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.
XII
An Incontestable Principle—Title and Fief of Joinville—Travels under that Name—The Comte’s Titles—His Description—His Character—Deposition of the Signora Galuppi-Toschi—Certificate of the Conte Falopio—That of the Priest Carlo Brunone—Letter from Baron Vincy—Attestation of M. D.—Summary.