The little dauphin

Preface

TN writing this book I have received help and advice from several persons. I wish particularly to express my indebtedness to Mr. Richard Whiteing, to M. Parizet, and to M. and Madame Dispan, to Mr. W. Shaw Sparrow, to Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, to M. Foulon de Vaulx, who has permitted me to reproduce a portrait in his possession, to Lady Ritchie, who has permitted me to reproduce a picture formerly owned by W. M. Thackeray, and to my father, who has helped me in many ways.

THE FORTY DAUPHINS {continued) .

KVIII.

THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD .

Index

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Le Dauphin (Louis XVII.) .... Frontispiece

From a painting by KoCHARSKi at Versailles. From a photograph by W. A, Manskll & Co.

Facing page

Marie-Antoinette. . . . . . • i '

From a portrait by Callet at Versailles. From a photograph by W. A. Mansell & Co.

Louis XVI i6 -

From a painting by Callet at Versailles. From a photograph by NeURDEIN FRfcRES.

Marie- Antoinette and her Children . . . 28 '

From a painting by Madame Vigee Lebrun at Versailles. From a photograph by W. A, Mansell & Co.

Louis XVI. stopped in his Flight to Varennes . 72 '

From an engraving by MARIANO BovL

A Contemporary Caricature . . . . 84 • The Taking of the Tuileries, August 10, 1792 120

From a painting by Bertaux at Versailles. From a photograph by Newrdein frS^RES.

From an engraving in the Carnavalet Museum.

The Last Farewell of Louis XVI. and his

Family 162 ^

From an engraving by Stlanio after the painting by Benazech,

X THE LITTLE DAUPHIN

Facing page ,

The Execution of Louis XVI 164

From an eftgraving by SiLANiO after the painting by Benazech.

Louis XVI I. , King of France and Navarre . 170

From an engraving by N. Heideloff.

The Dauphin torn from his Mother's Arms . 192^

From an engraving by Mariano Bovi.

Simon 210

From a sketch by Gabriel in the Carnavalet Museum.

Thackeray's Mysterious Portrait . . .240

In the possession of Lady Ritchie.

Eleazar Williams, the Iroquois Chief and Self-styled Dauphin . . . . . . 286 '

From a contemporarv engraving.

Naundorff (soi-disant Louis XVII.) . . .294

After an unpublished portrait by CLAYTON in the possessioft

of M. FOULON DE VAULX.

A list of a few of the most important and interesting of the many books on the subject of the Dauphin^ s possible escape from the Temple and on the Pretenders.

Barbey, Frederic, A Friend of Marie-Antoinette. Beaucamp, Alphonse de, Histoire des deux Faux Dauphins

(Hervegault and Bruneau).

Blanc, J. J. L., Histoire de la Revolution Frangaise. Vol. xii.

(Louis XVII.).

Hanson, J. H., The Lost Prince (Eleazar Williams). Lambeau, L., La Question Louis XVII.

Lanne, Adolphe, Louis XVII. et Le Secret de la Revolution. Lenotre, Vieux Papiers (La Simon). Meves, Augustus, The Prisoner of the Temple. Nauroy, Ch., Les Secrets des Bourbons. An Abridged Account

of the Misfortunes of the Dauphin (Naundorfif), Provins, Henri, Le Dernier Roi Legitime de France. Revue des Questions Historiques, 1882. Article by Sico-

ti^re.

MARIE ANTOINETTE From a painting by Callct

Chapter I A Prince Is Born A Revolution Begins

AT Versailles there was born in 1785 a prince, ^ third child of Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI., King of France and Navarre. Nothing in the circumstance of his birth indicated how strange a career awaited him, nor suggested that in this little boy had been put into the world what was destined to become the most romantic personage of the Bourbon dynasty, and the saddest figure in all the history of France.

He was a second son, and to all appearance his foreordained place in life was to be in youth an unimportant younger prince, and to change, on the accession of his elder brother, to an equally obscure Monsieur. But four years later death altered all that, and made of this boy the heir of France and all her miseries.

