Man is as much deceived by the success of his wishes as by their
disappointment: I had desired, contrary to my natural instinct, to go
to the Congress; taking advantage of a prejudice of M. de Villèle's,
I had induced him to force M. de Montmorency's hand. Well, my real
inclination was not for that which I had obtained; I should doubtless
have felt some spite, if I had been compelled to remain in England; but
soon the idea of going to see Lady Sutton, of making a journey through
the three kingdoms would have mastered the impulse of a superadded
ambition which is not inherent in my nature. God ordained differently,
and I left for Verona: thence the change in my life, thence my
ministry, the Spanish War, my triumph, my fall, soon followed by that
of the Monarchy.
One of the two handsome children on whose behalf Charlotte had asked me
to interest myself, in 1822, has just been to see me in Paris: he is
now Captain Sutton; he is married to a charming young wife, and he has
told me that his mother has been very ill and has lately spent a winter
in London.
I embarked at Dover on the 8th of September 1822, at the same port
from which, twenty-two years earlier, "M. La Sagne of Neuchâtel" had
set sail. Between that first departure to the moment of writing,
thirty-nine years have elapsed. When a man looks upon or listens to his
past life, he seems to perceive on a deserted sea the track of a vessel
that has disappeared; he seems to hear the tolling of a bell of which
the old tower is not in sight.
Here, in the order of dates, comes the place of the _Congrès de
Vérone_[226], which I have published in two volumes apart. Should any
one, by chance, feel a wish to read it, he can find it everywhere.
My Spanish War, the great political event of my life, was a gigantic
undertaking. The Legitimacy was for the first time about to burn
powder under the White Flag, to fire its first gun-shot after those
gun-shots of the Empire which will be audible to the utmost posterity.
To bestride Spain with one step, to succeed on the same soil where
formerly a conqueror's arms had encountered reverses, to do in six
months what he was unable to do in seven years: who could have laid
claim to that prodigy? That is, however, what I did; but by how many
curses has not my head been smitten at the gaming-table at which the
Restoration had seated me! I had before me a France hostile to the
Bourbons, and two great foreign ministers, Prince von Metternich and
Mr. Canning. Not a day passed but I received letters prophesying a
catastrophe, for the war with Spain was not at all popular, either
in France or in Europe. Indeed, some time after my successes in the
Peninsula, my fall was not long in arriving.
In our ardour, after the receipt of the telegraphic dispatch announcing
the deliverance of the King of Spain, we ministers hastened to the
Palace. There I had a presentiment of my fall; I received a bucketful
of cold water over my ears which brought me back to my habitual
humility. The King and Monsieur did not notice us. Madame la Duchesse
d'Angoulême, distracted by her husband's triumph, had eyes for nobody.
That immortal victim wrote a letter on Ferdinand's deliverance ending
in this exclamation, sublime in the mouth of a daughter of Louis XVI.:
"So it is proved that one can save an unfortunate king!"
On the Sunday, I returned, before the meeting of the council, to pay
my court to the Royal Family; the august Princess spoke an obliging
sentence to each of my colleagues: to me she did not address a word. I
did not, certainly, deserve such an honour. The silence of the orphan
of the Temple can never be ungrateful: Heaven has a right to the
worship of the earth and owes nothing to any one.
I then lingered on till Whitsuntide; still, my friends were not without
anxiety; they often said to me:
[Sidenote: Dismissed from office.]
"You will be dismissed to-morrow."
"This minute, if they like," I used to reply.
On Whitsunday, the 6th of June 1824, I had found my way to the first
drawing-rooms of Monsieur: an usher came to tell me that I was being
asked for. It was Hyacinthe, my secretary. He told me, when he saw me,
that I was no longer in office. I opened the packet which he handed me;
I found in it this note from M. de Villèle:
"MONSIEUR LE VICOMTE,
"In obedience to the King's orders, I am at once
communicating to Your Excellency a decree which His Majesty
has just issued.
"The Sieur Comte de Villèle, President of our Council of
Ministers, is charged _ad interim_ with the business of the
Foreign Office, _vice_ the Sieur Vicomte de Chateaubriand."
This decree was written in the hand of M. de Rainneville[227], who is
good enough still to be embarrassed at it in my presence. Why, gracious
Heaven! Do I know M. de Rainneville? Have I ever given him a thought?
I meet him pretty often. Has he ever perceived that I knew that the
decree by which I was struck off the list of ministers was written in
his hand?
And yet, what had I done? Where did my intrigues or my ambition lie?
Had I desired M. de Villèle's place, when going alone and in secret
to walk in the depths of the Bois de Boulogne? It was that strange
life that ruined me. I had the simplicity to remain as Heaven had
made me and, because I longed for nothing, they thought that I wanted
everything. To-day I can very well imagine that my life apart was a
great mistake. What! You do not want to be anything? Go away! We do not
choose that a man should despise what we worship, nor that he should
think himself entitled to insult the mediocrity of our life.
The difficulties of wealth and the disadvantages of poverty followed me
to my lodging in the Rue de l'Université: on the day of my dismissal, I
had invitations sent out for a huge dinner-party at the Foreign Office;
I had to send excuses to my guests and to pack three great courses,
prepared for forty persons, into my little kitchen for two people.
Montmirel and his assistants set to work and, cramming saucepans,
frying-pans and stewpans into every corner, he put his warmed-up
master-piece under shelter. An old friend came to share the marooned
sailor's first meal. The Town and the Court came hastening up, for
there was but one voice on the outrageousness of my dismissal after
the service which I had just rendered; they were convinced that my
disgrace would not last long; they gave themselves airs of independence
in consoling a misfortune of a few days, at the end of which they would
profitably remind the unlucky man returned to power that they had not
abandoned him.
They were mistaken; they wasted their courage; they had reckoned on
my lack of spirit, on my whining, on my toad-eating ambition, on my
eagerness to plead guilty, to wait standing on those who had driven me
out: they ill knew me. I retired without even claiming the salary which
was due to me, without receiving a favour or a groat from the Court; I
closed my door to whosoever had betrayed me; I refused the condoling
crowd, and I took up arms. Then all dispersed; universal condemnation
burst forth, and my game, which had at first seemed fine to the
drawing-rooms and ante-chambers, appeared horrible.
Should I not have done better, after my discharge, to be silent? Had
not the brutality of the proceeding brought back the public to me?
M. de Villèle has repeatedly said that the letter of dismissal was
delayed; by this accident it had the misfortune to be handed to me
only at the Palace. Perhaps this was so; but, when we play, we must
calculate the chances of the game; we must, above all, not write to a
friend of any worth a letter which we should be ashamed to address to
a guilty footman whom we would put out of doors without ceremony or
remorse. The irritation of the Villèle party against myself was the
greater inasmuch as they wished to appropriate my work to themselves
and as I had displayed ability in matters of which I had been supposed
to know nothing.
