"Messieurs, have you heard the news?"
"No."
"The Duc de Reichstadt is dead."
The Duc de Reichstadt had, indeed, died on 22 July, at eight minutes past five in the morning, the anniversary day on which letters-patent from the emperor had appointed him Duc de Reichstadt, and on which he had learnt of the death of his father the Emperor Napoleon. His last words had been—
"Ich gehe unter! Mutter! Mutter!" (I am sinking—Mother! Mother!)
Thus it was that, in a foreign language, the child of 1811 bid adieu to the world!
The inquiries we made concerning the young prince, that pale historic figure which faded from day to day whilst the phantom figure of his father grew bigger and bigger, enable us to give a few details about his brief life and sad death that are perhaps not known.
Victor Hugo, the man to whom one must always turn when it is a question of measuring the giant Napoleon, wrote the poetic history of the young prince in a few strophes. Let us be permitted to quote them. To say we love the exiled poet, comforts our heart; to say that we admire him, assuages our regrets. The tomb is deaf, but, perhaps, exile is even still more dear. Our voice is one that our friends will hear in the grave and in exile. Yesterday, the Duc d'Orléans; to-day, Hugo.
"Mil huit cent onze!—ô temps où des peuples sans nombre
Attendaient, prosternés sous un nuage sombre.
Que le ciel eût dit oui!
Sentaient trembler sous eux les États centenaires.
Et regardaient le Louvre, entouré de tonnerres
Comme un mont Sinaï!
Courbés comme un cheval qui sent venir son maître.
Ils se disaient entre eux: 'Quelqu'un de grand va naître;
L'immense empire attend un héritier demain.
Qu'est-ce que le Seigneur va donner à cet homme
Qui, plus grand que César, plus grand même que Rome,
Absorbe dans son sort le sort du genre humain?'
Comme ils parlaient, la nue éclatante et profonde
S'entr'ouvrit, et l'on vit se dresser sur le monde
L'homme prédestiné!
Et les peuples béants ne purent que se taire;
Car ses deux bras levés présentaient à la terre
Un enfant nouveau-né!"
The child was the King of Rome,—the one who had just died. When his father had shown him on the Tuileries balcony, as Louis XIV. had shown Louis XIV. from the balcony of Saint-Germain, he was the heir to the most powerful crown in existence; at that period, the emperor drew after him in his orbit one half of the Christian population; his orders extended and were obeyed over a space which included nineteen degrees of latitude; and eighty millions of men cried "Vive Napoleon!" in eight different tongues.