Part 2 of Book 4 of the Memoirs of Chateaubriand, Volume 5. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Nicole Lee, the Memoirs of Chateaubriand, Volume 5 by Francois René de Chateaubriand, translated by Alexander Tixera de Matos, Book 4, Part 2. Prague, 28th and 29th May, 1833. On Monday, the 28th of May, as the history lesson at which I was to have been present at eleven o'clock, did not take place, I found myself free to go through, or rather to revisit the town, which I had already seen and seen again in coming and going.  Prague is a bright city, in which twenty-five or thirty graceful towers and steeples rise up to the sky. Its architecture reminds one of a town of the Renaissance. The long sway of the emperors over the Cisalpine countries filled Germany with artists from those countries. The Austrian villages are villages of Lombardy, Tuscany, or the Venetian mainland. One would think oneself under the roof of an Italian peasant if, in the farmhouses with their great bare rooms, a stove did not take the place of the sun. The view enjoyed from the windows of the castle is agreeable. On one side you see the orchards of a cool valley with green slopes and closed by the dinticulated walls of the town, which run down to the Moldau, almost as the walls of Rome run from the Vatican down to the Tiber. On the other side you perceive the city cut in two by the river, which is beautified by an island set upstream, and embraces another island downstream. After leaving the northern suburb, the Moldau flows into the Elbe. A boat might have taken me on board at the bridge of Prague and landed me at the Pont Royal in Paris. I am not the work of the ages and kings. I have neither the weight nor the duration of the obelisk which the Nile is now sending to the Sin. The girdle of the vestal of the Tiber would be strong enough to tow my galley. The Moldau Bridge, which was first built in wood in 795 by Minata, has been rebuilt at different times in stone. While I was taking the measure of this bridge, Charles X was walking on the pavement. He carried an umbrella, his son accompanied him like a paid chichirone. I had said in the conservateur that men would go to the window to see the monarchy pass. I saw it pass on the bridge of Prague. In the constructions of which Franshin is composed one sees historic halls, museums hung with the restored portraits and the furnished arms of the dukes and kings of Bohemia. Not far from the shapeless masses, there stands detached against the sky, a pretty building decked with one of the graceful porticoes of the Cinquecento. This architecture has the drawback of being out of harmony with the climate. I was always preoccupied with the thought of the cold which they must feel at night. If at least one could during the Bohemian winter put those Italian palaces in the hot house with the palm trees, Prague, often besieged, taken and retaken, is known to us in a military respect by the battle called after it and by the retreat in which Vovnag took part. The bulwarks of the town are demolished. The moat of the castle on the side of the high plain forms a deep and narrow groove now planted with poplars. At the time of the Thirty Years' War this moat was filled with water, the Protestants having penetrated into the castle on the 23rd of May 1618 through two Catholic lords together with a secretary of state out of window. The three divers saved their lives. The secretary, like a well-bred man, begged a thousand pardons of one of the lords for his rudeness in falling on his head. In this present month of May 1833 we are no longer so polite. I'm not sure what I should say in a similar case, although I have been a secretary of state myself. Tycho Brahe died in Prague. Would you, for all his knowledge, have a false nose in wax or silver, as he did? Tycho consult himself in Bohemia like Charles X by contemplating the heavens. The astronomer admired the work, the king adores the workmen. The star which appeared in 1572, and died out in 1574, and which passed successively from dazzling white to the red-yellow of Mars and the leaden white of Saturn, presented to Tycho's observations the spectacle of the conflagration of a world. What is the revolution whose breath blew the brother of Louis says to the tomb of the Danish Newton to decide the destruction of a globe accomplished in less than two years? General Moreau came to Prague to concert with the Emperor of Russia a restoration which he, Moreau, did not live to see. If Prague were by the seaside nothing would be more charming, and Shakespeare, striking Bohemia with his wand, turns it into a shipping country. Thou art perfect then, says Antigonus, to a mariner in the winter's tale. Perfect then, our ship hath touched upon the deserts of Bohemia. Antigonus lands charged to abandon a little girl to whom he addresses these words. Blossom, speed thee well. The storm begins. Thou art like to have a lullaby too rough. Does not Shakespeare seem to have told in advance the story of the Princess Louise that young Blossom, that new Perditor, transported to the deserts of Bohemia? Prague, 28th and 29th May, 1833. Confusion, blood, catastrophes, compose the history of Bohemia. Her dukes and kings in the midst of civil wars and foreign wars fight with their subjects or come to loggerheads with the dukes and kings of Silesia, Saxony, Poland, Moravia, Hungary, Austria and Bavaria. During the reign of Wenceslas the Sixth, who spit at his cook for roasting a hare badly, arose John Huss, who, having studied at Oxford, brought back the doctrine of Wycliffe. The Protestants, who are looking for ancestors everywhere without being able to find any, report that, from the top of his funeral pile, John sang and prophesied the coming of Luther. The world filled with acidity, says Bossier, gave birth to Luther and Calvin, who count on Christendom. From the Christian and pagan struggles, the precocious heresies of Bohemia, the importation of foreign interests and foreign manners, resulted a state of confusion favourable to lying. Bohemia passed as the native land of the sorcerers. Some alperms discovered in 1817 by Monsieur Hanke, the librarian of the Prague Museum, in the archives of the church at Königinhof, have become famous. A young man whom I have pleasure naming, the son of an illustrious scholar, Monsieur Ampère, has made known the spirit of those laes. Tchelikovsky has spread popular songs in the Slav idiom. The Poles think the Bohemian dialect effeminate. It is the quarrel of the Doric and Ionic. The Loa Breton of Van, cheats the Loa Breton of Tréguier as a barbarian. Slav as well as Magyar, lends itself to the translation of all languages. My poor Attala has been rigged out in a robe of Hungarian point lace.  There is another literature that has flourished in Bohemia, the Mon Latin literature. The prince of this literature, Boas Les Hasenstein, Baron Lobkowitz, born in 1462, took ship in 1490 in Venice and visited Greece, Syria, Arabia and Egypt. Lobkowitz preceded me in those celebrated places by 316 years like Lord Byron sang his pilgrimage. With what a difference in mind, heart, thoughts, manners have we at an interval of over three centuries meditated on the same ruins and under the same sun. Lobkowitz the Bohemian, Byron the Englishman and I, the Child of France. At the time of Lobkowitz's voyage, wonderful monuments since overthrown were standing. It must have been an astonishing spectacle that of barbarism in all its strength holding civilisation on the ground under its feet. The Janissaries of Mohammed II drunk with opium, victories and women, scimitar in hand, their foreheads girt with a blood-stained turban drawn up in line for the assault on the rubbish of Egypt and Greece and I have seen the same barbarism among the same ruins struggling under the feet of civilisation. As I surveyed the town and suburbs of Prague the things which I have just told came to apply themselves on my memory like transfers on a canvas. But in whatever corner I happened to be I saw Radshin and the King of France leaning on the windows of that castle like a ghost overtaring all those shades. Prague 29th May 1833 Having finished my review of Prague I went on the 29th of May to dine at the castle at six o'clock. The King was in high spirits. When we left the table sitting down on the sofa in the drawing-room he said, Chateaubriand, do you know that the national which arrived this morning declares that I had the right to issue my ordinances? Sire, I replied, your Majesty is making innuendos against me. The King undecided, hesitated, then taking his resolution. I have something on my mind. You dull me devilish, hard measure in the first part of your speech in the House of Peers. And at once the King, without giving me the time to answer, cried, oh, the end, the end, the empty grave at Sandini. That was admirable. That was very fine, very fine. Do not let us talk of it any more. I did not want to keep that. It's done with, it's done with. And he excused himself for venturing to risk those few words. I kissed the royal hand with pious respect. And let me tell you, Charles X resumed, perhaps I was wrong not to defend myself at Wambouille. I still had great resources, but I did not want blood to flow for me. I retired. I did not combat this noble excuse. I replied, Sire, Bonaparte retired twice like your Majesty in order not to prolong the ills of France. I thus put the weakness of my old King under the shelter of Napoleon's glory. The children arrived, and we went up to them. The King spoke of Mamazal's age.  Are you fourteen already? Oh, when I'm fifteen, said Mamazal. Well, what will you do then? Mamazal stopped short. Charles X was telling something. I don't remember that, said the Duke of Ordo. I should think not, said the King. It happened on the very day when you were born. Oh, replied Henry. So it's very long ago.  Is it so very long then, since you were born? The children retired. I took leave of the orphan. I was to start during the night. I said goodbye to him in French, English and German. How many languages will Henry learn in which to tell his wandering miseries? To ask for bread and a shelter from the stranger. When the rubber began, I took his Majesty's orders. You will see Madame La Dauphine at Carlsbad, said Charles X. A good journey, my dear Chateaubriand. We shall read about you in the papers. I went from door to door to pay my last respects to the inhabitants of the castle. I saw the young Princess again in Madame de Gontos. She gave me a letter for her mother, and the foot of which were a few lines from Henry. I was to have left at five o'clock on the morning of the thirtieth. Count Chotech had had the goodness to order horses along the road. A jobbing transaction detained me till noon. I was the bearer of a letter of credit for two thousand francs payable in Prague.  He summoned his wife to his aid. She ran, or rather rolled up to my feet.  