The Marriage at Moncalieri.
The marriage contract of Prince Napoleon and Princesse Clémentine was signed at Brussels on November 7, 1910.
The banns of marriage were published on October 9, on which day the subjoined official announcement was affixed to the notice-board of the Hôtel de Ville at Brussels, where it remained for ten days, in compliance with the law:
A marriage is to take place at Moncalieri (Italy) between his Imperial Highness Prince Napoleon Victor Gerome Frederick, domiciled in Paris, 8th Arrondissement (Seine, France), living at Brussels, No. 241, Avenue Louise, eldest son of his late Imperial Highness Prince Napoleon Joseph Charles Paul and of Her Imperial and Royal Highness the Dowager Princess Marie Clotilde Napoleon, Princess of Savoy, domiciled and residing at the Royal Castle of Moncalieri, near Turin (Italy), and Her Royal Highness Princess Clementine Albertine Marie Leopoldine, Princess of Belgium, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, domiciled at Brussels, No. 1, Place des Palais, eldest[173] daughter of his late Majesty Leopold Louis Philippe Marie Victor, Leopold II., King of the Belgians, Duke of Saxe, Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and of her late Majesty Marie Henriette Anne, Queen of the Belgians, Archduchess of Austria.
English people of all creeds will learn with surprise and amusement that the Government of the French Republic will not allow Prince Napoleon to be described in official documents published in France as “Imperial”; nor may his father (the late Prince “Jérôme”) or his mother (Princesse Clotilde, daughter of the renowned Victor Emmanuel II.) be so designated, even in banns of marriage.
Prince Napoleon was described in the “banns” published at Brussels and at Moncalieri as having a “domicile” in the 8th Arrondissement, Paris—as, in fact, he always has had, although the law prevents him from entering his native country. The document containing an announcement of the marriage was affixed to the wall of the Mairie of the 8th Arrondissement, Paris, but the words “Imperial” and “domiciled in Paris” were suppressed by the “Parquet” (otherwise the Public Prosecutor).
Many who read the banns of marriage were probably surprised at finding that neither in that document nor in other official papers does Prince Napoleon use the historic name of “Bonaparte.” I may, therefore, explain that under the Second Empire it was decreed by a Family Statute that henceforward “Napoleon” should be the designation of those branches of the Imperial Family who might be called upon to reign. The other members of the family preserved the name of “Bonaparte,” but constituted the “civil” family of the Emperor Napoleon III., and were not included in the “Imperial” Family. This distinction is noted in the “Almanach de Gotha” without explanation—an omission which should be rectified in future editions of the world’s libro d’oro.[174]
In the Times of November 26, 1909, it was noted that “Prince Victor Napoleon Bonaparte, after a week’s stay at the Savoy Hotel, left yesterday for Brussels.”
Our official Court Circular of the same date described the Pretender as “His Imperial Highness Prince Napoleon Bonaparte.”
Both those designations are incorrect. Upon the death of his father (1891), Victor, as eldest son, became “Prince Napoleon”; and it will be observed that in the original banns of marriage he is so styled, plus his Christian names, “Victor Gerome [correctly “Jérôme”] Frederick.”
For the solemnization of these princely imperial and royal nuptials on November 14, 1910, the old château of Moncalieri shook off the dust of centuries; the chevaliers, in their suits of mail, who sleep their last long sleep under the tombstones; the more modern heroes, whose great deeds are narrated in the war-pictures adorning the immense and melancholy corridors—all these reawoke for some days. Momentarily they saw once more the venerable citadel, perched, like a great eagle’s nest, on the flank of the picturesque hills leaning over the River Po, a few miles from Turin, in which, for so many lustres, Princesse Clotilde has unrolled the autumnal stages of her saintly existence, divided between penance and charity. At the jubilant strains of the “Alléluia” the old home of the Princes of Piedmont, which resembles a fortress charged to watch over the mausoleum of the Superga,[175] saw itself resuscitated.
After these rapid souvenirs we ascend the slopes of the park, arrest our steps on the terrace to admire the magnificent panorama of the immense valley of the Po; then enter this moyen-âge château, with its interminable galleries and great salles, ordinarily so solitary and indescribably sombre, but to-day rejuvenated, made comfortable, bedecked with sumptuous stuffs, with carpets and with flowers, luxuriously furnished by royal command—by the orders of the King of Italy. And it is the Administration of the Royal Domains which has sent to Moncalieri the beautiful services of plate for the wedding repast—something between a State déjeuner and a State banquet. King Victor Emmanuel III. had indeed, with kindly and generous tyranny, decreed that, although celebrated with the strictest princely privacy, there should be lacking no noble and dignified elements in the solemnization of the marriage of his cousin-german—great-nephew of Napoleon I., Emperor of the French, King of Italy—and Princesse Clémentine of Belgium, daughter and granddaughter of two great monarchs, and great-granddaughter of Louis Philippe I., King of the French.
