REMINISCENCES OF MEN AND THINGS. BY ONE WHO HAS A GOOD MEMORY. LOUIS PHILIPPE, KING OF THE FRENCH. PART I. ments of delight; raised his eyes, and his shoulders, and smiled, and looked quite graciously at the old man who forked along the "punt," as well as at a younger one who helped his father. The duke was dressed in a summer and country attire. There was nothing of display or affectation in his manner; and I remember quite well that, when we landed, he gladdened the heart of the ferryman by a silver sixpence. At least the old man looked gratitude and satisfaction; for his right fare was one penny, and you may be sure that " we three young rogues" paid no more. WHEN first I saw the Duke of Orleans, now King of the French, he was advancing with light step, and the air of a bourgeois gentilhomme, towards the little ferry-boat of Twickenham. It was a fine summer day in the month of July. Father Thames looked his brightest and his best. The old green Ait was covered with happy citizens who I have thus commenced these reminishad visited the then rustic habitation of the cences of Louis Philippe, the king of the fisherman, now transformed into a spacious French, because I have a striking anecdote hotel, to partake of the viands peculiar at to record connected with this accidental that time to that sylvan retreat; and here rencontre. As we were all about leaving and there were to be seen gliding, like fairy the ferry-boat to tread the verdant meads cars, those beautiful wherries, so renowned on the other side of the river, the Duke of all the world over, crowded with fair Orleans took the precedence of the landnymphs and youthful rowers. The lovely ing; but whether from a jerk of the boat, meadows of Twickenham; the heights of or from a slip of his foot, I cannot tell, his Richmond; the classic bridge; the proud hat, which was in his hand, fell to the and noble swans; the fish gambolling in the ground. The worthy citizen who had been crystal waters, or springing on the face of our companion prior to the arrival of his the stream, just to show that they partici- royal highness, and who had likewise crosspated in the general festivity of nature, and ed the ferry, took up the hat, and, presentthen to disappear in the bosom of their an- ing it to Louis Philippe, said, in a mild and cient sire; the bright sun pouring his warm-respectful voice, "THOU SHALT BE KING est beams, yet the zephyrs mitigating the heat by playing amongst the leaves, and filling some small snow-white sails; the deep shade of many fine trees, and the varied colored flowers of rich parterres, formed the landscape on which my eyes feasted with rapture and it mattered at that time very little to me who were my companions in the ferry-boat. "Here comes the Duke of Orleans," said the owner of the old ferry-boat; who to show his perfect indifference to the French language and French names, called him Arlines instead of by his real cognomen. "When he's got in, we'll push off: so don't be in no hurry, young gentlemen." The truth was, that three young rogues, each one as roguish as myself, had been waiting full a quarter of an hour for the ferryman's departure; and an apparently wealthy merchant, looking all good-nature and smiles, had kept down our ill-humor by some quiet jokes and mild rebukes. As the duke approached the boat, the ferryman took off his cap, the merchant raised his beaver, and we three holyday youths sprung on our feet and smiled a good welcome. The duke was not behind us in his civility; "hoped that he had not detained us;" pointed to the surrounding scenery with evident senti HEREAFTER !" The duke evidently understood both the quotation and the application, and shaking the worthy stranger most cordially by the hand laughed heartily, walked a few steps with him, and then departed. The next time I thought of that scene was prior to the revolution of 1830, when Charles X., on proceeding to open the Chambers, having let fall his hat and feathers, the same Duke of Orleans raised it from the ground, and, presenting it on one knee to the king, his cousin, "hoped his majesty would long live to wear it!" But the crown and the feathers were destined for himself, as we shall see hereafter. Though the bright scenery and festive joys of the period when I first met the future king of the French in the Twickenham ferry-boat soon obliterated for years from my mind the fact that I had ever seen him, yet in imagination I still behold the fine, commanding, gentlemanly prince, polite, affable, gay, courteous, "biding his time," and having an eagle eye to all that was above and to all that was around him. How varied had been the fortunes of the seven human beings who had crossed the Twickenham ferry on the occasion in question! The old ferryman was dead. His son had