Memoirs of the Duchesse de Dino (Afterwards Duchesse de Talleyrand et de Sagan), 1836-1840

19

Queen Wilhelmina of the Low Countries was the daughter of King Frederick William II. of Prussia, and sister of the king then reigning, Frederick William III.

20

M. Bresson was the French Minister at Berlin.

21

Princess Albert of Prussia was a princess of the Low Countries.

22

We have been unable to find them.

23

An estate belonging to the Duchesse de Dino in Silesia.

24

Princess Metternich had used some discourteous terms concerning the assumption of the crown by Louis-Philippe in 1830.

25

The Liberal ideas of the Archduke Charles had induced Prince Metternich to remove this prince from the Court and to regard him with suspicion. They had almost quarrelled.

26

Extract from a letter.

27

Daughter of the Marshal of Albuféra.

28

Yolande de Valençay.

29

The Baroness of Mengden, niece of the Princesse de Lieven, afterwards lived at Carlsruhe, where she was abbess of a noble chapter. She was very tall, especially in the upper part of her body, and any one seated by her side at dinner was obliged to raise his head in order to see her face. As she was very good-natured, she became to some extent her aunt's drudge; at Valençay, when the Princesse de Lieven stayed there, she gave her niece her jewel-box to keep when she was out driving, so that the Baroness of Mengden could rarely take part in these excursions.

30

French Ambassador at St. Petersburg.

31

On the evening of June 25, 1836, a young man aged twenty-six, named Louis Alibaud, shot at the king in the court of the Tuileries when Louis-Philippe was reviewing the National Guard and the drummers were beating a march.

32

English Ambassador at Constantinople.

33

Reis Effendi was the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Turkey.

34

The widow of Napoleon I.

35

Sieyès died at Paris, June 28, 1836.

36

General Fagel had been the ambassador of the King of the Low Countries in France under the Restoration.

37

M. Decazes then acted as chief referendary to the Chamber of Peers.

38

A violent newspaper quarrel brought about a meeting between Armand Carrel, editor of Le National, and Emile de Girardin, editorLa Presse. A pistol duel took place on July 28 in the wood of Vincennes. Armand Carrel was severely wounded in the stomach, and died the next day, after expressing a definite wish for burial in a cemetery without any Church service.

39

In the month of June 1836 a conflagration, supposed to be caused by the carelessness of some plumbers, completely destroyed the chestnut beam-work of the cathedral, which was the admiration of visitors and was known as "the Forest." A great number of old windows were broken or melted, and the bells were seriously damaged. For several hours the fire threatened to spread to the whole of the lower town. The important work of repair lasted for several years.

40

The Comte Paul de Périgord.

41

M. Thiers.

42

The institution of the famous Madame Campan, now the school of Ecouen.

43

French Ambassador in Spain.

44

This estate was the Val Richer, where M. Guizot lived until his death.

45

The Ministry was composed as follows: M. Molé, President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs; M. Guizot, Minister of Public Instruction; M. Persil, Minister of Justice; M. Duchâtel, Financial Minister; M. de Gasparin, Minister of the Interior, with M. de Rémusat as Under-Secretary of State; M. Martin du Nord, Minister of Commerce and Public Works; General Bernard, Minister of War; and Admiral Rosamel, Minister of Naval Affairs.

46

See above, p. 63.

47

St. Maurice was the patron saint of the Prince de Talleyrand.

48

This note upon Valençay was printed in 1848 by Crapelet, Rue de Vaugirard, at Paris, with the dedication to which the author here refers. This curious work is quoted by Larousse in his great "Dictionnaire universel du Dix-neuvième Siècle," under "Valençay." It has become scarce, but several copies exist.

49

The Obelisk of Luxor was given to King Louis-Philippe by Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt. It was removed from its place before the Temple of Luxor, carried to Paris, and erected in the Place de la Concorde in 1836.

50

With the Comtesse Camille de Sainte-Aldegonde.

