When the events of 1814 drove Napoleon into exile, and brought back Louis XVIII. to the throne, the Duchess of Angoulême was at Hartwell with her uncle. It was on the 25th of March that the news reached them of the proclamation of Louis XVIII. at Bordeaux. A month later they set out on their return to France. The Prince Regent accompanied them to Dover, the Duke of Clarence escorted them across the Channel. From Calais to Paris their progress was one long triumphal procession. The state entry of the King into Paris took place on the 3rd of May. Seated in an open carriage drawn by eight white horses, Louis XVIII. had on his left hand the “daughter of the last King.” It was on her that all eyes were turned, and to her that the warmest tribute of welcome was paid. Dressed wholly in white, there was on her countenance a kind of grave joy which struck all beholders. What strangely mingled thoughts were passing through her mind may well be imagined. Tears which she could not restrain fell frequently from her eyes. When she reached the Tuileries, which she had not seen since the fatal day when her parents had left it to take refuge in the Assembly twenty-two years before, the thronging memories of the past were too much for nature to bear, and she was carried into the palace in a swoon. There had reached Madame Royale, year by year during her exile, a bunch of flowers gathered from her mother’s grave. A faithful old Royalist, M. Descloseaux, had bought the ground in which the King and Queen, amongst many other victims of the Reign of Terror, had been interred, and to keep it sacred had converted it into an orchard and planted it with flowers. To this sacred spot the Duchess of Angoulême bent her steps the day after her entry into Paris, and there, as she thanked M. Descloseaux in a voice broken by emotion, the loyal old man made over to her the ground he had been preserving for her for the past seventeen years. Public rejoicings followed the restoration in abundance. At the opera “Edipus at Colonos” was presented, and at the passage where Edipus recounts the tender care of Antigone, Louis XVIII. turned to the Duchess of Angoulême and kissed her hand. Crowds came to the Tuileries to be presented to the duchess. She received twelve at a time, and the ladies so presented all wore white, with coronets of fleur-de-lys. The likeness which the duchess bore to her mother was much remarked; but it has been called “the resemblance of cold marble to animated flesh and blood,” and young _débutantes_ were apt to look upon the reserve and self-repression of the princess as austerity or want of sympathy. The terrible past was too deeply impressed on her mind for her to shake it off. The blessing of children, whose care and training might have brought her new hopes and new associations, had been denied her, and her thoughts went back constantly to the days of her youth and to the loved ones who had been so cruelly torn from her.