If the Messiah had come in by the window, this Rachel would not have appeared more delighted. I thought myself threatened with an alleluia. The broker offered me his fortune, letters of credit for the whole extent of the Israelite-ish dispersion. He added that he would send me my two thousand francs to my hotel. The money was not paid on the evening of the twenty-ninth. On the thirtieth in the morning when the horses were already put to, came a clerk with a parcel of bills, paper of different sources, which loses more or less on change and which is not current outside the Austrian states. My account was made out on a bill which said in discharge, good money. I was astounded. What good is this to me? I asked the clerk. How am I to pay the posting in my hotel bills with this paper? The clerk ran off in search of explanations. Another clerk came and made me endless calculations. I sent back the second clerk. The third brought me cash in the form of brabant crowns. I set out then forth on my guard against the affection with which I might inspire the daughters of Jerusalem. My collage was surrounded under the gateway by the people of the hotel, among whom squeezed a pretty Saxon servant girl, who used to run off to a piano every time she could snatch a moment between two rings at the bell. Just asked Leonardo of Limousin, or Fanchon of Piccadilly to sing or play Tante Papiti to you on the piano, or Moses' prayer. Prague and on the road 29th and 30th May 1833. I had come to Prague with the greatest apprehension. I had said to myself, to ruin us it is often enough for God to place our own destinies in our hands. God works miracles in men's favour, but he leaves the conduct of these to them, but for which it would be he that would govern in person. Now men make the fruits of those miracles abortive. Crime is not always punished in this world, mistakes always. Crime is part of the infinite and general nature of men. Heaven alone knows the depth of it and sometimes reserves its punishment to itself. The mistakes of a limited and accidental nature come within the scope of the narrow justice of the earth. That is why it would be possible for the last mistakes of the monarchy to be rigorously punished by men. I had said to myself also, royal families have been seen to fall into irreparable errors by becoming infatuated with the false idea of their own nature. At one time they look upon themselves as divine and exceptional families at another as mortal and private families. They set themselves above the common law or within that law as the case may require. When they violate political constitutions they cry that they have the right to do so, that they are the fount of the law, that they cannot be judged by ordinary rules. When they want to make a domestic mistake to give a dangerous education, for instance, to the heir to the throne, they reply to the protest made, a private person can act towards his children as he pleases and we cannot. Well no, you cannot. You are neither divine family nor a private family.  You belong to society. The mistakes made by royalty do not affect royalty alone. They are detrimental to the whole nation. A king trips and goes away. But does a nation go away? Does it suffer no hurt? Are not those victims of their honor who have remained attached to the absent royalty interrupted in their careers, persecuted in the persons of their kin, trampled in their liberty, threatened in their lives? Once more, the royalty is not a private possession. It is a public property, held in joint tenancy. And third part is I am involved in the fortune of the throne. I feared that, in the confusion inseparable from his fortune, the royalty had not perceived these truths and had done nothing to come back to them at the expedient time. On the other hand, while recognizing the immense advantages of the sale of claw, I did not conceal from myself the fact that the duration of a house has some serious drawbacks for both nations and kings. For the nations, as it blends their destiny too closely with that of the kings. For the kings, because permanent power intoxicates them, they lose earthly notions. All that is not a part of their altars, prostrate prayers, humble vows, profound abasement, is impiousness. Misfortune teaches them nothing, adversities but a coarse plebeian who fails to show them respect. And catastrophes are for them, but so many displays of insolence. I had fortunately deceived myself. I did not find Charles X in those high eras which take their rise at the pinnacle of society. I found him only in the common illusions of an unexpected accident which are more easily explained. Everything serves to console the self-esteem of the brother of Louis XVIII. He sees the political world falling into decay and with some justice he attributes this decay to his epoch not to himself. He says, Perish, did not the Republic fall?  Are not the thrones of Europe threatened? What then could he, Charles X, do more than those overthrown powers? He wanted to defend himself against his enemies. He was warned of the danger by his police and by public symptoms. He took the initiative. He tried so as not to be attacked. Did not the heroes of the three rides admit that they were conspiring? That they had been playing a part for fifteen years? Well, then. Charles sought that it was his duty to make an effort. He tried to save the French legitimacy and, with it, the European legitimacy. He gave battle and lost. He sacrificed himself to save the monarchies. That is all. Napoleon had his waterloo. Charles X, his days of July. This is the light in which things present themselves to the unfortunate monarch. He remains immutable, leaning upon events which wedge in and fasten down his mind. By dint of his immovability he achieves a certain greatness. A man of imagination he listens to you. He does not get angry with your ideas. He appears to enter into them and does not enter into them at all. There are certain general axioms which a man puts in front of himself taking up his position behind that shelter. He takes shots from there and intellects which march ahead. The mistake of many is to persuade themselves according to events repeated in history. That mankind is always in its primitive place. They confound passions and ideas. The first are the same in every century. The second change in successive ages. If the material effects of certain actions are alike at different periods the causes which have produced them vary. Charles X looks upon himself as a principal and in fact there are men who by dint of living with fixed ideas alike from generation to generation are no longer more than so many monuments. Certain individuals through the lapse of time and their own preponderance become things transformed into persons. Those individuals perish when those things come to perish. Brutus and Cato were the Roman Republic Incarnate. They could not survive it any more than the heart can beat when the blood ceases to flow. In former days I drew this portrait of Charles X. You have seen him for ten years that loyal subject, that respectful brother, that tender father so greatly afflicted in one of his sons so greatly consoled by the other. You know him, this bourbon, who was the first to come after our misfortunes a worthy herald of old France to throw himself between you and Europe with a branch of lilies in his hand. Your eyes are fixed with love and gladness on this prince who, in the fullness of age has preserved the charm and the noble elegance of youth and who now adorned with the diadem is still but one Frenchman the more in the midst of you. You repeat with emotion so many happy phrases escape from this new monarch who derives from the loyalty of his heart the grace of speaking well. Where is that one among us who would not trust him with his life, his fortune, his honour? That man whom we would all wish to have as our friend we have today as our king. Ah, let us try to make him forget the sacrifices of his life. May the crown lie light upon the widened head of that Christian knight. Pious is Louis XII courteous as Francis I Frank as Henry IV may he be happy with all the happiness which he has lacked during so many long years. May the throne on which so many monarchs have encountered storms be to him a place of rest. Elsewhere I have again celebrated the same prince. The model has only grown older but one recognises it in the youthful touches of the portrait. Age withers us by taking from us a certain truth of poetry which gives colour and bloom to our faces and yet one loves in spite of oneself the face which has faded at the same time as our own features. I have sung hymns to the House of Henry IV. I would begin them again with all my heart while combating anew the mistakes of the legitimacy and bringing down upon myself anew its disgraces if it were destined to rise again. The reason of this is that the constitutional legitimate royalty has always appeared to me the gentlest and safest road to entire liberty. I believed and I should still believe that I was playing the part of a good citizen even when exaggerating the advantages of that royalty in order to give it if so much should depend on me the duration necessary for the accomplishment of the gradual transformation of society and manners. I am doing a service to the memory of Charles X by opposing the pure and simple truth to what will be said of him in the future. The hostility of parties will represent him as a man faithless to his oaths and the correlate of the public liberties. He is nothing of the sort. He acted in good faith in attacking the Charter. He did not nor did he need to think himself full sworn. He had the firm intention of restoring the Charter after he had saved it in his own way and as he understood it. Charles X is what I have described him to be mild although subject to anger kind and affectionate to his intimates lovable easygoing free from malice having all the nightly qualities devotion nobleness and elegant courtesy mixed harbour with weakness which does not exclude passive courage and the glory of a fine death incapable of carrying out to the end a good or bad resolution built up of the prejudices of his sentry and his rank in ordinary times a proper king in extraordinary times a man of perdition not of misfortune as for the Duke de Bordeaux they would like a fraction to make of him a king ever on horseback ever flourishing his sword it is necessary no doubt that he should be brave but it is a mistake to imagine that in these times the right of conquest will be recognised that it would be enough to be Henry IV to re-ascend the throne without courage one cannot reign but one no longer reigns with courage alone Bonaparte has killed the authority of victory an extraordinary part might be conceived by Henry V I will suppose that at the age of 20 he feels his position and says to himself I can no longer remain inactive I have the duties of my blood to fulfil towards the past but am I then obliged to trouble France because of myself alone must I weigh upon sentries yet to come with all the weight of the sentries that are done with to solve the question let us inspire with regrets those who unjustly outlawed me in my childhood let us show them what I could be it but depends on me to devote myself to my country by consecrating anew whatever be the issue of the contest the principle of the hereditary monarchies then the son of Saint Louis would land in France with a double idea of glory and sacrifice he would descend upon it with the firm resolved to remain there upon his head or bullet in his heart in the latter case his inheritance would go to Philip the triumphant life or the sublime death of Henry V would restore the legitimacy stripped only of that which the sentry no longer understands and which no longer suits the times for the rest supposing the sacrifice of my young prince made he would not have made it for me after the death of Henry V without children I should never recognise a monarch in France I have abandoned myself to these dreams but what I suppose in relation to the resolution to be taken by Henry is impossible by arguing in this wise I place myself in thought in an order of things above us an order which would be natural at a time of elevation and magnanimity but which would today look like the exaltation of romance it is as though I were to speak at the present time in favour of going back to the Crusades whereas we have become commonplace in the sad reality of a deteriorated human nature such as the disposition of men's souls that Henry V would encounter invincible obstacles in the apathy of France within and in the royalties without he will therefore have to submit to consent to await events unless indeed he decided on a part which men would not fail to brand as that of an adventurer he will have to enter into the sequence of ordinary facts and see the difficulties which surround him without harbour allowing them to overwhelm him the Bourbons held good after the empire because they were succeeding an arbitrary government can one see Henry transported from Prague to the Louvre after men have grown used to the most complete liberty the French nation does not at bottom love that liberty but it adores equality it admits absolutism only for and through itself and its vanity commands it to obey only what it imposes upon itself the Charter made a vain attempt to cause two nations which had become foreign to one another to live under the same law ancient France and modern France how would you make the two Francis understand one another now the prejudices have increased you would never appease men's minds by placing incontestable truths under their eyes