ONE:Fragonard, the Proven?al, had more depth and dramatic feeling, the passion of the south and the love of nature in his work gave a stronger, truer, more impressive tone to his pictures; but Boucher, the favourite painter of Louis XV., the Marquise de Pompadour, and the court would seem from his pictures to have looked upon everything in life as if it were a scene in a carnival or fte. His goddesses and saints, even the holy Virgin herself, were painted from models from the theatre, and looked as if they were; his gardens, roses, silks, satins, nymphs, fountains, and garlands were the supreme fashion; every one wanted him to paint their portrait; he had more commissions than he could execute, and his head was turned by the flattery lavished upon him.
TWO:His friends, hearing of his arrest, organised a plot for his release, established communications with him, and so skilfully arranged that one morning the [318] Chevalier de left the Luxembourg disguised as a soldier, passed into the streets, and thought he was saved.Indeed, I think we shall go too far; while the Comtesse du Moley and Mme. Le Brun were horror-stricken at the terrible prospects unfolded to them.
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ONE:She had a great wish to see this Empress, whose strange and commanding personality impressed her, besides which she was convinced that in Russia she would soon gain enough to complete the fortune she had resolved to make before returning to France.
TWO:
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ONE:
TWO:PASSING through Chambry, the little party arrived at Turin in pouring rain, and were deposited late at night in a bad inn, where they could get nothing to eat; but the next day the celebrated engraver, Porporati, insisted on their removing to his house, where they spent five or six days. At the Opera they saw the Duc de Bourbon and his son, the unfortunate Duc dEnghien, whose murder was the blackest stain upon the fame of Napoleon. The Duc de Bourbon looked more like the brother than the father of his son; he was only sixteen when the Duc dEnghien was born.
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TWO:One day as they were looking out of a window into the courtyard which opened on to the road, they saw a man stagger in and fall down.
FORE:Lisette was enchanted at this, as she knew that M. Le Brun had rooms full of the most splendid pictures of all the different schools, to which she would thus have constant access. And her anticipations were more than realised, for M. Le Brun was completely fascinated by her, and only too delighted not only to show her the pictures, but to lend her any she liked to copy.
FORE:Over the other column was written, Let us see mine, and these were represented by a column of noughts. At the bottom was written, Total: Satisfaction!!The history of Mme. de Genlis in the emigration differs from the other two, for having contrived to make herself obnoxious both to royalists and republicans her position was far worse than theirs.
FORE:Well in that case I will have you ray immediately for I am persuaded you have never left your country. All those who emigrated have given me so many proofs to the contrary that I am sure you are imposing upon me in an opposite sense, and that you never left Paris. You will receive your radiation in two days.
FORE:Thrusting him away she pulled out the list, held it up to the sans-culottes, and exclaimed with defiance[242]
FORE:Then Trzia knew that she was safe, and that Tallien, for her sake, had overthrown the monster and broken the neck of the Terror. Soon he appeared in triumph to throw open the gates of La Force, and the following day Trzia, accompanied by Frron and Melun de Thionville, went herself to the club of the Jacobins and closed it without any one venturing to take the keys from her.
FORE:[306]In April, 1794, they were sent to the Luxembourg where they found the de Mouchy, who had been there five months, and who were lodged in a room over the one in which the Marchale de Mouchy was born. They had also been married at that palace. The three de Noailles were put in the room above them.
FORE:Balls were not then the crushes they afterwards became. The company was not nearly so numerous; there was plenty of room for those who were not [54] dancing to see and hear what was going on. Mme. Le Brun, however, never cared for dancing, but preferred the houses where music, acting, or conversation were the amusements. One of her favourite salons was that of the charg daffaires of Saxony, M. de Rivire, whose daughter had married her brother Louis Vige. He and her sister-in-law were constantly at her house. Mme. Vige acted very well, was a good musician, and extremely pretty. Louis Vige was also a good amateur actor; no bad or indifferent acting would have been tolerated in the charades and private theatricals in which Talma, Larive, and Le Kain also took part.For six weeks she lay in state in a great room in the palace, which was illuminated day and night. The Emperor had his father, Peter III., brought from the convent where he was buried to be taken at the same time as Catherine to the fortress where all the Russian monarchs are interred. He obliged the assassins of his father to carry the corners of the funeral pall, and himself, bareheaded, with the Empress and all the ladies of the court, with long trains and veils, walked through the snow and fearful cold in the procession from the palace to the fortress.
TWO:For the same reason he had, at the beginning of his career, married Josphine, Vicomtesse de Beauharnais; it was true, as he afterwards declared that he loved her better than he ever loved any woman; but all the same he had decided that his wife must be of good blood, good manners, and good society; and although Josphine was by no means a grande dame, she was in a much better position than himself; and her childrens name, her social connections, her well-bred son and daughter, the charming manners and savoir faire of all three were then and for long afterwards both useful and agreeable to him.But as the size and grandeur of such a residence was no longer suitable to the altered fortunes of its master, he sold it, and only occupied the part called the petit h?tel de Noailles, where Mme. de Montagu also had an apartment.
TWO:After dark a man wrapped in a great cloak, under which he carried some large thing, his hat pulled over his eyes, rang and said The Devil.
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TWO:And a lad of sixteen at the court of Louis XV. was very different from the average lad of that age in these days and this country, a shy, awkward schoolboy who knows nothing of the world or society, can only talk to other boys, and cares for nothing except sports and games. In the France, or at any rate the Paris, of those days, he was already a man and a courtier, probably a soldier, sometimes a husband and father. [50]She spoke in the inflated style of the time, which belonged especially to the ranting, extravagant, theatrical phraseology of that strange collection of individuals who now held supreme power in the country so recently the most civilised and polished in the world.
It was Mme. Jouberthon, afterwards the wife of Lucien Buonaparte.If a play was popular at Versailles it was sure to be hissed at Paris; a disgraced minister was the idol of the mob; the only liveries not insulted were those of Orlans.At five oclock in the morning the gamekeeper came back from Paris with an order of release from the municipality, and at half-past six they arrived at Belle Chasse.There was a moments silence, then Tallien spoke.His was the leading salon of Paris at that time, and Mme. Tallien was the presiding genius there. Music, dancing, and gambling were again the rage, the women called themselves by mythological names and wore costumes so scanty and transparent that they were scarcely any use either for warmth or decency; marriages, celebrated by a civic functionary, were not considered binding, and were frequently and quickly followed by divorce. Society, if such it could be called, was a wild revel of disorder, licence, debauchery, and corruption; while over all hung, like a cloud, the gloomy figures of Billaud-Varennes, Collot dHerbois, Barre, and their Jacobin followers, ready at any moment to bring back the Terror.Much older than the unfortunate Queen of France, and possessing neither her beauty nor charm, Mme. Le Brun did not take a fancy to her, although she received her very well. She was a strange person, with masculine manners and habits; her great pleasure apparently was riding. Very pale and thin, wearing deep mourning for her brother, the Emperor Joseph II., even her rooms being hung with black, she gave the impression almost of a spectre or a shadow.
TWO:
