Chapter XXV: Book IV: 556 (1)

The castle of the Kings of Bohemia--First interview with Charles X.--Monsieur le Dauphin--The Children of France--The Duc and Duchesse de Guiche--The triumvirate--Mademoiselle--Conversation with the King--Dinner and evening at Hradschin--Visits--General Skrzynecki--Dinner at Count Chotek's--Whit Sunday--The Duc de Blacas--Casual observations--Tycho Brahe--Perdita: more casual observations--Bohemia--Slav and neo-Latin literature--I take leave of the King--Adieus--The children's letters to their mother--A Jew--The Saxon servant-girl--What I am leaving in Prague--The Duc de Bordeaux--Madame la Dauphine--Casual observations--Springs--Mineral waters--Historical memories--The Teplitz Valley--Its flora--Last conversation with the Dauphiness--My departure.

I entered Prague on the 24th of May, at seven o'clock in the evening, and alighted at the Bath Hotel, in the old town built on the left bank of the Moldau. I wrote a note to M. le Duc de Blacas to inform him of my arrival and received the following reply:

"If you are not too tired, monsieur le vicomte, the King will be
charmed to receive you this evening, at a quarter to ten; but, if
you wish to rest, His Majesty would see you with great pleasure
to-morrow morning, at half-past eleven.

"Pray accept my sincere compliments.

"_Friday_ 24 _May_ seven o'clock.

"BLACAS D'AULPS."

I did not feel that I ought to avail myself of the alternative offered to me: I set out at half-past nine; a man belonging to the inn, who knew a few words of French, led the way for me. I climbed up silent, gloomy streets, without street-lamps, to the foot of the tall hill which is crowned by the immense castle of the Kings of Bohemia. The building outlined its black mass against the sky; no light issued from its windows: there was there something akin to the solitude, the site and the grandeur of the Vatican, or of the Temple of Jerusalem, seen from the Valley of Jehoshaphat. One heard nothing but the sound of my footsteps and my guide's. I was obliged to stop at intervals on the landings of the steps that formed the roadway, so steep was the incline.

As I climbed, I discovered the town below me. The links of history, the fate of men, the destruction of empires, the designs of Providence presented themselves to my recollection, identified themselves with the memory of my own destiny: after exploring dead ruins, I was summoned to the spectacle of living ruins.

When we had reached the platform on which Hradschin[557] is built, we passed through an infantry post whose guard-room was near the outer wicket-gate. Through this wicket-gate we entered a square court-yard, surrounded by uniform and deserted buildings. On the ground-floor, on the right, we threaded a long corridor lighted at wide intervals by glass lanterns hung on the wall on either side, as in a convent or barracks. At the end of this corridor was a stair-case, at whose foot two sentries marched up and down.

As I was climbing the second flight, I met M. de Blacas, who was coming down. I entered the apartments of Charles X. with him; there two more grenadiers were standing sentry. This foreign guard, those white uniforms at the door of the King of France made a painful impression on me: the idea of a prison came to me, rather than a palace.

We passed through three pitch-dark and almost unfurnished rooms: I felt as though I were wandering once more through the terrible monastery of the Escorial. M. de Blacas left me in the third room to inform the King, with the same etiquette as at the Tuileries. He came back to fetch me, showed me into His Majesty's closet and withdrew.

Charles X. came up to me, held out his hand to me cordially and said:

"Good-evening, good-evening, Monsieur de Chateaubriand: I am delighted to see you. I expected you. You ought not to have come this evening, for you must be very tired. Don't stand; let us sit down. How is your wife?"

[Sidenote at Hradschin.]

Nothing breaks one's heart so much as simplicity of speech in the high positions of society and the great catastrophes of life. I began to cry like a child; I found a difficulty in stifling the sound of my sobs with my handkerchief. All the bold things which I had resolved to say, all the vain and relentless philosophy with which I intended to arm my conversation failed me. Should I become the pedagogue of misfortune! Should I dare to remonstrate with my King, my white-haired King, my King outlawed, exiled, ready to lay his mortal remains on foreign soil! My old Sovereign again took my hand on seeing the trouble of that "relentless enemy," that "opponent" of the Ordinances of July. His eyes were moist; he made me sit beside a little wooden table, on which stood two candles; he sat down by the same table, leaning his good ear towards me to hear me better, thus apprizing me of his years, which came to mingle their common misfortunes with the extraordinary calamities of his life.

It was impossible for me to recover my voice at the sight, in the residence of the Emperors of Austria, of the sixty-eighth King of France, bent under the weight of those reigns and of seventy-six years: of those years, twenty-four had been spent in exile, five on a tottering throne; the Monarch was ending his last days in a last exile, with the grandson whose father had been assassinated and whose mother was a prisoner. Charles X. to break this silence, addressed a few questions to me. Thereupon I briefly explained the object of my journey: I said that I was the bearer of a letter from Madame la Duchesse de Berry, addressed to Madame la Dauphine, in which the prisoner of Blaye confided the care of her children to the prisoner of the Temple, as to one practised in misfortune. I added that I also had a letter for the children. The King replied:

"Do not give it to them: they know only a part of what has happened to their mother; you must hand me that letter. However, we will talk of all that at two o'clock tomorrow: go to bed now. You shall see my son and the children at eleven o'clock and you will dine with us."

The King rose, wished me good-night and retired.

