The tone of society was entirely different during the Restoration from that of the Empire. The lavish expenditure in entertainments, dress, and daily life was no longer the fashion. An expensive toilette at any but a very great festivity was no longer correct, and even at court the extravagant splendour of the costumes of the Imperial court was not encouraged. The principal people were no longer those who possessed enormous fortunes which they were eager to spend; the nobles and gentlemen whose names were the most distinguished at the court of Louis XVIII. being most of them nearly if not quite ruined.
Their property had been confiscated, their estates seized, and their hôtels and châteaux either burnt or sold.
In some cases it was possible to recover part, though often only a fragment of their possessions; in other cases not: it depended to a great extent what or who the forfeited estates belonged to. Sometimes, as in the case of the Duchess d’Ayen, people who had not emigrated, were allowed, even if they were murdered, to leave their estates to their families; but the whole state of things seemed an inextricable confusion impossible to explain; especially in a work of this kind.
Many cases there were of romantic devotion and loyalty, by which the property of a family had been partly saved for the owners by their faithful servants. Such was the story of the Marquis de ——, whose castle was burnt, and who with his wife perished in the flames. Their two boys managed to escape, but not together. One took refuge in England; the other in Germany, neither of them knowing of the existence of the other.
When the Revolution was over, they both came back to France and strange to say, met and recognised each other at the ruins of their own château. While they stood mournfully gazing at them, a regiment of cavalry passed by. The eyes of the commander fell upon them, and suddenly he ordered the regiment to halt, and calling the two young men, said—
“Are you not the MM. ——?”
On hearing that they were, he remarked—
“I am afraid, Messieurs, that you are very badly off.”
They could not deny this; and to their astonishment the officer, hurriedly saying that he was born on their estate, pressed a purse of gold into the hand of one and marched off. The country was still in a state of anarchy and they never could discover who their benefactor was.