Chapter XVII: Introduction (3)

Madame, when she landed, like Bonaparte, on the coast of Provence, did not see the White Flag fly from steeple to steeple: deceived in her expectation, she found herself almost alone on shore with M. de Bourmont. The marshal wanted to make her recross the frontier at once; she asked to have the night to think it over; she slept well among the rocks to the sound of the sea; in the morning, on waking, she found a noble dream in her thoughts:

"Since I am on French soil, I will not leave it; let us set out for the Vendée."

M. de ----[399], informed by a faithful man, took her in his carriage as his wife, crossed the whole of France with her, and has put her down at -----[400]. She has remained some time in a country-house without being recognised by anybody, except the curate of the place. The Maréchal de Bourmont is to join her in the Vendée by another road.

Informed of all this in Paris, it was easy for us to foresee the result. The enterprise has a further drawback for the Royalist Cause: it will discover the weakness of that cause and dispel illusions. If Madame had not gone to the Vendée, France would always have believed that in the West there was a royalist camp standing at ease, as I called it.

But however, there remained still one means of saving Madame and casting a new veil over the truth: the Princess should have left again at once; arriving at her own risk and peril, like a brave general who comes to review his army, to moderate its impatience and its ardour, she would have declared that she had hastened to tell her soldiers that the moment for action was not yet favourable, that she would return to place herself at their head when the occasion should summon her. Madame would at least have once shown a Bourbon to the Vendeans: the shades of the Cathelineaus, the d'Elbées, the Bonchamps, the La Rochejacqueleins, the Charettes would have rejoiced.

Our committee met: while we were discoursing, there came from Nantes a captain, who told us the place where the heroine is staying. The captain is a good-looking young man, brave as a sailor, eccentric as a Breton. He disapproved of the enterprise; he thought it mad; but he said:

"Madame is not going away: it is a question of dying, and that is all; and then, gentlemen of the council, have Walter Scott hanged, for he is the real culprit!"

I thought that we ought to write what we felt to the Princess. M. Berryer[401], who was preparing to go to defend a case at Quimper[402], generously offered to take the letter and to see Madame if he could. When it became necessary to draw up the note, no one thought of writing it: I undertook to do so[403].

Our messenger set out, and we awaited events. I soon received, by post, the following note, which had not been sealed and which had doubtless come under the eyes of the authorities:

[Sidenote: Letter from Berryer.]

"ANGOULÊME, 7 _June._

"MONSIEUR LE VICOMTE,

"I had received and forwarded your letter of Friday last, when,
on Sunday, the Prefect of the Loire-Inférieure[404] sent word
requiring me to leave the town of Nantes[405]. I was on my way
and at the gates of Angoulême; I have just been taken before the
Prefect, who has notified me of an order from M. de Montalivet[406]
by which I am to be taken back to Nantes under an escort of
gendarmes. Since my departure from Nantes, the Department of
the Loire-Inférieure has been placed under martial law, and, by
this entirely illegal transfer, I am made subject to the laws of
exception. I am writing to the Minister to ask him to have me taken
to Paris; he will receive my letter by the same post. The object
of my journey to Nantes seems to have been utterly misinterpreted.
Decide therefore whether, in the light of your prudence, you will
think it right to mention the matter to the Minister. I apologize
for addressing this request to you; but I have no one to whom to
apply but yourself.

"Pray believe, monsieur le vicomte, in my old and sincere
attachment, and in my profound respect.

"Your most devoted servant,

"BERRYER the Younger."

"_P.S._--There is not a moment to lose if you are willing to see
the Minister. I am going to Tours, where his new orders will still
find me on Sunday; he can dispatch them either by telegraph or
express."

I informed M. Berryer, in the following reply, of the decision to which I came:

"PARIS, 10 _June_ 1832.

"I received your letter, monsieur, dated Angoulême, the 7th
instant. It was too late for me to see M. the Minister of the
Interior, as you wished; but I wrote to him at once, sending him
your own letter enclosed in mine. I hope that the mistake which
occasioned your arrest will soon be admitted and that you will be
restored to liberty and to your friends, among whom I beg you to
number myself.

"A thousand hearty compliments, with the renewed assurance of my
sincere and entire devotion.

"CHATEAUBRIAND."

