From Schaffhausen I continued my road towards Ulm. The country presents

tilled basins, in which detached and wooded hillocks bathe their feet.

In those woods, which were then being cultivated for sale, the eye saw

oaks, some felled, others left standing: the first stripped of their

bark where they lay, their trunks and branches white and bare, like

the skeleton of a strange beast; the second bearing the fresh green of

spring on their hirsute and dark, moss-grown limbs: they combined what

is never found in man, the two-fold beauty of old age and youth.

In the fir-plantations of the plain, uprootings had left empty spaces;

the land had been turned into meadows. Those circuses of grass in the

middle of the slate-grey forests have something severe and smiling and

recall the prairies of the New World. The cottages retain the Swiss

character; the hamlets and inns are distinguished by that appetizing

cleanliness unknown in our country.

Stopping for dinner, between six and seven o'clock, at Mösskirch, I sat

musing at the window of my inn: herds were drinking at a fountain, a

heifer leapt and frolicked like a roe-deer. Wherever men are kind to

their beasts, they are lively and love man. In Germany and England,

the horses are not beaten, they are not ill-treated with words: they

back towards the pole of themselves; they start and stop at the least

sound of the voice, at the smallest movement of the bridle-rein. Of all

nations, the French are the most inhumane: do you see our postillions

harnessing their horses? They drive them into the shafts with kicks

of their boots in the flanks, with blows of their whip-handles on

the head, breaking their mouths with the bit to make them go back,

accompanying the whole with oaths, shouts and insults at the poor

brute. Beasts of burden are compelled to draw or carry loads which are

beyond their strength and, to oblige them to go on, the drivers cut up

their hides with twists of the thong. The fierceness of the Gauls is

with us still: it is only hidden under the silk of our stockings and

neckcloths.

I was not alone in gaping; the women were doing as much at all the

windows of their houses. I have often asked myself, when passing

through unknown hamlets:

"Would you live here?"

I have always answered:

"Why not?"

Who, in the mad hours of youth, has not said with Pierre Vidal[518],

the troubadour:

Don n'ai mais d'un pauc cordo

Que Na Raymbauda me do,

Quel reys Richartz ab Peitieus

Ni ab Tors ni ab Angieus[519].

[Sidenote: Mösskirch.]

There is matter for dreams everywhere; pleasures and pains belong to

all places: those women of Mösskirch who looked at the sky or at my

posting-chariot, who looked at me or who looked at nothing, had not

they joys and sorrows, interests of the heart, of fortune, of family,

even as we have in Paris? I should have made great progress in the

history of my neighbours, if dinner had not been poetically announced

to the crash of a thunder-clap: that was much ado about little.

19 _May_ 1833.

At ten o'clock at night, I got into the carriage again; I fell asleep

to the patter of the rain on the hood of the calash. The sound of my

postillion's little horn aroused me. I heard the murmur of a river

which I could not see. We had stopped at the gate of a town; the

gate opened; my passport and luggage were examined: we were entering

the vast empire of His Wurtemberg Majesty. I greeted in memory the

Grand-duchess Helen, the graceful and delicate flower now confined in

the hot-houses of the Volga. On only one single day did I conceive the

value of high rank and fortune: it was when I gave the fête to the

young Russian Princess in the gardens of the Villa Medici. I felt how

the magic of the sky, the charm of the spot, the spell of beauty and

power can inebriate one; I imagined myself both Torquato Tasso, and

Alphonsus of Este[520]: I was worth more than the Prince, less than the

poet; Helen was more beautiful than Leonora[521]. The representative

of the heir of Francis I. and Louis XIV., I had the dream of a king of

France.

They did not search me: I had nothing against the rights of sovereigns,

I who recognised those of a young Monarch which the sovereigns

themselves failed to recognise. The vulgarity, the modernity of the

custom-house and the passport formed a contrast with the storm, the

Gothic gate, the sound of the horn and the noise of the torrent.

Instead of the lady of the castle whom I was prepared to deliver from

oppression, I found, on leaving the town, an old, simple fellow; he

asked me for _seechs Kreutzer_, raising his left hand, which held a

lantern, to the level of his grey head, putting out his right hand to

Schwartz on the box and opening his mouth like the gills of a hooked

pike: Baptiste, wet and sick as he was, could not hold himself for

laughing.

And what was this torrent over which I had just passed. I asked the

postillion, who cried:

"Donau!"

The Danube! One more famous river crossed by me unknowingly, even as

I had descended into the bed of the oleanders of the Eurotas without

knowing it! What has it availed me to drink of the waters of the

Mississippi, the Eridanus, the Tiber, the Cephissus, the Hermus, the

Jordan, the Nile, the Guadalquivir, the Tagus, the Ebro, the Rhine,

the Spree, the Seine and a hundred other obscure or celebrated rivers?

Unknown, they have not given me their peace; illustrious, they have not

communicated to me their glory: they will be able to say only that they

have seen me pass as their banks see their waves pass.

[Sidenote: Ulm.]

I arrived at Ulm fairly early on Sunday the 19th of May, after

travelling through the scene of the battles of Moreau and Bonaparte.

Hyacinthe, who is a member of the Legion of Honour, was wearing the

ribbon: this decoration obtained for us an incredible amount of

consideration. I, wearing in my button-hole only a little flower,

according to my custom, passed, until they heard my name, for a

mysterious being: my Mamelukes at Cairo used to insist, whether I would

or no, that I was a general of Napoleon disguised as a literary man;

they would not give in and every quarter of an hour expected to see me

put away Egypt in the sash of my caftan. And yet it is among nations

whose villages we have burnt and whose harvests we have laid waste that

those sentiments exist. I rejoiced in this glory; but, if we had done

nothing but good to Germany, should we be as greatly regretted there? O

inexplicable human nature!

The evils of war are forgotten; we have left on the soil of our

conquests the spark of life. That inert mass set in movement continues

to ferment because its intelligence is commencing. When travelling

nowadays, we see the nations watching, knapsack on back: ready to

start, they seem to be waiting for us in order to place us at the head

of the column. A Frenchman is always taken for the aide-de-camp who

brings the order to march.

Ulm is a clean little town, with no particular character; its

dismantled ramparts have been converted into kitchen-gardens or walks,

which happens to all ramparts. Their fortune has something in common

with that of the military: the soldier bears arms in his youth; when

invalided, he becomes a gardener.

I went to see the cathedral, a Gothic fabric with a tall spire. The

aisles are divided into two narrow vaults, supported by a single row of

pillars, so that the interior of the edifice partakes at one time of

the character of the cathedral and the basilica. The pulpit has for a

canopy a graceful steeple ending in a point, like a mitre; the inside

of this steeple consists of a newel around which winds a helicoid vault

in stone filigree-work. Symmetrical spikes, piercing the outside, seem

destined to carry candles; these used to light up this tiara when the

bishop preached on feast-days. Instead of priests officiating, I saw

little birds hopping in that granite foliage; they were celebrating the

Word that gave them a voice and wings on the fifth day of the Creation.

The nave was deserted; in the apse of the church, two separate groups

of boys and girls were receiving religious instruction.

The Reformation, as I have already said, makes a mistake when it shows

itself in the Catholic monuments upon which it has encroached; it

cuts a mean and shameful figure there. Those tall porches call for a

numerous clergy, the pomp of the celebrations, the chants, pictures,

ornaments, silk veils, draperies, laces, gold, silver, lamps, flowers

and incense of the altars. Protestantism may say as much as it pleases

that it has returned to Primitive Christianity; the Gothic churches

reply that it has denied its fathers: the Christians who were the

architects of its wonders were other than the children of Luther and

Calvin.

19 _May_ 1833.

I had left Ulm at noon, on the 19th. At Dillingen, the horses were

wanting. I stayed an hour in the High Street, having as a recreation

the sight of a stork's nest, planted on a chimney as though on a

minaret at Athens; a number of sparrows had insolently made their nests

in the bed of the peaceful "queen with the long neck." Below the stork,

a lady, living on the first floor, looked at the passers-by in the

shade of a half-raised blind; below the lady was a wooden saint in a

niche. The saint will be thrown down to the pavement, the woman from

her window into the grave: and the stork? It will fly away: thus will

end the three storeys.

Between Dillingen and Donauwörth, you cross the battle-field of

Blenheim. The footsteps of the armies of Moreau over the same ground

have not obliterated those of the armies of Louis XIV.; the defeat of

the great King prevails in the country-side over the successes of the

great Emperor.

The postillion who drove me belonged to Blenheim; on coming up to his

village, he blew the horn: perhaps he was announcing his passage to the

peasant-girl whom he loved; she leapt for joy in the midst of the same

fields where twenty-seven French battalions and twelve squadrons of

cavalry were taken prisoner, where the Navarre Regiment, whose uniform

I have had the honour to wear, buried its standards to the mournful

sound of the trumpets: those are the commonplaces of the succession of

the ages. In 1793, the Republic carried off from the church at Blenheim

the colours taken from the Monarchy in 1704: it avenged the Kingdom and

slew the King; it cut off Louis XVI.'s head, but it allowed only France

to tear the White Flag to pieces.

Nothing better conveys the greatness of Louis XIV. than to find

his memory at the bottom of the ravines dug by the torrent of the

Napoleonic victories. That monarch's conquests left our country the

frontiers that still guard it[522]. The Brienne scholar, to whom

the Legitimacy gave a sword, for a moment enclosed Europe in his

ante-chamber; but it escaped: the grandson of Henry IV. laid that same

Europe at the feet of France; and it remained there. This does not

mean that I am comparing Napoleon and Louis XIV.: men of different

destinies, they belong to dissimilar centuries, to different nations;

one completed an era, the other began a world. One can say of Napoleon

what Montaigne says of Cæsar:

"I excuse Victorie in that shee could not well give him over[523]."

[Sidenote: Blenheim.]

The unworthy tapestries at Blenheim Palace, which I saw with Peltier,

show the Maréchal de Tallart[524] taking off his hat to the Duke of

Marlborough[525], who stands in a swaggering attitude. Tallart none

the less remained the favourite of the old lion; a prisoner in London,

he conquered, in the mind of Queen Anne[526], the Marlborough who had

beaten him at Blenheim, and he died a member of the French Academy:

"He was," says Saint-Simon, "a man of middling height

with somewhat jealous eyes, full of fire and spirit, but with

an incessant demon of restlessness in him, owing to his

ambition."

I am writing history in my calash: why not? Cæsar wrote plenty in his

litter: he won the battles of which he wrote; I did not lose those of

which I speak.

From Dillingen to Donauwörth stretches a rich plain of unequal level in

which the corn-fields intermingle with the meadows: one goes closer to

or further from the Danube according to the windings of the road and

the bends of the river. At that height, the waters of the Danube are

still yellow, like those of the Tiber.

Scarce have you left the village before you see another; those villages

are clean and smiling: often the walls of the houses have frescoes. A

certain Italian character becomes manifest as one goes towards Austria;

the inhabitant of the Danube is no longer the _Peasant of the Danube_:

Son menton nourrissait une barbe touffue;

Toute sa personne velue

Représentait un ours, mais un ours mal léché[527].

But the sky of Italy is lacking here: the sun is low and pale; those

close-sown market-towns are not the little cities of the Romagna, which

brood upon the master-pieces of the arts hidden underneath them: you

scratch the ground, and that tillage makes some marvel of the antique

chisel shoot up like a blade of corn.

At Donauwörth, I regretted to have arrived too late to enjoy a fine

view of the Danube. On Monday the 20th, the same appearance of the

landscape; yet the soil becomes less good and the peasants seem poorer.

One begins again to see the pine-woods of the hills. The Hercynian

forest used to project as far as this: the trees of which Pliny left us

a singular description were felled by generations now buried with the

secular oaks.

When Trajan threw a bridge over the Danube, Italy heard, for the first

time, that name so fatal to the world of antiquity, the name of the

Goths. The road was opened up to myriads of savages who marched to the

Sack of Rome. The Huns and their Attila built their wooden palaces

opposite the Coliseum, on the bank of the stream which was the rival

of the Rhine and, like the latter, the enemy of the Tiber. The hordes

of Alaric crossed the Danube, in 376, to overthrow the civilized Greek

Empire, at the same spot where the Russians traversed it, in 1828, with

the design of overthrowing the Barbaric Empire seated on the ruins of

Greece. Could Trajan have guessed that a civilization of a new kind

would one day be established on the other side of the Alps, on the

borders of the stream which he had almost discovered? Born in the

Black Forest, the Danube goes to die in the Black Sea. Where does its

chief source lie? In the court-yard of a German baron, who employs the

naiad to wash his linen. A geographer having taken it into his head

to deny the fact, the noble owner brought an action against him. It

was decided by a judicial verdict that the source of the Danube was

in the court-yard of the said baron and could not be elsewhere. How

many centuries were needed to arrive from the errors of Ptolemy[528]

at this important discovery! Tacitus makes the Danube descend from

Mount Abnoba: _Montis Abnobæ._ But the Hermondurian, Cheruscan,

Marcomannian, Quadian barons, who are the authorities upon whom the

Roman historian relies, are not so cautious as my German baron. Eudorus

did not know so much, when I made him travel to the mouths of the

Ister, where the Euxine, according to Racine, was to carry Mithridates

in "two days[529]:"

"Having passed the Ister near its mouth.... I discovered a stone

tomb on which grew a laurel. I pulled out the grasses which covered

some Latin characters, and soon I succeeded in reading this first

verse of the elegies of an unfortunate poet:

"'My book, you will go to Rome, and you will go to Rome

without me.'"[530]

[Sidenote: The Danube.]

