ONE:Now Mme. de Tess was an extremely clever, sensible person, who knew very well how to manage her affairs; and, unlike many of her relations and friends, she did not leave her arrangements and preparations until her life was in imminent danger, and then at a moments notice fly from the country, abandoning all her property, with no provision for the future, taking nothing but her clothes and jewels.
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ONE:Only the encyclop?dists and such persons of advanced opinions had any presentiments of the [36] overwhelming changes at hand, and they were far from anticipating the horrible calamities and crimes they were helping to bring about.
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ONE:When the Empress returned from Czarskoiesolo she desired Mme. Le Brun to paint the portraits of the Grand Duchesses Alexandrine and Helena, daughters of the Tsarevitch, then fourteen and thirteen years old, and afterwards that of the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, wife of Alexander, eldest grandson of the Empress, the young girl she had [134] seen on her first visit to Czarskoiesolo, by whom she was completely fascinated.But her household difficulties were serious. Any persons who have passed their youth in ease and comfort, and then find themselves obliged to arrange their lives upon a totally different scale, will understand this. The petty economies which their soul abhors, the absurd mistakes they continually make, often with disastrous results, the perplexity caused by few and incompetent servants, and the doubt as to whether, after all, their expenses will not exceed their resources, hang like millstones round their inexperienced necks in any case.
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