51

On October 26, 1836, Prince Louis Bonaparte, accompanied by his friend M. de Persigny, and supported by Colonel Vaudrey, attempted to begin a military revolt and to overthrow the king, Louis-Philippe.

52

Afterwards Napoleon III.

53

Charles X. had just died at Goritz, in Austria, on November 6, 1836.

54

The Queen of Portugal had been forced, after several outbreaks, to accept the Radical Constitution of 1820. In November she began a counter-revolution, helped by Palmella, Terceira, and Saldanha, believing, at the instigation of England, that the population of Lisbon would support her, and proposing to dismiss her Ministers. She had been wrongly informed concerning the popular feeling, and was forced to abandon the struggle.

55

M. de Polignac, who was a prisoner at Ham, had demanded from M. Molé his transference to a sanatorium.

56

His punishment had been commuted to perpetual banishment.

57

The Ministry was composed as follows: M. Molé, President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs; M. Barthe, Minister of Justice; M. de Montalivet, Minister of the Interior; M. Lacave-Laplagne, Financial Minister; M. de Salvandy, Minister of Public Instruction. General Bernard, Admiral de Rosamel, and M. Martin du Nord retained their portfolios; M. de Rémusat, Under-Secretary of State, followed his Minister into retirement.

58

Marianne Leopoldine, Archduchess of Austria-Este, born in 1771, married the Elector Charles Theodore of Bavaria. After her husband's death she married the Grand Master of his Court, the Comte Louis Arco. This princess died in 1848.

59

On December 27, 1836, at the opening of the Parliamentary session, another attempt was made upon the life of King Louis-Philippe as he was driving to the Palais Bourbon with three of his sons. The criminal was Meunier, a young man aged twenty-two, who was condemned to death by the Chamber of Peers; but the King eventually secured a commutation of his penalty to perpetual banishment on the occasion of the marriage of the Duc d'Orléans.

60

The birthday of Louis-Philippe.

61

This embassy of honour was sent to meet the royal bride; the meeting took place at Fulda on May 22, 1837.

62

The reference is to a law concerning the estimates for the secret police fund.

63

The Comte de Lezay-Marnesia.

64

The Comtesse de Lobau.

65

On the occasion of the marriage of the Duc d'Orléans an amnesty was granted by ordinance dated May 8 to all who were in prison for crimes or political delinquencies.

66

Fräulein Sidonie von Dieskau, of whom mention will be made later on the occasion of the Duchesse de Talleyrand's journey to Germany.

67

Baron Werther was Prussian Minister at Paris from 1824.

68

Comte Lehon was Belgian Minister.

69

Mgr. Gallard.

70

His Excellency Mohammed Nouri Effendi.

71

At the Palace of the Tuileries the Pavillon Marsan was occupied by the Duc and Duchesse d'Orléans, while the Pavillon de Flore was occupied by Madame Adélaïde, sister of King Louis-Philippe.

72

The Castle of Mecklenburg, where the princess had been brought up.

73

As Rochecotte was without any water-supply, and the hillside upon which the castle was built was quite bare, hydraulic rams were introduced. These were the first imported to France. The Duchesse de Dino had them made in England, and insisted that French measures should be transposed exactly into English, and English into French, with the result that when they were set up at Rochecotte, where they still stand, the measurements were found to be exact.

74

Luçay de Male is a dependency of the estate of Valençay. By its architecture the castle of Luçay seems to belong to the same age as that of Valençay. It is in a fine situation, overlooking the ironworks, the fine lake which provides it with water, the town of Luçay, and picturesque ravines.

75

In 1836 Marshal Clausel, who was then Governor of Algeria, attacked the Bey of Constantine unsuccessfully; upon his failure the army, which was weakened, was obliged to raise the siege of the town and to retreat by forced marches in the midst of continual attacks from the Arab troops. General de Rigny, who was stationed in the rearguard, bore the whole weight of this disastrous retreat. In spite of his efforts he found that his general had singled him out in an order of the day for a formal accusation of treacherous insinuations and advice, and had declared him a rebel and an unworthy officer. General de Rigny demanded to be judged by a court-martial, and secured a verdict of acquittal, which was unanimously given in 1837.