No doubt, with silence and moderation, as they said, I should have been
lauded by the race who live in perpetual adoration of the portfolio;
by doing penance for my innocence, I should have prepared my return to
the Council. It would have been more in the common course of things;
but that was taking me for the man I am not; that was suspecting me of
a desire to recapture the helm of the State, the wish to make my way:
a desire and a wish which would not occur to me in a hundred thousand
years.
The idea which I had of representative government led me to enter the
Opposition: the systematic Opposition seems to me the only one suited
to that form of government; the Opposition known as "conscientious"
is impotent. Conscience can decide a moral fact, it is no judge of
an intellectual fact. It is absolutely necessary to place one's self
under a leader, an appraiser of good laws and bad. If this be not so,
then your deputy takes his stupidity for his conscience and votes
accordingly. The so-called "conscientious Opposition" consists in
fluctuating between the parties, in champing the bit, in even voting,
should the case require, for the Ministry, in appearing magnanimous
although fretting: an Opposition of mutinous imbecilities among the
soldiers, of ambitious capitulations among the chiefs. So long as
England was sane, she never had other than a systematic Opposition:
a man came in and went out with his friends; on leaving office, he
took his place on the bench of the assailants. As he was considered to
have resigned because he did not wish to accept a system, that system,
being retained by the Crown, must necessarily be combated. Now as men
represent only principles, the systematic Opposition aimed only at
carrying _principles_ when it attacked _men._
[Sidenote: Effects of my fall.]
My fall made a great noise: those who displayed the most satisfaction
censured its form. I have since learnt that M. de Villèle hesitated; M.
de Corbière decided the question:
"If he enters the Council by one door," he is reported to have said, "I
go out by the other[228]."
I was allowed to go out: it was quite simple that they should prefer M.
de Corbière to me. I bear him no ill-will: I was troubling him, he had
me turned out; he did well.
The day after my dismissal and the following days, the _Journal des
Débats_ contained these words, which do such honour to the Messieurs
Bertin:
"This is the second time that M. de Chateaubriand stands the
test of a solemn dismissal.
"He was dismissed as a minister of State, in 1816, for
having attacked in his immortal work on the _Monarchie selon
la Charte_, the famous decree of the 5th of September,
pronouncing the dissolution of the _Chambre introuvable_ of
1815. Messieurs de Villèle and Corbière were then simple
deputies, leaders of the Royalist Opposition, and it was for
taking up their defense that M. de Chateaubriand became the
victim of the ministerial anger.
"Now, in 1824, M. de Chateaubriand is again dismissed, and it
is Messieurs de Villèle and Corbière, since become ministers,
who sacrifice him. Singular thing! In 1816, he was punished
for speaking; in 1824, they punish him for holding his
tongue: his crime is that he kept silence in the discussion
on the law for reducing the rate of interest. Not every
disgrace is a misfortune; public opinion, the supreme judge,
will tell us in which class to place M. de Chateaubriand; it
will tell us also to whom this day's decree shall have proved
the more fatal, to the victor or the vanquished.
"Who would have said, at the commencement of the session,
that we should thus spoil the results of the Spanish
Enterprise? What did we want this year? Nothing except the
Septennial Act (but, the complete Act) and the Budget. The
affairs of Spain, of the East, of the Americas, conducted as
they were, prudently and silently, would have been cleared
up; the fairest future lay before us; they wanted to gather
green fruit; it did not fall, and they imagined that they
could remedy precipitation by violence.
"Anger and envy are evil counsellors; it is not by means of
the passions and by proceeding with jerks and starts that
States are governed.
"_P.S._--The Septennial Act has been passed this evening
in the Chamber of Deputies. One may say that M. de
Chateaubriand's doctrines triumph after he has left the
Ministry. This Act, which he had long ago conceived as the
complement of our institutions, will, together with the
Spanish War, for ever mark his passing in public life. It
is very keenly regretted that M. de Corbière should, on
Saturday, have snatched the opportunity of speaking from him
who was then his illustrious colleague. The Chamber of Peers
would at least have heard the swan's song.
"As for ourselves, it is with the liveliest regret that we
enter again upon a career of combats which we hoped that we
had, thanks to the union of the Royalists, abandoned for
ever; but honour, political loyalty, the good of France do
not permit us to hesitate as to the course which we should
take."
The signal for the reaction was thus given. M. de Villèle
was not too much alarmed by it at first; he did not know the
strength of men's opinions. Many years were necessary to
overthrow him, but he fell at last.
[Sidenote: Comments in the _Débuts._]
I received from the President of the Council a letter which
settled everything and which proved, to my great simplicity,
that I had taken nothing of that which makes a man respected
and respectable:
"PARIS, 16 _June_ 1824.
"MONSIEUR LE VICOMTE,
"I have hastened to lay before His Majesty the Order by which
you are granted a full and entire discharge for the sums
which you have received from the Royal Treasury, for secret
expenses, during the whole time of your ministry.
"The King has approved of all the provisions of this Order,
which I have the honour to forward you herewith in the
original.
"Accept, monsieur le vicomte, etc."
My friends and I expedited a prompt correspondence:
THE VICOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND TO THE MARQUIS DE TALARU[229]
"PARIS, 9 _June_ 1824.
"I am no longer minister, my dear friend; they contend that
you are. When I obtained the Madrid Embassy for you, I said
to several persons who still remember it:
"'I have appointed my successor.'
"I am anxious to have been a prophet. M. de Villèle is
holding the portfolio _ad interim._
"CHATEAUBRIAND."
THE VICOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND TO THE COMTE DE RAYNEVAL[230]
"PARIS, 16 _June_ 1824.
"I have finished, monsieur; I hope that you have still plenty
before you. I have endeavoured that you should have no reason
to complain of me.
"It is possible that I may retire to Neuchâtel, in
Switzerland; should that happen, ask His Prussian Majesty
beforehand for his protection and favours for me; present
my respects to Count Bernstorff, my kind regards to M.
Ancillon, and my compliments to all your secretaries[231].
You, monsieur, I beg to believe in my devotion and in my most
sincere attachment.
"CHATEAUBRIAND."
THE VICOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND TO THE MARQUIS DE CARAMAN[232]
"PARIS, 22 _June_ 1824.
"I have received, monsieur le marquis, your letters of
the 11th of this month. Others than I will tell you the
road which you will henceforth have to follow; if it is
conformable to what you have heard, it will carry you far.
It is probable that my dismissal will give M. de Metternich
great pleasure, for a fortnight or so.
"Receive, monsieur le marquis, my adieus and the renewed
assurance of my devotion and of my high regard.
"CHATEAUBRIAND."
THE VICOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND TO THE BARON HYDE DE
NEUVILLE[233]
"PARIS, 22 _June_ 1824.
"You will doubtless have heard of my dismissal. It remains
for me only to tell you how happy I have been to have with
you the relations that have now been broken off. Continue,
monsieur and old friend, to render services to your country,
but do not reckon too much on gratitude, nor believe that
your successes will be a reason for maintaining you in the
post where you are doing yourself so much honour.