The Danube, on losing its solitude, saw recurring on its banks the

evils inseparable from society: plagues, famines, destructive fires,

sacks of towns, wars and those divisions incessantly springing up from

human passions and errors[531].

After Donauwörth, one comes to Burkheim and Neuberg. At breakfast,

at Ingolstadt, they served me with roe-buck: it is a great pity to

eat that charming beast. I have always been horrified at reading the

account of the inaugural banquet of George Neville, Archbishop of

York[532], in 1466: they roasted four hundred swans singing in chorus

their funeral hymn! There is also a question at that repast of four

hundred bitterns[533]: I can well believe it!

Regensburg, which we call Ratisbon, presents an agreeable view to one

approaching it from Donauwörth. Two o'clock was striking, on the 21st,

when I pulled up before the post-office. While they were putting the

horses to, which always takes long in Germany, I entered a neighbouring

church, called the Old Chapel, and painted white and gilded like new.

Eight old black priests, with white hair, were singing vespers. I had

once prayed, in a chapel at Tivoli, for a man who was himself praying

by my side[534]; in one of the pits at Carthage, I had offered up

my vows to St. Louis, who died not far from Utica and who was more

philosophical than Cato, more sincere than Hannibal, more pious than

Æneas: in the chapel at Ratisbon, I had a thought of recommending to

Heaven the young King whom I had come to seek; but I feared the wrath

of God too much to ask for a crown: I besought the dispenser of all

mercies to grant the orphan happiness and to give him a disdain for

power.

I hurried from the Old Chapel to the cathedral. It is smaller than that

of Ulm, but more religious and handsomer in style. Its stained-glass

windows wrap it in the darkness appropriate to contemplation. The white

chapel was better suited to my wishes for the innocence of Henry; the

sombre basilica made me feel quite moved for my old King Charles.

I cared little for the house in which they used to elect the Emperors

of old: which proves at least that there were elective sovereigns,

even sovereigns who were judged. The eighteenth clause in Charlemagne's

will says:

"If any of our grandsons, born or to be born, be accused, we order

that their heads be not shaved, their eyes not put out, their limbs

not cut off, nor they condemned to death without fair argument and

enquiry."

One emperor of Germany, I know not which, on being deposed, asked only

for the sovereignty of a vineyard for which he had an affection.

[Sidenote: Rastibon.]

At Ratisbon, in former days the factory of sovereigns, they used to

coin emperors, often of inferior standard; this industry has died away:

one of Bonaparte's battles and the Prince Primate, the insipid courtier

of our universal Gendarme, have failed to resuscitate the dying city.

The Regensburghers, dressed and slovenly like the people of Paris, have

no particular physiognomy. The town, in the absence of a sufficient

number of inhabitants, is dull; grass and thistles are laying siege

to its suburbs: soon they will have hoisted their plumes and their

lances on its turrets. Kepler[535], who made the earth turn, as did

Copernicus[536], sleeps for ever at Ratisbon.

We left by the bridge on the Prague Road, a greatly extolled and very

ugly bridge. On quitting the basin of the Danube, one climbs steep

inclines: Kirn, the first stage, is perched on a rough slope from the

top of which, through watery mists, I discerned dead hills and pale

valleys. The facial aspect of the peasants changes; the children,

yellow and bloated, have a sickly look. From Kirn to Waldmünchen, the

poverty of the landscape increases: one sees few more hamlets; only

huts made of pine logs, plastered with mud, as on the more barren necks

of the Alps.

France is the heart of Europe; as one goes further from it, social life

decreases: a man might judge the distance at which he is from Paris by

the greater or lesser languor of the country to which he is retiring.

In Spain and Italy, the diminution in movement and the progress of

death are less noticeable: in the former country, a new people, a new

world, Christian Arabs occupy your attention; in the latter, the charms

of climate and art, the enchantment of love and ruins leave you no time

for depression. But, in England, despite the perfection of physical

society, in Germany, despite the morality of the inhabitants, one feels

one's self die. In Austria and Prussia, the military yoke weighs upon

your ideas, even as the sunless sky weighs upon your head; something, I

know not what, admonishes you that you cannot write, speak, nor think

with independence; that you must lop off from your existence the whole

of the nobler portion, leaving man's chief faculty to lie idle within

you, as a useless gift of God. No arts, no beauties of nature come to

beguile your hours and there is nothing left to you but to plunge into

gross debauchery or into those speculative truths in which the Germans

indulge. For a Frenchman, at least for me, this manner of existence

is impossible; without dignity, I fail to understand life, which is

difficult to understand even with all the seductions of liberty, glory

and youth.

However, one thing charms me in the German people: its religious

sentiment. If I were not too tired, I would leave the inn at Nittenau,

where I am pencilling this diary; I would go to the evening prayer with

those men, women and children whom a church calls with the sound of its

bell. That crowd, seeing me on my knees in its midst, would welcome me

by virtue of the unity of a common faith. When will the day come when

Philosophers in their temple shall bless a Philosopher newly-arrived

by the post, and offer up a like prayer with that stranger to a God

respecting whom all Philosophers are in disagreement? The rosary of the

parish-priest is safer: I stand by that.

21 _May._

Waldmünchen, where I arrived on Tuesday morning, the 21st of May, is

the last Bavarian village on this side of Bohemia. I was congratulating

myself on being able promptly to fulfil my mission; I was only fifty

leagues from Prague. I plunged into water cold as ice, I made my toilet

at a spring, like an ambassador preparing for a triumphal entry; I set

out and, half a league from Waldmünchen, full of confidence I accosted

the Austrian custom-house. A lowered toll-gate barred the road; I got

down with Hyacinthe, his red ribbon blazing. A young custom-house

officer, armed with a musket, took us to the ground-floor of a

house, into a vaulted room. There, sitting at his desk, as though in

court, was an old and fat chief of German customs, with red hair, red

mustachios, thick eye-brows, sloping over two greenish, half-opened

eyes, and a spiteful look: a mixture of the Viennese police-spy and the

Bohemian smuggler.

[Sidenote: Delayed at the Customs.]

He took our passports without uttering a word; the young official

timidly handed me a chair, while the chief, before whom he seemed to

tremble, examined the passports. I did not sit down, but went to look

at some pistols hanging on the wall and a carbine leaning against a

corner of the room: it reminded me of the musket with which the aga of

the Isthmus of Corinth fired on the Greek peasant. After five minutes'

silence, the Austrian barked out two or three words which my Baslese

translated thus:

"You can't pass."

What! I couldn't pass; and why? The explanation began:

"Your description is not on the passport."

"My passport is a Foreign-Office passport"

"Your passport is an old one."

"It is not a year old; it is legally valid."

"It has not been endorsed at the Austrian Embassy in Paris."

"You are mistaken: it has."

"It has not the blank stamp on it."

"An omission on the part of the embassy; you can see, besides, that

it has the _visa_ of the other foreign legations. I have just passed

through the Canton of Basle, the Grand-duchy of Baden, the Kingdom of

Wurtemberg, the whole of Bavaria, and I have not met with the smallest

difficulty. I had merely to declare my name, and my passport was not

even opened."

"Have you a public character?"

"I have been a minister in France and His Most Christian Majesty's

Ambassador to Berlin, London and Rome. I am known personally to your

Sovereign and to Prince Metternich."

"You can't pass."

"Shall I leave you a security? Will you give me a guard who will be

responsible for me?"

"You can't pass."

"If I send an express to the Bohemian Government?"

"As you please."

I lost my patience; I began to wish the custom-house officer at the

devil. As ambassador of a king on his throne, I should not have minded

a few hours wasted; but as ambassador of a Princess in irons, I thought

myself faithless to misfortune, a traitor to my captive Sovereign.

The man was writing: the Baslese did not translate my monologue, but

there are certain French words which our soldiers have taught Austria

and which she has not forgotten. I said to the interpreter:

"Explain to him that I am going to Prague to offer my devotion to the

King of France."

The custom-house officer, without interrupting his writing, answered:

"Charles X. is not King of France for Austria."

I retorted:

"He is for me."

These words flung back to the Cerberus seemed to make some impression

on him; he eyed me up and down. I thought that his long annotation

might, in the last result, be a favourable _visa._ He scrawled

something on Hyacinthe's passport as well and returned the whole to

the interpreter. It appeared that the _visa_ was an explanation of the

reasons which did not permit him to allow me to continue my road, so

that not only was it impossible for me to go to Prague, but my passport

was stamped as bad for the other places to which I might repair. I

climbed back into the calash and said to the postillion:

"Waldmünchen."

My return did not surprise the landlord of the inn. He spoke a little

French; he told me that a similar thing had happened before: foreigners

had been obliged to stop at Waldmünchen and to send their passports to

Munich to be endorsed at the Austrian Legation. My host, a very worthy

man, was the postmaster of the village and undertook to forward to the

Grand Burgrave of Bohemia[537] the letter of which the following is a

copy:

[Sidenote: Letter to Count Von Chotek.]

WALDMÜNCHEN, 21 _May_ 1833.

"MONSIEUR LE GOUVERNEUR,

"Having the honour to be known personally to His Majesty the

Emperor of Austria and to M. le Prince de Metternich, I thought

that I could travel in the Austrian State with a passport which,

being not yet one year old, was still legally valid and which had

been endorsed by the Austrian Ambassador in Paris for Switzerland

and Italy. As a matter of fact, monsieur le comte, I have travelled

through Germany and my name has been sufficient to allow me to

pass. Only this morning, the gentleman at the head of the Austrian

custom-house at Haselbach did not think himself authorized to be

equally accommodating and this for the reasons set forth in his

_visa_ on my passport, enclosed, and on that of M. Pilorge, my

secretary. He has compelled me, to my great regret, to retrace

my steps to Waldmünchen, where I await your orders. I venture to

hope, monsieur le comte, that you will be good enough to remove the

little difficulty which stops me, by sending me, by the express

which I have the honour of dispatching to you, the necessary

permission to go to Prague and thence to Vienna.

"I am, monsieur le gouverneur, with high regard,

"Your most humble and most obedient servant,

"CHATEAUBRIAND."

"Pray pardon, monsieur le comte, the liberty which I am taking of

enclosing an open note for M. le Duc de Blacas."

Some little pride appears in this letter: I was hurt; I was as

much humiliated as Cicero, when, on his return in triumph from his

government of Asia, his friends asked him if he came from Baiæ or from

his house at Tusculum. What! My name, which flew from pole to pole,

had not reached the ears of a custom-house officer in the mountains at

Haselbach! A thing which seems all the more cruel when one thinks of my

successes at Basle. In Bavaria, I had been addressed as "My Lord" or

"Your Excellency;" a Bavarian officer, at Waldmünchen, said aloud, in

the inn, that my name required no _visa_ from an Austrian ambassador.

Those were great consolations, I admit; but, after all, a sad truth

remained: the world contained a man who had never heard speak of me.

Who knows, however, if the Haselbach customs-officer did not know me a

little! The police of all countries are so affectionately related! A

politician who neither admires nor approves of the Treaties of Vienna,

a Frenchman who loves the honour and liberty of France, who remains

faithful to the fallen power, might well be on the index in Vienna.

What a noble revenge to deal with M. de Chateaubriand as with one of

those bagmen so suspicious to the spies! What a sweet satisfaction to

treat as a vagabond whose papers are not in order an envoy charged to

carry traitor-wise to a banished child the adieus of his captive mother!

The express left Waldmünchen on the 21st, at eleven o'clock in the

morning; I calculated that it could be back on the second day, the

23rd, between twelve and four; but my imagination was at work: what

was to be the fate of my message? If the Governor was a strong man and

a man of the world, he would send me the permit; if he was a timid

and unintelligent man, he would reply that my request did not come

within his powers, he would hasten to refer it to Vienna. This little

incident might at the same time please and displease Prince Metternich.

I knew how he feared the newspapers; I had seen him at Verona leave the

most important business and lock himself up distractedly with M. de

Gentz[538] to draft out an article in reply to the _Constitutionnel_

and the _Débats._ How many days would elapse before the Imperial

Minister's orders were transmitted?

On the other hand, would M. de Blacas[539] be glad to see me at Prague?

Would not M. de Damas[540] think that I had come to dethrone him?

Would M. le Cardinal de Latil[541] be quite free from anxiety? Would

not the triumvirate turn my mishap to account to have the doors closed

against me instead of opened to me? Nothing easier: a word in the

Governor's ear, a word of which I should never know! In what a state

of anxiety would my friends be in Paris! When the adventure was noised

abroad, what would not the newspapers make of it! What wild statements

would they not indulge in!

