The Chamber of Peers and Deputies, and other functionaries of the State, were pouring in to place at the foot of the throne the expression of their loyalty. This killing of the king has turned out very much to his advantage. There was nothing anywhere but laudatory speeches and protestations of affection—foreigners from all the countries of Europe uniting in sympathy with the natives. So we got ashamed of ourselves, we Americans, and held a meeting in the Rue Rivoli, where we got up a procession too, and waited upon his Majesty for the purpose above stated, and were received into the presence—the royal family being ranged around the room to get a sight of us.
Modesty forbids me to speak of the very eloquent manner in which we pronounced our address; to which the king made a very appropriate reply. “Gentlemen, you can better guess,” said he, “than I can express to you, the gratification,” &c.—I missed all the rest by looking at the Princess Amelia’s most beautiful of all faces, except the conclusion, which was as follows:—“And I am happy to embrace this occasion of expressing to you all, and through you to your countrymen, the deep gratitude I have ever felt for the kindness and hospitality I experienced in America, during my misfortunes.” The king spoke in English, and with an affectionate and animated expression, and we were pleased all to pieces. So was Louis Philippe, and so was Marie Amelie, princess of the two Sicilies, his wife; and so was Marie-Christine-Caroline-Adelaide-Françoise-Leopoldine, and Marie-Clementine-Caroline-Leopoldine-Clotilde, her two daughters, and the rest of the family.
A note from the king’s aide-de-camp required the presence of our consul at the head of the deputation, which our consul refused. He did not choose, he said, to see the Republic make a fool of herself, running about town, and tossing up her cap, because the king was not killed, and he would not go. “Then,” said the king (a demur being made by his officers,) “I will receive the Americans as they received me, without fuss or ceremony.” So we got in without any head, but not without a long attendance in the ante-chamber, very inconvenient to our legs.—How we strolled about during this time, looking over the nick-nacks, and how some of us took out our handkerchiefs and knocked the dust off our boots in the salle des marechaux, and how we reclined upon the royal cushions, and set one leg to ride impatiently on the other, I leave to be described by Major Downing, who was one of our party. I will bring up the rear of this paragraph, with an anecdote, which will make you laugh. One of our deputation had brought along a chubby little son of his, about sixteen. He returned, (for he had gone ahead to explore,) and said in a soft voice,—“Tommy, you can go in to the Throne, but don’t go too near.” And then Tommy set off with velvet steps, and approached, as you have seen timid old ladies to a blunderbuss,—he feared it might go off.
The king is a bluff old man, with more firmness of character, sense, and activity, than is indicated by his plump and rubicund features. The queen has a very unexceptionable face; her features are prominent, and have a sensible benevolent expression—a face not of the French cut, but such as you often meet amongst the best New England faces. Any gentleman would like to have such a woman for his mother. The eldest daughter is married to the King of Belgium; the second and third are grown up to manhood, but not yet married. They would be thought pretty girls even by your village beaux, and with your ladies, except two or three (how many are you?) they would be “stuck up things, no prettier than their neighbours.”
The Duke of Orleans is a handsome young man, and so spare and delicate as almost to call into question his mother’s reputation. He assumes more dignity of manner than is natural to a Frenchman at his age; he is not awkward, but a little stiff; his smile seems compulsory, and more akin to the lips than the heart. Any body else would have laughed out on this occasion. He has been with the army in Africa, and has returned moderately covered with laurels. The Duke of Némours is just struggling into manhood, and is shaving to get a beard as assiduously as his father to get rid of it. He also has fought valiantly somewhere—I believe in Holland. Among the ladies there is one who pleases me exceedingly; it is Madame Adelaide, the king’s sister. She has little beauty, but a most affable and happy expression of countenance. She was a pupil of Madame Genlis, who used to call her “cette belle et bonne Princesse.” She was married secretly to General Athelin, her brother’s secretary, during their residence in England. She revealed this marriage, with great fear of his displeasure, to her brother, after his accession to the throne, throwing herself on her knees.—After some pause, he said, embracing her tenderly,—“Domestic happiness is the main thing after all; and now that he is the king’s brother-in-law, we must make him a duke.” Madame Adelaide is now in the Indian summer of her charms.
