CHAPTER XII

THE DUC D’AUMALE AND CHANTILLY

The Duc d’Aumale was certainly the one member of the Orleans family who made the most friends for himself, and had the greatest number of admirers. Whether this was due to his personal merits, or to the millions which he inherited from the last Prince of Condé, it is not for me to say. He had plenty to give to others; it is but natural that these others praised him in the hope he would give them a little more than he had intended. He courted popularity, made sacrifices of pride, principles, and sometimes personal affections, in order to win it; and he succeeded in a certain sense, at least from the point of view of those who measure praise and blame according to the social standing of the person to whom they deal it. He was more learned than clever, more clever than brilliant; his wit was inferior to his intelligence, but he had cunning, a singular way of at once finding his personal advantage out of an entangled situation. He put his own wellbeing beyond everything else, and cared in reality only for his comforts and being left alone to lead an easy, indolent existence among his books, his pictures, his flowers, his manuscripts, all the magnificences of the old home of the Condés. This he had restored with care and a singular artistic knowledge, and had succeeded in endowing it with some of its past glories.

He was a perfect host, even though, perhaps, a little dull; and one enjoyed a first visit to Chantilly more than a second, on account of the necessity it entailed to perform with its master what is called “le tour du propriétaire,” to admire what he admired, to look only upon what he showed you himself, and not to be allowed to roam at will in the avenues of the park, or in the vast halls full of lovely things, and of remembrances of the past. One would have liked to spend hours contemplating the wonders of art gathered under that roof, to examine the sword of the Great Condé, or to look through the quantity of interesting documents, historical and otherwise, that were kept in businesslike order in the great cupboards of the long library, whose windows opened on the meadows, where probably the lovely Madame de Longueville had roamed together with one or other of her numerous admirers.

This solitary place required silence rather than the casual remarks which echoed through its corridors as the motley crowd generally met at the Sunday breakfasts which the Duc liked to give. These breakfasts were quite a feature in the life of the master of this palace, and the queerest assemblage of people could be met at them--Academicians, colleagues of the Duc, military men, foreigners, scientists, diplomats, men of letters and men of the world, ladies of the highest rank and actresses. He made no distinctions, and never cared whether he brought together people who agreed with each other or not. There was no link between his guests, who forgot all about those who had been their companions of the afternoon at Chantilly after that afternoon was over; they never chatted together, and perhaps their host did not care for them to do so. He liked to concentrate around his own person the attention of those who had partaken of his hospitality; he would have felt offended had he caught them talking to each other, and not listening exclusively to himself. He was full of attention to those whom he guessed were admirers of his deeds or works, and took a deal of trouble to show to self-made people that he esteemed them more than those who were his equal in birth if not in rank. For instance, I remember one day when having at lunch the Duchesse de Noailles and Madame Cuvillier Fleury, the widow of his old tutor, he put the latter on his right and the Duchesse on his left. The fact was instantly noticed by a few Academicians, of what I would call the inferior ranks of the Academy, and instantly it was remarked what a kind, noble and attentive nature was Henri d’Orleans, Duc d’Aumale, who thus ignored the high standing of one of the noblest amongst the noble Duchesses of France in order to show gratitude to the relict of the man to whom he owed his moral training. This action of the Duke was just one of these things he was so fond of doing, in order to provoke admiration. He liked to forget the exclusive traditions of his race whenever he thought that it would ensure for him the sympathies of the mob; that mob which his family had ever courted, to which it owed in part its fame and its successes, and which despised it for the very facility with which it bowed down licking the very dust. Among all the opportunist Orleans the Duc d’Aumale was foremost.

Since the death of his wife and children all his affections had concentrated on his splendid Chantilly, the reconstruction of which had entirely absorbed him from the day of his return to France after the revolution that had overthrown the Bonaparte dynasty. In spite of all that has been said he had no political ambitions. He knew that he had no right to the crown of France, and that he could not pretend to it without foregoing all the principles which he did not possess, but which he was supposed to represent. Having been sounded as to whether he would accept the Presidency of the Republic, he had consented to do so, because he had been told that he had to do it, but he did not regret that, as events turned out, the candidature of Marshal MacMahon was preferred to his own. He returned to his country home, to his roses, his pictures, his works of art, his horses, and his dogs, and took up again his easy, happy, careless life as a grand seigneur of olden times, absorbed in his books and studies, able to gather his friends round him whenever he liked, and to do the honours of his stately domain. Fond of hunting the stag in his vast forests, he was not above coming to Paris whenever he wanted amusements that would have been incompatible with the grandeur of Chantilly--to kiss the hand of a Leonide Leblanc, or to enjoy an hour’s chat with the lovely Countess de Castiglione, whose beauty then was on the wane. He was an amiable talker, rather dry in his remarks, but always ready to make use of his many remembrances and his vast erudition to add to the enjoyment of those with whom he was conversing. He told an anecdote pleasantly, and related an historical fact with a grand eighteenth-century manner, without offending the Republican instincts of those who were listening to him.

