Читать книгу France in the Nineteenth Century - Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer - Страница 6

Under the influence of this regret, and fired by the idea of becoming another Jeanne d'Albret, she urged her plans on Charles X., who decidedly disapproved of them; but "the idea of crossing the seas at the head of faithful paladins, of landing after the perils and adventures of an unpremeditated voyage in a country of knights-errant, of eluding by a thousand disguises the vigilance of enemies through whom she had to pass, of wandering, a devoted mother and a banished queen, from hamlet to hamlet and from château to château, appealing to human nature high and low on its romantic side, and at the end of a victorious conspiracy unfurling in France the ancient standard of the monarchy, was too dazzling not to attract a young, high-spirited woman, bold through her very ignorance, heroic through mere levity, able to endure anything but depression and ennui, and prepared to overbear all opposition with plausible platitudes about a mother's love."[1]

[Footnote 1: Louis Blanc, Histoire de Dix Ans.]

At last Charles X. consented to let her follow her own wishes; but he placed her under the guardianship of the Duc de Blancas. She set out through Holland and the Tyrol for Italy. She travelled incognita, of course. Charles Albert, of Sardinia, received her at Turin with great personal kindness, and lent her a million of francs—which he borrowed from a nobleman of his court under pretence of paying the debts of his early manhood; but he was forced to request her to leave his dominions, and she took refuge with the Duke of Modena, who assigned her a palace at Massa, about three miles from the Mediterranean. A rising was to be made simultaneously in Southern France and in La Vendée. Lyons had just been agitated by a labor insurrection, and Marseilles was the first point at which it was intended to strike.

The Legitimists in France were divided into two parties. One, under Chateaubriand and Marshal Victor, the Duc de Bellune, wished to restore Henri V. only by parliamentary and legal victories; the other, favored by the court at Holyrood, was for an armed intervention of the Great Powers. The Duc de Blancas was considered its head.

The question of the invasion of France with foreign troops was excitedly argued at Massa. The duchess wished above all things to get rid of the tutelage of M. de Blancas, and she was disposed to favor, to a certain extent, the more moderate views of Chateaubriand. After endless quarrels she succeeded in sending off the duke to Holyrood, and was left to take her own way.

April 14, 1832, was fixed upon for leaving Massa. It was given out that the duchess, was going to Florence. At nightfall a carriage, containing the duchess, with two ladies and a gentleman of her suite, drove out of Massa and waited under the shadow of the city wall. While a footman was absorbing the attention of the coachman by giving him some minute, unnecessary orders, Madame (as they called the duchess) slipped out of the carriage door with one of her ladies, while two others, who were standing ready in the darkness, took their places. The carriage rolled away towards Florence, while Madame and her party, stealing along under the dark shadow of the city wall, made their way to the port, where a steamer was to take them on board.

That steamer was the "Carlo Alberto," a little vessel which had been already used by some republican conspirators, and had been purchased for the service of Marie Caroline. It had some of her most devoted adherents on board, but the captain was in ignorance. He thought himself bound for Genoa, and was inclined to disobey when his passengers ordered him to lay to off the harbor of Massa. However, they used force, and at three in the morning Marie Caroline, who was sleeping, wrapped in her cloak, upon the sand, was roused, put on board a little boat, and carried out to the steamer. She had a tempestuous passage of four days to Marseilles. The steamer ran out of coal, and had to put into Nice. At last, in a heavy sea which threatened to dash small craft to pieces, a fishing-boat approached the "Carlo Alberto," containing some of the duchess's most devoted friends. With great danger she was transferred to it, and was landed on the French coast. She scrambled up slippery and precipitous rocks, and reached a place of safety. But the delay in the arrival of her steamer had been fatal to her enterprise. A French gentleman in the secret had hired a small boat, and put out to sea in the storm to see if he could perceive the missing vessel. His conduct excited the suspicion of his crew, who talked about it at a wine-shop, where they met other sailors, who had their story to tell of a lady landed mysteriously a few hours before at a dangerous and lonely spot a few miles away. The two accounts soon reached the ears of the police, and Marseilles was on the alert, when a party of young men, with their swords drawn and waving white handkerchiefs, precipitated their enterprise, by appearing in the streets and striving to rouse the populace. They were arrested, as were also the passengers left on board the "Carlo Alberto,"—among them was a lady who deceived the police into a belief that she was the Duchesse de Bern.