[Sidenote: Waldmünchen.]

And, if the Grand Burgrave did not think fit to reply to me, if he

were away, if no one dared act in his absence, what would become of

me without a passport? Where could I be sure of being recognised? At

Munich? In Vienna? What postmaster would give me horses? I should be

practically a prisoner at Waldmünchen.

Those are the cares that passed through my brain. I thought besides

of my remoteness from what was dear to me: I have too short a time to

live to waste that little. Horace said, "_Carpe diem_:" a counsel of

pleasure at twenty, of reason at my age.

Tired of "ruminating on every case in my head," I heard the noise of a

crowd outside; my inn stood on the village square. I looked through the

window and saw a priest carrying the Last Sacraments to a dying man.

What mattered to that dying man the affairs of kings, of their servants

and of the world? Every one left his work and started to follow the

priest; young women, old women, children, mothers with their babies

in their arms repeated the prayer for the dying. On reaching the sick

man's door, the priest gave the benediction with the Holy Viaticum.

The by-standers knelt down and made the Sign of the Cross with lowered

heads. The pass-port to Eternity will not be disowned by Him who

distributes bread and opens the hostel to the traveller.

Although I had not been to bed for seven days, I was unable to stay

indoors; it was only a little past one: leaving the village on the

Ratisbon side, I caught sight of a white chapel, on the right, in the

middle of a corn-field; I went in that direction. The door was locked;

through a sloping window one saw an altar with a cross. The date of the

erection of that sanctuary, 1830, was inscribed on the architrave: a

monarchy was being overthrown in Paris while a chapel was being erected

at Waldmünchen. The three banished generations were to come to live in

a place of exile within fifty leagues of the new shelter raised to the

King crucified. Millions of events are realized at one and the same

time: what does a black man sleeping under a palm-tree on the bank of

the Niger care for the white man who falls at the same moment under

the dagger on the shore of the Tiber? What does he who weeps in Asia

care for him who laughs in Europe? What did the mason who built this

chapel, the Bavarian priest who exalted that Christ in 1830 care for

the demolisher of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, the feller of the crosses

in 1830? Events count only for those who suffer through them or benefit

by them; they are nothing to those who have not heard of them, who are

not touched by them. A certain race of herdsmen, in the Abruzzi, has

witnessed, without descending from its mountain, the passage of the

Carthaginians, the Gauls, the Romans, the Goths, the generations of the

middle-ages and the men of the present age. That race has not mingled

with the successive dwellers in the valley, and religion alone has

mounted up to it.

Returning to the inn, I flung myself on two chairs, in the hope of

sleeping; but in vain: the movement of my imagination was stronger

than my lassitude. I repeated the contents of my express over and over

again: dinner did not affect the matter. I went to bed amid the lowing

of the herds returning from the fields. At ten o'clock, a new noise:

the watchman sang the hour; fifty dogs barked, after which they went to

their kennels as though the watchman had ordered them to be silent: I

recognised German discipline.

Civilization has made progress in Germany since my journey to Berlin:

the beds are now almost long enough for a man of ordinary stature;

but the top sheet is still sewn to the blanket and the bottom sheet,

which is too narrow, ends by twisting and curling up in such a way

as to make you very uncomfortable; and, since I am in the country of

Auguste Lafontaine[542], I will imitate his genius: I want to inform

the latest posterity of what existed in my time in the room of my inn

at Waldmünchen. Know then, grand-nephews, that that room was like an

Italian room, with bare, white-washed walls, without any wood-work or

hangings, a wide coloured band or skirting at the bottom, a ceiling

with a circle of three fillets, a cornice painted with blue roses with

a garland of chocolate-coloured laurel-leaves and, above the cornice,

on the wall, foliage painted in red on an American-green ground. Here

and there, little French and English engravings, in frames. Two windows

with white cotton curtains. Between the windows, a looking-glass. In

the middle of the room, a table for at least twelve people, covered

with an oil-cloth with a raised ground, stamped with roses and

different flowers. Six chairs upholstered in red tartan. A chest of

drawers, three bedsteads round the room; in a corner, near the door,

a stove in black glazed earthen-ware, of which the sides show the

Bavarian arms in relief; it is topped with a receiver shaped like a

Gothic crown. The door is furnished with a complicated iron mechanism

capable of closing the gates of a gaol and baffling the picklocks of

thieves or lovers. I describe, for the benefit of travellers, the

excellent room in which I am writing this inventory, which competes

with the Miser's[543]; I recommend it to future Legitimists who may

be stopped by the red-headed wild-goat of Haselbach. This page of my

Memoirs will give pleasure to the modern literary school.

[Sidenote: My room at the Inn.]

After counting, by the light of the night-lamp, the astragals of the

ceiling and looking at the engravings of the _Young Milanese_, the

_Beautiful Greeks_, the _Young Frenchwoman_, the _Young Russian_, the

late King of Bavaria[544], the late Queen of Bavaria[545], who is

like a lady whom I know and whose name I cannot possibly remember, I

snatched a few minutes' sleep. I rose from bed at 7 o'clock on the

22nd. A bath took away the rest of my fatigue and I was interested only

in my village, like Captain Cook discovering an islet in the Pacific

Ocean.

Waldmünchen is built on the slope of a hill; it is not unlike a

dilapidated village in the Papal States: a few house-fronts painted

in fresco, an archway at either end of the main street, no ostensible

shops, a dry well in the square, a frightful pavement of large flags

mixed with small pebbles, of the kind which one no longer sees except

in "the neighbourhood of Quimper-Corentin."

The people, whose appearance is rustic, wear no special dress. The

women go with their heads bare or wrapped in a handkerchief in the

manner of the Paris milk-maids; their skirts are short; they walk with

Bare legs and feet, as do the children. The men are dressed, some like

the men of the people in our towns, some like our old peasants. Heaven

be praised, they have only hats, and the filthy cotton caps of our

burgesses are unknown to them.

Every day, _ut mos_, there is a performance at Waldmünchen and I used

to assist at it in the front row. At six o'clock in the morning, an

old shepherd, tall and lean, goes through the village, stopping at

different places; he blows a straight horn, six feet long, which one

would take at a distance for a speaking-trumpet or a sheep-hook. He

first produces three metallic and rather harmonious notes from it; then

he sounds the quick tune of a sort of gallop or _ranz des vaches_,

imitating the lowing of oxen and the grunting of pigs. The fanfare ends

with a long, rising _falsetto_ note.

Suddenly from every gate debouch cows, heifers, calves, bulls;

bellowing, they flood the village-square; they climb up or descend

from all the circumjacent streets and, forming into columns, take

the accustomed road to the pasturage. Follows the prancing squadron

of swine, which look like wild boars and grunt The sheep and lambs,

disposed as a rearguard, form the third part of the concert with their

bleating; the geese compose the reserve: in a quarter of an hour all

are out of sight

At seven o'clock in the evening, the horn is heard again; it is the

herds returning. The order of the march is changed: the pigs form the

van-guard, with the same music as before; a few, detached as scouts,

run at hap-hazard or stop at every corner. The sheep defile; the cows,

with their sons, daughters and husbands, bring up the rear; the geese

waddle on the flanks. All these animals reach their own homes again,

none mistakes its gate; but there are Cossacks that go marauding,

madcaps that play about and refuse to go in, young bulls that persist

in remaining with a mate which does not belong to their manger. Then

come the women and children with their little switches; they compel

the stragglers to rejoin the main body and the rebellious recruits

to submit to the rules. I delighted in this performance, just as,

formerly, Henry IV., at Chauny, used to be amused by the cow-keeper

called "Tout-le-Monde," who collected his herds to the sound of the

trumpet

[Sidenote: A study in Cattle.]

Many years ago, staying at the Château de Fervacques, in Normandy, at

Madame de Custine's, I occupied the bed-room of Henry IV.: my bed was

enormous; the Bearnese had slept in it with some Florette or other: I

gained royalism there, for I did not have it by nature. Moats filled

with water surround the castle. The view from my window spread over

meadows edged by the little River Fervacques. In those meadows I

perceived, one morning, an elegant sow of extraordinary whiteness; it

looked as though it might be the mother of Prince Marcassin. It lay at

the foot of a willow, on the cool grass, in the dew: a young boar-pig

gathered a little fine, serrate moss with its ivory tusks and came to

lay it on the sleeper; it repeated this operation so many times that

the white wild-sow was entirely hidden: one saw only its black feet

stick out from under the downy verdure in which it was buried.

Be this told to the glory of an ill-famed beast of which I should

blush to have spoken at too great length, if Homer had not sung it I

perceive, in fact, that this part of my Memoirs is nothing less than

an Odyssey: Waldmünchen is Ithaca; the shepherd is the faithful Eumæus

with his swine; I am the son of Laertes, returning after wandering on

land and sea. I should, perhaps, have done better to intoxicate myself

with the nectar of Evanthes, to eat the flower of the moly-plant, to

linger in the land of the Lotus-eaters, to remain with Circe, or to

obey the song of the Syrens saying:

"Approach, come to us!"

22 _May_ 1833.

If I were twenty years old, I should seek some adventures at

Waldmünchen, as a means of shortening the hours; but, at my age, we

have no silk ladders left, save in our memory, and we no longer scale

walls except with the shadows. Formerly, I was very intimate with my

body; I used to advise it to live wisely, in order to show itself quite

lively and quite jolly in forty years' time. It laughed at the sermons

of my soul, persisted in making merry and would not have given two

doits to be one day what is called "a well-preserved man:"

"Out upon you!" it used to say. "What have I to gain by being niggardly

with my spring, in order to enjoy life's days when there will be none

left to care to share them with me?" And it steeped itself over head

and ears in happiness.

I am obliged, therefore, to accept it as it now is: I took it for

a walk, on the 22nd, to the south-east of the village. We followed

through the marshes a little water-current which put some works in

motion. They manufacture linen at Waldmünchen; breadths of linen were

unrolled on the fields; young girls whose business it was to damp them

ran bare-foot on the white strips, preceded by the water that spouted

from their watering-pots, just as gardeners would water a border of

flowers. Along the stream I thought of my friends, I was touched by

their memory; then I asked what they must be saying of me in Paris:

"Has he arrived? Has he seen the Royal Family? Will he come back soon?"

And I was deliberating as to whether I would not send Hyacinthe to

fetch some fresh butter and brown bread, in order to eat cress at the

edge of a spring under a tuft of alder-shoots. My life was no more

ambitious than that: why has Fortune fastened the skirt of my doublet

to her wheel with the hem of the mantle of our Kings?

Returning to the village, I passed near the church: two outer

sanctuaries prop up the wall; one of these shows St. Peter ad Vincula,

with a poor-box for the prisoners: I dropped in a few kreutzers

in memory of the Pellico's[546] prison and of my own cell at the

Prefecture of Police. The other sanctuary showed the scene in the

Garden of Olives: a scene so touching and so sublime that it is not

destroyed even here by the grotesqueness of the figures.

I hurried through my dinner and hastened to the evening prayer for

which I heard them ringing. As I turned the corner of the narrow street

in which the church stands, a vista opened out over some distant hills:

a little light still lingered on the horizon, and that dying light

came from the side of France. A profound feeling gripped my heart

When shall my pilgrimage be over? I passed through Germanic territory

very miserably, when I was returning from the Army of the Princes,

very triumphantly when, as Ambassador of Louis XVIII., I was going

to Berlin: after so many and such different years, I was penetrating

stealthily into the depths of that same Germany to seek the King of

France banished anew.

[Sidenote: An evening service.]

I entered the church: it was quite dark; not even a lighted lamp.

Through the blackness, I recognised the sanctuary, standing in a Gothic

recess, only through its thicker gloom. The walls, the altars, the

pillars seemed to me laden with ornaments and pictures veiled in crape;

the nave was occupied by close-set parallel benches.

An old woman was reciting aloud, in German, the _Our Father_ of the

rosary; women, young and old, whom I could not see, replied with

the _Hail Marys._ The old woman spoke her words well, her voice was

clear, her accent grave and pathetic; she was two benches away from

me; her head bent slightly in the dusk each time she uttered the

word Christo in some prayer which she added to the _Our Father._ The

rosary was followed by the Litany of the Blessed Virgin: the _Ora pro

nobis_, chanted in German by the invisible worshippers, sounded in

my ear like a repetition of the word "hope:" "_espérance, espérance,

espérance!_[547]" We left the church promiscuously; I went to sleep

with Hope: it was long since I had clasped her in my arms; but she does

not grow older and one always loves her, despite her infidelities.

According to Tacitus, the Germans believe the night to be older than

the day: _nox ducere diem videtur._ Yet I have reckoned young nights

and sempiternal days. The poets tell us also that Sleep is the brother

of Death: I do not know; but Old Age is certainly its nearest relation.

23 _May_ 1833.

