by Susan Nagel
The Duchesse de Berry, her children and members of the royal households accompanied Marie-Thérèse and the reluctant party on their journey to France’s northern coastline. Charles X rode his own horse behind his grandson’s carriage for reasons of protocol as well as safety. Much like a funeral procession, the majestic but grim convoy proceeded toward the Château de Maintenon at a slow pace, giving the Chamber of Deputies time, if it were needed, to recall the King. At the chateau, its proprietor, the Duc de Noailles, offered them hospitality and his condolences. Along the route Marie-Thérèse had noted the tricolors being waved – horribly familiar portents – and knew that the King would not be asked to return.
Rumors had spread that Charles was riding toward the coast to rendezvous with British naval vessels leading to an invasion of France on his behalf. In the small town of Dreux, armed peasants surrounded the Bourbon procession and shouted abuse. En route to L’Aigle, an open packet of arsenic was found in the kitchen being used to prepare meals for the King and his family. On to Saint-Lô, and Valognes, where, early in the morning, Marie-Thérèse was able to attend Mass and, later that day, Charles bid an emotional farewell to his bodyguards. As his most loyal soldiers bowed to kiss the hand of the Dauphine, many of the men observed a look on her face of sad resignation.
Traveling slowly from town to town, Charles still hoped that once the legislators learned of his abdication in favor of the young Duc de Bordeaux, they would appoint a regent and recall the family. Charles had asked his cousin, the Duc d’Orléans, to read the declaration before the Chamber of Deputies. Unbeknown to him, when Louis-Philippe read the document he deliberately omitted the portion that named the King’s grandson successor to the throne. The King had naively placed his trust, and his family’s future, in the hands of Louis-Philippe: the man who Marie-Thérèse always believed had learned treachery at his own father’s knee. In an eerie echo of the tactics of ‘Philippe Egalité’ and of his ancestor, Gaston d’Orléans, who had tied his ambitions to the dissenting Frondeurs against his nephew, King Louis XIV, Louis-Philippe had already struck his own deal with the politicians. Many also accused him of engineering the violence of ‘Les Trois Glorieuses’ by bribing soldiers and mobs to come out onto the streets.
It was only when the party arrived in the town of Carentan and the King read Le Moniteur that they learned that young Henri would not be the next King. Instead the Chamber of Deputies had elected the Duc d’Orléans to the throne, as France’s new ‘Citizen King’. Charles was stunned. It was he who had insisted on reconciliation between the two branches of the family. It was he who had asked his cousin to serve as his emissary to the parliament, while Marie-Thérèse, her instincts as ever quite correct, had remained distrustful. It was she who had withstood and sacrificed so much, and whose trust in the King he had dishonored.
At first named Lieutenant-General, Louis-Philippe d’Orléans focused all his diplomatic efforts on appeasing Europe’s foreign ministers and making his grab for power seem less a revolution than an easy transition from one political party to another. Once installed as King, Louis-Philippe reinstated the Charter and substituted the tri-colored flag of the Revolution for the white flag of the Bourbons. He distanced himself from his own lineage, refusing to be crowned at Reims, insisting instead on a ceremony at the Palais-Bourbon, across the Seine from the Tuileries. He would live at neither the Tuileries nor Versailles but remained in the center of Paris at his home, and that of his late father, the Palais-Royal. For all of his seemingly good intentions, he was, however, like his father: a social chameleon and a hypocrite. Heinrich Heine, the German poet, arrived in Paris shortly after Louis-Philippe ascended the throne. While there, Heine associated with a group of utopian socialists, and was less than impressed with the new monarch’s claims of ‘égalité’. Heine noted that the King was known to wear dirty pairs of gloves to shake hands with the common people and clean, fresh, kid gloves when among noblemen. His reign would soon be characterized by the entreaty ‘Enrichissez-vous!’ – ‘Get rich!’
One person who, surprisingly, did not endorse the ‘Citizen King’ was Louis-Philippe’s own wife, the new Queen. Marie Amélie was horrified that her husband was prepared to sacrifice the senior branch of the Bourbon family. After all, she herself was a granddaughter of Empress Maria Theresa, a daughter of the sister of Marie Antoinette, and first cousin to the Dauphine. She was embarrassed that the rest of her family, which included her brother, the King of Two Sicilies, as well as the Austrian clan, would now regard her husband as the new ‘Usurper’.
