[180] After the meeting of the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia at Pilnitz, Coblentz became the rallying-point of the émigrés—"a small extra-national Versailles: a Versailles in partibus."
[181] The family of Guiche were descended from la belle Corisande, who, left a widow at twenty-six by the death of her husband, the Comte de Guiche, became the mistress of Henry IV., then only King of Navarre. The Duc de Guiche (afterwards Duc de Grammont) married, in 1779, a daughter of the Duchesse de Polignac, and to her interest he owed his place as captain of the Villeroy Company of the Gardes du Corps. He was also colonel of the Dragons de la Reine. The duke is a "good-natured young man" (Lord Auckland's Journal and Correspondence, vol. i. p. 412).
[182] Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria and of the Palatinate.
[183] Monsieur, the title given to the eldest brother of the reigning King of France, was the Comte de Provence, afterwards Louis XVIII. (1755-1824). Madame, his wife, was Maria Josephine Louisa, daughter of Victor Amadeus III. of Sardinia. They escaped from Paris on the same night as Louis XVI.
[184] The Prince of Nassau-Siegen sailed round the world with Bougainville (1766-69), served in the Spanish army at the siege of Gibraltar, then entered the service of the Empress Catharine, and, as an admiral, commanded the Russian fleet against Turkey and afterwards against Sweden.
[185] Count Nicholas Romanzov, son of the distinguished Russian general.
[186] Marc Hilaire de Conzie (1732-1805), Bishop of St. Omer, became, in 1769, Bishop of Arras. With his brother, who succeeded him as Bishop of St. Omer, he administered the province of Artois. He followed the Comte d'Artois in his flight to Italy, and at London was afterwards his chief political adviser. He was a friend of Madame du Deffand, who writes of him enthusiastically. The Duc de Lévis (Souvenirs et portraits) speaks of him less favourably: "Il ne fit que du mal à son parti."
[187] The Baron de Luckner (1722-1794), a Bavarian, entered the French service after the Seven Years' War, was made a marshal in 1791, and guillotined in 1794.
[188] The Duc de Broglie (1718-1804), one of the most distinguished of the French generals during the Seven Years' War, was made a marshal in 1759. Louis XVI. appointed him in 1789 Minister of War; but he was among the earliest of the émigrés. He entered the Russian service in 1794.
[189] In August, 1790, the Swiss Regiment of Château-Vieux mutinied at Metz, demanding arrears of pay. They fired upon the National Guard, seized the regimental treasury, and killed Desilles. The outbreak was quelled by Bouillé. Of the survivors of the Regiment of Château-Vieux, twenty-three were hanged, and forty-one sent to the galleys. These galley-slaves were subsequently released; a fête in their honour was decreed by the Assembly; their chains hung up as trophies in the Jacobin Club at Brest, and the men carried through Paris in triumph on April 15, 1792.