Second Part From the Death of Him I Had Believed My Father Until the Present Time
I
The Funeral—Sea-baths—Rupture with my Brother—My Establishment at Siena—Chiappini’s Letter—My Reflections—First Steps—Various Pieces of Information—Verification of Handwriting—Visit of my Elder Son—Stay in Rome—The Marchioness of B.
—Departure of my Children.
My brother appeared to be so much affected by his recent loss that, in spite of the coolness existing between us for some time past, I kept him to sleep at my country house.
All the evening he seemed to be sunk in deep thought and overwhelming grief, which greatly surprised me in a young man who up to then had shown so many signs of a want of filial affection. He left very early the next morning without taking leave of me.
I at once sent him the sum necessary for having the funeral solemnized in a fashion in accordance not with the lowly condition of the deceased, but with all the dignity due to my own rank.
The marble beneath which lie his mortal remains bears witness to my liberality, very unlike that of my sister, who, being present at her mother’s death, allowed her body to be cast into the common pit, when a dozen crowns would have procured her a more honoured grave.
My constantly recurring eruptions had induced my doctors to prescribe sea-bathing; my father’s illness having deferred the carrying out of their orders, I prepared to do so a fortnight after his death, which took place towards the end of January 1821, and went to spend three weeks at Leghorn, where I should have been horribly bored if it had not been for the company of my Edward, who never left me.
On my return to Florence I found out the various tricks my brother had played on me, first in concealing from me the real condition of my father, who, I learnt, had recovered his power of speech before breathing his last, and whose death had not taken place until thirty-six hours after the time reported to me; secondly, in persuading me to pay the purchase money of a fine house, supposed to be for me, but the deed of purchase of which he had had made out in his own name, on the pretext that a married woman could not do so validly.
Justly incensed at his conduct, I not only upbraided him bitterly, but ignominiously cast him out and gave him up absolutely and finally.
Surrounded as I was by nothing but gloomy memories, in a place where everything recalled troubles and misfortunes, I resolved to go to Siena, and began at once to make my preparations.
There were several reasons that induced me to fix on that town, among others its pure air and the famous School of Design which is its chief ornament.
I was well acquainted with the head master of this school, and he had kindly promised me to take the greatest pains with my young son, who already showed decided taste and talent for this admirable art.
I had been living in this town about a week when I received by post the letter I give here, with its translation.
Miledi.
Giunsi finalmente al termine di miei giorni senza vere svelato ad alcuno un segreto che riguarda me e la vostra persona direttamente.
Il segreto è l’appresso:
Il giorno dell a vostra nascita da persona che non posso nominare, e che già è passata all’ altra vita, a me pure nacque un figlio maschio. Fui richesto à fare uno scambio, e mediante l emie finanze, di quei tempi, accedi alle molteplici richieste con vantaggio; ed allora fù che vi adottai per mia figlia, in quella guisa che mio figlio fu adottato dall’ altra parte.
Vedo che il cielo ha supplito alle mie mancanze, con porvi in uno stato di miglior condizione del vostro padre, sebbene esso pure fosse per rango quasi simile, ed è ció che mi fa chiudere con qualche quiete il termine di mia vita.
Serva a voi questa operazionne per non farmi colpevole, totalmente; domandovi perdono di questa mia mancanza, vi prego, se vi piace, di tenere in voi questa cosa, per non far parlare il mondo di un affare che non vi ha più rimedio.
Non vi sara consegnata questa mia che dopo la mia morte.
Lorenzo Chiappini.
Milady
I have come to the end of my days without having ever revealed to any one a secret which directly concerns you and me.
This is the secret. The day you were born of a person I must not name, and who has already passed into the next world, a boy was also born to me. I was requested to make an exchange, and, in view of my circumstances at that time, I consented after reiterated and advantageous proposals; and it was then that I adopted you as my daughter, as in the same way my son was adopted by the other party.
I see that Heaven has made up for my fault, since you have been placed in a better position than your father’s, although he was of almost similar rank; and it is this that enables me to end my life in something of peace.
Keep this in your possession, so that I may not be held totally guilty. Yes, while begging your forgiveness for my sin, I ask you, if you please, to keep it hidden, so that the world may not be set talking over a matter that cannot be remedied.
Even this letter will not be sent to you till after my death.
Lorenzo Chiappini.
The amazement such a missive caused me may well be imagined. In an instant a crowd of ideas rushed upon me; the veil was rent, the cloud dispersed. At once I realized the reason for the immense differences between myself and my supposed relatives.
I saw the reason for the ill-treatment I had endured at the hands of a woman perhaps forced into calling herself my mother; I understood the meaning of those many muttered enigmatical half-sentences of my first husband, and still more those of the writer of the astounding letter I held in my hand.
There was but one mystery left to clear up, and that was precisely the one I was implored to let alone.
But the man who had so implored me was now in my eyes nothing but a criminal for me to forgive, his paternity destroyed, his rights broken, and my duty to him annihilated, or rather born anew—enjoined on me by honour and the love I bore my children—namely, to try every possible means to discover my real father.
In my anxiety I hastened to the postmaster, as if he were the person to give me useful information; but all he could tell me was that the letter in question had come in the bag from Florence and under the postmark of that town; but he directed me to an old man, a native of Faenza, to whom I went at once. He could tell me nothing at the time; but he wrote, and received an answer that there were two maid-servants of the Countess Camilla still living, and that there was a new Count Biancoli-Borghi, a relation and heir of the Count Pompeo, whose widow he had even married.
For my part I had written to the Fathers Ringrezzi and Fabroni, the first-named confessor to the former jailer, the other the nephew of the confessor of the late old Countess.
Having accepted the invitation I sent them to come and see me, Father Ringrezzi told me at once that his calling bound him to inviolable secrecy, but added that his private opinion had always been that I was the child of the Grand Duke Leopold.
At this, Father Fabroni eagerly exclaimed—
“You are wrong, Monsieur l’Abbé. Milady is the daughter of a French nobleman, called the Comte Joinville, who had great possessions in Champagne; and I have no doubt that if Madame la Baronne went to that province she would find documents that I have been told were handed over to a worthy ecclesiastic.”
On this combined advice, I decided to return at once to Florence to get further information. I had the satisfaction of finding no incredulity; my many friends all told me that they had never believed I belonged to the family of the Chiappinis.
I was told that the constable, having at one time been in danger on account of his political opinions, had entrusted the lady Massina Calamini with some papers which he told her were of the highest importance, and which he carefully reclaimed the very moment he was set free.
It is equally certain that he had a great number in a strong box, the key of which he never gave up to any one whatsoever.
But it was impossible to get anything from his son, except a few letters of no consequence, which he had already shown me with a laugh as being the only asset of his inheritance.
As to her whom up to now I had called my aunt, she came to see me several times, and I continued to look after her welfare.
It seemed to her that her brother had been quite capable of the thing he had so tardily confessed to me; she even maintained that she remembered his wife, in her fits of rage often throwing these cutting words at him—
“You monster! Have you forgotten that you’ve committed a crime worthy of the gallows?”
Count Borghi and the two old maid-servants living at Faenza having been applied to for information, the latter replied that first of all they wished to see me and to speak to me alone; the Count indignantly asserted that I had made an unpardonable mistake about him, and swore that he would make me pay dearly for it.
Not knowing what more to do, I went and asked a clever lawyer what steps I ought to take. He told me I must submit Chiappini’s letter to the authorities and have it legally verified.
As this verification entailed great formalities and much delay, I went back to Leghorn to continue my sea-bathing. I soon heard the news that my two elder sons were coming to visit me; my heart overflowed with joy; I hastened to meet them, and received them at Florence.
They rapturously embraced me and gave me a thousand proofs of their love for me. We spent five delightful weeks together, and about the middle of November they started for Rome. I could not accompany them; my presence had become indispensable to accelerate my business, which still lasted more than another month.
At last the experts, having carefully compared the writing submitted to them with several authentic signatures, decided that it was entirely in the hand of Lorenzo Chiappini.3
As soon as this was finished, I hastened to join my children, and managed to arrive on the first day of the year 1823, so as to give them my presents and renew the heartfelt proofs of my love for them, which they received with touching gratitude and profound respect.
The first thing they told me of was their fortunate meeting with my old and most faithful friend, the Marchioness of B., who was looking forward with the liveliest impatience for the moment of my arrival. My delight was at its height; seeing her once more seemed to give me back a part of myself.
They went very fast—those happy days I spent with her and my three children.
Obliged to return to England, she gave me two letters of introduction to use after the journey to France which I intended to make; one was for the Duke of Orleans, the other for the British Ambassador.
She earnestly begged them to give me their powerful assistance, and, moreover, entreated the first to be so kind as to present me to his sister, who, she said, would soon become my friend, since my features and manners were exactly like hers.
My son was close upon one-and-twenty, and was bound to be in London on the 3rd of April, the day he would attain his majority, in order to take his seat in Parliament.
Consequently, he and his brother left Rome about the end of February. I went with them to Florence, to Pisa, and to Leghorn, and there I said my last farewell to them.
Never was anything sadder or more harrowing than this cruel separation; a secret presentiment warned me, alas! that it would be but too long a one.
II
Return to Rome—Departure from Florence—Testimony of the Sisters Bandini—My Arrival in Champagne and in Paris—An Innocent Ruse—Colonel Joinville—The Abbé de Saint-Fare—Visit to the Palais-Royal—My Reflections—Lady Stuart—Advice.
After leaving my two eldest sons, I took the road to Rome, where I had already made the acquaintance of Cardinal Consalvi, who showed me the greatest kindness. By his order, all the archives were thrown open to me; everything was examined into, not only in the capital, but in the country round about the Apennines; but everywhere the answer was the same: “Nothing whatever has been discovered; everything must have been destroyed during the Revolution.”
Seeing that there was nothing to be done there, I set out for Faenza, where I was informed that the Count Borghi was absent, and that, moreover, it would be useless for me to see him, as he had declared that he would never tell me anything at all. I heard even that he had threatened the old servant-women with the withholding of their modest pensions if they had the ill-luck of speaking to me. But they could not restrain their longing to see me or the cry of their consciences. Their first words when they met me were a simultaneous exclamation of “O Dio! how like you are to the Comtesse de Joinville!”
I joyfully welcomed them and treated them gently; and having implored them to acquaint me with the details concerning my birth, they at last consented to speak perfectly openly.
“Our father, Nicholas Bandini,” they told me, “at the age of seventeen entered the Borghi mansion as chief steward, and never left it till his death. We, also, were taken on there in our youth as maids to the Countess Camilla. That lady, with her son, the Comte Pompeo, was in the habit of spending a good part of the year at their castle of Modigliana, and in the beginning of the spring of 1773 we accompanied them there.
“On our arrival we found, already established in the Pretorial Palace, a French couple, called the Comte Louis and the Comtesse Joinville. The Comte had a fine figure, a rather brown complexion, and a red and pimpled nose. As to the Comtesse, you can see almost her perfect image in your own person, milady.
“Being such near neighbours, the greatest intimacy soon existed between them and our masters. Every day the two families met, sometimes at one house, sometimes at the other.
“The foreign stranger was extremely familiar with people of the lowest rank, especially with Chiappini, the jailer, who lived under the same roof. As it happened, both their wives were then enceinte, and the two confinements appeared to be imminent.
“But the Comte was seriously anxious; his wife had not yet given him a male child; and he was intensely uneasy lest he should never have one, when of this very fear was born an idea, both barbarous and advantageous. First he broached the subject to the Count Pompeo and his mother, from a very charming point of view; then he endeavoured to worm himself more and more into the warder’s confidence, and ended by telling him that, seeing himself about to lose a great inheritance absolutely dependent on the birth of a son, he was quite willing, in case he should have a daughter, to exchange her for a boy, whose father he would largely recompense.
“The man who listened to his words, delighted to find unlooked-for luck at so appropriate a moment, did not hesitate for an instant; he accepted the offer, and the matter was settled on the spot.
“We know it,” the sisters Bandini went on, “because we heard it with our own ears; and we know, too, that the event justified the precautions taken; the Comtesse gave birth to a daughter, and the other woman to a son. The news was brought to our masters, and one of us going into the Pretorial Palace to see the newly-born children, was assured by some women of the house that the exchange had really taken place. Chiappini, who was present, confirmed it in his own words. Later on, the Countess Camilla often repeated it to us; she used to say that the Comtesse Joinville had been told all about it, and had seemed quite content.
“Soon after this abominable crime we ourselves saw the Comte and the jailer on the best of terms; the first because he had secured immense profit; the other because he had received much money. Although silence had been promised, there were indiscreet people, and public rumour soon accused the authors of this horrible transaction. The Comte Louis, dreading the general indignation of his accusers, fled and hid himself at Brisighella, in the convent of St. Bernard. We knew that he had been arrested and then set at liberty, but we never saw him again.
“The lady left with her servants and her reputed son, while her own daughter, baptized by the name of Maria Stella Petronilla, and described as belonging to Lorenzo Chiappini and Vincenzia Viligenti, always remained with these last. Our mistress was constantly distressed about this misfortune. To repair it as much as possible she kept the unfortunate child near her, caressing her and giving her all kinds of presents, treating her not with ordinary friendliness, but with every mark of ardent love. So she behaved to this child for the first four years, that is to say, till Chiappini took her with him to Florence, where he had her educated, and where he bought property with the price of his frightful bargain.”
Thus spoke my venerable septuagenarians.
Fully satisfied with their story, there seemed no need of more, and that now it would be enough to appear before my iniquitous parents and obtain from them just reparation.
With this plan I set out for France with my third son, his drawing-master, my maid, and my courier, a faithful and intelligent servant.
By the Sieur Fabroni’s advice, we went straight to Champagne, and the mere name of the place led us to Joinville. I asked the magistrates for information, and was told by them all that no nobleman of the neighbourhood bore the name of their city, and that it belonged solely to the Orleans family.
After several inquiries, which all had the same result, I went to Paris, arriving on July 5, 1823. As a cleverly used ruse may bring about an act of justice, and as the bait of riches is nowadays the most powerful of motives, I had the following advertisement inserted in several newspapers—
“The widow of the late Count Pompeo Borghi has asked Lady N. S. to find for her in France a certain Louis, Comte Joinville, who, with the Comtesse, his wife, was at Modigliana, a little town in the Apennines, where the Comtesse gave birth to a son on the 16th of April, 1773. If these two persons are still living, or the child born at Modigliana, Lady N. S. has the honour to announce to them that she has been empowered to make them a communication of the highest interest. Supposing that these persons can prove their identity, they have only to apply to the Baronne de Sternberg, Hôtel de Belle-Vue, Rue de Rivoli.”
Two days later appeared a colonel bearing the much-desired name; I received him with the warmest welcome. He spoke, recounting his various titles. Alas! the one that had at first interested me so immensely was quite recent, and came to him from Louis XVIII.
At that moment I was told that M. l’Abbé de Saint-Fare solicited the honour of an interview; the colonel looked much astonished, and withdrew. In his place entered an enormous man, wearing spectacles and supported by two footmen. As soon as he was seated, the following conversation took place—
“The Duke of Orleans, having seen your advertisement, has this morning begged me to come and make inquiries about this inheritance; for we presume that that is the matter in question, and at the date you mention there was no one in existence outside the family to whom the title of Comte Joinville could belong.”
“Was Monseigneur the Duke of Orleans born at Modigliana on the 16th of April, 1773?”
“He was born that year, but in Paris, on the 6th of October.”
“Then I am very sorry that you should have taken the trouble to come; for in that case he has no connection with the person I am looking for.”
“No doubt you have heard it said that the late Duke was very gay with the fair sex, and the child in question might well be that of one of his favourites.”
“No, no; its legitimacy is incontestable.”
“Could anything be more surprising! It is true the late Duke lived in the midst of mysteries.”
“Could you not describe him to me, Monsieur?”
“Willingly, madame. He was a fine man, with a good leg; his complexion was of a rather dark red, and, if it had not been for the numerous pimples on his face, he would have been very good-looking.”
“And his character?”
“What people principally admired in him was his extreme affability to every one.”
“Your description agrees exactly with that that was given me of the Comte de Joinville.”
“Then it must be supposed that it was the Duke himself.”
“That can’t be if it is true that his son was born in Paris.”
“May I ask you if there is a large sum to be had, and when?”
“I am truly sorry not to be able to inform you; I am not at liberty to say more.”
During the whole of this conversation, the big abbé had never left off looking at me in an almost offensive way; and, trying to find out what was my native tongue, he had spoken now in English, now in Italian, without being able to make up his mind, in consequence of my speaking both languages equally well.
After an hour’s talk he took leave, asking my permission to come again. I replied that I should be delighted to see him again, and, in my turn, begged him to be so good as to make inquiries amongst his many acquaintances.
He kindly promised to do so, and added that he knew a very aged lady from Champagne very well, and that she might be able to give him much information, which he would transmit to me at once.
As nothing came of it, I sent M. Coiron, a teacher of French, who was giving lessons to my son, to him.
M. de Saint-Fare treated him politely, pleaded indisposition, and made all manner of excuses.
On Coiron presenting himself a second time, he was received very coldly, and simply told that nothing had yet been done.
Moved by his own zeal and without my authority, he made a third attempt. Then the abbé told him plainly that he might discontinue his visits; that the lady knew nothing at all, and that he himself did not want to have anything to do with this fuss.
Still, the first impression his visit made on me could not be effaced. I procured a ticket, and went with my friends to the Palais Royal. What was my surprise on seeing in some of the portraits their extreme resemblance either to me or to my children. My astonishment increased when my young Edward, catching sight of a picture I had not yet noticed, exclaimed, “Dieu! Maman, how much that face is like old Chiappini’s and his son’s!”
We discovered that it was actually the portrait of the present Duke.…
Thinking seriously over this, I realized that I owed to him in fact the important service of being the first to tear the impenetrable veil by deputing that Abbé de Saint-Fare, who, I was told, was not only his great friend, but his natural uncle, to see me.
