Gregory Orloff became her all-powerful favourite, and although she would never agree to his preposterous ambition and allow him to be married to her and crowned Emperor, she loaded the Orloff family with riches and honours, which they retained after other favourites had succeeded the gigantic guardsman in her affections.
FORE:In 1808 and 1809 Mme. Le Brun travelled in Switzerland, with which she was enraptured; after which she bought a country house at Louveciennes, [155] where in future she passed the greater part of the year, only spending the winter in Paris.
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People are stupid, answered the prince, who have not the sense to do properly what they undertake to do.She posed as a victim, talked of jealousy, slander, ingratitude, &c., and went on with her intimacy with the Duc de Chartres, who was at that time engaged in the most abominable intrigues and secret attacks upon the Royal Family, especially the Queen; and whether rightly or wrongly, Mme. de Genlis was supposed to be mixed up with them.She had far better have remained in her old home, poor and free; for directly they were married she discovered the real character of her second husband: an ill-tempered, avaricious man, who refused his wife and step-children even the necessaries of life, although Lisette was foolish enough to give him all she earned by her portraits. She hated him still more because he had taken possession of her fathers clothes, which he wore, to her grief and indignation. Joseph Vernet, who, like many of her old friends, still interested himself in her, was furious at all this, and represented to her that she ought to pay a certain pension to her odious step-father and keep the rest of the money herself; but she feared such a [24] suggestion might make matters worse for her mother, and therefore went on allowing herself to be robbed.When presented to the Queen it was customary to bow low enough to appear to kneel in order to take up the edge of her dress, but her Majesty never allowed that to be carried to the lips of the lady presented, but let it fall with a slight movement of her fan, which Marie Antoinette always executed with singular grace. A duchess or grande dEspagne then seated herself before the Queen, but only for a moment, a privilege known as the tabouret. After retiring, of course backwards, with a mantle the train of which had to be eight ells on the ground, [200] people went to be presented to all the other princes and princesses of the royal family.But it is confidently affirmed that Robespierre pursued Trzia, with even more than his usual vindictiveness. He begged the Marquis de la Valette, a ci-devant noble and yet a friend of his, to prevent the escape of this young woman whom they both knew, for the safety of the Republic. But M. de la Valette, although he was not ashamed so far to degrade himself as to be the friend of Robespierre, shrank from being the instrument of this infamy; and not only warned Trzia but offered her the shelter of his roof, which, for some reason or other, she declined. She was arrested and sent to La Force, one of the worst prisons of the Revolution, with the additional horror of being au secret. She had too many and too powerful friends to be sacrificed without difficulty and risk, and it was, in fact, his attack upon her that gave [321] the finishing blow to the tottering tyranny of Robespierre.
FORE:What nonsense?