Flight and danger—Mons—Zurich—Zug—The Convent of Bremgarten—Death of M. de Sillery—Of égalité—Mademoiselle d’Orléans and the Princesse de Conti.
Capital letter O
OBLIGED to leave Tournay, they took refuge at a small town called Saint Amand, but they soon found themselves forced to fly from that also, and Mme. de Genlis, alarmed at the dangers and privations evidently before them, began to think that Mademoiselle d’Orléans would be safer without her, in the care of her brother.
The camp of Dumouriez lay close at hand, and he had been very good to them; but there would probably be fighting very shortly, and it was said that he and many of his officers had been proscribed by the Convention. It would, she thought, be safer for Mademoiselle d’Orléans to go and give herself up at Valenciennes, when she would most likely only be exiled, if that; than to be taken with Mme. de Genlis, as they would then be sent prisoners to Valenciennes and to the scaffold. And it was a great chance if they could pass the French posts.
However, the tears of Mademoiselle d’Orléans and the entreaties of her brother prevailed; and at the [439] last moment she got into the carriage leaving all her luggage behind except her watch and harp. Mme. de Genlis, however, had got hers so could supply her, for they could not wait to pack.
In the carriage were Mademoiselle d’Orléans, Mme. de Genlis, her niece, and M. de Montjoye, a young officer who had escaped from France, and was very sensibly going to live in Switzerland, where he had relations. He spoke German very well, and it was agreed that he should say the others were English ladies he was escorting to Ostende.
They went by lanes and cross-roads which were so bad that the carriage broke down, and they had to wait for an hour and a half in a tavern full of volunteers, who cast sinister glances at them, asked many questions, but finally allowed them to go on. It was very cold, night was approaching, the roads got worse and worse, and at last they had to get out and walk.
After going about three miles they were suddenly arrested by a captain of volunteers whose attention had been attracted by the lantern carried by their guide.
Dissatisfied with their answers, he said he suspected them of being emigrés and should take them to Valenciennes. Mme. de Genlis thought they were lost, but with admirable presence of mind, she put her arm within his and walked briskly by his side, chaffing him in an almost unintelligible jargon about his want of politeness, laughing, and appearing quite fearless and indifferent.
Presently he stopped; said it was evident that she was an Englishwoman, that he did not wish [440] to cause them any further inconvenience; they could continue their journey, but he advised them to put out the lantern as it might be dangerous. He showed them a bye way by which they could reach the Austrian outposts without meeting any more French troops.
As she left Belgium, Mme. Genlis who, with her faults had also many good qualities, began, she says, to reflect upon the horror of her position.
“I saw for myself personally a future darker than it proved to be; I felt that party spirit and the misfortune of having been attached to the house of Orléans would expose me to all kinds of calumnies and persecutions; I resigned myself in submission to Providence, for I knew that I deserved it, because if I had kept my promise to my friend, Mme. de Custine, if I had done my duty and remained with my second mother, Mme. de Puisieux, instead of entering the Palais Royal, or if, at the death of the Maréchale d’Etrée, I had left Belle Chasse as my husband wished, no emigrée could have been more peaceful and happy than I in foreign countries; with the general popularity of my books, my literary reputation, and the social talents I possessed.”
The commandant, Baron Vounianski, received them with great kindness, and suddenly as she raised her veil, exclaimed “Ah, Princess!” At first she feared he recognised Mademoiselle d’Orléans, but soon found out that an extraordinary likeness to a Moravian, Princess von Lansberg, made him suppose her to be that person, and no denial on her part altered his conviction. He gave them a supper [441] à la Hongroise enough for twenty people, and while it was going on talked of public affairs with violent expressions of hatred and curses against the Duke of Orléans. Mademoiselle d’Orléans grew paler and paler, and Mme. de Genlis was in terror lest she should faint or in any way betray herself, but she did not.
The next morning the Baron himself brought up the tray with their breakfast, still declaring Mme. de Genlis was the Princess, and among the escort he gave them to Mons were two young cadets from Moravia, who had been pages to the Princess, by whom they had been specially recommended to the Baron. They both kissed her hand, and recognized her as Princess von Lansberg.
Mons was full of soldiers, they could only get bad rooms in the inn, and in the night Mademoiselle d’Orléans, who slept in Mme. de Genlis’s room, did nothing but cough and moan. Going into the adjoining room to tell her niece, Mme. de Genlis found her in the same state; the girls had both got measles.
