MEMOIRS OF THE COUNT DE ROCHECHOUART.* Lours Vrerou Lfrox, Count
de Roeheohonart, whose Memoirs, written about seventy years ago, are now published in England for the first time, was a member of one of the most distinguished families of the old French nobility. Loyalty to the monarchy, for good or ill, through happy and unhappy fortune, was a tradi- tion in this family. They were not among those who escaped from. France by emigration at the first outbreak of the Revolu- tion. The father of Count Louis appears to have remained at his country house of Montigny, where he gave protection to the Abbe Edgeworth, proscribed for his ministrations to Louis XVI. on the scaffold. His wife, the mother ofJCount Louis and several other children, had been an intimate friend of the Duchesse do Polignao and consequently one of the small circle most favoured by Queen Marie Antoinette. Madame de Roche- chouart ventured all, her fortune, her life, and the fate of her children, to help in the scheme of the Baron de Betz for rescuing the Queen from prison. She failed, being, it seems, as impru- dent as she was brave, but her gallant, unselfish spirit and light- hearted scorn of danger were. certainly inherited by the writer of these Memoirs.
His character as shown in them has considerable charm. He wrote the book not at all for his own glory, but in order, he tells us, to preserve the memory of a man who was a bene- factor not only to him, but to the French nation ; " to bring my fellow-countrymen to repent of the oblivion in which they have left one who loved them so truly and rendered them such great services " ; to bear testimony to the virtues of the Due de Richelieu. From the point of view of a royalist who passionately loved his native country, that wise and liberal statesman and charming personage who helped to rule France under Louis • Memoirs of the Count de Roehechottart, 1708-1822: in France. Southern Russia. is the Nap leonic Wars, and as Commandant of Paris. Authorised Translation by Frances Jackson. London : John Murray. 1108. 114.1
XVIII. holds naturally a high place, and had he lived longer the Restoration might have had a different history.
The Due de Richelieu was the Comte de Rochechouart's cousin by marriage. He acted as father and friend to the young soldier, who after a first campaign in Portugal made his way across Europe to join his mother at Odessa, and thins came under the Duke's authority and protection as the Tsar's Governor- General in Southern Russia. A romantic career of adventure now opened for young Rochechouart. As aide-de-camp to AL de Richelieu he saw service against the Turks and Circassian, and his account of these wild campaigns at the head of troops of Cossacks is full of picturesque detail. Later on he became aide- de-camp to the Tsar Alexander I., whom he paints as an heroic and delightful character, and thus found himself, down to the Restoration, in the heart of the allied campaigns against Napo- leon. He was employed by the Tsar on several difficult missions, and describes important interviews which seem to show as much intelligent discretion as courage and wit. One of these wat with Bernadotte, at that' date (1813) much courted by the leaders of the Allies, who. yet blamed and distrusted him for his hesita- tion in following up the victory he had gained over Marechal Ney. The pale-faced, black-haired Gascon, attracted by the youth and frankness of Rocheehouart, owned to him that his ambition was to succeed Napoleon on the throne of Franoe—a piece of information valuable to the Allied Sovereigns.
As Military Governor of Paris during the early days of the Restoration, the Count de Rochechouart presided at the execu- tion of Marichrd Ney. He lived in retirement till the year 1858, having in his seventy years known France under four kings, two emperors, and two republics.
Previous page
