Chapter VI: Book VIII: 61 (2)

I had asked for leave of absence on the occasion of the
baptism of the Duc de Bordeaux. Being granted this leave,
I prepared to start: Voltaire, in a letter to his niece,
says that he sees the Spree flow, that the Spree empties
itself into the Elbe, the Elbe into the sea, and that
the sea receives the Seine; he thus came down to Paris.
Before leaving Berlin, I went to pay a last visit to
Charlottenburg; it was not Windsor, nor Aranjuez, nor
Caserta, nor Fontainebleau[147]: the villa, supported by a
hamlet, is surrounded by an English park, of small extent,
from which waste land can be seen outside. The Queen of
Prussia here enjoys a peace which Bonaparte's memory will
no longer be able to disturb. What an uproar the conqueror
made, in the old days, in this refuge of silence, when he
arrived there with his flourishing trumpets and his legions
blooded at Jena! It was from Berlin, after wiping the kingdom
of Frederic the Great from the map, that he announced the
continental blockade and prepared the Moscow campaign in his
mind; his words had already carried death to the heart of an
accomplished sovereign: she now sleeps at Charlottenburg,
in a monumental vault; a statue, a fine portrait in marble,
represents her. I wrote some verses on the tomb for which the
Duchess of Cumberland asked me[148].

I arrived in Paris[149] at the time of the celebration for
the baptism of M. le Duc de Bordeaux. The cradle of the
descendant of Louis XIV., of which I had had the honour to
pay the carriage[150], has disappeared like that of the King
of Rome. In a time different from the present, Louvel's
outrage would have ensured the sceptre to Henry V.; but crime
no longer constitutes a right, except for the man who commits
it.

[Sidenote: Baptism of the Duc de Bordeaux.]

After the baptism of M. le Duc de Bordeaux[151], I was at
last reinstated in my ministry of State: M. de Richelieu had
taken it from me, M. de Richelieu restored it to me; the
reparation gave me no more pleasure than the wrong had given
me offense.

While I was looking forward to returning to see my crows, the
cards were being shuffled: M. de Villèle resigned[152]. Loyal
to my friendship and my political principles, I thought it
my duty to retire into private life with him. I wrote to M.
Pasquier:

"PARIS, 30 _July_ 1821.

"MONSIEUR LE BARON,

"When you were good enough to invite me to call on you, on
the 14th of this month, it was to tell me that my presence
was necessary in Berlin. I had the honour to reply that,
as Messieurs de Corbière and de Villèle appeared to be
retiring from office, it was my duty to follow them. In the
practice of representative government, it is the usage that
men of the same opinion should share the same fortune. What
usage demands, monsieur le baron, honour commands of me,
since it is a question, not of a favour, but of a disgrace.
In consequence, I now repeat to you in writing the offer
which I made to you verbally of my resignation as Minister
Plenipotentiary to the Court of Berlin. I hope, monsieur le
baron, that you will kindly lay it at the King's feet. I
entreat His Majesty to accept its motives and to believe in
my profound and respectful gratitude for the kindness with
which he has deigned to honour me.

"I have the honour to be, etc.,

"CHATEAUBRIAND."

I announced to M. le Comte de Bernstorff the event which was breaking off our diplomatic relations; he wrote in reply:

"MONSIEUR LE VICOMTE,

"Although I ought long to have expected the intelligence
which you have been good enough to send me, I am none the
less painfully affected by it. I know and respect the motives
which, in this delicate circumstance, have determined your
resolutions; but, while adding new claims to those which have
in this country won for you an universal esteem, they also
add to the regrets which are here felt at the certainty of a
loss long dreaded and for ever irreparable. These sentiments
are keenly shared by the King and the Royal Family, and I
am only awaiting the moment of your recall to tell you so
officially.

"Bear me kindly in your remembrance, I pray you, and accept
the renewed expression of my inviolable devotion and of the
high regard with which I have the honour to be, etc., etc.

"BERNSTORFF."

"BERLIN, 25 _August_ 1821.

