Louis Philippe. Abbott John Stevens Cabot
North Cape, the extreme northern point of Europe, within eighteen degrees of the North Pole. It is said that no Frenchman had ever before visited those distant and frigid regions. Here the duke remained for several weeks, enjoying the hospitality of the simple-hearted inhabitants – winning their confidence by his affability, and deeply interested in studying their manners and customs.
Court ball of King Gustavus.
Then, turning directly south, accompanied by several of the natives, he reached Tornev, on the extreme northern shore of the Gulf of Bothnia. Thence he traversed the eastern shores of the gulf for many weary leagues, to Abo, in Finland, where he embarked for the Aland Islands, and reached Stockholm the latter part of October. Here, notwithstanding all his endeavors to preserve his incognito, his curiosity to witness a grand court ball, given in honor of the birth-day of King Gustavus II., led to his recognition by the French envoy at that court, though he had adopted the precaution of entering the highest gallery in the ball-room.
The king, being informed of his presence, immediately dispatched a messenger to say that his majesty would be happy to see the duke. The kindest attentions were lavished upon him. From such attentions he deemed it prudent to escape, and speedily resumed his wanderings – searching out and carefully examining all objects of historical interest. Recrossing the Sound, he returned to Hamburg, by the way of Copenhagen and Lubeck. The Revolution was still running riot in France. The duke, having exhausted the resources at his disposal, found himself in truly an embarrassing situation.
Despotism of the Directory.
The Directory was at that time ruling France with despotic sway. Ever trembling in fear of a reaction, the Directors would gladly place beneath the slide of the guillotine any one in whose veins there ran a drop of royal blood. Fearful of the great influence of the house of Orleans, even when its property was sequestered, and its members were in prison or in exile, the greatest efforts had been made, by means of secret agents, to find out the retreat of Louis Philippe. At length, by some means, they discovered him in the small town of Frederichstadt, in Holstein. His two brothers were then in prison in Marseilles, in hourly danger of being dragged to the guillotine, upon which their father had perished.
The duke urged to join the emigrants.
The Directory proposed to the Duchess of Orleans, who was imprisoned in Paris, and to Louis Philippe, now the head of the family, that if the duke and his brothers would embark for America, leaving Europe, the two imprisoned princes should be restored to liberty, and the sequestrated property of the family should be refunded.
Louis XVIII., also an emigrant, in the bosom of the armies of Austria, and surrounded by the armed nobility of France, had previously, through an envoy, urged Louis Philippe to join the emigrants, in their attempt, by the aid of the sword of foreigners, to re-establish the throne of France. But the prince was not willing to bear arms against his native land.
Letter from the duchess to her son.
The agents of the Directory, who now approached the prince, presented him a letter from his mother. Her husband had suffered a cruel death from the executioner. Her two sons were in hourly peril of the same fate. Her eldest son and her daughter were in exile, wandering in poverty, she knew not where. She herself was a captive, cruelly separated from all her family, exposed to many insults, and liable, at any hour, to suffer upon the scaffold the same fate which her queen, Maria Antoinette, and many others of the noblest ladies of France had already endured.
The affectionate heart of this amiable woman was lacerated with anguish. She wrote a letter to her son, which was intrusted to the agents in search of him, imploring him, in the most affecting terms, to rescue the family, by a voluntary exile to America, from its dreadful woes and perils. In the letter she wrote:
"May the prospect of relieving the misfortunes of your distressed mother, of mitigating the sorrows of your family, and of contributing to restore peace to your unhappy country, reward your generosity."
The duke, upon the reception of this letter, decided at once to embark for America. To his mother he wrote: "When my beloved mother shall have received this letter, her commands will have been executed, and I shall have sailed for America. I shall embark in the first vessel destined for the United States. I no longer think that happiness is lost to me while I have it in my power to alleviate the sorrows of a cherished mother, whose situation and sufferings have for a long time rent my heart."5
Embarkation for America.
On the 24th of September, 1796, the Duke of Orleans embarked at Hamburg in an American vessel, "The America," then a regular packet plying between that port and Philadelphia. Still retaining his incognito, he represented himself as a Dane, and obtained Danish passports. He paid thirty-five guineas for his passage, and took with him his ever-faithful servant Baudoin, for whom he paid seventeen and a half guineas. A favorable passage of twenty-seven days landed them at Philadelphia, on the 21st of October, 1796.
Sufferings of the young princes.
We have not space here to describe the cruel sufferings of the two younger brothers of Louis Philippe during their captivity. The elder of the two, the Duke of Montpensier, was but seventeen years of age; the younger, Count Beaujolais, was but thirteen. The brothers were confined separately, in dark, fetid dungeons, and were not allowed any communication with each other. The health of Beaujolais soon began to suffer, and it was evident that he must die unless he could have fresh air. The Duke of Montpensier writes, in his touching autobiography:
"My brother Beaujolais was consequently permitted to spend two or three hours each day in the open air, and was then remanded to his dungeon. His cell being above mine, he was obliged to pass my door on his way out, and he never failed to call out, 'Good-day, Montpensier; how are you?' It is impossible to describe the effect his gentle voice had upon me, or the distress I felt when a day passed without my hearing it; for he was sometimes actually forbidden to utter these words, and was always hurried by so quickly that he had scarce time to hear my answer. Once, however, that he was permitted to remain until my dinner was brought, he kept so close to the heels of the basket-bearer that, in spite of the administrators, who tried to hold him back, he darted into my cell and embraced me. It was six weeks since I had seen him – six wretched weeks. The moment was precious, but how short! He was torn from me forthwith, with threats of being no more allowed to go out should the same scene be repeated. I myself was not afterwards permitted, when my cell door was opened, to go near enough to catch the breeze which passed up the narrow staircase."
Their destitution.
The princes were not allowed to see the public journals, or to receive from their friends any letters which had not been previously examined by their jailers. They were left in entire ignorance of their father's execution until some time after his head had fallen. When the awful tidings were conveyed to them, both of the young princes, weakened by imprisonment and misery, fainted away. The hatred with which they were pursued is evinced by the epithet of wolves' cubs, which was ever applied to them in the clubs of the Jacobins. Eight francs a day were allowed for their support. Their mother had sent to them, for their immediate necessities, twelve thousand francs ($2400); but the magistrates had seized the whole sum. As the weary months rolled on, there were variations in the treatment of the illustrious prisoners – it sometimes being more and sometimes less brutal, but ever marked with almost savage ferocity. After the fall of Robespierre, a decree was passed —
"That the imprisoned members of the Orleans family should have the outer walls of the fort as the limits of their captivity, the privilege of ranging about within those bounds, and in future they were not to be locked up in their cells."
The attempt to escape.
The mother of the princes, the Duchess of Orleans, who had been in close surveillance in the palace of the Luxembourg, in Paris, also experienced very considerable alleviation in the severity of her treatment. From various quarters the captives at length obtained funds, so that their pecuniary wants were supplied. On the 18th of November, 1795, the princes made a desperate but unavailing effort to escape. The breaking of a rope by which Montpensier was endeavoring to let himself down, outside of the walls, precipitated him from
A. Laugier et Carpentier, p. 132.