chapter x

., etc., was inspired, Thackeray’s own note\books (as quoted by Mrs Ritchie) conclusively show: ‘January 4,1844. Read in a silly book called L’EMPIRE, a good story about the first K. of Wurtemberg’s wife; killed by her husband for adultery. Frederic William, born in 1734 (?), m. in 1780 the Princess Caroline of Brunswick Wolfenbuttel, who died the 27th September 1788. For the rest of the story see L’EMPIRE, OU DIX ANS SOUS NAPOLEON, PAR UN CHAMBELLAN: Paris, Allardin, 1836; vol. i. 220.’ The ‘Captain Freny’ to whom Barry owed his adventures on his journey to Dublin (