“On the other hand, Miss Campton married a Gascon, M. Collard, and was grandmother to Marie Cappelle (Mme. Lafarge).
“Thus, by legitimate descent, Mme. de Genlis is the ancestress of Rosemonde Rostand, and, illegitimate, of Mme. Lafarge.
“The latter wrote six thousand letters, not to speak of her Mémoires and her Heures de Prison.
“As for the author of the play, Un Bon Petit Diable, ‘he’ proposed nothing less than to tune his pipe to all history and legend, in spite of what his own descent might imply.…
“The heritage of the Governess of the Children of France has not fallen to the distaff side.”
The next day, March 18, the same journal published this other article, which impartiality obliges us to reproduce here—
“Through the assiduous researches of a pious inquirer into the things of the past, the Mercure de France has just published a touching series of letters, written by Mme. Lafarge from her prison at Montpellier, to her Director, l’Abbé Brunet, residing in the Bishop’s Palace at Limoges. This is a twofold revelation, in that it testifies both to the delicate skill of the writer and the innocence of the accused, but the correspondence is unfortunately incomplete.
“Some of these letters were given to M. Boyer d’Agen by M. Albris Body, Keeper of the Records at Spa in Belgium; others were discovered amongst the posthumous papers of Zaleski, the classic poet of the Ukraine; those that remain are doubtless buried in the dusty catacombs of some library.… It could be wished that one of those lucky chances which are the providence of the erudite might allow of their disinterment.”
To complete this and prove something definite, these two quotations ought to be accompanied by a third which I take from one of the letters given by Le Matin, in which the celebrated Mme. Lafarge ventures to disclose the secret reason for her notorious misfortunes by at last revealing the mystery of her illegitimate origin, which, through the house of Orleans, of which her grandmother was issue, made her a near relation of Louis-Philippe, who during his reign, moved by fear, permitted the trial of this cousin by blood, whom he dared not have acquitted after ten years of imprisonment.
“The Queen charged the Maréchale Gérard,” writes Marie Cappelle in this painful confession, “to tell me that she would make it her business to interest herself in me. She went herself to speak to the Ministers. It was last spring (1848), and the men condemned for the riots at Basanceney had just been executed. The Ministers said that there would be an outcry, that it would get mixed up with politics; that the left-handed relationship that was suspected would be exploited by parties and newspapers. In the month of August there was some hope; but the Praslin affair put a stop to everything. Now, I don’t know what has become of the goodwill of our saintly Queen; I don’t know if the Maréchale (Gérard) seriously means to carry out all the provisions of her poor mother’s (Mme. de Valence) bequest. I have not written to her. It is painful to me to address prayers to men; I scorn to ask for pardon when I have the right to ask for justice.”