Vichy France

“ Considering that, owing to the circumstances above stressed, the Reich and Italy have been forced, in order to safeguard the interests envisaged in the armistice conditions, to face the threat of the Anglo-Saxon nations, and, in consequence, to abolish the Reich frontier in France, the reason for keeping the seat of government in Vichy does not exist any more. ”

“ The march commenced amid a crowd of the inhabitants, which increased every instant. Vizille distinguished itself by its enthusiasm: "It is here the revolution is born," said these brave fellows: "we are the first who have dared to claim the privileges of men: it is here, too, that French liberty revives, and that France recovers its honour and independence." ”

“ The Vicomte shrugged his shoulders, and the other, taking silence for consent, proceeded: "You, Vicomte, are governor of Lusigny for the King of Navarre; I of Créance, for the King of France. Our towns lie only three leagues apart. Could I by any chance, say on one of these fine nights, become master of Lusigny, it would be worth more than two thousand crowns to me. Do you understand?" ”

“ The grave De Thou went on in a calm, gentle voice:
“I shall soon follow you to Paris. I am happier than you at seeing the King take you there with him. You are right in looking upon it as the beginning of a friendship which must be turned to profit. I have reflected deeply on the secret causes of your ambition, and I think I have divined your heart. Yes; that feeling of love for France, which made it beat in your earliest youth, must have gained greater strength. You would be near the King in order to serve your country, in order to put in action those golden dreams of your early years. ”

“ But we must be very cautious, Villequier; we must be very cautious. We must neither seem pleased with this business of the marriage, for then he would suspect us of some concealed design; nor must we oppose him strongly, because that would put him on his guard; and I fear me, that all the crowns in France could not do me so much good as the Duke of Guise could do me harm if he were offended."
"Without being slain," replied Villequier in a low tone. "Oh no, my Lord, I know well, a wounded boar is always the most dangerous." ”

“ Large quantities are bottled and exported. A luxurious bathing establishment, the property of the state, was opened in 1903. In addition to this, Vichy has the hydropathic establishments of Lardy, Larbaud and L'Hôpital, and a large military hospital, founded in 1843. A fine casino and two public parks add to its attraction. The promenade commands a splendid view of the mountains of Auvergne. Cusset, about 1 m. distant, has similar mineral waters and a bathing establishment. ”

“ There are no Bourbons! I am the Emperor of France, and it is to me alone that the French nation owes allegiance!" He looked thoughtfully, with a dark and wrinkled forehead, but, presently lifting his head—"Oh, Caulaincourt," he exclaimed, "I will personally satisfy myself whether the army of the allies is really in our rear, or whether your fears are well grounded. Let us set out for Vitry!"
"Heaven be praised!" replied the Duke de Vicenza, joyfully. "All is not yet lost; for Vitry is on the road to Paris." ”

“ France, subject to the Queen-Mother, of course, was ruled at the time by boys scarce out of their tutors' hands. They were mere lads, hot-blooded, reckless nobles, ready for any wild brawl, without forethought or prudence. Of the four Frenchmen who it is thought took the leading parts, one, the king, was twenty-two; Monsieur, his brother, was only twenty; the Duke of Guise was twenty-one. ”

“ Parcelled out, by virtue of the feudal system, between a multitude of princes, independent, isolated, and scarcely sovereigns in their own dominions, keeping up anything like frequent intercourse only with their neighbors, and loosely united, by certain rules or customs of vassalage, to him amongst them who bore the title of king, the France of the eleventh century existed in little more than name: Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Aquitaine, Poitou, Anjou, Flanders, and Nivernais were the real states and peoples, each with its own distinct life and history. ”

“ It is France herself. Not the France of to-day—banker and bourgeois-ridden; nor the France of the Second Empire—vulgar and painted; nor the Napoleonic France—half a brothel, half a barrack. Across all these and the fumes of the Revolution, Versailles calls to us: “I am France. Before I was built I was born in the dreams of the Gallic people. ”

“ If you will, I can render you an important service; I command a few brave men.”
“What service?” asked Cinq-Mars. “We will see.”
“I commence by a piece of information. This morning while you descended the King’s staircase on one side, Father Joseph ascended the other.”
“Ha! this, then, is the secret of his sudden and inexplicable change! Can it be? A king of France! and to allow us to confide all our secrets to him.”
“Well! is that all? Do you say nothing? You know I have an old account to settle with the Capuchin.” ”

“ A Spanish officer, enveloped in his brown cloak, watched them with a sombre air.
“What demons are these, Ambrosio?” said he to a soldier. “I never have met with any such before in France. If Louis XIII has an entire army thus composed, it is very good of him not to conquer all Europe.”
“Oh, I do not believe they are very numerous; they must be some poor adventurers, who have nothing to lose and all to gain by pillage.” ”

“ The fact was that fear of the Sixteen and of the mob they guided was overpowering Paris--a terror crushing out men's lives. While the provinces of France were divided at this time between two opinions, and half of each as a rule owned the Huguenot Henry the Fourth--now for six months the rightful sovereign--for king, Paris would have none of him. ”

“ At these words, master Pierre de Goux, knight and doctor of laws, advanced, and said aloud to the ambassadors, that all might hear him, 'My lords, the duke, my lord, does not hold all his territories from the king of France: he holds from him, indeed, the duchy of Burgundy, the counties of Flanders and of Artois ”

“ As France has carried farther than other nations this love of facts, and as I had chosen a recent and well-remembered epoch, it seemed to me that I ought not to imitate those foreigners who in their pictures barely show in the horizon the men who dominate their history. I placed ours in the foreground of the scene; I made them leading actors in this tragedy, wherever I endeavored to represent the three kinds of ambition by which we are influenced, and with them the beauty of self-sacrifice to a noble ideal. ”

