By The Princess Of Wagram, The Marshal's
Widow, It Was, After The Restoration, Sold To The
Trustees Of A National Subscription Which Had Been
Established For The Purpose Of Presenting It To The In-
Fant Duke Of Bordeaux, Then Prospective King Of
France.
The presentation was duly made; but the
Comte de Chambord, who had changed his title in
recognition of the gift, was despoiled of his property
by the Government of Louis Philippe.
He appealed
for redress to the tribunals of his country; and the
consequence of his appeal was an interminable litiga-
tion, by which, however, finally, after the lapse of
twenty-five years, he was established in his rights. In
1871 he paid his first visit to the domain which had
been offered him half a century before, a term of
which he had spent forty years in exile. It was from
Chambord that he dated his famous letter of the 5th
of July of that year, - the letter, directed to his so-
called subjects, in which he waves aloft the white
flag of the Bourbons. This amazing epistle, which is
virtually an invitation to the French people to re-
pudiate, as their national ensign, that immortal tricolor,
the flag of the Revolution and the Empire, under
which they have, won the glory which of all glories
has hitherto been dearest to them, and which is as-
sociated with the most romantic, the most heroic, the
epic, the consolatory, period of their history, - this
luckless manifesto, I say, appears to give the measure
of the political wisdom of the excellent Henry V. It
is the most factitious proposal ever addressed to an
eminently ironical nation.
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