"I have just read your last pamphlet. How happy the Bourbons are to be supported by a genius such as yours! You raise a cause with the same arms that have served to lay it low; you find words that send a thrill through every French heart. All that is national finds an echo in your soul; thus, when you speak of the great man who rendered France illustrious during twenty years, the loftiness of the subject inspires you, your genius embraces it entirely, and then your mind, naturally pouring itself out, surrounds the greatest glory with the greatest thoughts. "I too, monsieur le vicomte, grow enthusiastic on behalf of all that contributes to the honour of my country; that is why, giving vent to my impulse, I venture to express to you the sympathy which I feel for one who displays so much patriotism and so much love of liberty. But, permit me to tell you, you are the only formidable defender of the Old Monarchy; you would make it national, if one could believe that it would think as you do; and so, to give it any worth, it is not enough to declare yourself on its side, but rather to prove that it is on yours. "However, monsieur le vicomte, if we differ in opinions, at least we are agreed in the wishes which we form for France's happiness. "Pray accept, etc., etc. "LOUIS-NAPOLÉON BONAPARTE." [Illustration: Queen Hortense.] [Sidenote: And Louis Napoleon.] THE VICOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND TO THE COMTE DE SAINT-LEU (PRINCE LOUIS NAPOLEON) "PARIS, 19 _May_ 1832. "MONSIEUR LE COMTE, "It is never easy to reply to praises; but, when he who awards them with as much wit as propriety is moreover in a social condition to which peerless memories are attached, then the difficulty is doubled. At least, Monsieur, we meet in a common sympathy; you with your youth, as I with my old days, desire the honour of France. It needed no more for either of us, to die of confusion or laughter, than to see the juste-milieu blockaded in Ancona[462] by the soldiers of the Pope. Ah, Monsieur, where is your uncle? To others than yourself I should say: "'Where is the guardian of kings and the master of Europe?' "In defending the cause of the Legitimacy, I entertain no illusions; but I think that every man who cares for public esteem must remain faithful to his oaths: Lord Falkland, a friend of liberty and an enemy of the Court, got himself killed at Newbury in the army of Charles I. You shall live, Monsieur le Comte, to see your country free and happy; you are passing through ruins among which I shall remain, because I myself form part of those ruins.