It will be believed that from that moment all my researches went in the direction so obviously pointed out, and, above all, that I took good care to keep possession of the letter the Marchioness of B. had given me for his Highness.
As for that she had been good enough to write about me to the British Ambassador, I myself left it with my card at the door of his house. A week later, his wife, Lady Stuart, simply sent her name by a footman as sole answer; which greatly astonished me from a lady of title, a relation of my friend’s and daughter of the Earl and Countess of Hardwicke, with whom I had been formerly very intimate.
I was advised that, finding no support in that quarter, and having henceforth to fight against wealth and power, I had better go back to Italy to take every necessary measure and to collect all quite authentic documents.
III
My Return to Faenza—First Visit of the Count Borghi—His Story—Public Rumours—Evidence of Messieurs Valla, Guerzani, Tondini, Ludovichetti, della Valle, Perelli and Maresta—My Letter to the Count—His Second Visit—Legal Formalities—Judgment in my Favour—Decree of Rectification.
Before leaving France, I made several discoveries which more and more strongly confirmed my suspicions as to the personality of the Comte Joinville. But my first object being to find proof of the exchange itself, I went again to the place where it had been effected.
As I passed through Turin, Alessandria, Reggio, etc., I employed several people to make inquiries for me. At Modena I made the acquaintance of the lawyer, Massa, who had a great reputation, and who clearly marked out for me the course I ought to take. At Bologna I engaged an advocate whom this gentleman had recommended to me; but I was soon obliged to give him up on account of his dilatoriness, and replaced him by the Signore Bucci, of Faenza.
When I arrived at that town, I went to stay with the Marchesa di Spada, to whom I had an introduction.
As she was very intimate with Count Borghi, I had conceived the hope of obtaining through her useful information, and especially the return of certain papers that gentleman, it was said, boasted of having in his possession.
She wrote to him, but there was no answer. I then called upon the Bishop of the diocese, claiming from him a perfectly impartial investigation of my case, assuring him that I asked for nothing but justice, and entreating him to persuade the Count to accept my invitation.
The prelate strongly backed my request, and Count Borghi, not daring to refuse him, at last came to see me, bringing with him an enormous packet of letters which he declared he had received from me. They bore the fictitious name of my so-called man-of-business, and were evidently written with the intention of incensing against me a man who might prove so helpful to me.4
My astonishment was beyond words, and I made such eager protestations of my innocence in the matter that he was quite convinced of the truth, and spoke to me as follows—
“I have often had occasion to look over old papers belonging to the Borghi family, of whom I became the representative; and one day when I was doing so at Modigliana I saw a letter addressed to the late Count Pompeo, dated from Turin and signed Louis, Comte de Joinville, the contents of which, so far as I can remember, were as follows—
“‘Since we left that place, my wife, always prolific of girls, has at last presented me with a boy. As to the one of whom you know, there is left only the grief of having lost him, and I feel no further scruples on his account. My compliments to your ladies, and believe me, etc.’
“This letter greatly struck me, and I examined it more than once; but then I considered it of no importance, and I ended by tearing it up, without attempting to remember the date.”
“In the account-books of an old steward, which I looked over likewise, the name of the jailer, Lorenzo Chiappini, was often written; and I noticed that before 1773 this person bought his necessary provisions of the Borghis, by relinquishing a part of his future salary; while, after that time, he always paid in ready money for corn and wine of the best quality. These account-books could not now be discovered, because when I had looked through them I gave them back to the aforesaid steward, who is no longer living.”
Who could believe that, with no motive, this gentleman could have parted with papers relating to an inheritance just fallen to him, and which he had looked into minutely? Still less, who could believe that he could have destroyed a paper that had so greatly interested him, that he had read several times, and whose tenor was so deeply graven on his mind?
Nevertheless, in order to prove to me that he now bore me no ill-will, he bestirred himself to make others speak.
Very soon the voice of the public was quite on my side; every one knew of Chiappini’s sudden accession of wealth; every one remembered hearing something about the Signore Joinville and his excessive familiarity.
It was generally assumed that the jailer’s wife, going to her Easter confession a few days after the exchange, had been ordered by her director to denounce its principal perpetrator to the Holy Office. It was said that this Tribunal, having ordered his arrest, the Count had been warned, and fearing the probably unpleasant results of this order, had asked and obtained permission to take refuge in a convent at Brisighella until the storm had blown over.
It was affirmed also that, having ventured to go out for a walk, he was seized and taken to the Town Hall, where one of his footmen went to spend three or four days with him, and where he spent money profusely and recklessly. In conclusion it was added that the Legate of Ravenna, having sent for him, as he got into his carriage, he was holding in his hand a paper that he pointed to with a laugh, as if to say—
“I’ve only got to make myself known!”
But I was not satisfied by these vague, general reports; I wanted witnesses who had seen with their own eyes and heard with their own ears; and I succeeded in discovering them.
Not to speak of the sisters Bandini, who related what happened in the bosom of the families into which they were admitted as confidential servants, or of Count Borghi, who quoted in support of his theory his careful perusal of certain papers immensely in my favour, this is how the Signore Giovanni-Maria Valla, of Brisighella, spoke on the subject—
“It is more than fifty years since I was enrolled in the Country Militia. Shortly afterwards, when I had already risen to the rank of Corporal, I was put in charge of a stranger called by the title of Comte, whom the constables had taken up in the neighbourhood of the Convent of St. Bernard. I did not know the man, who was well-made and rather stout, with a reddish-brown complexion.
“It was said that the order for his arrest came from Ravenna; but I know nothing about the reason for it nor anything else about him, except that a few days later we gave him up again to the Cardinal’s Swiss guards, who took him away in his carriage. As for Lorenzo Chiappini, I knew him very well, having seen him several times at Brisighella, where he used to come to play football, and I remember having heard it said that he had given up his post because he had got a great lot of money for exchanging his boy for the girl of a rich nobleman.”
And again, this is what the Signore Giuseppe Guezzani, of the same town, said—
“My business has always been that of a barber, and I always served the Fathers of St. Bernard until they were suppressed. It is about fifty years since I used occasionally to shave a stranger living with them, who passed for a great French nobleman. I was left in ignorance as to who he was or why he was there. Afterwards I heard that he had been arrested, but I was never told the reason. He was rather stout, of good height, and had a brownish complexion with a red and pimply nose. I remember, too, that he had very fine legs.”
And this is the account of the Signore Giuseppe Tondini, another inhabitant of the town—
“About fifty years ago a foreign nobleman was living for some days in the convent of St. Bernard then existing in this town of Brisighella. I don’t know to what nation he belonged, and I don’t remember him well enough to describe him; but I think he was about the average height and rather stout. It was reported afterwards that he had been arrested.”
Then there is the story of the Signore Ludovichetti, a lawyer living at Ravenna—
“Some length of time before the changes in this province—I can’t tell the exact date, but it was certainly during the time I was practising in the Criminal Court of that Legation, which was from 1768 to 1793—being about one o’clock one day in the said Court, I heard that a foreign nobleman of exalted rank had been arrested, and was being brought to our prison under an escort of soldiers. His Eminence, being told of his arrival, had him at once brought before him. Moved by curiosity, I left my office and went into the Cardinal-Legate’s room, and there I saw that when this nobleman appeared, his Eminence went forward to meet him, embraced him, and led him into his own apartments. A good half-hour later, having gone back to my work, I heard the carriage; and looking out of the window, I saw the said nobleman get into it, and it crossed the square in the direction of the Adrian Gate by which it had entered. I don’t know who he was or where he came from, nor do I know where or why he was arrested. But he was said to be a great French personage.”
Having heard these eye-witnesses, let us listen to others whose reputations make them worthy of full belief.
Let us listen to the Signore Domenico della Valle, Secretary to the parish of Brisighella—
“Though very intimate with one of the Fathers of St. Bernard, I never heard him say a word about the exchange in question. But I can vouch for the fact that before 1790 I had heard the fact much talked about by several persons, and especially by the late Maestro don Giovanni-Batista Tondini, who seemed to know all about it. He told me that the thing had taken place about fifty years ago in the little town of Modigliana between a great French nobleman living in the Pretorial Palace, who had exchanged his daughter for the son of a certain Chiappini, then a constable, and whom I knew very well later on when he used to come to Brisighella to play football as an amateur. About twenty-five years ago I again saw, in the piazza of the Grand Duke, the said Chiappini, who talked for a long time with the late Cesare Bandini of Veriolo, who was with me. When that gentleman came back to me, I said to him: ‘You have been talking to a man I know to have exchanged his boy for the daughter of a great French nobleman.’ And Bandini replied, ‘Yes, that’s the man, and we were talking privately about that business.’
“I can say for certain that Chiappini was well dressed then, and I was told he was in easy circumstances, and had no need to follow his original occupation.
“After the suppression of the monastery of St. Bernard, I was employed in helping to make an inventory of papers and effects belonging to it. As I could speak French, they made me read two letters written in that language. They were addressed to the Father Abbot, signed L. C. Joinville, and bore the date of 1773; but I can’t remember what day or what month.
“In the first, written from Modigliana, there were thanks to that Father for having allowed him to take refuge in his convent; and in the second, written from Ravenna, he informed him that he had been set at liberty after having been arrested and taken to that town, and thanked him for all the attention he had shown him. These letters were written in a running and uneven hand; if I could see another written by the same person I should probably recognize it.
“The brothers of St. Bernard had themselves told me that the Count was taken up one morning when he had gone out for a walk with a book; and they added that their Abbot, looking upon this arrest as a violation of a sacred sanctuary, had been to Ravenna to lodge a complaint, and had obtained satisfaction.
“There was nothing entered in the inventory but the title-deeds of the capital and interest of the convent; the letters and other papers were left as being of no use; no one looked after them, and I don’t know if they are still in existence.”
Now let us hear Don Gaspare Perelli, Canon at Ravenna—
“I can perfectly well remember, about forty-three years ago, hearing some one say to my father, who was Governor of Brisighella, that some years earlier a prince in disguise, who was stopping in that part of the country, had exchanged his daughter for the son of a constable, and that this had taken place in the neighbourhood of Brisighella, though I can’t remember the name of the place itself. My father often told this story at table, and in the presence of my mother, Angela Forchini; and then they would inveigh against the cruelty of so changing a girl of high rank for a boy of low condition.”
Finally, let us hear the Signore Marco Maresta, chief custom-house officer in that same town of Ravenna—
“It is a long time ago, and I couldn’t swear to the exact date, that several people told me that at Faenza, or, as they said later, at Modigliana, there had taken place an exchange of the daughter of a great nobleman for a boy of low condition whose father had received a large sum, and that this exchange had been arranged beforehand when the two wives were about to be confined. I can’t remember the name of the nobleman nor that of the base man who accepted his offer, nor even that of the people who told me about it; but I did hear that the first was a Frenchman.”
With so many proofs at my command, I thought the time had come to push on my case. To procure greater expedition, I thought of another innocent stratagem.
From Ravenna, whither I had gone so that I could not be suspected of complicity with my judges, I wrote a letter to the Count Borghi, in which I pretended to have been informed that, my friends having discovered my true family in France, not one of my relations was left but a nun living at Bordeaux, who would welcome me with the greatest delight if I could succeed in proving to her the truth of the exchange, etc.
Quite beside himself, that gentleman hastened to announce this piece of good news to the Bishop of Faenza, came to Ravenna to congratulate me, and added to what he had already told me that the Count and Countess Borghi, his informants, though held in the highest esteem, were both of a very giddy and thoughtless disposition; that the last-named used to remit to the former doorkeeper an annual pension sent by the Comte Joinville for my education, and that the Grand Duke Leopold had shown me great favour.
“Do you suppose,” he said, “that except for that, that Prince would have been so deeply interested in you? Do you suppose he would have taken so much trouble or done so much for such a miserable wretch as Chiappini, etc.?”
Having promised me that he would mention all this in his deposition, he started for home, where he set everything going. His great eagerness made me alter my opinion of him; I could not believe that he still wished to conceal from me any helpful letters he might possess, and thenceforth my belief was that he had originally handed them all over to my supposed brother, with whom I knew he had had some communication.
Not to be behindhand with his fervour, I made haste to engage as my lawyer the Signore Jérôme Bellenghi, in order to obtain from the Episcopal Tribunal sitting at Faenza the proper rectification of my baptismal certificate; and this tribunal, on its side, nominated the Count Carlo Bandini to fill the office of proxy as representative of the Comte and Comtesse de Joinville, not present.
My so-called brother, Tomaso Chiappini, was assigned me as my representative, but, though twice summoned, refused to appear.
After the aforesaid witnesses had made their attestations, they were cross-examined, and their answers were in strict accordance with their original accounts.
My counsel having argued his case, his opponent argued his and raised every difficulty possible.
The Tribunal, having, after mature consideration, come to the conclusion that the attestation of the deceased jailer, far from being improbable, had been confirmed and verified by a large number of other evidence, presumptions and conjectures, gave, on the 29th of May, 1824, a verdict entirely in my favour; and when the proper time for appealing against it was over, no objection having been raised, the Registrar, under this warrant, proceeded to carry out the definitive rectification of my birth certificate, and declared me to be the daughter of the husband and wife, M. le Comte Louis, and Madame la Comtesse N. de Joinville. (French.)5
IV
Fresh Investigations—Count Borghi’s Letters—The Baths of Lucca—Intimacy of the Duke of Orleans and the Marchioness of B.—Loan—The Chevalier Montara—Letter to the Duc de Bourbon—Various Publications—The Lawyer Courtilly—Archives of Genoa—Conduct of the Governor—Tomaso Chiappini’s Libel—Refusal of the Printers—Vain Attempts—The Bishop of Faenza—Letter from the Cape of Good Hope.
One important fact had been argued and settled, namely, that of my substitution; and thenceforth it would be incontestable that my parents were the Comte and Comtesse de Joinville, and French. But who were this couple, and where were they? The uncertainty about this was insupportable to me now, and I was inspired with fresh courage to renew the struggle.
Greatly wishing, if possible, to discover the nurse who had suckled the jailer’s son, I had notices put up in several towns that a large reward would be given to any one who could give me news of her.
I wrote about this matter to Count Borghi, and at the same time reproached him somewhat for having omitted, on examination, to add to his first declaration what he had come to Ravenna to tell me.
This was his answer—
“Honoured Lady,
“It is enough for me that you are pleased with what I have done, and if you keep your goodwill for me, my delight will be complete.
“You must never doubt of our everlasting remembrance of you, whom we love and esteem for your rare and excellent qualities. I have heard how much vexed you were by the ignorance of the copyists; I could not have believed they could be so stupid and illiterate; but the Bishop will have all that remedied.
“All these unlooked-for difficulties must have worried you and delay our progress still more; I am truly sorry for it, and if I could have foreseen it, I would have offered to make the copies myself.
“During my examination I answered every question put to me, and I wanted to add what I told you at Ravenna; but I was told that, as that could not strengthen my deposition, it was useless to include it in the case. I did not fail to ask the sisters Bandini if they had not still got some remains of the correspondence between the Countess Camilla and the Comte de Joinville, but they always answered that they had absolutely nothing left of it.
“And that must be true; for if they possessed any of your parents’ letters they would have thought of making something out of them to relieve their poverty.
“Your nurse at Modigliana was the mother of a woman who is still alive; as to that of the exchanged boy, no one has been able to give me news of her; and prudence would have prevented the author of so atrocious a crime from choosing her about here, and also from leaving any trace of the direction in which the Comtesse de Joinville, with her attendants, went.
“I will go to Modigliana shortly, where I will make it my duty to make every possible inquiry, as you desire; but I greatly fear they will be fruitless, like those of so many others whom you employed before me, amongst whom was the Signore Ragazzini, who took immense trouble.
“I think I have now answered all the questions in your letter, which I received from your courier, from whom we heard, to our great delight, that you and your beloved Edward, to whom we send our best love, are in perfect health. Your friend6 swears an eternal affection for you; she joins with me in wishing you the greatest success and a full recovery of your sacred rights.
“Believe, honoured lady, that my protestations of respect and attachment could not be more sincere; and I can flatter myself that, from the moment I made your personal acquaintance, I was, and shall always be, proud to be your humble and devoted servant, as well as your very affectionate friend.
“Nicholas Borghi-Biancoli.”
After so much anxiety, worry and fatigue, I felt the greatest need of rest, and my dear Marchioness of B. having most luckily told me that she was at the baths of Lucca, I hastened to throw myself into her loving arms there.
She told me that, about six weeks after my going to Paris, she had written the Duke of Orleans a second letter of introduction for me, and said that she had been much surprised that that Prince had not acknowledged its receipt, and had not even taken the trouble to thank her for the news she had given him of her daughter’s marriage to Lord S.
For it is as well to know that, during the time of their exile, the Duke and his two brothers7 had received from Mr. C., the Marchioness’s father, an annual pension of £200 and permi to dine with him as often as they pleased.
The Marquess of B. had given them a similar invitation, and had offered them the use of a country house a short distance from London.
The Duc de Montpensier, filled with gratitude, was so greatly attached to him that he had himself carried to him just before his death, saying that he must go to give an eternal farewell to his best friend.
This Prince having died of consumption at the age of thirty-two, the unfortunate Comte de Beaujolais, already attacked by the same disease, was taken by his elder brother to a milder climate, and died at Malta during his twenty-eighth year.
On his return to England, the present Duke applied once more to Mr. C. and the Marquess of B. and obtained fresh favours and assistance, to supply, as he said, the needs of his mother and sister.
A short time after the Restoration, the Marchioness being in Paris, he went to see her, thanked her for all her good offices, vowed eternal gratitude to her and pressed her to go to spend a few days at Neuilly. Her health prevented her from yielding to his gracious entreaties or those of the Duchess, who also showed her great kindness; but from that time there began a very friendly and almost fraternal correspondence between the Duke and my friend, which was interrupted only by the sending of the letter concerning me.
