Plot summary
Crystal, the only daughter of the old, long-exiled haughty royalist, the Comte de Cambray, is on the eve of betrothal to de Marmont, (secretly an ardent Bonapartist).
Bobby Clyffurde, the Englishman, who is in love with Crystal, confronts Victor de Marmont about why he is pretending to be a royalist. De Marmont replies that he has never led the Comte to suppose anything, the Comte has merely taken de Marmont’s political convictions for granted.
As if two potential suitors weren’t enough, Crystal has yet another admirer, Maurice de St. Genis, whose impecunious state (her father sees him as a penniless, out-at-elbows, good for nothing) has precluded him from obtaining her hand in marriage.
However, at the moment of Crystal’s betrothal to de Marmont, Maurice finally gets his revenge upon his rival. Once the guests have assembled for the ceremony, there is a disturbance from the end of the corridor and St. Genis enters the room, his rough clothes and muddy boots providing a contrast to the immaculate get-up of the Comte’s guests. Looking flushed and clutching his cane, he announces that he has only come to avert the awful catastrophe that is about to fall on the Comte and his family.
At the young man’s ominous words, M. le Comte goes pale and demands to know what catastrophe could be worse than twenty years of exile?
"An alliance with a traitor, M. le Comte" he replies.
St. Genis goes on to accuse his rival of pinning Napoleon’s proclamation on the walls of Grenoble. Yet, rather than deny the accusation, de Marmont defends his actions with fervor, pulling a copy of the declaration from his pocket and waving it at the assembled group while shouting “Vive l’Empereur”.
Despite the sudden rupture of her engagement, Crystal's heart is by no means broken, but it is not St. Genis who in the end wins her love, for we are left with the understanding that it is Clyffurde, the English merchant who eventually overrides the prejudices of the old French count.
Clyffurde laughingly asks Crystal’s aunt, Mme. la Duchesse “Do you think that if I promise never to buy or sell gloves again, but in future to try and live like a gentleman-he will consent?”
Louis XVIII, known as the Desired, was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. Before his reign, he spent 23 years in exile from France beginning in 1791, during the French Revolution and the First French Empire.
Charles X was King of France from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. An uncle of the uncrowned Louis XVII and younger brother of reigning kings Louis XVI and Louis XVIII, he supported the latter in exile. After the Bourbon Restoration in 1814, Charles became the leader of the ultra-royalists, a radical monarchist faction within the French court that affirmed absolute monarchy by divine right and opposed the constitutional monarchy concessions towards liberals and the guarantees of civil liberties granted by the Charter of 1814. Charles gained influence within the French court after the assassination of his son Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry, in 1820 and succeeded his brother Louis XVIII in 1824.
François Rude was a French sculptor, best known for the Departure of the Volunteers, also known as La Marseillaise on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. (1835–36). His work often expressed patriotic themes, as well as the transition from neo-classicism to romanticism.
The Hundred Days, also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition, marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815. This period saw the War of the Seventh Coalition, and includes the Waterloo Campaign and the Neapolitan War as well as several other minor campaigns. The phrase les Cent Jours was first used by the prefect of Paris, Gaspard, comte de Chabrol, in his speech welcoming the king back to Paris on 8 July.
Auguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont, duc de Raguse was a French general and nobleman who rose to the rank of Marshal of the Empire and was awarded the title Duke of Ragusa. In the Peninsular War Marmont succeeded the disgraced André Masséna in the command of the French army in northern Spain, but lost decisively at the Battle of Salamanca as France ultimately lost the war in Spain.
The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution, Second French Revolution, or Trois Glorieuses, was a second French Revolution after the first in 1789. It led to the overthrow of King Charles X, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans. After 18 precarious years on the throne, Louis-Philippe was overthrown in the French Revolution of 1848.
Emmanuel de Grouchy, marquis de Grouchy was a French military leader who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. He was the last Marshal of the Empire to be created by Napoleon, and is best known for his actions during the Waterloo campaign.
Anne Jean Marie René Savary, 1st duc de Rovigo was a French military officer and diplomat who served in the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars and the French invasion of Algeria. He was Minister of Police between 1810 and 1814.
