Their corporation address, formidable by its portentous parchment and official seal, had puzzled the Foreign Office in no ordinary way, and was actually under their weighty consideration the following day, when the King most unexpectedly made his _entree_ into the capital. King Ernest heard with some amazement, not unmingled by disbelief, that an Irish diplomatic body had actually arrived at his court, and immediately demanded to see their credentials. There is no need to recount the terrible outbreak of temper which his Majesty displayed on discovering the mistake of his ministers. The chances are, indeed, that, had he called himself Pacha instead of King, he would have sentenced the Irish amba.s.sador and his whole following to be hanged like onions on the one string. As it was, he could scarcely control his pa.s.sion; and whatever the triumphant pleasures of the day before, when a dinner-card for the palace was conveyed by an aide-de-camp to the hotel, the "second Epistle to Timothy" was a very awful contrast to its predecessor. The hapless deputation, however, got leave to return unmolested, and betook themselves to their homeward journey, the chief of the mission by no means so well satisfied of his success in the part of the "Irish Amba.s.sador."
Now to dress for dinner. I wish I had said "No" to this same invitation.
Nothing is pleasanter when one is in health and spirits than a _pet.i.t diner_; nothing is more distressing when one is weak, low, and dejected.
At a large party there is always a means of lying _perdu_, and neither taking any share in the cookery or the conversation. At a small table one must eat, drink, and be merry, though the _plat_ be your doom and the talk be your destruction. There is no help for it; there is no playing "supernumerary" in farce with four characters.
Is it yet too late to send an apology?--it still wants a quarter of six, and six is the hour. I really cannot endure the fatigue and the exhaustion.
Holland, besides, told me that any excitement would be prejudicial. Here goes, then, for my excuse.... So! I"m glad I"ve done it. I feel myself once more free to lie at ease on this ottoman and dream away the hours undisturbed.
"Holloa! what"s this, Legrelle?" "De la part de Madame la Comtesse, sir.
How provoking!--how monstrously provoking! She writes me, "You really must come. I will not order dinner till I see you.--Yours, &c. B.
de F------." What a bore! and what an absurd way to incur an attack of illness! There"s nothing for it, however, but submission; and to-morrow, if I"m able, I"ll leave Paris.
"Legrelle, don"t forget to order horses for tomorrow at twelve."
"What route does monsieur take?"
"Avignon--no, Strasbourg--Couilly, I think, is the first post. I should like to see Munich once more, or, at least, its gallery. The city is a poor thing, worthy of its people, and, I was going to say--no matter what! Germany, in any case, for the summer, as I am sentenced to die in Italy. I feel I am taking what the Irish call "a long day" in not crossing the Alps till late in autumn!"
How many places there are which one has been near enough to have visited and somehow always neglected to see! and what a longing, craving wish to behold them comes over the heart at such a time as this? What, then, is "this time," that I speak it thus?
How late it is! De Vigny was very agreeable, combining in his manner a great deal of the refinement of a highly cultivated mind, with the shrewd perception of a keen observer of the world. He is a _Legitimiste_, I take it, without any hope of his party. This, after all, is the sad political creed of all who adhere to the "elder branch."
Their devotion is indeed great, for it wars against conviction. But where can an honest man find footing in France nowadays? Has not Louis Philippe violated in succession every pledge by which he had bound himself? Can such an example of falsehood so highly placed be without its influence on the nation? Can men cry "Shame!" on the Minister, when they witness the turpitude of the Monarch?
But what hope does any other party offer?--None. Henri Cinque, a Bourbon of the _vieille roche_, gentle, soft-hearted, sensual, and selfish, who, if he returned to France to-morrow, would never believe that the long interval since the Three Days had been any thing but an accident; and would not bring himself to credit the possibility that the succession had been ever endangered.
I believe, after all, one should be as lenient in their judgment of men"s change of fealty in France as they are indulgent to the capricious fancies of a spoiled beauty. The nation, like a coquette, had every thing its own way. The cold austerities of principle had yielded to the changeful fortunes of success for so many years, that men very naturally began to feel that instability and uncertainty were the normal state of things, and that to hold fast one set of opinions was like casting anchor in a stream when we desired to be carried along by the current.
