United States or Bermuda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The man was for a moment embarrassed how to answer him. M. Thiers was for the time the chief executive officer of the Republic, but he was not formally its president. The soldier's answer, "Oui, mon Exécutif," caused much amusement. At this time there was no suspicion in men's minds that it was the intention of M. Thiers to form a permanent republic. The feeling of the country was Royalist.
I came across one such woman in the neighbourhood of Villequier-au-Mont. She was a woman of title and a royalist. Her estates had been laid waste by the invasion and all her men-folk, save her youngest son, were dead. Directly the Hun withdrew last spring, she came back to the wilderness which had been created and commenced to spend what remained of her fortune upon helping her peasants.
He addressed the chamber of deputies in confident and dignified language; the Duke of Angoulême was employed to rouse the royalist party at Bordeaux; the Duke of Bourbon was sent into Brittany, the Count of Artois, with the Duke of Orléans and Marshal Macdonald, visited Lyons, upon the attitude of which everything, for the moment, seemed to depend.
The Assembly, although still extremely royalist, suspended him from power, and decided to assume the sole charge of the government. Never did sovereign find himself in a position so difficult as that of Louis at the time of his flight. The genius of a Richelieu would hardly have extricated him. The only element of defence on which he could have relied had from the beginning absolutely failed him.
I felt sure, also, that the marines, who were posted in a position which would certainly first be attacked, would hold their ground. This gave confidence to the Royalist troops. I was standing near Mr Harvey, who was looking seaward. One after another, the fugitives who had escaped from the massacre came in, bringing further intelligence of the nearer approach of the Republicans.
These subsidies, which had commenced with Mirabeau, now descended to the lowest dregs of the factions; they bribed the royalist press, and found their way into the hands of the orators and writers apparently most inveterate against the court; and many false manoeuvres, to which the people were urged, arose from no other source. There was a ministry of corruption, over which perfidy presided.
After the withdrawal of the princes we were glad to be more at ease; the talk became gay and even licentious, and I will say here that all the men of the court whom I have seen near the King, far from being what could be called devout or hypocritical, as was believed in the provinces, were anything but that; that they no more concealed their indifference in religious matters than they did their diversity of political opinions, royalist doubtless, but of divers grades; that no one was more tolerant than the King; finally, that if an occult power, the existence of which I do not deny, but the force of which has been exaggerated, acted on the mind of the King, it had not its seat in what was called the court."
The royalist leaders, convinced of the inutility of longer resistance, left the town, and the republican army entered the walls, where they awaited the orders of the convention. A few months after, Toulon itself, defended by veteran troops and formidable fortifications, fell into the power of the republicans.
"That plucky Royalist officer will be killed," said the general to Colonel Suares. "He's a gallant fellow eh, Crawford?" "He is, sir," I answered warmly; "and I'd give anything to see him get through safely." "Why, Crawford," returned the general, smiling, "that sounds very much like treason."
In pursuance of this plan, he allowed himself to be taken prisoner by Henry Masterton, to whom he declared that he was really a Royalist in disguise. His next step was to obtain for the brothers an invitation from Lady Eleanor to quarter themselves at Penford-bourne.
Word Of The Day