When the senior, legitimate, branch of the Bourbons arrived at last at Cherbourg on August 16, to embark for whereabouts unknown – they found that their cousin, the new King, had thought of everything. He had arranged for two American packet boats, the Charles Carroll and the Great Britain, to be placed under the command of a French rear admiral, Dumont d’Urville, and be readied to remove the party from France. Charles and his family had little choice but to board the ships, though they had no idea where they would be taken. Marie-Thérèse hurriedly dispatched a letter to her secretary Baron Charlet instructing that he write to her under her new pseudonym ‘Comtesse de Marnes’ (after Villeneuve-l’Étang in Marnes) in London and in Hamburg – believing these to be the two most likely final destinations.
The newly styled ‘Comtesse de Marnes’ said farewell to her cherished friends. Many of them begged her to allow them to join her wherever in the world she was heading, but she sadly refused their pleas. Each member of the royal family was escorted on board by a trusted friend – the small task being regarded as a great honor; the tiny walk of great symbolic importance to history. Yet again, Marie-Thérèse of France steeled herself for an uncertain future. If anyone in the family could have been prepared for the unknown, it was this now fifty-one-year-old woman, who had so courageously faced uncharted waters throughout her life.
On board the Great Britain, Marie-Thérèse asked a sailor if he knew what the captain’s orders were. He told her, ‘to fire on and kill anyone who tries to regain the coast of France’. As the ships set sail, the Duchesse de Berry cried openly, but Marie-Thérèse, dressed in black, kept her grief hidden. She remained on deck as the Great Britain left harbor and watched until the French coastline was a faint blur. Suddenly two French ships of war, the Seine and the Rôdeur, approached with their guns aimed toward the ships containing the royal fugitives. Madame de Gontaut-Biron began to speak in English with one of their ship’s sailors. The French captain on board the Great Britain, afraid of a conspiracy that would take the ships to the royalist Vendée, ordered the governess to speak only in French so that he could understand all communication on board. Marie-Thérèse laughed, told Gontaut-Biron to ignore the captain and find out as much information as she could about their destination. Gontaut wondered aloud, again, in English, about where they were heading. One of the sailors overheard her and curtly replied: ‘Saint Helena’. In an absolute panic, she ran with the news to Marie-Thérèse. The confusion was sorted out after some discussion when it was revealed that they were destined for St Helens on the Isle of Wight in the English Channel and not the remote island in the South Atlantic where Napoleon had died in exile nine years earlier.
After days of terrible storms, they finally reached the waters of Spit-head. At St Helens three of the former King’s most trusted men were dispatched to London to ask the Duke of Wellington, now Prime Minister, for asylum for the royal family. The ship was loaded with more commodities and Marie-Thérèse and her sister-in-law discovered that trunks containing their clothes had been stolen, probably at Cherbourg. At Cowes they registered at a small inn under assumed names and were provided with some garments by the waiting Lady Anglesey and Lady Grantham. When Charles X had lived in England as the Comte d’Artois he had been a well-liked figure. Now, owing to his revocation of the Charter, many Englishmen had revised their opinion of him. Charles’s emissaries returned with a message from the Prime Minister that he was trying to find a place where t
he Bourbons could live quietly. As the royal party crossed the Solent and approached the southern coast of England, Madame de Gontaut-Biron watched for activities on the English mainland through a telescope. When they arrived at a pier in Portsmouth, a small boat pulled near the gangway and an officer, attired in the uniform of an English aide-de-camp, announced: ‘A letter for the Duchesse de Gontaut!’ The children’s governess, completely surprised, was handed a letter, which she passed to Charles X. The former King returned the note to the Duchess, stating: ‘It is for you.’ Gontaut-Biron then handed it to Marie-Thérèse, who also said: ‘It’s for you.’ Madame de Gontaut-Biron then opened the note and the two women read it together.
