TWO:The Louvre, then filled with works of art��the [148] plunder of the rest of Europe��was naturally a great attraction, in fact so absorbed was Lisette in the wonders it contained that she was shut in when it closed, and only escaped passing the night there by knocking violently at a little door she discovered. The aspect of Paris depressed her; still in the streets were the inscriptions, ��Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,�� which in France bore so horrible a meaning. Many of the friends for whom she inquired had perished on the scaffold; nearly all who survived had lost either parents, husband, wife, or some other near relation. The change in dress gave her a gloomy impression; the absence of powder, which she was accustomed to see in other countries, the numerous black coats which had displaced the gorgeous velvets, satin, and gold lace of former days��in her opinion made a theatre or an evening party look like a funeral; the manners and customs of the new society were astonishing and repulsive to her.The arrangement proved entirely satisfactory. Lisette went about all day with M. Denon, in gondolas, and to see everything��churches, pictures, palaces; every one who knows Venice even now, knows it as a place of enchantment, unlike anything else on earth; and in those days the Doge still reigned, modern desecrations and eyesores were not, and the beauty of the life and surroundings of the Queen of the Adriatic was supreme.

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