Did the Bourbons actually embody the royalism they inspired ? This article explores the doubts that beset the Comte d’Artois, the future Charles X, and the Duc de Bourbon, father of the Duc d’Enghien, when they witnessed, largely powerless, the development and failure of French royalist movements within the country in the 1790s . A study of their intra-family correspondence reveals a profound disenchantment with the military capabilities of the armies of the Vendée and Brittany, which could not hope to overthrow the republican regimewithout the support of the coalition powers. Since their exile, the princes had been eager to remain legitimate in the eyes of their hosts. They wanted to believe, and make people believe, in the unshakeable royalism of a hard core of supporters in France, who could one day turn the tide of the country, and thus keep alive the « promise » of the Restoration. Very pragmatically, Artois and Bourbon were reconciled in London with the new Duc d’Orleans, son of the Philippe-Égalité, head of the younger branch of the Bourbons, and above all, a former officer in the Republican army. The terms of this reconciliation testify to the efforts of both parties to strengthen dynastic unity and to define a common project of monarchical restoration, credible in the eyes of their European protectors and in those of the French.