to listen to passion or ignorance the Bourbons are the authors of all our misfortunes to reinstate the elder branch would mean to restore the domination of the castles the Bourbons are the abetters and accomplices of those oppressive treaties of which with good reason I never cease to complain and yet nothing could be more absurd than all those accusations in which both dates are forgotten and facts grossly distorted the restoration exercise had no influence in diplomatic acts except at the time of the first invasion it is admitted that men did not want that restoration because they were treating with Bonaparte at Châtillon and that had he pleased he could have remained Emperor of the French when his genius proved obstinate for want of anything better they took the Bourbons who were on the spot Monsieur Aslefton General of the Kingdom then took a certain part in the transactions of the day that we have seen in the life of Alexander what the Treaty of Paris of 1814 left to us in 1815 there was no longer any question of the Bourbons they had nothing to do with the predatory contracts of the second invasion those contracts were the result of the escape from Elba in Vienna the Allies declared that they were only uniting against one man that they did not in turn to impose any sort of master no any kind of government upon France Alexander even suggested to the Congress another king then Louis XVIII if the latter had not by coming to seat himself in the Tuileries hastened to snatch his throne he would never have reigned the treaties of 1815 were abominable for the very reason that men refused to hearken to the voice of the legitimacy and it was in order to destroy those same treaties that I wanted to rebuild our part in Spain the only moment at which we again find the spirit of the restoration is at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle the Allies had agreed to take from us our northern and eastern provinces Monsieur de Richelieu intervened the Czar touched by our misfortune and influenced by his leanings towards fairness handed to Monsieur de Richelieu the map of France on which the fatal line had been drawn I have with my own eyes seen that map of sticks in the hands of Madame de Moncalme the sister of the noble negotiator with France occupied as she was our fortified towns garrisoned by foreign troops could we have resisted once deprived of our military departments how long should we have grown under conquest if we had had a sovereign of a new family a prince at second hand he would never have been respected among the Allies some bowed before the illusion of a great house others thought that under a worn-out authority the kingdom would lose its energy and cease to be an object of anxiety Cobbett himself agrees to this in his letter it is therefore a monstrous piece of ingratitude to refuse to see that if we are still old gall we owe it to the blood which we have cursed most loudly that blood which since eight centuries had flowed in the very veins of France that blood which made her what she is saved her once more why persist in eternally denying the facts they took advantage of victory against us even as we had taken advantage of it against Europe our soldiers had gone to Russia they brought after them upon their footsteps the soldiers would fled before them after action we action that is the law that makes no difference to the glory of Bonaparte an isolated glory which remains complete that makes no difference to our national glory all covered as it is with the dust of Europe whose towers have been swept by our flags it was unnecessary in a moment of but too justifiable spite to go in search of any cause far misfortunes other than the real cause so far from there being that cause had we not had the Bourbons in our reverses we should have been portioned out appreciate now the calamities of which the restoration has been made the object examine the archives of the foreign office and you shall be convinced of the independence of the language held to the paths under the reigns of Louis the 18th and Charles the 10th our sovereigns had a sentiment of the national dignity they were kings above all to the foreigner who never frankly wanted the re-establishment and who witnessed the resurrection of the elder monarchy with regret the diplomatic language of France at the time of which I am speaking is it must be said peculiar to the aristocracy the democracy full of broad and prolific virtues is nevertheless arrogant when it governs capable of incomparable munificence when there is a need for immense devotion it splits on the rock of details it is rarely elevated especially in prolonged misfortunes part of the hatred of the courts of England and Austria for the legitimacy is due to the firmness of the Bourbon cabinet instead of throwing down that legitimacy it would have been better policy to show off its ruins sheltered inside it one would have erected the new edifice as one builds a ship that is to brave the deep under a covered dock hewn out of the rock in this way English liberty took its form in the breast of the Norman Law it was wrong to repudiate the monarchic phantom that centenarian of the middle ages like Dandolo had fine eyes in his head if he could not see out of them was an old man who could guide the young crusaders and who adorned with his white hair still vigorously printed his ineffasible footsteps in the snow it is conceivable that in our prolonged fears we should be blinded by prejudice and vain and ridiculous shame but distant posterity will not fail to see that historically speaking the restoration was one of the happiest phases of our revolutionary cycle parties whose heat is not extinguished may cry we were free under the empire slaves under the monarchy of the charter but future generations going beyond this mock praise which would be ludicrous if it were not a sophism will say that the recall Bourbons prevented the dismemberment of France that they laid the foundations of representative government among us that they brought prosperity to our finances discharge debts which they had not contracted and religiously paid the pension even of Rob Speer's sister lastly to make good our lost colonies they left us in Africa one of the richest provinces of the Roman empire three things remain standing to the credit of the restored legitimacy it entered Cadiz at Navarino it gave Greece independence it freed Christianity by seizing our jeers enterprises in which Bonaparte, Russia, Charles V and Europe had failed show me a power of a few days and a power so much disputed which has accomplished such things as these I believe with my hand on my heart that I have exaggerated nothing and set forth nothing but facts in what I have just said of the legitimacy it is certain that the Bourbons neither would nor could have restored a castle monarchy or count on themselves in a tribe of nobles and priests it is certain that they were not brought back by the allies not the cause of our disasters the cause is evidently due to Napoleon but it is certain also that the return of the third dynasty unfortunately coincided with the success of the foreign arms the Cossacks appeared in Paris at the moment when Louis the 18th returned there hence for France humiliated for private interests for all excited passions the restoration and the invasion are two identical things the Bourbons have become the victims of a confusion of facts of a calamity change like so many others into a toothed lie alas it is difficult to escape those calamities produced by nature and the times fight them as we may right does not always carry victory within the silly a nation of ancient Africa had taken up arms against the south wind a whirlwind arose and swallowed up those brave men the Nassimonians says Herodotus seized upon the abandoned country when speaking of the last calamity of the Bourbons I am reminded of their commencement an indescribable omen of their grave made itself heard in their cradle Henry IV no sooner saw himself master of Paris then he was seized with a fatal pre-sentiment the repeated attempts at assassination without alarming his courage had an influence on his natural gaiety in the procession of the Holy Ghost on the 5th of January he appeared clad in black wearing a plaster on his upper lip on the wound which Jean Châtel had given him when aiming at his heart he wore a gloomy visage Madame de Balanie asking him the reason how, he said, could I be pleased to see a people so ungrateful that while I have done and am still doing daily what I can for it and for whose safety I would sacrifice many, it daily prepares new attempts on me for since I am here I hear speak of naught else meantime the people cried long live the king so I said one of the court lords see how all your people rejoices to see you Henry shaking his head what a people it is if my greatest enemy were here where I am and it saw him pass it would do for him as much as for me and would shout still louder a liga seeing the king huddled at the back of his carriage said there he is already at the cart's tail does it not seem to you as though that liga was speaking of Louisez going from the temple to the scaffold on Friday the 14th of May 1610 returning from the Fuyant with Basse-en-Pierre and the Duc de Guise the king said to them you do not know me now, none of you and when you have lost me you will then know what I was worth the difference between me and other men my god-sire answered Basse-en-Pierre will you never have done troubling us by telling us that you will soon die and then the marshal recounts to Henry his glory his prosperity, his good health which was prolonging his youth my friend said the king I must leave all that Ravaillac was at the gate of the Louvre Basse-en-Pierre with Jew I did not see the king again except in his closet he was stretched out he says on his bed and Massoudovic sitting on the same bed as he had laid his cross of the order on his mouth and reminded him of God Massoudovic, on arriving knelt down between the bed and the wall and held one of his hands which he kissed and I flung myself at his feet which I held clasped weeping bitterly that is Basse-en-Pierre's story pursued by these sad memories it seemed to me that in the long halls of fragile I had seen the last Bourbon's pass sad and melancholy like the first Bourbon in the gallery of the Louvre I had come to kiss the feet of the royalty after its death whether it die forever or be resuscitated it will have my last oaths the day after its final disappearance the republic will commence for me in the case of the fates who are to edit my memoirs do not publish them forthwith I know when they appear when you have read all, weighed all how far I was mistaken in my regrets and in my conjectures respecting misfortune respecting that which I have served and will continue to serve at the cost of the repose of my last days I am writing my words true or deluded on my falling hours dry and light leaves which the breath of eternity will soon have blown away supposing the high dynasties should be nearing their limit omitting however the possibilities of the future and the lively hopes that spring incessantly at the bottom of men's hearts would it not be better that they should make an end worthy of their greatness and withdraw with the centuries into the night of the past to prolong one's days beyond a dazzling illustriousness is good for nothing the world tires of you and your fame it is angry with you for being still there Alexander Caesar and Napoleon have disappeared in accordance with the rules of fame to die beautiful one must die young do not make the children of spring say what is that the genius the person the dynasty that the world applauded for a hair of whose head a smile a glance one would have thrown away one's life how sad it is to see old Louis Catois find no one near him to talk to him of his century except the old Dut de Villoir it was the last picture of the great Condé to have met Bossuet by his graveside the orator revived the mute waters of Chantilly out of the old man's childhood he kneaded again the young man's adolescence he made brown again the hair on the forehead of the victor of Roquois while bidding an undying farewell to his white hairs you who love glory look to your tomb lie down comfortably