MEMOIRS
(VIEUX SOUVENIRS)
OF THE
PRINCE DE JOINVILLE

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
BY
LADY MARY LOYD



CHAPTER I

1818-1830


I was born at Neuilly-sur-Seine, on the outskirts of Paris, on the 14th
of August, 1818. Immediately after my birth, and as soon as the
Chancellor of France, M. Dambray, had declared me to be a boy, I was
made over to the care of a wet nurse and another attendant. Three years
later I passed out of female hands, earlier, somewhat, than is generally
the case, for a little accident befell my nurse, in which my eldest
brother's tutor, an unfrocked priest, as he was then discovered to be,
was also concerned. My earliest memory, and a very hazy one it is, mixed
up with some story or other about a parrot, is of having seen my
grandmother, the Duchesse d'Orleans-Penthievre, at Ivry. After that I
recollect being at the Chateau of Meudon with my great-aunt, the
Duchesse de Bourbon, a tiny little woman; and being taken to see the
Princesse Louise de Conde at the Temple, and then I remember seeing
Talma act in Charles the Bold, and the great impression his gilt cuirass