In fact, the circle around the Duchess of Berry was
perfection. The greatest ladies of France were by her side, and the
society of the Petit Chateau, as the Pavilion de Marsan was called, was
certainly fitted to give the tone to the principal salons of Paris.

The Duchess of Berry had as chevalier d'honneur a great lord, very
learned, known for his unchangeable devotion to royalty, the Duke de
Sevis (born in 1755, died in 1830). The Duke, who emigrated and was
wounded at Quiberon, held himself apart during the Empire, and
published highly esteemed writings on finance, some Memoirs, and a
Recueil de Souvenirs et Portraits. He was a peer of France and member
of the French Academy. For adjunct to the chevalier d'honneur, the
Duchess had the Count Emmanuel de Brissac, one of the finest characters
of the court, married to a Montmorency.

Her first equerry was the Count Charles de Mesnard, a Vendean gentleman
of proven devotion. The Count Charles de Mesnard was born at Lugon, in
1769, the same year as Napoleon, whose fellow-pupil he was at Brienne.
Belonging to one of those old houses of simple gentlemen who have the
antiquity of the greatest races, he was son of a major-general who
distinguished himself in the Seven Years War, and who at the close of
the old regime was gentleman of the chamber of the Count of Provence
(Louis XVIII.), and captain of the Guards of the Gate of this Prince.
He emigrated, and served in the ranks of the army of Conde, with his
older brother, the Count Edouard de Mesnard, married to Mademoiselle de
Caumont-Laforce, daughter of the former governess of the children of
the Count d'Artois (Charles X.), and sister of the Countess of Balbi.
The Count Edouard de Mesnard, having entered Paris secretly, was shot
there as emigre, October 27th, 1797, despite all the efforts of the
wife of General Bonaparte to save him. When he was going to his death,
his eyes met, on the boulevard, those of one of his friends, the
Marquis of Galard, who had returned with him secretly. The condemned
man had the presence of mind to seem not to recognize the passer-by,
and the latter was saved, as he himself related with emotion sixty
years afterward.

At the commencement of the Empire, the Count Charles de Mesnard was
living at London, where he was reduced to gaining his living by copying
music, when the Emperor offered to restore his confiscated property if
he would come to France and unite with the new regime. The Count of