The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England. volume 3 (of 6): Mémoires d'outre-tombe volume 3Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de
History
The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England. volume 3 (of 6): Mémoires d'outre-tombe volume 3
Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de
Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de, 1768-1848
Now behold, the name of Fouché was pronounced with gratitude by the
Pavillon Marsan! The King laughed at his brother's new passion, and
said:
"He has not received it by divine inspiration."
I have already told you that, when passing through Cambrai after the
Hundred Days, I vainly sought my lodging of the time of the Navarre
Regiment and the coffee-house which I frequented with La Martinière:
all had vanished with my youth.
From Cambrai, we went to sleep at Roye: the mistress of the inn took
Madame de Chateaubriand for Madame la Dauphine; she was carried in
triumph to a large room in which stood a table laid for thirty persons:
the room, lighted by wax-candles, tallow-candles and a great fire, was
stifling. The hostess did not wish to receive payment, and said:
"I look askance at myself for not having got myself guillotined for our
kings."
Last spark of a fire which had animated the French for so many
centuries.
General Lamothe, brother-in-law to M. Laborie, came, despatched by the
authorities of the capital, to tell us that it would be impossible
for us to appear in Paris without the tricolour cockade. M. de La
Fayette and other commissaries, very ill received, for the rest, by the
Allies, went fawning from one staff-office to the other, begging from
the foreigners for a master of some sort for France: any king, at the
Cossack's own option, would do excellently, provided that he did not
descend from St. Louis and Louis XIV.
[Sidenote: The journey to Paris.]
At Roye we held a council: M. de Talleyrand had a pair of hacks put to
his carriage and went to the King's. His equipage took up the width
of the square, from the minister's inn to the Kings door. He stepped
out of his car with a memorandum, which he read to us: he considered
the course we should have to follow on our arrival; he ventured a few
words on the necessity of admitting all, without distinction, to the
distribution of places; he hinted that we might extend our generosity
as far as the judges of Louis XVI. His Majesty coloured and, striking
the two arms of his chair, with both hands, cried:
"Never!"
A "never" of twenty-four hours!
At Senlis we called at a canon's: his servant-maid received us like
dogs; as to the canon, who was not St. Regulus[345], the patron saint
of the town, he would not so much as look at us. His maid had orders
to show us no other service than to buy us something to eat, for our
own money: the _Génie du Christianisme_ availed me nothing. Yet Senlis
ought to have been of good omen to us, since it was in that town that
Henry IV. escaped from the hands of his gaolers in 1576:
"I have no regret," exclaimed the King who was Montaigne's
fellow-countryman, as he made his escape, "save for two things which I
have left in Paris: the Mass and my wife."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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