Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 65, No. 403, May, 1849Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 65, No. 403, May, 1849
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
The dinner of the exiled princely family is described by the
republican visitor as simple, although served with a certain state. He
sits by the side of the Duchess of Angoulême, whose every word is one
of "politeness, courtesy, or forbearance." "The Duchess of Bordeaux,"
he says, "continually fixed her eyes upon me, as with a look of
wonder. In truth, the position was a strange one--a French republican
sitting at the table of a prescribed French prince, and eating out of
plate engraved with the royal arms of France!" The evening passes, in
this little court, almost as in a private family in some French
chateau. Billiards, tapestry-work, conversation, occupy the various
personages. The republican again converses with the prince, who
listens to contradiction with the utmost good-humour. When he departs,
the whole family express, in their last words, their longing for that
country which he is about to revisit so soon, but from which they are
exiled.
We have dwelt upon the book of M. Didier at considerable length, not
only on account of its historical interest, but on account of the
strange circumstances which induced its publication, its startling
result, the sensation it has created, and the ultimate effect it may
produce in France in paving the way for legitimacy, by attaching
interest and admiration to the person of its representative--perhaps,
also, because it does honour to the sincerity of the author, and to
the more honest republican party to which he belongs. But we have thus
excluded ourselves from the possibility of giving more than a brief
notice of the other book alluded to above, that of the Vicomte
d'Arlincourt, although, in truth, it merits, in all respects, a far
more extended observation, as a frank and straightforward expression
of the sentiments of the legitimists. We must confine ourselves, then,
principally to the circumstances which, independently of its merits,
have given the little book so great a notoriety in France, and carried
it on to the almost unexampled honours of a forty-eighth edition. They
are curious enough in themselves, and bear some analogy to those which
have determined the publication and the success of the book of M.
Didier, inasmuch as it was the ardency of republicanism which forced
upon the public notice a book, likely to forward the cause of
legitimacy in France. The little work of M. d'Arlincourt is written,
however, avowedly upon legitimist principles, and for the purpose of
awakening the attention of the nation to the cause of the man whom
the author looks upon as the ultimate saviour of the troubled country.
This legitimist book, under the title of "_Dieu le veut_," written
after the bloody days of June, might, in spite of the vigour of its
language, and the justice and good sense of most of its reasonings and
remarks, never have emerged so prominently from the inundation of
political pamphlets which floods republican France, had it not pleased
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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