the bold plan of making the duke adopt the | August, 1829, commenced unknown to Duc d'Aumale, son of Louis Philippe, as me, and somewhat lightly by Madame de his heir. The proof of this is in the follow- Feuchères, is infinitely painful to me as ing letter from the Duchess of Orleans to you may have observed;' and he entreated the Baroness de Feuchères. the duc to interfere and cause Madame to relinquish her projects, promising at the same time a certain public testimony of his affection for the Duc d'Aumale. The Duc d'Orleans went to Madame, and in presence of a witness whom he had taken care to have called, he begged her to discontinue her project. She was inflexible. without at all compromising the prospect of his son, the Duc d'Orleans had all the credit of an honorable and disinterested attempt.

"I am very much touched, madame, by your solicitude in endeavoring to bring about this result, which you regard as fulfilling the desires of M. Le duc de Bourbon; and be assured that if I have the happiness of seeing my son become his adopted child, you will find in us at all times and in all circumstances, both for you and yours, that protection which you demand, and of which a mother's gratitude will be your guarantee."

So that

It must have cost the pious rigid duchess some pangs thus to associate her maternal hopes with such very equivocal advocacy. This situation was too violent not to exThe Duc d'Orleans, on the second of May, plode in some terrible manner. On the 1829, learned from Madame de Feuchères 29th of August, 1829, the Duc de Bourbon that she had in an urgent and passionate was at Paris; and in the billiard-room of letter proposed to her lover to adopt the the palace, M. de Surval, who was in the Duc d'Aumale; on this information he ad- passage, heard loud cries for help; he dressed himself directly to the Duc de rushed in and beheld the prince in a frightBourbon. He gave him to understand how ful passion. Only see in what a passion sensible he was of the kind solicitude of monseigneur puts himself,' said Madame de Madame de Feuchères, and how proud he Feuchères, and without cause! Try to should be to see one of his sons bearing calm him.' 'Yes, Madame,' exclaimed the the glorious name of Condé. At this un-prince, it is horrible, atrocious, thus to expected blow the Duc de Bourbon was place a knife to my throat, in order to overwhelmed with anxiety, He had never liked the Duc d'Orleans. He had stood godfather to the Duc d'Aumale, but never thought of him as his heir. Yet how could he without insult now refuse that which they assumed him to be so anxious to be stow? Above all, how resist the violence and the caresses of Madame de Feuchères ? Harassed and terrified, the Duc de Bourbon consented to an interview with the Duc d'Orleans. Nothing positive was concluded, but the Duc d'Orleans believed his hopes so well founded, that he ordered M. Dupin to propose a will in favor of the Duc d'Aumale.

make me consent to a deed you know I have so much repugnance for;' and seizing her hand, he added with a significant gesture: well then, plunge the knife here at once

plunge it. The next day the prince signed the deed which made the Duc d'Aumale his heir, and assured the baroness a legacy of ten millions of francs (£40,000).

The revolution of July burst forth; the Duc d'Orleans became Louis Philippe. The Prince de Condé grew more and more melancholy; his manners to Madame de Feuchères were altered; her name pronounced before him sometimes darkened his countenance; his tenderness for her, though always prodigal and anticipating her smallest wishes, yet seemed mixed with terror. He made M. de Chourlot, and Manoury his valet, the confidants of a pro

The baroness became more and more urgent. The prince allowed his anger to escape in bitter reproaches. He had had no rest since this fatal plan had been proposed to him; he could not sleep at night. Vio-ject of a long voyage: of which the strictlent quarrels embittered the day. More est secrecy was to be preserved, especially than once indiscreet confidences betrayed with regard to la baronne: at the same the agitation of his mind. 'My death is all time dark rumors circulated about the they have in view,' he exclaimed one day chateau. On the morning of the 11th of in a fit of despair. Another time he so far August they found the prince with his eye forgot himself as to tell M. Surval, Once bleeding. He hastened to explain it to let them obtain what they desire, and my Manoury, as having been caused by the days are numbered.' At last, in a desperate table. Manoury replied that that was attempt to escape from Madame de Feu- scarcely possible: the table was not high. chères, he invoked the generosity of the enough: the prince was silent, embarrassDuc d'Orleans himself. The affair which ed. The affair which ed. I am not a good storyteller,' said now occupies us,' he wrote on the 20th of he, shortly after, 'I said that I hurt my

