2nd.—During his wife’s first pregnancy, the Duc de Chartres never left her side, redoubled his endearments as her time approached, gave up his former evil courses and behaved to the Princess in the most exemplary manner. “Which,” says a writer, “gave immense delight to the Duke of Orleans, and still more to M. le Duc de Penthièvre.”[37]
True to this way of behaving, in 1773, he did not leave the Duchess during the months preceding my birth; the most he did was to take a short journey to Chanteloup to see the Duc de Choiseul;[38] while after the month of April it was nothing but a series of absences on his part, excursion upon excursion, journey upon journey;[39] and, so far from exercising any restraint, or restricting himself in any way, he spent the whole day with jugglers and pickpockets, cast about for new ways of sinning, and carried his excesses and debauchery to such a pitch as to amaze and shock the by no means susceptible servants of the Palais Royal.[40]
What are we to conclude from so great and sudden a change?
One of two things: either that the Duchess was no longer enceinte, or that the Duke had ceased to care about the child she might give him.
This second hypothesis is evidently inadmissible, especially when we remember that the stillbirth of 1771 must naturally fill his ambitious spirit with the gravest fears.
And if he had become so indifferent to the birth of a firstborn, why, six years later, did he express such delight on finding himself the father of a third son?
We must perforce come back to the first supposition, and acknowledge the delivery of the Princess as already accomplished; which entirely agrees with the account of certain inhabitants of Forges,[41] who state that she left their town towards the end of July 1772, with all the signs of the beginning of a pregnancy which would naturally find its termination in the following April.
But if she was no longer enceinte in April 1773, was it not impossible that on the 6th of October of the same year she should have given birth to the Duc de Valois?[42]