Just such a lot had been his father's, who.

born a younger son, came unexpectedly, thanks to the death of his elder brothers, into the ill-starred kingdom of Louis XV. This unforeseen inheritance was of a piece with the ill-luck that was throughout his life the daily fate of this blameless and stupid man, whom Nature intended for an industrious bourgeois, and whom an absent-minded Providence set down instead on the throne of France— the worst example in history of a square peg in a round hole.

Poor Louis could do nothing right. He could not manage his kingdom, nor love his wife, nor even dance a minuet. Shy, awkward, incompetent, he could only love his people, as none of his house had ever loved them before, while always doing what was worst for them and for himself. Perhaps, as he jolted over the cobbles of Paris a few years later, this unhappy King, who meant so well, and did so ill, may have considered that the road to his scaffold was paved indeed with his good intentions. Had Louis but only meant ill by his country, he might have mastered it, and lived to a right Bourbon old age, to die in comfort in his royal bed, leaving behind him to his heir the same fine kingdom he had himself inherited. But Louis, alas, always meant well.

At fifteen, a fat, silent boy, he married the

Austrian Archduchess, Marie-Antoinette, herself a child, but already full of that charm which was always peculiarly her own.

Scarcely had she reached Paris when one of the court, pointing to the people who cheered the young Dauphine, said to the bride, '* Madame, you have there before your eyes not one, but two hundred thousand lovers."

A fortnight after her marriage, while the festivities were still in progress, there occurred a panic amongst the crowd gathered to see the fireworks. More than a thousand people were killed. The catastrophe was an omen, perhaps, of the tragic fate that awaited Marie- Antoinette in her new country, where her two hundred thousand humble lovers were destined so soon to grow cold and her husband was destined for so long to prove indifferent.

The beauty of this pretty child was as undeniable as was her indiscretion. The famous description which Madame Le Brun has written gives an excellent idea of her charm.

** Marie- Antoinette was tall," says the royal portrait painter, *'and admirably proportioned; plump, without being too much so. Her arms were lovely. She had small and perfectly-shaped hands, and charming little feet." (Her foot and leg were worthy of the Venus de Medici, according to her dressmaker.)

" She walked better than any woman in France, holding her head very upright with a majesty that denoted the Sovereign in the midst of her court, but without permitting this majestic bearing to detract in the least from the sweetness and grace of her whole aspect."

Meeting her when Queen at Fontainebleau, the painter ventured to compliment Marie- Antoinette on her beautiful carriage.

Marie- Antoinette laughed. '' Isn't it true," she asked, ''that if I were not Queen, people would say I looked insolent ? "

In face, her beauty was of an irregular sort, her lips over full, perhaps, her chin dented, her eyes not large and almost blue, and her nose thin and well modelled. Her expression was gentle and appealing, for Marie- Antoinette had a pitiful instinctive wish to please all whom she met. Her chief beauty, however, was her magnificent complexion. ** I could never in painting her obtain the effect I wished," says Madame Le Brun. " Paints could not depict the freshness and delicate tints of her skin, the like of which I have never seen in any other woman."

It is no wonder that this charming girl fascinated all France, touched the heart — so it is said — of old Louis XV., her grandfather-in-law, and aroused the jealousy of the royal favourite.

Madame du Barry. The wonder is only that her husband, dull though he was, did not, from the first, feel her attraction. Perhaps she bewildered him, this beautiful young creature who had been flung into his humdrum life ; perhaps he was afraid of her. At any rate, the young Prince appeared indifferent to her, while Marie- Antoinette, grieved and resentful, was forced to seek how best she might avenge herself for his slight and find distraction against his apathy. Naturally capricious and light-headed, the girl threw herself into more than natural extravagances and indiscretions. She was sowing, poor Princess, the seeds of that unpopularity which was destined, years after, to destroy her.

Neither she nor her husband had reached their twentieth birthdays when Louis XV. died, bequeathing to his grandson the revolution which the old King's life of long-drawn infamy had made nearly inevitable.

*'Oh, God!'" cried the boy and girl, kneeling side by side to hear the news of his death, **we are too young to reign. Guard us and protect us ! " But their prayer was unheard, and the oppressed nation showed itself but too ready to visit on these two children the sins of their grandfather.