I went out; I joined M. de Blacas in the entrance-room; the guide was waiting for me on the stair-case. I returned to my inn, descending the streets on their slippery pavements in as short a time as I had taken long to climb them.

PRAGUE, 25 _May_ 1833.

The next day, the 25th of May, I received a visit from M. le Comte de Cossé, staying at my inn. He told me of the disagreements at the Castle relative to the education of the Duc de Bordeaux. At half-past ten, I went up to Hradschin; the Duc de Guiche[558] took me in to M. le Dauphin. I found him grown old and thin; he was dressed in a shabby blue coat, buttoned up to the chin; it was too wide for him and looked as though it had been bought at a rag-fair: the poor Prince excited a great pity in me.

M. le Dauphin has personal courage; his obedience to Charles X. alone prevented him from proving himself at Saint-Cloud and Rambouillet what he proved himself at Chiclana: his bashfulness has increased in consequence. He finds it difficult to bear the sight of a new face. He often says to the Duc de Guiche:

"Why are you here? I have no need of any one. There is no mouse-hole small enough to hide me."

He has said also, repeatedly:

"Don't talk about me; don't trouble about me; I am nobody; I don't want to be anybody. I have twenty thousand francs a year; it is more than I need. I have to think only of saving my soul and making a good end."

Again he has said:

"If my nephew had need of me, I would serve him with my sword; but I signed my abdication, against my own feeling, out of obedience to my father: I shall not renew it; I shall sign nothing more; let them leave me in peace, word is enough: I never lie."

[Sidenote: The Dauphin (Louis XIX.)]

And that is true: his mouth has never uttered a lie. He reads much; he has considerable attainments, even in languages; his correspondence with M. de Villèle during the Spanish War has its value, and his correspondence with Madame la Dauphine, which was intercepted and inserted in the _Moniteur_, makes one love him. His probity is incorruptible; his religion is profound; his filial piety rises to the height of virtue; but an unconquerable shyness deprives him of the full use of his faculties.

To put him at his ease, I avoided entering upon politics with him and only enquired after his father's health: this is a subject on which he is inexhaustible. The difference in climate between Edinburgh and Prague, the King's prolonged attacks of gout, the waters of Teplitz which the King was going to take, the good which they would do him: there you have the purport of our conversation. M. le Dauphin watches over Charles X. as over a child; he kisses his hand when he goes up to him, asks how he has slept, picks up his pocket-handkerchief, speaks loud so as to make himself heard by him, prevents him from eating what might disagree with him, makes him put on or leave off an over-coat according to the state of the weather, takes him out walking and brings him back again. I was careful to speak to him of nothing else. Of the Days of July, of the fall of an empire, of the future of the Monarchy, not a word.

"It is eleven o'clock," he said: "you are going to see the children; we shall meet again at dinner."

I was taken to the apartment of the Governor; the doors opened: I saw the Baron de Damas with his pupil, Madame de Gontaut with Mademoiselle[559], M. Barrande[560], M. La Villate[561] and a few other devoted servants; all were standing. The young Prince, scared, looked at me sideways, looked at his governor as though to ask him what he was to do, how to act in this danger, or as though to obtain permission to speak to me. Mademoiselle smiled with a half-smile and a timid and independent air; she seemed to be paying attention to her brother's movements and gestures. Madame de Gontaut looked proud of the education which she had given her pupils. After bowing to the two children, I went up to the orphan and said:

"Will Henry V. allow me to lay the homage of my respect at his feet? When he has ascended his throne, perhaps he will remember that I had the honour to say to his illustrious mother, 'Madame, your son is my King!' So I was the first to proclaim Henry V. King of France, and a French jury, by acquitting me, allowed my proclamation to stand good. God save the King!"

The child, flurried at hearing himself greeted as King, at hearing me speak of his mother, of whom no one spoke to him now, recoiled and took refuge between the Baron de Damas' knees, uttering a few emphatic but almost whispered words. I said to M. de Damas:

"Monsieur le baron, my words seem to surprise the King. I see that he knows nothing of his courageous mother and that he is ignorant of what his servants have sometimes had the happiness to do for the cause of the Legitimate Royalty.'

The governor replied:

"Monseigneur is taught what loyal subjects like yourself, monsieur le vicomte...."

He did not finish his sentence.

M. de Damas hastened to state that the moment for study had arrived. He invited me to the riding-lesson at four o'clock.

I went to pay a visit to Madame la Duchesse de Guiche, who lived at some distance in another part of the Castle; it took nearly ten minutes to go to her through corridor after corridor. When Ambassador in London, I had given a little fête in honour of Madame de Guiche, then in all the brilliancy of her youth and followed by a host of adorers; in Prague, I found her changed, but the expression of her face pleased me more. Her head was dressed in a way that suited her delightfully: her hair, plaited in little tresses, like that of an odalisk or a Sabine medal, was festooned in ringlets on either side of her forehead. The Duchesse and Duc de Guiche represented in Prague beauty chained to adversity.

Madame de Guiche had heard of what I had said to the Duc de Bordeaux. She told me that they wanted to send away M. Barrande; that there was a talk of calling in some Jesuits[562]; that M. de Damas had postponed but not abandoned his plans.

[Sidenote: The triumvirate.]

