House of Orléans

“ When, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, the King determined to convert the Huguenots by means of dragoons and torture, a regiment was sent to Orleans, to be spread abroad in the diocese. As soon as it arrived, M. d’Orleans sent word to the officers that they might make his house their home; that their horses should be lodged in his stables. He begged them not to allow a single one of their men to leave the town, to make the slightest disorder; to say no word to the Huguenots, and not to lodge in their houses. ”

“ These faubourgs were so populous and so extensive that when, on the approach of the English, the people from the suburbs took refuge within the city the number of its inhabitants was doubled. [488]
The inhabitants of Orléans were resolved to fight, not for their honour indeed; in those days no honour redounded to a citizen from the defence of his own city; his only reward was the risk of terrible danger. When the town was captured the great and wealthy had but to pay ransom and the conqueror entertained them well; the lesser and poorer nobility ran greater risks. ”

“ Many times she said to him: "I shall live a year, barely longer. During that year let as much as possible be done." [1143]
Then she enumerated the four charges which she must accomplish during that time. After having delivered Orléans she must drive the Godons out of France, lead the King to be crowned and anointed at Reims and rescue the Duke of Orléans from the hands of the English. [1144] One day she grew impatient and went to the King when he was in one of those closets of carved wainscot constructed in the great castle halls for intimate or family gatherings. ”

“ They were of exquisite quality, and people soon got over their first hesitation, when they found everything orderly, free, and unobjectionable. At these dinners, M. d’Orleans kept within bounds, not only in his discourse, but in his behaviour. But oftentimes his ennui led him to Paris, to join in supper parties and debauchery. Madame la Duchesse d’Orleans tried to draw him from these pleasures by arranging small parties at her pretty little villa, l’Etoile (in the park of Versailles) , which the King had given to her, and which she had furnished in the most delightful manner. ”

“ Foolish or wicked partisans may strive to compromise the safety of France by giving vent to dangerous opinions, by provoking claims injurious to the Royal dignity. Wretches as they are, that they should prove more ambitious, more inexorable than their leaders, is not surprising; they are time-serving friends. When in 1848 the Orléans family went into exile, these men chose an opposite direction. There is not to-day a single loyal and faithful Orleanist who would speak otherwise than we do. ”

“ Seeing that nobody replied, she supported as best she could this poor prince upon the contiguous arms of the two chairs, ran into the grand cabinet, into the chamber, into the ante-chambers, without finding a soul; finally, into the court and the lower gallery. It was the hour at which M. le Duc d'Orleans worked with the King, an hour when people were sure no one would come and see him, and that he had no need of them, because he ascended to the King's room by the little staircase from his vault, that is to say his wardrobe. ”

“ In 1661, Monsieur, brother of the king, took up his official residence in the palace, enlarged it in various directions and in many ways transformed and improved it. Having become the sole proprietor of the edifice and its gardens, by Letters Patent of February, 1692, the Duc d'Orleans left this superb property, in 1701, to his son the too famous regent, Philippe d'Orleans, whose orgies and extravagances rendered the Palais Royal notorious to the utmost corners of Europe.
The first years of the eighteenth century were indeed notorious. ”

“ When the fate of the two nations hung trembling in the balance, the royal army under Turenne advancing on Paris, and almost arrived at the city of Orléans, and that city likely to take the side of the strongest,—then Mademoiselle's hour had come. All her sympathies were more and more inclining to the side of Condé and the people. Orléans was her own hereditary city. Her father, as was his custom in great emergencies, declared that he was very ill and must go to bed immediately; but it was as easy for her to be strong as it was for him to be weak ”

“ It is too true that Madame d'Orleans loves her brother better than her husband.
The Duc du Maine says that if, by his assistance, the King should obtain the direction of his own affairs, he would govern him entirely, and would be more a monarch than the King, and that after my son's death he would reign with his sister. ”

“ 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.] ”

“ Every kind of decency and decorum centred themselves in her, and the most exquisite pride was there upon its throne. Astonishment will be felt at what I am going to say, and yet, however, nothing is more strictly true: it is, that at the bottom of her soul she believed that she, bastard of the King, had much honoured M. d’Orleans in marrying him! M. le Duc d’Orleans often laughed at her pride, called her Madame Lucifer, in speaking to her, and she admitted that the name did not displease her. She always received his advances with coldness, and a sort of superiority of greatness. ”

