a
dangerous and lonely spot a few miles away. The two accounts soon
reached the ears of the police, and Marseilles was on the alert,
when a party of young men, with their swords drawn and waving white
handkerchiefs, precipitated their enterprise, by appearing in the
streets and striving to rouse the populace. They were arrested, as
were also the passengers left on board the "Carlo Alberto,"--among
them was a lady who deceived the police into a belief that she was
the Duchesse de Bern.

Under cover of this mistake the duchess, finding that all hope
was over in the southern provinces, resolved to cross France to
La Vendee. At Massa she had had a dream. She thought the Duc de
Bern had appeared to her and said: "You will not succeed in the
South, but you will prosper in La Vendee."

She quitted the hut in which she had been concealed, made her way
on foot through a forest, lost herself, and had to sleep in the
vacant cabin of a woodcutter. The next night she passed under the
roof of a republican, who respected her sex and would not betray
her. She then reached the chateau of a Legitimist nobleman with
the appropriate name of M. de Bonrecueil. Thence she started in
the morning in a postchaise to cross all France along its public
roads.

She accomplished her journey in safety, and fixed May 24, 1832, as
the day for taking up arms. She made her headquarters at a Breton
farm-house, Les Meliers. She wore the costume of a boy,--a peasant
of La Vendee--and called herself Petit Pierre.

On May 21, three days before the date fixed upon for the rising,
she was waited upon by the chiefs,--the men most likely to suffer
in an abortive insurrection,--and was assured that the attempt would
fail. Had the South risen, La Vendee would have gladly joined the
insurrection; but unsupported by the South, the proposed enterprise was
too rash a venture. Overpowered by these arguments and the persuasions
of those around her, Marie Caroline gave way, and consented to
return to Scotland with a passport that had been provided for her.
But in the night she retracted her consent, and insisted that the
rising should take place upon the 3d of June. She was obeyed; but
what little prospect of success there might have been at first,
was destroyed by the counter-order of May 22. All who rose were at
once put down by the king's troops, and atrocities on both sides
were committed.

Nantes, the capital city of La Vendee, was hostile to the duchess;
in