[90] The Comte de Montrond, the inseparable companion of Talleyrand.
[91] The same Malfati who left some notes on the death and post-mortem examination of the Duc de Reichstadt, which were published in Le Carnet Historique during 1900.
[92] Here is the epitaph in question, which it is practically impossible to translate into English that would sound like sense:—
‘Ci-gît le Prince de Ligne,
Il est tout de son long couché,
Jadis il a beaucoup péché,
Mais ce n’était pas a la ligne.’
‘Pêcher à la ligne’ means angling with a rod or with a line. The prince’s name, literally translated, means ‘the prince of line’; a change of accent on the verb would make it mean ‘transgressing.’
[93] ‘Camarde,’ death. The word has passed into thieves’ slang now, but in former centuries it was used by poets: Scarron used it. It derives its origin from camus, flat, to denote the flat nose of a skeleton.—Transl.
[94] The words are historical. ‘Camarde’ is feminine.—Transl.
[95] The Prince de Ligne left three daughters, the Princesse de Clary, the Comtesse Palfi, and the Baronne Spiegel, all of whom founded families in Austria. His eldest son, Charles, who married the beautiful Hélène Massalska, whose Mémoires have been published by M. Lucien Percy, was killed by a cannon-ball at the passage of la Croix-aux-Bois in the Argonne in September 1792. A daughter, Sidonie, was born of that marriage. His second son, Louis, who also preceded his father to the grave, had by his wife, Louise de Duros, Eugène-François-Lamoral-Charles, Prince de Ligne, d’Amblise, d’Epinay, who was Belgian ambassador-in-extraordinary in England and in France. By his first wife, the daughter of the Marquis de Conflans, the Prince de Ligne had a son, whence sprang the actual Prince de Ligne and the Prince Ernest de Ligne. By his second wife, the daughter of the Marquis de Trazegnies, he had a daughter, who became Duchesse de Beaufort. By his third wife, a Princesse Lubomirska, he had the Princes Charles and Édouard de Ligne and the Duchesse de Doudeauville.
[96] ‘With him went the last flower of the age of chivalry,’ wrote Franz Gaeffer in his Memoirs—Kleinen Wiener.
[97] Sidney Smith’s conversation did not exactly shine by its conciseness. As may be imagined, the defence of Acre was one of its ever-recurring topics. The Prince de Ligne, who had been compelled to listen to Smith’s prolix recital more than once, called him ‘Long Acre,’ which the author defines as one of the longest streets of London.