On the morning of the 23rd, Heaven mingled some sweetness with my

pains: Baptiste told me that the most eminent man of the place, the

brewer, had three daughters and owned my works, set out in a row

among his beer-jugs. When I went out, this gentleman and two of his

daughters watched me go by: what was the third young lady doing? In

former days, a letter had come to me from Peru, written with her own

hand by a lady, a cousin of the sun, who admired _Atala_; but to be

known at Waldmünchen, under the very nose of the wolf of Haselbach,

was a thousand times more glorious: it was true that this occurred in

Bavaria, at a league from Austria, the curse of my renown. Do you know

what would have happened if my trip to Bohemia had been taken out of

my own head alone: but why should I have wanted to go to Bohemia for

myself only? Once I had been stopped at the frontier, I should have

gone back to Paris. There was a man who contemplated a voyage to Pekin;

one of his friends met him on the Pont Royal in Paris:

"Why, I thought you were in China!"

"I have come back: those Chinamen put difficulties in my way at Canton,

so I left them in the lurch."

While Baptiste was telling me of my triumphs, the passing-bell of a

funeral called me to my window. The priest went by, preceded by the

cross; men and women crowded after, the men in cloaks, the women in

black gowns and mob-caps. The corpse, taken up at the third door

from mine, was carried to the grave-yard: half-an-hour later, the

procession-goers returned, _minus_ the procession. Two young women held

their handkerchiefs to their eyes, one of the two uttered loud cries:

they were mourning their father; the deceased was the man who had

received the Viaticum on the day of my arrival.

If my Memoirs reach Waldmünchen, when I myself am no more, the family

in mourning to-day will find the date of its sorrow past. Perhaps, as

he lay on his bed, the dying man heard the noise of my carriage: it is

the only noise of me that he will have heard upon earth.

After the crowd had dispersed, I took the road which I had seen the

funeral take in the direction of the winter sunrise. I found first a

fish-pond of stagnant water, beside which a stream flowed rapidly, like

life beside the tomb. Crosses on the other side of a rising ground

showed me the position of the cemetery. I crossed a sunk road and made

my way, through a gap in the wall, into the consecrated ground.

Clay furrows represented the bodies under the soil; here and there

stood crosses: they marked outlets through which the travellers had

entered the new world, even as beacons at the mouth of a river indicate

the passages open to ships. A poor old man was digging the grave of a

child: alone, perspiring and bare-headed, he did not sing, he did not

jest like the clowns in Hamlet. Further away was another grave, near

which one saw a stool, a lever and a rope for the descent into Eternity.

I went straight up to this grave, which seemed to say:

"Here is a fine opportunity!"

At the bottom of the hole lay the recent coffin, covered with a few

shovelfuls of white dust, while awaiting the rest. A piece of linen

was gleaming upon the grass: the dead took care of their shroud. Far

from his country, the Christian has it always in his power suddenly

to waft himself there; he has but to visit man's last resting-place

around the churches: the cemetery is the family field and religion the

universal mother-land.

It was noon when I returned; by every calculation, the express could

not be back before three o'clock; nevertheless every stamping of horses

made me run to the window: as the hour approached, I grew convinced

that the permit would not come.

To destroy the time, I asked for my bill; I set myself to reckon up the

chickens I had eaten: a greater than I did not disdain this trouble.

Henry Tudor, seventh of the name, in whom ended the Wars of the Roses,

red and white, even as I am going to unite the white and the tricolour

cockades, Henry VII.[548] initialled one after the other the pages of a

little account-book which I have seen:

"To a woman for three apples, 12 pence; for discovering three

hares, 6 shillings 8 pence; to Master Bernard, the blind poet,

100 shillings [this was better than Homer]; to a little man at

Shaftesbury, 20 shillings."

We have many little men to-day, but they cost more than twenty

shillings.

[Sidenote: Country road to Waldmünchen.]

At three o'clock, the hour at which the express might be back, I went

with Hyacinthe along the road to Haselbach. It was a windy day, the

sky was strewn with clouds that passed across the sun, casting their

shadows over the fields and fir-groves. We were preceded by a herd of

cattle from the village, which raised, as it went, the noble dust of

the army of the Grand-duke of Quirocia, to which the Knight of the

Mancha so valiantly gave battle[549]. A Calvary rose at the top of one

of the ascents of the road; from there one discerned a long ribbon of

the high-way. Seated in a ravine, I questioned Hyacinthe:

"Sister Anne, seest thou no one coming?"

Some village carts seen from afar made our hearts beat; as they

approached, they proved to be empty, like everything that bears dreams.

I had to return home and dine very sadly. A plank offered after the

shipwreck: the diligence was to pass at six o'clock; might it not bring

the Governor's reply? Six o'clock struck: no diligence. At a quarter

past six, Baptiste entered the room:

"The ordinary post from Prague has just arrived; there is nothing for

Monsieur."

The last ray of hope was extinguished.

Scarcely had Baptiste left my room, when Schwartz appeared, waving a

big letter, with a big seal, in the air and shouting:

"Here is de bermid!"

I threw myself upon the dispatch; I tore open the envelope: it

contained, together with a letter from the Governor, the permit and a

note from M. de Blacas. Here is M. le Comte de Chotek's letter:

"PRAGUE, 23 _May_ 1833.

"MONSIEUR LE VICOMTE,

"I much regret that, at your entrance into Bohemia, you should have

met with difficulties and a delay in your journey. But, in view

of the very severe orders prevailing on our frontiers regarding

all the travellers who come from France, orders which you yourself

must think very natural in the circumstances, I cannot but approve

of the conduct of the head of the customs at Haselbach. In spite

of the quite European celebrity of your name, you must be so good

as to excuse this official, who has not the honour to know you

personally, if he had doubts as to the identity of your person,

the more so as your passport was endorsed only for Lombardy, and

not for all the Austrian States. As to your plan for travelling

to Vienna, I am writing about it to-day to Prince Metternich and

will hasten to communicate his reply to you immediately after your

arrival in Prague.

"I have the honour to send you herewith the reply of M. le Duc de

Blacas and I beg you to be good enough to accept the assurance of

the high regard with which I have the honour to be, etc.

"The Comte de CHOTEK."

This reply was polite and proper: the Government could not abandon the

inferior authority, which had, after all, done its duty. I had myself,

in Paris, foreseen the cavilling of which my old passport might become

the cause. As for Vienna, I had referred to it with a political object,

in order to set M. le Comte de Chotek's mind at rest and show him that

I was not trying to avoid the Prince de Metternich.

[Sidenote: I receive my permit.]

At eight o'clock in the evening, on Thursday the 23rd of May[550],

I drove off. Who would believe it: I left Waldmünchen with a sort

of regret! I had already grown used to my hosts; my hosts had grown

accustomed to me. I knew all the faces at the windows and doors;

when I walked out, they used to welcome me with a kindly air. The

neighbourhood came running up to witness the departure of my calash, as

dilapidated as was the monarchy of Hugh Capet. The men took off their

hats, the women gave me a little nod of congratulation. My adventure

was the subject of the village gossip; every one took my part: the

Bavarians and the Austrians detest one another; the first were proud at

having allowed me to pass.

I had often noticed, standing on the threshold of her cottage, a young

Waldmünchen girl with a face like a Virgin in Raphael's first manner.

Her father, with the peasant's civil bearing, used to take off his

broad-brimmed felt hat to the ground to me and give me a greeting in

German which I returned cordially in French: standing behind him, his

daughter used to blush as she looked at me over the old man's shoulder.

I caught sight of my virgin again, but she was alone. I waved good-bye

to her with my hand; she remained motionless; she seemed astonished; I

tried to imagine I know not what vague regrets in her thought: I left

her like a wild flower which one has seen in a ditch by the road-side

and which has scented one's way. I passed the flocks of Eumæus; he

uncovered his head grown grey in the service of the sheep. He had

finished his day's work; he was returning to sleep with his ewes, while

Ulysses went to continue his wanderings.

I had said to myself, before receiving the permit:

"If I get it, I shall crush my persecutor."

On arriving at Haselbach, it happened to me, as to George Dandin,

that my accursed good-nature was too much for me[551]; I had no heart

for the triumph. Like a real poltroon, I cowered in a comer of the

carriage, and Schwartz showed the order from the Governor; I should

have suffered too much from the customs-officer's confusion. He, on

his side, did not appear and did not even have my trunk searched. Peace

be with him! Let him pardon me for the insults which I addressed to

him, but which, owing to a remnant of spite, I will not erase from my

Memoirs.

As one leaves Bavaria on that side, a vast black forest of pine-trees

serves as a porch to Bohemia. Mists hovered in the valleys, the

light was fading and the sky, towards the west, was the colour of

peach-blossoms; the horizons fell till they almost touched the earth.

Light is lacking at that latitude and, with light, life; all is dim,

wintry, pale; winter seems to charge summer to keep the hoar-frost for

it until its speedy return. A small piece of the moon, which shone

faintly, pleased me; all was not lost, since I found a face that I

knew. It seemed to say to me:

"What? Are you there? Do you remember how I saw you in other forests?

Do you remember the pretty things you used to say to me when you were

young? Really, you used to talk very nicely about me. Why are you so

silent now? Where are you going alone and so late? Will you never end

recommencing your career?"

O moon, you are right; but, if I did speak of your charms, you know

the services which you used to do me: you used to light my steps, at

the time when I wandered with my phantom of love; to-day, my head is

silvered like your face, and you are surprised to find me solitary!

And you scorn me! Yet I have spent whole nights wrapped in your veils:

dare you deny our meetings on the lawns and by the sea-side? How often

have you looked upon my eyes passionately fixed on yours! Ungrateful

and mocking planet, you ask me where I am going so late: it is hard to

be reproached with the continuation of my journeys. Ah, if I travel

as much as you, I do not grow young again as you do, you who return

monthly into the brilliant circle of your cradle! I reckon no new

moons: my abatement has no limit other than my complete disappearance

and, when I go out, I shall not rekindle my torch as you do yours.

I travelled all night; I passed through Teinitz, Stankau and Staab. In

the morning of the 24th, I went on to Pilsen, the "beautiful barrack,"

Homeric style. The town is stamped with that air of melancholy which

prevails in this country. At Pilsen, Wallenstein[552] hoped to seize a

sceptre: I too was in quest of a crown, but not for myself.

The country is cut and slashed with heights called Bohemian mountains:

paps whose tip is marked by pine-trees and whose swelling outlined by

the green of the harvests.

[Sidenote: And leave Bavaria.]

The villages are scarce. A few fortresses, hungering for prisoners,

roost on the rocks like old vultures. Between Zditz and Beraun, the

mountains on the right become bald. One goes through a village: the

roads are spacious, the posts well equipped; all points to a monarchy

that imitates Old France.

Johann the Blind[553], under Philip of Valois[554], the ambassadors of

George[555], under Louis XI.: by what forest paths did they pass? Of

what use are the modern roads of Germany? They will remain deserted,

for there is no history, art nor climate to call foreigners to their

lonely causeways. For purposes of commerce it is unnecessary that the

public thoroughfares should be so wide and so costly to keep in repair:

the richest trade in the world, that of India and Persia, is conducted

on the backs of mules, asses and horses, by narrow paths, hardly traced

over the mountain-chains or sandy zones. The present high-roads, in

unfrequented countries, will serve only for war, as vomitories for the

use of the new Barbarians who, issuing from the North with the immense

bustle of fire-arms, will come to flood regions favoured by intellect

and the sun.

At Beraun passes the little river of the same name, rather spiteful,

like all curs. In 1748, it rose to the level marked on the walls of

the post-house. After Beraun, gorges twist round a few hills and

spread out at the entrance to an upland. From this upland the road

plunges into a valley with vague lines, the lap of which is occupied

by a hamlet. There commences a long ascent which leads to Duschnik,

the posting-station and the last stage. Soon, descending towards an

opposite eminence, at the top of which stands a cross, one discerns

Prague, on both banks of the Moldau. It is in that town that the sons

of St. Louis are ending a life of exile, that the heir of their House

is beginning a life of proscription, while his mother languishes in

a fortress on the soil from which he has been driven. Frenchmen, you

have sent the daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette, her to whom

your fathers opened the gates of the Temple, to Prague: you have not

cared to keep among you that unique monument of greatness and virtue!

O my old King, you whom I love to call my master, because you have

fallen! O young lad, whom I was the first to proclaim King, what am I

to say to you? How shall I dare to appear in your presence, I who am

not banished, I who am free to return to France, free to return my last

breath to the air which fired my breast when I breathed for the first

time, I whose bones may rest in their native land. Captive of Blaye, I

am going to see your son!

[Footnote 496: This book was written, first, in Paris, on the 9th of

May 1833 and the following days, and then, from the 14th to the 24th of

May, on the road from Paris to Prague.--T.]

[Footnote 497: An erection of a similar character to the modern

switchback railway.--T.]

[Footnote 498: HOR.: _Od._ II, vi. 14.--T.]

