XI

The Cause of my Delay—My Trustfulness—Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orleans—Louis-Philippe-Joseph, his Son—Chief Vices of the Last—Bad Son—Bad Husband—Bad Father Bad Friend—Bad Citizen—Consequent Results.

I ask my readers to forgive me for having so long entertained them with so many tiresome details. I had no thought at first of doing so, but the recent attempts at the most impudent frauds[17] have more and more fully convinced me that I cannot make too well known the various events which have brought about the deferring of my just claims.

And if my silence since I succeeded in getting back my deeds from the hateful Cooper causes some surprise, it must be told that they were hardly once more in my possession before I handed them over to a lawyer of reputation, who, after keeping them a couple of months, wrote to me that, before definitely undertaking my case, he wished, through the medium of M. de Broval or M. Dupin,[18] to get leave to make researches in the archives of the house of Orleans.

“The result of this step,” he said, “would be decisive, and, when it had been taken, we could decide as to the following up or the relinquishing of the trial.”

It will be believed that I could not consent to be thus put at the mercy of my adversary. I asked for the return of my papers; but once more I could not get them without the payment of 100 francs for the time my comic lawyer had thought good to make me lose.

I then decided to have recourse to one of those colossal celebrities whose sublime eminence seems to place them so high above the fatal bait of bribes;[19] and these were at first his fine promises—

“Madame la Baronne, I have not yet been able to examine the papers you were kind enough to send me. I propose to devote the whole day to them to-morrow, and I will at once give you my opinion on this important business.

“Pray accept, madame, the humble respects of your obedient servant,

“B. F.”

Who could believe that more than fifty days after I received this letter, my packet had not even been opened, and that the important business rested in oblivion?

At last I put it into the hands of a man whose excellent references proved him worthy of my confidence; he will not abuse it, and most certainly neither he nor those he will employ in my service will behave like those who, acting for me in the Cooper business, so cruelly ground me down.

Yes, I hope Providence has not quite forsaken me, and that the day of victory will come; the many valuable discoveries the base machinations of my enemies have been unable to prevent me making, vouch for it, and give me confidence amidst my many tribulations. Kindly lend me your ears still.

In 1773, at the time of the infamous substitution, these were the members of the house of Orleans.

The Prince of that name was Louis-Philippe, who married first Louise-Henriette de Bourbon-Conti, and, secondly, Madame de Montesson; but this last union was always kept secret.

Of the first marriage was born Louis-Philippe-Joseph, then commonly called Duc de Chartres, who, in his turn, became Duke of Orleans, a title he gave up later to assume the ludicrous nickname of Egalité, under which he made himself so ignominiously notorious. He had married Mademoiselle Louise Marie Adélaïde, daughter of the Duc de Bourbon Penthièvre, who died in 1821, under the name of the Dowager Duchess of Orleans.

Louis-Philippe-Joseph is precisely the person who, according to a host of admitted facts, seems to us to have been the guilty perpetrator of the criminal exchange; I say seems, for submitting beforehand to the final decision of my judges, I will do nothing to prejudice it.

I will not say, with the historians of his life,[20] that the Duc de Chartres, when scarcely out of his boyhood, showed the most depraved tastes, and took no pleasure but in wickedness.

I will not say that from his youth upwards his degrading vices made him the object of universal contempt, and ended by earning for him the vilest names.

I will not repeat that in his inextinguishable passion for riches he was not afraid to show the greatest impatience at the prolongation of his father’s life; that, not satisfied with degrading himself, he was willing publicly to dishonour her who had borne him in her bosom, and shamelessly forswore his glorious descent from the most august blood.

I will not repeat that his wife had the constant affliction of finding her efforts to lead him into the ways of a wise moderation quite useless, and that she had to endure hardships of all sorts from a husband both hard and unfaithful.

I will not repeat that he pitilessly sent the sad fruits of his profligacy to the asylum for the poor, and that his legitimate children, given over very early into the hands of strangers, were never the objects of his care, seldom of his endearments.

THE DUCHESS OF ORLEANS

LOUISE MARIE ADÉLAÏDE DE BOURBON-PENTHIÈVRE
WIFE OF PHILIPPE-ÉGALITÉ

I will not repeat that, bad son, bad husband, bad father, he could not fail to be a bad friend, and that many of his confidants were the victims of his perfidy or his rage.[21]

I will not repeat that his presumptuous rebellion, his implacable hatred for the best of kings; the murderous outcries against him he so shamelessly raised, and which, even in his own eyes, proved him the most hateful of citizens, forced from him that admission, as true as humiliating, “I would as soon be guillotined as banished, for where is the country that would receive me?”

But no more—for I blush as I write these lines and my heart bleeds with shame!

Besides, does it need more to represent the man we have just described as quite capable of the crime we think we have the right to impute to him?

Still, we admit that the reality of a thing cannot be deduced from its mere possibility, so we will enforce it by arguments of quite another nature.