Oueen Amélie of Portugal
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MEMORIES OF OUEEN AMÉLIE OF PORTUGAL LUCIEN CORPECHOT ■ ^ I - _ _ MEMORIES OF QUEEN AMÉLIE OF PORTUGAL ... ' -* v V-V LM ..-'ASES* <r c4u+i6£%< MEMORIES OF QUEEN AMÉLIE OF PORTUGAL BY LUGIEN GORPEGHOT LONDON EVELEIGH NASH 1915 OFERTA INSTITUTO DE ALTA CULTURA (COLECÇÂO GEORGE WEST) 2858.2 Translatcd from the Frenck By M. Harribt M. Capbs À MONSIEUR LE DUC DE LUYNES Louis-Philippe, KlNG OF FRANCE, 1830-1848. Ferdinand, Duke of Orleans, d. 1842. Louis-Philippe, Luís I., = Maria-Pia. Comte de Paris, d. 1889. d. 1894. Philippb, MARIE-AMÉLIE, = Carlos, King of Portugal Duc d’Orléans. b. 1865. (murdered 1908). Luís Felipe Manuel. (murdered 1908). PREFACE When Cleópatra was hurled from her throne, and glory, love, and all that had made her life worth living tom from her, one insupportable thought made the cup of bitterness held to her lips by Csesar brim over. She thought how “ scald rhymers ” would sing her sorrow and “ quick comedians ” “ extemporally stage ” her story, and she should see “ Some squeaking Cleópatra boy my greatness, I’ the posture of a whore.” And then she called for “ the pretty worm of Nilus, That kills and pains not.” To the griefs of the great ones of the earth is added the misery of knowing that forgetful- ness will put no seal upon their tombs; that literature will work its base will upon them ; that legend will lay hold upon their lineaments, their actions, their sufferings, to distort and to dwarf them to the dimensions of the passions, the tamer emotions of ordinary people. 7 PREFACE Malevolence and falsehood will mould their shape, and the impossibility of sounding the depths of their troubles condemns them to that degradation which the Queen of Egypt could not tolerate. In reference to this undeniable truth, let us therefore lay but a reverent and discreet finger on these illustrious misfortunes. Should I have even dreamed of recalling the Royal Tragedy of Lisbon with all its horrors, only comparable with those of the greatest human dramas, if hate and ignorance had not travestied those concerned ; if party-spirit had not striven to belittle a Princess of the Blood of France, while documents absolutely trustworthy un- ceasingly demonstrate to us the nobility of her character and her exceptional greatness ? Desiring only to redress the wrong done to our race by so many calumnies, and anxious to display the halo of characteristically French charm and nobility that encircles that pathetic figure, I have refrained from mixing politics with the story of her life. Discussion or proof is not the object of what I write ; I have even forborne 8 PREFACE to express any opinion of that kind, remem- bering the words of Bossuet— “ From the frivolous arguments by which speculators decide the duty of the Powers that rule the world, their own majesty protects them.” In these pages will be found solely the story of one of the noblest sisters of France. I imagine that more than any other it is worth telling, because the malignity of Fortune has drawn from our Princess some of those notes that through the centuries make, as it were, the song of our people. In the days of her youth, Princess Amélie, a gentle, merry girl, by her youthful grace, her charming air, her touching trustfulness, had won the devotion of all around her. I was told in confidence by an Admirai who represented our country at Lisbon that there was not one of his ofíicers that on seeing the Queen of Portugal had not literally worshipped her, while all his crew held her in veneration. Still there is not one of the familiar friends of the Princess that does not hold her ennobled, 9 PREFACE and as it were exalted above herself by the wounds life has dealt her. The marks of suffer- ing have given a new charm to her moral aspect, for she has known how to face adversity with a courage equal to the magnitude of her mis- fortunes. The desperate blows of Fate have welded her soul to a rare substance, and drawn from it some of those inimitable sounds that give proof of the most precious metal. To her, exactly as to the Princess Henriette of France, the words of Bossuet are applicable— “ So long as she was happy, she made her power felt by infinite kindness; when Fortune forsook her, she grew richer than ever in virtues, so much so that it was for her own good that she lost that Royal Power she had used for the good of others.” io MEMORIES OF QUEEN AMÉLIE OF PORTUGAL I The Princess Amélie was born in exile. In England, that land