[402] It was not at Quimper, but at Vannes, that Berryer was to go to defend a case, that of Commandant Guillemot, accused of Chouanism and brought before the Morbihan Assize Court on that count. Commandant Guillemot's trial was fixed for the 12th of June.—B.
[403] The text of Chateaubriand's note to the Duchesse de Berry ran as follows:
"The persons in whom an honourable confidence has been placed cannot refrain from expressing their regret at the counsels in consequence of which the present crisis has arisen. Those counsels were given by men who were doubtless filled with zeal, but who are acquainted with neither the actual state of things nor the disposition of men's minds. It is a mistake to believe in the possibility of a movement within Paris. One would not find twelve hundred men, unmixed with police agents, who, for a few crown-pieces, would make a noise in the streets and who would then have to fight the National Guard and a faithful garrison. One is mistaken about the Vendée as one was mistaken about the South. That land of devotion and of sacrifices is afflicted with a numerous army, aided by the population of the towns, which are almost all anti-legitimist. A rising of peasants would hereafter lead only to the looting of the country-side and the consolidation of the present Government by an easy triumph. We think that, if the mother of Henry V. were in France, she ought to leave without delay, after ordering all her leaders to remain quiet. In this way, instead of coming to organize civil war, she would have come to command peace; she would have had the double glory of achieving an act of great courage and preventing the shedding of French blood. The wise friends of the Legitimacy, who were never warned of what it was proposed to do, who were never consulted on the hazardous steps which it was proposed to take, and who learnt the facts only after they had been accomplished, throw the responsibility of those facts upon those who advised them and carried them through. They can neither merit honour nor incur blame in the chances of either fortune."—B.
[404] The Comte de Saint-Aignan.—B.
[405] Berryer was to leave not only the town of Nantes, but France, and to go to the waters of Aix-en-Savoie, according to the following itinerary endorsed on his passport: Bourbon-Vendée, Luçon, the Rochelle, Rochefort, Saintes, Angoulême, Clermont, Montbrison, the Puy, Lyons and Pont-de-Beau voisin.—B.
[406] The Comte de Montalivet was Minister of the Interior.—B.
BOOK II[407]
My arrest—I am transferred from my thieves' cell to Mademoiselle Gisquet's dressing-room—Achille de Harlay—The examining magistrate, M. Desmortiers—My life at M. Gisquet's—I am set at liberty—Letter to M. the Minister of Justice and his reply—I receive an offer of my peer's pension from Charles X.—My reply—Note from Madame la Duchesse de Berry—Letter to Béranger—I leave Paris—Diary from Paris to Lugano—M. Augustin Thierry—The road over the Saint-Gotthard—The Valley of Schöllenen—The Devil's Bridge—The Saint-Gotthard—Description of Lugano—The mountains—Excursions round about Lucerne—Clara Wendel—The peasants' prayer—M. Alexandre Dumas—Madame de Colbert—Letter to M. de Béranger—Zurich—Constance—Madame Récamier—Madame la Duchesse de Saint-Leu—Madame de Saint-Leu after reading M. de Chateaubriand's last letter—After reading a note signed "Hortense"—Arenenberg—I return to Geneva—Coppet—The tomb of Madame de Staël—A walk—Letter to Prince Louis Napoleon—Letters to the Minister of Justice, to the President of the Council, to Madame la Duchesse de Berry—I write my memorial on the captivity of the Princess—Circular to the editors of the newspapers—Extract from the Mémoire sur la captivité de madame la duchesse de Berry—My trial—Popularity.