In 1748it found an illustrious tenant in the person of Maurice de Saxe,the victor of Fontenoy,who,however,two years after he had taken possession of it,terminated a life which would have been longer had he been less determined to make it agreeable.The Revolution,of course,was not kind to Chambord.
It despoiled it in so far as possible of every vestige of its royal origin,and swept like a whirlwind through apartments to which upwards of two centuries had contributed a treasure of decoration and furniture.In that wild blast these precious things were destroyed or forever scattered.In 1791an odd proposal was made to the French Government by a company of English Quakers who had conceived the bold idea of establishing in the palace a manufacture of some peaceful commodity not today recorded.Napoleon allotted Chambord,as a "dotation,"to one of his marshals,Berthier,for whose benefit it was converted,in Napoleonic fashion,into the socalled principality of Wagram.By the Princess of Wagram,the marshal's widow,it was,after the Restoration,sold to the trustees of a national subion which had been established for the purpose of presenting it to the infant 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 litigation,by which,however,finally,after the lapse of twentyfive years,he was established in his rights.In 1871he 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 socalled 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 repudiate,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 associated 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.
