Star.
London, England, 1824-09-15 00:00:00

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BrOGRAPHIC44L Autivorß 07 LOGIS:X6II.
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!ROM THE " PERCY AlletDOTlta" OP MULL
Of all the Bourbon Princes, no one so long remained
to support his brother, and brave the terrors of the
Revolution, as Monsieur; now Louis XVIII. After'sub-
mining to numberless insults and continued dangers;
his patience was at length exhausted, And his personal
safety demanded that he should try to break the bond-
age under which he had for two years groaned. Less
aanfortunate than his brother, Louis XVI. by the C011t4..
,geouescapes
din June, assistance
ueo, 1791,
a 4171 Swede, Count de Persen, he
by way of Valenciennes into
Brabant, when he joined his brother, Count d'Artoi's,
and the other Princes of his house, at Cohlente. ‘ .
Failing to rally round him a sufficient number of
Prenchmen to attempt his restnrition, he sought 'refuge
in Germany ; he afterwards lived at Turin with his
father-in-law, the King of Siialinia, and then at Verona,
under the name of the Count de Lille. Oa the death
of his nephew, Louis XVII. he assumed the name of,
Louis XVIII.
In 1796, Louis XVIII. who had res'desf some time
at Venice, was, in complianCe with a reqnisition from
the Government of France,, commanded to leave that!
'State. He then,accompanied by only two office, sr,repaii ed.
to the head-quarters of the Prince of Conde, at Riegal.
Louis XVIII. learned at the same moment the deithi
of the Duc d'Enghien, and that the Order of the Golden'
Fleece had. been bestowed upon Bonaparte. His Ma-
jesty instantly retutned his decoration of the Order, the
investiture-of which he had received, being a French
Prince, to. Charles IV. with the followink letter:— .
" SIRE, and dear cousin, it is with regret that I return you the
lasignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece, which his Majesty,
your father, of glorious memory, confided to me, There can exist
nothing in common between me and the great criminal whom
-audacity and fortune hate placed upon my throne, which be has
had the barbarity to stain with the pure blood of a Bourbon, the'
Otic d'Faigbien. Religion teaches me to pardon an assassin, but
the tyrant of my subjects ought always to be my enemy. Paoroxelca,
from inscrutable motives, may ordain that I shall end my days in
exile, but neither my contemporaries nor posterity, shall ever, even
ACI my last breath, say. that in the hour of adversity I 'hewed myself
seaworthy of occupying the throne of my ancestors."
in the summer of 1793, when looking out of the
window of an ,obscure German Inn, near Mai, he was
wounded in the upper part, of the forehead by a ball,
Supposed to have been fired from a horse-pistol on the
opposite side of the street. The perpetrator was never
discovered, and Louis XVIII. forbade all search to be
made after him.
In 1798, Louis XVIIL was acknowledged by the
Emperor of Russia, Paul I. as King of France and
Navarre ; and was invited by him to reside ih the ducal
castle at Mittau, until he could restore him to the throne
Of his ancestors. Louis therefore left the army of Conde,•
with whom he had for nearly two years shared all:pri-.
vations, penury, want, and dangers. At Mittau he was
first treated with all the honours due to a Sovereign,
which another more fortunate Prince could bestow. He
had a guard of honour of 'vim hundred Russians in his,
castle, besides a body-guard of French Noblemen,
created for him, and paid by the Emperor. The Rus-
sian commander at Mittau was entirely under his orders;,
and his levees were crowded by the Nobility of Cour.
4nd, Livonia, and RUssia. As the pecuniary, bounties;
'4 Paul were more than sufficient for a Prince, econoa
ruical from principle and custom, as,well ai from deli-,
cagy, a number of rained exiles flocked 'to Russia to
share them. The duration of this prospetous adversity,
however, was not long ; the Emperor, influenced by the
power of France, suddenly changed his, conduct, and
sent the King, whom he had acknowledged and invited
to his dominions, orders to quit the Russian territory
within a week. Three months previous to this order;
the payment of the usual pension' had been withheld,
and Louis XVIII: and all the -Frenchmen at MUM
were, in consequence, reduced to the utmost distress, be-.
cause they had all been ordered to depart with their King.
The Duchess of Angouleme, the virtuous daughter
of Louis XVI. had never ceased to reside with her uncle
since she had recovered her liberty, and married her
first cousin. On the order coming from the Emperor,
she inquired of her uncle what he intended to do ? The
King told her it was his determination," to quit within
twenty-four hours, a countty'whereinsUltend humilia-
tion had taken the place of hospitality ; and thit -as he
had not the means to travel as he, had formerly done,
and the little that he possessed was necessary for the
support of thoie of his subjects who hid accompanied
him, he-would on the neat day leave Mittau on foot,
and shew the unfortunate French exiles to example how
to support misfortunes." '
At her marriage, the Duchess of Angouleme had
received from her first cousins. the Emperor and Ens•
press of Germany, a box of jewels'; and without in-
forming any person of her intention, she sent for some
Jews, and obtained upon these jewels a slim of money
sufficient, not only for her uncle's travelling expenses,
but to provide for the immediate wants of her countrp
men at Mittau. When her uncle, the next morning,
discovered this generous act, the tears of all the re-
lieved 'Frenchmen told their Prince, that by pressing his
niece to his bosom, he should reward,instead of resent-
ing the first act of her life which she had ever concealed
from hiin. This young Princess had, in the dungeons
of the Temple, early learnt to know the little value of
either jewels, rank, or even life ; as well as the real duty
of humanity, and the worth of undeserved wretchedness.
, After some wanderings in the wilds of inhospitable
Prussia, the policy of Bonaparte to keep Louis XVIII.
at a distance from his kingdom, left him at last permis-
sion to inhabit the castle-of the dethroned King of Po-
land, at Warsaw; where, in more fortunate times, one
of his own ancestors, Henry 111. had ruled as a King;
where his maternal ,grandfather, Stanislaus, had beer,
elected King, by a Polish Diet, and proscribed as an
Usurper by a Polish faction. What painful remem-
brances, what sad teflections, for the well-informed and
active mind of Louis XVIIL I
The tranquillity of this-retreat was disturbed by'
another humiliation from another Monarch. The Prus-
sian Minister, Meyer, asked Louis XVIII. to renounce
the throne of France in favour of Bonaparte; but he
refused with a noble dignity, which must have appalled
the man who'thus dared to insult him. A plot having
been discovered, which had for its object the assassina-
tion of the King, determined him to quit Warsaw, which
he did within a few days after.
The last and only safe asylum of the House of Bout--
on was in England, where they were received, net evilly
.1)
with the kindest hospitality, but when all 'the pensions
from the several crowned heads Of °Europe tat one time,
amounting to 120,00(11. a yeal) had ceased, they still
receiveal sufficient to enable them to live in splendour.
The royal palace at 1141yrood wee assigned- to thenf;
bur'Louis XVIII. principally resided at Hartwell, a seat
belonging to the Marquis of Buckingham. There -he
remained until the fall of Bonaparte enabled him to
ascend the throne of his ancestors: ,