and of his monarchy. It was at first
called the Moniteur Universel ; but by the request of the King of
the Netherlands the name was changed to the Journal Universel.
Since the Bourbon prince continued to be King, with a Court and
guards, and an army at Alost, and ministers and ambassadors, it
was necessary for him to have, here as in Paris, an official journal
to record the actions of his government, which had by no means
ceased to exist. He was well supplied with men of letters : the
Bertins and the Chateaubriands, Lally-Tollendal and Laborie,
Mounier and Beugnot. Each contributed his share : and the pro
duction of the paper occupied the empty hours of these men
whose nominal ministries gave them nothing to do. A Minister of
Marine and a Minister of Public Education were hardly necessary
at Ghent. Among the most prominent contents of this paper,
which appeared twice a week, were tidings unfavourable to
Napoleon, the malevolent epigrams of his enemies in Paris, and
the offensive remarks of the liberals. The treaties concluded with
the European Powers, diplomatic notes, political memoranda, the
advance of the allied troops upon France, and the numbers of the
enemy's forces, were also matters that received a good place. At
the end of April a long composition by Lally-Tollendal was to
appear, with the title of The King's Declaration. De Jaucourt
informed Talleyrand of the fact at Vienna ; and this declaration,
" which is very well done, though a little long," added de Jaucourt,
was intended to prepare the way for the King's return to France.
The Duke of Wellington and the English ambassador, Lord
Stewart, opposed its publication, which they thought inopportune
351

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
as long as Louis XVIITs second restoration was still uncertain.
The unfortunate Lally pocketed the "fine pages" that had
seemed so wonderful to Pozzo di Borgo when they were read to
him ; and Chateaubriand, the temporary Minister of the Interior,
came forward in his turn. The illustrious writer, wishing to
avenge his colleagues for the attacks of the Pavilion de Marsan,
which lost no opportunity of slighting the Charter and opposing
its defenders, published his famous Rapport au Roi. It created a
great sensation in France, and was distributed, by order of the
Bourbons, in all the Courts of Europe. It began thus :
" Bonaparte, who by a strange fatality was placed between the
coasts of France and Italy, descended hke a Genseric upon the spot
whither he was called by the wrath of God. He came — the hope
of all who had committed or were meditating a crime : he came
and he succeeded. Men on whom you had showered gifts, men
who wore your orders on their breasts, kissed, in the morning, the
hand that they betrayed at night. These rebellious subjects, these
ill-disposed Frenchmen, these false knights, with the vows that
they made to you still trembling on their lips, and the lily still
lying on their breasts, went off to perjure themselves, so to speak,
to the man who so often made it plain that he himself was a
traitor and a disloyal criminal.
" After all, Sire, this last triumph that is the climax and will be
the end of Bonaparte's career is no great marveL It is not a
revolution ; it is but a brief invasion.
" These sudden catastrophes are frequent occurrences with every
nation that has had the terrible misfortune of being subjected to
a military despotism. The histories of the Byzantine Empire, the
Ottoman Empire, modern Egypt, and the Regencies of Barbary,
are full of such instances. Every day in Cairo, Algiers, or Tunis,
some proscribed Bey reappears upon the desert frontier ; a few
Mamelukes rally round him and proclaim him their chief and
leader. To succeed in his enterprise he needs neither extraordinary
courage, nor scientific tactics, nor superior talent : he may be the
most commonplace of men provided he be also the most wicked.
Prompted by the hope of pillage some more regiments of the
militia declare themselves : the bewildered people tremblingly look
on, and weep, and hold their peace ; the merest handful of armed
men subdue the unarmed mob. The despot advances to the sound
of chains, enters the capital of his empire, triumphs, and dies."
The author then compared the government of Louis XV 1 1 1 with
352

Chateaubriand.

THE FLIGHT OF THE KING
that of Napoleon. He analysed the measures that had forwarded
the King's domestic and foreign policy, and stigmatised as a
calumny the assertion that the Bourbons intended to repeal the
Charter. In his memoirs he has himself quoted the passages he
deemed essential for the support of this statement.
"Sire, you were preparing to complete the institutions whose
foundations you had laid. . . . You had fixed a time for the estab
lishment of the hereditary peerage ; the ministry would have
acquired greater unity ; the ministers would have become members
of the two Chambers, in accordance with the very spirit of the
Charter; a law would have been proposed to allow men under
forty years of age to be elected members of the Chamber of
Deputies, so that citizens might have a real political career. A
penal code was about to be instituted for misdemeanours of the
press, and after it had become law the press would have been
entirely free, for this special form of liberty is inseparable from all
representative government.
" Sire, I take this opportunity of solemnly protesting that all the
ministers, all the members of your Council, are indissolubly
attached to the principles of wise liberty : they have been imbued
by you with that love of law and order and justice without which
there is no happiness for a nation. Sire — if we may be permitted to
say so — we are ready to shed the last drop of our blood for you, to
follow you to the ends of the earth, to share with you all the sorrows
that it may please the Almighty to send you, because we believe,
as God is our witness, that you will maintain the Constitution that
you have given to your people, and that the most sincere desire of
your loyal heart is the liberty of the French. Had it been other
wise, Sire, we should none the less have died at your feet in defence
of your sacred person ; but we should merely have been your
soldiers, we should have ceased to be your councillors and ministers.
. . . Sire, at this moment we are sharing your royal sadness : there
is not one of your councillors or ministers who would not give his
life to prevent the invasion of France."
This energetic display of liberal sentiments may have advanced
Louis XVIII's cause with the constitutional party, but it roused
the fury of the Comte d'Artois' friends, who held convictions of
quite another sort. The Charter weighed upon their minds. The
very name of it was intolerable to them. Of what use had it
been ? they asked repeatedly. Had it won ardent supporters for
the Bourbons? Had all the partisans of the Charter declared
a a

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
themselves, when it came to the point r Did it prevent Bonaparte
from reconquering; the throne ? The Monarchy had no foundation
but the love of the French for their princes and the devotion of
the nobles to the old traditions. It was in these sentiments that a
safeguard against future revolutions must be sought. These
disagreements did not long remain impersonal. The men who
had been responsible for the policy of the government were
attacked, and. seeing that they had ceased to please the most
influential courtiers, sent in their resignation. It was not accepted.
Talleyrand, their nominal chief, should have retired with them :
but this was not in accordance with the King's wishes, nor indeed
was it possible as long as the Congress of Vienna continued to sit.
Of these tribulations of the exiled monarch the general public
in Paris knew nothing; and Napoleon was quite indifferent to
them. In Paris, indeed, judgment had been passed upon the
Bourbons. Men of no definite convictions admitted that before
knowing these princes it had been possible to wish for their
presence, but that after some experience of them a man was
willing enough to let them remain at a considerable distance. On
the other hand, the Court, whose action was confined within the
walls of a single room, was filled with excitement and ridicule and
wrath by the echoes of Parisian news — echoes which reverberated
in the Journal Universel. It was thus that the journal depicted
Paris when all the royalists had emigrated : " Paris still presents
the same appearance. All honest people stay in their own houses.
Commerce is absolutely at a standstill. No one is to be seen in
the public gardens or at the cafes, or even in the streets, except
soldiers who, to judge from their constant vociferations, wish
to stun themselves into forgetfulness." On another occasion it
declared that "of eighty-three prefects only twenty-three have
remained in office, and there are only four who are not changing
their prefectures," And again : " Of twenty-four members of the
General Councd of the Department of Paris, who are nearly all
owners of property and unconnected with any political movement,
fourteen have been dismissed and replaced."' In May this statement
appeared : " Two or three individuals have been seen in public
wearing the bonnet rouge. ' But it was especiallv in the account
it published of the ceremony of the Champ de Mai, at which the
Emperor presided, that spite and bitterness were perceptible
beneath the satire. It was thus that the Journal Universd
described the event : 354

THE FLIGHT OF THE KING
" The play is over. Bonaparte collected for his bivouac of the
Champ de Mai, a rabble of soldiers, sailors, murderers, and dis
honest judges, who by his orders usurped the name of the nation,
even as he himself, without deigning to wait for their suffrages, had
already usurped the august title of Emperor. — Twenty thousand
representatives of the nation, behind whom were fifty thousand
fusiliers, were impatiently waiting to make a free proclamation of
the free election of the Emperor, who had given them permission
to elect him. — Already, on the platform prepared for the new
throne, the princes and dignitaries of the new empire were
assembling. The most eminent among them was Marshal Ney.
Near him was that other marshal (Soult) who, in the performance
of his various roles, founded the monument of Quiberon and
devastated the dwellings of La Vende'e ; who celebrated the obsequies
of King Louis XVI and the resurrection of Napoleon ; who was
Louis XVIII's minister while Bonaparte was plotting and Bona
parte's chief-of-the-staff' when Louis XVIII was betrayed. —
Bonaparte appeared. He seated himself on his throne. His
grand-master of the ceremonies led up the chief commissioners
of the electoral districts. One of the commissioners was deputed
to read an address to the usurper. — The address was read. The
national assembly of twenty thousand men rose to applaud.
Cambaceres proclaimed the result of the votes and his word was
taken for it. Napoleon ordered a herald to proclaim that the
Additional Act of Napoleon had been accepted by the French
nation. He then prepared to take his oath and -receive the oaths
of his subjects ; but he wished this action to be preceded by a
discourse. He made a speech. Then one of his prelates, kneeling,
presented a New Testament to him upon which he committed
another perjury. He required an oath of men who had violated a
thousand. He proclaimed, far and wide, his intention of fighting
the whole world. Then the fathers of families, the husbands, and
the children, whom he is about to send away to be butchered for
the support of his usurped authority, were made to march past his
throne."1 1 More generosity was shown in Paris. The following is from the Journal de
L'Empire \ f May 23rd, 1815. " Louis XVIII is evidently superior to his
brothers and nephews ; but this prince has more education than natural ability.
He knows Horace and Juvenal by heart, but knows nothing of administration.
He understands the Greeks and Romans thoroughly, but does not understand the
men of his own day. His long residence in England gave him some sound ideas
on the subject of representative government, but failed to teach him the art of
355 a a 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
As the days passed by the petty passions of the men who had
rallied round the King at Ghent grew more and more venomous.
Each of them blamed the rest for the fall of the Monarchy ; and
whenever there was no one else to blame they tried to find
an excuse for blaming the Due d'Orieans, who was hving alone
in London instead of with the King. He was accused of conspiring
against the princes of the elder branch, and of wishing to
substitute bis own line for the reigning house. The letter he had
written to Marshal Mortier when he left Lille, fleeing before
Napoleon hke the other princes, excited Louis XVIII's displeasure
and suspicion. " I am too patriotic a Frenchman," he wrote to
the marshal, " to sacrifice the interests of France because fresh
misfortunes oblige me to leave the country." He meant by these
words that he had no wish for civil war, and would not fight, hke
the Due d'Angouleme, in defence of the Monarchy. He was
especially condemned for the words he used to Colonel Athalin :
"Go, Monsieur, and don the tricoloured cockade once more.
I am proud to have worn it, and I would I were able to wear
it again." The courtiers thought these were abominable words to
issue from the pen and the mouth of a prince. Ah., they thought,
it was the same old story : the younger branch was still
jealous of the elder : Philippe Egahte's deceit and craft had
survived him !
None can tell what would have occurred if the catastrophe
of Waterloo had not put a sudden end to the intestine wars of all
these exiles.
governing. Louis XVHI could write a clever newspaper article, and its success
in Paris would give him the keenest pleasure at his lever • but he would allow his
ministers to present the Chamber of Deputies, in his name, with a report that
would lose a hundred votes for the government in one day, and would injure it
fatally in the opinion of the public. . . In short Louis XVIII, such as we know
him, would be a very suitable member of the Third Class of the Institute. I see
in him a man of learning and a good Academician, but I look in vain for a
King."

356

CHAPTER VIII

THE RETURN FROM GHENT

After Napoleon left Paris to join his army, which was now on
the point of marching to meet the enemy, there seemed, says
Villemain, to be a general supension of every-day life in the great
city. Sdence reigned everywhere : the silence that means great
fear or great anger. The people were expecting news of some
kind, but could not tell whether it would be good news or bad.
They dared neither fear nor hope. The first victory, that of
Ligny, seemed a good omen, yet in f.pite of this lifting of the
storm the people still waited in silence. The whole weight
of Europe seemed to be pressing upon France. So great was the
load that the nation hardly breathed.
The prayers of the royalists were secretly given to the Allies :
among themselves this was understood. Without openly
admitting it they greatly longed to see the Emperor, the hated
tyrant, fall from power for the second time. Some of the
Bourbons' partisans met together in the private rooms at Tortoni's,
and drank bumpers of champagne to the future triumph of their
country's enemies.1 In their eyes, as in those of the royalists
at Ghent, the Bonapartists were not Frenchmen. Along the
boulevards, in these days of anxiety, from the Porte Montmartre
to the Chinese Baths, little reading-rooms were arranged in sheds
and tents, and even under the open sky, where all who would
might sit round a little table and read the evening paper by the
hght of a candle-end. To know and to understand was the only
object of life at this time.
In the suburbs the people were more excited and, above all
more patriotic. The moment the men left their workshops they
formed into knots and began discussing the chances of the army.
1 Founder- Verneuil, Souvenirs.
357

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
They put their faith in the heroic courage of the soldiers, and
the genius of the Emperor. And the Federates, the patriotic
associations who owed their existence to Carnot and Fouche and
were under their protection, who had neither arms nor uniforms
but simply wore their blouses, and had been united with the
National Guard lest their ardour should prove too revolutionary
— these Federates, waving their banner, descended upon the rich
quarters of the town, shouting the MarseiUaise at the top of
their voices. In their fear of a fresh betrayal, such as that of
1814, they demanded arms wherewith they might defend Paris, if
the chances of war were again to bring to her walls the foreign
hordes who had defiled them once before.
These noisy processions created much alarm among the prosperous
tradesfolk, who ¦hastened to put up the [shutters of their shops
whenever one or two patriotic volunteers fired a few shots into the
air to show their warlike enthusiasm. These processions became
frequent, especially after the arrival of the Emperor in Paris, when,
as the result of Bourmont's treachery and Grouchy's blunder, the
decisive battle had been lost. Then the Federates gathered
beneath the windows of Napoleon's retreat, the Elysee, and cried
out to him, again and again, to give them arms that they might
avenge the insult of defeat.
Every day was gloomier than the last, for the news came that
some Prussian regiments were surrounding Paris, and that some
detachments of the enemy's cavalry had been met near Chatou and
Versailles. Finally it became known that the Emperor had retired
to Malmaison, and that a provisional government had been formed,
under the presidency of Fouche. This was regarded as a great
misfortune, since Fouche's special capacity was for treason and
intrigue, and a second betrayal seemed inevitable.
The excitement of the people waxed wilder and wilder.
And indeed the scene that was being enacted under their eyes
was a sufficient excuse for them. As in the previous year, thirty
or forty thousand villagers, having been driven from their homes
by the Prussians, had taken refuge in Paris, and were installed
with their families and their carts on the boulevards and tracts of
waste land. From the roofs of the highest houses and the tops
of towers and belfries the horizon was swept by eager eyes,
searching for the enemy's troops and for the avenging army. And
the word " betrayal " was on every tongue. This was the result of
Fouche's tactics. His object was to paralyse the people's will and
358

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
disarm their resistance, and to undermine the moral force of the
army, which was ready to act at the first sign of an attack.
Hirelings and agents of every description, dressed as old soldiers,
firemen, or pedlars, or otherwise disguised, mixed with the men in
the streets and with the regiments round Paris, and declared that
the generals were sold to the Bourbons, that defeat was the
foregone conclusion of any battle that could be fought, and that
it would be much better to capitulate than to fight. Doubts were
instilled into the minds of the generals as to the intentions of the
Chambers and the provisional government : they were assured that
the deputies and peers and heads of the State had every intention
of rallying round the Bourbons, in order to buy forgiveness for
their past crimes by this final act of treachery. The officials,
meanwhile, were told that the troops had lost all confidence in
their officers, and that most of the men were so much discouraged
that they were deserting. In every class of society Fouche was
deliberately fostering defaulters, with a view to forwarding his
schemes. In the early days of July, in spite of the enervating effects of
suspense and lack of news, there was a sudden outburst of popular
feeling in every quarter of the town. From the heights of
Montmartre the crackling of musketry was heard even in the
Faubourg Saint- Antoine. Shouts, and murderous threats against
the traitors, filled the air. There seemed to be some danger of a
street-battle, a popular revolt against the pusillanimity of the
authorities, who were already in a panic, and were preparing to
surrender Paris into the hands of foreign enemies. All the shops
were shut throughout that day, and the National Guard, on being
hastily called out, had the greatest difficulty in restoring order.
Meantime the Prussians steadily advanced. Fouche continued to
pursue his underhand methods: he wished to be a member of
Louis XVIII's ministry. The surrender of Paris to Blucher after
a shameful capitulation, without the slightest resistance, and the
sacrifice of the army, which was forced to retire beyond the Loire,
were the price of this indefatigable traitor's ambition. Paris,
betrayed for the second time, was in the hands of the Prussians,
who bivouacked in the Carrousel, with guns pointed at the palace
of the Tuileries and matches lighted. Napoleon was the prisoner
of the English; the Bourbons would return to France, and
Fouche would be a minister !
In addition to those to whom this feverish, anxious existence
359

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
was life itself, such as the republican or royalist patriots, there
was a class of men who delighted in this state of discomfort and
uneasiness. These were the men who traded in money, the
speculators, who spread false news and raised false alarms with a
view to profiting by the panic of the public or the confidence of
capitalists. This kind of shark exists in every age, and has been
stigmatised by La Bruyere. The disasters of their country are a
matter of indifference to them, if only they can reap some advan
tage. But they have never been so numerous, nor so ruthless towards
their prey, as during these days when Napoleon's fate had just
been decided on the battlefield. On the other hand, there were
some who dreamt, during the stormy sittings of the Chamber of
Deputies, of saving the country by passing the old revolutionary
decrees and depending on the support of the Federates.1
These Federates were regarded by one party as auxiliaries, and
by the other as foes. Among them were artisans who had lived
through the carnage of the Terror, and old soldiers who had
emerged from English hulks or German fortresses ; there were
vagabonds, too, and ruffians, and fanatics, whom Michaud the
royalist regarded with terror. We must also allow, no doubt, for
a certain amount of literary exaggeration in his description, but
with regard to certain districts it was probably accurate.2
" The roads," he says, " were crowded with Federates — a new
kind of Jacobin — who were armed both with speech and with the
sword, and went from town to town rousing the misguided people,
inciting them to pillage, and fanning the flames of sedition and
war all over the country. Every quarter of the capital, every
city, every canton of the provinces, had its own band of tyrants,
who bore the fine title of Friends of Liberty and Patriotism. In
every village informers spent their time night and day in the
pursuit of the virtuous and unhappy folk who were trying to find
some refuge where they would be safe from tyranny. All these
apostles of sedition spoke of the Bourbons' paternal government
with the most insolent irony, and exclaimed in their proclamations :
Woe to the rich, woe to the nobles, woe to the friends of the
1 Durdent, Cent dix jours de regne, p. 59. " The sinister spirit of 1793 inspired
the Chamber of Representatives at that time. It only wished to substitute one
tyranny for another. If it had not been for the intervention of the allies, that is
to say the intervention of force, which baffled its most fatal schemes, we should
then have had a Committee of Public Safety, a Terror, a state of anarchy, all the
old measures of coercion and the old scaffolds."
2 Michaud, Histoire des quvnze semaines, 1815.
360

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
legitimate Kings! They blamed Providence, in offensive terms,
for restoring to us the best of princes. They hated God, because
they had been told that the authority of kings came from God.
Ministers of religion who had prayed for the King of France were
outrageously ill-treated, and forced to pray for the oppressor
of their country. In several towns the horrible scandals of the
Reign of Terror were re-enacted in the sanctuary. A frenzied
mob interrupted divine service, and shouted in the congregation
of the faithful : Down with Paradise ! Hell for ever ! Before the
altars of the God of mercy they swore to destroy those who had
not forgotten His laws, and who spoke with respect of the
monarch who was His most faithful image on earth."
Now, even in those days, to compare Louis XVIII to the
Almighty was going a little far.
All the brochures sold by the booksellers at this time resembled
this brochure by Michaud. The Parisians read them, and were
bewildered and amazed, but continued to await events with
unabated ardour, excitement, hatred, and fear. All the opposed
parties had been in power alternately. Each had taken its
revenge for the humiliations it had endured ; and resentment and
anger and the desire to retaliate were the dominant feelings in
every heart. At the present moment fate was against the sup
porters of Napoleon, who were about to pay for their reign of a
hundred days. The victorious party, indeed, had already opened
hostilities very aggressively. On the 25th June, 1815, when there
was no longer any doubt as to the disaster of Waterloo,1 the Cafe
Montansier, the favourite resort of the Bonapartist officers, was
invaded by an excited mob, who broke the windows, counters,
tables, and glasses. The damage was estimated at sixty thousand
francs. A fight took place between the customers and the aggres
sors, and it became necessary to call in the National Guard to
separate the combatants.
That day was the beginning of a despotic, exacting, merciless
reaction, in which both individuals and theories were the objects
of attack.2 A brochure by the Comte de Montlosier, notwith
standing his strong monarchical convictions, failed to please the
royalists, who were offended by his criticisms. They reproached
1 Desaugiers celebrated the defeat in some impious little verses called the
Fricassie. The indignant Bonapartists wrote to him: "Miserable man, tell
me— in spite of the size of your body — where your entrails are ! "
2 De la Monarchic francaise depuis le relour de la Maison de Bourbon, jusqu'au
1" avril, 1815, by the Comte de Montlosier.
361

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
him for saying that under "the government of Bonaparte the
nobles had been treated with consideration and justice, and some
times with favour, but that their pride was far from being satis
fied : they were irritated because the authorities took precedence
at public ceremonies : and because the prefect, at his audiences,
often summoned the mayor of a canton before a member of the old
nobility ; and because a clerk, when writing the name of one of the
old noblesse, had the stupidity, or the malice, to spell the de with
capital letters ; and because the mayor of a certain village had not
hoisted the white flag soon enough ; and because the prefect had
refused to believe the news in the Moniteur and had suggested
resisting those good Germans and those good Cossacks.'" And the
royalists brought another reproach against him. " In dealing with
the question of rehgion you declare that the French nation detests
priests. You trace the Monarchy back to its origin, to prove that
from the earliest days the spirit of sacerdotalism has been a spirit
of encroachment. You even blame the priesthood for the institu
tion of Advent, the Rogation Days, the Ember Days, and the
Vigils. According to you the services of the Church have been left
to hired singers ; Mass has been said in haste, and regarded as an
honorarium ; and the aim has been to preserve ascendency, not by
piety, but by cleverness. The priests, you add, profess to invoke
Heaven, but put all their faith in the power of men. They secure
the submission of the wives in order to win that of the husbands.
And did you not write further on : As soon as it became apparent
that the King had religious tendencies a plan for promoting pro
cessions was laid before him, with a memorandum on feast-days and
Sundays ? Since this mine of piety had been discovered it seemed
desirable to exploit it." Finally, they took care to emphasise
Montlosier's conclusion, which was heresy in their eyes. " I fear
Louis X VHI is no more truly enlightened than Louis XVI was
before him."
At the end of this month of June, 1815, another brochure forced
itself upon the attention of the royalists : the work of Malleville
fits, deputy for the Dordogne.1
" To refuse to acknowledge Louis XVIII," wrote the young
deputy, " and to call some other prince to the throne, would be an
action hkely to result in serious inconvenience. The allied powers
recognise the independence of the French nation, but their desires
1 Opinion relative aux circonstances prisentes, addressie au gouvernement
provisoire et aux deux Chambres, by Malleville fits, deputy of La Dordogne.
362

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
are centred in Louis XVIIL In their eyes Louis XVIII is still
King. By the treaty of the 25th March they asked him to accede
to the coalition. They have not ceased to be at peace with him.
They have guaranteed to him the maintenance of the Treaty of
Paris, and consequently the integrity of his dominions. On the
other hand, they are at war with every other form of government.
They are bound by no treaty nor declaration. In order to be
recognised a government would be obliged to treat with them ; but
could it hope to secure the same conditions ? However hardly it
was used by them it could not complain of broken faith nor of the
violation of treaties. They would merely be exercising the right
of conquest. They might demand enormous indemnities for their
war expenses ; they might exact fresh guarantees, or cessions of
fortresses or territory. . . . This dismemberment of France could
only take place if we were to persist in rejecting Louis XVIII ; and
by returning to our King we shall make this dismemberment
morally impossible." 1
The royalists, however, were not altogether unanimous in
demanding the instant return of the Bourbons. They had some
very acute grievances against the princes, or at least against
Louis XVIIL There were certain nobles who could not forgive
him for creating a Chamber of Peers, which put an end to equality
between gentlemen. The Chevalier d'Andigne, who was sent into
the provinces as envoy extraordinary, admitted this to de Barante,
the prefect of Nantes.2
The nobles who frequented the Pavilion de Marsan desired an
Upper Chamber, composed of members elected by the nobles
themselves. Since they were all equal among themselves, from the
chevalier to the duke, there was no other way of preserving their
equality intact. The most worthy would have been chosen to
protect their rights against the authority of the Crown, and the
value of this distinction would have been that it was derived from
the choice of an equal and not from the choice of a master. It is
worthy of notice that, at a dinner given on the eve of the return
from Ghent, when there were seventeen peers and one commoner at
the table, the roturier, Founder- Verneuil, was the only legitimist,
all the other guests being devoted to the Due d'Orieans. There
were those, too, at this time, who supported the candidature of
1 See Pasquier's Mimoires (Vol. III., p. 323) for remarks on the writings
published at this time.
2 De Barante, Souvenirs. 363

