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Updated: June 5, 2025
"Then of what other scourge are you afraid, my dear Blacas?" "Sire, I have every reason to believe that a storm is brewing in the south." "Well, my dear duke," replied Louis XVIII., "I think you are wrongly informed, and know positively that, on the contrary, it is very fine weather in that direction." Man of ability as he was, Louis XVIII. liked a pleasant jest.
I at first refused to give up the portfolio, but M. de Blacas told me the King had ordered him to receive it; I then, of course, yielded the point.
On returning the letter to M. de Blacas I remarked that the contents of the letter called for the adoption of some decided measures, and I asked him what had been done. He answered, "I immediately sent a copy of the letter to M. d'Andre, that he might give orders for arresting the individual to whom it was addressed."
The Marshal did, in fact, write the following letter to M. de Blacas: "I hasten to inform you, sir, that it was not with my consent that Madame Moreau wrote to you, and I beg you will take no step that might expose me to a refusal. The King of Naples owes me no recompense for having beaten his army, revolutionised his kingdom, and forced him to retire to Sicily."
Such conduct was well worthy of the man who was the last to forsake Napoleon in, 1814, and the first to rejoin him, and that without the desire of accepting any appointment in 1815. M. de Blacas, who was himself much surprised at Macdonald's letter, communicated it to the King of Naples, whose answer deserves to be recorded.
Convinced as I was of the danger that threatened France, and unable to break through the blockade which M. de Blacas had formed round the person of the King, I determined to write to M. de Talleyrand at Vienna, and acquaint him with the communications that had been made to me.
However, I determined to meet with courage the difficulties that presented themselves, and I must say that I had every reason to be satisfied with the manner in which I was seconded by M. Foudras, the Inspector-General of the Police. Even now I am filled with astonishment when I think of the Council that was held at the Tuileries on the evening of the 13th of March in M. de Blacas' apartments.
I warn you that all this hypochondria, paleness, and languor are caprices which are very disagreeable to others. There is a Provence proverb which says: Vaillance de Blacas, prudence de Pontevez, caprice de Corandeuil. If there was not such a saying, it should be created for you, for you have something incomprehensible enough in your character to make a saint swear.
When in 1815 several Marshals claimed from the Allied powers their endowments in foreign countries, Madame Moreau, to whom the King had given the honorary title of 'Madame la Marechale', and who was the friend of the Duke of Tarentum, wrote, without Macdonald's knowledge, to M. de Blacas; our ambassador at Naples, begging him to endeavour to preserve for the Marshal the endowment which had been given him in the Kingdom of Naples.
He had all the dignity belonging to the great secretary of a great Minister, and, with an air of indifference, he told me that the Count was not there; but M. de Blacas was there, and I knew it. Devoted as I was to the cause of the Bourbons, I thought it my duty to write that very day to M. de Blacas to request an interview; I received no answer.
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