"I wish you, monsieur, all the happiness that you deserve,
and I embrace you.
"_P.S._--I have this minute received your letter of the 5th
of this month, in which you inform me of M. de Mérona's[234]
arrival. I thank you for your good friendship; be sure that I
have looked for nothing else in your letters.
"CHATEAUBRIAND[235]."
THE VICOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND TO THE COMTE DE SERRE[236]
"PARIS, 23 _June_ 1824.
"My dismissal, monsieur le comte, will have proved to you
my inability to serve you; it but remains for me to express
the wish to see you where your talents call you. I am
retiring, happy to have contributed towards restoring to
France her military and political independence, and to have
introduced septenniality into her electoral system; it is not
what I wanted it to be; the change of age was a necessary
consequence of it; but at last the principle is laid down;
time will do the rest, if, however, it do not undo it. I
venture to flatter myself, monsieur le comte, that you have
had no cause to complain of our relations; and I shall always
congratulate myself on having met in business a man of your
merit.
"Receive, with my adieus, etc.,
"CHATEAUBRIAND."
THE VICOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND TO THE COMTE DE LA FERRONAYS[237]
"PARIS, 24 _June_ 1824.
"Should you by chance still be in St. Petersburg, monsieur
le comte, I will not end our correspondence without telling
you of all the esteem and all the friendship with which you
have inspired me: keep well; be happier than I, and believe
that you will find me again in any circumstance of life. I am
writing a line to the Emperor.
"CHATEAUBRIAND."
The reply to this farewell reached me in the early days of August. M.
de La Ferronnays had accepted the functions of ambassador under my
ministry; later, I, in my turn, became ambassador under the ministry
of M. de La Ferronnays: neither of us thought himself to be rising
or descending. Fellow-countrymen and friends, we mutually did each
other justice. M. de La Ferronnays endured the harshest trials without
complaining; he remained loyal to his sufferings and to his noble
poverty. After my fall, he acted on my behalf at St. Petersburg, as
I would have acted on his. An honest man is always sure of being
understood by an honest man. I am happy to produce this touching
evidence of the courage, the loyalty and the elevation of soul of M. de
La Ferronnays. At the moment when I received this note, it was a very
superior compensation to me for the capricious and hackneyed favours of
fortune. It is only here, for the first time, that I think it right to
violate the secrecy which friendship recommended to me.
[Sidenote: Letter from La Ferronays.]
THE COMTE DE LA FERRONAYS TO THE VICOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND
"ST. PETERSBURG, 24 _July_ 1824.
"The Russian mail of the day before yesterday brought me
your little letter of the 16th; it will be for me one of the
most precious of all those which I have had the happiness
to receive from you; I am keeping it as a title in which I
glory, and I have the firm hope and the intimate conviction
that soon I shall be able to present it to you in less
melancholy circumstances. I shall imitate, monsieur le
vicomte, the example which you set me, and I shall permit
myself no reflection upon an event which has, in so abrupt
and unexpected a manner, broken off the relations which the
service established between you and myself; the very nature
of those relations, the confidence with which you honoured
me, lastly, considerations of a much graver kind, because
they are not exclusively personal, will explain to you
sufficiently the motives and all the extent of my regrets.
What has just occurred still remains entirely inexplicable to
me; I am absolutely ignorant of the reasons, but I see the
effects; they were so easy, so natural to foresee, that I am
astonished that people were so little afraid to set them at
naught. I am too well acquainted, however, with the nobility
of the sentiments which animate you and with the purity of
your patriotism, not to be very sure that you will approve
of the conduct which I have thought right to follow in this
circumstance; it was required of me by my duty, by my love
for my country and even by the interest of your glory; and
you are too good a Frenchman to accept, in the position in
which you find yourself, the protection and the support of
foreigners. You have won for ever the confidence and esteem
of Europe; but it is France whom you serve, and you belong
to her alone. She may be unjust; but neither you nor your
real friends will ever suffer your cause to be made less pure
or less fine by entrusting its defense to foreign voices. I
have, therefore, silenced every kind of private feeling or
consideration in the presence of the general interest; I have
forestalled measures, the first effect of which would have
been to arouse dangerous divisions among us and to violate
the dignity of the Throne. This is the last service which I
have rendered here before my departure; you alone, monsieur
le vicomte, shall know of it; the confidence was due to you,
and I know the nobility of your character too well not to
feel very sure that you will keep my secret and that you will
consider my conduct, in this circumstance, consonant with the
sentiments which you have the right to exact from those whom
you honour with your friendship and your esteem.
"Adieu, monsieur le vicomte: if the relations which I have
had the good fortune to have with you have been able to give
you a correct idea of my character, you must know that it
is not changes of position that can alter my sentiments,
nor will you ever doubt the attachment and devotion of one
who, in the actual circumstances, considers himself the most
fortunate of men to be placed by public opinion among the
number of your friends.
"LA FERRONAYS."
"Messieurs de Fontenay[238] and de Pontcarré[239] are keenly
alive to the value of the remembrance in which you are good
enough to bear them: witnesses, like myself, of the increase
of consideration which France had gained since your entrance
into the ministry, it is quite simple that they should share
my sentiments and my regrets."
I began the contest of my new opposition immediately after my fall;
but it was interrupted by the death of Louis XVIII.[240] and was not
actively resumed until after the coronation of Charles X.[241] In the
month of July, I joined Madame de Chateaubriand at Neuchâtel; she had
gone there to wait for me, and had hired a cottage beside the lake.
The chain of the Alps unfolded itself north and south to a great
distance before us; we had our backs to the Jura, whose flanks, black
with pine-trees, rose perpendicularly over our heads. The lake was
deserted; a wooden gallery served me as an exercise-ground. I thought
of _Milord Maréchal._[242] When I climbed to the top of the Jura, I saw
the Lake of Bienne, to whose breezes and waters Jean Jacques Rousseau
owes one of his happiest inspirations. Madame de Chateaubriand went
to visit Fribourg and a country-house which they had described to us
as charming, and which she found icy-cold, although it was called the
_Petite Provence._ A lean black cat, half wild, which caught little
fish by dipping its paw into a large pail filled with water from the
lake, was my only distraction. A quiet old woman, who was always
knitting, prepared our banquet in an _huguenote._[243] had not lost the
habit of the collation of the country-mouse.
Neuchâtel had had its good days; it had belonged to the Duchesse de
Longueville[244]; Jean Jacques Rousseau had walked in an Armenian
dress on its mountains, and Madame de Charrière[245], so daintily
observed by M. de Sainte-Beuve[246], had described its society in the
_Lettres Neuchâteloises_; but Juliane, Mademoiselle de La Prise, Henri
Meyer[247] were no longer there; I saw only poor Fauche-Borel[248], of
the old Emigration; he threw himself soon after from his window. The
kept gardens of M. de Pourtalès[249] charmed me no more than did an
English rockery raised by man's hands in a neighbouring vineyard facing
the Jura. Berthier, last Prince of Neuchâtel, in the name of Bonaparte,
was forgotten, in spite of his little Simplon of the Val-de-Travers,
and although he smashed his skull in the same way as Fauche-Borel.
