In the space of three years, from 1826 to 1828, Charles X. named three governors for the Duke of Bordeaux. One, the Duke of Montmorency, never entered on his duties. The others were the Duke de Riviere and the Baron de Damas. The Duke of Montmorency was named in anticipation the 8th of January, 1826, although his task did not begin until the 29th of September. Mathieu de Montmorency, first Viscount and then Duke, was born in 1766. After having been through the war in America, he had adopted the ideas of Lafayette, and had been distinguished by his extreme liberalism. He took the oath of the Jeu de Paume, and was the first to give up the privileges derived from his birth on the celebrated night of the 4th of August. The 12th of July, 1791, he was one of the deputation that attended the solemn transfer of the ashes of Voltaire, and, August 27th, he sustained the proposition to decree the honors of the Pantheon to Jean Jacques Rousseau. In his Petit Almanach des Grands Hommes de la Revolution, Rivarol wrote, not without irony:—
"The most youthful talent of the Assembly, he is still stammering his patriotism, but he already manages to make it understood, and the Republic sees in him all it wishes to see. It was necessary that Montmorency should appear popular for the Revolution to be complete, and a child alone could set this great example. The little Montmorency therefore devoted himself to the esteem of the moment, and combated aristocracy under the ferrule of the Abbe Sieyes."
Mathieu de Montmorency did not adhere to his revolutionary ideas. After the 10th of August, 1792, he withdrew to Switzerland, at Coppet, near his friend Madame de Stael. Under the Empire he held himself apart. He had become as conservative as he had been liberal, as religious as he had been Voltairian. Under the Restoration, he was one of the most convinced supporters of the throne and the altar. Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1821, he showed himself a distinguished diplomat, and during the session of 1822 made the Amende Honorable for what he called his former errors.
As he had always been sincere in his successive opinions, the Duke of Montmorency deserved general esteem. His profound piety, his unchanging gentleness, his exhaustless charity, made him a veritable saint. He was the complete type of the Christian nobleman. His name, his character, the very features of his countenance, were all in perfect harmony. The adversaries of the Revolution could not refrain from honoring this good man. On receiving the title of governor to the Duke of Bordeaux, he felt rewarded for the devotion and virtue of his whole life. But he regarded this grave employment as a heavy burden, "an immense and formidable honor, the terror of his feebleness, and the perpetual occupation of his conscience." This was the thought expressed in his reception discourse at the French Academy. The Count Daru replied to him. At the same session M. de Chateaubriand read a historic fragment. It was the first time since leaving the ministry that the celebrated writer had appeared in public, and he chose to do so to adorn the triumph of him whose rival he had been.
The Duke Mathieu de Montmorency died six months before he was to enter upon his functions as governor to the Duke of Bordeaux. It was Good Friday of the year 1826, at three o'clock in the afternoon. Before the tomb in the Church of Saint Thomas Aquinas, his parish, the Duke was praying like a saint, when suddenly he was seen to waver, and then to fall. Those near him ran to him, raised him; he was dead. The news had hardly spread when the church was filled with a crowd of poor people, who wept hot tears over the loss of their benefactor. On the morrow the Duchess of Broglie wrote to Madame REcamier, for whom the deceased had had an almost mystic tenderness:—
"Holy Saturday. Oh, my God! my God! dear friend, what an event! I think of you with anguish. All the past comes up before me. I thought I could see the grief of my poor mother, and I think of yours, my dear friend, which must be terrible. But what a beautiful death! Thus he would have chosen it—the place, the day, the hour! The hand of God, of that saviour God, whose sacrifice he was celebrating, is here!"
Father Macarthy said, in a sermon preached in the Chapel of the Tuileries:—
"Happy he, O God, who comes before Thy altar, on the day of Thy death, at the very hour when Thou didst expire for the salvation of the world, to breathe out his soul at Thy feet, and be laid in Thy tomb!"
Lastly, the Duke de Laval-Montmorency wrote to Madame Recamier:—
"I say it to you, my dear friend, I avow it without false modesty, I never have had any merit or any honor in life, save from action in common with my angelic friend. He alone is happy; he is so beyond doubt; from heaven he sees our tears, our desolation, our homage; he will be our protector on high as he was our friend, our support, upon the earth."