“ The opinions of the King’s advisers had changed since the days when, in blind fury after the defection of the Duke of Burgundy at Arras in 1435, they had determined on war to the death, and it was realised that peace with France was the only solution of the monetary difficulties of the King and the universal distress throughout the kingdom. ”

“ The culmination of this system, its visible and emphatic symbol, fastened on Paris like a great bloated tumour eating into the heart of France, was Versailles. But compared with class privilege, the Church, and the seigneur, Versailles was a recent phenomenon, invented by Louis XIV little more than one hundred years before the outbreak of the Revolution. At the beginning of the 17th century the French monarchy had somewhat suddenly emerged from the wars of religion immensely strengthened. ”

“ He pointed to the rows of straw beds on which some of his comrades lay asleep, and to the entire lack of comfort in the whitewashed room.
"Some of you English gentlemen," he said, "would hardly like to lie down here side by side with the peasants from their farms, smelling of their barns. But in France it is different. We have aristocrats still, but some of them have to shake down with the poorest comrades and know no distinction of rank now that all wear the same old uniform." ”

“ These two provinces, associated with France for more than two centuries in good and evil fortune and constantly opposed to hostile attack, have consistently sacrificed themselves in the cause of national greatness; they have sealed with their blood the indissoluble compact that binds them to French unity. With one accord, citizens who have remained in their own homes and the soldiers who have hastened to join the colors, proclaim by their votes or by their action on the field, to Germany and to the world, the unalterable determination to remain French. ”

“ One only, the most guilty, yet the least of all, still resists, and it is he who has conducted the whole; it is he who would deliver France into the power of the foreigner, who would overthrow in one single day my labors of twenty years. He would call up the Huguenots of the south, invite to arms all orders of the State, revive crushed pretensions, and, in fact, renew the League which was put down by your father. It is that—do not deceive yourself—it is that which raises so many heads against you. ”

“ It was to the former of these motives that M. de Vergennes appealed in his Note to the king on the effect of the Report. “Your Majesty,” he said, “is enjoying the tranquillity which you owe to the long experience of your ancestors, and to the painful labors of the great ministers who succeeded in establishing subordination and general respect in France. There is no longer in France clergy, or noblesse, or third estate; the distinction is factitious, merely representative and without real meaning; the monarch speaks, all else are people, and all else obey. ”

“ Post scriptum, 28th, in the evening.
I venture to open my letter again, for this day has brought us news from France, which one can only call horrible. According to what we hear, there is no longer left a King in France. A regency, a government, and the most complete anarchy has ensued, under the name of the Republic—a condition of things in which, at first, there will be no possibility of communicating with the people, infuriated with crime. ”

“ While the Duke of Vicenza was at Chatillon or Lusigny for the purpose of treating for a peace, the orders of the Emperor delayed or hastened the conclusion of the treaty according to his successes or repulses. On the appearance of a ray of hope he demanded more than they were willing to grant, imitating in this respect the example which the allied sovereigns had set him, whose requirements since the armistice of Dresden increased in proportion as they advanced towards France. At last everything was finally broken off, and the Duke of Vicenza rejoined his Majesty at Saint-Dizier. ”

“ A good many of the poorer people who quitted Paris with us never repaired to Versailles at all, but left us at Corbeil or elsewhere to make their way across France as best they could. Another party, about one hundred strong, was, however, subsequently sent out of the capital with the assistance of Mr. Washburne, and in their case Colonel Walker had to expend some money. ”

“ The means by which Henry won for a time the support of Turenne (and incidentally procured his consent to my marriage) are now too notorious to require explanation. Nevertheless, it was not until the Vicomte’s union a year later with Mademoiselle de la Marck, who brought him the Duchy of Bouillon, that I thoroughly understood the matter; or the kindness peculiar to the king, my master, which impelled that great monarch, in the arrangement of affairs so vast, to remember the interests of the least of his servants. ”

“ When the musicians had finished, the drums beat a roll, and a gentleman covered with gold lace, got up and spoke, showing a large representation of a soldier in full uniform.. 'By the authority of his majesty,' said he, 'I am here to explain to the subjects of the king of France the advantages which he offers in admitting them to his colonies. Young men who are round me, you must have heard of the land of Cocagne, and it is to India that we must go to find this fortunate country. ”

“ It is the foreigner's point of view of us. But in France, in war time, in a country all vibrant with emotionalism, this restraint of manner and speech and utter disregard of all "problems" and mysteries of life, and quiet, cheerful acceptation of the job in hand, startled the imagination of Englishmen who had been long enough away from home to stand aloof and to study those officers with a fresh vision. ”

“ The two barons, immediately mounting their horses, left the prince, and made for a small hillock, that they might look about them. From their stand they perceived a crowd of men-at-arms on foot, who were advancing very slowly. The king of France was in the midst of them, and in great danger ”

“ It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,—glittering like the morning-star, full of life and splendor and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what an heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! ”

“ Monsieur de Villequier, might see wavering and hesitation; I might grow tired of waiting and dependence; I might say to-morrow I have no certainty in this business, and I might give my banner to the wind, broider the cross of the League upon my breast, or assume the double cross of Lorraine, and either range the spears of Montsoreau and Logères in the ranks of the army of Mayenne, or marching to Chartres, Tours, or Blois, might bow me lowly to my Lord of Guise, and begging him to forget the past, swear myself his faithful servant. ”