Count of Paris

“ The fault, however, charged against the Count of Paris by the late Count of Chambord is as nothing compared to the offence of which his grandfather, Louis Philippe, is held to have been guilty; which, again, cannot be likened for atrocity to the crime committed by Louis Philippe’s father, Philippe Égalité.
When, in 1873, there was a prospect of a Royalist restoration, the Count of Paris, according to the Countess of Chambord, speaking as with the voice of her late husband, did not give the Count the support which he had a right to expect ”

“ The anarchy which was found in the great state of the French monarchy, because all the relations between the king and the count were relaxed, was found also in the petty state of the county of Paris, or of the duchy of France; for the lords and barons of the crown's domains no better obeyed or respected more the prerogatives of their lord, than the great vassals those of the suzerain. ”

“ He asserts that the royalists and republicans have allied themselves; that fifty emissaries of the Count de Lille and the Duke d'Enghien, Pichegru and Georges at their head, have crept into Paris; that they had an interview yesterday with General Moreau, and with the so-called King Louis XVII., who is secreted in Paris, and that at this hour those fifty men are prowling around the streets of the city, and are watching the Tuileries, waiting for an opportunity to kill the First Consul. ”

“ All was agitation and confusion there. M. Dupin repaired to the hall of session, and, ascending the tribune, announced that the king had abdicated in favor of his grandson. In a brief, earnest speech he urged the claims of the Count de Paris as king, under the regency of the Duchess of Orleans, his mother. This speech created a momentary enthusiasm. By acclamation it was voted that the resignation of the king should be accepted, and that the Count [Pg 395] de Paris should be recognized as lawful sovereign, under the regency of the duchess. Just then Lamartine came in. ”

“ The position of the countess—who, herself the daughter of an illustrious house, and reckoning amongst her ancestors and their alliances more than one sovereign prince and constable of France, had married a man enriched and ennobled by Napoleon—gave [Pg 16] her peculiar facilities for collecting around her all that was distinguished and fashionable in Paris, and for blending the various coteries into which political differences, as much as pride of descent on the one hand, and pride of purse on the other, split the higher circles of Parisian society. ”

“ Since the failure of the mission of M. Jules Favre, and the exorbitant demands which were then put forward by Count Bismarck, both Moderates and Ultras have supported the men who are in power. It is felt by all that if Paris is to be defended with any prospect of success, there must be absolute union among its defenders. The Deputies of Paris are not thought, perhaps, to be endowed with any very great administrative ability, but Mr. ”

“ In all these streets, we are treading on the ground he loved.
After the wretched mad king died here in 1422, royalty came no more to the Hôtel Saint-Paul, and the place ran to waste. It was no home for the new Dauphin, come to his kingdom as Charles VII., by the grace of Joan of Arc and of God. His boyish memories were of a dreary childhood, between a mad father, a devilish mother who had hated him from his birth, and princely relatives raging and wrestling over those two for the power to misgovern France. Outside the royal madhouse, Paris was a butcher-shop. ”

“ It never seems to occur to anyone here that the authority of a Parisian dropping down from the clouds in a parachute in any province would be contested. The right of Paris to rule France is a dictum so unquestioned in the minds of the Parisians, that their newspapers are now urging the Government to send new men to Tours to oust those who were sent there before the commencement of the siege. ”

“ A royal ordinance, which remained in force till the Revolution, fixed the majority of the kings of France at thirteen years of age, and provided that the regent should not be the guardian of the young prince; another, dated in 1370, authorized the bourgeois of Paris to wear the spurs of gold and other ornaments of the order of knighthood, and a third, of 1377, awarded titles of nobility to the prévôts and échevins, or aldermen, of the city. ”

“ In February of the next year the regency made an effort to reassert its authority. The queen and the royal princes left Paris for the palace of St. Germain and gathered an army under Condé: the Parlement taxed themselves heavily, tried their hands at organising a citizen militia, and allied themselves with the popular Duke of Beaufort, now at liberty, and leader of a troop of brilliant but giddy young nobles. The Bastille was captured by the Parlement, and the university promised its support and a subsidy. ”