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
the ex-Elector of Saxony, although he was an old man and had no
heirs ; and others, again, who were in favour of the young exiled
prince who was a prisoner in the Castle of Schdnbrunn.
Such were the thoughts that agitated Paris before the King's
return. But what lies, intrigues, meannesses, effrontery, and
deceptions had been required of Fouche, before the return from
Ghent could be achieved ! He had said to the courtiers when
the King fled : " Save the King : I will undertake to save the
Monarchy." He had kept his word.
Fouche has given us an account of his life, from the time of the
return from Elba to the second abdication that was wrung from
the great soldier ; and this portion of his Memoirs, relating to his
presidency of the provisional government and his complete
abandonment to infamous courses, is the most cynical and at the
same time the most instructive part of the whole book, for it
shows us that this man, whom some of his contemporaries called
" celebrated," was guided by an instinct that was truly diabolical.
He shamelessly confesses his duplicity and treachery, as though
his behaviour were quite excusable ; indeed, he glories in it, as one
who says : See how astute I was in my depravity, and to what a
depth of wickedness I attained ! I dominated circumstances : I
dealt with them as I would : I made them serve my ambition.
No man was strong enough to resist me — not even the man of
genius called Napoleon ! x
His great strength lay in his intimacy with all parties. To the
Jacobins he promised political liberty ; while he assured the
royalists that their persons and property should be respected by
the Jacobins. He had, moreover, in every corner of the kingdom,
private agents in the persons of his lieutenants of police, whom he
appointed himself; and he was able to influence public opinion
through the newspapers, which he kept in his power by the
1 Fouche certainly seemed to glory in the baseness of the tools he bought.
Lavalette in his Mimoires (Vol. II., p. 183) says : "... It was a family party,
but opposite to him (Fouche) a stranger was seated. 'You see that man,' he said
to me, pointing to the stranger with his spoon ; ' he is an aristocrat, he is a
Bourbonist, he is a Chouan, he is the Abbe M. , the editor of the Journal des
Dibats, a determined enemy of Napoleon, a fanatical partisan of the Bourbons.
He belongs to us. ' I looked at the man. At each epithet used by the minister
the Abbe bowed over his plate, with a smile of acquiescence and glee, and eyes
squinting sideways. I never saw a meaner face. Fouche explained to me, as we
left the table, that all the menials of literature belonged to him ; and while I
secretly agreed that all that kind of thing is no doubt necessary, I did not know
who to despise the most, the wretches who sold themselves thus to the highest
bidder, or the minister who boasted of having bought them, as though the
acquisition of such creatures were a glorious conquest."
364

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
distribution of timely subsidies to unscrupulous journalists. No
one had a hold on him, and he had a hold on everyone. During
the Hundred Days the Emperor wished to have him shot, knowing
himself to be betrayed by this minister who flattered him so
shamelessly. He spoke of the matter to Carnot, who answered
truly : " You have but to give the order, Sire, and Fouche will be
shot : but to-morrow you will have lost all your power over the
men of the Revolution, who regard this minister's connection with
you as one of their strongest guarantees." Fouche was spared.
When explaining his conduct, in his Memoirs, he declares that
his only objects were peace and quietness, and the calm enjoy
ment of his fortune. His one desire was to rest from his labours
on his own estate at Pont-Carre, surrounded by his family. It
was for this reason that he forsook his imperial master, when the
latter announced that he intended to effect a revolution in
Belgium, to oblige Louis XVIII to leave the Continent, and to
recover all his lost ascendency. These schemes for overthrowing
the peace to which Europe had become accustomed were far from
meeting with the approval of Fouche, who advised the Emperor
to abandon them, and to take refuge in the United States, where
he would find peace and new honours, and might win renown of
a less ephemeral kind than the fame of his victories. Napoleon
rejected the advice, as may easily be imagined, and from that day
forward Fouche was determined to oppose and overthrow him.
He instantly sent messengers to Ghent to inform the King of his
resolution, begging to be allowed to serve his Majesty, and
promising to bring him back to Paris. He asked for little in
return : all he wanted, he said — as we know already — was to
retire to the peace of his country house, and to have his fortune
guaranteed to him. In addition to this he established relations
with Metternich and Nesselrode, and as he had long been
acquainted with Wellington he informed him, also, of his change
of front. Wellington had an old cause of gratitude to Fouche,
to whom he owed the liberation of one of his kinsfolk. This
relation of the Duke had been held a prisoner in France by
Napoleon's high-handed measures against the English, after the
rupture of the Treaty of Amiens ; and the Englishman, ever since
that day, had shown the greatest consideration for Fouche, whom
he now expected to reveal the plan of campaign of his formidable
foe. To do this had been the intriguer's first thought : he admits
it. If he did not do it openly he adopted a circuitous method
365

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
which made the action quite excusable in his eyes — worthy man !
He entrusted to a certain Mme. D. a letter in cipher which
revealed the Emperor's plans ; and at the same time he sent
orders to the frontier that the lady was to be delayed on her
journey to the English general. This crafty, inconsistent method
is very characteristic of men of Fouche's type, who make up their
minds to reap the benefit of their own misdeeds in spite of every
thing. And, he adds, if I am asked what was my object in acting
thus in opposition to Napoleon, I shall answer, like Corneille's old
Horatius : That he might die !
The Emperor did not die, but he was defeated. Fouche con
trived to persuade the Chambers that his abdication should be
insisted upon. La Fayette, unconscious that he was playing the
traitor's game, supported him on this occasion ; as did also
Manuel, a talented young deputy from the south, whose gift of
fluent and animated speech had brought him into prominence in
the previous year. The Emperor having abdicated for the second
time, Fouche was appointed president of the provisional govern
ment, and so became master of France. He was, however, pledged
to every party. The awakened Jacobins were counting on him,
and dreaming of a new Republic ; certain of the royalists, such
as La Fayette, who were inclining towards the Due d'Orieans,
were profuse in their cajoleries ; while the immaculate royalists
who formed the Court of the old King did not disdain Fouche's
co-operation. Whom should he support ? He suddenly saw,
under pressure of the threatened invasion of the allied troops,
that his wisest course would be to further the plans of the
sovereigns who were marching on Paris. What prince were they
going to favour ? Would it be the Bourbon, the Orleans prince,
or Napoleon II ? It was essential that he should know as soon
as possible. He employed a certain colonel of Neapolitan origin
called Macirone, who had been Murat's aide-de-camp, to bring
him an answer, secretly, from Wellington : and when he was
sure that England, Russia, Prussia, and Austria would set up
no King in Paris but a Bourbon prince — the old King who had
just left Ghent — he forsook everyone else, Due d'Orieans and
King of Rome, and devoted himself entirely to the new restoration
of the Bourbons.
Nor was this all. He had to deceive the government over which
he presided : to make his colleagues believe in his disinterestedness
and patriotism ; to soothe Paris, to delude the Federates, who were
366

Napoleon leaving for St. Helena.

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
on the point of rising in revolt ; to hand over the town to the
Allies without bloodshed ; to remove the army that was being re
organised under Davout and the ardent young generals who were
longing to fight ; and, finally, to make everyone believe that Paris
could not possibly resist an attack by the powerful enemies that
were approaching in forced marches. These obstacles overcome — his
colleagues of the provisional government, the people, and the army,
all deceived and betrayed — it still remained for him to win the con
fidence of Louis XVIII, whose brother he had sent to the scaffold.
Feats that would have baffled an ordinary man were successfully
accomplished by Fouche. When we follow the details of his com
plicated intrigue, which was repeatedly on the verge of failure ;
when we see the suppleness of his mind, and his promptitude in
twisting and turning, and contradicting himself, and giving his
words an air of transparent truth, we cannot, in spite of the horror
inspired by his perpetual treason, his imperturbable hypocrisy, his
unbridled ambition, withhold a degree of admiration for the
powerful brain that never faltered, was never mistaken, and always
attained the precise end at which it aimed. Doubtless, Fouche was
a monster of egoism and treachery : we must necessarily loathe and
despise him. It is with a shudder that we read of the results of
his amazing astuteness : yet his malevolent genius inspires us with
awe. He was unique. To find his equal among ministers who
have served kings and used them for their own ambitious ends we
must seek men hke Cardinal Dubois in France, and Manuel Godoy
in Spain : yet both of these were inferior to Fouche. He had
acquired, in the course of his experience of the dangers of the
Terror, a manner of frigid impassivity that no emotion or surprise
could stagger or disturb. " A face of stone," wrote Ida Saint-Elme.
There was no escape from his magnetic glance : the man's deep and
steady eye disturbed and weakened his interlocutor, who promptly
and invariably surrendered. At the same time his experience of
the splendours of the Empire had given him the art of assuming
an air of amiability and good nature, which served as a cloak for
his sinister practices : the air, not of an aristocrat, but of a
respectable middle-class merchant who had made a fortune honour
ably, and wished to enjoy it. Guizot called him the roui of the
Revolution — a very happy phrase. He had the insinuating manner,
the shrewdness, and the cunning speech of the clever man who
contrives to reap benefits even from evil-doing. When Guizot
wrote that the roue wished to turn himself into a d — d aristocrat
367

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
by becoming one of the King's ministers, he made a mistake.
Fouche knew himself too well to imagine he could imitate the
manners and language of a Richelieu or a Montmorency. He
wished to be the King's minister in order to secure safety for him
self and his goods, which he valued as much as his life. The
pleasures of society and the friendship of the courtiers had small
charms for this man, who was entirely self-sufficing. Guizot aimed
at being just, he said, and he attributed some of the roue's
treacheries to the desire of saving France from fresh misfortunes. Ah
— to believe Fouche capable of disinterestedness and generosity is
entirely to misunderstand the crafty intriguer, who never possessed
the smallest shred of those noble qualities. The knave never
undertook anything save for his personal advantage, in order to be
secured from loss. His whole life bears witness to this fact. He
was never grateful, nor simple, nor upright. When he spared the
people of La Vendee his object was merely to turn some of his
enemies into partisans, or to win credit for the false legend that it
was only Napoleon, and not he, who was terrible and insatiable in
vengeance. Did he ever consider one of his friends when it was
for his own interest to sacrifice him ? Did he not proscribe them
all to keep himself in office, on the 3rd Nivose, and at the time of
the return from Ghent ? To whom, for instance, among all the
Jacobins, did he deal the first blow in 1815 ? To Thibaudeau —
whom only the day before he had flattered and entertained at his
house. Such was Fouche.1
The most arduous and amazing task that Fouche achieved was
the surrender of Paris to the Allies, as a preliminary to the
return ofLouis XVIII, who at that time had few supporters. The
Chambers were hostile to the Bourbons. They feared the vengeance
of the Princes ; and feared, too, that a new reign might result
in the loss of hardly-won liberties. They were imbued with a
tinge of republicanism. They had proclaimed Napoleon II, and
failing him, would willingly have rallied round the Due d'Orieans.
1 Pasquier's Mimoires, Vol. III., p. 310. " M. Fouche had need of the greatest
coolness and callousness to maintain the position he had won for himself. . . .
His reception-rooms contained the most extraordinary assemblage of people :
every man found his own level there, and met both his friends and his opponents.
As for him he went from one to the other with as much ease as if he had had
to use the same language to them all. How often have I seen him come out
of the embrasure of a window, where he had been talking to his old comrade,
Thibaudeau the conventionist, with every appearance of intimacy, and join me
and my friends at another window, where I would speak to him of some
messenger just despatched to Cambrai. ..."
368

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
Moreover, they were by no means disinclined to oppose an energetic
resistance to the enemy. There were among them certain retired
officers who, after inspecting the troops encamped under the walls
of Paris and visiting the defences of the town, had returned full of
confidence as to the result of a battle. On the 30th June Colonel
Bory de Saint-Vincent and some of his colleagues inspected the
outskirts of Paris, and on the following day the colonel read his
report to the Chambers.
"We proceeded," he wrote, "to La Villette, where Prince
d'Eckmiil has fixed his headquarters. Some Prussians are posted
in one or two villages visible in the distance. We advanced
close to their vedettes, and met a number of national guards
and Federates, who were skirmishing on their own account, in
order to accustom themselves to the perils they were longing to
encounter. These intrepid Parisians complained to us that they
were given neither arms nor cartridges, and that their courage was
fettered. Everywhere we were rapturously welcomed. The
soldiers, young and old alike, gathered round us, crying : Liberty
forever! Vive Napoleon II ! No Bourbons! It would be hard,
Gentlemen, to describe to you the scene we witnessed at Belleville.
The whole of the Old Guard was there. At first the men, as they
watched us pass, kept silence: they were obviously anxious. There
had been calumnies current in the army with regard to us, for
several days. The alarm and mistrust that our opponents at home
have been disseminating everywhere, and the apparent ambiguity
of our deliberations, had led the army to fear that, on our lips,
the words national safety and our country might conceal a trap.
But when we assured the troops that you had decided to die in
the cause of our rights an explosion of delight — an infallible
guarantee of victory — burst out on all sides. The shouts of
National independence for ever ! Liberty for ever ! Vive Napoleon
II! raised by both officers and men in their joy at seeing the
tricoloured scarf once more among them, must have been heard
by the enemy. And great as was the enthusiasm of the army, that
of the entire suburban population was no less remarkable. After
witnessing the scene we saw yesterday we can answer for the safety
of Paris. — An invisible hand, a parricidal hand, is bringing
pressure to bear upon us, and upon the negotiations. To that
hand must be attributed the system of discouragement, and lies,
and ambiguity to which you will infallibly fall victims if you do
not, at last, open your eyes. — Do not deceive yourselves. Should
369 b b

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
the elder branch of the Bourbons be successfully thrust upon you,
the head of that branch, however sincere his good intentions
might be, would be unable to carry them out : his advisers would
certainly force his hand. We should be granted a few promises,
which would be broken as soon as the government were strong
enough. All the men who have been fighting for twenty-five years
for liberty, and especially those who have fought during these
latter days, would be regarded as rebels. Their successes and their
misfortunes alike would ensure their proscription. Even in our
hospitals they might perhaps be refused places that would be
given to those who had wounded them ; x and their honourable
wounds, in the eyes of their masters, would be brands of ignominy.
Our enemies must imagine that the men of the Revolution are arrant
cowards. They have placed their hopes on the royalist Vendee :
they do not dream that the patriots may have their Vendee too ! "
On the day that the Chambers learnt these facts they would
have rejected, unhesitatingly, the suggestion that they should
yield at once without the smallest attempt at resistance — that
they should capitulate, and force the army, an army of more than
100,000 men,2 to retire beyond the Loire. Yet this was the result
of the negotiations and measures and ruses schemed by Fouche,
with his own unobtrusive skill. He despatched endless secret
messages to Wellington and Bliicher, and formed special com
missions of the leading statesmen ; and these commissions were
followed by councils of war composed entirely of old marshals,
whose courage and energy were worn out by the campaigns of the
Empire, and whose only ambition was repose. In commissions
and councils of war, in ¦ circumstances where there is a necessary
divergence of opinion, there is apt to be a great deal of discussion
and very few decisions. Fouche, moreover, put the questions in
such a way that the answers were inevitably evasive, and never
definite. The strongest vitality and energy would be sapped
by these methods, the most vigorous manliness enfeebled. Among
1 De Vaulabelle says, on this subject, that six days later the wounded French
soldiers were actually removed from several hospitals in Paris — the Hotel-Dieu
among others — to make room for the enemy's soldiers, English and Prussian.
2 " Napoleon's fall," writes de Vaulabelle (Vol. III., p. 317), " did not involve
that of France. The nation still remained, with its immense resources : — 400
battalions of mobilised national guards, forming an effective force of 250,000
men ; the four bodies of scouts of the Jura, the Var, the Pyrenees, and the
South ; and the three armies of the Bhine, the Alps, and La Vendee, forming an
effective force of 100,000 men, with that valiant army in Belgium, which might
at any moment have been concentrated on Paris, and have attacked Bliicher and
Wellington effectively. " 370

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
a number of men holding different views it is seldom that one can
be found to take the responsibility of decisive action, and win the
support of those who do not think with him.
Meantime the enemy continued to advance. Bliicher assumed a
threatening tone, and without any circumlocution summoned Paris
to capitulate. He wished for the distinction of taking possession,
for the second time, of the capital that had once seemed to him so
formidable. From his headquarters in the palace of Saint-Cloud
he dictated his unreasonable terms. He exacted the most
humiliating conditions, such as the absolute surrender into his
hands of the museums, and of all public property having any
bearing on the war.1
This was Fouche's desire. He had employed all his astuteness
to paralyse the movements of Davout. " Let us have no fighting,'1
he said to all the members of the ministerial commission and
of the Chamber of Deputies. " It would be useless bloodshed.
Sooner or later we should be crushed by numbers and forced
to capitulate ; and if we were reduced to that emergency should
we not be entirely at their mercy ? Leave the matter to me." So
the vigilance of the patriots of the Chamber was lulled to sleep,
and, confiding in his reputation as a man of inexhaustible
resource, they left the fate of their country in his hands.
In the articles of this capitulation, which Fouche, wishing to
conceal his cowardice and treachery, called a Convention, the name
of France did not once appear ; not a single political liberty was
retained ; not a single right of the nation was recognised. France,
hke a prisoner in chains, was handed over, trembling, to the
Allies, that is to say, to the Bourbons. And such was Fouche's
ingenuity that Davout, the commander-in-chief, seemed to be
alone responsible for the disaster. Fouche had gained his ends.
The day came, however, and the hour, when Carnot, becoming
conscious that his colleague was involving the ministerial com
mission in mysterious matters, tried, in a moment of irritation, to
unmask the traitor. Fouche had liberated the Baron de Vitrolles,
and Carnot had just learned that the fiery royalist had been found
deep in conversation with Davout. What was the meaning of
these relations of which the government knew nothing ? Carnot,
in the presence of his colleagues, used the word treason. Fouche
1 Six days after the capitulation, the old veteran, Blucher, taking advan
tage of the ambiguous reference to public property, had the piles of the Pont
d'fena undermined, with a view to blowing up the bridge.
371 B B 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
grew pale, but quickly recovered himself. "Do you mean that
I am conspiring with him ? Well, then, accuse me before the
Chamber. Who is preventing you ? Only, I warn you, I shall
defend myself ! " — " I do not pretend to say that you have an
understanding with M. de Vitrolles," answered Carnot, "but I
think that a more dangerous royalist does not exist. He seems
even to have corrupted honest Marshal Davout himself." — " What,
the Marshal too ! " cried Fouche. " He would be a difficult man
to arrest. Go and take him prisoner at his own head
quarters ! " (De Vaulabelle's Histoire de la Restauration, Vol. III.,
p. 272).
As a result of this altercation it was decided to arrest the
royalist. But de Vitrolles, being warned by his confederate, hid
himself, and succeeded in escaping a term of imprisonment which,
at that crisis, would have been extremely short.
At the entreaty of Mme. de Vitrolles, Fouche, on becoming
all-powerful after Napoleon's abdication, had released the State
prisoner, who had been transferred from Vincennes to the Abbaye.
Fouche had protected him against the Emperor, who, during the
Hundred Days, had determined to hand him over to the military
tribunals, and afterwards to have him shot. Had he not worked
in opposition to the Empire at Toulouse ? said the Emperor.
Was it not notorious that this royalist was one of his most deter
mined enemies ? Fouche succeeded in delaying the effects of the
imperial wrath ; and when the Empire fell de Vitrolles was saved.
He was the very man to serve the purposes of the influential
intriguer who had decided to work for the cause of Louis XVIIL
He was active, energetic, and resolute, and had won the regard
of the royalists by the services he had rendered to the Monarchy.
Moreover, he was intelligent and brave, and well known to the
foreign ministers ; and for these reasons could be of more use than
any other man to Fouche, who kept him close at hand, and pre
vented him from going to Ghent, whither the King's devoted
servant would fain have hastened. In Paris Fouche could keep
an eye on him, and see that his ardent temperament and excessive
eagerness did not entangle him in too many complicated schemes.
Hardly had he left prison before he was making offers to Marshal
de Grouchy, who refused to aid the Bourbons, being a partisan of
the Due d'Orieans. He had even approached Merlin de Thionville,
who had promised him the support of twenty thousand Federates ;
demanding in return, however, absolute guarantees for the liberty
372

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
and rights of the citizen.1 Merlin had broken with the royalist
when he learned that Fouche, of whom he was jealous, was to be
one of the King's ministers. But in the course of a few days of
liberty, de Vitrolles could not distinguish himself by any very
briUiant achievement. The Bourbons were well known : their
vindictiveness was feared. Everywhere the royalist met with
mistrust and indifference. The prevailing feeling in Paris was
lassitude. The King's most powerful ally in this second restoration, and
indeed Fouche's ally also, was the Duke of Wellington. He led
the King back, stage by stage — led him almost by the hand — from
Ghent to Paris. In this way he was carrying out the intentions
of the English government ; for England desired the restoration
of the old King, regarding it as the most certain and effective
guarantee of peace. For twenty years the armies that had opposed
Napoleon had been subsidised by England. This war that Pitt
had declared must be perpetual, and could only end with the death
of the last English soldier and the exhaustion of the public funds,
had plunged the nation so deeply in debt that it was sinking under
the weight of taxation and liabilities. The most earnest and
pressing desire of the English government was to establish a lasting
peace, in order to recruit their finances, and liberate their commerce
from all the embarrassments resulting from the war. Any other
monarch than the old Bourbon, as Wellington said to Fouche's
emissaries, would not be legitimate, but a usurper on the same
grounds as Napoleon, and would be opposed by a line of princes
claiming their rights. The peace of Europe might be disturbed
by the ambition of the new sovereign. Louis XVIII was the only
legitimate King, and the allied powers desired no other to sit upon
the throne of France.
Wellington possessed, in a marked degree, the pride of the
island race. He was obstinate and hard : his ideas were narrow,
but his character was strong, well-balanced, and very cautious, and
he was always true to his word.2 His egotistical, ungenerous
nature, and especially the cold temperament that kept his anger
under control, had the effect of making him always regardful of
the English minister's wishes, and prevented him from going
1 De Viel-Castel, Histoire de la Restauration, Vol. III., p. 314.
2 " His position and renown," writes the Due de Broglie in his Souvenirs,
" formed a strange contrast with the awkward and heavy gallantry he affected
in his dealings with young and beautiful women, and carried, it is said, as far as
they would allow." 373

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
beyond his instructions. He had been ordered not to disregard
the wishes of the French nation. He obeyed. If he succeeded in
bringing the King to Paris it was not force that he employed, but
argument and persuasion. " Yield at once," he said to those who
were sent to discuss the negotiation with him, " since yielding will
be inevitable later on. It is more honourable, and will make a
settlement easy." The Emperor Alexander of Russia was the
prime mover in the first Restoration ; Wellington, equally with
Fouche perhaps, was the mainspring of the second. He succeeded in
reconciling Talleyrand, who was kicking against the pricks at Mons,
with the King, who had turned sulky ; he persuaded Louis XVIII
to part from his favourite de Blacas, who was an embarrassment
to all the partisans of the Monarchy ; and at the last moment he
signified his approval of the royal decision to appoint Fouche
Minister of Police. Louis XVIII was quite aware of the
important part played by the English duke in this second presenta
tion of the crown. He always received him with more gracious
smiles and more eager attention than he accorded to any of his
other visitors. He said one day, when Wellington was inquiring
after his health : " You are my great physician — you have cured
all my ills ! " In the matter of the tricoloured cockade the Duke
even achieved a triumph over the obstinacy of Fouche, who, at
the English headquarters at Neuilly, made it an absolute condi
tion of the King's return. Wellington, with the tone of authority
that victory gives, brought his clearsightedness and common-sense
to bear upon the question, and made the president of the French
government see that the use of the tricoloured cockade, at this
particular moment, was impossible. Before the first Restoration
the King could be subjected to a humiliation of that kind ; but it
was impossible now that the cockade had been used as the symbol
of rebellion. Fouche yielded. He yielded all the more promptly
that Talleyrand held out hopes to him of Louis XVIII's favour.
The King, who had just arrived at Arnouville, would very
probably make him his Minister of Police.

