On the morrow, at a grand ball offered to her by the city, Madame was seated upon a platform that was surmounted by a fine portrait of her son.  Eight hundred women, crowned with white plumes, flowers, and diamonds, cheered her.  The 18th, she slept at Pau, the native place of Henry IV.  The mountaineers, descending from their heights, banner in hand, with their Basque costumes, came to meet her.  The next day she visited the castle where was born the Bearnais, whose cradle, formed of a great tortoise-shell, she saw:  it was shaded by draperies and white plumes.  The following day she visited the environs.  To descend into the valley of Ossun, she donned the felt hat and the red sash worn by the peasants of Bearn.  As she was looking at the spring of Nays, a mountaineer offered her some water in a rustic dish, and said naively:  “Are you pleased with the BEarnais, Madame?”—­“Am I not pleased!” replied the Princess, eagerly.  “See, I wear the hat and sash of the country!”

The 24th, she was at the Ile des Faisans, famous in the souvenirs of Louis XIV.; the 25th, at Bayonne, where she assisted at a military fete.  In all her excursions, Madame carried her pencils with her, and almost every day sketched some picturesque site.  Eight Bearnais, with an amaranth belt and hats of white and green, served her as a guard of honor.  She passed all the month of August and a part of the month of September in the Pyrenees.  The mountaineers never wearied of admiring the hardihood, the gaiety, the spirit, shown by her in making the most difficult ascensions.  The 9th of September, she quitted Bagneres-de Luchon to return to Paris, passing through Toulouse, Montauban, Cahors, Limoges, and Orleans.  It was one long series of ovations.  The 1st of October, Madame returned to the Tuileries.  She had been accompanied all through her journey by the Marechale Duchess of Reggio, lady of honor; by the Marchioness of Podenas, lady companion; and by Count de Mesnard, first equerry.

The Duchess of Berry returned enchanted.  Could she suspect the reception that awaited her, four years later, in the places where she had just been the object of veritable worship?  When she was received at Nantes as a triumphant sovereign, could she believe that the time was approaching when, in that same city, she would have hardly a stone on which to lay her head and where she would seek a futile refuge in the chimney-piece—­mysterious hiding-place—­of the house of the Demoiselles Duguigny?  At Blaye could she imagine that the citadel, hung with white flags, whose cannon were fired in her honor, would so soon become her prison?  Poor Princess!  She had taken seriously the protestations of devotion and fidelity addressed to her everywhere.  They asked her to promise that if ever the rights of her son were denied, she would defend them on the soil of La Vendee, and she had said to herself:  “I swear it.”  The journey of 1828 held the germ of the expedition of 1832.