All the preliminaries were arranged by the families without anything being said upon the subject to the proposed bride, nor probably to the bridegroom either, and when everything was settled it was decided that now nothing was left to do but to consult the personal inclinations of the young [192] people, in preparation for which Pauline was informed in one of the usual family councils of her approaching introduction to her fianc.
ONE:The one proposed for Louise was the second son of her uncle, the Marchal Mouchy de Noailles, a lad of sixteen, who bore the title of Vicomte de Noailles, and was in rank, fortune, and character an extremely suitable marriage for her.
TWO:But the next day passed and she was not called for. All day she waited in a feverish, terrible suspense that can well be imagined; night came and she was still spared. Morning dawned, the morning of the 9th Thermidor. The weather was frightfully oppressive, and in all the prisons in Paris they were stifling from the heat, for the late cruel restrictions had put an end, even in the more indulgent prisons, to the possibility of walks in garden or cloister and the chance of fresh air. But as the long, weary day wore on, there seemed to be some change approaching; there was an uneasy feeling about, for there had lately been rumours of another massacre in the prisons, and the prisoners, this time resolving to sell their lives dearly, had been agreeing upon and arranging what little defence they could make. Some planned a barricade made of their beds, others examined the furniture with a view to breaking it up into clubs, a few brought carefully out knives they had managed to conceal in holes and corners from the prison officials, some filled their pockets with cinders and ashes to fling in the faces of their assailants, and so escape in the confusion, while others, republicans and atheists, felt for the cabanis, a poison they carried about them, and assured themselves that it was all safe and ready for use.
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ONE:The wanderings and perils of Pauline were now at an end. From henceforth her home was with her husband and four children in the old chateau of Fontenay, which they repaired and put in order. It was a fortress built in the reign of Charles VI., and afterwards inhabited and decorated by the Duc dEpernon. The great tower of the castle still bore his name, and the blue and gold ceiling of his bedroom still remained. It had an immense park and lakes, and a great avenue of chestnut-trees led up to the chateau. The Abb Cartier, cur of Fontenay, was a man after her own heart. He had known her mother, for he came very young to the parish, which he loved with all his heart, and which he had only once left, on the approach of a revolutionary mob. Leaving the presbytre with all his own things at their mercy, he hid the cross and all the [263] properties of the church, and as to the statues of the saints which he could not remove, he painted them all over, turning them into National Guards with swords by their sides. He was only persuaded by his people to escape when already the drums of the approaching ruffians were heard in the village, in which they quickly appeared, and rushed into the church. But they found it empty, except for the statues, with which, in their republican garb, they dared not meddle, so they turned their fury upon the presbytre, and when the good Abb returned he found the church uninjured, but all the contents of his house stolen or destroyed. As far as possible, M. and Mme. de Montagu led the simple patriarchal life they preferred at Fontenay, where they were adored by the people, to whom they devoted their time, money, and attention. Under the trees before the castle stone benches were placed for the peasants who came on Sunday evenings to sit about and dance, and the young people with whom the old chateau was always filled joined eagerly in their festivities.
TWO:
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ONE:Oh, well! said the Countess, you must anyhow appear to have somebody; I will lend you M. Denon all the time you are here; he will give you his arm, I will take somebody elses arm, and people will think I have quarrelled with him, for you cant go about here without un ami.
TWO:
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FORE:DAlembert, one of the leading encyclop?dists, like most of them, intensely vain, and about whose origin nothing was known, claimed to be the illegitimate son of the Marquise de Tencin, of scandalous reputation. Mme. de Crquy, in her Souvenirs, scorns the idea, saying also that much of the evil spoken of Mme. de Tencin was untrue; but it is certain that many dark and mysterious rumours clung to the h?tel Tencin, the garden of which extended over what is now the rue de la Paix. Originally intended for the cloister, Mlle. de Tencin refused to take the vows at Grenoble, and was a conspicuous figure in the wild orgies of the Regency. An intimate friend of the notorious John Law, then controller-general of finance, she succeeded, partly by his influence, in getting her brother made Cardinal and Archbishop of Embrun, and during his lifetime did the honours of his h?tel, where, during the days of his power, John Law was a leading spirit. Fortunes were lost and won there in a night, but darker secrets than those of the gambling table were whispered concerning the h?tel Tencin, its inhabitants and guests. More than ordinary scandals, even in the days of the Regent Orlans and his shameless daughters, were circulated, and even the murder of one of her lovers was so far believed that Mme. de Tencin was arrested, though shortly afterwards acquitted.