Louis had no idea how to reign. '' He might have made the best workman in France,"

but he was a very poor king. Marie- Antoinette, even had she been in sympathy with him, could not have helped him greatly. He was, despite his incompetence — perhaps because of it — a man of mulish obstinacy. The Queen therefore, even if she had wished, could not have influenced him much in public affairs. It does not seem, however, that she often wished to do so. She was essentially a woman rejoicing in social matters, neither caring for serious things nor able to understand them. She left Louis free to accomplish his own destruction in his own way. Poor, stupid, good Louis took advantage of his opportunity. France was in that condition when, to be saved from disaster, it needed a king who was a genius ; instead, there was set on the throne a man who was in many ways next to a fool. The consequences were tragic and inevitable.

Marie-Antoinette, meantime, was struggling against a mass of cruel intrigues. From her husband's family she had met, from the moment of her marriage, with dislike and disloyalty. The King's aunts opposed her jealously, his brothers worked against her, one by attempting to make illicit love to her, the other by plotting against her and spreading false rumours about her. We can only wonder that, in the midst of so little sympathy and so much distrust, this frivolous and much-tempted young Queen, long unloved by her husband and disappointed of much-desired children, still kept herself guiltless of any faults except a compromising but quite innocent giddiness.

The royal couple was eight years childless, and during this time the Comte de Provence and the Comte d'Artois, Louis's younger brothers, grew to hope that the throne might, in default of direct heir, pass to them. Provence, the elder, was naturally the more ambitious. He hated Marie-Antoinette, and was incurably jealous of the brother but for whom he would have reigned. He was — of this the actions of his whole life leave no possibility of doubt — a thoroughly unscrupulous man.

He incited the handsome Comte dArtois, it is said, to his dishonourable and unsuccessful attempts to gain his Queen's love. On the birth of a son to the Comte and Comtesse d'Artois, Monsieur warned the father with a vile cynicism to ''take care lest in pursuing his own love-affairs he do an injury to his own heir."

At last, in 1778, Marie- Antoinette's first child was born — alas ! a girl — for France was impatient for a Dauphin, and the disappointment did not increase the Queen's swift-diminishing popularity. To Louis, however, any child of Marie-Antoinette's was welcome, for his feelings towards his Queen had by this time changed completely, and he now loved her with an adoration which the rakish Bourbons had not till then been wont to give to their legitimate consorts.

The Comte de Provence was delighted at the Queen's disappointment, which left him still heir-presumptive. None the less, with an astonishing boldness, he dared to pretend that the child was illegitimate.

It was at the little Princess's christening that he made publicly this scandalous insinuation.

The ceremony had begun, and the Comte de Provence, as godfather, was holding his baby niece in his arms.

" What name shall be given to this child ? " asked the priest.

''Monsieur," replied the Prince maliciously, ''that is not the first question you have to ask. You should first inquire who are its father and mother."

The priest blushed, the crowd tittered, and the Comte de Provence, delighted with the scandal he had caused, smiled sardonically, holding carefully in his arms the while the baby whose dishonour he was trying to accomplish. The incident was typical of this man, whose manners were perfect, but whose heart was full of intrigue.

Three years later, the son that France desired and the Comte de Provence dreaded was born. This child, destined to a short life, seemed none the less to put an end to Monsieur's ambition, and to that of his younger brother, the Comte d'Artois.

'*Oh, papa! how little my cousin is! "cried the young son of this latter, when for the first time he had looked upon the baby Dauphin.

"The day will come when you will think him great enough, my dear," answered the disappointed Comte dArtois bitterly.

Versailles was full of intrigues and quarrels and magnificent extravagance. Starving France, meantime, was inundated with libellous pamphlets about Marie-Antoinette, whom the people had been led to think was beggaring them. It seems unbelievable that such scandalous matter should have been printed and circulated about the woman whose seat on the French throne was at that time still firm enough.

In one pamphlet we find Marie-Antoinette described as *' a bad daughter, a bad wife, a bad mother, and a bad Queen," and to this is appended "a list of the persons with whom she has had dishonourable relations." In another pamphlet, entitled "The Iscariot of France," she is compared to Judas ; the resemblance, in the eyes of those who hated her, being strengthened by the fact that she was "redheaded like the traitorous apostle."