[Sidenote: Death of Louis XVIII.]
The King's illness called me back to Paris. The King died on the 16th
of September, scarcely four months after my dismissal. My pamphlet,
entitled _Le Roi est mort: vive le roi!_ in which I hailed the new
Sovereign, performed for Charles X. what my pamphlet _De Bonaparte et
des Bourbons_ had performed for Louis XVIII. I went to fetch Madame de
Chateaubriand at Neuchâtel, and we came to Paris to live in the Rue
du Regard. Charles X. made his reign popular at its commencement by
abolishing the censorship; the coronation took place in the spring of
1825. "Already the bees were beginning to hum, the birds to warble, and
the lambs to gambol on the green."
Among my papers I find the following pages written at Rheims:
"RHEIMS, 26 _May_ 1825.
"The King arrives the day after to-morrow; he will be crowned
on Sunday the 29th; I shall see him place on his head a
crown of which no one thought, in 1814, when I raised my
voice. I have contributed to opening the doors of France to
him; I have given him defenders, by bringing the Spanish War
to a satisfactory issue; I have caused the Charter to be
adopted, and I have succeeded in finding an army, the only
two things with which the King can reign at home and abroad:
what part is reserved for me at the coronation? That of an
outlaw. I come as one of the crowd to receive a ribbon,
distributed broadcast, which I do not even hold from Charles
X. The people whom I have served and placed turn their backs
on me. The King will hold my hands in his, he will see me at
his feet, when I take my oath, without being moved, even as
he sees me without interest recommencing my poverty. Does
that make a difference to me? No. Freed from the obligation
of going to the Tuileries, I am compensated for everything by
independence.
"I am writing this page of my Memoirs in the room in which I
am forgotten amid all the noise. I have this morning visited
Saint-Remi and the Cathedral decorated with stained paper.
I shall not have had a clear idea of this latter edifice,
except from the decorations of Schiller's _Joan of Arc_, as
played before me in Berlin: operatic machinery has shown me,
on the banks of the Spree, what operatic machinery hides from
me, on the banks of the Vesle; for the rest, I have taken my
diversion among the old dynasties, from Clovis[250], with
his Franks and his pigeon descending from Heaven, to Charles
VII.[251], with Joan of Arc[252]."
Je suis venu de mon pays
Pas plus haut qu'une botte,
Avecque mi, avecque mi,
Avecque ma marmotte[253].
"'A sou-piece, sir, if you please!'
[Sidenote: At Rheims.]
That is what a little Savoyard, just arrived at Rheims, sang
to me returning from my walk.
"'And what have you come here for?' I asked him.
"'I have come to the coronation, sir.'
"'With your marmot?'
"'Yes, sir, with-a _mi_, with-a _mi_, with-a my marmot,' he
replied, dancing and turning.
"'Well, that's like me, my boy.'
"That was not correct: I had come to the coronation without a
marmot, and a marmot is a great resource; I had nothing in my
box but some old dream or other which no passer-by would have
paid a sou-piece to see climb up a stick.
"Louis XVII. and Louis XVIII. were not crowned; Charles X.'s
coronation comes immediately after Louis XVI.'s. Charles X.
was present at his brother's coronation; he represented the
Duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror. Under what happy
auspices did not Louis XVI. ascend the throne? How popular
was he on succeeding Louis XV.! And yet, what did he come to?
The present coronation will be, not a coronation, but the
representation of a coronation: we shall see Marshal Moncey,
an actor in the coronation of Napoleon; that marshal, who
formerly celebrated in his army the death of the tyrant Louis
XVI., we shall now see brandishing the royal sword at Rheims,
in the quality of Count of Flanders or Duke of Aquitaine.
Who could be taken in by that parade? I would have wished no
pomp to-day: the King on horseback, the church bare, adorned
only with its old vaults and its old tombs; the two Chambers
present, the oath of fidelity to the Charter pronounced aloud
on the Gospels. There you would have the renewal of the
Monarchy; they might have recommenced it with liberty and
religion: unfortunately they had little love for liberty; if
still they had, at least, had the taste for glory!
Ah! que diront là-bas, sons les tombes poudreuses,
De tant de vaillants rois les ombres généreuses?
Que diront Pharamond, Clodion et Clovis,
Nos Pepins, nos Martels, nos Charles, nos Louis,
Qui de leur propre sang, à tous périls de guerre,
Ont acquis à leurs fils une si belle terre[254]?
"Lastly, has not the new coronation, to which the Pope
came to anoint a man as great as the chief of the Second
Dynasty[255], in changing the heads, destroyed the effect of
the ancient ceremony of our history? The people has been led
to believe that a pious rite dedicated no one to the throne,
or rendered indifferent the choice of the forehead to which
the holy oil was applied. The supernumeraries of Notre-Dame
de Paris, figuring likewise in the Cathedral of Rheims, will
be nothing more than the necessary characters in a scene that
has become vulgar: the advantage will remain with Napoleon,
who sends his walking gentlemen to Charles X. The figure of
the Emperor dominates everything henceforward. It stands at
the bottom of events and ideas: the pages of these lower days
to which we have come shrivel up under the glance of his
eagles."
"RHEIMS, _Saturday, eve of the Coronation._[256]
"I have seen the King's entry; I have seen pass the gilt
coaches of the monarch who but lately had not a horse to
ride; I have seen those carriages roll by filled with
courtiers who were not able to defend their master. This
herd went to the church to sing the _Te Deum_, and I went
to look at a Roman ruin and to walk by myself in a wood of
elm-trees called the 'Wood of Love.' I heard from afar the
jubilation of the bells, I contemplated the towers of the
Cathedral, secular witnesses of that ceremony which is always
the same and yet so different through history, the times,
ideas, manners, usages and customs. The Monarchy perished,
and the Cathedral was for some years turned into a stable.
Does Charles X., who sees it again to-day, remember that he
saw Louis XVI. anointed in the same place where he is to
be anointed in his turn? Will he believe that a coronation
yields protection against misfortune? There is no longer a
hand virtuous enough to heal the king's evil, no longer a
sacred phial salutary enough to render kings inviolable."
I hurriedly wrote what has just been read on the half-blank pages of a
pamphlet entitled, _Le Sacre; par Barnage de Reims, avocat_, and on a
printed letter of the Grand Referendary, M. de Sémonville[257], saying:
"The Grand Referendary has the honour to inform His Lordship,
Monsieur le Vicomte de Chateaubriand, that places in the
chancel of Rheims Cathedral are intended and reserved for
those of Messieurs the Peers who wish to be present to-morrow
at His Majesty's consecration and coronation, at the ceremony
of the reception of the Chief and Sovereign Grand Master of
the Orders of the Holy Ghost and of St. Michael and of the
reception of Messieurs the Knights and Commanders."
