connoisseur—described Queen Marie Amelie as "Ia. plus grande dame de
l',Europe." The present biography, though it has the faults of its kind, superficiality, a lack of thorough- ness, of deep research, of original character-study, so that it does little more than suggest the book of value and interest which the Queen's Life ought to be, still gives an impression of the kind of woman she was, and sketches with some success the varied accidents of her career.
Never was a woman more plainly born to be a Queen than Marie Anna° de Bourbon, the granddaughter of Maria Theresa, the niece of Marie Antoinette, the daughter of Ferdinand and Maria Carolina of Naples. Not only by descent, but by character, she was unmistakably Royal. Yet never was a woman more unwilling to wear a crown. Her biographer recalls the touching fact that in her old age she said to her son, the Duo de Nemours :—
" 'Remember! when I die, you are to put on my tomb: Here lies Marie Anuflie de Bourbon, Duchesse d'Orlgans.'—• But, chere Majeste,' replied her son, 'you cannot efface history.' Marie Amelie raised her arm with a tragic gesture and said: 'Alas! to my sorrow, Queen of the French."
Her ancestors had been Kings and Queens of France, and the new title offended her. (By the by, to call her the " last " Queen of the French is surely incorrect. She and Louis Philippe were the firat and the last Monarchs to be so described.) But this was not the deepest reason of her
• The We of Marie Amato, Last Queen of the French, 1789-1888. By C. C. Dyson. With Portraits and Illustrations. London : John Long. [12a. 6d. net.]
dislike. If the Duke of Orleans had been guided by his wife's instincts of honour and loyalty, instead of by his own and his sister's ambition of power and keen desire of self- advancement, he would never have reigned in France. Marie Amelie loved and admired her husband devotedly, but her religion and her traditions made it difficult for her to endure the thought of his superseding the elder branch and taking the place of Kings who had trusted him. Besides this, the step that led to a popular throne was at the moment and in actual fact a step downwards for the woman who, as Duchesse d'Orleans, had held her own place in her own society, venerated and admired by all. 'We do not mean to suggest that as a Queen she lost anything of individual dignity or personal reverence, but it is certain that Louis Philippe's early days at the Tuileries were those of a King made by the mob and treated as their property. The atmosphere of "insolent familiarity" can have been nothing but odious to her who was known as "the most polished Princess in Europe."
But with all her public trials and private sorrows, Queen Marie Amelie was far from being an unhappy woman. The sons and daughters she brought up were her joy and pride ; she was loved and honoured throughout her years of exile by hosts of friends of every rank. England will not soon forget the noble lady for whom Queen Victoria had so deep an affection. She was undoubtedly by far the most distinguished member of the family into which she married.
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