The Union, legitimist organ, publishes the following communication
addressed by the prince to Mr. Chesnelon, deputy of the
Basses-Pyrénées:
Salzburg
,
October 27,
1873.
“I have guarded, monsieur, so agreeable a reminiscence of your visit
to this place, and I have conceived for your character so deep an
esteem, that I do not hesitate to reply to you frankly as you
yourself came so loyally to me.
[Page 403]
“You spoke to me during long hours of the destinies of our beloved
country, and I know that, on your return, you employed, in the midst
of your colleagues, language which claims my eternal gratitude. I
thank you to have so well understood the anguish of my mind, and not
to have made any concealment of the unalterable fixity of my
resolution.
“And so I did not allow myself to be disturbed when public opinion,
carried away by a current which I deplore, pretended that I
consented at last to become the legitimate king of the revolution. I
had for guarantee the testimony of a man of honor, and I was
resolved to keep silence as long as I should not be forced to make
an appeal to your loyalty.
“But since, in spite of your efforts, misunderstandings are
accumulating, and endeavoring to obscure my policy, which is open as
the day, I owe the whole truth to the country, by which I may be
misconstrued, but which pays homage to my sincerity, because it
knows that I never have deceived it, and never will.
“I am asked at present for the sacrifice of my honor. What can I
reply, except that I retract nothing—that I retrench nothing
whatever from my preceding declarations? The pretensions of
yesterday give me the measure of the exigencies of the morrow, and I
cannot consent to inaugurate a reign, reparatory and strong, by an
act of weakness.
“It is the fashion, you are aware, to oppose to the firmness of Henri
V the cleverness of Henri IV. ‘The violent love I bear to my
subjects,’ said that monarch often, ‘renders everything possible and
honorable for me.’
“I pretend, on this point, not to yield to him in anything; but I
should be glad to know what lesson any imprudent man would have
drawn on himself who should have dared to recommend him to repudiate
the standard of Arques and Ivry.
“You belong, monsieur, to the province which saw him born, and you
will be, like myself, of opinion that he would soon have disarmed
his interlocutor, in saying to him, with his Bearnese dash: ‘Friend,
take my white flag; it will always guide you on the road to honor
and victory.’
“I am accused of not holding in sufficiently high esteem the valor of
our soldiers, and that at a moment when I only aspire to confide to
them everything that I hold most dear. People forget that honor is
the common patrimony of the house of Bourbon and of the French army,
and that on that ground they cannot fail to agree.
“No; I do not disregard any one of the glories of my country; and God
only, in the depth of my exile, has seen my tears of gratitude flow
every time that, either in good or evil fortune, the sons of France
have shown themselves worthy of her.
“But we have a great work to accomplish together. I am ready,
perfectly ready, to undertake it, when called on to do so, tomorrow,
this evening, or this moment. That is why I wish to remain entirely
what I am; for, if lessened to-day, I should be powerless
to-morrow.
“The business in hand is nothing less than to reconstitute on its
natural basis a society profoundly disturbed, to insure with energy
the reign of the law, to restore prosperity at home, to contract
durable alliances abroad, and, above all, not to fear to employ
force in the service of order and justice.
“Conditions are spoken of; but were any laid down by the young
prince, whose loyal embrace I felt with so much joy, and who
listening only to his patriotism, came spontaneously to me, bringing
to me, in the name of all his friends, assurances of peace,
devotedness, and reconciliation?
“Guarantees also are required; but were any asked for from that
Bayard of modern times, in that memorable night of May 24, when the
government imposed on his modesty the glorious mission of calming
his country by one of those phrases of an honest man and soldier,
which re-assure the good and make the wicked tremble?
“I have not, it is true, like him, borne the sword of France in
twenty battle-fields, but I have preserved intact, for forty-three
years, the sacred deposit of our traditions and our liberties. I
have a right, therefore, to reckon on the same confidence, and I
ought to inspire the same security.
“My person is nothing; my principle, everything. France will see the
end of her trials when she shall be willing to comprehend that
truth. I am the necessary pilot, the only man capable of steering
the ship into port, because I have mission and authority to do
so.
“You, monsieur, can do much toward dissipating misunderstandings and
terminating weaknesses in the hour of the struggle. Your consolatory
words in leaving Salzburg are unceasingly present to my thought.
France cannot perish, for Christ still loves his French; and when
God has resolved to save a people, he takes care that the scepter of
justice shall not be placed in any hands but those that are firm
enough to uphold it.
