In 1847, a shocking murder at the top levels of French aristocracy sparked not just a national
scandal, but eventually a revolution that brought the government crashing down. So what
happened? This is the truth of the French murder that started a revolution.
The July Revolution of 1830 allowed Louis Philippe to seize the throne, with the assistance
of the upper middle class. By 1847, King Louis Philippe of the House of Orleans had been
king for 17 years - but his time was almost up. Within a year, another revolution would
see him deposed, forced to flee into exile.
The Revolution of 1848 was just one of many revolutions that took place across the whole
of Europe that year. Most of them had common instigating factors, with the middle class
rising against the nobility for several reasons, including economic depression, food shortages,
and unemployment.
In France, though, the road to revolution had an added element, as it was kicked off
in part by the scandal surrounding a shocking murder. A murder even more shocking given
it had started off, like so many do, as a love story.
Françoise "Fanny" Altarice Rosalba Sébastiani and Charles Laure Hugues Théobald, also known
as the Duke and Duchess of Choiseul-Praslin, were married on October 18, 1824, and had
nine children over the course of their 23 year marriage.
Théobald, Duke of Choiseul-Praslin, was born a few months after Napoleon Bonaparte became
the king of Italy in 1805. He was a politician as well as a member of King Louis Philippe's
court. He served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1838 to 1842 and was named
a Peer of France in 1845.
The Duchess was Marshal Horace Sebastiani's daughter, who was a distinguished general,
according to the Annual Register for 1847. She seemed more invested in her marriage than
the Duke, as she wrote about how madly in love she was with her husband in her correspondence.
Despite this, their relationship could be explosive, and the Duke had at least one affair.
She also accused the Duke of hiring a governess in part to drive a wedge between the Duchess
and her children.
So while everything seemed like a storybook romance on the outside, inside the marriage
it was a different story - and things were about to boil over.
The English governess for the Praslin children was Henriette Deluzy. She had been with the
family for several years, but by the middle of 1847 at least, the Duchess had become convinced
that Deluzy was having an affair with her husband. Whether that was true or not, we
don't know, but ultimately the Duchess fired Deluzy in an attempt to solve the problem.
The governess didn't leave Paris, in part because The Duchess had refused to write her
a letter of recommendation. Without that, Deluzy had a hard time finding another job,
which in turn made it hard for her to afford to leave.
It made Deluzy a suspect. But it also made her a first hand witness to history - and
her version of the story was still being told almost a hundred years later, thanks to books
and films like the 1940 hit All This and Heaven Too, which showed all the sordid events in
true old Hollywood style.
"It was only, only a matter of a letter from her!"
"I kept hoping she would send one, I wrote so many times."
The Duke and Duchess returned to Paris on the Corbell railway after visiting Praslin.
The couple separately visited friends before returning to their rooms and were about to
take another trip to Dieppe. Their ground-floor rooms were separated by an antechamber. At
around four or five in the morning, the Duchess' maid heard the bell ring, signaling that her
mistress wanted something. The maid rose to assist but found she couldn't get into the
Duchess' room.
When the servants finally got the door open, they found a horrific sight. The Duchess lay
in a pool of blood, with severe wounds at her throat, and across her body. According
to the Annual Register, she was, quote, "horribly mutilated and dying of her wounds."
A table was turned over, and porcelain was spread all about the room, as was blood. Pieces
of hair from the person who had attacked her were scattered around the room, as well as
held in the Duchess' fingers. When the Duke was alerted, he immediately came in and embraced
his wife's body. Despite surgeons assisting, though, she died two hours later.
The events of this short night would go on to have repercussions for all of France in
the months to come.
The murder had happened on a Tuesday morning, and police searched for information for several
days. Authorities quickly discovered there was no evidence of breaking and entering,
even through the garden, despite the fact that there was an open window which initially
suggested that an assailant may have possibly entered or exited through the garden. According
to the Annual Register, blood had apparently been found on the Duke and in his room - though
he had embraced the Duchess' body, which might explain where the blood had come from.
The police then found out about the Duke's affair with the English governess Henriette
Deluzy, and officers began to look for her to start an interrogation. In the meantime,
the servants were questioned, revealing that the Duke and Duchess' relationship wasn't
as rosy as it may have appeared to be, with the two living separate lives in the same
house.
Finally, a servant reported that he had seen someone - roughly the same size as the Duke
- opening that window to the garden in what may have been a coverup attempt.
Due to the supposed affair, and the fact that the Duke and Duchess were living separately
at the time, suspicion fell squarely on the Duke and his purported mistress, governess
Deluzy.
She, at least, had a happy ending. Though she was questioned and imprisoned for three
months, she was eventually released, moved to America, and married a famous author, the
Reverend Henry Field.
While there was no evidence of her involvement though, the same was not the case for the
Duke, as the weight of evidence quickly made him the only real suspect.
One of the Duke's pistols had been found, with a ball loaded, and it was also covered
in blood and pieces of human flesh. Plus, when the servants found the Duke that morning
to tell him the Duchess had been attacked, the Duke was reportedly washing his hands,
the implication being that he was trying to remove blood.
