The road from Prague to Carlsbad stretches through tedious plains stained with the blood of the Thirty Years’ War. Travelling those battlefields at night, I humbled myself before the God of Armies, who bears the sky on his arm like a shield. From the distance one saw little wooded mountains with water at their feet. The witty medical men of Carlsbad liken the road to the serpent of Asclepius that, descending the hill, came to drink of Hygieia’s goblet.

From the heights of the city tower, the Stadtturm, a tower mitred with a steeple, the sentinels sound their trumpet as soon as they see a traveller. I was welcomed with a joyous peal as a dying man, and everyone along the valley cried with delight: ‘Here comes an arthritic, a hypochondriac, a myope!’ Alas, I was better than that, I was an incurable.

At seven in the morning, on the 31st of May I was installed at the Golden Ecu, an inn run on behalf of the Count of Bolzano, a very noble but ruined gentleman. Lodging at this hotel were the Count and Countess of Cossé (who had preceded me) and my compatriot General de Trogoff, former Palace Governor at Saint-Cloud, born at Landivisiau, beneath the light of the Landernau moon: a stocky little man he was an Austrian grenadier captain in Prague during the Revolution. He came from visiting his exiled lord, a successor to Saint Clodoald, a monk in his time at Saint-Cloud. Trogoff, after his pilgrimage, returned to Lower Brittany. He took with him a Hungarian nightingale and a Bohemian nightingale which lamented Tereus’ cruelty so much, they prevented everyone in the hotel from sleeping. Trogoff fed them on grated ox-heart, without succeeding in bringing an end to their grief.

Et moestis late loca questibus implet:

filling the place around with mournful cries.

We embraced each other as Bretons do, Trogoff and I. The general, short and square like a Celt from La Cournaille was subtle beneath his apparent frankness, and an amusing story-teller. He was popular with Madame la Dauphine, and as he knew German, she took him along on her walks. Informed of my arrival by Madame de Cossé, she proposed I see her at nine-thirty or midday: at midday I was at her residence.

She occupied an isolated house, at the extremity of the town, on the right bank of the River Tepla, a little river which flows from the mountains and traverses the length of Carlsbad. Mounting the stairs to the Princess’ apartment I was anxious: I was about to meet, for the first time, this perfect model of human suffering, this Antigone of Christianity. I had not had ten minutes speech with Madame la Dauphine in my life; during the time of her brief prosperity she had scarcely addressed two words to me; she always showed embarrassment towards me. Though I had never written to her or spoken about her other than with profound admiration, Madame la Dauphine necessarily nourished in regard to myself the prejudices of the ante-chamber set among whom she lived: the Royal Family vegetated in isolation in that citadel of foolishness and envy, which new generations besieged without being able to penetrate.

A servant opened the door to me: I saw Madame la Dauphine sitting on a sofa between two windows, in the depths of the room, embroidering a piece of tapestry by hand. I entered in such a state that I did not know if I could approach the Princess.

She raised her head, which had been bowed over her work as if to hide her own emotion, and addressing me said: ‘I am happy to see you, Monsieur de Chateaubriand; the King informed me you would be arriving. You have spent the night here? You must be tired.’

I respectfully presented Madame la Duchesse de Berry’s letters; she took them, placed them on the settee beside her, and said: ‘Sit down, sit down.’ Then she took up her embroidery again with a rapid, mechanical and convulsive movement.

I said nothing; Madame la Dauphine maintained her silence: there was the sound of the needle prick and the passage of the wool as the Princess tugged it through the canvas, on which I saw a few tears fall. The illustrious sufferer wiped them from her eyes with the back of her hand, and without raising her head, said: ‘How is my sister? She is very unfortunate, very unfortunate. I am very sorry for her, very sorry.’ These brief repetitions sought in vain to initiate a conversation for which the two interlocutors lacked words. The Dauphine’s eyes, reddened from constant weeping, gave her a beauty which matched that of the Spasimo Virgin.

‘Madame,’ I at last replied, ‘Madame la Duchesse de Berry is indeed very unfortunate; she has charged me with coming to place her children under your protection during her imprisonment. It is a great relief to her in her trouble to think that Henri V has a second mother in Your Majesty.’

