The Duchesse de Chartres continued for a long time very fond of Mme. de Genlis, who was exceedingly attractive, not only because of her beauty, talents, and accomplishments, but because she was so interesting and amusing that it was impossible to be dull in her company. And though she had many faults she had also many excellent qualities. She was very affectionate and kind to those for whom she really cared, she was charitable, good tempered, and courageous; her reputation so far was good, and her respect for religion made her shun the atheistical philosophic set whose opinions on those points she detested. One friend she had [390] among them, the Comte de Schomberg, was an exception to this rule. He was a friend of Voltaire, and a pronounced atheist, but it was an understood thing that no religious subject should be discussed between them, and no word of impiety spoken in her presence. The events of the Revolution converted M. de Schomberg, and he died some years after it an ardent Christian.
TWO years after her marriage the Duchesse dAyen had a son who, to her great grief, lived only a few months, and whose death was followed by the birth of Louise, called Mlle. de Noailles, Adrienne Mlle. dAyen, Thrse Mlle. dEpernon, Pauline Mlle. de Maintenon, and Rosalie Mlle. de Montclar.To receive is to have an open house, where one can go every evening with the certainty of finding it lighted up and inhabited, the host ready to receive one with pleasure and courtesy. For that, it is not an absolute necessity to have a superior intellect, to descend from Charlemagne, or to possess two hundred thousand livres de rentes; but it is absolutely necessary to have knowledge of the world and cultivation, qualities which everybody does not possess.
Director