His appearance was entirely that of a grand seigneur of old, no matter whether he was dressed in his uniform or evening clothes, with the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour across his chest, or whether he was met walking in his park in corduroy trousers, and gaiters rather the worse for wear. His thin, delicate features, with the white tuft on the chin, the long, soft, silken moustache, and eyes with a haunted look, reminded one of a picture by Velasquez or Van Dyck. The figure was slightly bent, but wiry and agile, and had kept much of the elasticity of its younger days.

He talked quickly, sometimes sharply, but always with extreme courtesy, and even when disagreeing did so in most measured tones, and with the utmost care not to wound the feelings of those with whom he was in discussion. He had a sympathetic manner, but not a kingly one by any means. There was nothing regal about him, but there was also nothing that was not gentlemanly in the fullest sense of the word. And sometimes, when one saw him leaning against the pedestal of the statue of the Connétable of Montmorency, which he had had erected in front of his palace of Chantilly, or handling with love and reverence the sword which the Great Condé had carried at Rocroy, for one short, flitting moment he gave one the impression that he was only the guardian of those historical relics of which he was master.

The Duc d’Aumale had never had the initiative to fight for the privileges to which he had been born. In 1848, he was in command of an important army in Algeria, with which he might have fought the insurrectional government with advantage. He either lacked courage, or didn’t think it worth while to risk his own personal position as a factor in the France of the future to do so. He resigned his command, with more alacrity than dignity, and accepting as the decision of his country the rebellion of the few, retired to England, and with occasional stays in his Sicilian domains, near Palermo, he awaited in retirement and silence for the dawn of another day which would allow him to return to the France he liked so much and to the Chantilly he loved so well.

When at last that moment came, his first care was to use his efforts to avoid the possibility of a new banishment. In order to do this he opened his doors wide to all political men and to all the literary celebrities of the day. His hospitality was unbounded; he flattered the middle classes, who had suddenly become the leading force in France, with consummate skill. He tried as much as he could to make others forget that he was a member of the ancient house of Bourbon, with whose destinies those of their country had been inseparably associated for centuries. He strove always to appear to those whom he welcomed under his roof as a private gentleman, the owner of an historical place, and as a member of that Academy to which he was so proud to belong, the membership of which was dearer to him than all the glories of his race. He democratised himself, if such an expression can be pardoned. He came down from the throne, on the steps of which he had been born, into the crowd with which he liked to mix himself, quite forgetting that this crowd could at any minute descend to the gutter, whither they would drag him too whether he liked it or not.

There came, however, a day in the career of the Duc d’Aumale when he felt constrained to assert himself, when for once the blood of Henri IV. spoke in him. It was when he wrote to the President, Jules Grévy, that famous letter which resulted in his being sent to join his nephew across the frontiers of France. This letter was penned after the government had sent the Comte de Paris into an exile whence he was never to return, and he himself had been deprived of his rank and command. The shock was terrible to him, and bitterly did he regret the attack of indignation that had made him speak when he should have remained silent. As he said himself many years later: “J’ai laissé parler mon cœeur, tandis que j’aurais dû écouter ma raison” (“I listened to my heart when I ought only to have heard my reason”).

He retired to Brussels, which was nearer than England to the royal home he had adorned with such loving care, in the hope to bequeath it to his race, a living memento of the glories of their ancestors. When he saw himself parted from Chantilly, especially when it became evident to him that he would remain in exile until death released him, he took a resolution which, better than anything else, proves that in his heart and mind his family held but a small place.

He made a will by which he left Chantilly, its collections, its treasures, its library, its historical documents, its park and forests to the French Academy. And he divulged his intention in the hope that, as a reward for the splendid gift he was making to her, France would once more admit him within her doors, and by restoring him to his home thank him for having given it to her.

This act of selfish generosity has been very differently commented upon. Whilst many have admired it, a few old men and women, born and bred in ideas of an age when traditions, love for one’s race, and desire to help it to keep its high position and its inheritance were uppermost, have bitterly reproached him for having thus transgressed traditions that ought to have been sacred to him.

This attack of “Christian generosity,” as someone wittily termed it, which made him not only forgive the injury that had been done to him, but even reward by a kingly gift the injustice of a country which had used him so mercilessly, not only estranged him from his family, which, though it said nothing, thought a great deal, but also made him lose the sympathies of many former partisans of the Orleans dynasty. This alienation of the home of the Condés, in favour of a Republican government, made all realise that whatever were the qualities of the Duc d’Aumale, they were obscured by his unlimited selfishness.