A triumvirate existed, composed of the Duc de Blacas, the Baron de Damas and the Cardinal de Latil: this triumvirate tended to take possession of the coming reign by isolating the young King and bringing him up in principles and under men antipathetic to France. The remainder of the inhabitants of the Castle caballed against the triumvirate; the children themselves headed the opposition. The opposition, however, had different shades: the Gontaut party was not quite the same as the Guiche party; the Marquise de Bouillé, a deserter from the Berry party, took sides with the Abbé Moligny[563]. Madame la Dauphine, placed at the head of the impartials, was not exactly favourable to the Young France party, represented by M. Barrande; but, as she spoilt the Duc de Bordeaux, she often leant towards his side and stood by him against his governor. Madame d'Agoult[564], devoted body and soul to the triumvirate, had no credit with the Dauphiness other than that which she enjoyed thanks to her presence and importunity.

After paying my respects to Madame de Guiche, I went to Madame de Gontaut's. She was expecting me with the Princesse Louise.

Mademoiselle somewhat recalls her father: she is fair-haired; her blue eyes have a shrewd expression; she is short for her age and is not so full-grown as her portraits represent her. Her whole person is a mixture of the child, the young girl and the young princess: she looks up, lowers her eyes, smiles with an artless coquetry mingled with art; one does not know if one ought to tell her fairy-stories, make her a declaration, or talk to her with respect as to a queen. The Princesse Louise adds to the agreeable accomplishments a good deal of information: she speaks English and is beginning to know German well; she even has a little foreign accent, and exile is already marking itself in her language.

Madame de Gontaut presented me to my little King's sister; innocent fugitives, they were like two gazelles hiding among ruins. Mademoiselle Vachon, the under-governess, an excellent and distinguished spinster, arrived. We sat down and Madame de Gontaut said to me:

"We can speak, Mademoiselle knows all; she deplores with us what we see."

Mademoiselle said to me at once:

"Oh, Henry was very silly this morning; he was frightened. Grand-papa said to us, 'Guess whom you will see to-morrow: it's one of the powers of the earth!' We said, 'Well, it's the Emperor.' 'No,' said Grand-papa. We tried again; we could not guess. He said, 'It's the Vicomte de Chateaubriand.' I hit myself on the forehead for not guessing.'

The Princess struck her forehead, blushing like a rose, smiling wittily through her moist and gentle eyes; I was dying with the respectful longing to kiss her little white hand. She continued:

"You did not hear what Henry said when you asked him to remember you? He said, 'Oh yes, always,' but he said it so low! He was afraid of you and afraid of his governor. I was making signs to him: did you see? You will be more pleased this evening; he will speak: wait!"

This solicitude of the young Princess on her brother's behalf was charming; I was almost committing a crime of lezemajesty. Mademoiselle remarked it, and this gave her a bearing of conquest that was captivating in its grace. I put her mind at rest as to the impression which Henry had made upon me.

"I was very glad," she said, "to hear you speak of Mamma before M. de Damas. Will she soon have left prison?"

My readers know that I had a letter from Madame la Duchesse de Berry for the children: I did not tell them of it, because they did not know of the details subsequent to the captivity. The King had asked me for this letter; I considered that I was not at liberty to give it to him and that I ought to take it to Madame la Dauphine, to whom I was sent and who was then taking the waters at Carlsbad.

[Sidenote: Mademoiselle.]

Madame de Gontaut repeated what M. de Cossé and Madame de Guiche had already told me. Mademoiselle groaned with childish seriousness. Her governess having spoken of M. Barrande's discharge and the probable arrival of a Jesuit, the Princesse Louise crossed her hands and said, with a sigh:

"That would be very unpopular!"

I could not help laughing; Mademoiselle began to laugh also, still blushing.

A few moments remained before my audience of the King. I got into my calash and went to call on the Grand Burgrave, Count Chotek. He lived in a country-house half a league from the town, on the side of the Castle. I found him at home and thanked him for his letter. He invited me to dinner for Monday the 27th of May.

On returning to the Castle at two o'clock, I was introduced to the King's presence, as on the preceding day, by M. de Blacas. Charles X. received me with his customary kindness and with that elegant ease of manner which the years render more perceptible in him. He made me sit again at the little table. Here is a detailed account of our conversation:

"Sire, Madame la Duchesse de Berry commanded me to come to see you and to hand a letter to Madame la Dauphine. I do not know what the letter contains, although it is open; it is written in invisible ink, as is the letter for the children. But in my two letters of credence, one intended to be shown, the other of a confidential character, Marie-Caroline explains to me what is in her mind. During her captivity, she commits her children, as I told Your Majesty yesterday, to the special protection of Madame la Dauphine. Madame la Duchesse de Berry charges me besides to report to her on the education of Henry V., whom they here call the Duc de Bordeaux. Lastly, Madame la Duchesse de Berry declares that she has contracted a secret marriage with Count Hector Lucchesi-Palli, a member of an illustrious family. These secret marriages of princesses, for which there are many precedents, do not deprive them of their rights. Madame la Duchesse de Berry asks to preserve her rank as a French princess, the Regency and the guardianship. When she is free, she proposes to come to Prague to embrace her children and lay her respects at Your Majesty's feet."

The King answered with severity. I made the best reply that I could out of a recrimination:

"I beg Your Majesty to pardon me, but it seems to me that you have been prejudiced; M. de Blacas is no doubt an enemy of my august client."

Charles X. interrupted me:

"No; but she has treated him badly, because he prevented her from committing follies, from embarking on mad enterprises."