Charles X. nevertheless had intended to conciliate me. The Archbishop
of Paris[258] spoke to him at Rheims of the men in the Opposition; the
King said:
"Those who will have nothing to do with me, I leave alone."
The Archbishop rejoined:
"But, Sire, M. de Chateaubriand?"
"Oh, him I regret!"
[Sidenote: Coronation of Charles X.]
The Archbishop asked the King if he might tell me so; the King
hesitated, took two or three turns in the room, and replied, "Well,
yes, tell him," and the Archbishop forgot to speak to me about it.
At the ceremony of the knights of the Orders, I was kneeling at the
King's feet at the moment when M. de Villèle was taking his oath.
I exchanged two or three words of politeness with my companion in
knighthood[259], with regard to a feather that had come loose from my
hat. We left the Sovereign's knees, and all was done. The King, finding
a difficulty in removing his gloves to take my hands in his, had said
to me, laughing:
"A gloved cat catches no mice."
It was thought that he had spoken to me at length, and the rumour
was spread of my return to favour. It is probable that Charles X.,
thinking that the Archbishop had told me of his good-will towards me,
expected a word of thanks from me and was offended at my silence.
Thus have I assisted at the last coronation of the successors of
Clovis; I had occasioned it by the pages in which I had asked for the
coronation and depicted it in my pamphlet, _Le Roi est mort: vive
le roi!_ Not that I had the least faith in the ceremony; but, as
everything was lacking to the Legitimacy, it was necessary, to sustain
it, to make use of everything, for better or for worse. I recalled
Adalbéron's[260] definition: "The coronation of a King of France is, a
public interest, not a private matter;" I quoted the admirable prayer
set apart for the coronation:
"O God, who by Thy virtues counselled Thy peoples, give to this Thy
servant the spirit of Thy wisdom! Let to all men born be in these
days equity and justice: to friends succour, to enemies hinderance,
to the afflicted consolation, to the lofty correction, to the rich
instruction, to the needy pity, to pilgrims hospitality, to poor
subjects peace and safety in the mother-land! Let him learn to command
himself, moderately to govern each one according to his state, so that,
O Lord, he may give to all the people an example of life pleasing to
Thee!"
Before reproducing in my pamphlet, _Le Roi est mort: vive le roi!_ this
prayer preserved by Du Tillet[261], I had exclaimed:
"Let us humbly beseech Charles X. to imitate his ancestors:
thirty-two sovereigns of the Third Dynasty have received the
royal unction."
All my duties being fulfilled, I left Rheims, and was able to say, like
Joan of Arc:
"My mission is ended."
[Footnote 156: This book was written in 1839 and revised in December
1846.--T.]
[Footnote 157: Joseph Planta (1787-1847) was secretary to Lord
Londonderry for many years. From 1827 to 1830, he was one of the joint
secretaries of the Treasury and, in 1834, was made a Privy Councillor.
He sat as M. P. for Hastings, almost without interruption, from 1827 to
1844.--T.]
[Footnote 158: Amelia Anne Marchioness of Londonderry (1772-1829),
_née_ Hobart, daughter and co-heiress of John Hobart, second Earl
of Buckinghamshire, and married to the Marquess of Londonderry in
1794.--T.]
[Footnote 159: The Vicomte Mathieu de Montmorency, Minister of Foreign
Affairs.--B.]
[Footnote 160: Édouard Duc de Fitz-James (1776-1838), descended from
James II. through the Duke of Berwick. He was created a peer of
France in 1814, and sent in his resignation when the bill was passed
suppressing the heredity of the peerage (28th December 1831). From 1835
till his death, he sat in the Chamber of Deputies, as a member of the
Right, and distinguished himself by the eloquence of his speeches.--B.]
[Footnote 161: George Bryan Brummell (1778-1840), known as Beau
Brummell. The story, as generally told, runs that the Prince Regent
ordered "Mr. Brummell's carriage."--T.]
[Footnote 162: Prince Paul Anton von Esterhazy von Galantha
(1786-1866), Austrian Minister to Dresden (1810), Ambassador to Rome
(1814) and to London from 1815 to 1818 and 1830 to 1848. He was
Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs for a short time in 1848.--T.]
[Footnote 163: See one of my dispatches from Berlin.--_Author's Note._]
[Footnote 164: Lord John Russell, later first Earl Russell (1792-1878).
The terms of his motion were "that the present state of representation
of the people in parliament requires the most serious consideration
of the House." The motion was lost by a majority of 105. Lord John
Russell introduced his Reform Bill in 1831, and was Home Secretary
(1835-1839), Secretary for War and the Colonies (1839-1841), Prime
Minister (1846-1852), Foreign Secretary and later President of the
Council (1852-1855), Colonial Secretary (1855), Foreign Secretary
(1859-1865), and again Prime Minister (1865-1866). He was created an
earl in 1861.--T.]
[Footnote 165: Chateaubriand appears here to confuse the Houses of
Lords and Commons; probably, in any case, his memory betrays him.--T.]
[Footnote 166: John Scott, first Earl of Eldon (1751-1838), called to
the Bar in 1776, King's Counsel in 1783, Chief Justice of the Common
Pleas in 1793, a peer in 1799, Lord Chancellor from 1801 to 1827. Eldon
was a violent Tory and vehemently opposed to the Catholic Emancipation
Bill.--T.]
[Footnote 167: Christopher Magnay, Lord Mayor of London from 1821
to 1822, would appear to have been Chateaubriand's host on this
occasion.--T.]
[Footnote 168: Baron Nathan Mayer de Rothschild (1777-1836), head of
all the Rothschild houses, with the exception of that at Frankfort. The
dinner in question, Lord Rothschild informs me, must have taken place
at the business-house in New Court, St. Swithin's Lane, where, on a
foreign post night (Tuesdays and Fridays), it was Baron Rothschild's
custom to remain in the city until midnight and frequently to give
dinner-parties.--T.]
[Footnote 169: Baron Salomon Mayer de Rothschild (1774-1855), head of
the Vienna branch of the house of Rothschild. He and his four brothers,
Anselm, Nathan, Charles and James, were created barons of the Austrian
Empire in 1822.--T.]
[Footnote 170: Richard Charles Francis Meade, third Earl of Clanwilliam
(1795-1879), son of Richard Meade, second Earl of Clanwilliam,
and Caroline, daughter of Joseph Count Thun. Lord Clanwilliam was
Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in 1822, British Ambassador to
Berlin (1823-1828) and a Grand Cross of Hanover.--T.]
[Footnote 171: Charles Lennox, third Duke of Richmond (1734 or
1735-1806), Ambassador to Paris (1765), Principal Secretary of State
(1766), Master-general of the Ordnance (1782) and a knight of the
Garter.--T.]
[Footnote 172: A famous political and allegorical satire of the reign
of Henry III., attributed to Thomas Artus, Sire d'Embly. It was
published without date of place or time, but was reprinted in the
fourth volume of the _Journal de Henri III._ (1744).--T.]