[Footnote 499: LA FONTAINE:

"Pity and tears,

A sort of love not without charm."--T.]

[Footnote 500: St. Vincent of Paul (1576-1660) founded the Congregation

of Lazarists, or Mission Priests, in 1625, the Institution of Sisters

of Charity in 1634, and the Foundling Hospital in Paris in 1648. Still

later, he founded, in 1653, the Hospice of the Name of Jesus and, two

years later, the general hospital for the poor of Paris. St. Vincent

was canonized in 1737 and is honoured on the 19th of July.--T.]

[Footnote 501: _Cf._ the _Génie du Christianisme_, Part IV. Book I.

Chap. 8: _Des Rogations._--T.]

[Footnote 502: _Cf._ Vol. I. p. 106.--T.]

[Footnote 503: Gérard.--T.]

[Footnote 504: LOPE DE VEGA.--_Author's Note._]

[Footnote 505: Marie Victor Nicolas de Fay, Marquis de Latour-Maubourg

(1768-1850), was an officer in the Body-guard under Louis XVI. He

emigrated in 1792, returned to France after the 18 Brumaire, served

under Bonaparte in Egypt, Germany, Spain and Russia, and lost a leg

and thigh at Leipzig (16 October 1813). He was created a baron of

the Empire in 1808 and a count of the Empire in 1814. In the same

year, the Restoration created him a peer of France. He received a

marquisate in 1817 and was sent to London as Ambassador. In 1819, he

was appointed Minister for War and, in 1821, Governor of the Invalides.

Latour-Maubourg resigned his offices and his peerage after the

Revolution of 1830 and joined the Bourbons in exile. He was appointed

Governor to the Duc de Bordeaux (Henry V.) in 1835.--T.]

[Footnote 506: Olga Nicolaiëvna Grand duchess of Russia, later Queen of

Wurtemberg (1822-1892), married in 1846 to Charles Frederic Alexander

Prince Royal, later Charles I. King of Wurtemberg.--T.]

[Footnote 507: Maria Christina Albertina Carlotta of Saxe-Courlande,

Princess of Savoy-Carignan (1779-1851), married, first, Charles Emanuel

Ferdinand Prince of Savoy-Carignan, by whom she became the mother of

Prince Charles Albert, later King of Sardinia (_vide infra_). The

Prince of Carignan died in 1800 and his widow married the Prince de

Montléart.--T.]

[Footnote 508: Charles Albert King of Sardinia (1798-1849) succeeded

on the death, without male issue, of his cousin King Charles Felix,

in 1831. He abdicated, immediately after losing the Battle of Novara

against the Austrians (23 March 1849), in favour of his son Victor

Emanuel II. Charles Albert died, a few months after, at Oporto (28 July

1849).--T.]

[Footnote 509: Ettore Conte di Lucchesi-Palli (1805-1864) is described

by some genealogists as Marchese di Lucchesi-Palli di Campo Franco e

Pignatelli, Duca Della Gracia. He married the Duchesse de Berry in 1831

and had several children by her.--T.]

[Footnote 510: Francis I. King of the Two Sicilies (1777-1830).--T.]

[Footnote 511: Ferdinand II. King of the Two Sicilies (1810-1859),

half-brother to the Duchesse de Berry, had succeeded his father at the

death of the latter on the 8th of November 1830.--T.]

[Footnote 512: Charles Ferdinand Prince of Capua (1811-1862).--T.]

[Footnote 513: William I. King of the Netherlands had united Belgium

and Holland under his sceptre since 1815. But, after the Insurrection

of Brussels on the 25th August 1830, the Belgian Congress had voted

the deposal of the House of Orange-Nassau. On the 21st of July 1831,

Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg was elected and proclaimed King of

the Belgians. William I. continued to hold the Citadel of Antwerp,

refused to recognise the new kingdom and persisted in his resistance

even after the Siege of Antwerp and the capitulation of the citadel

(23 December 1832). On the date when the Duchesse de Berry wrote her

Note (7 May 1833), he had not yet yielded. It was only on the 21st of

May that he signed a convention for the suspension of hostilities and

the resumption of navigation on the Scheldt and the Meuse. He did not

definitely agree to the separation of Holland and Belgium until five

years later, in 1838. He abdicated in 1840, was succeeded by his son,

William II., the Prince of Orange mentioned above, and died suddenly,

in Berlin, on the 12th of December 1843, in his seventy-first year.--T.]

[Footnote 514: Queen Marie-Thérèse (the Dauphine-Duchesse

d'Angoulême).--T.]

[Footnote 515: The prefix of "My Lord" and "His Lordship," _Monseigneur

et sa seigneurie_, were borne by those nobles only who were peers of

France. Chateaubriand resigned his peerage, in 1830, by refusing to

take the oath of allegiance to Louis-Philippe.--T.]

[Footnote 516: The verse in the _Æneid_ (IX. 641) is as follows:

Macte nova virtute, puer! sic itur ad astra.

It was Statius who, slightly modifying Virgil's verse, said (_Th._ VII.

280):

Macte animo, generose puer! sic itur ad astra.

_Cf._ Vol. I, p. 56.--T.]

[Footnote 517: Serious troubles had lately broken out in the Canton

of Basle between the peasants of the country and the burgesses of the

town. The former claimed the right of a separate constitution and

administration, as the conditions of joint government offered them by

the town did not seem fair to them. Before long, the dispute came to an

armed quarrel, attended with some bloodshed.--B.]

[Footnote 518: Pierre Vidal (_d._ 1229), the Provençal troubadour, who

accompanied Richard Cœur-de-Lion to Cyprus in 1190.--T.]

[Footnote 519:

"Richer I with ribbon owed

To the favour of Raimbaude

Than King Richard with Poitiers

And with Tours and with Angiers."--T.]

[Footnote 520: Alphonsus II. of Este, Duke of Ferrara and Modena

(1533-1597), the patron and persecutor of Tasso and brother of Leonora

of Este (_vide infra_).--T.]

[Footnote 521: Leonora of Este (_d._ 1581), sister of Alphonsus II.

Tasso went mad for love of her in 1577.--T.]

[Footnote 522: They were lost to France by the second Napoleon in

1870.--T.]

[Footnote 523: Florio's MONTAIGNE, Booke II. Chap. 33: _The Historie of

Spurina._--T.]

[Footnote 524: Camille d'Hostun, Maréchal Duc de Tallart (1652-1728),

defeated the Imperials at Speyer, in 1703, and was beaten by

Marlborough and Prince Eugene at Blenheim, or Hochstadt, in 1704. He

was taken prisoner and carried to England, where he was kept captive

for eight years. During his stay in London, where he had before been

Ambassador, he intrigued to bring about Marlborough's disgrace. On his

return to France, he was created a duke and peer and, later, a member

of the Council of Regency. He became a minister of State under Louis

XV. and was a member of the Academy of Science, but not of the French

Academy, as Chateaubriand says in error.--B.]

[Footnote 525: John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722),

Captain-general of the English Forces from 1702 to 1711.--T.]

[Footnote 526: Anne Queen of Great Britain and Ireland (1655-1714),

long under the influence of Marlborough and his wife. This influence

did, in fact, come to an end in 1711, the year before Tallart's

release.--T.]

[Footnote 527: LA FONTAINE, _Le Paysan du Danube_:

"Upon his chin there grew a bushy beard;

His person shaggy and weird

Resembled a bear, but an unlicked bear at that."--T.]

[Footnote 528: Claudius Ptolemæus, known as Ptolemy (_fl._. 150), the

famous Alexandrian astronomer, geographer and mathematician:

"Ptolemy believed that the sun, planets and stars revolved round

the earth. His error in calculating the circumference of the globe

warranted Columbus in supposing that the distance from the western

coast of Europe to the eastern coast of Asia was about one-third

less than it actually is; and thus encouraged the enterprise which

led to the discovery of America" (JEBB: _Greek Literature_, Part

III. Chap. II.: _From Augustus to Justinian_).--T]

[Footnote 529: RACINE, _Mithridate_, Act III. sc. i.:

Doutez-vous que l'Euxin ne me porte en deux jours

Aux lieux où le Danube y vient finir son cours.

"Do you doubt that the Euxine will take me in two days

To the spot where the Danube its last tribute pays."--T.

"We are told that, on hearing these verses from _Mithridate_, an old

soldier, who had waged war in those countries, exclaimed aloud:

"'Yes, certainly, I doubt it.'

"He was quite right." (LA HARPE: _Cours de Littérature_, Part II. Book

i. Chap. 3.)-B.]

[Footnote 530: CHATEAUBRIAND: _Martyrs_, Book VII.--T.]

[Footnote 531: I omit a stanza of eight lines quoted from

Régnier-Desmarais.--T.]

[Footnote 532: George Neville, Archbishop of York (_circa_ 1433-1476),

a younger brother of Warwick the King-maker. He was Lord Chancellor

from 1460 to 1467 and became Archbishop of York in 1465.--T.]

[Footnote 533: There is a play upon words here which I cannot render:

_butor_, in French means a bittern and also a booby, a block-head, a

dolt.--T.]

[Footnote 534: _Cf._ the _Lettre à M. de Fontanes._--B.]

[Footnote 535: Johann Kepler (1571-1630), the German astronomer,

inventor of the laws of planetary motion known as Kepler's Laws and

author of _De Motibus Stella Martis_ (1609).--T.]

[Footnote 536: Copernicus (1473-1543), the founder of modern Astronomy

and author of _De Orbium Cœlestium Revolutionibus_ (1543).--T.]

[Footnote 537: Karl Count von Chotek (1783-1868) was appointed Governor

of the Tyrol in 1819, Court Chancellor in 1825 and Grand Burgrave of

Bohemia in 1826; he retained this post until 1843.--T.

The Marquis de Villeneuve speaks of Count von Chotek as follows, in his

Memoirs on Charles X. in exile:

"His title of Grand Burgrave corresponds in its functions with

those of our prefects, with less additional burdens and less

diversity in the matter of details. But his prefecture was a

whole kingdom. He ruled four millions of inhabitants. Although

he possessed an immense fortune, he occupied a modest house. His

political opinions bore a strong impress of Liberalism."--B.]

[Footnote 538: Friedrich von Gentz (1764-1832), a German publicist and

diplomatist (_Cf._ Vol. III. p. 79, n. 1), first in the Prussian and,

later, in the Austrian service, was Chief secretary at the Congresses

of Vienna (1814-1815), Aix-la-Chapelle (1818), Carlsbad and Vienna

(1819), Troppau (1820), Laibach (1821) and Verona (1822).--T.]

[Footnote 539: The Duc de Blacas d'Aulps (_cf._ Vol. III. p. 100, n. 1)

had followed King Charles X. into exile and exercised a preponderating

influence over the little Court in Prague. He died in Prague on the

17th of November 1839.--B.]

[Footnote 540: Anne Hyacinthe Maxence Baron de Damas (1785-1862) was

only six years old when he emigrated from France with his family. At

the age of ten, he was entered as a cadet in the artillery-school in

St. Petersburg; he served with distinction in the Russian Army and was

a brigadier-general in 1813. At the First Restoration, he was attached

to the Duc d'Angoulême as a lord of the Bed-chamber and aide-de-camp.

Louis XVIII. made him a lieutenant-general in 1815. In the Spanish

Campaign of 1823, at the head of a division, he handled his troops so

well that, at Llers and Llado (15 and 16 September), he captured a

whole column of the enemy. In reward for his services, the Baron de

Damas was created a peer of France, on the 9th of October 1823, and

appointed Minister for War on the 19th of the same month. One year

later, he succeeded Chateaubriand at the Foreign Office; and, in 1828,

he found himself involved in the fall of the Villèle Cabinet. In 1827,

after the death of the Duc de Rivière, he became Governor to the Duc

de Bordeaux, followed his pupil into exile, and retained his functions

till 1833. In 1834, he retired to his estate of Hautefort and devoted

the remainder of his life to passionate well-doing.--B.]

[Footnote 541: The Cardinal de Latil (_cf._ p. 18, n. 3, _supra_) was

First Chaplain to Charles X., followed his master into exile, and did

not return to France until 1836, after the King's death. He himself

died in 1839, in the same year as the Duc de Blacas.--B.]

[Footnote 542: August Heinrich Julius Lafontaine (1759-1831), author

of a number of novels of a domestic character which attained a great

popularity.--T.]

[Footnote 543: _Cf._ MOLIÈRE: L'_Avare_, Act II. sc. i.--T.]

[Footnote 544: Maximilian I. King of Bavaria (1756-1825).--T.]

[Footnote 545: Maria Wilhelmina Augusta of Hesse-Dannstadt, Queen of

Bavaria (1765-1796), is, I presume, the Queen referred to: Maximilian's

second consort, Frederica Carolina Wilhelmina of Baden (1776-1841) did

not die till eight years later.--T.]