The two halves of a bloodied, broken sword were then found separately in the Duke's room
and in the garden, as if thrown, The Duke gave no explanation for how they could have
gotten that way. On top of it all, Charles was also discovered to be wounded on the hand
and leg. The evidence was mounting up, and the police had no other obvious leads. The
Duchess' murder was so gruesome that everyone wanted the case to be solved as soon as possible.
When the general public heard of the murder of the Duchess, they were horrified. But they
were also strangely excited at the fact that the Duke was the prime suspect. The general
feeling among the regular people was that the nobles had been getting away with all
manner of crimes for so long, shielded from the law by their wealth and power. So the
fact that a high ranking member of the Court was to be held accountable for murder caused
a sensation.
Because of his position, the trial also threatened to upend matters at court, so the trial was
rushed forward to cause as little disruption as possible. They wanted to get the spectacle
over with and move on.
The Court of Peers assembled that Saturday, August 21. After deliberations, the Duke of
Choiseul-Praslin was questioned. However, his health was failing rapidly, and it was
discovered that he had apparently taken arsenic in order to commit suicide.
The Duke was promptly given a strong emetic to try and purge the arsenic from his system.
That same Saturday, he was moved to prison. His health fluctuated over the next several
days, but on August 24, he was found dead, apparently poisoned, having never admitted
to the crime, or explained the motive.
"Your suicide is your answer. We only require a confession of your motive. Was it not your
guilty entanglement with Henriette Duluzy that drove you to the madness that possessed
you?"
Did the Duke commit suicide out of guilt for his actions or fear of having to take responsibility?
No one knows for sure.
The Duchess' body lay in state before being buried, while the Duke was buried with little
fanfare.
The scandal came at a bad time for King Louis Philippe and his court, who had lost the trust
of the people due to a number of political and economic disasters in recent years. And
the death of the Duke infuriated the people even more, as it was widely believed that
the Duke was allowed to commit suicide in order to avoid the spectacle of a trial and
public execution. It was seen as another sign of the nobility being above the law, and as
1847 turned into 1848, talk of revolution increased.
Strikes and public protests were already banned by the crown, but protestors had developed
another avenue of gathering support: Campagne des banquets, which were private fundraising
dinners designed to get around the injunction against public assemblies.
In February, 1848, though, the King and his cabinet also prohibited a pro-democracy banquet
that was to be held in honor of George Washington's birthday. It proved to be the tipping point.
Riots broke out across Paris, and the mob stormed the palace. The King was forced to
abdicate. Almost overnight, a revolution had formed - and succeeded.
Louis Philippe abdicated in February 1848, and afterward, the revolutionaries arranged
a provisional government. However, the new government proved to be disorganized before
the elections in April, while strikes increased.
The middle-class bourgeois wanted democratic electoral reforms, while radical socialist
leaders desired a social welfare republic. Most of the people, though, wanted to find
some kind of middle road.
The result was conflict and confusion. On the one hand, the revolution had brought together
many different groups who were united in the feeling that the old regime had to go. But
on the other hand, once that regime was gone, there was no consensus on what should replace
it.
The Second French Republic officially adopted the motto "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité."
By contrast to that sentiment, the man chosen to be the first provisional president, poet
Alphonse de Lamartine, seemed more like a benevolent dictator than someone truly supportive
of those democratic ideals.
The major goals of the provisional government were job loss relief and universal male suffrage.
In March 1848, the country gained millions of new voters when it gave all men the right
to vote. Government goal complete, France! Political clubs began to pop up all over the
country, including for women, though they didn't have the vote.
The country elected mainly moderate candidates in April, as opposed to the liberals who had
started the revolution in the first place. The election results led to a brief insurrection
in June, led by workers, which lasted for three days. They felt that the new moderate
government wasn't addressing worker concerns, and they were angry. In the resulting violence,
some 1500 workers died - and along with them, it seemed, died their hopes of a socialist
republic.
Still, the provisional government enacted a number of social programs in an attempt
to address the crippling unemployment the country faced. But they didn't have the money.
So they put taxes on land, which alienated small landowners, like farmers and peasants.
As a result, the new taxes were simply ignored in many rural areas as uncertainty about the
new republic built.
The constitution of the Second French Republic was ratified in September 1848, but it was
weighted towards executive power, and it offered very little to assist the Constituent Assembly
if there was a disagreement between it and the president. The people of France may have
desperately wanted a true republic, but it seemed they weren't going to get it.
After the revolution that brought the Second French Republic into being, former King Louis
Philippe was forced to flee France and settled in Surrey, England. He died there in 1850.
That same December, Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the famous French emperor
Napoleon Bonaparte, was elected president of the republic.
According to Britannica, the Constituent Assembly passed measures in the next few years that
trended toward conservatism, such as depriving one third of men their right to vote. Bonaparte
argued against that, believing himself to have the support of the people being disenfranchised.
As his term was coming to an end, Bonaparte also pushed to have the constitution amended
to allow him to run for a second term, feeling he had the mandate from the people. But when
this failed, he took matters into his own hands. In December, 1851, he staged a coup
and seized power, and a year later declared himself Napoleon III, the new Emperor of France.
Perhaps it's fitting in a way that a revolution born from murder would itself have such a short life.