"It is not given to everybody," I said, "to commit follies of that kind: Henry IV. fought like Madame la Duchesse de Berry and, like her, he was not always sufficiently strong. Sire," I continued, "you do not wish Madame de Berry to be a princess of France: she will be so in spite of you; the whole world will always call her the Duchesse de Berry, the heroic mother of Henry V.; her dauntless courage and her sufferings overtower everything; you cannot, like the Duc d'Orléans, wish to brand at one blow the children and the mother: is it so difficult for you, then, to forgive a woman's glory?"

"Well, _monsieur l'ambassadeur_," said the King, with good-natured emphasis, "let Madame la Duchesse de Berry go to Palermo; let her there live with M. Lucchesi as husband and wife, in sight of all the world; then her children shall be told that their mother is married; she shall come to embrace them."

I felt that I had pushed the matter far enough; the principal points were three-fourths obtained: the preservation of the title and the admission to Prague at a more or less distant period; feeling surer of completing my task with Madame la Dauphine, I changed the conversation. Obstinate minds jib at persistency; one spoils everything, with such minds, when one tries to carry everything by main force.

I passed to the Prince's education in the interest of the future: on this subject I was not clearly understood. Religion has made a solitary of Charles X.; his ideas are cloistered. I slipped in a few words on the capacity of M. Barrande and the want of capacity of M. de Damas. The King said:

[Sidenote: Conversations with Charles X.]

"M. Barrande is a man of attainments, but he takes too much upon himself; he was chosen to teach the Duc de Bordeaux the exact sciences, but he teaches everything: history, geography, Latin. I have sent for the Abbé MacCarthy[565], to share M. Barrande's labours; he will be here soon."

These words made me shudder, for the new tutor could evidently be only a Jesuit replacing a Jesuit. The fact that, in the present state of society in France, the mere idea of attaching a disciple of Loyola to the person of Henry V. had entered into the head of Charles X. was enough to make one despair of the House. When I had recovered from my astonishment, I asked:

"Is not the King afraid of the effect upon public opinion of a tutor taken from the ranks of a famous, but calumniated society?"

The King exclaimed:

"Pooh! Are they still at the Jesuits?"

I spoke to the King of the elections and the desire of the Royalists to know his wishes. The King replied:

"I cannot say to a man, 'Take an oath against your conscience.' Those who think that they ought to take it are doubtless acting with good intentions. I have no prejudice, my dear friend, against men; their past lives matter little, when they are sincerely anxious to serve France and the Legitimacy. The Republicans wrote to me in Edinburgh: I accepted, as concerns them personally, all that they asked of me; but they wanted to impose conditions of government upon me: I rejected them. I will never yield on matters of principle; I want to leave my grandson a more solid throne than mine was. Are the French happier and freer to-day than they were with me? Do they pay less taxes? What a milch-cow France is! If I had allowed myself to do a quarter of the things that M. le Duc d'Orléans has done, what outcries, what curses! They plotted against me, they have owned it: I wanted to defend myself...."

The King stopped, as though embarrassed by the number of his thoughts and by the fear of saying something that might hurt me.

All this was well and good; but what did Charles X. understand by "principles?" Had he accounted for the cause of the real or imaginary conspiracies hatched against his government? After a moment of silence, he resumed:

"How are your friends the Bertins? They have no reason to complain of me, as you know: they are very severe upon a banished man who has done them no harm, at least as far as I know. But, my dear fellow, I bear no one ill-will; let everybody behave as he thinks right."

This sweetness of temperament, this Christian meekness on the part of an expelled and slandered King brought tears to my eyes. I tried to say a few words about Louis-Philippe:

"Ah!" said the King. "M. le Duc d'Orléans... he judged.. . What do you expect?... Men are like that."

Not a bitter word, not a reproach, not a complaint could escape from the mouth of the thrice-banished old man. And yet French hands had cut off his brother's head and pierced his son's heart; to such an extent have those hands been mindful and implacable towards him!

I praised the King with all my heart and in a voice broken with emotion. I asked him if it was not part of his intention to put a stop to all that secret correspondence, to dismiss all those commissaries who, for forty years, have been deceiving the Legitimacy. The King assured me that he was resolved to put an end to that impotent mischief; he had already, he said, named a few serious persons, including myself, to compose a sort of council, in France, competent to keep him informed of the truth. M. de Blacas would explain all that. I begged Charles X. to assemble his servants and hear me; he referred me to M. de Blacas.

I called the King's attention to the time of the majority of Henry V.; I spoke to him of a declaration as a necessary thing to be made. The King, who, inwardly, would have nothing to say to this declaration, invited me to draft the model for him. I replied, respectfully, but firmly, that I would never formulate a declaration at the foot of which my name should not appear below the King's. My reason was that I did not wish to have put to my account the eventual changes introduced into any deed by Prince Metternich and M. de Blacas.

I pointed out to the King that he was too far from Paris, that one would have time to make two or three revolutions before he was informed of it in Prague. The King replied that the Emperor had left him free to choose his place of residence in all the Austrian States, the Kingdom of Lombardy excepted.

[Sidenote: The King's poverty.]

"But," added His Majesty, "the towns in Austria that one can live in are all at more or less the same distance from France; in Prague, I am lodged for nothing, and my position obliges me to make that calculation."

