Charles d'Orléans

“ There were two courses open to M. le Duc d'Orléans: the first, and the more honourable, was to hasten to Saint-Cloud, to interpose himself between Charles X. and the people, in order to save the crown of the one and the liberty of the other; the second consisted in flinging himself on the barricades, with the tricolour flag in his hand, and placing himself at the head of the movement of the world. Philip had to choose between the honest man and the great man: he preferred to pilfer the crown from the King and liberty from the people. ”

“ HE was the son of Charles d’Orleans, Duke of Angoulême, by Louise de Savoie. He married, first, the Princess Claude, daughter of Louis XII., and succeeded his father-in-law on the throne of France. His second wife was Eleanor of Austria, sister to Charles V., Emperor of Germany. ”

“ Legitimist historians and others, professing to write in a more impartial spirit, have commented most adversely upon his conduct in this, the supreme crisis of his eventful life. It must, however, be admitted by everybody who studies the question with an open mind that France was irrevocably resolved to expel the Bourbons. It has, nevertheless, been contended that, had the Duc d’Orléans consented to undertake the regency, no serious objections would have been made to the enthronement of the Duc de Bordeaux, [7] in whose favour Charles and the Dauphin had abdicated [Pg 10] on August 2. ”

“ VII CHARLES OF ORLEANS For one who was no great politician, nor (as men go) especially wise, capable, or virtuous, Charles of Orleans is more than usually enviable to all who love that better sort of fame which consists in being known not widely, but intimately. ”

“ There is but one man who is certainly an origin, but he is not a master. You see an unique and single personality, distinct but without force, founding no school--the grave, abiding, kind but covert face of Charles of Orleans. He, linked to the French Renaissance, is like the figure of a gentle friend playing in some garden with a child whose manners are new and pleasing to him, but of whose great destiny he makes no guess. ”

“ He kept on laughing a long time before going to the Council, and could not hinder himself. I have not been afraid to write this trifle, because it seems to me that it paints the man.
M. d’Orleans loved liberty, and as much for others as for himself. He extolled England to me one day on this account, as a country where there are no banishments, no lettres de cachet, and where the King may close the door of his palace to anybody, but can keep no one in prison; and thereupon related to me with enjoyment, that besides the Duchess of Portsmouth, Charles the Second had many subordinate mistresses ”

“ I replied, "nothing is easier: Charles X. and Monsieur le Dauphin have abdicated; Henry is now the King; Monseigneur le Duc d'Orléans is Lieutenant-general of the Kingdom: let him act as Regent during the minority of Henry V., and all is settled."
"But, Monsieur de Chateaubriand, the people are very much excited; we shall fall into anarchy!"
"Madame, may I venture to ask you what are the intentions of Monseigneur le Duc d'Orléans? Will he accept the crown, if it is offered to him?" ”

“ His son, afterwards Louis XII., was not born till 1462, three years before Charles’s own death. He had become, notwithstanding his high position, something of a nullity in politics, and tradition ascribes his death to vexation at the harshness with which Louis XI. rejected his attempt to mediate on behalf of the duke of Brittany. At any rate he died, on the 4th of January, 1465, at Amboise. Many of his later poems are small occasional pieces addressed to his courtiers and companions, and in not a few cases answers to them by those to whom they were addressed exist. ”

“ By losing the impeccable gravity characteristic of them in preceding epochs, the ancient conventional forms of erotic poetry became penetrated by a new meaning. Charles d'Orléans makes use of personifications and of allegories like all his predecessors, but, by some slight surplus of stress, he adds an almost imperceptible flavour of raillery, and this gives them an affecting note, which is lacking in the graceful figures of the Roman de la Rose. He sees his own heart as a double of himself. ”

