Note 561 — BOOK IV[556]

M. de La Villate (b. 1776) had served in the Royal Grenadiers of the Guard during the Restoration. He was a brave and loyal officer, and the Duc de Bordeaux took a great liking to him at an early age. M. de La Villate took no part in the Prince's education properly so-called, as he did not instruct him in any branch of knowledge; but he exercised a real influence upon his character and instilled into him a love of the rough, plain truth. The young Prince loved him for his loyalty, his soldierly frankness and his white hairs. It was not age that had turned his head white. He was eighteen years old, in 1794, when his father was flung into prison. Young La Villate was resolved to make every effort to save him and succeeded in obtaining admittance to him. After a long struggle, persuaded by his tears and his persistency, the prisoner consented to change clothes with his son and to leave in his stead, relying upon a remnant of humanity in his gaolers which would prevent them, who shrank from scarcely any crime, from committing the additional crime of taking vengeance upon this act of filial devotion. A reprieve was, in fact, granted; and young La Villate was restored to his family on the 9 Thermidor. But the painful emotions of that terrible night, during which he had struggled against his father's refusal, had turned his hair white in a few hours and given him that silver crown at the age of eighteen years.—T.