In due time Madame la Duchesse d’Ivry gave birth to a child, a daughter, whom her noble father received with but small pleasure. What the Duke desired, was an heir to his name, a Prince of Moncontour, to fill the place of the sons and grandsons gone before him, to join their ancestors in the tomb. No more children, however, blessed the old Duke’s union. Madame d’Ivry went the round of all the watering-places: pilgrimages were tried: vows and gifts to all saints supposed to be favourable to the d’Ivry family, or to families in general:—but the saints turned a deaf ear; they were inexorable since the true religion and the elder Bourbons were banished from France.
Living by themselves in their ancient castles, or their dreary mansion of the Faubourg St. Germain, I suppose the Duke and Duchess grew tried of one another, as persons who enter into a mariage de convenance sometimes, nay, as those who light a flaming love-match, and run away with one another, will be found to do. A lady of one-and-twenty, and a gentleman of sixty-six, alone in a great castle, have not unfrequently a third guest at their table, who comes without a card, and whom they cannot shut out, though they keep their doors closed ever so. His name is Ennui, and many a long hour and weary night must such folks pass in the unbidden society of this Old Man of the Sea; this daily guest at the board; this watchful attendant at the fireside; this assiduous companion who will walk out with you; this sleepless restless bedfellow.
At first, M. d’Ivry, that well-conserved nobleman who never would allow that he was not young, exhibited no sign of doubt regarding his own youth except an extreme jealousy and avoidance of all other young fellows. Very likely Madame la Duchesse may have thought men in general dyed their hair, wore stays, and had the rheumatism. Coming out of the convent of the Sacré Cœur, how was the innocent young lady to know better? You see, in these mariages de convenance, though a coronet may be convenient to a beautiful young creature, and a beautiful young creature may be convenient to an old gentleman, there are articles which the marriage-monger cannot make to convene at all: tempers over which M. de Foy and his like have no control; and tastes which cannot be put into the marriage settlements. So this couple were unhappy, and the Duke and Duchess quarrelled with one another like the most vulgar pair who ever fought across a table.
In this unhappy state of home affairs, madame took to literature, monsieur to politics. She discovered that she was a great unappreciated soul, and when a woman finds that treasure in her bosom of course she sets her own price on the article. Did you ever see the first poems of Madame la Duchesse d’Ivry, Les Cris de l’Ame? She used to read them to her very intimate friends, in white, with her hair a good deal down her back. They had some success. Dubufe having painted her as a Duchess, Scheffer depicted her as a Muse. That was in the third year of her marriage, when she rebelled against the Duke her husband, insisted on opening her saloons to art and literature, and, a fervent devotee still, proposed to unite genius and religion. Poets had interviews with her. Musicians came and twanged guitars to her.
Her husband, entering her room, would fall over the sabre and spurs of Count Almaviva from the boulevard, or Don Basilio with his great sombrero and shoe-buckles. The old gentleman was breathless and bewildered in following her through all her vagaries. He was of old France, she of new. What did he know of the Ecole Romantique, and these jeunes gens with their Marie Tudors and Tours de Nesle, and sanguineous histories of queens who sewed their lovers into sacks, emperors who had interviews with robber captains in Charlemagne’s tomb, Buridans and Hernanis, and stuff? Monsieur le Vicomte de Chateaubriand was a man of genius as a writer, certainly immortal; and M. de Lamartine was a young man extremely bien pensant, but, ma foi, give him Crébillon fils, or a bonne farce of M. Vade to make laugh; for the great sentiments, for the beautiful style, give him M. de Lormian (although Bonapartist) or the Abbé de Lille. And for the new school! bah! these little Dumass, and Hugos, and Mussets, what is all that? “M. de Lormian shall be immortal, monsieur,” he would say, “when all these freluquets are forgotten.” After his marriage he frequented the coulisses of the opera no more; but he was a pretty constant attendant at the Théatre Français, where you might hear him snoring over the chefs-d’œuvres of French tragedy.
For some little time after 1830, the Duchesse was as great a Carlist as her husband could wish; and they conspired together very comfortably at first. Of an adventurous turn, eager for excitement of all kinds, nothing would have better pleased the Duchesse than to follow MADAME in her adventurous courses in La Vendee, disguised as a boy above all. She was persuaded to stay at home, however, and aid the good cause at Paris; while Monsieur le Duc went off to Brittany to offer his old sword to the mother of his king. But MADAME was discovered up the chimney at Rennes, and all sorts of things were discovered afterwards. The world said that our silly little Duchess of Paris was partly the cause of the discovery. Spies were put upon her, and to some people she would tell anything. M. le Duc, on paying his annual visit to august exiles at Goritz, was very badly received: Madame la Dauphine gave him a sermon. He had an awful quarrel with Madame la Duchesse on returning to Paris. He provoked Monsieur le Comte Tiercelin, le beau Tiercelin, an officer of ordonnance of the Duke of Orleans, into a duel, à propos of a cup of coffee in a salon; he actually wounded the beau Tiercelin—he sixty-five years of age! his nephew, M. de Florac, was loud in praise of his kinsman’s bravery.
