The sufferings through which the princess passed were awful. No pen can describe them. Could she but be released from prison, her shame might be concealed. Her tears and entreaties were all unavailing. Louis Philippe, unmindful that the princess was the niece of his wife, deemed that the interests of his dynasty required that she should be held with a firm grasp until the birth of her child should consign her to ignominy from which there could be no redemption. On the 22d of February, 1833, the duchess placed in the hands of General Bugeaud, governor of the citadel of Blaye, the following declaration: "Urged by circumstances, and by the measures ordered by the Government, though I had the strongest reason to keep my marriage secret, I think it a duty to myself and my children to declare that I was secretly married during my residence in Italy." To a friend, M. de Mesnard, she wrote: "I feel as if it would kill me to tell you what follows, but it must be done. Vexatious annoyances, the order to leave me alone with spies, the certainty that I can not get out till September, could alone have determined me to declare my secret marriage." The humiliations to which the unhappy duchess was compelled to submit were dreadful. The detail would be only painful to our readers. On the morning of the 10th of May a daughter was born, whom God kindly, ere long, removed to another world. The fact, minutely authenticated, was proclaimed to all Europe. Thus far Marie Caroline had kept secret the name of her husband. But it was now necessary that his name should be given, to secure the legitimacy of her child. It was then announced, by the officiating physician to the group of officials which the Government had placed around her bed, that the father of the child was Count Hector Sucheri Palli, gentleman of the chamber to the King of the Two Sicilies. In commenting upon these events, Louis Blanc writes: "The partisans of the new dynasty exulted with indecent zeal at the event of which the ministers had so well prepared the scandal. The Republicans only manifested the contempt they felt for this ignoble triumph. As for the Legitimists, they were overwhelmed with consternation. Some of them, however, still persisted in their daring incredulity; and they did not hesitate to denounce the document, upon which their enemies relied as the denouement of an intrigue which had begun with violence and ended with a lie. Separated from her friends, deprived of their counsels, dead to the world, to the laws, to society, was it possible for Marie Caroline to make any valid deposition against herself, and that, too, surrounded by her accusers, by her keepers, by the men who had vowed her destruction?"