seen strange changes in the old fashioned Ait. One of my companions had | father of the present king must not only be made a fortune in India; the other had dis- referred to, but must be specifically delinetinguished himself as a combatant for church, but Protestant, principles at Oxford. Louis Philippe had been more or less in volved in the opposition of fourteen years to the government of the eldest branch of the house of Bourbon. And now I had become an anxious and almost interested spectator in a political struggle between faction on the one hand, and right on the other, in a foreign land far removed from those sylvan retreats and from that beauteous scenery to which my "heart untravelled" always turns with delight and love. But this is the world's history. We meet -we love we sigh-we dream-we part; but we shall all meet again. ated. They had not much to do, indeed, with the tastes or occupations of his son in his earliest days; but they must necessarily have had this effect, that the instructors, friends, and acquaintances of the young duke, could not fail of being in some manner influenced and affected by those of his father. Just as the children of a studious and thoughtful man will often have their minds naturally directed to serious and suitable studies, at once calculated to raise and to enlighten, so those of a dissolute and licentious prince must be placed in a far from beneficial and wholesome atmosphere. The father of Louis Philippe, as a young man, was sprightly, witty, and elegant; but The sketch I am about to supply of the his governor, the Count de Pont St. Mauextraordinary man who for a period of thir- rice, paid attention to but three points in teen years has preserved France from his education to secure that he was poanarchy, devastation, and ruin, and Eu- lite, to take care that he had attractions rope and the world from an almost inter- and pleasing manners, and to teach him minable war, will not, I hope, be a dull and bon ton. Neither his mind nor his heart dry detail of dates and figures. Volumes, were cared after; and in vain, under such instead of pages, would be required to sup- a governor as the count, did the Abbé Alary ply such a history. But the moment has urge his pupil to study and to think. Louis not arrived for the completion of the task. Philippe, however, delights to relate anecWe must wait for his apotheosis. This dotes of his father favorable to his moral sketch will be rather a series of tableaux, character, although he condemns most presenting the Duke of Valois, the Duke of strongly his conduct as a politician; and Chartres, the Duke of Orleans, and the amongst various other incidents is the folKing of the French as he was, has been, is ; lowing. When the Duke of Orleans (his and this I hope to accomplish in three parts. father) was only in his fifteenth year, he They will all, I am sure, be true to nature; gave levees in the morning to the gentleand those which relate to his career as king men who came from those of his father, and will be personal reminiscences. The King amongst them were officers of every rank of the French is a great man; but circum- belonging to the regiments of the two stances have undoubtedly favored the de- princes. One of those officers attracted in velopment of his qualities. His life has an especial manner his attention by his rebeen extraordinary; and he has had wis- markably fine person and melancholy asdom and tact to avail himself of events pect. He learned that the object of his which ordinary minds would not have ap-interest was very poor, giving, as he did, preciated or seized. I have much of his nearly the whole of his pay for the purpose history at my fingers' ends, and I long to of supporting his mother and two sisters, tell it; so I will begin with him as THE DUKE OF CHARTRES. who had nothing else to depend on. On hearing this statement, the father of Louis Philippe saved the whole of the contents of his private purse for two months, and On the death of that Duke of Orleans laid by for the officer a purse of forty louis whose intrigues with Madame de Montes-d'or. The question, however, then arose son have formed the subject of many a cal-as to how he should present them to the inumny, as well as of many a curious and in- dividul for whom they were destined. But structive narrative, but to whom he was a present of "bon-bons" was resorted to as afterwards privately married, the Duke of Chartres, his son, took the name of Orleans; and the present King of the French, his grandson, became the Duke of Chartres. Although I do not profess to present any formal biographical sketch of the family of Orleans, the character and pursuits of the the expedient, and the officer found the sum in question concealed in those confectionery preparations for which