Soundtrack:
Ernst Wilhelm Wolff - Osterkantate: Thut auf die Pforten [1]
*we are shown a montage of troops wearing the "Henrician" uniform marching out of the cities of Verdun, Toul and Epinal* *we are shown clips of battles, surrenders and mutinies* *to put it in context, we are shown a map of France on 6 September 1843* *it is in three colours, white south of the Loire, Lorraine and along the Channel Coast for Henri; red for the area controlled by the republic; and blue for the area between Paris and the Loire, for Bugeaud and the Orléanists*
*on 7 September - the day after the armies left - we are told that the Epinal armies fought against Bugeaud's troops at Jussey* *the Verdun army enters the city of Châlons-en-Champagne*
*on 9 September all three rendezvous to surround Bugeaud's troops at Troyes and force the city to surrender*
*after Troyes, the army splits in five* **with the Toul and Epinal branches continuing their southward sweep* *while the Verdun and other two armies - led by Henri - head north*
*on 10 September we see Henri's army being defeated at Esternay* *Henri himself is seen shortly thereafter with a bandaged leg looking ruefully as he picks out the bullet in his saddle* *we see the hat he's wearing also has a bullet hole in it*
*on 11 September the Toul army - under the 9e Duc d'Aumont [2] - accepts the surrender of the city of Sens*
*on 12 September Henri's army is again on the brink of defeat at Villenauxe-la-Grande when they are saved by the arrival of the "Royal Soissons"* *it tips the balance in their favour*
*on 13 September we see Bugeaud's men refusing to fight at Orléans when they're attacked by the Epinal army reinforced by the Lyonnais* *the city of Orléans surrenders to the Henrician army* *Bugeaud and a loyal core - including Ducrot - retreats to Beaune-la-Rolande*
*by 14 September, we see that the blue spot in the middle between the Seine and the Loire, between Fontainebleau and the Forest of Senonches* *further reduced as it announces that the comte de Bourmont [3] has accepted the surrender of Nemours, then the town of Fontainebleau and was killed at the action at Melun to the Toul army*
*on 15 September* *Henri is shown leading his men from the ruins of the chateau de Coulommiers [4]* *again Bugeaud - now trapped between the Armée de Toul on the Fontainebleau Road to Paris and the Armée de Epinal on the Orléans Road - is shown as having disputes with his men*
*16 September* *the comte d'Autichamp [5] leads an army through the forest of Senonches to surprise a wing of Bugeaud's army*
*17 September* *Henri - victorious at Mormant - receives word that Autichamp has secured the Chartres and Dreux roads to Paris*
*cut to Henri in his tent* *getting a sword cut to his lower forearm - like he held up his arm to shield his face from a blow - stitched up*
Henri: am I supposed to feel this tired, Michel?
Ney: it's normal, sir, It will pass. If it helps, most of the men have slept as little as you in the last ten days.
Henri: and according to this news from Paris, if I actually get that far, I don't even have a bed I can crash into, since, I'm not sure if this was that idiot Bugeaud or just random event, but the Tuileries and parts of the Louvre have been gutted by fire.
Ney: sounds deliberate, if you ask me, sir. Them reasoning that "if we destroy your home, you've got nowhere to come back to".
Henri: except it was the duc d'Orléans' home as well.
Ney: and Napoléon's. It sounds like the actions of someone who
really didn't want the monarchy - or even the idea of it - back.
Henri: it's fitting then that it took three days to put it out. One for each day of the Trois Glorieuses. Only thing I'm glad about is that the monstrosity is gone and that it took the Palais d'Orléans with it [6].
Ney: the ruins will be a bigger eyesore, sir.
Henri: there was enough bad blood around that place to drown all of Paris.
Ney: it was your home, sir, for whatever faults it may have had.
Henri: it was a prison. My aunt and her family watched as their friends and acquaintances were butchered. She still has nightmares of running through the blood. Then Napoléon moved in and- begging your pardon- it became even worse. He made it so that my uncle and grandfather were
forced to live there. I echo what my aunt responded with when I told her "good riddance".
