ONE:Pauline recovered from her illness and returned to Paris during the terrible days of October. Everything [217] was changed, the streets were unsafe to walk in, murders were frequent, bands of ruffians went about threatening and insulting every one whom they suspected or disliked. She fetched her two children back to the rue Chantereine, and resumed her charitable expeditions, though it was dangerous to walk about.
TWO:The hardships and horrors of these prisons, though always terrible, were much worse in some than in others. Far the best were the Luxembourg, Portroyal, then called Port Libre, the convents of the Bndictins anglais, the convents des Oiseaux and des Anglaises, and one or two others, which, in the slang of the day, were called prisons muscadines. [103] There were congregated most of the prisoners of rank and refinement, although in most of the prisons there was a mixture of classes and opinions. There the food and accommodation was much better and the officials more civil, or rather, less brutal, and for a long time the prisoners were allowed to go into the gardens, orchards, avenues, and courts belonging to them, also to amuse themselves together until a certain hour of the night.
ONE:Ni mon sommeil ne sont en proie.The ill-luck which seemed to follow the Dauphin had not forsaken him; a terrible catastrophe marked the ftes given in honour of his wedding. Some scaffolding in the place Louis XV. caught fire. The flames spread with fearful rapidity, a scene of panic and horror ensued, hundreds were burned or trampled to death by the frantic horses or maddened crowd; and with this terrible calamity began the married life of the boy and girl, the gloom and darkness of whose destiny it seemed to foreshadow. [71]
TWO:To this she looked forward with some trepidation, being dreadfully afraid of Mme. de Puisieux, who at first did not like her, and was extremely stiff. She drove down to Versailles in her carriage alone with her, Mme. de Puisieux saying very little, but criticising the way she did her hair. They slept at Versailles, in the splendid apartment of the Marchal dEtre, who was very kind and pleasant to Flicit, and with whom she felt more at home. The next day she was obliged to spend such an enormous time at her toilette that by the time they started she was nearly tired out. Her hair was dressed three times over; everything was [376] the object of some tiresome fuss, to which policy obliged her to submit in silence.They next made a tour about England, including Portsmouth, the Isle of Wight, Derbyshire, Cambridge, several visits to different country houses, and to the Ladies of Llangollen.
