Berry, Or Berri, a former province of France, nearly in the centre, now forming the departments of Indre and Cher, and small portions of those of Loire-et-Cher and Creuse. Capital, Bourges. It included most of the ancient territory of the Bituriges, the chief people of Celtic Gaul, was under Roman rule till near the end of the 5th century, and was wrested by Clovis in 507 from the Visigoths, who had invaded it, after which the local rulers were military chiefs or counts. Under Charles the Bald the province became a hereditary county, and was ruled by the counts of Bourges until about 1100, when the last of them, Arpin, sold the fief to Philip I. It remained thenceforward in possession of princes and princesses of the royal blood, first as a county, and after 1360 as a duchy, till 1601, when on the death of the widow of Henry III. it was definitively merged in the French crown. Since then the nominal title of duke of Berry has been given to a grandson of Louis XIV., to Louis XVI. while he was dauphin, and to Charles Ferdinand, son of Charles X. Berry suffered much during the wars with England and the religious wars.

See Histoire du Berry, by Raynal (Paris, 1844 - '7).

Berry, Or Berri #1

Berry, or Berri I. Marie Louise Elisabeth, duchess of, born Aug. 20, 1695, died at Marly, July 21, 1719. She was a daughter of Philippe d'Orleans, afterward regent of France, and married in 1710 Charles, duke of Berry, grandson of Louis XIV., after whose suspiciously sudden death in 1714 she secretly married one of her many lovers, made no longer a secret of her incest with her own father, and died from an illness which she contracted while giving to him a great entertainment, though barely recovered from her confinement, which she had attempted to conceal. St. Simon describes her as an ambitious Messalina, and she was so depraved that she was even accused of many crimes of which she was probably innocent. II. Charles Ferdinand, duke of, the second son of the count d'Artois, afterward Charles X., born in Versailles, Jan. 24, 1778, died in Paris, Feb. 14, 1820. He emigrated with his father in 1789, and served in the army of Conde till 1798, when he went to Russia, and in 1801 to England, where he contracted a secret marriage (which was afterward cancelled) with an English woman, who bore him two children.

He was favorably received in France on landing at Cherbourg in 1814, afterward accompanied Louis XVIII. to Ghent, and made Paris his home after the final overthrow of Napoleon. He was stabbed by a saddler named Louvel, a political fanatic, on leaving the opera with his wife, and died next morning, after having in vain solicited the pardon of his murderer, who was foiled in his avowed purpose of extinguishing the race of the Bourbons by the birth seven months afterward of the duke of Bordeaux. (See Boukbon.) HI. Marie Caroline Ferdinande Louise, duchess of, wife of the preceding, born in Palermo, Nov. 5, 1798, died near Gratz, April 7, 1870. She was a daughter of Francis I., king of the Two Sicilies, and of Maria Clementina, archduchess of Austria: Louis XVIII. arranged her marriage with his nephew the duke of Berry, which was celebrated in Paris on-June 18, 1816. In 1819 she gave birth to a daughter, Louise Marie Therese, who became duchess of Parma, and died in 1864. After the assassination of her husband (Feb. 13,1820), she gave birth (Sept. 29) to Henri, duke of Bordeaux, afterward known as the count de Chambord. She became very popular in Paris by her affable manners, and especially by her fondness for theatres and brilliant sociable entertainments.

On the outbreak of the revolution of 1830 she was restrained by Charles X. from insisting upon the claims of her son to the throne, and she followed the Bourbon family into exile. In 1831 she went to Sestri, but at the request of the king of Sardinia left his territory and proceeded to Modena and thence to Rome. She afterward went to Massa, where she engaged in a conspiracy for the restoration of the elder Bourbon line in the person of her son. At Massa she is said to have first met the count Ettore de Lucchesi-Palli, a Neapolitan diplomatist, with whom she contracted a secret morganatic marriage. In April, 1832, she effected a landing near Marseilles, and on the failure of the legitimist attempt in that city, she succeeded in reaching La Vendee in disguise with a few attendants. The attempted rising there having ended disastrously, she barely escaped to Nantes (June 9), where she found an asylum which was disclosed to M. Thiers by Simon Deutz, a converted Jew, who had gained her confidence at Rome. She was arrested on Nov. 6, after having concealed herself for 24 hours behind a chimney at the risk of suffocation.

From Nantes she was sent as a prisoner of state to the citadel of Blaye. The alleged illegality of these summary proceedings created some public excitement, which was increased by the reports of her advanced state of pregnancy. The commander of the citadel, Col. Chonsserie, resigning on account of the private instructions which he had received from the government in respect to her treatment, he was succeeded by Gen. Bugeaud, who made her publicly avow her secret marriage. She gave birth to a daughter, May 10, 1833, and was released on June 8 and conveyed to Palermo. She visited Charles X. at Gorz, but was not favorably received, and the education of the duke of Bordeaux was intrusted to other hands. She subsequently resided in Venice, and after 1864 at her chateau ofBrun-eee. near Gratz, where she attended to the education of her four surviving children by her second husband, who inherited the title of Duke della Grazia and died April 1, 1864. The tine picture gallery of the duchess was sold by public auction in Paris in 1865.