"At the moment when I am about to have the grief of parting from you, I wish once more to express to you all my gratitude for the visit which you have come to pay me on foreign soil and to tell you all the pleasure which I have felt at seeing you again and talking with you of the great interests of the future. Finding myself as I do in perfect community of opinion and feeling with yourself, I am happy to see that the line of conduct which I have adopted in exile and the position which I have taken up are, in every respect, consonant with the advice which I wished to ask of your long experience and of your judgment. I shall, therefore, walk with still more confidence and firmness in the path which I have marked out for myself. "More fortunate than I, you are going to see our dear country again; tell France of all the love that my heart contains for her. I am glad to take as my interpreter that voice so dear to France which has, at all times, so gloriously defended monarchical principles and the national liberties. "I renew, monsieur le vicomte, the assurance of my sincere friendship. "HENRY." Chateaubriand replied to the Comte de Chambord: "LONDON, 5 _December_ 1843. "MONSEIGNEUR, "The marks of your esteem would console me for every disgrace; but, expressed as they are, I see in them more than kindness towards myself: they discover another world; another universe opens up before France. "I greet with tears of joy the future which you proclaim. Shall you, innocent of all, to whom there is nothing to object save that you are descended from the House of St. Louis, be the only unhappy one among the youth that turns its eyes towards you? "You tell me that, more fortunate than you, I am going to see France again: 'more fortunate than you!' That is the only reproach which you found to address to your country. No, Prince, I can never be happy so long as you lack happiness. I have not long to live, and that is my consolation. I dare to ask you, after I am gone, to keep the memory of your old servant. "I am, with the most profound respect, "Monseigneur, "Your Royal Highness' most humble and most obedient servant, "CHATEAUBRIAND." On his return to Paris, Chateaubriand put the finishing touches to the work which was to close his literary career, the _Vie de Rancé._ He added to his manuscript some pages on his pilgrimage to Belgrave Square which were worthy of his talent and almost equal to the finest pages of the Memoirs. After a description of the Château de Chambord, in the neighbourhood of which the Abbé de Rancé[490] possessed a priory, the great writer's thought harks back to the Prince whom he has been visiting in London, and he continues in these words: