FITZJAMES, Edouard, Duc de (d. 1838).
Autograph Letter in French to 'Mon cher Eduard' (probably Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, 1767-1820, father of Queen Victoria), 4 pages 4to, Paris, 9 September [1815]. A long and detailed commentary on the troubled political situation in France during the months immediately after the restoration of Louis XVIII and Napoleon's exile to St Helena.+
Fitz-James, a great-great-grandson of James II of England by his mistress Arabella Churchill, and great-grandson of the exiled James Fitz-James, Duke of Berwick (1670-1734), had emerged from obscurity, with other royalists, at the time of the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. In this letter, however, he complains of the 'Rapports incendiaires, et veritable tocsins de Vepres Siciliennes' still besetting France, and especially of the misguided insistence of the Duke of Wellington and other allies that Talleyrand and Fouche should be allowed to continue in power as leading members of the royalist government.
 He refers to a newspaper compaign in which he intends to vindicate himself from the rumour that he owes his survival to the Bonapartist General Bertrand; to the military activities of the Duc d'Angoulëme in forcing Spanish armies to evacuate French territory; and to rumour of Fouche's downfall, concluding however with a postscript that Fouche is to remain in power and 'c'est a votre Cabinet que nous devons Cela - !!!'.
 Published in Autographic Mirror, 108-109 (254-255).
[No: 1044]