I had hastened to express my friendship and my regrets to M. Ancillon: his very beautiful reply (leaving my praises on one side) deserves to be recorded here:

"BERLIN, 22 _September_ 1821.

"And so, monsieur and illustrious friend, you are irrevocably
lost to us? I foresaw this misfortune, and yet it has
affected me as though it had been unexpected. We deserved
to keep you and to possess you, because at least we had the
feeble merit of feeling, recognizing, admiring all your
superiority. To tell you that the King, the Princes, the
Court and the Town regret you is to sound their praises
rather than yours; to tell you that I rejoice in these
regrets, that I am proud of them for the sake of my country
and that I acutely share them would be to fall far short of
the truth and to give you a very imperfect idea of what I
feel. Permit me to believe that you know me well enough to
read my heart. If that heart accuses you, my mind not only
absolves you, but more, does homage to your noble proceeding
and to the principles which dictated it. You owed France a
great lesson and a fine example; you have given her both by
refusing to serve a ministry which is unable to judge its
situation and which has not the mental courage necessary to
extricate itself from it. In a representative monarchy, the
ministers and those whom they employ in the first places
must form an homogeneous whole, all the parts of which are
jointly and severally responsible one to the other. There,
less than anywhere else, should a man separate himself from
his friends; he maintains himself and rises with them, he
descends and falls in the same way. You have proved the
truth of this maxim to France by resigning with Messieurs
de Villèle and Corbière. You have taught her at the same
time that fortune does not enter into consideration where
principles are concerned; and certainly, if yours had not had
reason, conscience and the experience of all the centuries
on their side, the sacrifice which they dictate to a man
like yourself would be sufficient to establish a powerful
presumption in their favour in the eyes of all who know
anything of dignity.

"I impatiently await the result of the coming elections to
draw the horoscope of France. They will decide her future.

"Farewell, my illustrious friend; sometimes, from the heights
on which you dwell, shed a few drops of dew on a heart which
will cease to admire and love you only when it ceases to beat.

"ANCILLON."

[Sidenote: I resign the Berlin embassy.]

Mindful of France's welfare, without occupying myself further with myself or my friends, I at that period submitted the following note to Monsieur:

"If the King did me the honour to consult me, this is what I
should propose for the good of his service and the repose of
France.

"The Left Centre of the Elective Chamber is gratified at the
nomination of M. Royer-Collard[153]: still, I should think
peace more assured, if they brought into the Council a man of
merit taken from that side and chosen from among the members
of the Chamber of Peers or the Chamber of Deputies.

"To place in addition in the Council a deputy from the side
of the Independent Right.

"To complete the distribution of offices in that spirit.

"As to things:

"To bring forward at a suitable time a complete law on the
liberty of the press, said law to abolish constructional
prosecutions and the optional censorship; to prepare a
communal law; to complete the Septennial Act, carrying the
eligible age to thirty years; in one word, to proceed,
Charter in hand, courageously to defend religion against
impiety, but at the same time to protect it against
fanaticism and the indiscretions of a zeal that do it great
harm.

"As to foreign affairs, three things must guide the King's
ministers: the honour, the independence and the interest of
France.

"New France is wholly Royalist; she may become wholly
Revolutionary: let them follow the institutions, and I would
answer with my head for a future of many centuries; let them
violate or molest those institutions, and I would not answer
for a future of a few months.

"I and my friends are ready to support with all our strength
an administration formed on the bases as suggested above.

"CHATEAUBRIAND."

A voice in which the woman prevailed over the princess came to give consolation to what was only the affliction of a life incessantly varying. The handwriting of H.R.H. the Duchess of Cumberland was so greatly altered that I had some difficulty in recognising it. The letter bore the date of the 28th of September 1821: it is the last which I received from that royal hand[154]. Alas, the other noble friends who at that time supported me in Paris have quitted this earth! Shall I, then, remain with such stubbornness here below that none of the persons to whom I have attached myself can survive me? Happy they on whom age has the effect of wine and who lose their memory when they have had their fill of days!