the French are so distinguished. But he who evinced by such actions as these a benevolence of disposition and tenderness of heart was ruined by his own tion pompously presented to the whole of the royal family. Such scenes and facts as these all contributed to form the character of him who was the father of the prince now ruling with wisdom and decision over the French nation. Louis XV. thus prepared by his conduct that resistance to royalty, which, when it commenced, was so feebly opposed by those who had the power to do so, but who felt that some catastrophe was really next to unavoidable. father, whose first paternal care was to give | lippe. The court had become most corrupt him a mistress, as soon as his nominal edu- and abandoned. Madame du Barri had incation was completed, that mistress being decently triumphed over the old and noble the celebrated Mademoiselle Duthé. Alas! families of the country; and, whilst it must what right had a father, a court, his family, be admitted that in former times it was bad or society at large, to expect moral habits enough to witness the Marquise de Pompafrom a youth whose father not only first dour at court, while her husband, M. le Nortempted him to evil, but who encouraged mant d'Etoiles, was only a farmer-general, him to associate with such dissipated and it was yet more abominable to behold a wounprincipled young men as the then Chev-man of the lowest and most vicious reputaalier de Coigny and Messieurs Fitz-James and De Conflans? Thus, at seventeen, the father of Louis Philippe found even the society of the ladies of his father's court in the Palais Royal too "prudish" for him, and he set about the too easy and successful task of ridiculing all female virtue, selfrespect, and dignity. The results of this warfare were most disastrous to the character and influence of the duke. For, whilst it was conceded that he was possessed of talent, grace, politeness, and The death of the grandfather of the prespleasing and dignified manners, he was al-ent King of the French led to the latter ways accused of having a hard and unfeel- taking the title of Duke of Chartres, and ing heart. That such was the public im- to his father becoming Duke of Orleans. pression, he soon learned; but, instead of seeking to disabuse the general mind of this error, he set public reproach and reproof at defiance, and at last refused to defend himself from the most odious charges, when a single word from him would have sufficed to convict his traducers of falsehood. There is another little anecdote of the father of Louis Philippe, when Duke of Chartres, which has often been related by the present king of the French. The Count Benyowski, so celebrated on account of his exile to Siberia, and for the manner of his escape, by means of confiding his intentions to forty of his companions in misfortune, persuading each one privately that to him alone had he confided his secret, had, as an intimate friend the Chevalier de Darfort, a knight of Malta, and who was allowed to hold benefices. In behalf of this unfortunate chevalier the Count Benyowski had succeeded in interesting a friend of the Duke of Chartres; who, hearing that a benefice of the value of 15,000 francs per annum was vacant, and in the gift of the Count d'Artois, sent off a courier to the duke, and entreated him to interest himself in behalf of that individual. The duke, without losing a moment, made the demand, obtained the favor, and rendered more joyous than can be well described the worthy object of his bountiful exertions. Excuses are not wanting, independent of the libertine conduct of the then Duke of Orleans, for the subsequent degeneracy of life and morals of the father of Louis Phi The latter had confided to Madame de Genlis the education of his four children; and the anecdotes which are to this hour repeated at the Tuileries and at Neuilly of the younger portion of the life of the Duke of Chartres are alike honorable to his instructress and to himself. One of these will here suffice. The health of the Duchess of Orleans, his mother, having been much improved by the waters of the Sauveinière, the Duke of Chartres, and his brothers and sister, prompted by their instructress, resolved on giving a gay and commemorative fête. Round the spring they formed a beautiful walk; removed the stones and rocks which were in the way, and caused it to be ornamented with seats, with small bridges placed over the torrents, and cov ered the surrounding woods with charming shrubs in flower. At the end of the walk conducting to the spring whose waters had been so efficacious was a kind of little wood, which had an opening looking out upon a precipice remarkable for its height, and for being covered with majestic piles of rock and trees. Beyond it was a landscape