Under cover of this mistake the duchess, finding that all hope was over in the southern provinces, resolved to cross France to La Vendée. At Massa she had had a dream. She thought the Duc de Bern had appeared to her and said: "You will not succeed in the South, but you will prosper in La Vendée."

She quitted the hut in which she had been concealed, made her way on foot through a forest, lost herself, and had to sleep in the vacant cabin of a woodcutter. The next night she passed under the roof of a republican, who respected her sex and would not betray her. She then reached the château of a Legitimist nobleman with the appropriate name of M. de Bonrecueil. Thence she started in the morning in a postchaise to cross all France along its public roads.

She accomplished her journey in safety, and fixed May 24, 1832, as the day for taking up arms. She made her headquarters at a Breton farm-house, Les Meliers. She wore the costume of a boy—a peasant of La Vendée—and called herself Petit Pierre.

On May 21, three days before the date fixed upon for the rising, she was waited upon by the chiefs—the men most likely to suffer in an abortive insurrection—and was assured that the attempt would fail. Had the South risen, La Vendée would have gladly joined the insurrection; but unsupported by the South, the proposed enterprise was too rash a venture. Overpowered by these arguments and the persuasions of those around her, Marie Caroline gave way, and consented to return to Scotland with a passport that had been provided for her. But in the night she retracted her consent, and insisted that the rising should take place upon the 3d of June. She was obeyed; but what little prospect of success there might have been at first, was destroyed by the counter-order of May 22. All who rose were at once put down by the king's troops, and atrocities on both sides were committed.

Nantes, the capital city of La Vendée, was hostile to the duchess; in Nantes, therefore, she believed her enemies would never search for her. She took refuge there in the house of two elderly maiden ladies, the Demoiselles Duguigney, where she remained five months. They must have been months of anguish to her, and of unspeakable impatience. It is very possible that the Government did not care to find her. She was the queen's niece, and if captured what could be done with her? To set her free to hatch new plots would have been bitterly condemned by the republicans; to imprison her would have made an additional motive for royalist conspiracies; to execute her would have been impossible. Marie Caroline, however, had solved these difficult problems by her own misconduct.

Meantime the premiership of France passed into the hands of M. Thiers. A Jew—a Judas—named Deutz, came to him mysteriously, and bargained to deliver into his hands the Duchesse de Berri. Thiers, who had none of the pity felt for her by the Orleans family, closed with the offer. Some years before, Deutz had renounced his Jewish faith and pretended to turn Christian. Pope Gregory XVI. had patronized him, and had recommended him to the Duc de Berri as a confidential messenger. He had frequently carried despatches of importance, and knew that the duchess was in Nantes, but he did not know her hiding-place. He contrived to persuade her to grant him an interview. It took place at the Demoiselles Duguigney's house; but he was led to believe that she only used their residence for that purpose. With great difficulty he procured a second interview, in the course of which, having taken his measures beforehand, soldiers surrounded the house. Before they could enter it, word was brought to the duchess that she was betrayed. She fled from the room, and when the soldiers entered they could not find her. They were certain that she had not left the house. They broke everything to pieces, sounded the walls, ripped up the beds and furniture. Night came on, and troops were left in every chamber. In a large garret, where there was a wide fireplace, the soldiers collected some newspapers and light wood, and about midnight built a fire. Soon within the chimney a noise of kicking against an iron panel was heard, and voices cried: "Let us out—we surrender!"

