Regent of France

“ I can call upon the Queen-Regent of France herself to do me [pg 259] justice; I can invoke the two years of that regency, so full of trial, of struggle, and of calamity, during which I have at times perilled my head to ensure alike the tranquillity and the triumph of my august mistress; I can quote the several cabals which I have helped to crush; and, above all, I can prove the fidelity and submission with which I have constantly obeyed the behests of my sovereign lady. All this is, however, worse than idle; the servant only sins the more in every attempt at self-justification. ”

“ The signature of the regent of France must have as much weight at Rome as that of a wicked cardinal."
"Dubois," said the regent, "a little more respect, if you please, for the princes of the Church."
"You are right, monseigneur. There is no saying what one may become." ”

“ At the assembly of barons called to choose a regent, Edward III. of England, the nephew and nearest male relation of Charles IV., put in a claim. Edward III., however, descended from the royal house of France by his mother Isabel, and the barons, probably actuated by an objection to the regency of an English king, decided that neither a woman, “nor by consequence her son, could succeed to the kingdom of France,” and Philip of Valois, in spite of his belonging to a junior branch of the family, was elected regent. ”

“ But the princes escaped from the net, and, leagued with Turenne, Bouillon, La Rochefoucault, and other great nobles reached Paris, and were received with acclamations of joy by the misguided people. Then, again, they obtained the ascendant. But the ascendency was no sooner gained than the victors quarrelled with themselves, and with the parliament, for whose cause they professed to contend. It was in their power, when united, to have deprived the queen regent of her authority, and to have established constitutional liberty in France. ”

“ October 29, 1810.
“——In answer to lord Wellesley’s queries respecting the Portuguese Regency, my opinion is that the Regency ought to be appointed by the Prince Regent, but during his pleasure; they ought to have full power to act in every possible case, to make appointments to offices, to dismiss from office, to make and alter laws, in short, every power which the prince himself could possess if he were on the spot. They ought to report, in detail, their proceedings on every subject, and their reasons for the adoption of every measure. ”

“ All the vices thus imputed to the Regent did not perish with him, when he succumbed at forty-nine years of age under their fatal effects. “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones;” the Regency was the signal for an irregularity of morals which went on increasing, like a filthy river, up to the end of the reign of Louis XV. ”

“ The Regent saw the necessity of firmness. “It is a maxim,” he declared, “that the king is always a major as regards justice; that which was done without the states-general has no need of their intervention to be undone.” The decree of the council of regency, based on the same principles, suppressed the right of succession to the crown, and cut short all pretensions on the part of the legitimatized princes’ issue to the rank of princes of the blood ”

“ France will rub her eyes and begin to awaken. Then, since the king can do no wrong, and since the regent is the king, your Grace can do one of two things. He can send a body-guard to watch my door, or he can see John Law torn into fragments, as these people would tear the real author of their undoing, did they but recognize him. ”

“ Poor France was again at the mercy of a woman with the corrupt instincts of the de Medici. The widow of Henry IV., who was Regent during the infancy of her son Louis, was intriguing, vulgar, and without the ability of the great Catharine. The kingdom was rent by cabals of aspiring favorites and ambitious nobles, until the reign of Louis XIII., or rather of Cardinal Richelieu, began. ”

“ Regent means a person ruling instead of the king. Everyone expected that, as he had always quarreled with his father, he would change everything and have different ministers; but instead of that, he went on just as had been done before, fighting with the French, and helping every country that tried to lift up its head against Bonaparte.
Spain was one of these countries. Napoleon had managed to get the king, and queen, and eldest son, all into his hands together, shut them up as prisoners in France, and made his own brother king. ”

“ The regency belongs to the kinsman of the king nearest in degree, according to the order of inheritance to the throne, and fully twenty-five years of age, provided that he be French and native born, that he be not heir presumptive of another crown, and that he has previously taken the civic oath.
Women are excluded from the regency.
3. If a minor king has no kinsman uniting the qualifications above set forth, the regent of the kingdom shall be elected as provided in the following articles. ”

“ The 18th century, like the 17th, opened with a political coup d’état. Louis XV. was five years old, and the duke of Orleans held the regency. But Louis XIV. had in his will delegated all the power of the government to a The Regency (1715-1723) . council on which the duke of Maine, his legitimated son, had the first, but Madame de Maintenon and the Jesuits the predominant place. This collective administration, designed to cripple the action of the regent, encountered a twofold opposition from the nobles and the parlement ”

“ They knew the regent to be weak and timid; they did not know him to be deceitful—so deceitful that, within six weeks after the last of the messengers were despatched with the above-named proclamation, immediately on the return from France of his brother, the Abbot of Paisley, others were secretly sent off to inform the holy father of his accession to the regency, to put himself and the kingdom under his protection, and to ask permission to have under his control the income of the benefices of the king's sons till they should come of age. ”

“ Holinshed records that at the expiration of York's term as Regent of France (in 1446) , 'he returned home, and was ioifullie receiued of the king with thanks for his good seruice, as he had full well deserued in time of that his gouernement: and, further, that now, when a new regent was to be chosen and sent ouer, to abide vpon safegard of the countries beyond the seas as yet subiect to the English dominion, the said duke of Yorke was eftsoones (as a man most meet to supplie that roome) appointed to go ouer againe, as regent of France, with all his former allowances. ”

