To sum up, the Duchess of Berry was to the court of Charles X. what the Duchess of Burgundy was to that of Louis XIV.  Her lovely youth brightened everything.  Let us do her this justice:  despite a character in appearance frivolous, she carried to a kind of fanaticism the love of France and passion for French glory.  There was one thing that the gracious widow took very seriously,—­the rights of her son.  She would have risked a thousand deaths to defend that child, who represented in her heart the cause of the fatherland.  Where he was concerned there was in the attitude of this frail young woman something firm and decided.  To a sagacious observer, the amazon was already manifest under the lady of society.  She was like those officers who shine equally at the ball and on the field of battle.  Recognizing in her more than one imperfection, she cannot be denied either courage, or intelligence, or heart.  By her qualities as by her defects she was of the race of Henry IV.  But she was more frank and more grateful than the Bearnais.  Doubtless she did not have the genius, the prodigious ability, the fine and profound political sense, of that great man; but her nature was better, her generosity greater, her character more sympathetic.

VIII

THE ORLEANS FAMILY

At the accession of Charles X., Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, chief of the younger branch of the Bourbons, born at Paris, October 6th, 1773, was not yet fifty-seven years old.  He married November 25th, 1809, Marie-Amelie, Princess of the Two Sicilies, whose father, Ferdinand I., reigned at Naples, and whose mother, the Queen Marie-Caroline, sister of Marie Antoinette, died at Venice, September 7th, 1814.  Marie-Amelie, born April 26th, 1782, was forty-two years old when Charles X. ascended the throne.  Of her marriage with the Duke of Orleans there were born five sons and four daughters:—­

1.  Ferdinand-Philippe-Louis-Charles-Henri-Roulin, Duke of Chartres, born at Palermo, September 3d, 1810. (When his father became King, he took the title of Duke of Orleans, and died from a fall from his carriage going from the Tuileries to Neuilly on the Chemin de la Revolte, July 13th, 1842.)

2.  Louise-Marie-Therese-Caroline-Elisabeth, Mademoiselle d’Orleans, born at Palermo the 3d of April, 1812. (She married the King of the Belgians, Leopold I., August 9th, 1832, and died October 11th, 1850.)

3.  Marie-Christine-Caroline-Adelaide-Francoise-Leopoldine, Mademoiselle de Valois, born at Palermo, April 12th, 1813. (She was designated by the name of the Princess Marie, distinguished herself in the arts, made the famous statue of Jeanne d’Arc, married October 17th, 1837, the Duke Frederic William of Wurtemberg, and died January 2d, 1839.)

4.  Louis-Charles-Philippe-Raphael, Duke of Nemours, born at Paris, October 25th, 1814.

5.  Marie-Clementine-Caroline-Leopoldine, Mademoiselle de Beaujolais, born at Neuilly June 3d, 1817. (She was designated by the name of the Princess Clementine, and married, April 20th, 1843, the Prince August, of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.)