in it try to cut a good figure in it for you will remain there the road from Prague to Carlsbad stretched us out through the tedious plains which the thirty years war stained with blood as I crossed those battlefields at night I humble myself before the god of armies who bears the sky on his arm like a buckler one can see at some distance the wooded hillocks at whose foot the waters lie the wits among the doctors at Carlsbad compare the road to Esculopia snake which came down the hill to drink of Hygias cup on the top of the tower of the town the stud tomb a tower mited with a steeple watchmen blow the horn so soon as they perceive a traveller I was greeted by the joyous sound like a dying man and everyone in the valley began to say with delight here's a gouty man here's a hypochondriac here's a myopic subject alas! I was better than all that I was an incurable at seven o'clock on the morning of the thirty first I was installed at the golden shield an inn kept for the benefit of Camp Bolzona a very high born ruined man in the same hotel was stained the Conte Madame la Contesta Cossée who had gone before me and my fellow countryman General Detrogov formerly governor of the Chateau de Sainte-Claude born long ago at Landevisio within the rays of the moon at Landeneau and a squatter figure though he be a captain of Austrian grenadiers in Prague during the revolution he had just been to see his Spanish lord the successor of St. Claude Ald a monk in his time at St. Claude Trogov after his pilgrimage was returning to Lower Brittany he was taking with him an Hungarian nightingale and a Bohemian nightingale which prevented everybody in the hotel from sleeping so loudly did they complain of Therese cruelty Trogov used to cram them with grated bullock's heart without being able to get the better of the asaro at Mestis Latiloka questibus implant Trogov and I embraced like two brittles the general, short and square like a cult of cornois has a certain shrewdness under an air of candor and an amusing way of telling a story Madame Nadophine was inclined to like him and as he knows German she used to walk with him on hearing of my arrival from Madame LeCosse she sent to me to propose that I should go to see her at half-past nine or at twelve I was with her at twelve she occupied a house standing by itself at the end of the village on the right bank of the temple the little river which rushes from the mountain and flows through Karlsbad from one end to the other as I climbed the stairs to the princess apartment and served I was going almost for the first time to see that perfect model of human suffering that Antigone of Christendom I had not taught for ten minutes with Madame Nadophine in my life she had addressed scarcely two or three words to me during the rapid course of her prosperity she had always shown herself had a loss in my presence though I had never written or spoken of her except in terms of profound admiration Madame Nadophine was necessarily bound to entertain towards me the prejudices of that anti-chamber gang in whose midst she lived the royal family used to vegetate isolated in that citadel of stupidity and envy to which the young generations laid siege without being able to force their way in a man-servant opened the door to me I saw Madame Nadophine seated at the further end of a drawing-room on a sofa between two windows embroidering a piece of tapestry work I entered feeling so agitated that I did not know whether I should be able to reach the princess she raised her head which she had kept lowered right against her work as though herself to hide her emotion and addressing me said I'm glad to see you, Monsieur de Chateaubriand the king wrote to me that you were coming you travelled at night you must be tired I respectfully handed her Madame Nadophine's to Barry's letters she took them, laid them on the table beside her and said sit down, sit down then she began her embroidery again with a quick mechanical and convulsive movement I did not speak, Madame Nadophine kept silence I could hear the pricking of the needle and the drawing of the wool as the princess passed it smartly through the canvas on which I saw some tears fall the illustrious victim of misfortune wiped them from her eyes with the back of her hand and without raising her head said how is my sister very unhappy very unhappy I'm very sorry for her I'm very sorry for her these brief and repeated phrases failed to open a conversation for which neither of the two interlocutors could find the necessary expressions the redness of the Dauphine's eyes caused by the habit of tears gave her a beauty which made her look like the Spasimo virgin Madame I replied at last Madame La Ducheste de Barry was very unhappy without a doubt she has charged me to come to place her children under your protection during her captivity it is a great relief to think that Henry V finds his second mother in your majesty Pascal was right to connect the greatness and wretchedness of man who would have believed that Madame Nadophine attached any value to those titles of Queen of Majesty which was so natural to her and of which she had known the vanity while the word Majesty was nevertheless a magic word it beamed upon the princesses for it from which for a moment it removed the clouds they soon returned to place themselves there like a diadem oh no no, monsieur de Chateaubriand said the princess, looking at me and ceasing her work I am not Queen you are Madame, you are, by the laws of the realm Monsignor de Dauphine was able to abdicate only because he was king France looks upon you as her Queen and you will be the mother of Henry V the Dauphine has discussed no longer this little weakness by making her a woman again veiled the glamour of so many different greatnesses gave them a sort of charm and brought them into closer connection with the human condition I read out my credentials in which Madame La Duchesse de Berri declared her marriage to me ordered me to go to Prague asked to be allowed to keep her title as a French princess and placed her children in her sister's care the princess resumed her embroidery when I finished reading she said to me Madame La Duchesse de Berri does well to rely on me that's quite right Monsignor de Chateaubriand quite right I am very sorry for my sister in law you must tell her so this persistency on the part of Madame La Dauphine in saying that she was sorry for Madame La Duchesse de Berri without going further showed me how little sympathy there was in those two souls it also seemed to me as though an involuntary impulse had stirred the saint's heart a rivalry and misfortune nevertheless the daughter Marie Antoinette had nothing to fear in this struggle the palm would have remained hers if Madame I resumed would like to read the letter which Madame La Duchesse de Berri sends her and that which she addresses to her children she will perhaps find some new explanations there I hope that Madame will give me a letter to take back to Blay the letters were written in invisible ink I don't understand this at all said the princess what are we to do I suggested the expedient of a chafing-dish with a few sticks of white wood Madame pulled the bell the rope of which hung down behind the sofa a footman came took the order and set up the apparatus on the landing at the door of the drawing-room Madame rose and we went to the chafing-dish we put it on a little table and we gained cisteril I took one of the two letters and held it parallel to the flame Madame La Dauphine watched me and smiled because I did not succeed she said give it to me, give it to me let me try my hand she passed the letter over the flame Madame La Duchesse de Berri's large round handwriting appeared the same operation was performed for the second letter I congratulated Madame on her success it was a strange scene the daughter of Louis says, deciphering with me at the top of a staircase at Carlsbad the mysterious characters which the captive of Blais was sending to the captive of the temple we went back to our seats in the drawing-room the Dauphine's read the letter which was addressed to her Madame La Duchesse de Berri thanked her sister for the concern she had shown in her misfortune recommended her children to her and specially placed her son under the guardianship of his aunt's virtues the letter to the children consisted of a few loving words the Duchesse de Berri invited Henry to make himself worthy of France Madame La Dauphine said to me my sister does me justice I have been very much concerned at her troubles she must have suffered much, suffered much he must tell her that I will look after Monsieur le Duc de Bordeaux I am very fond of him how did you find him? his health is good, is it not? although a little nervous I spent two hours in private conversation with Madame an honour rarely granted she seemed satisfied having never known anything about me except from hostile reports she no doubt believed me to be a violent man puffed up with my own merits she was pleased with me for having a human aspect and being a good fellow she said to me cordially I am going out walking we shall dine at three you must come, if you do not want to go to bed I want to see you so long as it does not tire you I do not know to what I owed my success but certainly the ice was broken the prejudice wiped out that glance which had been fixed in the temple on the eyes of Louis Seers and Marie Antoinette had rested kindly upon a poor servant at the same time though I had succeeded in putting the Dauphine's at her ease I felt myself exceedingly constrained the fear of passing a certain level took from me that faculty for every day intercourse which I had with Charles X where there was that I did not possess the secret of drawing what was sublime from the soul of Madame where there was that my feeling of respect closed the road to the intercommunication of thought I felt a distressing sterility which came from within myself at three o'clock I was back at Madame la Dauphine's I there met Madame La Contesse Esther Hasey and her daughter Madame Dagu Messieurs O'Hagetti the Younger and a Trogoff who had the honour of dining with the princess Countess Esther Hasey once a beautiful woman is still good-looking she had been intimate with Missila Duda Blacca in Rome they say that she meddles in politics and tells Missila Prince de Metinich all that she hears when on leaving the temple there was Esther Hasey who became her companion I noticed that she listened attentively to what I said she had the simplicity the next morning to tell me that she had spent the night in writing she was preparing to leave for Prague a secret interview was arranged at a spot agreed upon with Missila de Blacca from there she was going to Vienna old attachments made young again by espionage what a business and what pleasures Mamazelle Esther Hasey is not pretty she looks witty and mischievous the Vekontest Agu a devotee today is an important person of the class which one finds in all princesses' closets she has pushed on her family as much as she could by applying to everybody especially to myself I have had the satisfaction of placing her nephews she had as many as the late arch-chancellor Kambaservais the dinner was so bad and so scanty that I rose dying of hunger it was served in Madame La Dauphin's own drawing-room for she had no dining-room after the meal the table was cleared Madame went back to sit on the sofa took up her work again and we formed a circle round chug off told stories Madame likes them she interests herself particularly in women the Duchess de Guiches mentioned her dresses do not suit her said the Dauphiness to my great surprise from her sofa Madame saw through the window what was happening outside she named the ladies and gentlemen walking came two little horses with two grooms dressed in the Scotch fashion Madame ceased working looked long and said it is Madame, I forget the name going into the mountains with her children Mary Tara is curious knowing the habits of the neighbourhood the princess of thrones and scaffolds descending from the heights of her life to the level of other women interested me I watched her with a sort of philosophic tenderness at five o'clock the Dauphiness went out driving at seven I was back for the evening gathering the