"She wants to be Queen."

"What did they say to you?"

"One spoke to me of pastorals, the other of the dangers threatening France and of 'poor Caroline's' frivolity; both were good enough to convey to me that I might be of use to them, and neither of them looked me in the face."

*

Madame la Duchesse d'Orléans wished to see me once more. M. le Duc d'Orléans did not come to take part in this conversation. Madame la Duchesse d'Orléans explained herself more clearly on the favours with which Monseigneur le Duc d'Orléans proposed to honour me. She was good enough to remind me of what she called my power over public opinion, of the sacrifices which I had made, of the aversion which Charles X. and his family had always shown me, in spite of my services. She told me that, if I wished to go back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, H.R.H. would be most pleased to reinstate me in that office; but that perhaps I would prefer to return to Rome, and that she (Madame la Duchesse d'Orléans) would see me take this last course with an extreme pleasure, in the interests of our holy religion.

"Madame," I replied at once, with a certain animation, "I see that Monsieur le Duc d'Orléans' mind is made up, that he has weighed the consequences, that he foresees the years of misery and of various dangers which he will have to pass; I have therefore no more to say. I have not come here to show any lack of respect to the blood of the Bourbons; I owe, besides, nothing but gratitude to Madame's kindness. Leaving on one side, therefore, the main objections, the reasons drawn from principles and events, I beseech Your Royal Highness to consent to listen to what regards myself. You have been good enough to speak to me of what you call my power over public opinion. Well, if this power is real, it is founded only on public esteem; and I should lose this esteem the moment I changed my flag. Monsieur le Duc d'Orléans would think he was gaining support, whereas he would have in his service only a wretched phrase-maker, a perjurer to whose voice none would hearken, a renegade at whom every one would have the right to fling mud and to spit in his face. To the wavering words which he would stammer in favour of Louis-Philippe, they would oppose whole volumes which he had published in favour of the fallen family. Was it not I, Madame, who wrote the pamphlet De Bonaparte et des Bourbons, the articles on the Arrivée de Louis XVIII. à Compiègne, the Rapport dans le conseil du roi à Gand, the Histoire de la vie et de la mort de M. le duc de Berry? I doubt if I have written a single page in which the name of my ancient kings does not appear in some connection and in which it is not surrounded with protestations of my love and fidelity: a matter which bears a character of individual attachment the more remarkable inasmuch as Madame knows that I do not believe in kings. At the mere thought of a desertion, the blushes rise to my face; I would go the next day to throw myself into the Seine. I entreat Madame to excuse the animation of my words; I am penetrated with your kindness; I will keep it in profound and grateful remembrance, but you would not wish to dishonour me: pity me, Madame, pity me!"

Mademoiselle D'Orléans.

I had remained standing and, bowing, I withdrew. Mademoiselle d'Orléans had not uttered a word. She rose and, as she left the room, said to me:

"I do not pity you, Monsieur de Chateaubriand, I do not pity you!"

I was astonished at these few words and at the emphasis with which they were spoken.