The death of the virtuous Duke caused Charles X. great grief. He said: "There are in me two persons, the king and the man, and I know not which is the most affected."
M. de Chateaubriand desired—and the desire was quite natural—to replace the Duke of Montmorency in the office of governor of the Duke of Bordeaux, but the wish was not gratified. In his Life of Henry of France, M. de PEne makes the following reflections on this point:—
"Chateaubriand lacked neither the knowledge nor the virtue to be the Fenelon of a new Duke of Burgundy. The eclat of his literary renown, the political sense of which he had given proof in the Spanish war, the popularity that surrounded him, were certainly arguments in his favor. But looking at things coolly, it was clear that an irregular genius was not suited for the part of Mentor, when he still had all the wayward impulses of Telemaque."
The choice of Charles X. fell on one of his oldest and most faithful friends, the Lieutenant-General Duke Charles de Riviere. He was a soldier of great valor, of gentle disposition, full of modesty and kindness, believing devoutly and practising the Christian religion, a descendant of those old knights who joined in one love, God, France, and the King.
Born the 17th of December, 1763, M. de Riviere had been the companion and servitor of the princes in exile and misfortune, and they had confided to him the most difficult and dangerous missions. He was secretly in France in 1794, and was arrested and condemned to death as implicated in the Cadoudal case. At his trial, he was shown, at a distance, the portrait of the Count d'Artois, and asked if he recognized it. He asked to see it nearer, and then having it in his hands, he said, looking at the president: "Do you suppose that even from afar I did not recognize it? But I wished to see it nearer once more before I die." And the martyr of royalty religiously kissed the image of his dear prince.
Josephine intervened, and secured the commutation of the sentence, as well as that of the Duke Armand de Polignac. Napoleon, who admired men of force, caused to be offered to M. de Riviere his complete pardon, and a regiment or a diplomatic post, at choice. The inflexible royalist preferred to be sent to the fort of Joux, where Toussaint Louverture had died, and remained a prisoner up to the time of the marriage of the Empress Marie Louise.
Under the Restoration, M. de Riviere, who was Marquis and was made Duke only in 1825, became lieutenant-general, Peer of France, ambassador at Constantinople, captain of the body-guards of Monsieur. At the time of his accession, Charles X. did for his faithful servitor what had never before been done; he created for him a fifth company of the King's body-guards. "My dear Riviere," he said, "I have done my best for you, but we shall both lose by it; you used to guard me all the time, now you can guard me but three months in the year." The 30th of May, 1825, the morrow of the coronation and the day of the reception of the Knights of the Holy Spirit, Charles X. conferred the title of duke on his devoted friend. "By the way, Riviere, I have made you a duke." It recalled the words of Henry IV. to Sully in like circumstances.
When he chose the Duke de Riviere as governor of the Duke of Bordeaux, the King said to Madame de Gontaut: "In naming Riviere, I have followed, I confess, the inclinations of my heart; I am under obligations to him; he has incessantly exposed himself for our cause; he has borne captivity, poverty; I love him, and I am used to him."
The new governor, who was very modest, was frightened at the task confided to him.
"You congratulate me," he wrote to a friend; "console me, rather, pity me. An employment so grave must be a heavy burden. I am easy about the instruction my royal pupil will receive; the wise prelate named by the King as his preceptor will be a powerful auxiliary for me. But my share is still too great. It requires something more than fidelity for such a place,—firmness without roughness, unlimited patience, address, intelligence. I am frightened at the mission I have to fill. I begged the King to release me. He insisted. I asked him to make it a command; he replied: 'I will not command you, but you will give me great pleasure.' I did not conceal from the King that I should have preferred to remain captain of his guards; he answered: 'Well, you made that place for yourself; make this for me.' How could one resist such language from the lips of such a prince? There was but one choice to make,—to do all that he wished."
