In 1798 Louis XVIII. accepted a refuge offered to him at Mittau by the Czar Paul, who had promised that he would grant his guest’s first request, whatever it might be.  Louis begged the Czar to use his influence with the Court of Vienna to allow his niece to join him.  “Monsieur, my brother,” was Paul’s answer, “Madame Royale shall be restored to you, or I shall cease to be Paul I.”  Next morning the Czar despatched a courier to Vienna with a demand for the Princess, so energetically worded that refusal must have been followed by war.  Accordingly, in May, 1799, Madame Royale was allowed to leave the capital which she had found so uncongenial an asylum.

In the old ducal castle of Mittau, the capital of Courland, Louis XVIII. and his wife, with their nephews, the Ducs d’Angouleme

[The Duc d’Angonleme was quiet and reserved.  He loved hunting as means of killing time; was given to early hours and innocent pleasures.  He was a gentleman, and brave as became one.  He had not the “gentlemanly vices” of his brother, and was all the better for it.  He was ill educated, but had natural good sense, and would have passed for having more than that had he cared to put forth pretensions.  Of all his family he was the one most ill spoken of, and least deserving of it.—­Doctor Doran.]

and de Berri, were awaiting her, attended by the Abbe Edgeworth, as chief ecclesiastic, and a little Court of refugee nobles and officers.  With them were two men of humbler position, who must have been even more welcome to Madame Royale,—­De Malden, who had acted as courier to Louis XVI. during the flight to Varennes, and Turgi, who had waited on the Princesses in the Temple.  It was a sad meeting, though so long anxiously desired, and it was followed on 10th June, 1799, by an equally sad wedding,—­exiles, pensioners on the bounty of the Russian monarch, fulfilling an engagement founded, not on personal preference, but on family policy and reverence for the wishes of the dead, the bride and bridegroom had small cause for rejoicing.  During the eighteen months of tranquil seclusion which followed her marriage, the favourite occupation of the Duchess was visiting and relieving the poor.  In January, 1801, the Czar Paul, in compliance with the demand of Napoleon, who was just then the object of his capricious enthusiasm, ordered the French royal family to leave Mittau.  Their wanderings commenced on the 21st, a day of bitter memories; and the young Duchess led the King to his carriage through a crowd of men, women, and children, whose tears and blessings attended them on their way.

[The Queen was too ill to travel.  The Duc d’Angouleme took another route to join a body of French gentlemen in arms for the Legitimist cause.]