If Prince Napoleon was married at his mother’s residence, and in the midst of his nearest relatives, it was far otherwise with Princesse Clémentine, who, for political reasons, had to make a long journey to obtain the fulfilment of a happiness which she had so long awaited. She had, however, even before the marriage, been received in Italy, not only as a Princess, but as a relative. The daughter of Queen Henrietta, Archduchess of Austria, the Princesse is, in fact, distantly related to the Italian royal family, and, previous to her alliance with Prince Napoleon, “dispensations” had to be obtained from Rome.
By yet another delicate attention of the King of Italy, Princesse Clémentine and her aunt, the widowed Comtesse de Flandre, mother of the King of the Belgians, who accompanied her to the altar, were not obliged, before the wedding, to face the ennui—in such circumstances—inseparable from the occupation of apartments at an hotel. The left wing of the Royal Palace at Turin was, for the special gratification of these two royal ladies, decorated as it is on great fête-days; and it was through a forest of chrysanthemums, adorning even the portraits of their ancestors, that they entered the old palace of the Kings of Sardinia. The Dowager Duchesse d’Aoste (Princesse Lætitia) presided, with her wonted taste and grace, over the installation of the apartments reserved for the two Princesses and their suite; and it was Princesse Lætitia who, earlier in the year, had chaperoned the fiancée on her first visit to her future mother-in-law at Moncalieri, the scene of the fiançailles.
H.I.H. Prince Napoleon arrived at the château of Moncalieri three days before the wedding, attended by M. Thouvenel, the senior member of the Prince’s service d’honneur, and by the Marquis de Girardin (who had accompanied the Prince from Brussels). The other members of the suite were lodged at Turin. Princesse Lætitia and her son and General Prince Louis Napoleon stayed at the château of Moncalieri.
At half-past ten on the morning of the wedding the Princes, Princesses, and their suites assembled in the large salon des Suisses, in which the Mayor of Moncalieri (M. Protti) celebrated the civil marriage of the imperial and royal couple. The witnesses at this function were the Comte de Salemi (son of H.I.H. Princesse Lætitia), the Marquis Ferreri di Cambiano (Deputy for Moncalieri), Comte Balbo Bertone di Sambuy, and Comte Negri di Lamporo, the two latter being selected as residing at Moncalieri (the Italian law requiring that two of the witnesses at the civil union are residents of the place of the marriage). After the brief ceremony, the Mayor expressed his hopes that the future of the imperial couple would be of the happiest; then, on behalf of the Municipality of Moncalieri, he gave Prince Napoleon the gold pen with which the act of marriage had been signed; and to the Princesse the Mayor presented a bouquet of orchids. The procès-verbal of the civil marriage was afterwards registered at the French Consulate at Turin.
The religious marriage was solemnized in the chapel (which is decorated with frescoes) of the château. Green plants and white chrysanthemums covered the altar.
Prince Napoleon (who escorted his mother, Princesse Marie Clotilde Napoleon) was in plain evening dress, over which appeared the riband of the Order of Leopold, which had been sent to him through Prince Ernest de Ligne on the previous day by King Albert. (Some saw in the sombre garb of the bridegroom the symbol of exile.)
Princesse Clémentine, radiant in beauty and charm, looking equally majestic and amiable, came next, on the arm of her brother-in-law, Prince Philippe de Saxe-Coburg (who married, and separated from, Princesse Louise of Belgium). The bride’s magnificent robe was of embroidered white satin, covered with lace; her veil and corsage, of exquisite lace, were the gift of a number of Belgian ladies—in fact, the subscribers were the “ladies of all Belgium.”
Following the bride came—
H.R.H. the Duc d’Aoste and the Queen-Mother Marguerite (mother of the present King of Italy);
Prince Ernest de Ligne and H.R.H. the Comtesse de Flandre;
H.I.H. Prince Louis Napoleon and his sister, H.I.H. Princesse Lætitia, Duchesse Douairière d’Aoste;
H.R.H. the Comte de Turin and H.R.H. the Duchesse de Gênes;
H.R.H. the Duc de Gênes;
H.R.H. the Duc de Abruzzes;
Comte de Salemi (son of Princesse Lætitia and nephew of the bridegroom);
Prince d’Udine;
Duc de Pistoie;
Duc de Bergame (son of the Duc de Gênes); and
M. de Borchgrave (Belgian Chargé d’Affaires at Rome).
The witnesses at the religious ceremony were Prince Philippe de Saxe-Coburg and Prince Ernest de Ligne—representing the King of the Belgians; Prince Louis Napoleon, and the Duc d’Aoste (the former representing his brother, and the last attending as proxy for the King of Italy).