Here is my letter to the Minister of the Interior:

"PARIS, 9 _June_ 1832.

"MONSIEUR LE MINISTRE DE L'INTÉRIEUR,

"I have this moment received the enclosed letter. As I should
probably not be able to see you as quickly as M. Berryer wishes,
I have decided to send you his letter. His complaint appears to
me to be justified: he will be innocent in Paris as at Nantes and
at Nantes as in Paris; this is a thing which the authorities must
admit and, by righting M. Berryer's complaint, they will avoid
giving a retroactive effect to the law. I venture to hope all,
monsieur le comte, from your impartiality.

"I have the honour to be, etc., etc.

"CHATEAUBRIAND."

[Footnote 330: This book was written in Paris and Geneva, from October 1830 to June 1832.--T.]

[Footnote 331: This and the following pages were written in March and April 1831.--B.]

[Footnote 332: The _Études historiques._--B.]

[Footnote 333: The trial of the ministers before the Court of Peers commenced on the 15th and ended on the 21st of December 1830. The verdict condemned the Prince de Polignac to perpetual imprisonment on the continental territory of the Kingdom, declared him to have forfeited his titles, rank and Orders, declared him besides to be civilly dead and subject to all the other effects of the penalty of transportation. Messieurs de Peyronnet, de Chantelauze and de Guernon-Ranville were condemned to imprisonment for life.--B.]

[Footnote 334: The sack of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois and the pillage of the Archbishop's Palace took place on the 14th and 15th of February 1831.--B.

The Duc de Berry was murdered on the 13th of February 1820--T.]

[Footnote 335: Félix Cadet de Gassicourt the Younger (1789-1861), chemist and druggist and Mayor of the 4th Ward of Paris.--B.]

[Footnote 336: "Mayeux," the hunchbacked type of the political versatility of the French nation, was an invention of the caricaturists and the comic papers of the year 1831. According to them, Messidor Napoleon Louis Charles Philippe Mayeux, born on the 14th of July 1789, while his father was engaged in taking the Bastille, had taken various Christian names according to the different forms of government which he had in turn espoused or repudiated. He had not been much heard of before 1830, but the sun of July had at last brought him into the light of day. For twelve months, Paris saw, talked, thought, swore, above all, by none save Mayeux. He was in turns a Republican, a Bonapartist, a juste-milieu man: everything, in short, except a Carlist; for he was faithful to his resentment against a mounted Grenadier of the Royal Guard who had failed to see him behind a curb-post and had laughed at him when he said:

"Take care, soldier; there's a man in front of you."

Mayeux was a National Guard: that caused his death. One day he was struck off the roll for being guilty of making his brother _bisets_ laugh while under arms. He died of grief and shame a few weeks later: on the 23rd of December 1821, to be exact (_Cf._ the chapter on _Mayeux_ in BAZIN: _L'Époque sans nom_).--B.]

[Footnote 337: Chateaubriand's pamphlet appeared on the 24th of March 1831.--B.]

[Footnote 338: _Études et discours historiques sur la chute de l'Empire romain, la naissance et le progrès du Christianisme et l'invasion des Barbares; suivis d'une Analyse raisonnée de l'histoire de France_ (Paris: 4 vols. 8vo). The _Études historiques_ were published on the 4th of April 1831.--B.]

[Footnote 339: The fall of the Roman Empire.--_Author's Note._]

[Footnote 340: Chateaubriand left for Switzerland on the 16th of May 1831; he arrived at Geneva on the 23rd of May.--B.]

[Footnote 341: _De la Restauration et de la Monarchie élective.--Author's Note._]

[Footnote 342: This refers to my literary and to my political career, which had been left behind: the voids have since been filled by what I have lately written in the last two years, 1838 and 1839.--_Author's Note_ (Paris, 1839).]

[Footnote 343: Hyacinthe has the habit of copying, almost in spite of my wishes, the letters which I write and receive, because he maintains that he has observed that I am often attacked by persons who once wrote to me in terms of endless admiration and applied to me with requests for services. When this happens, he rummages in bundles known to him alone and, comparing the insulting article with the encomiastic epistle, says to me:

"You see, monsieur, that I acted well!"