A noble calculation for a Prince who had, for five years, enjoyed a civil list of twenty millions, without counting the royal residences; for a Prince who had left to France the Colony of Algiers and the ancient patrimony of the Bourbons, valued at twenty-five to thirty millions per annum!

"Sire, your loyal subjects have often thought that your royal indigence might have some needs; they are ready to club together, each according to his means, in order to make you independent of foreigners."

"I believe, my dear Chateaubriand," said the King, laughing, "that you are not much richer than myself. How have you paid for your journey?"

I said:

"Sire, it would have been impossible for me to come to you, if Madame la Duchesse de Berry had not instructed her banker, M. Jauge, to pay me six thousand francs."

"That's very little!" exclaimed the King. "Do you want any more?"

"No, Sire; I ought even, by careful management, to be able to return something to the poor prisoner; but I am not good at bargaining."

"You were a magnificent lord in Rome."

"I always conscientiously squandered what the King gave me; I did not have two sous left."

"You know that I still have your peer's salary at your disposal: you refused it."

"No, Sire, because you have more unfortunate servants than myself. You helped me out of my difficulty for the twenty thousand francs of debts that remained over from my Roman embassy, after the ten thousand which I borrowed from your great friend M. Laffitte."

"I owed them to you," said the King. "It did not even amount to what you sacrificed in salary when sending in your resignation as ambassador, which, by the way, hurt me not a little."

"However that may be, Sire, whether it was due to me or not, Your Majesty, by coming to my assistance, did me a service at the time and I will pay you back your money when I can; but not at present, for I am as poor as a rat. My house in the Rue d'Enfer is not paid for. I live promiscuously with Madame de Chateaubriand's poor, while waiting for the lodging which I have already visited, for Your Majesty's sake, at M. Gisquet's. When I pass through a town, I first enquire if there is an alms-house; if there is, I sleep peacefully: 'board and lodging, who asks for more?'"

"Oh, it won't end like that. How much would you want, Chateaubriand, to be rich?"

"Sire, you would be wasting your time; if you gave me four millions this morning, I should not have a farthing to-night."

The King shook my shoulder with his hand:

"Capital! But what the devil do you throw away your money on?"

"Faith, Sire, I don't know, for I have no tastes and no expenses: it's incomprehensible! I am such a fool that, when I went to the Foreign Office, I would not take the twenty-five thousand francs allowed for the expenses of installation and that, when leaving, I scorned to purloin the secret-service money! You are talking to me of my fortune to avoid talking to me of your own."

"That is true," said the King. "Here is my confession in my turn: by spending my capital in equal portions from year to year, I have calculated that, at my age, I can live till my last day without needing anybody. If I found myself in distress, I should prefer, as you suggest, to apply to Frenchmen rather than foreigners. They have offered to raise loans for me, among others one of thirty millions which would have been subscribed in Holland; but I knew that that loan, when quoted on the principal exchanges in Europe, would send down the French funds; this prevented me from adopting that plan: nothing that would affect the public fortune in France could suit me."

A sentiment worthy of a king!

In this conversation, the reader will have remarked the generous character, the gentle manners and the good sense of Charles X. It would have been a curious sight for a philosopher to see the subject and the King questioning each other as to their fortunes and making mutual confidences as to their poverty inside a castle borrowed from the Sovereigns of Bohemia!

[Sidenote: Henry V.]

PRAGUE, 25 _and_ 26 _May_ 1833.

At the end of this conference, I attended Henry's riding-lesson. He rode two horses, the first without stirrups, the horse being led, the second with stirrups, performing volts without his holding the reins, with a stick passed between his back and arms. The child is daring and nothing less than elegant in his white trousers, his short coat, his little ruff and his cap. M. O'Heguerty the Elder, the teaching equerry, shouted:

"What's that leg doing? It's like a stick! Let your leg go! Good! Awful! What's the matter with you to-day?" and so on.

The lesson over, the young page-King pulled up on horse-back in the middle of the riding-school, took off his cap, suddenly, to salute me in the gallery where I was standing with the Baron de Damas and some French people, and sprang from his horse as nimbly and gracefully as the Little Jehan de Saintré[566].

Henry is slender, agile, well-built; he is fair; he has blue eyes with a trait in the left eye which reminds one of his mother's look. His movements are sudden; he accosts you frankly; he is curious and asks questions; he has none of the pedantry which the newspapers ascribe to him; he is a genuine little boy, like any little boy of twelve. I complimented him on his good appearance on horse-back:

"You have seen nothing," he said; "you ought to see me on my black horse; he's as vicious as a demon: he kicks, he throws me; I get up again, we jump the gate. The other day, he hit himself; he's got a leg as thick as that. Isn't the last horse I was riding a pretty one? But I was not in form."

Henry at present detests the Baron de Damas, whose appearance, character and ideas are repellent to him. He frequently loses his temper with him. In consequence of these rages, the Prince must needs be punished; he is sometimes condemned to stay in bed: a stupid punishment. Next comes an Abbé Moligny, who confesses the rebel and tries to frighten him out of his wits. The obstinate one will not listen and refuses to eat Then Madame la Dauphine decides in favour of Henry, who eats and laughs at the baron. The education proceeds in this vicious circle.

What M. le Duc de Bordeaux ought to have is a light hand which would lead him without making him feel the bit, a governor who should be his friend rather than his master.

