Poor or rich,
she had attentions for all. Listen to the Count de Mesnard:--
"Madame is incessantly making presents to all who approach her. At
New Year's her apartments are a veritable bazaar furnished from
all the shops of Paris; her provision, made from every quarter, is
universal, from bon-bons to the most precious articles--
everything is there. Madame has thought of each specially; the
people of her own service are not forgotten any more than the
ladies and officers of her household; father, mother, children,
every one, is included in the distribution. The royal family
naturally comes first; next, the numerous relatives of the Palais
Royal, of whom she is very fond; then her family at Naples, which
is also numerous; and finally all of us, masters and servants, we
all have our turn."
No one, we think, has made a more exact portrait of the Duchess of
Berry than the Count Armand de Pontmartin, who is so familiar with
the Restoration. In his truthful and lively Souvenirs d'un vieux
critique, how well he presents "this flower of Ischia or of
Castellamare, transplanted to the banks of the Seine, under the
gray sky of Paris, to this Chateau des Tuileries, which the
revolutions peopled with phantoms before making it a spectre."
How really she was "this good Duchess, so French and so Neapolitan
at once, half Vesuvius, half school-girl, whom nothing must
prevent us from honoring and loving.
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