XIII
Circumstances in my Favour—Incognito of the Princes—The Journey of 1776—Extraordinary Precautions—The Duke’s Attention to his Wife—Sudden Alteration—Delivery of the Princess—Complaisant Witnesses—Parliament Absent—Dread of Self-betrayal—Secret Sorrows—Mutual Indifference—Speech of Louis XVI—Others made by d’Orléans—Striking Resemblances—Important Traces.
My task would doubtless be finished if there were no question but of inspiring confidence and giving conviction; but when I think of the advantageous position of him I am going to fight, can I be too anxious to equip myself with weapons and support?
Let us therefore consider certain circumstances which furnish us with further arguments in our favour.
1st.—When, wishing to rid those who will receive him of the strict rules of a tiresome etiquette, a prince resolves to travel under the little-known name of one of his estates, he takes care to make public his voluntary metamorphosis, so that, under the borrowed title, none will fail to recognize him who bears it for the moment; and, far from avoiding the palaces of kings, he visits them in order to enjoy their delights more at his ease.
As an instance, let us take the journey of 1776.
Madame de Chartres, having accompanied her husband to Toulon, where he was to embark for his campaign at sea, resolved to visit the Peninsula, without having previously obtained the permission of the Court.[33]
Surely she ought to have taken every care to conceal this freak, for which she expected to be banished at least.[34]
Despite this fear, she had it pompously announced that she should travel under the name of Comtesse de Joinville, published her itinerary, showed herself everywhere in public, and everywhere accepted the homage paid to her.[35]
Why, then, was nothing of all this done three years earlier? Why this profound silence, this impenetrable mystery? Why the secret incognito, as the witnesses call it? Why did the Duke and Duchess wish to remain unknown, even to the extent of going to an inn, in a town over which their nearest relations reigned,[36] and preferring to pass the night at a hotel rather than accept the invitation sent them to come to Court?
Do not these precautions, this secrecy, point to the committing of a crime, and a crime still far more heinous than that of disregarding the deference due to one’s sovereign?
But let us ask, what was that crime?
Point it out to us!
In Heaven’s name, could we be told of any other but that very one with which so many incontestable proofs have made us acquainted?
2nd.—During his wife’s first pregnancy, the Duc de Chartres never left her side, redoubled his endearments as her time approached, gave up his former evil courses and behaved to the Princess in the most exemplary manner. “Which,” says a writer, “gave immense delight to the Duke of Orleans, and still more to M. le Duc de Penthièvre.”[37]
True to this way of behaving, in 1773, he did not leave the Duchess during the months preceding my birth; the most he did was to take a short journey to Chanteloup to see the Duc de Choiseul;[38] while after the month of April it was nothing but a series of absences on his part, excursion upon excursion, journey upon journey;[39] and, so far from exercising any restraint, or restricting himself in any way, he spent the whole day with jugglers and pickpockets, cast about for new ways of sinning, and carried his excesses and debauchery to such a pitch as to amaze and shock the by no means susceptible servants of the Palais Royal.[40]
What are we to conclude from so great and sudden a change?
One of two things: either that the Duchess was no longer enceinte, or that the Duke had ceased to care about the child she might give him.
This second hypothesis is evidently inadmissible, especially when we remember that the stillbirth of 1771 must naturally fill his ambitious spirit with the gravest fears.
And if he had become so indifferent to the birth of a firstborn, why, six years later, did he express such delight on finding himself the father of a third son?
We must perforce come back to the first supposition, and acknowledge the delivery of the Princess as already accomplished; which entirely agrees with the account of certain inhabitants of Forges,[41] who state that she left their town towards the end of July 1772, with all the signs of the beginning of a pregnancy which would naturally find its termination in the following April.
But if she was no longer enceinte in April 1773, was it not impossible that on the 6th of October of the same year she should have given birth to the Duc de Valois?[42]
What is told about the time of that confinement is therefore a fable, and a fable of which my story alone explains the motive.
3rd.—It is evident that this event, which was said to have happened five and a half months after I was exchanged, required no precautions if it was a reality; but, on the other hand, very many if it was a pretence.
Accordingly, it was not in the parish church and in public, nor even in the Palais-Royal Chapel, but in some unascertained spot in that dwelling, that the child, born, it was said, at three o’clock in the morning, was privately baptized in the presence of two obscure witnesses in the service of the Orleans family. No Minister of the King’s, no Gentleman of the Court was to be seen; in a word, no one was there of whose devotion there could be any doubt.
And that is not all; in the Gazette de Modène, called Le Messager, No. 44, Nov. 3, 1773, we read under date of Paris, October 11—
“Every one knows that here, on the birth of sons of the royal blood, a report is drawn up in evidence, in the presence of Parliamentary Commissioners who sign it.
“This formality was neglected in the case of the Duc de Valois, and all that was done was to add to the report made on the occasion the words, Parliament absent.
“The report was presented to the King for his signature, and it is said that, paying no attention to these words, his Majesty at once signed it.”
But the thing, according to the journal we quote, seemed so astonishing that the public, not understanding it, thought to discover in it a sign foretelling very great political events.
4th.—The journey of 1776 had been long planned, and even before leaving Paris there was a positive intention of carrying it out.[43]
Nevertheless it was only in a letter dated from Antibes that the Duchess told the King of her plan, assuring him there had been no premeditation, and alleging, as excuses, her wish to see her grandfather, the Duke of Modena.[44]
But why was this excellent excuse sent from afar; why not dare to give it in person; why put oneself under the sad necessity of lying about it?
