France in the Nineteenth Century | Page 3

husbands; but
Charles's wife had left him two sons,--Louis Antoine, known as the
Duc d'Angoulême, and Charles Ferdinand, known as the Duc de Berri.
The Duc d'Angoulême had married his cousin Marie Thérèse, daughter
of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette. Their union 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