第40章 ALMOST A LADY(5)

The ways by which Sophie went about the job of persuading her oldlover do not read pleasantly.She was a termagant.The Prince was stubborn.He hated the very idea of making a will--it made him think of death.He was old, ill, friendless.Sophie made his life a hell, but he had become dependent upon her.She ill-used him, subjecting him to physical violence, but yet he was afraid she might, as she often threatened, leave him.Her way of persuading him reached the point, it is on record, of putting a knife to his throat.Not once but several times his servants found him scratched and bruised.But the old man could not summon up the strength of mind to be quit of this succubine virago.

At last, on the 29th of August, 1829, Sophie's `persuasions' succeeded.The Prince consented to sign the will, and did so the following morning.In its terms the Duc d'Aumale became residuary legatee, and 2,000,000 francs, free of death-duty, were bequeathed to the Prince's faithful companion, Mme la baronne de Feucheres,'' together with the chateaux and estates of Saint-Leu-Taverny, Boissy, Enghien, Montmorency, and Mortefontaine, and the pavilion in the Palais-Bourbon, besides all the Prince's furniture, carriages, horses, and so on.Moreover, the estate and chateau of Ecouen was also given her, on condition that she allowed the latter to be used as an orphanage for the descendants of soldiers who had served with the Armies of Conde and La Vendee.The cost of running this establishment, however, was to be borne by the Duc d'Aumale.

It might be thought that Sophie, having got her way, would have turned to kindness in her treatment of her old lover.But no.All her mind was now concentrated on working, through the Duc d'Orleans, for being received again at Court.She ultimately succeeded in this.On the 7th of February, 1830, she appeared in the presence of the King, the Dauphin and Dauphine.In the business of preparing for this great day Chantilly and the Prince de Conde were greatly neglected.The beggar on horseback had to be about Paris.

But events were shaping in France at that time which were to be important to the royal family, to Sophie and her supporters of the house of Orleans, and fatal in consequence to the old man at Chantilly.

On the 27th of July revolution broke out in France.Charles X and his family had to seek shelter in England, and Louis-Philippe, Ducd'Orleans, became--not King of France, but King of the French'' by election.This consummation had not been achieved without intrigue on the part of Egalite's son.It was not an achievement calculated to abate the Prince de Conde's hatred for him.Rather did it inflame that hatred.In the matter of the famous will, moreover, as the King's son the little Duc d'Aumale would be now in no need of the provision made for him by his unwilling godfather, while members of the exiled royal family--notably the grandson of Charles, the Duc de Bordeaux, certainly cut out of the Prince's will by the intrigues of Sophie and family--were in want of assistance.This is a point to be remembered in the light of subsequent events.

While she had been looking after herself Sophie Dawes had not been unmindful ofthe advancement of hangers-on of her own family.She had about her a nephew and a niece.The latter, supposed by some to have a closer relationship to Sophie than that of mere niece, she had contrived to marry off to a marquis.The Marquise de Chabannes de la Palice need not here concern us further.But notice must be taken of the nephew.A few million francs, provided by the Prince de Conde, had secured for this James Dawes the title of Baron de Flassans, from a domain also bestowed upon him by Sophie's elderly lover.De Flassans, with some minor post in the Prince's household, acted as his aunt's jackal.

If Sophie, after the election to kingship of Louis-Philippe, found it necessary to be in Paris a great deal to worship at the throne her nephew kept her well informed about the Prince de Conde's activities.The old man, it appeared, had suddenly developed the habit of writing letters.The Prince, then at the chateau of Saint-Leu expressed a desire to remove to Chantilly.He was behaving very oddly all round, was glad to have Sophie out of his sight, and seemed unwilling even to hear her name.The projected move to Chantilly, as a fact, was merely a blind to cover a flight out of Sophie's reach and influence.Rumour arose about Saint- Leu and in Paris that the Prince had made another will--one in which neither Sophie nor the Duc d'Aumale was mentioned.This was a moveof which Sophie had been afraid.She saw to it that the Prince did not get away from Saint-Leu.Rumour and the Prince's conduct made Sophie very anxious.She tried to get him to make over to her in his lifetime those properties which he had left to her in his will, and it is probable enough that she would have forced this request but for the fact that, to raise the legal costs, the property of Saint-Leu would have had to be sold.

This was the position of affairs about the middle of August 1830.It was believed the Prince had already signed a will in favour of the exiled little Duc de Bordeaux, but that he had kept the act secret from his mistress.

On the morning of the 11th of the month the Prince was met outside his bedroom in his night attire.It was a young man called Obry who thus met the Prince.He was the old man's godchild.The old man's left eye was bleeding, and there was a scratch on his cheek as if made by a fingernail.To Obry the Prince attributed these wounds to the spite of the Baronne de Feucheres.Half an hour later he told his valet he had hit his head against a night-table.Later again in the day he gave another version still: he had fallen against the door to a secret staircase from his bedroom while letting the Baronne de Feucheres out, the secret staircase being in communication with Sophie's private apartments.