I do not agree with him at all: I attach not the smallest belief
nor the least importance to the opinion of men; I take them for
what they are and esteem them for what they are worth. As far
as I am concerned, I will never contrast for their benefit what
they have said of me in public with what they have said to me
in private; but this amuses Hyacinthe. I had kept no copy of my
letters to Madame Récamier; she has had the kindness to lend them
to me. #/ --_Author's Note_ (Paris, 1836).]

[Footnote 344: This letter and those which follow are exactly true to the originals:

"The letters," says Madame Lenormant, "which M. de Chateaubriand
wrote to Madame Récamier during his stay in Switzerland, have been
printed in the _Mémoires d'Outre-tombe._ We have collated them with
the originals and, this time, have found them to be reproduced
with scrupulous fidelity" (_Souvenirs et Correspondance tirés des
papiers de Madame Récamier_, Vol. II.).--B. ]

[Footnote 345: Elleviou (1772-1842) was this "singular personage," as the enclosure shows. Elleviou was a famous singer, during the Consulate and the Empire, at the Théâtre Feydeau. The _Maison à vendre_, words by Alexandre Duval, music by Dalayrac, was one of the pieces in which he made most success. He retired from the stage in 1813 and devoted himself to agriculture in the neighbourhood of Lyons. Elleviou was, like Chateaubriand, a Breton: he was born at Rennes, where his father was a surgeon.--B.]

[Footnote 346: It was easy for Madame Récamier's hand-writing to be smaller than that of Chateaubriand, who wrote in characters half-an-inch in height, and as though the alphabet contained only capital letters.--B.]

[Footnote 347: Jean Chauvin, Cauvin, or Caulvin (1509-1564), generally known as John Calvin, the Protestant reformer, fled from France to Geneva in 1536, was banished in 1538, returned in 1541, and lived there till the day of his death. He founded the Academy of Geneva in 1559.--T.]

[Footnote 348: A cousin of Benjamin Constant.--B.]

[Footnote 349: Albertine Adrienne Necker de Saussure (1766-1841), daughter to Horace Bénédicte de Saussure, the naturalist, and cousin to Madame de Staël. Madame Necker was the author of the _Éducation progressive, ou Étude du cours de la vie_, which was crowned by the French Academy in 1839.--B.]

[Footnote 350: Delphine Gay, later Madame Émile de Girardin (1804-1855), daughter of Madame Sophie Gay, and married to Émile de Girardin in 1831. She was the author of a number of comedies, novels and poems, and of _Lettres parisiennes_, contributed to the _Presse_ from 1836 to 1848.--T.]

[Footnote 351: I omit this poem of nine stanzas, entitled the _Naufragé._--T.]

[Footnote 352: The Pâquis are a quarter of Geneva stretching along the right bank of the lake from the Rue du Mont-Blanc to near the Lausanne road.--B.]

[Footnote 353: Alexandre César Comte de Lapanouze (1764-1836) was a captain in the Navy at the time of the Revolution, resigned, and found himself completely ruined. Under the Second Restoration, he founded a banking-house in Paris which soon became one of the most important in the Capital. He was a deputy from 1822 to 1827, supported the Villèle Administration and, in 1827, was created a peer of France. Lapanouze retired from politics after the events of July and withdrew to his estate of Tiregant in Gascony.--B.]

[Footnote 354: Cristina Principessa Belgiojoso (1808-1871), _née_ Trivulzio. She settled in early life in Paris, where she was noted for her wit and beauty and the independence of her opinions and her life. She became the friend of many celebrated writers, particularly of Alfred de Musset. In 1848, she flung herself with ardour into the revolutionary movement, hastened to Milan, which had risen in revolt, and furnished a battalion of volunteers at her own cost. She was the author of a number of works of travel and history, and, according to Balzac, was the original of the Duchesse de San-Severino in de Stendhal's Chartreuse de Parme.--B.]

[Footnote 355: Ferney is a village about four miles from Geneva, in which Voltaire resided from 1758 to 1778.--T.]

[Footnote 356: _Cf._ VOLTAIRE: _Zaïre_, in which tragedy Orosmane is the name of the Sultan of Jerusalem.--T.]

[Footnote 357: François Charles Hugues Laurent Pouqueville (1770-1838), a noted French traveller and historian, author of a _Voyage en Morée et à Constantinople_ (1805), a _Voyage en Grèce_ (1820-1822), an _Histoire de la régénération de la Grèce_ (1825) and other works.--T.]