II
Thus Paris was conquered; Paris belonged to the Bourbons.
The head of that House was about to return. France in general,
however, still regarded that monarch as suspect. If there were
374

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
some provinces that were devoted to him there were others that
rose in revolt and would have have none of his government. More
over there were fortified towns whose garrisons remained faithful
to the Emperor, refused to capitulate, and defended themselves to
the death against the allied armies. Conde, Valenciennes, Lille,
Landrecies, and Bouchain obstinately held out against the
foreigners. In the north, however, the people had declared for the
Bourbons, to whom they had given a good reception in the
previous year. The towns through which the King had passed
in his flight three months earlier reverted to their original
loyalty, and lost no time in displaying the symbols of the
monarchy. Cambrai, after two days of siege, received the English
as deliverers. The women, standing on the walls of the fortifica
tions, passed ladders down to the besiegers, whom they helped with
outstretched hands to climb to the top of the wall. At Arras the
arrival of a little band of royalists from Belgium, led by the
Comte de Bourbon-Busset, with a standard embroidered by fair
and noble hands, was enough to effect the substitution of the
white flag for the tricoloured one. In the towns and villages of
Normandy, at the instance of the renegade de Bourmont, to whom
the King had just given the command of the 16th military
division, all the partisans of the Empire were dismissed from their
posts and replaced by officials who had formerly served the
Monarchy. Brittany was more hostile. There the Bonapartist faith was
still ardent. In the great towns — Rennes, Saint Brieuc, Saint-
Malo — the people refused to believe that the Emperor had
abdicated and left Paris, and the demonstrations of the royalists
were quickly suppressed. Bordeaux was sternly kept obedient to
Napoleon by General Clausel, who was in command there. In the
central provinces the artisans and peasants violently opposed the
efforts of certain nobles, who wished the Domine salvum fac regem
to be sung in the parish churches. The eastern provinces, Alsace,
Lorraine, Burgundy, and Champagne were all unwilling to accept
the Bourbons, and resisted the allied troops and the partisans of
the princes with the greatest energy. More than a fortnight after
the Battle of Waterloo Chalons was still obeying General Rigault,
whose forces consisted of a hundred and fifty men and the pupils
of the School of Arts and Crafts. It was only by bursting open
the gates and forcibly removing the palisades that the Russians
375

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
effected an entrance. There was shooting in the streets. Several
of the inhabitants were killed, and others severely wounded. A
prominent townsman, M. Ducauze' de Nazelle, was wounded with a
lance, as he stood, with a white handkerchief in his hand, on the
steps of the town hall, entreating the victors to spare the
inhabitants. The town was pillaged ruthlessly for an hour before
order was restored. Dijon remained in the hands of the officials
of the Empire as long as they were in the town. The people
cried Vive TEmpereur ! to the great horror of the royalist news
papers, which regarded these shouts as sheer anarchy. It was only
on the 9th July when the prefect M. Bercagny, General Vaux, and
the other officials had left the town, that the populace, prompted
by a few leading spirits, were able to give vent to their enthusiasm
for the Bourbons. All the white ribbons in the shops were quickly
divided and made into cockades. As for La Vendee it was in arms
under its old leaders, disputing every inch of ground with the
troops that the imperial government had sent thither, before the
fall of Napoleon. In every corner of the kingdom revolts and
riots were breaking out, either in support of the imperial govern
ment or in favour of the restoration of the Bourbons. Everywhere
opinions were divided : there was no unanimity of sentiment. The
Bourbons had as many enemies as partisans.
Sad indeed, and most desolate, was the spectacle that France
presented from one end of the country to the other ! In this
harvest month of July the crops stood waiting in vain for the
reapers. The peasants and farmers were threatened with ruin;
and ruin would have been followed by famine if order had not
quickly been restored. The memoirs of several men who travelled
through the provinces during these months of June and July give
a heartrending picture of the invasion, and a picture, moreover,
that fills one with indignation, so shamelessly did the women
respond to the advances of the foreign officers. Founder- Verneuil,
who was a notary in Paris, had business that called him to
Touraine. Between Paris and Orleans, he says, the fields were
deserted. The only people he saw were Prussians, who threatened
him with their muskets and demanded his passport before allowing
him to continue his journey. And of course it was necessary
to profess the royalist faith. Whereas further on, in the plains of
Vatan for instance, the reapers he met were devotees of Napoleon,
and insisted on his crying Vive TEmpereur ! Except in the south,
where the populace and rabble sided with the priests on account
376

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
of their hatred for the rich, liberal, and imperialist protestants,
the rustics of most of the provinces always applauded the name of
the great soldier, whom they regarded as their protector against
the exactions of the old seigneurs. At Tours, continues Fournier-
Verneuil, the Prussians were holding a fete in honour of their king.
On the bridge across the Loire there were barriers dividing the
country dominated by the Allies from the country that still
belonged to France. It was no easy matter to pass these obstacles
from the Prussian side, but they were always removed for the ladies
of the place, who begged this favour from the foreign officers.
Their motive, if we may believe the narrator, was not only
curiosity, but vice ; for they and the men of the north indulged
in the most shameless dissipations. As though the occupation
of the country by the Allies did not give the inhabitants
a sufficient experience of the horrors of military slavery, the
women must needs add the disgrace of open profligacy ! A
defeat produces the same effects as a revolution : it demoralises
everyone. The following incident, recorded in the journals of the day,
is no less significant. In a little commune in Loiret a certain
aristocrat called the Vicomte Laugier de Beaureceuil, presented the
pain bini. Some soldiers saw from a considerable distance, through
the open doors of the church, the white ribbons that encircled the
sacristan's basket, and instantly, forcing their way through the
kneeling crowd, they snatched the basket and bread from the
hands of the sacristan, and seized the Vicomte, whom they led
away on foot to Montargis, the headquarters of their general.
Such incidents as this must have occurred wherever the
Bonapartists were conscious of being the stronger party. We
shall see presently how the royalists behaved when they were in the
ascendency, as at Marseilles.
Grenoble did not recognise the King's authority till the 9th
July, nor Anger till the 13th. Macon, Chalon-sur-Saone, Valence,
and Lyons soon fell into the hands of the Austrians. But Lyons,
in spite of everything, was true to Napoleon. Even beneath the
enemy's yoke the people showed their hatred for the invaders,
by disturbances which were aggravated by the sacking of their
officers' houses. Agen and Toulouse hoisted the white flag at the
end of June. Their conversion was easily effected, compared with
that of other southern towns, such as Aries, Avignon, Nimes,
Montpellier, and Draguinan, where the Federates paraded a black
377

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
flag shouting: The Emperor or Death! and especially compared
with that of Marseilles, where blood flowed freely. There,
the struggle between royalists and Bonapartists was horrible and
fierce. At the first news of Napoleon's fall the workmen of the
harbour paraded through the town, shouting with joy. The
irritated soldiers shot them. Foreseeing a fresh collision the
general in command despatched the troops to Toulon in the
night ; and on the following morning the royalists, feeling them
selves safe, turned the full force of their fury on the Emperor's
partisans, pursuing them into their houses and massacring them.
Numbers of them were killed — fifty, according to contemporary
accounts. Henry Houssaye declares the number was two
hundred.1 France had never been in such a wretched state. These
constantly recurring revolutions, these invasions following one after
the other, produced a universal atmosphere of hatred, and desire
for vengeance, and misery, and had as bad an effect on men's
consciences as on their morals. The sacredness of the oath was a
thing of the past. Men who had so easily denied what they once
worshipped would have been ready to swear anything. Moreover,
all Europe was scrambling for the wealth of France, and seeking a
dwelling-place among her fertile fields. The Spaniards established
themselves at Bayonne ; and all the German princes, who had no
business at all in the country, hastened thither none the less, and
took their ease in Paris. No one neglected to profit from the
windfall. All the princes of Russia, Prussia, and even Bavaria,
took up their abode in our beautiful palaces, and were followed by
all the ministers, ambassadors, envoys, and magnates who wished
to regale themselves with the spectacle of our vanquished capital.
But Paris was the town that suffered least from the invasion. The
presence of so many illustrious people gave a profitable impetus to
trade. Even the French nobles began to return, and with them
1 In his last volume, 1815, p. 165, Henry Houssaye has painted a sinister
picture of the Massacres of Marseilles. "... Among the murderers were some
old members of the Jacobin Club of '93. Having killed in the name of the people
they were now killing in the name of the King. The pleasure was the same. A
man who had been a jailer in the prison succeeded in escaping ; his wife and
two children were killed in his place. . . . Maret the carpenter was dragged
from his workshop to the Rue du Tapis Vert, to be shot ; but the crowd thought
it more diverting to kill him by beating him on the head with sticks. Meantime
the houses of Bonapartists were pillaged and sacked. Women danced in rings
round the corpses. . . . The massacre had lasted six or eight hours. There
were more than 300 victims. The people of Marseilles called that day the day
of the farce." 378

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
the high officials who had not desired to throw in their lot with
Napoleon, such as Fontanes and de Pradt. The latter was one
of the first to come back.

Ill
When the news reached Ghent that Napoleon had joined
his army in Belgium the King's circle was plunged into an agony
of anxiety. Louis XVIII assumed an air of dignified impassivity.
At heart he was trembling for his personal safety, and it was
arranged between him and the Comte de Blacas that at the first
alarm he should leave the Hotel d'Hane and embark at Ostend.
Every day the news became more disturbing, and struck terror
into the hearts of the courtiers, who had all been pinning their
faith for the past hundred days to the armies of their foreign
allies. De Blacas saw that the crown diamonds were put into
a wagon, and every man strapped his portmanteau to save
time. The King's attitude remained unchanged, to all appearance.
He thought himself as resolute and firm as his ancestor Louis XIV
at the time of his greatest troubles, because he believed in the
success of his "allies," as he called them. He wished to show
greatness in misfortune, after the manner of all the Bourbon
kings; but he had neither the strength nor the courage to be
truly great in action. His words were solemn ; his deeds were
mean and irresolute. He postponed making any final decision till
a courier should have arrived from Wellington. If the danger
were imminent, if his liberty or his future were threatened,
Wellington would not desert him : this was his firm hope.
Had Napoleon been the victor of Waterloo the Bourbons would
have been finally dethroned. Belgium, incited to revolt by the
invincible conqueror, would have been united to France, and the
little German princes who had been so badly treated at the
Congress of Vienna would have joined the Emperor. The
English army having been annihilated, Blucher's army would have
suffered the same fate, and Austria, always ready for a change of
front, would have joined the side that she dared not oppose, and
would have enforced the return of Marie Louise and the King of
Rome to Paris. The King was acute enough to foresee the
disastrous consequences to himself and his family of a fresh victory
379

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
to the imperial eagles, and he waited, in a state of anxiety that at
last he could no longer hide, for the arrival of Wellington's
courier. On the day of the battle Chateaubriand went out of Ghent with
Caesar's " Commentaries " under his arm. He was walking slowly
through the fields, watching the women as they bent over the
lines of vegetables and pulled up the encroaching weeds, when the
distant sound of guns was borne to him on the wind, which blew
from the direction of the battle-field. " I listened attentively," he
adds in his memoirs, " but heard nothing but the cry of a water
fowl among the rushes, and the striking of a village clock. I
pursued my way. I had not gone thirty yards before the rumbling
recommenced. The sound was sometimes short, sometimes long,
and came at unequal intervals.
"This great battle that was then nameless, whose echoes I was
hearing at the foot of a poplar, and whose unknown victims had
the sound of a village-clock for their passing-bell, was the
Battle of Waterloo." A courier passed, and Chateaubriand
questioned him. " He was in the employ of the Due de Berry,
and came from Alost. ' Bonaparte entered Brussels yesterday,
the 17th June, after a bloody fight. The battle was to
begin again to-day, the 18th June. It is believed that the
Allies are completely defeated, and the order to retreat has
been given.' The courier went on his way, and I hastened
after him. I was overtaken by the carriage of a merchant who
was flying in a post-chaise, with his family. He confirmed the
courier's story."
At the Hotel d'Hane the whole Court was preparing for flight.
As for the King, his luggage was packed into the silk handker
chief that wrapped his head at night, and he was quite ready. As
the evening passed the panic grew, and was increased by the
arrival from Brussels of the Comte d'Artois, who confirmed the
news of the defeat of the English. But on the following day, the
19th June, a despatch from Pozzo di Borgo revived the failing
spirits of the courtiers, and turned the sadness of the previous
night into joy. Napoleon was defeated, and had deserted his
army. The King had merely to follow Wellington's army, which
was once more taking the road to France.
Then the old monarch, being relieved from his fears, resumed
his usual characteristics. His impassivity returned : he showed
himself to be magnanimous, and sent a sum of 500,000 francs to
380

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
the victims of the war. He moreover desired the Due de Berry
to visit the wounded French soldiers in the Belgian hospitals.
Before the victory he had longed for the annihilation of the
French; after their defeat he pitied them, and called himself
their King. This was an instance of the usual inconsistency of
his sentiments, which were never sincere, but always dictated by
circumstances. Wellington wrote to him to follow his army,
step by step, and added to the Due de Feltre, the King's minister :
"We already find the white flag flying above the towns and
villages. The defeat of Napoleon's army is more decisive than it
appeared to be at first. The soldiers are dispersing, in small
bodies, to their own homes. The cavalry and train of artillery are
selling their horses in the districts through which they pass. The
infantry are throwing away their arms and dispersing to their
homes. There are more than two thousand muskets waiting to be
picked up in the Forest of Mormal."
Louis XVIII took his time. After spending three days in
organising his departure he gave a great dinner at the Hotel
d'Hane, at which Marshal Victor, Due de Bellune, was present.
At dessert the King proposed a toast, which showed very plainly
what were his true sentiments in spite of all his professions of
love for France. Certain historians have described the words
of this toast as " unfortunate." They were impious. " Monsieur
le mare'chal," he said, "I never drank to the success of the
Allies before the Restoration. Their cause was righteous, but
I did not know their intentions with regard to France. Now
that they are the allies of my Crown, now that they are fighting,
not the French, but the Bonapartists, now that they are devoting
themselves so nobly to the deliverance of my people and the
peace of the world, we may celebrate their victory without
ceasing to be Frenchmen." Not only were these words the
sheerest nonsense, in which each idea was contradicted by the next,
but it would be hard to mention a country in which the King
had not drunk to the defeat of those whom he called his
subjects — " my people." The whole spirit of the Emigration is
contained in these words. In the old days those who refused
to recognise his claim to the crown, while he was living in exile,
were rebels and brigands who did not deserve the name of French
men. At Waterloo these same rebels changed their name : he
called them Bonapartists, and though he disowned them he was
willing to relieve their wants ostentatiously when he thought by
381

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
so doing to serve his own cause. Hypocrisy could go no
further. During these days of delay the little Court at Ghent resumed
its intrigues against the favourite, seeking to separate him from
his master. The ministers wished, when they returned to Paris,
to be rid of the man whose influence stood between the King and
themselves, and was responsible, they thought, for all the mistakes
committed during the first months of the reign ; the ambassadors
wished to be freed from the constant shadow that haunted the
approaches of the throne ; the Comte d'Artois and his household
wished to see no more of the obstinate supporter of the Charter
they hated. He was attacked and abused by the whole Court.
Moreover the enemies of the Comte de Blacas were backed by a
man he had offended. Talleyrand, to whom the King had been
persuaded by the favourite to refuse a certain mark of favour, had
returned from Vienna, and took his revenge by encouraging the
anger and resentment and hostility that had been accumulating for
a year against that individual. Louis XVIII resisted the storm.
He found the exercise of obstinacy very pleasant. His successive
refusals showed that he really had not ceased to be King, and even
those who were the last to approach him on the subject, of whom
Guizot was one, were powerless against his determination, which
remained firm to the end. He persuaded himself that he had
always acted on his own initiative ; that his favourite had merely
carried out his wishes ; and he saw no reason for parting from him.
All this acrimony would gradually disappear of itself.
The Comte de Blacas was not unmoved by this coalition of his
opponents, but he felt himself master of the situation. He said
to the Comte de Bruges : " Whatever they do I shall stay with
the King all the same, if I wish to." And indeed when Louis
XVIII left Ghent to join Wellington's army the count was still
with him. None the less his determination to keep his friend was
shaken. Before leaving Ghent the King granted an audience to a
deputation of royalists from Lille, who came to congratulate him
on his return. " We shall be delighted to see your Majesty
among us again," they said. " At Lille the people will cry Vive le
Roi ! But — since we owe you the truth, Sire, — they will also cry
Down with de Blacas!'''' These words decided Louis XVIII to
part from his favourite. The Belgian journals published the
following letter at this time. " Monsieur le Comte (de Blacas). —
I owe it to the repose of my few remaining days, to the peace of
382

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
the world at large, and to the advice of my allies, to remove from
my government certain individuals who are very dear to me, among
whom I wish particularly to distinguish yourself. Take with you
into your retirement the evidence of your King's satisfaction, and
the certainty of always being his friend. — From my temporary
residence at Ghent : June, 1815. — Louis."
The parting took place at Tournai. At the last the King was
deeply moved, and could not restrain his tears as he bade farewell
to the man from whom he had received so many marks of devotion :
his consoler in the hardest moments of his exile. De Blacas took
advantage of this moment of weakness. He was going away, he
said, a poor man, and his family was large. Louis XVIII was
capable of generosity when it cost him nothing. " You have in
London, Sire," said the favourite, " the balance of. the money that
we were able to bring away from Paris on the 20th March." —
" Well, take it ! " answered the King. This balance that was
bestowed upon the count in compensation for lost favours
amounted to about seven million francs : seven millions taken from
the public funds. Louis XVIII added the Embassy of Naples to
the gift. The Comte de Blacas bowed profoundly, bade the King
farewell, and proceeded to England to fetch his wife. Beugnot, as
he parted from him, said with compunction ; " I pity the King.
He will miss your companionship. Can you not picture his
isolation among his courtiers without a single friend ? " — " My
dear M. Beugnot " answered the count, " you do not understand
the friendship of kings. I shall be forgotten in a month." He
was only wrong by twenty-seven days, adds Beugnot. Three days
later Louis XVIII had ceased to speak of his friend. He had
replaced him by a young man called Decazes, who had formerly
been Madame Loetitia's secretary and was now a judge of the
Court of Appeal in Paris : a good-looking man with a pretentious,
time-serving, ambitious nature, whom Talleyrand likened to a
hairdresser's assistant.
The King, after he left Ghent, travelled with the Due de
Feltre and his Chancellor, de Dambray. He advanced step by
step, as Wellington's army cleared the way for him. It was in
vain that he summoned Talleyrand : that wily individual had no
intention of making himself too cheap, nor of returning without
imposing conditions. As soon as he arrived at Brussels from
Vienna he received the intriguers of the moment, and proceeded
383

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
to criticise everything that had been done both in Paris and at
Ghent, and to foretell the future like an oracle. The months
he had lately spent among all the diplomatists of Europe, and
the secrets of the Congress of Vienna, with which he seemed to
be laden, lent great weight to his words. When he learnt that
the Court had reached Mons he repaired thither himself.
Chateaubriand, with whom he was on intimate terms, urged him
to wait upon the King. Talleyrand answered that he never did
anything in haste : the next day would be soon enough.
Chateaubriand, full of zeal, thought it necessary to make excuses
for the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and told Louis XVIII that
Talleyrand was not very well, and was unable to pay his respects
that evening. " All the worse for him," answered the King ;
" I am starting to-morrow at six o'clock in the morning." His
tone was quite unconcerned. Chateaubriand conveyed to the
minister the impression he had received, but Talleyrand remained
unmoved. Louis XVIII, who was now dependent upon Wellington,
had few thoughts to give to the diplomatist. He had ordered
his berline for an early hour in the morning, and was already
seated in it when Talleyrand, who had hastily risen on hearing
of the King's movements, appeared at the door and begged for
an interview. Louis XVIII allowed the horses to be backed,
for the carriage had actually started. He alighted, in much
irritation at the delay, and Talleyrand limped into the inn after
him, in no better humour than the King. The tone of the
interview was bitter. The early hour, the homely surroundings,
all the circumstances of this inopportune visit, tended to increase
the acrimony of the two men. Talleyrand laid great stress, in
the brief time that was allowed to him, on the most suitable
place for the King to await the restoration of order in the
revolted provinces. He advised Lyons, on account of its
proximity to royalist Provence, which showed itself so worthy
of the confidence that had been placed in it. The suggestion
failed to please Louis XVIII, who at that time took no advice
except that of the English general. He broke up the conference.
" Since you are ill, Monsieur de Talleyrand, you ought to take
the waters. Set off at once. You can let me know how you
are getting on." And he departed, leaving the minister dum-
founded by this royal graciousness. Talleyrand recovered from
his surprise with difficulty, and joined his colleagues, the other
ministers. They did not accompany the King to Cateau-Cambresis,
384

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
where Wellington had just arrived and had established his head
quarters. The King, having no advisers but the Due de Feltre and
Dambray, acted at this time upon the most unfortunate
suggestions. After the Battle of Waterloo the following words
had appeared in the Moniteur de Gand, from the pen of the
editor, or de Jaucourt, or Lally-Tolendal — it matters little which,
since they expressed the views of the little Court. " On the 18th
the bloody and obstinate battle that began on the 15th ended
in the happiest way for the allies." The passage concluded with a
reference to " Bonaparte's army, the army that has ceased to be
French in all but name, since it has become the terror and scourge
of the country." This was another version of the toast proposed
to Marshal Victor ; a eulogy of the foreign troops and a compliment
to their courage ; and an insult to the French army, at a time when
the German papers were crying out for the extermination of the
French, and demanding that the whole nation should be outlawed.1
At Cateau-Cambresis there was fresh insistence upon the hateful
division that cut the nation in two, classifying the French people
as good or bad. The King drew up a proclamation there, giving
expression to the odious thoughts of Dambray's mean mind. It
contained a threat of vengeance, which was calculated to have
quite another effect than the pacification that was so greatly
needed at the moment, when the passions of the whole country
were already raging. The King announced that on his return to
Paris, the good would be rewarded, but that he would put into
1 Extract from the Mercure du Rhin, No. 280, March 15th, 1815 : " We were
wrong to consider the French : we should have exterminated them all while we
were in their country. But do not let us delay to carry the war thither once
more, and let us remember that we have to deal with a nation which has too often
shown that law and order are incompatible with its existence. Let us remember
that we have to deal with an army which has been educated in rapine, pillage,
and notorious wickedness, and since it has forced us to take up arms again, may
its last hour have struck ! "
From No. 210, March 19th, 1815 : "Yes, this band of 500,000 brigands must
be exterminated : all Europe must take up arms against them, nay more, must
declare war against the whole nation, and outlaw this entire disreputable popula
tion, since war is a necessity to sin, which cherishes it as its favourite mistress,
to whom nothing is sacred."
FromNo. 210, April 2nd, 1815: " If we have just reasons for wishing Napoleon,
as a prince, to disappear from the political scene, we have equally good reasons
for annihilating the French as a nation. To attain this end it is not necessary
to kill them ; it will be sufficient to give them a number of princes, but no
emperor, and to organise them after the fashion of the German people. There
can be no peace for the world as long as the French nation exists. Let it be
changed, then, into peoples of Burgundy, and Neustria, and Aquitaine. They
will tear each other to pieces, but the world will have peace for centuries."
385 c c

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
execution the existing laws against the guilty. Wellington would
have disapproved of this proclamation had he known of it. He
had just received from London, from the ministers who were
directing from a distance this greatly-desired restoration of the
Bourbons, a despatch expressing a wish that a King of France,
before entering Paris, should promise pardon and forgetfulness to
his subjects. But among all these prejudiced, irritable courtiers,
who were embittered by exile and knew nothing of the passionate
devotion to Napoleon that existed in the suburbs of the capital,
there was no one to be found to recommend mercy and generosity
to the King. There was no one to speak the truth to him, or to
open the hearts of his subjects to him by prompting him to approach
them magnanimously. The English duke knew what the King needed
at this critical moment : the counsels of a man versed in the
language of diplomacy. Talleyrand was the man. But Talley
rand held out no hopes of his arrival on the scenes. Wellington
wrote to him, explaining the urgent need of his presence at Louis
XVIII's side, and begging him to come with his colleagues to Cam-
brai. The duke was about to enter this town, either with the
consent of its inhabitants, or by force.
Talleyrand, after thinking the matter over, had regretted his
sulky behaviour to the King at Mons. Though there was, as yet,
no rupture between them, it was quite possible that all the conflict
ing ambitions and intrigues might produce a rupture when the new
ministry was being formed : and he had not worked so perseveringly
to keep his place in order to be robbed of it at the eleventh hour.
He yielded to Wellington's wishes. He and his colleagues hastened
to cross the frontier, and arrived at Cambrai in time to receive the
King. This entry into Cambrai, whose royalist inhabitants had
welcomed the English with enthusiasm, recalled the most striking
demonstrations of the first Restoration. All the bells were set
ringing: the streets were decked with flags and garlanded with
flowers. A hundred girls, dressed in white, were formed into
choirs to do honour to the princes. This royalist intoxication, the
songs of joy, the movement and the noise, caused great delight to
the courtiers and military household of the King, and gave them
very false ideas. They imagined that it would be the same every
where, and that the legitimate princes had only to show themselves
to reawaken the devotion of the people. So firmly did they believe
this that, when the proclamation of Cateau-Cambresis was
386

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
examined in the council held at once in the presence of the King
and princes, and the ministers opposed it as impolitic and over-
violent, Louis XVIII and the princes felt themselves strong enough
to defend it. This they did on the grounds that it was a necessary
means of checking the plots of which they had, they declared, been
the victims : plots that would be revived, unless severe methods
of repression were adopted. Generosity of sentiment would be
mere gullibility. With the exceptions of Dambray and the Due
de Feltre, who had helped the King to compose the reprehensible
proclamation, all the ministers, fortunately, were agreed in firmly
opposing the publication of so ill-conceived a manifesto. It was
finally decided that a fresh draft should be discussed on the follow
ing day ; and Beugnot drew it up during the night. This time it
was the Comte d'Artois who arose in his wrath against the sub
stance and the terms of the new manifesto, which he regarded as
unworthy of a monarch addressing his subjects. Why — it actually
referred to the mistakes of the government and the counsels by
which it had been led astray ! Was it himself who was blamed in
this thinly disguised fashion ? Talleyrand had the courage to face
the prince, and accuse him openly. The Due de Berry, with his
usual violence, broke into the discussion, and in defending his
father would doubtless have compromised himself by some indis
creet action if the King had not checked his exhibition of temper.
This animated quarrel, however, served the cause of the ministers.
When a few words had been modified, and a few para
graphs revised, the new proclamation was signed by the King
on the 28th June, 1815, and disseminated wherever the royal
authority was recognised. If it left much to be desired it held out
definite hopes of a moderate policy, by suppressing the measures
that had brought about the fall of the dynasty on the 20th March.
The two Chambers, of deputies and of peers, were to be
preserved -1 no one was to be punished except the instigators and
originators of Napoleon's return ; the owners of national property
1 The following are the most important passages in this proclamation : —
"The King to the French Nation. The gates of my kingdom are opening before
me. I hasten to bring back my errant subjects ; to palliate the ills I would fain
have prevented ; to stand for the second time between the French and the allied
armies, in the hope that any regard of which I may be the object may redound to
the good of my subjects. This is the only part I have been willing to take in the
war. I have not allowed any prince of my family to appear in the ranks of the
foreigners, and I fettered the courage of such of my servants as were able to rally
round me. Now that I am once more on my native soil I am glad to speak
confidentially to my subjects. When I first returned to them I found that the
minds of the nation had been disturbed and carried away by conflicting passions.
387 C C 2