Who are they who have risen in France since the time of the Great Revolution? Are they the consistent politicians, the men of one unvarying, unaltered faith? or are they the expediency makers, the men of emergencies and crises, yielding, as they would phrase it, to "the enlightened temper of the times"--the Talleyrands, the Soults, the Guizots of the day?--not to speak of one higher than them all, but not more conspicuous for his elevation than for the subserviency that has placed him there.
Poor Chateaubriand! the man who never varied, the man that was humblest before his rightful sovereign, and prouder than the proudest Marshal in presence of the Emperor, how completely forgotten is he--standing like some ruined sign-post to point the way over a road no longer travelled!
A more complete revolution was never worked in the social condition of a great kingdom than has taken place in France since the time of the Emperor. The glorious career of conquering armies had invested the soldier"s life with a species of chivalry, that brought back the old days of feudalism again. Now, it is the _bourgeoisie_ are uppermost.
Trade and money-getting, railroads and mines, have seized hold of the nation"s heart; and where the _baton_ of a Marechal was once the most coveted of all earthly distinctions, a good bargain on the Bourse, or a successful transaction in scrip, are now the highest triumphs. The very telegraph, whose giant limbs only swayed to speak of victories, now beckons to an expectant crowd the rates of exchange from London to Livorno, and with a far greater certainty of stirring the spirits it addresses.
I fell into all this moody reflection from thinking of an incident--I might almost call it story--I remembered hearing from an old cuira.s.sier officer some years ago. I was pa.s.sing through the north of France, and stopped to dine at Sedan, where a French cavalry regiment, three thousand strong, were quartered. Some repairs that were necessary to my carriage detained me till the next day; and as I strolled along the shady boulevards in the evening, I met an old soldier-like person, beside whom I dined at the table-d"hote. He was the very type of a _chef-d"escadron_ of the Empire, and such he really proved to be.
After a short preamble of the ordinary commonplaces, we began to talk of the service in which he lived, and I confess it was with a feeling of surprise I heard him say that the old soldiers of the Empire had met but little favour from the new dynasty; and I could not help observing that this was not the impression made upon us in England, but that we inclined to think it was the especial policy of the present reign to conciliate the affections of the nation by a graceful acknowledgment of those so instrumental to its glory.
"Is not Soult as high, or rather, is he not far higher, in the favour of his sovereign, Louis Philippe, than ever he was in that of the Emperor?
Is not Moncey a man n.o.bly pensioned as Captain of the Invalides?"
"All true! But where are the hundreds--I had almost said thousands, but that death has been so busy in these tranquil times with those it had spared in more eventful days--where are they, the old soldiers, who served in inferior grades, the men whose promotions for the hard fighting at Montereau and Chalons needed but a few days more of prosperity to have confirmed, but who saw their best hopes decline as the sun of the Emperor"s glory descended?
"What rewards were given even to many of the more distinguished, but whose principles were known to be little in accordance with the new order of things? What of Pajol, who captured a Dutch fleet with his cavalry squadrons;--ay! charged the three-deckers as they lay ice-locked in the Scheldt, dismounted half of his force and boarded them, as in a sea-fight? Poor Pajol! he died the other day, at eighty-three or four, followed to the grave by the comrades he had fought and marched beside, but with no honours to his memory from the King or his government. No, sir, believe me, the present people never liked the Buonapartists; the sad contrasts presented by all their attempts at military renown with those glorious spectacles of the Empire were little flattering to them."
"Then you evidently think Soult and some others owe their present favour, less to the eminence of their services than to the plasticity of their principles?"
"Who ever thought Soult a great general?" said he, abruptly answering my question by this transition. "A great military organizer, certainly--the best head for the administration of an army, or the Emperor"s staff--but nothing more. His capacity as a tactician was always third rate."
I could not help acknowledging that such was the opinion of our own great captain, who has avowed that he regarded Ma.s.sena as the most accomplished and scientific general to whom he was ever opposed.
"And Ma.s.sena"s daughter," cried the veteran indignantly, "lives now in the humblest poverty--the wife of a very poor man, who cultivates a little garden near Brussels, where _femmes de chambre_ are sent to buy bouquets for their mistresses! The daughter of a _Marechal de France_, a t.i.tle once that Kings loved to add to their royalty, as men love to enn.o.ble station by evidences of high personal desert!"
"How little fidelity, however, did these men shew to him who had made them thus great! how numerous were the desertions!--how rapid too!"
