Charles-Ferdinand de Bourbon, duke de Berry

Charles-Ferdinand de Bourbon, duke de Berry (born Jan. 24, 1778, Versailles, Fr.—died Feb. 14, 1820, Paris) was a French prince whose murder by the fanatic Louvel marked a turning point in the history of the Restoration monarchy (1814–30). His death hastened the downfall and replacement of the Decazes government and the polarization into liberal and royalist groups.

Taken abroad by his father, the Comte d’Artois (afterward Charles X of France), at the outbreak of the French Revolution (1789), he served in the Prince de Condé’s army (1792–97) and went with Condé to Russia, where the tsar Paul gave him a cavalry regiment. From 1801 to 1814, however, he lived in England. There he began a liaison with an Englishwoman, Emma (Amy) Brown, by whom he had two daughters (afterward Baronne de Charette and Comtesse de Faucigny-Lucinge). Having returned to France in 1815, Berry retired to Ghent during the Hundred Days, but returned again to Paris at the Second Restoration. On June 17, 1816, he married Caroline, eldest daughter of Francis I of the Two Sicilies (by whom he had one daughter, Louise, later duchess and regent of Parma). On Feb. 13, 1820, as he was leaving the Paris Opéra, he was mortally wounded by a saddler, Louis-Pierre Louvel. He died the next day.

His posthumous son, the Duc de Bordeaux (later Comte de Chambord), represented the last hope for the Bourbon dynasty.