“ I have never learned to govern; I am not conversant with politics, nor with state affairs, and I am now too far advanced in years to learn things so difficult. My son, I thank God, has sense enough, and can direct these things without me; besides, I should excite too much the jealousy of his wife— [Marie-Francoise de Bourbon, the legitimate daughter of Louis XIV. and of Madame de Montespan, Duchesse d’Orleans.] —and his eldest daughter,— [Marie-Louise-Elizabeth d’Orleans, married on the 17th of July, 1710, to Charles of France, Duc de Berri.] —whom he loves better than me ”

“ The queen was no Blanche de Castille, able to rule a kingdom, and the king's uncle, Philippe de Bourgogne, was at first the real power in France. He was opposed by Isabeau de Bavière and her paramour and brother-in-law, Louis d'Orléans, brother of the king; and the history of the next few years is largely a record of shameless intrigues between these people to obtain control of the mad king, in whose name many an odious thing was done. The regency should, by rights, have devolved upon the king's eldest brother, Louis d'Orléans, who was twenty-one years of age at the time of Charles's madness ”

“ Besides this, the King had given me annually one thousand louis up to the year before the marriage of my son. That supported me, but as I would not consent to the marriage I was deprived of this sum, and it has never been restored to me. On my first journey to Fontainebleau, the King would have given me 2,000 pistoles, but that Monsieur begged him to keep half of them for Madame, afterwards the Queen of Spain.— [Marie-Louise d’Orleans, born in 1662, married, in 1679, to Charles IL, King of Spain.] ”

“ Should this be the case, then will the Duke of Orleans deserve well of the elder branch of his family who have behaved so kindly towards him, but I confess I am not one of those who believe in the likelihood of such an abnegation of self, as this voluntary abdication would display.
Rich possessions are seldom if ever willingly resigned, and a crown is one said to have such irresistible charms to the person who has once worn it, that history furnishes but few examples like that of Charles the Fifth, or Christina of Sweden. Time will prove whether Louis-Philippe d'Orléans will offer a pendant! ”

“ To say that Charles of Orleans's equal and persistent music was like a string harped on distinctly in a chorus of flutes and hautboys, till one by one harps from here and there caught up the similar tang of chords and at last the whole body of sound was harping only.
His life was suited to such difference and such origination. Italy, still living, filled him. An Italian secretary wrote from his mouth the most sumptuous of his manuscripts. ”

“ Suddenly one summer day, unwonted messengers knocked at the gates of Amboise; they fetched the child away to see an old, misshapen, suspicious man, whom he did not know—who was his father. The next day Charles VIII. was king of France under the regency of his married sister, Anne de Bourbon. Madame Anne inherited her father’s dislike and distrust of Orleans; but her sister was his wife and adored him, and her brother, the king, admired him. She did her best to repress Orleans in France; but her hand, though firm, had not the solidity of her father’s. Orleans grew and expanded. ”

“ Villon joined in the poetical competitions he held at his Court. But Charles was not the rival of Villon; he was the last of the mediæval poets—Villon is modern. His favorite subjects were Love and Spring, and on these two themes he composed many rondels, one of which is the charming Le temps a laissé son manteau, so often introduced into anthologies. Saintsbury says of him: “Few early poets are better known than Charles of Orléans, and few deserve their popularity better.” ”

“ Towards the close of the year, intelligence of the designs of the Duc d'Orléans having reached Paris, the King proceeded to Lorraine, in order to arrest his movements; and despatched a messenger to Charles, demanding to be informed of his motive for raising so strong an army; and also if it were true that Monsieur contemplated a marriage with the Princesse Marguerite, as he had been informed. In reply, the Lorraine Prince assured the royal envoy that the troops had been levied with a view to assist the Emperor against the King of Sweden ”

“ In the letter dictated before the expedition to Orléans, she summoned the English to join the French and go together to fight against the Church's foe. And later, writing to the Duke of Burgundy, she invited the son of the Duke vanquished at Nicopolis to make war against the Turks. [318] Who but the mendicants direct [Pg ii.111] ing her can have put these crusading ideas into Jeanne's head? Immediately after the deliverance of Orléans it was said that she would lead King Charles to the conquest of the Holy Sepulchre and that she would die in the Holy Land. ”