Pascal was right to link the greatness with the wretchedness of mankind: who would have thought that Madame la Dauphine considered her titles of Queen and Majesty, which were so natural to her and whose vanity she knew, to be worth anything? Well, that word Majesty was still a magic word; it lightened the Princess’ brow and dispelled the clouds for a moment; they soon returned there like a diadem.

‘Oh, no, Monsieur de Chateaubriand, no,’ the Princess said gazing at me and suspending her work, I am not Queen.’ – ‘You are, Madame, you are according to the laws of the realm: Monseigneur le Dauphin could only abdicate because he was King. France regards you as its Queen, and you will be a mother to Henri V.’

The Dauphine did not argue: that little weakness, by revealing the woman, obscured the splendour of hosts of other grandeurs, giving them a kind of charm, and bringing them nearer to the human condition.

I read, in a loud voice, my letter of accreditation, in which Madame la Duchesse de Berry explained about her marriage, ordered me to appear in Prague, asked to retain her title of French princess, and placed her children in her sister-in-law’s care.

The princess had resumed her embroidery; after my speech she said: ‘Madame la Duchesse de Berry is right to put her trust in me. That is fine, Monsieur de Chateaubriand, fine: tell my sister-in-law I am very sorry for her.’

This insistence of Madame la Dauphine’s on saying how sorry she was for Madame la Duchesse de Berry, while going no further, showed me how little sympathy there was, fundamentally, between those two spirits. It also seemed to me that an involuntary emotion had agitated that saintly heart. Rivalry in misfortune! Yet Marie-Antoinette’s daughter had nothing to fear in that contest; the palm remained with her.

‘If Madame,’ I replied, ‘will read the letter Madame la Duchesse de Berry has written, and that addressed to her children, she will perhaps discover further clarification. I hope Madame will give me a letter to carry back to Blaye.’

The letters were written in lemon-juice. ‘I know nothing of this,’ said the Princess, ‘how are we to proceed?’ I suggested a stove and some pieces of kindling; Madame rang the bell whose cord hung behind the sofa. A valet de chambre appeared, was given his orders, and set up the apparatus on the landing, outside the door of the room. Madame rose and we went to the stove. We set it on a little table by the staircase. I took one of the letters and held it parallel to the flames. Madame la Dauphine watched me and smiled because I had no success. She said: ‘Here, give it to me, I will try.’ She passed the letter over the flame; Madame la Duchesse de Berry’s large round hand appeared: the same was done for the second letter. I congratulated Madame on her success. A strange scene: the daughter of Louis XVI, at the top of a staircase in Carlsbad with me, deciphering mysterious characters sent by the prisoner of Blaye to the prisoner of the Temple!

We returned to our seat in the salon. The Dauphine read the letter addressed to her. Madame la Duchesse de Berry thanked her sister-in-law for the role she had adopted regarding her misfortune, recommended her children to her, and in particular placed her son under the guardianship of his virtuous aunt. The letter to the children consisted of a few tender words. The Duchesse de Berry charged Henri with making himself worthy of France.

Madame la Dauphine said: ‘My sister-in-law does me justice, I have suffered with her. She has suffered greatly, greatly. Tell her I will take care of Monsieur le Duc de Bordeaux. I love him dearly. How did he seem to you? His health is fine, is it not? He is strong, though somewhat nervous.’

I spent two hours tête-à-tête with Madame, an honour rarely granted: she seemed content. Having known me only from hostile accounts, she had no doubt thought me a violent gentleman, swollen with a sense of my own importance; she was grateful to find me a human being and a decent man. She said, cordially: ‘I am going out to take the waters; we dine at three, come if you are not in need of rest. I would like to see you there if it will not fatigue you too much.’

I do not know to what I owed my success; but certainly the ice was broken, the obstacle removed; that gaze which had rested, in the Temple, on that of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, rested with kindness on a humble servant.

Nevertheless, though I had succeeded in setting the Dauphine at ease, I felt extremely constrained: the fear of exceeding certain limits robbed me even of the facility for those commonplaces I shared with Charles X. Whether I lacked the secret of how to extract whatever was sublime from Madame’s soul; or whether the respect I felt closed the door on thoughtful communication, I experienced a distressing barrenness which emanated from my self.