[Footnote 546: Silvio Pellico (1788-1854), an Italian poet and

prose-writer, arrested as a _Carbonaro_ in 1820 and imprisoned for two

years in Milan and Venice. In 1822, he was condemned to death, but his

sentence was commuted and he was kept as a prisoner, from 1822 to 1830,

at the Spielberg, near Brünn. Pellico's chief works are his tragedies,

_Francesca da Rimini_ and _Laodamia_, and his autobiographical work,

_Le mie Prigioni_ (1833), which achieved an immense popularity

throughout Europe.--T.]

[Footnote 547: The two last syllables of the German _Bitte für uns!_

and the French _espérance_ form a rough rhyme.--T.]

[Footnote 548: Henry VII. King of England (1457-1509) united the Houses

of Lancaster (in his own person) and York (in that of his wife, Queen

Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV.). He was noted for his avarice.--T.]

[Footnote 549: _Cf._ CERVANTES: _El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la

Mancha_, Part I. Chap. 18.--T.]

[Footnote 550: And not Thursday the 24th, as the earlier editions have

it.--B.]

[Footnote 551: _Cf._ MOLIÈRE: _George Dandin_, Act. III. sc. 10.--T.]

[Footnote 552: Albrecht Eusebius von Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland,

Mecklemburg and Sagan (1583-1634), the famous Austrian general. There

is little or no doubt that he was contemplating treachery and intending

to make himself independent in Bohemia, when he was outlawed by the

Emperor Ferdinand II., in January 1634. He was on the point of going

over to the Swedes, who were then on the borders of Bohemia, when he

was assassinated, at Eger, on the 25th of February 1634.--T.]

[Footnote 553: John King of Bohemia (_circa_ 1296-1346), surnamed the

Blind, King of Bohemia, of the House of Luxemburg, from 1310 to 1346.

He was killed at the Battle of Crécy, 26 August 1346.--T.]

[Footnote 554: Philip VI. King of France (1293-1350), the first King of

the House of Valois. He ascended the throne in 1328 and in his reign

(1338) began the Hundred Years' War with England.--T.]

[Footnote 555: George Podiebrad, King of Bohemia (1420-1471), was

elected King in 1458. He subsequently joined the Hussite sect and, in

1466, commenced a persecution of the Catholics, with the result that he

was dethroned in 1468.--T.]

BOOK IV[556]

The castle of the Kings of Bohemia--First interview with Charles

X.--Monsieur le Dauphin--The Children of France--The Duc and

Duchesse de Guiche--The triumvirate--Mademoiselle--Conversation

with the King--Dinner and evening at Hradschin--Visits--General

Skrzynecki--Dinner at Count Chotek's--Whit Sunday--The Duc de

Blacas--Casual observations--Tycho Brahe--Perdita: more casual

observations--Bohemia--Slav and neo-Latin literature--I take leave

of the King--Adieus--The children's letters to their mother--A

Jew--The Saxon servant-girl--What I am leaving in Prague--The Duc de

Bordeaux--Madame la Dauphine--Casual observations--Springs--Mineral

waters--Historical memories--The Teplitz Valley--Its flora--Last

conversation with the Dauphiness--My departure.

I entered Prague on the 24th of May, at seven o'clock in the evening,

and alighted at the Bath Hotel, in the old town built on the left bank

of the Moldau. I wrote a note to M. le Duc de Blacas to inform him of

my arrival and received the following reply:

"If you are not too tired, monsieur le vicomte, the King will be

charmed to receive you this evening, at a quarter to ten; but, if

you wish to rest, His Majesty would see you with great pleasure

to-morrow morning, at half-past eleven.

"Pray accept my sincere compliments.

"_Friday_ 24 _May_ seven o'clock.

"BLACAS D'AULPS."

I did not feel that I ought to avail myself of the alternative offered

to me: I set out at half-past nine; a man belonging to the inn, who

knew a few words of French, led the way for me. I climbed up silent,

gloomy streets, without street-lamps, to the foot of the tall hill

which is crowned by the immense castle of the Kings of Bohemia. The

building outlined its black mass against the sky; no light issued from

its windows: there was there something akin to the solitude, the site

and the grandeur of the Vatican, or of the Temple of Jerusalem, seen

from the Valley of Jehoshaphat. One heard nothing but the sound of my

footsteps and my guide's. I was obliged to stop at intervals on the

landings of the steps that formed the roadway, so steep was the incline.

As I climbed, I discovered the town below me. The links of history,

the fate of men, the destruction of empires, the designs of Providence

presented themselves to my recollection, identified themselves with the

memory of my own destiny: after exploring dead ruins, I was summoned to

the spectacle of living ruins.

When we had reached the platform on which Hradschin[557] is built, we

passed through an infantry post whose guard-room was near the outer

wicket-gate. Through this wicket-gate we entered a square court-yard,

surrounded by uniform and deserted buildings. On the ground-floor, on

the right, we threaded a long corridor lighted at wide intervals by

glass lanterns hung on the wall on either side, as in a convent or

barracks. At the end of this corridor was a stair-case, at whose foot

two sentries marched up and down.

As I was climbing the second flight, I met M. de Blacas, who was coming

down. I entered the apartments of Charles X. with him; there two more

grenadiers were standing sentry. This foreign guard, those white

uniforms at the door of the King of France made a painful impression on

me: the idea of a prison came to me, rather than a palace.

We passed through three pitch-dark and almost unfurnished rooms: I felt

as though I were wandering once more through the terrible monastery

of the Escorial. M. de Blacas left me in the third room to inform the

King, with the same etiquette as at the Tuileries. He came back to

fetch me, showed me into His Majesty's closet and withdrew.

Charles X. came up to me, held out his hand to me cordially and said:

"Good-evening, good-evening, Monsieur de Chateaubriand: I am delighted

to see you. I expected you. You ought not to have come this evening,

for you must be very tired. Don't stand; let us sit down. How is your

wife?"

[Sidenote at Hradschin.]

Nothing breaks one's heart so much as simplicity of speech in the high

positions of society and the great catastrophes of life. I began to

cry like a child; I found a difficulty in stifling the sound of my

sobs with my handkerchief. All the bold things which I had resolved

to say, all the vain and relentless philosophy with which I intended

to arm my conversation failed me. Should I become the pedagogue of

misfortune! Should I dare to remonstrate with my King, my white-haired

King, my King outlawed, exiled, ready to lay his mortal remains on

foreign soil! My old Sovereign again took my hand on seeing the trouble

of that "relentless enemy," that "opponent" of the Ordinances of July.

His eyes were moist; he made me sit beside a little wooden table, on

which stood two candles; he sat down by the same table, leaning his

good ear towards me to hear me better, thus apprizing me of his years,

which came to mingle their common misfortunes with the extraordinary

calamities of his life.

It was impossible for me to recover my voice at the sight, in the

residence of the Emperors of Austria, of the sixty-eighth King of

France, bent under the weight of those reigns and of seventy-six

years: of those years, twenty-four had been spent in exile, five on

a tottering throne; the Monarch was ending his last days in a last

exile, with the grandson whose father had been assassinated and whose

mother was a prisoner. Charles X. to break this silence, addressed

a few questions to me. Thereupon I briefly explained the object of

my journey: I said that I was the bearer of a letter from Madame la

Duchesse de Berry, addressed to Madame la Dauphine, in which the

prisoner of Blaye confided the care of her children to the prisoner of

the Temple, as to one practised in misfortune. I added that I also had

a letter for the children. The King replied:

"Do not give it to them: they know only a part of what has happened to

their mother; you must hand me that letter. However, we will talk of

all that at two o'clock tomorrow: go to bed now. You shall see my son

and the children at eleven o'clock and you will dine with us."

The King rose, wished me good-night and retired.

I went out; I joined M. de Blacas in the entrance-room; the guide was

waiting for me on the stair-case. I returned to my inn, descending the

streets on their slippery pavements in as short a time as I had taken

long to climb them.

PRAGUE, 25 _May_ 1833.

The next day, the 25th of May, I received a visit from M. le Comte

de Cossé, staying at my inn. He told me of the disagreements at the

Castle relative to the education of the Duc de Bordeaux. At half-past

ten, I went up to Hradschin; the Duc de Guiche[558] took me in to M.

le Dauphin. I found him grown old and thin; he was dressed in a shabby

blue coat, buttoned up to the chin; it was too wide for him and looked

as though it had been bought at a rag-fair: the poor Prince excited a

great pity in me.

M. le Dauphin has personal courage; his obedience to Charles X. alone

prevented him from proving himself at Saint-Cloud and Rambouillet

what he proved himself at Chiclana: his bashfulness has increased in

consequence. He finds it difficult to bear the sight of a new face. He

often says to the Duc de Guiche:

"Why are you here? I have no need of any one. There is no mouse-hole

small enough to hide me."

He has said also, repeatedly:

"Don't talk about me; don't trouble about me; I am nobody; I don't want

to be anybody. I have twenty thousand francs a year; it is more than I

need. I have to think only of saving my soul and making a good end."

Again he has said:

"If my nephew had need of me, I would serve him with my sword; but I

signed my abdication, against my own feeling, out of obedience to my

father: I shall not renew it; I shall sign nothing more; let them

leave me in peace, word is enough: I never lie."

[Sidenote: The Dauphin (Louis XIX.)]

And that is true: his mouth has never uttered a lie. He reads much; he

has considerable attainments, even in languages; his correspondence

with M. de Villèle during the Spanish War has its value, and his

correspondence with Madame la Dauphine, which was intercepted and

inserted in the _Moniteur_, makes one love him. His probity is

incorruptible; his religion is profound; his filial piety rises to the

height of virtue; but an unconquerable shyness deprives him of the full

use of his faculties.

To put him at his ease, I avoided entering upon politics with him and

only enquired after his father's health: this is a subject on which

he is inexhaustible. The difference in climate between Edinburgh and

Prague, the King's prolonged attacks of gout, the waters of Teplitz

which the King was going to take, the good which they would do him:

there you have the purport of our conversation. M. le Dauphin watches

over Charles X. as over a child; he kisses his hand when he goes up to

him, asks how he has slept, picks up his pocket-handkerchief, speaks

loud so as to make himself heard by him, prevents him from eating what

might disagree with him, makes him put on or leave off an over-coat

according to the state of the weather, takes him out walking and brings

him back again. I was careful to speak to him of nothing else. Of the

Days of July, of the fall of an empire, of the future of the Monarchy,

not a word.

"It is eleven o'clock," he said: "you are going to see the children; we

shall meet again at dinner."

I was taken to the apartment of the Governor; the doors opened:

I saw the Baron de Damas with his pupil, Madame de Gontaut with

Mademoiselle[559], M. Barrande[560], M. La Villate[561] and a few other

devoted servants; all were standing. The young Prince, scared, looked

at me sideways, looked at his governor as though to ask him what he

was to do, how to act in this danger, or as though to obtain permission

to speak to me. Mademoiselle smiled with a half-smile and a timid and

independent air; she seemed to be paying attention to her brother's

movements and gestures. Madame de Gontaut looked proud of the education

which she had given her pupils. After bowing to the two children, I

went up to the orphan and said:

"Will Henry V. allow me to lay the homage of my respect at his feet?

When he has ascended his throne, perhaps he will remember that I had

the honour to say to his illustrious mother, 'Madame, your son is my

King!' So I was the first to proclaim Henry V. King of France, and a

French jury, by acquitting me, allowed my proclamation to stand good.

God save the King!"

The child, flurried at hearing himself greeted as King, at hearing me

speak of his mother, of whom no one spoke to him now, recoiled and took

refuge between the Baron de Damas' knees, uttering a few emphatic but

almost whispered words. I said to M. de Damas:

"Monsieur le baron, my words seem to surprise the King. I see that he

knows nothing of his courageous mother and that he is ignorant of what

his servants have sometimes had the happiness to do for the cause of

the Legitimate Royalty.'

The governor replied:

"Monseigneur is taught what loyal subjects like yourself, monsieur le

vicomte...."

He did not finish his sentence.

M. de Damas hastened to state that the moment for study had arrived.

He invited me to the riding-lesson at four o'clock.

I went to pay a visit to Madame la Duchesse de Guiche, who lived at

some distance in another part of the Castle; it took nearly ten minutes

to go to her through corridor after corridor. When Ambassador in

London, I had given a little fête in honour of Madame de Guiche, then

in all the brilliancy of her youth and followed by a host of adorers;

in Prague, I found her changed, but the expression of her face pleased

me more. Her head was dressed in a way that suited her delightfully:

her hair, plaited in little tresses, like that of an odalisk or a

Sabine medal, was festooned in ringlets on either side of her forehead.

The Duchesse and Duc de Guiche represented in Prague beauty chained to

adversity.

Madame de Guiche had heard of what I had said to the Duc de Bordeaux.

She told me that they wanted to send away M. Barrande; that there was

a talk of calling in some Jesuits[562]; that M. de Damas had postponed

but not abandoned his plans.

[Sidenote: The triumvirate.]

A triumvirate existed, composed of the Duc de Blacas, the Baron de

Damas and the Cardinal de Latil: this triumvirate tended to take

possession of the coming reign by isolating the young King and

bringing him up in principles and under men antipathetic to France.

