Cardinal Fesch

‘…nothing is more certain, than that a general prejudice was, during the Revolution, successfully excited against the clergy, and that, among the lower Parisians in particular, it still exists with all its violence.  Even on the day when the rabble of the Fauxbergs hailed the triumphal return of Buonaparte to his throne, their respect for the hero of the hour did not prevent them from uttering the most marked expressions of dislike and contempt when Cardinal Fesch appeared in the procession.  The cry was general, A bas la collette! And the uncle of the restored emperor was obliged to dismount from his palfrey, and hide himself in a carriage…’

Joseph Fesch was unpopular with the public, but important to the Buonapartes.  The text above is found in Scott’s “Paul’s Letters to his Kinfolk”.  Cardinal Fesch died on May 13^th, 1839.

Louis Philippe I of France

Louis Philippe I of France was born this day, October 6, 1773.  Contemporary with Walter Scott, he outlived him by roughly eighteen years.  His reign as King of France, however, did not survive.  The time of French monarchy ended with Louis’ abdication on February 24, 1848. 

Scott mentions Louis in his “Paul’s Letters to his Kinfolk”, while discussing the state of affairs in France.

‘From the more violent portion of the opposite faction, (inclusive of the Imperialists, who are now hastily melting into the ranks of the general opposition,) the king can, I fear, look for little cordiality, and only for that degree of support which he can make it their interest to afford him. Still, however, there are many cases where ability without principle may be successfully employed, when it would be unsafe to trust to principle unguided by experience and prudence; just as a proprietor will sometimes find it his interest to employ, in the management of his affairs, a skilful knave rather than an honest fool. This is taking an extreme case: there are many degrees between a jacobin enrage and a royaliste pur, and some of the wisest and best of each party will perhaps at length see the necessity of joining in an administration exclusive of neither, which should have at once for its object the just rights of the throne, and the constitutional liberties of the subject. To such a coalition, the king's name would be indeed a tower of strength; but founded upon a narrower basis, must run the risk of falling itself, and bearing to ground all who adhere to it.

It must be owned, nevertheless, that the general rallying point of the Liberalists is an avowed dislike to the present monarch and his immediate connexions. They will sacrifice, they pretend, so much to the general inclinations of Europe, as to select a king from the Bourbon race ; but he must be one of their own choosing, and the Duke of Orleans[Louis Philippe] is most familiar to their mouths...'

Emanuel Swedenborg

Emanuel Swedenborg had much more influence on a later poet, William Blake, than on Walter Scott.  Scott's references to Swedenborg are virtually nil.  The author of "Heaven and Hell", and numerous other works died on March 29, 1772; a few months after Scott was born.

One reference Scott makes compares Swedenborg and a female religious figure of his own time to a French counterpart.  The woman Scott mentions is Joanna Southcott, who professed herself a prophetess.  Ms. Southcott at one point announced that she was pregnant (aged in her 60's) with the Messiah.  Scott's letterwriter Paul seems unimpressed with the lot of them, in "Paul's Letters to his Kinfolk":

'If the French have no strong sense of religion or its precepts, they are not without a share of superstition; and an impostor is at present practising among them, who, by all accounts, is as successful as Joanna Southcote herself. This lady, a woman, I am assured, of rank and information, pretends, like Baron Swedenborg, to an immediate intercourse with the spiritual world, and takes her ecstatic trances for the astonishment of parties of good fashion, to whom, on her return to her senses, she recounts the particulars of her visit to the spiritual world, and whom she treats with explanations of their past lives, and predictions of the future. It's said her art has attracted the attention of some men of high rank in the armies of our allies.'