After the Treaty of Tilsit and the bonds of friendship which seemed likely to produce a permanent union between the Emperors of France and Russia, the cause of the Bourbons must have been considered irretrievably lost.  Indeed, their only hope consisted in the imprudence and folly of him who had usurped their throne, and that hope they cherished.  I will here relate what I had the opportunity of learning respecting the conduct of Louis XVIII. after his departure from France; this will naturally bring me to the end of November 1807, at which time I read in the Abeille du Nord published on the 9th of the same month, that the Comte de Lille and the Due d’Angouleme had set off for England.

The Comte de Provence, as Louis’ title then went, left Paris on the 21st of June 1791.  He constantly expressed his wish of keeping as near as possible to the frontiers of France.  He at first took up his abode at Coblentz, and I knew from good authority that all the emigrants did not regard him with a favourable eye.  They could not pardon the wise. principles he had professed at a period when there was yet time to prevent, by reasonable concession, the misfortunes which imprudent irritation brought upon France.  When the emigrants, after the campaign of 1792, passed the Rhine, the Comte de Provence resided in the little town of Ham on the Lippe, where he remained until he was persuaded that the people of Toulon had called him to Provence.  As he could not, of course, pass through France, Monsieur repaired to the Court of his father-in-law, the King of Sardinia, hoping to embark at Genoa, and from thence to reach the coast of Provence.  But the evacuation of Toulon, where the name of Bonaparte was for the first time sounded by the breath of fame, having taken place before he was able to leave Turin, Monsieur remained there four months, at the expiration of which time his father-in-law intimated to him the impossibility of his remaining longer in the Sardinian States.  He was afterwards permitted to reside at Verona, where he heard of Louis XVI.’s death.  After remaining two years in that city the Senate of Venice forbade his presence in the Venetian States.  Thus forced to quit Italy the Comte repaired to the army of Conde.

The cold and timid policy of the Austrian Cabinet afforded no asylum to the Comte de Provence, and he was obliged to pass through Germany; yet, as Louis XVIII. repeated over and over again, ever since the Restoration, “He never intended to shed French blood in Germany for the sake of serving foreign interests.”  Monsieur had, indeed, too much penetration not to see that his cause was a mere pretext for the powers at war with France.  They felt but little for the misfortunes of the Prince, and merely wished to veil their ambition and their hatred of France under the false pretence of zeal for the House of Bourbon.

When the Dauphin died, Louis XVIII. took the title of King of France, and went to Prussia, where he obtained an asylum.