“ After Louis VIII.'s brief reign of three years, there rises to the seat of kings at Paris one of the gentlest and noblest of the sons of men, a prince indeed, who, amid all the temptations of absolute power maintained a spotless life, and at death laid down an earthly crown to assume a fairer and an imperishable diadem among the saints in heaven. ”

“ He has not bombarded Paris. He is not more hated than any other king would be,—perhaps less; for Paris has no gossip to tell of his career. Indeed, there are powerful reasons in favor of the choice. His restoration, since the Comte de Paris is his heir, would eliminate two of the dynastic parties which distract France, and would relink the broken chain of history. And to a people so weary, so dispirited, so thirsty for repose, that of itself must have a certain charm. ”

“ Month by month, week by week, day by day, since the meeting of the States-General,—called into being chiefly to provide money for the king and kept in being to provide government for the people,—the revolutionary feeling had grown, alike among the delegates and among the citizens. Now the population of Paris was aroused, the unruly element of the city was in the streets, their wrath directed against the prison-fortress, the bulwark of feudalism, the stronghold of oppression, the infamous keeper of the dark secrets of the kings of France. ”

“ Antoine by a great stronghold which might serve as a state prison [89] and as a defence from within and without. In 1380 the dread Bastille of sinister fame, with its eight towers, was raised—ever a hateful memory to the citizens, for it was completed by the royal provost when the provost of the merchants had been suppressed by Charles VI. in 1383.
"Woe to thee O land, when thy king is a child!" During the minority and reign of Charles VI. France lay prostrate under a hail of evils that menaced her very existence, and Paris was reduced to the profoundest misery and humiliation. ”

“ I am come, gentlemen, to inform you of what is going on in Paris. I was with the King this morning, up till the time when Carousel Place and the surrounding streets were invaded by the Sections in arms and dragging their cannon. Seeing a large number of the National Guard fraternizing with the people, I counselled the King and the royal family to abandon the palace and place themselves under the protection of the National Assembly. The people know that the King is here. ”

“ The Duchess, too, seconded us, and upon his Highness saying that if he went to the House to declare against the Court the Cardinal would be sure to take his Majesty out of Paris, the Duchess replied, "What, monsieur, are you not Lieutenant-General of France? Do not you command the army? Are you not master of the people? I myself will undertake that the King shall not go out of Paris." The Duke nevertheless remained inflexible, and all we could get out of him was that he would consent to my telling the Parliament, in his name, what we desired he should say himself. ”

“ Paris was ready to worship him. The king himself would not have dared to interfere with the popular idol in that interval of enthusiastic ebullition. [Pg 265] All Paris was prepared to cast itself at his feet; all France was eager to do him honor; all calumny, jealousy, hatred were forgotten; a nation had risen to welcome and honor its greatest genius, and the splendors of the court paled before the glory which seemed to emanate from that feeble, tottering veteran of the empire of thought, who had come back to occupy, for a brief period, the throne of his old dominion. ”

“ A great secret has been revealed to me, Sire: your ministers have had the misfortune to teach France that the people, which was said no longer to exist, is still quite alive. Paris, during twice twenty-four hours, has evaded authority. ”

“ And if the King actually returns to the city, the people of Paris will be obliged to you for it; if you meet with a refusal, you will have still their acknowledgments for your good intention. If you can get the Duc d'Orleans to join with you, you will save the realm; for I am persuaded that if he knew how to act his part in this juncture it would be in his power to bring the King back to Paris and to prevent Mazarin ever returning again. You are a cardinal; you are Archbishop of Paris; you have the good-will of the public, and are but thirty-seven years old: Save the city, save the kingdom. ”