The resignations of Messieurs de Villèle and de Corbière were not long in bringing about the dissolution of the Cabinet and the return of my friends to the Council, as I had foreseen: M. le Vicomte de Montmorency was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. de Villèle Minister of Finance, M. de Corbière Minister of the Interior[155]. I had played too great a part in recent political movements and exercised too great an influence on public opinion to be left on one side. It was resolved that I should replace M. le Duc Decazes at the London Embassy. Louis XVIII. always consented to send me away. I went to thank him; he spoke to me of his favourite with a constancy of attachment rare in kings; he "begged" me to remove from the mind of George IV. the prejudice which that sovereign had conceived against M. Decazes, and myself to forget the differences which had existed between me and the former Minister of Police. That monarch, from whom so many misfortunes had been unable to draw a tear, was moved by a few sufferings which may have afflicted the man whom he had honoured with his friendship.

[Sidenote: And am sent to London.]

My nomination reawoke my memories: Charlotte returned to my thoughts; my youth, my emigration appeared before me, with their sorrows and their joys. Human weakness also made it a pleasure to me to reappear, well-known and powerful, there where I had been unknown and powerless. Madame de Chateaubriand, fearing the sea, dared not cross the Channel, and I set out alone. The secretaries of the Embassy had gone before me.

[Footnote 61: This book was written in 1839 and revised in December 1846.--T.]

[Footnote 62: Lycurgus (_circa_ 880 B.C.), the Spartan legislator, after making his fellow-citizens swear to make no changes in his laws during his absence, set out on a long journey, but never returned.--T.]

[Footnote 63: The Battle of Jena, won by Napoleon, and of Auerstädt, a few miles distant, won by Davout on the same day, 14 October 1806.--T.]

[Footnote 64: Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) lived eleven years longer, dying at Weimar at the age of 83.--T.]

[Footnote 65: Martin Luther (1483-1546). His monument at Wittenberg was erected in this year, 1821, of which Chateaubriand speaks. Until then, his tomb was shown in the church of the University.--T.]

[Footnote 66: Maurice Adolphe Charles Vicomte de Flavigny (1799-1873). He became secretary to the Prince de Polignac, accepted the Monarchy of July, and was raised to the peerage on the 25th of December 1841. After the _coup d'État_, he rallied to the government of Louis Napoleon, and sat as a member of the Legislative Body from 1852 to 1863, after which date he was not re-elected, owing to his support of the Temporal Power of the Pope.--B.]

[Footnote 67: Frederic William III. King of Prussia (1770-1840).--T.]

[Footnote 68: Prince Frederic William, later Frederic William IV. King of Prussia (1795-1861) succeeded his father in 1840.--T.]

[Footnote 69: Prince William, later William I. King of Prussia and German Emperor (1797-1888), Prince Charles (1801-1883) and Prince Albert (1809-1872) of Prussia.--T.]

[Footnote 70: Grand-duke Nicholas, later Nicholas I. Tsar of Russia (1796-1855), had married the Princess Charlotte of Prussia in July 1817, so that the wedding was not exactly recent. Nicholas was the third son of the Tsar Paul I., and succeeded Alexander I. in 1825.--T.]

[Footnote 71: Princess Charlotte of Prussia, later Tsarina Alexandra Feodorowna of Russia (1798-1860), daughter of Frederic William III.--T.]

[Footnote 72: Ernest Augustus Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, later Ernest I. King of Hanover (1771-1851), fifth son of George III. King of Great Britain, Ireland, and Hanover, succeeded on the death of William IV. in 1837.--T.]

[Footnote 73: Frederica Caroline Sophia Alexandrina Duchess of Cumberland, later Queen of Hanover (1778-1841), daughter of Charles II. Grand-duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was married first (1793) to Prince Louis of Prussia, who died in 1796, secondly (1799) to Prince Frederic William of Solmo-Braunfels, who divorced her and who died in 1814, and thirdly (1815) to the Duke of Cumberland.--T.]

[Footnote 74: Prince Frederic William Charles of Prussia (1783-1851).--T.]

