The Sun.
London, England, 1847-01-01 00:00:00

FRIDAY EVENI

MAGAZINE DAY.
BLACKWOOD.
A pleasant gossipping paper about " The Court of
Louis Philippe" commences the present number,
which commences the present year of Grace
MDCCCXLVII. As a foretaste of what may be ex-
pected from Blackwood during the course of 1847, it
is acceptable and promising. Particularly at this
moment, when the foreign policy of the French
monarch has attached to his administration so much
odium, anything appertaining to his private character
and his domestic habits is fraught with interest. The
article is suggested by a work very recently published
in Paris, entitled Dix Aim a la Cour du Roi Louis
Philippe, et Soutiortirs du Tems de l'Empire et de la
Restauration, and written by M. Appert, for ten years
the Almoner to the Queen ef the French and Madame
Adelaide. If the details of this production required
any authentication beyond that afforded by the
author's name, a very sufficient authentication would I
be found in his career, his character, and his philan-
thropic pursuits. Besides obtaining the friendship of
his own sovereign, M. Appert has latterly received
the countenance of the Kings of Prussia, of Belgium,
of Denmark, of Bavaria, of Saxony, and of Wurtem-
berg. His whole existence appears, in one way or
other, to have been devoted to the cause of benevo-
lence and to the diffusion of knowledge. It has been
chequered too in a remarkable degree. During 1811
there was a prospect of his being invested with a
noble responsibilty, namely, that of sharing in
the education of the King of Rome. The
casualties, however, which have been al-
ready recorded in history, entirely dissipated
these expectations, and the future Almoner of Queen
Marie Amelie was in 1822 confined in the same dun-
geon of La Force in which the poet Beranger was
afterwards imprisoned. ;This was for conniving at the
escape of two non-commissioned officers implicated
with General Berton. The devotion displayed at
this time, and indeed throughout his life, by M. Ap-
pert for the memory of the Emperor Napoleon is
beautiful and touching. Although he did not, like
M. Arnault, preserve in his garden a tree grown from
a branch of the willow at St. Helena, he lost his sub-
professorship at the school of drawing, " because,
whilst giving a lesson in mathematics, he employed,
to mark the curves and angles of a geometrical
figure, letters which made up the words Vice Em-
pereur"—a remembrancer of the days of greatness
most displeasing during the days of littleness under
the Bourbons. Among the many agreeable remi-
niscences of M. Appert are conspicuous those referring
to his royal mistress—the good Queen Antelie, whom
the illustrious Lafayette called " the best of women."
Her numberless sufferings would alone enlist our sym-
pathies in her favour, were our admiration not elicited
towards her by charities as unostentatious as they are
splendid and profuse. That she has had
miseries cannot be discredited, says the
writer in Blackwood, " when we contemplate
her careworn and suffering, but benevolent
and interesting countenance." A moment afterwards the
same writer utters a magnificent panegyric upon the
wife of King Louis Philippe, where he says—" In
unaffected piety, and in charity that blushes to be
seen, this excellent Princess finds consolation." The
following is a beautiful illustration in point:—
" Imposture, ingratitude, even the insolent form of
the petitions addressed to her, fail to discourage her in
her benevolent mission. Madam,' an old Bonapartist
lady one day wrote to her, if the Bourbons had not re-
turned to France—for the misfortune of the nation—my
beloved mistress and protectress, ,the Empress Maria
Louisa, would still be upon the throne, and I should not
be under the humiliating necessity of telling you that I am
without bread, and that the wretched mattress upon which
I sleep is about to be thrown out of the garret I inhabit,
because my year's rent is unpaid I I dare not ask you
for assistance, for my heart is with my real sovereign,
and I cannot promise you my gratitude. If, however,
you think proper to preserve a life which, since the mis-
fortunes of my country, has been so full of bitterness, I
will accept a loan : I should blush to receive a gift. I
am, madam, your servant, Ch—r.'
" Here was a pretty letter to set before a Queen ; a
mode of imploring alms that might well have disgusted
the most charitable. But what was Marie Amtilie's re-
ply to the precious epistle. She was accustomed to open
all the petitions addressed to her—and numerous indeed
they were—with her own hand, and to write upon many
of them instructions for M. Appert. When the imper-
tinent missive of the Bonapartist reached that gentle-
man, the following lines had been added to it :—' She
must be very unhappy for she is very unjust. A hun-
dred francs to be sent to her immediately ; and I beg
M. Appert to make inquiries concerning this lady's cir-
cumstance: M. Appert, indignant at the tone of the
letter, ventured to remonstrate ; but the Queen insisted,
and even tripled her intended donation, in case it should
be required by her singular petitioner, whom her almo-
ner accordingly proceeded to visit. I knocked at a
worm-eaten door, on the fifth floor of a house in the Rue
St. Andre des Arts, and a lady dressed in black (it was
her only gown), opened it.
" Sir,' said she, much agitated, ' are you the commis-
sary of police come to arrest me for my shameful letter
to the Queen ? You must forgive me : I am so un •
happy that at times I become deranged. lam sorry to
have written as I did to a princess whom all the poor
call good and charitable.'
" Be not alarmed, madam,' I replied, taking her pe-
tition from my pocket. Read her Majesty's orders ;
they will enable you to judge of her better than any.
thing I could tell you.'
" Madame C. read the affecting words added by the
Queen • then, bursting into tears, she pressed the paper
to her Sir,' she exclaimed, give me nothing, but
leave me this holy relic. I will die of hunger with it
upon my heart.'
" Madame C. proving in all respects worthy of the
Queen's generosity, I left her the three hundred francs,
but had much difficulty in prevailing on her to give up,
ntheeraptieotnit.iolTi, whishitcrhailt sotfiltlhpergesueerevne NNo•fitth reherspreencethaind ve
sonly-
one of ten thousand."

