The Duke of Berry has just died, the hopes of an heir for the crown of France are based on the pregnancy of his wife, Caroline….
In this new episode of the Europe 1 Studio podcast "At the heart of History", Jean des Cars tells you about the trajectory of the Duchess of Berry after the disappearance of her husband, an epic worthy of a vaudeville!
The husband and wife of Berry had already had a daughter, when the Duke died, the whole court was scrutinizing the Duchess Caroline's second pregnancy. In this new episode of the Europe 1 Studio podcast "At the heart of history", Jean des Cars retraces the epic of this modern and courageous woman.
In September, everything was carefully planned for the delivery of the Duchess of Berry.
The doctor who must assist him, Doctor Deneux, is installed in an apartment near Caroline's, and several nannies have been required.
Her first maid sleeps in her room.
On the night of September 28 to 29, at two o'clock in the morning, she woke up shouting: "Quickly! I'm giving birth!"
The maid barely has time to light a torch when the child is there!
Caroline gave birth in the dark and makes this amazing statement: "I dabbled! It's a boy!"
It is essential that witnesses appear before the cord is cut!
Doctor Deneux, arrived in an approximate outfit, is satisfied to note that the newborn is breathing normally.
Caroline insists.
She ordered him not to cut the cord: "I want people to see my son holding on to me!"
Want to listen to the other episodes of this podcast?
>> Find them on our Europe1.fr site and on Apple Podcasts, Google podcasts, Deezer, Dailymotion, YouTube, or your usual listening platforms.
>> Find here the user manual to listen to all the podcasts of Europe 1
She pulls up her shirt so everyone can see the cord that still connects mother to child!
No possibility of substitution.
Soon the living room was filled with witnesses called by the ladies-in-waiting.
Each time, the Duchess pulls up her nightgown!
She demands that we go and find the Duke of Albufera very quickly.
The marshal finally appears in full uniform but he just forgot to put on his pants and comes in underwear!
On the threshold of the room, he knocks down on one knee.
Caroline asks him to approach and check that the newborn is still connected to its mother.
Suchet, Duke of Albufera, is amazed!
Admiringly, he declares: "The son of such a woman can only be a great man!"
Sixteen cannon shots will wake up the Parisians to warn them that a little prince has been born among the Bourbons.
The crowd grew in front of the Tuileries, shouting: "Long live the King! Long live the Duke of Bordeaux!"
With her Neapolitan exuberance combined with her experience as a king's daughter, Caroline played well: no one will be able to dispute that she had a son, Henri, Duke of Bordeaux and that he is indeed the son of the Duke of Berry.
For the French, he is now "the child of the miracle".
The Duchess honors her late husband's promise
After the birth of her son, Caroline is a little depressed.
She is not recovering from the death of her husband and life at the Tuileries is not wildly gay.
Several times a week, the Duchess sees Amy Brown's daughters who come to the palace for lessons.
True to the promise she made to her dying husband, she is very warm with them.
Louis XVIII was generous: he titled Charlotte Comtesse d'Issoudun and Louise Comtesse de Vierzon.
No bastardy appears on their coat of arms.
He each endows a large sum, 225,000 francs.
As for the mother, Amy Brown, she receives 5,000 francs each month from the Comte d'Artois.
Why such generosity?
It is explained by the fact that it is not impossible that in his lightness and his mad passion for Amy Brown in London, the Duke of Berry contracted a secret marriage with his mistress.
If this were the case, he would have been bigamous, his marriage with Caroline would be annulled and his son, the Duke of Bordeaux, illegitimate ... An unthinkable situation.
So Amy must have no reason to complain, neither for herself nor for her daughters.
But the generosity of the royal family does not stop there.
The Duchess of Angoulême, daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, takes charge of Ferdinand, the son of the dancer Virginie Oreille, born a few days after the Duke of Bordeaux.
The Duke of Angoulême provides for the needs of Caroline, the daughter of Mlle Barré.
As for the Duchess of Berry herself, she takes care of Ferdinand, son of Miss Delaroche.
The cumbersome illegitimate offspring of the Duke of Berry will have no complaints!
After the prince's death, around twenty women from Nantes proclaimed themselves to be all pregnant with the Duke of Berry!
Very calm, Caroline asks Mesnard how long her husband had been in Nantes: "One week, Madame".
She exclaims then: "But then, the thing is very possible!"
The Duchess of Berry, icon of the Restoration
On April 30, 1821, fifteen days of celebrations accompanied the baptism of the Duke of Bordeaux.
Caroline, acclaimed on all sides, regains a taste for life.
She is changing the decoration of her apartments in the Tuileries and will love to launch fashions: cashmere shawls, shorter dresses (5 cm above the ground) to show off her lovely little feet, hats topped with ostrich feathers and of marabouts to compensate for his small size ...
Like Marie-Antoinette, Caroline spends a lot of money on her toilets.
And then, she made long stays in her castle of Rosny which also cost her dearly.
