The Duchess de Berri.
Thus terminated the Republican attempt to overthrow the throne of Louis Philippe. And now let us turn to an attempt of the Legitimists to accomplish the same end. About eleven months after the enthronement of Louis Philippe, in March, 1831, the Duchess de Berri, having obtained the reluctant consent of Charles X., set out from Scotland for the south of France, to promote a rising of the Bourbon party there in favor of the Duke of Bordeaux—whom we shall hereafter call by his present title, the Count de Chambord—and to march upon Paris. The Legitimist party was rich, and was supported generally by the clergy and by the peasantry. In the south of France and in La Vendée that party was very strong.
Statement of Louis Blanc.
"The idea of crossing the sea at the head of faithful paladins; of landing after the perils and adventures of an unexpected voyage, in a country of knights-errant; of eluding, by a thousand disguises, the vigilance of the watchful enemies through whom she had to pass; of wandering, a devoted mother and banished queen, from hamlet to hamlet, and chateau to chateau; of testing humanity, high and low, on the romantic side, and, at the end of a victorious conspiracy, of rearing in France the standard of the monarchy—all this was too dazzling not to captivate a young and high-spirited woman, bold through very ignorance of the obstacles she had to surmount, heroic in the hour of danger through levity; able to endure all but ennui, and ready to lull any misgivings with the casuistry of a mother's love."[AH]
The ex-king, Charles X., who, having abdicated, had no power to nominate to the regency, still issued a decree, dated Edinburgh, March 8th, 1831, by which he authorized "a proclamation in favor of Henry V., in which it shall be announced that Madame, Duchess de Berri, is to be regent of the kingdom during the minority of her son."[AI]
The reception of the duchess in Italy.
The duchess, assuming the title of Countess of Segana, crossed over to Holland, and, ascending the Rhine and traversing the Tyrol, safely reached Genoa. The King of Sardinia, Charles Albert, received her kindly, and loaned her a million francs. But the French consul discovered her through her disguise, and by order of the French Court the Sardinian king felt constrained to request her to withdraw from his domains.
The Duke of Modena received her hospitably, and assigned to her use the palace of Massa, about three miles from the sea. Here, with confidential advisers, she matured her plans. Secret agents were sent to all the principal cities in France, to organize royalist committees and to prepare for a general uprising. The plan was for the insurrection to break out first in the west of France, to be immediately followed by all the southern provinces.
Abolition of the peerage.
While affairs were in this posture, a very curious measure was adopted by the Government, which merits brief notice. The Chamber of Deputies, composed of the bourgeoisie, voted the abolition of the hereditary peerage. This was a constitutional amendment, which needed to be ratified by the Chamber of Peers. But the Peers were not disposed thus to commit suicide. Louis Philippe had been placed upon the throne by the bourgeoisie. The nobles were Bourbonists. He felt constrained to support the measures of his friends. He therefore created, by royal ordinance, thirty-six new peers to vote the abolition of the peerage, and thus the vote was carried.[AJ] A vote was also passed banishing forever from the soil of France every member of the elder branch of the house of Bourbon. These measures, of course, exasperated the friends of the ancient régime, and rendered them more willing to enter into a conspiracy for the dethronement of the Citizen King.