ONE: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.The chanoinesses all bore the title of Countess; that chosen for Flicit was Comtesse de Lancy, her father being Seigneur of Bourbon-Lancy.
They frequented the society of the Queen, went to balls, theatricals, and to suppers given by the esprits forts, such as the Marchale de Luxembourg, the old Duchesse de la Vallire, a great friend of M. de Beaune, who was a Noailles, and a contemporary of Louis XIV. [75]; also of the Marchale de Mirepoix, a leading member of society.Why, in that case, Trzia should have allowed them to interfere with her appears perplexing, as they would, of course, have had no authority to do so. M. La Mothe proceeded to say that he and a certain M. Edouard de C, both of whom were in love with her, accompanied them to Bagnres de Bigorre. There he and Edouard de C quarrelled and fought a duel, in which he, M. La Mothe, was wounded; whereupon Trzia, touched by his danger and returning his love for her, remained to nurse him, while his rival departed; and informing her uncle and brother that she declined any further interference on their part, dismissed them. That the uncle returned to his bank in Bayonne, and [290] the brother, with Edouard de C, to the army; that Cabarrus was killed the following year; and that, after some time, M. La Mothe and Trzia were separated by circumstances, he having to rejoin his regiment, while she remained at Bordeaux. [91] But however the principles she had adopted may have relaxed her ideas of morality, they never, as will be seen during the history of her life, interfered with the courage, generosity, and kindness of heart which formed so conspicuous a part of her character, and which so often met with such odious ingratitude.MADAME ROYALEThey frequented the society of the Queen, went to balls, theatricals, and to suppers given by the esprits forts, such as the Marchale de Luxembourg, the old Duchesse de la Vallire, a great friend of M. de Beaune, who was a Noailles, and a contemporary of Louis XIV. [75]; also of the Marchale de Mirepoix, a leading member of society.
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