ad just been the object of veritable worship? When she was received at
Nantes as a triumphant sovereign, could she believe that the time was
approaching when, in that same city, she would have hardly a stone on
which to lay her head and where she would seek a futile refuge in the
chimney-piece--mysterious hiding-place--of the house of the Demoiselles
Duguigny? At Blaye could she imagine that the citadel, hung with white
flags, whose cannon were fired in her honor, would so soon become her
prison? Poor Princess! She had taken seriously the protestations of
devotion and fidelity addressed to her everywhere. They asked her to
promise that if ever the rights of her son were denied, she would
defend them on the soil of La Vendee, and she had said to herself: "I
swear it." The journey of 1828 held the germ of the expedition of 1832.

XXIV

THE MARY STUART BALL

No society in Europe was more agreeable and brilliant than that of the
Duchess of Berry. The fetes given by the Princess in the salons of the
Pavilion de Marsan at the Tuileries were marked by exceptional elegance
and good taste; the Petit Chateau, as her vivacious social staff was
called at that time, had an extraordinary brightness and animation. At
the carnival of 1829 Madame organized a costume ball, which, for its
brilliancy, was the talk of the court and the city. All the costumes
were those of one period,--that at which the dowager queen of Scotland,
Marie of Lorraine, widow of James V., came to France to visit her
daughter, Mary Stuart, wife of the King, Francis II. It was decided
that Mary Stuart should be represented by the Duchess of Berry, and the
King, Francis II., by the oldest of the sons of the Duke of Orleans,
the Duke of Chartres, who was then eighteen and one-half years old, and
who was, the next year, to take the title of Duke of Orleans, on the
accession of his father to the throne. The apartments of the Children
of France in the Pavilion de Marsan were chosen for the ball, and the
date was fixed at Monday, March 2, 1829.

The King, the Dauphin and Dauphiness, the Duke and Duchess of Orleans,
appeared at the fete, but not in costume. Charles X. came after the
hour of giving out the general orders. The Dauphin, the Dauphiness, and
the Duke of Orleans arrived at 8 P.M. The entry of the four queens,
Mary Stuart, Marie of Lorraine, Catharine de' Medici, Jeanne d'Albret,
was announced by the band of the bodyguards which preceded them. The
co