[Footnote 75: Prince Augustus of Prussia (1779-1843), son of Prince Ferdinand and nephew of Frederic the Great, was taken prisoner at the Battle of Saalfeld, at which his brother, Prince Louis Ferdinand, was killed.--B.]

[Footnote 76: François Pascal Simon Baron Gerard (1770-1837). His portrait of Madame Récamier is Gérard's master-piece. His _Corinne improvisant au cap Misène_, referred to above, is also one of his best-known paintings.--T.]

[Footnote 77: Jean Pierre Frédéric Ancillon (1766-1837), a famous statesman and historian, of Huguenot descent, was, in 1791, appointed Professor of History at the Military Academy in Berlin. Soon after, he became pastor of the French Reformed Church in that city. In 1803, he published his _Tableau des révolutions du système politique de l'Europe_, which secured his admission to the Berlin Academy. In 1836, he became tutor to the Crown-prince, with whom he visited Paris in 1814. On his return, he entered official life and, in 1831, became Prussian Foreign Secretary.--T.]

[Footnote 78: Christian Günther Count von Bernstorff (1769-1835), Prussian Minister for Foreign Affairs.--T.]

[Footnote 79: Jean Bart (1650-1702), a famous French sailor. After serving some time in the Dutch Navy, he returned to France, when war broke out with Holland, and equipped a privateer, with which he did great damage to the enemy. Louis XIV. thereupon gave him a commission in the Navy, then generally granted only to nobles, and, in 1691, made him a vice-admiral. In that year, Bart burnt over eighty English ships outside Dunkirk, and made a descent upon Newcastle, returning with an enormous booty. He fought continuously against the Dutch and English until the Peace of Rijswijk, in 1697. Louis XIV. ennobled him and sent for him to Court: his rough and awkward manners and brusque frankness of speech aroused the mirth of the courtiers, and the King himself more than once went out of his way to defend him.--T.]

[Footnote 80:

"Le bon roi Dagobert
Portrait sa culotte à l'envers," etc.:

"Our good King Dagobert
Wore his breeches front to rear," etc.--T.

]

[Footnote 81: Elise Philippine Amalie Baroness von Hohenhausen (1789-1857), _née_ von Ochs, a woman of letters well-known in her day, and a regular contributor to the _Morgenblatt._--T.]

[Footnote 82: Count David d'Alopeus (1769-1831), after being Russian Minister first to the Court of Sweden, and later to that of Wurtemberg, in 1813 became Commissary-General to the Allied Armies. His wife, who accompanied him to head-quarters, made herself noted for her beauty and the charms of her mind. In 1815, the Count d'Alopeus was Governor of Lorraine for Russia. Shortly afterwards, he was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to Berlin, where he continued till his death in 1831.--B.]

[Footnote 83: Mademoiselle Alexandrine d'Alopeus married Albert de La Ferronnays, a son of the Comte de La Ferronnays, Chateaubriand's friend.--B.]

[Footnote 84: Princess Frederica Charlotte Mary of Wurtemberg, later Grand-duchess Helen Paulowna of Russia (1807-1873), daughter of Prince Paul of Wurtemberg, and married, in 1824, to the Grand-duke Michael Paulovitch, brother to the Tsar Alexander and the Grand-duke Nicholas.--B.]

[Footnote 85: Frederic II. Elector of Brandenburg (1413-1471), surnamed "Iron-tooth," on account of his strength; abdicated in 1469.--T.]

[Footnote 86: Joachim II. Elector of Brandenburg (1505-1571), the first Lutheran Elector of Brandenburg. He died on the 3rd of January 1571, said to have been poisoned by Lippold, a Jew at the Court of Brandenburg.--T.]

[Footnote 87: Lippold (_d._ 1571), Master of the Mint, was tortured and executed for the death of Joachim II., although the case was never proved against him.--T.]

[Footnote 88: John Sigismund Elector of Brandenburg (1572-1619) added the Duchy of Prussia to his States, through his marriage with Anne, eldest daughter of Albert Duke of Prussia, and heiress to the Duchy.--T.]

[Footnote 89: George William Elector of Brandenburg (1595-1640), surnamed "the Irresolute." The anecdote is taken from Frederic the Great's Memoirs of Brandenburg.--T.]