Other witnesses were—
For Prince Napoleon: M. Thouvenel, Marquis de Girardin, Baron de Serlay, Prince Aymon de Lucinge, Lieutenant-Colonel Nitot, Baron Antoine de Brimont, and Monsieur H. Beneyton (His Imperial Highness’s Private Secretary).
For Princesse Clémentine: Comtesse d’Ursel, Baronne d’Hoogworst, Mlle. de Bassompierre (all three Belgian ladies), General Daelman (Belgian chevalier d’honneur), and Mlle. de Bassano (a French lady).[176]
The dames d’honneur of Queen Marguerite and of Princesse Lætitia were also witnesses.
H.R.H. the Comtesse de Flandre was attended by the Vicomte de Beughem, grand-maître of Her Royal Highness’s household; and by the Comtesse de Borchgrave, dame d’honneur.
Mass was said by Monsignor Masera, Bishop of Biella, who used the historical chalice presented to Princesse Clotilde on the day of her marriage by King Jérôme, who for a while reigned in Westphalia. Two of Princesse Clotilde’s chaplains assisted the Bishop, who delivered a very inspiring address, recalling the great deeds of the ancestors of the bridal pair.
The music was exclusively Beethoven’s and Mendelssohn’s, and included the latter’s celebrated “Wedding March.”
There were no street or any other decorations in the little town. This accorded with the wishes of Princesse Clotilde, who took the greatest pains to avoid all possibility of political embarrassments. In this laudable task she was seconded by Prince Napoleon, who, ever since the death of the Prince Imperial and his consequent succession to the rôle of Pretender to the throne, has evinced the most commendable desire to remain outside the pale of politics.
Princesse Napoleon’s wedding-presents were artistically arranged in one of the large salons. They were of the estimated value of 2,500,000 francs (£100,000). The Empress Eugénie sent Her Imperial and Royal Highness a diamond tiara; the King of Italy a diamond diadem. A group of French ladies presented the Princesse with a very handsome toilette-service (table coiffeuse is the technical name for it).[177] This artistic gift consists of a magnificent toilette, Empire style, in mahogany, on which stand the various items of a magnificent nécessaire in silver gilt, also in the purest “Empire,” executed, from several famous models of the art of the First Empire, by MM. Falize, of Paris. Accompanying this “all-French” gift was a livre d’or, containing the names of all the donors. Several of the subscribers were persons in the humblest walks of life, and their names were read by the Prince and Princesse with much emotion.
When the “ladies of Belgium” asked the Princess what form she would like their wedding-gift to take, she expressed her patriotic preference for lace, because she would be stimulating a national industry. Her Royal Highness’s choice highly gratified the presentation committee, at the head of which were Her Highness Princesse Ernest de Ligne and the Comtesse de Smet de Naeyer, two of the most popular leaders of Brussels society. This beautiful gift (veil and corsage) was presented to Princesse Clémentine at the Palais Belle-Vue, accompanied by a splendidly-bound album containing the names of all the subscribers.
The Princess’s intimate friends greatly admired the Empress Eugénie’s wedding-gift—a tiara of brilliants—the stones being specially selected and set in the most artistic manner. Her Imperial Majesty is a connaisseuse in precious stones of every description, especially diamonds and emeralds, of which, as well as pearls, she still possesses a large collection. The wearing of gems she has discarded for forty years, with the exception of one occasion—that of the visit to Farnborough Hill of the King and Queen of Spain—when, at the State dinner and the “At Home” the same evening, one small jewel was observable, relieving her invariable black costume. Princesse Clémentine received a number of smaller jewels, in the shape of pendants, earrings, finger-rings, and hatpins, some of which came from H.I.H. Princesse Clotilde, the Dowager Duchesse and the Duchesse d’Aoste, the Comtesse de Flandre, and the Queens of Italy, and others from her friends in Belgium.
