In quitting France, Charles X. had only carried away with him, after so much splendor, a sum barely sufficient for a modest subsistence during a few years. The abode at Lullworth was expensive; its vicinity to France made it accessible to a crowd of travellers, many of whom came only to solicit from the king, in return for services past, or in view of services offered, the assistance which the unfortunate monarch was no longer in a condition to grant without reducing himself to want. In order to escape from these importunities, and to withdraw himself from the painful necessity of refusing, he asked and obtained from the British government the enjoyment of the asylum which he had already for a long time inhabited during the period of his first exile.
The capital of Scotland, in which is situated the palace of Holyrood, is in the same latitude as Moscow, but its vicinity to the sea renders its temperature much more endurable. Edinburgh is, in many respects, the most agreeable residence which a stranger can select in Great Britain. The liberal arts are there cultivated with a particular devotion. It is a large town, picturesque in the extreme, and sumptuously built. The seat of old Edinburgh is worthy of remark; in seeking for a comparison which may convey an idea of it, the device of the arms of the kingdom naturally occurs to furnish me with one. Imagine, at the entrance of a deep and narrow valley formed by the hills of Salisbury and Calton, an enormous lion, half couched. His head, which is turned towards the rising sun, and overlooks the plain, is a peaked rock, three hundred feet in elevation, and nobly crowned by the old castle. To the right and left, the houses are suspended from his flanks, like the waves of his mane. The ridge of his spine is represented by a long street, which, dividing the two opposite declivities, begins from the esplanade of the castle, and terminates at the Canongate in front of the portal of Holyrood. The new town occupies the plateau of Calton hill. Larger than the old town, it is also better built, and all the streets are laid out in regular squares.
This city, take it altogether, resembles none other with which we are acquainted. It is an assemblage of monuments of every age and in every style, built of beautiful stone, many of them very carefully [pg 421] constructed, and thrown, in the most picturesque manner, upon projections of rugged rocks, in the hollows of precipices, on the slopes of valleys. Magnificent bridges, gigantic causeways, unite the different parts of the city. The ancient and the modern are preserved without alteration of character. Here rise houses of eleven stories, the highest of which is on a level with the great street of which we have spoken. There, beside a Greek peristyle, the luxury of the boudoir is sheltered by embattled towers. At the sight of this singular town, of this variety of edifices, of these steep mountains, of the sea, and of the sky, we can more fully comprehend the genius of Sir Walter Scott. Everything here seems created to clothe with form and substance the conceptions of romance. Here we can walk, if we like, under Athenian porticos or in Gothic cloisters, and can pass from the sombre tints of a feudal habitation to drawing-rooms freshly decorated in the modern style of luxury; we can leave the modest sidewalks of the bourgeois of the XVth century, above which the projecting roofs and gables are still in good preservation, to enter upon railways, those marvels of modern invention. At every step our eyes are met by objects less precious, perhaps, from the value they represent than from the associations they recall: the crown of gold enriched with jewels, the sceptre, and the sword of the ancient kings of Scotland, discovered, fifteen years ago, in a walled-up room of the old castle; the furniture used by Mary Stuart; the embroidery which occupied the last happy leisure hours of this unfortunate queen; the tapestry raised by the assassins of Rizzio when they entered her apartment; the bed of crimson damask on which she used to sleep. Here we tread on the ashes of a long line of kings, of a multitude of celebrated personages; and the last circumstance worthy of note, in this abode so suggestive of mysterious traditions and royal misfortunes, is that the wreck of the court of the Tuileries have taken refuge beneath the ancient hereditary roof of James II.
