Chateaubriand himself, hoping to be confirmed as Minister of the Interior, was blocked not only by Talleyrand, who mocked the idea of a poet becoming a politician, but by Louis himself, who considered Chateaubriand to be a difficult, egotistical and brooding presence. The ‘large and tender’ Lally-Tollendal, on the other hand, was rewarded with a peerage. And, once the Académie Française had been purged of Bonapartists and revolutionaries, he was given a seat where, freed from the Princesse d’Hénin’s ruthless pruning of his clichés and platitudes, he became known for his interminable monologues about the past. Both he and the Princesse were in their late 60s, and in their rented house in Auteuil, which had a magnificent garden of cedars, they once again lit the flame of 18th-century conversation.
Lucie had not been looking forward to the return to Paris, fearing the ugly repercussions of Napoleon’s second defeat. Frédéric was still ambassador to Holland and she was hoping that he might be posted to London instead. What she dreaded most was the idea that he could be recalled to court, ‘the thought of which,’ she told Mme de Staël, ‘makes me feverish’. All that reconciled her to the idea of the second Restoration was the thought of seeing ‘our dear and admirable Duke of Wellington again’. Soon after the Battle of Waterloo, Wellington had told Frédéric that he felt that he had ‘bought the glory of saving France at not too high a price, but that it had personally cost him the lives of men he loved, who knew the secrets of his soul, and that he never wished for glory of this kind again’. To Charlotte, Lucie wrote: ‘How one admires such goodness in so great a man.’
That autumn, while over a million Prussians, Austrians, Dutch, Russians, Bavarians, Germans, Scandinavians and even Swiss occupied large swathes of France, there were savage reprisals against those who had risen in support of Napoleon in the south. ‘We have conquered France,’ George Canning, who as British Prime Minister had helped orchestrate the war against Napoleon, said to Mme de Staël, ‘and we want to crush her so profoundly that she will not stir again for ten years.’ If the British troops were more or less kept in order by Wellington’s insistence on discipline, the Austrians, and above all the Prussians, drank, looted and raped unchecked. In the Bois de Boulogne, the Allied cavalry was said not to have ‘left wood enough to make a toothpick of’. ‘Mercy,’ observed Mme de Rémusat, ‘is not fashionable this season.’ Lady Jerningham, crossing the Channel once again to visit Lucie and the French Dillons, remarked that the Faubourg Saint-Germain had become ‘very dismal’ now that it was overrun with foreign soldiers.
One of Frédéric’s first duties in the new Chamber of Peers was to try Maréchal Ney, the soldier who had fought so bravely in Russia for the Emperor, then switched allegiance to Louis XVIII, only to join forces with Napoleon once again. Ney could very easily have escaped, but he allowed himself to be arrested, asking only that he be tried, as was his right, by the peers. All but one of the 162 present that day voted him guilty of high treason. Frédéric was one of the 139 who also voted for his death, but who at the same time appealed to the King to show mercy. Louis chose not to. Ney’s wife, Aglae, frantically trying to save her husband’s life, begged Wellington to intervene. He refused, saying that he was merely a servant of the Allies. Maréchal Ney was a much-loved and very brave man; indeed he was known as ‘the bravest of the brave’. He was shot in front of a wall in the Luxembourg Gardens, having himself given the order to fire.
All over France, investigations were being launched into how individual people had behaved during the Hundred Days; almost a quarter of all civil servants would lose their jobs in the ‘épurations’, the purges, that followed. Frédéric was nearly one of them. Metternich, who had long disliked and mistrusted him, suggested that someone with a less equivocal past should be posted as ambassador to Holland; but this Louis refused to do. It was a measure of Frédéric’s perceived honesty, his transparent desire to do the right thing, and to admit freely to mistakes and lapses of judgement, that his years of service to Napoleon were not held against him. He did not apologise for them, but he made it plain that he now intended to give his full support to the restored Bourbons, and that his belief in monarchy was absolute. It was the lack of fuss and speed with which both he and Lucie had rallied to Louis that sometimes made them appear unprincipled.
It was Britain which now emerged from the Napoleonic Wars as master of the world’s largest empire. The final act of the Congress, signed on 9 June 1815, would keep the peace in Europe for almost another 30 years. Sovereignty was seen to lie no longer in the legitimacy of their dynastic ruling houses but in the legally defined states themselves.