of great extent and beauty. In the wood was raised, by the present King of the French and his brothers and sister, an altar to "Gratitude," of white marble; and the inscription was the following:-"The waters of the Sauveinière having restored the health of the Duchess of Orleans, her children have embellished the neighborhood of its springs, and have themselves traced the walks, and cleared the woods and her varied and wise plans and schemes of education and improvement; and whilst living he visited and esteemed her, and now that she is dead he speaks of her memory in terms of no doubtful praise. with more assiduity than the workmen who | French never hesitates to admit how much labored under their orders." On the fête he owes to her talents, her perseverance, day in question the young Duke of Chartres expressed with grace and effect his filial sentiments of devotedness and love, but suddenly left the side of his mother, and appeared with his brothers and sister, a few seconds afterwards, at the foot of the altar, himself holding a chisel in his hand, and appearing to be writing on it the word "Gratitude." The effect was magical; all present were at once charmed and touched; and many a cheek was bedewed with even pleasurable tears. Amongst the various anecdotes which the family of Louis Philippe relate in favor of their paternal grandfather there is one worth recording, as it tends to confirm the accuracy of the observation, so often made, that there is no character in which there exists unmixed evil. When the old Duke of Orleans died, his son, formerly the Duke of Chartres, resolved on continuing the annual pensions of 600 francs each to several learned men. And not only did he continue those pensions, but he added to the list of the recipients of his bounty, and gave similar sums to De la Harpe, Marmontel, Pallisot, Gaillard, and Bernardin de St. Pierre, who had just completed his Studies of Nature. At that time M. de St. Pierre was in the deepest poverty; and the pension, small though it was, was peculiar Connected with this incident, there is related a story of the Duke of Chartres, that, on perceiving in the neighborhood, on the top of a high hill, the ancient castle of Franchemont, in which were prisoners confined for debt, he exclaimed, "While there are prisoners in that castle for debt, the landscape seems sad, and mournful. I cannot be gay." And he then proposed to make a subscription towards their release. The plan succeeded; the few prisoners were liberated; and the young Duke visited afterwards the empty castle; and said,ly gratifying, especially as it was accom"Now, I confess I can be gay, and the landscape looks as cheerful as it is beautiful." panied with a visit from the Duke of Chartres, the present King of the French and his brothers. The author of the Studies of Much has been said, and even more per- Nature was delighted to find that at least haps has been written, with regard to the the Duke of Chartres was well acquainted education of the Duke of Chartres and his with his publication, and that his tastes sister and brothers. The editor of the Duc were evidently of a right character. The de Montpensier's Memoirs asserts, that author of Paul and Virginia had no slight the plan of education adopted by Madame insight into character; and who that has de Genlis was borrowed from the Emile of read that work, as well as the Indian CotRousseau. This was an unfair and a most tage and the Studies of Nature, does not incorrect statement. Whatever may be envy the Duke of Chartres at this interthe opinions held as to the lady in ques-view? Though Bernardin St. Pierre has tion, whether her intimacy with Egalité long since slept with his fathers, I had the was of a pure and honorable, or of an im- pleasure of passing a long summer day a pure and dishonorable, character,-whether few years since at L'Etang near St. Gershe was an "intrigante," as some allege, or a virtuous and high-minded woman, as many maintain, I own it to be indisputable that her plan of education was literary, suitable, moral, and religious, and that it was found to be, in the case of all of her illustrious pupils, most satisfactory and successful. The health of their bodies, the subjugation of their passions, the triumph of their reason and their principles over the various temptations which presented themselves to their minds, the formation of their characters, the cultivation of a taste for all that was great, noble, wise, and good, and their possession of moral and religious principles, were the objects of her unremitting care. Her success cannot be denied. The present King of the main with his most excellent and truly ac- serious complaint against my husband that, | Adelaide. Yet the influence she exercises seeing that religion was absolutely