The young Emperor and Empress showed the same kindness and friendship to Mme. Le Brun as their parents and grandmother, but the time had come when she was resolved to return to France, and in spite of the entreaties of the Emperor and Empress, of her friends, and of her own regret at leaving a country to which she had become attached, she started in September, 1801, for Paris, leaving her ungrateful daughter, her unsatisfactory son-in-law, and her treacherous governess behind.
FORE:Well, Monsieur, I am waiting for your criticism.Constantine, although very young, was married to the Princess Anne of Coburg, of whom Mme. Le Brun remarked that without being so lovely as the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, she was still very pretty, very lively, and only sixteen years old. She was not happy with Constantine, from whom she separated after a time and went back to her own family.
In her altered state of mind Tallien was associated with all the horrors she longed to forget, and she began to wish to free herself from a marriage which in her eyes was only a contract entered into for mutual convenience, to be ended when no longer desirable.M. de Beaune, who came later on to take a farewell look at the ruined home of his ancestors, chose part of it to furnish the house he had bought to make his home at Lyons. He also found an old carriage in which he departed to that city. The property of the Marchal de Noailles, who died in 1793, had all been confiscated and sold, except some remains which were swallowed up by creditors. All that remained was the ruined castle of Noailles, which Pauline would never sell, though after her father had placed it in her hands she was offered two thousand cus for it. Mme. de Tess bought a charming house, which was always filled with her nephews, nieces, and friends, and though again she had plenty of cows, she no longer had occasion to sell the milk. As she grew older her ideas became more devout and her faith stronger, to the great consolation of her nieces, especially of her favourite Pauline.For the only consolation was that now the monsters were turning on each other; there were, in fact, more republicans than royalists in the [327] prisons. Every now and then some blood-stained miscreant was brought in amongst those whose homes he had wrecked, whose dear ones he had murdered, and whose fate he was now to share; while all shrunk in horror from him, or mocked and triumphed as he passed. When Chaumette, the high priest of the Revolution, one of the most blasphemous and blood-stained wretches of all, was brought to the Luxembourg, the prisoners would look through the little guichet where he was shut up, asking each other, Have you seen the wolf?MADAME ROYALE
