It has been said that Louis Bonaparte never gave serious thought to the Legitimist party. He had inherited, it would seem, that invaluable knowledge of men by which his uncle had risen to the greatest throne of modern times. He knew that a party is never for a moment equal to a Man. And the Legitimists had no man. They had only the Comte de Chambord.
At Frohsdorff they still clung to their hopes, with that old-world belief in the ultimate revival of a dead régime which was eminently characteristic. And at Frohsdorff there died, in the October of this year, the Duchess of Angoulême, Marie Therese Charlotte, daughter of Marie Antoinette, who had despised her two uncles, Louis XVIII and Charles X, for the concessions they had made—who was more Royalist than the King. She was the last of her generation, the last of her family, and with her died a part of the greatness of France, almost all the dignity of royalty, and the last master-mind of the Bourbon race.
If, as Albert de Chantonny stated, the failure of Turner’s bank was nothing but a ruse to gain time, it had the desired effect. For a space, nothing could be undertaken, and the Marquis de Gemosac and his friends were hindered from continuing the work they had so successfully begun.
All through the summer Loo Barebone remained in France, at Gemosac as much as anywhere. The Marquis de Gemosac himself went to Frohsdorff.
“If she had been ten years younger,” he said, on his return, “I could have persuaded her to receive you. She has money. All the influence is hers. It is she who has had the last word in all our affairs since the death of the Due de Berri. But she is old—she is broken. I think she is dying, my friend.”
It was the time of the vintage again. Barebone remembered the last vintage, and his journey through those provinces that supply all the world with wine, with Dormer Colville for a companion. Since then he had journeyed alone. He had made a hundred new friends, had been welcomed in a hundred historic houses. Wherever he had passed, he had left enthusiasm behind him—and he knew it.
He had grown accustomed to his own power, and yet its renewed evidence was a surprise to him every day. There was something unreal in it. There is always something unreal in fame, and great men know in their own hearts that they are not great. It is only the world that thinks them so. When they are alone—in a room by themselves—they feel for a moment their own smallness. But the door opens, and in an instant they arise and play their part mechanically.
This had come to be Barebone’s daily task. It was so easy to make his way in this world, which threw its doors open to him, greeted him with outstretched hands, and only asked him to charm them by being himself. He had not even to make an effort to appear to be that which he was not. He had only to be himself, and they were satisfied.
Part of his rôle was Juliette de Gemosac. He found it quite easy to make love to her; and she, it seemed, desired nothing better. Nothing definite had been said by the Marquis de Gemosac. They were not formally affianced. They were not forbidden to see each other. But the irregularity of these proceedings lent a certain spice of surreptitiousness to their intercourse which was not without its charm. They did not see so much of each other after Loo had spoken to the Marquis de Gemosac on this subject; for Barebone had to make visits to other parts of France. Once or twice Juliette herself went to stay with relatives. During these absences they did not write to each other.
It was, in fact, impossible for Barebone to keep up any correspondence whatever. He heard that Dormer Colville was still in Paris, seeking to snatch something from the wreck of Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence’s fortune. The Marquis de Gemosac had been told that affairs might yet be arranged. He was no financier, however, he admitted; he did not understand such matters, and all that he knew was that the promised help from the Englishwoman was not forthcoming.