[Footnote 358: Armand Carrel had published in the _Revue française_ (March and May 1828) some remarkable articles on Spain and the war of 1823, describing the Minan and Catalonian Campaigns and the adventures of the Liberal Foreign Legion.--B.]

[Footnote 359: The passion to which Chateaubriand alludes perhaps changed the course of Carrel's life. Shortly after the Revolution of July, on the 29th of August 1830, he was appointed Prefect of the Cantal. He refused, not because he was a Republican at that date, but because his connection with a married woman, from whom he was not willing to separate, made it impossible for him to accept any public function in the country.--B.]

[Footnote 360: _A. M. de Chateaubriand_, 1-2:

"Chateaubriand, why flee from thy land,
Flee from its love, from our incense and care?"--T.]

[Footnote 361: _Ibid._, 45-48:

"And in their fall thou wouldst wish to take part!
Learn their mad vanity better to know:
Thy faithfulness is by their thankless heart
Set 'midst the ills which to Heaven they owe."--T.]

[Footnote 362: Armand François Bon Claude Comte de Briqueville (1785-1844) was a member of an old family of Norman nobles. His father was shot by the Republicans on the 29th of May 1796. His mother, who was one of the first women of the great world to make use of the new divorce-law, caused her son to be given a republican education. He served with distinction under the Empire and, as Colonel of the 25th Dragoons, took part in the victory of Ligny. He was terribly wounded on returning to Paris after Waterloo. During the Restoration, the Comte de Briqueville was mixed up with several Bonapartist plots and, in 1827, was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. He approved of the Revolution of July and, on the 14th of September 1031, introduced a motion for the banishment of Charles X. and his family. The Comte de Briqueville, when the Duchesse de Berry was arrested, hastened to demand that she should be brought to trial; and he remained true to his hatred of the Bourbons to the last.--B.]

[Footnote 363: Chateaubriand's Letter to M. de Béranger, printed at the commencement of the pamphlet on the Briqueville Motion, was dated 24 September 1831. The pamphlet was published on the 31st of October 1831.--B.]

[Footnote 364: Tyrtæus (_fl. circa_ 684 B.C.), the Spartan elegiac poet.--T.]

[Footnote 365: Auguste Marseille Barthélemy (1796-1867), the satirical poet and prose-writer, kept up a wager from March 1831 to April 1832, to publish a political satire weekly of several hundred verses and irreproachable form. They commenced in the thirty-first number of the _Némésis._ Finer talents were never prostituted to a baser cause.--B.]

[Footnote 366: M. Barthélemy has since gone over to the juste-milieu, not without an amount of imprecation on the part of many people who rallied only a little later.--_Author's Note_ (Paris, 1837).]

[Footnote 367: The Conspiracy of the Rue des Prouvaires was not devoid of serious features. They were about three thousand in number. They lacked neither money nor courage. They had accomplices even among the palace servants; they were in possession of five keys opening the gates of the Tuileries Gardens, and admission to the Louvre had been promised them. A great ball was to take place at Court on the night of the 1st of February 1832. The conspirators chose that night to put their plot into execution. It was agreed that some should gather in detachments at different points in the Capital, thence to set out, at a preconcerted signal, and march towards the Palace; while others, gliding along the shade of the little streets which lead to the Louvre, were to make their way into the picture-gallery, burst through into the ball-room and, thanks to the disorder caused by this unexpected attack, seize hold of the Royal Family. "Crackers," or a kind of small bombs, would have been flung into the midst of the carriages waiting to take up at the doors of the Palace; _chevalets_, or pieces of wood fitted with iron spikes, would have been scattered under the hoofs of the horses; and, lastly, they thought themselves justified in hoping that fireworks would be placed in the theatre in such a way as to augment the confusion by setting fire to the wood-work.

The chief conspirators were to meet, at eleven o'clock in the evening, armed, at a tavern-keeper's at No. 12 in the Rue des Prouvaires. They had assembled there, to the number of one hundred, when suddenly the street filled with municipal guards and police-officers, who, in spite of the resistance of the ringleaders and their followers, were able to effect their arrest.