“ The example of the regent was refined on and extended in this reign. The petits soupers of the king were cited as models of delicacy and gourmandise. The kitchen in France, as in all the world over, requires “the cankers of a calm world and a long peace,” to sustain and support it; while the troubles of the League and the Fronde, the temperament of Louis XIV., and the despotic and tempestuous character of Richelieu, interfered with its progress in former reigns. ”

“ An hour or two afterwards, when he paid his usual visit to the Regent, her Majesty rose on his entrance, according to the established etiquette, and made him a profound curtsey. "I should prefer, Madame," said the young Prince, "fewer curtseys and fewer floggings." [51]
At the commencement of June intelligence reached the Court of the death of the Archbishop of [pg 062] Rouen, the natural brother of the late King, and it was no sooner authenticated than the Regent hastened to bestow his abbey of St. ”

“ In his will, Louis XIV. had named the Duc de Bourbon a member of the Council of Regency, as soon as he should reach the age of twenty-four; but on the death of le Grand Monarque, his wishes were immediately set aside, and the Regent, the Duc d’Orléans, proceeded to appoint the Council himself, with Monsieur le Duc as its president. ”

“ The earlier story of her still young life must here be told, because her name afterward became famous, and because the tale illustrates wonderfully well the raw, crude, lawless period of the Regency, when England was fighting her long war with Napoleon, when the Prince Regent was imitating all the vices of the old French kings, when prize-fighting, deep drinking, dueling, and dicing were practised without restraint in all the large cities and towns of the United Kingdom. ”

“ The nine years of the Regency were momentous years in the history of England. The mighty figure of Napoleon, whose shadow, creeping over the map of Europe, had darkened and shortened the life of Pitt, was still an abiding menace to England when the Prince of Wales became Regent. But England, that had lost so much in her struggle with the Corsican conqueror, who had now no Nelson to oppose to him on the high seas, and no Pitt to oppose to him in the council chamber, found herself armed against his triumphs in the person of a great soldier. ”

“ One would have lingering wars with little cost;
Another would fly swift, but wanteth wings;
A third thinks, without expense at all, 76
By guileful fair words peace may be obtain'd.
Awake, awake, English nobility!
Let not sloth dim your honours new-begot:
Cropp'd are the flower-de-luces in your arms; 80
Of England's coat one half is cut away.
Exe. Were our tears wanting to this funeral
These tidings would call forth their flowing tides.
Bed. Me they concern; Regent I am of France. 84
Give me my steeled coat: I'll fight for France. ”

“ If, the Emperor not having designated the regent, none of the French princes have fully completed twenty-five years, the Senate elects the regent from the titular grand dignitaries of the Empire. If, by reason of the minority in age of the prince summoned to the regency in the order of heredity, it has been bestowed upon a more remote kinsman, or upon one of the titular grand dignitaries of the Empire, the regent who has entered upon his functions continues until the majority of the Emperor. ”

“ According to all the old principles of law and policy, a regency ought to have been appointed by the French princes of the blood, nobles, and parliaments, and then recognized by the combined powers. Fundamental law and ancient usage, as well as the clear reason of the thing, have always ordained it during an imprisonment of the king of France: as in the case of John, and of Francis the First. A monarchy ought not to be left a moment without a representative having an interest in the succession. ”

“ Yet why should not the education of the young Henry, the future heir of the French monarchy, be conducted in the same spirit as would have been that of the young Napoleon? There exists, indeed, but too much cause why it should be so conducted, as to form a leader fit to head the armies and direct the energies of France. ”

“ 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. ”

“ King Francis, on his succession, might, however, have annulled this dangerous favour. No wise sovereign would permit a prince, young, popular, of a great race, and immensely rich, to remain Constable of France An office so powerful, if occupied at all, should only be filled, as a compliment to bygone valour, by some decrepit general too old to mutiny. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As to any advantages which the imperial crown may bring, we think that our sovereign, the King of France, who is raised to the throne by the hereditary nobility of his royal blood, is high above an Emperor who owes his elevation to an election which may be refused. ”

“ The Regent was a man who had few equals, in every kind of talent and acquirement. The Prince de Conti, who was elected King of Poland, was celebrated for his intelligence, and, in poetry, was the successful rival of La Fare and St. Aulaire. The Duke of Burgundy was learned and enlightened. His Duchess, the daughter of Louis XIV., was remarkably clever, and wrote epigrams and couplets. The Duc du Maine is generally spoken of only for his weakness, but nobody had a more agreeable wit. ”

“ The Chief-President and the King’s people were at once sent for to the Palais Royal, and the Parliament, which was about to adjourn, was continued for all the rest of the month for general business. On the morrow, the Regent, who was wearied with Versailles,—for he liked to live in Paris, where all his pleasures were within easy reach,—and who met with opposition from the Court doctors, all comfortably lodged at Versailles, to the removal of the person of the King to Vincennes, under pretext of a slight cold, fetched other doctors from Paris, who had been sent for to see the deceased King. ”