[Footnote 1: Madame d'Oberkirch.]
The only child of this marriage was the Duc d'Enghien. The princess died in the early days of the Revolution. Her husband formed the army of French émigrés at Coblentz, and led them when they invaded their own country. On the death of his father he became Duke of Bourbon, but his promising son, D'Enghien, was already dead. The duke married while in exile the princess of Monaco, a lady of very shady antecedents. She was, however, received by Louis XVIII. in his little court at Hartwell. She died soon after the Restoration.
In 1830 the old duke, worn out with sorrows and excesses, was completely under the power of an English adventuress, a Madame de Feuchères.[1] He had settled on her his Château de Saint-Leu, together with very large sums of money. Several years before 1830 it had occurred to Madame de Feuchères that the De Rohans, who were related to the duke on his mother's side, might dispute these gifts and bequests, and by way of making herself secure, she sought the protection of Louis Philippe, then Duke of Orleans. She offered to use her influence with the Duke of Bourbon to induce him to make the Duc d'Aumale, who was his godson, his heir, if Louis Philippe would engage to stand her friend in any trouble.
[Footnote 1: Louis Blanc.]
The relations of the Duc de Bourbon to this woman bore a strong resemblance to those that Thackeray has depicted between Becky Sharp and Jos Sedley. The old man became thoroughly in fear of her; and when the Revolution broke out later, he was also much afraid of being plundered and maltreated at Saint-Leu by the populace,—not, however, because he had any great regard for his cousin Charles X., with whom in his youth he had fought a celebrated duel. Impelled by these two fears, he resolved to escape secretly from France, and so rid himself of the tyranny of Madame de Feuchères and the dangers of Revolution.
He arranged his flight with a trusted friend; it was fixed for the day succeeding Aug. 31, 1830,—a month after the Revolution. That evening he retired to his chamber in good spirits, though he said good-night more impressively than usual to some persons in his household. The next morning he was found dead, hanging to one of the espagnolettes, or heavy fastenings, of a tall French window. The village authorities were summoned; but although it was impossible a man so infirm could have thus killed himself and though many other circumstances proved that he did not die by his own hand, they certified his death by suicide. The Catholic Church, however, did not accept this verdict, and the duke was buried with the rites of religion.
There was certainly no proof that Madame de Feuchères had had any hand in the murder of the old man who had plotted to escape from her, and who had expressed to others his dread of the tyranny she exercised over him; but there was every ground for strong suspicion, and the public lost no time in fastening part of the odium that attached to the supposed murderess on the king, whose family had so greatly benefited by her influence over the last head of the house of Condé. She retained her ill-gotten wealth, and removed at once to Paris. She had been engaged in stock operations for some time, and now gave herself up to them, winning enormous sums.
The new throne was sadly shaken by these events, added to discontents concerning the king's prudent policy of non-intervention in the attempted revolutions of other countries, which followed that of France in 1830 and 1831. The next very interesting event of this reign was the escapade and the discomfiture of the young Duchesse de Berri.
About the close of 1832, while France and all Europe were still experiencing the after-shocks which followed the Revolution of July, Marie Caroline, the Duchesse de Berri, planned at Holyrood a descent upon France in the interests of the Duc de Bordeaux, her son.[1] Had he reigned in consequence of the deaths of his grandfather and uncle, Charles X. and the Duc d'Angoulême, the duchess his mother was to have been regent during his minority. She regretted her inaction during the days of July, when, had she taken her son by the hand and presented him herself to the people, renouncing in his name and her own all ultra-Bourbon traditions and ideas, she might have saved the dynasty.
[Footnote 1: Louis Blanc and papers in "Figaro.">[