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.
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