THE FRENCH REVOLUTION BOOK I DEATH OF LOUIS XV CHAPTER I LOUIS THE WELL-BELOVED PRESIDENT HÉNAULT, remarking on royal Surnames of Honour how difficult it often is to ascertain not only why, but even when, they were conferred, takes occasion in his sleek official way to make a philosophical reflection. "The Surname of Bien-aimé (Well-beloved)," says he, “which Louis XV bears, will not leave posterity in the same doubt. This Prince, in the year 1744, while hastening from one end of his kingdom to the other, and suspending his conquests in Flanders that he might fly to the assistance of Alsace, was arrested at Metz by a malady which threatened to cut short his days. At the news of this, Paris, all in terror, seemed a city taken by storm: the churches resounded with supplications and groans; the prayers of priests and people were every moment interrupted by their sobs: and it was from an interest so dear and tender that this Surname of Bien-aimé fashioned itself, a title higher still than all the rest which this great Prince has earned." So stands it written; in lasting memorial of that year 1744. Thirty other years have come and gone; and "this great Prince" again lies sick: but in how altered circumstances now! Churches resound not with excessive groanings; Paris is stoically calm: sobs interrupt no prayers, for indeed none are offered: except Priests' Litanies, read or chanted at fixed money-rate per hour, which are not liable to interruption. The shepherd of the people has been carried home from Little Trianon, heavy of heart, and been put to bed in his own Château of Versailles:1 the flock knows it, and heeds it not. At most, in the immeasurable tide of French Speech (which ceases not day after day, and only ebbs towards the short hours of night), may this of the royal sickness emerge from time to time as an article of news. Bets are doubtless depending; nay, some people "express themselves loudly in the streets." But for the rest, on green field and steepled city, the May sun shines out, the May evening fades; and men ply their useful or useless business as if no Louis lay in danger. 3 Dame Dubarry,2 indeed, might pray, if she had a talent for it; Duke d'Aiguillon too, Maupeou and the Parlement Maupeou: these, as they sit in their high places, with France harnessed under their feet, know well on what basis they continue there. Look to it, D'Aiguillon; sharply as thou didst, from the Mill of St. Cast, on Quiberon and the invading English; thou "covered if not with glory yet with meal.' Fortune was ever accounted inconstant: and each dog has but his day. . . 1 The former was the small villa with rustic gardens, built by Louis XV in 1766; it was situated at the extremity of the large park surrounding the magnificent palace of Versailles, which since the time of Louis XIV had been the home of royalty. 2 Comtesse du Barry (born in 1744 and guillotined in 1793) was royal mistress during Louis' later years and largely responsible for the vast extravagances which characterized the close of his reign. A woman of great beauty, she was of low birth and vulgar manners; the old nobility despised her upon social grounds. Her personal influence with Louis was supreme and resulted in disastrous appointments; but unlike her predecessor, the Pompadour, she had little ambition, and no aptitude, for ruling. 3 The former was minister of foreign affairs. The latter, who was chancellor, had reduced the Parlement, or supreme judicial body, to absolute subjection to the royal will; it was derisively called the Parlement Maupeou by the people. Both d'Aiguillon and Maupeou acted as instruments of Louis' vicious and impolitic despotism and were objects of popular hatred. 4 At the battle of Quiberon (1746), d'Aiguillon, who commanded the French against the British, fled the field to hide in a mill. Beautiful Armida-Palace,1 where the inmates live enchanted lives; lapped in soft music of adulation; waited on by the splendours of the world; -which nevertheless hangs wondrously as by a single hair. Should the Most Christian King die; or even get seriously afraid of dying! For, alas, had not the fair haughty Chateauroux 2 to fly, with wet cheeks and flaming heart, from that Fever-scene at Metz, long since; driven forth by sour shavelings? She hardly returned, when fever and shavelings were both swept into the background. Pompadour too, when Damiens3 wounded Royalty "slightly under the fifth rib," and our drive to Trianon went off futile, in shrieks and madly shaken torches, had to pack, and be in readiness: yet did not go, the wound not proving poisoned. For his Majesty has religious faith; believes at least in a Devil. And now a third peril; and who knows what may be in it! For the Doctors look grave; ask privily, If his Majesty had not the small-pox long ago? -- and doubt it may have been a false kind. Yes, Maupeou, pucker those sinister brows of thine, and peer out on it with thy malign rat-eyes: it is a questionable case. Sure only that man is mortal; that with the life of one mortal snaps irrevocably the wonderfullest talisman, and all Dubarrydom rushes off, with tumult, into infinite Space; and ye, as subterranean Apparitions are wont, vanish utterly, — leaving only a smell of sulphur! These, and what holds of these may pray, to Beelzebub, or whoever will hear them. But from the rest of France 1 Armida was one of the most seductive heroines of Jerusalem Delivered, who by her enchantments held Renaud from joining his fellow crusaders; her palace is typical of fantastic and luxurious sensuality. 