France also felt the degradation of this gift, and did not hasten to reward the donor of it as he had expected. She left him for some months in Brussels, alone with the shame of his unworthy action, until at last an advocate of talent, Maitre Cléry, succeeded in obtaining from President Carnot the repeal of the decree which had banished the Duke from France. He thereupon returned in haste to his beloved Chantilly, where he took up again his former existence, with the difference that when he received at his table the members of the Academy he used to tell them: “Maintenant vous êtes ici chez vous, messieurs” (“Now you are at home”). It was related at the time that a member of the learned Assembly took this opportunity to entreat the Duke to change the place of a certain picture which he thought had not been put where it ought to have been hung. Henri d’Orleans’ eyes flashed with indignation at this audacity, and drawing himself up very haughtily he said: “Vous vous oubliez, monsieur” (“You forget yourself, sir”), to which, nothing daunted, the impertinent visitor remarked: “Mais, puisque vous venez de dire que nous sommes chez nous, monseigneur” (“But you have just said that we are at home, sir”).

Maitre Cléry, to whom the Prince owed his return from exile, did not know him personally, and had never been among those whom he had invited to his receptions. Consequently his action when he undertook to plead the cause of the Duc d’Aumale with the President of the Republic was absolutely disinterested. He had, however, expected a word of thanks for his intervention in the matter. That word was a long time in coming, too long, perhaps, in the opinion of some people. When at last the celebrated advocate received an invitation to lunch at Chantilly, he remarked that it came like mustard after dinner--“comme de la moutarde après dîner.”

The last years of the life of the Duc d’Aumale were saddened by uncongenial family stories and incidents, in which his nephews--so gossip said--figured in rather an unpleasant light. Angry beyond words at these rumours, his relations with his people became more and more distant and estranged, and the big family parties that he liked to gather round him in former times took place no more. He kept himself among a small circle of friends, and in the society of Madame de Clinchamps, a former lady-in-waiting of the Duchesse d’Aumale, whom he married secretly, and who--and this is very characteristic of him--he left very badly off after his death, with nothing but a small pittance out of his many millions. Madame de Clinchamps was invariably amiable. She appeared at the lunches given at Chantilly, and visitors found her sitting by the fire in the tapestried drawing-room, where the Duc used to receive his guests. She did not put herself forward in any way, and never attempted even to do the honours of the place. She must have really loved the Duc, or else she would never have put up with the slights he showered upon her, or accepted the false position in which he left her, and her devotion to him never failed up to his death, after which she retired to a small house on the edge of the Forest of Chantilly, where, at the time I am writing, she lives in strict retirement and in comparative poverty.

I have met most of the celebrities of modern France at the Duc d’Aumale’s lunches. He was very catholic as to the people whom he invited, and only required them to be amiable and to listen well to him, without attempting to interrupt. Among his great friends was Jules Lemaitre, the Academician, an amusing, intelligent little man, rather void of manners, who buzzed about in a way that would have been aggressive had it not been so funny. He was full of wit, but sometimes said gauche things, the value of which did not appear to strike his otherwise critical mind. For instance, one day, whilst the Duc was showing to his visitors a lovely collection of miniatures of the Royal Family of France, from the end of the eighteenth century, he interrupted him with the question: “And where, sir, do you keep the letters of M. Cuvillier Fleury?” The late Duc de la Trémouille was standing next to me; we looked at each other, and smiled. Evidently a member of the French Academy of the end of the nineteenth century could not feel the slightest interest in anything else but Cuvillier Fleury, the bourgeois tutor of a bourgeois pupil, such as the Duc d’Aumale had proved himself to be in the eyes of a certain number of the people whom he had made his friends.

Bonnat, the painter, was also a frequent visitor at Chantilly, and his portrait of the Duc is one of the best pictures that ever came from his brush. The Prince is represented in the uniform of a general, perhaps the same which he wore on the day when, with a cruelty one would have preferred not to have seen in him, he condemned Marshal Bazaine to an ignominious death.

It is related that the Duc d’Aumale used to say that he would like to die at Chantilly, and that he had even left directions how his funeral was to take place. In them he expressed a wish to lie in state in the chapel for a day or two, near the hearts of the Princes de Condé, buried there and respected by the Revolution of 1789. This desire was not destined to be fulfilled. He breathed his last in Sicily, at his castle near Palermo, and his mortal remains were brought back straight to the family vault at Dreux. Chantilly stands empty and deserted now, save on the days when tourists invade it, and roam in the rooms which have rung with women’s soft laughter and listened to so many momentous and interesting conversations. No one, even among the old servants still left in charge of the place, ever talks of the Duc d’Aumale, and mention is only made of the former lords of the Castle, of those illustrious and unfortunate Princes de Condé, the souls of whom still fill the old walls their fame has immortalised for ever. In the Gallery des Batailles, as it is called, the sword of the hero of Rocroy still hangs, tarnished with age, but now no reverential hand ever lifts it; only the heavy fingers of a sleepy housemaid dusts it now and then. The pictures, the portraits, the works of art are in the same place they occupied when an intelligent master had arranged them with loving care. In the long dining-room the table at which so many celebrities and high-born people sat is still there, with chairs standing round it; in the drawing-room the two arm-chairs the Duc and Madame de Clinchamps used to occupy are in the same place; and in the library the inkstand has been left open with its pen lying beside it. Everything seems a little dingy, a little empty, a little forsaken, everything has the appearance of one of those vast temples of old, whence, according to the words of the Russian poet, “the idols have fled.”