ONE:Madame Victoire was very pretty, all the rest except the two eldest, were plain; and her parents were delighted with her when she returned from the convent. The King and Dauphin went to meet her at Sceaux and took her to Versailles to the Queen, who embraced her tenderly. Neither she nor her younger sisters were half educated, but the Dauphin, who was very fond of them and had great influence over them persuaded them to study.
TWO:At this time, however, everything even in these prisons had become much worse, [104] the restrictions were severe, the number executed far greater, the [325] gaolers more brutal, and the perils and horrors of those awful dwellings more unheard of.
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ONE:Mme. de Valence, daughter of Mme. de Genlis came to them at Tournay, but very soon had to hurry back to France as the Austrian army was coming up.
TWO:After her proceedings at the Bastille and the Cordeliers, and considering her connection with the revolutionary party, Mme. de Genlis (or Sillery, as she was also called) need not have expressed the surprise and indignation she did at the arrival of a body of police to search her house for arms, reported to be stored there. They were sent by La Fayette, who had done even more mischief than she had; but for some reason they did not like each other. The touchy, conceited Republican poet, Marie Joseph Chnier, who ranted against religion, royalty, and everything and everybody superior to himself, began to make love to Mme. de Genlis, and when she objected to his impertinent familiarity, said furiously: You are right; I am [418] neither a grand seigneur nor a duke!which specimen of the manners of her party disgusted her extremely. In her Mmoires she relates of this worthy that he was accused of having participated in the condemnation of his brother Andr, also a poet, executed under the Terror. This was, however, almost certainly untrue, but it was said that he could have saved him if he had made use of the influence he possessed with the Terrorists, but that he either feared or did not care to do so. The celebrated actress, Mlle. Dumesnil, then old and infirm, received one day a visit from him, during which he tormented her to recite something for him. She was ill in bed, but nevertheless he went on begging that she would recite only one line that he might say he had heard her, when, turning towards him with a violent effort she saidCome, Monsieur, said the police official, I see there is some mistake. What is your name?
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ONE:To her joy she met her old friend Doyen, the painter. He had emigrated two years after her, and arrived at St. Petersburg with no money. The Empress came to his assistance and offered him the directorship of the Academy of Arts. He settled in the Russian capital, where he got plenty of employment, painting both pictures and ceilings for the Empress, who liked him, and for the Russian nobles. The Empress gave him a place near her own box at the theatre, and used often to talk to him.
TWO:
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FORE:E. H. BearneIt consisted, at the death of Louis XV., of the King, aged nineteen; the Queen, eighteen; the Comte de Provence, eighteen; the Comtesse de Provence, twenty; the Comte dArtois, seventeen; and the Comtesse dArtois, eighteen. Of Mesdames Adla?de, Victoire, Sophie, and Louise, the last of whom was a Carmelite nun, and whose ages were from thirty-eight to forty-three.
FORE:Mme. du Deffand then occupied one in another [366] part of the building, but at that time they had no acquaintance with her. The philosophers and the atheistic set had never at any time in her life the least attraction for Flicit, who held their irreligious opinions in abhorrence.Their first house in Paris was a sort of imitation cottage, after the execrable taste of the day, in the Champs-Elyses, from which they moved into a h?tel in the rue de la Victoire, which was for some time the resort of all the chiefs of their political party, and the scene of constant contention between the Thermidoriens and the remnants of the Montagne. The discussions were generally political, and often violent; they would have been abhorrent to the well-bred society of former days.
FORE:Three weeks after her arrival a letter from London brought the news that the Marchal de Mouchy and his wife, uncle and aunt of Mme. de Tess, great-uncle and great-aunt of Pauline, had been guillotined on the 27th of June. For the crime of giving help to some poor priests they were arrested and sent to La Force, whence they were transferred to the Luxembourg where they were the object of universal reverence and sympathy. When, after a time, they were summoned to the Conciergerie, which was the vestibule of the tribunal, and was looked upon as the gate of death, the Marchal begged that no noise might be made as he did not wish Mme. la Marchal to know of his going, for she had been ill.Such prophecies in the height of their prosperity seemed so absurd that they laughed, gave the wizard a large fee, and returned home, thinking the whole adventure very amusing.
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FORE:People were presented first to the King, then to the Queen, in different salons; of course magnificently dressed. The King, now that he was Louis XVI., very often did not speak but always made a friendly, gracious gesture, and kissed the lady presented, on one cheek only if she was a simple femme de qualit; on both if she was a duchess or grande dEspagne, or bore the name of one of the families who possessed the hereditary right to the honours of the Louvre and the title of cousin of the King.
TWO:She met her daughters in a mountain village near Clermont, and the deep, fervent joy of their restoration to each other out of the shadow of death was increased by finding that the priest had just ventured to reopen the village church, where on the next day, Sunday, they again attended mass in that secluded place, and where Virginie, the younger girl, made her first Communion. And she had seen Rosalie, for Mme. de Grammont heard of her sisters release, and resolved to join her. Having very little money, and travelling by public conveyances being still unsafe, taking her diamonds she rode a mule with her three children in paniers, and her husband walking by her side. Thus they journeyed by steep mountain paths, or country lanes, but always by the most secluded ways possible. When they reached Paris, Adrienne was gone, but they resumed their primitive travelling, followed her to Auvergne, and came up with her at the little town of Brionde.Well, but you call yourself friends.
TWO:Plus dun baiser payait ma chansonette,They had systematically augmented his suspicions till they induced him to sign an order for the arrest of the Empress, the Tsarevitch, and the Grand Duke Constantine, and this document they showed the Tsarevitch, saying: You see that your father is mad, and you will all be lost unless we prevent it by shutting him up instead.
TWO:One of her new friends was the Countess Kinska, who, as she observed, was neither maid, wife, nor widow, for she and her husband had been married according to their parents arrangement, without ever having seen each other, and after the ceremony Count Kinska, turning to her, said
Cherchons bien les chemisesIt was fixed, therefore, for the 8th of December; Rosalie helped her sister with all the necessary purchases and packing, so that the servants might not discover where she was going, and, on the morning of the day before their parting, the two sisters went at the break of day through the falling snow to receive the Communion at a secret Oratory, going a long way round for fear their footprints in the snow should betray them. The day was spent in finishing their preparations, and after her child was in bed Pauline wrote her farewell to her mother and eldest sister. The night was far advanced when the letters were finished, and her eyes still bore traces of tears when, before morning dawned, she rose and prepared to start.And he saw that his influence was declining and with it the love of the woman to whom he was still devoted.She sent the Countess Woronsoff to her fathers estates in the country, dismissed Poniatowski from St. Petersburg, and tried to reconcile the ill-matched couple; but in vain. She died soon afterwards, and Peter III., a German at heart, proceeded on his accession to make himself hated in Russia by his infatuation for everything Prussian; Prussia being the nation of all others disliked by his subjects. He discarded the French and Austrian alliance, attached himself to Frederic, King of Prussia, and besides all the unpopular changes he made in his own army, accepted the rank of an officer in that of Prussia, wore the Prussian uniform, and declared that he preferred the title of a Prussian Major-General to any other he possessed!