crown the Duke of Orléans."

CHAP. remains, which is to

XXIV. 1830.

13.

for and

Duke's

being call

crown.

"The Duke of Orléans ! The Duke of Orléans-but do you "For fifteen years." know him?" "Well, but what are his titles to the crown? That boy whom Vienna has educated can at least invoke the memory of his father's glory; and it must be adimitted the passage of Napoleon has written his annals in characters of fire upon the minds of men. But what prestige surrounds the Duke of Orléans ?-do the people even know his history? How many of them have heard his name?" 'I see in that a recommendation, and not a disadvantage. Destitute of all influence over the imagination, he will be the less able to emancipate himself from the limits within which a constitutional monarch must confine himself. His private life is free from the scandalous immoralities which have disgraced so many other princes. He has respected himself in his wife; he has made himself respected and loved by his children."

"These are mere domestic virtues, which are not to be Arguments recompensed by a crown.-Are you ignorant that he is against the openly accused of having approved the homicidal votes of his father, and associated himself, in the evil days of our ed to the history, with projects calculated to exclude for ever from the throne the direct heirs of the unfortunate Louis, and of having preserved a mysterious attitude in London during the Hundred Days, which has given rise to strange suspicions? Since 1815 he has alternately caressed all parties, been at once the humble servant of the court and the secret fomentor of all intrigues. Louis XVIII. restored to him his vast estates; Charles X. made it a personal request to the Chambers to secure them to him by a legal and irrefragable right; he conferred upon him the title of Royal Highness,' so long coveted. Overwhelmed by gifts and kindnesses from the elder branch, how can he seize upon their inheritance ?-and could he even permit others to light the conflagration which must

XXIV.

1830.

in the end consume his own family?" "It is not in the CHAP. personal interest of the Duke, baron, but in that of the country threatened with anarchy, that I speak. I do not ask if the situation of the Duke of Orléans is painful to his own feelings, but whether his accession to the throne is desirable for France. What prince is more free from the prejudices which have occasioned the ruin of Charles Blanc, Dix X.? What prince has more openly professed liberal Louis sentiments? and to the combination which would crown i. 298, 300. him, what other is preferable?"

1 Louis

Ans de

Philippe,

giving the

the Duke

of Orléans,

to

Such, put in a dramatic form, after the manner of the 14. ancient historians, were the ideas which at this crisis were Project of fermenting in the minds of the most influential men in lieutenancyFrance. M. de Talleyrand inclined to the opinion of t M. de Chateaubriand, which was, that the only way to and th reconcile the conflicting interests of order and democracy the Duke of in France, would be to respect the right of the Duke of Bordeaux. Bordeaux, who was entirely free from his grandfather's fault, and to intrust his education, with the lieutenancygeneral of the kingdom, to the experienced wisdom and popular sentiments of the Duke of Orléans. But this arrangement, which was that which honour and ultimate interest prescribed, was far from meeting the views of the journalists and literary men, who looked to the triumph of a public party as the means of gratifying private ambition, and the fall of a dynasty as the elevation of a fortune. M. Béranger, despite his strong prepossessions in favour of the Napoleonists, and his indignant acerbities against the Bourbons, became the decided partisan of Louis the Orléans party, and promised them the aid of his heart- Blanc, i stirring songs and immense popularity; while M. Thiers, Capefigue, Mignet, and Laréguy, put at their disposal the equally Louis important contribution of their business talent and states- ii. 29, 31. manlike experience.2

By these three journalists a proclamation in favour of the Duke of Orléans was drawn up, which was published

301, 302;

Histoire de

Philippe,

XXIV.

1830.

15.

First pla- received.

cards in the

Orléans interest.

CHAP. in the National, Courrier Français, and Commerce. When placarded, and distributed in and around the Bourse, it excited no enthusiasm, and was very coldly Meanwhile M. de Lafayette, seated on a huge arm-chair at the Hôtel de Ville, was a prey to the most cruel anxieties. The Duke de Chartres, eldest son of the Duke of Orléans, had been arrested at Montrouge, and the old general hardly knew whether to maintain his arrest or order his liberation, and after much hesitation he was prevailed on to do the latter. But meanwhile the Orléanists, presided over by M. Lafitte, were rapidly proceeding to action; they had the immense advantage over their adversaries of order, arrangement, and decision. At ten o'clock a meeting of the Orléanists took place at the hotel of M. Lafitte, when a proclamation, skilfully drawn, was agreed to, recommending the Duke of Orléans to the vacant throne, and M. Carrel was despatched to Rouen to gain over that important city to the same interest. Shortly after, General Dubourg, on the part of the Republicans at the Hôtel de Ville, pre305, 306; sented himself to the meeting: they refused to receive or even to see him, so rapidly had the pretensions and ideas of government advanced since the resolution to establish a republic had been taken! 1

1 Louis

Blanc, i.

