“How about the Count de Chambord?”
“Oh, as for him, he may as well cut up his white flag into a nightshirt.”
To speak of the Count de Chambord like that! The pleasantry shocked, rather than amused me. The Count de Chambord had always seemed to me a legendary personage, as far away and illusory as the chevaliers in the ballads which had thrilled me during my convalescence. To be sure he had not filched the cup of happiness from Titania, the fair queen of the elves, he had not come on a red roan steed to see the young girl of the romance of the Swan’s Nest; but I knew that he was living in exile, endued with the martyr’s aureola, and that he was expected. Aunt Deen never spoke of him except as “our prince,” and raised her head proudly whenever he was mentioned, as if he belonged to her. From time to time conferences were held in our drawing-room for the discussion of his approaching return. And he would not come back alone; God would come with him, and he would bring back the white flag. My imagination found no difficulty in picturing him at the head of a multitude waving banners, though I could not quite determine whether it was an army or a religious procession.
Of all these conferences one of the members was Mlle Tapinois, she who resembled the old dove in my picture book; there were also M. de Hurtin, an old gentleman who looked like the falcon who had been ruined by Revolutions, and divers other personages also drawn from my “Scenes from Animal Life,” and who are now somewhat mixed in my memory. There was also a certain impetuous priest, Abbé Heurtevant, who was always scenting the battle from afar, and whose prominent round eyes could see only things at a distance, so that he was always bumping into the furniture, and always restless, carrying on war against vases and Chinese curiosities. When he upset a knickknack he never excused himself but simply remarked:
“That’s one less.”
Small frivolous objects of that sort interfered with his actions and he detested them. Aunt Deen forgave even his destructiveness for the sake of his eloquence. When he was standing his head was perched so high that I would look for it as for a mountain top. On the other hand, when he sat down he would almost disappear in an easy chair, his knees on a level with his chin, as if he had been folded in three parts of equal length. He was as emaciated as an ascetic, which was not surprising since his only food was roots. It was he, indeed, who during the mushroom season, lived upon Satan bolets. They did him no harm, but neither did they fatten him. Grandfather was greatly interested in his diet, considering him a phenomenon, and upholding his opinions because of his eccentricities. He never called him anything but Nostradamus. On the contrary, father thought comparatively little of such an ally, and indeed did not greatly care for these quasi secret meetings.
“Our good abbé,” he would say, “is always up in the air. He studies the heavens, but knows nothing of what is going on down here.”
What need had he of knowing, since he could foresee the future? In fact, he was making a collection of predictions concerning the restoration of the monarchy, and could cite from memory all the important ones. I can remember a good many of them, having heard them so often. The most celebrated of them all was that from the Abbey of Orval, which had predicted the downfall of Napoleon, the return of the Bourbons and even the reign of Louis-Philippe and the war. How then, could it have been mistaken in the apostrophe which Abbé Heurtevant would whisper in a moving tone, bringing tears from the eyes of the ladies. Come, young prince, leave the island of captivity ... unite the lion with the white flower. He had found a subtle interpretation of the island of captivity and the lion, which on the first investigation had been obscure. I was however in no haste to have the young prince obey this injunction, because of the events which were bound to follow, namely, the conversion of England and of the Jews, and to finish up with, Antichrist. Antichrist terrified me: he also, like Death in my Bible, was to ride, on a pale horse.
“The young prince, indeed,” grandfather would sneer when I related all these marvels to him, for he refused to be present at the assemblies over which Abbé Nostradamus presided, “young prince of sixty springs!”
There were also the visions of a certain Rose-Colombe, a Dominican nun, deceased upon the Italian coast. A great revolution was to burst out in Europe, the Russians and Prussians would turn their churches into stables, and peace would hot appear again until the lilies, descendants of Saint Louis, were again blossoming upon the throne of France, which would happen. Which would happen closed the paragraph, proving that it was not a mere hypothesis, as learned men might construe it, but an incontestable truth, proved by ecstatic visions.