If the family of St. Louis were, like that of the Stuarts, a kind of private family expelled by a revolution, confined within an island, the destiny of the Bourbons would, in a short time, be foreign to the new generations. Our old royal power is more than that; it represents the Old Royalty: the political, moral and religious past of the people is born of that power and grouped around it. The fate of a House so closely intertwined with the social order that was, so nearly allied to the social order that is, can never be indifferent to mankind. But, destined though that House be to live, the condition of the individuals composing it, with whom a hostile fate had not made a truce, would be deplorable. In perpetual misfortune, those individuals would march forgotten on a parallel line along the glorious memory of their family.

There is nothing sadder than the existence of fallen kings; their days are no more than a tissue of realities and fictions; remaining sovereigns by their own fire-sides, among their people and their memories, they have no sooner crossed the threshold of their house than they find the ironical truth at their door: James II. or Edward VII.[567], Charles X. or Louis XIX. behind closed doors become, with opened doors, James or Edward, Charles or Louis, without numerals, like the labourers their neighbours; they suffer the two-fold drawbacks of Court life and private life: the flatterers, the favourites, the intrigues, the ambitions of the one; the affronts, the distress, the gossiping of the other: it is a continual masquerade of menials and ministers, changing clothes. The mood sours in this situation, hopes weaken, regrets increase; one recalls the past; one recriminates; one exchanges reproaches which are the more bitter inasmuch as the utterance ceases to be confined within the good taste of a high origin and the proprieties of a superior fortune: one becomes vulgar through vulgar sufferings; the cares of a lost throne degenerate into domestic worries: Popes Clement XIV.[568] and Pius VI.[569] were never able to restore peace in the Pretender's Household. Those discrowned aliens remain under supervision in the middle of the world, repelled by the princes as infected with adversity, suspected by the peoples as smitten with power.

[Sidenote: Dinner at Hradschin.]

I went to dress: I had been informed that I might keep on my frock and my boots; but misfortune is too high in station to be approached with familiarity. I reached the Castle at a quarter to six; the dinner was laid in one of the entrance-rooms. I found the Cardinal de Latil in the drawing-room. I had not met him since he had dined with me in Rome, at the Embassy Palace, at the time of the meeting of the conclave after the death of Leo XII. What a change of destiny for me and for the world between those two dates!

He was still the hedge-priest with the plump belly, the pointed nose, the pale face, just as I had seen him in the Chamber of Peers with an ivory paper-knife in his hand. People asserted that he had no influence and that he was put in a comer and received more kicks than half-pence: perhaps; but there are different sorts of credit: the cardinal's is none the less sure because it is secret; he derives this credit from the long years spent beside the King and from his priestly character. The Abbé de Latil has been an intimate confidant; the remembrance of Madame de Polastron[570] hangs about the confessor's surplice: the charm of the last human frailties and the sweetness of the first religious sentiments are prolonged as memories in the old Monarch's heart.

There arrived in succession M. de Blacas, M. A. de Damas[571], the baron's brother, M. O'Heguerty the Elder, M. and Madame de Cossé. At six o'clock precisely, the King appeared, followed by his son; we hurried in to dinner. The King put me on his right; he had M. le Dauphin on his left; M. de Blacas sat down opposite the King, between the cardinal and Madame de Cossé: the other guests were placed at random. The children dine with their grand-father on Sundays only; this is to deprive one's self of the only happiness that remains in exile: family life and intimacy.

It was a fish-dinner and none too good at that. The King extolled to me the merits of a fish from the Moldau which possessed none at all. Four or five footmen in black roamed like lay-brothers about the refectory; there was no house-steward. Every one helped himself and offered to help others from the dish before him.

The King ate well, asked to be served and himself served what he was asked for. He was in a good humour; the fear which he had had of me was past. The conversation turned within a circle of commonplaces, on the Bohemian climate, the health of Madame la Dauphine, my journey, the Whit Sunday ceremonies which were to take place to-morrow; not a word of politics. M. le Dauphin, after sitting with his nose deep in his plate, would sometimes emerge from his silence and, addressing the Cardinal de Latil, said:

"Prince of the Church, the gospel of this morning was according to St. Matthew, was it not?"

"No, Monseigneur, according to St. Mark."

"What, St. Mark?"

A great dispute followed between St. Mark and St. Matthew, and the cardinal was beaten.

Dinner lasted nearly an hour; the King rose, and we followed him to the drawing-room. The newspapers lay on a table; we all sat down and began to read then and there as if in a café.

[Sidenote: The royal children.]

The children came in, the Duc de Bordeaux escorted by his governor, Mademoiselle by her governess. They ran up to kiss their grandfather and then rushed to me; we ensconced ourselves in the embrasure of a window overlooking the town and commanding a splendid view. I renewed my compliments on the riding-lesson. Mademoiselle hastened to tell me again what her brother had already told me, that I had seen nothing; that one could not form an opinion while the black horse was lame. Madame de Gontaut came to sit near us, M. de Damas a little further away, giving an ear, in an amusing state of anxiety, as though I were going to eat his pupil or drop a few words on the liberty of the press or the glory of Madame la Duchesse de Berry. I would have laughed at the fears with which I inspired him, if I had been able to laugh at a poor man after M. de Polignac. Suddenly Henry said to me:

"Have you ever seen a constrictor?"

"A boa-constrictor, Monseigneur means: there are none either in Egypt or at Tunis, the only places in Africa at which I have touched; but I have seen many snakes in America."