which gives a welcome to the banished, on the banks of the Thames, an hour’s journey from London, there lies a ring of shadow and silence, which, by some mysterious virtue, successively attracted all the French princes, driven from their kingdom. Princes of the Houses of Bourbon or Orleans, even Napoleons, have found rest after storm, and then the in- vincible nostalgia for the sky of France, under the great elms of Twickenham. It seems as if some dark magician, for his pleasure, and with a turn of his wand, had im- prisoned the brothers of Louis xvi., Louis- Philippe, and his descendants, down to his great-grand-nephews, and Prince Napoleon him- IX MEMORIES OF self, in that magic enclosure whence, in the mists of the waters, arise the dreams and the sighs of the exiles. The Comte de Paris, after leading the wander- ing life of the proscribed from the banks of the Rhine to far Eastern lands, after a campaign in the United States during the War of Secession, had of his own accord come to seek a haven in this same stretch of the Thames. He had taken up his abode at York House, a modest mansion with a ground-floor of freestone and two storeys of red brick. It is surrounded by beautiful gardens sloping gently to the river. James n. had lived in this house when he was Duke of York. The Princess Amélie was bom in the room which saw the birth of Queen Anne. York House is quite close to Orleans House, where the Duc d’Aumale had lived since 1852, and to Mount Lebanon, a heavy brick building, thickly covered with ivy and in the shadow of great cedar trees, where the Prince de Joinville was to install himself after the death of his mother. Marie-Amélie lived with the Duc de Nemours and the Prince de Joinville, at the mansion 12 QUEEN AMÉLIE OF PORTUGAL called Claremont, which a vote of Parliament, at the request of Queen Victoria, had granted to her for life. The aged Queen was, in the words of the Duc de Nemours, “ a sort of deity who presided over the family.” In the neighbouring chapei at Kingston, the Duc de Chartres, settled in the village of Ham on the other bank of the Thames, had married his cousin, the daughter of the Prince de Joinville ; in 1864 the Comte de Paris was there married to another of his cousins, the Princess Isabelle, daughter of the Duc de Montpensier, and the following year their first child, the Princess Amélie, was there baptized. Queen Marie-Amélie, who was to have been godmother, falling ill, the little Princess was held at the baptismal font by the Marquise de Beauvoir. The fervent prayers that rose to the autumnal heavens that day did not avail to avert the fate that doomed the child of exile to a future most glorious and most terrible. At York House, the descendant of thirty kings, the inheritor of so much glory, was lead- 13 * MEMORIES OF ing the most simple of lives, shorn of all pomp ; but a life most dignified and studious. He left his room at six o’clock in the morning, winter as well as summer, worked till eight, breakfasted with his family, and his day was devoted to his guests or to study. At that time the Comtesse de Paris was a slim, fragile girl; she was fifteen and a half at the time of her marriage. She was graceful, lively in her gestures, and full of animation. The nearness of London allowed the Princes to make frequent visits to it. With Queen Victoria they kept up the most cordial, but the most discreet, relations. But grief upon grief were to afflict the family of Louis-Philippe. The first was the death of Queen Marie-Amélie, which took place at Clare- mont on the 24th of March 1866. They buried her in the gown in which she had left France, which she had had kept for that purpose. Two months later, the young Prince de Condé, of whom the Duc d’Aumale had conceived such hopes, died at Sydney during a voyage round the world ; and, finally, on the 6th of September 14 QUEEN AMÉLIE OF PORTUGAL 1869, the Duchesse d’Aumale expired at Twickenham. It was in the family life, drawn yet closer by these common trials, in their filial piety, in their affectionate intercourse, in the long talks about France, in the firm hope of one day returning to live there, that the exiles had found consolation. On his escutcheon the Duc d’Aumale had put his drawn sword with the device “J’atten- drai ” ; and truly the life of all these princes was one long waiting. Gladness and life came with the visitors from France. About the Comte de Paris there were no officers-in-waiting nor anything resembling a Court; but each April brought the faithful to Twickenham.