Here was a terrible position. They had no maid, the manservant was a new one, the servants of the inn could do nothing to help as the inn was crowded; they could not get a doctor till the evening, or a nurse for four days. Mme. de Genlis, however, understood perfectly well how to treat them, and nursed them till they recovered.
One day, as she was going to fetch the medicine from the doctor, who luckily lived close by, she met upon the stairs the Prince de Lambese. Recognising her at once, he looked at her with [442] an indignant, contemptuous expression, passed on without speaking and went to the Governor, Baron von Mack, to denounce her, guessing also that the daughter of Philippe-égalité was with her.
The Prince de Lambese had every reason to abhor Mme. de Genlis. He belonged to the house of Lorraine, was related to Marie Antoinette, and devoted to her. It was he, who, in July, 1789, at the head of the Royal Allemand Regiment, cleared the mob out of the place Louis XV., and galloped with his troops into the Tuileries Gardens. He emigrated and entered the Austrian service.
In Mme. de Genlis he recognised the woman who was supposed to have been concerned in the infamous libels against the Queen; and who, with the wretched égalité and his children, was seen watching from the Palais Royal the procession, which, headed by the disloyal La Fayette, and surrounded by the drunken, howling ruffians, his followers, brought the royal family prisoners to Paris.
Baron von Mack came to see them, told Mme. de Genlis they were recognised, but was very kind, said they might stay as long as they liked, and when the two girls were well enough to move, gave them passports to Switzerland.
This journey they made in safety; though for a few hours they skirted along the French outposts, saw in the distance a village on fire across the Rhine, and heard the continual roar of the guns.
They were thankful indeed to find themselves at Schaffhausen, where they were joined by the Duc de Chartres. It was fortunate for his sister that she did not remain with him; he had been obliged to [443] fly with Dumouriez two days after she left, through firing and dangers of all kinds; and what would have become of a girl of sixteen, in a violent illness, with no one to look after her?
They stayed at Schaffhausen till they were rested, after seven days’ journey, and then proceeded to Zurich, where they thought of establishing themselves. But directly the magistrates heard the now accursed name of Orléans, all negotiations were at an end; besides which the place was full of emigrés, and they could not go out without being insulted and annoyed.
They, therefore, removed to the little town of Zug, on the lake of that name, professing to be an Irish family and living in the strictest retirement. To any one who has seen the little town of Zug, it must, even now, appear remote and retired, but in those days it had indeed the aspect of a refuge forgotten by the world. Sheltered by the mighty Alps, the little town clusters at the foot of the steep slope covered with grass and trees, along the shores of the blue lake. A hundred years ago it must have been an ideal hiding place.
They took a little house in a meadow looking down on the lake, and not even the authorities of the place knew who they were.
Mme. de Genlis, however, found an opportunity of writing to the Duchess of Orléans in France; the Duke was by this time arrested.
Mme. de Genlis declares that at this time the Duchess was still free, and insinuates that she displayed indifference to her daughter in not replying to her letters.
[444]
But Louis XVIII. in his Memoirs says:
“A first decree, dated 4 April (1793), ordered the arrest of Madame la Duchesse d’Orléans, that woman, so virtuous, so worthy of a better fate; then of Mme. de Montesson, of Mme. de Valence, daughter of Mme. de Genlis, and her children. A special clause added: The citoyens égalité and Sillery cannot leave Paris without permission.” [129]
And M. Turquan, [130] in his life of Mme. de Montesson, says:
“Mme. de Montesson was arrested ... in virtue of a decree of the Convention of 4 April, 1793, ... and on the 17th ... was taken to the prison of La Force, from there she was transferred to the Maison d’arrêt Dudreneux, opposite her own h?tel. From the windows of her new prison she had the consolation, if it was one, of contemplating her own garden, into which she could no longer put her foot. She had another, less bitter, her première femme de chambre would not be separated from her, but followed her to prison, and in spite of many obstacles rendered her many services.... This admirable, devoted woman (Mme. Naudet) had left her children to follow her mistress to prison.”
It is therefore evident that at the time of which Mme. de Genlis is writing, the middle of May, the Duchess of Orléans was in prison. Also that the Marquis de Sillery, her husband, had not been detained in the Abbaye, as from his letter she had supposed, but was only under supervision till the 7th of April.
[445]
But with regard to dates Mme. de Genlis is exceedingly inaccurate; in fact her statements are sometimes impossible. For instance, she says that they left Mons the 13th of April, arriving at Schaffhausen on the 26th of May, and that their journey took seven days! Also that they arrived at Schaffhausen on the 26th of May, and then that they left that place for Zurich on May 6th ... and went to Zug May 14. At any rate they appear to have been there late in May. The Duchess [131] was then in the prison of the Luxembourg, and the Duke and his two younger sons were imprisoned at Marseilles.