One who knows royalty only from the old books, necessarily looks about for that motley gentleman, the king’s fool. The city of Troyes used to have a monopoly of supplying this article; but the other towns, I have heard, grew jealous of the privilege, and they have them now from all parts of the kingdom. Seriously, the splendour of ancient courts has faded away wonderfully in every respect. When Sully went to England, says the history, he was attended by two hundred gentlemen, and three hundred guns saluted him at the Tower. The pomp and luxury of drawing-rooms and levees were then most gorgeous.
The eye was dazzled with the glittering display; nothing but yeomen of the guards with halberds, and wearing hats of rich velvet, plumed like the peacock, with wreaths and rosettes in their shoes; and functionaries of the law, in black gowns, and full wigs; and bishops, and other church dignitaries, in aprons of black silk; and there were knights of the garter, the lord steward, the lord chancellor, and the Lord knows who. And the same grandeur and brilliancy in the French courts—chambellans, and écuyers, and aumoniers, all the way down to the chauf-cire, and keeper of the royal hounds; and one swam in a sea of gems and plumes, and sweet and honied ladies. Republicanism has set her irreverend foot upon all this regal splendour. I wish I had come over a hundred years ago. The king’s salary before the Revolution, though provisions were at half their present rate, was thirty millions; that of Charles X. was twenty-five; and the present king’s is only twelve millions, with one million to the Duke of Orleans.
I and Louis Philippe do not agree altogether about the manner in which the French people ought to be governed. The censorship of the press, the espionage, the violation of private correspondence, the jail and the gibbet, will not arrest the hand of the regicide. I have read in a journal to-day, that 2,746 persons have already been imprisoned for having censured the acts of the present government, in the person of the king. The devil will get his Most Christian Majesty if he goes on at this rate. Why don’t he learn that the strength of kings, in these days, is in their weakness? Why don’t he set up M. Thiers, and then M. Guizot, and then M. Thiers again, as they do in England? Look at King William—does any body shoot him? and yet he rides out with four cream-coloured horses, with blue eyes, every day, and sometimes he walks into the Hungerford Market, and asks the price of shrimps. Louis plays a principal part in all his measures, even his high-handed measures. If he makes himself a target, he must expect to be shot at. In the beginning of his reign, he played the liberal too loosely. “Why talk of censorship?” said he—“il n’y aura plus de délits de la presse.”—“I am but a bridge to arrive at the Republic.”
With his present acts, this language is in almost ludicrous contrast. He is a Jacobin turned king, say his enemies; and we must expect he will run the career of all renegades. I have not described his disasters and dangers in a lamentable tone, because I don’t choose to affect a sympathy I do not feel. He had a quiet and delightful habitation at Neuilly; and since he has not preferred it to this “bare-picked bone of Majesty,” at the Tuileries, let him abide the consequences. However, I shall be one of those who will deplore his loss, from the good will I bear the French people, for I have not the least doubt that, with twenty years’ possession of the throne, he will bring them, in all that constitutes real comfort and rational liberty, to a degree of prosperity unknown to their history.
Remember, I am talking French, not American politics. To infer from the example of America, that the institutions of a Republic may be introduced into these old governments of Europe, requires yet the “experiment” of another century. If we can retain our democracy when our back woodlands are filled up, when New York and Philadelphia have become a London and Paris; when the land shall be covered with its multitudes, struggling for a scanty living, with passions excited by luxurious habits and appetites;—if we can then maintain our universal suffrage and our liberty, it will be fair and reasonable enough in us to set ourselves up for the imitation of others. Liberty, as far as we yet know her, is not fitted to the condition of these populous and luxurious countries. Her household gods are of clay, and her dwelling, where the icy gales of Alleghany sing through the crevices of her hut.