“Alas! Madame, the sight of you recalls to me a recollection so fearful, that I would give my life to blot it out of my memory. I was one of those who beat the drums in the place de la Révolution on the 27th January.”
The Princess turned pale, trembled, and held out the gold, saying—
“In the name of him who is gone, I bring you this help; he loved all Frenchmen.”
And she turned away, leaving the soldier in tears.
When Madame Royale was at last released from prison, she did not know the fate of her brother and her aunt, Madame Elizabeth. On hearing that they were dead, she declared that she did not wish to live herself; but her heart soon turned to her French relations, and her one wish was to get to them.
Madame Vigée Le Brun
MADAME ROYALE
She was, however, first sent to her mother’s family in Austria, where she was received, of course, with great affection, but kept as much as possible from seeing even the French emigrés, of whom there were so many in Austria. The Austrian plan was to marry her to one of the archdukes, her cousins, and then claim for her the succession to Burgundy, Franche Comté, and Bretagne; to all of which she would, in fact, have had a strong claim if France could have been dismembered; as these provinces all went in the female line, and had thus been united to the kingdom of France.
Of course the plan was visionary, and the provinces had been so long incorporated into France, that even if the allies had consented to the dismemberment, the nation would never have submitted to it.