same arrangement Madame on the sofa the guests of the dinner and five or six young and old water drinkers enlarged the circle the Dauphiness made touching but visible efforts to be gracious she addressed a word to everyone she spoke to me several times making a point of calling me by my name to make me known but she became absent-minded again after each sentence her needle multiplied its movements her face drew nearer to her embroidery I saw the princess's profile and was struck by a sinister resemblance Madame has begun to look like her father when I saw her head lowered under the blade of sorrow I thought that I saw Louis Caesar's head awaiting the fall of the blade at half past eight the evening ended I went to bed overcome by sleep and lassitude on Friday the 31st of May I was up at five o'clock at six I went to the Moulinbard the minimum of water drinkers crowded round the spring walked under the gallery of wooden pillars or in the garden next to the gallery Madame Dauphin arrived dressed in a shabby grey silk gown she wore a threadbare shawl on her shoulders and an old height on her head she looked as though she had mended her clothes as her mother did at the Conciergerie M. Hegety her inquiry gave her his arm she mixed with a crowd and handed her cup to the women who draw the water from the spring no one paid any attention to Madame La Conteste demand Maria Theresa her grandmother in 1762 built the house known as the Moulinbard she also presented Carlsbad with the bells that were to call her granddaughter to the foot of the cross Madame having entered the garden I went up to her she seemed surprised at this courty life flattery I had seldom risen so early for royal personages except perhaps on the 13th of February 1820 when I went to look for the duty barrier the opera the princess allowed me to take five or six turns round the garden by her side told kindly and told me that she would receive me at two o'clock and give me a letter I left her out of discretion I breakfasted hurriedly and spent the time remaining to me in visiting the valley and of book four part two part three of book four of the memos of Chateaubriand volume five this is a Librivox recording all Librivox recording sign the public domain recording by Nicole Lee the memos of Chateaubriand volume five by François René de Chateaubriand Alexander Texerre de Matos book four part three Carlsbad 1st June 1833 as a Frenchman I found none but painful memories at Carlsbad the town takes its name from Charles IV King of Bohemia who came here to be cured of three wounds received at Cressy while fighting beside his father John Lobcote pretends that John was killed by a Scotchman a circumstance not known to the historians he said cum galoreum finez at Annika Chateaubriand Caledonia cuspeidae fosus obit Caledonia Caledonia for the sake of the quantity Caledonia for the sake of the quantity in 1346 Edward was at war with Robert Bruce and the Scotch for Philip's allies the death of the blind John of Bohemia at Cressy is one of the most heroic and touching adventures of chivalry John wanted to go to the assistance of his son Charles his companions my lords you are my friends I call upon you to lead me so far forwards that I may strike a blow with my sword they replied that gladly would they do so the king of Bohemia went so far forwards that he struck a blow with his sword indeed more than four and combated most vigorously and so did they of his company and so much forward they pushed against the English that all remained there and were on the morrow found on the field together few people know that John of Bohemia was buried at Montages in the church of the Dominicans and that on his tomb one used to read this remnant of an obliterated inscription he died at the head of his attendants together recommending them to God the Father pray to God for that sweet king may this remembrance of a Frenchman expiate the ingratitude of France when in the days of our new calamities we appalled heaven by our sacrilege and cast out of his tomb a prince who died for us in the days of our old misfortunes at Carlsbad the chronicles relate that Charles IV the son of King John having gone out hunting one of his hounds darting after a deer fell from the top of a hill into a basin of boiling water its hulls course a huntsman to hurry in its direction and the source of the sprudel was discovered a hog which scalded itself in the waters of templates to the herdsmen such are the traditions of Germania I have been to Corinth the ruins of the temple of the courtesans were dispersed over the ashes of Glyceria but the fountain of Pyrene which sprang from the tears of Anif still flowed among the oleanders through which Pegasus flew in the times of the Muses the waters of a port without ships bathed fallen columns whose capitals lay steeped in the sea like heads of drowned girls in the sands the myrtle had grown in their hair and replaced the acanthus leaves there you have the traditions of Greece cast about Numbers 8 springs the most celebrated is the sprudel discovered by the staghound this spring issues from the ground between the church and the temple with a hollow sound and a white steam it leaps up with irregular bounds to a height of 6 or 7 feet the hot springs of Iceland are superior to the sprudel to seek health in the deserts of the Hekla where life expires where the summer's day issuing from the day knows neither sunset nor sunrise where the winter's night born again of the night is without dawn or twilight the water of the sprudel boils eggs and serves to wash plates and dishes this fine phenomenon has entered the service of the Carlsbad housewives an image of genius which degrades itself by lending its power to vile works Carlsbad is the meeting place in ordinary of sovereigns they ought surely to get cured there of the crown for themselves and for us a daily list is published of the visitors to the sprudel on the old rolls we find the names of the Perts and the most enlightened men of letters of the north Gorovsky, Dunker, Weisser, Herder, Goethe I should have liked to meet with that of Schiller my favourite in the sheet of the day among obscure arrivals one observes the name of the contest Eman it is only printed in small capitals in 1830 at the very moment of the fall of the royal family at St. Cloud the widow and daughters of Kristoff were taking the waters at Carlsbad the Ahatian Majesties have retired to Tuscany near the Neapolitan Majesties King Kristoff's youngest daughter, very well educated and exceedingly pretty has died at Pisa her ebb and beauty rests free under the porticoes of the Campo Santo far from the Cainfields and mangrove trees beneath whose shade she was born a slave in 1826 an English woman from Calcutta was seen at Carlsbad passing from the Banyan fig tree to the Bohemian olive tree from the son of the Ganges to the son of the Tettle she died away like a ray from the Indian sky lost in the cold and the darkness the sight of cemeteries in places consecrated to health is a melancholy one their young women sleep strangers to one another on their tombs are carved above their days in the place of their birth one seems to be going through a hot house in which flowers are cultivated of every climate whose names are written on a label at the foot of the flowers the native law has anticipated the requirements of exotic death foreseeing the decease of the travelers far from their country it permits the exhumations beforehand I might then have slept half a score of years in the Cemetery of St. Andrew and nothing would have hindered the testamentary dispositions of these memoirs if Madame Le Dauphine were to expire here would the French laws permit the return of her ashes? that would be a controversial point between the Sorbonneisers of doctrine and the Cassiouists of prescription the Carlsbad waters are stated to be good for the liver and bad for the teeth I know nothing about the liver but there are many toothless people at Carlsbad perhaps the years are responsible for this rather than the waters of an iron lyre and a great tooth drawer it doesn't all seem to you as though I were recommencing the chef Douda incognue one word leads me to another I go from Iceland to India voilà les appennins et voici le cocaz and nevertheless I have not yet left the teplitz valley to obtain a view of the whole of the valley of the temple I climbed a hill through a wood of pine trees the perpendicular columns of these trees with a cute angle with the slanting rays of the sun some had their tops two-thirds, one-half a quarter of their trunks where the others had their feet I shall always love the woods the flora of Carlsbad whose breath seemed to have embroidered the grass under my footsteps seemed charming to me I met again the fingered cinch the common nightshade the small loose drive of the early anthologies see my youth coming to hang its reminiscences on the stalks of those plants which I recognised in passing do you remember my botanical studies among the seminals with which I decked my floridans the garlands of clematis with which they entwined the tortoise our sleep on the island by the lakeside the shower of roses from the magnolia tree that fell upon our heads I dare not calculate the age by now what should I gather on her brow today the wrinkles that lie on my own she is no doubt sleeping for ever beneath the roots of a cypress grove of Alabama and I who bear in my memory those distant unknown recollections I am alive I am in Bohemia not with Attala and Saluta but near Madame Ladoffine who is going to give me a letter from Madame Ladoffine's orders at one o'clock I was at Madame Ladoffine's orders you wish to leave today Monsieur de Chateaubriand if your majesty will permit me I shall try to find Madame de Berri in France otherwise I should be obliged to make the journey to Sicily and her royal highness would be kept too long waiting for the answer which she expects here is a note for her I took care not to mention your name so as not to compromise you if anything happened read it I took the note it was written entirely in Madame Ladoffine's hand I have taken an exact copy of it Carlsbad 31st May 1833 it was a genuine pleasure for me my dear sister at last to hear from you direct I pity you with all my soul I reckon always on my constant concern for you and especially for your dear children who will be more precious to me than ever my existence as long as it endures shall be consecrated to them I have not yet been able to execute your commissions as regards our family my health having required that I should come here to take the waters but I shall discharge it immediately on my return to them they and I believe me will never have any but the same sentiments on everything farewell my dear sister I pity you from the bottom of my heart and embrace you fondly empty I was struck by the reserve of this note a few vague expressions of attachment but poorly covered the dryness of its substance I respectfully said as much and again pleaded the cause of the unfortunate prisoner madam answered that the king would give his decision she promised me to interest herself on behalf of her sister but there was no cordiality either in the voice or tone of the dofinness one perceived rather a restrained irritation the game seemed to me lost as far as my client's person was concerned I fell back upon Henry V I thought that I owed to the princess the sincerity which I had always employed at my risk and peril to enlighten the Bourbons I spoke to her frankly and without flattery of the education of Monsieur le Duc de Bordeaux I know that madame has read in a kindly spirit the pamphlet at the end of which I expressed a few ideas relating to the education of Henry V I fear less the child's surroundings should injure his cause messieurs de Dama, de Blacca and Latille are not popular madame agreed with this she even quite threw over Monsieur de Dama's while saying two or three words in on-off his courage, his probity and his religion in the month of September Henry V will be of age does not madame think that it would be a good thing to establish a council around him to which one would summon men upon whom France looks with less prejudice Monsieur de Chateaubriand by multiplying councilors one multiplies opinions and then whom would