Chapter XXI: Book II: 407 (4)

"You will think me very daring to come to importune you at such
a moment to beg you to grant me a favour, the last ambition of
my life: I desire ardently to be chosen by you as one of your
defenders. I have no personal claim to the high favour which I
solicit of your new grandeurs; but I dare to ask it in memory of a
Prince of whom you deigned to name me the historian, and I hope for
it again as the price of the blood of my family. My brother had the
honour to die with his illustrious grandfather, M. de Malesherbes,
on the same day, at the same hour, for the same cause and on the
same scaffold.

"I am, etc.

"CHATEAUBRIAND."]

[Footnote 482: Jean Marie Pardessus (1772-1853), a meritorious jurist and historian. He was a member of the various legislative assemblies from 1806 to 1830 and occupied different professorial and legal offices, which he relinquished after the Usurpation, devoting the remainder of his life to his historical and critical writings on law.--T.]

[Footnote 483: M. Mandaroux-Vertamy was one of Chateaubriand's executors.--T.]

[Footnote 484: Brennus, the leader of the Senonian Gauls who overran Italy and captured Rome, about 390 B.C., laid siege to the Capitol for six months, until bought off by the garrison with 1,000 pounds of gold. According to a later legend, when the gold was being weighed, a Roman tribune remonstrated against the use of false weights by the Gauls. Brennus threw his sword into the scale with the famous exclamation, _Væ victis!_--T.]

[Footnote 485: This pamphlet was published on the 29th of December 1832.--B.]

[Footnote 486: The Duchesse de Berry was betrayed by Simon Deutz, a converted Jew, to Thiers, for a sum variously named as 500,000 and 100,000 francs. She was discovered in hiding, with her confidants, behind the movable slab or plate of a chimney, in which a fire had been lighted by the gendarmes.--T.]

[Footnote 487: LUKE, XXII., 3.--T.]

[Footnote 488: St. Laurence (_d._ 258) was martyred by being roasted alive in an iron chair or on a gridiron in Rome. The Church honours him on the 10th of August.--T.]

[Footnote 489: Lucius Septimus Severus, Roman Emperor (146-211). He became Emperor in 193; his persecution of the Christians was decreed in 201. Severus died in Britain, at York.--T.]

[Footnote 490: This is the text of the declaration, which was inserted in the _Moniteur_ of the 26th of February 1833:

"Driven by circumstances and by the measures ordered by the
Government, although I had the gravest reasons to keep my marriage
secret, I think it my duty to myself, as well as to my children, to
declare that I was secretly married during my residence in Italy.

"MARIE-CAROLINE.

"At the CITADEL OF BLAYE, 22 _February_ 1833."--B.]

[Footnote 491: Chateaubriand appeared before the Assize Court of the Seine on the 27th of February 1833. With him were prosecuted the editors of the _Quotidienne_, the _Gazette de France_, the _Revenant_, the _Écho français_, the _Mode_, the _Courrier de l'Europe_ and a young student, M. Victor Thomas, who had, on the 4th of January, acted as spokesman for 1,200 young men who had gone to make a display of their enthusiasm to Chateaubriand and who had repeated with him:

"Madame, your son is my King!"

All were acquitted after an admirable speech for the defense by M. Berryer, who appeared for the _Quotidienne_ and the _Gazette de France._ Maître Charles Ledru appeared for the defense of the _Écho français_ and, incidentally and, as it seems, somewhat unfortunately, for Chateaubriand.--B.]

[Footnote 492: Jean Charles Persil (1785-1870) was a deputy from 1830 to 1839, a peer of France from 1839 to 1848 and a Councillor of State under the Second Empire. Immediately after the Revolution of July, he was appointed Attorney-general to the Royal Court of Paris. His zeal in prosecuting the republican and legitimist papers alike won him a formidable unpopularity.--B.]

[Footnote 493: M. de Falloux, who had made his way into court in a barrister's robes, describes the scene in his Memoirs. When the presiding judge had announced the acquittal of all the defendants, the crowd pressed around Berryer and Chateaubriand. The latter was obliged to cling to M. de Falloux' arm so as not to be thrown down.

"I don't like fuss!" he kept saying. "I don't like fuss! Take me quickly to my carriage!"

But on the steps the cheers were redoubled:

"Long live Chateaubriand! The liberty of the press for ever!"

They wanted to unharness the horses and yoke themselves to the carriage:

"Don't!" he entreated. "It's very far, it's very far, you can't do it!"

At last the driver succeeded in clearing a way, and set out at a gallop. (_Cf._ FALLOUX, _Mémoires d'un royaliste_, vol. I. p. 60.)--B.]

[Footnote 494: The famous restaurateur in the Palais-Royal. Alas, at the moment of writing this note, Chevet's has just put out its fires and closed its doors!--B.]

[Footnote 495: Lucius Junius Brutus, Roman Consul (_fl._. 509 B.C.), condemned his own sons, Titus and Tiberius, to death, for conspiring to restore Tarquin.--T.]