For the Duchesse de Berri's grandmother was the sister of Marie Antoinette.

Her mother was aunt to that Empress of the French, Marie Louise, who was a notable exception to the rule that "Bon sang ne peut mentir." Her father was a king of Sicily and Naples.

She was a Bourbon married to a Bourbon.
When she was nineteen she gave birth to a daughter, who died next day.
In a year she had a son who died in twenty hours.

Two years later her husband died in her arms, assassinated, in a back room of the Opera House in Paris.
Seven months after her husband's death she gave birth to the Comte de Chambord, the last of the old Bourbons.

She was active, energetic and of boundless courage.