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
were not to be molested ; the ministers were to be conjointly
responsible to the Chambers. These concessions surelv were
enough to satisfy the majority of the enlightened pubhc, who
desired the establishment of a parliamentary government. More
over, Talleyrand was appointed President of the Ministry, which
gave him much satisfaction. As first minister he would be not
merely influential but omnipotent, he imagined, when he, too, made
his entrv into Paris. Soon he would be driving up to his own
house, and having all the windows opened in the rooms that had
been shut up for months, and breaking the seals that had been
placed there by Napoleon's orders. This was the first-fruits of his
submission to the King.
During the davs that followed, he made common cause with
Wellington, and the other distinguished foreigners, and the Comte
d"Artois, and the Faubourg Saint-Germain, to secure Fouche's
appointment as Minister of Police. He was the man of the hour,
said Talleyrand. No man was so well qualified as he to keep order
in the streets, and assure safety to the royal family. It may seem
strange that Talleyrand, himself a man of ability and as well versed
as Fouche in the state of pubhc opinion in Paris, should have
desired so formidable a colleague : a man who was as crafty and
evasive as himself, and was very likely to put obstacles in the way
of his exercising his authority as he wished. For the political
ideals of these two men differed greatly. Fouche's active share in
the Revolution had given him a permanent tendency to subordinate
the royal authority to the will of the nation. The latter should
be the sovereign power, to which the King should be obedient.
Wherever I looked I saw nothing but difficulties and obstacles. It was only
natural that my government should make mistakes ; perhaps it made some. . . .
There are times when the purest intentions are not a sufficient guide : they
may even lead one astray. Experience alone can teach. It shall not be thrown
away. I desire everything that may save the country. ... I promise, I who
-have never promised in vain — all Europe knows it — to pardon the French who
went astray for all that occurred between the day I left Lille amid so many
tears, and the day I entered Cambrai amid so many acclamations. — But the blood
of my children has been shed, through a betrayal that is unexampled in the
annals of the world. By this betrayal the foreigner has been brought into the
heart of France. Every day I hear of some fresh disaster. It is my duty then,
for the dignity of my throne, for the good of my people, for the peace of
Europe, to exempt from pardon the instigators and originators of this horrible
plot. They will be singled out for the vengeance of the law by the two
Chambers which I propose to reassemble immediately. — Frenchmen, such are the
sentiments that I have brought back to your midst, the sentiments of one whom
.time has not changed, nor misfortune wearied, nor injustice crushed. — The King,
whose fathers reigned over yours for eight centuries, has returned to consecrate
his days to your defence and consolation. Given at Cambrai on the 28th June,
1815. Louis."
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THE RETURN FROM GHENT
He approved of every kind of political liberty, which he regarded
as a right of the individual. What he had been twenty years
earlier, he still was ; and such was his opposition to Talleyrand's
ideal of government that each of the two men, who knew each
other thoroughly and had no concealments between them, despised,
detested, and respected the other, and admired the evil genius that
had placed him in the distinguished position he enjoyed.
Talleyrand, on the other hand, had no convictions. As a grand
seigneur who had been led astray, and was now in an aristocratic
Court peopled by uncompromising old nobles, he desired above all
things to make his own position secure ; as secure as it would have
been if he had never served Napoleon. He was burdened with
such a load of past dishonours for which to win forgiveness, of
peculations to hide or live down, of treasons to whitewash, that he
wished to have someone at hand who was oppressed by more
crushing memories and crimes than his own, and would, by com
parison, lighten the weight of his own reputation. If Fouche
were one of the King's ministers, if Fouche were received at Court,
if Fouche were recognised by all the great nobles, surely he,
Talleyrand, would be more welcome. He was a renegade priest :
so was Fouche. He had taken part in the Due d'Enghien's execu
tion : Fouche was a regicide. And he, Talleyrand, had one
advantage over the bourgeois of Nantes : he had the perfect
manners, the courteous language, the smile, the ease of the grand
seigneur, which won him the goodwill of women. After all, what
did it matter to him if Fouche were made a minister ? Why should
he be more fastidious than the nobles and ambassadors and princes
who were pushing Fouche into the ministry ? It was not he that
would be dishonoured by the appointment ; it was not he that
would before long be blamed for the disgrace of it ; and it was
even a comforting thought to him that the very highest rank was
no guarantee against weakness, since the King himself was about
to commit this act of egregious cowardice. It was alleged that
none but Fouche could restrain the Federates, who were at this
moment making a great uproar in Paris. Talleyrand was well
aware — knowing Fouche and the means employed by the ex-Jacobin
to rouse or soothe the anger of the mob — that at the back of al]
the agitation and tumult the police were to be found, and that, if
it had not been for Fouche, the Federates would have been quiet
at the end of a few weeks. There was at this time an irresistibly
strong feeling in the man's favour, even among the most determined
389

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
aristocrats. The Bailli de Crussol said to Beugnot : " You see,
my dear Beugnot, we of the Faubourg are old folk. We have
suffered enough. We must have a guarantee against the return of
the Revolution, and that is what no one but Fouche can give us.
Once he is Minister of Police we shall sleep comfortably in our
beds." Since the desire was universal in the world of Society,
Talleyrand had no mind to oppose it. He despatched to the King
the most beautiful and intellectual women, such as the Comtesse
de Narbonne, who went all the way to ArnouviUe to lay before
Louis XVIII the advantages of appointing Fouche. And while
the King was waiting there, to make sure that it would be safe for
him to enter Paris, Talleyrand took Fouche to see him — vice
escorted crime, as Chateaubriand said.
A few pages farther on in his memoirs the illustrious writer
adds : " After all, how could anyone imagine that such a man
could be of use ? He should have been left behind the scenes to
reflect over his sad experience : but to commit such an outrage on
the Crown and the pubhc as openly to summon such a minister
to the government — a man whom Bonaparte at that very moment
was abusing for his infamy — was a frank repudiation of liberty and
virtue. Is a crown worth so great a sacrifice ? It was impossible
after this to reject anyone. Who could be excluded when Fouche
was accepted ? "
From Cambrai Louis XVIII, following the route that Wellington
was opening for him, proceeded to Roye, a little town in the
department of the Somme. He advanced slowly behind the
wagons of the Enghsh army, wishing to invest his journey with
as much dignity as possible. Majesty moves slowly. Moreover
he felt that if he were too close to the foreign armies he would
be regarded as their ally, or even as a hostage, and it might be
said that without their help he would never have been restored
to the throne of France. Alas ! he was not surrounded on this
journey by peasants, artisans, nor bourgeois, but advanced side
by side with the Enghsh : and except for the cheers of a few
enthusiasts and the insincere compliments of the courtiers, there
were none but foreigners to welcome Louis XVIII as he entered
the gates of the Tuileries, after passing through the ranks of
the Prussian grenadiers who were bivouacking in the Carrousel.
To patriots like Hyde de Neuville this sight was so painful that
the joy of the occasion was quite overpowered. It was in the
deepest dejection and distress tbat they bore their King company —
390

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
the helpless King who had failed to defend his crown, and only
recovered it because there was no other prince whom it suited
the policy of England to support. As for the monarch who
was still merely a King-elect, he made several confidences on
this journey which showed that, in spite of his assumed gravity
and regal pomposity, his mind was far more preoccupied by the
pleasures of the table than by any painful circumstance what
ever. While dining at Lihus he described a certain dish of
excellent rabbits, perfectly cooked, which he had eaten in his
youth. He was in great glee because the innkeeper had promised
him the same dish for dinner. A few moments before, he had
been quite unmoved by the trouble of a peasant woman whom
his carriage had passed on the road. To listen to her tale, and
show sympathy, and give alms, would have been a lengthy matter,
and would have delayed his dinner. He preferred to shut his
eyes ; for this glutton's appetite was greater than his generosity.
Seated among the ruins of her home, a cottage that was still
glowing and smoking from the fire by which it had been wantonly
destroyed, was a woman in tears, holding two little children in
her arms, — and the King had gone on his way without pausing.
He had passed so quickly, said the unhappy woman. It was
left for Beugnot and one of his colleagues in the ministry, who
were following the King, to take pity on the luckless creature and
give her some money.
At Roye Louis XVIII received an emissary from Fouche, a
judge named Gaillard, an ex-Oratorian and a friend of the
regicide. He brought a letter, written by Fouche in his capacity
of president of the provisional government, a letter composed
with great skill, being calculated to alarm the King and prepare
his mind for important liberal concessions, which would give the
intriguer an advantage over his former co-religionists.
" Be very certain," he wrote, " that the French nation in these
days sets as great a value on its liberty as on its own life ; and
will never feel itself free unless it has, over and above its powers,
rights that are equally inviolable. Did we not have, under your
dynasty, States General that were independent of the sovereign ?
Sire, you are too wise to await events before making concessions.
They would then be harmful to your interests, and might even
need to be more extensive. Concessions made now will have the
effect of reconciling different parties ; they will tend to peace, and
will strengthen the authority of the Crown. Concessions made
391

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
later on would only prove its weakness. They would be wrung
from you by disorder. The feeling of the public would be as
bitter afterwards as before."
The impression made by this letter on the King's mind was
revealed to no one. Who can tell ? — perhaps the regicide owed
to it his appointment to the ministry. If it did not contain a
threat it was at least an urgent demand for liberties of which at
that moment, it was believed, the concession could only be
postponed by Fouche.
From Roye Louis XVIII, who was in a hurry to hear the resound
ing plaudits of the capital — which were freely exaggerated — and to
return to the Tuileries and his Court and his guards, and, in short,
to be truly King, proceeded to the Chateau d'Arnouville, a place
belonging to the Machault family, at a distance of three leagues
from Paris. This did not separate him from Wellington, who was
installed at Gonesse. Wellington still seemed to him to be his
safeguard and support. At Arnouville he held his Court ; and
thence he despatched to Paris his nephew the Due de Berry, who
was to enter the town incognito, and bring back his impressions.
The prince reported that the central districts were quite quiet,
and the boulevards and Champs-Elysees as crowded with fashion
able women and idlers as they had ever been. As for the suburbs
he had not visited them. He did not know that the people were
tearing down the Cambrai proclamation from the walls ; nor that
the working-men were uttering yells of rage against the generals
who had made no resistance, but had admitted the foreigners by a
shameful capitulation. At Arnouville, then, there was no more
anxiety. The courtiers were beginning to arrive, moreover ; the
royalists, in search of favours, appeared on the scene with
their most charming smiles and their most profound bows. A
considerable number of national guards, said the Debats, went
to pay their court to the Comte d'Artois and the King. De
Vitrolles came out of the hiding-place whither he had escaped
when Carnot tried to compass his arrest, and was one of the
first to fly to the arms of the princes, who embraced him
affectionately. De Vitrolles tells us that there were soon so many
courtiers at Arnouville that, in the salons leading to the King's
private room, it was impossible to put one foot before the other.1
1 One of those who came was M. de Barentin, the father-in-law of the
Chancellor. Beugnot says of him in his memoirs : " That good M. Barentin
explained to the King as best he could, and consequently not very well, his visit

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
What amazed the ardent royalist more than anything else was the
apparel of the men who had been in Ghent : of Chancellor
Dambray, who wore a little round hat and riding boots ; of
Chateaubriand, whose Damascene sword — which he had brought
back from the East — was attached to his side by a substantial red
band worn over his frock-coat. De Vitrolles was invited to dinner.
The meal was served in two rooms, with sixteen places at each
table. After dinner the King gathered his guests round him, and
the conversation turned on subjects of a dispassionate nature, such
as the incidents of the life at Ghent, with digressions into
literature and the drama. The old King never laid aside his
pedantry for long. It is very likely, too, that this aloofness from
the events of the moment, and the prevailing subject of thought
was deliberate on his part. He intended, perhaps, to prove his
strength of mind, by neglecting serious affairs and laying stress on
trifles. De Vitrolles records, in this connection, an astounding
incident. Etiquette and ceremonies were far more important to
this feeble monarch than were all the sorrows of France. One
cannot picture Henry IV, nor Louis XIV, discoursing on the
erasure of a word while the capital was in the hands of troops
who were almost barbarians ! 1
On the following day Fouche was to swear fidelity to the King,
to whom he was to be presented by Talleyrand. "The ex-
Oratorian, otherwise styled H.E. the Due d'Otrante," wrote de
Broglie in his memoirs, "a monster, as disgusting as Barrere,
covered with blood, gall, and mire,2 performed his latest and, we
may be sure, his least treacherous action, in taking the oath
between the hands of the son of St. Louis." Fouche being
Minister of Police, Talleyrand wished to replace Chancellor

to Bonaparte during the Hundred Days, with a view to the restitution of his
goods. He slurred over the subject of the oath. "I did not exactly swear," he
said— "jen'ai pas pricisiment juri." " Tentends," answered the King; " vous
avez jurotti. At your age one only does things by halves. "
1 De Vitrolles, Mimoires, Vol. III., p. 117. While at Arnouville the King
begged the Baron de Vitrolles to write to General Dessolles that he was to resume
the command of the national guards of the Seine. De Vitrolles says : " When I
had finished, and had written : God hold you in his holy and righteous keeping, I
took the letter and laid it before the King. He read it, and told me the word
righteous should be reserved for persons with titles, whom the King addressed as
cousin. To others one should simply say: God hold you in his holy keeping.
The King, having made this slight correction, signed the letter, and I counter
signed it."
a Pozzo di Borgo, when he saw Talleyrand and Fouche leaving Arnouville,
remarked : " How I should love to hear what those lambs are saying ! "
393

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
Dambray in the Ministry ol Justice by Baron Pasquier ; to keep
the portfolio of the Interior for Pozzo di Borgo ; to give Beugnot
the Post-Office, which had been taken from Ferrand ; and to make
Marshal Gouvion Saint-Cyr Minister of War. The Due de Feltre,
who at present held this post, had ceased to give satisfaction,
being useless or incapable. Louis XVIII made no objection.
Without a word of protest he permitted the sacrifice of three
ministers, who were quite as capable as the men that replaced
them. They had followed him to Ghent, risking their comfort
and their fortunes for him. It mattered nothing to him. At this
moment the admission of Fouche to the ministry was the only
important affair. And yet, in spite of his indifference to the
opinion of his relations, in spite of the unanimous approval of
his advisers, who saw in Fouche the saviour of the Monarchy, it
was not without a shudder that he entrusted the police of
his kingdom to the ex-Jacobin. He who would fain have been
served by none but the greatest nobles, who admitted to his
friendship none but the scions of the most ancient houses, would
be obliged to receive into his own circle this suspicious character,
this insignificant bourgeois, the son of a baker, a man steeped in
crime and in the blood of the King's own brother, Louis XVI !
His consent, as he said to Talleyrand, was an outrage on the
principle of legitimacy. And indeed he never, in the presence of
his courtiers, addressed a word to the man whom he consented, as
a concession, to call the Due d'Otrante ; nor would the Duchesse
d'Angouleme ever remain in the same salon with Fouche. When
she saw him she left the room.
When Beugnot, instructed by Talleyrand, laid before the
King the ordinance that reconstituted the Ministry of Police
Louis XVIII, after giving it one glance, threw the paper aside and let
his pen slip from his fingers. Beugnot adds : " The blood rushed
to his face, his eyes grew sombre, and his whole figure collapsed as
though he were overcome by some fatal memory. The conversation,
which had been so easy and pleasant a moment before, was
suddenly interrupted by a melancholy silence, which lasted for
several minutes. Then the King said with a profound sigh:
' Come, come — the thing must be done ! ' He picked up his pen,
but before beginning to write he paused again, and uttered
these words : ' Ah ! my unhappy brother, if you see me now you
have forgiven me already ! ' As he spoke the tears were streaming
from his eyes, so that the paper was wet."
394

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
Chateaubriand, in his memoirs, has recorded his conversation
with Louis XVIII after this appointment. Urged by the King, who
insisted upon hearing his undisguised opinion, the great writer
said that from that moment it was all over with the Monarchy.
"I think so too," said Louis, according to Chateaubriand.
Lamartine gives another version of the interview. He declares
that Chateaubriand's persistent efforts to prevent Fouche's appoint
ment exasperated the King to such a degree that he ordered him to
leave the room. Which of them is to be believed ?
Talleyrand had secured for the new ministry the services of an
imperial official, who, after having been very much devoted to
Napoleon, had become hostile to him. This was Pasquier, who,
supported by Cambaceres, had been admitted to the Council
of State as Maitre des Requites : Pasquier, whom the Emperor had
afterwards made Prefect of Police. He was at this time nearly
fifty years old. He came of a parliamentary family, and was
deeply imbued with the beliefs of the old jurists, who always had
more faith in words than in deeds. To talk, but never to act ; to
examine a question from every point of view, but never to come to
a conclusion ; to argue and discuss and debate, and pursue the
appearance of things while neglecting the reality : such, say his
contemporaries, was the nature of the new minister. But he
possessed the virtues that were the natural outcome of his faults.
He was fluent and quick in repartee, and very cool in argument,
which made him a formidable opponent. His temperament,
in short, was that of a lawyer : he was faithful to the institutions
he served, but felt little enthusiasm for the men who employed him.
It will not be waste of time to become more closely acquainted
with him, for he succeeded in winning an important position under
the Bourbons and the House of Orleans. Cormenin has left
us this portrait of him : " Anyone who ever saw him entering
a drawing-room — with his tall figure perfectly upright and still
supple, his somewhat small but well-poised head, his mobile
countenance, which was vivacious rather than impressive, his quick
gestures and graceful bearing — and, seating himself beside a lady,
lean his head carelessly against the back of his chair, and cross his
long legs, swinging one of his well-shod feet with aristocratic
ease; or, if he were inclined to take the trouble of making him
self agreeable to the whole party, standing before the fireplace and
charming his audience with his fluent, attractive speech, his
shrewd judicial mind, his felicitous evergreen memory, and its
395

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
store of facts both grave and gay, of racy anecdotes, or touching
reminiscences, and mingling, with a rare charm of expression and
idea, earnest and tender thoughts, pleasing fancies and serious
theories. . ." Yes, indeed, anyone who ever witnessed this entry
into a room, these vivacious conversations with women, or these
animated monologues before the fireplace, must have seen that
nothing pleased Pasquier so much as talking ; and to these fine
talkers nothing is so repugnant as action.
Pasquier was much the same as others of his type.

IV

The royalists who hastened to Arnouville in such large numbers
took with them all the news from Paris ; but in Paris no one knew
what was taking place on the outskirts of the town, nor where the
King was. Yet de Vitrolles, on his return from Arnouville,
had assumed the management of the Moniteur, insisting that
Sauvo, the editor, should continue to fill that post ; and between
them these two composed the number that appeared on the
morning of July 8th, announcing that the King was to arrive that
very day at three o'clock, by the Barriere Saint-Denis. This
number also contained the names of all the ministers,1 and
announced that General Dessolles was reinstated in the command
of the national guards, and M. de Chabrol in the Prefecture of the
Seine. Great was the astonishment. The royalists had been kept
quiet by the violence of the Federates. The people, having been
parted from the army by the capitulation, had perforce resigned
themselves to the triumphal entry of the Prussians. The
provisional government was dissolved ; the assembly-hall of the
deputies was closed. Paris was no longer her own mistress, but
belonged to the invaders. Bliicher, in the first place, and
Baron von Muffling, the Prussian Governor, reigned there by
1 They were as follows : Minister of Finance, Baron Louis ; Minister of War,
Marshal Gouvion Saint-Cyr ; Minister of Marine, the Comte de Jaucourt ;
Minister of Justice, Baron Pasquier, who at the same time filled the post of
Minister of the Interior, which was being kept for Count Pozzo di Borgo;
Postmaster-General, Comte Beugnot ; Minister for Foreign Affairs, M. de
Talleyrand, Prince de Benevent ; and Minister of Police, M. Fouche, Due
d'Otrante. 396

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
right of conquest. Guns had been placed at the end of the
bridges, and the Prussian regiments were bivouacking in the
streets till they could be billeted in squads upon the inhabitants.
This state of things was worse than a siege. The King's
return seemed to hold out hopes to the Parisians of "some relief
from this reign of the sword. The King was an improvement on
this. Such was their private opinion ; and the announcement
in the Moniteur seemed a satisfactory compensation for their
sufferings. There was no very great stir in the streets, however, that
morning. The symbol of the Monarchy was the white cockade,
yet in nearly every hat the tricolour was to be seen. No one who
did not wear the three colours was allowed to enter the gates of
Paris, which were guarded by the urban militia. But events took
the course they always take in popular demonstrations : the few
who are enthusiastic at the beginning invariably infect the rest.
Since the King was coming back the King must be welcomed.
The commercial quarters, which had the best reasons for remem
bering the Bourbons, set the example. The shops were closed ;
the streets were decked with flags ; and the people streamed in
their best clothes towards the barrier of the Porte Saint-Denis.
The Prefect of the Seine, M. de Chabrol, repaired thither to
welcome Louis XVIIL
The old monarch set out from Saint- Denis, where he had spent
the night after leaving Arnouville. The road to Paris was
crowded, as it had been the year before, with carriages of every sort,
laden with women and children, and all who wished to see this
return that had been so suddenly announced. The sky was cloudy ;
the heat overpowering. There was no storm, however, and in the
evening, when the sky had cleared, the people's demonstrations of
joy were full of animation. None the less the enthusiasm was not
to be compared to that of the previous »year. The King's
carriage remained closed ; he was surrounded by his gentlemen-
in-waiting ; for in spite of Fouche's assurances he dreaded the
outbreak of some riot from which, perhaps, he would not escape
without injury. Other carriages, similar to his own, followed
and preceded it, containing the courtiers who had returned from
Ghent with the King ; so that it was difficult to recognise him, or
to know the right moment to cheer. The Comte d'Artois rode
on the right of the procession, the Due de Berry on the left,
and the whole group was surrounded by two squads of bodyguards,
397

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIIl
sword in hand. Assuredly this second entry, in spite of every
effort to lend it solemnity, was not calculated to recall the
entry of Henri IV, when that ancestor to whom Louis XVIII
loved to liken himself returned to take possession of his good
town of Paris. When Henri was at Saint-Denis he was at
the head of the army with which he had vanquished his foreign
foes : at Saint-Denis he sacrificed his religious convictions and
embraced the Catholic religion to reign over Catholics. Louis
XVIII was returning to a town that was occupied by victorious
enemies, and drove through suburbs whose inhabitants gave
him but a cold welcome. There, where the population was chiefly
composed of working men, hatred was mingled with stupefaction :
hatred for the princes, who were known to be cowardly and
tainted with aristocratic prejudices, and stupefaction at being
for the second time saved from the oppressions of conquerors who
were almost savage.
At the head of the procession marched two battalions of the
national guard of the department of Le Nord, and some detach
ments of troops of the line, " dressed in clothes made in England,"
writes Hobhouse in his account of the day. These were followed
by the Swiss Guards, the Red Gendarmes, some Footguards, some
Horseguards, some Royal Volunteers. In the middle of the
procession rode Marshals Marmont, Victor, Oudinot, Macdonald,
and Gouvion Saint-Cyr ; and Generals Clarke (the Due de Feltre),
Maison, Dessolles, and Villate. The royal carriages were followed
by a confused mass of old coaches, diligences, cabriolets, and other
vehicles, which had come out in the morning full of sight-seers, and
were returning home in the evening, as though from a fair or some
village festivity. There were foreigners in this throng, too ;
English and Prussian soldiers of all ranks, who stared haughtily at
the heterogeneous cavalcade.
When the King reached the barrier the prefect, M. de Chabrol,
read a discourse which opened with these words : " A hundred days
have passed since your Majesty was forced to tear yourself from all
you held most dear, and to leave your capital amid the tears and
consternation of the public." These were the words of a courtier.
There had, as we know, been no tears nor public consternation ;
but rather a feeling of relief and satisfaction at being citizens
again, and not subjects. The King answered : " It was with the
liveliest sorrow and emotion that I left Paris. Evidences of the
fidelity of my good town of Paris have reached my ears. My
398

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
return moves me deeply. I foresaw the evils that threatened her.
I desire to prevent and repair them."
At that moment a deafening sound arose round the King. The
crowd sang the air of Vive Henry IV., and shouted: "Give us
back our father from Ghent ! " And as the tumultuous mob
passed on into the heart of Paris, and saw the flags that fluttered
from every window, and the white cockades that appeared in every
hat, their cheers for the Bourbons became more frequent, more
spontaneous, and more heart-felt. The tricoloured flags on all the
public buildings were hauled down, and replaced by the white
standard. Everywhere the people were shouting and laughing and
expressing their approval. " He is not afraid," they said, " to
come back in full daylight ! He is not like the usurper, who came
back at nine o'clock in the evening ! " Some old nobles, as they
marched with the crowd, made themselves conspicuous by their
energetic gestures. One of them, who was with the body-guard,
said in a loud voice as he crossed the Place Vendome : " There is a
bad smell in this place. It wants a good cleaning." He said this
as he was passing under the bronze column that was raised in
memory of the imperial victories. An old veteran of the Guard,
with a face scored with scars received in battle, heard the words,
and gave one long look at the speaker ; then, with an air of scorn,
turned away the face that bore so many glorious wounds, and fled
from the truculent royalist in horror.1
The King alighted at the Tuileries at six o'clock. The princes
accompanied him into the palace, where the Comte d'Artois,
several days earlier, had seen to the preparation of his own rooms.
Louis XVIII made his way, without a pause, to the balcony that
overlooked the gardens. On this side of the palace the crowd that
had arrived in his train were thronging the paths, and even the
grass, which was still green. Some fair and fashionable ladies had
come to add their acclamations to the rest, and as soon as they
had relieved their enthusiasm they joined hands with the foreign
soldiers who were present, men of every age and condition, and
danced wildly round in rings. The delirium was universal. The
behaviour of the crowd was as disgraceful and as shameless as on
the occasion of the King's first entry into Paris. Men of the
gravest temperament were carried away by the excitement of the
women, and were heard to say : " Nothing like it has ever been
seen ! Have we aU gone mad with joy ? " Bands of twenty or
1 Hobhouse's Letters.
399

