Still they waited and hoped, as week after week went by. Early in the spring affairs had looked more promising. The coalition against France had formed again under the influence of England. La Vende and Bretagne had risen, supported by insurrections all over the South of France. Lyon, Toulon, Bordeaux, even Marseilles, and many districts in the southern provinces were furnishing men and arms to join in the struggle. But gradually the armies of the Republic gained upon them, the [239] south was a scene of blood and massacre, and the last hopes of the Royalists were quenched with the defeat of the heroic Vendens at Savenay (December 23, 1793).
Director
A new era of prosperity, though of quite a different kind from the luxury, excitement, and splendour of her earlier life, now began for Mme. de Genlis. She opened a salon which was soon the resort of most of the interesting and influential people of the day. In the society of the Consulate and Empire [457] her early opinions and proceedings were not thought about, and her literary reputation was now great; and besides countless new acquaintances many of her old friends were delighted to welcome her again.Those whose ideas of France in the eighteenth century are derived only from such books as Dickens Tale of Two Cities, or even from a casual acquaintance with a few of the histories and chronicles of the time, are apt vaguely to picture to themselves a nation composed partly of oppressed, starving peasants, and partly of their oppressors, a race of well-bred ruffians and frivolous, heartless women; all splendidly dressed, graceful, polite, and charming in their manners amongst themselves; but arrogant, cruel, and pitiless to those beneath them.Mme. de Lawoestine, the elder one, whom she describes as an angelic creature in whom no fault could be seen, died at one and twenty in her confinement. It was a terrible shock to her, and, it appears, also to the husband, although the contents of certain tablets of his wifes, which he found and gave to Mme. de Genlis some days [408] after her death, would seem to imply that he would not be inconsolable.If ever we get the upper hand!