She buys furniture, objects, paintings and builds up a huge library because she is an unrepentant reader.
His favorite authors are Lamartine, Musset, Hugo and above all, Walter Scott.
She is redeveloping the English-style park of Rosny and the animal population: sheep, deer and even kangaroos!
It is the squire Mesnard who is in charge of the management of the domain.
In Rosny, she receives a lot and one of her friends, the Vendéen Félicie de La Rochejaquelein, teaches her to ride astride a horse, dressed in men's trousers.
Shocking!
She also launched the fashion for sea bathing: from 1824, she spent a long time in Dieppe every year.
Death of Louis XVIII, accession of Charles X
It was precisely during her stay in Dieppe in August 1824 that the Duchess of Berry was informed that Louis XVIII was at its worst.
She immediately returns to Paris.
The king's agony is horrible, he is losing his breath, his legs are gangrenous.
He died on the night of September 13 to 14.
The advent of Caroline's father-in-law, King Charles X, begins with a coronation in Reims, similar to that of Louis XVI.
This misplaced pomp does not improve the popularity of the new ruler.
He is a conservative king: he relies on the Church and he authorizes the return of the Jesuits.
He has his "old ideas" and does not give up on them.
As the Duchess of Berry was by far the most prominent and popular person in the family, the government decided to organize a propaganda tour for her in Brittany and Vendée in June 1828. It was about time!
These provinces had risen to support the king during the Revolution.
They had paid the price in blood.
Caroline begins her journey in Brittany, from Vannes to Sainte Anne d'Auray, from Lorient to Rennes then she returns to Nantes on July 1st.
She then puts on her Amazon outfit to conquer the Vendée bocage.
Her trip is a triumph, the white flags bow before her and the veterans of the Vendée wars too.
At the end of this exhilarating journey, she will say: "My friends, if new storms still come to disturb the future of our beautiful Fatherland, it is in your midst that I would like to reconquer the throne of my son."
Thunderstorms will arrive very quickly.
The four disastrous Orders of Charles X against the freedom of the press appear in Le Moniteur of July 26, 1830. The royal family is in Saint-Cloud when, two days later, the revolt begins to roar in Paris.
Barricades rise, the tocsin rings at the end of the afternoon, accompanied by the drone of Notre-Dame, On hearing them, Talleyrand, who is writing his memoirs in his hotel in the rue Saint-Florentin, looks at his watch and said to his secretary: "In less than five minutes, the elder branch of the Bourbons will have ceased to rule."
In fact, it will take three days for Charles X to abdicate.
He left Saint-Cloud for Versailles then Rambouillet.
The royal caravan will take thirteen days to reach Cherbourg.
The king and his suite first settled in a castle in England before reaching Scotland.
During this time, the Duke of Orleans became King of the French under the name Louis-Philippe 1er.
Caroline is furious!
At the start of the riots, she wanted to go to Paris with her son, convinced that she could rally the people to her cause.
Charles X had prevented him from doing so.
In fact, she cannot stand the stifling and confined atmosphere of the Court in exile.
She can't stand her in-laws anymore.
She leaves her two children in the hands of the Duchess of Angoulême and leaves for Italy to work on her great project ...
The Duchess of Berry loses her War in Vendée
Caroline, remembering the enthusiasm which had greeted her in Vendée, is convinced that if she succeeds in convincing the Vendéens, they will rise up in favor of her son to drive out Louis-Philippe.
From Italy, she embarked for France in April 1832. Her correspondents had assured her that as soon as she arrived, Provence would also rise up in her favor.
But Provence remains very peaceful and it must reach the Vendée by hiding.
He was warned that the Vendée was not ready to rise up.
The time is no longer that of Cadoudal and the Chouans, 1832 is not 1793, power is not in the hands of the Enrrages but in the hands of the bourgeois king Louis-Philippe.
His team turned into disaster: three clashes with the gendarmerie, a few deaths and a burnt castle.
Marie-Caroline's war in Vendée is over before it begins!
The Duchess however behaved bravely, disguised as a Vendée peasant nicknamed "Petit Pierre".
Courageous, she understands that she has lost.
She leaves the bocage to take refuge in Nantes, in a safe house, in the company of a faithful, Mlle de Kersabiec.
The indomitable duchess is much sought after by the police of Louis-Philippe.
She spent five months, from June to November 1832, in her hiding place, playing the heroines of Walter Scott, taking herself for "Marie Stuart de la Vendée".
She keeps sending letters written in sympathetic ink to all of Europe.
As in an adventure novel, she will be betrayed by a certain Deutz who had won her trust.
For 500,000 francs, he sells the duchess to Thiers, head of government under Louis-Philippe.
In the house that shelters it, there is a hiding place behind a fireplace.
She had already served during the wars of Vendée.
When the gendarmes invade the premises, the fugitive takes refuge there in the company of Mlle de Kersabiec, the faithful Mesnard and Achille Dubourg, a young lawyer from Nantes who has rallied to his cause.
It's cold.
