neur, qui nous prescrit d'en appeler jusqu'à notre dernier soupir à Dieu, aux Français, et à notre épée.*”

The King of Naples, therefore, wrote to the prince that they would receive him at Palermo, and he took advantage of this permission with the more pleasure, inasmuch as Charles IV. had not allowed him to land at Barcelona, even to see his mother, the Dowager Duchess of Orleans, pleading the reports which had reached him, that the duke wished to place himself on the French throne. This accusation had deeply grieved the object of it, and he justified himself in the following terms to Ferdinand IV.: "Sire! the greater the faults of my father, the more am I bound to prove that I do not share his errors; they have done too much evil in my family." The Duke d'Orleans soon ingratiated himself into all hearts, and more especially into that of the excellent Louise Amélie, the aunt of Marie Caroline, and the present partner of his throne. The marriage was for some time deferred by a visit which the duke paid to Spain, and a subsequent voyage to England. At length he returned to Sicily, and became the uncle of the future Duchess de Berri. His fruitless attempts to gain a footing in Spain made him turn his thoughts wholly to the pleasures of private life, and, let his conduct as a public character have been what it may, we believe that, as a husband and a father, there will not be found a single stain upon his history.

On the return of Louis XVIII. to the throne of his forefathers, the Duke d'Orleans presented himself at court, and was well received, obtaining not only permission to reside in France, but restitution of his rich appanage to himself and his sons. His gratitude was extreme, and according to M. Nettement,— "he expressed himself with a profusion of words which showed how entirely ingratitude was a stranger to the heart of his serene highness. At the same time, he was most active in furthering the negociation by which the Bourbons of Italy were to be restored to the kingdom of Naples; he, more than any one, appeared to be sensible to the sacred rights of legitimacy, and he quitted Palermo, leaving his relations convinced of the fervour of his attachment to those tutelar doctrines which guarantee the repose of nations, and place the crowns of monarchs securely upon their brows."

Peace being re-established throughout Europe, and the Bourbons for a second time holding the reins of government, Louis XVIII. began to seek for a wife for his nephew, the Duke de Berri, and, after much consideration, the Princess Marie Caroline, eldest daughter of the hereditary Prince of Naples, was chosen,

* Adhésion à la note de Louis XVIII., du 22 Février, 1803.

as an alliance least likely to give umbrage to any of the great powers who had aided in the restoration of the royal family of France. We will not enter into the minutia of the negociations, with which M. Nettement favours us, even to tiresomeness; suffice it, that the duke was accepted, the banns were published, and the household selected. The Prince of Palermo was the proxy chosen for the duke; the marriage was celebrated in the royal chapel at Naples, by the cardinal archbishop of Naples, and before all the great people of the kingdom. The same minute detail accompanies the princess to Marseilles, where she performed quarantine; and we must give an idea of the wearying ceremonies which attended a lively, open-hearted, and perhaps impetuous princess, who probably found them more distressing to bear than her subsequent misfortunes. The Hôtel de Ville had been by a special act declared neutral ground, that is, belonging both to the country of the princess and to that of the duke; the rooms to the right were Neapolitan, and those on the left were considered as French. The princess entered the great hall, which was situated in the middle, and furnished with a long table covered with green velvet, fringed with gold, on which were the materials for writing. She was accompanied by the Neapolitan ambassador, and those who had formed her suite from Naples. Her French household was on the other side; the respective flags of each nation decorated each portion, and the Sicilian and French guards were in their stations. Official documents were read to infinity, and signatures written; the Sicilian representatives delivered several speeches, and the French returned them, all of which, we doubt not, mortally annoyed the poor young bride After all this etiquette had been fulfilled, the Prince San Nicandro (the Neapolitan ambassador) presented her royal highness to the Duke d'Havré, who led her to the other side of the table, and in three steps she became a Frenchwoman. A general salute of cannon took place at that moment; the princess was then led into the French apartments; her ladies undressed her, and she was then entirely re-dressed in the manufacture of France, and in the clothes provided for her in the corbeille of the Duke de Berri.

In the next, or fifth book, we have the correspondence between the duke and duchess, which is so perfectly natural that we think it must be genuine. At length, the bride reached Fontainebleau ; the cross of St. Herem was in sight, and ceremony again awaited her. All the arrangements for the marriage had been planned according to that of Louis XV., and among them was a carpet, spread on the grass, the half of which only was to be traversed by the princess, while the king and royal family came to meet

her across the other half: but the patience of the lively duchess could not extend even over the half of the carpet, much less to the complete observance of all the ceremonies; she remembered the neutrality of the Hôtel de Ville at Marseilles, and could not help asking, in an under-tone, if the carpet were also neutral; then darting up to the king, she threw herself on her knees before him with infinite grace. The king raised and embraced her, welcomed her most affectionately, presented her to her future husband, and the royal cortege proceeded to Paris. The marriage was again celebrated at Nôtre-Dame; fifteen orphan girls received marriage portions, a number of prisoners were released, fines were remitted, offences were pardoned, and the duke and duchess began their short career of happiness.

M. Nettement here reviews the situation of France at the period of this event, but, as his observations are not new, and the time recent, we shall not quote from them, but pass on to the private life of the newly married couple. The circumstances of their early lives bore a strong resemblance the one to the other, and gave rise to a great similarity of taste and feeling. Both had known misfortune and exile; both had seen a throne fall from their family; both had seen it again raised by, as it were, a sudden mandate from Heaven. They had at the same moment begun to enjoy a return of prosperity; they had naturally the same tastes, for Italy was the birth-place of the one, and the other had been long enough in that country to become inspired with Italian feelings.

