ONE:You are suffering, said the Duchess; come confide in me, we are both French in a foreign land, and ought to help and comfort each other. [139]As an Abbess of Montivilliers is not rigorously cloistered, my aunt, who was perfectly charitable and courageous, thought herself obliged to go out to the first court, and did so, at any rate with a cortge suitable to her dignity.
THREE:She was received with delight at her house in the rue du Gros-Chenet, by M. Le Brun, her brother, her sister-in-law, and their only child, the niece who was to fill her daughters place. The house was beautifully furnished and filled with flowers, and that same evening a grand concert in her honour was given in the large salon of a house in a garden adjoining, which also belonged to M. Le Brun, who told her that he had during the [147] Revolution, when the churches were closed, lent this salon to celebrate mass.Aimez vous toujours les hommes?
THREE:Her eldest girl, Caroline, was of a charming disposition, and remarkably beautiful. She inherited her own musical talents and was extremely clever and accomplished. When she was fourteen she was married to a Belgian, the Marquis de Lawoestine; and the wedding was celebrated with great state [404] at the Palais Royal, the Marchal Prince de Soubise acting as father to the bridegroom. She gave the young girl a magnificent trousseau, diamonds, plate, porcelaines, &c., and after the ceremony her daughter was left under her care for two years more.
THREE:Oui, Sire, quand ils sont polis.Besides her delight in wandering through these galleries where she would stand before her favourite pictures, never tired of studying them, absorbed in their beauty, she copied heads from Rubens, Rembrandt, Vandyke, Greuze, and others, and although she was only fourteen years old, the portraits she painted were not only becoming known, but were the principal support of the family, besides paying for the school expenses, books, and clothes of her brother.