“ Here a herald met the monarch, and after the keys of the city had been presented by the provost, with long speeches and replies, the former officer introduced to his majesty five young ladies, all richly clad, and mounted on horses richly caparisoned, their housings bearing the arms of the city of Paris. Each young damsel represented an allegorical personage, and the initials of the names of their characters made up the word Paris. They each harangued the king, and their speeches, says an old chronicle, seemed "very agreeable" to the royal ears. ”

“ The horses had bolted, and a man sprang out of the carriage—he fell. It was the Prince-Royal, the Duke of Orleans, who expired in a grocer’s shop on the 13th of July, 1842, at half-past four in the afternoon.
It was at the Barrière de la Villette, on the 30th of March, 1814, that the capitulation of Paris was signed, the first article of which provided that the French troops, under the orders of the Ducs de Trévise and de Raguse, should evacuate the capital, while the last article recommended the town of Paris to the generosity of the Allied Powers. ”

“ France must be saved from Paris, not by subterranean barracks and trains, the impotence of which we see to-day with a general in command of the military force, but by conceding to France its proportionate share of the power now monopolised by Paris. ”

“ Never since the days of Charlemagne had the French Monarchy been so powerful as when the Valois came to the throne: in less than a generation Crecy and Poitiers had made the English name a terror in France, and a French king, John the Good, was led captive to England. Once again, as in the dark Norman times, Paris rose and determined to save herself. Etienne Marcel, provost of the merchants, whose statue now stands near the site of the Maison aux Piliers, the old Hostel de Ville which he bought for the citizens of Paris, became the leader of the movement. ”

“ When the fruitless measure of the Assembly of the Notables, and the rebellious spirit in the parliaments,had created the necessity for States General, it was long discussed in council whether they should be assembled at Versailles or at forty or sixty leagues from the capital; the Queen was for the latter course, and insisted to the King that they ought to be far away from the immense population of Paris. She feared that the people would influence the deliberations of the deputies; several memorials were presented to the King upon that question ”

“ But the Assembly was not the victor, and had contributed little to the portentous change between the dismissal of Necker and the despatch of the fleet messenger with his recall. Whilst the deputies served the national cause by talking, there were plainer men at Paris who had died for it. The force that risked life and conquered was not at Versailles. It was Paris that held the fallen power, the power of governing itself, the Assembly, and France. The predominance of the capital was the new feature that enabled the monarchy to pass into a Republic. ”

“ His Royal Highness's intelligence, labours, and devotion fit him for the first place in the Royal House of France, after H. R. H. the Comte de Chambord. May the day be long distant ere H. R. H. the Comte de Paris can be King of France; but if ever His Royal Highness does wear the Crown, he will never disgrace the Throne, for few Frenchmen in the records of French History have been born with such mental gifts and such promising signs of a happy reign as the present Heir-Apparent to the French Crown. ”

“ A citizen army was raised, whose hoods of red and blue, the colours of Paris, distinguished them from the royal sympathisers. Marcel turned for support to the Jacques, and on their suppression essayed to win over Charles of Navarre. On 30th November 1357, Charles stood on the royal stage on the walls of the abbey of St. Germain des Prés, whence the kings of France were wont to witness the judicial combats in the Prés aux Clercs, and addressed an assembly of 10,000 citizens. ”

“ You will wonder, without doubt, that after all this noise no care was taken of the gates of Paris to prevent the King's departure. The Duchess, who trembled at the thoughts of it, daily redoubled her endeavours to induce the Duke to secure the gates of the city, but all to no purpose; for weak minds are generally deficient in some respect or other.
On the 4th the Duke came to the Parliament and assured the assembly of his concurrence in everything to reform the State and to procure the liberty of the Princes and the Cardinal's removal. ”

“ There is not one of the King's servants, in Paris or out of it, who is not convinced that in order to make himself master of the city the King has only to desire as much, and that if the King sends to the inhabitants asking that two of the city gates shall be held by a regiment of his guards, and then proceeds directly to the Louvre, all Paris will approve such a masterful action and the Princes will be compelled to take flight. ”