TWO:I have no one with me, replied she, but my daughter and her governess.Mme. de Polignac shuddered; exclaiming that she would never of her own accord leave her mistress, or if an absence was necessary to her health it should be a short one.
TWO:Mme. de Clermont had been married at fifteen to the Comte de Choisi, who was much older than herself, and of whom she was dreadfully afraid; but he was killed at the battle of Minden, and she had just married the Comte de Clermont, who was deeply in love with her. She was young, pretty, very capricious, and a friend of Mme. de Montesson, and with all her faults never dull or tiresome, but full of merry talk and amusing stories; the Comtesse de Polignac and the Marquise de Barbantour were also among the ladies of the household [387] with whom Flicit was now associated; two much older ones were the Comtesses de Rochambault and de Montauban.
TWO:Poinsinet, the author, was a man of very different calibre. That he had plenty of ability was proved by the fact that on the same evening he obtained three dramatic successes, i.e., Ernelinde at the Opera, Le Cercle at the Fran?ais, and Tom Jones at the Opra-Comique. But his absurd credulity made him the object of continual practical jokes, or mystifications as they were called.
TWO:The hardships and horrors of these prisons, though always terrible, were much worse in some than in others. Far the best were the Luxembourg, Portroyal, then called Port Libre, the convents of the Bndictins anglais, the convents des Oiseaux and des Anglaises, and one or two others, which, in the slang of the day, were called prisons muscadines. [103] There were congregated most of the prisoners of rank and refinement, although in most of the prisons there was a mixture of classes and opinions. There the food and accommodation was much better and the officials more civil, or rather, less brutal, and for a long time the prisoners were allowed to go into the gardens, orchards, avenues, and courts belonging to them, also to amuse themselves together until a certain hour of the night.At the time of the marriage of the young M. and Mme. dAyen, the Princesse Adla?de had to some extent, though never entirely, succeeded the Princesse Henriette in the Kings affection, and was now supposed to be his favourite daughter. She had, however, none of her elder sisters charm, gentleness, or beauty; being rather plain, with a voice like that of a man. She had a strong, decided character, and more brains than her younger sisters, Victoire, Sophie, and Louise; she was fond of study, especially of music, Italian, and mathematics.