The trial opened before the Assize Court of the Seine on the 5th of July 1832. The accused were sixty-six in number, including eleven who were not in custody, and the pleadings occupied no less than eighteen sittings. Sentence was delivered on the 25th of July. Six of the accused were condemned to transportation; twelve to five years', four to two years', and five to one year's imprisonment. The remainder were acquitted. Among those sentenced to imprisonment was M. Piégard Sainte-Croix, an ardent Royalist, whose daughter, a "Carlist" like her father, subsequently married the celebrated socialist writer, Pierre Joseph Proudhon.--B.]

[Footnote 368: Louis Poncelet, alias Chevalier (_d._ 1805), a shoemaker, was the real leader of the plot, and gave proof throughout of rare qualities of intelligence, energy and audacity. At the trial, he was noted, above all the others, for the loyalty of his replies and for his skill in refraining from compromising his accomplices, while indifferent to his own danger. He was sentenced to transportation.--B.]

[Footnote 369: I kept back some passages of this long letter to insert them in my _Explications sur mes_ 12,000 _francs_ and, later, in my _Mémoire sur la captivité de Madame la Duchesse de Berry.--Author's Note._]

[Footnote 370: Blanche of Castile, Queen of France (1187-1252), widow of Louis VIII. and mother of St. Louis IX. She acted as Regent from 1226-1236, during her son's minority, and again from 1248 to 1252, during his absence on a crusade to the Holy Land.--T.]

[Footnote 371: At Fornovo, the French under Charles VIII. defeated the Italians on the 6th of July 1495.--T.]

[Footnote 372: At Marignano, Francis I. gained a victory over the Swiss on the 13th and 14th of September 1515.--T.]

[Footnote 373: The French under Bonaparte, Masséna and Augereau defeated the Austrians at Areola on the 15th, 16th and 17th of November 1796.--T.]

[Footnote 374: 14 June 1800, when the French defeated the Austrians and finished the campaign in Northern Italy.--T.]

[Footnote 375: Casimir Périer, the Premier, died of consumption on the 16th of May 1832.--T.]

[Footnote 376: Marcus Annæus Lucanus, known as Lucan (39-65), the author of the _Pharsalia_ etc.--T.]

[Footnote 377: Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), the author of the _Decamerone_, the hundred stones supposed to be told by a society of seven ladies and three gentlemen to shut out the horrors of the great plague of Florence in 1348.--T.]

[Footnote 378: Hippocrates (_circa_ 460 B.C.--_circa_ 377 B.C.), the famous Greek physician. "His alleged study of the great plague at Athens is not corroborated by a comparison with Thucydides' account" (MAHAFFY: _History of Classical Greek Literature_).--T.]

[Footnote 379: In his _Promessi Sposi._--T.]

[Footnote 380: Pierre Édouard Lemontey (1762-1826), elected a member of the French Academy in 1817, author of an _Essai sur l'établissement monarchique de Louis XIV._ and of the _Histoire de la régence_, from which latter work, published after his death, the above extract is quoted.--T.]

[Footnote 381: Charlotte Mademoiselle de Valois (1700-1761), daughter of the Regent Philippe II. Duc d'Orléans, and married in 1720 to ...]

[Footnote 382: Francis III. Duke of Modena (1698-1780).--T.]

[Footnote 383: Henri François Xavier de Belsunce de Castel Moron (1671-1755), a Jesuit father promoted to the See of Marseilles in 1709. He behaved with the greatest heroism during the plague which devastated the town in 1720 and 1721; and afterwards persistently refused promotion to a more important see.--T.]

[Footnote 384: After ravaging Asia and then Russia, Poland, Bohemia, Galicia, Austria, the cholera, passing over Western Europe, swooped down upon England. It declared itself on the 12th of February 1832 in London, whence it was not to disappear until the first week in May. On the 15th of March, it was noted at Calais. It struck its first victim in Paris, in the Rue Mazarine, on the 26th of March. The epidemic did not come to an end before the 30th of September, having lasted 189 days, during which the number of deaths from cholera amounted to 18,406. The population of Paris at that time was only 645,698 souls: the death-rate from cholera alone, therefore, was over 23 per 1,000.--B.]

[Footnote 385: M. de Bondy's letter ran as follows:

"MONSIEUR LE VICOMTE,

"I regret that I cannot accept, in the name of the City of Paris,
the 12,000 francs which you have done me the honour to send me. In
the origin of the funds which you offer, people would see, beneath
an apparent benevolence, a political combination against which the
entire population of Paris would protest by its refusal.