Ney: so where is the king to live in Paris?
Henri: we could always move back to Versailles.
Ney: they'll revolt.
Henri: they'll revolt no matter what we do. If we rebuild the Tuileries, it'll be about the cost. If we move anywhere else - Saint-Cloud, Vincennes, Meudon, even Malmaison - it's too small for the court and we'll live like rabbits in a hutch. -Also, when we get to Paris, that's the first thing I'm striking off the royal menu. If I eat another rabbit, I'll grow a cottontail.
Ney: *chuckles* Bonaparte always carried three chickens with him, ready roasted, on campaign.
Henri: *long-sufferingly* when we're this close to Paris he tells me this. -how would he have dealt with the fire.
Ney: claimed it was a plot by the Jacobins, the royalists, really, who don't we like this week, to attempt to assassinate the emperor and jeopardize the government of French. Round up some people who are known sympathizers. Make them a head shorter, then masquerade under having saved the nation, get them to cough up money to rebuild.
Henri: except nobody was in the palace at the time.
Ney: it's a symbol. Symbols are powerful.
Henri: *makes face*
Ney: you could always do what Bonaparte planned to do.
Henri: which is?
Ney: Chaillot. He planned to build a home there for his son. Would've made Versailles look miniature.
Henri: *wryly* somehow, I can see François living there. But my [great] uncle had the foundations filled in.
Ney: foundations can be redug.
Henri: France will need other things far more urgently than the king needs a new home.
Ney: nobody will take a king who lives in a cottage seriously, sire. It's why Napoléon moved to the Tuileries in the first place. He'd have gone to Versailles if it hadn't needed so much work.
Henri: let's first get to Paris, and see what we find there. I doubt the Tuileries was the only thing destroyed.
Ney: before we meet with the men from Paris, I have only this adivce to give your Majesty: if Bonaparte had gone up against you, I say without flattery that it would've been
you that ended up in the moat at Vincennes, and
not the duc d'Enghien [7]
*title card shows 19 September* *road in the woods at Pontcarré [8]* *we see the carriages stop* *President Cavaignac climbs down* *followed by General Bedreau, General Lemorcière and Commander Changarnier* *escorted by an armed contingent of National Guardsmen*
Cavaignac: this is ridiculous. I don't understand why he wanted to meet with us. To offer us terms, no doubt. I cleaned up your mess for you, now you clear out?
*other members grumble as a carriage comes around the bend* *as a sort of guard around the carriage ride Ney, Berthier Jr, Junot Jr, the marquis de Rochejaquelein, the duc d'Aumont, comte d'Autrichamp, and duc de Mayenne [9]* *they stop at a healthy distance away* *only Rochejaquelein rides forward*
Rochejaquelein: good day, gentlemen. *tips hat at Cavaignac, even though you can see it galls him to do so*
Cavaignac: where is his Majesty?
Rochejaquelein: in the carriage
*hand pokes out the window and lazily waves* *like it couldn't be bothered*
Cavaignac: is he too good to speak with the man whose brother he murdered?
Rochejaquelein: his Majesty thought you could talk better en route to Paris. He has invited you to ride with him.
Bedreau: *looks at Cavaignac like "I told you this would happen"* his Majesty is most generous. But as you can see, we already have our own transport.
Cavaignac: I'm afraid General Bedreau is quite right. We cannot be seen to be overly partial to his Majesty's...whims, lest the people perceive us as having violated our principles *look pointedly at Ney, Berthier and Junot*
Ney: to violate principles presumes you had any to start with
*several laughs from the company*
Cavaignac: the king can discuss the matter with us here.
Rochejaquelein: very well *rides back to the coach* *converses at the window* *we see one of the footmen open the door* *there's a crack of a rifle*
Ney: to arms, men! Defend the king! But do not
harm them! They will answer to heaven for this!
