ONE:Then, taking the hand of Mme. de Polignac she turned it over several times, examining it carefully, and said: You are, like the other, in the service of the same lady, who loves you so much that she confides to you her most precious jewels. You love her just as much, but still, in a short time you will leave that lady in haste, and what is more, you will not feel tranquil until you have put three great rivers between you and her. She will cry bitterly when you leave her and yet be very glad of the separation.
THREE:They decided to stay at Aix for the present, and had just taken and furnished a small apartment when they heard the French army, under Dumouriez, was advancing upon Aix.Never in the worlds history was a stranger mingling of generosity and folly, unpractical learning [212] and brutal ignorance, misguided talents and well-meaning stupidity, saintly goodness and diabolical wickedness, heroic deeds and horrible crimes, than in the years ushered in with such triumph and joy by the credulous persons so truly described in later years by Napoleon: Political economists are nothing but visionaries who dream of plans of finance when they are not fit to be schoolmasters in the smallest village.... Your speculators trace their Utopian schemes upon paper, fools read and believe them, every one babbles about universal happiness, and presently the people have not bread to eat. Then comes a revolution.... Necker was the cause of the saturnalia that devastated France. It was he who overturned the monarchy, and brought Louis XVI. to the scaffold.... Robespierre himself, Danton, and Marat have done less mischief to France than M. Necker. It was he who brought about the Revolution.
THREE:When she had painted the head and sketched out the arms and figure, Mme. Le Brun was obliged to go to Paris. She intended to come back to finish her work, but she found the murder of Foulon and Berthier had just taken place, and the state of [77] affairs was so alarming that her one object was to get out of France. The portrait fell into the hands of Count Louis de Narbonne, who restored it to her on her returnwhen she finished it.
THREE:His sister milie was not so fortunate. Arrested upon some frivolous pretext, she was thrown into prison. In desperate anxiety Carle flew to David, who, though a terrorist himself, was a comrade and friend of his, and would surely use his influence to help them. David, however, either could or would do nothing; Mme. Chalgrin was dragged before the revolutionary tribunal, convicted of having corresponded with the princes, condemned, and executed.VOLUMES of denunciation, torrents of execration have been and are still poured forth against the Bastille, the tyranny and cruelty it represented, the vast number and terrible fate of the prisoners confined there and the arbitrary, irresponsible power of which it was the instrument.
