ONE:Among the new friends she found most interesting was Angelica Kaufmann, who lived in Rome, and whose acquaintance she had long desired to make. That distinguished artist was then about fifty years old; her health had suffered from the troubles caused by her unfortunate marriage with an adventurer who had ruined her earlier years. She was now the wife of an architect, whom Lisette pronounced to be like her homme d¡¯affaires. Sympathetic, gentle, and highly cultivated, Lisette found her conversation extremely interesting, although the calmness and absence of enthusiasm in her character contrasted strongly with her own ardent, imaginative nature. She showed her several both of her finished pictures and sketches, of which Lisette preferred the latter, the colour being richer and more forcible.In her altered state of mind Tallien was associated with all the horrors she longed to forget, and she began to wish to free herself from a marriage which in her eyes was only a contract entered into for mutual convenience, to be ended when no longer desirable.
TWO:To which Lisette replied that she did not know M. L¡ª¡ª at all except by name; and the matter ended.D¡¯Alembert, one of the leading encyclop?dists, like most of them, intensely vain, and about whose origin nothing was known, claimed to be the illegitimate son of the Marquise de Tencin, of scandalous reputation. Mme. de Cr¨¦quy, in her ¡°Souvenirs,¡± scorns the idea, saying also that much of the evil spoken of Mme. de Tencin was untrue; but it is certain that many dark and mysterious rumours clung to the h?tel Tencin, the garden of which extended over what is now the rue de la Paix. Originally intended for the cloister, Mlle. de Tencin refused to take the vows at Grenoble, and was a conspicuous figure in the wild orgies of the Regency. An intimate friend of the notorious John Law, then controller-general of finance, she succeeded, partly by his influence, in getting her brother made Cardinal and Archbishop of Embrun, and during his lifetime did the honours of his h?tel, where, during the days of his power, John Law was a leading spirit. Fortunes were lost and won there in a night, but darker secrets than those of the gambling table were whispered concerning the h?tel Tencin, its inhabitants and guests. More than ordinary scandals, even in the days of the Regent Orl¨¦ans and his shameless daughters, were circulated, and even the murder of one of her lovers was so far believed that Mme. de Tencin was arrested, though shortly afterwards acquitted.
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