The remainder of the inhabitants of the Castle caballed against the

triumvirate; the children themselves headed the opposition. The

opposition, however, had different shades: the Gontaut party was not

quite the same as the Guiche party; the Marquise de Bouillé, a deserter

from the Berry party, took sides with the Abbé Moligny[563]. Madame

la Dauphine, placed at the head of the impartials, was not exactly

favourable to the Young France party, represented by M. Barrande; but,

as she spoilt the Duc de Bordeaux, she often leant towards his side and

stood by him against his governor. Madame d'Agoult[564], devoted body

and soul to the triumvirate, had no credit with the Dauphiness other

than that which she enjoyed thanks to her presence and importunity.

After paying my respects to Madame de Guiche, I went to Madame de

Gontaut's. She was expecting me with the Princesse Louise.

Mademoiselle somewhat recalls her father: she is fair-haired; her

blue eyes have a shrewd expression; she is short for her age and is

not so full-grown as her portraits represent her. Her whole person is

a mixture of the child, the young girl and the young princess: she

looks up, lowers her eyes, smiles with an artless coquetry mingled

with art; one does not know if one ought to tell her fairy-stories,

make her a declaration, or talk to her with respect as to a queen. The

Princesse Louise adds to the agreeable accomplishments a good deal of

information: she speaks English and is beginning to know German well;

she even has a little foreign accent, and exile is already marking

itself in her language.

Madame de Gontaut presented me to my little King's sister; innocent

fugitives, they were like two gazelles hiding among ruins. Mademoiselle

Vachon, the under-governess, an excellent and distinguished spinster,

arrived. We sat down and Madame de Gontaut said to me:

"We can speak, Mademoiselle knows all; she deplores with us what we

see."

Mademoiselle said to me at once:

"Oh, Henry was very silly this morning; he was frightened. Grand-papa

said to us, 'Guess whom you will see to-morrow: it's one of the

powers of the earth!' We said, 'Well, it's the Emperor.' 'No,' said

Grand-papa. We tried again; we could not guess. He said, 'It's the

Vicomte de Chateaubriand.' I hit myself on the forehead for not

guessing.'

The Princess struck her forehead, blushing like a rose, smiling wittily

through her moist and gentle eyes; I was dying with the respectful

longing to kiss her little white hand. She continued:

"You did not hear what Henry said when you asked him to remember you?

He said, 'Oh yes, always,' but he said it so low! He was afraid of you

and afraid of his governor. I was making signs to him: did you see? You

will be more pleased this evening; he will speak: wait!"

This solicitude of the young Princess on her brother's behalf was

charming; I was almost committing a crime of lezemajesty. Mademoiselle

remarked it, and this gave her a bearing of conquest that was

captivating in its grace. I put her mind at rest as to the impression

which Henry had made upon me.

"I was very glad," she said, "to hear you speak of Mamma before M. de

Damas. Will she soon have left prison?"

My readers know that I had a letter from Madame la Duchesse de Berry

for the children: I did not tell them of it, because they did not know

of the details subsequent to the captivity. The King had asked me for

this letter; I considered that I was not at liberty to give it to him

and that I ought to take it to Madame la Dauphine, to whom I was sent

and who was then taking the waters at Carlsbad.

[Sidenote: Mademoiselle.]

Madame de Gontaut repeated what M. de Cossé and Madame de Guiche had

already told me. Mademoiselle groaned with childish seriousness. Her

governess having spoken of M. Barrande's discharge and the probable

arrival of a Jesuit, the Princesse Louise crossed her hands and said,

with a sigh:

"That would be very unpopular!"

I could not help laughing; Mademoiselle began to laugh also, still

blushing.

A few moments remained before my audience of the King. I got into my

calash and went to call on the Grand Burgrave, Count Chotek. He lived

in a country-house half a league from the town, on the side of the

Castle. I found him at home and thanked him for his letter. He invited

me to dinner for Monday the 27th of May.

On returning to the Castle at two o'clock, I was introduced to the

King's presence, as on the preceding day, by M. de Blacas. Charles X.

received me with his customary kindness and with that elegant ease

of manner which the years render more perceptible in him. He made

me sit again at the little table. Here is a detailed account of our

conversation:

"Sire, Madame la Duchesse de Berry commanded me to come to see you

and to hand a letter to Madame la Dauphine. I do not know what the

letter contains, although it is open; it is written in invisible ink,

as is the letter for the children. But in my two letters of credence,

one intended to be shown, the other of a confidential character,

Marie-Caroline explains to me what is in her mind. During her

captivity, she commits her children, as I told Your Majesty yesterday,

to the special protection of Madame la Dauphine. Madame la Duchesse

de Berry charges me besides to report to her on the education of

Henry V., whom they here call the Duc de Bordeaux. Lastly, Madame la

Duchesse de Berry declares that she has contracted a secret marriage

with Count Hector Lucchesi-Palli, a member of an illustrious family.

These secret marriages of princesses, for which there are many

precedents, do not deprive them of their rights. Madame la Duchesse de

Berry asks to preserve her rank as a French princess, the Regency and

the guardianship. When she is free, she proposes to come to Prague to

embrace her children and lay her respects at Your Majesty's feet."

The King answered with severity. I made the best reply that I could out

of a recrimination:

"I beg Your Majesty to pardon me, but it seems to me that you have been

prejudiced; M. de Blacas is no doubt an enemy of my august client."

Charles X. interrupted me:

"No; but she has treated him badly, because he prevented her from

committing follies, from embarking on mad enterprises."

"It is not given to everybody," I said, "to commit follies of that

kind: Henry IV. fought like Madame la Duchesse de Berry and, like her,

he was not always sufficiently strong. Sire," I continued, "you do

not wish Madame de Berry to be a princess of France: she will be so

in spite of you; the whole world will always call her the Duchesse de

Berry, the heroic mother of Henry V.; her dauntless courage and her

sufferings overtower everything; you cannot, like the Duc d'Orléans,

wish to brand at one blow the children and the mother: is it so

difficult for you, then, to forgive a woman's glory?"

"Well, _monsieur l'ambassadeur_," said the King, with good-natured

emphasis, "let Madame la Duchesse de Berry go to Palermo; let her there

live with M. Lucchesi as husband and wife, in sight of all the world;

then her children shall be told that their mother is married; she shall

come to embrace them."

I felt that I had pushed the matter far enough; the principal points

were three-fourths obtained: the preservation of the title and the

admission to Prague at a more or less distant period; feeling surer of

completing my task with Madame la Dauphine, I changed the conversation.

Obstinate minds jib at persistency; one spoils everything, with such

minds, when one tries to carry everything by main force.

I passed to the Prince's education in the interest of the future: on

this subject I was not clearly understood. Religion has made a solitary

of Charles X.; his ideas are cloistered. I slipped in a few words on

the capacity of M. Barrande and the want of capacity of M. de Damas.

The King said:

[Sidenote: Conversations with Charles X.]

"M. Barrande is a man of attainments, but he takes too much upon

himself; he was chosen to teach the Duc de Bordeaux the exact sciences,

but he teaches everything: history, geography, Latin. I have sent for

the Abbé MacCarthy[565], to share M. Barrande's labours; he will be

here soon."

These words made me shudder, for the new tutor could evidently be only

a Jesuit replacing a Jesuit. The fact that, in the present state of

society in France, the mere idea of attaching a disciple of Loyola to

the person of Henry V. had entered into the head of Charles X. was

enough to make one despair of the House. When I had recovered from my

astonishment, I asked:

"Is not the King afraid of the effect upon public opinion of a tutor

taken from the ranks of a famous, but calumniated society?"

The King exclaimed:

"Pooh! Are they still at the Jesuits?"

I spoke to the King of the elections and the desire of the Royalists to

know his wishes. The King replied:

"I cannot say to a man, 'Take an oath against your conscience.' Those

who think that they ought to take it are doubtless acting with good

intentions. I have no prejudice, my dear friend, against men; their

past lives matter little, when they are sincerely anxious to serve

France and the Legitimacy. The Republicans wrote to me in Edinburgh:

I accepted, as concerns them personally, all that they asked of me;

but they wanted to impose conditions of government upon me: I rejected

them. I will never yield on matters of principle; I want to leave my

grandson a more solid throne than mine was. Are the French happier

and freer to-day than they were with me? Do they pay less taxes?

What a milch-cow France is! If I had allowed myself to do a quarter

of the things that M. le Duc d'Orléans has done, what outcries, what

curses! They plotted against me, they have owned it: I wanted to defend

myself...."

The King stopped, as though embarrassed by the number of his thoughts

and by the fear of saying something that might hurt me.

All this was well and good; but what did Charles X. understand by

"principles?" Had he accounted for the cause of the real or imaginary

conspiracies hatched against his government? After a moment of silence,

he resumed:

"How are your friends the Bertins? They have no reason to complain of

me, as you know: they are very severe upon a banished man who has done

them no harm, at least as far as I know. But, my dear fellow, I bear no

one ill-will; let everybody behave as he thinks right."

This sweetness of temperament, this Christian meekness on the part of

an expelled and slandered King brought tears to my eyes. I tried to say

a few words about Louis-Philippe:

"Ah!" said the King. "M. le Duc d'Orléans... he judged.. . What do you

expect?... Men are like that."

Not a bitter word, not a reproach, not a complaint could escape from

the mouth of the thrice-banished old man. And yet French hands had cut

off his brother's head and pierced his son's heart; to such an extent

have those hands been mindful and implacable towards him!

I praised the King with all my heart and in a voice broken with

emotion. I asked him if it was not part of his intention to put a stop

to all that secret correspondence, to dismiss all those commissaries

who, for forty years, have been deceiving the Legitimacy. The King

assured me that he was resolved to put an end to that impotent

mischief; he had already, he said, named a few serious persons,

including myself, to compose a sort of council, in France, competent to

keep him informed of the truth. M. de Blacas would explain all that. I

begged Charles X. to assemble his servants and hear me; he referred me

to M. de Blacas.

I called the King's attention to the time of the majority of Henry V.;

I spoke to him of a declaration as a necessary thing to be made. The

King, who, inwardly, would have nothing to say to this declaration,

invited me to draft the model for him. I replied, respectfully, but

firmly, that I would never formulate a declaration at the foot of which

my name should not appear below the King's. My reason was that I did

not wish to have put to my account the eventual changes introduced into

any deed by Prince Metternich and M. de Blacas.

I pointed out to the King that he was too far from Paris, that one

would have time to make two or three revolutions before he was informed

of it in Prague. The King replied that the Emperor had left him free to

choose his place of residence in all the Austrian States, the Kingdom

of Lombardy excepted.

[Sidenote: The King's poverty.]

"But," added His Majesty, "the towns in Austria that one can live in

are all at more or less the same distance from France; in Prague,

I am lodged for nothing, and my position obliges me to make that

calculation."

A noble calculation for a Prince who had, for five years, enjoyed a

civil list of twenty millions, without counting the royal residences;

for a Prince who had left to France the Colony of Algiers and the

ancient patrimony of the Bourbons, valued at twenty-five to thirty

millions per annum!

"Sire, your loyal subjects have often thought that your royal indigence

might have some needs; they are ready to club together, each according

to his means, in order to make you independent of foreigners."

"I believe, my dear Chateaubriand," said the King, laughing, "that you

are not much richer than myself. How have you paid for your journey?"

I said:

"Sire, it would have been impossible for me to come to you, if Madame

la Duchesse de Berry had not instructed her banker, M. Jauge, to pay me

six thousand francs."

"That's very little!" exclaimed the King. "Do you want any more?"

"No, Sire; I ought even, by careful management, to be able to return

something to the poor prisoner; but I am not good at bargaining."

"You were a magnificent lord in Rome."

"I always conscientiously squandered what the King gave me; I did not

have two sous left."

"You know that I still have your peer's salary at your disposal: you

refused it."

"No, Sire, because you have more unfortunate servants than myself. You

helped me out of my difficulty for the twenty thousand francs of debts

that remained over from my Roman embassy, after the ten thousand which

I borrowed from your great friend M. Laffitte."

"I owed them to you," said the King. "It did not even amount to

what you sacrificed in salary when sending in your resignation as

ambassador, which, by the way, hurt me not a little."

"However that may be, Sire, whether it was due to me or not, Your

Majesty, by coming to my assistance, did me a service at the time and I

will pay you back your money when I can; but not at present, for I am

as poor as a rat. My house in the Rue d'Enfer is not paid for. I live

promiscuously with Madame de Chateaubriand's poor, while waiting for

the lodging which I have already visited, for Your Majesty's sake, at

M. Gisquet's. When I pass through a town, I first enquire if there is

an alms-house; if there is, I sleep peacefully: 'board and lodging, who

asks for more?'"

"Oh, it won't end like that. How much would you want, Chateaubriand, to

be rich?"

"Sire, you would be wasting your time; if you gave me four millions

this morning, I should not have a farthing to-night."

The King shook my shoulder with his hand:

"Capital! But what the devil do you throw away your money on?"