That pretty figure and complexion which still appear so captivating in M. Dubufe’s portrait of Madame la Duchesse d’Ivry, have long existed—it must be owned only in paint. “Je la préfère à l’huile,” the Vicomte de Florac said of his cousin. “She should get her blushes from Monsieur Dubufe—those of her present furnishers are not near so natural.” Sometimes the Duchess appeared with these postiches roses, sometimes of a mortal paleness. Sometimes she looked plump, on other occasions wofully thin. “When she goes into the world,” said the same chronicler, “ma cousine surrounds herself with jupons—c’est pour défendre sa vertu: when she is in a devotional mood, she gives up rouge, roast meat, and crinoline, and fait maigre absolument.” To spite the Duke her husband, she took up with the Vicomte de Florac, and to please herself she cast him away. She took his brother, the Abbé de Florac, for a director, and presently parted from him. “Mon frère, ce saint homme ne parle jamais de Madame la Duchesse, maintenant,” said the Vicomte. “She must have confessed to him des choses affreuses—oh, oui!—affreuses ma parole d’honneur!”
The Duke d’Ivry being archiroyaliste, Madame la Duchesse must make herself ultra-Philippiste. “Oh, oui! tout ce qu’il y a de plus Madame Adélaide au monde!” cried Florac. “She raffoles of M. le Régent. She used to keep a fast of the day of the supplice of Philippe Egalité, Saint and Martyr. I say used, for to make to enrage her husband, and to recall the Abbé my brother, did she not advise herself to consult M. le Pasteur Grigou, and to attend the preach at his Temple? When this sheep had brought her shepherd back, she dismissed the Pasteur Grigou. Then she tired of M. l’Abbé again, and my brother is come out from her, shaking his good head. Ah! she must have put things into it which astonished the good Abbé! You know he has since taken the Dominican robe? My word of honour! I believe it was terror of her that drove him into a convent. You shall see him at Rome, Clive. Give him news of his elder, and tell him this gross prodigal is repenting amongst the swine. My word of honour! I desire but the death of Madame la Vicomtesse de Florac, to marry and range myself!
“After being Royalist, Philippist, Catholic, Huguenot, Madame d’Ivry must take to Pantheism, to bearded philosophers who believe in nothing, not even in clean linen, eclecticism, republicanism, what know I? All her changes have been chronicled by books of her composition. Les Démons, poem Catholic; Charles IX. is the hero and the demons are shot for the most part at the catastrophe of St. Bartholomew. My good mother, all good Catholic as she is, was startled by the boldness of this doctrine. Then there came Une Dragonnade, par Mme. la Duchesse d’Ivry, which is all on your side. That was of the time of the Pastor Grigou, that one. The last was Les Dieux déchus, poème en 20 chants, par Mme. la D—— d’I. Guard yourself well from this Muse! If she takes a fancy to you she will never leave you alone. If you see her often, she will fancy you are in love with her, and tell her husband. She always tells my uncle—afterwards—after she has quarrelled with you and grown tired of you! Eh, being in London once, she had the idea to make herself a Quakre; wore the costume, consulted a minister of that culte, and quarrelled with him as of rule. It appears the Quakers do not beat themselves, otherwise my poor uncle must have paid of his person.
“The turn of the philosophers then came, the chemists, the natural historians, what know I? She made a laboratory in her hotel, and rehearsed poisons like Madame de Brinvilliers—she spent hours in the Jardin des Plantes. Since she has grown affreusement maigre and wears mounting robes, she has taken more than ever to the idea that she resembles Mary Queen of Scots. She wears a little frill and a little cap. Every man she loves, she says, has come to misfortune. She calls her lodgings Lochleven. Eh! I pity the landlord of Lochleven! She calls ce gros Blackball, vous savez, that pillar of estaminets, that prince of mauvais-ton, her Bothwell; little Mijaud, the poor little pianist, she named her Rizzio; young Lord Greenhorn who was here with governor, a Monsieur of Oxfort, she christened her Darnley, and the Minister Anglican, her John Knox! The poor man was quite enchanted! Beware of this haggard siren, my little Clive!—mistrust her dangerous song! Her cave is jonchée with the bones of her victims. Be you not one!”