[CHAPTER IV]
Edict unbaptizing the King of Rome—Anecdotes of the childhood of the Duc de Reichstadt—Letter of Sir Hudson Lowe announcing the death of Napoleon
It was at Schönbrünn, in the same palace in which the emperor lived during 1805, after Austerlitz, and, in 1809, after Wagram, that Marie-Louis and her son were received by the Imperial family of Austria. As the first care of England had been to despoil Napoleon of his title of Emperor, so the first care of Francis II. was to take away the name of Napoleon from his grandson.
On 22 July 1818 the Emperor of Austria published the following edict:—
"We, Francis II., by the grace of God, Emperor of Austria; King of Jerusalem, Hungary, Bohemia, of Lombardy and of Venice, of Dalmatia, Croatia, Esclavonia, Gallicia, Lodomeria and Illyria; Archduke of Austria, Duke of Lorraine, of Saltzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, the high and low Silesia; Grand-Prince of Transylvania; Margrave of Moravia; Count-Prince of Hapsburg and of the Tyrol, etc. etc.; would have it known that—As we find that, in consequence of the act of the Vienna Congress and the negotiations which have since taken place in Paris with our principal allies, in putting into execution in the matter of determining the title, rank and personal relations of Prince François Joseph-Charles, son of our beloved daughter Marie-Louise, Archduchess of Austria, Duchess of Parma, of Plaisance and of Guastalla, we have accordingly decreed as follows:—
"1. We give to Prince François-Joseph-Charles, son of our beloved daughter the Archduchess Marie-Louise, the title of Duc de Reichstadt, and we at the same time command that in future all our authorities and every private person shall give him, when addressing him either by word of mouth or in writing, at the beginning of the speech, or heading of a letter, the title of Most Serene Duke, and in the text that of Most Serene Highness.
"2. We permit him to have and to make use of special armorial bearings: to wit, gules with fesse of gold, two lions passant with their backs turned to the right, one in chief the other in point; one oval placed on a ducal mantle and stamped with a ducal crown; for support two griffins, sable armed, picked out and crowned with gold, holding banners on which the ducal arms shall be repeated.
"3. Prince François Joseph-Charles, Duc de Reichstadt, will take rank in the Court and throughout the whole extent of our Empire, immediately after the princes of our family and the Archdukes of Austria.
"Two identical copies of the present declaration and ordinance, signed by us,'have been dispatched to inform every one whose business it is to conform to them. One copy has been deposited in our private family archives of Court and State. Issued in our capital and residence of Vienna, the 22nd of July of the year 1818, the twenty-seventh of our reign.
FRANÇOIS"
It was, as one can see, impossible better to conceal this poor intruder, of which the family was ashamed. There was no more mention of his being a Frenchman, or his name of Napoleon, than if France had not existed or than if it had never had an Empire. He will no longer have any family name: he will have the name of a duchy; he will not have that of Majesty or Sire; he is to be Most Serene Highness. Of the French Eagle, the eagle which in 1804 flew from the Pyramids to Vienna, which in 1814 flew from steeple to steeple as far as the towers of Notre-Dame, there is no more question than of the name of the nationality; the Duke of Reichstadt will have two lions d'or passant upon gules, like a count of the Holy Empire—not even the Buonaparte star; not even the bees of the isle of Elba. He will take rank at Court after the princes of the Imperial family. Thus, he is not even a prince of the Imperial family in his own right through his mother!—Silence as to his father! He has no father and never had; moreover, the father he might have had calls himself simply, or is so called by Sir Hudson Lowe, General Bonaparte. True, there is a future for the poor disinherited one in the love of his grandfather, who worships him; if he behaves himself well, he will be a colonel in an Austrian or a Hungarian regiment! There was also the future of Marcellus and the one that Providence is keeping for him out of its profound pity! And yet the poor child remembered; and that was his martyrdom. One day—he was scarcely six years old—he came up to the emperor, leant against his knees, and said—
"Dear grandfather, is it not true that when I was in Paris I had pages?"
"Yes," replied the emperor, "I believe you had."