"Oh yes," said the Princesse Louise, "the rattle-snake, in the _Génie du Christianisme._"

I bowed to thank Mademoiselle.

"But you have seen plenty of other snakes?" asked Henry. "Are they very vicious?"

"Some of them, Monseigneur, are exceedingly dangerous; others have no venom and one makes them dance."

The two children came close up to me with delight, keeping their four beautiful eyes fixed on mine.

"And then there is the glass-snake," I said; "he is splendid to look at and does you no harm; he is as transparent and brittle as glass: you break him as soon as you touch him."

"Can't the pieces come together again?" asked the Prince.

"No, no, dear," Mademoiselle answered for me.

"You went to the Falls of Niagara?" Henry resumed.

"They roar terribly, don't they? Can you go down in a boat?"

"Monseigneur, one American amused himself by sending a great barge down; another American, they say, himself jumped into the cataract: he was not destroyed the first time; he tried again and was killed at the second attempt."

The two children lifted up their hands and said:

"Oh!"

Madame de Gontaut joined in the conversation:

"M. de Chateaubriand has been to Egypt and Jerusalem."

Mademoiselle clapped her hands and came still closer to me:

"M. de Chateaubriand," she said, "do tell my brother about the Pyramids and Our Lord's Sepulchre."

I told them a story as best I could of the Pyramids, the Holy Sepulchre, the Jordan, the Holy Land. The children were marvellously attentive: Mademoiselle took her pretty face in her two hands, with her elbows almost resting on my knees, and Henry, perched on a high arm-chair, swung his legs to and fro.

After that fine talk about serpents, cataracts, pyramids and the Holy Sepulchre, Mademoiselle said:

"Will you put me a question in history?"

"How, in history?"

"Yes, ask me about a year, the least important year in the whole history of France, except the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which we have not yet begun."

"Oh, I," exclaimed Henry, "I prefer a famous year: ask me something about a famous year!"

He was not so sure of his facts as his sister.

I began by obeying the Princess and said:

"Well, then! Will Mademoiselle tell me what happened and who was reigning, in France, in 1001?"

And the brother and sister began to try, Henry pulling at his fore-lock, Mademoiselle shading her face with her two hands, a familiar trick with her, as though she were playing at hide-and-seek, and then she suddenly reveals her young and merry countenance, her smiling mouth, her limpid look. She was the first to say:

"Robert[572] was reigning, Gregory V.[573] was Pope, Basil II.[574] Emperor of the East..."

"And Otto III.[575] Emperor of the West," cried Henry, hurrying so as not to remain behind his sister, and added, "Veremund II.[576] in Spain."

Mademoiselle, interrupting him, said:

"Ethelred[577] in England."

"No, no," said her brother, "it was Edmund Ironside[578]."

[Sidenote: Questions in History.]

Mademoiselle was right; Henry was a few years out in favour of Ironside, who had fascinated him; but it was none the less prodigious.

"And my famous year?" asked Henry, in a half-vexed tone.

"That's true, Monseigneur: what happened in the year 1593?"

"Pooh!" exclaimed the young Prince. "The abjuration of Henry IV.[579]"

Mademoiselle turned red at not having been able to answer first.

Eight o'clock struck: the Baron de Damas' voice cut short our conversation, just as when the hammer of the clock, striking ten, used to arrest my father's steps in the great hall at Combourg.

Dear children, the old crusader has told you his adventures in Palestine, but not by the fire-side in the Castle of Queen Blanche[580]! To find you, he came knocking with his palmer's staff and his dusty sandals at the foreigner's icy threshold. Blondel[581] has sung in vain at the foot of the tower of the Dukes of Austria[582]: his voice could not open the road to the mother-land for you. Young outlaws, the traveller to distant lands has concealed a part of his story from you: he has not told you that, a poet and prophet, he dragged through the forests of Florida and on the mountains of Judea as much despair, sadness and passion as you have hope, gladness and innocence; that there was a day when, like Julian, he threw his blood at Heaven, blood of which God, in His mercy, has preserved a few drops for him so that he may redeem those which he gave up to the god of curses.

The Prince, taken away by his governor, invited me to his history-lesson, fixed for next Monday, at eleven o'clock in the morning. Madame de Gontaut withdrew with Mademoiselle. Then began a scene of another kind: the future Royalty, in the person of a child, had just drawn me into its games; and now the past Royalty, in the person of an old man, made me assist at its diversions. A rubber of whist, lighted by two candles in the corner of a dark room, began between the King and the Dauphin and the Duc de Blacas and the Cardinal de Latil. I was the only onlooker, with O'Heguerty, the equerry. Through the windows, whose shutters were not closed, the twilight came to mingle its pallor with that of the candles: the Monarchy was dying out between those two expiring lights. Profound silence reigned, but for the shuffling of the cards and a few exclamations from the King, who was angry. Cards were renewed after the Latins in order to solace the adversity of Charles VI.[583]: but there is no Ogier[584] nor Lahire[585] nowadays to give his name, under Charles X., to those distractions of misfortune.

When the cards were over, the King wished me good-night I went through the deserted and gloomy rooms through which I had passed on the previous evening, the same stairs, the same court-yards, the same guards, and, descending the slope of the hill, I returned to my inn, after losing my way in the streets and the dark. Charles X. remained shut up in the black mass which I had just left: nothing can equal the sadness of his forlornness and of his years.