[Footnote 90: Gustavus II. Adolphus King of Sweden (1594-1632).--T.]

[Footnote 91: Frederic William Elector of Brandenburg (1620-1648), surnamed the Great Elector, in whom began the power of this House.--T.]

[Footnote 92: A quotation from Frederick the Great's Memoirs of Brandenburg.--T.]

[Footnote 93: Frederic III. Elector of Brandenburg, later Frederic I. King of Prussia (1657-1713). In 1701, the Emperor Leopold, whom he had assisted against the Turks, raised his Duchy of Prussia into a kingdom.--T.]

[Footnote 94: Frederic William I. King of Prussia (1688-1740), son of Frederic I.--T.]

[Footnote 95: Johann Paul Gundling (1673-1731), an historiographer of some merit, was the butt of the Court of Frederic I., owing to his absurdities. He left a Life of Frederic I. and an excellent description of Brandenburg.--T.]

[Footnote 96: Elizabeth Queen of Prussia (1715-1797), married to Frederic the Great in 1733--T.]

[Footnote 97: François Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778) lived at Berlin in the intimacy of Frederic the Great from 1750 to 1753.--T.]

[Footnote 98: Jeanne Antoinette Lenormand d'Étioles, Marquise de Pompadour (1722-1764), _née_ Poisson, mistress to Louis XV. from 1744 to her death, and practical ruler of France during that period.--T.]

[Footnote 99: François Joachim Abbé, later Cardinal de Pierres de Bernis (1715-1794), wielded considerable power during the time of his favour with Madame de Pompadour.--T.]

[Footnote 100: Louis XV. King of France (1710-1774), great-grandson of Louis XIV. and grandfather of Louis XVI. It was during his reign that the Prussian Alliance was abandoned for the Austrian Alliance, destined to be so disastrous to France.--T.]

[Footnote 101: Sophia Wilhelmina Margravine of Bayreuth (1709-1758), sister to Frederic the Great and married, in 1731, to the future Margrave of Bayreuth. Her Memoirs and Correspondence with her brother are well-known.--T.]

[Footnote 102: Wilhelmina Rietz, Countess von Lichtenau (1754-1820), _née_ Enke, daughter of a musician of the Prussian Chapel Royal. At sixteen, she became the mistress of the Crown Prince, nephew of Frederic II., who married her to one of his footmen, called Rietz, and who became king in 1786 as Frederic William II., when he gave her the title of Countess von Lichtenau.--B.]

[Footnote 103: Prince Henry of Prussia (1726-1802), brother to Frederic the Great, and one of the latter's most distinguished generals. He went to live in France in 1788, intending to spend the rest of his days there; but the Revolution compelled him to return to Germany, and he died at Rheinsberg at the age of seventy-six.--T.]

[Footnote 104: MIRABEAU, _Histoire secrète de la cour de Berlin, ou Correspondance d'un voyageur français du 5 juillet 1786 au 19 janvier 1787_ (Alençon, 1789).--T.]

[Footnote 105: Karl Wilhelm Baron von Humboldt (1767-1835), a distinguished Prussian diplomatist and author of a number of extremely erudite philological works.--T.]

[Footnote 106: Louis Charles Adélaïde de Chamisso de Boncourt (1781-1835), known as Adelbert von Chamisso, a noted German writer and naturalist, of French birth. His parents had taken him to Germany during the Emigration, and he subsequently made Prussia his adopted country. The best known of Chamisso's multifarious works, most of which are in German, is the world-famed _Peter Schlemihl_, the story of the shadowless man.--T.]

[Footnote 107: Chamisso's two elder brothers (not his uncles), Hippolyte and Charles, were with Louis XVI. on the 10th of August 1792. Charles was wounded, while defending the King, and was saved by a man of the people. Shortly afterwards, he received a sword that had been worn by the unfortunate monarch, with a note thus worded:

"I commend to my brothers M. de Chamisso, one of my faithful
servants; he has often exposed his life for me.