you propose Monsieur de Villel madame was embroidering stop-to-needle looked at me in surprise and surprised me in my turn by giving a pretty judicious criticism of the mind and character of Monsieur de Villel she regarded him only as an able administrator madame is too severe said I to her Monsieur de Villel is a man of method of accounts of moderation of composure of infinite resource if he had not had the ambition to fill the first place and to keep everlastingly in the king's council he will never be replaced his presence with Henry V would have the best effect I thought that you did not like Monsieur de Villel I should despise myself if after the fall of the throne I continue to cherish the sentiment of some petty rivalry our royalist divisions have already done too much harm I forswear them with all my heart and I'm ready to beg pardon of those who have offended me Your Majesty to believe that this is neither a display of false generosity nor a stone laid by way of provision of a future fortune what could I ask of Charles X in exile if the restoration were to come about should I not be at the bottom of my grave Madame looked at me with kindness she had the goodness to praise me in these simple words that is very well said Monsieur de Chateaubriand she seemed to be still surprised to find a Chateaubriand so different from the one who had been described to her there's another person Madame I resumed whom I was sent for my noble friend Monsieur Lené there were three of us in France who ought never to take the oath to Philip myself Monsieur Lené, Monsieur Roye Collard outside the government and in different positions we should have formed a triumvirate of some value Monsieur Lené took the oath from weakness Monsieur Roye Collard from pride the first will die of it the second will live by it because he lives by all that he does being incapable of doing anything that is not admirable were you pleased with Monsieur Lené due to Bordeaux? I thought him charming they say that your Majesty spoils him a little oh no no were you satisfied with his health? he seemed to me to be wonderfully well he looks delicate and a little pale he often has a nice colour but he's nervous Monsieur Lené defines very much esteemed in the army is he not very much esteemed they remember him are they not? this abrupt question which had no connection with what we had just been saying revealed to me a secret wound which the days of Saint Claude and Rambouille had left in the heart of the Dauphinès she brought up her husband's name in order to reassure herself I hasten to anticipate the thought of the princess and wife I declared him with truth that the army had never forgotten the impartiality the virtues, the courage of its command and chief it seemed that the hour for walking had come your Majesty has no more orders to give me I'm afraid of being troublesome tell your friends of the love I bear to France let them well understand that I am a French woman I charge you particularly to say that you will do me a pleasure in saying it I regret France much I regret France very much ah madame what has that France not done to you how can you who have suffered so much continue to feel homesick no no monsieur de Chateaubriand do not forget it be sure to tell them all that I am a French woman that I am a French woman but I'm left me I was obliged to stop on the staircase before going out I would not have dared to show myself in the street my tears still moistened my eyelids as I retraced the scene on returning to my inn I resumed my travelling dress while the carriage was being got ready he told me again and again that madame la Dauphine was very pleased with me that she made no attempt to conceal her satisfaction that she spoke of it to anyone who was willing to listen to her it's an immense thing this journey of yours Chateaubriand de Chateaubriand trying to drown the voices of his two nightingales you will see some results from it I did not believe in any result I was right they were expecting monsieur de Bordeaux that same evening so everybody knew of his arrival they had made a mystery of it to me I was careful not to show that I was informed of the secret at six o'clock in the evening I was rolling towards Paris whatever may be the greatness of misfortune in Prague the pittiness of the life of princess reduced to itself is difficult to swallow to drink the last drop of it one must have burnt one's palette and intoxicated one's self with a glowing faith Alas in Euse Macchus I bewail the abandonment of the altars I raise my hands towards the capital I invoke the majesty of Rome but if the gods should have turned into wood and Rome failed to come to life again in its dust and of book 4 part 3 Appendix the Royal Ordinances of July 1830 Charles etc to all to whom these presents shall come health on the report of our council of ministers we have ordained and do ordain on the report of our council of ministers we have ordained and do ordain as follows article 1 the liberty of the periodical press is suspended 2 the regulations of articles 1, 2 and 9 of the first section of the law of the 21st of October 1814 are again put in force in consequence of which no journal or periodical or semi-periodical writing established or about to be established without distinction of the matters therein treated shall appear in Paris or in the departments except by the virtue of an authority first obtained from us by the authors and printer respectively this authority shall be renewed every three months it may also be revoked 3 the authority shall be provisionally granted and provisionally withdrawn by the prefix from journals and periodicals or semi-periodical works published or about to be published in the departments 4 journals and writings published in contravention of article 2 shall be immediately seized the presses and types used in the printing of them shall be placed in a public depository under seal or rendered unfit for use 5 no writing of less than 20 printed pages shall appear except with the authority of our minister the secretary of state for the interior in Paris and of the prefix in the departments every writing of more than 20 printed pages which shall not constitute one single work must also be published under authority only writings published without authority shall be immediately seized the presses and types used in printing them shall be placed in a public depository under seal or rendered unfit for use 6 minutes relating to legal process and minutes of scientific and literary societies must be previously authorized if they treat in whole or in part of political matters in which case the measures prescribed by article 5 shall be applicable 7 every regulation contrary to the present shall be without effect 8 the execution of the present ordinance shall take place in conformity with article 4 of the ordinance of 27 November 1816 and of that which is prescribed by the ordinance of 18 January 1817 9 our secretaries of state are charged with the execution of this ordinance given at the palace of St. Cloud this 25th day of July in the year of grace 1830 and the 6th of our reign signed Charles counter-signed, pronounced a Polyniac president Chantelot's Keep of the Seals Baron Dossay, Minister of Marine Montbell, Minister of Finance Comte de Guernon-Honville Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs Baron Capel, Secretary of State for Public Works Charles, to all to whom these present shall come etc having considered article 50 of the Constitutional Charter being informed of the maneuvers which have been practiced in various parts of our kingdom to deceive and mislead the electors during the late operations of the electoral colleges having heard our council we have ordained and do ordain as follows Article 1 the Chamber of Deputies of Departments is dissolved 2 our minister, the Secretary of State of the Interior is charged with the execution of the present ordinance given at St. Cloud this 25th day of July in the year of Grace 1830 and the 6th of our reign signed Charles counter-signed Comte de Peronet, Peer of France Secretary of State for the Interior Charles to all who shall see these present health having resolved to prevent the return of the maneuvers which have exercised a pernicious influence on the late operations of the electoral colleges and wishing in consequence to reform according to the principles of the constitutional charter the rules of election of which experience has shown the inconvenience we have recognized the necessity of using the right which belongs to us to provide by acts emanating from ourselves for the safety of the state and for the suppression of every enterprise injurious to the dignity of our crown for these reasons having heard our council we have ordained and do ordain Article 1 conformably with Articles 15 36 and 30 of the constitutional charter the chamber of deputies shall consist only of deputies of departments 2 the electoral rate and the rate of eligibility shall consist exclusively of the sums for which the elect and the candidate shall be inscribed individually as holders of real or personal property in the role of the land tax or of personal taxes 3 each department shall have the number of deputies allotted to it by article 36 of the constitutional charter 4 the deputies shall be elected and the chamber renewed in the form and for the time fixed by article 36 of the constitutional charter 5 the electoral colleges shall be divided into colleges of R&D SMART and colleges of departments except the case of those electoral colleges of departments to which only one deputy is allotted 6 the electoral colleges of R&D SMART shall consist of all the electors whose political domicile is established in the R&D SMART the electoral colleges of departments shall consist of a fourth part of the most highly taxed of the electors of departments 7 the present limits of the electoral colleges of R&D SMART are retained 8 every electoral college of R&D SMART shall elect a number of candidates equal to the number of departmental deputies 9 each section of the electoral college of R&D SMART shall be divided into as many sections as candidates each division shall be in proportion to the number of sections and to the total number of electors having regard as much as possible to the convenience of place and neighbourhood 10 the sections of the electoral college of R&D SMART may assemble in different places 11 each section of the electoral college of R&D SMART shall choose a candidate and proceed separately 12 each section of the electoral college of R&D SMART shall be nominated by the prefects from among the electors of the R&D SMART 13 the college of department shall choose the deputies half the deputies of department shall be chosen from the general list of candidates proposed by the colleges of R&D SMART nevertheless, if the number of deputies of the department is uneven the division shall be made without impeachment of the right reserved by the college of department 14 if the list were by the effect of omissions or void or double nominations the list of candidates proposed by the college of R&D SMART shall be incomplete if the list is reduced below half the number required, the college of the department shall choose another deputy not in the list if the list is reduced below a fourth the college of the department may elect the whole of the deputies of the department 15 the prefects, the sub-prefects and the general officers commanding military divisions and departments are not to be elected in the departments where they exercise their functions 16 the list of electors shall be settled by the prefect in the council of prefecture it shall be posted up five days before the assembly of the colleges 17 claims regarding the power of voting which have not been authorised by the prefects shall be decided by the chamber of deputies at the same time that it shall decide upon the validity of the operations of the colleges 18 in the electoral colleges of departments the two oldest electors and the two electors who pay the most taxes shall execute the duty of scrutators the same disposition shall be observed in the sections of the college of R&D SMART composed at most of only 50 electors in the other sections the functions of scrutators shall be executed by the oldest