I could easily explain to my friend the cause of this silence, by telling her of all that had happened since I had had the happiness of seeing her.
The enormous expenses I had incurred had exhausted my funds, and I asked her to be so good as to advance me something.
At first she refused, pleading that her intimacy with the Duke would not allow her to provide weapons against him; but my arguments, and still more her own love for me, little by little convinced her, and she ended by lending me the sum I needed.
With scrupulous delicacy she informed my adversary of this, assuring him that it was solely to give me the power of paying off my old debts and not with the intention of helping me to make war on him.
Instead of a direct answer to so expansive a confidence, a thousand tortuous ways were taken to convince my friend that my claims were nothing but a tissue of lies, and everything possible was done to deprive me of her affection.
But her never-failing answer was: “Let her ideas be true or false, my heart will always be with one whom I love like another self.”
As soon as I had somewhat recovered, I went to Genoa, so as to be more within reach of news from France, whither I had made up my mind to send a certain Chevalier Montara whom a lady in Lucca had described as being a very clever man. I gave him my instructions and £300 sterling, for the journey as well as for the investigations he would have to make, and ordered him to submit the whole thing to his Majesty Louis XVIII.
His first letters were very encouraging, and they came pretty frequently; soon they became rarer and rarer; he tried to arouse fears in me; he pleaded serious illness, squandered my money, and, in fact, did nothing for me.
About this time, I was reminded that the Duc de Bourbon-Condé, during his misfortunes, had received much civility from Lord Newborough’s relations. Delighted at this reminiscence, I thought I might take the liberty of writing a very respectful and touching letter to His Highness, begging him to give me his advice.
My letter was delivered, opened, and having been looked at, was ignominiously returned to the person who had undertaken to take it.
The secretary who gave it back to him censured my action, accused me of audacity, and treated my business as a chimerical delusion.
After this disappointment I was advised to have recourse to Madame la Dauphine.
A literary man of high reputation undertook to draw up my petition after the most proper fashion; but when he came to read it to me, I must confess that it seemed to me far from likely to convince any one of the truth, especially at a time so fertile in impostors.
Despite the doubts which I thought might be caused by my ignorance of a language that was still almost unknown to me, I decided to have it presented by a gentleman residing in Paris, who, at the end of three weeks wrote that he must not again be given such commissions; that he had been asked several questions he could not answer, and that he had found himself, without any manner of doubt, under the special observance of the police.
This fresh worry was all the more trying since my stay in Genoa was disturbed by a multitude of other anxieties.
Not content with distributing copies of the judgment given at Faenza, I had an article inserted in a newspaper8 containing a summary of my case, in which I asked for fresh information concerning my father and mother, whom I designated only by the initial J.
No one could believe that they were simply nobles; everybody was whispering august names; but as the Orleans family was allied with all the reigning families of Italy, fear seized upon all hearts and closed all lips.
Only one man made his appearance: a former magistrate who had known old Chiappini well.
As a matter of fact, his evidence would have been much more useful to me before the verdict given in my favour, but at least it will serve to confirm it. Let us listen to it.
“I, the undersigned, certify and declare what follows, on my soul and conscience—
“In the year 1808, having sent in my resignation of the post of substitute of the Attorney-General in the Criminal Court of the department called that of the Apennines, I retired to Florence, where I lived until the month of April 1813, the date of my departure for Rome. At the beginning of my residence in the first of these two towns, I made the acquaintance of Lorenzo Chiappini, with whom I sometimes dined at the house of the doctor, Pietro Salvi. In 1810, I met him, with other Florentines, in the immense house of the old Chartreuse, where, like me, he had hired rooms to spend the summer in. The more we saw of each other the more intimate and familiar became our intercourse, especially on his side.
“Very soon he told me the most minute details of a journey he had made to London to see one of his daughters, married, he said, to a rich English lord who had fallen in love with her on hearing her sing in a theatre.
“He could not say enough about the splendour of his son-in-law’s house, nor of the welcome he had received there; told me some coarse stories about Great Britain; described the manners of the inhabitants; constantly repeated that all his happiness lay in that darling daughter, and assured me that he would give the world to procure the pleasure of seeing her again.
“The next year he was attacked by some slight malady, and one day, as I went to see him pretty frequently, he confessed to me that he had a great burden on his conscience. I tried in vain to make him listen to some words of comfort; nothing could cure his melancholy.
“Another time, the talk having turned on the same subject, I said that if he had not been guilty of theft—a sin God does not pardon without restitution—all else could be expiated by repentance. At that he made a clean breast of everything, and confided to me that, having been in his youth keeper of the prisons at Modigliana, he exchanged his firstborn son for the daughter of a foreign nobleman, and that it was that daughter who was married in London, and that he should feel never-ending regret for so having helped to deprive her of her birthright.
“Having strongly advised him to reveal such a secret to his generous benefactress, who must most certainly rejoice over it because of the honour and profit it would bring her, he said that he had already thought of doing so, and only wanted to avoid any sort of fuss during his life; but he should manage so that everything should be discovered after his death. He added that this seemed sufficient reparation due to the lady, considering her present condition of grandeur and opulence.
“He talked after the same fashion to me on several other occasions, and I always found him fixed in that resolve.
“This is what I heard from Chiappini’s own lips, and I am prepared to confirm it, if necessary, legally and by oath.
“In testimony whereof,
“Louis Courtilly,
“Lawyer.”
This very clear and precise deposition was far from compensating me for all the disagreeables brought upon me by my harmless advertisements.
Researches made in the Public Archives of the town I was living in brought to light almost nothing about the year 1773; the Keeper of the Records declared that the books relating to that period had been put together in a place I must not enter without special permission, and where, he told me, memorandums of great importance were kept.
But it was impossible to get anything out of the Governor, who was my sworn enemy.
The day after the appearance of my article he had severely reprimanded the journalist I had employed.
He often gave balls, concerts and entertainments of all kinds, to which all the English ladies, from those of high rank down to the wives of the smallest tradespeople, were invited; I alone was deprived of this immense honour.
One day he went so far as to express to my banker the greatest desire for my speedy departure. “I am ordered,” he said, “to keep the strictest watch over her.”
My banker replying that he could not understand the reason of it, since all I was doing was in order to discover a Comte and Comtesse Joinville—
“Yes,” said this officious governor; “but it isn’t very easy to prove that this Count and Countess are no other than the former Duke and Duchess of Chartres?”
But that was not all.
Fifteen days after the appearance of my article in the Gazetta di Genova, my ex-brother, the advocate Chiappini, sent me by post a so-called answer he had had put into the public papers, boasting of having obtained the permission of the Government. Adorned with all the flowers of speech an infamous pen could indite, such a libel was well worthy of its author.
Although my reputation stood immeasurably high above his insults, at first I wanted to answer them.
The first printer I spoke to refused his services, under the pretext that he had received orders in the matter; I had successive recourse to several others, who all likewise put me off. Not only at Genoa, but at Florence, Bologna and Alessandria—everywhere they had been threatened with severe penalties in case of disobedience.
Tomaso Chiappini had not confined himself to spreading atrocious calumnies against me; I heard that he was accusing my witnesses of imposture, and that several of them, alarmed by the sinister rumours he circulated, and believing themselves irretrievably ruined, were cursing me and declaring that I had involved them in the greatest trouble.
Amongst these was the Count Borghi, who henceforth became once more my enemy.
The whole country was topsy-turvy; but all these intrigues, all these diabolical plots fell to the ground.
I wrote to the Bishop of Faenza, who could not get over his astonishment, but exhorted me to suspend judgment on the persons whose perfidious inconstancy I was denouncing, and assured me that the truth was too well established for anything henceforth to shake it.
His letter, which I carefully treasure, is dated July 20, 1826.
If that of this venerable prelate, illustrious by his learning and formerly Patriarch of Venice, was flattering and an honour, another, which I received from the Cape of Good Hope, was as vile and filthy.
It can easily be guessed it was the work of that other Chiappini to whom Lord Newborough had shown so much kindness.
The most malignant rage was manifest through the whole of it, beneath the hideous hues of expressions as indescribably ignoble as they were ridiculous.
To do full justice to it, it would doubtless be enough to let it be seen as it is; but I should fear to disgust my readers.
V
I go to Nice—Rudeness of the Governor—Letter from Alquier-Caze—My Precautions—Demands, and Remittances—Second Journey to Paris—Conversation—A Gouty Colonel—Expenses—Return to Nice—Letters from my Husband—His Arrival—That of the Marchioness of B.
—A Transient Happiness.
Being so ill-treated at Genoa, and also wishing to be still nearer to France, in the month of September 1825, with my son, his tutor and my servants, I left and went to live in a country house I had rented near the gates of Nice, where I was unlucky enough to come across a governor still stiffer and ruder than that of the town I had just left.
But what could so many unjust proceedings do but confirm me still more in the justice of my high claims! For it was easy enough for me to see that they were dictated by a powerful hand, and I could not believe that that kind of enemy would fight mere phantoms.
A little before this I had received a letter from Paris, written by a certain Alquier-Caze, who introduced himself and offered me his services.
“I have been well posted up in the case,” he wrote; “I know its delicacy, I see its difficulties; but I don’t feel any qualms about undertaking it; and I even count on a speedy success if you will deign to honour me with your complete confidence.”
Afraid of falling again into the hands of a rogue, I sent him a very guarded and cautious letter; but he was not at all put out by it, and replied in these terms—
“Madame la Baronne, the position you are in is such as to cause you great anxiety. The importance of the matter that fills your mind; the uncertainty of its issue; the base machinations that perfidy has employed against you; the kind of fatality that seems to pursue you, all combine to give birth to endless doubts and apprehensions. But, believe me, Madame, I feel the strongest conviction that, by my hands, Heaven will give you the final victory over your enemies. Yes, that victory will be my work. Up to now you have been deceived; up to now I have met with nothing but ingratitude for my services; Fate keeps in reserve for each of us an equally pleasant event; for you, that of seeing your confidence justified by my vigorous efforts; for me, that of meeting at last with a noble expression of gratitude. No, the soul of a Catalan is not an ordinary soul, as the future will prove to you better than anything I could say,” etc.
The confident warmth of this shook me. I had some inquiries made about him, and as I was told he was a young lawyer of good repute, bold and clever, I decided to confide my documents to him.
He wrote soon, declaring that he had already made some valuable discoveries, intimating at the same time that the lure of gain was absolutely necessary for obtaining good evidence.
I at once set about sending off a considerable sum to him, which was but the prelude to the many other such disbursements the necessity of which he was continually urging.
This had gone on for several months, when, some weeks after my arrival at Nice, I received a fresh letter from Caze, telling me that he was beginning the attack at the reopening of the Courts; that he greatly wished to confer with me beforehand, and urging me so strongly to come to Paris before the 1st of November, that I set out at once, taking with me my dear son and his tutor.
In spite of all the haste we made, we could not manage to arrive before the 2nd of November. I took a suite of rooms in a large hotel in the Place Vendôme, and not till two days later did I receive the first visit of my assiduous lawyer.
Compliments exchanged, this represents the substance of what passed between us—
“Have you got your husband’s authority, madame?” “No, monsieur.” “But that is a document without which we can do nothing.” “You ought to have warned me of that six months ago.” “I most sincerely beg your pardon for not having thought of it.” “It is very annoying to have taken so long and expensive a journey uselessly.” “Far from being useless, it was indispensable.” “I don’t see why.” “Wasn’t it necessary for us to arrange together what it would be best to attempt so as to ensure complete success?”
“That could have been done by writing, or after I had been furnished with the power-of-attorney.”
“Yes; but I was longing to tell you in person what I could not confide to paper.”
“What are these very important communications, then?” “I have succeeded in discovering that the very year of the exchange the Duc de Chartres, your father, was staying at Berne, under the name of the Comte de Joinville, in an inn the then landlady of which is still alive; and where he scandalized everybody by his profligate conduct. I believe I can get a certification of this from the local authorities. Another of my agents has informed me that the Marquise de Boucherolles, an old friend of your mother’s, testifies that that Princess was on bad terms with her supposed son, and often made mysterious remarks that are in perfect agreement with the facts of the case.
“The same agent spoke to me of a certain M. d’Echouards, who knows of the testimony of the late Madame Cambise to the effect that, on her death-bed, the Dowager suffered greatly from a troubled conscience. He told me, too, that the late mother-in-law of the Comte de Saillan was one of the travelling-party in 1773. Moreover, on this point I have three witnesses de visu, and am just about to procure three more still living.” “Will you be so very kind as to introduce them to me?” “Most willingly; but I shall still need a little more money to give them enough courage. That’s by far the best card to play, especially in Paris.”
Bewitched by his talk and his protestations, I opened my purse, and my poor pennies disappeared into that of my artful juggler, who, the next day, appeared once more, bringing with him a gouty old Colonel, who, almost before he got into the room, addressed me in the following words—
“As I am well acquainted with the family of the Baron de Sternberg, I want to help you as much as I possibly can. The judgments of men being always doubtful, you may perhaps fail in obtaining the justice you seem to expect from legal tribunals; but it would be quite easy for you, through my intervention, to arrive at a satisfactory settlement.”
Astonished at such a speech, I promptly exclaimed: “No, no; I would never consent to submit to such a disgrace.”
The Colonel replied—
“Still, madame, the plan I want to propose to you would undoubtedly be the wisest and the most advantageous for you. Will you live long enough to see the end of such a case? And how do you know that your children would have any desire to go on with it?”
To this my answer was still more concise, being couched in three words: “All or nothing!”
I left the room as soon as they were uttered, and declined to see my gouty old friend again, believing him to be a spy sent from my adversary.
Vainly I waited for the appearance of M. Alquier’s promised witnesses; there were always fresh excuses on his part, and renewed requests for money, which I was simple enough to grant. In less than a fortnight I had spent more than three thousand crowns.
Weary of such expenses and delays, I longed to return to Nice, where I arrived towards the end of the autumn. I had written to my husband, who, during the winter, sent me his very disappointing opinion. Instead of authorizing me to go to law, he advised attempting to come to some arrangement.
I seized my pen at once to tell him shortly that, desiring to die as I had lived, I could not compromise my honour.
Some months after, I received a second letter, in which he told me that, on the advice of our friend, Admiral Krusenstern,9 he was coming to me, so as to endeavour to end the business in the best way possible.
He arrived towards the end of October, having stopped some time in Paris to make fresh investigations. While allowing that I had excellent grounds and very favourable chances, his constant refrain was: “We must try for an arrangement”; while mine was a vexed and endless repetition of: “All or nothing.”
His arrival was shortly followed by that of the Marchioness of B., who came from Lausanne.
She told me that the Duke of Orleans, while visiting that town, had not condescended even to ask news of her; adding that she quite understood that I was the innocent cause of this base ingratitude.
The house she took at Nice being next door to mine, we saw each other constantly; in fact, we were always together, and I can assert that that winter was the happiest time in my wretched existence; though even then I could not fully enjoy its consolations, because of my firm conviction that they would speedily change to bitter sufferings.
My presentiments were but too well verified; my friend, for her part, was obliged to go back to London, while the Baron, on his, announced his positive intention to send Edward to a public school!
VI
My Stay at Geneva—Correspondence of Alquier-Caze—M. Sparifico—Payment of the Lawyers—An Unlucky Meeting—Weakening of my Health—My Husband’s Exhortations—His Arrival with Driver-Cooper—Fatal Agreement—My Son’s Tutor.
In the middle of the year 1827, soon after the departure of my friend, we transported our household goods to Geneva, where was the school my husband had chosen for our young son; and his first care on our arrival was the carrying out of his barbarous plan.
Unable to make up my mind quite to lose sight of the dear child who, since his birth, had never left me, I hired a house close to his. I was able to go to see him every day, to lavish love upon him, and he himself came to see me twice a week and spent the whole of Sunday with me.
I used to invite several of his school-fellows for the evening, providing all sorts of refreshments for them, and letting them amuse themselves just as they pleased; and their childish games were a real relaxation to me.
Moreover, my dear Marchioness of B. had kindly given me several agreeable introductions, so that in my new home I found something of the pleasure I had enjoyed at Nice.
But this new tranquillity could not last.
For some time past I had noticed that d’Alquier-Caze’s communications were neither so frequent nor so hopeful as they had been. Having mentioned this to him, he answered me by a lengthy enumeration of his supposed services. Another time he wrote that he was going to Nancy to question an old person he had been told of from whose evidence he expected the happiest results.
On another occasion he gave me an account of a conversation he professed to have had with a Minister of his most Christian Majesty.
“The first attempt was to frighten me,” he said; “but my determined aspect speedily destroyed all hope of succeeding in that. Then discouragement was tried; I made a suitable reply. Every possible way of trying to make me speak was used; but I steadily kept myself within the limits of a wise discretion. ‘What do you want?’ I was asked. My answer was yours: ‘All or nothing.’ ‘You’ll ruin yourself.’ ‘I shall do my duty.’ ‘You had better give up such a chimerical business.’ ‘I possess the confidence of milady, and I cannot betray it.’ ‘You will never succeed.’ ‘We shall.’ ‘Every one regards your claims with supreme contempt.’ ‘That’s impossible!’ ‘They can’t conceive on what you found them.’ ‘Do you allow that the exchange took place?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then all that I have to do now is to prove the identity of its perpetrator with the too notorious Orleans.’ ‘Prove even its likelihood, if you can.’ ‘I shall prove its reality.’ ‘How?’ ‘We shall have writings and witnesses.’ ‘Well, we shall always be pleased to see you.’ ‘I shall come again.’ etc.”
Far from satisfied with all this talk, I constantly complained that, since the verdict given at Faenza, I had spent a great deal of money and was still about where I was then. To combat my reproaches he conceived the idea of writing me the extraordinary letter here given—
“You are angry with me, dear milady, are you not? You are both right and wrong. You are right, because in your situation nothing could be more natural than impatience; and wrong, because I am to be excused on account of all the trouble I am taking.