Ann. Hist. 1830, 74,

75; Cap. ii. 36, 37.

*

While matters were advancing so rapidly in his favour in Paris, the Duke of Orléans remained at Neuilly with

"Charles X. can never again enter France; he has caused the blood of the people to flow.

"The Republic would expose us to frightful divisions, and embroil us with all Europe.

“The Duke of Orléans is a prince devoted to the cause of the Revolution. "The Duke of Orléans has never fought against us; he was at Jemappes. "The Duke of Orléans is a citizen-king.

"The Duke of Orléans carried in fire the tricolor flag; no other can carry it. We will have no other.

“The Duke of Orléans has not yet pronounced himself. He awaits the expression of our wishes. Let us proclaim them, and he will accept the Charter, as we have always expected and wished. It is from the Freuch people that he will receive his crown."-LOUIS BLANC, vol. i. pp. 305, 306.

XXIV.

1830.

the Duke of

his whole family. In his immediate vicinity, at Puteaux, CHAP. was a body of troops, a squadron of which could with ease have made them all prisoners. But so little sus- 16. picion was entertained at that period of their fidelity, Situation of that no precaution against them was taken by the royal Orléans. family, nor did a feeling of anxiety on this subject ever cross their minds. M. Lafitte, the evening before, wrote a letter mentioning that the crown was to be offered to him, and that, in case of refusal, it would be represented that it was essential to the tranquillity of the capital and the country that he should be conveyed to a place of safety in the metropolis. This note instructed his partisans in Paris in the course which they should pursue; and accordingly, soon after, M. Thiers and M. Scheffer, preceded by M. Sébastiani, arrived at Neuilly to offer the Duke the crown. He himself was absent, but they were Louis received by the Duchess of Orléans, and history may well 307,308. record the conversation which took place between them.1

1

Blanc, i.

between

and the

Sir," said the Duchess, in a voice trembling with 17. emotion, after the purpose of his mission had been ex- Interview plained by M. Scheffer, "how could you undertake such M. Thiers a mission? That M. Thiers should have charged him- Duchess self with it, I can understand. He little knew us; but of Orléans. you, who have been admitted to our intimacy, who knew us so well-ah! we can never forgive it." Stupefied by a reception they had so little anticipated, the two envoys remained silent, and a pause ensued, during which Madame Adélaide, the Duke's sister, entered the apart

* "Le Duc d'Orléans est à Neuilly avec toute sa famille. Près de lui à Puteaux sont les troupes royales, et il suffirait d'un ordre émané de la cour pour l'enlever à la nation, qui peut trouver en lui un gage puissant de sa sécurité future. On propose de se rendre chez lui au nom des autorités constituées convenablement accompagnées, et de lui offrir la couronne. S'il oppose des scrupules de famille ou de délicatesse, on lui dira que son séjour à Paris importe à la tranquillité de la capitale et de la France, et qu'on est obligé de l'y mettre en sûreté. On peut compter sur l'infaillibilité de cette mesure. On peut être certain en outre que le Duc d'Orléans ne tardera pas à s'associer pleinement aux voeux de la nation."-LOUIS BLANC, i. 307, 308.

XXIV.

1830.

CHAP. ment, followed by Madame de Montjoie. Penetrated with the dangers which surrounded them on all sides, and appreciating with masculine intelligence their extent, she immediately said, "Let them make my brother a president, a commander of the National Guard-anything, so as they do not make him a proscribed." "Madame,"

rejoined M. Thiers, "it is a throne which we come to offer him." "But what will Europe think?" rejoined the Princess. "Shall he seat himself on the throne from which Louis XVI. descended to mount the scaffold? What a panic will it strike into all royal houses! The peace of the world will be endangered.' "These apprehensions, Madame," replied M. Thiers, "are natural, but they are not well founded. England, full of the recollection of the banished Stuarts, will applaud a dénouement of which her history furnished the example and the model. And as to the absolute monarchies, far from reproaching the Duke of Orléans for fixing on his head a crown floating on the storm, they will approve a step which will render his elevation a barrier against the unchained passions of the multitude. There is something great and worth saving in France; and if it is too late for legitimacy, it is not so for a constitutional throne. After all, there remains to the Duke of Orléans only a choice of danger; and, in the existing state of affairs, to 309, 310. fly the possible dangers of royalty is to face a republic and its inevitable tempests."1

1 Louis Blanc, i.

18.

These energetic words made no impression on the Irresolute Duchess of Orléans, in whose elevated mind the chivalthe Duke of rous sentiments were paramount to all considerations of Orléans. ambition or expedience. But Madame Adélaide, vividly

conduct of

impressed with her brother's danger, was more accessible to them. "A child of Paris," she exclaimed, "I will intrust myself to the Parisians!" It was agreed to send for the Duke, who had fled to Raincy; and he soon after set out, preceded by M. de Montesquiou, for Paris. Before they reached the capital, however, the Duke turned