"LOUIS."--T. ]

[Footnote 108: I here omit a quotation of some thirty-two lines of verse of Chamisso's.--T.]

[Footnote 109: Nikolai Count Romanzoff (1754-1826), Russian Chancellor previous to 1812, and a considerable patron of science.--T.]

[Footnote 110: Captain Otto von Kotzebue (1787-1846) of the Russian Navy, son of Kotzebue the German writer, discovered the Kotzebue Straits, on the north-east coast of America, in 1816. The expedition lasted three years, from 1815 to 1818.--T.]

[Footnote 111: Louisa Augusta Wilhelmina Amelia Queen of Prussia (1776-1810), daughter of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, married to the Hereditary Prince of Prussia, later King Frederic William III., in 1793.--T.]

[Footnote 112: Princess William of Prussia (1785-1846), formerly Princess Amelia Marianne of Hesse-Homburg, sister-in-law to the King.--B.]

[Footnote 113: Caroline, Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, formerly Princess Caroline of Hesse-Darmstadt.--T.]

[Footnote 114: Gioachino Antonio Rossini (1792-1868) had produced some twenty operas prior to 1823.--T.]

[Footnote 115: Christopher Gluck (1712-1787), the great classical operatic composer.--T.]

[Footnote 116: Johann Friedrich Christopher Schiller (1759-1805). His tragedy of _Joan of Arc_, or, rather, the _Jungfrau von Orleans_, appeared in 1802.--T.]

[Footnote 117: Gaspardo Spontini (1778-1851), a native of the Papal States, made his first great success with the _Vestal_ in 1807, at which time he was musical director to the Empress Joséphine. In 1810, he became manager of the Théâtre Italien in Paris and, in 1820, manager of the Berlin Opera. On the death of Frederic William, in 1842, he returned to Paris, where he had been elected a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1839.--T.]

[Footnote 118: Sébastian Érard (1752-1831), the famous pianoforte manufacturer. He was born at Strasburg, went to Paris in 1768 and, after a stay of some years in London, settled finally in Paris in 1812. Érard perfected the modern piano, organ and harp.--T.]

[Footnote 119: Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) fulfilled a number of political missions before 1300, when he was made a Florentine magistrate.--T.]

[Footnote 120: Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) spent his life between poetry and public affairs. In 1512, he was sent on a mission from the Duke of Ferrara to Pope Julius II.; in 1521, he was sent to suppress the bands of brigands infesting one of the provinces, and so on.--T.]

[Footnote 121: John Milton (1608-1674) was secretary-interpreter for the Latin tongue to the Privy Council under the Commonwealth and, subsequently, private secretary to the Protector Cromwell.--T.]

[Footnote 122: Charles de Lameth had made himself ridiculous in 1790, in his capacity as a member of the Committee of Inspection of the Constituent Assembly, by leading a nocturnal expedition against the convent of the Nuns of the Annunciation at Pontoise, in order to look for M. de Barentin, brother of the Abbess. The Marquis de Bonnay, Chateaubriand's predecessor in Berlin, wrote on this occasion an heroi-comical poem of the wittiest description, entitled the _Prise des Annonciades._--B.]

[Footnote 123: Philippe de Courcillon, Marquis de Dangeau (1638-1720), a great favourite with Louis XIV., thanks originally to his skill at cards. He accompanied the king as aide-de-camp in all his campaigns. Dangeau had a great reputation for wit and learning, and, although he had published nothing, was admitted a member of the French Academy in 1668. He left manuscript Memoirs from which extracts were published by Voltaire (1770), Madame de Genlis (1817) and Lemontey (1818); but the whole, entitled _Journal de la cour de Louis XIV._, first appeared in 1858.--T.]

[Footnote 124: Gédéon Tallemant des Réaux (_circa_ 1619--_circa_ 1700) left Memoirs which were first published by M. Monmerqué in 1834, under the title of _Historiettes de Tallemant des Réaux_, forming a crowd of curious and cynical anecdotes.--T.]

