liberal in her charities, that one of her regular evening occupations was to tear off the seals from the letters she had received during the day, in order that the wax might be melted down and sold; the produce made one poor family "passing rich with forty pounds a year."--See "Filia Dolorosa," vol. ii., p. 239.]

Her somewhat austere goodness was not of a nature to make her popular. The few who really understood her loved her, but the majority of her pleasure-seeking subjects regarded her either with ridicule or dread. She is said to have taken no part in politics, and to have exerted no influence in public affairs, but her sympathies were well known, and "the very word liberty made her shudder;" like Madame Roland, she had seen "so many crimes perpetrated under that name."

The claims of three pretended Dauphins--Hervagault, the son of the tailor of St. Lo; Bruneau, son of the shoemaker of Vergin; and Naundorf or Norndorff, the watchmaker somewhat troubled her peace, but never for a moment obtained her sanction. Of the many other pseudo-Dauphins (said to number a dozen and a half) not even the names remain. In February,1820, a fresh tragedy befell the royal family in the assassination of the Duc de Berri, brother-in-law of the Duchesse d'Angouleme, as he was seeing his wife into her carriage at the door of the Opera-house. He was carried into the theatre, and there the dying Prince and his wife were joined by the Duchess, who remained till he breathed his last, and was present when he, too, was laid in the Abbey of St. Denis. She was present also when his son, the Duc de Bordeaux, was born, and hoped that she saw in him a guarantee for the stability of royalty in France. In September, 1824, she stood by the death-bed of Louis XVIII., and thenceforward her chief occupation was directing the education of the little Duc de Bordeaux, who generally resided with her at Villeneuve l'Etang, her country house near St. Cloud. Thence she went in July, 1830, to the Baths of Vichy, stopping at Dijon on her way to Paris, and visiting the theatre on the evening of the 27th. She was received with "a roar of execrations and seditious cries," and knew only too well what they signified. She instantly left the theatre and proceeded to Tonnere, where she received news of the rising in Paris, and, quitting the town by night, was driven to Joigny with three attendants. Soon after leaving that place it was thought more prudent that the party should separate and proceed on f