France in the Nineteenth Century

by Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer

Queen Victoria was greatly hurt by the treachery displayed by Louis Philippe and his minister, and doubtless, as a woman she was deeply sorry for the young queen. Louis Philippe not only lost credit, popularity, and the support he derived from the personal friendship of the Queen and the Prince Consort of England, but he obtained no chance of the throne of Spain for his son by his wicked devices; for Queen Isabella, far from being childless, had three daughters and a son. The latter, subsequently Alfonso XII., married, in spite of much opposition, his lovely cousin Mercedes, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Montpensier. She died a few months after her marriage, so that no son or grandson of Louis Philippe will be permitted by Providence to mount the Spanish throne.

The affair of the Spanish marriages, the quarrel it involved with Queen Victoria, and the loss to Louis Philippe of personal honor, had a great effect upon him; he became irritable and obstinate, and at the same time weak of will.

Troubles multiplied around him. Things with which he had nothing whatever to do increased his unpopularity, and the secret societies kept discontents alive. Everything that went wrong in France was charged upon the king and the royal family.

One of the great families in France was that of Choiseul-Praslin. The head of it in Louis Philippe's time was a duke who had married Fanny, daughter of Marshal Sébastiani, an old officer of Napoleon and a great favorite with Louis Philippe. The Duc de Praslin had given in his adhesion to the Orleans dynasty, while so many old families stood aloof, and was in consequence made an officer in the Duchess of Orleans' household. The Duc and Duchesse de Praslin had ten children. The duchess was a stout, matronly little woman, rather pretty, with strong affections and a good deal of sentiment. Several times she had had cause to complain of her husband, and did complain somewhat vehemently to her own family; but their matrimonial differences had always been made up by Marshal Sébastiani. The world considered them a happy married pair.

After seventeen years of married life a governess was engaged for the nine daughters, a Mademoiselle Henriette de Luzy. She was a Parisian by birth, but had been educated in England, had English connections, and spoke English fluently. She was one of those women who make a favorable impression upon everyone brought into personal contact with them. Soon the children adored her, and it was not long before the duke had come under the same spell. The duchess found herself completely isolated in her own household; husband and children had alike gone over to this stranger. The duchess wrote pathetic letters to her husband, pleading her own affection for him, and her claims as a wife and a mother. These letters no doubt exasperated the duke, but we read them with deep pity for her whose heart they lay bare.

It is to be understood that there was apparently no scandal—that is, scandal in the usual sense—in the relations between the duke and Mademoiselle de Luzy. She had simply bewitched a weak man who had grown tired of his wife, and had cast the same spell over his children; and she had not the superiority of character which would have led her to throw up a lucrative situation because she was making a wife and mother (whom doubtless she considered very unreasonable) extremely unhappy.

At last things came to such a pass that Madame de Praslin appealed to her father, insisting on a legal separation from her husband. The marshal intervened, and the affair was compromised. Mademoiselle de Luzy was to be honorably discharged, and the duchess was to renounce her project of separation. Mademoiselle de Luzy therefore gave up her situation, and went to board in a pension in Paris with her old schoolmistress. Madame de Praslin went to her country house, the magnificent Château de Vaux, where she herself undertook the education of her children; but in their estimation she by no means replaced Mademoiselle de Luzy, whom from time to time they visited in company with their father.

In the middle of the summer of 1847 it was arranged that the whole family should go to the seaside, and they came up to Paris to pass one night in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré at the Hôtel Sébastiani. Like most French establishments, the Hôtel Sébastiani was divided between the marshal and his daughter, the old marshal occupying one floor during the winter, the duke and duchess, with their family, the one above it, while the servants of both establishments had their sleeping-rooms under the roof. The house was of gray stone, standing back in a yard; the French call such a situation entre cour et jardin. The duke had been in Paris several times during the previous week, and had occupied his own rooms, where the concierge and his wife—the only servants left in the house—had remarked that he seemed very busy.

It was afterwards reported in the neighborhood, but I do not think the circumstance was ever officially brought out, that the police found subsequently that all the screws but one that held up the heavy tester over the bed of the duchess, had been removed, and the holes filled with wax; it is certain that the duke partly unscrewed the bolt that fastened the door of her dressing-room.

On the evening of the family's arrival in Paris, the father and children went in a carriage to see Mademoiselle de Luzy. She told the duke that she could get a good situation, provided the duchess would give her a certificate of good conduct; and the duke at parting promised to obtain it for her.