[Footnote 125: Karl August Prince von Hardenberg (1750-1822), born in Hanover, entered the Prussian service in 1790, and became Foreign Minister in 1806, and State Chancellor in 1810. He signed the Treaty of Paris in 1814, in which year the King of Prussia made him a prince, and took part as plenipotentiary in all the important congresses of the time.]

[Footnote 126: David Friedrich Koreff (1783-1851), a famous German doctor, for some time secretary to Prince von Hardenberg.--B.]

[Footnote 127: Hyacinthe Pilorge, Chateaubriand's secretary.--B.]

[Footnote 128: Karl Ludwig Sand (1795-1819), a student of the University of Jena, who had assassinated August von Kotzebue, the famous writer, on the 23rd of March 1819, at Mannheim. Kotzebue was regarded as the tool of absolutism by Young Germany. He was the father of the Captain Otto von Kotzebue mentioned above in connection with Chamisso.--B.]

[Footnote 129: Prince George of Cumberland, late George V. King of Hanover (1819-1878), succeeded to the throne of Hanover in 1851. In 1866, his kingdom was annexed by Prussia. King George, who was totally blind, married, in 1843, the Princess Mary of Saxe-Altenburg. Her Majesty is still living (1902) at Gmunden, in Upper Austria.--T.]

[Footnote 130: Victoria Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India (1819-1901), the last sovereign of the house of Brunswick-Lüneburg, succeeded to the throne in 1837 and, in 1840, married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who died in 1861.--T.]

[Footnote 131: 19 April 1821. Chateaubriand had gone to Paris to attend the baptism of the Duc de Bordeaux.--B.]

[Footnote 132: George.--_Author's Note._]

[Footnote 133: George IV. King of Great Britain and Ireland (1762-1830) was crowned on the 19th of July 1821. Queen Louise of Prussia died on the 19th of July 1810.--B.]

[Footnote 134: The Queen of Prussia.--_Author's Note._]

[Footnote 135: Napoleon died on the 5th of March 1821.--T.]

[Footnote 136: Eginhard (_d. circa_ 839), secretary to Charlemagne: the reference is to his more or less legendary adventures with Charlemagne's daughter Emma, whose hand Eginhard is supposed to have obtained. The family of the Counts of Erbach claim to be descended from Emma and Eginhard.--T.]

[Footnote 137: Queen Frederica of Hanover died in July 1841; Chateaubriand lived until the 4th of July 1848.--T.]

[Footnote 138: 14 December 1822.--B.]

[Footnote 139: A military revolution had broken out in Naples on the 2nd of July 1820. The army had been won over by the Carbonari, a vast secret society which covered a large part of Italy with its network. General Pepe had obliged Ferdinand I. King of the Two Sicilies to proclaim a constitution modelled on that which the Revolutionaries had lately established in Spain. The Austrians entered Naples on the 23rd of March 1821. The principal actors in the movement took refuge on foreign ships. The Parliament broke up, and the supreme council of the Carbonari pronounced its own dissolution. Ferdinand I., who had been forced to leave his capital on the 10th of December 1820, entered it again on the 15th of May 1821.--B.]

[Footnote 140: Ferdinand VII. King of Spain (1784-1833) had been compelled to grant a Constitution to his subjects in 1820, but revoked it, with the material aid of the King of France, in 1823. It was owing to Ferdinand's unconstitutional repeal of the Salic Law, without the consent of the Cortes, that the present Alphonsist Branch occupies the throne of Spain, to the prejudice of the Legitimist, or Carlist, Branch, and as the result of a long series of bloody civil wars.--T.]

[Footnote 141: John VI. King of Portugal and Brazil (1767-1826) was proclaimed Regent of Portugal in 1792, when his mother, Mary I., became insane. In 1807, attacked by the French, he withdrew with the Royal Family to the Colony of Brazil, which he raised to a kingdom. In 1816, on the death of his mother, he was proclaimed King of Portugal, but did not return to Europe until 1821. On his arrival, he found himself obliged to accept a Constitution, which he abolished two years later. Meanwhile, Brazil had declared her independence (1822) and proclaimed John's son, Peter I. (IV. of Portugal), Emperor. Civil wars, curiously similar in their origin to those in Spain, broke out in Portugal soon after his death, in 1826.--T.]