เ

chateau by Madame de Feuchères.

self while sleeping: the fact is, that in château. At eight the next morning Leopening the door, I fell down and struck comte knocked at the prince's door. It my temple against the corner.' It is worthy was bolted; the prince made no reply. of remark that the prince afterwards wish- Lecomte retired and returned afterwards ed Manoury to sleep by the door of his with M. Bonnie: both knocked without rebedchamber; and that Manoury having ob- ceiving a reply. Alarmed, they descended served that this would look strange, and to Madame de Fouchères. 'I will come at that it was more natural for Lecomte, his once,' said she; 'when he hears my voice ' valet de chambre de service,' to do this, he will answer.' Half-dressed she rushed the prince replied, 'Oh, no, leave him from her room, and reaching that of the Lecomte was introduced into the prince, knocked, and exclaimed, 'Open! open! monseigneur, it is I.' No answer. The alarm spread. Manoury, Leclerc, l'abbé Briant, Méry-Lafontaine, ran thither. The room was burst open. The shutters were shut, and the room dark. A single wax light was burning on the mantel-piece, but behind a screen which sent the light upwards towards the ceiling. By this feeble light the head of the prince was seen, close to the shutter of the north window. It seemed like a man steadfastly listening. The east window being opened by Manoury, shed light upon the horrible spectacle. The Duc de Bourbon was hanged, or rather hooked, on to the fastening of the window sash! Madame de Feuchères sank groaning and shuddering on a fauteuil in the cabinet de toilette, and the cry, 'Monseign eur is dead,' resounded throughout the château.

The preparations for the voyage were nearly completed. For three days the prince had resumed his usual pleasures. After a gay dinner, at which M. de CosséBrissac was present, they played at whist. The prince played with the baroness, M. Lavillegontier, and M. de Prejean. The prince was gayer than ordinary; lost some money and abstained from paying it; saying, to-morrow.' He rose and crossed the room to proceed to his bedchamber; in passing he made a friendly gesture to his attendants, which seemed like an adieu. Was this one of those adieus in which the thought of approaching death shows itself? Or was it the indication of his project of voyage, of exile ?}

He ordered that they should call him at eight o'clock next morning; and they left him for the night. It is necessary distinctly to understand the situation of the prince's chamber. It was joined by a small passage to a salon d'attente. This salon opened on the one side into a cabinet de toilette, touching the grand corridor; on the other it opened upon a back staircase, ending at the landing-place where were the apartments of Madame de Feuchères, and Madame de Flassans her niece. The back staircase led from this landing-place to the vestibule; and by a higher landing it communicated with a second corridor, in which were the chambers of l'abbé Briant, of Lachassine, the femme de chambre of the baroness, and of the Duprés, husband and wife, attached to her service. The room of the latter was immediately under that of the prince, so that they could hear when there was talking above their heads. This night the gardes-chasse went their accustomed rounds. Lecomte had closed the door of the cabinet de toilette and taken away the key. Why was this precaution taken? The prince constantly left the door of his room unbolted. Madame de Flassans sat up till two in the morning, occupied with writing. No noise disturbed her. The Duprés heard nothing. All the night a profound calm reigned throughout the

The duc was attached to the fastening by means of two handkerchiefs, passed one within the other. The one which pressed his neck was not tied with a slip-knot: moreover it did not press upon the trachial artery-it left the nape of the neck uncovered-and was found so loose, that several of the assistants passed their fingers between it and the neck. Circumstances suspicious. Further, the head dropped upon the breast, the face was pale; the tongue was not thrust out of the mouth, it only pushed up the lips; the hands were closed; the knees bent; and at their extremities, the feet touched the carpet. So that, in the acute sufferings which accompany the last efforts of life, the prince would only have had to stand upright upon his feet to have escaped death! This disposition of the body, together with the appearances which the body itself presented, powerfully combated the idea of suicide. Most of the assistants were surprised by them.