Charles X. named as sub-governors two distinguished military men, the Colonel Marquis de Barbamcois and the Lieutenant-Colonel Count de Maupas. He named as preceptor Mgr. Tharin, Bishop of Strasbourg, and as sub-preceptor the Abbe Martin de Noirlieu and M. de Barande. The Bishop of Strasbourg was a pious and learned priest, of great benevolence and extreme affability. But his appointment exasperated the Opposition, because he had formerly taken up the defence of the Order of the Jesuits against the attacks of M. de Montlosier. All the liberal sheets cried aloud. Le Journal des Debates, furious that its candidate to the succession of the Duke de Montmorency, M. de Chateaubriand, had not been named, wrote, regarding the appointment of Mgr. Tharin:—
"Such imprudence amazes, such blindness is pitiable. It awakens profound grief to see this chariot rush toward the abyss with no power to restrain it."
The Duke de Riviere gave himself up entirely to the task confided to him. He never quitted the young prince. He slept in his room and watched over him night and day. In the month of February, 1828, he fell ill. The princes and princesses visited him frequently. The sovereign himself, putting aside for this faithful friend the etiquette which forbade him to visit any one out of his own family, went constantly to see him and remained long with him. The Duke had no greater consolation, after that of his religion, than the visit of his King. He said to his family as the hour of the expected visit approached, "Do not let me sleep," and if he felt himself getting drowsy, "For pity's sake," he said, "awaken me if the King comes; it is the best remedy for my pains." Charles X. could hardly restrain his tears; on leaving the room he gave way to his grief. The little Duke of Bordeaux, also, was much saddened.
One day, when he was told that the sick man had passed a bad night, he said to his sister: "Let's play plays that don't amuse us to-day."
Another day, when it was reported that his governor was a little better: "In that case," he cried, "general illumination," and he went in broad day, and lighted all the candles in the salon. The Duke de Riviere died the 21st of April, 1828; by order of the King, his son lived from that time with the Duke of Bordeaux, and received lessons from the preceptors of the young Prince.
The Liberals wished the successor of the Duke to be one of their choice. They maintained that the son of France belonged to the nation, and that it had too much interest in his education to permit the parents alone to dispose of it, as in ordinary families. The ministry wished to be consulted. Charles X. replied that he took counsel with his ministers in all that concerned the public administration, but that he should maintain his liberty as father of a family in the choice of masters for his grandson.
The King named the Lieutenant-General Baron de Damas (born in 1785, died in 1858). He was a brave soldier and a good Christian. M. de Lamartine said that he had "integrity, obstinate industry, virtue incorruptible by the air of couits, patriotic purpose, cool impartiality, but no presence and no brilliancy," and that "his piety was as loyal and disinterested as his heart." He had been Minister of War, and of Foreign Affairs, and distinguished himself under the Duke of Angouleme, during the Spanish Expedition. But under the Revolution and the Empire, he had served in the Russian army, and this did not render him popular. The Abbe Vedrenne, in his VIE DE Charles X., wrote:—
"To watch over the person of the son of France, not quitting him night or day; to make sure that the rules of his education are followed in the employment of his time, in the routine of his lessons; to let no one save persons worthy of confidence come near him; to ward off all dangers, and notify the King of the least indisposition,—such is the duty of the governor. It requires more prudence than learning, more probity than genius. M. de Damas was a royalist too tried, too fervent a Christian, for his nomination not to provoke many murmurs. His place, moreover, had been desired by so many people, that there was no lack of those who were displeased and jealous. There was a general outcry over his incapacity and ignorance. One would have thought that he was to perform the task of a Bossuet and a Fenelon, while in reality he filled the place of a Montausier or a Beauvilliers. Had he not their virtues, and especially their devotion?"
The Duchess of Gontaut thus relates the first interview of the young Prince with his new governor: "Monseigneur was a little intimidated, when the Baron, coming up near to him, made a profound bow, and said: 'Monseigneur, I commend myself to you.' To which Monseigneur, not knowing what to say, said nothing, and as no one spake a word, the King dismissed us. When the Duke of Bordeaux learned that M. de Damas had six or seven boys nearly his age and only one girl, and that the girl would not be any trouble, his gaiety returned." The little Prince got used to his new governor, who had the most solid qualities, and who performed his task with the same devotion and zeal as his predecessor.
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