*suddenly there are soldiers in Henrician uniforms everywhere* *there is a brief scuffle* *but most of the National Guardsmen give up and look abjectly terrified before they even try to fight*
*cut to the royal coach practically flying over the road* *behind it, the ministers coach is surrounded by soldiers* *two particularly terrifying looking soldiers are seated in the coach opposite them*
*cut to earlier in the morning* *we see Henri accompanied by the ducs de Noailles, Broglie, Fitz-James, Richelieu and Rohan-Chabot arriving at the Porte de Gentilly* *he's dressed every inch the king - except for the crown*
National Guardsman: *holds out hand* stop!
Henri: *obliges*
National Guardsman: what is your business?
Henri: I have an appointment. With President Cavaignac. At the Hôtel de Ville.
National Guardsman: we weren't told to expect anyone, were we? *looks at comrade*
Henri: judging by your sloppy dress and your disgusting manners, clearly you weren't. Been
dans la tasse [10] have we?
National Guardsman #2: no sir. By the Virgin we haven't.
Henri: you shouldn't swear by the Virgin. The Republicans won't like it. Can anybody remember who they swore by last time.
Noailles: *shrugs* by Madame Guillotine, sire?
National Guardsmen: *blanch at the mention*
Henri: now, may I enter? I have no desire to be late for my appointment. Lest his Excellency think that I do not regard him as important enough-
National Guardsmen: *frantically stand aside* *the party rides through* *Fitz-James gives them both a gold coin as they pass*
*zoom in on the coin* *it's actually a medal* *with the Franco-Navarrese coat of arms on one side* *and a figure - presumably Henri - on the other* *he is stepping on a dragon and holding a piece of paper in his hand that says "Libertés Nationales" while the Virgin Mary crowns him with laurel* *the legend around the edge reads:
Sans moi tout périt [11]*
*cut to Henri riding down the Rue de Fontainebleau [12]* *nobody stops him* *even though a lot of people - including several gendarmes and national guards patrolling the street - everyone seems to be sort of frozen* *there's no mistaking him to even someone who's never seen him [13]* *of course, as he passes through the gates into the Salpetriere Hospital, we are reminded that
everyone in Paris knows who he is* *there's the equivalent of a "wanted" poster pasted up on one of the gateposts*
*Fitz-James goes to tear it down*
Henri: leave it. Let them know exactly what an unworthy head this is.
*cut to the interior of the Hôtel de Ville*
Dufaure: *looks up at a knock on the door to his office* ah, Caussidière, come in. What is it?
Marc Caussidière, Prefect of Police: the king. He is in Paris.
Dufaure: *shocked* Louis Philippe?
Caussidière: Chambord! The
brat is at the Salpetrière like it's a court event. The nurses have objected to the amount of people that have followed him in. I wanted to know what President Cavaignac would have me do.
Dufaure: President Cavaignac, Generals Bedreau and Lemorcière are likely with him.
Caussidière: that's that the thing. Nobody has seen them with him.
Dufaure: nonsense, they left to meet him at Pontcarré not an hour ago.
Caussidière: according to the reports, he arrived before they'd have even left then.
Dufaure: and they're not back?
Caussidière: *shakes head*
Dufaure: *stiffens* then we must
assume that either they are dead or imprisoned and this is a coup. Arrest him then. Then tell Blanqui, Barbes and Bernard to stand ready [14]
*cut to Henri riding down the Quai des Tournelles* *there's now a substantial crowd of hangers on who just want to see where this ends up* *nobody's shouting anything like "Vive le Roi", indeed, if it weren't for the chatter, the procession would be silent* *he crosses the Pont Neuf onto the Île de la Cité* *and we see what he's looking at* *the Palais de Justice and the Conciergerie both show signs of extensive fire damage* *the Sainte Chapelle has had windows smashed, there seems to be fire damage, the spire has collapsed and the roof has caved in* *as he rides further, the Hotel Dieu Hospital is a smouldering ruin* *Notre Dame is looking distinctly crispy in places as well, but aside from the police prefecture on the Île de la Cité, it's pretty much the only other building that looks like it would still be safe to enter*
*we get a look at Henri's face as he raises his eyes up to the belltowers of the cathedral*
Henri: all eyes were raised to the top of the church. They beheld there an extraordinary sight. On the crest of the highest gallery, higher than the central rose window, there was a great flame rising between the two towers with whirlwinds of sparks: a vast, disordered and furious flame. A tongue of which was borne into the smoke by the wind. Below that fire, below the gloomy balustrade with its trefoils showing darkly against its glare [15].
