CHAMBORD, COMTE DE. 



105 



in the Chateau de Blaye, was discovered to be 

 pregnant, and declared that she had contracted 

 a secret marriage with an Italian, Count Luc- 

 chesi-Palli. This episode not only brought the 

 cause of Henri V into ridicule, but separated 

 the young pretender thenceforward from his 

 mother, as Charles X could never forgive her 

 misalliance. Henri, who was safely brought 

 back from the unlucky expedition by faithful 

 adherents, was placed by his grandfather un- 

 der the guardianship of the Duchesse d'Angou- 

 leme, a woman of strong will and masculine 

 nature, while the Duchesse de Berry, who was 

 a princess of Naples, was banished to the land 

 of her nativity. 



Chateaubriand, the celebrated expositor of 

 clerico-royalist theories, filled with ideas simi- 

 lar to those which stirred Disraeli, Bismarck, 

 and other statesmen, made the pilgrimage to 

 Prague, in the hope of taking the direction of 

 the young prince's education and bringing him 

 up to become a democratic ruler, who should 

 realize under the old patriarchal forms the 

 popular aspirations of the Revolution, which 

 the bourgeoisie, after becoming the dominant 

 class under Louis Philippe, had selfishly for- 

 gotten. But democratic ideas were regarded 

 with dread and aversion by the people sur- 

 rounding the young Due de Bordeaux. He 

 was trained by his tutor, the Duo de Damas, 

 in doctrines at variance with the whole move- 

 ment of the century, and in the hope of sim- 

 ply restoring the old order as he was taught 

 to conceive it by clerical guides, who made 

 him believe that the kings of France were all 

 men of saintly character, and that the dalliance 

 of the aristocracy with Voltairean heresies was 

 the cause of the fall of the monarchy. Henri 

 grew up a religious devotee, completely igno- 

 rant of the world, and possessing ideas of the 

 religious nature of the kingly office which cre- 

 ated astonishment in the courts of Europe, 

 when in his twentieth year he made a tour by the 

 counsel of Cardinal Lambruschini, who fearegl 

 the effects of his ascetic devotions upon the 

 mind of the Prince. The family lived for some 

 years at Goertz, or Goritz, in Istria, where 

 Charles X died in 1836. When he was twenty- 

 one years old he was thrown from his horse 

 and sustained a fracture of the thigh, which 

 made him slightly lame for life and unfitted 

 him for robust exercise. The same year the 

 Duchesse d'Angouleine purchased the castle 

 and estate of Froschdorf, or Frohsdorf, forty 

 miles from Vienna. The Comta de Chambord 

 (which was the title that the Prince was called 

 by after the expulsion ojf his family from 

 France) was not able to leave his bed for two 

 years after his accident. Shortly after his own 

 raishap, the popular Due d'Orleans, Louis Phi- 

 lippe's heir, was thrown from his carriage and 

 killed, leaving the infant Comte de Paris as 

 next heir) with the prospect of a regency un- 

 der the Due de Nemonrs, who was not popular. 

 In November, 1843, as soon as he left his sick- 

 bed, he took up his residence in London, and 



publicly 

 take the 



called upon his partisans to come and 

 take the oath of allegiance. The Legitimist 

 members of the Chamber and the House of 

 Peers, with thousands of others, flocked to his 

 mansion in Belgrave Square to pay homage to 

 Henri V. A vote of condemnation passed by 

 the Chamber on the conduct of these deputies 

 had the effect of exposing the weakness of Louis 

 Philippe's tenure of the throne and the seem- 

 ing hopefulness of Chambord's prospects. The 

 censured deputies resigned, and were all re- 

 elected. It became the fashion in Paris to 

 praise the Comte, and rave over the glories of 

 the old regime. He strengthened his position 

 and augmented his great fortune by marrying 

 Maria Theresa, daughter of the Duke of Mo- 

 dena, in 1847. 



With the brilliant Berryer to lead his party, 

 which grew in numbers and importance up to 

 the Revolution of 1848, there was an oppor- 

 tunity, if Chambord had been daring, unscru- 

 pulous, and despotic, and willing to sacrifice 

 his principles to expediency, of obtaining the 

 crown after the ignominious overthrow of 

 Louis Philippe, though scarcely of holding it. 

 But Chambord's lack of courage and decision 

 of character kept him from making the attempt. 

 It was necessary that he should pledge himself 

 to rule constitutionally, a condition which he 

 had already accepted in letters and addresses, 

 and in the columns of his organs. 



The communistic outbreak of June decided 

 the fate of the second republic. After its rig- 

 orous suppression by Cavaignac, a Chamber 

 was elected containing a strong group of Le- 

 gitimists, and a large number who were ready 

 to rally around Chambord, provided he would 

 issue a manifesto embodying a charter of popu- 

 lar representation. He appointed many meet- 

 ings with his political friends, and made fre- 

 quent promises to adopt this course, but when- 

 ever the moment for decision arrived he escaped 

 from his political advisers to meditate in some 

 monastery and take priestly counsel. Prince 

 Louis Napoleon canvassed the country, and se- 

 cured the election to the presidency. The Le- 

 gitimists voted for him, to keep out Cavaignac. 

 The Comte de Chambord could not bring him- 

 self to renounce the absolutist theory of the mon- 

 archy by right divine and the re-establishment 

 of the old ecclesiastico-feudal order. He shrank 

 still more from the employment of military 

 force. There was no hope of re-erecting the 

 old Bourbon throne under any compromise or 

 possible concessions without a sharp, sangui- 

 nary conflict with the democracy of the cities. 

 While Thiers, Guizot, and Berryer were labor- 

 ing to bring about a fusion between the Legiti- 

 mists and Orleanists, which advanced to the 

 point of direct negotiations with the Comte de 

 Chambord at Wiesbaden after the death of 

 Louis Philippe, and while Marshal Bugeaud, 

 the first general of the French army at the 

 time, held 50,000 of the choicest troops ready 

 to strike at the orders of Henri Cinq, Prince 

 Bonaparte strengthened his grasp on the cen- 



