Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/255

 238

CHAMBOED.

miracle/' as he was called, received the title of Count de Chambord from the castle of that iiame> which was bought for him by pub- lic subscription. Although Charles X., soon after the outbreak of the revolution of 1830, resolved to abdi- cate in his favour, and in presence of the troops assembled at fiam- bouillet, made a proclamation under the title of Henry V., the Due de Bordeaux was compelled to quit the country. Having spent some time at Holyrood, he travelled in Germany, Lombardy^ Bome, and Naples, to complete his education. In 1843 he resided in Belgrave Square, where he made a kind of political d^hut, claiming the crown of France, and receiving, with aU the etiquette of a court, such legi- timists as Ch&teaubriand, de Fitz- James, and Berryer. In 1853 a compact was said to have been con- cluded between the Count de Chambord and the princes of the house of Orleans, by which the claims of the elder and younger branches of the house of Bourbon were arranged; but no attempt was then made to carry out the arrangement by putting forward a candidate for the throne supported by both parties. In 1846 the duke had married the Princess Maria- Theresa, eldest daughter of the Duke of Modena. They have no children, and it appears probable that the Count will be the last of the elder branch of the Bourbons. After the disaster of SMan, and the consequent fall of the empire, the Count de Chambord addressed from the Swiss frontier, under date Oct. 9, 1870, a proclamation to France, in which he promised that the foreigner should be expelled from the country and the integrity of its territory maintained if the people wotdd rally round him, " to the true national government, having right as its foundation and honesty as its principle." On Jan. 7, 1871, another proclamation, con- taining a protest against the bom-

bardment of Paris, was addressed by him to all the governments of Europe. After the communist in- surrection, the meeting of the National Assembly at Versailles, and the excitement produced by the speeches of the members of the Extreme Bight, the Count issuea, on the 8th of May, a manifesto by which he endeavoured to dispel the popular prejudices against the " traditional monarchy, declaring that so far from claiming unlimited power, his only wish was to labour for the re - organization of the country, and "at the head of all the House of France to preside over her destinies, while submitting with confidence the acts of the vemment to the bondjide control of representatives freely elected." He admitted, besides, that "the independence of the Holy See was dear to him, and that he was re- solved to obtain for it efficacious guarantees ; " and he added, " that he was not a party, and that he did not wish to return in order to reign with a party ; " also that he did not " desire to exercise any dictatorship but that of clemency, because in his hands, and in his hands only, clemency was also justice." This manifesto ended with the cele- brated phrase, "The word rests with France j the time with GJod." In another proclamation, dated from Chambord, July 5, 1871, he assumed for the first time in a pub- lic document the title of Kins. The repeal of the laws of exile having permitted the Chief of the House of Bourbon to return to France, the Count visited Paris, and staved for some time at Cham- bord, where many supporters of the Legitimist cause waited upon him. Great expectations were now enter- tained of a fusion between the Legitimists and the Orleanists, but these were rudely dispelled by another manifesto in which the Count de Chambord, while admit- ting universal suffrage and consti- tutional government with the two