“ They have not much poetical merit, but they exhibit something of the smoothness of versification not uncommon in those who write, with care, a language not their own. The ingenuity of a single English critic has striven to attribute to him a curious book in prose, called Le Débat des hérauts de France et d’Angleterre, but Paul Meyer, in his edition of the book in question, has completely disposed of this theory. For all practical purposes, therefore, Charles’s work consists of some hundreds of short French poems, a few in various metres, but the majority either ballades or rondels. ”

“ The verse formed in that long endurance (a style which he preserved to the end in the many poems after his release) may seem at a first reading merely mediæval. There is wholly lacking in it the riot of creation, nor can one see at first the Renaissance coming in with Charles of Orleans. ”

“ The verse is full of allegory; it is repetitive; it might weary one with the savour of that unhappy fifteenth century when the human mind lay under oppression, and only the rich could speak their insignificant words; a foreigner especially might find it all dry bones, but his judgement would be wrong. Charles of Orleans has a note quite new and one that after him never failed, but grew in volume and in majesty until it filled the great chorus of the Pleiade--the Lyrical note of direct personal expression. ”

“ It was in such a company that he recited the last ironical but tender song wherein he talks of his lost youth and vigour and ends by bidding all present a salute in the name of his old age.
So he sat, half regal, holding a court of song in Blois and Tours, a forerunner in verse of what the new time was to build in stone along the Loire. And it was at Amboise that he died. ”

“ Men of moderate views, such as Charles de Rémusat and Guizot, looked upon “a brilliant diplomatic triumph” or “some acquisition of territory towards Belgium” as conditions essential to the stability of the Orleans throne. [52] On the other hand, it was the policy of Austria, Prussia and Russia, as it was that of Great Britain, to preserve intact the territorial settlement of 1815 and to resist the aggrandisement of France. ”

“ The corruptness of their lives infects the air. It is just that they suffer chastisement."
That the Lord should speak thus must be expected, because he was angry and because the people of Orléans had greatly sinned. But now, behold, Our Lady, she who loves the King of the Lilies, prays for him and for the Duke of Orléans to the Son, whose pleasure it is to do her will in all things: "My Son, with all my heart I entreat thee to drive the English from the land of France; they have no right to it. If they take Orléans, then they will take the rest at their pleasure. ”

“ Duke again."
She cannot be accused of any amorous intrigue.
Her husband furnishes her with very little money; and at this moment (April, 1718) he owes her fifteen months of her pension. She is now really in want of money to enable her to take the waters of Bourbon. The Grand Duke, who is very avaricious, thinks she will die soon, and therefore holds back the payments that he may take advantage of that event when it shall happen.
SECTION XXXVII.—THE DUCHESSE DE LORRAINE, ELIZABETH-CHARLOTTE PHILIPPINE D'ORLEANS, CONSORT OF LEOPOLD JOSEPH-CHARLES DE LORRAINE. My daughter is ugly ”

“ The war party and other factions hostile to the monarchy encouraged the popular ferment. Lord Stuart de Rothesay was disposed to think that Louis Philippe and his ministers regarded the excitement with secret approval, in the hope that it would distract public attention from the impending trial of the ex-ministers of Charles X. [51] In addition to Polignac himself three members of the Cabinet, who had signed the ordinances of July, had failed to escape abroad. The King, however, notwithstanding that the populace called furiously for their heads, was determined to save their lives. ”

“ M. le Duc d’Orleans conducted himself in a manner simple, so prudent, that he infinitely gained by it. His cares and his reasonable anxiety were measured; there was much reserve in his conversation, an exact and sustained attention in his language, and in his countenance, which allowed nothing to escape him, and which showed as little as possible that he was the successor to the crown; above all, he never gave cause for people to believe that he thought the King’s illness more or less serious than it was, or that his hopes were stronger than his fears. ”