She made one or two journeys to Holland and Belgium when she wished for a change, but in 1775 a terrible grief overtook her, in the death of her son, now five years old. The children were living near, and her mother was then with them when she herself caught measles, and as often happens when they are taken later in life than is usual, she was extremely ill, and it was impossible to tell her that her children had the same complaint.
The Comtesse dAdhmar, who held a post in the Queens household, received one day a note from the Duchesse de Polignac, Governess of the Children of France, asking her to go with her to consult a fortune-teller of whom every one was talking. For many persons who declined to believe in God were ready and eager to put confidence in witchcraft, fortune-telling, spiritualism, or any other form of occult proceedings.Ah! he said, Madame is no ouvrire; it is very well known who she is.The Abbess of the Abbaye-aux-Bois, hearing that a pilgrim was in the habit of coming into the Abbey Church during dinner time when nobody was there, had her watched, and discovered that it was the Duchesse de Noailles, who would stand for an interminable time before a statue of the Virgin, talking and even seeming to dispute with it.
ONE:They passed their time in all the amusements of the vie de chateau in those days.
ONE:Louis XVI. was the most unsuitable person to rule over the French, a nation more than any other alive to, and abhorrent of, any suspicion of ridicule or contempt. And to them the virtues and faults of Louis were alike ridiculous. When he interfered in the love affairs of the Prince de Cond, and ordered the Princesse de Monaco to retire into a convent, the Prince de Cond became his enemy, and people laughed. When he spent hours and hours shut up alone making keys and locks they shrugged their shoulders, and asked if that was a diversion for the descendant of Henri IV. and Louis le Grand.But his enemy stood before him with a smile of triumph.
THREE:No one can judge of what society in France was, wrote Mme. Le Brun in her old age, who has not seen the times when after the affairs of the day were finished, twelve or fifteen agreeable people would meet at the house of a friend to finish the evening there.
She was as happy at Vienna as she could be [121] anywhere under the circumstances. During the winter she had the most brilliant society in Europe, and for the summer she had taken a little house at Sch?nbrunn, near the Polignac, in a lovely situation, to which she always retired when Vienna became too hot, and where she took long solitary walks by the Danube, or sat and sketched under the trees.With anguish she saw one cartload of prisoners leave, and she trembled every moment lest she should hear the sound of the wheels of a second in the courtyard of the prison.CHAPTER IVAlthough, thank Heaven, I have never done harm to anybody, she said. I agree with the man who said: They accuse me of having stolen the towers of Notre Dame; they are still in their place, but I am going, for it is clear that they have a grudge against me.Really, she said, this question seems to me very difficult to solve. A Queen go to see the sun rise! I do not know whether in the days of Louis XIV. it would not have been thought