It was a missive from the Duke of Wellington, who, on behalf of His Majesty, King William IV of England, explained that he had been authorized to offer them refuge provided that they arrive as private citizens. Marie-Thérèse had already adopted the name the Comtesse de Marnes; the Duchesse de Berry followed suit and, taking the name of her country estate, became the Comtesse de Rosny; the former King became the Comte de Ponthieu, after one of his royal domains in Normandy, and little Henri, the Comte de Chambord after the palace bought for him by the people of France after his birth.
It was obvious to the Bourbons when they saw the flags of the Revolution being waved mockingly at them on the streets of Portsmouth that Wellington had had to walk a political tightrope to secure their stay. They were on their way to Lulworth Castle in Dorset, which the Catholic Sir Thomas Weld had agreed to rent out to the Bourbons. Lulworth had been built as a hunting lodge in 1610. Four English Kings, James I, Charles I, James II and George III had been regular visitors there. While the exiled Bourbons installed themselves in the West Country, they realized that, as Lulworth was exceedingly cold and drafty, it would be uninhabitable in winter and that they needed to make more permanent plans. Also, unhappily for Charles X, many of his former creditors – from his high-spending days in London – began to resurface. Fortunately, Marie-Thérèse – due to some planning on her part and on the part of her trusted secretary, Baron Charlet – arranged to receive a very large sum of money from the London banker, Werth, to take care of the family.
One month after their arrival in England, they received an unpleasant surprise. The Citizen King had dispatched his own hand-picked ambassador to England. It was none other than the consummate survivor, the man who had shed his skin and transformed himself and his allegiances infinite times – Charles Maurice de Talleyrand. When Talleyrand arrived on September 25 at Dover, he was greeted by an impressive salvo of artillery. Thirty-six-years earlier, penniless and held in contempt, the émigré Talleyrand had fled England for America in disgrace. It had been the era of Pitt and Fox when men wore powdered wigs and silk knee-breeches. It was now a different society with Gladstone and Disraeli on the rise. The wardrobe of the bourgeoisie was in style, as was, apparently, Talleyrand, who was now feted and celebrated, and, very much to his own personal pleasure, invited to join London’s most exclusive private men’s clubs.
The local populace in the countryside near Lulworth Castle was very curious about their royal visitors. Mary Frampton recorded in her journal that her brother, James, called on the ‘Comte de Ponthieu’ and his family and was thunderstruck when the former King extended his hand, offering to shake Mr Frampton’s instead of placing it for Mr Frampton to kiss. James Frampton was thoroughly delighted when, a few days later, he received a return visit. James’s daughter, Harriot, thought that the woman dressed shabbily in a light brown dress, yellowish shawl, cotton stockings, very short petticoats and a coarse, weather-beaten bonnet was a maid. When she asked this servant woman whether Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte of France was still at Lulworth Castle, the woman replied: ‘Yes, I am’ – Harriot was appalled at her own mistake. The women discussed the fact that Harriot was engaged and about to be married. Harriot reported to her Aunt Mary that the Dauphine was quite surprised to learn that Harriot and her fiancé were well acquainted. Mary also had an opportunity to see the Dauphine, whom she had last spied in London in the spring of 1814 during the euphoric festivities upon the defeat of Napoleon. She had heard that the Dauphine often looked somber. Mary believed that as no one had suffered her ‘unparalleled misfortunes’ no one had more of a right to appear sad; but Mary was not of the opinion that Marie-Thérèse, whose red-rimmed eyes she noted as had so many others, seemed the least bit grumpy. In fact, when the royal family appeared unannounced at the Framptons’ home, as ordinary neighbors paying a call, Mary expressed to one of their attendants how astonished she was to have just had the honor to meet the Princess, who was quite fun. He replied: ‘It was just what the Duchesse liked, to surprise people.’
The meeting prompted Mary to record in her journal an event recounted by a friend, a Mr Okeden, which confirmed her own assessment of the Dauphine:
In the year 1818, Mr Okeden happened to be at Paris, and he related to me a strong instance of these qualities, displayed at a moment when she had no time to prepare her mind for their exhibition.
