what they are
now, the Duchess of Berry would have filled all the "society
notes," and the objective point of every "reporter," to use an
American expression, would have been the Pavillon de Marsan, the
"Little Chateau," as it was then called. There indeed shone in all
their splendor the stars of French and foreign nobility, the women
who possessed all sorts of aristocracy--of birth, of fortune, of
wit, and of beauty. This little circle of luxury and elegance
excited less jealousy and less criticism than did the intimate
society of Marie Antoinette in the last part of the old regime,
because in the Queen's time, to frequent the Petit Trianon was the
road to honors, while under Charles X. the intimates of the
Pavillon de Marsan did not make their social pleasures the
stepping-stone to fortune.
The Duchess of Berry never meddled in politics. Doubtless her
sympathies, like those of the Dauphiness, were with the Right, but
she exercised no influence on the appointment of ministers and
functionaries. Charles X. never consulted her about public
affairs; the idea would never have occurred to the old King to ask
counsel of so young and inexperienced a woman.
It is but justice to the Princess to say that while wholly
inclined toward the Right, she had none of the exaggeration of the
extremists in either her ideas or her attitude, and that,
repudiating the arrogance and prejudices of the past, she never,
in any way, dreamed of the resurrection of the old regime.
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