2 Duchess of Chateauroux (1717-1744), a mistress of Louis XV during his earlier days. 3 The Marquise de la Pompadour (1721-1764) controlled France for nineteen years, dominating the king partly by her beauty, but chiefly by her tact and wit. France owes much to her patronage of the arts, but her influence in state affairs resulted in the loss of the French colonial empire in America and in India. Her power suffered an eclipse for a few days in 1757, when Damiens (a maniac) attacked the king with murderous intent; it was speedily reëstablished and continued until the end of her life. there comes, as was said, no prayer; or one of an opposite character, "expressed openly in the streets." . . . O Hénault! Prayers? From a France smitten (by black-art) with plague after plague; and lying now, in shame and pain, with a Harlot's foot on its neck, what prayer can come? Those lank scarecrows, that prowl hunger-stricken through all highways and byways of French Existence, will they pray? The dull millions that, in the workshop or furrowfield, grind foredone at the wheel of Labour, like haltered gin-horses, if blind so much the quieter? Or they that in the Bicêtre Hospital, "eight to a bed," lie waiting their manumission? Dim are those heads of theirs, dull stagnant those hearts: to them the great Sovereign is known mainly as the great Regrater of Bread. If they hear of his sickness, they will answer with a dull Tant pis pour lui; 2 or with the question, Will he die? Yes, will he die? question, and hope; still some interest. that is now, for all France, the grand whereby alone the King's sickness has CHAPTER II REALIZED IDEALS SUCH a changed France have we; and a changed Louis. Changed, truly; and further than thou yet seest! - To the eye of History many things, in that sick-room of Louis, are now visible, which to the Courtiers there present were invisible. For indeed it is well said, "in every object there is inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees in it what the eye brings means of seeing." To Newton and to Newton's Dog Diamond, what a different pair of Universes; while the painting 3 1 The "regrating" or petty commerce in bread, salt, coal, fruit, etc., was strictly supervised by the government; the price of common commodities was thus enhanced and the government was rendered extremely unpopular. 2 "So much the worse for him." 3 Sir Isaac Newton's dog, Diamond, acquired lasting fame through overturning a candle, thereby destroying all his master's papers on the theory of light, the result of the labor of twenty years. on the optical retina of both was, most likely, the same! Let the Reader here, in this sick-room of Louis, endeavour to look with the mind too. Time was when men could (so to speak) of a given man, by nourishing and decorating him with fit appliances, to the due pitch, make themselves a King, almost as the Bees do; and, what was still more to the purpose, loyally obey him when made. The man so nourished and decorated, thenceforth named royal, does verily bear rule; and is said, and even thought, to be, for example, "prosecuting conquests in Flanders," when he lets himself like luggage be carried thither: and no light luggage; covering miles of road. For he has his unblushing Chateauroux, with her bandboxes and rouge-pots, at his side; so that, at every new station, a wooden gallery must be run up between their lodgings. He has not only his Maison-Bouche, and Valetaille1 without end, but his very Troop of Players, with their pasteboard coulisses, thunder-barrels, their kettles, fiddles, stage-wardrobes, portable larders (and chaffering and quarrelling enough); all mounted in wagons, tumbrils, second-hand chaises, — sufficient not to conquer Flanders, but the patience of the world. With such a flood of loud jingling appurtenances does he lumber along, prosecuting his conquests in Flanders: wonderful to behold. So nevertheless it was and had been: to some solitary thinker it might seem strange; but even to him, inevitable, not unnatural. For ours is a most fictile world; and man is the most fingent plastic of creatures. A world not fixable; not fathomable! An unfathomable Somewhat, which is Not we; which we can work with, and live amidst, — and model, miraculously in our miraculous Being, and name World. — But if the very Rocks and Rivers (as Metaphysic teaches) are, in strict language, made by those Outward Senses of ours, how much more, by the Inward Sense, are all Phenomena of the spiritual kind: Dignities, Authorities, Holies, Unholies! Which inward sense, moreover, is not permanent 1 The staff of lackeys and valets in charge of the royal meals and service. |