France in the Nineteenth Century | Page 3

was childless. The Duc de Berri had married Marie Caroline, a princess of Naples. She had two children,--Louise, who when she grew up became Duchess of Parma; and Henri, called variously the Duc de Bordeaux, Henri V., and the Comte de Chambord.
All Louis XVIII.'s efforts during his ten years' reign were directed to keeping things as quiet as he could during his lifetime. He greatly disapproved of the policy of the Holy Alliance in forcing him to make war on Spain in order to put down the Constitutionalists under Riego and Mina. The expedition for that purpose was commanded by the Duc d'Angoulême, who accomplished his mission, but with little glory or applause except from flatterers. The chief military incident of the campaign was the capture by the French of the forts of Trocadéro, which commanded the entrance to Cadiz harbor.
The Duchesse d'Angoulême, that filia dolorosa left to languish alone in the Temple after her parents and her aunt were guillotined, had been exchanged with Austria for Lafayette by Bonaparte in the treaty of Campo-Formio; but her soul had been crushed within her by her sorrows. Deeply pious, she forgave the enemies of her house, she never uttered a word against the Revolution; but the sight of her pale, set, sad face was a mute reproach to Frenchmen. She could forgive, but she could not be gracious. At the Tuileries, a place full of graceful memories of the Empress Josephine, she presided as a dévote and a dowdy. She could not have been expected to be other than she was, but the nation that had made her so, bore a grudge against her. There was nothing French about her. No sympathies existed between her and the generation that had grown up in France during the nineteenth century. Both she and her husband were stiff, cold, ultra-aristocrats. In intelligence she was greatly the duke's superior, as she was also in person, he being short, fat, red-faced, with very thin legs.
The Duc de Berri was much more popular. He was a Frenchman in character. His faults were French. He was pleasure-seeking, pleasure-loving, and he married a young and pretty wife to whom he was far from faithful, and who was as fond of pleasure as himself.
The Duc de Berri was assassinated by a man named Louvel, Feb. 13, 1820, as he was handing his wife into her carriage at the door of the French Opera House. They carried him back into the theatre, and there, in a side room, with the music of the opera going on upon the stage, the plaudits of the audience ringing in his ears, and ballet-girls flitting in and out in their stage dresses, the heir of France gave up his life, with kindly words upon his dying lips, reminding us of Charles II. on his deathbed.
As I have said, Louis XVIII.'s reign was not without plots and conspiracies. One of those in 1823 was got up by the Carbonari. Lafayette was implicated in it. It was betrayed, however, the night before it was to have been put in execution, and such of its leaders as could be arrested were guillotined. Lafayette was saved by the fact that the day fixed upon for action was the anniversary of his wife's death,--a day he always spent in her chamber in seclusion.
It may be desirable to say who were the Carbonari. "Carbone" is Italian for charcoal. The Carbonari were charcoal-burners. The conspirators took their name because charcoal-burners lived in solitary places, and were disguised by the coal-dust that blackened their faces. It was a secret society which extended throughout France, Italy, and almost all Europe. It was joined by all classes. Its members, under pain of death, were forced to obey the orders of the society. The deliverance of Italy from the Austrians became eventually the prime object of the institution.
Lafayette, during his visit to America in 1824, expressed himself freely about the Bourbons. "France cannot be happy under their rule," he said;[1] "and we must send them adrift. It would have been done before now but for the hesitation of Laffitte. Two regiments of guards, when ordered to Spain under the Duc d'Angoulême, halted at Toulouse, and began to show symptoms of mutiny. The matter was quieted, however, and the affair kept as still as possible. But all was ready. I knew of the whole affair. All that was wanted to make a successful revolution at that time was money. I went to Laffitte; but he was full of doubts, and dilly-dallied with the matter. Then I offered to do it without his help. Said I: 'On the first interview that you and I have without witnesses, put a million of francs, in bank-notes, on the mantelpiece, which I will pocket unseen by you. Then leave the rest