“There is a question I am about to submit to you, and to which you must give a definite answer.
“Certain proposals, in the form of advice, have been made to me in your interest. Would you be disposed—yes or no—to come to an arrangement if its terms were considerable pecuniary advantages to yourself? Please let me know at once. I won’t say more to-day, but that everything is going on well. Believe me, etc.”
What more was wanted to open my eyes and let me clearly see the crafty duplicity of my ill-advised rascal, who up to now had so piqued himself on the nobility of his sentiments?
Knowing in Paris a certain M. Sparifico, I begged him to tell me of some lawyer famous for his ability and still more for his integrity.
First he mentioned several, who, he said, dared not undertake my defence; and then he named others whom I knew to be devoted to my mortal enemy.
I was so disgusted with all these obstacles that I almost made up my mind to give up everything.
The Baron being obliged to go to the capital of France on his own affairs, I requested him to recover all the papers in Alquier-Caze’s possession, which he endeavoured to do; but could not manage till he had paid 200 francs to Maître Hennequin for a memorandum I had never seen; 550 francs to Maître Plé for work of which I had never heard, and 1000 francs to Caze himself for having cheated me out of many times as much.
About this time a certain Henry Driver-Cooper, who, after ruining his creditors in England, had taken refuge on the Continent so as to increase his iniquitous fortune, had just exchanged his modest designation of hop-merchant for the pompous title of jurisconsult, which he thought he had the right to share with Maître Dupin, considering that he had entrusted to him the celebrated Stacpoole case;10 wherefore he considered that he also ought to share in the glory of its success; since, without him, Maître Dupin would not have intervened. He had his Doctor’s Diploma printed on his visiting-cards, and went from house to house boasting of his triumph.
But he took good care not to add that Maître Dupin himself, thinking but little of his services, had reduced the fee he claimed by a thirty-second!
After this blow the disconsolate hop-merchant, or, if you like, the saddened jurisconsult, was on the look-out for a favourable opportunity. He owned in the neighbourhood of Paris a so-called château, which he had bought in better days, and he was trying to find an obliging tenant who would pay him a big rent for it while still leaving him in possession and even keeping him during the whole duration of the lease.
I was to be this compassionate person; he had foreseen it from the moment that he had first chanced to meet my husband, whom by dexterous suggestions he drew into his net, and negotiations were entered into.
Meanwhile, the damp climate of Geneva having given me a very bad cold, which, as usual, had at once settled on my chest, my friends advised me to take a house in the country where I could breathe more healthy air. I had chosen one, called Coligny, looking over the lake and magnificently situated, when the Baron, writing to me about his lucky discovery, asked my opinion of it.
In spite of his youth, my dear son begged me not to forget how many times I had allowed myself to be caught in the snares of impostors. In consequence I answered evasively, and principally to tell my husband of my resolve to change my house.
I soon received a second letter in which he implored me not to carry out my intention, explained still more fully the conditions laid down by my deliverer, and told me that one of them was that I must live in his house during the whole course of the trial.
This time my answer was decided.
“I will consent,” I said, “to combine with your agent in pecuniary matters if he will pay half the costs and undertake to push on the business briskly. As to the plan for my living in his house, you may give that up at once; for I intend to take the one I have in view here from to-morrow, and nothing will induce me to leave my dear Edward.”
In fact, I signed the agreement and moved to Coligny.
I was hardly settled there when I had a third letter from the Baron, expressing very great displeasure and even reproving me in a way. He spoke enthusiastically of Cooper, extolling his courtesy, enlarging on his ability, and endeavouring above all to convince me that if I did not take advantage of his generous offer I might give up all my hopes; that I should not find any French avocat willing to fight against the powerful Colossus, reputed the first Prince of the Royal Blood, and that the great benefit to my son claimed the sacrifice, however painful to my heart, of a separation destined to procure for him the most brilliant of futures.
That last argument moved and shook me; it was so cleverly put that I consented to see our charlatan. But the clever swindler, not wishing to make it seem that he had come on his own initiative to see me in Switzerland, got a model of the flattering invitation I was to give him sent to me.
My exact copy having reached him, he and my husband arrived.
He left no stone unturned to dazzle our eyes with his cunning promises, and, as soon as he believed us both well prepared, he persuaded us to go to the house of Voltaire at Ferney.
“It shall be on the very table at which the great man wrote his immortal works that our agreement shall be signed; his shade shall preside there, and his presence be the pledge of the most glorious success.”
It was pure farce, I own, but what is easier than to inflame minds already under the spell? Could we haggle when the grandeurs and riches we had a right to claim were, so to speak, at our discretion?
Cooper was able to take advantage of our weakness in the most infamous fashion.
Sitting unmoved in this castle-in-the-air of his own building, caring for nothing but other people’s money, he made us affix our signatures to two deeds, the outcome of his crafty cupidity.
By the first he appointed himself my steward; as such he was, during the whole course of the trial, to lodge and keep me; to furnish me with horses, carriages, and servants, in return for an annual payment of 25,000 francs, payable in advance.
Having made his calculations correctly, by the second, which he had taken care to bring ready drawn-up and in French so uncouth that it was difficult to understand it, he created himself the absolute dispenser of larger sums.
He was to proceed with the business which was my principal object if he thought fit, and in the way he thought best. The costs were to be divided, and, in the case of success, the profits also.
“Perhaps you have not by you the sum you ought to pay me. Well, give me bills.”
And so I did to the amount of £1,150 sterling.
After this delightful expedition, he was ready to return to Paris, begging me to follow quickly.
Although at school my son had all the necessary masters, I had up to now kept on his tutor, called Ragazzini, a native of Tredozzio, who had been recommended to me at Florence as a clever man, and had taken some trouble in the Faenza business.
I wished to discharge him at this time in consequence of many defects he could no longer keep hidden; but Cooper and the Baron were against it, saying that the man, knowing Italy perfectly, might be of the greatest use to us; so, though very reluctantly, I gave way to their urgent representations; and it was arranged that he was to accompany me and my husband.
VII
Painful Separation—Arrival at Bellevue—Powers given to Cooper—His Swindling—The Ills he made me suffer—Fresh Attempts of Alquier-Caze—Distraint on my Effects—My Move to the Hôtel Britannique—Letters from my Husband and my Son—My Grief and my Resolves.
Immediately after Cooper’s departure I began to prepare. The owner of Coligny was inexorable; I had to pay him the whole year’s rent.
But this loss was very small compared with another much greater one. It would be vain to try to describe how my maternal heart was torn, when I thought I was forsaking my dear son. How difficult it was, what restraint I had to use, what efforts to make, not to break down when the dear boy asked me with sorrowful and almost prophetic voice: “Maman, Maman, what are you going to do?”
And all I could say in answer was: “My darling, I am going to work for the good of you and your dear brothers.”
Before the fatal day he spent two with me, and his loving caresses were sweet but incurable wounds to my soul.
No—I will not attempt to describe that cruel parting; I will not speak of it. I will only say that, absorbed in my own thoughts, despite the numerous requests to do so, I could not bear once to look at the sublime and delightful beauties of nature, which had always had so great a charm for me.
After a journey of four days we passed through Paris, and arrived at Bellevue near Meudon.
One of the chief reasons that had induced me to go to the scene of action was the inclination my husband and his confidant had shown to try the plan of compromise with my adversary; and I was quite resolved to make an eternal protest against that kind of baseness. But once on the spot, I thought there was nothing to fear. Deeds, papers, documents, got together with difficulty by my constant care—all were handed over without misgiving, and the full powers demanded by Cooper at once given him.
But that was not enough; he must seize my whole fortune. My income was now reduced to £1,700 sterling a year; he had already taken £1000 for the rent of the house; but he could not be satisfied till he got hold of the £700 I still had to dispose of.
To this end, he got together some infamous assistants, with whom he worked upon the Baron’s mind with shameless cunning, and they came all together to propose my giving the rogue fresh powers to raise my funds in England, under pretext of the enormous expenses my case would entail.
No more powerful motive could have been offered me; after a few short explanations, I signed a paper, which I had not even been asked to read.
So now Cooper was absolute master of my property; there was nothing more for him to ask for: he had got it all.
And now the important trial for which I had already made such great sacrifices would surely make mighty strides towards the desired event?
By no means; Cooper isn’t even giving it a thought; anyhow there is nothing to prove that he is. But he is always talking to me in a hopeful strain, so important is it to him to keep his post as director of a sham piece of work which, without care or trouble, ought to bring him in 45,000 francs a year!
But the agreement as to rent and stewardship was very ill carried out; for several weeks carriage, horses, servants could not be found; our rooms lacked the most necessary pieces of furniture, and my table displayed such parsimony that I should infallibly have died of hunger if I had not taken care to get in from outside something to live upon.
I might have borne with this economical diet patiently if I could have got any satisfaction about the great business; but nothing was got ready, nothing begun. At last I saw that I was the victim of the basest imposture; and when I reflected on all the deeds my weakness had allowed to be extorted from me, I realized all the horror of my position.
Forthwith I burst into bitter complaints. Cooper, in a rage, threw away his mask, and might have said—
“C’est à vous de sortir, vous qui parlez en maître;
La maison m’appartient.…”
And truly, my own agreement in his hand, he ruled like a despot over the house he had let to me for 25,000 francs; and to make me feel the full weight of his authority, he redoubled his economies, kept under lock and key even the garden seeds which I was no longer allowed to gather for my birds; spoke haughtily to me; poured out abuse on me, and, in a sort of way, kept me under close surveillance.
He had then his mother and sister with him, two veritable furies who joined in all his excesses; and as on every occasion they gave way to their fiery passions, several conflicts took place.
No—I can never understand how my husband could restrain himself under such circumstances!
While I was being thus tormented by my new swindler, Alquier-Caze did not lose sight of me, and still speculating brilliantly on my easy credulity, he endeavoured to approach me once more through this very specious preamble.
“Milady, no doubt you will be astonished at receiving a letter from me; this is what has induced me to write to you.
“This morning a person I do not know, and who would not tell me his name, came to see me. He told me where you are living, and talked a great deal about your case. I cannot and will not trust to paper the communications he made me. They are of importance to you and your position.
“Although I cannot feel much flattered that, being in this country, you have not come to see one who took so much trouble for you, I can never cease to participate in your troubles, and I believe it will be in your interest to tell you what I have learnt.
“I am free only on Sunday. If you think it well for me to come and see you, answer at once, and the day after to-morrow I will be with you.
“Please be prudent and tell no one of my letter, etc.”
Curiosity to see him rather than any hope of hearing anything useful decided me to allow him to come. He came, and his constrained manner and ambiguous language soon betraying to me his deceitful plot, I treated him with icy coldness, and made him clearly see that for the future I would have nothing more to do with him. I heard afterwards that his numerous misdeeds had forced him to leave France.
In the meantime I had written to England with orders that the last power of attorney I had so rashly given to the cheat Cooper should not be honoured.
On the first hint of this being learned by my odious agent, he flew into a frightful rage; loaded me with insults, threatened me with his wrath, and put in a distraint on all my effects, to which I responded by a revocation of all the powers I had given him.
We could no longer live with such a scoundrel; so we left Meudon on September 1, 1828, and established ourselves in the Hôtel Britannique.
I need hardly say that on the day we left we had to submit to the grossest of insults in the shape of a ridiculous and minute examination to make sure, as they said, that we had committed no theft.
As I pretty often reproached the Baron for having caused me so many discomforts, I thought I saw that my words had a great effect on him, and his mind seemed much upset. On the fourth day after our change of residence, I saw him go out with a paper in his hand, and asking him when he would be back, he said: “In an hour’s time.”
While waiting, I went for a walk with my son’s former tutor, and on getting back, my first question to the portress was whether my husband had come in.
As she answered in the negative, I ordered dinner to be put off; but the Baron did not return. I began to feel great anxiety, fearing that something had happened to him; but at eight o’clock in the evening I received a packet containing a power of attorney for Ragazzini and a letter for me in these words—
“My dear Wife,
“I am distressed at having to leave you just now; but business I can’t put off longer calls me to Russia. I beg your pardon for not having told you sooner; but I acted in this way so as to avoid the harrowing scenes that would have followed. My agitation is so great that I can say nothing to you but that my conscience does not accuse me of all the wrongs you impute to me. I have told M. Ragazzini to act for you against Driver-Cooper. Some day, I hope, we shall meet again under a more lucky star than the present one. I participate in all your troubles, but I cannot help you. Adieu; tout à vous.
“B. de Sternberg.”
It will well be believed that I cannot describe the grief I felt at finding myself forsaken by him who had so disastrously involved me in so grievous a strife. But his pitiless hand was to strike me a still harder blow.
About the end of the week I received the following letter—
“My dearest Maman,
“My father has just arrived in Geneva, and intends to start for Russia to-morrow with me. I already hear your reproaches; but what can I do?
“Forgive your loving son, and don’t think him ungrateful; for I am ready to put my head in the fire if that would be any good to you.
“But what would become of me if I did not obey my father’s orders? Don’t be afraid; you will always have the whole of my filial love.
“How cruel it is to tear me in this fashion from my darling mother! But what can be done? If you had stayed at Coligny, and if you had listened to my advice, this would not have happened.
“I am hurried. Be comforted; you shall soon have news of me, and believe me always the most loving of your sons.
“Edward Sternberg.”
What I felt on reading this was not grief; it was despair. For several days I gave myself up completely to the most acute anguish; at times I wanted to start for Russia; at others I resolved to let myself die.
But at last real maternal love triumphed over affliction, and I realized that it was necessary for the good of my children both to go on living and to remain in France.
Taking fresh courage, I formed the unshakable resolution to suffer and face everything, that I might gain a victory to the advantage and honour of those who were so dear to me in this world.
VIII
Cooper’s Rage—Recourse to the Law—First Result of Arbitration—M. Huré—My Letters to Mme. de Genlis—Visit of Saint-Aubin—His Journey—Emissary from Mme. de Genlis—Letters from Saint-Aubin—His Return—Realized Fears—Mr. Mills’s Tricks—My Correspondence with the English Ambassador.
While I was lamenting over the unexpected departure of my husband and son, Driver-Cooper, for his part, was loudly complaining, and wanting to force me to go back to his house, which he still kept on calling his château at Bellevue, his beautiful château of Colonnes.
Maintaining that, as I had been, and was still, his boarder, he said, the usual meals were being served every day for me and my people.
He was eating them by himself—without much trouble, probably!—but still protested, none the less, that I ought to pay him 25,000 francs a year for dinners I refused to eat; and talked a lot of other nonsense.
I wanted to put an end to these impudent molestations, and, as a clause in each of our two famous Ferney agreements submitted any difficulty that might arise to arbitrators, amicably chosen by us, or, in default of that, by the Tribunals of the Seine, I had recourse to the last means.
The arbitrators were appointed, and I explained to them the clever way in which the perfidious Cooper had blinded me, as well as his iniquitous fashion of fulfilling his obligations; I especially brought to their notice that, by the terms of the contract, his lease was to last only for the time taken up by my great affair; and that this had legally come to an end since my revocation of the powers I had given him.
The first decision of the arbitrators, given on September 30, 1828, was in my favour, and annulled the agreement as to the letting of the manoir of Bellevue at the rent of 25,000 francs; but, to my great surprise, I found myself sentenced to pay 16,000 of it as a compensation for the time I had spent in that wretched hole and for other expenses I knew nothing about for the most part; an indispensable condition for obtaining the restitution of my effects.
When I had done this, I fixed a day for them to be fetched, and the holder undertook to give them up.
Fresh matter for astonishment.
My servant presents himself and is informed that the removal is opposed at the request of M. Huré, furniture-dealer, in whose favour the honest Cooper had backed my bills.
Luckily for me, the President suspected some intrigue and ordered a severe examination of the books and registers of the opposer, who, less disreputable than his corrupter and not daring to play his part to the end, frankly owned to his odious rôle of catspaw.
The Court, having condemned him in costs, sent back my claim for the return of my bills for the judgment of the same arbitrators who were to pronounce as to the validity of the agreement in virtue of which I had consented to them. But I had to endure such delays that my poor belongings were not returned to me till after six months of waiting,11 and my old villain raised so many quibbles and difficulties that the discussions relating to the second arbitration lasted a year.
From the very beginning of all these disputes I had been advised to write to the celebrated Comtesse de Genlis, formerly governess to the Orleans children,12 in order to induce her to reveal to me the secrets of this horrible drama, which perhaps she herself had managed.13
In consequence, I composed a letter well suited to her profound modesty and her noble disinterestedness.
Some days passed and no answer came; and, beginning to think that my letter had not been given to her, I decided to write another, which I sent by sure hands to our chaste Susannah.
The next day but one, M. de Saint-Aubin was announced, and there entered a rather good-looking young man, refined and open in manner, who told me he had seen what I had written to Mme. de Genlis, with whom he lived and in whose confidence he was; adding that if I would give him mine, by degrees he would persuade her to speak out.
“Has she not already confessed to me,” he went on, “that your affairs formerly caused her much trouble, and that the evil genius who had bewitched the late Duc de Chartres was an Italian and still living? Anyhow, madame, the only motive I had for coming to see you was the desire to be of use to one who is oppressed.”
He then showed me several letters from our virtuous heroine, in which she lauded his talents, told him of her own doings, called him her best friend, etc., etc.
In a word, the young rascal left no stone unturned to delude me; and when he thought I was well prepared, he offered to go a journey which, to judge by his hints and mysterious speeches, ought to be to my immense advantage.
Dazzled by this display of verbosity and his gorgeous promises, I sanctioned his plan, and offered him 1000 francs to carry it out. He asked me for 3000, and we split the difference.
