The Duchess De Berry affair captivated the whole world yet we in the modern world have never heard of her. Isn't it amazing how such moments affairs just fade from the collective consciousness? The first few pages sum up everything for me. First, and this has nothing to do with anything, the Duchess was 4 foot 7 inches tall. Secondly, she spent 16 hours in a priest hole next to a fireplace to evade capture by her enemies and almost got away except for a soldier lighting a fire and still did not come out until she almost perished. So small and so formidable. Thirdly, her betrayal by a jew ushered in anti-Semitism into France that the author posed was the link between Judas and Dreyfus. And fourth, I will never really understand the Dreyfus Affair as long as live. I get the drift of it but why it took such a life of its own when it was proven the documents were forged I don't know.
The story begins with the duchess' birth in Naples, at the Caserta a 2 million square foot palace with 1200 rooms in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius. WOW. Maria Carolina, after a childhood fraught with uncertainty that went with the Two Scililies thrones of her grandfather and having Napoleon lose on the continent, Carolina is sent to France to be married as she is Catholic and a Hapsburg, complete with drooping lip. Now know as Caroline she is the hope of the Bourbon dynasty as they need a make heir to continue. The Orleans line has one. Caroline and the Duc De Berry have a daughter, the Duc is assassinated and Caroline delivers a son posthumously. The other person in the story Simon Deutz is Jewish, falls apart after his mother dies, though he is 20 so I don't know if that counts, and betrays the Duchess but I am getting ahead. He changed his religion to Catholic and hoped that by attaching his hopes to the duchess if she were successful he would perhaps find his fortune and maybe she would give him a title for his efforts on his behalf. The duchess hoped if she could secure the French throne for her son Henri V who was 10 and the last Bourbon she would be regent until he reached his majority but she would have to dislodge Louis-Phillipe who held the throne at present and was of the house of Orleans. The barricades of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables were up in arms over this same King Louis Phillipe as the Duchesse de Berry was fighting. Also during this time France and in particular Paris was undergoing a cholera epidemic. Brutal times. Filthy times. A great time to starve.
Due to said in his memoirs he betrayed the duchess to save France from the rack and ruin of a civil war brought on by the Bourbons and Orleans fighting each other. Nobody bought it. He betrayed her for greed. He figured out who was going to lose and hoped to profit from it. He had delusions of grandeur. He thought everyone would praise him for it. Everyone hated him for the betrayal and for being Jewish. He could not win. Plus something in his personality just was not likable. Three strikes you are out. The duchess was pretty after a fashion, rich, female, charming, audacious, sympathetic, and had a kid. She had everything going for her. Until she didn't. She list the war and was deported to Italy after another adventure????? Deutz got 500,000 francs but still had nothing. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book in return for a review.… (más)