In Paris, a new elective Chamber of Deputies–men who were ‘pure but moderate’–with the numbers increased from 262 to 402 and the age of voters reduced from 30 to 21, brought to power an unexpected majority of royalists. The casualties of Napoleon’s Hundred Days included the two most powerful intriguers of their day, Talleyrand and Fouché, the mood of France having swung against apostate bishops and regicides. Talleyrand’s fall, however, was softened when he was offered the position of Grand Chamberlain, which brought with it 100,000 francs a year and inclusion at every important occasion. As Lucie had long remarked, Talleyrand was a ‘wily old fox’. The Duc de Richelieu, grandson of the famous Maréchal de Richelieu, who had fled marriage with Lucie’s friend, the hunchback Rosalie-Sabine de Rochechouart, and served for many years in Russia, was invited to form a new government. Richelieu was seen as uncontaminated by recent events. Sensitive, modest and loyal, he soon won respect from the Allies, but his inexperience led to a feeble team of ministers. His first task, to restore stability to France, was made all the more difficult by the terms of the peace deal: northern and eastern France were to be occupied by 150,000 Allied soldiers for at least three years, their costs borne by France, and 700 million francs were to be paid in war indemnities. There was further humiliation when the four great powers formed a pact, the Holy Alliance, effectively placing France under supervision.
After the first Restoration, the Allies had somewhat surprisingly left their looted art in Paris. The great gallery of the Louvre, nearly a quarter of a mile in length, where Aymar had played during his convalescence, remained full of stolen masterpieces. In 1815 the Allies were not disposed to be so generous. Parisians, looking out of their windows or sullenly lining the streets, watched as foreign soldiers, helped by porters with barrows, ladders and ropes, began to remove, pack up and carry away paintings and sculptures, leaving the walls of the Louvre every day a little more denuded. The worst moment came when a troop of Austrian cavalry, keeping at bay an angry crowd, climbed to the top of the Arc de Triomphe and started to lower the famous horses, looted by Napoleon from St Mark’s in Venice. Louis XVIII chose to leave the Tuileries for the day rather than witness their departure. That evening four carts, each bearing a horse lying on its side, set out for Italy accompanied by cavalry and infantry, to the sound of drums. The sculptor Canova, sent from Rome by Pius VII to oversee the return of the looted Italian art, was ostracised by the Parisian art world; Antoine-Jean Gros, painter of heroic Napoleonic scenes, cut him dead.
Frédéric and Lucie now prepared to divide their time between The Hague, where King William had his court, Brussels, which remained administratively important, and Paris. Humbert, still looking for a wife, had been appointed aide-de-camp to Maréchal Victor.
In spite of frantic protests, tears, and and even threats that she would throw herself overboard, Lucie’s sister Fanny had once again been forced to follow Napoleon into exile. This time it was to a British island lying 4,000 miles from France and 1,200 miles from the coast of Africa. The journey by sea took over two months. The first glimpse of St Helena, wrote Fanny’s husband Bertrand later, was of a rock, more ‘like a huge dark-coloured ark lying at anchor…than a land intended for the habitation and support of human beings’. Writing to her daughter Charlotte, Lady Jerningham compared Lucie and Fanny to figures on a weather vane: as the fortunes of one rose, those of the other sank. ‘Mme d
e la T du P is again got to “fine”. The other poor Thing leaves for St Helena. I fear for her state of agony.’ Fanny wrote a forlorn letter to Lord Dillon, asking whether he might be able to send her a piano and some French and Italian songs for a mezzo-soprano: ‘I am so unhappy! I am the unhappiest of Women!’
