THREE:Their first house in Paris was a sort of imitation cottage, after the execrable taste of the day, in the Champs-Elyses, from which they moved into a h?tel in the rue de la Victoire, which was for some time the resort of all the chiefs of their political party, and the scene of constant contention between the Thermidoriens and the remnants of the Montagne. The discussions were generally political, and often violent; they would have been abhorrent to the well-bred society of former days.It was then she made her well-known answer to Bailly, Jai tout vu, tout su, et tout oubli.
THREE:When Louis XV. remarked that it was a pity the Comte de Provence was not the eldest of his grandsons, that he knew what he was saying is evident [207] from the fact that though all three of them inherited the crown, the Comte de Provence was the only one who succeeded in keeping it.
THREE:
TWO:She still lived in the rue de Clry, where M. Le Brun had a large, richly furnished apartment, but as he used nearly the whole of it as a picture gallery, his wife had only two simply furnished rooms for herself, which, however, on her at-home nights [51] were thronged with everybody of any distinction, either at court or in the town, in fact, so great was the crowd that people were to be seen sitting on the floor, from which, on one occasion, the Marchal de Noailles, being very old and fat, could hardly be got up again.
TWO:The state and power of some of these abbesses, and the comfortable, cheerful security of their lives at that time made the position much sought after. It was a splendid provision for the daughters of great houses, and a happy life enough if they did not wish to marry. The following anecdote is given by Mme. de Crquy, and, although it happened rather earlier in the eighteenth century, perhaps forty or fifty years before the time now in question, it is so characteristic of the state of things that still prevailed that it may not be out of place to give it.