The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 373, February 19, 1887Various
History
The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 373, February 19, 1887
Various
Children's literature -- Periodicals
this peril is to be attained by such change of coats as the conditions
require.”
A DAUGHTER OF SORROWS.
CHAPTER III.
EXILE AND RESTORATION.
It was midnight on the 19th of December, her seventeenth birthday,
when Madame Royale left the Temple. M. Benezech, the Minister of the
Interior, escorted her to the Porte St. Martin, where the travelling
carriage provided for her journey to Vienna was in waiting. There
went with her the Marchioness de Soucy, sub-governess to the children
of France, an officer of the gendarmerie, and M. Gomin, one of the
commissaries of the Temple. Hué joined her at Huningen, which she
reached on Christmas Eve. Although all precautions were taken to
prevent her being known, the princess was frequently recognised, and
greeted with silent respect, in the course of her journey. She stayed
over the 25th at the sign of the “Crow” at Huningen, and set out for
Basle on the next day. As she left her room the innkeeper fell at her
feet and asked her blessing. Tears stood in her eyes as she entered
the carriage. “I leave France with regret,” she said, “and shall never
cease to regard it as my country.”
At Basle the exchange was effected, and Madame Royale left on the
night of the 26th, accompanied by Madame de Soucy and escorted by the
Prince de Gavres, who had been appointed by the Austrian Emperor for
the purpose. At Lauffenbourg she stayed a day to celebrate a service in
memory of her parents, and at Innspruck she remained two days to visit
her aunt, the Archduchess Elizabeth. She arrived in Vienna on the 9th
of January, 1796.
Warmly received by the Emperor and Empress, with a household appointed
for her in accordance with her rank, Madame Royale took her place at
the Austrian Court, and here she spent the next four years. But amid
the glitter of the Court of Vienna she was, perhaps, more truly lonely
than she had been in the Tower of the Temple. Her heart was in the
graves of those she loved, and the mourning garments which she wore
told truly that she lived in the past. The Archduke Charles sought her
hand, and the Emperor and Empress urged, and even insisted, that she
should accept him. But Madame Royale steadily declined. She had no
heart to give a lover; but the wish of her father and mother pointed
out the path she was to take, and if she must wed it could only be her
cousin, the Duc d’Angoulême. Her refusal drew down on her the Imperial
displeasure, which was augmented by her careful avoidance of various
political schemes into which it was sought to entangle her.
It was a great relief, therefore, to the princess when this anomalous
position was put an end to in the spring of 1799 by a demand on the
part of the Emperor of Russia, made at the request of Louis XVIII., in
terms which allowed no refusal, that Madame Royale should be permitted
to join her uncle and the other members of her father’s family at
Mittau, in Courland, where they were then residing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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