“ 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 inhabitants of Orléans expected that the Lord [Pg i.237] would not at once answer the prayers of the two confessors. Knowing the sternness of his judgments they feared lest he would reply: "For their sins are the French people justly chastised. They suffer because of their disobedience to Holy Church. From the least to the greatest in the realm each vies with the other in evil-doing. The husbandmen, citizens, lawyers and priests are hard and avaricious; the princes, dukes and noble lords are proud, vain, cursers, swearers, and traitors. ”

“ Oxen, sheep, and pigs were roasted whole, and viands were provided daily for five hundred persons. He had an insane love of pomp and display, and his private devotions were ministered to by a large body of ecclesiastics. His chapel was a marvel of splendour, and was furnished with gold and silver plate in the most lavish manner. His love of colour and movement made him fond of theatrical displays, and it is even said that the play or mystery of Orléans, dealing with the story of Jeanne Darc, was written with his own hand. ”

“ What is incomprehensible is, that for a whole year Maisons pressed his charming project upon us. The worst enemy of M. le Duc d’Orleans could not have devised a more rash and ridiculous undertaking. I doubt whether many people would have been found in all Paris sufficiently deprived of sense to fall in with it. What are we to think then of a Parliamentary President of such consideration as Maisons had acquired at the Palace of justice, at the Court, in the town, where he had always passed for a man of intellect, prudent, circumspect, intelligent, capable, measured? ”

“ He was le Seigneur Jean, Count of Porcien and of Montaing, Grand Chamberlain of France, son of Duke Louis of Orléans, who had been assassinated in 1407 by order of Jean-Sans-Peur, and whose death had armed the Armagnacs against the Burgundians. Dame de Cany was his mother, but he ought to have been the son of the Duchess of Orléans since the Duke was his father. Not only was it no drawback to children to be born outside wedlock and of an adulterous union, but it was a great honor to be called the bastard of a prince. ”

“ What was to become of Orléans? The siege, badly conducted, was causing the English the most grievous disappointments. Further, their captains perceived they would never succeed in taking the town by means of those bastions, between which anything, either men, victuals, or ammunition, could pass, and with an army miserably quartered in mud hovels, ravaged by disease, and reduced by desertions to three thousand, or at the most to three thousand two hundred men. They had lost nearly all their horses. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The enthronement of the Duc d’Orléans was the strange termination of a revolution, carried out mainly by men who were animated by sentiments such as these. Even on the evening of the third day’s fighting, when the Royal troops had been driven from Paris and when the people were in possession of the Tuileries, the Duke’s name was still unmentioned. Most of the Liberal deputies were disposed to make their peace with their lawful king, and to be satisfied with the withdrawal of the unconstitutional ordinances and with the dismissal of the Prince de Polignac and his colleagues in the government. ”

“ The Queen and Orleans were riding in the forest when they were overtaken by the tempest. The Duke took refuge in the Queen’s litter, but the frightened horses nearly drowned them in the Seine. The people declared that it was the judgment of heaven upon tyrants, and Orleans himself appeared impressed. He sent a herald to Paris, and proclaimed that whosoever of his creditors should come on Sunday next to the Hôtel de Behaigne should have his debt discharged in full. On Sunday the halls and anterooms of the ducal palace were crowded with eager burghers. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Yet the twelve were resolved to defend this inheritance; and they acted for the common weal with promptness and with wisdom.
The people of Orléans were not taken by surprise. Their fathers had watched the English closely, and put their city in a state of defence. They themselves, in the year 1425, had so firmly expected a siege that they had collected arms in the Tower of Saint- [Pg i.116] Samson, while all, rich and poor alike, had been required to dig dykes and build ramparts. [492] War has always been costly. ”

“ Of all the provinces through which the Loire flows, the Orléannais is as prolific as any of great names and greater events, and its historical monuments, if not so splendid as those in Touraine, are no less rare.
Orleans itself contains many remarkable Gothic and Renaissance constructions, and not far away is the ancient church of the old abbey of Notre Dame de Cléry, one of the most historic and celebrated shrines in the time of the superstitious Louis XI.; while innumerable mediæval villes and ruined fortresses plentifully besprinkle the province. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Orleans family was more remarkable for the qualities which shine in the middle ranks of life than either for any towering genius or any unscrupulous ambition. Their strength was essentially in this mediocrity, and it was a momentary forgetfulness of that same stronghold—by the Spanish marriage—that cost the King his throne. The truth was, Tom, that the nation never liked us,—they hated England just as they hated it at Cressy, at Blenheim, and at Waterloo, and will hate it, notwithstanding your great Industrial gatherings, to the end of time. ”