On May 21, three days before the date fixed upon for the rising,
she was waited upon by the chiefs,--the men most likely to suffer
in an abortive insurrection,--and was assured that the attempt would
fail. Had the South risen, La Vendée would have gladly joined the
insurrection; but unsupported by the South, the proposed enterprise was
too rash a venture. Overpowered by these arguments and the persuasions
of those around her, Marie Caroline gave way, and consented to
return to Scotland with a passport that had been provided for her.
But in the night she retracted her consent, and insisted that the
rising should take place upon the 3d of June. She was obeyed; but
what little prospect of success there might have been at first,
was destroyed by the counter-order of May 22. All who rose were at
once put down by the king's troops, and atrocities on both sides
were committed.

Nantes, the capital city of La Vendée, was hostile to the duchess;
in Nantes, therefore, she believed her enemies would never search
for her. She took refuge there in the house of two elderly maiden
ladies, the Demoiselles Duguigney, where she remained five months.
They must have been months of anguish to her, and of unspeakable
impatience. It is very possible that the Government did not care
to find her. She was the queen's niece, and if captured what could
be done with her? To set her free to hatch new plots would have
been bitterly condemned by the republicans; to imprison her would
have made an additional motive for royalist conspiracies; to execute
her would have been impossible. Marie Caroline, however, had solved
these difficult problems by her own misconduct.

Meantime the premiership of France passed into the hands of M.