When at last the monarchy is restored once more, she finds that her aspirations are destined to be disappointed, despite all the kind words with which she was soothed in England, and we find her uttering the word “ingratitude,” which is henceforth to be so often on her tongue. There were so many who held themselves entitled to gratitude and recognition at the hands of Louis XVIII.—émigrés returned to France after twenty years of sorrow and indignities, and now counting upon the recovery of their possessions or on being reimbursed in some way by the act of the Sovereign. What an awakening they met with when the time came to formulate their applications and they found themselves obliged to condescend to the drafting of innumerable documents, and to put up with interminable delays!
On September 27, 1816, Lady Atkyns writes to her friend Mme. de Verrière an account of her disappointing experiences. She had been well received at Court, but that was all.
“The kind of ingratitude I have been meeting with is not very consoling. They give me plenty of kind words, but nothing more. I have written a long letter to the man of business, begging of him to get the employer to reimburse me a little for the moment, but I have received nothing yet, and this puts me out greatly. Perhaps something will turn up between now and the end of the week. If not I must go and see my poor mother and beg to get my affairs into order.”
The state of her affairs, for long precarious, was now giving the poor lady very serious anxiety. By recourse to various expedients she had managed to hold out until the return of the Bourbons, and to stave off her creditors. But she was now at her last gasp. If the King refused to help her, to “reimburse” her, she was ruined. The Comte de la Châtre had assured her that her application was under favourable consideration, that the King regarded it approvingly, that the Comte de Pradel, the head of the King’s household, had it in hand; but, in spite of this, there was a series of delays.
At last, worn out with waiting, she writes in her naïve style to the Comte on October 10, 1816—
“I beg of you to be good enough to get the King to decide this matter as soon as ever possible. I must get away to England in three weeks to see my mother, who is ill, and I can’t possibly do this until I know the King’s decision in regard to me. I know his Majesty is too good to injure one who has given so many proofs of boundless devotion to the Royalist cause and to the entire Royal Family. Although I have a splendid estate in England, I am now in great difficulties by reason of this devotion. I tell you all this, Monsieur le Comte, so that, like the good Frenchman you are, you may do me this kindness of getting the King to give you his orders. I have run every conceivable kind of evils during these twenty-four years. I beg of you to excuse all the trouble I am giving you, and I have the honour to be, Monsieur le Comte,
“Your very obedient servant,
“Charlotte Atkyns.”
This appeal seems to have been no more successful than the preceding ones, for three months later we find Lady Atkyns still awaiting the promised audience. To distract her thoughts from the subject, she goes about Paris—a new city now to her—is present at sittings of the Chamber of Deputies, and hears the speech from the Throne. On All Souls’ Day she joins in the solemn pilgrimage to the Conciergerie. Who could have been more in place on such an occasion? But with the sad thoughts evoked by the sight of the Queen’s prison were mingled regrets that the sanctuary had not been left as it was. The place had been enlarged, and a massive, heavy-looking tomb stood now where the bed had been.
“I knelt before this tomb,” she writes to Mme. de Verrière, “but I should have preferred to have seen the prison room unaltered, and the tomb placed where the Queen used to kneel down to pray. The place has been made to look too nice, and a simple elegance has been imparted to it which takes away all idea of the misfortunes of that time. I would have left the bed, the table, and the chair. There is a portrait of the Queen seated on the bed, her eyes raised heavenwards with the resignation of a martyr. This portrait is very like, especially the eyes, with that look of angelic sweetness which she had. There is another tomb with a crucifix on it, as on hers, upon which are inscribed the words: ‘Que mon fils n’oublie jamais les derniers mot de son père, que je lui répète expressément; qu’il ne cherche jamais à venger notre mort.’ You go in by the chapel, and behind the altar, to get to where the Queen used to be.... I repeated on the tomb what I vowed to the Queen—never to abandon the cause of her children. It is true that only Madame remains now, but she one day will be Queen of France, and if she has need of a faithful friend she will find one in me.”
These last lines seem a strange avowal. Lady Atkyns seems to be renouncing her faith. What is the explanation? It is simple enough. She has realized that as long as she puts forward her inopportune plea regarding the child in the Temple she must expect to find nothing but closed doors. Yet she has by her proofs of what she alleges, and she is prepared in substantiation of her memorials to hand over a selection of the precious letters from her friends which she has received in the course of her enterprise. These, doubtless, would be accepted, but would never be given back. What, then, is she to do? Threatened on the one side by the distress which is at her heels; a prey, on the other hand, to her inalterable conviction, the luckless lady comes for a moment to have doubts about her entire past. However, this disavowal, as it seems, is but momentary; a calmer mood supervenes, and she returns to her former point of view, unable ever to free her mind from doubts as to the real fate of the Dauphin.