she might have saved the dynasty.

[Footnote 1: Louis Blanc and papers in "Figaro."]

[Illustration: MARIE CAROLINE FERDINANDE LOUISE, DUCHESSE DE BERRY.
Nee a Naples, le 5 Novembre 1798.]

Under the influence of this regret, and fired by the idea of becoming
another Jeanne d'Albret, she urged her plans on Charles X., who
decidedly disapproved of them; but "the idea of crossing the seas
at the head of faithful paladins, of landing after the perils and
adventures of an unpremeditated voyage in a country of knights-errant,
of eluding by a thousand disguises the vigilance of enemies through
whom she had to pass, of wandering, a devoted mother and a banished
queen, from hamlet to hamlet and from chateau to chateau, appealing
to human nature high and low on its romantic side, and at the end of
a victorious conspiracy unfurling in France the ancient standard of
the monarchy, was too dazzling not to attract a young, high-spirited
woman, bold through her very ignorance, heroic through mere levity,
able to endure anything but depression and _ennui_, and prepared to
overbear all opposition with plausible platitudes about a mother's
love."[1]

[Footnote 1: Louis Blanc, Histoire de Dix Ans.]

At last Charles X. consented to let her follow her own wishes;
but he placed her under the guardianship of the Duc de Blancas.
She set out through Holland and the Tyrol for Italy. She travelled
_incognita_, of course. Charles Albert, of Sardinia, received her
at Turin with great personal kindness, and lent her a million of
francs,--which he borrowed from a nobleman of his court under pretence
of paying the debts of his early manhood; but he was forced to
request her to leave his dominions, and she took refuge with the
Duke of Modena, who assigned her a palace at Massa, about three
miles from the Mediterranean. A rising was to be made simultaneously
in Southern France and in La Vendee. Lyons had just been agitated
by a labor insurrection, and Marseilles was the first point at
which it was intended to strike.

The Legitimists in France were divided into two parties. One, under
Chateaubriand and Marshal Victor, the Duc de Bellune, wished to
restore Henri V. only by parliamentary and legal victories; the
other, favored by the court at Holyrood, was for an armed intervention
of the Great Powers. The Duc de Blancas was considered its head.

The question of the invasion of France with foreign troops was
excitedly argued at Massa. The duches