It is common knowledge that shortly afterwards the most eminent French physicians recognized, after long interviews, when I was minutely interrogated and examined, the inanity of the pseudo-medical statements which had kept me in a lunatic asylum for seven years and caused me to be treated as a minor, incapable of managing my own affairs. My civil rights were restored to me; together with my liberty I had miraculously recovered my reason!
But I found again, alas! during the dreadful war, evidences of the implacable hatred from which I had suffered so much.
This time my enemies thought me in their power, and behaved in an odiously grasping manner. It was not now covetousness for the millions of my inheritance from my father the King, but it was greed for another fortune, that of the Empress Charlotte, my unfortunate aunt, whose old age is sheltered by the Château of Boucottes. This fresh possibility of wealth aroused the same covetousness, and, as of old, it produced the same line of conduct. But once again I was providentially saved.
CHAPTER XVIII
The Death of the King—Intrigues and Legal Proceedings
A certain book exists of which only 110 copies have been printed, and these have been carefully distributed among those who were unlikely to mislay them.
This book, of which I deplore the fact that a greater number of copies were not printed, contains all the evidence concerning Niederfullbach, and the various judgments against my claims. Such as it is, and for the sake of what it contains and does not contain, I should be glad to see this book in the colleges and schools of Law throughout the world. It would be both useful and suggestive. Also if it were under the eyes of the general public it would doubtless be consulted with great interest.
What reflections would it not inspire, not only amongst jurists, but still more amongst deep thinkers, historians and writers, to see documents which throw new light on a century, a people and a man.
What would not be found hidden in high-sounding words and enormous figures! What a prodigious part is played in this book by a gifted spirit surrounded by collaborators devoted to his greatness so long as he lived, but who, enriched and satisfied, forgot his work and his name when once he was dead.
"Gratitude," said Jules Sandeau, "is like those perfumes of the East which retain their strength when kept in vessels of gold, but lose it when placed in vessels of lead."
There are few golden vessels amongst men. There are vases which seem to glow with this precious metal, but which are really made of the worst kind of lead. Appearances are mostly deceitful.