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
thirty people played games together, elbowing and hustling and
seizing the arms of absolute strangers, and egging each other on to
indulge in these unbridled amusements. As the night went on
the crowd became denser and noisier, and this insensate merriment
lasted until the morning.
It is hard to understand how the people of birth and breeding
who formed the majority of this crowd could so far forget all
decency and self-respect. How could they show this indifference,
how could they indulge in these antics while the court of the
Carrousel was filled with Prussian soldiers^ and the little Arc de
Triomphe opposite to the Tuileries was turned into a shambles,
whither the soldiers went to cut up the slaughtered animals ? All
our great social crimes have been marked by similiar disorders and
follies. The same scenes occurred in Law's time, and in the time
of Cagliostro, and in the time of Mesmer. The crowd behaved in
exactly the same frenzied way. People fought for Mississippi
shares, which brought them ruin ; they forgot both rank and
dignity in the presence of Mesmer's tub. When surrounded by a
delirious mob a man is seized by overpowering agitation, which
destroys his will-power. It is as though he were caught in a hurri
cane : when once he is within its influence he cannot withstand the
excitement that assails him, and he dashes into the turmoil of the
heaving, agitated, frenzied throng.
How great these lapses of the moral sense were at this time may be
seen in Reiset's Souvenirs. He says that on the road from Ghent to
Paris a certain individual — not a poor vagabond — accosted the King,
and asked his permission to assassinate the Emperor. The man
was not mad, for the King, according to Reiset, answered : " We
are not known yet, Monsieur. But in our family we do not
murder people : we are murdered."
Beugnot, too, mentions two very suggestive incidents that
occurred at the Tuileries, in the rooms where the courtiers were
assembled on the evening of the King's arrival. All the nobles
who had been to Ghent were there, and all those who had
regarded themselves as exiles since the King's flight, and had
never emerged from their own houses in Paris or the provinces.
Among them was Fouche, Due d'Otrante, to whom no one
addressed a word. He was looking very gloomy under this
contemptuous treatment, when the door opened and the Comte
d'Artois was announced. Beugnot adds : " The prince came in
with his usual easy bearing, but he was in an extraordinary
400

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
state of agitation. He recognised the Due d'Otrante, went >
forward to meet him, and taking his hand pressed it with a
gesture full of meaning. ' Monsieur le due, I am greatly pleased,
and greatly satisfied. The entry went off admirably, and we
owe it entirely to you.' Meantime the King had sent a message
by the usher that he would not receive on account of his fatigue ;
and forthwith the usher summoned to the King's presence — the
Due d'Otrante! He, and he alone, was privileged to see the
sovereign, who was dismissing his associates and friends. These
hand-clasps from the Comte d'Artois, and this audience accorded
to the regicide who had betrayed everyone he had served, were
signs of the times as incomprehensible as the gambols of the ladies
of the noblesse with foreign soldiers and strangers. They all
resulted from the removal of a great fear : they were born of
the great joy of having recovered happiness that seemed to be
for ever lost. Excessive emotion, that evening, perverted the
moral sense of the two princes. They too were more or less mad.
And indeed they were happy, these Bourbons ! Thev had
returned to their accustomed way of life, and to the places of
which they had dreamt so long in England ; they had recovered the
comfort from which they had been so suddenly torn ; and their
peace of mind was assured at last, by the captivity of Napoleon.
It was a gay time in the palace, where dinners and receptions
followed one another in quick succession, in honour of the foreign
sovereigns and princes, who had swept down upon Paris like a
flock of birds upon a cornfield. The only anxiety of the King
and his ministers arose from the threats of Bliicher, an old
veteran whom no persuasions could soften, who had sworn to blow
up all the bridges and monuments that bore the name of a Prussian
defeat. He began with the Pont d'lena, and had it not been
for the intervention of the King of Prussia, and even of the
Czar, the bridge would have been destroyed.1 The next attack
was upon the museums, whence every nation was determined to
recover the pictures and other works of art that France had won
on the field of battle. The canvases were cut out of their frames,
and packed by the soldiers of each marauding nation ; ffor not a
single labourer could be found who was willing to aid in this
1 On this subject a legend has arisen, which is untrue. It is asserted that
the King, on hearing of Bliicher's high-handed actions, said " that he would
have himself carried to the bridge and blown up with it." The royalists
believed this tale and spread it abroad. It was not in Louis XVIII's nature to
sacrifice himself for any person or cause whatever.
401 B D

THE RETURN OF LOUIS XVIII
work of spoliation. And yet there were many who had no work,
and no money.1
By this time the royalists had resumed their intrigues in the
ante-rooms of the ministers, with a view to recovering the places
they had lost during the Hundred Days. Every one of them
did his best to secure some profitable post, and to free himself
as far as possible from the obligation of lodging and feeding
the foreign soldiers. There was no limit to their appetites. It
was impossible to supply them with enough meat, vegetables, or
brandy. The complaints of the officers were constant, and in
every house the private soldiers beat the servants, while the
masters had remarkably little to eat. Everything they possessed
was handed over to the insatiable gluttons who were billeted on
them. It was impossible for a man to leave home, moreover,
while ten of these ogres were installed in his house, or even fifty
if his house were large, and he were known to be a partisan of
Napoleon. During these sad days the appearance of Paris was much the
same as it had been at the time of the first invasion, save that
the faces of the people wore a look of deeper melancholy and
apprehension. The streets were crowded with soldiers of every
nation ; the restaurants and theatres were full of English,
Prussian, and Russian officers. Old Bliicher walked insolently
about the boulevards, and was greeted — with shame be it said ! —
by many women of fashion. The Nain Jaune wrote : " If, in
speaking of these disgraceful women who bowed to Bliicher,
anyone says to you : Madame So-and-so is a royalist, you can
answer with perfect certainty : Then she has lately grown pious,
or was once galante ! " 2 Against all the walls were ladders, with
1 Dulaure, Histoire des Cent- Jours, Vol. III., p. 32. ". . . . Among the
barbarous and ignorant deeds which marked that day, a day so fatal to the fine
arts, it is enough to mention that the Prussian soldiers, in order to save them
selves the trouble of making a case large enough to hold it, found it the simplest
plan to saw Raphael's magnificent picture of the Transfiguration, which was
painted on wood, into two pieces. . . ."
2 As under the Terror, politics played a prominent part in the theatres. In
the Gazette de France for July 10th, 1815, we read : " As is well known, all the
- actors are playing in Tartufe. It was easy to guess, from the repeated cries of
Bravo, Mademoiselle Bourgoin! how the simultaneous hisses and shouts of
applause were intended to be apportioned. . . . Thousands of cries of Vive le
roi! from all parts of the house expressed the wishes of the audience quite
clearly. . . . Fleury rose and addressed the audience amid the tumult, in some
such words as these : ' Gentlemen, when a man has had the courage to play L'Ami
des Lois under the Terror, and has endured a year's imprisonment, he cannot be
regarded with suspicion. The cry you ask of me — here he laid his hand upon
402

THE RETURN FROM GHENT
sign-painters upon them, busily engaged in washing off the
imperial eagles, which had been painted in distemper over the
shops or on the windows, and replacing them by the royal lilies,
painted in oils. Meantime the state of trade was improving.
The stage-coaches and couriers once more left Paris on the usual
days. At the Palais Royal the workmen were preparing the
rooms of the Due d'Orieans, who was expected to arrive shortly.
All the churches in Paris were crowded with pious folk who wished
to hear the Te Deum sung in the King's honour. The courtiers,
indeed, lost no opportunity of exhibiting their sycophantic spirit.
On Henri IV's statue on the Pont Neuf the Latin inscription on
the pedestal, which was not considered eulogistic enough, was
replaced by these words :
Tout perissait, enfin, lorsque Bourbon parut !
And La Bedoyere was arrested.
By way of epilogue to this second restoration of the Monarchy
the Journal des Debats, in a fine strain of lyricism, wrote as
follows :
" So he is among us — the father and friend of his people, the
angel of peace, the pledge of our happiness. We have seen him
once more, this King who has been the object of so many regrets,
so many prayers. . . In the garden of the Tuileries, into which he
came on the evening of his arrival, we heard him utter these words :
So here I am with my people, with my friends ! "
With these hypocritical words was inaugurated the reaction of
the ultras — the White Terror.
his heart — has never left this spot.' — 'It is not you,' was the answer, 'it is
Mile. Mars that must satisfy the public' ... On the threats becoming more
violent she (Mile. Mars) rose and said : ' Gentlemen, you wish me to cry Vive
le roi! Well, I have done so.' This little feminine trick made the men
smile. ..."

403 D D 2

APPENDIX I
THE COURT IN 1815.
(Extract from the Almanach royal.)
The King's Household.
Grand Almoner :
De Talleyrand-Perigord, Archbishop of Rheims.
Almoner in Ordinary :
The Abbe de Larochefoucauld.
Confessor :
The Abbe Rocher.
Quarterly Almoners :
The Abbe de Malvin-Montazet. The Abbe de Brean.
„ ,, ,, Chabrillan. ,, ,, ,, Bouvens.
,, ,, ,, Ponteves. ,, ,, „ Couasnon.
,, „ Chambre. „ ,, ,, Villeneufve.
Chaplain in Ordinary :
The Abbe Fleuriel.
Quarterly Chaplains:
The Abbe Lefebvre de Palme. The Abbe Favraud.
,, ,, Godinot de Fontaines. „ ,, Brajenil.
„ ,, Canonne. ,, ,, Grimal.
,, ,, Rauzan. ,, „ Perreau.
Master of the Ceremonies:
The Abbe de Sambucy.
Grand Master:
The Prince de Conde. The Due de Bourbon (in reversion)
First Gentlemen-of-the-Chambers :
The Due de Richelieu. The Due d'Aumont.
The Due de Duras. The Due de Fleury.
Grand Master of the Wardrobe:
The Comte de Blacas d'Aulps.
Masters of the Wardrobe :
The Marquis d'Avaray. The Marquis de Boisgelin.
405

APPENDIX 1
Captains of the Bodyguard:
The Due d'Havre et de Croy. The Due de Luxembourg.
The Due de Grammont. Marshal the Prince de Wagram.
The Prince de Poix. Marshal de Raguse.
Colonel in Command of the Hundred Sioiss:
The Due de Mortemart.
Master of the Horse:
t The Marquis de Vernon.
Chief Pantler :
The Comte de Cosse-Brissac.
Chief Cupbearer :
The Comte Louis de Saint-Priest, chief carver.
Grand Marshal of the Palaces :
The Marquis de la Suze.
Grand Provost:
The Marquis de Tourzel.
Chief Steward :
The Comte d'Escars.
Steward in Ordinary:
The Marquis de Mondragon.
Colonel in Command of the Guards of the King's Door :
The Comte de Vergennes.
Lieutenant in Command of the Gendarmes of the Guard:
The Comte Etienne de Durfort.
Lieutenant in Command of the Light Horse of the Guard :
The Comte Charles de Damas.
Lieutenant in Command of the 1st Company of the Musketeers of the Guard :
The Comte de Nansouty.
Lieutenant in Command of the 2nd Company of the Musketeers of the Guard :
The Marquis de la Grange.
Lieutenant in Command of the Mounted Grenadiers of the Guard:
The Marquis de la Rochejacquelein.
Grand Master of the Ceremonies :
The Marquis Dreux-Breze\
Masters of the Ceremonies :
The Marquis de Rochemore.
De Saint-Felix, First Assistant Master of the Ceremonies.
Urbain de Watrouville, Second Assistant Master of the Ceremonies.
Chevalier King of Arms of France :
Bronod de la Haye.
406

APPENDIX 1
Honorary Private Secretaries :
De Froment. De La Barthe.
Readers of the Chamber and Cabinet :
Vigee. Gauthier de Brecy. Michaud.
Private Secretary :
The Abbe Fleuriel.
Commission of the General Bureau for the Administration of the Expenses
of the King's Household :
The Comte de Blacas d'Aulps. The Comte de Pradel.
Superintendent of the Treasury of the Civil List:
The Baron de la Bouillerie.
Superintendent of Expenses.
Forestier, Councillor of State.
Superintendent of Buildings:
Baron Mounier.
Superintendent of Forests and Domains:
D' Andre.
Superintendent of Stores :
Thierry, Baron de Ville d'Avray.
Superintendent of Privy Purse :
De La Ferte.

Monsieur's Household.
Chief Almoner :
The Abbe Latil.
Almoners :
The Abbe de Sinety. The Abbe de Chabouis.
,, ,, ,, Chatellux. ,, ,, „ Reilly.
First Gentlemen-of -ike-Chambers :
The Due de Maille. The Due de Fitz- James.
Gentlemen of Honour:
The Vicomte de la Tour du Pin, The Vicomte de Sesmaisons.
La Charce. The Marquis de Verac.
The Comte de Chastenay. The Comte de Chabrillon.
The Comte de Gain-Montaignac. The Comte de Bourbon-Busset
The Vicomte de la Roche-Aymon. The Comte Charles de Maille.
The Vicomte de Gaud. The Comte de Brean.
The Comte de Chambord. Chamberlains :
The Comte de Montbel. The Comte de Saint-Sauveur.
407

APPENDIX I
Masters of the Wardrobe :
The Comte de Tourdonnet. The Comte Edouard Dillon.
Chief Steward :
The Comte de Fougieres.
Chief Equerry :
The Comte Armand de Polignao.
Master of the Stables :
The Chevalier Duvernois.
Captains of the Bodyguard.
The Comte Francois d'Escars. The Comte de Puysegur.
Major of the Bodyguard :
The Marquis de Tourneuc.
Master of the Hounds:
The Marquis du Hallay.
General Superintendent of the Chase :
The Marquis de Chastenay.

408

APPENDIX II
ON THE COMTE DE BLACAS. See page 69.
Since Chapter II. was written Ernest Daudet, who has the papers of
Louis XVIII and the Comte de Blacas in his possession, has published
the third volume of his Histoire de V Emigration, and the letters that passed
between the Comte Joseph de Maistre and the Comte de Blacas (published
by Plon-Nourrit in one volume of 395 pages : 1908). While the documents
contained in these two volumes do not in any way alter my opinion of the
character, moral qualities, and political ability of the Comte de Blacas, they
throw light on the opening passages of the relations that existed, later on,
between the King and the noble imigre. Before receiving him at Hartwell,
Louis XVIII had already known this friend of d'Avaray for several years,
and had turned his devotion to good account by sending him to St. Peters
burg as his representative. The Comte de Blacas went thither in that
capacity in 1804, and remained there four years ; and it was while he was
living in that great capital that chance led him to lodge in the house where
Joseph de Maistre was dwelling. Between these two men, who were both
devoted to the Bourbons, there grew up an ardent friendship that lasted
till the death of the Comte Joseph de Maistre.
At St. Petersburg the Comte de Blacas rendered some very valuable
services to Louis XVIIL He had a good deal of tact and very pleasant
manners, which made him acceptable in the exclusive drawing rooms where
he was received. By this means he learnt the political news that was
current in the official world, and transmitted it to his master, to whom it
was of the greatest value ; for Louis XVIII counted on Russia first, and
then on England, to win him the throne his ancestors had occupied.
Napoleon, however, the ever-victorious, finally conquered the Czar
Alexander's determination to avoid him. An interview between the two
monarchs took place at Tilsit ; and from that day forward Alexander held
aloof from the Bourbon prince, whom he only tolerated in his domains
in pity for his misfortunes. He abandoned Louis to his fate, refusing
thenceforward to recognise his kingly rank, and consequently would not
receive at the Court of St. Petersburg any accredited representative of the
King of France. The Comte de Blacas was no longer able to communicate
anything whatever from his master to the imperial Chancellor's Office, nor
to win the confidences of the ambassadors. He had therefore no longer any
useful work to do in St. Petersburg ; and as he was poor, and could only
409

APPENDIX II
live by the help of the very meagre subsidies he received from England, h6
begged to be recalled, and suggested as his successor an old emigre officer
who lived in Russia — the Comte Parseval de Brion.
Louis XVIII was obliged to accede to this request. He had been living
in England for some time. He knew that d'Avaray was about to leave him,
to live in a milder climate, and with a view to attaching the Comte de Blacas
to himself in a definite capacity he wrote to him as follows :
"It is my desire and intention, my dear Count, in happier days, to have
you near me in some capacity that shall be worthy of your name and your
devotion to my person. In the meantime I appoint you chief superintendent
and comptroller of my household, in conjunction with the Comte de
La Chapelle. I know that this is not so much giving you a mark of
satisfaction as asking for a fresh proof of devotion ; but I like to receive
such proofs from you. "
So the Comte de Blacas set out to Hartwell.
After their separation de Maistre and he exchanged letters in which they
discussed and criticised the events of European politics ; and in these letters
one can easily discern the Comte de Maistre's reasoning capacity and his
superiority over his opponent, whom he sometimes likes to laugh at, and
even treats as though he were hardly grown-up. In their religious con
troversy on the Gallican liberties, de Maistre is a hundred times stronger
than de Blacas, whom he entangles admirably in his net in a letter dated
September, 1812. (See Ernest Daudet's book, p. 192.)
"You will not allow that the Catholic Church is a Monarchy, so here
is a list of authors who have denied that proposition during the last three
or four centuries : Wycliffe, John Huss, Jerome of Prague, Luther, Calvin,
Richer, the Jansenists, and the Comte de Blacas. Bossuet, in his sermon
on Unity, calls the King and the Pope the supreme powers. As a matter
of fact the Pope is as much King of the Church as the King is Pope of the
State. And your own good sense, my dear count, which is stronger than
your prejudices, makes you recognise his position to be that of a chief. But
what is a chief who has no chief ? He is a sovereign. We only have to say
chiefvereignty instead of sovereignty. Power vested in a' single individual, and
exercised over everyone, brings fulness of satisfaction (Bossuet). That is all
we require. " The texts you quote from the lips of the man who was sitting beside you
(biting sarcasm !) are the very ones quoted by Luther and Calvin against the
Pope. As soon as one begins to argue against the supreme power one finds
oneself in bad company. Tell a gentleman whom I have not the honour
of knowing, but for whom I have a great regard (more mockery !) since
he is in your confidence, that, when he has proved those texts to be useless
to Luther and Calvin, I will undertake to prove that they are useless to him.
As soon as one has ceased to be in the boat, my dear count, one is in the
water ; and this is equally true whether a man goes on paddling about close
at hand or floats as a corpse from the Adriatic Sea, say, to the Pacific ;
he will have gone farther, no doubt, but he will not be any more outside,
for that is impossible."
On the whole, after studying this correspondence carefully from beginning
to end, I am confirmed in my original opinion of the Comte de Blacas, as
410

APPENDIX II
a man of ordinary understanding in no way superior to the average man
of the world ; well suited to a subordinate position ; born to obey, not
to command. He recognised this himself : and in answer to his confession of it
de Maistre, in his ruthlessly frank way, wrote to him on the subject of
d'Avaray :
" I regret extremely that the air of Madeira has failed, as yet, to cure the
worthy Comte d'Avaray. You accuse me of not doing him justice. Is it not
you, on the contrary, my dear Count, who fail to do justice to me ? Who
is there in the whole world who has a greater regard for your friend, as
an individual, as a Frenchman, and as a subject ? Who is there who can do
so much justice as I to his unlimited attachment, his heroic devotion, his
steadfast fidelity? But if one is to regard him as a factor in politics it
is another matter. I assure you that a man who has never been able, in any
country, to approach any public person without alienating him, is not born
to be a man of affairs. The genius for affairs is as distinct a gift as the
genius for poetry or mathematics. A man is born with it or without it. It
was necessary here, you tell me. Yes, no doubt, here, in this room, or
at most in the house where I am writing ; but outside the house I think
quite the contrary is the case. Take a glance through universal history and
tell me the name of a single favourite, properly so called, who was ever
successful in war or politics. It is open to you to abuse yourself as much
as you like ; but in this respect you are quite a different person. (The
count proved otherwise : de Blacas knew himself.) However, you say : /
am less capable than other men of filling his place. So much the worse."
He filled d'Avaray's place very well, for the very reason that he was not
superior to him.

411

INDEX

Abbaye, the, 351, 372
Abbeville, Louis at, 171, 332
Aberdeen, Lord, 206
Abrantes, Duchesse d', Memoirs quoted,
Ire1, 93, 168 n \ 269
Additional Act of Napoleon, the, 355
Adelaide, Mme., 12
Adelaide, Princess, 252
Agen, 164 n 1, 210, 377
Agoult, Vicomte d', 32, 73 n ', 82, 224,
304
Aix, Bishop of, 18 n 2
Aix-la-Chapelle, 336 n 1
Alais, Bishop of, 314
Alais, prisoners of, 151
Albertus, Marquis d', 267
Albi, 326
Albon, Comte d', 174
Albufera, Due d', 211, 215, 287
Alexander, Czar, entry into Paris, 118,
120 and nn, 121 and n1-23; the
conference, 123-26 ; and Chateau
briand, 129 ; and the Senate, 130,
138 ; character, 138-40 ; a review
and a service, 148 m1; life in Paris,
151-54, 240 n 1 ; his message to Louis
XVTII, 156 ; intervenes between the
Comte d'Artois and the Senate,
157-58 ; visit to Compiegne, 176-78,
178 n 1 ; the Declaration of Saint-
Ouen, 177-79 ; his opinion of the
Bourbons, 178 re2, 191-92, 409-10;
the fete at Saint-Cloud, 189-90 ; and
the Empress Josephine, 190-91, 209 ;
sketch by Chateaubriand, 190 re 1 ;
and Bernardotte, 195 ; and Richelieu,
196 ; the peace treaty, 200 ; the
Charter, 205-6 ; at Oxford, 209 ; in
Vienna, 292 n J ; policy of, 335 and
re1, 409-10; and de Blacas, 409-10 ;
mentioned, 77, 87, 114 re1, 186, 374
Alfieri, Marquis, 321 n 1
Allies, the, invasion of Paris, 3, 4 ;
policy of the, 108 re1 ; mode of living,

35,

at,

114 k1; the entry into Paris, 118,
120 and rere-23 ; conference at house
of Talleyrand, 123-26 ; a service in
the Place Louis XV, 148 n 1 ; daily
life of the sovereigns, 150-53 ; terms
of Talleyrand's treaty, 161-62 ; be
haviour of the soldiers in Paris,
192-94, 401 and re1-402 and nn
Allonville, D', Mimoires, 29 re1,
329-30
Almanach des Muses, 12
Almanach Royal, 1815, 294
Alost, the army at, 334, 342, 345
Alquier, Buzot, 21 re1
Ambassadors to Ghent, list, 346 n '¦
Amiens, loyalty of, 91-92 ; Louis
171 ; treaty of, 365
Andigne, Chevalier de, 363
Andre, M. d', Director of Police,
277-79, 287-88 ; replaced, 314, 315 ;
in Brussels, 339
Angely, Regnault de Saint-Jean d',
115 re2, 233,283
Angers, 78
Angles, M., 142, 339
Angoufeme, Due d', marriage, 29-30,
49, 58-60 ; wanderings, 33 ; emigra
tion, 48-49 ; his ideas of government,
51-52 ; character, 52-53, 198 : his
message to Bordeaux, 82 ; joins
Wellington, 86 ; proclamation to the
army, 97-98 ; journey to Bordeaux,
98-99, 164 and re1; court dress,
198 re 2, 253 ; tour in the South,
210-12 ; entry into Paris, 211;
military appointment, 212 ; life in
Paris, 221-23, 254 ; in the provinces,
254-56 ; return to Paris, 263 ; and
the Nain Jaune, 283 ; and Talley
rand, 292 ; policy, 303 re : ; action
on escape of Napoleon, 307 ; in
Bordeaux, 320, 325-327 ; Napoleon's
treatment of, 328-29; mentioned, 11,
18 re K 23

413

INDEX

Angoulerne, Duchesse d', Austria's pro
posals regarding, 22-23 ; wanderings,
24 n 2, 25 n 1, 29 ; influence on her
husband, 52-53 ; life in the Temple,
53-54 ; character, 54-57, 300-301 ;
release from the Temple, 57 ; recep
tion at Mittau, 57-60 ; at Hartwell,
66, 72, 74, 82, 84; influence on
Louis XVIII, 165 ; entry into
London, 167 ; at Abbeville, 171 ;
saying of, quoted, 173 ; journey to
Paris, 180-85 ; meeting with le Due,
211; in Notre Dame, 212; life in
Paris, 221-25 ; reviews the troops,
254; fete at the Hotel de Ville,
259-60 ; the vow of NImes, 261 ; in
the provinces, 262-64 ; supports
Soult, 287; policy, 303 n1; in Bor
deaux, 320, 325, 326-28 ; flight to
England, 328 ; unpopularity, 329-30;
in England, 350 ; attitude towards
Fouche, 394 ; mentioned, 11-12
Anne, Theodore, quoted, 7, 234, 235,
236, 239-40, 244
Antony, 92 re1
Antraygues, d', 27
Arblay, Comte d', 342
Arcis-sur-Aube, 264
Ardeche, plains of, 261
Aristocracy, the, 248
Aries, 377
Armentieres, 334
Army, the, proclamation of the Due
d'Angouleme, 97-98 ; place-hunters,
233, establishment of the military
household, 237-39 ; fresh changes,
254 ; reviews by the Due de Berry,
256 ; report of the Comte d'Artois,
287 and re 1 ; loyalty to Napoleon,
307, 317 ; the army at Melun, 311 ;
review by Monsieur, 312-313 ; Napo
leon's proclamation, 322-23 : defec
tion at Bordeaux, 327-28 ; flight of
the Household troops, 333 and ri3-
34 ; resources after Waterloo, 370 re 2 ;
extracts from the Mercure du Rhin,
385 rere
Arnaud, 283
Arnault, 314
Arnoult, cited, 13
Arnouville, Chateau d', 374, 390,
392-96
Arras, 375
Arsonval, 264
Artois, Comte d', family, 11, 12 ; corre
spondence with Louis, 16 re ', 18 ; and
Mme. de Vergennes, 17 re1 ; character,
39-41, 44-45, 45 n ', 160 ; marriage,
41 ; flight, 42-43 ; and the Czarina
Catherine, 43-44 ; in London, 45-46 ;

