hurch
door,--she to enter a convent for two years, he to serve for the
same time in the French army. They were married with all pomp and
ceremony; but that night the ardent bridegroom scaled the walls
of the convent and bore away his bride. Unhappily their mutual
attachment did not last long. "It went out," says a contemporary
memoir-writer, "like a fire of straw."[1] At last hatred took the
place of love, and the quarrels between the Prince de Conde (as
the Duc de Bourbon was then called) and his wife were among the
scandals of the court of Louis XVI., and helped to bring odium
on the royal family.

[Footnote 1: Madame d'Oberkirch.]

The only child of this marriage was the Duc d'Enghien. The princess
died in the early days of the Revolution. Her husband formed the
army of French _emigres_ at Coblentz, and led them when they invaded
their own country. On the death of his father he became Duke of
Bourbon, but his promising son, D'Enghien, was already dead. The
duke married while in exile the princess of Monaco, a lady of very
shady antecedents. She was, however, received by Louis XVIII. in
his little court at Hartwell. She died soon after the Restoration.

In 1830 the old duke, worn out with sorrows and excesses, was completely
under the power of an English adventuress, a Madame de Feucheres.[1]
He had settled on her his Chateau de Saint-Leu, together with very
large sums of money. Several years before 1830 it had occurred to
Madame de Feucheres that the De Rohans, who were related to the
duke on his mother's side, might dispute these gifts and bequests,
and by way of making herself secure, she sought the protection
of Louis Philippe, then Duke of Orleans. She offered to use her
influence with the Duke of Bourbon to induce him to make the Duc
d'Aumale, who was his godson, his heir, if Louis Philippe would
engage to stand her friend in any trouble.

[Footnote 1: Louis Blanc.]

The relations of the Duc de Bourbon to this woman bore a strong
resemblance to those that Thackeray has depicted between Becky
Sharp and Jos Sedley. The old man became thoroughly in fear of
her; and when the Revolution broke out later, he was also much
afraid of being plundered and maltreated at Saint-Leu by the
populace,--not, however, because he had any great regard for his
cousin Charles X., with whom in his youth he had fought a celebrated
duel. Impelled by these two fears, he resolved to escape secretly
from France, and so rid himself o