The authorities arrived; the state and disposition of the corpse were noted down; an inquest was held, in which it was concluded that the duc had strangled himself. Indeed, the room, bolted from within, seemed to render assassination impossible.

Madame de Feuchères supported the idea of suicide. She pretended that

In spite of many contradictions, it was be- | who made the bed, to push it to the bottom lieved that the duc had committed suicide. of the alcove; their custom had not been Nevertheless, this belief became weaker departed from on the 26th. Who then had and weaker. It was proved that the bolt moved the bed a foot and a half beyond its was very easily moved backwards and for- usual place? There were two wax-lights wards from outside. The age of the prince, extinguished, but not consumed. By whom his want of energy, his well-known reli- could they have been extinguished? By gious sentiments, the horror he had always the prince? To make such complicated testified at death, his known opinion of preparations for his own death, had he volsuicide as cowardly, the serenity of his untarily placed himself in darkness? latter days, and his project of flight: these all tended to throw a doubt on his suicide. His watch was found upon the mantel- the accident on the 11th of Angust, was piece, wound up, as usual; and a handker- but an abortive attempt. She trembled chief, with a knot in it; his custom when when they spoke of the duc's projects of he wished to remind himself of any thing voyage, and hearing Manoury talking free. on the morrow. Besides, the body was ly of them, she interrupted him: "Take not in a state of suspension. The valet de care! such language may seriously compied, Romanzo, who had travelled in Tur- promise you with the king." But it seemkey and Egypt, and his companion, Fife, ed strange to all the attendants of the an Irishman, had both seen many people prince, that upon the point of accomplishhanged. They declared that the faces of ing so awful a deed, he had left no written the hanged were blackish, and not of a dull indication of his design, no mark of affecwhite; that their eyes were open and blood-tion for those to whom he had always been shot; and the tongue lolling from the so kind, and whose zeal he had always remouth. These signs were all contradicted cognized and recompensed. This was a by the appearance of the prince. When moral suicide, less explicable than the other. they detached the body, Romanzo undid A discovery crowned these uncertainties. the knot of the handkerchief fastened to Towards the evening of the 27th, M. the window-sash; and he succeeded only Guillaume, secretary to the king, perceivafter the greatest difficulty; it was so clev-ed, in passing by the chimney, some fragerly made, and tightened with such force. ments of paper which lay scattered on the Now, amongst the servants of the prince, dark ground of the grate. He took up no one was ignorant of his extreme mala- some of them from underneath the cinders dresse. He could not even tie the strings of some burnt paper, and read the words of his shoes. He made, indeed, the bow Roi... Vincennes... infortuné fils. The of his cravat for himself, but never without procureur-général, M. Bernard, having ar his valet bringing both ends round in front rived at St. Leu, these fragments, together of him. Moreover, he had received a with all that could be found, were handed sabre cut in the right hand, and had his to him. "Truth is there," he exclaimed, left clavicle broken: so that he could not and succeeded in recomposing the order of lift his left hand above his head, and he sense (according to the size of the pieces) could only mount the stairs with the dou- of two different letters, of which the fol ble assistance of his cane and the banis lowing remained:

ters.

Certain other suspicious circumstances began to be commented on. The slippers which the prince rarely used, were always at the foot of the chair in which he was

"Saint Leu appartient au roi
Philippe

ne pillés, ni ne brulés
le château ni le village.
ne faite de mal à personne
ni à mes amis, ni à mes
gens.

On vous a égarés
Sur mon compte, je n'ai.

urir en aiant cœur le peuple et l'espoir du bonheur de ma patrie.

undressed was it by his hand that they were that night ranged at the foot of the bed? the ordinary place for slippers, but not for his. The prince could only get out of bed in turning, as it were, upon himself; and he was so accustomed to lean on the side of the bed in sleeping, that they were obliged to double the covering four times to prevent his falling out. How was it that they found the middle of the bed pressed down, and the sides on the contra-ni raised up? It was the custom of those On vous a égarés sur mon compte, je n'ai que

ry

Saint Leu et ses dépend appartiennent à votre roi Philippe; ne pillés ni ne

le

ne

brulés

le village mal à personne es amis, ni à mes gens.

mourir en souhaitant bonheur et prospérite au] he had confided, on the 26th, to the care of peuple français et à ma patrie. Adieu, pour toujours.