As a companion sketch, we transcribe a few sentences
descriptive of the household arrangements of her ex-

traordinary husband :
" The life of Louis Philippe is one of incessant toil
and anxiety ; his leisure is less, his work harder, than
that of his meanest subject. Late to bed, he. rises early,
rarely sleeping more than four hours ; after a careful,
but rapid toilet, his day's labour begins. He seldom
breakfasts with his family—it would take too much
time—but has his frugal repast brought on a tray to the
room where he happens to be. When he was Duke of
Orleans he read all the letters and petitions addressed to
him, writing upon each an opinion or an order for the
guidance of his secretaries. This practice he was of
course obliged to discontinue when ho became king. At
the commencement of his reign, the numbers of letters
and applications of various kinds, sent to the different
members of the Royal Family, amounted to the astonish-
ing number of a thousand or twelve hundred a-day. Al-
though, upon an average, not above fifty of these pos-
sessed the least interest, or deserved an answer, the
mere reading and classing of such a chaos of correspond-
ence gave employment to several secretaries. After a
while, the flood of petitions abated, but M. Appert esti-
mates them, in ordinary times, at six to eight hundred
daily. Of the letters, only the important ones are laid
before the King, who answers many of them himself.
He examines the reports, projects' d and nominations
brought to him by his Ministers, an, at least twice or
thrice a week, presides at the council-board. Private
audiences occupy much of his time ; his conference with
u
architects, with the intendants of the civil list and of
vem
his private estates, are of frequent occurrence. The gal-
leries of Versailles, and the improvements at Fontaine-
bleau—all made after his plans, and in great measure
under his personal superintend court-belle and
superintendence--
dt attire,
dinners, diplomatic audiences, correspondence with fo-
reign courts, journeys of various kinds, visits to the
castle of Eu and to military camps—such
of the innumerable claims upon the time of the King of
the French. But, by a clear-headed,
man, endowed with the faculty of order, whichmany Louis
r
Philippe possesses in a very high degree, much is to be
got through in a day of twenty•four hours ; and, after
doing all that has been enumerated, and
things of less importance, the King still finds time to'
foreign. ' Each
devote to his family, for the necessary healthful exer-
anpdrmcipal newspapers
rinacliesthweerneewthse
exer-
cise,
publications, both
bpoetrhusaElnogflisthhe
scorning,upon
t eithert e
a gbnerifotrhe.or T:i breakfast,fntevrand the p
papers, political pamphlets, even caricatures, were laid
first to read aloud the articles published agalust them.
They examined the caricatures, and passed them to
the bystanders, saying,' What do you think of this?'"

We are not so infuriated by the shameless deceits
practised by Louis Philippe upon our most gracious
Sovereign Victoria ; by his paltry trickstering in
relation to the Spanish and Portuguese peninsula; by
his contumacious rupture of the entente cordiale the
instant he found that entente cordiale interfere with
his own private interests; or by his shuffling policy
towards the imperial robbers of the North, as to re-
main blind to his eminent qualities as a man. His
rare accomplishments; his munificence in the culti-
vation of arts, sciences, agriculture, and manufac-
tures; bis magnificent premotion of works calculated
to adorn his country ; and, above all, bis equanimity
during many years of penury, and sorrow,
and banishment, render him a worthy sub-
ject of our respect and admiration. As
Blackwood well observes—" Even those who least
admire the public conduct of Louis Philippe, who
hoist.
tshyesteKining, of
admit
trnarrined admire nt
the good
, and blame his
tortuous foreign policy, may, whilst censuring the
qualities of the individual." " Mildred" is pursued
with the same simplicity and naturalness which were
remarkable on its commencement. Then comes a
paper headed " Eugene, Marlborough, Frederick,
dislike
conduct
Napoleon, and Wellington." We would advise the
writer to write a sequel to it, called " Tom Thumb,
Jack the Giant Killer, the King of Lilliput, Alex-
ander the Great, and Captain Vlreszle." Wily, the
jumble of great and small in this article is preposte-
rous. One might as well trace an analogy between
the genius of the King of Macedonia and the talent
of Hephosstion, between Nelson and his coxswain,
between Julius Caesar and the standard-bearer of the
tenth legion, between Achilles and Patroclus. Every
admiral is not a Nelson, every painter is not a
Raphael, every poet is not a Shakspere, every
composer is not a Beethoven, every warrior is not a
I Napoleon. Self-evident as these truths may ap-