Against the saintly Marquise de Montagu no breath of scandal could ever be spoken. Such calumnies as were spread against Mme. Le Brun, the work of the revolutionists, who hated her only for her religion and loyalty, never believed by those whose opinion would be worthy of consideration, soon vanished and were forgotten.
Director
Society was much smaller, people knew each other, or at any rate knew much more about each other, than could be the case after the revolution. The Comte dEspinchal was the most extraordinary instance of this essentially social life. He passed his days and nights in going from one party or visit to another; he knew all about everything going [53] on, important or trivial. He appeared to know every one not only at the parties to which he went, but in all the boxes at the Opera, and nearly everybody he met in the streets, so that it was quite inconvenient for him to walk in them, as he was stopped every minute. Not only people at court and in society, but grisettes, employs of the theatres, persons of every class; but though a perfect mine of gossip, he never made mischief.It having come to his knowledge that a plot was preparing for another massacre in the prisons on pretence of conspiracy among the prisoners, whose names and lives were at the mercy of the spies within and the police and gaolers without, he contrived by paying a hundred louis to get his own and Mme. de Coignys liberation, and after the Terror was over they married and went to England for their honeymoon. At the end of two months they were tired of each other, came back to Paris and were divorced, and the Baronne de Montrond again resumed the name of Coigny.The Marquise felt that she had gone too far.The next morning all was changed. The cringing, officious, timid civility of their tyrants left but little doubt in their minds. They clasped each others [334] hands, even then not daring to speak openly or show their joy, until the news, first a whisper, then a certainty, assured them that Robespierre was dead.