The Empress’s wedding-present to Prince Napoleon was fully appreciated by His Imperial Highness, whose collection of historical souvenirs has been increased from time to time by gifts from the august lady. The Prince’s father was a cousin of the Emperor Napoleon III., so that the “relationship” of the Pretender and the Empress is of the slightest. As a result of the injunctions contained in the Prince Imperial’s will, however, the imperial lady has displayed in the fortunes of Prince Napoleon as much kindly interest as if he were her second son. From his men friends the Prince received a number of presents, these including souvenirs from the Sovereigns of Austria-Hungary, Roumania, Bulgaria, and Servia, whom he visited in 1908, when he was also the guest for several days of the ex-Sultan of Turkey.
The honeymoon was passed in Italy. From Moncalieri the newly-married couple went to Rome, where they were the guests for a few days of the King and Queen of Italy at the Quirinal. The fact that they did not visit the Pope during their stay in the Eternal City gave umbrage to a section of the Belgian Catholics, one of their organs asserting that the Pretender deliberately kept out of the way of His Holiness. “The declarations made by the Prince on the day after the wedding at Moncalieri, the incident of his recent visit to the King and Queen of Italy, and his affected ignoring of the Vatican, have,” it was stated, “definitely alienated from Prince and Princess Napoleon the sympathies of the Belgian Catholics, who would, as a matter of course, have been friendly to them by reason of the blind hatred evinced by the Catholics towards the French Republicans.” Not since 1870, it was asserted, “has there been witnessed the spectacle of a member of a Catholic royal family visiting Rome without paying his respects to the Pope.”[178]
The Belgian Liberal papers expressed their gratification at the omission of the Pretender to call upon “the prisoner of the Vatican.” “Let the Prince become a real Liberal, and he will not have to complain of a lack of sympathy.”
The sojourn of Prince and Princess Napoleon at Vienna was made additionally pleasant owing to the very friendly reception given to the former by the Emperor Francis Joseph when the Prince was entertained by His Majesty at the Hofburg in 1908, the Pretender’s “great year” of visits to foreign Sovereigns, including the ex-Sultan of Turkey. On that occasion the Emperor wore, as his only decorations, the insignia of the Legion of Honour, presented to him by Napoleon III.
The anniversary of the election of Prince Louis Napoleon (afterwards Emperor) to the Presidency of the Republic was celebrated in 1910 by a banquet at St. Mandé, at which there were present numerous prominent members of the Bonapartist party. The Marquis de Dion, who presided, expressed the hope that they would see France, “which had been struck in its beliefs and in its dreams of social fraternity,” rally to the cause which his party defended. During the banquet an address expressing devotion to “the cause” was telegraphed to the Prince; and another was sent to the Princess, congratulating her upon “bringing to the defenders of the plebiscitary doctrine the support of her great charm and her tenacious energy to secure the triumph of the great name of Napoleon.”
Italy—both in the official world and in the Press—was somewhat gênée by Prince Napoleon’s marriage. From all that was said and printed it appeared clear that neither the Court, nor the Government, nor the more influential journals had ventured to give to the wedding of the grandson of Victor Emmanuel II. and cousin of the reigning King the importance and the éclat with which they would have surrounded the nuptial fêtes of any Prince who was not, like Victor Napoleon, the issue, through his mother, of the stock of the Savoys. M. Jean Carrère told in the Temps, in November, 1910, that a very influential Italian politician had said to him at the period of the nuptials at Moncalieri: “Do you not think that all the noise made in the Press will disturb your [French] compatriots, and will make them believe that Italy supports the dynastic claims of the heir of the Napoleons?”
How many others in Italy (asked M. Carrère) still believe that contemporary France is vaguely susceptible in all matters relating to the Pretenders? But times have greatly changed since the expulsion of the Orleanist and Bonapartist Princes, “and I believe that amongst all Frenchmen under the age of thirty the song of MacNab is as remote in history as are the refrains of former days upon Soubise or Marlborough. However this may be, one can only thank Italy, and especially those who govern the country, for their extreme discretion in this event. If they have exaggerated their scruples, it only proves how very correctly the Court and the people have acted in respect of the French Republic.”
This intention to be agreeable to France was said to be the more meritorious on the part of the Italians because in reality the Bonapartes—or, if the word be preferred, the Napoleons—have remained very popular in Italy, more particularly the Jérôme branch. The battles of Solferino, Magenta, and Palestro, which covered the Napoleonic name with so much lustre, are legendary. It is, however, true that Mentana and the mistakes made towards the end of the Second Empire have slightly tarnished the memory of Napoleon III. The souvenirs still preserved in Italy prove that Prince Jérôme—cousin of Napoleon III. and father of Prince Victor—did not lessen the prestige attached to the name of Napoleon; he was, in fact, always very popular in Italy. Princesse Lætitia, Duchesse d’Aoste Douairière, who resides at Turin, is among the Princesses of the House of Savoy who are most loved by the people, and she is much cheered whenever she appears at theatres or fètes. It is not betraying a secret to recall the deep personal affection always displayed by King Victor Emmanuel III. for his two cousins, the Princes Victor and Louis, whose cultivated minds and serious characters he so much appreciates.
