Charles X. asleep.
The King had a touch of fever and had gone to bed when I arrived at Butschirad at eight o'clock in the evening, on the 28th. M. de Blacas introduced me into Charles X.'s bed-room, as I wrote to the Duchesse de Berry. A little lamp was burning on the mantel-piece; in the silence of the darkness, I heard only the loud breathing of the thirty-fifth successor of Hugh Capet. O my old King, your sleep was painful; time and adversity, those heavy nightmares, were seated on your breast! A young man might approach the bed of his young bride with less love than I felt respect as I stepped with stealthy tread towards your lonely couch. At least, I was not a bad dream like that which woke you to go to see your son die! I inwardly addressed you with these words, which I could not have uttered aloud without bursting into tears:
"May Heaven protect you against all ills to come! Sleep in peace during these nights adjoining your last sleep! Long enough have your vigils been vigils of sorrow. May this bed of exile lose its hardness while awaiting the visit of God: He alone can make the foreign earth lie light upon your bones!"
Yes, I would joyfully have given all my blood to make the Legitimacy possible for France. I had imagined that it would be with the Old Royalty as with the dry rod of Aaron: when taken away from the Temple of Jerusalem, it was budded, and the buds swelling it had bloomed blossoms, which, swelling the leaves, were formed into almonds, a token of the renewal of the covenant. I do not study to stifle my regrets, to keep back the tears with which I would like to wash out the last trace of the royal sorrows. The impulses which I experience in different directions with respect to the same persons bear witness to the sincerity with which these Memoirs are written. In Charles X., the man moves me to pity, the Sovereign offends me: I give way to these two impressions as they succeed one another, without seeking to reconcile them.
On the 28th of September, after Charles X. had received me in the morning by his bed-side, Henry V. sent for me: I had not asked to see him. I spoke a few serious words to him on his coming of age and on the loyal Frenchmen whose ardour had led them to offer him a pair of golden spurs.
For the rest, it was impossible to be better treated than I was. My arrival had given alarm; they dreaded the report of my journey in Paris. For me, therefore, every attention; all the rest were neglected. My companions, scattered, dying of hunger and thirst, wandered about the passages, the staircases, the court-yards of the château, amid the scare of the occupiers and the preparations for their escape.
The Austrian guards wondered at these individuals in mustachios and mufti; they suspected them of being French soldiers in disguise, thinking of taking Bohemia by surprise.
During this storm without, Charles X. was saying to me indoors:
"I am busy correcting the act establishing my 'Government' in Paris. You will have M. de Villèle as your colleague, as you asked, and the Marquis de La Tour-Maubourg and the Chancellor[264]."
I thanked the King for his goodness, while wondering at the illusions of this world. Society crumbles to pieces, monarchies come to an end, the face of the earth is renewed, and Charles in Prague establishes a "government" in France, after "taking the opinion" of his Council! Let us not jeer overmuch: which of us but has his delusions? Which of us but feeds his budding hopes? Which of us but has his "government in petto," after "taking the opinion" of his passions? Raillery would ill beseem me, the man of dreams. These Memoirs, which I scribble as I run, are not they my "government," after "taking the opinion" of my vanity? Do not I think that I can speak very seriously to the future, which is as little at my disposal as France is at the orders of Charles X.?