For sixteen hours the duchess and two friends had been imprisoned in a tiny hiding-place, separated from the hearth by a thin iron sliding-panel, which, when the soldiers lit their fire, had grown red hot. The gentleman of the party was already badly burned, and the women were nearly suffocated. The gendarmes kicked away the fire, the panel was pushed back, and the duchess, pale and fainting, came forth and surrendered. The commander of the troops was sent for. To him she said: "General, I confide myself to your honor." He answered, "Madame, you are under the safeguard of the honor of France."

This capture was a great embarrassment to the Government. Pity for the devoted mother, the persecuted princess, the brave, self-sacrificing woman, stirred thousands of hearts. The duchess was sent at once to an old château called Blaye, on the banks of the Gironde, the estuary formed by the junction of the Dordogne and the Garonne. Tradition said that the old castle had been built by the paladin Orlando (or Roland), and that he had been buried within its walls after he fell at Roncesvalles.

In this citadel the Duchesse de Berri was confined, with every precaution against escape or rescue; and the restraint and monotony of such a life soon told upon a woman of her character. She could play the heroine, acting well her part, with an admiring world for her audience; but "cabined, cribbed, confined" in an old, dilapidated castle, her courage and her health gave way. She was cheered, however, at first by Legitimist testimonies of devotion. Chateaubriand wrote her a memorable letter, imploring her, in the name of M. de Malesherbes, his ancestor who had defended Louis XVI., to let him undertake her defence, if she were brought to trial; but the reigning family of France had no wish to proceed to such an extremity. The duchess had not come of a stock in which all the women were sans reproche, like Marie Amélie. Her grandmother, Queen Caroline of Naples, the friend of Lady Hamilton and of Lord Nelson, had been notoriously a bad woman; her sister, Queen Christina of Spain, had made herself equally famous; and doubts had already been thrown on the legitimacy of the son of the duchess, the posthumous child of the Duc de Berri. The queen of France, who was almost a saint, had been fond of her young relative for her many engaging qualities; and what to do with her, in justice to France, was a difficult problem.

To the consternation and disgust of the Legitimists, the heroine of La Vendée dropped from her pedestal and sank into the mire. "She lost everything," says Louis Blanc—"even the sympathy of the most ultra-partisans of the Bourbon dynasty; and she deserved the fate that overtook her. It was the sequel to the discovery of a terrible secret—a secret whose publicity became a just punishment for her having, in pursuit of her own purposes, let loose on France the dogs of civil war."

In the midst of enthusiasm for her courage and pity for her fate, rose a rumor that the duchess would shortly give birth to a child. It was even so. The news fell like a blow on the hearts of the royalists. If she had made a clandestine, morganatic marriage, she had by the law of France forfeited her position as regent during her son's minority; she had forgotten his claims on her and those of France. If there was no marriage, she had degraded herself past all sympathy. At any rate, now she was harmless. The policy of the Government was manifestly to let her child be born at Blaye, and then send her to her Neapolitan home.

Her desire was to leave Blaye before her confinement. In vain she pleaded her health and a tendency to consumption. The Government sent physicians to Blaye, among them the doctor who had attended the duchess after the birth of the Duc de Bordeaux; for it insisted on having full proof of her disgrace before releasing her. But before this disgrace was announced in Paris, twelve ardent young Legitimists had bound themselves to fight twelve duels with twelve leading men of the opposite party, who might, if she were brought to trial, injure her cause. The first of these duels took place; Armand Carrel, the journalist, being the liberal champion, while M. Roux-Laborie fought for the duchess. The duel was with swords, and lasted three minutes. Twice Carrel wounded his adversary in the arm; but as he rushed on him the third time, he received a deep wound in the abdomen. The news spread through Paris. The prime minister, M. Thiers, sent his private secretary for authentic news of Carrel's state. The attendants refused to allow the wounded man to be disturbed. "Let him see me," said Carrel; "for I have a favor to ask of M. Thiers—that he will let no proceedings be taken against M. Roux-Laborie."