76

Careggi forms part of the town of Fiesole, near Florence. Several villas stand about the neighbourhood, the most famous being that which was built by the Medici, which contains several Renaissance masterpieces. The Grand Dukes of Tuscany offered the use of it to distinguished foreigners who stayed at Florence. In this way M. Thiers occupied it in 1837. In 1848 the Princess of Parma sought refuge there in her flight from the revolutions. This villa still belongs to the house of Lorraine.

77

See p. 120.

78

It was proposed to erect upon the Pantheon a colossal statue of Renown to replace the cross removed in 1831 from what was at that time the Church of Sainte-Geneviève. Cortot was commissioned with this work, and set up a model in carton-pierre. Criticism unanimously condemned it, and the statue was taken down after some time.

79

Baron Louis died at Vry-sur-Marne, near Paris, on August 26, 1837.

80

Francis Macdonald had been appointed Minister of War at Naples by King Murat in 1814.

81

Princess Louisa of Baden, the eldest daughter of the Grand Duchess Stephanie of Baden, had married a Prince Wasa. Her household was constantly disturbed by quarrels, which the Grand Duchess was continually trying to heal, though for a long time without success.

82

The Archbishop of Cologne and the Prussian Government differed on the question of mixed marriages. The Archbishop wished to appeal to the Pope, and the Government had him arrested on November 28, 1837. He remained a prisoner for four years at Minden, and never re-entered his diocese, where his coadjutor took his place on his death in 1845. The Archbishop of Cologne, Baron Droste de Vischering, was born in 1773.

83

The Duchesse de Dino suffered from a much more severe illness than she relates. It is to this period that she ascribed those inward changes which then took place in the case of M. de Talleyrand, and gradually brought him back to the Christian faith.

84

A book recently published by M. Jean Hanotau, Letters of Prince Metternich to the Comtesse de Lieven (1818-1819), shows that it was Prince Metternich who set these two ladies against one another.

85

M. de Flahaut and General Baudrand were in constant rivalry with one another. They were continually quarrelling about their official duties in attendance upon the Duc d'Orléans, and in February 1838 they were intriguing to be sent to the coronation of Queen Victoria.

86

For the speech of M. de Talleyrand see III Appendix.

87

The Abbé de Ravignan had taken the place of Lacordaire in the pulpit of Notre-Dame.

88

The reference is to the letter which the Prince de Talleyrand wrote to Rome retracting the errors of his life, which had incurred the censure of the Church.

89

Better known under the title of La Chute d'un Ange (The Fallen Angel), the opening of the poem called Jocelyn.

90

The manuscript in question was an account of the last moments of the Prince de Talleyrand, written by the Abbé Dupanloup, afterwards Bishop of Orleans. The author never printed it, and bequeathed it, with all his papers concerning the Prince de Talleyrand, to M. Hilaire de Lacombe, who sent them to the Abbé Lagrange, afterwards Bishop of Chartres. He only used them for purposes of frequent quotation in the life of the Bishop Dupanloup, which he wrote some years ago, and two chapters of which are devoted to M. de Talleyrand. These papers are now in the possession of M. Bernard de Lacombe. The letter of the Duchesse de Talleyrand, transcribed in this volume, is reproduced here, although I have already published it in Le Temps of April 30, 1908.

91

M. de Talleyrand had spoken strongly in favour of the Concordat. The Pope was aware of the fact, and on March 10, 1802, addressed a Papal letter to him which authorised him to re-enter civil life, though expressed in somewhat vague terms.

92

The Archbishop de Quélen, who was out of sympathy with the Government of 1830, was threatened in 1831 by an insurrection which pillaged the Archbishop's residence in Paris. As he then had no official residence, he took refuge first in the Convent of the Ladies of St. Michel of Paris, and then in that of the Ladies of the Sacré Cœur at Conflans, a short distance outside the town.