Monseigneur," says our author, "loved the arts both as a prince and as an artist; the sojourn which he had made in Italy had awakened this feeling in his heart. He had studied music and painting, especially the latter. More than once, in the middle of those ruins with which Rome is filled, a young man had been seen, seated on some fragment of a column, drawing the half-destroyed triumphal arch before him, or the remains of a palace which had formerly covered the soil with its vast proportions; this young man was the descendant of Louis XIV. who, adding another ruin to the many around him, consoled himself with the arts, and presented to the Eternal City one of the wrecks of the august house of France, which had raised so many triumphal arches and possessed so many palaces."

The duke and his wife began well; for, the Chambers having voted them a sum on their marriage, they gave 500,000 francs out of it to the departments which had suffered most from the invasion. They inhabited the palace called the Elysée, and there, free from the wearying etiquette of the Tuileries, they led a simple and domestic life. One hundred thousand crowns per annum did not cover the alms of the duchess, and, slipping out

together at the door of the palace next to the Champs Elysées, on foot, and without guards or suite, they either visited those whom they relieved, or roamed about at will, sometimes loitering under the trees, and sometimes absolutely shopping. Many were the adventures which occurred in consequence of these private rambles such as carrying the burden of a poor fainting boy to its destination, and then giving him money to purchase an ass, to carry it in future; borrowing an umbrella when caught in the rain, and the person lending it refusing the loan unless he accompanied them home, and, when arrived at that home, the poor fellow frightened out of his senses. But one of the drollest was the refusal of a lender-out of chairs, to give them credit for the use of those on which they had been sitting; in vain did they plead that they had forgotten their purses, they were abused for their thoughtlessness, and forced to leave a pledge, which, when redeemed, almost convulsed their terrible creditor with alarm. The character of the duke was cheerful and decided; he had a little of the roughness of a soldier about him, but he was wholly free from art, and full of kindness. Like others of his family, he was extravagantly fond of the chase, in the pursuit of which, and from his unpretending habits, he met with many interesting adThe first duty, both of himself and his wife, seemed to be that of charity, and the next the protection and encouragement of the arts; the only drawback to their happiness was the want of an heir, for almost all their children died a few hours after they were born; the eldest daughter (Mademoiselle) and the posthumous boy alone have been preserved. Their good fellowship with the other branches of the royal family was perfect, and when M. Nettement speaks of the Prince de Condé, we have the following passage:

ventures.

"The Prince de Condé lived in the most retired manner, as well as his son the Duke de Bourbon, and rarely appeared at court. Since the assassination of the Duke d'Enghien, a profound sadness seemed to overwhelm the chief of this glorious branch of the royal house, and the burden of years, added to long grief, had caused a dejection from which he could be seldom roused. It seemed as if this noble mind, without being utterly extinguished, had retired within itself.

It may be said, that, reading the future, and throwing a long look upon the past, the last of the Condés wept over a name which no one was to bear after him, and, placing himself between the dungeon of Vincennes and the fatal alcove of St. Leu, the illustrious old man was mourning over his whole race: once his solitude was disturbed by a person whose presence surprised him: the Prince de Talleyrand went to pay his respects to the Prince de Condé : and the current saying in consequence of this visit was, that the crooked line paid a visit to the straight line. Either from confusion in consequence of his great age, or from one of those

moments of vivacity which now and then re-appeared in his highness, he mistook, or pretended to mistake, the Prince de Talleyrand for his uncle, the grand-almoner of France, at that moment archbishop of Rheims, and a venerable man, for whom the prince felt much affection. 'Archbishop,' said he, come and see me as often as you can; I shall always be happy to receive you; but I entreat of you, as a favour, never bring your nephew, the bishop of Autun, with you.'Now that your serene highness has expressed your sentiments,' answered the bishop, with his unalterable sang froid, 'I can promise you that the Prince de Talleyrand will never present himself before you.'

Many of the actions and sayings of the Duke d'Orleans, which took place at this time, continued to belie his later conduct, but it seems that Louis XVIII., although he restored his lands to him, never would legally confirm the gift, stoutly resisting all those who strove to persuade him to do so: among these were both the Duke and Duchess de Berri, whose intimacy with and affection for the House of Orleans were very great. Once, however, it was for a moment interrupted by the sudden entrance of Marie Caroline into the apartment of her aunt, whom she found conversing in the most friendly manner with Lord Bentinck, who, it will be recollected, was the active agent in the banishment of the Queen of Naples from Sicily. The Duchess de Berri immediately turned back, and left the Palais Royal, and, when an explanation was sought, she replied, "Because I could not bear with temper to see you give so friendly a reception to a man whom I look upon as the murderer of your mother." This anecdote shows the lively, impetuous, but artless duchess to great advantage; the conduct of the Duke of Orleans was more measured, and has succeeded better.

We now come to the saddest portion of the history of which we are presenting a sketch, but before we commence upon it, we must assure our readers that the statements in M. Nettement's book are perfectly true. Nothing is embellished or depreciated, and the very words which were uttered are given with the most entire fidelity. M. Nettement prefaces them with some long and sensible reflexions on the ministry of M. Decazes, and we had marked them as an extract for our readers, but they would exceed our limits, and perhaps those whom they would interest are already in possession of the system pursued by that young and favourite minister, who unconsciously gave a strength to the revolutionary party, which in the end caused his own downfal, and became fatal to that branch of the royal family to which he owed his elevation.

For some time the Duke de Berri had received anonymous letters, which contained the most fearful threats, and, in spite of