BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, 215
period the Count frequently Visited London, from whence, it is said, he directed
the operations of the Chouans in Bretagne. He also visited Sweden in 1804,
and again returned to Britain in 1806.
CHARLES PHILIP COUNT DARTOIS, brother of Louis XVI., was
born in 1757.’ “At the beginning of the Revolution he declared against its
principles, and was one of the most zealous defenders of the royal prerogatives.”
At length a price having been set on his head by the Convention, he was under
the necessity of withdrawing himself from France; and, from 1789 till 1794,
continued a wanderer among various continental courts. Towards the end of
the last-mentioned year the British Government granted him an allowance,
when he embarked for Britain. Previous to the Revolution, which proved so
destructive to his family, the Count is described to have been the most gay,
gaudy, fluttering, accomplished, luxurious, and expensive Prince in Europe.”
He married Maria Theresa, daughter of the King of Sardinia, in 1773, by whom
he had two sons,-the eldest of whom, the Duc d‘Angouleme, accompanied him
in his exile, and arrived at Holyrood House a few days after his father. The
life of the Count d‘iirtois has been very much chequered. On the restoration
of the Bourbon dynasty in 1815, his elder brother, the Count de Provence,
ascended the throne of France as Louis XVIII., and on his death the Count
succeeded to the crown under the title of Charles X.; but the well-known
recent events of the “ Glorious Three Days ” again drove him and his family
into exile. In 1830 he once more took up his residence at Holyrood, where
he resided with the Duc and Duchess d‘iingouleme, and his grandson the Duc
de Bourdeaux, till 1833, when he retired to Gratz, a town of Illyria in the
Austrian dominions. There he died of inflammation in the bowels, November
6, 1836, in the seventy-fifth year of his age.
L
,
Can Scotia hear my mournful tale,
And Scotia not afford relief?
Oh ! let the voice of woe prevail-
Thy tenderness will soothe my grief.”
When the Count revisited Holyrood aa Charles X., the author of these lines then presented him
with a few lines of condolence and congratulation by the hand of a confidential friend.
In December 1763 the subject of this notice acted a part in a little drama of compliment with
which David Hume was treated at t4e French Court, in consideration of his literary merits. We
make the following extract from a letter of Hume to Dr. Robertson :-“What happened last week,
when I had the honour of being presented to the Dauphin’s children at Versailles, is one of the most
curious scenes I have yet passed through. The Due de B. (Bourdeaux, afterwards Louis XVI.), the
eldest, 8 boy ten years old, stepped forth, and told me how many friends and admirers I had in this
country, and that he reckoned himself in the number, from the pleasure he had received from reading
many passages of my works. When he had finished, the Count de P. ‘(Provence, afterwards Louis
XVIII.), who is two years younger, began his discourse, and informed me that I had been long and
impatiently expected in France ; and that he himself expected soon to have great satisfnction from
the reading of my fine history. But, what is more curious, when I waa carried thence to the Count d’A
(Artois), who is but four (six) years of age, I heard him mumble something, which, though he had
forgot it in the way, I conjectured, from some scattered words, to have been also a panegyric dictated
to him. Nothing could more surprise my friends, the Parisian philosophers, than thia incident.”-
RITCHIE’S Life of H u e , 155.
