She continues, however, to make her way every year to France, buoyed up by the assurances of interest in her which she has received from officials of the Royal Household. At first she stays with friends, the Comte and Comtesse de Loban. Then in 1826, when her mother dies, aged eighty-six, she establishes herself definitively in Paris, taking up her abode in a house in the Rue de Lille, No. 65, where she rents a small appartement on the first floor. Here she gets together the few souvenirs she has saved from Ketteringham—some mahogany furniture covered with blue cloth, a sofa covered with light blue silk, and portraits on the walls of the Dauphin, his father, his uncle, and the Duc de Berry.
It was while residing here that Lady Atkyns lived through the revolution of Italy, after witnessing in turn the reign of Louis XVI., the Terror, the Empire, the Restoration, and the reign of Charles X. What an eventful progress from the careless, happy days when she played her part in the dizzying gaieties of Versailles!
Some weeks before the fall of Charles X., Lady Atkyns drew up yet another petition for presentation to the chief of the King’s household. She did not mince her words in this document.
“I little thought that lack of funds would be advanced as a reason for delaying the execution of the King’s orders. I will not enlarge upon the strangeness of such an avowal, especially as a reimbursement of so sacred a character is in question, sanctioned by the Royal will. I would merely point out to you, Monsieur le Marquis, that I have contrived to find considerable sums (thereby incurring great losses) when it was to the interest of France, and of her King, and of her august family. Failing a sufficiency of money to liquidate this debt, I have the honour to propose to your Excellency that you should make out an order for the payment, and I shall find means of getting it discounted. In your capacity as a Minister to the King, your Excellency will be able, without delay, to obtain the amount necessary, minus a discount, from the Court bankers. Will you not deign, monseigneur, to ask them to do this, and I shall willingly forego the discount that may be stipulated for.... Finally, monseigneur, I beg of you to tell me immediately the day and the hour when I may present myself at the Ministry to terminate this matter. I must venture to remind you that the least delay will involve my ruin, and therefore I cannot consent to it.”
Lady Atkyns’s persistence and the King’s procrastination seem intelligible enough when one learns that the sums expended by her, from the time when Louis XVI.’s reign was projected down to the last year of the Consulate, amounted to more than £80,000. The Englishwoman might well speak of the sacrifices she had made and the loss of her fortune at the dictates of her heart.
One other letter we find amongst Lady Atkyns’s papers—a letter notable for its fine, regular penmanship. It evidently reached her about this date. The writer was yet another soi-disant Dauphin, the third serious pretendant. The Baron de Richemont—his real name was Hebert—had published in 1831 his Mémoires du Duc de Normandie, fils de Louis XVI. écrits et publiés par lui-même, and he was not long in convincing a number of people as to his identity. He probably owed most of his particulars as to his alleged escape from the Temple to the wife of Simon, whom he had visited at the Hospital for Incurables in the Rue de Sèvres. Possibly it was through her also that he heard of Lady Atkyns. At all events, he thought it worth while to approach her.
“Revered lady,” he writes to her, “I am touched by your kind remembrance.... The idea that I have found again in you the friend who was so devoted to my unhappy family consoles me, and enables me the better to bear up under the ills that Providence has sent me. I shall never forget your good deeds; ever present to my memory, they make me cherish an existence which I owe to you. I cannot tell what the future may have in store for me, but whatever my fate you may count upon all my gratitude. May the Lord be with you and send prosperity to all your enterprises! He will surely do so, for to whatever country you may take your steps, you will set an example of all the virtues.
“We shall see you, I hope, in a better world. Then and in the company of the august and ill-fated author of my sad days, you will be in enjoyment of all the good you have done, and will receive your due recompense from the Sovereign Dispenser of all things.
“There being no other end to look for, I beg of God, most noble lady, to take you under His protection.
“Louis Charles.”