"I am, etc.

"The Comte de BONDY,

"Prefect of the Seine."--B.]

[Footnote 386: The _Constitutionnel_ announced that M. Berger, the Mayor of the 2nd Ward, had proposed to the Princess' envoy, "a former aide-de-camp of the Duc de Berry," to give the thousand francs offered in the Duchess' name "to the widow of a combatant of July, the mother of three children, to whom this relief would be very useful." The envoy whom the _Constitutionnel_ thus transformed into an aide-de-camp of the Duc de Berry was none other than the worthy Hyacinthe Pilorge, Chateaubriand's secretary. Pilorge at once wrote to the _Quotidienne_:

"PARIS, 20 _April_ 1832.

"SIR,

"M. de Chateaubriand, although suffering from illness, is at this
moment occupied in writing a general reply with reference to
the gift of Madame la Duchesse de Berry; this reply will appear
shortly. Meantime, I owe it to the interests of truth to say
that M. the Mayor of the 2nd Ward did not present the widow of a
combatant of July to me and did not propose that I should give
her the thousand francs; he merely refused them: that is all.
M. de Chateaubriand instructs me to add that if the _widow_ of
the _Constitutionnel_ will be good enough to call on him, he is
prepared to give her a share in the bounty of the _mother_ of the
Duc de Bordeaux. You see, Sir, that I have not the honour of having
been an aide-de-camp of M. le Duc de Berry and that I am only the
poor and faithful secretary of a man as poor and as faithful as
myself.

"Pray accept, Sir, the assurance of my most distinguished regard,

"HYACINTHE PILORGE."--B.]

[Footnote 387: Chateaubriand has confused the two Cadets de Gassicourt, father and son. Cadet de Gassicourt the Elder (1760-1831) wrote short verses and published two little pamphlets directed against Chateaubriand and Madame de Staël: _Saint-Géran, au la Nouvelle langue française_ (1807) and the _Suite de Saint-Géran, ou Itinéraire de Lutèce au Mont-Valérien_ (1811). His son, F. Cadet de Gassicourt (1789-1861), was Mayor of the 4th Ward and the individual referred to above.--B.]

[Footnote 388: This proclamation of Cadet de Gassicourt's was posted on the walls of Paris on the 4th of April 1832. Couched in hateful and ridiculous terms, it practically called upon the populace to murder the Carlists, "those ancient tyrants, who are capable of adopting all methods and who do not blush to have a horrible plague as their auxiliary!"--B.]

[Footnote 389: This was a piece of ignorant clap-trap. As the daughter of Francis I. King of the Two Sicilies, the Duchesse de Berry was entitled to be styled "Royal Highness" in France or anywhere else.--T.]

[Footnote 390: Referring to the traditional attitude of the surgeon-apothecary.--T.]

[Footnote 391: Monseigneur de Quélen. (_Cf._ Vol. IV, p. III, n. I.)--T.]

[Footnote 392: _Rom._ XIII. 10.--T.]

[Footnote 393: _Cf._ MATT. v. 7.--T.]

[Footnote 394: Maximilien Comte Lamarque (1770-1832) took a distinguished part in all the campaigns of the Revolution and the Empire. He sat as a deputy throughout the Restoration on the side of the Opposition. General Lamarque died of cholera on the 1st of June 1832.--T.]

[Footnote 395: General Lamarque's funeral took place on the 5th of June 1832. The members of the secret societies, the schools, the men condemned for political offenses, the artillery of the National Guard, the foreign refugees had arranged to meet there. At a signal given by means of a red flag, the Republicans disarmed fixed posts, threw up barricades, pillaged the Arsenal and the shops, but were unable to draw over the workmen or the National Guard. General Lobeau, at the head of serious forces, swept the main thoroughfares and confined the insurrection between the Marché des Innocents and the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. By the morning of the 6th, it was reduced to impotence and abandoned by its own leaders. The day was none the less slaughterous, especially at the Cloître Saint-Merry and in the Rue des Arris.--B.]

[Footnote 396: By Royal Ordinance dated 6th June 1832.--B.]

[Footnote 397: Cheops, or Khufu, King of Egypt of the 4th Dynasty.--T.]