Mathieu Jean Felicité de Montmorency, 1st Duke of Montmorency-Laval was a French statesman during the French Revolution and Bourbon Restoration. He was elected as the youngest member of the National Assembly in 1789. He is also known for his military expertise and his relation with Mme de Staël. When France became a republic, Montmorency turned into an ultra-royalist. Napoleon regarded him as a member of the Catholic opposition. During the Restoration, he became Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Emmanuel-Augustin-Dieudonné-Joseph, comte de Las Cases was a French atlas-maker and author, famed for an admiring book about Napoleon, Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène.
Isabelle of Orléans-Braganza was the consort of the Orléanist pretender to the French throne, Henri, Count of Paris, and the daughter of Pedro de Alcântara, Prince of Grão-Pará, pretender to the throne of the Empire of Brazil.
Louis Antoine of France, Duke of Angoulême was the elder son of Charles X and the last Dauphin of France from 1824 to 1830. He is identified by the Guinness World Records as the shortest-reigning monarch, reigning for less than 20 minutes during the July Revolution, but this is not backed up by one interpretation of the historical evidence. He never reigned over the country, but after his father's death in 1836, he was the legitimist pretender as Louis XIX.
Joseph, comte Souham was a French general who fought in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. He was born at Lubersac and died at Versailles. After long service in the French Royal Army, he was elected to lead a volunteer battalion in 1792 during the French Revolution. He was promoted to general of division in September 1793 after playing a prominent role in the defense of Dunkirk. In May 1794 with his commander absent, he took temporary command of the Army of the North and defeated the Coalition army at Tourcoing. He led the covering forces at the siege of Ypres and participated in the successful invasion of the Dutch Republic. He spent many years in occupation duties in Holland and then his career suffered because of his association with Pichegru and Moreau. Starting in 1809 he was employed in Spain during the Peninsular War, winning the Battle of Vich where he was wounded. When he was in army command again, he forced Wellington's army to retreat at Tordesillas in 1812 and became one of the few French generals to remain undefeated in the war. The following year he led a division at Lützen and a corps at Leipzig. He remained loyal to the Bourbons during the Hundred Days.
Louis-Auguste-Victor, Count de Ghaisnes de Bourmont was a French general, diplomat and statesman who was named Marshal of France in 1830. A lifelong royalist, he emigrated from France soon after the outbreak of the French Revolution and fought with the counter-revolutionary Army of Condé for two years, then joined the insurrection in France for three more years before going into exile. He was arrested after assisting the Georges Cadoudal conspiracy, but escaped to Portugal.
Casimir, Comte de Montrond (1768–1843) was a French diplomatic agent and the son of a military officer. His mother, Anglique Marie d'Arlus, comtesse de Montrond, was a royalist writer, said to be the author of the Troubadour barnois, a song which has the refrain "Louis, le fils de Henri, Est prisonnier dans Paris". Casimir was imprisoned in 1794 in St. Lazare, where he met the salonniere Aimée de Coigny, known for her charm and beauty. He bought her freedom and his own with 100 louis. They married and crossed to London, but the union proved unhappy, and they were divorced on their return to Paris.
François-Emmanuel Guignard, comte de Saint-Priest, was a French politician and diplomat during the Ancien Régime and French Revolution.
13 Vendémiaire, Year 4 in the French Republican Calendar, is the name given to a battle between the French Revolutionary troops and Royalist forces in the streets of Paris. This battle was part of the establishing of a new form of government, the Directory, and it was a major factor in the rapid advancement of Republican General Napoleon Bonaparte's career.
Louis Charles Auguste Le Tonnelier, Baron de Breteuil, Baron de Preuilly was a French aristocrat, diplomat and statesman. He was the last chief minister of the Bourbon Monarchy, appointed by King Louis XVI only one hundred hours before the storming of the Bastille.
The Second White Terror occurred in France in 1815–1816, following the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo and the enthronement of Louis XVIII as King of France after the Hundred Days. Suspected sympathizers of the French Revolution, Republicans, Bonapartists and, to a minor degree, Protestants, suffered persecution. Several hundred were killed by angry mobs or executed after a quick trial at a drumhead court-martial.
The Ghent government was Louis XVIII's government-in-exile during the Hundred Days. As Napoleon I rallied his forces and headed for Paris, the sovereign made some clumsy decisions. He deprived himself of national and international support, believing himself capable of restoring the situation. Louis XVIII finally reached an impasse by calling for the defense of the charter, refusing the intervention of foreign armies, and demanding loyalty from his army, which was largely loyal to Napoleonic memory. The king left Paris on March 19, 1815, and crossed the French borders on March 23, 1815, to settle in Ghent.