At Moncalieri, where Princesse Clotilde’s infancy was passed, and where her daughter, Princesse Lætitia, was married to her uncle, the Duc d’Aoste, the widowed consort of the Emperor Napoleon’s cousin Jérôme (whom the Emperor always addressed as “Napoleon”) saw her dearest wishes gratified by the union of her eldest son, Prince Napoleon, with a Princess who is exceptionally accomplished, beautiful, spirituelle, cultivated, endowed with a taste for the arts, and a fervent Catholic, with whom the Holy Father evidenced his great sympathy by sending her a magnificent gift, accompanied by a much-prized autograph letter of congratulation.
If, as in a vision, Princesse-mère, the august châtelaine of Moncalieri, evoked the brilliant, or the sad, events which furrowed her life, clouded by melancholy episodes which her ardent faith in Providence helped her to face courageously, she saw again the fêtes celebrated for her own marriage at Turin—the prelude to the union of her beloved Savoy with France; the cradle of her House offered in exchange for an independence which France—the France of the Pale Emperor—assisted the Italians to obtain; she saw again the struggle between the newly-born Italy and the Holy See; and she saw herself, the patient and devoted wife, bien Française in the moment of danger, refusing, in a charming letter, the asylum offered to her by her father, King Victor Emmanuel, when France was bleeding from the wounds inflicted upon her in the year of disaster. “At this moment,” wrote Princesse Clotilde to her father, “I cannot accept your advice, because, if I fled from France, my sons would blush for me, and you know that the House of Savoy and fear have never met. You would not wish them to meet in me.” Similarly noble sentiments were contained in a memorable letter written by Queen Catherine to the King of Würtemburg, when, urged by her father in 1814 to forsake King Jérôme and take refuge at Stuttgart, she loftily refused, resolved to share the fate of her proscribed husband.
If, in 1870, events proved to be stronger than the firm will of Princesse Clotilde, and if she was compelled to quit France, then in the throes of revolution as well as war, we remember how calmly and with what dignity, on September 5,[179] she drove en daumont to the Lyons railway-station, traversing the quarters where the revolutionary danger was greatest, and still saluted on all sides by a populace disarmed by this noble woman’s courage. The Princess, looking back through the years—through forty years!—saw herself once more at Prangins, by her husband’s side; saw her sons en pension at Vevey; then, her consort having returned to France after the chute of Thiers, she would have recalled her arrival at Moncalieri, her home ever since.
At Moncalieri, then, the Princesse Clotilde has voluntarily lived her cloistered life. Not, however, that she has ever failed to discharge her family duties. Twice she journeyed to Rome—the first time in January, 1878. Her father, King Victor Emmanuel, was dying, and, despite her repugnance to enter a Rome which had become the capital, she wished, as a devoted daughter, to receive the King’s last words. Learning en route, however, that her father had expired, she abandoned her intention of going to Rome, and returned to Moncalieri. Early in March, 1891, her consort, Prince (Jérôme) Napoleon, who had resided in Rome all the winter, was struck down by an attack of nephritis, complicated by pneumonia. The Princesse, accompanied by her daughter, the Duchesse d’Aoste, set out once more for Rome. Only a very few persons are acquainted with the incidents of the Prince’s last illness, and I will not recall those painful episodes. One detail may, however, be recorded here, as it shows how the perseverance of Princesse Clotilde triumphed on that melancholy occasion. Twice had Cardinal Mermillod knelt by the bedside of the dying Prince, who was still fully conscious. When the Bishop of Geneva left the sick-room the second time, he seemed relieved of a great weight, and the face of Princesse Clotilde evidenced her gratitude at the “good end” made by her husband.[180] With her children she watched, praying—always praying—by the side of the dead. After the interment at the Superga (March 30) the widowed Princesse took the hands of her children, joined them in hers, and said: “Promise to remain united.” They promised, and they have kept their word. Princesse Clotilde was last seen in Paris during the illness and at the death of Princesse Mathilde, the cousin of Napoleon III. On that occasion she fulfilled once again the rôle of a sœur de charité.[181]