[Footnote 398: On the 24th of April 1832 the Duchesse de Berry left Massa on board a Sardinian steam-boat, the _Carlo-Alberto_, which she had chartered. She called at Nice, put out to sea again, and arrived in Marseilles waters on the 28th. She was accompanied by the Maréchal de Bourmont, the Comte de Kergorlay, the Vicomte, later Comte de Saint-Priest, Messieurs Emmanuel de Brissac, de Mesnard, Alexandre Sala, Édouard Led'huy, the Vicomte de Kergorlay, Charles and Adolphe de Bourmont, Alexis Sabatier, Ferrari, supercargo, and Mademoiselle Mathilde Lebeschu. She disembarked at night, in a heavy sea, at one of the most dangerous points of the coast. Concealed in the house of a game-keeper, M. Maurel, she awaited the result of the movement planned in Marseilles. At four o'clock in the afternoon on the 30th, Messieurs de Bonrecueil, de Bermond, de Lachaud and de Candoles, who had escaped from the town, arrived carrying this note:

"The movement has failed; you must leave France."--B.]

[Footnote 399: M. Alban de Villeneuve-Bargemont. He had furnished himself with a passport for himself, his wife and a man-servant: the Princess played the part of Madame de Villeneuve. The servant was the Comte, later Duc, de Lorges.--B.]

[Footnote 400: After spending nine days, from the 7th to the 16th of May, at the Château de Plassac, a few leagues from Blaye, with M. le Marquis de Dampierre, the Duchesse de Berry arrived, on the 17th, at the Château de la Preuille, near Montaigu, in the Vendée. The owner was Colonel de Nacquart.--B.]

[Footnote 401: Pierre Antoine Berryer (1790-1868), known as Berryer the Younger, to distinguish him from his father, Pierre Nicolas Berryer (1757-1841), himself a most distinguished advocate and the defender of Moreau and Ney. Berryer the Younger, after M. Chateaubriand's death, became the most eloquent supporter of the Legitimist Cause and leader of the party in France.--T.]

[Footnote 402: It was not at Quimper, but at Vannes, that Berryer was to go to defend a case, that of Commandant Guillemot, accused of Chouanism and brought before the Morbihan Assize Court on that count. Commandant Guillemot's trial was fixed for the 12th of June.--B.]

[Footnote 403: The text of Chateaubriand's note to the Duchesse de Berry ran as follows:

"The persons in whom an honourable confidence has been placed
cannot refrain from expressing their regret at the counsels
in consequence of which the present crisis has arisen. Those
counsels were given by men who were doubtless filled with zeal,
but who are acquainted with neither the actual state of things
nor the disposition of men's minds. It is a mistake to believe in
the possibility of a movement within Paris. One would not find
twelve hundred men, unmixed with police agents, who, for a few
crown-pieces, would make a noise in the streets and who would
then have to fight the National Guard and a faithful garrison.
One is mistaken about the Vendée as one was mistaken about the
South. That land of devotion and of sacrifices is afflicted with
a numerous army, aided by the population of the towns, which are
almost all anti-legitimist. A rising of peasants would hereafter
lead only to the looting of the country-side and the consolidation
of the present Government by an easy triumph. We think that, if
the mother of Henry V. were in France, she ought to leave without
delay, after ordering all her leaders to remain quiet. In this way,
instead of coming to organize civil war, she would have come to
command peace; she would have had the double glory of achieving an
act of great courage and preventing the shedding of French blood.
The wise friends of the Legitimacy, who were never warned of what
it was proposed to do, who were never consulted on the hazardous
steps which it was proposed to take, and who learnt the facts only
after they had been accomplished, throw the responsibility of those
facts upon those who advised them and carried them through. They
can neither merit honour nor incur blame in the chances of either
fortune."--B.]

[Footnote 404: The Comte de Saint-Aignan.--B.]

[Footnote 405: Berryer was to leave not only the town of Nantes, but France, and to go to the waters of Aix-en-Savoie, according to the following itinerary endorsed on his passport: Bourbon-Vendée, Luçon, the Rochelle, Rochefort, Saintes, Angoulême, Clermont, Montbrison, the Puy, Lyons and Pont-de-Beau voisin.--B.]

[Footnote 406: The Comte de Montalivet was Minister of the Interior.--B.]