It was no wonder they got neither money nor letters from the Orléans family, but Mme. de Genlis began to be uneasy about money matters. She could not get any remittances either; and although her writings would certainly ultimately support her, she could take no steps about them while she was afraid to disclose her name.
The story of her exile is indeed a contrast to that of Mme. Le Brun, who, with none of her advantages of rank and fortune, nothing but her own genius, stainless character, and charming personality, was welcomed, fêted, and loved in nearly every court in Europe, whose exile was one long triumphant progress, and who found friends and a home wherever she went.
But Mme. de Genlis discovered, when too late, that by her attempts both to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, she had succeeded in making herself detested by both parties; and now [446] she waited in daily perplexity about money matters, and fear of the recognition which was not long in coming.
They only went out to church and to take country walks, but after a time some emigrés arrived at Zug, who, though they did not know them personally, had seen the Duc de Chartres at Versailles, recognised him, and spread the news all over the place.
Mme. de Genlis had before pointed out to him this danger, but he was very anxious to be with his sister, the only one of his nearest relations left to him, and she did not like to press the matter. But he soon saw that they must separate. The magistrates at Zug behaved very well, saying that the little family gave no reason for complaint, on the contrary were kind to the poor, harmless and popular.
But in a few days there were articles about them in the German papers; letters from Berne to the authorities of Zug reproached them for receiving the son and daughter of the infamous égalité; the people of Zug disliked the attention so generally drawn upon them, the chief magistrate became uneasy, and as politely as he could asked them to go away.
It was time. The day before they left a stone was thrown in at the window just where Mademoiselle d’Orléans had been sitting; if it had struck her it might have killed her. It struck her hat which she had hung on the top of a chair. A shower of stones followed, breaking the windows and arousing the Duc de Chartres and their only manservant, who [447] had gone to bed, and who rushed out into the garden, but only in time to hear the hurrying foot-steps of the escaping rascals.
The next day they left Zug. M. de Chartres went to Coire, in the Engadine, where for fifteen months he gave lessons in mathematics in a college under an assumed name, while Mme. de Genlis and her two charges took refuge in a convent near the little town of Bremgarten, where they were admitted through M. de Montesquieu, another of the radical nobles obliged to flee from the tender mercies of his radical friends, of whom they had heard through M. de Montjoye, now living with his relations in Bale, when he had paid them a visit.
In the convent they were safe and at peace, except for another illness of Mademoiselle d’Orléans, which left her so weak that Mme. de Genlis was afraid to tell her of the execution of her father in the November of 1794. She persuaded her not to read the French papers, telling her they were full of blasphemies and indecencies not fit for her to see. She had already received news of the execution of her husband, M. de Sillery, by which she was prostrated for a time.
Philippe-égalité had wearied Robespierre with his petitions to be released, and that worthy remarked to Fouquier-Tinville—
“It seems that égalité is tired of the fish of Marseilles that Milon appreciated so much. He wants to come to Paris.”
“Why prevent his coming back? his affair will be settled all the sooner,” was the answer. [132]
[448]
It was said that a locksmith, who was executed on the same day, would not get into the same cart with him, fearing that he “might be thought the accomplice of such a man.”
Mme. de Genlis put Mademoiselle d’Orléans into mourning, telling her that it was for the Queen, which she must of course wear, and it was some time before she discovered the truth.
She had written to ask a refuge of her uncle, the Duke of Modena, who sent her some money, but said political reasons prevented his receiving her in his duchy. The poor child, naturally merry and high-spirited, had grown quiet and sad, though she bore without complaining the hardships of her lot.
At last they heard that the Princesse de Conti was living near Fribourg, and it was arranged that she should take charge of her niece. She wrote an affectionate letter, and sent the Comtesse de Saint-Maurice-de-Pont to Bremgarten to fetch her.
Mme. de Genlis, dreading the parting, shut herself up in her room on the morning of her departure, leaving a message that she had gone out for the day to avoid that grief. She had not told her the night before that the time had come for their separation.
It was a great sorrow to them both, but was inevitable. Mademoiselle d’Orléans was rightly placed in the care of her own family, and the wandering, adventurous life led from this time by Mme. de Genlis was not desirable for the young princess.
E. H. Bearne
CHILLON