nd would have been very willing that he should have
continued in exile. Indeed, the king seemed disposed to revive old
family feuds, that he might keep the duke estranged, as far as
possible, from the sympathies of the Legitimist party.

The Duchess of Orleans was of royal blood, the daughter of a king.
But the father of the Duke of Orleans had worn only a ducal, not a
royal crown. The king, consequently, gave orders that, whenever the
Duke of Orleans and his suite should appear at court, both of the
folding-doors of the grand entrance should be thrown open for the
duchess, while but one should be opened for her husband.

In July the duke embarked in a French ship of the line, with Baron
Athalin and Count Sainte Aldegonde as his aids, to transfer his
family from Palermo to Paris. Early in August they were luxuriously
domiciled in his magnificent ancestral home. Madame de Genlis, now
venerable in years, and having ever retained the reverence and
affection of her distinguished pupils, hastened to join the ducal
family in the saloons of the Palais Royal.

"This resolution," she writes, "procured me the inexpressible
happiness of once more seeing my pupils, Mademoiselle and the Duke of
Orleans. In our first interview they both displayed to me all the
affection, all the emotion and delight which I myself experienced.
Alas! how deeply I felt, at this meeting, the absence of the beloved
pupils, the Duke of Montpensier and his brother Count Beaujolais, who
both died in exile."

The winter passed rapidly away, and on the 5th of March, 1815, to the
dismay of the Bourbons, and of all the crowned heads of Europe, the
tidings reached Paris that Napoleon had left Elba, landed at Cannes,
and, accompanied by ever-increasing thousands of enthusiastic
supporters, was on the triumphal march towards the metropolis. The
most terrible proclamations were hurled against him by Louis XVIII.,
but all in vain. All opposition melted before the popular emperor.
The path from Cannes to Paris was over six hundred miles in length,
through the heart of France. But the Bourbons, with the armies of
France nominally at their disposal, and the sympathies of all the
feudal dynasties in Europe enlisted in their behalf, could summon no
force sufficient to arrest the progress of that one unarmed man. The
Duke of Orleans hastened to the presence of his majesty, and,
addressing the trembling monarch, said:

"Sire, as for me, I am prepared to share both you