Government after this became anxious to quench the loyalty of the Duchesse de Berri's defenders as soon and as effectually as possible. The duel with Armand Carrel was fought Feb. 2, 1833; on the 22d of February General Bugeaud, commander of the fortress of Blaye, received from the duchess the following declaration:—

Under the pressure of circumstances and of measures

taken by Government, I think it due to myself and to my

children (though I have had grave reasons for keeping my

marriage a secret) to declare that I have been privately

married during my late sojourn in Italy.

(Signed) MARIE CAROLINE.

From that time up to the month of May the duchess continued to make vain efforts to obtain her release before the birth of her child. It had been intimated to her that she should be sent to Palermo as soon afterwards as she should be able to travel.

The Government took every precaution, that the event might be verified when it took place. Six or seven of the principal inhabitants of Blaye were stationed in an adjoining chamber, as is the custom at the birth of princes.

A little girl having been born, these witnesses were summoned to the chamber by Madame de Hautfort, the duchess's lady-in-waiting. The duchess answered their questions firmly, and on returning to the next room, her own physician declared on oath that the duchess was the lawful wife of Count Hector Luchesi-Palli, of the family of Campo Formio, of Naples, gentleman of the bedchamber to the king of the Two Sicilies, living at Palermo.

This was the first intimation given of the parentage of the child. A mouth later, Marie Caroline and her infant embarked on board a French vessel, attended by Marshal Bugeaud, and were landed at Palermo. Very few of the duchess's most ardent admirers in former days were willing to accompany her. Her baby died before it was many months old. Charles X. refused to let her have any further care or charge of her son. "As Madame Luchesi-Palli," he said, "she had forfeited all claims to royal consideration."

A reconciliation, however, official rather than real, was patched up by Chateaubriand between the duchess and Charles X.; but her political career was over. She was allowed to see the Duc de Bordeaux for two or three days once a year. The young prince was thenceforward under the maternal care of his aunt, the Duchesse d'Angoulême. The Duchesse de Berri passed the remainder of her adventurous life in tranquillity. Her marriage with Count Luchesi-Palli was apparently a happy one. They had four children. She owned a palace in Styria, and another on the Grand Canal at Venice, where she gave popular parties. In 1847 she gave some private theatricals, at which were present twenty-seven persons belonging to royal or imperial families. Her buoyancy of spirit kept her always gay. One would have supposed that she would be overwhelmed by the fall we have related. She was good-natured, charitable, and extravagant. She died leaving heavy debts, which the Duc de Bordeaux paid for her. Her daughter Louise, sister of the Duc de Bordeaux, married the Duke of Parma, who was assassinated in 1854. Their daughter married Don Carlos, who claims at present to be rightful heir to the thrones of France and Spain. She died in 1864, shortly after the Count Luchesi-Palli. The Duchesse de Berri, who in her later years became very devout, d'après la manière Italienne, as somebody has said, wrote thus about his death:—

"I have been so tried that my poor head reels. The loss of my good and pious daughter made me almost crazy, but the care of my husband had somewhat calmed me, when God took him to himself. He died like a saint in my arms, with his children around him, smiling at me and pointing to heaven."

The duchess died suddenly at Brussels in 1870, aged seventy-one. "And," adds an intensely Legitimist writer from whom I have taken these details of her declining years, "had she lived till 1873, she would have given her son better advice than that he followed."[1]

[Footnote 1: Mémoire de la Duchesse d'Angoulême.]

Without following the ins and outs of politics during the first ten years of Louis Philippe's reign, which were checkered by revolts, émeutes, and attempts at regicide, I pass on to the next event of general interest—the explosion of the "infernal machine" of Fieschi.