In acknowledgment of the sum I handed over to him, all he gave me was this meaningless memorandum: “I have received from Madame la Comtesse de Newborough 2000 francs, on an agreement between us. Given in Paris, December 6th, 1828. S. D. de Saint-Aubin.”
A few days later he announced to me his arrival at Nancy, and said he had already got important information.
I had just received this news, when an ill-dressed man holding a paper made his appearance, calling out to me: “Didn’t you write this letter to the Comtesse de Genlis?” And as I took it from his dirty and disgusting hands, to see if it was really mine, he went on: “The Comtesse won’t have anything to do with your affair, which can’t be anything but an imposture. What! you claim to be the daughter of the Duc d’Orléans? For shame! you deserve to be finely laughed at.”
I had him turned out at once, throwing my letter, which he wanted to get back, into the fire; and not only this, but I begged a lady, a friend of mine, to call for me upon my considerate confidante to express to her my displeasure and to ask her for the papers I had been foolish enough to send her.
My friend insisted on seeing her, and, after a long delay, she grew angry in her turn, promised haughtily to return everything to me, shut her door and disappeared.
Although my packet never arrived, I thought it would henceforth be beneath me to have any intercourse with such a person, who, doubtless, would have preferred remitting it to her dear adopted son, in the hope of reaping golden harvest from this fresh proof of her boundless devotion.
Meantime, the cunning Saint-Aubin wrote again, assuring me that he was greatly pleased with his mission, and had found out many things, about which he would tell me on his return.
Shortly after he wrote that he had just discovered the dwelling of a very aged Italian woman, the former nurse of Chiappini’s son, who possessed a very precious medallion and alone could give me more valuable information than any I had yet got. He promised to bring her to Paris, provided I could enable him to give her a gratuity. To my shame I confess that again I was so foolishly simple as to send him 500 francs, begging him to manage to let me make her acquaintance as soon as possible.
Seven long weeks having passed with no word from him, I began to get impatient, when he took it into his head to send me the well-worn excuse of an unforeseen accident. This is his amusing note—
“Madam, I may truly say that I have come back from the other world. Some days after receiving your second letter—that is to say, in January last—I had set out for a place I wanted to find. I had hired a carriage for the journey. As the roads were very difficult on account of the ice and snow, the carriage was upset; it was a terrible disaster; I was carried away unconscious, and it was only after six weeks that I began to recover. During the lucid moments of my illness I wished very much to write to you, but I dared not confide in any one.
“For the last fortnight I have been much better. As this misfortune happened to me near Strasburg, I write to you from that town.
“My friends and relations must be very anxious about me, for I have not been able to write to them; besides, it would have alarmed them too much if they had known of my condition.
“I shall be in Paris in eight days.
“I am longing to see you and to relieve the terrible anxiety you must have been in at the total want of news.
“I have done all I could, and have much to tell you.
“Your humble and devoted servant,
“Saint-Aubin.”
It may well be supposed that I was somewhat surprised that severe suffering should have made him completely forget both the old nurse and the interesting medallion.
Alas! my doubts turned to cruel certainties when I saw him come in plump and blooming, and with a look of long-standing health.
After having at great length bewailed his unlucky adventure, he rose, took leave, and contented himself with saying, as he left the room, that he would come again and give me a full report.
Tired of waiting, after a few days I sent to the address he had given me, only to be told that he was known there only as being sometimes seen in the company of other young scapegraces who had left without paying, and that Saint-Aubin was no better than his companions.
This was the end of the adventure.
I have since discovered that this chevalier d’industrie was the near relative of the venerable Comtesse de Genlis, née Ducrest de Saint-Aubin!
While all this was going on, I had need of an English lawyer to manage my London affairs.
A Mr. Mills was recommended to me as a model of integrity. I sent for him; he came, showed me the greatest respect, condoled with me on my troubles; took the liveliest interest in my concerns, and undertook not only to manage everything in England, but to obtain for me, free of interest, the sum necessary to meet the unjust claims of Cooper in Paris.
Delighted to have made his acquaintance, I put myself into his hands; and in a little while he became my guide, my steward, my banker, and my manager.
By his advice, and against my own judgment, I wrote to the British Ambassador to ask his protection against my unworthy extortioner.
To this request his lordship condescended to have an answer sent to me in these terms—
“Lord Stuart de Rothesay presents his compliments to Lady Newborough-Sternberg, and begs her to send him a detailed account of the business. Without this it will not be in his power to be of any service to her.
“The English Embassy, April 22, 1829.”
At once I put together my papers and sent them, with the following letter—
“Lady Newborough-Sternberg presents her compliments to Lord Stuart de Rothesay, and, in accordance with the wish expressed in his kind note, sends him the details of her case, begging him to be good enough to give it his consideration.
“If his Excellency should desire fuller information, Lady N.-S. will ask Mr. Mills to give it to him, etc.”
Unluckily, amongst my papers there was a mention of my most important affair.
The Ambassador, confounding the two, and fearing to compromise himself, sent the whole back to me with this laconic note—
“Milady, in returning the documents sent to me in your letter of yesterday, I beg you to accept the regret I feel that I cannot give you the help you ask by interfering in a dispute between you and his Most Christian Majesty.
“I have the honour to be your Excellency’s most obedient servant,
“Stuart de Rothesay.”
Astounded at so prompt a change, I seized my pen and wrote—
“It appears, Milord, that you have misunderstood my meaning. Please feel quite assured that I asked your help only in my dispute with Cooper. If I had supposed for one moment that you were to be helpful to me in my delicate affair, I should have well deserved the mortification of being refused.
“But I thought I ought to have recourse to you to obtain justice in a scandalous dispute arisen between two subjects of the monarch whose representative you are.
“Is it possible, Milord, that you should regard my complaints with indifference, and that you should refuse me the help you so generously bestow on all those who implore it?…”
Thus ended my correspondence with the noble gentleman, and I refrain from saying anything about his subsequent behaviour.
IX
Ragazzini sent off—Proposal of Mr. Mills—Offers to Cooper—His Account—His Disgust—His Calumnies—My Vindication—Decision of the Arbitrators—Fresh Quibbles—Divers Sentences.
To all my outside troubles were added a host of domestic misfortunes, for the most part caused by the unworthy confidant to whom my husband had, so to speak, handed me over. I mean M. Ragazzini, who, proud of the authority the Baron had conferred on him, became day by day more arrogant, and now took no trouble to conceal his hateful vices.
No longer able to endure his presence, I made up my mind to dismiss him ignominiously.
Being now alone and needing some diversion, Mr. Mills offered me one of his sisters-in-law, whom he described as a real miracle of nature. I thanked him for his kindness, but gave an equivocal answer. He returned to the charge, but I still made only complimentary rejoinders.
At last he spoke with such warmth, whether of the dangers of my solitary state, or of the rare qualifications of the young person, that I consented to take her as my dame de compagnie.
She came, and I very soon found her to be an insipid creature, to say the least of it, whose wardrobe stood in much more need of my help than I did of her society. The tradesmen’s invoices can bear witness to the zeal I displayed on her behalf as well as on that of her sisters and brother-in-law. But what would I not have done for a family whom I considered as my only resource for getting out of the hands of the infamous Cooper?
When the second arbitration concerning the agreement as to the management of the larger affairs took place, I asked for the cancelling of that agreement, offering to make good Cooper’s disbursements and fees, deducting only the bills handed over by me on April 1, 1828.
At the invitation of the arbitrators he produced his account, in which a sum of 6,526 francs was placed to my credit.
My counsel, astonished at this, since he had reclaimed only the bills of £75 sterling each, asked for explanations, and it turned out that besides those two bills, Cooper had received another for 5000 francs which, among the many deeds and bills of exchange he had successively extorted from me, I had forgotten. In consequence, I amended my plea, and asked for the deduction of this new amount.
It would be impossible to imagine the disgust of our honest man when he realized that he might have hidden for all eternity the existence and the payment of my bill. According to him it was not just that a fit of absence of mind should make him lose £200 sterling.
Unluckily he could not do away with what was written in his account by his own hand; but to evade the consequences of his fatal admission he had recourse to calumny.
According to him, every one in Geneva had been alarmed at the first hint of my approaching departure, my debts were so numerous, and my reputation for laxity so well known! Upholsterers and tradesmen had come in crowds, and I had all at once found myself in the toils of Rabelais’ terrible quarter of an hour.
Having nothing with which to pay off my debts, I had vainly implored the help of M. Hentsch, a banker of Geneva; but he himself, poor Cooper, touched with compassion, had at once handed over to me 5000 francs which he had in his purse, etc.14
I should disgust my readers too greatly if I repeated here the vile abuse with which he spiced this heap of inventions.
Anxious to undeceive a public that did not know me, I wrote to Geneva, and found no difficulty in obtaining a large number of excellent testimonials, of which I will quote but three.
1st. “Milady, we have received the letter your ladyship was kind enough to write to us, and have been much grieved at the lies which wickedness and calumny have dared to invent about you; only a consummate scoundrel could be capable of it.
“Messrs. Hentsch have told me that they will write to you at once, so as to undeceive the small number of persons who could have believed this tissue of falsehoods. The Cramers will do the same; and I can assure your ladyship that every one in Geneva who had the pleasure of your acquaintance is indignant at what you must have gone through.
“But we trust the culprit will speedily be punished, and that we shall soon have the pleasure of having you amongst us again, which we look forward to greatly.
“Madame Galiffe asks me to give you her respects, and to assure you of the sincere pleasure it will be to see you again.
“Accept the assurance of my profound respect, and of the great esteem with which I have the honour to be your ladyship’s very humble and obedient servant.
“Galiffe,
“Colonel.”
2nd. “Madame, I was less surprised than deeply grieved at the contents of your letter to Colonel Galiffe; for my wife and I felt only too much anxiety as to the result of your journey. M. Cooper has quite justified the opinion of him we formed when we saw him at your house, for we feared just what has happened.
“Good God! into what hands you have fallen! And how could so fine and spotless a character as yours be blackened by calumny?
“But I have no doubt that you have speedily turned aside the shafts of malice. As to what is said about your debts, I can certify that I have known you to be most scrupulous in paying all your accounts; that I have never heard of your being in arrears with any creditor, and that I am in a good position to judge, having had several conversations about your concerns with M. Hentsch, who, I have no doubt, will testify to the same.
“But what need is there, madame, to continue in this strain, or to undertake to clear so unjustly attacked a reputation?
“Many other better-known persons than I will come to your aid, and in a little while you will receive from all sides documents wherewith to crush your vile calumniators.
“I will conclude, madame, by sending you my most sincere wishes that your enemies may get what they deserve, and may their punishment be as certain as all I have said is true.
“My wife asks me to give you all kind messages, and I beg you, Madame la Baronne, to accept the expression of my respect and my sincere attachment.
“J. L. Cramer,
“Lt.-Colonel.”
3rd. “Madame, and respected friend; what! there are villains in the world who, not content with having taken advantage of your ignorance of business, venture to attack the reputation of one whose private life it seems to us ought to have been more than safe from the tongue of calumny.
“We are shocked at it, and ready to send you voluminous testimonials as to the high reputation you left behind you here.
“If necessary, we will state in Court that we know you to have been held in constant affection and respect by all around you; that benevolence was your especial virtue, and that your steps were followed by actions recorded in the book of heaven, when unnoticed or unfelt by men.
“We can say that you gave happiness to many here; we can say (though it is impossible that such a question should be put to us), we can say that it is false, absolutely false, that you left debts behind, and that, on the contrary, before you left, you had the forethought to leave 2000 francs on deposit to pay the rent of your country house in case of its not being sub-let; which event happened.
“We can say that your charming son gave the highest hopes of inheriting the striking virtues that distinguish you, and which he could have gained only in the bosom of a mother worthy of all honour and best formed for an example of all that society loves and welcomes.
“Speak, Madame la Baronne, only speak! What can we do to communicate to your judges the feelings of the highest esteem which we have for you?
“Your very humble servant,
“H. Hentsch, fils.”
It needed nothing more to obliterate the disastrous impressions my audacious calumniator’s lies might have made.
I was summoned to declare if I had, or had not, received from him the amount of my bill; and on my formal answer in the negative, the arbitrators of course said to us—
“Since you disagree as to facts, we cannot pronounce for one or the other; we must give our decision according to the wording of the bill. If it was endorsed, ‘Sum received in cash,’ Mr. Cooper is right; if not, he is wrong. Therefore, produce this bill.”
I wrote at once to my London banker to get an authentic copy; but before it arrived, the extension of time for the arbitration expired, and the arbitrators gave their decision. They cancelled the agreement concerning the larger interests, fixed Mr. Cooper’s disbursements at 4,169 francs 51; assigned him 3000 francs for his trouble,15 and ended by making this order—
“We declare and decree that on Mr. Cooper returning the deeds, papers and all other effects, the Lady de Sternberg shall be under the obligation to pay him the sum of 7,169 francs 51; that Mr. Cooper, on payment of the said sum, shall return to her the two bills of £75 sterling each, unless their worth is deducted from the 7,169 francs 51.
“We reserve to both parties their respective rights as to the deduction, claimed by the Lady de Sternberg, of £200 sterling, the amount of the third bill received by Mr. Cooper.
“On the fulfilment by Lady de Sternberg of the above directions, we declare that she shall be freed from all obligations to Mr. Cooper arising out of the agreement of April 27, 1828.”
The execution of this judgment could present no difficulties except for that concerning the bill for £200 sterling, with which it could not deal.
A few days later the bill arrived; it was endorsed: “Sum received on my account from the testamentary executors of the late Lord Newborough”; and Cooper had sworn that it was endorsed, “Sum received in cash.”
The 5000 francs therefore ought to be deducted from the 7,169 francs 51. Cooper refused to deduct them; I proposed to him to submit this difficulty anew to the arbitrators, who, knowing the business in all its details, could decide on it at once.
An honest man would have gladly accepted this expeditious settlement; but our scoundrel, who had already seen his way to take advantage of his position, absolutely refused.
Having extra-judicially called upon him to name his arbitrator, and on his failing to respond to this summons, I applied to the President of the Court, who assigned me one.
On the day appointed for the meeting of the “friendly arbitrators,” Driver-Cooper sent word to them that he opposed their proceeding until after the cancelling of the bills; and they thought themselves bound to abstain from a decision until there had been legal enactment on this opposition.
At the same time my rascal sent me orders to pay him the full sum of 7,169 francs 51, which he must receive at once, so depriving me by his frivolous objections of the power of previously effecting the deduction of the 5000 francs, which had nevertheless been so expressly reserved for me by the decree of the arbitrators. But I knew my man too well not to foresee that after obtaining the payment he demanded, he would take every means to refuse my demand, even to the declinatory plea of the French Courts.
In consequence I made him an actual offer of the sum of 2,169 francs 51, and as to the 5000 francs representing the value of my bill of £200 sterling, I proposed to deposit it in the Caisse de Consignations, not to be withdrawn by Mr. Cooper until it was decided that the aforesaid deduction could not be made.
Moreover, I summoned Mr. Cooper to make a declaration of my available effects, and to be ordered to return to me all my deeds, under pain of damages to the amount of 100 francs for each day’s delay.
Even this did not stop him, and I was obliged to make an application to the President to make him cease his persecution.
The President having made an order entirely agreeing with my wishes, Cooper appeared disconcerted, and did not dare to appeal against it.
It was in this condition that the case was brought into Court. There my rascal once more took up his rôle, and, as usual, bristled with objections and quibbles which prolonged the disgusting dispute till October 8. All his cunning and ingenuity could not save him from the condemnation he deserved.
But, alas! my triumphs were but funeral honours, and my gains nothing but actual losses.
Yes, my over-great belief in so unworthy a man had cost me more than 28,000 francs, my peace of mind, and my health.
X
Insertion in the Newspapers—Visit from M. Laurentie—His Letter and its Publication—His Advice—A Bold Venture—My Discretion—Insidious Answers—Behaviour of the Mills Family—Letters from my Children.
When I found that my troublesome dispute was coming to an end and that I was about to recover both my documents and my own full liberty, I had the following article inserted in several newspapers—
“In the year 1773, two illustrious French personages were travelling incognito in Italy, under the names of the Comte and Comtesse de Joinville. On the 16th of April of that same year the Comtesse gave birth to a daughter in the little town of Modigliana. The parents, urged by ambition, resolved to exchange their daughter for the son of a jailer, named Chiappini, whose wife at the same time gave birth to a boy, who has in consequence enjoyed the rank and fortune belonging to the other child. It has pleased Providence to allow this unjust usurpation to last for many years. But, to prove that justice, though sometimes slow, is always sure, it has lately permitted this unnatural action to be brought to light; the proofs were sufficient to convince any impartial mind, and a decisive decree of the Ecclesiastical Court of Faenza, given upon the most undoubted evidence, has pronounced as to the truth of the facts.
“The father, many years ago, met with a violent death; the mother survived him, but has now been eight years dead; and there is no doubt that the parents during their lifetime entrusted certain papers and documents to persons who were then in their confidence.
“It is needless to add that these documents are of the highest importance to the daughter who was deprived of her proper position. In the name of justice and humanity, she entreats any persons who may be in possession of documents concerning this matter, to send such information, in writing, to the Baronne de S., 18 Rue Vivienne, Paris.
“They may feel assured of a large reward from the person concerned.”
A few days later I had almost the same words again put in; at last, M. Mills having called a third time at the office of the Quotidienne, M. Laurentie said he would like to see me before the third insertion was made, alleging that he could be of much more use to me when he was perfectly acquainted with my affair.
I was urged to receive him, and I fixed a day for his coming.
The first thing he did on seeing me was to give a start of astonishment.
He told me that he had known at once that my paragraph related to the Duke of Orleans, and that, fearing his Highness’s anger, he wanted to see my papers before going further.
I at once got together some imperfect copies that had chanced to escape the insatiable Cooper’s greedy rapacity, and handed him the parcel.
