h
between a tomb and a cradle. But as M. de Pontmartin so finely remarks:
"At the end of two or three years her true nature appears beneath this
artificial drapery. Amusements recommence, distractions abound. The
Princess is no longer a heroine; she is a sprite. The beach of Dieppe
sings her praises better, a thousand times better, than the chorus of
courtiers. She loves pleasure, but she wishes every pleasure to be a
grace or a benefit. She creates a mine of gold under the sand of the
Norman coast; she pacifies political rancor and soothes the wounds of
the grumblers of the Grand Army. She makes popular the name of Bourbon,
which had suffered from so much ingratitude. The Petit-Chateau, as her
delightful household was called, renews the elegant manners, the
exquisite gallantries of the court of Anne of Austria, and offers to
the romancers the models of which Balzac, later, made so much too free
use. There I see our amiable Duchess in her true element, not on the
kind of Sinai on which the writers of the white flag have perched her,
prodigal in their imitations of Bossuet,--between Jeanne d'Arc and
Jeanne Hachette, between Valentine de Milan and the Widow of Malabar."

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