Caroline Ferdinande Louise, duchesse de Berry
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Marie Caroline Ferdinande Louise, duchesse de Berry (1798–1870) was the daughter of King Francis I of the Two Sicilies and his first wife, Maria Clementina of Austria. She married King Louis XVIII of France's nephew, Charles Ferdinand, duc de Berry in 1816, following negotiations to the Two Sicilies by the French ambassador Pierre Louis Jean Casimir de Blacas, thus becoming the Duchesse de Berry. She became an important figure during the Bourbon Restoration after the assassination of her husband in 1820. Her son, Henri, comte de Chambord, was named the "miracle child" because he was born after his father's death and continued the direct Bourbon line of King Louis XIV of France. In 1824, King Louis XVIII died and was succeeded by Caroline's father-in-law, King Charles X.
In 1830, she was forced to flee France when Charles X was overthrown during the July Revolution. She returned to her family in Naples. Later, however, with the help of Emmanuel Louis Marie de Guignard, vicomte de Saint Priest, she unsuccessfully attempted to restore the Legitimist Bourbon dynasty during the reign of the Orléanist monarch, King Louis Philippe of the French (1830–1848).
Her failed rebellion in the Vendée in 1832 was followed by her arrest and imprisonment in November, 1832. She was released in June, 1833 after giving birth to a daughter and revealing her secret marriage to an Italian nobleman, Ettore Count Lucchesi Palli, Prince di Campofranco, Duke della Grazia. She returned to Sicily but was now ignored by other members of the House of Bourbon. She died in 1870.
French novelist Alexandre Dumas, père wrote two stories about her and her plotting.
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.
[edit] Further reading
- Cronin, Vincent. Four Women in Pursuit of an Ideal. London: Collins, 1965; also published as The Romantic Way. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966.