PRAGUE, 27 _May_ 1833.

I had great need of my bed; but the Baron Capelle[586], newly-arrived from Holland, was lodged in a room next to mine and came hurrying to me.

When the torrent falls from on high, the abyss which it hollows out and in which it is swallowed up fixes one's gaze and leaves one dumb; but I have neither patience nor pity to waste on the ministers whose feeble hands let the crown of St. Louis fall into the whirl-pool, as though the waves would carry it back! Those of his ministers who claim to have opposed the Ordinances are the most guilty; those who say that they were the most moderate are the least innocent: if they saw so clearly, why did they not resign?

"They did not want to abandon the King; Monsieur le Dauphin treated them as cowards."

A poor evasion; they were unable to tear themselves from their portfolios. Whatever they may say, there is nothing else at the bottom of that immense catastrophe. And what a fine composure after the event. One[587] is scribbling about the history of England, after bringing the history of France to so pretty a plight; the other[588] laments the life and death of the Duc de Reichstadt, after sending the Duc de Bordeaux to Prague.

I knew M. Capelle: it is only fair to remember that he had remained poor; his pretensions did not exceed his value; he would very readily have said, with Lucian:

"If you come to listen to me in the hope of smelling amber and hearing the song of the swan, I call the gods to witness that I have never spoken of myself in terms so magnificent."

At the present day, modesty is a rare quality and the only wrong that M. Capelle did was to allow himself to be appointed a minister.

[Sidenote: The Baron de Damas.]

I received a visit from M. le Baron de Damas: the virtues of that brave officer had flown to his head; a religious congestion was puzzling his brain. There are some associations which are fatal: the Duc de Rivière[589], when dying, recommended M. de Damas as Governor to the Duc de Bordeaux; the Prince de Polignac was a member of that set Incapacity is a form of freemasonry which has its lodges in every country; that secret society has oubliettes of which it opens the plugs and in which it causes States to disappear.

The domestic condition came so naturally to the Court that M. de Damas, when choosing M. La Villatte, would never grant him any title other than that of First Groom of the Bed-chamber to Monseigneur le Duc de Bordeaux. I took a liking at first sight to this grey-mustachioed soldier, whose business it was, like a faithful dog, to bark round his sheep. He belonged to those loyal "grenade-throwers" whom the terrible Maréchal de Montluc[590] used to esteem, saying:

"They have no back-shop in them."

M. La Villatte will be dismissed because of his sincerity, not because of his bluntness: one can put up with barrack-room bluntness; often adulation in camp imparts an air of independence to flattery. But, with the brave old soldier of whom I am speaking, it was all frankness; he would have taken off his mustachios with honour to himself, if he had borrowed 30,000 piastres on them like João de Castro[591]. His crabbed face was only the expression of liberty; he merely informed one, by his appearance, that he was ready. Before taking the field with their army, the Florentines used to warn the enemy of their intention by the sound of the bell Martinella.

PRAGUE, 27 _May_ 1833.

I had intended to hear Mass at the Cathedral, within the castle precincts, but, being detained by visitors, I had time only to go to what was formerly the Jesuit Church. They were singing to an organ accompaniment A woman near me had a voice which made me look round at her. At the communion, she covered her face with her two hands and did not approach the Holy Table.

Alas, I have already explored many churches in the four quarters of the globe, without being able to lay aside, even at the Tomb of the Saviour, the rough hair-cloth of my thoughts! I have depicted Aben-Hamet wandering in the Christian mosque at Cordova:

"He caught a glimpse, at the foot of a pillar, of a motionless figure which he took, at first sight, for a statue on a tomb-stone."

The original of that knight of whom Aben-Hamet caught sight was a religious whom I had met in the church of the Escorial and whom I had envied his faith. Who knows, however, the storms deep down in that contemplative soul or what entreaty ascended towards the "holy and innocent pontiff?" I had been admiring, in the unfrequented sacristy of the Escorial, one of Murillo's most beautiful Virgins; I was with a woman: it was she who first showed me the monk deaf to the sound of the passions that passed through the formidable silence of the sanctuary around him.

After Mass in Prague, I sent for a calash; I took the road laid out along the old fortifications by which carriages drive up to the Castle. They were busy marking out gardens on the ramparts: the euphony of a forest will take the place here of the noise of the Battle of Prague[592]; the whole will be very handsome in forty years or so: God grant that Henry V. may not stay here long enough to enjoy the shade of a leaf as yet unborn[593]!

Having to dine at the Governor's to-morrow, I thought that it would be polite to go to call on Madame la Comtesse de Chotek: I should have thought her amiable and pretty, even if she had not quoted passages from writings to me from memory.

[Sidenote: General Skrzynecki.]

I went to Madame de Guiche's evening, where I met General Skrzynecki[594] and his wife. He told me the story of the Polish Insurrection and the Battle of Ostrolenka. When I rose to go, the general asked me to permit him to press my "venerable hand" and to embrace the "patriarch of the liberty of the press;" his wife wished to embrace in me the author of the _Génie du Christianisme_: the Monarchy accepted with all its heart the fraternal kiss of the Republic. I felt an honest man's satisfaction: I was glad to rouse noble sympathies, on different scores, in two foreign hearts; to be pressed, in turn, to the breast of husband and wife, through liberty and religion.