[Footnote 173: Gillion Gaspard Alfred de Grimaud, Comte d'Orsay
(1801-1852), long a leader of society in London and Paris, and noted
for his intimacy with the Countess of Blessington. In 1827, he married
Lady Harriet Gardiner, daughter of Lord Blessington by his first wife.
She soon left him, and Lady Blessington, who was then a widow, took
up her abode with him at Gore House. D'Orsay became bankrupt in 1849
and, to escape arrest, fled, on the 1st of April, to Paris, where Lady
Blessington followed him in a fortnight. She died, suddenly, about a
month after.--T.]
[Footnote 174: Anna Duchesse de Guiche (1803-1882), _née_ de Grimaud
d'Orsay.--T.]
[Footnote 175: Dorothea Christophorowna Countess, later Princess de
Lieven (1785-1855), _née_ von Blenkendorf. She was much sought after
by the statesmen of her time: Castlereagh, Canning, Metternich were
her friends; Lord Grey wrote to her every morning from his bed. She
has been said to have had an intrigue with George IV. In Paris, where
she settled after her husband's death, she became the Egeria of M.
Guizot.--B.]
[Footnote 176: Éléonore Marquise d'Osmond, _née_ Dillon, wife of René
Eustache Marquis d'Osmond, who was French Ambassador to London from
1814 to 1819.--T.]
[Footnote 177: General Christopher Andreiëvitch Count, later Prince de
Lieven (_d._ 1839), Minister Plenipotentiary to Berlin (1810-1812), and
Ambassador to London (1812-1834), Governor to the Tsarevitch, later
Tsar Alexander II. (1834-1839).--T.]
[Footnote 178: Madame de Lieven migrated to Paris after the death of
her husband in 1839.--T.]
[Footnote 179: Guizot made it a rule of his life to call daily on
Madame de Lieven in Paris.--B.]
[Footnote 180: Edward Adolphus Seymour, eleventh Duke of Somerset
(1775-1855).--T.]
[Footnote 181: Louis-Philippe appointed Marshal Soult, on the 23rd of
April 1838, Ambassador Extraordinary to England for the coronation
of Queen Victoria. The population of London accorded the marshal an
enthusiastic reception, and he was lionized wherever he went. The
coronation of Victoria took place on the 20th of June 1838.--B.]
[Footnote 182: Antipater (_d._ 319 B.C.), a Macedonian general, acted
as Viceroy of Macedon and Greece during Alexander's absence, governed
for some time after Alexander's death, defeated the Athenians at
Cranon, and had just been appointed regent during the minority of
Alexander's children when he himself died.--T.]
[Footnote 183: Antigonus (_circa_ 382 B.C.--301 B.C.), surnamed
Cyclops, another of Alexander's captains, who shared the latter's
empire after his death, and for six years called himself King of Asia,
until overthrown and slain at the Battle of Ipsus.--T.]
[Footnote 184: Seleucus I. Nicator(354 B.C.--281 B.C.), one of
Alexander's best officers, proclaimed King of Syria, and finally of
Macedon, Thrace and Asia Minor. He was killed by Ptolemy II. Ceraunus
in 281 B.C.--T.]
[Footnote 185: Antiochus I. King of Syria (_circa_ 323 B.C.--261 B.C.),
surnamed Soter, son of Seleucus Nicator, whom he succeeded.--T.]
[Footnote 186: Ptolemy I. King of Egypt (_d._ 283 B.C.), also surnamed
Soter, another of Alexander's officers, received Egypt as his share of
the Macedonian Empire and assumed the title of King in 308 B.C.--T.]
[Footnote 187: Antonio Canova (1757-1822), the Italian sculptor, long
protected by Napoleon.--T.]
[Footnote 188: Frederick Duke of York, titular Bishop of Osnaburg
(1763-1827), second son, and one of the most scandalous, of George
III.--T.]
[Footnote 189: On quitting office, the Duc de Richelieu had intended
to make a journey to Vienna and Odessa in the spring of 1822. Before
leaving, he went to spend some time at the Château de Courteille, with
his wife and mother-in-law. There he was taken ill; and hastened back
to Paris, where he had scarcely arrived when he was attacked by a
congestion of the brain. He died on the 17th of May 1822, at the age of
fifty-five years and eight months.--B.]
[Footnote 190: Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, third Marquess of Lansdowne
(1780-1863), Chancellor of the Exchequer (1806-1807), Home Secretary
(1827-1828), Lord President of the Council (1830-1834 and 1846-1852), a
member of the Cabinet (1852-1858), and a knight of the Garter.--T.]
[Footnote 191: Sarah Siddons (1755-1831), _née_ Kemble, the famous
actress, was 67, not 73, years of age in 1822. She made her first
appearance in 1782, her last in 1812. Lady Macbeth was her greatest
part.--T.]
[Footnote 192: Antoine Louis Marie de Gramont, Duc de Guiche
(1755-1836), had served in the Bodyguard, as Captain Gramont, before
the Revolution. On the Restoration, he was created a peer of France.
The Duc de Guiche consented to take the oath to the Government of July
and remained in the Upper Chamber till his death.--B.]
[Footnote 193: Madame la Duchesse de Guiche was a daughter of the
Duchesse de Polignac.--B.]
[Footnote 194: Charlotte Marie Antoinette Léontine Vicomtesse de
Noailles (1791-1851), _née_ de Noailles-Mouchy, married, in 1809, to
her cousin Alfred Louis Dominique Vincent de Paule Vicomte de Noailles,
who was killed at the Battle of the Beresina in 1812.--B.]
[Footnote 195: James de Rothschild (1792-1868), youngest son of Mayer
Anselm Rothschild of Frankfort, and created a baron of the Austrian
Empire in 1822.--T.]
[Footnote 196: John Russell, sixth Duke of Bedford (1766-1839),
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland (1806-1807), and a knight of the Garter
(1830).--T.]
[Footnote 197: Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, first
Duke of Buckingham and Chandos (1776-1839), created a knight of the
Garter (1820) and a duke (1822) by George IV.--T.]
[Footnote 198: Christian Prince, later Christian VIII. King of Denmark
and, _de jure_, of Norway (1786-1848), succeeded to the throne
of Denmark on the death of his cousin, Frederic VI., in 1839. In
1814, when Norway was ceded to Sweden by the Treaty of Kiel, he was
proclaimed King of the former country, with the title of Christian
I., by the Norwegians, who refused to accept the union with Sweden
(May 1814). Unable to maintain his position against the Swedes, he
relinquished the crown (October 1814). His son, Frederic VII., was the
last Danish Sovereign of the House of Oldenburg.--T.]
[Footnote 199: Caroline Amelia Princess, later Queen of
Denmark (1796-1881), daughter of Frederic Christian Duke of
Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg.--T.]
[Footnote 200: Cathérine Henriette Marquise de Verneuil (1583-1633),
_née_ de Balzac d'Entragues, mistress to Henry IV. King of France,
after the death of Gabrielle d'Estrées.--T.]
