Note 59 — BOOK V
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos translation
The following is the text of this little manifesto, which the newspapers of the day did not dare to publish and which has remained comparatively unknown:
"The mother of Henry V., I returned without other support than his misfortunes and his good right to put an end to the calamities which France is undergoing, by restoring lawful authority, order and stability, pledges essential to the rest and peace of nations. Treachery handed me over to our enemies. Kept a prisoner and long oppressed by persons to whom I had shown nothing but kindness, I have bewailed their ingratitude and suffered with resignation the wrongs with which they have overwhelmed me; but I shall never cease to protest against the usurpation of the rights of a child whom justice, ties of blood, honour and faith obliged them to protect and defend.
"I thank the people of France for the man? marks of attachment which they have given me; my heart will never lose the remembrance of it.
"I beg all those who have been persecuted for the sake of my son and myself, those who have offered me advice of which I was deprived, in spite of the sad situation to which I was reduced and those who have protested, in France's name and mine, against the sequestration and the moral sufferings which stifled my very complaints, to receive the assurance that I shall never forget their affection nor the pains which they have endured.
"The reproaches which some have dared to attribute to me as having been uttered against friends of whose devotion I was too sure to accuse their conduct have offended me to the quick: I indignantly deny those insulting suppositions.
"Whatever may be the future which Providence has in store for my son, to love France, to devote his cares and his life to repairing her misfortunes, to hope that she may be happy, even if he were not himself charged to make her happy: those will at all tunes be his sentiments and his wishes, those will also always be mine.
"The French have never enjoyed real liberty except under the protection of their lawful Sovereign: it will behove the heir of the name and, I hope, the virtues of Henry the Great to continue his reign and to realize all that he promised to France.
"Marie-Caroline."
"Blaye Citadel, 7 June 1833."—B.