Popularity of the Duke of Orleans.
This course rapidly increased the popularity of the duke among the people, and the Parliament was unceasing in its solicitations for his recall. The court became embarrassed, and at length gladly availed itself of the opportunity of releasing him, in response to a petition from the Duchess of Orleans.
The current of the revolution was now beginning to flow with resistless flood. The hostility between the court and the people was hourly increasing. Famine added its horrors to the general tumult and agitation. A winter of unparalleled severity the winter of 1789 terribly increased the general suffering. The Duke of Orleans was profuse in his liberality, opening a public kitchen, and supplying the wants of famishing thousands. The duke, having thus embarked, without reserve, in the cause of the people, added to his own popularity and to the exasperation of the court, by publicly renouncing all his feudal rights, and permitting the public to hunt and shoot at pleasure over his vast domains. His popularity now became immense. The journals were filled with his praises. Whenever he appeared in public, multitudes followed him with their acclaim.
Assembling of the States-General.
On the 4th of May, 1789, the States-General, or National Assembly, met. The duke, followed by about forty others of the nobility, renounced all his aristocratic privileges, and took his place as an equal in the ranks of the tiers état, or third estate, as the common people were called. The clergy, the nobility, and the people then constituted the three estates of the realm.
The French Revolution was now advancing with rapid strides, accompanied by anarchy, violence, and bloodshed. The court party was increasingly exasperated against the popular duke, and many stories were fabricated against him to undermine his influence. The situation of the king and royal family became daily more irksome and perilous. He endeavored to escape, to join the armies of Austria and Prussia, which were marching to his relief. He was arrested at Varennes, brought back to Paris, and held as a prisoner in the Tuileries. The question was now discussed of deposing the king and establishing a regency under the Duke of Orleans.
Commotion in Paris.
The first National Assembly, called the Constituent, which was convened to draw up a constitution for France, having completed its work, was dissolved; and another assembly, denominated the Legislative, was chosen to enact laws under that constitution. The allied armies of foreign dynasties were on the march to rob the French people of their constitution, and to impose upon them the absolute despotism of the old régime. Fearful riots ensued in Paris. The palace of the Tuileries was stormed. The king, with his family, fled to the Legislative Assembly for protection, and was imprisoned in the Temple. On the 20th of January, 1793, he died upon the scaffold.
Flight of the nobles.
Petition of the Duke of Orleans.
The National Convention, which speedily succeeded the Legislative Assembly, brought the accusation of treason against the king tried, condemned, and executed him. The Duke of Orleans, a member of this Convention, voted for the death of the king. The abolition of monarchy and the establishment of a republic immediately followed. The question was with much interest discussed, whether the republic should be federal, like that of the United States, or integral, like the ancient republics of Greece and Rome. The Duke of Orleans advocated the concentration of power and the indivisibility of France. Fanaticism usurped the place of reason; the guillotine was busy; suspicions filled the air; no life was safe. The Duke of Orleans was alarmed. He sent his daughter, under the care of Madame de Genlis, to England. The nobles were flying in all directions. Severe laws were passed against the emigrants. The duke, who had assumed the surname of Egalité, or Equality, excited suspicion by placing his daughter among the emigrants. It was said that he had no confidence in the people or in the new order of things. To lull these suspicions, the duke sent a petition to the Convention on the 21st of November, 1792, containing the following statement:
"Citizens, You have passed a law against those cowards who have fled their country in the moment of danger. The circumstance I have to lay before you is peculiar. My daughter, fifteen years of age, passed over to England in the month of October, 1791, with her governess and two companions of her studies. Her governess, Madame de Genlis, has early initiated them in liberal views and republican virtues. The English language forms a part of the education which she has given to my daughter. One of the motives of this journey has been to acquire the pronunciation of that tongue. Besides that, the chalybeate waters of England were recommended as restoratives of my daughter's health. It is impossible, under these circumstances, to regard the journey of my daughter as emigration. I feel assured that the law is not applicable in this case. But the slightest doubt is sufficient to distress a father. I beg, therefore, fellow-citizens, that you will relieve me from this uneasiness."
Domestic discord.
But by this time the Convention began to look upon the Duke of Orleans with suspicion. Rumors were in circulation that many of the people, tired of republicanism which was crowding the prisons, and causing blood to gush in an incessant flow wished to reinstate the monarchy, and to place the Duke of Orleans upon the throne. The Duchess of Orleans, the child of one of the highest nobles, was not in sympathy with her husband in his democratic views. His boundless profligacy had also alienated her affections, so that there was no domestic happiness to be found in the gorgeous saloons of the Palais Royal.
Robespierre wished to banish the Duke of Orleans from France, as a dangerous man, around whom the not yet extinct spirit of royalty might rally. He moved in the Convention, "That all the relatives of Bourbon Capet should be obliged, within eight days, to quit the territory of France and the countries then occupied by the Republican armies."
The motion was, for the time, frustrated by the following expostulation by M. Lamarque:
"Would it not be the extreme of injustice to exile all of the Capets, without distinction? I have never spoken but twice to Egalité. I am, therefore, not open to the suspicion of partiality, but I have closely observed his conduct in the Revolution. I have seen him deliver himself up to it entirely, a willing victim for its promotion, not shrinking from the greatest sacrifices; and I can truly assert that but for Egalité we never should have had the States-General we should never have been free."
Flight of General Dumouriez.
Thus public sentiment fluctuated. An event soon occurred which brought matters to a crisis. General Dumouriez, a former minister of Louis XVI., was in command of the army on the northern frontier. Disgusted with the violence of the Convention, which was silencing all opposition with the slide of the guillotine, and apprehensive of personal danger, from the consciousness that he was suspected of not being very friendly to the Government, he resolved to abandon the country which he thought doomed to destruction, and to seek safety in flight. Louis Philippe, the eldest son of the Duke of Orleans, then a lad of about 16, was on his staff. They fled together. This aroused popular indignation in Paris to the highest pitch. This young prince, Louis Philippe, then entitled the Duke of Chartres, and who, as subsequently King of the French, is the subject of this memoir, had written in a letter to his father, which was intercepted, these words: "I see the Convention utterly destroying France." It was believed that Dumouriez had entered into a plot for placing the Duke of Orleans on the throne, and that the duke was cognizant of the plan.