At three, I went to Madame la Dauphine’s. There I found Madame la Comtesse Esterhazy and her daughter, Madame d’Agoult, and Messieurs O’Hegerty the younger and de Trogoff; they had the honour of dining with the Princess. Countess Esterhazy, once beautiful, is still handsome: she had been friends with Monsieur le Duc de Blacas in Rome. It is said she involves herself in politics and taught Prince von Metternich all he knows. When Madame was sent to Vienna, on leaving the Temple, she met Countess Esterhazy who became her companion. I noticed she listened attentively to my conversation; next day she had the naivety to say in front of me that she had spent the night writing. She was preparing to depart for Prague, a secret interview having been fixed at a location convenient to Monsieur de Blacas; from there, she went to Vienna. Old relationships rejuvenated by espionage! Such affairs and such pleasures! Mademoiselle Esterhazy is not pretty, and has a caustic and spiteful manner.

Vicomtesse d’Agoult, pious these days, is an important personage as one finds her in the sanctuaries of every princess. She promotes her family whenever she can, when speaking to everyone, particularly to me: I had the goodness to find positions for her nephews; she has as many as the late Arch-Chancellor Cambacérès.

The dinner was so poor and so meagre I left dying of hunger; it was served in Madame la Dauphine’s drawing room, since she had no dining room. After the meal, we rose from the table; Madame went back to her sofa, and took up her embroidery, and we made a circle around her. Trogoff told stories, Madame enjoyed them. She was particularly interested in the female element. There was a question regarding the Duchess de Guiche: ‘Plaits don’t suit her,’ said the Dauphine, to my great astonishment.

From her sofa, Madame could see, through the window, what was happening outside: she named the passers-by male and female. Two little horses arrived with two riders dressed in tartan; Madame stopped work, gazed and said: ‘It is Madame… (I forget the name) taking her children to the mountains.’ Marie-Thérèse curious, knowing the local gossip, the Princess of thrones and scaffolds descending from her heights to the level of other women, these things interested me singularly; I observed them with a kind of philosophic tenderness.

At five the Dauphine went out in her calash; at seven, I returned for the evening audience. The same establishment: Madame on the sofa, the dinner guests and half a dozen ladies young and old, partakers of the waters, added to the circle. The Dauphine made a touching but visible effort to be gracious; she had a word for all of us. She spoke to me several times, feigning to name me in order to make me known; but between each sentence she fell back into her distraction. Her needle multiplied its movements, her face drew nearer to her embroidery; I saw the Princess in profile and was struck by a sinister resemblance: Madame had the look of her father about her; when I saw her head bowed as beneath the sword of grief, I thought I saw that of Louis XVI waiting for the blade to fall.

At half past eight the evening audience ended; I went to bed overwhelmed by sleep and lassitude.

On Saturday, the 1st of June, I was up at five; at six I went to the Mühlenbad (Mill Baths): those taking the waters, male and female, crowded round the spring, walked beneath a gallery with wooden columns, or in the garden attached to the gallery, Madame la Dauphine arrived, dressed in a shabby robe of grey silk; round her shoulders hung a worn-out shawl and she had an old hat on her head. She looked as though she had patched her clothes together, like her mother in the Conciergerie. Monsieur O’Hegerty, her riding instructor, gave her his arm. She mingled with the crowd and presented her cup to the ladies who doled out the spring-water. No one paid any attention to Madame la Comtesse de Marne. Maria-Theresa, her grand-mother, had the Mill Baths rebuilt in 1762; she also sponsored the bell-towers in Carlsbad that were to summon her grand-daughter to the foot of the cross.

Madame having entered the garden, I advanced towards her: she seemed surprised with that courtier’s attention. I rarely rose so early for royalty, except perhaps on the 14th of February 1820, when I went to seek the Duc de Berry at the Opera. The Princess allowed me half a dozen circuits of the garden at her side, talking pleasantly, and told me she would receive me at two o’clock, and would give me a letter. I left her, discreetly; I lunched hastily, and spent the remaining time walking in the valley.