[Footnote 201: Françoise Marquise de Maintenon (1635-1719), _née_
d'Aubigné, mistress to Louis XIV., to whom she was married in 1684 or
1685.--T.]
[Footnote 202: Anne Marie Princesse des Ursins (_circa_
1643-1722), _née_ de La Trémoïlle, married first to the Prince de
Talleyrand-Chalais, secondly to the Duca di Bracciano-Orsini, or des
Ursins, for many years the influential favourite of Philip V. King of
Spain and his first Queen.--T.]
[Footnote 203: Dudley Ryder, first Earl of Harrowby (1762-1847),
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1804) and Lord President of the
Council (1812-1827).--T.]
[Footnote 204: Sir Robert Peel, second Baronet (1788-1850),
Under-secretary for the Colonies (1810), Chief Secretary for Ireland
(1812), Home Secretary (1828), First Lord of the Treasury and Prime
Minister (1834-1835 and 1841-1846). Peel died on the 2nd of July 1850,
through a fall from his horse while riding in Hyde Park.--T.]
[Footnote 205: John Fane, tenth Earl of Westmorland (1759-1841),
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland (1790-1795), Master of the Horse
(1795-1798), Lord Privy Seal (1798-1827) and a knight of the Garter
(1793).--T.]
[Footnote 206: Henry Bathurst, third Earl Bathurst (1762-1834),
President of the Board of Trade (1807-1812), Secretary for War and the
Colonies (1812-1827), President of the Council (1828-1830) and a knight
of the Garter (1817).--T.]
[Footnote 207: Allen Bathurst, first Earl Bathurst (1684-1775), the
friend of Pope, Swift, Prior, Congreve and Sterne, and grandfather to
the third Earl Bathurst.--T.]
[Footnote 208: STERNE, _Letters from Yorick to Eliza_, Letter III.--T.]
[Footnote 209: Lord Bathurst had two daughters, Lady Louisa Georgiana
Bathurst, who died unmarried in 1874, and Lady Emily Charlotte
Bathurst, who married in 1825 Major-General the Hon. Sir Frederick
Cavendish Ponsonby, K.C.B., and died in 1877.--T.]
[Footnote 210: Robert Banks Jenkinson, second Earl of Liverpool
(1770-1828), Foreign Secretary (1801-1804), Home Secretary (1804-1806
and 1807), Secretary for War (1809), Prime Minister (1812-1827), and a
knight of the Garter (1814).--T.]
[Footnote 211: Charles Jenkinson, first Earl of Liverpool (1727-1808),
Secretary for War (1778), Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
(1786-1802), Earl of Liverpool and Baron Hawkesbury (1796).--T.]
[Footnote 212: John Stuart, third Earl of Bute (1713-1792), Secretary
of State (1761), Prime Minister (1761-1762), a knight of the Garter,
and an exceedingly unpopular minister.--T.]
[Footnote 213: John Wilson Croker (1780-1857) was Secretary to the
Admiralty from 1808 to 1830.--T.]
[Footnote 214: Sir William A'Court, second Baronet, later first Lord
Heytesbury (1779-1860), Envoy Extraordinary to the Barbary States
(1813), to Naples (1814), to Spain (1822), Ambassador to Portugal
(1824), and to Russia (1828-1832). He was created Baron Heytesbury
in 1828, and served as Viceroy of Ireland (1844-1846) and, later, as
Governor of the Isle of Wight.--T.]
[Footnote 215: A jockey, or groom.--_Author's Note._]
[Footnote 216: Jean Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683), Comptroller-general
of Finance under Louis XIV., increased the prosperity of France in
a brilliant manner. At the same time he amassed a private fortune,
amounting to some ten millions of francs, and, at his death, the
populace, seeing in this fortune a proof of depredation, insulted his
coffin.--T.]
[Footnote 217: I can find no record of any insult being offered at the
funeral of Louis XIV. The obsequies of Louis XV., on the other hand,
were certainly disturbed by riotous conduct on the part of the mob.--T.]
[Footnote 218: Sir Charles Stuart, later first Lord Stuart de Rothesay
(1779-1845), Envoy to Portugal (1810), where he was created Count
of Machico and Marquis of Angra, Minister at the Hague (1815-1816),
Ambassador to Paris (1815-1830), raised to the peerage (1828), and
Ambassador to St. Petersburg (1841-1845).--T.]
[Footnote 219: 25 August.--T.]
[Footnote 220: Victor Louis Charles de Riquet de Caraman, Marquis,
later Duc de Caraman (1762-1839), created a peer of France in 1815 and
appointed Ambassador to Vienna in 1816. In 1830, he rallied to the
government that issued from the Revolution of July.--B.]
[Footnote 221: Charles Grey, second Earl Grey (1764-1845), First Lord
of the Admiralty (1806), Foreign Secretary (1806-1807), First Lord
of the Admiralty and Prime Minister (1830-1834), and a knight of the
Garter. Lord Grey passed the first Reform Bill in 1832.--T.]
[Footnote 222: Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847), leader of the agitation
in favour of Catholic emancipation (passed 1829), was elected to
Parliament as member for Clare in 1828. He became leader of the Repeal
Movement in 1840. It is interesting here to note that M. Biré speaks of
Daniel O'Connell as an "admirable orator, an ardent patriot, a fervent
Catholic: the Irish Liberator will be remembered as one of the greatest
figures of this century."--T.]
[Footnote 223: William III., Stadtholder of the Netherlands and King of
England (1650-1702).--T.]
[Footnote 224: Plato (429 or 430 B.C.--347 or 348 B.C.) often
discoursed to his disciples on Cape Sunium, now Cape Colonna, which
forms the south-eastern extremity of the Attic Peninsula. Minerva had a
temple there, of which nineteen columns are still standing.--T.]
[Footnote 225: Epimenides (596 B.C.--538 B.C.), a pious Cretan,
fabulously said to have slept for fifty years in a cave, to have lived
three hundred years, etc.--T.]
[Footnote 226: _Congrès de Vérone, Guerre d'Espagne, Négociations,
Colonies espagnoles._ Paris: Delloye, 1838. Two volumes, 8vo.--B.]
[Footnote 227: Alphonse Valentin Vaysse, Comte de Rainneville
(1798-1864), was in 1824 chief of a department at the Ministry of
Finance and one of M. de Villèle's ablest assistants. He sat in the
Chamber of Deputies from 1846 to 1848, and retired from political life
at the Revolution of February.--B.]
[Footnote 228: The phrase here reported by Chateaubriand was used, not
by M. de Corbière, but by the Baron de Damas, Minister for War. _Cf._
the _Mémoires du Comte de Villèle._--B.]
[Footnote 229: Major-General Louis Justin Marie Marquis de Talaru
(1769-1850), Ambassador to Madrid, in 1824, and a peer of France.--B.]