It was customary for King Louis Philippe to make a grand military promenade through Paris on one of the three days of July which during his reign were days of public festivity. On the morning of July 28, 1835, as the clock struck ten, the king, accompanied by his three elder sons, Marshals Mortier and Lobeau, his ministers, his staff, his household, and many generals, rode forth to review forty thousand troops along the Boulevards. At midday they reached the Boulevard du Temple. There, as the king was bending forward to receive a petition, a sudden volley of musketry took place, and the pavement was strewed with dead and dying. Marshal Mortier was killed, together with a number of officers of various grades, some bystanders, a young girl, and an old man. The king had not been shot, but as his horse started, he had received a severe contusion on the arm. The Duke of Orleans and the Prince de Joinville were slightly hurt. Smoke came pouring from the third-story windows of a house (No. 50) on the Boulevard. A man sprang from the window, seized a rope hanging from the chimney, and swung himself on to a lower roof. As he did so, he knocked down a flower-pot, which attracted attention to his movements. A police agent saw him, and a national guard arrested him. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and his face was covered with blood. The infernal machine he had employed consisted of twenty-five gun-barrels on a stand so constructed that they could all be fired at once. Happily two did not go off, and four burst, wounding the wretch who had fired them. Instantly the reception of the king, which had been cold when he set forth, changed into rapturous enthusiasm. He and his sons had borne themselves with the greatest bravery.

The queen had been about to quit the Tuileries to witness the review, when the door of her dressing-room was pushed open, and a colonel burst in, exclaiming: "Madame, the king has been fired at. He is not hurt, nor the princes, but the Boulevard is strewn with corpses." The queen, raising her trembling hands to heaven, waited only for a repetition of his assurance that her dear ones were all safe, and then set out to find the king. She met him on the staircase, and husband and wife wept in each other's arms.

The queen then went to her sons, looked at them, and touched them, hardly able to believe that they were not seriously wounded, and turned away, shuddering, from the blood on M. Thiers' clothes. Then, returning to her chamber, she sent a note at once to her younger boys, D'Aumale and Montpensier, who were with their tutors at the Château d'Eu. It began with these words: "Fall down on your knees, my children; God has preserved your father."

Of course the Legitimists, and likewise the Republicans, were accused of inspiring the attempt of Fieschi. The trials, that took place about six months later, proved that the assassin Fieschi was a wretch bearing a strong resemblance to our own Guiteau.

The funeral ceremonies of the victims of the infernal machine were celebrated with great pomp. The affair led to a partial reconciliation between the new Government and the Legitimist clergy; it led also to certain restrictions on the Press and an added stringency in the punishment for crimes of the like character.

On Jan. 31, 1836, the trial of the prisoners took place before the Peers. The crowd of spectators was immense. There were five prisoners, but the eyes of the spectators were fixed on only three.

The first was a man under-sized, nervous and quick in his movements. His face, which was disfigured by recent scars, had an expression of cunning and impudence. His forehead was narrow, his hair cropped close, one corner of his mouth was disfigured by a scar, his smile was insolent, and so was his whole bearing. He seemed anxious to concentrate the attention of all present on himself, smiled and bowed to every one he knew, and seemed well satisfied with his odious importance.

The second was an old man, pale and ill. He bore himself with perfect calmness. He seated himself where he was told to sit, and gave no sign of emotion throughout the trial.

The third was utterly prostrated by fear.

The first was Fieschi; the second was called Morey; the third was a grocer named Pepin.

The two last had been arrested on the testimony of Nina Lassave, who had had Fieschi for her lover. The life of this man had been always base and infamous. He was a Corsican by birth, and had been a French soldier. He had fought bravely, but after his discharge he had been imprisoned for theft and counterfeiting. He led a wandering life from town to town, living on his wits and indulging all his vices. He had even succeeded in getting some small favors from Government; but finding that he could not long escape punishment for crimes known to the police, he undertook, apparently without any especial motive, the wholesale murder of king, court, and princes.

During his imprisonment his vanity had been so great that the officers of the Crown played upon it in order to obtain confessions and information.

The only witness against Morey was Nina Lassave, who insisted that, Fieschi having invented the murderous instrument, Morey had devised a use for it, and that Pepin had furnished the necessary funds for its completion.