414

flight to Holyrood, 46, 59 ; and de
Blacas, 70, 382 ; appointed lieu
tenant-general by Louis, 84 ; sails
for Holland, 86 ; reception of de
Vitrolles, 87 ; return to Paris, 90-97,
181 ; reply to Talleyrand, 94 n 2 ;
at the Tuileries, 101, 143, 154-56,
184, 200 ; message to Louis, 156 ; a
"legitimate" prince, 157; Senate
ratifies his title, 158 ; treaty with the
allied Powers, 161-62 ; command of
the Swiss Guards, 212 ; court of,
217 and re-18 ; relations with Louis,
217 and re, 220 and re-21 ; the Little
Bureau, 219-21 ; at Saint Cloud, 254 ;
reception of the legislative delegates,
258 ; tour, 264 ; saying of, quoted,
265 ; return to Paris, 268 ; his report,
287; and Talleyrand, 292; policy,
303 re J ; action on escape of Napoleon,
307 ; visit to the Assembly, 312 ;
flight, 320, 321, 333 m1; in Ghent,
336, 337, 341 and re1-43, 347; and
Mme. de Vitrolles, 351 ; and Chateau
briand's Rapport du Roi, 353-54 ;
report of Waterloo, 380; and the
proclamation, 387 ; return to Paris,
397-400 ; and Fouche, 400-401 ;
household in 1815, 407-8
Assembly, the, acceptance of the pro
visional government, 129-30
Astros, Abbed', 96 re2, 151
Athalin, Colonel, 356
Auch, 164 n 1, 210, 255
Augereau, Marshal, 159, 215, 265-66,
325-26
Aumont, Due d'. See Villequier, Due de
Austerlitz, 2
Austria, policy towards Louis XVIII,
22-23, 29 ; proposals regarding Mme.
Royale, 22-23, 55-57 ; and the Comte
d'Artois, 90 re 2 ; the Emperor in
Paris, 152, 187-90 ; honour for the
Due d'Angouleme, 164 re 1 ; the treaty
with France, 206
Auteuil, 263
Autichamps, d', 78
Auvergne, 262-63
Auxerre, 307
Auxonne, 265, 269
Avaray, Comte d', correspondence with
Louis XVIII, 18-19, 73m1, 331 re2;
at funeral of the Duchesse d'Orieans,
18 re2 ; Louis XVHI and, 24 re2, 29,
33-35, 37 re ', 55, 59 ; character,
35, and re1; illness, 67-68, 410-11;
and Comte de Blacas, 68-69
Avaray, manor of, 33
Avesnes, 257
Avignon, 377

INDEX

Bagatelle, 182
Bailleul, M. Blancard, 205
Bailly, 21 re ¦
Balainvilliers, M. de, 247
Balbi, Comte de, 36, 39
Balbi, Comtesse de, 36-39, 244-45
BWe, Peace of, 207
Bancal, 57
Barante, M. de., quoted, 29 re-, 60,
200 m1, 201m1, 363
Barbeaux, 262
Barbe-Marbois, M., 134, 205
Barentin, M. de, 200, 392 n l
Barnave, 21 re1
Barras, 219, 314
Bar-sur-Aube, 264
Barthelemy, M. de, 131 re1, 137, 205
Barnel-Beauvert, Comte de, quoted,
253 m1, 328 m1, 334
Bas-Poitou, 78
Bassano, Due de, 103, 314, 323
Bastille, taking of the, 42
Bath, 73
Batiste, page, 240
Battle of the Thirty, 33
Bauffremont, Duchesse de, 304
Baure, Faget de, 205
Bavai, 257
Bayeux, 163
Baylen, 204
Bayonne, 378
Bazas, 99
Bearnais, 33
Beauchamp, Comte de, quoted, 24 re 2,
25 m1, 29 re2
Beaujolais, Due de, 61-62
Beaumont, Due de, 215
Beaureceuil, Vicomte L. de, 377
Beauvais, 318
Becquey, M., 348
Bedoyere. See Labedoyere
Begoulx, M. de, 158
Biguinage, Ghent, 344
Belgium, 332; French strongholds, 162,
207 re1
Bellanger, 182
Bellart, M., 131 re1, 132 and re1, 153,
249 re 1, 261 ; attack on Napoleon,
131 andn1-32
Belleville, 151
Belloy, M. du, 196
Bellune, Due de, See Victor, Marshal
Bellune, Duchesse de, 350
Benevent, Prince de. See Talleyrand
Bercagny, M., 376
Berenger, Les Gaulois, 114
Beresford, Lord, 98-99
Bernadotte, 1, 10 re1, 76, 77, 102, 125,
194-95, 292 m1
Berry, Due de — emigration, 48-49 ;

character, 50, 198; in Scotland, 59';
and de Blacas, 70 ; in Jersey, 86,
99-100 ; journey to Paris, 163-64 ;
in the Tuileries, 184 ; fete at Saint-
Cloud, 189-90 ; meeting with the
Due d'Angouleme, 211 ; life in Paris,
225 : reviews the troops, 254 ; tour,
256-57 ; in London, 257 ; ball at the
H6tel de Ville, 260 ; equestrian por
trait, 271 ; the Excelmans affair, 289 ;
and the Old Guard, 298 ; policy,
303 re z ; action on escape of Napoleon,
307, 309, 311 ; the army at Alost,
315, 323, 334; flight, 320, 333 n 1 ;
in Ghent, 336, 337, 342; and the
proclamation, 387 ; his report on the
state of Paris, 392 ; return to Paris,
397-98 ; mentioned, 11, 18 re2, 64
Berry er, 126
Berstein, 282
Berthier, Marshal, 174, 181-82, 186,
215, 234, 237, 271, 332, 334
Berthold, Ferdinand, 188
Bertin, 102, 126, 132, 339, 351
Berwick, Duke of, 218
Besangon, 268
Besiade, 33
Beugnot, M.— Prefect of Lille, 91 ;
saying of, quoted, 97 ; memoirs, 130res,
140, 400 ; Minister of the Interior,
141 and n 1 ; Director-general of
Police, 200-201, 204 ; and de Blacas,
242,383; ordinance on the "practice
of virtue," 250-51 ; anecdotes, 276 ;
minister of Marine, 277, 287 ; in
Ghent, 338, 343-45, 351 ; charity of,
391; Postmaster-General, 396m1;
mentioned, 180, 205, 278, 394
Beurnonville, General de, 57, 130 and
re3, 286, 345
Biran, Maine de, 4
Bir£, Edmond, quoted, 121 re 1
Bizy, M. Berthier de, 342
Blacas d'Aulps, Comte de — Agent of
Louis, 10, 35-36 ; influence at Hart
well, 68-71, 82, 84; and the Duchesse
de Narbonne, 73 ; and the King's
Declaration, 76 ; influence on Louis,
165, 167, 174 ; marriage, 169 ; at the
Tuileries, 191 ; Grand Master of the
Wardrobe, 195; Minister of the
Household, 201, 205, 241-43, 276,
278; policy, 297; caricatures, 302-3;
defence of himself, 303 re1 ; Soult and,
308 ; advice to Louis XVIII, 315-17,
320; flight 318 andn1; papers left
by, 331 re 2, 332 ; in Ghent, 336, 337,
340, 345, 347, 379; separation from
Louis, 374, 383; intrigues against,
382 ; See Appendix II, 409-11

415

INDEX

Blankenburg, 10 re >, 24, 29, 31, 38
Blois, 103, 106 ; Bishop of, 18 n ¦
Blondel, 259
Blons, M. de, 229 re'
Blossac, M. de, 247
Bliicher, 1, 359, 370-71, 371 re1, 379,
396, 401 and re ^02
Bocage, the, 45
Bodinier, M. , 131 n l
Boieldieu, 117 re2
Boigne, Comtesse de, Mimoires, 19 re l,
45m1, 47m1, 94mre, 176k1
Bois de Boulogne, 263
Boisgny, M. Pecquet de, 277 n 1
Boisjelin, Comte de, 158
Bois-Savary, M., 205
Boissy-Porcher, M., 277
Bonald, M. de, 314
Bonaparte, Joseph, 8, 32, 115 and n",
118, 305, 315, 334
Bonaparte, Lucien, 314, 345 m1, 372
Bonaparte, Pauline, 187
Bonapartists, behaviour of the, 377
Bondy, 94
Bony, M., 266
Bordeaux — Defection of, 778-84; offer
of surrender, 98-99 ; loyalty, 159,
320, 326-28 ; Due d'Angoulgme in,
255 ; Clausel in, 375
Borghese, Prince Camille, 187
Borgo, Count Pozzo di, 123-26, 156,
176 re1, 346 re2, 352, 380, 393 re2, 394
Boscheron, 131 re 1
Botherel, Chevalier de, 32
Bouchage, 286
Bouchain, 257, 375
Bouffler, Mme. de, 263
Boulay de la Meurthe, 115
Boulogne, Abbe de, 253
Boulogne, 171
Bourbon, Due de, 11, 18 re2, 41, 64, 167,
180, 181, 184, 212, 303 re1, 320, 325
Bourbon, Duchesse de, 12, 41, 63, 273
Bourbon, the name of, Soult and, 97-98
Bourbon-Busset, Comte de, 375
Bourbon-Carency, princes of, 31
Bourbons, the— Some mistakes, 269 et
seq. ; their foreign nature, 299
Bourg, 113 re1
Bourgeoisie, anti-Bourbon feeling of the,
247
Bourgoin, Mile., 117 re2, 284
Bourmont, de, 358, 375
Bourrienne, M. de, 141-42, 314
Boutonnet, 131 re l
Bouvier-Dumolard, 314
Brancas, Due de, 215
Brecy, M. Rochette de, 253
Bresson, valet, 222
Brest, 254

416

Breze, Marquis de, 232-33
Briche, Vicomte de, 240
Brienne, 3, 264
Brifaut, 284
Brion, Comte Parseval de, 410
Brissac, Due de, 215
Brissot de Warwille, brochure of, 149
Bristol, 73
Brittany, loyalty to Napoleon, 375
Brittany affair, the, 277
Brives, 255
Brochures, etc., 279-86
Broglie, Due de, 215, 373 n3
Brouillerie, M. de la, 142
Broval, M. de, 18 re2
Brown, Miss, 49
Bruges, Comte de, 86, 156, 218, 264,
287, 294, 308, 341, 382
Brune, Marshal, 174
Brunoy, 37
Brunswick, Duke of, 31
Brussels, 333
Bruyere, La, 360
Buckingham, Marquis of, 18 re2, 66
Budget of 1814, 273-74
Burgundy, loyalty to Napoleon, 160
Cadobe, Due de. See Champagne,
Comte de
Cadoudal, Georges, 27 ; burial of his
remains, 253-54
Cadoudal, Joseph, 277 re '
Caen, prison of, 163-64
Cagliostro, 400
Calais— Louis XVIII at, 170-171;
English cavalry at, 262 re '
Callet, artist, 198
Calvados, 163
Cambaceres, Prince, 8, 115 and »2, 118,
151-52, 215-16, 314
Cambrai — Due de Berry at, 256-57 ;
siege, 375 ; Louis XVIII in, 386-92
Camus, 57
Canillac, Mme. de, 41 and n
Capefigue, Histoire, 10 re 2
Capelle, Baron, in Ghent, 341 and n '
345
Capet, Hughes, 128
Carency, Prince de, 31
Caricatures of Napoleon, 319 m1
Carmelites, 273
Carnival of 1815, 300-302
Carnot, General — Memorial to the King,
279 and re1 -80; and Fouche, 365,
371-72; mentioned, 211 re1, 281, 315,
345 m1, 348, 358, 392
Carrousel, 145 ; Prussians in the, 359
Cases, Las, Memorial quoted, 46 n1,
331 re2
Cassagne, General, order of 290 n 1

INDEX

Cassini's map of France, 144 res
Casteja, Comte de, 171
Casteljaloux, 164 re 1, 210
Castiglione, Due de. See Augereau,
Marshal
Castlereagh, 206, 212
Castries, Due de, 31, 82, 215, 342
Catalini, Mme., 344
Cateau-Cambresis, Wellington at, 384-
87
Cathcart, Lord, 120 re2, 206
Catherine, Czarina, 43-44
Catherine, Queen, loss of her money
and diamonds, 111 and re2 -112
Caulaincourt, mentioned, 2 re1, 85,
186
Caulon, Garan de, 216
Caumont-Laforce, Mile. See Balbi,
Comtesse de
Cayla, Comtesse Achille du, 119, 120
Cayla, Mme. du, 245 and re 1
Cazales, 63
Cazenove, M. de, 174
Cazotte, M. 271
Cette, 329
Chabaut-Latour, 205
Chabot, M. de, 95
Chaboulon, Fleury de, quoted, 203
Chabrol, M. de, 106, 131, 262, 396-98
Chabrol, Mme. de, 260
Chagny, 113 re1
Chalais, Prince de, 215
ChMons-sur-Marne, 89, 90, 113 re1,
375-76
Chalon-sur-Sarne, 377
Chambers the — First convocation by
Louis XVIII, 213-216; legislative
chamber, deputation to Louis XVIII,
257-58; his visit on 16 March, 1815,
311-12; abolished by Napoleon,
323 ; the return of Louis XVIII,
368-69
Champ de Mai, ceremony of the, 354-
55
Champagne, Comte de, 86, 115 re2,
158
Champaubert, battle of, 3
Champcenetz, Marquis de, 212
Champs-Elysees, Cossacks in the, 144-
45, 147
Chapelle, Comte de la, 32
Chaptal, 216
Charette, 16, 45, 218
Charles, Archduke, 22, 55, 57
Charles IV of Spain, 23
Charley, Bruys de, Chevalier, 175
Chariot, Baron, 224
Charost, H6tel de, 187
Charter, the, 205-6 ; — Chateaubriand
and, 281 ; attitude of the Bourbons

417

towards, 303 re L, 353-54 ; speech
of Louis XVIII on 16 March 1815,
311-312
Chartran, General, 326
Chartres, 255
Chartreuse d'Auray, 262 re 1
Chasset, 216
Chastenay, Mile, de, Memoires quoted,
63, 95 re1, 135 re2, 145 re1, 147 re1,
203-4, 218
Chateaubriand, M. de, quoted, 22 re *,
90 re1, 95 re1, 102, 183, 186-87, 249
re 1, 293 re 1, 315 — Buonaparte et les
Bourbons, 127-29 ; on Dambray, 201 ;
on the Abbe Louis, 202 ; appointed
to Sweden, 262 n 1 ; Political
Reflexions, 281-83 ; flight from Paris,
318 re2, 322; in Ghent, 336 re1, 338,
339, 340 re1, 343 re1, 344; publishes
his Rapport au Roi, 352-53 ; account
of Waterloo, 380 ; and Talleyrand,
383-85 ; on Fouche, 390 ; dress of,
393 ; interview with Louis XVIII,
395
Chateaubriand, Mme. de, quoted ; 187,
318 re2, 350-51
Chateaudun, 255
Chateauroux, 326
Chatellux, Mme. de, 94
Chatillon, Congress of, 81, 85, 98
Chatou, 358
Chatre, Comte de la, 18 re2, 32, 81
Chaudet, 123
Chateau-Regnault, de, 21 re *
Chazet, Alisson de, 91k1
Cheltenham, 73
Chenier, Andre, 106
Cherbourg, 163
Chevreuse, Due de, 215
Choiseul, Due de, 215
Choiseul-Gouflier, M. de, 314
Choisy, 239
Choisy, Mile, de, 59, 82, 224
Chouans, the, 277 re J
Church, the, position under the re
stored monarchy, 253, 294-95
Clairfayt, General, 57
Clarence, Duke of, 169
Clarendon, Lady, 169
Clarke, General. See Feltre, Due de
Clausel, General, 327, 375
Clement V, Pope, 196
Clermont, Comte de, 163
Clermont-Ferrand, 262-63
Clermont-Gallerande, Marquis de, 215
Clermont-Tonnere, Due de, 215
Clery, 291
Coblenz, 15, 16 re1, 17 k1, 18 re1, 38, 42
Coetlosquet, Mgr. de, Bishop of Limo
ges, 40

E E

INDEX

Coigny, Aimee de, 32, 106-7
Coigny, Due de, 46, 215 ; — marshal,
106-7, 299
Coigny, Duchesse de, 18 re *
Collot, M., 21 re1
Colnet, 284
Combettes, Chevalier de, 154 re r
C6me, 342, re1
Commission of five senators, 134, 136-38
Commune, the, 14, 302
Compiegne, Louis XVIII at, 171-80,
212, 240
Conciergerie, the, 182-83
Conde, Prince— Army of Conde, 15, 20,
28, 31, 45, 48, 64, 154, 205, 282 ;
popularity, 63 ; in the Tuileries,
184 ; appointment for, 212 ; policy,
303 re 1 ; flight, 322, 333 re 1 at Brus
sels, 337; mentioned, 11, 18, re2, 64-
65, 167, 176, 180, 181
Condom, 164 m1, 210
Conegliano, Due de. See Moncey,
Marshal
Constant, Benjamin, 319 and re 2, 326
Constantino, Grand Duke, 122
Constitution, the, published by Louis
XVIII, 20, 134 and n1
Convention, 279, 281
Coppen, M., 344
Cormenin, portrait of Pasquier, 395-
96
Corpus Christi, feast of 1814 in Paris,
250 and re -51
Corvie, the, 281
Cossacks in Paris, 92 and re1, 95 re1,
113 m1, 141, 144-45, 147
Cosse, Due de, 59, 271
Courland, 24 re 2
Courlande, Dorothee de, 304
Court, the, in 1815, 405-8
Courtois, the eonventionist, 16 re1
Courvoisier, M. de, 32
Coussergues, Clausel de, 205, 318 re2
Coutras, battle of, 16
Crillon, HStel, 167
Crillon, M. de, 95
Crimea, cession of the, 29 re 1
Cristin, 207 re 1
Croi-d'Havre, Due de, 215
Croy, Due de, 215
Crussol, Bailli de, 46, 215, 390
Crussol, Due de, 120
Cubzac, Saint Andre de, 327-28
Curee, 216
Custine, M. de, 21 re1
Cuvier, 297
Czernieheff, General, 176
Dacees, M., 149
Dalberg, Baron de — de Vitrolles, 86-

418

87 re1; brochure of, 109-110; the
conference, 123-26 ; mentioned, 102,
107, 130
Dalbignac, Mgr. , 18 n a
Damas, Chas., afterwards Due de, 94
re1, 215, 222, 237
Damas, Comte Etienne de, 91, 93
Damas, Duchesse de, 59, 82, 93, 223-
24
Damas, Roger de, 158
Damas-Crux, Comte de, 326
Dambray, M. — Chancellor, 200 and n 1-
201, 205, 341 ; speech, 213-14 ; pol
icy, 275-76, 297 ; the Brittany affair,
277-79 ; return to Paris, 283-84, 285 ;
and the proclamation, 385-87 ; dress
of, 393
Dampierre, Comte de, 252
Dampierre, M. Duvalk de, 252
Dandre, agent, 15, 27
Dantzic, 162, 207 m1
Dantzic, Due de, 215
Dard, Maitre, 261
Daru, Comte, 115 re2
Dasies, Hire2
Daudet, Ernest — Papers of Louis
XVIII, 18m1 ; L' Emigration, 38 re1,
51-52 ; on de Blacas, 409-11
David, 299
Davout, Marshal, 207 and re1, 289, 314,
367, 371
Decases, M., 249 re1, 383
Declaration of Saint-Ouen, the, 178-79
Defermont, Comte, 115 re2
Dejean, Comte, 158
Delaistre, 131 re1
Demeunier, 216
Denmark, King of, in Vienna, 292 m1
Denon of the Mint, 153
Deseze, M. , in Ghent, 341
Desfontaines, M., 189
Deslandes, Chevalier, 154 re T
Desmasure, M., 73 m1, 212
Dessolles, General, 158, 221 andn1,
315, 396, 398
Diamonds of Louis XVIII sent to
England, 316 and re x
Digne, Bishop of, 18 re2
Dijon, 152, 265, 269, 307, 376
Dillon, Edward, 46, 72
Dime, the, 281
Dining in Ghent, 344
Directory, the, 48, 79, 208, 274
Divorce, decision of Nancy, 271-72
Dizez, 216
Doisy, Martin, Mimoires quoted, 13 re2,
16 re
Domine salvum fac regum, 119, 120 re2,
182, 375
Donadieu, General. See Capelle, Baron

INDEX

Dorat, 18
Douai, Merlin de, 21 n1
Doudeauville, Due de, 158, 215
Draguinan, 377-78
Dresden, 17, 77, 108
Dreux, 254
Dreux-Breze, Marquis de, 195
Droits riunis, suppression promised,
159, 212, 299-300
Dubarry, Bontemps, 82 re J
Dubois, Cardinal, 367
Dubois-Duboy, 216
Ducis and Louis XVIII, 185 andn1
Dudon, M. , 142 and n *-43
Duhamel, 205
Dumanoir, Admiral, 293
Dumas, General, 286
Dumouriez — Correspondence with Louis
XVIII, 16 m1, 25 m1 ; treason, 43 m1,
57 ; army of, 61, 63
Dunant, 27
Dunkirk, 332
Duplessis-Morney, 130
Dupont, General, Minister of War, 141,
200, 204, 242, 249 n1, 277, 287, 289
Duras, Due de, 72, 78, 180, 195, 196-98,
215, 320, 343, 350
Duras, Duchesse de, 299, 315
Durbach, M. de, brochure of, 160
Durdent quoted, 360 re 1
Durepierre, M., 82
Durfort, 33
Durosoy, M., 271
Duviquet, 284, 314

Eokmul, Prince d', 207 re ', 369
Eckstein, d', 337-38, 338 re 1
Ecouen, 262
Edgeworth, Abbe, 24 re2, 56 and n1, 58
Education, controversy on, 297-98
Edward III, 128-29
Elbceuf, Due d', 215
Elisa, Princesse, 111 re1, 334, 341 re1
Elizabeth, Mme., 14m1, 53, 212, 271
Elysee Bourbon, the, 187
Elysee, Pere, 18 re2, 254, 342, 344
Elysee, the, 358
Emigres, the, and Louis XVIII, 16-17
Enghien, Due de, 12, 23, 63, 103, 271,
389
England — Policy regarding the Bour
bons, Ire1, 75, 373 ; effect of the fall
of Napoleon on, 166 andn1; the
treaty with, 206-7
English, the, in Paris, 298
Eon, Chevalier d', 342 re1
Ermitage, Chateau de 1', Ghent, 344
Escars, Comte d', 46, 86, 218, 237
Eugene, Prince, 191-92, 209, 262 re1

Excelmans, General, 289 andn1, 314,
323-24
Excommunication, Bull of, 77
Extinguisher, order of the, 283-84
Eymery, M., 134
Fagel, M. de, 346 re2
Falconnet, Maitre, 261
Fauche-Borel, Mimoires, 9 and re2, 27,
83 and note 84, 216, 219, 318 m1, 337
Faulcon, F61ix, 205
Favras, Marquis de, 13-15, 245, 302
Fayette, La, 21 re1, 178 re2, 366
Federates, the, 358, 360-61, 369,
389-90
Feletz, Abbe, 284, 301
Feltre, Due de — Minister of War, 115
andn-, 181, 308, 315, 381, 398; his
address to the body-guard, 317 and
re1 ; in Ghent, 338-39, 345 ; return to
Paris, 383-84, 385-87 ; Talleyrand
and, 394
Ferdinand IV, of Sicily, 62
Fermier des Jeux, 144
Ferrand, M. — Postmaster-General, 201,
204-5, 287; at the opening of the
Chamber, 214 ; bill for restoration of
patrimonies, 274-75 ; policy, 275-76,
297 ; provisional Minister of Marine,
286 ; and Napoleon, 319 ; flight, 324 ;
mentioned, 78, 205, 314, 394
Ferrieres, Comte de, 158
Ferronays, Comte de la, 163, 169
Fesch, Cardinal, 216
Fitz- James, Due de, 78, 119-20, 215,
218, 264
Flachslanden, Baron de, 31
Flahaut, 314, 349-50
Flanders, English in, 332-33
Flaugergues, 4
Fleuriel, Abbe, 241, 243 re1
Fleury, Cardinal, 32
Fleury, Due de, 24 re2, 32, 59, 195-97,
215, 269, 402 re2
Fontainebleau, 129, 240, 256 ; the Abdi
cation, 133-34 ; return of Napoleon,
307, 333 re1
Fontanes, 379
Fontenoy, 92 m1
Forges, M. Bonnaire de, 277 re '
Fornel, M. de, 229 n 1
Fouch6, M. — Memorial to the King,
156-58 ; his title, 224 ; and d'Andre,
288 ; attempted arrest, 314 ; and de
Blacas, 317; policy, 317 m2; his
opinion on Napoleon's chances, 350
n x ; President of the Provisional
Government, 358-59 ; the surrender
of Paris, 358-60, 368-69, 370-71 ; his
power, 364 and n J-66 ; character,
419 e e 2

