Raoul duc de MONTMORENCY. 1790-1862. - Lot 70

Raoul duc de MONTMORENCY. 1790-1862. Correspondence to Jules and James Mallet. Courtalin, Hyères, Nice, Plombière, Claremont, 1817-1862. 43 l.a.s. (including 1 cut out); enclosed 2 letters, one from James Mallet. Friendly correspondence between the Duc de Montmorency and the Barons Mallet, closely touching on the Duc's business with the banker, evoking close ties with the d'Orléans family, and mentioning several political events, particularly during the Second Empire. The eldest son of Charles de Montmorency (1768-1846), aide-major of the Paris National Guard under Moncey, Pair de France, General Councillor of Eure et Loir, and Caroline de Goyon de Matignon, Raoul had been aide-de-camp to the Duc d'Orléans (future Louis-Philippe) during the Restoration, and subsequently remained closely associated with Queen Marie-Amélie. A close friend of the Mallets, the Duc de Montmorency confided in his family and several aristocratic personalities, mentioning Bauffremont, Talleyrand, La Rochefoucauld, d'Arenberg, de Luynes, de Boissy, de Vérac, Appony and others. After 1848, the Duke seems to have been more particularly concerned with the accounts of the Orleans family in exile in Claremon, giving numerous details on the Duchess of Orleans and Queen Amélie, and regularly traveling to England and Belgium. "First of all, I want to tell you that I have found the King much better. He is beginning to be able to take food without pain, and takes fairly long car rides in fine weather without fatigue (...). I left again, in a hurry to get to St Léonard, where the Queen of the Belgians was due to leave (...) The next day, the Queen, wanting to see her daughter again, left (...) to take her to Dover. I followed the Queen on this rapid errand, and we were back by 7 o'clock for dinner. Yesterday I did it again, accompanying the Queen to London (...). Mentions of drafts concerning the Queen's revenues, administered by D** and due dates in Aumale. A few details on the development of Courtalin, the park, which he compares to the Mallet's Jouy estate, and his numerous stays on the Côte d'Azur in Hyères, with the Duc de Luynes, and in Dieppe. Tomorrow we are expecting a visit from Pce Paul de Wurtemberg, who has had the singular and very inconvenient idea of coming to see us. I cannot understand the idea that went through his head (...). Several allusions to current politics, including the affair between Admiral Dupetit-Thouars and Pritchard in Tahiti, the fall of the King of Naples, the policy of Tsar Nicholas, the Crimean War, the ministries of Emperor Napoleon III, with the Duc de Montmorency making no secret of his Orleanist views; "I believe it is very true that the leaders of the royalist party believed they would triumph, and that they did great harm to their cause by their imprudence. When I say royalists, I mean above all legitimists (...) For a long time, the legitimists dreamed of the return of H(enri) V through the republic, and once the republic arrived, they thought they were closer to the goal than they really were (...). For more than 50 years, they have not ceased to harm themselves and the country through their imprudence, and I do not believe they have been corrected. Besides, they'd rather see France as a red republic than back in the hands of the Orleans family (...)". He relies on his discretion; "If it were known that I spoke this way about the Legitimists, I would be stoned to death (...)."