According to all evidence it related to the paternity of the traveller, and to the dangers with which his absence might have threatened the succession to the crown if it had not been for the existence of several children of the elder branch.
Who would not feel sure that the monarch, knowing of the whole adventure, took this opportunity of moving the culprit to shame and repentance?
9th.—The Convention, after the defection of Dumouriez, having, at its sitting of the 4th of April, 1793, ordered that the citizens Egalité and Sillery were to be watched, Sillery mounted the tribune and stammered out these words: “If my son-in-law is guilty, he ought to be punished; I remember Brutus and his sentence on his own son, and I will imitate him.”
Then came Orleans, and, as he gazed at the bust of the First Roman Consul, he, too, said, “If I am guilty, needless to say, my head should fall; if my son is—I do not believe it, but, if he is,[52] I, too, remember Brutus.”
These horrible words, from which Nature revolts from the lips of a father, can be well believed from those of a complaisant husband;[53] but could the well-known virtue of Madame la Duchesse allow of such an explanation relative to her husband?[54]
To all these forcible arguments may be added one already mentioned, and which, after all that precede it, would be too extraordinary if it were the effect of pure chance.
I speak of the resemblance.
That of the present Duke to the various members of his supposed family is absolutely non-existent,[55] while he has all Chiappini’s features: loose-hung jaw; tanned complexion; brown eyes; black hair; slightly crooked legs, etc.
As for myself, I can proudly boast that I have nothing in common with the former jailer; but every one is struck by the many points of resemblance seen between Mademoiselle d’Orléans and me—manners, tone of voice, physique, shape and colour of face, all identical.