History of the Vicomte de B----. His opinions.--State of
France.--Expediency.
I have had a curious conversation this morning with an old gentleman
whom I believed to be a thorough legitimate, but who turns out, as you
will see, something else--I hardly know what to call it--_doctrinaire_
I suppose it must be, yet it is not quite that either.
But before I give you his opinions, let me present himself. M. le
Vicomte de B---- is a person that I am very sure you would be happy to
know anywhere. His residence is not in Paris, but at a château that he
describes as the most profound retirement imaginable; yet it is not
more than thirty leagues from Paris. He is a widower, and his only
child is a daughter, who has been some years married.
The history of this gentleman, given as he gave it himself, was deeply
interesting. It was told with much feeling, some wit, and no
prolixity. Were I, however, to attempt to repeat it to you in the same
manner, it would become long and tedious, and in every way as unlike
as possible to what it was as it came fresh from the living fountain.
In brief, then, I will tell you that he was the younger son of an old
and noble house, and, for seven years, page to Louis Seize. He must
have been strikingly handsome; and young as he was at the time of the
first revolution, he seems already to have found the court a very
agreeable residence. He had held a commission in the army about two
years, when his father, and his only brother, his elder by ten years,
were obliged to leave the country, to save their lives.
The family was not a wealthy one, and great sacrifices were necessary
to enable them to live in England. What remained became eventually the
property of our friend, both father and brother having died in exile.
With this remnant of fortune he married, not very prudently; and
having lost his wife and disposed of his daughter in marriage, he is
now living in his large dilapidated château, with one female servant,
and an old man as major-domo, valet, and cook, who served with him in
La Vendée, and who, by his description, must be a perfect Corporal
Trim.
I would give a good deal to be able to accept the invitation I have
received to pay him a visit at his castle. I think I should find just
such a _ménage_ as that which Scott so beautifully describes in one of
his prefaces. But the wish is vain, such an excursion being quite
impossible; so I must do without the castle, and content myself with
the long morning visits that its agreeable owner is so kind as to make
us.
I have seen him frequently, and listened with great interest to his
little history; but it was only this morning that the conversation
took a speculative turn. I was quite persuaded, but certainly from my
own preconceived notions only, and not from anything I have heard him
say, that M. de B---- was a devoted legitimate. An old noble--page to
Louis Seize--a royalist soldier in La Vendée,--how could I think
otherwise? Yet he talked to me as ... you shall hear.
Our conversation began by his asking me if I was conscious of much
material change in Paris since I last visited it.