At the annual fair held at Vincennes, the crowd was extreme, and the pressure very great and dangerous to the people, on the arrival of her carriage with herself and attendants in it, preceded and followed by a detachment of guards on horseback. The mob murmured, and cries were heard; the ‘La Dauphine’, then only Duchesse d’Angoulême, dared not to venture to the fair unaccompanied by guards. Upon which she stood up in her carriage, ordered the coachmen to stop, and then, in the most cool and dignified manner, commanded the troops to retreat, and leave her. The order was immediately obeyed, and the Duchesse then drove several times backward and forward through the fair, accompanied by the applause instead of the hisses of the crowd.1
Mary and Harriot enjoyed their social engagements with Marie-Thérèse; they found her easy to talk to and completely at ease among the country folk. They were very impressed that the de Berry children spoke perfect English. Harriot was also flattered by the Dauphine’s interest in her nuptials. Apparently, although the French had a custom of a gâteau de noce, Marie-Thérèse was intrigued by the English wedding ritual of sending around among friends and neighbors pieces of the wedding cake. Harriot’s fiancé, Mr Mundy, concurred, remarking that the French royals, who were ‘great walkers’, ‘having shown themselves everywhere’ and who had entertained the locals with ‘historical gossip’, would be very much missed when they left the area, which happened sooner than anyone had expected.
The ‘Trois Glorieuses’ in France had begun to rumble throughout Europe. The Tories were nervous and by early October the Bourbons were shuttled to Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, away from Charles’s creditors; but even more importantly, removed from the political spotlight. In November, Wellington was ousted, making way for the more liberal Lord Grey and his Whig party. In 1831, uprisings in Italy, Portugal and Poland would parallel France’s ‘July Revolution’. In France, LouisPhilippe issued decrees reversing those of his Bourbon predecessors. It was now illegal to observe with reverence the anniversary of the death of Louis XVI; he also shut down the memorial to Marie Antoinette at the Conciergerie. Although members of the Chamber of Deputies pleaded in public for Marie-Thérèse to be allowed to return to the country for which she had sacrificed so much, Louis-Philippe greeted these entreaties with silence. The Orléans family had, at last, attained the throne they had sought for nearly two hundred years.
Although Charles was familiar with life in Edinburgh, and with Holyrood, having lived at the palace during the 1790s, Marie-Thérèse hated the place and immediately rented a small house close by in Canongate at 31 Regent Terrace for herself, her husband and eleven-year-old Princess Louise. The ‘Comte de Ponthieu’ and his ten-year-old grandson shared the palace, which was open to the public for tours at various times and on various days, with a small staff. Marie-Thérèse and her father-in-law often went out riding together.
While Marie-Thérèse spent hours each day at Holyrood with her family, reading of world affairs in the newspapers a
nd performing her needlework, the Duchesse de Berry would take off on jaunts around England. She soon installed herself in the resort town of Bath, enjoying the spa and the gaming. Reporting back to the French government on the royal group’s activities, Talleyrand recounted how he had seen the ‘Comtesse de Rosny’ at a party in London at the Neapolitan Embassy. According to the French ambassador, a minister from Naples joked that although she was the niece of his King, the new French Queen was the King’s sister. Both men, according to Talleyrand, noted that apparently the ‘Comtesse de Rosny’ had no concept of the meaning of discretion. She refused to keep a low profile, or simply did not know how to.
The exiled King Charles X philosophically remarked on many occasions that it was fitting that he be allowed to spend his waning years with his grandchildren. Louis-Antoine was not as resigned. He openly expressed his frustration at not having done more and would often comment bitterly that he wished he had fought to the last. Captain Dumont d’Urville wrote in his journal that he had heard the Dauphin expressly admit: ‘I have only one regret … that I was not killed in Paris.’ Some thought that Louis-Antoine wanted to recapture the crown for himself; but Marie-Thérèse continued to meet with sympathizers who insisted that such a route was impossible. They told her that the people of France would never accept him, and even if there were ever a change of heart, it would most likely be the young Comte de Chambord whose ascension would be agreed upon. After this point of view was explained repeatedly to Marie-Thérèse, she realized that any plan for her own husband would be fruitless. She had always determined to educate and prepare her nephew for monarchy; now she resolved to chart his return. While keeping abreast of political movements in France and holding audiences with royalist spies, she would spend the majority of the day with the Comte de Chambord, impressing upon him his Bourbon heritage as well as the lessons of the past.