He strongly advised me against any mysterious or partial publication of my story, but to bring it to the full light of day.
I told him that such was my intention.
“You will do well,” he said; “and I assure you your likeness to Louis XIV is so striking that only to see you is to be convinced.”
It would not be easy to describe my surprise when, three days later, I received my packet, accompanied, for all apology, by the following brief communication—
“Madame la Baronne,
“I have the honour of returning you the papers you committed to my care.
“I have had an opportunity of tracing the truth to its source, and have ascertained that M. le Duc and Mme. la Duchesse d’Orléans did not quit Paris or the Court in the year 1773.”16
“Therefore I cannot permit the Quotidienne to print a single line concerning the extraordinary and mysterious event spoken of in these papers.
“I have the honour to be, Madame la Baronne,
“Your very humble and obedient servant,
“Laurentie.”
To astonishment succeeded just indignation when in the numbers for the 2nd and 3rd of November I read what follows—
“The public may have remarked, some time ago, a notice in the Quotidienne in which there was mention of a Comte and Comtesse de Joinville, who, in 1773, when in Italy, had a child of the female sex for which a male child was substituted, and information was asked as to this mysterious substitution.
“Whatever may have been the purpose of the person who sent us this notice, it is our duty to declare that we take no responsibility for it.
“We have even been able to ascertain that its publication masks an intrigue in which we could not be expected to meddle, and we retract the notice sent to our office, and which, at first sight, might seem to be simply an announcement relating to family matters.”
At first I wanted to force the audacious editor to insert in his journal an answer which would have let every one know of his criminal abuse of confidence, and ask him how he dared brand with the odious name of intrigue a claim which, from my papers so trustfully given over to him, he knew to be based on the depositions of numerous witnesses, and on an episcopal judgment given with the most imposing formalities.
But on consideration I decided that my complete Memoirs being about to appear, France and the whole of Europe would do me enough justice after reading them.
I wanted some one to correct the many mistakes which my pen, so unskilled in the French language, had made without taking from my story its original simplicity.
M. Lafont d’Aussonne, author of the Mémoires universels de la Reine de France, called on me, discoursed on his literary talents, offered me his services, and succeeded in getting me to give him a copy of my notes. Here is his letter of the next day—
“Madame,
“I have spent part of the night in reading your papers. I find them convincing, and am astonished only at one thing—that you have been so long in attacking the unlawful possessor. I shall have the honour of seeing you this evening at the same hour as yesterday.
“Your very respectful and devoted servant,
“Lafont d’Aussonne.”
I was much pleased with his way of looking at it, and with all the arguments with which he supported my interesting affair; but with a swift change of front he wrote to me a few days later—
“However long the time I have devoted to the papers you committed to me, madame, I grudge neither the time nor the work if I may keep your confidence and your esteem. From things I know of and approaching events, I am convinced that your cause has its dangers, and that you must be prepared for oppositions, humiliations, delays and troubles innumerable.
“Your last years will be years of grief and affliction; I am not exaggerating.
“An opportunity is now offered me of rendering you the greatest of services by giving you rest and peace of mind.
“You are a good wife and tender mother; you might, at the same time, give delight to your family and to the excellent persons who have given such proof of their constancy and their devotion by combining with you.
“As for myself, madame, I have no thought but to repeat the assurance of my respectful and sincere devotion.
“Lafont d’Aussonne.”
At once I saw through the plot, and wishing to find out what offers would be made me, I replied in such a fashion as to let it be believed that I was quite willing to make concessions.
My friend fell into the trap, loudly applauded my quite futile letter and sent me a curious composition, of which M. d’Aussonne declared he had secretly sent a copy to my adversary.
“Monseigneur,
“As M. de Broval’s illness or sufferings may last some long time, I take the respectful liberty of addressing you directly.
“I have not forgotten that, five years ago, your Royal Highness did me the honour to send for me to your gallery that I might give my opinion on some wrongly-named or doubtful portraits, and that you received me with marked affability.
“Something has now happened, monseigneur, which, in a fashion, brings me again to your notice.
“Lady Newborough, Baronne de Sternberg, having read with great interest at Nice, where she was then living, my Mémoires universels de la Reine de France, wished to know its author; and this lady, pleased with my eagerness, has entrusted me with the revision of her own Memoirs written entirely in her own hand, that I may put them into shape and give them a literary style.
“Devoted as my whole life has been to the defence of the greatly unfortunate, I did not hesitate to accept this commission; and I think I have made some improvements in a book good society seems to me to be eagerly expecting, here and elsewhere.
“With my mind full of the strange details contained in these Memoirs, I cannot help looking upon the prodigious noise such revelations will make in the world as a great political event; and I ask myself if I should not be doing a good action in endeavouring to find some means for bringing about conciliation and peace.
“There is no room for doubt, monseigneur, that milady, by the advice of her lawyers, will find herself obliged to prove, by numberless traits, character and conduct that the inhuman father, by whom she was forsaken, made the criminal exchange for his own immoral ends. After this, we shall see this father, already so notorious, handed over to the judgment of all Europe. As to the gist of the principal question, monseigneur, you must already know everything. You know of Lorenzo Chiappini’s clear statement, made but a few moments before his death; you know of the numerous depositions of so many candid and unexceptionable witnesses; you know of the solemn decree of the august Tribunal which restored to Maria Stella her original position, and as a consequence, her rights.
“From the moment that striking judgment was pronounced, milady was enabled fearlessly to sign herself née de Joinville; and we have no other Joinvilles but the Princes of the House of Orleans.
“The documents obtained in Italy are already very considerable; those discovered in France are not less so; and the two journeys in Italy are proved.
“To these remarkable details I beg your Highness to be pleased to add the following facts.
“Milady’s profile is extraordinarily like that of Madame la Dauphine; seen at three-quarters her face is the image of that of Mademoiselle d’Orléans, etc. Lord Newborough, her eldest son, bears so strong a resemblance to Louis XIV, and her second son, M. Chevalier Wins (sic) to the late Comte de Beaujolais, that the artists are amazed.
“And now, monseigneur, I will add, by your gracious permission, a fact which is as extraordinary and seems miraculous; the two brothers Chiappini, each the image of his father, have the honour of resembling you. The inhabitants of Florence and Modigliana are all agreed on this point.
“I have given you but a short summary of this important affair, known to no one better than to myself since I have had everything under my own eyes.
“My great respect for the name of Bourbon leads me to hope that confidential matter of this kind may not be told in the market-place, to become the fable or the romance of all parties. With all my heart I desire that the life of our beloved Duc de Bordeaux may be spared; but if, by a stroke of fate, that fragile olive-branch were snatched from France, the Salic Law would call your children to the throne, and it might be painful, perhaps dangerous, for them not to have public opinion with them.
“You anticipate, monseigneur, what would be my respectful advice, and I beg you to see in my action no motives but those dictated by kindness, wisdom and prudence.
“The excellent milady, who admires my works, has favoured their author with her partial confidence; but I have the honour of writing to you without her knowledge.
“I wish to help her to the ease of mind so astounding a trial could not fail to destroy; and, if you have sufficient trust in me to accept me as intermediary, I feel a secret presentiment that I shall be able to induce her to make peace.
“I am a daily witness of her respect and admiration for Louis XIV, Henri IV, etc., whom she looks upon as her ancestors; but I know, too, that she adores her beloved Edward, her youngest son, from whom she has been cruelly separated; and by this very natural way I think I may reach her heart.
“If so, I shall rejoice at having restored her to life and peace, and to have spared you, monseigneur, an unpleasant dispute through which your children, sooner or later, must have suffered.
“Allow me with the greatest respect to sign myself your Royal Highness’s very humble and obedient servant,
“Lafont d’Aussonne.”
All this inspired me with invincible dread of a man who, like so many others, thus played me false. To escape his snares I began by politely refusing to see him; then, under various pretexts, I asked him to send back my books and papers, and tried to make him understand my very natural apprehensions. His letters will prove the accuracy of my statements—
1st. “Madame, I have the honour to return you the books relating to the great affair. I will also collect the papers you ask for and this evening you shall receive them in a sealed parcel. I like to take back such important things myself.
“For God’s sake don’t allow yourself to have any doubt of me or my doings. I am doing what is for the best, and for your sole and veritable benefit.
“If I asked to see you for a moment, it was to tell you of a most important matter which has to do with what you were told in Italy—that a French ecclesiastic knew a great secret concerning all this.
“While I write to you, a person in my confidence is taking the necessary steps for discovering what the Duke wishes to do as to the matter about which I wrote to him.
“Rest assured, milady, that God decreed your acquaintance with me, and that you will never find another with a heart so good and large as mine, or so noble a probity.
“But your misfortunes have naturally made you timid and suspicious, and you may feel quite certain that I am too reasonable to take offence. Your most respectful and devoted servant,” etc.
2nd.—“Madame, What I told you in my letter of yesterday rests on the evidence of two persons, of whom one, aged and infirm, and of a timid and nervous disposition, has told me what she knows, and by her explanations has enabled me to explain to myself things which formerly did not sufficiently influence me, for I was the best friend and vindicator of him who knew all.
“The other person, who is still alive, will play no part whatever in all this, so greatly does she dread the vengeance of the Duke of Orleans.
“But I, who do not fear him, promise you that, if we go on acting in unison, I will state and proclaim everything.
“How could you, madame, suppose for one moment that my actions concealed any plot—actions as clear as day?
“After making a thorough examination of your case, I perceived many probabilities, but, unfortunately, not enough proofs; and that is why, as an honourable and kindly man, I advised you to consent to a compromise, supposing your wealthy adversary able to make up his mind to a sacrifice.
“In this way you would have gained an increase of fortune to the benefit of your son, while the Prince, real or supposed, would have retained the votes and the respect of the common people which your Memoirs and the noise of the trial must inevitably have lost for him.
“No, milady, Mme. Fleury and I have not joined in any plot against you; since that wicked Irishwoman wanted the Duke to crush you by his power without giving you anything out of his riches; while what I desire is that if he and you come to some arrangement, he shall make over to you a considerable sum.
“The letter I sent him is surely proof enough of that.
“Is that letter, wherein I made such outspoken and humiliating statements, nothing in your eyes? Is that possible? And what can I do, Madame, to prove to you my sincerity and integrity?
“Oh! what a lesson for me!
“I must end here a letter I did not think to make so long.
“I have served you zealously, milady; and I don’t regret it, for I believe your cause to be a just one in the sight of God and of nature.
“I withdraw without resentment, although I am much hurt by the insult offered to me.
“If the Duke comes to know what has taken place, he will be much rejoiced, for he dreads my pen and the strength of my writings.
“With all respect, madame,” etc.
In spite of all these protestations, he could not win back my confidence, and I would have nothing more to do with him.
Mills’s sister-in-law was still with me; but for the last few days I had noticed a complete change in her for which I could not account and which she would explain to me only by pleading indisposition.
One morning her younger sister made her appearance and told me she wished to take her sister back with her to stay while the carnival lasted, as while she was with me she had no chance of enjoying the entertainments connected with it.
Glad of this opportunity, I replied at once—
“With pleasure; I should be very sorry to put her out. Let her stay at home as long as she likes.”
The two ungrateful creatures went off at once to collect the munificent gifts I had made them, packed up their parcels, and, from that moment, never once took the trouble to inquire after me.
I saw at last—but too late—what sort of family this was, and to what a set of people I had so generously given myself over.
It was only with the greatest difficulty that I managed to get a statement of my accounts, and when I did receive it, I found myself finely tricked!
For a few private consultations of no importance, and a few drives about Paris, the considerate lawyer was content with asking me the bagatelle of 6000 francs; inadvertently indebted me with £300 sterling, and exacted the rigorous payment to him of interest for which he had promised I should not be liable!
I held my tongue, hoping he would not force me to divulge what I knew of myself or had heard spoken of.
My eldest son had known him better than I did; he wrote later to me from Marseilles that he had always had strong suspicions about him and had never ceased to look upon him as a professional humbug.
This letter from the young Lord Newborough, as well as showing the great affection he had for me, gave me besides two strong grounds for consolation in the midst of my trouble, by assuring me of the restoration of his own health and of his undying attachment to my dear Edward.… I knew that for some time he had been suffering from a weak lung, and remembering his antecedents, I had felt grave fears; on the other hand, the future of my third son was a source of painful anxiety to me.
But his kind brother did away with all my troubles on both matters by telling me that the mild climate of southern Europe had quite restored his strength, and by asking me to tell Edward that he could henceforth look upon Glynllifon Castle as his own house.
Could anything be sweeter to the heart of a loving mother? And it was not the only sign of filial love that came to ease my mind. The youngest of my children never failed from time to time to send me the expression of his ardent love for me. This is one of his recent letters—
“I am delighted to see that our great affair is beginning to get cleared up and looks so well. I wish with all my heart that it may go in our favour, and that you may at last be able to enjoy some compensation for the vicissitudes and cares and worries which you have had to bear for the last seven or eight years.
“Believe me, my dear mother, my most earnest prayer is that I may see you win the victory in a trial you have so much at heart and which so nearly concerns our family and your name, etc.”
XI
The Cause of my Delay—My Trustfulness—Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orleans—Louis-Philippe-Joseph, his Son—Chief Vices of the Last—Bad Son—Bad Husband—Bad Father Bad Friend—Bad Citizen—Consequent Results.
I ask my readers to forgive me for having so long entertained them with so many tiresome details. I had no thought at first of doing so, but the recent attempts at the most impudent frauds17 have more and more fully convinced me that I cannot make too well known the various events which have brought about the deferring of my just claims.
And if my silence since I succeeded in getting back my deeds from the hateful Cooper causes some surprise, it must be told that they were hardly once more in my possession before I handed them over to a lawyer of reputation, who, after keeping them a couple of months, wrote to me that, before definitely undertaking my case, he wished, through the medium of M. de Broval or M. Dupin,18 to get leave to make researches in the archives of the house of Orleans.
“The result of this step,” he said, “would be decisive, and, when it had been taken, we could decide as to the following up or the relinquishing of the trial.”
It will be believed that I could not consent to be thus put at the mercy of my adversary. I asked for the return of my papers; but once more I could not get them without the payment of 100 francs for the time my comic lawyer had thought good to make me lose.
I then decided to have recourse to one of those colossal celebrities whose sublime eminence seems to place them so high above the fatal bait of bribes;19 and these were at first his fine promises—
“Madame la Baronne, I have not yet been able to examine the papers you were kind enough to send me. I propose to devote the whole day to them to-morrow, and I will at once give you my opinion on this important business.
“Pray accept, madame, the humble respects of your obedient servant,
“B. F.”
Who could believe that more than fifty days after I received this letter, my packet had not even been opened, and that the important business rested in oblivion?
At last I put it into the hands of a man whose excellent references proved him worthy of my confidence; he will not abuse it, and most certainly neither he nor those he will employ in my service will behave like those who, acting for me in the Cooper business, so cruelly ground me down.
Yes, I hope Providence has not quite forsaken me, and that the day of victory will come; the many valuable discoveries the base machinations of my enemies have been unable to prevent me making, vouch for it, and give me confidence amidst my many tribulations. Kindly lend me your ears still.
In 1773, at the time of the infamous substitution, these were the members of the house of Orleans.
The Prince of that name was Louis-Philippe, who married first Louise-Henriette de Bourbon-Conti, and, secondly, Madame de Montesson; but this last union was always kept secret.
Of the first marriage was born Louis-Philippe-Joseph, then commonly called Duc de Chartres, who, in his turn, became Duke of Orleans, a title he gave up later to assume the ludicrous nickname of Egalité, under which he made himself so ignominiously notorious. He had married Mademoiselle Louise Marie Adélaïde, daughter of the Duc de Bourbon Penthièvre, who died in 1821, under the name of the Dowager Duchess of Orleans.
Louis-Philippe-Joseph is precisely the person who, according to a host of admitted facts, seems to us to have been the guilty perpetrator of the criminal exchange; I say seems, for submitting beforehand to the final decision of my judges, I will do nothing to prejudice it.
I will not say, with the historians of his life,20 that the Duc de Chartres, when scarcely out of his boyhood, showed the most depraved tastes, and took no pleasure but in wickedness.
I will not say that from his youth upwards his degrading vices made him the object of universal contempt, and ended by earning for him the vilest names.
I will not repeat that in his inextinguishable passion for riches he was not afraid to show the greatest impatience at the prolongation of his father’s life; that, not satisfied with degrading himself, he was willing publicly to dishonour her who had borne him in her bosom, and shamelessly forswore his glorious descent from the most august blood.
I will not repeat that his wife had the constant affliction of finding her efforts to lead him into the ways of a wise moderation quite useless, and that she had to endure hardships of all sorts from a husband both hard and unfaithful.
I will not repeat that he pitilessly sent the sad fruits of his profligacy to the asylum for the poor, and that his legitimate children, given over very early into the hands of strangers, were never the objects of his care, seldom of his endearments.
I will not repeat that, bad son, bad husband, bad father, he could not fail to be a bad friend, and that many of his confidants were the victims of his perfidy or his rage.21
I will not repeat that his presumptuous rebellion, his implacable hatred for the best of kings; the murderous outcries against him he so shamelessly raised, and which, even in his own eyes, proved him the most hateful of citizens, forced from him that admission, as true as humiliating, “I would as soon be guillotined as banished, for where is the country that would receive me?”
But no more—for I blush as I write these lines and my heart bleeds with shame!
Besides, does it need more to represent the man we have just described as quite capable of the crime we think we have the right to impute to him?
Still, we admit that the reality of a thing cannot be deduced from its mere possibility, so we will enforce it by arguments of quite another nature.
XII
An Incontestable Principle—Title and Fief of Joinville—Travels under that Name—The Comte’s Titles—His Description—His Character—Deposition of the Signora Galuppi-Toschi—Certificate of the Conte Falopio—That of the Priest Carlo Brunone—Letter from Baron Vincy—Attestation of M. D.
