1830.] France, Wellington, and Europe. 371 



of those rumours. Her ease of manner arose from an unstained heart, 

 her familiarity was innocence, and her open ridicule of the repulsive 

 formality of court etiquette, the natural result of security of mind. 

 But it is hazardous to stand in opposition to the customs of a -whole 

 country. The profligate countesses, to whom life had but one profligate 

 purpose, exclaimed in all their coteries against the " indecorums" of the 

 Queen. The profligate nobles conceived that even the highest rank of 

 female life was no more guarded by virtue than that of the brood of 

 painted and gambling women of their circle. The profligate populace, 

 always rejoicing at the opportunity of lowering their superiors to the 

 level of their own vices, rejoiced at the probability of being able to 

 stigmatize the Queen, who had the additional unpopularity of being an 

 Austrian, the director of her weak husband, and the true and known 

 pillar of royalty in the councils of France. 



Whether the duke was repulsed in his politics or his person whether 

 as a rebel or a lover, his hatred against the Queen was notorious and 

 irreconcilable. The Queen repaid him. She has been heard to say, as 

 he walked through the levee, <( Look at that man's countenance : it 

 carries death to me." 



From the year 1787> the Duke of Orleans had placed himself in the 

 foremost position as leader of the anti-royal party. The quarrels of 

 the Parliament of Paris with the Court, had compelled the King to do 

 something more than eat, dream, and talk to his confessor. In the 

 famous sitting of November, 1787, Orleans had the hardihood to 

 ask the King whether the meeting was for deliberating on the state 

 of the country, or merely for registering the royal will ? Whether it 

 was to be a real council, or simply a ' bed of justice?' The question 

 was bold ; the whole assembly of courtiers had never heard such a souncl 

 before ; the poor King was all astonishment, and the duke received 

 the reward of his intrepidity, in a ministerial order to leave Paris^ 

 and go to Villers Coterets. 



But what duke of the old regime, or what Frenchman, of any, could 

 bear exile from Paris ? Orleans solicited his recal, and even solicited 

 the Queen to obtain that recal. 



On the 8th of May, when the Estates of the Kingdom met in the Cathe-. 

 dral at Notre Dame, the duke was observed to desert the procession of 

 the princes of the blood to mingle with the populace, and exhibited by his 

 manner a sufficient contempt for the grave mockery of the ceremonial. 

 The amalgamation of the Deputies into one body, the National Assembly, 

 owed much of its success to the duke, and his speech formidably 

 widened the distance between him and the royal family. A remarkable 

 contrast to the King, the Court,, and the People, was, that while they 

 were growing poor, the Duke was growing rich. One of his most 

 reprobate companions, Louvet, had suggested the idea of throwing the 

 greater part of his palace into shops. The Palais Royal was instantly 

 an enormous revenue, and he had soon money enough to blind one half 

 of Paris, and to bribe the other. 



The plot now began to thicken. <e The Jacobin Club," damned to, 

 everlasting fame, were the duke's partizans, purchased, doubtless, by 

 the duke's gold. The crown was visibly slipping off the head of the. 

 unfortunate I^ouis. The Jacobins were ready to put it on the head of' 

 their master. But his distinctions were to be of another kind. He 

 was sent by the King into exile, on pretence of a mission 



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