The two sisters had not met since the interview at the inn during the triumphal progress of the La Fayette. It was a mercy that Pauline had not believed in their Utopia nor taken their advice. Even now Adrienne was only exchanging one [252] prison for another, for she was shortly going to Austria to obtain leave to share that of La Fayette.
Capital letter AIt was dearly bought, however. For some time, for prudence sake, the Marquis kept up his pretence of madness, but after the fall of Robespierre and the Terror he resumed the apparent use of his reason. But the next heir had taken possession of the estates of the family in consequence of the declared madness of its head. The Marquis appealed to the law, but his own notoriety and the last will and letter of the Chevalier decided the case against him. He was shut up in the asylum of Charenton, where [320] he lived for many years, resigning himself after a time to his fate, and dying in extreme old age.
ONE:Mme. de Genlis went with M. de Valence to see her two days after her return, and was coldly received, but their relations to each other quickly returned to their usual terms.
This foretaste of the Revolution Mme. de Genlis did not like at all, and she began to think she would rather not be in France now that the plans and friends so lately her admiration were succeeding so well.After supper one evening she had retired to her room and was sitting up late, writing; when one of the mirrors moved, and from a door behind it entered M. de Lascaris, and threw himself at her feet. She sprang up with a cry, the table fell upon him, the lamp went out, her maid rushed inalarmed by her mistress calling loudly for herin her nightdress candle in hand, while M. de Lascaris disappeared through the door he had came in by, with a cut on his cheek from the table, which excited the curiosity and laughter of the court. To Flicit Italy was one long enchantment, and with reluctance she came back to France.[140]The applause with which she was welcomed on entering the salon so overcame her that she burst into tears. Next day those of her friends who had survived the Revolution began to flock to see her. Her old friend, Mme. Bonneuil, was among the first, and invited her to a ball the following night given by her daughter, now the celebrated beauty, Mme. Regnault de Saint-Jean-dAngely, to which she went in a dress made of the gold-embroidered India muslin given her by the unfortunate Mme. Du Barry.CHAPTER IIThe first great sorrow was the death of Mme. de la Fayette on Christmas Eve, 1808, at the age of forty-eight. Her health had been completely undermined by the terrible experiences of her imprisonments; and an illness caused by blood-poisoning during her captivity with her husband in Austria, where she was not allowed proper medical attendance, was the climax from which she never really recovered. She died as she had lived, like a saint, at La Grange, surrounded by her broken-hearted husband and family, and by her own request was buried at Picpus, where, chiefly by the exertions of the three sisters, a church had been built close to the now consecrated ground where lay buried their mother, sister, grandmother, with many other victims of the Terror.