The two families at that time were living quite out of the
world; but after the invasion of France, the return of the
Bourbons seemed to every Royalist mind the only possible way of
putting an end to the miseries of the war.
The Ducs de Navarreins and de Langeais had been faithful
throughout to the exiled Princes, nobly resisting all the
temptations of glory under the Empire. Under the circumstances
they naturally followed out the old family policy; and Mlle
Antoinette, a beautiful and portionless girl, was married to M.
le Marquis de Langeais only a few months before the death of the
Duke his father.
After the return of the Bourbons, the families resumed their
rank, offices, and dignity at Court; once more they entered
public life, from which hitherto they held aloof, and took their
place high on the sunlit summits of the new political world. In
that time of general baseness and sham political conversions, the
public conscience was glad to recognise the unstained loyalty of
the two houses, and a consistency in political and private life
for which all parties involuntarily respected them. But,
unfortunately, as so often happens in a time of transition, the
most disinterested persons, the men whose loftiness of view and
wise principles would have gained the confidence of the French
nation and led them to believe in the generosity of a novel and
spirited policy--these men, to repeat, were taken out of affairs,
and public business was allowed to fall into the hands of others,
who found it to their interest to push principles to their
extreme consequences by way of proving their devotion.
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