Meantime old stories were being circulated throughout France discrediting the legitimacy of the Duc de Bordeaux, the posthumous son of the Duc de Berri. He had been born seven months after his father's death, at dead of night, with no doctor in attendance, nor any responsible witnesses to attest that he was heir to the crown. Louis Philippe had protested against his legitimacy within a week after his birth. There was no real reason for suspecting his parentage; nobody believes the slander now, but it is not surprising that in times of such excitement, with such great interests at stake, the circumstances attending his birth should have provoked remark. They were both unfortunate and unusual.
Charles X. was the calmest person in the whole royal party. He was chiefly concerned for the comfort of the rest. The dauphine wept, her husband trembled, the children were full of excitement and eager for play. Charles was unmoved, resigned; only the sight of a tricolored flag overcame him.
He complained much of the haste with which he was escorted through France to Cherbourg; but that haste probably insured his safety. At Cherbourg two ships awaited him,—the "Great Britain" and the "Charles Carroll;" both were American-built, and both had formed part of the navy of Napoleon.
The day was fine when the royal fugitives embarked. In a few hours they were off the Isle of Wight. For several days they stayed on board, waiting till the English Government should complete arrangements which would enable them to land. They had come away almost without clothes, and the Duchesses of Angoulême and Berri were indebted for an outfit to an ex-ambassadress. The king said to some of those who came on board to see him, that he and his son had retired into private life, and that his grandson must wait the progress of events; also, that his conscience reproached him with nothing in his conduct towards his people.
After a few days the party landed in England and took up their abode at Ludworth Castle. Afterwards, at the king's own request, the old Palace of Holyrood, in Edinburgh, was assigned him. There was some fear at the time lest popular feeling should break out in some insult to him or his family. To avert this, Sir Walter Scott, though then in failing health, wrote in a leading Edinburgh newspaper as follows:—
"We are enabled to announce from authority that Charles of Bourbon, the ex-king of France, is about to become once more our fellow-citizen, though probably only for a limited space, and is presently about to inhabit the apartments again that he so long occupied in Holyrood House. This temporary arrangement has been made, it is said, in compliance with his own request, with which our benevolent monarch immediately complied, willing to consult in every way possible the feelings of a prince under pressure of misfortunes, which are perhaps the more severe if incurred through bad advice, error, or rashness. The attendants of the late sovereign will be reduced to the least possible number, and consist chiefly of ladies and children, and his style of life will be strictly retired. In these circumstances it would be unworthy of us as Scotchmen, or as men, if this unfortunate family should meet with a word or a look from the meanest individual tending to aggravate feelings which must be at present so acute as to receive injury from insults, which in other times would be passed over with perfect disregard. His late opponents in his kingdom have gained the applause of Europe for the generosity with which they have used their victory, and the respect which they have paid to themselves in their moderation towards an enemy. It would be a great contrast to that part of their conduct which has been most generally applauded, were we, who are strangers to the strife, to affect a deeper resentment than those concerned more closely. Those who can recollect the former residence of this unhappy prince in our Northern capital cannot but remember the unobtrusive, quiet manner in which his little court was then conducted, and now, still further restricted and diminished, he may naturally expect to be received with civility and respect by a nation whose good will he has done nothing to forfeit. Whatever may have been his errors towards his own subjects, we cannot but remember in his adversity that he did not in his prosperity forget that Edinburgh had extended him her hospitality, but that at the period when the fires consumed so much of our city, he sent a princely benefaction to the sufferers.... If there be any who entertain angry or invidious recollections of late events in France, they ought to remark that the ex-monarch has by his abdication renounced the conflict, into which perhaps he was engaged by bad advice, that he can no longer be an object of resentment to the brave, but remains, to all, the most striking example of the instability of human affairs which our unstable times have afforded. He may say, with our own deposed Richard,—
'With mine own hands I washed away my blame;
With mine own hands I gave away my crown;
With my own tongue deny my sacred state.'
"He brings among us his 'gray, discrownèd head,' and in a 'nation of gentlemen,' as we were emphatically termed by the very highest authority, it is impossible, I trust, to find a man mean enough to insult the slightest hair of it."
Charles X. was greatly indebted to this letter for the cordiality of his reception at Edinburgh, where he lived in dignified retirement for about two years; then, finding that the climate was too cold for his old age, and that the English Government was disquieted because of the attempts of the Duchesse de Berri to revive her son's claims to the French throne, he made his way to Bohemia, and lived for a while in the Castle of Prague. At last he decided to make his final residence in the Tyrol, not far from the warm climate of Italy. It is said that as the exiled, aged king cast a last look at the Gothic towers of the Castle of Prague, he said to those about him: "We are leaving yonder walls, and know not to what we may be going, like the patriarchs who knew not as they journeyed where they would pitch their tents."[1]
[Footnote 1: Memoirs of the Duchesse d'Angoulême.]