"Faith, Sire, I don't know, for I have no tastes and no expenses: it's

incomprehensible! I am such a fool that, when I went to the Foreign

Office, I would not take the twenty-five thousand francs allowed for

the expenses of installation and that, when leaving, I scorned to

purloin the secret-service money! You are talking to me of my fortune

to avoid talking to me of your own."

"That is true," said the King. "Here is my confession in my turn:

by spending my capital in equal portions from year to year, I have

calculated that, at my age, I can live till my last day without

needing anybody. If I found myself in distress, I should prefer, as

you suggest, to apply to Frenchmen rather than foreigners. They have

offered to raise loans for me, among others one of thirty millions

which would have been subscribed in Holland; but I knew that that loan,

when quoted on the principal exchanges in Europe, would send down the

French funds; this prevented me from adopting that plan: nothing that

would affect the public fortune in France could suit me."

A sentiment worthy of a king!

[Illustration: Henry V. (Duc de Bordeaux)]

In this conversation, the reader will have remarked the generous

character, the gentle manners and the good sense of Charles X. It would

have been a curious sight for a philosopher to see the subject and the

King questioning each other as to their fortunes and making mutual

confidences as to their poverty inside a castle borrowed from the

Sovereigns of Bohemia!

[Sidenote: Henry V.]

PRAGUE, 25 _and_ 26 _May_ 1833.

At the end of this conference, I attended Henry's riding-lesson. He

rode two horses, the first without stirrups, the horse being led, the

second with stirrups, performing volts without his holding the reins,

with a stick passed between his back and arms. The child is daring and

nothing less than elegant in his white trousers, his short coat, his

little ruff and his cap. M. O'Heguerty the Elder, the teaching equerry,

shouted:

"What's that leg doing? It's like a stick! Let your leg go! Good!

Awful! What's the matter with you to-day?" and so on.

The lesson over, the young page-King pulled up on horse-back in the

middle of the riding-school, took off his cap, suddenly, to salute me

in the gallery where I was standing with the Baron de Damas and some

French people, and sprang from his horse as nimbly and gracefully as

the Little Jehan de Saintré[566].

Henry is slender, agile, well-built; he is fair; he has blue eyes with

a trait in the left eye which reminds one of his mother's look. His

movements are sudden; he accosts you frankly; he is curious and asks

questions; he has none of the pedantry which the newspapers ascribe

to him; he is a genuine little boy, like any little boy of twelve. I

complimented him on his good appearance on horse-back:

"You have seen nothing," he said; "you ought to see me on my black

horse; he's as vicious as a demon: he kicks, he throws me; I get up

again, we jump the gate. The other day, he hit himself; he's got a leg

as thick as that. Isn't the last horse I was riding a pretty one? But I

was not in form."

Henry at present detests the Baron de Damas, whose appearance,

character and ideas are repellent to him. He frequently loses his

temper with him. In consequence of these rages, the Prince must needs

be punished; he is sometimes condemned to stay in bed: a stupid

punishment. Next comes an Abbé Moligny, who confesses the rebel and

tries to frighten him out of his wits. The obstinate one will not

listen and refuses to eat Then Madame la Dauphine decides in favour of

Henry, who eats and laughs at the baron. The education proceeds in this

vicious circle.

What M. le Duc de Bordeaux ought to have is a light hand which would

lead him without making him feel the bit, a governor who should be his

friend rather than his master.

If the family of St. Louis were, like that of the Stuarts, a kind of

private family expelled by a revolution, confined within an island,

the destiny of the Bourbons would, in a short time, be foreign to the

new generations. Our old royal power is more than that; it represents

the Old Royalty: the political, moral and religious past of the people

is born of that power and grouped around it. The fate of a House so

closely intertwined with the social order that was, so nearly allied

to the social order that is, can never be indifferent to mankind. But,

destined though that House be to live, the condition of the individuals

composing it, with whom a hostile fate had not made a truce, would be

deplorable. In perpetual misfortune, those individuals would march

forgotten on a parallel line along the glorious memory of their family.

There is nothing sadder than the existence of fallen kings; their

days are no more than a tissue of realities and fictions; remaining

sovereigns by their own fire-sides, among their people and their

memories, they have no sooner crossed the threshold of their house

than they find the ironical truth at their door: James II. or Edward

VII.[567], Charles X. or Louis XIX. behind closed doors become, with

opened doors, James or Edward, Charles or Louis, without numerals, like

the labourers their neighbours; they suffer the two-fold drawbacks

of Court life and private life: the flatterers, the favourites, the

intrigues, the ambitions of the one; the affronts, the distress, the

gossiping of the other: it is a continual masquerade of menials and

ministers, changing clothes. The mood sours in this situation, hopes

weaken, regrets increase; one recalls the past; one recriminates;

one exchanges reproaches which are the more bitter inasmuch as the

utterance ceases to be confined within the good taste of a high origin

and the proprieties of a superior fortune: one becomes vulgar through

vulgar sufferings; the cares of a lost throne degenerate into domestic

worries: Popes Clement XIV.[568] and Pius VI.[569] were never able to

restore peace in the Pretender's Household. Those discrowned aliens

remain under supervision in the middle of the world, repelled by the

princes as infected with adversity, suspected by the peoples as smitten

with power.

[Sidenote: Dinner at Hradschin.]

I went to dress: I had been informed that I might keep on my frock and

my boots; but misfortune is too high in station to be approached with

familiarity. I reached the Castle at a quarter to six; the dinner was

laid in one of the entrance-rooms. I found the Cardinal de Latil in the

drawing-room. I had not met him since he had dined with me in Rome, at

the Embassy Palace, at the time of the meeting of the conclave after

the death of Leo XII. What a change of destiny for me and for the world

between those two dates!

He was still the hedge-priest with the plump belly, the pointed nose,

the pale face, just as I had seen him in the Chamber of Peers with an

ivory paper-knife in his hand. People asserted that he had no influence

and that he was put in a comer and received more kicks than half-pence:

perhaps; but there are different sorts of credit: the cardinal's is

none the less sure because it is secret; he derives this credit from

the long years spent beside the King and from his priestly character.

The Abbé de Latil has been an intimate confidant; the remembrance

of Madame de Polastron[570] hangs about the confessor's surplice:

the charm of the last human frailties and the sweetness of the first

religious sentiments are prolonged as memories in the old Monarch's

heart.

There arrived in succession M. de Blacas, M. A. de Damas[571], the

baron's brother, M. O'Heguerty the Elder, M. and Madame de Cossé.

At six o'clock precisely, the King appeared, followed by his son;

we hurried in to dinner. The King put me on his right; he had M. le

Dauphin on his left; M. de Blacas sat down opposite the King, between

the cardinal and Madame de Cossé: the other guests were placed at

random. The children dine with their grand-father on Sundays only; this

is to deprive one's self of the only happiness that remains in exile:

family life and intimacy.

It was a fish-dinner and none too good at that. The King extolled to me

the merits of a fish from the Moldau which possessed none at all. Four

or five footmen in black roamed like lay-brothers about the refectory;

there was no house-steward. Every one helped himself and offered to

help others from the dish before him.

The King ate well, asked to be served and himself served what he was

asked for. He was in a good humour; the fear which he had had of me

was past. The conversation turned within a circle of commonplaces, on

the Bohemian climate, the health of Madame la Dauphine, my journey,

the Whit Sunday ceremonies which were to take place to-morrow; not a

word of politics. M. le Dauphin, after sitting with his nose deep in

his plate, would sometimes emerge from his silence and, addressing the

Cardinal de Latil, said:

"Prince of the Church, the gospel of this morning was according to St.

Matthew, was it not?"

"No, Monseigneur, according to St. Mark."

"What, St. Mark?"

A great dispute followed between St. Mark and St. Matthew, and the

cardinal was beaten.

Dinner lasted nearly an hour; the King rose, and we followed him to the

drawing-room. The newspapers lay on a table; we all sat down and began

to read then and there as if in a café.

[Sidenote: The royal children.]

The children came in, the Duc de Bordeaux escorted by his governor,

Mademoiselle by her governess. They ran up to kiss their grandfather

and then rushed to me; we ensconced ourselves in the embrasure of a

window overlooking the town and commanding a splendid view. I renewed

my compliments on the riding-lesson. Mademoiselle hastened to tell me

again what her brother had already told me, that I had seen nothing;

that one could not form an opinion while the black horse was lame.

Madame de Gontaut came to sit near us, M. de Damas a little further

away, giving an ear, in an amusing state of anxiety, as though I were

going to eat his pupil or drop a few words on the liberty of the press

or the glory of Madame la Duchesse de Berry. I would have laughed at

the fears with which I inspired him, if I had been able to laugh at a

poor man after M. de Polignac. Suddenly Henry said to me:

"Have you ever seen a constrictor?"

"A boa-constrictor, Monseigneur means: there are none either in Egypt

or at Tunis, the only places in Africa at which I have touched; but I

have seen many snakes in America."

"Oh yes," said the Princesse Louise, "the rattle-snake, in the _Génie

du Christianisme._"

I bowed to thank Mademoiselle.

"But you have seen plenty of other snakes?" asked Henry. "Are they very

vicious?"

"Some of them, Monseigneur, are exceedingly dangerous; others have no

venom and one makes them dance."

The two children came close up to me with delight, keeping their four

beautiful eyes fixed on mine.

"And then there is the glass-snake," I said; "he is splendid to look at

and does you no harm; he is as transparent and brittle as glass: you

break him as soon as you touch him."

"Can't the pieces come together again?" asked the Prince.

"No, no, dear," Mademoiselle answered for me.

"You went to the Falls of Niagara?" Henry resumed.

"They roar terribly, don't they? Can you go down in a boat?"

"Monseigneur, one American amused himself by sending a great barge

down; another American, they say, himself jumped into the cataract: he

was not destroyed the first time; he tried again and was killed at the

second attempt."

The two children lifted up their hands and said:

"Oh!"

Madame de Gontaut joined in the conversation:

"M. de Chateaubriand has been to Egypt and Jerusalem."

Mademoiselle clapped her hands and came still closer to me:

"M. de Chateaubriand," she said, "do tell my brother about the Pyramids

and Our Lord's Sepulchre."

I told them a story as best I could of the Pyramids, the Holy

Sepulchre, the Jordan, the Holy Land. The children were marvellously

attentive: Mademoiselle took her pretty face in her two hands, with

her elbows almost resting on my knees, and Henry, perched on a high

arm-chair, swung his legs to and fro.

After that fine talk about serpents, cataracts, pyramids and the Holy

Sepulchre, Mademoiselle said:

"Will you put me a question in history?"

"How, in history?"

"Yes, ask me about a year, the least important year in the whole

history of France, except the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,

which we have not yet begun."

"Oh, I," exclaimed Henry, "I prefer a famous year: ask me something

about a famous year!"

He was not so sure of his facts as his sister.

I began by obeying the Princess and said:

"Well, then! Will Mademoiselle tell me what happened and who was

reigning, in France, in 1001?"

And the brother and sister began to try, Henry pulling at his

fore-lock, Mademoiselle shading her face with her two hands, a familiar

trick with her, as though she were playing at hide-and-seek, and then

she suddenly reveals her young and merry countenance, her smiling

mouth, her limpid look. She was the first to say:

"Robert[572] was reigning, Gregory V.[573] was Pope, Basil II.[574]

Emperor of the East..."

"And Otto III.[575] Emperor of the West," cried Henry, hurrying so

as not to remain behind his sister, and added, "Veremund II.[576] in

Spain."

Mademoiselle, interrupting him, said:

"Ethelred[577] in England."

"No, no," said her brother, "it was Edmund Ironside[578]."

[Sidenote: Questions in History.]

Mademoiselle was right; Henry was a few years out in favour of

Ironside, who had fascinated him; but it was none the less prodigious.

"And my famous year?" asked Henry, in a half-vexed tone.

"That's true, Monseigneur: what happened in the year 1593?"

"Pooh!" exclaimed the young Prince. "The abjuration of Henry IV.[579]"

Mademoiselle turned red at not having been able to answer first.

Eight o'clock struck: the Baron de Damas' voice cut short our

conversation, just as when the hammer of the clock, striking ten, used

to arrest my father's steps in the great hall at Combourg.

Dear children, the old crusader has told you his adventures

in Palestine, but not by the fire-side in the Castle of Queen

Blanche[580]! To find you, he came knocking with his palmer's staff and

his dusty sandals at the foreigner's icy threshold. Blondel[581] has

sung in vain at the foot of the tower of the Dukes of Austria[582]:

his voice could not open the road to the mother-land for you. Young

outlaws, the traveller to distant lands has concealed a part of his

story from you: he has not told you that, a poet and prophet, he

dragged through the forests of Florida and on the mountains of Judea

as much despair, sadness and passion as you have hope, gladness and

innocence; that there was a day when, like Julian, he threw his blood

at Heaven, blood of which God, in His mercy, has preserved a few drops

for him so that he may redeem those which he gave up to the god of

curses.