1846.—“Broke prison” and reached London.
In August, 1849, the Prince-President was at Tours, where he opened a new railway. Miss Howard was of the party, and was found lodgings at the residence of the Receiver-General, the Préfecture. That functionary was at “the waters” with his wife, and when he heard that the English lady—the Prince’s “favourite” for so many years—was actually staying under his Prefectorial roof-tree he “made trouble.” Louis Napoleon wrote on the subject to Odillon Barrot:
Your brother has shown me a letter from a M. André, to which I should disdain to reply did it not contain some false statements which it is right to refute.
A lady in whom I take the highest interest, accompanied by one of her friends (a lady) and by two persons of my household, wished to see the carrousel at Saumur, and from there they came to Tours. But, fearing they might not find lodgings, they asked me to take steps to obtain them some.
When I arrived at Tours I told a counsellor of the Préfecture he would oblige me by looking for an appartement for Comte Bacciochi and two ladies of my acquaintance. Chance, and their evil star, led them, it appears, to the house of M. André, where—I know not why—it was thought that one of them bore the name of Bacciochi. She has never used that name, and if such a mistake has been committed it is by strangers, and unknown to me or to the lady in question.
I should like to know why M. André, without having taken the trouble to ascertain the truth of the matter, wishes to make me responsible for the use made of his house and for the false name attributed to one of the persons. Does a proprietor make a good use of hospitality whose first care is to scrutinize the past life of anybody whom he receives? How many women, a hundred times less pure, a hundred times less devoted, a hundred times less excusable than the lady who lodged at M. André’s would have been received by him with all possible honours because they would have borne the name of their husbands to conceal their culpable liaisons!
I detest this pedantic strictness, which badly conceals the âme sèche, indulgent for himself, inexorable for others. True religion is not intolerant. It does not seek to raise storms in a glass of water, to make a scandal for nothing, and to change into a crime a simple accident or an excusable mistake.
M. André, who I am told is a Puritan, has not sufficiently meditated upon the passage of the Scriptures where Christ, addressing those as little charitable as M. André, says on the subject of a woman they wished to stone, “Let him, etc.” Let him practise this teaching. As to myself, I accuse nobody, and I admit I am culpable for seeking in illegitimate ties an affection of which my heart is in need. However, as until now my position has prevented me from marrying, as in the midst of the cares of government I have not, alas! in my country, from which I have been so long absent, either intimate friends, or youthful liaisons, or relations to give me the sweetness of the family, I may be pardoned, I think, for entertaining an affection which does no harm to anybody, and to which I do not seek to afficher myself.
To return to M. André, if he believes, as he declares, his house to have been soiled by the presence of an unmarried woman, I beg you will let him know that, on my side, I greatly regret that a lady of a devotion so pure and of a character so elevated should have stumbled by chance into a house where, under the mask of religion, there remains but the ostentation of a formal virtue without Christian charity.
Make whatever use you like of this letter.[112]