Author : Imbert de
Release : 2002-09-01
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 215/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Duchess of Angouleme and the Two Restorations by : Imbert de

Download or read book The Duchess of Angouleme and the Two Restorations written by Imbert de. This book was released on 2002-09-01. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history begins at Calais April 24, 1814, when the Duchess arrives with Louis XVIII and the golden age is perhaps begun. Marie Therese Charlotte (1778-1851) was the daughter of Louis the XVI and Marie Antoinette and the wife of Louis the XIX. The First Restoration:"From the return of Louis XVIII. to France until the arrival of the Duchess of Berry, the Duchess of Angouleme is the only woman who can be described as a woman of the Tuileries. It is she who attracts all eyes; she who represents the legend of the Temple; she who may be called the living poetry of the Restoration. As soon as the Duchess of Berry touches French soil, people turn more especially toward the young Neapolitan Princess. But from 1814 to 1816, the most important position at court belonged to the daughter of Louis XVI. We shall try to show her as she really was during these two years, and, in reviving her image, to animate also the scenes in which she lived, and the principal events in which she took a part." The Second Restoration:"The second Restoration had just begun in 1815. People were far from being in the tender mood of the preceding year, - far from those royalist idylls and eclogues with which the return of the Bourbons was welcomed in 1814. With the exception of a few partisans of the egoistic sort that can be happy even among ruins if so be they may rebuild their fortunes there, all Frenchmen were plunged in gloom. As the imperialists suffered because of Waterloo, so the royalists groaned at seeing in the King's councils a regicide who had been Bonaparte's minister of police during the Hundred Days. Nowhere could good reason for exultation be found."" It is true that royalty was not brought back by foreigners. But what is at least as true is, that without the foreigners there would have been no Restoration whatever. It was the very coincidence between the defeat of the French and the return of the Bourbons that so fatally handicapped a government that would, under so many other circumstances have been respected, and reparative. It is for this reason that the Duchess of Angoulême wished so much that Napoleon should be repulsed by the French themselves instead of succumbing under the blows of foreign armies.