Ah! no doubt one feared for one’s own countenance; one feared to blush in speaking the word travel, and, above all, the name of Italy; one might dread the withering look of a sovereign to whom indiscreet tongues might already have revealed everything.
5th.—On her return from this same journey, the Princess had hardly crossed the boundary of her own country when, as reported by Mme. de Genlis, she burst into tears.[45]
Now, these tears, after a short and voluntary absence, a simple pleasure-trip, would surely have been senseless tears if they were caused by nothing, as pretends our veracious historian, but joy at being once more on French soil.
Would it not be more natural, more reasonable, to attribute them to importunate memories, for ever connected with the country just left?
6th.—M. Delille, the Dowager’s private secretary, tells us in his journal[46] that this lady confided to her father-in-law hidden troubles which she dared not reveal to the Duc de Penthièvre for fear of grieving him too greatly.
Can it be said that this refers to the grief caused to the Duchess by her husband’s misconduct?
Alas! there was no secret about that; everything was but too well and publicly known; and it is to be supposed that Madame de Chartres would have preferred going for comfort to her virtuous father to complaining about it to the Duke of Orleans, who, in such matters, was no more blameless than his son.
These hidden troubles, requiring so much discretion, must therefore have been of quite another nature, and arose from a different cause.
7th.—The sensitive Princess could never reconcile herself to seeing her children given over to the management of a governess. Her complaints never ceased; over and over again she made warm and urgent protests.[47]
Yet who would believe it? These cares and anxieties had nothing to do with the one of her sons who, by right of primogeniture, would have seemed most likely to be most dear to her.
If he informs her that he will be much away with his friend,[48] she is quite willing; assures him that what suits him will always suit her, and tells him that she does not want to restrain him in any way.[49]
Whence arose such indifference in a heart otherwise so warm?
And, on the other side, could real filial love, the love nature must perforce create, exist in one who thought himself lucky that he was not obliged to go to see his mother more than twice a week,[50] and whose affection for his governess was so far greater than that he felt for his own parents?[51]
8th.—His reputation having become somewhat inconvenient, Louis-Philippe-Joseph, in 1782, went to Versailles to ask permission from Louis XVI to absent himself.
“The King,” writes an historian, “received him rather coldly, and answered him in words to this effect—
“I have a Dauphin; Madame may perhaps be enceinte; Monsieur le Comte d’Artois has several children. You can do as you please. I do not see in what way you can be of use to the country; so go when you like and return when it seems good to you.”
Why this momentary silence and thoughtfulness, if it were not to remember a fact about to be the object of veiled rebuke from august lips? And what fact? What cause for so severe a reprimand?
According to all evidence it related to the paternity of the traveller, and to the dangers with which his absence might have threatened the succession to the crown if it had not been for the existence of several children of the elder branch.
Who would not feel sure that the monarch, knowing of the whole adventure, took this opportunity of moving the culprit to shame and repentance?
9th.—The Convention, after the defection of Dumouriez, having, at its sitting of the 4th of April, 1793, ordered that the citizens Egalité and Sillery were to be watched, Sillery mounted the tribune and stammered out these words: “If my son-in-law is guilty, he ought to be punished; I remember Brutus and his sentence on his own son, and I will imitate him.”
Then came Orleans, and, as he gazed at the bust of the First Roman Consul, he, too, said, “If I am guilty, needless to say, my head should fall; if my son is—I do not believe it, but, if he is,[52] I, too, remember Brutus.”
These horrible words, from which Nature revolts from the lips of a father, can be well believed from those of a complaisant husband;[53] but could the well-known virtue of Madame la Duchesse allow of such an explanation relative to her husband?[54]
To all these forcible arguments may be added one already mentioned, and which, after all that precede it, would be too extraordinary if it were the effect of pure chance.
I speak of the resemblance.
That of the present Duke to the various members of his supposed family is absolutely non-existent,[55] while he has all Chiappini’s features: loose-hung jaw; tanned complexion; brown eyes; black hair; slightly crooked legs, etc.
As for myself, I can proudly boast that I have nothing in common with the former jailer; but every one is struck by the many points of resemblance seen between Mademoiselle d’Orléans and me—manners, tone of voice, physique, shape and colour of face, all identical.
I have the honour of bearing on my body certain marks distinguishing the late Dowager; at first sight her handwriting and mine display the most astounding similarity of character.
We need not add that whoever knows the history of Louis-Philippe-Joseph must have already discovered the disastrous source of the maladies I have suffered from since my birth, and that I have so unfortunately transmitted to my dear children, who themselves, in their turn, are the perfect image of the illustrious ancestors that I hold myself right in claiming.
What more could be wished for in the way of proof?
We must not lose sight of the fact that power and riches are two great means of corruption; that their own chief interests forced the perpetrators of the exchange to destroy as quickly as possible all essential traces of the deed; that fear and cupidity indubitably kept silent the greater number of witnesses, who, in any case, could not be very many, since, in 1773, they were already of a certain age, and fifty-seven years have gone by since then.
It must be remembered, also, that during this lengthy period took place that revolutionary tempest which spared private rights no more than public monuments.
Still, with lively gratitude, I say it once again, Providence has had compassion on me, and my latest investigations have furnished me with fresh pleas, which I feel I cannot with delicacy communicate to any one but my judges.