The gendarmes light a fire.
The smoke suffocates the four illegals.
They are forced to come out of their hiding place, almost suffocated and smeared with soot!
The adventure ends pitifully.
The Duchess of Berry is arrested, taken to the fortress of Blaye, in Gironde, where she is imprisoned.
The turbulent prisoner of Blaye
At this point, the adventure turns into a farce.
Louis-Philippe is very embarrassed.
Should we judge and condemn the Duchess of Berry?
Thiers is opposed to it, saying "that there is no judgment for the princes".
We could free her and expel her, but it's Caroline herself who finds a way to make her case worse!
Indeed, a new twist: she is pregnant!
Has the Duchess of Berry made a mistake in the Vendée countryside?
What a novel!
General Bugeaud is his jailer in Blaye.
To justify herself, she tells him that she got married secretly and that serious reasons prevent her from revealing her husband's name.
For her most fervent supporters, the announcement of this pregnancy is a disaster.
They are appalled.
Their heroine loses all her credit.
As usual, she gave birth with amazing speed and in the middle of the night, on May 10, 1833, to a little girl named Anna.
At the time of the official declaration of the birth, Caroline reveals the name of her new husband: Count Hector Lucchesi-Palli, gentleman of the Chamber of the King of the Two Sicily, domiciled in Palermo.
An astonishing revelation but it is the only one she has to get her head held high from this incredible situation!
On June 10, she is released and can embark with her baby for Palermo, which she reaches on July 5.
There she finds (or rather discovers!) Her handsome husband, eight years younger!
He is dark, elegant, distinguished.
It doesn't matter if the marriage certificate was backdated, Caroline has a husband and a father for her daughter.
Some bad tongues baptize him ... "Saint Joseph"!
The Duchess is fighting to get her other children back
Obviously, Charles X and his entourage did not appreciate the escapades of the Duchess.
They left Scotland and are now the guests of the Emperor of Austria at Prague Castle.
Of course, the two children of the Duke of Berry are with them.
Choking with indignation, Charles X thinks it would be better if they did not see their mother again.
Caroline's new fight will be to get them back.
She asks Chateaubriand, a specialist in lost causes, to plead hers with her stepfather and her sister-in-law.
Chateaubriand's team in the storming of Prague Castle has earned us a few magnificent pages in his “Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe”.
He explains the situation as follows: "Madame la Duchesse de Berry was right to call on me. The very nature of the fault which made her lose everything does not keep me away. Playing a throne, glory, the future, a destiny for an adventure is not a vulgar thing. The people, in agreement with Christ coming out of their ranks, have a just feeling of humanity. They excuse and forgive. They understand that a widow could have loved without cease to be a heroic mother. "
Obviously he fails.
The old king is intractable.
For him, Madame Lucchesi-Palli is no longer guardian or regent of the Duke of Bordeaux and his sister.
The children are entrusted to the Duchess of Angoulême.
Caroline is devastated.
Of course, she can review them, but briefly and in the presence of third parties.
Of course, they can write to each other, but she fears for her son's education.
She fears that her sister-in-law will make of him such a narrow-minded person and with such narrow views as those of Charles X ... She has understood everything.
This is what will happen.
In the meantime, Chateaubriand has, as always, a word to sum up the situation: "Caroline chooses to be the happy Countess Lucchesi-Palli rather than being the unfortunate mother of Henri V."
She loves her husband, whom she calls "Pasha".
They will have four children, three daughters and a boy who will fill them with happiness and give them 28 grandchildren!
The couple will now share their life between the Brunnsee estate in southern Austria and the Vendramin palace in Venice, which they bought in 1844 and where their life will be joyous, like a permanent celebration.
Caroline was in Venice when Louis-Philippe was ousted from power in 1848.
A nice revenge for her.
In 1864, she lost her daughter Louise.
Two months later, it is her dear husband who succumbs to the flu.
An immense sorrow for her.
She repeats that he was the best of husbands.
Covered with debts which she did not care about, she died on April 16, 1870. This will prevent her from witnessing the refusal of the Crown of France by her son, the Count of Chambord, because of his obsession with the flag white and his refusal of the tricolor.
As predicted by his mother, the heir with a character darkened by the confined education he had received, the legitimist pretender was no longer in tune with his time.
His mother, on the other hand, had made fun of hers.
And with what panache!
Bibliographic resources:
Laure Hillerin, The Duchess of Berry, the rebellious bird of the Bourbons (Flammarion, 2010)
Monique de Huertas, La Duchesse de Berry, the adventurous mother of the last King of France (Pygmalion, 2001)
Edmond Duplan, Marie-Caroline, Duchess of Berry (France-Empire, 1996)
Jean des Cars, Tragic couples in history (Perrin, 2020)
“At the heart of History” is a Europe 1 Studio podcast
Author and presentation: Jean des Cars
Production: Timothée Magot
Director: Jean-François Bussière
Distribution and editing: Salomé Journo
Graphic design: Karelle Villais