*with one final look, he sadly turns his horse away* *riding faster now, as if trying to get away from the crowd* *in fact, nobody in the crowd is chattering now* *its as if they've all just realized the gravity of what's happened*
Citizen: *standing in front of Henri* *dressed in black* there were five hundred people inside the Hôtel Dieu - doctors, nurses, bedridden patients- when the National Guard burned it down, sire.
Henri: *his face is now blackly furious* is this true?
Crowd: *starts chattering* *everybody seems to know somebody it happened to*
Henri: I asked if this is true!
Crowd: *falls guiltily silent* *as if scared to admit the truth*
Henri: *spurs his horse to a canter as he rides off the island* *the ruins of the Tuileries still smoulder in the background* *but the Hôtel de Ville stands proudly erect and unscathed*
Ney: *voice over* it's a symbol. Symbols are powerful.
Henri: *the horse pacing the Place de Grève restlessly* *pawing at the stones* *raising his fist in the air and yelling up at the windows* come out and fight you cowards! Burn down a church! Burn down a hospital with men, women and children in it! And you claim to be on the side of the people! That you speak for them!
*in the middle of the rant* *the royal coach practically bursts into the square at breakneck speed*
Henri: what happened?
Ney: what we feared, sire. They were waiting in ambush for you.
Henri: is Charles alright.
Charles Louis Auguste Oreille de Carrière [aka Henri's half-brother, but it looks like his twin [16]]: *steps out of coach* *grinning* if their shooters are all such piss-poor shots, no wonder you're still alive
Henri: *up at windows* *where there are now several heads poking out anxiously* murderers! cowards! you attacked my brother when we came to you in good faith! *sees carriages with Cavaignac, Changarnier and Lemorcière - and the Henrician soldiers escorting the National Guardsmen* *to the people* *points at Hôtel de Ville* bring them to me alive.
*the mob needs no second bidding to surge into the Hôtel de Ville*
*title card shows 21 September 1843 [17]*
*Henri is on horseback at the Porte de Saint-Denis - the ceremonial entrance to Paris - in full uniform* *a procession of royal coaches comes trundling down the road* *there are large crowds lining the route* *in fact, they seem a lot happier at the sight of this parade than they did last we saw them in April* *maybe it's just appalling cynicism or gratitude that this war is now "over"*
*the lead coach stops* *the postilions scurry to the doors to open them* *out steps the duc d'Angoulême, followed by Madame Royal*
Henri: *removes his hat* *loudly* your Majesties, Paris welcomes your return on this...most felicitous occasion. The Parisians apologize for the shoddy state their city is in, but assure your Majesty that it shall be set to rights by the time of your coronation.
Angoulême: you mean
your coronation, nephew.
Henri: I have done nothing to earn so high a reward, your Majesty [18]. *shouts to crowd* Vive le Roi! Vive la Reine!
Crowd: *almost as one echoes its response*
*we see Louis Philippe close the shutters of his carriage* *then Marie Amélie reaching over to open them again*
Henri: *salutes as Caroline's coach passes by*
Caroline: *looks as if she's about to burst with pride as she looks up at her son*
Henri: *looks a little misty-eyed himself as we fade to black*
*words appear on the screen: And they all lived happily ever after....*
[1] Open the gates! The gates of the world! Allow the King of Glory to enter! Who is the king? It is the hero, terrible, mighty in his struggles. "Why do you wear such bloody garments?" "I trod the winepress, all alone, I fought alone on the day of battle, and was covered in blood!"