The palace of Holyrood is nothing but a cold and gloomy cloister, flanked at the two extremities of its anterior front by towers. The apartments of Charles X., situated on the first floor, extend over one of the sides of the cloister, and over the angle opposite the principal entrance. After crossing a vestibule leading to the chapel, an ante-chamber, an unfurnished gallery, a billiard-room, we enter the dining-room—a gloomy apartment with bare walls, containing only an oval table and chairs. From thence we pass into a drawing-room twenty-five feet square, opening upon a small, uncultivated enclosure called a garden, and furnished in the style of the drawing-room of a Parisian bourgeois. It was in this apartment that receptions for strangers were held from eleven to twelve o'clock in the morning; and in the evening, all the royal family met here after dinner. The persons belonging to the household and the invited guests were admitted to these soirées, which lasted until about ten o'clock. The Duc de Bordeaux[94] and mademoiselle played games together; the king had a whist-table; the dauphiness and her ladies worked at a round table. Frequently the conversation became general, and was almost always interesting. The French and English newspapers [pg 422] were read and commented upon. Sometimes the king and the dauphin would repair to the billiard-room, and play a few games together. In these soirées, there was no more etiquette observed than is usual in the house of a gentleman living on his estates.
At the left of the drawing-room, a door led to an intermediate apartment, forming the private study of the king. Into this opened his bed-chamber. With the sleeping-room of the king communicated that of the Duc de Bordeaux, situated on the same floor, and looking into the courtyard. The Baron de Saint Aubin occupied a room at the side; the apartments of mademoiselle were on the upper floor.
The Duc de Blacas, when he was at Holyrood, had the superintendence of the household; when he was absent, the details of these functions were directed by the Baron de Saint Aubin. The suite was composed of about forty persons, lodged in the town in the vicinity of the palace.
The equipages of the king were limited to one carriage, hired by the month. When this was not sufficient, another coach was sent for; and three saddle-horses sufficed for the rides of the king and his family. Charles X., having given up the amusement of hunting, and needing exercise to maintain his health, was in the habit of walking every day three or four miles around Holyrood. The table was supplied abundantly, but without luxury; the king usually invited two or three strangers, but the number of covers seldom exceeded fourteen or fifteen.
Such was the mediocrity to which fate had reduced this family, so lately surrounded by the greatest possible luxury and splendor. No sign of regret, no trace of vexation, could be perceived on the countenance of Charles X. Never did a word of bitterness escape from the lips of these illustrious sufferers. The dauphiness, whom some have dared to represent as a vindictive and fanatical woman, was gentleness itself. In vain would any one have sought, in the expression of her face, so full of goodness and resignation, for even the appearance of a pride which nevertheless her elevated rank would have sufficiently justified. As to the dauphin, so far did he carry his abnegation of all personal resentment that he was more than once heard to recall with commendation the talents and bravery of some officers whom he had overwhelmed with his favors, but who, nevertheless, had been the first to betray him.
Every one admitted to Holyrood could not but recognize and admire the presence of those virtues which form the charm of domestic life. They doubtless do not suffice for those upon whom Heaven has imposed the terrible task of governing men. The most marked trait in the character of Charles X. is indecision; in that of the dauphin, a pretension to acuteness, which has more than once discouraged his friends, without inspiring confidence in his enemies. As for the dauphiness, the intensity of her misfortunes in this world has led her to fix her hopes upon a better one. Pious, although tolerant, she herself feels that her counsels would be of little avail in this age of incredulity. In what she desires for France, she never can separate religion from legitimacy. When, at Holyrood, she heard of the pillage of the archbishopric, these words fell from her lips: “Alas! the [pg 423] French have cast off religion, and at length I begin to comprehend why it is they hate us.”
The Duchesse de Berri was a being apart in the royal family. Young, animated, full of regrets, of desires, and of hopes, she could not pardon those who had prevented her from presenting herself before the Parisians on the 30th of July, 1830, in order to claim from them the crown for her son. Confident in her adventurous courage and in her ability to create for herself another future, her irritation for the past and the projects she still contemplated, little agreed either with the calm resignation of the dauphiness or with the habitual prudence of the king. She could only endure for a few weeks the monotony of the residence at Holyrood. Besides, the rigor of the climate appeared to affect her health, and she repaired to the mineral waters of Bath. Here various speculators came to surround her, in a manner to take possession of her as of a pledge for their future fortunes, and induced her to borrow considerable sums of money on the property still remaining to her, in order to defray the expenses of the projected expedition. The duchess was brought to London, where the final arrangements for this loan were to be made. She was concealed in a small house, and not a single Frenchman, excepting those composing the circle by whom she was surrounded, knew what had become of her until the day of the embarkation.