St Helena, with some 5,000 inhabitants, was extremely hot in summer; bare rocks rose above green valleys full of guava, mango and prickly pears. It rained incessantly and there was constant fog and mist. The island was infested by enormous flies and a great number of rats. The Bertrands had their own house, not far from Napoleon’s sombre and gloomy Longwood. Napoleon had brought with him two horses, and a barouche was ordered from the Cape for Fanny’s use. At Longwood, where water dripped down the walls, and rats scampered over the parquet floors, etiquette was observed as inflexibly as in the Tuileries. Six sailors from the Northumberland, the British ship that had conveyed them to the island, were put into imperial livery and turned into footmen. Courtiers, in full uniform, stood when in Napoleon’s presence. A pâtissier, M. Pierron, brought from Paris, spun amber palaces in sugar. But Sir Hudson Lowe, the narrow-minded, jealous major-general appointed to watch over Napoleon, insisted on treating his captive as a Corsican adventurer, refused to address him as anything but ‘General’, and made his life miserable with petty restrictions. News, visitors, post and contacts were all rationed.
Lowe, who held the devoted Bertrand responsible for some of Napoleon’s demands, longed to get rid of him and used minor acts of tyranny against Fanny, hoping to reduce her to such despair that she would force her husband to return to France. Fanny had her three children, Napoleon, Hortense and Henri with her, and a fourth was on the way. She had no patience as a teacher, and as restrictions against her grew harsher, and she could no longer leave the grounds without being stopped by sentries, so she took to spending all her time indoors, quarrelling with Bertrand. Napoleon became very fond of Fanny’s children.
There were times when a streak of remorseless misfortune seemed to run through Lucie’s life, when even her almost perfect courage and determination failed her. The next blow to strike the family concerned Humbert. He was now 26, a good-natured young man even if somewhat spoiled by his parents. Like Frédéric, Humbert was truthful and honourable. The day he took up his appointment on Maréchal Victor’s staff, 27 January 1816, he went to the aides-de-camp’ mess to meet the other new officers. One of these was a Major Malandin, a rough, brave but prickly man who had risen through the ranks under Napoleon. Seeing Humbert and perceiving his aristocratic manners, the Major made a number of vulgar and offensive remarks. Prevented from replying by the sudden arrival of the Maréchal, Humbert went home and asked Frédéric what a young officer should do in these circumstances. He was, he told his father, referring not to himself but to a good friend. Frédéric believed him. ‘Challenge the aggressor,’ was his advice. And what, continued Humbert, should his friend do if an apology were offered? ‘Refuse it,’ replied Frédéric. ‘Your companion should be all the more zealous in defence of his good name in that he, unlike the man who insulted him, has not had to pay in blood for the insignia of his rank.’
Despite attempts to prevent it, duelling remained a popular way for military officers–and indeed civilians–to settle their quarrels. Humbert returned to barracks and demanded that the Major offer him satisfaction with weapons. The Major was a renowned shot, but he was also a decent man. He offered to apologise. Humbert refused to accept his apology. Seconds were found who, knowing of the Major’s skills, suggested sabres or swords. Humbert insisted on pistols. Maréchal Victor, appalled as were all the officers, felt he could not intervene. Humbert spent the evening at home, telling his parents that he was going out riding early next day. Lucie’s cousin Mme de Boigne, not always a totally reliable witness, wrote later that when Humbert set out next morning he appeared troubled, pausing to kiss Lucie fondly and to leave a lock of hair that Cécile had asked for in her sewing basket.
At the arranged meeting place in the Bois de Boulogne, Major Malandin made one more attempt to apologise. Humbert was seen to cross the clearing; the assembled officers sighed with relief, thinking that he had decided to accept the apology. Instead, Humbert struck the Major across the forehead with his pistol. ‘Monsieur,’ he said, ‘I think that now you will not refuse to fight.’ The Major was a quick-tempered man. With what Aymar, describing the scene as it had been told to him many years later, called ‘the startled bewilderment of a hen suddenly spat upon by a gazelle’, he drew himself up and announced: ‘He is a dead man.’
The rules of the duel were that the two men were to stand 25 paces apart and that they would continue to exchange shots until one of them was too badly wounded to continue. The signal to fire was given. Humbert fired first. The Major raised his pistol and as he fired was heard to say, ‘Poor child–and his poor mother.’ Humbert, shot in the heart, spun round and fell face downwards on the ground.