[Footnote 142: Troubles broke out in Piedmont so soon as the Neapolitan revolution had died away. On the 10th of March, the garrison at Alessandria mutinied. Turin, Pinerolo and Ivrea followed suit. On the 13th, King Victor Emmanuel I. abdicated in favour of his brother, Charles Felix. In the absence of the latter he gave the regency to Charles Albert, the King's cousin, who promptly proclaimed the constitution of the Spanish Cortes, but, at the end of a few days (21 March), he was obliged to fall back before the Austrian intervention. The conspirators of Alessandria and the Italian "federates" were dispersed at Novara, and the victorious army entered Turin on the 10th of April. Victor Emmanuel maintained his abdication and Charles Felix restored the old government.--B.]

[Footnote 143: He gave bold advice which was disregarded at Versailles.--_Author's Note._]

[Footnote 144: Max Jose Garnerin, Count von Montgelas (1759-1838), the favourite minister of Maximilian I. King of Bavaria, under whom he held successively pretty well all the great departments of State.--T.]

[Footnote 145: William IX. Landgrave, later William I. Elector of Hesse-Cassel (1743-1821), a field-marshal in the Prussian service, reigning Count of Hanau (1764) and Landgrave of Hesse (1785). He entered into the coalition against France in 1792, went through the campaign of 1793, and concluded a treaty of peace with the Republic in 1795. In 1803, he changed his title of Landgrave for that of Elector, but after the battle of Jena (1806) he was deprived of his sovereignty, which he did not recover till 1813. He died in 1821. The Landgraviate of Hesse-Cassel was absorbed into Prussia in 1866.--T.]

[Footnote 146: Jerome Bonaparte became King of Westphalia, a State specially created for him, with Cassel as its capital, in 1807.--T.]

[Footnote 147: The Palace of Charlottenburg was built by Sophia Charlotte, wife of Frederic I. King of Prussia, in 1706. Windsor Castle was built by the Norman sovereigns from William I. to Edward III.; the palace at Aranjuez was begun under Philip II., from designs by Juan de Herrera; the palace at Caserta was built, in 1752, by Charles IV. King of the Two Sicilies, and III. of Spain: the castle is very old; the Palace of Fontainebleau, in 999, by Robert II. King of France: it was successively enlarged and embellished by Francis I., Henry II., Henry IV., Louis XIV., Napoleon I. and Louis-Philippe.--T.]

[Footnote 148: I omit these lines.--T.]

[Footnote 149: "Paris, 28 April. M. le Vicomte de Chateaubriand, Minister Plenipotentiary of France in Berlin, arrived in Paris on the day before yesterday" (_Moniteur_, 29 April 1821).--B.]

[Footnote 150: _Vide_ the incident of the Bordeaux market-women, _supra_, p. 24.--T.]

[Footnote 151: The baptism took place at Notre Dame on the 1st of May 1821. Chateaubriand was restored to the list of ministers of State, Messieurs de Blacas and de Montesquieu were created dukes and numerous promotions were made in the several Orders.--B.]

[Footnote 152: Villèle and Corbière resigned on the 27th of July 1821, on the question of the censorship.--B.]

[Footnote 153: Pierre Paul Royer-Collard (1763-1845), politician and philosopher, was President of the Commission of Public Instruction in 1816, resigned this office in 1820, when the Ultra-Royalist Party had won the day, opposed the reactionary measures in the Chamber of Deputies and, in 1828, became President of the Chamber. Royer-Collard held no office after 1830. He was elected a member of the French Academy in 1827.--T.]

[Footnote 154: The Princess Frederica, Queen of Hanover, has just succumbed after a long illness: death is always present in the "Note" at the end of my text!--_Author's Note_ (Paris, July 1841).]

[Footnote 155: The other ministers were: the Duc de Bellune, War; M. de Clermont-Tonnerre, Navy; M. de Peyronnet, Justice; M. de Lauriston, the Royal Household.--B.]