The all alone imagery is not Henri's arrogance or even him identifying as some Saviour, but merely illustrating Angoulême's point of earlier "no need to confuse the men who they're fighting for or against"
[2] he was on Henri's side in 1832
[3] former marshal of France who was deprived of his rank after he rose for Henri in 1832. Dying in the saddle, with his boots on, "redeems" some honour
[4] once owned by the Gonzagas, the Henrietta Maria, then passing to the Orléans and allowed to decay
[5] again, rose for Henri in 1832
[6] Palais Royal
[7] this is more Ney pointing out to Henri "be on your guard. Bugeaud might be the one firing guns at them, but Henri is the one forcing them to pick up the check
[8] village on the outskirts of Paris.
[9] Henri's brother-in-law, de la Charette with the exception of Junot Jr, these are all men who have been fighting for Henri.
[10] in the cups (i.e. drunk). OTL the duchesse de Berri always maintained a phonetic/haphazard speaking of French. Instead of saying "
dans le tas" (with the crowd, i.e like all the rest) to a question of whether she enjoyed her social life, she replied "
dans la tasse" (drunk) to some ambassador. On another occasion, where she wanted to say that she had had a cold when someone asked her how she'd been, she couldn't think of the French for flu (
grippe), so she just turned the Italian for bronchitis (
constipato) into "
je suis constipé" (meaning I am constipated). I could see Henri - while he can speak proper French, imitates his mother's careless grammar in private. Here, this could mean Henri's implying the two individuals look like they've been drinking on duty (still a floggable offense under French army law until after the Franco-Prussian War IIRC) or it could be a comment on the national guard as a whole ("worthless, like all the rest")
[11] without me, all things perish
[12] current Avenue d'Italie. Back then it was mostly guingettes and the odd house.
[13] as Henri Marchand (a legitimist himself) would later write: Le Roi de France, vous le reconnaîtrez toujours à ce signe ineffaçable,
inamissible et inaliénable : le rang de sa naissance !...Qu'il vive ici ou là, tout près ou tout au bout du monde, qu'importe, il est le roi! (the king of France, you will recognize him by these immutable signs: the rank of his birth!...Whether he lives here or there, near or at the far end of the world, it matters not: he is the king!)
[14] Caussidière was part of Blanqui's Societé des Saisons and was imprisoned by him for the conspiracy
[15] from Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame
[16] I have no idea what Charles Oreille de Carrière or his full-brother Ferdinand looked like, but Henri's maternal half-brother could apparently pass for his twin as well - indeed, the pair often used to swap clothes halfway through an engagement as a prank
[17] Louise d'Artois' birthday
[18] there are several reasons for Henri "stepping back". To have him as the face of government when most of the last eighteen months he's been running around being the guy everyone's fighting against, is gonna be awkward. Passing over Angoulême (i.e. regarding his abdication as binding, means that then, Henri's was binding as well) is going to needlessly antagonize the more conservative wing. Also, he has no children, so everyone knows Henri's next up to bat. But it also gives Henri an opportunity to distance himself from the image of "bloodthirsty, arrogant conqueror". The Parisians/foreign courts might prefer "an old fool" like Angoulême in charge to Henri that they might fear is only looking for an opportunity to exploit to go all Sun King. And let's face it, Angoulême is turning 70 next year, he isn't going to be up to the travel required of a royal representative to foreign christenings-weddings-funerals, going around France, etc. Likely Angoulême's not moving further than Fontainebleau from Paris. Also, as the daughter and sister of saints, Madame Royal has the "glamour" that Henri can't match. Also, being "heir" rather than king means Henri has more opportunity to do things he wants (a visit to Algeria is not impossible). By acclaiming his uncle publicly like this, he also voids any objection from his supporters (mostly because they know that while Angoulême will be the face, Henri's going to be the one actually running the show in all likelihood) and voids compromising his stance that his critics can say "he drove his carriage to his coronation over his uncle's body" (paraphrase of what they said of Queen Mary II). Besides, if nothing else, Angoulême and Madame Royal have bloody well earned it. In fact, Madame Royal being crowned (when her mother wasn't) is likely to be a capstone that the Revolution is
finally finished.
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