All my actions have tended to this end."
During his eight years of emigration, the Duke of Doudeauville was
constantly a prey to anxiety, grief, poverty, trials of every
kind. Thirteen of his relatives were put to death under the
Terror. His wife was imprisoned, and escaped the scaffold only
through the 9th Thermidor. He himself, having visited France
clandestinely several times, ran the greatest risks. In the midst
of such sufferings his sole support was the assistance of a
devoted servant. "At the moment that I write these lines," he says
in his Memoirs, "I am about to lose my domestic Raphael, the
excellent man who, for fifty years, has given me such proofs of
fidelity, disinterestedness, and delicacy; I have treated him as a
friend; I shall grieve for him as for a brother."
Misfortune had fortified the character of the Duke of
Doudeauville. Unlike other emigres, he had learned much and
forgotten nothing. His attitude under the Consulate and the Empire
was that of a true patriot.--Without joining the Opposition, he
wished no favor. The sole function he accepted was that of
councillor-general of the Department of the Marne, where he could
be useful to his fellow-citizens without giving any one the right
to accuse him of ambitious motives. Nothing would have been easier
for him than to be named to one of the high posts in the court of
Napoleon, whose defects he disapproved, but whose great qualities
he admired.
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