93

The Eighteenth Century.

94

The funerals of the Prince de Talleyrand, of his brother, the Duc de Talleyrand, and of the little Yolande de Périgord, daughter of the Duc and Duchesse de Valençay, who died in childhood, took place on September 6, 1838, at Valençay. The three coffins were placed in a vault which the Prince de Talleyrand had constructed during his lifetime.

95

The Prince de Talleyrand's footmen.

96

Zoé was a negress in the service of the Vicomtesse de Laval, to whom she showed the greatest devotion. In 1838, after the death of the Vicomtesse, Zoé was taken into service by the Duchesse Mathieu de Montmorency, daughter-in-law of Madame de Laval, who lived upon the estate of Bonnétable, where Zoé ended her days in peace.

97

February 6 is St. Dorothea's Day, the patron saint of the Duchesse de Talleyrand.

98

The first wife of Prince Christian of Denmark was Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Unfaithful to her husband, she was separated from him in 1809, and divorced by order of the king in 1810. She died in 1840 at Rome, where she had lived after her conversion to Catholicism. She was born in 1784, and married in 1806.

99

After the death of the Prince de Talleyrand the Duchesse de Talleyrand sold the residence in the Rue Saint-Florentin to the Rothschilds. This house she had inherited from the Prince. She then settled in a large suite of rooms in the residence of the Marquis de Galliffet, Rue de Grenelle.

100

Mlle. Pauline de Périgord did in fact marry M. de Castellane, on April 11, 1839. He then assumed the title of Marquis from his grandfather, who had just died. His father, General de Castellane, afterwards Marshal of France, yielded the title to him on the occasion of his marriage and never bore it himself. From his grandmother, who brought him up, the old Marchioness de Castellane, née Rohan-Chabot, whose first husband, the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, had left her a large fortune, M. de Castellane received as a wedding-gift the property of Aubijou, in Auvergne, in the department of Cantal, which will often be mentioned in these memoirs.

101

Extract from a letter to M. de Bacourt.

102

The daughter of Princess William of Prussia to whom reference is here made married the King of Bavaria a short time afterwards.

103

After the vote upon the secret service funds in March 1840 one of the Deputies, M. Remilly, attempted to embarrass the Ministry by a proposal for Parliamentary reform, providing that Deputies should not be promoted to salaried posts or secure promotion for their Parliamentary life in the following year.

104

M. Bourbon de Sarty was the prefect of Marne.

105

Nachod, an estate in Bohemia with a vast castle built by the Piccolomini, had been bought by the Duc de Courlande. His eldest daughter, Wilhelmine de Sagan, had inherited it, and died there in 1839. Nachod was then sold to the Princes of Schaumburg-Lippe, who still retain it.

106

The Marquis de Brignole-Sale.

107

The vast plain of the Mitija is situated to the south of Algiers, and extends between two mountainous zones of the Atlas and the Sahel. It is famous for its fertility, for which reason the Arabs call it "the Mother of the Poor."]

108

M. Guizot was then Ambassador at London.

109

The third husband of the eldest sister of the Duchesse de Talleyrand.

110

Stanislas Augustus Poniatowski, last King of Poland.

111

M. Léon de Beaumont, the son of Fénelon's sister.

112

Mgr. Affre.

113

On June 6, 1840, a young man named Oxford, afterwards thought to be mentally weak, fired two pistol-shots at Queen Victoria as she was driving through the streets of London, accompanied by her husband, Prince Albert.

114

Herr von Hübner was Austrian Ambassador in France under the Second Empire, before the Italian War.

115

The complications of the Eastern question nearly plunged France into war about this time. Syria had revolted, and the English, who objected to the power of the Egyptian Viceroy, Mehemet Ali, joined Prussia, Austria, and Russia, excluding France, whom Lord Palmerston knew to be unduly favourable to Egypt, and secretly signed the treaty at London on July 15, 1840, restoring Syria to the Sultan.

116

Extract from a letter.

117

On August 6, 1840, Prince Louis Bonaparte took advantage of the excitement caused by the approach of the date when Napoleon's remains were to be brought back to Paris, and made an attempt at Boulogne-sur-Mer to restore Napoleon's dynasty to the throne of France. On this occasion the Prince was arrested and tried before the Chamber of Peers. He was defended by Berryer, and was condemned to perpetual confinement in the castle of Ham in 1846. He succeeding in escaping, and went first to Belgium, and thence to England.

118

Lord Palmerston secured the signing of a convention by which the four Powers undertook to give the Porte any necessary support to reduce the Pasha and protect Constantinople as far as needful against his attacks.

119

In 1840 the Sultan was Abdul Mejed, who ascended the throne the preceding year.

120

Rosas secured his appointment in 1829 as Governor of Buenos Ayres in 1835. This dictator had a serious quarrel with France owing to his refusal to satisfy the claims of the French residents. After a long blockade the quarrel was satisfactorily terminated in 1840 by Admiral de Mackau.

121

The Princesse de Lieven had hired in the house recently bought by M. de Rothschild in the Rue Saint-Florentin the first-floor rooms, which the Prince de Talleyrand had occupied for many years when he was in possession of this residence. The Princesse thought that there she could recover the political atmosphere which suited her taste. She stayed there until her death in 1857.

122

The Duchesse de Talleyrand had bought a little house with a court and garden at Paris in the Rue de Lille, No. 73, in the year 1840. This house, which in size was a mere temporary abode, was bought in 1862 by the Comtesse de Bagneux.

123

After ending the civil war (aroused by Don Carlos on the death of his brother, Ferdinand VII.) by the capitulation of Bergara, Marie Christina attempted to begin a reactionary policy. In 1840 she presented to the Cortes the law of the Ayuntamientos, intended as a restriction upon municipal freedom. An insurrection at once broke out in Barcelona, and rapidly spread to Madrid and a large number of other towns. This movement was supported by Espartero. The Queen-Regent summoned him and commissioned him to form a Ministry on September 16, 1840, but he imposed such severe conditions upon her that she thought acceptance impossible. On October 2 she resigned the regency.

124

Madame Lafarge, with whom several people in French society were compromised, was first accused of stealing diamonds and then of poisoning her husband. The first accusation was never entirely cleared up, but the second was proved. The Court of Assizes condemned Madame Lafarge to penal servitude. She remained in prison for twelve years, at the end of which she was pardoned owing to her enfeebled health. She died a few months later, in 1852.

125

At the age of fourteen the Duc de Richelieu, then Duc de Fronsac, married Mlle. de Noailles, by order of King Louis XIV. In 1734, after the sieges of Kehl and Philippsburg, where he greatly distinguished himself, Richelieu married Mlle. de Guise, Princess of Lorraine, and at the age of eighty-two he married a third wife, Madame de Roothe. It is said that after the marriage ceremony he went home to change his clothes, threw down the ribbon of his order on the bed, and said to his footman: "You can go; the Holy Spirit will do the rest."]

126

King Frederick William IV. was not exactly crowned, but he went to Königsberg to receive the homage (die Huldigung) of his subjects, who took the oath of fidelity to him through their Deputies on September 10, 1840.

127

From Racine's tragedy Britannicus, Act IV. scene ii.

128

The memorandum addressed by the French Government to Lord Palmerston will be found in the Appendix.

129

Beyrout had been taken from Turkey by Ibrahim Pasha, whose victories had subjugated the whole of Syria for the Viceroy of Egypt. As this expedition threatened the Ottoman Empire, and, in fact, nearly brought about a European war, the town of Beyrout was bombarded and captured from Mehemet Ali by an Anglo-Austrian squadron in 1840.

130

I.e. the Journal des Débats.

131

This piece is to be found in the History of Madame de Maintenon and the Chief Events of the Reign of Louis XIV., the first part of which was to appear in 1848.

132