I give Louis Blanc's account of Fieschi's behavior on his trial, because when foreign nations have reproached us for the scandal of the license granted to the murderer of President Garfield on his trial, I have never seen it remarked that Guiteau's conduct was almost exactly like that of Fieschi.

"With effrontery, with a miserable kind of pride, and with smiles of triumph on his lips, he alluded to his victims with theatrical gesticulations, and plumed himself on the magnitude of his own infamy, answering his judges by ignoble buffooneries, playing the part of an orator, making pretensions to learning, looking round to see what effect he was producing, and courting applause. And some of those who sat in judgment on him did applaud. At each of his atrocious vulgarisms many of the Peers laughed, and this laugh naturally encouraged him. Did he make a movement to rise, voices called out: 'Fieschi desires to say something, Monsieur le Président! Fieschi is about to speak!' The audience was unwilling to lose a word that might fall from the lips of so celebrated a scoundrel. He could hardly contain himself for pride and satisfaction. His bloody hand was eager to shake hands with the public, and there were those willing to submit to it. He exchanged signs with the woman Nina who was seated in the audience. He posed before the spectators with infinite satisfaction. What more can we say? He directed the proceedings. He prompted or browbeat the witnesses, he undertook the duties of a prosecuting attorney. He regulated the trial. … He directed coarse jokes at the unhappy Pepin; but reckless as he was, he dared not meddle with Morey. He had no hesitation in accusing himself. He owned himself the worst of criminals, and declared that he esteemed himself happy to be able to pay with his own blood for the blood of the unhappy victims of his crime. But the more he talked about his coming fate, the plainer it was that he expected pardon, and the more he flattered those on whom that pardon might depend."

The trial lasted twelve days, and very little was elicited about the conspiracy—if indeed there was one. Suddenly Pepin, whose terror had been abject, rallied his courage, refused to implicate Morey or to make revelations, and kept his resolution to the last.

One of the five prisoners was acquitted, one was condemned to a brief imprisonment, and Morey, Pepin, and Fieschi were sent to the block. Up to almost the last moment Fieschi expected pardon; but his last words were to his confessor: "I wish I could let you know about myself five minutes from now."

On the scaffold Morey's white hair elicited compassion from the spectators. Pepin at the last moment was offered a pardon if he would tell whence the money came that he had advanced to Fieschi. He refused firmly, and firmly met his fate.

The next day the woman who had betrayed her lover and the rest was presiding at a café on the Place de la Bourse, having been engaged as an attraction!

After these horrors we turn with relief to some account of good and noble women, the ladies of Louis Philippe's family.

After the murderous attempt of Fieschi the king lived under a continual expectation of assassination. He no longer walked the streets of Paris with his cane under his arm. When he drove, he sat with his back to the horses, because that position gave less certainty to the aim of an assassin. It was said that his carriages were lined with sheet-iron. He was thirteen times shot at, and the pallid looks of the poor queen were believed to arise from continual apprehension. Her nerves had been shaken by the diabolical attempt of Fieschi, and she never afterwards would leave her husband, even for a few days. She stayed away from the deathbed of her daughter, the Queen of the Belgians, lest in her absence he should be assassinated.

Neuilly was the home of the family, its beloved, particular retreat. The greatest pang that Louis Philippe suffered in 1848 was its total destruction by rioters. The little palace was furnished in perfect taste, with elegance, yet with simplicity. The inlaid floors were especially beautiful. The rooms were decorated with pictures, many of them representing passages in the early life of the king. In one he was teaching mathematics in a Swiss school; in another he was romping with his children. His own cabinet was decorated with his children's portraits and with works of art by his accomplished daughter, the Princess Marie. The family sitting-room was furnished with the princesses' embroidery, and there was a table painted on velvet by the Duchesse de Berri. The library was large, and contained many English books, among them a magnificent edition of Shakspeare. The park enclosed one hundred acres. The gardens were laid out in the English style. A branch of the Seine ran through the grounds, with boat-houses and bath-houses for the pleasure of the young princes—and in one night this cherished home was laid in ruins!