The popular hatred of Marie- Antoinette is a thing not altogether easy to understand. This charming and frivolous lady seems hardly a forceful enough person to have aroused so intensely the detestation of her subjects. She was extravagant, it is true, but extravagance was no new fault on the part of French rulers.

Why, then, did they hate her so bitterly? It will always be something of a mystery. In like fashion, there will always be something inexplicable in the passionate devotion with which the memory of this unhappy woman is cherished even to the present day, depending, I am convinced, not entirely on the fact of her misfortunes, but rather on some subtle strength of personality which, all unrealised, made this young Queen, though apparently a light-minded butterfly, in truth a woman who really counted in the world. However trivial may have been her mind and frivolous her character, there was none the less about Marie- Antoinette an intangible glamour and atmosphere that prevented her contemporaries, as it has prevented us, from ignoring her. They loathed her. We adore her. No one has passed her by unnoticed.

Thus, in the midst of an ever-growing dislike, the Queen and her children, all unconcerned, disported themselves amidst the grandeurs of Versailles, and the studied and expensive simplicity of Trianon, while day by day the great revolution drew nearer and nearer.

Meantime, in 1785, another Prince was born — the baby who was destined to become The Little Dauphin. It was on Easter Sunday, and the birth, so it was said, took place under a lucky star. But in pronouncing this baby's birth-star a lucky one the astrologers gave their own science a death-blow.

No such extraordinary scene as had taken place at the birth of the Queen's first child occurred again. On the earlier occasion, the old-fashioned court etiquette had permitted, according to the account written by Marie- Antoinette's lady-in-waiting, Madame Campan, that all persons indiscriminately might enter the Queen's chamber at the moment of the birth. At the birth of the Princess the crowd of people who poured into the room was so great that the crush almost destroyed the Queen.

** During the night," says Madame Campan, **the King had taken the precaution to have secured with cords the enormous tapestry screen which surrounded Her Majesty's bed. But for this, they would certainly have been thrown down upon her. It was impossible to move about the chamber, which was filled with so motley a crowd, one might have fancied oneself at some place of popular amusement. Finally, the servants dragged out by the collar such inconsiderate persons as would not leave the room voluntarily."

This incredibly barbarous custom was thereafter abandoned, and, in consequence, only the members of the royal family and a few others bore witness to the birth of Prince Louis-Charles, between six and seven o'clock in the evening of Easter Sunday, March 27, 1785.

Contrary to the ancient custom which postponed the baptism of royal children for some years, the baby Prince was christened immediately, and was given the title of Due de Normandie — one not used since the times of Charles VII. — within two hours of his birth. The ceremony took place in the chapel of Versailles, and was conducted, curiously enough, by Cardinal de Rohan, who was then in the midst of the famous diamond necklace intrigue, which so greatly and so unfairly damaged the reputation of Marie-Antoinette. The godfather was the child's uncle, the Comte de Provence, afterwards Louis XVIII., and the godmother Marie-Antoinette's sister, the Queen of Naples, who was in her absence represented by another of the baby's aunts, Madame Elisabeth, that gentle sister of the King who ''possessed the charm of a pretty milkmaid and was an angel of goodness."

The King and all the court were present, and afterwards there was a great celebration, with fireworks, for the people. Next night there was lighted on the Place de Greve, according to the usual custom, a great bonfire of five hundred faggots crowned with a green tree.

We hear nothing, however, of any such demonstration as took place at the birth of the first Dauphin, Louis-Charles's elder brother by four years. On this former occasion, the populace, delighted at the arrival of a long-awaited heir, sent deputations of all the trades from Paris to Versailles to pay their respects to the royal baby. There came chimney-sweeps and locksmiths, and butchers and representatives of all the other trades of the period, each bearing appropriate emblems, and finally — with a tactlessness that was at once gruesome and comic — a body of grave-diggers with their tools.

" The child is doomed ! " cried the courtiers ; and in this case the superstitious triumphed, for eight years later the grave-diggers did their work for this boy whose birth had been greeted so gloomily.

When Louis-Charles was born there occurred something quite as ill-omened, though none realised it at the time. Marie- Antoinette went to Paris in great pomp to give thanks for her recovery, and supped ceremoniously in the evening at the Temple, the Comte dArtois's town residence. Seven years later, she and the child at whose birth she was rejoicing were destined to find in this place their miserable prison.

