The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England. volume 5 (of 6): Mémoires d'outre-tombe volume 5Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de
History
The Memoirs of François René Vicomte de Chateaubriand sometime Ambassador to England. volume 5 (of 6): Mémoires d'outre-tombe volume 5
Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de
Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de, 1768-1848
"Your affectionate cousin,
"CHARLES."
If M. le Duc d'Orléans had been capable of emotion or remorse, would
not this signature, "Your affectionate cousin," have struck him to the
heart? So little doubt had they at Rambouillet of the efficacy of the
abdications that the young Prince was being made ready for his journey:
his ægis, the tricolour cockade, was already fashioned by the hands
of the most zealous promoters of the Ordinances. Suppose that Madame
la Duchesse de Berry had suddenly set out with her son and appeared
in the Chamber of Deputies at the moment when M. le Duc d'Orléans was
delivering his opening speech, two chances remained: dangerous chances,
but, at least, the child removed to Heaven would not have dragged out
days of misery on foreign soil.
My counsels, my prayers, my cries were powerless; I asked in vain for
Marie-Caroline: the mother of Bayard, as he was preparing to quit the
paternal castle, "wept," says the _Loyal Serviteur_:
"The good gentle woman came out from the back of the tower, and sent
for her son, to whom she spake these words:
"'Pierre, my friend, be sweet and courteous, putting from you all
pride; be humble and serviceable to all men; be loyal in deeds and
words; be helpful to poor widows and orphans, and God will recompense
you....'
"Then the good ladye drew out of her sleeve a little purse in which
were only six crowns in gold and one in small silver, the which she
gave to her son."
The knight without fear and without reproach rode away with six golden
crowns in a little purse to become the bravest and most renowned
of captains. Henry, who perhaps has not six gold crowns, will have
very different combats to wage; he will have to fight misfortune,
a difficult champion to throw. Let us glorify the mothers who give
such tender and good lessons to their sons! Blessed, then, be you, my
mother, from whom I derive all that may have honoured and disciplined
my life!
Forgive me for all these recollections; but perhaps the tyranny of my
memory, by introducing the past into the present, takes from the latter
a part of its wretchedness.
The three commissaries deputed to Charles X. were Messieurs de Schonen,
Odilon Barrot and Marshal Maison. They were sent back by the military
posts, and started to return to Paris. A wave of the populace carried
them back to Rambouillet.
The rumour spread, on the evening of the 2nd, that Charles X. refused
to leave Rambouillet before his grand-son was recognised. A multitude
gathered in the Champs-Élysées on the morning of the 3rd, shouting:
"To Rambouillet! To Rambouillet! Not one of the Bourbons must escape
from it!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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