FORE:How the Duchess could ever consent to and approve of her children being entirely given up to the care of a woman whose principles were absolutely opposed to her own, is astonishing indeed; and perhaps it is still more so that for many years she did notice the infatuation of her husband, and the vast influence Mme. de Genlis had over him. But her eyes had at last been opened, Mme. de Genlis declares, by a Mme. de Chastellux, who was her enemy, and was jealous of her. However that might be with regard to the connection between Mme. de Genlis and the Duc dOrlans, no enlightenment was necessary about the Bastille, the Cordeliers Club, and other revolutionary proceedings. That was surely quite enough; besides which the Duchess had long been awakened to the fact that the governess about whom she had been so infatuated had not only carried on an intrigue with and established an all-powerful influence over her husband, but had extended that influence also over her children to such an extent [421] that her daughter at any rate, if not her two elder sons, probably preferred her to their mother.A discussion was going on about the great difficulty of proving a descent sufficiently pure to gain admittance into the order of the Knights of Malta.
FORE:Flicit and her mother took refuge in an apartment lent them by a friend in a Carmelite convent in the rue Cassette, where they received the visits of different friends in the parloir. Amongst the most assiduous was the Baron dAndlau, a friend of the late M. de Saint-Aubin, a man of sixty, very rich and of a distinguished family. He wished to marry Flicit, who refused him, but so great were the advantages of such an alliance that her mother desired her to reconsider the matter. As she still declined, he turned his attentions to her mother, and married her at the end of a year and a half.Your youth, mes amis; and above all your na?vet. Laws are like sauces: you should never see them made.
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FORE:In Mme. Le Brun, the most gifted of all, we see a beauty, a genius, and a woman unusually charming and attractive, thrown, before she was sixteen, into the society of the magnificent, licentious court of Louis XV. Married to a dissipated, bourgeois spendthrift, for whom she had never cared; sought after, flattered, and worshipped in all the great courts of Europe; courted by fascinating, unscrupulous men of the highest rank, without the protection of family connections and an assured [viii] position; yet her religious principles, exalted character, and passionate devotion to her art, carried her unscathed and honoured through a life of extraordinary dangers and temptations.
TWO:THE year 1788 was the last of the old rgime. Mme. Le Brun was now thirty-two and at the height of her fame and prosperity. She had more commissions than she could execute, more engagements than she could keep, more invitations than she could accept, but her mind was full of gloomy presentiments. She passed the summer as usual between Paris and the country houses where she stayed.Her aunt, Mme. de Montesson, had, since her marriage, been on very friendly and intimate terms with her, although the two had never any real affection for each other, and now, M. de Montesson having died, his widow was aiming at nothing less than becoming the Duchess of Orlans, and found her niece a most useful and sympathetic confidant. For it had suited Mme. de Montesson to have a niece so well placed in society and so much sought after as the young Comtesse de Genlis. Flicit, on her part, was by no means blind to the advantage of having her aunt married to the first prince of the blood, and did everything in her power to forward her plans. The Duke had long been an admirer of Mme. de Montesson, who encouraged his devotion, was continually in his society, but had no intention whatever that their love-making should [380] end in any way but one. It was an ambition that seemed barred with almost insuperable difficulties, and yet it succeeded, though not to the full extent she desired.
$ 0$ 600
TWO:At the barrier came the parting with those she was leaving in the midst of perils. When they would meet again, if they ever did at all, it was impossible to guess.
TWO:Capital letter TIt is true! I have not my cocarde! No doubt I must have forgotten it and left it on my night-cap.
TWO:Like all other nations, the English were horror-stricken at the crimes and cruelties going on in France, and exasperated against their perpetrators, more especially against the Duke of Orlans, who was regarded with universal hatred and contempt.
But his enemy stood before him with a smile of triumph.Society was much larger here than at St. Petersburg, where it seemed almost to form one family, every one being related to each other.Thus she wandered from place to place during the rest of her nine years of exile, generally under an assumed name; going now and then to Berlin, after the Kings death, and to Hamburg, which was full of emigrs, but where she met M. de Talleyrand and others of her own friends. Shunned and denounced by many, welcomed by others, she made many friends of different grades, from the brother and sister-in-law of the King of Denmark to worthy Mme. Plock, where she lodged in Altona, and the good farmer in Holstein, in whose farmhouse she lived. The storms and troubles of her life did not subdue her spirits; she was always ready for a new friendship, enjoying society, but able to do without it; taking an interest in everything, walking about the country in all weathers, playing the harp, reading, teaching a little boy she had adopted and called Casimir, and writing books by which she easily supported herself and increased her literary reputation.
TWO:Capital letter TIt is true! I have not my cocarde! No doubt I must have forgotten it and left it on my night-cap.