Thus the shadow of a prison fell across the cradle of this Prince, whose story is stranger than that of any child who ever lived before. For five hundred years France has called by one title the heir-apparent to her throne, yet there is none who does not recognise that *' The Little Dauphin " can only mean this same Louis- Charles. Above all the princes of his house he stands pre-eminent. His is the distinction of sorrow, of romance, and of mystery.

CHAPTER I I npHE baby Louis-Charles commenced his life ^ in troubled times. When he was but a few months old there became public the extraordinaryintrigue of the necklace, the details of which are so romantic they might almost have originated in the fertile imagination of Alexandre Dumas rather than in the actual history of France. When the child was a little past four years of age, there met, after endless discussions, the States-General, that gigantic political mistake which was as the applying of a match to the ready-prepared tow of the Revolution. Ten weeks later, the Bastille fell. Yet, despite these public disturbances, the little Prince's babyhood and early childhood were supremely happy.

Marie- Antoinette, however unsuccessful a stateswoman and foolish a queen she may have been, was certainly an affectionate and thoughtful mother, while Louis was of quite the stuff of which kind fathers are made. The queen had

been brought up herself by that brilliant woman, the Empress Maria-Theresa, who taught the little Archduchess as a child rather to fear and respect than to love her. Marie- Antoinette, in turn, forming the plan of education for her own offspring, as is so often the case with parents, on what she deemed to have been the errors in her own, determined that her children should never feel anything but unconstrained and at home with their mother.

The family on which she made this amiable experiment was not a large one. Besides the Due de Normandie, there was Madame Royale, his sister, a little girl some six and a half years older than himself, his brother the Dauphin, who had the advantage of him by four years, and his baby sister, who was born in July 1786, and lived not quite twelve months. Until the death of the first Dauphin in 1789, Louis-Charles was, of course, only a second and less valued son, since royalty may not treat its children with the impartial affection possible to humbler parents. It is inevitable and necessary that the eldest son of a king should be his most important child, probably the best loved, certainly the most carefully watched and guarded ; and it is for this reason not to be wondered at, that when the first Dauphin developed symptoms of a fatal and disfiguring disease, there was a sudden access of interest on the part both of his family and the

LOUIS XVI

From a pat7iting by Callet at Versailles court, in the person of the little Due de Normandie, the next in succession.

Physically he was as strong as his poor elder brother was feeble, and, as the one young Prince sank gradually into crippled invalidism, the other increased steadily in health. Louis-Charles was a handsome child, tall and straight, with light brown hair that hung in curls on his shoulders and the fine, clear colour that was Marie- Antoinette's greatest charm. His eyes, too, were blue like his mother's, and he had her dimpled chin. It is said that he combined the royal appearance of the Queen with the amiable look of the good-natured Louis, and that his charm of person and manner was felt by all who approached him. He was a very active, agile little person, a true boy, fond of running and jumping, afraid of nothing, and eager to risk his life and limbs in dare-devil attempts to show his childish strength and skill.

He was healthy, too, ''a true peasant's child, tall, red-cheeked, and fat," except for a period in his babyhood when he suffered from convulsions. It is about this malady that a curious story is told. It seems that his doctor decided it was necessary for the relief of his complaint that leeches should be applied behind the baby's ears. The royal governess, the Duchesse de Polignac, fearing lest this operation might prove very harrowing to the feelings of so tender-hearted a mother as Marie-Antoinette, decided not to tell her anything about it. Writing to the King, she asked his consent to this well-meaning deception. He agreed, and came himself to witness the application, which was quite successful. As it chanced, however, the Queen suddenlyarrived in the room, saw the traces of blood, and, in terrible alarm, demanded furiously what they were doing to her baby. It is easy to picture the very human scene — the baby Prince crying, fat King Louis standing by helpless and troubled, the frightened and angry mother accusing them, very likely, of trying to murder her child, and the governess vainly endeavouring to soothe her ruffled mistress, pacify the baby, and make explanations. Of course the matter was settled amicably in the end, but at the moment it almost led to the dismissal of the royal favourite.

