The spell of the heart of France: the towns, villages and châteaux about ParisHallays, André
History
The spell of the heart of France: the towns, villages and châteaux about Paris
Hallays, André
France -- Description and travel; France -- History
neither surprised nor frightened her. But, on September 4, 1792, a
band of revolutionists at Gisors murdered her son, the Duc de la
Rochefoucauld, who had sat in the Constituent Assembly among the
Constitutionalists. In the following year she was herself denounced,
arrested, thrown into prison and owed her liberty, perhaps her life,
only to a petition of the citizens of the commune of La Roche-Guyon. She
died in 1797 at the age of eighty.
*****
A little way back we met Boileau, dreaming at the foot of the bluff of
Haute-Isle. A few steps farther on, at La Roche-Guyon, we meet Hugo and
Lamartine; both stopped in this château during the Restoration.
La Roche then belonged to the Duc de Rohan-Chabot.
A short while ago M. Charles Bailie published a fat book upon this
personage, who was somewhat slender, somewhat droll, and even, I will
venture to say, a little ridiculous. But as this biography gave its
author an opportunity to study men and manners of the period of the
Restoration, and as this study swarms with new and well-told anecdotes,
we gladly ignore the insignificance of the hero. Here is a summary of
the life of this cardinal-duke: Auguste de Chabot, born February 29,
1788, followed his father, the Prince of Leon, into exile, and returned
to Paris with him in 1800. He was educated in a somewhat haphazard
fashion by a refractory Oratorist and later by a former college regent.
In 1807, when his grandfather, the Duc de Rohan, died, his father became
Duc de Rohan and he himself Prince de Leon. When his father died in 1816
he became Duke de Rohan.
In 1808 he married Mlle. de Séreit, who was seventeen years old.
Chateaubriand sometimes said to him: "Come, Chabot, so that I may
corrupt you"; but his morals remained irreproachable. He traveled in
Italy; he saw Madame Recamier and did not fall in love with her. Queen
Caroline distinguished him. "She treated him," said Lamartine, "with a
marked favor which promised a royal friendship, if the future cardinal
had seen in the most beautiful of women anything else than the delight
of the eye." He had pretty features, gave infinite care to his toilet,
wrote romantic poems and dabbled in water colors.
[Illustration: 0269]
In 1809 he became a chamberlain of the Emperor. In 1815 his wife was
burned to death, the laces of her gown having taken fire. In 1819 he
entered the seminary of Saint Sulpice and was ordained a priest in 1822.
Madame de Broglie thus described him, in the following year: "He had a
thin pale face, and, at the same time, a coquettish care for his person
which seemed to join honest instincts with former worldly memories; in
his face there was a mingling of fanaticism and foolishness."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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