Frédéric was walking in the Champs-Elysées when a friend told him of Humbert’s death. It was only now that Frédéric realised the part that he had unwittingly played in his own son’s killing. For many weeks, the salons that surrounded Lucie and her family–those of Claire de Duras, the Princesse d’Hénin, the Princesse de Poix, Mme de Boigne–went into mourning. Frédéric, remarked his friends, appeared profoundly altered. ‘What shall I tell you about myself?’ Lucie wrote to her goddaughter Félicie from The Hague in May. ‘I am just the same, I will never be consoled, I will never forget, my heart is still at precisely the same spot, like a clock which has stopped.’ Relations with Claire were evidently bad again, as were those between Claire and Félicie. Lucie continued in the same bleak tone: ‘It is perfectly simple. I don’t hold it against your mother, I wasn’t made to be her friend, it was an honour to have had her friendship for a while, it vanished. At my age, if one still has a heart that is young, one no longer has time for pretence, and one is no longer fooled by appearances.’
The Hague, where Lucie and Frédéric moved soon after Humbert’s death, was known to its inhabitants as a ‘village’ but it was a village of 35,000 people, magnificent palaces and fine streets, connected to Delft and Leyden by a regular boat service. Its only drawback, noted a visitor, were its ‘green and stagnant canals, which too often emit an almost pestilential stench’. After the Battle of Waterloo, the ‘intimate and complete’ union of Belgium and Holland had been proclaimed. Remarking that the new single state had not been greeted with much enthusiasm and that ‘it is doubtful that either side will be happy’, Frédéric was struggling to keep track of former revolutionaries and Bonapartists banished from France after the Second Restoration. In his reports, he discussed his constant worries about ‘spiteful troublemakers’ and ‘incendiary writers’. ‘All the bandits of Europe,’ he warned, ‘are finding homes here.’ One of these was the painter David, whose studio became a meeting place for former ‘regicides’. Frédéric’s official letters were full of digressions on human nature. He was thinking of trying to convince the Dutch King that it would be far better to expel the troublesome émigrés, rather than to impose censorship, along the lines of the English Aliens Bill.
In September, Cécile, who was not yet 17, became engaged to a soldier called Charles de Mercy-Argenteau. He was ten years older, but devoted and rich. Lucie praised the young man warmly, and commented sharply on criticisms reported to Lady Jerningham by ‘malicious groups’ in Brussels. ‘I despise malice,’ she wrote, ‘and I do not fear it.’ The date for the wedding had been set for 15 December, and it was to take place in the chapel owned by their friend the Duc d’Ursel in Brussels, who had been the host at Charlotte’s wedding four years earlier. Lucie, gathering together her much-loved Cécile’s trousseau, remarked that it needed to be very plain, because the Dutch and Belgian people among whom Cécile would find herself were ‘simple, without pretensions, generally agreeable and well brought up’.
She had very little time to enjoy her daughter’s happiness. By Decem
ber, Cécile was ill and the marriage was postponed. Lucie and Frédéric took her to Nice, hoping that the warmer climate would cure her. They watched, waited, kept hoping. On 20 March 1817, Cécile died.
‘You must not leave this world which so admires you,’ Lucie wrote to Mme de Staël, herself not well:
It is to me, my dear, that death should come. What is there left for me? I had put all my pride, my joy, my tenderness, my hopes in those two children…After losses like these it is not possible ever to rise again, everything is over for me now, the world and its distractions disgust me; I have embarked on a career of grief and I shall never leave it again.
She had seen two of her grown children die in a little over a year; only the married Charlotte and Aymar, aged 10, were left. As with all her other losses, Lucie now fell silent. She wrote little and waited, as she had so often before, for time to make it bearable.
Frédéric was in such despair, his mood almost wild, that there were fears he might not rally. In The Hague, where he had left the embassy in the care of his chargé d’affaires, there were rumours that he had been dismissed. The mood in Brussels was uneasy, with fears of food shortages. But he did finally return wearily to his battle against the ‘revolutionary germs’ menacing the new country. The Hague, he said, had become a rallying point for the ‘demagogues and rabble rousers’, and the town was a nest of intrigue feeding on rumours and scandals, dimly perceived ‘through the veils of politeness and politics’. Both the Dutch King and his son, who disagreed over everything else, were united in wishing France ill.
Lucie, planning to spend the summer with Charlotte in a rented house between Berne and Thun, was hoping that she might find peace from her constant grieving in the countryside. To Mme de Staël, she wrote miserably: ‘My life is without purpose. The gap left by my adorable child can never be filled.’
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