QUEEN MARIE AMÉLIE.

"All is possible," said Louis Philippe to a visitor who talked with him at Claremont in his exile, "all is possible to France—an empire, a republic, the Comte de Chambord, or my grandson; but one thing is impossible—that any of these should last. On a tué le respect—the nation has killed respect."

Queen Marie Amélie was born in Naples in 1782. Her mother was a daughter of Maria Theresa, and sister to Marie Antoinette. This lady was not one who inspired respect, but she had some good qualities. She was a good mother to her children, and had plenty of ability. Of course she hated the French Revolution, and everything that savored of what are called liberal opinions. Her career, which was full of vicissitudes and desperate plots, ended by her being dismissed ignominiously from Naples by the English ambassador, and she went to end her days with her nephew at Vienna.

Marie Amélie used sometimes to tell her children how she had wept when a child for the death of the little dauphin, the eldest son of Louis XVI., who, before the Revolution broke out, was taken away from the evil to come. She was to have been married to him had he lived. When older, she had an early love-affair with her cousin, Prince Antoine of Austria; but he was destined for the Church, and the youthful courtship came to an untimely end. When she first met her future husband, she and her family were living in a sort of provisional exile in Palermo. The princess was twenty-seven, Louis Philippe was ten or twelve years older, and they seem to have been quite determined to marry each other very soon after their acquaintance began. It was not easy to do so, however, for the duke, as we have seen, was at that period too much a republican to suit even an English Admiral; but the princess declared that she would go into a convent if the marriage was forbidden, and on Dec. 25, 1809, she became the wife of Louis Philippe.

No description could do justice to the purity and charity of this admirable woman; and in her good works she was seconded by her sister-in-law, Madame Adélaïde, and by her daughter.

"The queen," her almoner tells us, "had 500,000 francs a year for her personal expenses, and gave away 400,000 of them." "M. Appert," she would say to him, "give those 500 francs we spoke of, but put them down upon next month's account. The waters run low this month; my purse is empty." An American lady, visiting the establishment of a great dressmaker in Paris, observed an old black silk dress hanging over a chair. She remarked with some surprise: "I did not know you would turn and fix up old dresses." "I do so only for the queen," was the answer.

The imposture, ingratitude, and even insolence of some of Marie Amélie's petitioners failed to discourage her benevolence. For instance, an old Bonapartist lady, according to M. Appert, one day wrote to her:—

MADAME—If the Bourbons had not returned to France, for the misfortune of the country, my beloved mistress and protectress, the Empress Marie Louise, would still be on the throne, and I should not be under the humiliating necessity of telling you that I am without bread, and that the wretched bed on which I sleep is about to be thrown out of the garret I inhabit, because I cannot pay a year's rent. I dare not ask you for assistance, for my heart is with my real sovereign, and I cannot promise you my gratitude. If, however, you think fit to preserve a life which, since the misfortunes of my country, has been full of bitterness, I will accept a loan. I should blush to receive a gift.

I am, Madame, your servant, C.

When this impertinent letter was handed to the almoner, the queen had written on it: "She must be very unhappy, for she is very unjust. A hundred francs to be sent to her immediately, and I beg M. Appert to make inquiries concerning this lady's circumstances."

In vain the almoner remonstrated. The only effect of his remonstrance was that the queen authorized him to make her gift 300 francs if he found it necessary. When he knocked at the door of the garret of the petitioner, she opened it with agitation. "Oh, Monsieur!" she said, "are you the Commissioner of Police come to arrest me for my outrageous letter to the queen? I am so unhappy that at times I became deranged. I am sorry to have written as I did to a princess who to all the poor is good and charitable." For answer, M. Appert showed her her own letter, with the queen's memorandum written upon it. "There was no lack of heartfelt gratitude then," he says, "and no lack of poverty to need the triple benefaction."