The post of Governess to the Children of France, which the Duchesse de Polignac came near losing, was one held in high esteem and was a very influential one at court. The Duchesse de Polignac had gained it in 1782, thanks to the fact that she was one of Marie-Antoinette's prime favourites ; but it was a choice very unpopular with the people, who disliked her intensely, and cried out angrily, when she was appointed, '' Shall the heir for whom we have waited so long be educated by a Polignac ? "

The children had, besides, the Abbe dAvaux for their instructor, a man who, though not very learned, possessed the far greater merit of being able to make himself attractive to children, so that the simple lessons he gave his royal pupils seemed more like play to them than tasks. The King and Queen, however, gave, both of them, much time and attention to the boy's education.

It was Marie- Antoinette who gave him his first lessons in reading. She also gave him little music-lessons, playing for him on the harpsichord simple airs with a pretty melody, which she had composed or learned specially for him. She used sometimes, too, to sing to him, in the voice which Madame Le Brun said, rather cruelly, was not always in tune. The little Prince, however, was not so critical as the portrait-painter, and used to listen in fascination to her songs. Once, indeed, he sat so still that his aunt, Madame Elisabeth, accused him of having been asleep. At this he looked at her with hurt astonishment.

** Could any one sleep," he asked solemnly, ** when Mamma-Queen is singing ? "

There is no doubt that the Queen was immensely proud of her child. A naive and charming letter, which she wrote about him in 1789, and which the MM. de Goncourt published for the first time in their Histoire de Marie- Antoinette^ runs as follows : —

" My son is to-day aged four years, four months, and two days. I say nothing of his looks ; it is only necessary to see him. His health has always been good, even in the cradle, but we noticed from the first that his nerves were very sensitive, and the least noise made an impression on him. He was a little late with his first teeth. ...

** Like all strong, healthy children, he is high-spirited, violent in his anger, and rather thoughtless ; but he is a good child, and is tender and affectionate when his vivacity does not carry him away. He has an unbounded amour-propre, which may one day turn out to his advantage. ... He is very faithful when he has promised a thing, but he is extremely indiscreet, he repeats easily anything he may have heard, and often, without meaning to lie, he adds what he has seen in his imagination to what he has seen with his eyes ; this is his greatest fault, and one which we must correct. Otherwise, I repeat— he is a good child, and with firmness, but not too much severity, we can make what we wish of him. Severity makes him revolt, for he has a great deal of character for his years. For example, since his babyhood, the word ' pardon ' has always shocked him ; he will do or say anything that is asked of him when he has committed a fault, but the word * pardon ' he cannot pronounce except with tears and infinite pain.

" My children," the Queen goes on, *' have always been taught to have confidence in me, and when they have done wrong to come and tell me themselves. In scolding them I have the air of being more grieved than angry. I have accustomed them to the idea that a 'yes' or 'no' from me is irrevocable, but I always give them a reason which they can understand, so that they shall not suppose it caprice on my part. My son does not yet know how to read, and learns slowly ; he is too flighty to apply himself to lessons. He has no idea of haughtiness in his head, and I trust this will continue Our children learn soon enough who they are.

" He loves his sister dearly ; whenever anything pleases him, whether it is some excursion or some gift, his first impulse is to ask that his sister may have the same. He was born gay. He needs to be much in the open air, for the sake of his health, and I am glad to have him play and work in the garden."

This garden of which his mother writes acted a very important part in the young Prince's childhood. The King, who was himself an expert locksmith, wished that his son should also learn a trade, and so provided the little boy with a plot of ground near the chateau at Versailles, and supplied him with all sorts of miniature tools, spades, rakes, watering-pots, and so on. Put under the tutelage of excellent gardeners, he flung himself delightedly into his father's scheme, and was soon able to tend his little garden unaided. With boyish gallantry, he liked to fancy his sole interest in this fascinating new plaything lay in the fact that it gave him an opportunity to pay pretty attentions to his mother by offering her a daily bouquet of his own raising. Every morning, his first act on getting up was to run out to his garden, escorted only by his dog Moufflet and a servingwoman, to pick the bunch of flowers which was to be laid on the Queen's dressing-table before she got up.