banish- over him by reason of her quick insight ed from the system of education and in- into character, her remarkable memory struction then in use, that he should ac- of past events, and the facility of bringing cept a post under government. But this them to bear on the facts and circumwas precisely the reason why, when offer- stances upon which she is at the time beed a post, a good man would accept it. I ing consulted, as well as by her correct knew he felt that by this means he might, judgment, her masculine mind, her heroic as a religious man, in some degree check character, and her indifference to danger the spread of irreligious principles, and when she perceives clearly the path of might now and then at any rate speak a duty, she never abuses for private ends, or good word for virtue and religion." even to serve those in whom she takes a This excellent resolution was not allow lively interest. Those who apply to her ed by St. Pierre to lie dormant, and, as he with confidence for patronage and support had many opportunities afforded him in his often receive for reply, "That his majesty intercourse with the youth of France of is too much importuned already," and, opposing the false philosophy of Rousseau rather than endanger a refusal, she freand Voltaire, then raging in all its reckless- quently declines to interfere. But when ness and impiety, so he availed himself of her support is promised it can be relied on them to plead the cause of Christianity with confidence, for the king feels that to and truth. But to return to the young refuse her a request, when that request is Duke of Chartres. deliberately made, would be to reject a His affection for his brothers and sister wise and a prudent opportunity of doing was of the liveliest and most unceasing good. This mutual affection of the King character; and when one of his sisters of the French and Madame Adelaide comdied, his grief was marked and durable. menced when they were very young, and To the survivor, Mademoiselle d'Orleans, indubitably "it has grown with their he then attached himself with all the affec-growth, and strengthened with their tion of a devoted brother; and to this hour, strength." through all the manifold changes of his most unsettled life,-in sorrow, exile, poverty, joy, wealth, happiness, prosperity, fame, and renown, no brother could be more devoted than the present King of the French to his sister, Madame Adelaide. Through years of despondency, labor, and misfortune, when the horizon was the least promising and when sorrows were the darkest and the saddest, they comforted each other by their mutual hopes, counselled each other with their best advice, cheer- It will not, of course, be forgotten by the ed on each other by their brightest antici- readers of this sketch of the Duke of Charpations, defended each other from the tres, that when his father bore that title he calumnies of their detractors, and have was the Duke of Valois; that on his father fought each other's battles, shared each becoming Duke of Orleans he became the other's dangers, and vindicated each other's Duke of Chartres; that on the death of his fame, with a steadfastness of purpose and father the title of Duke of Orleans descenda devotedness of heart which all honest ed to him, and, finally, at the Revolution of men must admire, and all good men must 1830, he was elected King of the French. praise. "My brother is too good a man Strictly and chronologically speaking, then, to be king of the French;" "My brother the subject of this sketch was not Duke of is the most honest man in his dominions;" Chartres but Duke of Valois when some of "My brother is a model for a husband, the incidents passed which I have already father, son, brother, prince, king," are some referred to; but I was unwilling to embarspecimens of those eulogiums which she rass the reader by a division of the king's still continues to pronounce upon Louis life into four epochs, and have incorporatPhilippe. And his majesty is not less en-ed the youthful days of Valois and Chartres thusiastic in her praise. He never undertakes any great enterprise, decides on any There is a story told of the Duke of vast question, or enters into any new en- Chartres which may confidently be relied gagement, without consulting Madame on. When informed in the early period of For the Duke of Montpensier, one of the brothers of the Duke of Chartres, (now Louis Philippe,) the latter also cherished a sincere affection; but Madame Adelaide (then Mademoiselle d'Orleans) was always his favorite and most intimate friend. The Comte de Beaujolais, his other brother, was, as a youth, of some promise, and Madame de Genlis always spoke of him with hope and affection. Louis Philippe mentions him less than he does Montpensier. together. |