INDEX

366-68; Carnot and, 371-72; and
de Vitrolles, 371-73 ; Minister of
Police, 374, 393-94; supported by
Talleyrand, 388-90 ; his message to
Louis XVIII, 391-92; the King's
return, 397-98; at the Tuileries,
400-401; mentioned, 202, 216, 224,
348, 358
Foulon, M., 271
Fournier-Jerneuil, 363, quoted, 376-77
Fourrier des logis, 234 and re
Frabrigat, M. Graflbrd, 261
Franche-Comte, 86
Francis I, 23
Francis, Emperor. See Austria
Frayssinous, Abbe, 249 re1, 261, 272
Frederick William of Prussia, 121 n l,
152-53, 189-90, 192, 209, 240 n1
Freemasons of France, 262 re 1
Freteau, M., 21 re1
Frossade, Comte de, 120
Frotte, Comte de, 261
Furstenstein, Count von, 111 n2
Gaeta, Due de. See Gaudin
Gaillard, M. Armand, 253, 314, 391
Gain-Montaignac, Comte de, 48, 92 re 1
Gallois of the Tribunat, 4
Garat, M.,21111, 132, 314
Gaudin, M., 115 re2, 202
Gauthier, 131 re1
Gazette, the, 302
Gentil-Bernard, 18
Gerard, artist, 254
Gerard, General, 207 re '
George III— Louis XVIII and, 28 n 1 ;
court of, 32
Germany — Attitude towards the
French Princes, 42-43 ; Germans in
Paris, 378 ; and the Vienna Con
gress, 379
Ghent, 20, 151— the flight to, 238;
arrival of Louis XVIII, 334-36;
fresh arrivals from Paris, 340 ; effect
of the foreigners in, 343 and re x-44 ;
departure of Louis, 374 et seq.
Gillvoisin, Duchesne de, 205
Girondists, the, 79
Gobelin's factory, 263
Godoy, Manuel, 367
Golden Fleece, insignia returned by
Louis XVIII, 23
Goldsmiths' Company, pictures pre
sented to Notre Dame by, 272
Gonesse, 392
Gontaut, Mme., Souvenirs, 69, 166,
167, 170 re \ 184-85
Gosfield, 27 re \ 66-68
Gottingen, University of, 87
Gourbillon, Mme. de, 58 re 1

Gouvello, M., 342
Gouverna, valet, 222
Gouvoin-Saint-Cyr, Comte, 215, 394,
396 re \ 398
Government, the Provisional — Estab
lishment, 129-38 ; financial diffi
culties, 143-44 ; Council of State
established, 158 ; Chambers con
voked by Louis XVIII in the Palais
Bourbon, 213-16
Grailly, M. de, 46
Grammont, Due de, 57, 167, 195, 197,
215
Grand Brothers, silk weavers, 266
Grand Cerf, the, 322
Grassini, 212
Greffulhe, M., 117 re1
Gregoire, Abbe, 132,216, 315 ; brochure
of, quoted, 270-71
Grenoble, 268, 306, 307, 377
Grenville, Lord, 28 re L
Gresivaudan, valley of, 268
Greve, Place de, 14 re1
Grisolles, Desol de, 277 re :
Grosbois, 239
Grouchy, Comte, 329, 358, 372
Gueheneuc, 216
Guiche, Due de, 32, 59, 222, 240
Guiche, Mme. Duchesse de, 46 and re :
-47
Guignard, 29 re l
Guilhermy, M. de, 32
Guise, Due de, 129
Guizot, M. — Memoirs cited, 149-50;
account of Louis XVIII, 243; Sec
retary of State, 285 ; visits Louis
XVIII in Ghent, 340 re 1 ; on Fouche,
367-68
Gustave III of Sweden, 71-73
Haquenau, 282
Ham, prisoners of, 151
Hamburg, 162, 207
Hamilton, Chevalier, 73 re J
Hane de Steenhuyse, d', family of, 336
Hane, H6tel d', 336-38, 379, 380;
farewell dinner of Louis XVIII,
381-82
Hannon, Pere, 253
Harcourt, Due d', 16, 27, 28 and n ',
131m1, 215
Harcourt, Marquis d', 215
Hardenberg, Prince von, 206
Harel, and the Nain Jaune, 283
Harmond and Louis XVII, 53 re1
Hartwell — Arrival of Louis XVIII, 68 ;
description, 71
Hatfield, 73 and re1-74
Havr6, Due d' — Correspondence with
Fauche-Borel, 9 and n 3-10, 83 and n

420

INDEX

!-84 ; Louis XVIII and, 30-31 ; and
de Blacas, 70-71 ; on Leipsic, 76 ;
in Ghent, 338 ; mentioned, 27, 28,
82, 167, 195
Henry III, 21
Henry IV— Statue of, on the Pont-
Neuf, 182, 198, 262 re1, 403; entry
into Paris, 398, 399 ; mentioned, 16,
21, 210, 255, 263, 270
Henry V, 129
Henry, Prince of Prussia, 121 n J
Heudelet, General, 290 re 1
Hinguerlot, 314
Hobhouse, Hundred Days, 220 re 3 ;
Letters, 398-99
Hoche, 10 re1
Holland, 108
Holy Ghost, Order of the — New
knights, 252 ; order abolished by
Napoleon, 322
Holyrood, 46, 66
Hopital, L', 201
Hortense, Queen, Duchesse de Saint-
Leu, 191, 209, 305, 334
Hdtel de Ville, 14 and n l ; the King's
fete, 259-60
Hotel-Dieu, 370 re ]
Houden, M., 182
Houssaye, Henry, quoted, 105, 302 re J,
378 and n1
Hozier, d', 253
Hue, Francois, 60 n1, 61 and re1
Hue, Mme., 24 re2
Huet, painter, 73
Humboldt, Baron von, 206
Iena, Pont d', Bliieher's threat, 401 and
re1
If, Chateau d', 212
lie de France, surrender, 207
Ilmagen, 24 re2
Imbert-Colomes, 27
Indray, foundry of, 255
Institute, the, reorganisation, 314-15
Insurrection of the South, the, 99
Ionian Islands, 162, 207
Ieabey, painter, 254
Issy, 263
Jacobin Club of, '93, 378 n }
Jacobinism, 160, 219, 364, 366
Jacqueminot, 216
James II, 21, 218, 339
Jardin des Plantes, 189
Jason, the, 169
Jaubert and Ternaux, Messrs., 113 re1
Jaucourt, Comte de — Correspondence
with Talleyrand, 275, 276-77, 277-78,
283m1,,286, 289 re2, 291-93, 304, 321
and re 1-22, 331-32 ; policy, 296, 297 ;

at Ghent, 338, 345; Minister of War,
396m1 ; mentioned, 32, 130, 385
Jaucourt, Comtesse de, 304, 350
Jaucourt, Marquis de, 32, 36
Jena, 66
Jerome, King, 111-12, 115
Jersey, Due de Berry in, 99-100
Joachim, King, 289 re 1
Jones, Major, 18 re2
Jordan, Camille, 330
Josephine, Empress — Alexander and,
152-53, 191 ; death, 209 ; mentioned,
46 m1, 149, 186,263
Jourdan, 10 re1
Journal de Paris, 302
Journal des Dibats — articles quoted,
108 m1, 113 b1, 146, 147 re2, 170 m2,
174-75, 190, 272, 302, 319 ; loyalty,
126, 132, 164 ; non-appearance on
16 August, 1814, 258
Journal Royal, 302
Journal Universal, 339, 351, 354-55
Juan Bay, 305
Juigne, Auguste de, 158
Jussieu, M. de, 189
Kellek, Governor of Warsaw, 24 re 2
Kellermann, Marshal, 95, 158, 215
Kent, Duke of, 168 m1
Kersaint, Admiral de, 196
Kinski, Princesse, 304
Kleber, 10 m1
Kropowitzky, 43 n 1
Kruderen, Mme., 191
Laage, Marquise de, Souvenirs, 12 re \
41, 46
Labarte, M., 82
Labedoyere, M., 317, 403
Laborde, M. de, 271
Laborie, M. , 351
Labourdonnaye, M. de, 95, 247
"la Con tat, "40
Lacretelle, 336
Laeken, Chateau de, 335
Laffon, Abbe, 253
Laforce, Due de, 215
Lagrange, Marquis de, 126, 216, 237
Laine, M., 4-5, 6-7, 77-81, 99, 132,
205, 328-29
Lajollais, Mme., 254
Lakanal, 314
Lally-Tollendal, 314, 338-39, 351-52,
385
Lamarque, 57
Lamartine, quoted, 52, 53 re 1, 165, 395
Lamballe, Mme. de, 271
Lambrecht, resolution of, 132, 134,
136-37, 216
Lameth, 21 re 1, 220

421

INDEX

Lamoignon, M. de, 131 re1
Lamothe-Langon, Comtesse Fausse-
Landry, 8m2
Lamyre-Mori, Abbe, 96 re2
Landrecies, 257, 375
Lanjuinais, 132, 277
Lanterne Magique, the, 207 m ', 229 n 3
Lapey rouse, 188-89
Lapoukine, Princess, 29 re1
Lapparent, Cochon de, 216
Laroche-Aymon, Vicomte de, 264
Larochefoucauld, Comte Gae'tan de, 342
Larochefoucauld, Due de, 21m1, 198,
245 m1, 271, 321
Larochefoucauld, Duchesse de, 120,
271
Larochejacquelein, Marquis de, 237
La Rochelle, and the Bourbons, 159,
255, 316
La Rothiere, battle of, 3, 264
Lasalle, Chevalier, de, 158
Latil, Abbe, 47 m1, 86, 160
Launay, M. de, 123 and re 1, 271
Laurencin, M. de, 174
Laurency, Mme. de, 163
Lauris, Comte de, 119
Lauriston, Marquis de, 237, 239
Laval, 254
Laval, Vicomte de, 304
Laval, Vicomtesse de, 304
Laval-Montmorency, Due de, 215
La Vendee, loyalty to the Bourbons,
15, 16, 44-45, 78, 236 m1, 254, 316,
320, 325, 355, 368, 376
Laville-Lejeas, M. de, 216
Lavoisier, 271
Law, 400
Law School, students of, become Volun
teers, 313
Lebeau, President, 131 re1
Lebrun, Due de Plaisance, 115 m2, 122
re1, 134, 158, 215
Leclerc, General, 187
Lecomte, 314
Lecourbe, General, 151, 221 m1
Lee, Sir George, 68 and re 2
Lefebvre, Marshal. See Dantzic,
Due de
Legion of Honour — Conditions regard
ing, made in the Peace Treaty, 207 ;
sale of, 232 m a ; distributions, 252-53 ;
suppression of orphanages connected
with, 261-62 ; the old Guard and,
298 ; arrears of pensions promised,
311 ; appointments annulled by
Napoleon, 323
Legislative Body, Commission of the,
1813-1814, 4-7
"Legitimacy," the question of, 160,
213

422

Legris-Duval, Abbe, 212
Leipsic, battle of, 1, 8, 76
Lemarrois, General, 207
Lens, Comte Philippe de, 336
Lepelletier, Comte Felix, 281
Les Loges, 262
Les Marie-Louise, 3
Le Tiers Btah, 18, 235, 247
Levert, Mme., 284
Levis, Due de, 215, 314, 341, 350-51
Levis-Pirepoix, Mme. de, 273
Libourne, 99
Lichtenstein, Prince von, the con
ference, 123-26
Ligny, battle of, 357
Lihus, 391
Lille, Comte de : see Louis XVIII
Lille, Garrison of, 170 ; flight of Louis
XVIII to, 318, 319, 321 re1-22, 332;
loyalty to Napoleon, 375 ; deputation
to Louis XVIII, 382-83
Limoges, 255, 326
Linguet, 196
Little Bureau, the, 219-21
Liverpool, Lord, 5
Livry, 91, 93-94, 155
Loetitia, Mme., 383
Loiserolle, M. de, 271
Lombardy, strongholds of, 162
Lons-le-Saulnier, 113 m1
Lorges, Due de, 33, 82, 215
Lorient, 254
Louis, Baron, Talleyrand and, 110,
121-22 ; at the conference of the
allies, 124-26 ; Minister of Finance,
141 and re2, 200-202, 295, 396 re1;
the treasure of Marie Louise, 143;
and de Blacas, 242 ; budget of 1814,
273-74 ; policy, 278 ; flight, 321-22 ;
in Ghent, 338, 344-45 ; mentioned,
102, 107
Louis XIV, 12, 172 ; equestrian statue
of, 272
Louis XV, 196
Louis XVI, Attitude of the Comte de
Provence toward, 13 ; Ministers, 31 ;
death, 53 ; flight, 196 re 1 ; memorial
services, 212, 252, 355 ; remains trans
ferred to St. Denis, 290 and mre-93 ;
mentioned, 188-89, 271, 273 m1, 279,
282-83
Louis XVII, 16 re \ 43 re ', 53 re ', 174,
177, 213, 271
Louis XVIII, his declaration, 5 andn1;
life at Hartwell, 9 et seq. ; character
and habits, 12-19 and mm, 20-21, 22-
23, 165-66, 242-44, 300 re3; corres
pondence with Robespierre, 14 re1,
16 to1; papers of, 18 re1; policy on
reaching the throne, 20 ; marriage of

INDEX

the Due d'Angouleme arranged, 22-
23, 55, 57, 59-60; journey from
Mittau, 24 re2-25, 25 re1 ; dress and
appearance, 26 ; daily life, 27 ; cor
respondence with d'Harcourt, 28 re 1 ;
and Saint-Priest, 29-30 ; ceremony
during exile, 30-31 ; and d'Avaray,
33-35, 35 re1, 71-72, 73 re1 ; and the
Due d'Angouleme, 51-52 ; leaves
Mittau, 60-61 ; and Conde, 64 ; and
Napoleon, 66 ; at Gosfield, 66-68 ;
removal to Hartwell, 68 ; and de
Blacas, 69-71 ; abdication rumoured,
74^75 ; funds, 75 ; letter to Alex
ander, 76 ; the Declaration, 76-77 ;
his recall, 80-84 ; his proclamation,
88 and m1, 119; and Talleyrand,
106 et seq. ; and the Abbe de Montes
quiou, 135, 137-38 ; his right to the
throne, 136-38 ; Fouche's memorial
to, 156-58; "Louis le Desire," 164;
his letter to Bordeaux, 165; entry
into London, 167-69 ; investiture
with the Garter, 168 and re 1 ; Dover
to Calais, 169-71 ; at Compiegne,
171-80 ; attitude towards the Con
stitution, 173-76 ; reception of the
Marshals, 174-75 ; interview with
Alexander at Compiegne, 176 and n 1
-78, 178 re x ; the Declaration of Saint-
Ouen, 177-79 ; reception of the
Senate, 179-80 ; arrival in Paris,
180-84; reception at the Tuileries,
184 et seq. ; his treatment of Alex
ander, 191-92, 192 re J ; constitution
of his court, 195-99 ; court cere
monial, 197-98 ; portrait, 198 ;
review of the Old Guard, 199 ; his
first Ministry, 200-201 ; the Charter,
205-6 ; the peace treaties, 206-208 ;
reception of deputation from the
legislative chamber, 257-58 ; Feast
of St. Louis, 258-59 ; action on
escape of Napoleon, 309, 311, 316-17 ;
flight, 318 re2-323; private papers
left, 331 and re 2-32 ; arrival at Ghent,
334-36 ; the King's Declaration pub
lished in the Ghent Moniteur, 351-
52 ; his return from Ghent, 374, 380,
382-90 ; receives news of Napoleon's
entry into Belgium, 379; news of
Waterloo, 380 ; his toast at the
Hotel d'Hane, 381-82; his parting
with de Blacas, 382-83 ; interview
with Talleyrand, 383-85; the Pro
clamation of Cateau-Cambresis, 385-
87; meets Talleyrand at Cambrai,
386; his route from Cambrai, 390;
enters the Tuileries, 390-91, 396-99 ;
accepts Fouche, 393-94

Louis, St., feast of, customs, 258-59
Louise de Conde, 12, 273
Louise de France, Mile., 273
Louise Marie Ther^se Bathilde : see
Bourbon, Duchesse de
Louise, Queen, 153
Louvre, the, 193, 254
Lozier, Bouvet de, 253
Lubis, Histoire de la Restauration,
quoted, 9 re1, 23, 156-58, 176
Lucas, physician, 252
Ludolph, Mile, de : see Saint-Priest,
Comtesse de
Ludovico reduce, Henricus redivivus,
182
Luxembourg, Due de, 95, 195, 197,
215, 338, 343
Luxembourg, Palace of the, 14 re 1, 33
Luzerne, M. de la, 214
Lycees, change of names, 151
Lynch, Comte, 4, 82 andn1, 99, 252,
328 341
Lyons', 113 m1, 159, 263, 268; Deputa
tion to Louis XVIII, 174 ; loyalty,
212; Comte d'Artois at, 265-66;
loyalty to Napoleon, 306, 307, 377
Lys, order of the, 253 re 1, 255 ; origin,
94 ; abolished by Napoleon, 322
Lys, the, 169
Macdonald, Marshal, 174, 215, 307, 332,
398
Machault family, 392
Macirone, Colonel, 366
Macon, 377
Madeira, 35
Madeleine, the, 120 re 2 ; cemetery,
293 m1
Maestricht, 207 k1
Magdeburg, 207
Maille, Due de, 46, 48, 155, 215, 218,
264
Maison, General, 170 and n1, 398
Maisonfort, Marquis de la, 219-20
Maistre, Comte de, 119, 220, 409-10
Malbos, M., 261
Malesherbes, 271
Mallet, General, 253
Malleville fits, brochure of, 362-63
Malmaison, 149, 152, 186, 191, 209, 358
Malouet, M. de, 200, 242, 272-73, 286
Malta, 207
Manciel, M. de, 86
Mannheim, Congress of, 4
Manuel, M., 366
Marcellus, M. de, 249 re 1
Marcillac, Comte de, 236
Marengo, battle of, 2, 60
Marescot, General, 158
Maret, carpenter, 378 n1

423

INDEX

Marie, Abbe, 24 re2, 60 re1
Marie Amelie, princess, 62
Marie Antoinette, Comte de Provence
and, 13 re1 ; court of, 40 ; death, 53 ;
mentioned, 212, 263, 271
Marie Louise — Marriage, 8-11, 72;
desertion of Paris, 115 and re x-17 ;
defended by Dalberg, 124 ; waggons
and chests seized, 142-43 ; and the
Emperor of Austria, 152; at Blois,
181 ; her desertion of Napoleon,
187-88 ; mentioned, 72, 96, 103, 106,
209, 264, 300, 350, 379
Marie Therese of Savoy, 41
Marmont, Marshal, Due de Raguse, 95,
105, 115, 117-18, 132, 133, 174, 215,
237, 287, 315, 336 and re ', 398
Mars, Mile., 284, 402 re2
Marsan, Chateau de, 134
Marseilles, .Napoleon and, 159-60 ;
visit of the Comte d'Artois, 266-69 ;
massacre of, 378 and re 1
Martel, Charles, speech of, 114
Massa, Due de, 115 re2, 201
Massena, Marshal, 10 m1, 266, 299,
329 m2
Maubeuge, 257
Maubreuil, Comte de, Marquis d'Or-
vault, 111 and re, 112, 122, 338 re1
Maunday Thursday ceremony, 240, m 2
Maury, Cardinal de, 96, 151, 314
Mayence, 1, 162
Mazarin, 111
Mazarine Library, the, 188
Meaux, 91
Meilleraye, Marquise de, incognito of
the Duchesse d'Angouleme, 24, re 1
Memel, 24, re 2, 34, 60
Menars, Comte de, 163
Menini, 332
Mercure du Rhin, extracts, 385, rem
Mercy- Argenteau, 67 re 1
Merle, Jules, 284
Merlin, 314
Mersen, Chevalier de, 126
Mery, 264
Mesmer, 400
Mesnard, Comtesse de, 18, re 2
Metternich, Count — the peace treaties,
206; in Vienna, 349, 350; and
Fouche, 365 ; mentioned, 292, re 1
Meudon, 263
Meurthe, Doulay de la, 115, re2
Michaud, 102, 125, 126, 199, 250;
brochure of, 360-361
Michelot, Mile., 40
Ministry of Louis XVIII, July 1815 ;
list of names, 396 m 1
Mint, the Paris, 153
Mirabeau, 135

424

Mittau in Courland, 11, 22, 27 re1, 29
and re2, 34, 38 and ^-39, 57-59, 62
Mollard, M., 188
Mollien, Comte, 115 re2, 202
Monarchy, fall of the, 315 et seq.
Moncas, Mme. de, 163
Moncey, Marshal, 95, 158, 170, 171,
174, 215
Monciel, M. Terrier de, 219 and n 1-220,
220 m1
Monge, 315
Moniteur de Gand, 385
Moniteur (Journal Universal) estab
lished at Ghent, 339, 351
Moniteur, the, articles quoted, 5, 27,
155, 194-95, 287, 302, 322, 324, 396
and re1
Mons, 384
Montagues Russes, the, 153 and re :
Montaignac, Chevalier de, 32
Montalembert, Comte de, 166
Montalivet, Comte, 115 re2
Montanion, secretary, 131 re1
Montansier, Cafe, attack on, 361
Montansier, Mme., 155
Montargis, 377
Montbazon, Due de, 215
Montefiascone, 151
Montemart, Due de, 237
Montereau, battle of, 8 m2, 104, 111 re2
Montesquiou, Abbe de — Account of,
134-35, 135 rere; Talleyrand and,
135-36; and the Commission, 136-38;
his despatch to Louis XVIII, 137-
38 ; Minister of the Interior, 200,
202-5; 248, 295; his remark on
de Blacas, 242; re-establishment of
the Censorship, 250-51 ; policy, 275-
76, 296-98 ; character, 276 ; and
Ferrand, 286 ; attitude towards
Bonaparte, 305; mentioned, 21 re1,
130, 294, 338
Montesquiou, Mme. Eugene de, 119
Montgaillard, Abb6 de, quoted, 10 m1,
14 m1, 15, 17 re1, 24 re1, 64, 107 re1,
303-4 ; on Louis XVIII, quoted, 20-
21 ; on Alexander, 139 ; on the
Nobility, 249 ; attack on de Blacas,
302
Montgrand, Marquis de, 267
Montlivaut, Comte de, 78 re 1
Montlosier, Comte de, brochure of,
361-62
Montmartre, 146, 359
Montmartre, Abbess of, 271
Montmirail, battle of, 3, 8 m2
Montmorency, Adrien de, 78
Montmorency, Cardinal de, 59
Montmorency, Mathieu de, 158, 223
Montpelier, Bishop of, 18 to2

INDEX

Montpellier, 377
Montpensier, Due de, 18 re2, 61-62
Montrond, 106, 349
Montrouge, 211
Montsoreau, Mile, de, 169
Moreau, General, 17, 77 and re1
Moreau, Mme., 261, 294
Morel, Comptroller, 12
Morfontaine, 129
Morin, scheme of, 126-28, 161
Mormal, Forest of, 381
Mornard, 321 re x
Mortagne, 254
Mortemart, Due de, 95, 215, 262 m1
Mortier, General, 10 re1, 158, 160, 215,
257, 332, 356
Morvaux, Guyton de, 315
Moscow, 5, 76
Moskowa, Prince de la. See Ney,
Marshal
Mosquart, valet, 222
Mouchy, Due de, 14 re 1, 271
Moulins, 307
Mounier, M., in Ghent, 341, 345, 351
Muffling, Baron von, in Paris, 396
Murat, intrigue, 289, 305, 335 and n x
Museum of Arts and Crafts, Paris, 188
Nain Jaune, the, 283-86, 294-95, 301,
302, 347-48, 348 rere, 402
Nancy, tribunal of, 271-72
Nangis, 113 re1
Nansouty, General de, 158, 237
Nantes, 160 ; riots, 212; Due d'Angou
leme in, 254-55
Nantes, Bishop of, 18 re 2
Nantouillet, Comte de, 18 m 2, 163
Napoleon Bonaparte — After Leipsic,
1-5 ; at St. Helena, quoted, 2 ;
reception of the Legislative Body,
6-7 ; departure for the front,
January, 1814, 8 and re ] ; marriage
with Marie Louise, 10-11, 72; his
armies in Verona, 22 ; and Louis
XVIII, 22-24, 30, 32, 34-35, 66;
court of, 39, 67 ; and the Duchesse
d'Angouleme, 56-57, 327 ; burning of
Moscow, 76 ; deposition announced,
84; his position in 1814, 85-86;
influence among the people, 89-90,
92, 101, 114, 160, 310 ; his statue in
the Place Vendome, 92 m1, 122-23,
123 m1; the negotiations, 98; and
Talleyrand, 102-6 ; plans to as
sassinate, 111 and nn -12, 310-11 ;
conference of the Allies and their
• report, 123-126 ; the press and, 126 ;
Chateaubriand's attack, 127-29 ; at
Fontainebleau, 129 ; attack of M.
Bellart, 131 andn1 -32 ; the abdica-

425

tion, 133-34 ; on Alexander, 139 ;
and Marie Louise, 187-88 ; efligy
removed from the Cross of the
Legion of Honour, 199 ; rumours
regarding his sanity, 252; institu
tions founded by, abolished, 261-62 ;
his methods with the people, 270;
restoration of patrimonies, 274;
letter to Massena, 299 ; wealth of,
dispersed, 303-4; rumours of intrigue,
305; the escape from Elba, 305-7;
reaches Fontainebleau, 307 ; his new-
decrees published in the Moniteur,
322-23 ; saying of, quoted, 326 ;
treatment of the Due d'Angouleme,
328-29 ; the private papers of Louis
XVIII, 331 and re 2 ; his emissaries
to Vienna, 349-50 ; ceremony of the
Champ de Mai, 354-55 ; the depar
ture from Paris, 357-59 ; and Fouche,
365 ; second abdication, 366 ; sup
porters in the country, 376-77 ; joins
his army in Belgium, 379 ; Waterloo,
380 ; the interview at Tilsit, 409-10
Napoleon II, supporters of, 368, 369.
See also Rome, King of
Narbonne, Duchesse de, 18 re2 69, 73,
390
Narp, Comte de, 334
National Almanach, 67 re '
National Assembly, the, and Louis
XVIII, 18
National Guard, the — Napoleon's
charge to, 7-9 ; escorts the Comte
d'Artois into Paris, 93-94, 95 re ] ;
loyalty of, 119-20 ; review, 254
National Library, the, 80
Navarre, 149
Nazelle, M. Ducauze de, 376
Necker, 180
Nemours, Dupont de, 140
Nerac, 164 m 1, 210
Nesles, Marquis de, 59
Nesselrode, Count — and de Vitrolles,
87 and n 1 ; the conference, 123-26 ;
the Senator's Commission, 134, 137 ;
in Talleyrand's house, 140; in Viennat
349 ; and Fouche, 365 ; mentioned,
119, 120, 122, 129, 206
Netherlands, King of the, 334, 336
Nettement, quoted, 176, 192 m l
Neufchateau, Francois de, 216
Neuilly, Comte de, 239 ; Souvenirs
quoted, 37 re 1
Neuville, Hyde de, 77, 310, 318, 350,
390
Newerkerques, the two, 119
Ney, Marshal, 10 re1, 95-96, 174, 180,
215, 309, 317, 326, 355
Nimes, loyalty of, 261, 327, 377

