Part 4.6 is the final part of Chapter 4.
A Childhood at Versailles consists of the first 5 chapters of the memoirs of Mme de Boigne (1781-1866), née Adèle d’Osmond, who was a French salon hostess and writer. She was born in the Château de Versailles and lived at the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette until her family fled to England during the Revolution. Later in her long life, she married a rich soldier of fortune 30 years her senior, hosted a brilliant salon in Paris, and became an intimate of the last French queen, Marie-Amélie, consort of King Louis Philippe (r. 1830-1848). Childless herself, Mme de Boigne addressed her memoirs to her grandnephew. The memoirs were not published until 1907, under the title Récits d’une tante, or An Aunt’s Tales. They’ve never been published in English, as far as I know, so I’ve decided to translate the first 5 chapters, the ones that take place mainly at Versailles, and post them here on this blog for interested readers to enjoy for free.
The chapters are quite lengthy, so I’ve broken each one into several parts. In Part 4.6, the fraught relations between the confined sovereigns in Paris and the émigrés in Coblentz, who were lead by the King’s brothers, are laid bare.
A Childhood at Versailles, Chapter 4, Part 6 (4.6)
I have said the King was strongly opposed to the initiatives that the Comte d’Artois was taking in his name. This opposition did not diminish after Monsieur joined his brother, and the prisoners of the Tuileries were in a state of complete hostility to the leaders at Coblentz.
The Queen, with the King’s approval, kept up a correspondence of which the Baron de Breteuil, then at Brussels, was the principal agent, and of which the primary goal was to prevent foreign governments from a lending a hand to the princes’ intrigues. It was for that reason hidden from Madame Élisabeth, who leaned towards her brothers’ opinions. The upshot was that, even within that sad palace, confidentiality was not complete.