and the richest of the electors the secretary of the college of section shall be nominated by the president and the scrutators 19 no person shall be admitted into the college or section of college if he's not inscribed in the list of electors who compose it this list will be delivered to the president and will remain posted up in the place of the sitting of the college during the period of its proceedings 20 all discussion and deliberation whatever are forbidden in the bosom of the electoral colleges 21 the police of the college belongs to the president no armed force without his order the military commons shall be bound to obey his requisitions 22 the nomination shall be made in the colleges and sections of colleges by the absolute majority of the votes given nevertheless if the nominations are not finished after two rounds of scrutiny the bureau shall determine the list of persons who shall have obtained the greatest number of suffragists of the second round it shall contain a number of names double that of the nominations which remain to be made at the third round no suffragists can be given except to the persons inscribed on that list and the nominations shall be made by a relative majority 23 the electors shall vote by bulletins every bulletin shall contain as many names as their nominations to be made 24 the electors shall write their vote on the bureau or cause it to be written by one of the scootators 25 the name, qualification and domicile of each elector who shall deposit his bulletin shall be inscribed by the secretary on a list destined to establish the number of the voters 26 every scrutiny shall remain open for six hours and the result shall be declared during the sitting 27 there shall be drawn up a process verbal for each sitting this process verbal on minute shall be signed by all the members of the bureau 28 conformably with article 46 of the constitutional charter no amendment can be made upon any law in the chamber unless it has been proposed and consented to by us and unless it has been discussed in the bureau 29 all regulations contrary to the present ordinance shall remain without effect 30 our ministers, the secretaries of state are charged with the execution of the present ordinance given us in cloud this 25th day of July in the year of grace 1830 and the 6th of our reign signed Charles countersigned by all the ministers and the appendix end of volume 5


Good morning. So I hope you still have some brain power left. That was an intense morning session. Very informative. So let me go with the first one. And I thought I will tackle first off the gaps and challenges that we're facing. And this is something that you may not know. I have no sound. Some sound. Okay, so this is a gap that I think all of you will recognize. State of NIH Fundings. It's pretty dry. I will say that's a big gap in challenges in my research. This one is another gap that I found. Don't know if you know what it represents. A bunch of bloodthirsty animals, also known as study section. I will be your proposal right there. Very, very daring. And if you do, we saw the first day there were a lot of animation on microbial composition 3D with Rob and Jacques. So I thought I will put a 3D animation of these gaps. It will go like that. So it will be you sending out your microbiome proposal. It's one of the... So big questions. Major question in the field and you think that it's going to be funded. You already have your team recruiting people.   Then you got on e-comments and you saw the score. It's not very good. Actually, you have to think about your career because you put so much faith in this proposal that now you are down on your knees and thinking about plan B.   And submit again and get the money because we need to move the field forward, right? So, keep the faith. Indeed. So I hope I'm not in trouble with the NIH staff yet. I'm a reviewer, right? So what I want to do here is to tackle a little bit generally the cancer and the microbiome interaction but specifically going after colorectal cancer. This is a cartoon that will be part of a review, invited review for Nature Cancer. But the idea is that different organ are linked to different form of cancer, microbiome driven. Sometimes it's like the liver microbial products. Sometimes it's an isolate in a different organ affecting a distal site like pancreas and oral pathogen. And other time will be like in the colon where you have a microbiome next to the organ that will be affected. And I will focus on that if you don't mind. Colorectal cancer is multifactorial diseases, disease as host genetics, diet and inflammation. And we learned for the past two days that inflammation is the powerful environmental factor shaping microbial constitution, composition, activities. So it's tantalizing to link this to cancer. Obviously there is a link between inflammation and cancer but could you bring in the microbiome and then make a sequential effect on inflammation, cancer, microbiome and cancer? And we know I will skip fast on that. I mean IBD cohorts have been screened for microbiome composition. We know there's cluster between healthy, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, two different forms of IBD. Diversity is affected. This is an old stone age paper that was using I think TRFLP. New data, so many, many groups, different cohorts have all confirmed that there is a dysbiosis, a change in the microbial composition. We know a little bit in the resolution which microbes could be associated with disease, especially the proteobacteria, gamma proteobacteria and introbacteria ECs for Crohn's disease and a reduction of clostridia, butyrate producer and also TRG regulator. So we have dysbiosis that may be functionally linked to IBD. We're still to work the detail of that but it's there. And if you put this in motion in term of colorectal cancer, the colitis aspect of colorectal cancer was mostly thought as a host dysregulation. We have inflammatory mediators coming in from the patellium immune cells and it will hit somehow this cocktail of inflammatory mediator, will hit the patellium, cause dysplastic response, DNA damage, and progress to adenocarcinoma and many transcription factor in cytokine. Cytokines have been associated to that and causally found to be responsible for the disease. We don't have this figured out, but one thing that we know is this organ is hosting an abundant microbiome. So what is the microbiome doing? And for many years we thought that at least in the field of colitis, it was just a fuel to set more inflammatory response. So a trigger perpetrator of inflammation and that's how you get to the cancer. But the question is, is that all the microbiome could do? And I will focus on bacterial microbiome here. And people have done, in the past two years, a lot of survey using different compartments. I'm not going to name all the bacteria, but there is an abundance, an increased expansion of some group, a decrease of other in the luminal compartment. And if you look at tissue compartment, mucosal samples in early stage of cancer and late, there's also dysbiosis. It's very hard to pinpoint an association and in a cause to that. So it's mostly, and all the papers don't have time to highlight everyone, but there is an active group from different parts of the world looking at that, different cohorts. So it's clear we have dysbiosis. What is the cause? Effect relationship. That is difficult to do in patients. We need to introduce animal model. And the question we were asking is what happened to the microbiome during the onset of colitis? The progression is a microbiome entuned with the inflammatory response of the host and what does it do in terms of cancer development? We use a simple model. You heard about it, so germ-free mice. The reason why you have germ-free mice is because you avoid the legacy and a familial transmission of microbes that sometimes drive cage effect. Although we have a paper just showing that founder's effect is not the main cause of cage effect. But that's another ballgame. So you have wild-type mice, which is your control mice, or susceptible mice we use for colitis cancer, or AL-10 knockout, which is an immunosuppressive molecule, but no AL-10 knockout, this control or dysregulation of the immune response, and the phenotype is colitis. But they don't have colitis in the germ-free environment. If you move them into an SPF where they have environmental microbes coming in, then you have colitis. We use a compound that's called azoxymethane to initiate cancer, and then you survey at different time the microbiome in the stool, so two weeks will be a mild colitis, 12 weeks a strong colitis with high-grade dysplasia, and 20 weeks full colitis and invasive tumors. So you could sequence. And what we did here is to compare the microbiome of these mice, wild-type, AL-10 knockout. So this is two weeks cohort. Individual symbols is an individual mouse or the incorporated microbiome. And in the wild-type mice who will not develop colitis, after 12 and 20 weeks, the biome just assemble, and this is a college called Assembly of the Biome. There's no differences actually between the 12 and the 20 weeks. So they end up in a region of their microbiome is stable, and that's how they assemble. In the AL-10 knockout where you have here the colitis, and later on the colitis cancer, you could see that there is a clustering that is highly significant. So when cancer, when the colitis progress, it does shape the microbiome in the cancer, as well as another factor. If you do pie cross analysis on this community now that is in the colitis cancer, you can't read that, but the red symbols means that there are genes that are highly abundant. And most of them are in the type secretion system, one, two, three, five. And a secretion system is often associated with a more aggressive behavior from the microbiome. So you have a microbiome that is a little bit more prone to looking for trouble, if I may say. If you look at flagellin, which is another very important factor that microbes utilize to colonize, penetrate, and get close to the patellium. You need to be more mobile, and all these genes are highly abundant, higher in the colitis cancer. But if you go with the phylum level now, because you have generated a lot of data with the sequencing, where do you go from there? If you look here, this is a color code, so red means highly significant, and more abundant in the outer knockout than the wild type. You have two groups, two phylums that are highly, that change. So the proteobacteria and the vericromacrobia. So where do you go? We took a bias approach with the proteobacteria because we knew from the human sequencing that this group is also associated with a higher abundance in patient. If you go down to the family level and then compare over time, so two weeks, 12 and 20 weeks, this is the AL-10 and the wild type, you see always an increase, higher abundance, enterobacteriesies over time, although the niche diminish when you move to full colitis inflammation. That's an interesting observation, but yet you always have more of these microbial family in the animal that have colitis and cancer. This is Illumina sequencing. You can go down to species. This is with the RDP, it was a consensus 27, feeding the earciar and shigella. But we knew from the literature that at this point that people have identified E. coli, Adrenalin-invasive E. coli on IBD patient, on the mucosal, highly representative and also in colorectal cancer. So the E. coli was of great importance. This is the E. coli I'm talking about is not a he-hack-he-pick classical pathogenic microorganism. It's the one that you have in your bowel that somehow may acquire a more aggressive phenotype because of a change in the environment. And we did selected by us PCR analysis of 16 years looking at E. coli in these cohorts, and we found higher abundance of E. coli in the AL-10. We had the idea that the change with inflammation, the change of microbial composition, there is a group of bacteria that expand. There's many, many more bacteria, but we were interested in the E. coli because of the link with colorectal cancer in patient. So what do you do after that? Well, we took an E. coli that we had called NC-101 which is North Carolina 101 was found and isolated at North Carolina State University. It's non-pathogenic E. coli again. And then we'll go back to the germ-free AL-10 and then you mono-associate so you control the system. So what you do here, you introduce the E. coli NC-101 and an entrococcus ficalis are all human isolate that we knew also and use colitis in this system. And now if you change these microbial status in the mouse, what will happen to inflammation? Cancer. This is a astrological score of inflammation between the two mono-associated mice. E. ficalis, E. coli, very similar. This is tumor multiplicity and invasion and you could see that you have quite of a difference in the capacity to induce cancer. So the inflammation is quite similar but the cancer capacity is different. So there is again a link between the microbial constituent. Who do you have in there and how could they influence your cancer development? And we always thought that inflammation was the driving force and from there it seems that the microbes have something very important to say in influencing diseases. So what is that E. coli has that make it more susceptible or more aggressive in inducing cancer? And that goes back to looking and sequencing and having information in the genome of these bugs. We found that this bug has a PKS island which is a genotoxic island. 