INDEX

Nivernais, Due de, 180
Noailles, Alexis de, 21 re1, 77, 86, 253
Noailles, Charles de, 94 re ', 151, 158
Noailles, Juste de, 233, 304
Nobility, the, under the restored mon
archy, 248-49
Nodier, Charles, quoted, 185-86, 199
Nogent, 264
Noireau, Colonel, 325
Normandie, Due de, 28, 53
Normandy, loyalty of, 375
Norvins, 314
Notre Dame de la Garde, 266
Notre Dame, Paris — Reception of the
Comte d'Artois, 96 ; entry of Louis
XVIII, 182 ; commemoration service
for Louis XVI, 212 ; sermon by the
AbW de Boulogne, 253
Oath, violation of the, 378
Odeon, the, 253
Old Guard, the— Louis XVIII and, 183,
199 ; Due de Berry and, 225 ; pre
sentation of colours, 256 ; and the
Eagles, 298 ; memories of Bonaparte,
260 re 1 ; the call for Napoleon II,
369
Oldenburg, Duchesse of, 292 m :
Opera Comique, the, 153
"Opera-girls," 244
Ops, M., 344
Origen, 13
Orleans, Duchesse, 12, 61
Orleans, Louis Philippe, Due d' —
Account of, 11 ; reconciliation with
Louis XVIII, 62 and m -63 ; in the
Palais Royal, 254 ; action on the
escape of Napoleon, 307 ; at Lille,
320, 322, 332; retirement to England,
and attacks on, 356; supporters of,
363-64, 366, 368-69, 372 ; return to
Paris, 403 ; mentioned, 211, 212
Orphanages, suppression of, 261-62
Osmonde, Comte d', 94 m1, 158, 304
Ostend, 379
Ostolazza, Dom Bias, 285 re *
Otrante, Due d'. See Fouche
Otto, M., 158
Oudinot, Marshal, 158, 215, 256, 398
Outrement, M. d', 247
Oxford, honours for Alexander at, 209
Oxford, Lord, 289 re1
Palais Bourbon, the Chambers con
voked, 213-16
Palais Royal, 147, 403
Palissot, 189
Panouze, Cesar de, 249
Paris, picture of, in 1814, 92 and to ',
115 and nn ; entry of the Comte

426

d'Artois, 93-97 ; Royalist feeling
in, 101 et seq. ; the battle at the
Barriere du Trone, 117 and nn, 122
and re l ; Marmont's capitulation, 117
and rere-118 ; entry of the Allies, 118,
120 and rere-23 ; the soldiers of the
Allies — a picture, 144-46 ; street
scenes, 146-50 ; the Rue Saint-
Honore, 148 ; normal state restored,
150-52 ; the theatres and the new
movement, 152 ; entry of Louis
XVIII, 181-84 ; sovereigns and
princes in, 190-94 ; departure of
the Allies, 209-10 ; 1st January
1815, 285; carnival of 1815, 300-
302; expecting Napoleon, 317 and
rere-19; flight of Louis, 321-23;
ambassadors leave, 339 ; picture of,
extract from the Journal Universal,
354-55 ; departure of Napoleon
357-58 ; Fouche's surrender, 358-59,
368-69, 370-71; arrival of the
Prussians, 359-60 ; wreck of the
Cafe Montansier, 361 ; the call for
Napoleon II, 368-70 ; condition
after Waterloo, 378-79 ; report of
the Due de Berry, 392 ; state of, on
return of Louis XVIII, 396-97;
second entry of Louis, 397 et seq.
Pasquier, Baron, Mimoires quoted,
180, 181, 186, 210, 217 re1, 237 m1,
279 re1 ; and Fouche, 350 m1 ; Maitre
de Requites, 395-96 ; Minister of
Justice, 396 re x ; mentioned, 106,
155
Pastoret, 130, 205
Patris, 314
Pau, 255
Pauillac, 328
Paul I., Emperor, 24, 27 re1, 2% andn1,
60
Pauline, Princess, 187, 331 re2
Pavilion de Marsan, the circle, 217-19
Peace-treaties, the, terms, 206-208
Peers, Court of, formed, 213
Peers of 1814, 215
Pelletier de Saint-Fargeau, 14 B1
Perceval, Mr., 18 re2
Perignon, Comte de, 215, 326
Perigord, Archambaud de, 39, 67 re 1
Perigord, Comtesse de, 120, 173
Perigord, M. de, Archbishop of
Rheims, 18 re2, 75, 82, 195, 214,
342
Perigueux, 326
Peronne, 13
Perraut, Abbe, 151
Perray, M. de, 339 re 1
Perregaux, banker, 345
Perrin, M. de, 81

INDEX

Petitioners, Royalist, 225-34
Petits-Augustins, Museum of the, 188-
89
Philippe de Valois, 128
Philippe Egalite, 11
Philippe le Bel, 128
Pichard, valet, 46
Pichegru, 15-16, 20, 64, 198, 218, 253
Pictures taken by the Allies, 402 n 1
Piedmont, strongholds of, 162
Pierre-Pierre, 314
Piiatre, M., 21m1
Pilnitz, treaty of, 108 re 1
Pin, M. Tour du, 91-92, 171, 350
Pitt Diamond, the, 316 re 1
Pitt, Thomas, 317 n
Pitt, William, 28 re \ 373
Pius VII, Pope, 212
Plaisance, Due de. See Lebrun
Platoff, General, 145 and re1
Poissy, 151
Poitiers, battle of, 114
Poix, Mme. de, 135 re2
Poix, Prince de, 180, 195, 197, 234,
277, 320, 338
Polastron, Mme. de, 46-47, 47 re *
Police — Napoleon and the police of
Paris, 102 ; system established by
Louis XVIII in Ghent, 337-38;
Ministry of, Fouche's appointment
signed, 394-95
Polignac, Armand, 86, 218
Polignac, Comte Jules de, 86, 158,
218, 253
Polignac, Comtesse Armand de, 46, 254
Polignac, Melchoir de, 72
Polignac, Mme. Melchoir de, 72
Pont-Carre, 365
Ponte-de-Vincennes, 146
Pontoise, 318
Poterie, M. de la, 342
Poulpry, Mme. de, 46
Prada, Dom Eugene de, 253
Pradel, Comte de, 82, 241
Pradt, Abbe de, Account, 107 and re 1,
108-109; and Talleyrand, 121-22;
at the Conference of the Allies, 124^-
26 ; Grand Chancellor of the Legion
of Honour, 142, 295 ; return to Paris,
379; mentioned, 86, 102, 107-108,
130 b1, 186
Praslin, Due de, 21 re S 215
Pre, Saint-Gervais, 146
Precy, de, 27
Press, the— Napoleon and, 126, 319;
royalist sentiments, 161, 271-73 ;
liberty of, established by the
Charter, 205-206 ; censorship re
established, 250-51 ; on the escape
from Elba, 306

Pressac, Comte de, 16 and re1, 211.
Priests, concessions to, 212.
Provence, Comte de. See Louis
XVIII
Provence, Comtesse de, 10 re ', 18 re 2,
18-19, 19 m \ 29, 58 and re1, 66, 68
Procession of Louis XV's Vow, 258
Property, restoration of, 293-94 ; bill
of M. Ferrand, 274-75
Prussians, the advance on Paris, 358-
60, 369, 376-77 ; in the Carrousel,
300, 396-97, 400
Puisaye, de, 27, 35
Puiseger, Comte de, 46, 237, 264
Puyvert, Marquis de, 151
Quelen, family of 31,
Quesnoy, 257
Queville, Baron de, 154 m 1
Quiberon, 16, 45, 282, 355 ; burial of
victims, 262 re 1, 288
Quincy, Quatremere de, 132 re1
Quinsonnas, Comte de, 342
Quinsonnas, Comtesse de, 119
Quintette, conventionist, 57
Raguse, Due de. See Marmont, Mar
shal
Rambouillet, 152
Ramond, M., 306 m1
Raphael, Transfiguration, 402 m 1
Rapp, 207 n1 '
Rastignac, Mile, de, 120
Raucourt, Mile., 295-96, 296 re l
Rauzun, Duchesse de, 350
Raynouard, 4
Razumowski, Count, 206
Real, 105, 149, 314
Reboul, Souvenirs quoted, 144 re3, 189 ;
at Calais, 170-71 ; and the Abbe
Montesquiou, 203 n 1
Recamier, Mme., 304
Regency, Council of, members, 115 re2,
118
Regent of England, the, and Louis
XVIII, 75, 167-69, 184
Reggio, Due de. See Oudinot, Marshal
Regnault, Mile., 117 re2, 199
Regnier. See Massa, Due de
Reiset, quoted, 300 n 2, 400
Remiremont, Chapter of, 12
Rennes, 277 re1, 375
Reuil, 209
Reveilliere-Lepeaux, La, 21 re1
Rheims, 81, 113 b1
Rheims, Archbishop of. See Perigord
Rhine, navigation, 207
Rhodez, Bishop of, 18 re '
Richelieu, 111, 195, 196, 215, 314
Richen, 57

427

INDEX

Rigal, 216
Rigault, General, 375-76
Rinhard, 321 re1
Riom, 262
Riviere, Due de, 78 and re'3, 82, 218,
237, 253, 254, 293
Robert le Fort, 128
Robespierre and Louis XVII, 53 re 1 ;
correspondence with Louis XVIII,
14 re1,, 16 n1
Rochefoicauld, Mme., 120
Rochefoucauld, Sosthene de la, 78, 120,
122-23, 218
Rochejacquelein, August de la, 325
Rochejacquelein, M. de la, 82 re 1
Rocroy, 322
Rodrigues Island, surrender, 207
Roederer, M., 21 to1, 216, 314
Rcehn, painter, 271
Rcesch, M. , 342
Roger-Ducos, 216
Rohan, Due de, 215
Rohan, Duchesse de, 18 to2
Rohan, Ferdinand de, 67 re :
Roll, Baron de, 46
Rollac, M. Sebastien, 81
Romainville, 117
Romans, town of, 268
Rome, King of, 74, 108, 115, 132 re1,
300, 379
Roquefort, 99
Rosiere, Comte de la, 325
Rostopchine, 43 to x
Rotunda, the, Ghent, 346
Rouen, 164, 260
Rouge, Comte de, 310
Rougemont, De, quoted, 150 m1, 231 re1
Rousseau, 216
Roux-Laborie, 111, 140
Rovigo, Savary, Due de, 77, 80, 102-6,
111 to1, lion2, 314
Royal Emigrants, the, 32
Royalists, importunities of the, 225-34 ;
attitude towards the Bourbon3, 363
Roye, 390, 391
Royer-Coliard — the "little-back-shop,''
297-98, 330 ; letters to Louis XVHI,
348 ; censor, 250
Rumford, Mme. de, 306 n 1
Russillion, Major, 253
Sabrau, Comte de, 47 re 1, 233
Sabran, Huguette de, 302
Sacken, General, Governor of Paris,
149
Saillan, M. de, 342
Saint- Aignan, Due de, 215
St. Albans, 73 m1
Saint-Aldegond, Comte de, 171
Saint Bavon, Cathedral of, 343

428

Saint Brieuc, 375
Saint-Cloud, 212; Ute at, 189-90
Saint Denis, 397, 398 ; tomb prepared
for the wife of Louis XVHI, 261 ;
remains of Louis XVI transferred
to, 290 and rere-93
Saint Didier, Comte de, 318 n '
Saint Elme, Ida, 367
Saint-German, 263, 339
Saint-Jean-de-Luz, 97
St. Lazare, Priests of, 253
Saint- Leu, Duchesse de. See Hortense,
Queen
Saint Louis, order of, investments,
149, 233 re1, 261; order abolished
by Napoleon, 322
St. Lucia, surrender, 207
Saint Malo, 375
Saint-Martin-Lamothe, 216
St Michael, order abolished by Napo
leon, 322
Saint-Ouen, 20 ; the Declaration of,
177-79; arrival of the Senate, 179-
80 ; chateau of, 180
Saint-Paterne, M. de, 46
St. Paul, Paris, 253
Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de, 220 n l
Saint-Priest, Comte de, 24, 27, 28-30,
57, 59, 113 b1
Saint-Priest, Comtesse de, 28, 29 re 1
Saint- Vincent, Colonel Bory de, and
the Voire Jaune, 283 ; letter of,
quoted, 369-70
Saint- Vincent, name adopted by de
Vitrolles, 87
Sainte-Barbe, 263, 265
Sainte-Beuve quoted, 339 re '
Salgues, 126
Salic Law, the, 128-29
Salisbury, Marquis of, 73 and n !-74
Salons, 78 and n 1
San Domingo, 218
Sapineau, M. de, 325
Sardinia, kingdom of, 207
Sass, Baron de, 24 re 2
Saulx-Tavannes, Due de, 215
Saumur, Chateau de, prisoners of, 151
Saur, 216
Sauvo, editor, 304, 396
Savona, 212
Saxe-Teschen, Princess of, 60
Sceaux, 12, 92 m1, 151
Scey, Comte de, 86
Scheldt, navigation, 207
Scherer, 221 re 1
Schoenverlust, chateau of, 37
Schoenbr'unn, 189, 364
Schouvaloff, General, 142 re 1
Schwartzenberg, Prince— the Confer
ence, 123-26 ; and Marmont, 132 ;

INDEX

fete given by, 189-90 ; mentioned,
120 m2, 148 n1
Sebastiani, return of, 9
Seguier, 201
Semalle, Comte de, 126
Semonville, 205
Senart, Forest of, 239
Senate, the — the Senatorial Commis
sion, 4 ; and Alexander, 138 ; and
Comte d'Artois, 157 ; visit to Saint-
Ouen, 179-80
September massacres, 271, 281
Serent, Due de, 11, 33, 48, 82, 215
Serent, Duchesse de, 24 re 2, 223
Serin, harbour of, 265
Serre, Mme. de, 245
Serrurier, Comte de, 95, 174, 205, 215
Seven Years' War, 28
Sevres, 263
Seychelles, surrender, 207
Sieyes, M., 21 re1, 216, 314
Simeon, prefect of Lille, 332
Simon and Louis XVII, 53 re 1
Sisteron, Bishop of, 18 re 2
Slade, M. de, 164
Slave trade, abolition, 206
Soult, Marshal — and the Due d'An
gouleme's proclamation, 97-98 ; ap
pointed to the Ministry of War,
277, 287, 288 and re1^; accusa
tions against, 294 ; policy, 296-97 ;
Chateaubriand and, 297 ra 1 ; fall of,
308 ; his publication in the Moniteur,
308 m 1 ; returns to Napoleon, 326,
355; mentioned, 10 re1, 99, 212 re1,
278
Souvarow, Marshal, 25 m1, 221 m1
Spain and Louis XVIII, 27 re1, 75;
Spaniards in Bayonne, 378
Stadion, Count, 87 ; the peace treaties,
206
Stael, Mme. de — Considerations quoted,
8 m1; and Alexander, 139 ; on the
occupation of Paris, quoted, 192-94 ;
at the opening of the Chambers,
214; on the Tiers Etat, 247-48;
return of Napoleon, 309-10 ; mere-
tioned, 130, 305
Stanmore, 167
States, General, opening, 41
Stein, Baron von, 207
Stettin, 207 re1
Stewart, General, 206
Stewart, Lord, 346 re 2 ; opposes the
publication of "the King's Declara
tion," 351-52
Stony-Stratford, 73 re 1
Stowe, 73
Strasburg, 63
Suchet, Marshal. See Albufera, Due d'

Sussy, Comte, 115 re2
Suzannet, Comte de, 78, 325
Suze, Marquis de la, 195, 237

Taw art de St. Germain, M., 82 m1
Talleyrand, Prince de B6nevent—
Speech to the Comte d'Artois, 94 re2 ;
and Rovigo, 102-6, 116; message to
Louis XVIII, 106-7 ; policy, 109, 110,
116, 121-22, 275-76; his idea of a
regency, 110-11 ; plan to assassinate
Napoleon, 111 and nn -112; and the
Russian Minister, 119, 122; Alex
ander in his house, 121 and re 1,
138-141 ; the conference, 123-26 ;
and the Senate, 129-130 ; and the
Legislative body, 132-33 ; and the
Abbe de Montesquiou, 135-36 ; the
Peace treaties, 161-62, 206-8; sale
of Saint Brice, 163 re1; and Louis
XVHI, 173, 202 ; the Declaration of
Saint-Ouen, 177-80; Minister of
Foreign Affairs, 200, 396 m 1 ; results
of his policy, 207-8 ; and de Blacas,
242, 382 ; at Vienna, 292 and re \ 304 ;
notes to Louis XVIII, 292 m1, 374;
at Vienna — his official documents,
322 ; his policy at Vienna, 335 ; and
the declaration of the powers, 339 ;
trade with the Bourbons, 339 re 1 ;
Wellington and, 347 ; letter from
Vienna to Ghent quoted, 349-50 ;
the interview with Louis XVIII,
383-85 ; receives the King at Cam
brai, 386-87 ; President of the Minis
try, 388; supports Fouche, 388-90,
393-94 ; reconstruction of the Minis
try, 393-94; mentioned, 8, 21 re1,
27-28, 86, 87, 115 re2, 130 m1, 186,
215, 295, 347
Talleyrand, Mme. de, 187, 350
Talleyrand-Perigord. See Perigord
Talma, 128
Talon, M. Omer, 245
Tanzia, M. de, 82
Tarbes, Bishop of, 18 m2
Tarbis, 255
Tarente, Due de. See Macdonald,
Marshal
Target, M., 21 re1
Temple, the, imprisonment of Mme.
Royale, 53-54, 184
Terror, the, 135
Theatre de l'Opera, 193
Theatre des Varieties, 155, 185-86
Theatre Francais, 193, 198
Theatre, the Court, 244
Theatres, Parisian — and the peace, 152 ;
excitement on arrival of Louis XVIII,

429

INDEX

185 ; subsidised, administration, 254 ;
His Majesty's box, 272 ; politics in,
402 re2
Thelusson, Hotel, 117 b1
Thibaudeau, M., 21 re1, 368 and n'
Thoin, M., 189
Thionville, Merlin de, 372, 373
Thurot, Joseph, 314
Thury, Hericart de, 189
Tilsit, 139, 409-10
Times, The, extract quoted, 18 re2, 68
Tiskiewicks, Comtesse, 304
Titles, auction of, 225-35, 247
Tobago, surrender, 207
Tortoni Cafe, Paris, 146, 302 re ', 357
Touche, Mehee de la, brochure of, 281
Toulon, 15, 329 and m2
Toulouse, 255, 320, 326, 337 ; visit of
the Due d'Angouleme, 210-11
Tour, M. Peiaut de la, 81
Tournai, 383
Tours, 377
Tracy, M. Destutt de, 132, 134, 136
Traitement, 317
Travot, General, 294
Treasure of the Civil List despatched
to England, 316 and m1
Treilhard, M., 21 m1
Tremoille, Due de la, 78, 215
Tremo'ille, Princesse de la, 310
Trevise, Due de. See Mortier, General
Treyches, M. Bonnet de, 213
Trianon, 40, 212
Tribunat, the, 32
Tricolour, the, 369, 374, 397
Trogoff, Comte de, 86
Troyes, 81, 113 m1, 265
Tuileries, the, 6, 7, 39, 67, 76, 121 m ],
193; arrival of the Comte d'Artois,
96, 97; flight of Marie Louise, 116-17,
143-44 ; receptions by the Comte
d'Artois, 154-56 ; arrival of Louis
XVIII, 184 ; the military household,
237-38 ; the civil household, 238-39 ;
court etiquette and ceremonies, 239-
41 ; first reception by the Duchesse
d'Angouleme, 253 ; a reception of
delegates from the Legislative Cham
ber by Louis XVIIL , 258 ; proposal
of Marshal Desolles, 315-316 ; flight
of Louis XVIII, 320-23 ; arrival of
General Excelmans, 323-24 ; return
of Louis XVIII, 390, 399
Turin, 42, 48

Ultras, the, 290, 291
Usez, Bishop of, 18 re2
Uss<5, Chateau d', 78
Uzes, Due d', 215

430

Vadier, M., 21 re1
Val-de-Grace, 12
Valencay, 285 re1
Valence, 377
Valenciennes, 257, 375
Valentinois, Due de, 215
Valette, La, on the fall of Napoleon,
104-5 ; yields to Ferrand's entreaties,
324 ; mentioned, 9, 314
Valmy, Due de. See Kellermann,
Marshal
Vandamme, 289
Vandeuvres, 264, 265
Vandyck, portrait of Montrose, 73 re '
Vannes, Bishop of, 262 n 1
Vanteaux, M. de, 111 re2
Varaz, M. de, 174
Vassimont, Baron de, 342
Vatan, plains of, 376
Vauban, Comte de, and the Comte
d'Artois, 44
Vaublanc in Ghent, 341 and re ¦
Vaucanson, 188
Vaudemont, Mme. de, 78 re 1, 304
Vaudreuil, Comte de, 43 re ', 46, 48,
215
Vauguyon, Due de la, 31, 215
Vaulabelle, de, quoted, 87, 99, 111 re2,
162 andn1, 176, 195, 225 m1
Vaux, General, 376
Venice and Louis XVIII, 22
Venus of Milo, discovery, 78 re 2
Verac, Comte de, 37 re 1
Vergennes, M. de, 28
Vergennes, Mme. de, loyalty of, 17 n1
Verhuel, Admiral, 211m1
Vernede, M. La, 261
Vernet, painter, 271
Verneuil, loyalty of, 261
Veron, de, Mimoires, 39 n 1
Verona, 15, 22, 24, 29, 31
Versailles, 11, 272
Very, 216
Vesoul, 90 and re 2-91
Vestrymen, deputation of, to Louis
XVIII, 261
Vibraye, Marquis de, 223
Vichy, 252, 262
Victoire, Princess, 252
Victor Amedee of Sardinia, 18 m2
Victor, Marshal, 336 andn1, 381, 385,
398
Vicence, Due de, Mimoires quoted,
2 re1, 192 n1
Vienna, the Congress of, 77, 289 re1,
292 andn1, 304, 333, 339
Vigee-Lebrun, Mme. , 263
Vilheurnois, La, 27, 31
Villate, General, 398
Villejuif, 323

INDEX

Villemain, 357
Villeneuve-la-Guyare, 111 re2
Villequier, Due de, 32, 41, 59, 195,
mandn1-®'!, 215
Villeroi, Hotel de, 151
Villetard, 216
Villeveire, 113 re1
Vimar, 205
Vincennes, Chateau- de, 12, 152, 239
Vincent, Baron, 346 re2
Viosmenil, Comte de, 215, 232, 299
"Virgins of Verdun," 271
Vitrolles, M. de— Mimoires, 32, 78 re 1,
153, 202 re1, 204, 212 m1 ; journey
with the Prince, 86-93 ; policy, 102,
221 ; Under-Secretary of State, 158 ;
saying of, quoted, 190 ; the Little
Bureau, 219-21 ; ministry of war,
287 ; and de Jaucourt, 304 ; advice
to Louis XVIII, 316 ; goes to
Toulouse, 320, 325, 326 ; liberation,
371-73 ; on character of Louis XVIII,
392-93 and nn ; management of the
Moniteur, 396 ; mentioned, 70
Vitrolles, Mme. de, 351, 372
Vittoria, battle of, 90 re 2
Voisins, Gilbert des, 158, 313
Volhynia, 64
Volnais, Mile., 284
Volney, Comte, 21 m \ 215
Wagram, Prince de. See Berthier,
Marshal
Waleska, Countess, 188
Walpole, Horace, quoted, 18 k1
Wanderer, the, sloop, 328

Warsaw, 23, 24 re2, 34, 61
Warwick Castle, 73 re1, 74
Wassiliewieht, Maison, 24 re2
Waterloo, 20 ; news of, in Paris, 361 ;
probable results if Napoleon had won,
379-80 ; Chateaubriand's account,
380 ; report from Ghent, 385
Wellesley, Marquis of, 18 m2
Wellington — in the Pyrenees, 86 ; and
the surrender of Bordeaux, 98 and n x
-99 ; in Paris, 298-99 ; in Belgium,
342 ; and the Bourbons, 346-47, 373,
379 ; and the Declaration, 351-53 ;
and Fouche, 365-66, 370 ; character,
373-74; message to Louis XVIII,
381 ; movements after Waterloo, 383,
384, 386, 390; mentioned, 97, 108,
212, 259, 260, 288, 304^5
Wenceslaus, Elector of Treves, 27
White Cockade, the, distribution,
119-20, 167, 188 ; abolition, 322
William, Prince, of Prussia, 121 re1
Willot, 15
Wissembourg, 282
Witt, Captain, 24 m2
Women of Paris, 402-3
Woronzoff, 43 n 1
Wiirtemburg, King of, 292 m1, 349-50
Wiirtemburg, Princess of, 338 n 1
Wurmser, Marshal von, 15
Yeu, island of, 45
York, Duke of, 167, 168 and m1
Ypres, 334
Zoubow, Platon, 43 m 1

THE END

11. CLAY AND SONS, LTD., BEEAD STREET HILL, B.C., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
431