—Summary.
Identity of name, title, description, character, position, time and place, are doubtless enough to establish identity of person, or nothing would be able to prove it.
Let us apply this clear principle to the matter in hand, and it will end in proof.
1st. The name. Let us remember that the chief agent of the hateful substitution was a Frenchman called Louis, Comte de Joinville. Now, as history and the whole of the aristocracy are silent on the matter, we cannot even imagine that this title in 1773 belonged to any one not of the Orleans family. Let us see if it could then be found in that family.
The Fief of Joinville, raised to a barony at the beginning of the eleventh century, and to a principality under Henri II, after passing successively to several lords, had at last fallen into the female line by the death, on March 16, 1675, of the Duc de Guiche, Prince de Joinville; and Mademoiselle, the daughter of Gaston de France, having inherited it in her own right from her maternal grandmother, Catherine-Henriette de Joyeuse, Duchesse de Guise, left it by will to her cousin-german, Philippe de France, Monsieur, only brother of Louis XIV, and head of the Orleans branch. Whence it follows that this principality is actually patrimonial in that family, and that the Duc de Chartres, son of its chief, had the right to call himself by that name.
I say more: open the books written about him, and the frontispiece will show that he was not only Duc de Valois, de Nemours, de Montpensier, d’Etampes, but also Comte de Beaujolais, de Joinville, de Vermandois, and de Soïssons.22
I say still more: that is precisely the name under which he and his wife were accustomed to travel.
In 1778 she assumed it to go to Holland; he had taken it in 1777 to visit the Netherlands; the year before it was the title borne by the Duchess during the whole of her tour in Italy;23 and to speak only of the year of the exchange, the newspapers of the day forbid any doubt that, under that name, and in the summer, the Duke had made a pretty long journey.24 And worthy witnesses, whose valuable evidence we shall presently quote, declare that the august couple bore that title precisely at the time of the exchange and in the very districts where this horrible agreement was made.25
2nd. The Rank. According to the decree of Faenza, the Comte de Joinville was a French nobleman; almost all the witnesses testified to his being rich and powerful, and if we may believe the evidence of one who ought to have known more than any one else, since he had it direct from the man who no doubt had categorically interrogated the Comte after his arrest at Brisighella—he was nothing less than a prince in disguise.26
It will be remembered, too, that having been led before the Cardinal-Legate at Ravenna, the Cardinal, on recognizing him, welcomed him warmly, affectionately embraced him, and at once set him entirely at liberty.
Now, it must be pointed out that the etiquette of the Roman Church is that Cardinals must embrace only the members of reigning houses, and it could have been only the consideration due to so august a rank that could have cut short the prosecution already set on foot by the inexorable agents of the Inquisition.
Now, supposing the titles of Comte de Joinville, a great French nobleman belonging in 1773 to a reigning family to be united in a single person, who would not at once recognize Louis-Philippe-Joseph?
3rd. The Description. The Comte de Joinville, the Italian witnesses tell us, had a fine figure; he was rather stout, had a brownish complexion, a red and pimply nose, and splendid legs.
But is not this the exact description of the Duc de Chartres as given me by the Abbé de Saint-Fare, who was his natural brother? A description agreeing completely with that of all who knew him. Here is one among many written by a man who had, so to speak, always lived with him—
“Louis-Philippe-Joseph was a fine man in every sense of the word. His figure, of more than middle height, was gracefully and faultlessly proportioned. The lower part of his body, from the waist downwards, could not have been better made; the rest was rather heavy, but this stoutness was not ungraceful.
“As a result of his debauches, his nose and the lower part of his forehead were covered with small red pimples; and this sort of mask, which in fact disfigured him, but which he owed to his dissolute life and not to nature, made many people say that his face was hideous.”27
4th. Character. The Comte de Joinville’s habits led him to extreme familiarity with people of low condition, and to great generosity where the success of his ambitious projects was concerned; the positive evidence of witnesses, his sudden intimacy with the jailer, and the presents he made him, leave no room for doubt on that question. But by these signs how can we do anything but believe in the portrait drawn by all historians alike of the Duc de Chartres?
“He loved,” they say, “to mix with the crowd, and was never so happy as when he was able to cast off restraint and etiquette; he had a lively and caustic wit, liked to banter his inferiors, and showed no displeasure at their bantering him. Despite the avarice of which he gave so many proofs, which went so far as to make him say that ‘a crown in his pocket was worth more to him than all public esteem,’ he made no difficulty in scattering his sordid gains with profusion, either to obtain nominations to the States-General or to gain the affection of the great nation he wished to captivate.”28
5th. The Circumstances. We have seen that the Comte de Joinville had some reason to fear that his wife would never give him a male child, and that, in that case, he was afraid of losing a great inheritance absolutely depending on the birth of a son.
Now all the world knows that, in 1773, the Duchesse de Chartres, though in the full bloom of her radiant youth, had, in the four years of her marriage, borne only one daughter, who died at birth on the 10th of October, 1771.29
Her ambitious and covetous husband must therefore have greatly dreaded not only the fading away of his flattering hope of winning for his line the good graces of his compatriots, so as to obtain from them the happy transference of that crown of France, the object of so many longings, so many intrigues, so many secret manœuvres—it may be obscure crimes—but also to fail in concentrating on his family the whole affection of his father-in-law, the richest of princes, who, still only forty-eight years old, had, since the death of his wife,30 pretty often shown his intention of contracting a second alliance.31
Here again, one feels, the identity is absolute. Finally, let us come to the point which seems to us to sum up everything, and is the most important and the best proved of all.
6th. The Time and Place. It was in the spring of the year 1773 that on the heights of the Apennines and in a diocese under the rule of the Papal States, the Comte de Joinville, by means of a most atrocious agreement, succeeded in securing an heir to his name and his lofty hopes.
Can it be true that Louis-Philippe-Joseph and his wife were actually in those districts at that time?
Let us boldly declare that there is no doubt about it.
During my stay at Genoa I learnt that at Reggio there lived a lady formerly in the service of the d’Este family, and who had heard the mysterious journey spoken of.
It will be easily believed that I lost no time in writing to her, and in her turn she made no delay in answering my questions, and assured me she would willingly testify, in a Court of Law if necessary, to everything she had told me.
Delighted at this promise, I gave my orders so as to make sure of a properly drawn-up document.
I chose my lawyer; a proxy was appointed for the Comte and Comtesse de Joinville and any other person absent interested in the case.
In a word, all preliminary formalities having been duly performed, the interrogation was carried out, in consideration of her circumstances, at the lady’s own house.
After having sworn to speak the whole truth, and being questioned as to the reason of her appearance, her age, her domicile, and her memory, she answered—
“It is in order to obey the command I have legally received from M. le Président that I have consented to this examination. I am sixty-four years old; I live at Reggio, my native town, and I was actually born in the palace of S. A. S. the Duchess Maria-Teresa Cybo d’Este, where my late father, Josophat Galuppi, held the post of auditor of accounts and wardrobe keeper to the Duke Francesco.
“My memory is very good, and I have a clear recollection of things that happened in my young days.”
Asked as to whether, while the aforesaid Duchess was living at Reggio, a certain remarkable prince and princess had come there, she answered—
“During the year 1773, and, it seems to me, in the late spring, their Royal Highnesses the Duc Louis-Philippe de Chartres and his wife, the Duchesse Louise-Marie, passed through this town, on their way, I think, from the Papal States.
“I know this because I was present when Count Manetti, the Duchess Maria-Teresa Cybo’s major-domo, was sent to the hotel to welcome the aforesaid Prince and Princess and invite them to the Court. I know it also because I was in a back room when Count Manetti came back, and I quite distinctly heard him say that their Highnesses sent their thanks, but could not accept the invitation, partly because of the incognito they wanted to preserve, as they were travelling under the name of the Comtes de Joinville, French, and partly because of the short time they were staying.”
Questioned as to whether she knew of any visit of this Prince and this Princess of Chartres to the town at any other time than the above, she answered—
“In 1776, just at the time of the fair in the month of May and when several other princes were also at Reggio, this same Princesse Louise-Marie de Chartres arrived in this town and stayed here till June. She lived in the Giucciardi Palace which my father had got ready for her by order of the Duke Francesco. This time I saw her come to the Court where I was then living. When she came, every one told me she was the Duchesse de Chartres, and it was as such that she was known and saluted by all persons of distinction.”
After these questions the examination was gone over again in the order of the records of the trial which the notary public read to this valuable witness, who said—
On the first: “It is quite true that during the spring of the year 1773 their Serene Highnesses the Duc Louis-Philippe de Chartres and the Duchesse Louise-Marie, his wife, passed through Reggio on their way from the Papal States; and that the same Princess in 1776, with other Princes, came to the fair being held at Reggio in the month of May.”
On the second: “It is equally true that the aforesaid Prince and Princess were travelling incognito and with a small suite, and called themselves the Comte and Comtesse de Joinville.”
On the third: “It is also the absolute truth that at the news of their arrival in Reggio, the Duchess Maria-Teresa Cybo d’Este sent her major-domo, Count Manetti, to welcome these illustrious personages and to ask them to come to Court. But they did not accept the invitation, alleging the strict incognito they were keeping, and the preparations already made for an early departure. And all this I know for the reasons already given.”
Finally, to other minor questions put to her she gave pertinent answers: that she professed the Catholic religion; that she married the noble Signore Maria-Toschi of Reggio; that she was not a relation of mine, nor connected with me in any way; that her statement had not been prompted by any one, and that she had been guided solely by her love of right and justice.
Her deposition having been read, she ratified it and confirmed it by her signature.
In the letter she did me the honour of writing to me she mentions two things omitted in the interrogatory: i.e. that the answer given to the Count Manetti had often since been repeated to her by the people about the Court, and that the illustrious travellers, after spending the night in the hotel they had come to, left very early the next morning.
After such satisfactory evidence as this I sought further, and found means for fully corroborating it.
First, this is the declaration of one who occupies a very distinguished position—
“To give homage to truth, I testify to the whole world that towards the spring or the beginning of summer, of either the year 1772 or 1773—I am not sure which, but I am certain that it was either one or the other—his Royal Highness, the Duke of Orleans, passed through Reggio, where he slept one night, and I remember his appearance perfectly. Of middle height, rather stout; a full face that looked as if it were pitted with the small-pox, pimply; a red nose, and rings in his ears:
“This highly respectable personage was travelling incognito with a woman who was said to be his wife, and under the name of the Comte de Joinville. I can all the better attest and confirm this fact to any one, let him be who he may, because at that time I was at the Court of Modena and in the service of his Serene Highness, Ercole III of glorious memory.
“In testimony whereof I affix to my signature the arms of my family.
“Bernadin Grilenzone-Falopio,
“Chamberlain to his Imperial Highness,
the Archduke of Austria, etc.”
In support of these conclusive declarations there is also the following—
“The undersigned, of the town of Alessandria in Piédmont, where he resides; sixty-seven years of age; formerly professor of rhetoric, pensioned by his Majesty the King of Sardinia after having served forty years; being still quite sound in mind, recollects, as well as if it had taken place yesterday, and is ready to take his oath that it was about fifty years ago, though on account of the lapse of time he cannot absolutely swear to the year, that with his own eyes he saw the Duke of Orleans, who then bore the title of Duc de Chartres, pass through Alessandria, coming from Italy and going towards Piédmont.
“In proof whereof he declares that he saw him in his barouche which, with his large suite, waited more than half-an-hour before the Countess Govone’s palace, a short distance from the post-house, for what reason nobody knew.
“The undersigned stopped about the same length of time, and remembers that it was in the morning, but has only a faint recollection of the features of this nobleman. He feels certain it was in the summer, and affirms that this is the exact, unalloyed and whole truth.
“In testimony whereof he will affix his signature to it in order that it may serve as an authentic and historical document.
“Alessandria, December 17, 1824.
“The Priest, Carlo Brunone, etc.”
M. le Baron de Vincy de la B., in a letter he was so good as to write me lately, declares in set terms that “being in the bosom of his family in 1773, news was spread about in the country that the Duc de Chartres had passed through Berne under the name of Monsieur le Comte de Joinville.”
Which, according to the reiterated assertions of d’Alquier-Caze,32 would seem to prove that the Prince crossed Switzerland either in going to Italy or on his return.
And finally, M. D., formerly attached to the Orleans family, testifies that the late Madame the Dowager-Duchess had made one journey to beyond the Alps before that of 1776; and though he only dimly remembers that it was in 1773, he knows for certain that the incognito name was that of Comtesse Joinville, etc.
Therefore, to sum up, between Louis-Philippe-Joseph, Duc de Chartres, and Louis, Comte de Joinville, perpetrator of the shameful substitution, there is no difference; everything about them is identical, everything proves, everything shows them to be the same person, one and the same individual.
XIII
Circumstances in my Favour—Incognito of the Princes—The Journey of 1776—Extraordinary Precautions—The Duke’s Attention to his Wife—Sudden Alteration—Delivery of the Princess—Complaisant Witnesses—Parliament Absent—Dread of Self-betrayal—Secret Sorrows—Mutual Indifference—Speech of Louis XVI—Others made by d’Orléans—Striking Resemblances—Important Traces.
My task would doubtless be finished if there were no question but of inspiring confidence and giving conviction; but when I think of the advantageous position of him I am going to fight, can I be too anxious to equip myself with weapons and support?
Let us therefore consider certain circumstances which furnish us with further arguments in our favour.
1st.—When, wishing to rid those who will receive him of the strict rules of a tiresome etiquette, a prince resolves to travel under the little-known name of one of his estates, he takes care to make public his voluntary metamorphosis, so that, under the borrowed title, none will fail to recognize him who bears it for the moment; and, far from avoiding the palaces of kings, he visits them in order to enjoy their delights more at his ease.
As an instance, let us take the journey of 1776.
Madame de Chartres, having accompanied her husband to Toulon, where he was to embark for his campaign at sea, resolved to visit the Peninsula, without having previously obtained the permission of the Court.33
Surely she ought to have taken every care to conceal this freak, for which she expected to be banished at least.34
Despite this fear, she had it pompously announced that she should travel under the name of Comtesse de Joinville, published her itinerary, showed herself everywhere in public, and everywhere accepted the homage paid to her.35
Why, then, was nothing of all this done three years earlier? Why this profound silence, this impenetrable mystery? Why the secret incognito, as the witnesses call it? Why did the Duke and Duchess wish to remain unknown, even to the extent of going to an inn, in a town over which their nearest relations reigned,36 and preferring to pass the night at a hotel rather than accept the invitation sent them to come to Court?
Do not these precautions, this secrecy, point to the committing of a crime, and a crime still far more heinous than that of disregarding the deference due to one’s sovereign?
But let us ask, what was that crime?
Point it out to us!
In Heaven’s name, could we be told of any other but that very one with which so many incontestable proofs have made us acquainted?
2nd.—During his wife’s first pregnancy, the Duc de Chartres never left her side, redoubled his endearments as her time approached, gave up his former evil courses and behaved to the Princess in the most exemplary manner. “Which,” says a writer, “gave immense delight to the Duke of Orleans, and still more to M. le Duc de Penthièvre.”37
True to this way of behaving, in 1773, he did not leave the Duchess during the months preceding my birth; the most he did was to take a short journey to Chanteloup to see the Duc de Choiseul;38 while after the month of April it was nothing but a series of absences on his part, excursion upon excursion, journey upon journey;39 and, so far from exercising any restraint, or restricting himself in any way, he spent the whole day with jugglers and pickpockets, cast about for new ways of sinning, and carried his excesses and debauchery to such a pitch as to amaze and shock the by no means susceptible servants of the Palais Royal.40
What are we to conclude from so great and sudden a change?
One of two things: either that the Duchess was no longer enceinte, or that the Duke had ceased to care about the child she might give him.
This second hypothesis is evidently inadmissible, especially when we remember that the stillbirth of 1771 must naturally fill his ambitious spirit with the gravest fears.
And if he had become so indifferent to the birth of a firstborn, why, six years later, did he express such delight on finding himself the father of a third son?
We must perforce come back to the first supposition, and acknowledge the delivery of the Princess as already accomplished; which entirely agrees with the account of certain inhabitants of Forges,41 who state that she left their town towards the end of July 1772, with all the signs of the beginning of a pregnancy which would naturally find its termination in the following April.
But if she was no longer enceinte in April 1773, was it not impossible that on the 6th of October of the same year she should have given birth to the Duc de Valois?42
What is told about the time of that confinement is therefore a fable, and a fable of which my story alone explains the motive.
3rd.—It is evident that this event, which was said to have happened five and a half months after I was exchanged, required no precautions if it was a reality; but, on the other hand, very many if it was a pretence.
Accordingly, it was not in the parish church and in public, nor even in the Palais-Royal Chapel, but in some unascertained spot in that dwelling, that the child, born, it was said, at three o’clock in the morning, was privately baptized in the presence of two obscure witnesses in the service of the Orleans family. No Minister of the King’s, no Gentleman of the Court was to be seen; in a word, no one was there of whose devotion there could be any doubt.
And that is not all; in the Gazette de Modène, called Le Messager, No. 44, Nov. 3, 1773, we read under date of Paris, October 11—
“Every one knows that here, on the birth of sons of the royal blood, a report is drawn up in evidence, in the presence of Parliamentary Commissioners who sign it.
“This formality was neglected in the case of the Duc de Valois, and all that was done was to add to the report made on the occasion the words, Parliament absent.
“The report was presented to the King for his signature, and it is said that, paying no attention to these words, his Majesty at once signed it.”
But the thing, according to the journal we quote, seemed so astonishing that the public, not understanding it, thought to discover in it a sign foretelling very great political events.
4th.—The journey of 1776 had been long planned, and even before leaving Paris there was a positive intention of carrying it out.43
Nevertheless it was only in a letter dated from Antibes that the Duchess told the King of her plan, assuring him there had been no premeditation, and alleging, as excuses, her wish to see her grandfather, the Duke of Modena.44
But why was this excellent excuse sent from afar; why not dare to give it in person; why put oneself under the sad necessity of lying about it?