[Footnote 230: François Joseph Maximilien Gérard Comte de Rayneval
(1778-1836), Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to
Berlin, in 1824, and, subsequently, Ambassador to Vienna and, under
Louis-Philippe, to Madrid.--T.]
[Footnote 231: Chevalier de Bourgoing, First Secretary, and M. Adolphe
Billecocq, Second Secretary of Legation in 1824.--T.]
[Footnote 232: Ambassador to Vienna in 1824.--T.]
[Footnote 233: Ambassador to Lisbon in 1824.--T.]
[Footnote 234: French Secretary of Legation at the Hague in 1824.--T.]
[Footnote 235: One year later, on the 3rd of July 1825, Hyde de
Neuville, in his turn, informed his friend Chateaubriand that his
embassy had been taken from him:
"My noble friend,
"You announced to me your departure from the ministry. I, in
my turn, inform you that I am no longer ambassador.
"They strike me because I have followed you. So much the
better, that will rivet our bonds of friendship; praise God
and bless the King!
"_The King can do wrong._
"Entirely yours,
"HYDE DE NEUVILLE."
He received the following reply:
"Bravo, my dear friend; let them blame men like you, and they
will not go far. I cannot offer you, in quarterly payments,
the five thousand francs which you had placed at my disposal;
but I have still a few china plates at your service, and if
you want them we will sell them.
"Poor France!
"Yours more than ever,
"CHATEAUBRIAND."--B. ]
[Footnote 236: Ambassador to Naples in 1824.--T.]
[Footnote 237: Ambassador to St. Petersburg in 1824.--T.]
[Footnote 238: The Chevalier de Fontenay, First Secretary of Embassy in
St. Petersburg in 1824.--T.]
[Footnote 239: The Vicomte de Pontcarré, Third Secretary of Embassy in
St. Petersburg in 1824.--T.]
[Footnote 240: 16 September 1824.--T.]
[Footnote 241: 29 May 1825.--T.]
[Footnote 242: George Keith, tenth Earl Marischal (_circa_ 1693-1778),
was sentenced to death for taking up arms for the Chevalier in 1715,
took refuge in Spain, whence he commanded the Spanish expedition, was
defeated at Glenshiel in 1719, and again fled to Prussia. Frederic II.
appointed him Ambassador to Paris in 1751, and Governor of Neuchâtel
in 1752. Here, in 1762, he gave his protection to Rousseau. He is
generally known on the continent as Milord Maréchal.--T.]
[Footnote 243: "An earthenware cooking-pot, without feet, in which meat
is noiselessly cooked, over a stove, the French Huguenots being said to
have taken this precaution to avoid scandal on days when flesh-meat was
forbidden" (Littré).--B.]
[Footnote 244: The County of Neuchâtel passed in 1707, on the death of
Marie Duchesse de Nemours, the last of the Longuevilles, to Frederic I.
King of Prussia, to whom it was guaranteed by the Peace of Utrecht in
1713. In 1806, Napoleon seized it and erected it into a principality
for Marshal Berthier; in 1815, it returned to Prussia, while remaining
a Swiss canton. Neuchâtel declared its independence in 1848; this
independence was recognised by Prussia in 1857.--T.]
[Footnote 245: Isabelle Agnès de Sainte-Hyacinthe de Charrière
(1745-1805), _née_ van Tuyll, author, under the pseudonym of the Abbé
de La Tour, of the _Lettres Neuchâteloises_ (1784), _Caliste, ou
Lettres écrites de Lausanne_ (1786), etc.--T.]
[Footnote 246: Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869), the eminent
French critic. His appreciation of Madame de Charrière occurs in his
_Portraits de femmes_, published in 1844.--T.]
[Footnote 247: Characters in the _Lettres Neuchâteloises._--B.]
[Footnote 248: Louis Fauche-Borel (1762-1829), a Neuchâtel printer and
Royalist agent. He devoted himself to the cause of the Bourbons and was
repeatedly imprisoned under the Directorate and Consulate. He met with
nothing but ingratitude from the Restoration and returned to Neuchâtel,
where he lived in penury and at last put an end to his life in the
manner stated by Chateaubriand.--T.]
[Footnote 249: Louis Comte de Pourtalès (1773-1848), Governor of
Neuchâtel.--B.]
[Footnote 250: Clovis King of the Franks (465-511), founder of the
French Monarchy, embraced Christianity and was baptised and crowned at
Rheims at the hands of St. Remy, in 496.--T.]
[Footnote 251: Charles VII. King of France (1403-1461), surnamed the
Victorious, defeated the English with the aid of Joan of Arc in 1429,
and was crowned at Rheims in the same year.--T.]
[Footnote 252: Joan of Arc (1410-1431) was present at the coronation of
Charles VII. on the 17th of July 1429. She was subsequently captured by
the English and burned by them at the stake, on the 30th of May 1431,
at Rouen.--T.]
[Footnote 253:
"I have come from my country
No taller than a boot,
With-a _mi_, with-a _mi_,
With-a my marmot."--T.
]
[Footnote 254:
"Ah, what will they say from the dust of the grave.
The generous spirits of sovereigns brave?
What will Pharamond say, Clodion and Clovis,
Our Pepins, our Martels, our Charleses and Louis,
Who by blood and by peril, a warrior band,
Have acquired for their sons such a beautiful land?"--T.
]
[Footnote 255: Pepin King of the Franks (_d._ 768), surnamed the Short,
founder of the Second or Carlovingian Dynasty.--T.]
[Footnote 256: 28 May 1825.--T.]
[Footnote 257: Charles Louis Huguet, Marquis de Sémonville (1754-1839),
had been sent to Constantinople as Ambassador by the Republic,
was arrested by the Austrian Government on his way to his embassy
(1793) and was, in 1795, exchanged, together with other members of
the Convention, against the daughter of Louis XVI. He declared for
Bonaparte and was employed by him; and, in 1814, was appointed Grand
Referendary by Louis XVIII. Sémonville retained the functions under
Charles X. and also under Louis-Philippe, resigning them in 1834, when
he had completed his eightieth year.--T.]
[Footnote 258: Hyacinthe de Quélen, Archbishop of Paris (1778-1839), a
member of the French Academy, had received his see in 1821. Monseigneur
de Quélen was a man of saintly and charitable life, refused to
acknowledge the Government of July, and suffered through the furious
riot of 1831, when the Archbishop's Palace was wrecked.--T.]
[Footnote 259: Chateaubriand was a Knight Commander of the Holy Ghost
and a Knight Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour; Villèle a Knight
Commander of the Holy Ghost and a Knight Grand Cross of St. Louis.--T.]
[Footnote 260: Adalbéron, Archbishop of Rheims (_d._ 988) and
Chancellor of France under Lothair and Louis V., officiated at the
coronation of Hugh Capet, in 987, and was raised by him to the position
of Lord High Chancellor.--T.]
[Footnote 261: Jean Du Tillet, Bishop of Meaux (_d._ 1570), author of
the _Chronicon de regibus Francorum_ (1545).--T.]