ins, at the age of eighteen, came out of
the profound solitude in which her girlhood had been spent to marry the
Duc de Langeais' eldest son. The two families at that time were living
quite out of the world; but after the invasion of France, the return
of the Bourbons seemed to every Royalist mind the only possible way of
putting an end to the miseries of the war.

The Ducs de Navarreins and de Langeais had been faithful throughout to
the exiled Princes, nobly resisting all the temptations of glory under
the Empire. Under the circumstances they naturally followed out the old
family policy; and Mlle Antoinette, a beautiful and portionless girl,
was married to M. le Marquis de Langeais only a few months before the
death of the Duke his father.

After the return of the Bourbons, the families resumed their rank,
offices, and dignity at Court; once more they entered public life, from
which hitherto they held aloof, and took their place high on the sunlit
summits of the new political world. In that time of general baseness and
sham political conversions, the public conscience was glad to recognise
the unstained loyalty of the two houses, and a consistency in political
and private life for which all parties involuntarily respected them.
But, unfortunately, as so often happens in a time of transition, the
most disinterested persons, the men whose loftiness of view and wise
principles would have gained the confidence of the French nation and led
them to believe in the generosity of a novel and spirited policy--these
men, to repeat, were taken out of affairs, and public business was
allowed to fall into the hands of others, who found it to their interest
to push principles to their extreme consequences by way of proving their
devotion.

The families of Langeais and Navarreins remained about the Court,
condemned to perform the duties required by Court ceremonial amid the
reproaches and sneers of the Liberal party. They were accused of gorging
themselves with riches and honours, and all the while their family
estates were no larger than before, and liberal allowances from the
civil list were wholly expended in keeping up the state necessary for
any European government, even if it be a Republic.

In 1818, M. le Duc de Langeais commanded a division of the army, and the
Duchess held a post about one of the Princesses, in virtue of which she
was free to live in Paris and apart from her husband without scandal.
The Duke, moreover, b