"Madame is çoisRenéaware of my devotion to the young King and his mother?"
"Ah, Monsieur de Chateaubriand, they have treated you so well!"
"Your Royal Highness would not have me give the lie to my whole life."
"Monsieur de Chateaubriand, you do not know my niece[313]: she is so frivolous!... Poor Caroline!... I am going to send for M. le Duc d'Orléans: he will persuade you better than I can."
The Princess gave instructions, and Louis-Philippe arrived after a quarter of an hour. He was badly-dressed and looked extremely tired. I rose, and the Lieutenant-general of the Kingdom accosted me with:
"Madame la Duchesse d'Orléans must have told you how unhappy we are."
And forthwith he spun me an idyll on the happiness which he enjoyed in the country, on the peaceful life, so much to his liking, which he spent in the midst of his children. I seized the moment of a pause between two strophes to speak in my turn and respectfully to repeat, in almost the same words, what I had said to the two Princesses.
"Ah," he exclaimed, "that is what I should like! How happy I should be to be the guardian and the upholder of that child! I think just as you do, Monsieur de Chateaubriand: to accept the Duc de Bordeaux would certainly be the best thing to do. I fear only that events will prove more than a match for us."
"More than a match for us, Monseigneur? Are you not invested with full powers? Let us go to join Henry V.; summon the Chambers and the army to your side, outside Paris. The mere noise of your departure will cause all this effervescence to subside, and men will seek a shelter under your enlightened and protective power."
While speaking, I watched Philip. My advice put him ill at ease; I read on his face his desire to be King:
"Monsieur de Chateaubriand," he said, without looking at me, "the thing is more difficult than you think; it won't go like that. You do not know the danger in which we stand. A furious band might indulge in the most violent excesses against the Chambers, and we have no one to defend us." This phrase which M. le Duc d'Orléans let fall pleased me, because it supplied me with a peremptory retort:
[Sidenote: My conversation with the Duke.]
"I can conceive that difficulty, Monseigneur, but there is a sure means of removing it. If you do not think that you can join Henry V., as I was suggesting, you can adopt another course. The session is about to open: whatever proposal the Deputies may make first, declare that the present Chamber does not possess the necessary powers (which is the sheer truth) to dispose of the form of government; say that France must be consulted and a new assembly elected with powers _ad hoc_ to decide so important a question. Your Royal Highness will then be placing yourself in the most popular position; the Republican Party, which at this moment constitutes your danger, will extol you to the skies. In the two months that will elapse before the meeting of the new legislature, you will organize the National Guard; all your friends and the friends of the young King will work for you in the provinces. Then let the Deputies come, let the cause which I am defending be publicly pleaded in the tribune. This cause, secretly favoured by yourself, will obtain an immense majority of votes. The moment of anarchy will have passed, and you will have nothing more to fear from the violence of the Republicans. I do not even see that you will have much difficulty in winning General La Fayette and M. Laffitte to your side. What a fine part for you to play, Monseigneur! You can reign for fifteen years in the name of your ward; in fifteen years, the age of rest will have set in for all of us; you will have had the glory, unique in history, of being able to ascend the throne and of leaving it to the lawful heir; at the same time, you will have brought up that child in the enlightenment of the century and you will have made him capable of reigning over France: one of your daughters might one day wield the sceptre with him."
