The Idler in FranceBlessington, Marguerite, Countess of
History
The Idler in France
Blessington, Marguerite, Countess of
France -- Description and travel; France -- Social life and customs
"If thou canst hate, as, oh! that soul must hate
Which loves the virtuous and reveres the great;
If thou canst loathe and execrate with me
That gallic garbage of philosophy,--
That nauseous slaver of these frantic times,
With which false liberty dilutes her crimes;
If thou hast got within thy free-born breast
One pulse that beats more proudly than the rest
With honest scorn for that inglorious soul
Which creeps and winds beneath a mob's control.
Which courts the rabble's smile, the rabble's nod,
And makes, like Egypt, every beast its God!"
_August 4th_.--The King has left Rambouillot, alarmed by the report of
the approach of the vast multitude who had left, or were leaving,
Paris, with hostile intentions towards the royal family. The scenes
that took place then, previously to his departure, are represented as
being most affecting.
An old man, overpowered by mental and bodily sufferings, remembering
the terrible days of a former revolution, brought with a fearful
vividness to his mind by the appalling change effected within the last
few eventful days, he had lost all presence of mind, and with it his
confidence in those whom he might have safely trusted, while he yielded
it to those whose interests were wholly opposed to his. Nor is the
deplorable effect produced on his mind by recent events to be wondered
at.
Adversity is the only school in which monarchs can acquire wisdom, and
it almost always comes too late to enable them to profit by its bitter
lessons. The defection of those hitherto supposed to be devoted
friends, the altered looks of faces never before beheld without being
dressed in smiles, the unceremoniousness of courtiers who never
previously had dared to have an opinion before royalty had decided what
it should be, might well have shook firmer nerves, and touched a
sterner heart, than belonged to the old, grey-headed monarch, who saw
himself betrayed without comprehending by whom, and who used his
authority as sovereign and father, over his religiously obedient son,
to extort an abdication of his right, as well as an approval of the
resignation of his own.
Like another Lear, this poor old man has been driven forth "to bide the
pelting of the pitiless storm" of a revolution, followed by his widowed
daughter-in-law and her helpless son, that child orphaned ere yet he
saw the light, and by Frenchmen who now condemn him to exile!
They have taken the route to Cherbourg, there to embark; and of those
who lately bent the knee before them, how few have followed their now
gloomy fortunes! One, at least, has not left, and will not forsake
them. The Duc de Guiche, the kindest husband and father perhaps in
France, sacrifices his feelings of domestic affection to his sense of
duty, and accompanies the exiled family!
CHAPTER XXVI.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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