22 genes, 54 key bits, a massive amount of multi-asimatic system and literature have found that in this pathogenic E. coli it's an extraintestinal E. coli sp15 that when they introduced that in the mouse as an ileal loop they found the any damage. So we thought since our E. coli has this PKS it may be responsible. So what you do, you do genetic deletion of the PKS island in the E. coli and you compare this island isogenic E. coli and go back to the animal model and ask the question do I have cancer in the system? Does it impact inflammation? What we found is that in term of inflammatory capacity at different time point which is 12, 14 and 18 weeks the inflammatory capacity of the wild type of mutant E. coli was very similar. So remove this island using massive inflammation now what happened to cancer you remove the PKS and you have you lose the ability or the strength of cancer promotion. That's the invasion multiplicity. So the E. coli was quite the PKS of E. coli was very important in driving the cancer susceptibility but not changing the inflammatory host response. This is an E. coli that was a murine isolate well is that gene has any relevance to human diseases so we went to a cohort I told you that E. coli was isolated from many many different population in UK and in US so we linked with a group in UK they had access to a bank of E. coli and we screened for the PKS island what we found is that this is clinical isolate now human we found that the prevalence of E. coli having this PKS was much more higher roughly 3 times higher in the population colorectal cancer and then the control population and that was confirmed by another group in France using a different cohort looking at different cytotoxic virulence factor but the PKS was also found to be 20% in the control roughly and 55% in the colorectal cancer similar to us so again it's an association the disease it doesn't mean that the PKS was causative of cancer but it shows that the E. coli has the capacity the E. coli that caused cancer in our system the gene is present in the human population so just to go back I said that the inflammation is a powerful force shaping the microbial composition but is it all it could do so what we're very interested to know is the inflammation if you have a group of bacteria that expand during inflammation if you take them and introduce them back in a mouse that is susceptible to cancer will it cause cancer by itself and what is the role of inflammation so what we did here again is germ free mice the Alten and also we use an Alten RAC2 these mice lack maturity and B cell so they can't go into chronic inflammation so you remove inflammation from that mouse basically and come back with the NC101 and what we found is that the inflammation the bugs induce inflammation in the Alten but in the Alten RAC2 there's no inflammation so now you remove the capacity to induce inflammation but you still have the E. coli with the PKS island will that induce cancer and it doesn't or it has a strong reduction so now I don't want to confuse you but it puts a lot of intricate relationship between inflammation, composition and activity of bacteria here we have no host inflammation and the bugs that have functional PKS can't induce the cancer so you need something by inflammation to get the bug going and we were interested in knowing what that is so we did RNA microbial RNA sequence on these cohorts see what is the relationship between inflammation and their transcriptomic response it's a little bit complicated but let's focus on this so the circles are the Alten alone so the Alten develop inflammation and cancer the mouse was mono-associated and they harvested stools from different time 2 weeks, 12 weeks and 20 weeks and performed the RNA seek so what you have is a clustering from a different time so you have the 2 weeks transcriptome of these different animals and then at 12 weeks and 20 weeks so the transcriptome change with the inflammatory response that will be your conclusion here with the rag now so you look at the transcriptome of the bugs that was in the Alten rag who doesn't develop inflammation and now it's moving very close to the inflammatory so the transcriptomic response of this E. coli was massively driven by adaptation environment adaptation and the host but we found a selected set of genes that are highly regulated by inflammation so adaptation of the bacteria and the host drive a lot of transcriptomic response inflammation will come and target select genes that likely and we're working on these genes I have no time to list use these genes but some of these genes likely will influence the capacity to induce cancer or the fitness of the bacteria so just to sum up what I've been telling you so far you have the microbiome that is inducing a host response in a susceptible host that will be inflammatory compartment response or a lot of inflammation this inflammation by itself doesn't just affect the host goes after the luminal microbial compartment and does change the ability or the composition of the microbiome and also likely the activities and some of these activities could be linked to genotoxin the PKS I've told you about and that is the perfect storm when you have an increased likelihood to develop colorectal cancer so since I'm in the translational section of the meeting I thought the gaps and challenges could be that now how do we move forward from this we know there's this biosis and bacterial translocation when you have early onset of cancer or inflammation so could you modulate this microbiome composition pre and probiotics we heard about that bacterial therapy maybe the stone age fecal transplant or more targeted introduction of bacteria antibiotics could be although it's certainly not a long-term therapy genetically modified microbiota that you could introduce enzyme to help you out-compete activity of another one diet and cancer is highly link correlated could you change diet to impact the microbiome and decrease your cancer microbiome population we have pro-effective effector mechanism from these bacteria I've shown you the PKS could you target these genotoxin and also could you target prevent inflammation prevent the change of microbiome for real now for the needs we need to move the omics down to the target mechanism you don't want to be the mouse that was just a movie it's a happy ending but a lot of time there's no happy ending you do so you need to write a grant that will have a link between the data that generated by a sequencer and get mechanism to target related applications in my case I need access to clinical isolate all these bugs that we or family or group of bacteria that we identify from these biosis and sequencing need to be put in the bank we need to look at them in terms of sequencing sequence these bacteria from different cohorts could we found unique to a population and start asking question about the function in terms of cancer development we need to get better in the microbiology and we have the high technology that we're using but the old technology chemostat turbidostat multistage chemostat to study behavior of these bacteria if you have a clinical isolate which factor could influence the expansion behavior of these bacteria any enzymatic activity that could be controlled by diet, introduction or changing the setup of the bioreactor system so we need that and this look a little bit funky colonization protocol for germ free I mean people say you just introduce the bacteria and you're good to go that's not true I mean when we introduce complex community they are not all of them there you may lose a lot of them because there's no sequential pioneer bacteria coming in and setting the stage for the next wave of bacteria and I give you an example we had a clinical isolate provided by us from Emma Allen Verco in Guelph University with the fusobacterium nucleotom that people found associated with colorectal cancer we took that bug introduced it to the Altenac out and that bug was not able to colonize and stay so it needs another bacteria to come in so these when you start looking at consortium because cancer is not caused by one unlikely by one microorganism it's going to be an association interaction we need to duplicate that in the animal not going to be easy if we don't know how they interact with each other you can't put them all in a mix and hope for the best and with that my god I'm at 6 seconds of the end this is my lab I would like to recognize all the people involved in this work UNC Chapel Hill the UNC no biotic facility head by Barfor Sardar Instrumental UNC Charlotte for bioinformatics Cornell and University of Liverpool for the clinical isolate and I thank you for your attention okay we have time for a few questions crickets I think one question over here so Christian one thing we were talking about actually a journal club with that your cool paper is is the effect of the of the pks bearing organisms is it just is it an incremental genotoxic effect because you're getting things like AOM which is certainly a big genotoxic hit and a lot of environmental things will do that so when one focuses on the microbiome here are you seeing that there's a unique role of the organisms or is it sort of like recreating the natural setting where the hits are going to be sub carcinogenic and so any additional hits adds to the threshold right I mean that's a great question we like to see the progress it's hard to monitor the pks activity if you were to know that it's inducing a sequence of mutation and then you could start sequencing the host insert progression of cancer in your cohort over time and see that you know the pks is getting this hit here and there and then over time it accumulates to this you could try to link it to the activity of the pks it does one massive mutation or multiple mutation and you need the pks activity for that long to see that it's a difficult question to answer at this point we've been doing sequencing on tumors we were not able to find the usual hit suspect you know the apc wrasse and all these susceptible spot that could be mutated we didn't find them so we're not sure what is the pks endpoint in term of mutation we know it does DNA damage in vitro and we saw it in the mouse in vivo but we're not quite sure how to follow the details of it over time but I suspect you may have an activation a setup of pks activity and after that something else is coming could be inflammation of the host preventing repaired mechanism enhancing epigenetic changes and then the train left the station and you go into more aggressive cancer what we say for sure is that the pks does induce more invasive tumors so what they do to the pitalium has a long term consequences on the aggressiveness of cancer any other questions if not we'll move on thank you Christian ok so the final speaker in the session is Julian Davies from the University of British Columbia in Canada and he's going to talk about harvesting the molecular wealth of the microbiome