Ah! no doubt one feared for one’s own countenance; one feared to blush in speaking the word travel, and, above all, the name of Italy; one might dread the withering look of a sovereign to whom indiscreet tongues might already have revealed everything.
5th.—On her return from this same journey, the Princess had hardly crossed the boundary of her own country when, as reported by Mme. de Genlis, she burst into tears.45
Now, these tears, after a short and voluntary absence, a simple pleasure-trip, would surely have been senseless tears if they were caused by nothing, as pretends our veracious historian, but joy at being once more on French soil.
Would it not be more natural, more reasonable, to attribute them to importunate memories, for ever connected with the country just left?
6th.—M. Delille, the Dowager’s private secretary, tells us in his journal46 that this lady confided to her father-in-law hidden troubles which she dared not reveal to the Duc de Penthièvre for fear of grieving him too greatly.
Can it be said that this refers to the grief caused to the Duchess by her husband’s misconduct?
Alas! there was no secret about that; everything was but too well and publicly known; and it is to be supposed that Madame de Chartres would have preferred going for comfort to her virtuous father to complaining about it to the Duke of Orleans, who, in such matters, was no more blameless than his son.
These hidden troubles, requiring so much discretion, must therefore have been of quite another nature, and arose from a different cause.
7th.—The sensitive Princess could never reconcile herself to seeing her children given over to the management of a governess. Her complaints never ceased; over and over again she made warm and urgent protests.47
Yet who would believe it? These cares and anxieties had nothing to do with the one of her sons who, by right of primogeniture, would have seemed most likely to be most dear to her.
If he informs her that he will be much away with his friend,48 she is quite willing; assures him that what suits him will always suit her, and tells him that she does not want to restrain him in any way.49
Whence arose such indifference in a heart otherwise so warm?
And, on the other side, could real filial love, the love nature must perforce create, exist in one who thought himself lucky that he was not obliged to go to see his mother more than twice a week,50 and whose affection for his governess was so far greater than that he felt for his own parents?51
8th.—His reputation having become somewhat inconvenient, Louis-Philippe-Joseph, in 1782, went to Versailles to ask permission from Louis XVI to absent himself.
“The King,” writes an historian, “received him rather coldly, and answered him in words to this effect—
“I have a Dauphin; Madame may perhaps be enceinte; Monsieur le Comte d’Artois has several children. You can do as you please. I do not see in what way you can be of use to the country; so go when you like and return when it seems good to you.”
Why this momentary silence and thoughtfulness, if it were not to remember a fact about to be the object of veiled rebuke from august lips? And what fact? What cause for so severe a reprimand?
According to all evidence it related to the paternity of the traveller, and to the dangers with which his absence might have threatened the succession to the crown if it had not been for the existence of several children of the elder branch.
Who would not feel sure that the monarch, knowing of the whole adventure, took this opportunity of moving the culprit to shame and repentance?
9th.—The Convention, after the defection of Dumouriez, having, at its sitting of the 4th of April, 1793, ordered that the citizens Egalité and Sillery were to be watched, Sillery mounted the tribune and stammered out these words: “If my son-in-law is guilty, he ought to be punished; I remember Brutus and his sentence on his own son, and I will imitate him.”
Then came Orleans, and, as he gazed at the bust of the First Roman Consul, he, too, said, “If I am guilty, needless to say, my head should fall; if my son is—I do not believe it, but, if he is,52 I, too, remember Brutus.”
These horrible words, from which Nature revolts from the lips of a father, can be well believed from those of a complaisant husband;53 but could the well-known virtue of Madame la Duchesse allow of such an explanation relative to her husband?54
To all these forcible arguments may be added one already mentioned, and which, after all that precede it, would be too extraordinary if it were the effect of pure chance.
I speak of the resemblance.
That of the present Duke to the various members of his supposed family is absolutely non-existent,55 while he has all Chiappini’s features: loose-hung jaw; tanned complexion; brown eyes; black hair; slightly crooked legs, etc.
As for myself, I can proudly boast that I have nothing in common with the former jailer; but every one is struck by the many points of resemblance seen between Mademoiselle d’Orléans and me—manners, tone of voice, physique, shape and colour of face, all identical.
I have the honour of bearing on my body certain marks distinguishing the late Dowager; at first sight her handwriting and mine display the most astounding similarity of character.
We need not add that whoever knows the history of Louis-Philippe-Joseph must have already discovered the disastrous source of the maladies I have suffered from since my birth, and that I have so unfortunately transmitted to my dear children, who themselves, in their turn, are the perfect image of the illustrious ancestors that I hold myself right in claiming.
What more could be wished for in the way of proof?
We must not lose sight of the fact that power and riches are two great means of corruption; that their own chief interests forced the perpetrators of the exchange to destroy as quickly as possible all essential traces of the deed; that fear and cupidity indubitably kept silent the greater number of witnesses, who, in any case, could not be very many, since, in 1773, they were already of a certain age, and fifty-seven years have gone by since then.
It must be remembered, also, that during this lengthy period took place that revolutionary tempest which spared private rights no more than public monuments.
Still, with lively gratitude, I say it once again, Providence has had compassion on me, and my latest investigations have furnished me with fresh pleas, which I feel I cannot with delicacy communicate to any one but my judges.
XIV
Objections and Answers—Chiappini’s Ignorance—Name of the Maker of the Exchange—Prolonged Pregnancy—Absence from Paris—Motive of the Second Journey—Birth of the Duc de Montpensier and the Comte de Beaujolais—Letter dated from Turin—Apparent Contradictions—Virtues of the Duchess.
In setting forth the strong arguments in my own favour, I have also considered those that might be urged against me, and I hasten to answer them.
1st. “In his letter Chiappini said that I was born in a position almost similar to, but still lower than that given me by my marriage to Lord Newborough. Yet how great a difference between them! How superior was the first to the second, if I really had the honour of belonging to the august house of Orleans.”
This mistake can be corrected in a few words.
Every one must see how extremely important it was to guard against any indiscretion on the part of the jailer, perhaps even such involuntary revelations as his pride in the lofty position of his son might draw from him.
Every sort of precaution, therefore, was taken to keep him in ignorance of the exalted rank of the Sieur de Joinville, whom he never knew but as a rich nobleman simply bearing the title of Count, a title so common in Italy that no one pays any attention to it, so to speak.
It was by this title he must have called my true father, in order to do away with milord’s constant suspicions, when he came to London; and my husband, knowing more about the French nobility than he did, and having a notion that I might have its blood in my veins, gave me his commands, then so inconceivable, to avoid the great people of that nation,56 fearing, no doubt, that some unlooked-for circumstance might let me discover my origin through them, which would infallibly have parted me for ever from him whose only means of overcoming my insurmountable repugnance was his perpetual references to the low estate from which he claimed to have raised me.
2nd. “Does it not seem strange that the Duc de Chartres, anxious to consign an atrocious crime to everlasting oblivion, should have assumed a name belonging to his family, and one so easily recognizable?”
There is nothing to prove that when he first came to live at Modigliana, under the name of Comte de Joinville, he had formed the fatal plan. Perhaps the simultaneous pregnancy of his wife and Chiappini’s may have really given him the first idea.
But let us suppose, as is more probable, that this hateful plan had been long made; how could he know what were the decrees of Providence?
The Duchess might just as well be about to give him a boy as a girl. In that case, it would have been made public at once; Bishops, Cardinals, the Pope himself, would have been informed of it; a courier would have been dispatched to Versailles; the Prince and Princess would have excused themselves at Court by saying that the reason of their secret journey was to go to invoke the Virgin of Loretto for the granting of a happy accouchement, which they had believed would not take place for some months yet. Therefore a name not belonging to their family would not only have made them look foolish, but might have led to their being accused of falsehood, or have even given rise to legitimate suspicions.
3rd. “Why, even admitting the substitution, should the birth of the supposed Prince not have been immediately made public? Why bring back to France the reputed mother with the false appearances of a pregnancy which was made to last some months longer?”
An invincible sense of shame must necessarily have prevented a course which would infallibly have been taken in the absence of all fraud, under the hypothesis of deceit.
Not only was self-betrayal to be dreaded, but some possible imprudent talker; and after that there would be no way of concealing a secret that the mere inspection of the infants must reveal to the least skilful physiognomists.
The correctness of this conjecture was suddenly proved by experience; there is some indiscreet talk, and, in spite of the determined silence of the interested party, a little more and all would have been discovered.57
Hence a thousand anxieties, a thousand cares;58 hence the absolute necessity of having recourse to expedients and thinking out new stratagems; and hence, above all, the very natural idea of putting a long interval between the real and the fictitious accouchement, so as to stop tongues, and, if need arose, to fall back upon the difference in dates.
4th. “Is it absolutely certain that the accused Prince and Princess were absent from Paris at the time of the exchange? The papers of the day seem to show the contrary. Do they not report that the Duke was in the Chapel Royal on April 8, being Holy Thursday; that, on the 13th of the following May, he accompanied his Majesty to the great review of the troops on the Plain of Sablons, and that in the month of June of that same year the Duchess was seen at the opera?”
We could, no doubt, content ourselves with sending our readers back to the unimpeachable testimony which has already vouched for the actual fact,59 without taking the trouble to reconcile it with the vague and often incorrect assertions of many newspapers; but, for the sake of fuller proof, we are willing to discuss the matter briefly.
As to the Duchess, it is incontestable that her absences after the 10th of October, 1771, were so lengthy and so mysterious that certain historians, not knowing how to account for them, have maintained that she stayed at the waters of Forges during two consecutive years; while several eye-witnesses still living testify that she spent there only two of what they call their seasons, of about three weeks each.
It was on the 16th of June, exactly two months after my birth60—a time quite long enough for her return—that she was first seen at the opera. Monseigneur the Dauphin and Madame la Dauphine were expected; and the Duchess de Chartres, says a writer, “had taken care to be in her box before the arrival of the august couple; so much was she in doubt as to their demeanour towards her.”61
It is equally well known that the Duke was not in Paris towards the end of May 1773, and that, failing him, recourse had to be had to the Princes of the house of Condé to appear at the funeral-service for the King of Sardinia celebrated at Notre-Dame.
The list of assistants at the Holy Thursday ceremonies and at the Sablons review ought to be looked upon as mere official etiquette rather than historical and accurate reports of events; the constant uniformity during a long series of years to be noted is a convincing proof of this.
And even admitting that the Duc de Chartres was actually in Paris on Holy Thursday 1773, what does that prove?
At most that he was not at Modigliana the following Friday, the day of my birth.
But this, far from being against me, becomes, in a fashion, a presumption in my favour, as being absolutely in accordance with the deposition of the sisters Bandini, who swore to having seen the Sieur Joinville before and after the exchange, but said nothing of his being there on the day it was made.
What they said about that fatal day related to the Borghi family, the two children, the two mothers, even to Chiappini; the Comte alone is not mentioned.62
It might well be believed, then, that, the better to deceive inquiry, after having sealed his infamous compact, he went back to Court to perform his usual function at that sacred solemnity;63 and, as he was an expert traveller, and even able to drive a chariot himself, it would have been still possible for him to start at once for the Apennines and get back there during the five weeks between the 8th of April and the 13th of May.
5th. “Supposing the Duke and Duchess of Chartres to have been the perpetrators of this abominable traffic, would the Duchess have returned to Italy three years later? Would she have reappeared under the same name of Comtesse Joinville and with such a display of luxury and magnificence?”
Although at the time the Prince and Princess must have suffered from grave fears, they had, nevertheless, ground for hoping that influence and money would, if necessary, be able to stifle the accusing voices of a few poor and timid witnesses.
But could they be certain of equally good luck in the future?
Therefore it was necessary to think of and provide for everything. Well, what more efficacious and advantageous way of doing this was there than to put people on a wrong scent by confusing the dates? And supposing that some unlucky echoes of the old rumours at Brisighella and Ravenna64 were still to be heard, what more likely to destroy them than boldness and bravado? What more plausible, deluding and beguiling than a visit in state after so short a lapse of time, a procedure which our opposers think so improbable?
In this matter we feel that the objection absolutely contradicts itself. Let us examine it in detail.
Nature does not easily give up its rights; it makes itself heard even in the hardest hearts, and the heart of a mother cannot possibly remain deaf to its mighty voice.
Therefore the Duchess’s whole mind is drawn and attracted to the spot that holds the first-fruit of her maternity, and there is born in her the ardent desire to turn her steps thither.
Despite convenances, despite obstacles, despite a thousand objections, this desire must needs find fulfilment, with these two remarkable circumstances: i.e.65 the first, that the Duke seems to have consented to his wife’s request, only on the condition that she would bind herself in a very special fashion to keeping the secret inviolable by becoming a Freemason;66 the second, that the arrival of the Princess at Florence exactly coincides with the time when great influence must have been used with regard to Chiappini, who was not only suddenly called to fill a more honourable and lucrative post, but was admitted to some sort of intimacy with his sovereign, who was good enough also to take a quite wonderful interest in me.67
Among the patrimonial estates belonging to the Orleans family, that of Joinville was the finest;68 it was therefore the most natural name to take for an incognito; to choose another might possibly serve to increase the King’s displeasure and to awake dangerous suspicions. Moreover, the correct pronunciation of the word is so strange to Italian lips that it was hardly probable that the wretched inhabitants of Modigliana would recognize it by the mere reading of the newspapers, which the greater number of them never saw.69
Finally, if Madame de Chartres displayed such magnificence and brilliancy in the places she condescended to visit, it was only to put every one on the wrong scent and the better to convince them that she had absolutely nothing to do with the simple and retiring lady so few people had seen some years earlier.
6th. “Supposing that Louis-Philippe-Joseph had determined on the substitution before his wife had given him a male child, would not the subsequent births of the Duc de Montpensier and the Comte de Beaujolais have induced him to make every effort to return the substituted child to its real position?”
But, admitting in our turn the possibility of such a reparation, there was always time enough to carry it out; and it was expedient to make sure if the two first would live long; for, from their earliest years alarming symptoms must have given rise to very sad and, alas! but too true forebodings,70 while the health of their elder brother was so assured and excellent that there was no need for fear about him.
A reputable personage wrote to us lately—
“I have been carefully examining the portraits of the present Duke of Orleans and of his two brothers, the Duc de Montpensier and the Comte de Beaujolais. There is a striking contrast between that of the first and those of the two others. In fact, the Duke of Orleans has, as is well known, a strong constitution, a robust temperament, and is common-looking, having coarse features.
“As for the two others, they look poor and weak in constitution and temperament, and of distinguished appearance, and bear no resemblance whatever to their brother,” etc.
7th. “The Comte de Joinville wrote from Turin that, ‘having lost the substituted child, he no longer felt any scruples on his account.’71
“Would there be any meaning in such words from the lips of the Duc de Chartres? Had he lost a single son in his life? Could this assertion relate to the Duc de Valois, who is still alive?”
Let us recall for an instant the insatiable avidity of the Chiappinis, and the whole difficulty will vanish. Is it not easy to believe that, far from satisfied with the considerable sums they had received from my father, and the annual pension handed over to them by the Countess Borghi, they must have kept up an incessant demand for more? Tired of the worry, Pompeo and his mother must themselves have begged the Comte de Joinville to write them a letter which would thenceforth put a check on the intolerable pestering of the sbirro and his wife. The style, the oddness, the curtness of this missive, all proclaim it the result of an arrangement between the two noble families. As it might always be of use, it was carefully preserved; the other portions of the correspondence might have been compromising, and were perhaps destroyed on the very day they were received.
8th. “According to the Signora Galuppi, the Duke and Duchess of Chartres had but few of their people with them at Reggio;72 how, then, did the priest Brunone see them pass through Alessandria with a numerous suite?”73
To dispose of this contradiction—in itself proof positive that there was no plot or bribery—there are two ways of fully reconciling the double evidence.
1st. The Signor Brunone, living in a town far from Court-doings, may well have thought considerable what to a person living since her birth in a royal residence seemed insignificant.
2nd. Who knows if the Duke, when he started, did not leave in the Alps the greater number of the suite, which he took on again afterwards, so as to destroy any sign of his having anything whatever to do with a man who had been seen almost by himself on the other side of the mountains?
9th. “If it is easy enough to attack the memory of Louis-Philippe-Joseph, who does not know with what just and profound veneration that of his wife is looked upon, and which must, nevertheless, be tarnished by an accusation of unworthy complicity?”
No one can be more anxious than I to give the homage of my respect to the memory of the Duchess; and my dearest wish would undoubtedly be to believe a life made illustrious by its many virtues, without a stain. Indeed, I had at first tried to persuade myself that, having been once before the victim of deception, she had again fallen into the snare woven for her at the time of her first confinement.74
A consoling illusion, which the stories of witnesses and many other indications did but too quickly banish from my mind!75
It is a well-known fact that the finest characters are not without defects, and no one who knew her could deny that the Princess was in truth very ambitious.
Moreover, the fact of her being her parents’ only child and sole object of their deepest love, was an incentive for this loving daughter to turn her fondest hopes to the birth of an august scion who should be the glory of her maternity.76
Over this she ponders and frets incessantly, and, in the midst of her magnificent surroundings, she carefully conceals the grief she feels at finding herself deprived of this blessing.77
In consequence, she was naturally inclined to lend a favourable ear to the temptation offered her by a husband whom, besides, she would not for all the world displease,78 and for whom her complaisance went so far as to help in the concealment of his vices,79 even to the extent of uncomplainingly sacrificing not only her tastes and her health, but also her warmest and most legitimate affections.80
The crime once committed, she soon looked upon the wrong as irreparable, and from that time a false sense of honour, a deadened conscience, made it appear a duty to abstain from a revelation as degrading as it was unavailing.