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Lot Essay
Charles Ferdinand d'Artois, Duc de Berry was born in 1778, the son of the future Charles X of France. After the Storming of the Bastille in the long summer of 1789, his father, then the Comte d'Artois, left France for Savoy taking his family with him. There Charles Ferdinand enlisted into the counter-revolutionary Royalist army of his cousin the Prince de Condé. He remained with the army until its eventual dissolution in 1801, having failed in its central purpose of restoring Bourbon rule to France. With the army disbanded, the duke moved, again with his father, to England, where he lived comfortably for thirteen years, controversially marrying a Miss Amy Brown in a secret ceremony, with whom he had two daughters. The marriage was later annulled. On the news of Napoleon's abdication and exile in 1814, the duke returned to France, where he was a popular figure at the newly restored court of Louis XVIII, who appointed him the Commander-in-Chief of the army at Paris, when Bonaparte escaped from Elba. The artist Vigeé Le Brun remembered the following anecdote about his command:
The first time he reviewed some troops he heard a few cries from the ranks of "Long live the Emperor!" "Quite right, my friends," was his immediate remark; "everyone must live." Upon which the same soldiers exclaimed, "Long live the Duke de Berri!"
Despite this seemingly good relationship with his men, he was unable to stem the tide of pro-Napoleonic feeling and quietly resigned his commission, retiring to Ghent during the Hundred Days. Following the war, he returned to Paris, where he married Caroline of Naples and the couple lived happily at the Élysée Palace until 1820, when, leaving the opera with his pregnant wife, he was fatally stabbed by a saddler named Louvel. He realized instantly that the wound was lethal, nobly asking that his murderer would be pardoned. Among his last acts was to formally recognize his daughters by Amy Brown. The assassination had been designed to destroy any chance of a resurgent Bourbon dynasty. However, the birth of the 'miracle child', the Comte de Chambord, seven and a half months after his father's death ensured its continuation.
The first time he reviewed some troops he heard a few cries from the ranks of "Long live the Emperor!" "Quite right, my friends," was his immediate remark; "everyone must live." Upon which the same soldiers exclaimed, "Long live the Duke de Berri!"
Despite this seemingly good relationship with his men, he was unable to stem the tide of pro-Napoleonic feeling and quietly resigned his commission, retiring to Ghent during the Hundred Days. Following the war, he returned to Paris, where he married Caroline of Naples and the couple lived happily at the Élysée Palace until 1820, when, leaving the opera with his pregnant wife, he was fatally stabbed by a saddler named Louvel. He realized instantly that the wound was lethal, nobly asking that his murderer would be pardoned. Among his last acts was to formally recognize his daughters by Amy Brown. The assassination had been designed to destroy any chance of a resurgent Bourbon dynasty. However, the birth of the 'miracle child', the Comte de Chambord, seven and a half months after his father's death ensured its continuation.