L. H. J. DE BOURBON, Prince de Condé. PS. Je demande a être enterré a Vincennes, prés de mon infortuné fils.

In these strange recommendations, many thought they saw a proof of suicide. Others more suspicious, could not conceive that these were the adieus of a prince about to quit life. The fear of a pillage of St. Leu seemed incompatible with that disgust for all things which precedes suicide. It was, moreover, little likely that the prince should have experienced such a fear on the night of the 26th, the night after the fête of St. Louis, wherein he had received such flattering testimonies of affection. It was also inexplicable how the prince could attribute St. Leu to Louis Philippe, to whom he knew it did not belong. There was great surprise, that having seized the pen in the midst of preparations for a suicide, he had said nothing respecting his design, and thus saved his faithful servants from a frightful suspicion. The very mode, in which the papers were discovered, was inconceivable. How came it that these papers, so easily perceived on the evening of the 27th, escaped the diligent search of Romanzo, Choulot, and Manoury, and all those who that day visited every corner of the room, chimney included? Was it not very likely that they were thrown there by some hand interested in the belief of suicide? These things led some to conjecture that the document was of some anterior date, and that it was no more than a proclamation of the prince during the first days of the month of August, when the revolutionary storm was still muttering. This hypothesis was strengthened by some who remembered that the prince had indeed conceived the idea of a proclamation. For our own parts, we incline to look upon it as a forgery. It could hardly have been a proclamation, from the very form of it; and the same objection before advanced of the prince's attributing St. Leu to the king, when in reality it belonged to the prince, applies also to this. Besides, a critical inspection of the words remaining, and of their arrangement, leads to a suspicion of forgery: they are too consecutive for a burned let

Manoury, for fear of not being able to accomplish it himself; his mute adieu to his attendants; the state of the body, which presented no traces of violence, except some excoriations quite compatible with suicide; the condition of his clothes on which no soil had been observed; the bolt closed from within; the material difficulties of the assassination; and the impossibility of laying the finger on the assassin.

Against these presumptions, the defenders of his memory replied by words and acts of powerful effect. One of them, M. Méry Lafontaine, suspended himself at the fatal window-sash in precisely the same condition as that in which they found the prince: and this was perfectly harmless! Another endeavored, by means of a small ribbon, to move the bolt from outside and this with complete success. It was said that Lecomte, when in the chapel where the body was exposed, vanquished by his emotion, exclaimed, "I have a weight upon my heart." M. Bonnie, contradicting the formal assertions of Lecomte, affirmed that on the morning of the 27th, the bolt of the back staircase was not closed; and that in order to hide this fatal circumstance, Madame de Feuchères, instead of taking the shorter route, when hurrying to the chamber of the prince, took the route of the grand staircase!

On the 4th of September, the heart of the prince was carried to Chantilly. L'Ab bé Pélier, almoner to the prince, directed the funeral service. He appeared, bearing the heart of the victim in a silver box, and ready to pronounce the last adieu. A sombre silence reigned throughout; every one was in suspense. The impression was profound, immense, when the orator with a solemn voice let fall these words: 'The prince is innocent of his death before God!' Thus ended the great race of Condé.

Madame de Feuchères precipitately quitted Saint Leu, and went to the Palais Bourbon. For a fortnight she made l'abbé Briant sleep in her library, and madame Flassans in her room, as if dreading to be alone. Soon mastering her emotion, she showed herself confident and resolute. She resumed her speculations at La Bourse; gained considerable sums, and laughed at her enemies. But she could not stifle the murTwo parties formed opposite opinions, murs which arose on all sides. The Prince and maintained them with equal warmth. de Rohan made every preparation both for Those who believed in his suicide, alleged a civil and a criminal procès. At Chantilly in favor of their opinion the inquest; the and St. Leu there were few who believed melancholy of the prince since 1830; his in the suicide; at Paris the boldest conroyalist terrors; the act of charity which | jectures found vent; the highest names in

ter.