"Yes, there was an epidemic of treason at that time in France, just as you have seen at different epochs, here, other epidemics prevail: in the Revolution the pa.s.sion was for the guillotine; then came the l.u.s.t of military glory--that suited us best, and lasted longest; we indulged in it for twenty years: then succeeded that terrible revulsion, and men hastened to prove how false-hearted they could be. Then came the Restoration--and the pa.s.sion was to be Catholic; and now we have another order of things, whose worst feature is, that there is no prevailing creed. Men live for the day and the hour. The King"s health--the state of Spain--a bad harvest--an awkward dispute between the commander of our squadron in the Pacific with some of your admirals,--anything may overturn the balance, and our whole political and social condition may have to be built up once more."
"The great remedy against this uncertainty is out of your power," said I: "you abolished the claims of Sovereignty on the permanent affection of the people, and now you begin to feel the want of "Loyalty.""
"Our kings had ceased to merit the respect of the nation when they lost it."
"Say, rather, you revenged upon them the faults and vices of their more depraved, but bolder, ancestors. You made the timid Louis XVI. pay for the hardy Louis XIV. Had that unhappy monarch but been like the Emperor, his court might have displayed all the excesses of the regency twice told, and you had never declared against them."
"That may be true; but you evidently do not--I doubt, indeed, if any but a Frenchman and a soldier can--feel the nature of our attachment to the Emperor. It was something in which personal interest partook a large part, and the hope of future advancement, _through him_, bore its share. The army regarded him thus, and never forgave him perfectly, for preferring to be an Emperor rather than a General. Now, the very desertions you have lately alluded to, would probably never have occurred if the leader had not merged into the monarch.
"There was a fascination, a spirit of infatuating ecstasy, in serving one whose steps had so often led to glory, that filled a man"s entire heart. One learned to feel, that the rays of his own splendid achievements shed a l.u.s.tre on all around him and each had his portion of undying fame. This feeling, as it became general, grew into a kind of superst.i.tion, and even to a man"s own conscience it served to excuse many grave errors, and some direct breaches of true faith."
"Then, probably, you regard Ney"s conduct in this light?" said I.
"I know it was of this nature," replied he, vehemently. "Ney, like many others, meant to be faithful to the Bourbons when he took the command.
He had no thought of treachery in his mind; he believed he was marching against an enemy until he actually saw the Emperor, and then----"
"I find this somewhat difficult to understand," said I, dubiously.
"Ney"s new allegiance was no hasty step, but one maturely and well considered. He had weighed in his mind various eventualities, and doubtless among the number the possibility of the Emperor"s return. That the mere sight of that low c.o.c.ked-hat and the _redingote gris_ could have at once served to overturn a sworn fealty and a plighted word---"
"Have you time to listen to a short story?" interrupted the old dragoon, with a degree of emotion in his manner that bespoke a deeper interest than I suspected in the subject of our conversation.
"Willingly," said I. "Will you come and sup with me at my hotel, and we can continue a theme in which I feel much interest?"
"Nay; with your permission, we will sit down here--on the ramparts.
I never sup: like an old campaigner, I only make one meal a-day, and mention the circ.u.mstance to excuse my performance at the table d"hote: and here, if you do not dislike it, we will take our places under this lime-tree."
I at once acceded to this proposal, and he began thus:--
CHAPTER IV.
You are, perhaps, aware, that in no part of France was the cause of the exiled family sustained with more perseverance and courage than Auvergne. The n.o.bles, who, from generation to generation, had lived as seigneurs on their estates, equally remote from the attractions and advantages of a court, still preserved their devotion to the Bourbons as a part of religious faith; nor ever did the evening ma.s.s of a chateau conclude without its heartfelt prayer for the repose of that "Saint Roi" Louis XVI., and for the blessing of heaven on him, his rightful successor, now a wanderer and an exile.
In one of these antique chateaux, whose dilapidated battlements and shattered walls shewed that other enemies than mere time had been employed against it, lived an old Count de Vitry: so old was he, that he could remember the time he had been a page at the court of Louis XV., and could tell many strange tales of the Regency, and the characters who flourished at that time.
His family consisted of two grandchildren, both of them orphans of his two sons. One had fallen in La Vendee; the other, sentenced to banishment by the Directory, had died on the pa.s.sage out to Guadaloupe.
The children were nearly of the same age--the boy a few months older than the girl--and regarded each other as brother and sister.