At a State ball she first saw again the Empress, Marie Thrse, daughter of the Queen of Naples, whom she found much changed in appearance. She had painted her portrait in 1792.
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.
Lisette was in despair when she saw it, but fortunately some friends of her mothers came one Sunday to dine there with them, and were so shocked that they used often to fetch her away and take her out with them on long excursions to all the parks, chateaux, and delightful places in the neighbourhood.Napoleon gave him a consulship at Alicante, where he spent some years. Before he went, Ouvrard offered him the cottage in the Champs-Elyses and a pension of twelve thousand francs, which he refused with indignation. He was again a journalist, and would live by his pen.[129]To which Lisette replied that she did not know M. L at all except by name; and the matter ended.