imposing mass of testimony something more than a vehement appeal to the recollections of July was necessary. The Rohans lost their cause before the jury but, right or wrong, do not seem altogether to have lost it before the tribunal of public opinion.

the kingdom were not spared. The name [cide, he saw the proof of assassination. of an illustrions person was coupled with The younger M. Dupin replied with great that of Madame de Feuchères, and furnish-dexterity. But it was remarked and comed political enemies with a weapon they mented on at the time, that he replied to were not scrupulous in using. With a sav-precise facts and formal accusations with age sagacity they remarked that, from the vague recriminations and tortuous explan27th, the court had taken possession of the ations. He pretended that this action was theatre of the transaction; that the almon- nothing but a plot laid by the legitamistes; er of the prince, although on the spot, was an attempt at vengeance; which he called not invited to co-operate in the procès-ver-upon all friends of the revolution of 1830 baux ; and that the physician of the prince, to resent. The interest of the legitimistes M. Geurin, was not called in to the exam- in the affair was evident; but to combat an ination of the body: the latter being confided to three physicians, two of whom, MM. Marc and Pasquier, were on the most intimate relations with the court. With the affected astonishment of raillery, they demanded why the Duc de Broglie had prevented the insertion, in the 'Moniteur,' of the oration of M. Pélier at Chantilly. The court soon ceased to feel any uneaTo stifle these rumors, the scandal of siness respecting the noise which the affair which reached even the throne, a decisive still kept up. Nevertheless one thing was and honorable means was in the power of extremely tormenting in it. There was, the king. To repudiate a succession so and had been for some time in the house clouded with mystery would have silenced of Condé, a secret of which two persons his enemies and done honor to himself. were always the depositaries. This secret But the head of the Orleans family had ear- had been confided by the Duc de Bourbon, ly shown that indifference to money was at the time of his stay in London, to Sir not the virtue he aspired to. On the eve William Gordon, equerry to the Prince Reof passing to a throne he hastily consigned gent, and to the Duc de Châtre. After his personal property to his children, in or- their deaths M. de Chourlot received the der that he might not unite it with the confidence of the prince, and having been state property, after the antique law of thrown from his horse and being considermonarchy. Instead therefore of relinquish-ed in danger, admitted Manoury also into ing his son's claim to the heritage of the Prince de Condé, he invited Madame de Feuchères to court, where she was gallantly received. Paris was in a stupor. The Whatever may be the conclusion arrived violence of public opinion rendered an in- at by the reader respecting this mysterious quiry inevitable; but no stone was left un-affair, there can be but one sentiment returned to stifle the affair. The conseilleur-rapporteur, M. de la Huproie, showing himself resolved to get at the truth, was suddenly shifted elsewhere, and the place of judge which he had long desired for his son-in-law, was at once accorded him.

At length, however, the action brought by the family of the Rohans, to invalidate the testament of the Duc de Bourbon in favor of the Duc d'Aumale, was tried. Few trials excited more interest. The veil which covered the details of the event was half drawn aside. M. Hennequin, in a speech full of striking facts and inferences, presented a picture of the violences and artifices by which the old Duc de Bourbon was hurried into consent to the will. In the well known sentiments of the prince, M. Hennequin saw the proof that the testament was not his real wish, but had been forced from him; and in the impossibility of suiVOL. III. No. IV.

34

his confidence. No one ever knew what this secret was, except that it was most important and most redoubtable.

specting part of the conduct of Louis Philippe. Decency would have suggested that such a woman as the Baronne de Feuchères should not be welcomed at court, especially when such terrible suspicions were hanging over her. Decency would have suggested that the public should have full and ample conviction of the sincerity with which the causes of the prince's death were investigated. It does not seem to us that Louis Philippe acted with his usual tact in this case. For tact he has, and wonderful ability, in spite of the sneers of M. Louis Blanc. A man cannot rule France without courage, cleverness, and tact. Louis Philippe has abundantly shown to what a great extent he possesses all three. He uses his ministers and friends as tools, it is true; but it is no ordinary task to use such men as instruments for your own ends.

M. Louis Blanc, in common with most