If M. le Duc d'Orléans had been capable of emotion or remorse, would not this signature, "Your affectionate cousin," have struck him to the heart? So little doubt had they at Rambouillet of the efficacy of the abdications that the young Prince was being made ready for his journey: his ægis, the tricolour cockade, was already fashioned by the hands of the most zealous promoters of the Ordinances. Suppose that Madame la Duchesse de Berry had suddenly set out with her son and appeared in the Chamber of Deputies at the moment when M. le Duc d'Orléans was delivering his opening speech, two chances remained: dangerous chances, but, at least, the child removed to Heaven would not have dragged out days of misery on foreign soil.
My counsels, my prayers, my cries were powerless; I asked in vain for Marie-Caroline: the mother of Bayard, as he was preparing to quit the paternal castle, "wept," says the Loyal Serviteur:
"The good gentle woman came out from the back of the tower, and sent for her son, to whom she spake these words:
"'Pierre, my friend, be sweet and courteous, putting from you all pride; be humble and serviceable to all men; be loyal in deeds and words; be helpful to poor widows and orphans, and God will recompense you....'
"Then the good ladye drew out of her sleeve a little purse in which were only six crowns in gold and one in small silver, the which she gave to her son."
The knight without fear and without reproach rode away with six golden crowns in a little purse to become the bravest and most renowned of captains. Henry, who perhaps has not six gold crowns, will have very different combats to wage; he will have to fight misfortune, a difficult champion to throw. Let us glorify the mothers who give such tender and good lessons to their sons! Blessed, then, be you, my mother, from whom I derive all that may have honoured and disciplined my life!
Forgive me for all these recollections; but perhaps the tyranny of my memory, by introducing the past into the present, takes from the latter a part of its wretchedness.
The three commissaries deputed to Charles X. were Messieurs de Schonen, Odilon Barrot and Marshal Maison. They were sent back by the military posts, and started to return to Paris. A wave of the populace carried them back to Rambouillet.
*
The rumour spread, on the evening of the 2nd, that Charles X. refused to leave Rambouillet before his grand-son was recognised. A multitude gathered in the Champs-Élysées on the morning of the 3rd, shouting:
"To Rambouillet! To Rambouillet! Not one of the Bourbons must escape from it!"