FORE:Amongst other old friends whom she now frequented was the Comtesse de Sgur, who equally disliked the alterations in social matters.Mme. Le Brun generally spent the evening alone with Mme. Du Barry by the fireside. The latter would sometimes talk of Louis XV. and his court, always with respect and caution. But she avoided many details and did not seem to wish to talk about that phase of her life. Mme. Le Brun painted three portraits of her in 1786, 1787, and in September, 1789. The first was three-quarters length, in a peignoir with a straw hat; in the second, painted for the Duc de Brissac, she was represented in a white satin dress, leaning one arm on a pedestal and holding a crown in the other hand. This picture was afterwards bought by an old general, and when Mme. Le Brun saw it many years later, the head had been so injured and re-painted that she did not recognise it, though the rest of the picture was intact.
Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
FORE:The Count and Countess de Genlis accompanied the Duke and Duchess de Chartres to Bordeaux, where he embarked, after a naval review; and the Duchess proceeded on a tour in Italy. To Flicit this was a time of enchantment. The journeys at that time were adventurous, and the Cornice road was then an affair of difficulty if not danger. They went by sea to Nice, spent a week in that delicious climate, and determined to make what she called the perilous journey from Nice to Genoa. They [400] went on mules over the pass by Turbia, and found the Cornice as she says truly a cornicheso narrow that in some places they could hardly pass singly, and often they had to get down and walk. They slept at Ospedaletto, the Duchess, Flicit, and the Countess de Rully in one room; the Duchess on a bed made of the rugs of the mules, the others, on cloaks spread upon a great heap of corn. After six days of perils and fatigues, and what they called horrible precipices, they got to Genoa.
Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
FORE:As Mme. Le Brun remarked in her own case: It is no longer a question of fortune or success, it is only a question of saving ones life, but many people were rash enough to think and act otherwise, and frequently paid dearly for their folly. Mme. de Fleury returned to Paris while, or just before, the Terror was raging, and availed herself of the revolutionary law, by which a husband or wife who had emigrated might be divorced. But soon after she had dissolved her marriage and resumed the name of Coigny she was arrested and sent to St. Lazare, one of the most terrible of the prisons of the Revolution, then crowded with people of all ages, ranks, and opinions.
Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
FORE:Come, Marquis, try to have a spark of reason. It is my life I ask of youmy life.
Cras consequat iaculis lorem, id vehicula erat mattis quis. Vivamus laoreet velit justo, in ven e natis purus.
FORE:And small wonder! Was the Duchess of Orlansa woman of saintly character and the great grand-daughter [121] of Louis XIV.to tolerate the governess of her children being seen in a den of blasphemy and low, unspeakable vice and degradation like the Cordeliers Club, or their being themselves shown with rejoicing a scene of horror and murder, and join in the triumph of ruffians who were attacking their religion, and the King and Queen, who were also their own cousins? Was it possible that anybody in their senses would tolerate such a governess? Added to which the Duchess was now aware of the terms on which Mme. de Genlis and the Duke stood to each other. It could no longer be said of herWhen Tallien had fallen and Napoleon was supreme she ceased to go near her.
FORE:The hand of Charlotte Corday had sent Marat to his own place; Danton and Camille Desmoulins, beginning to have some slight glimmerings of mercy and humanity, had been denounced and executed; Robespierre was still triumphant, with his friends and satellites, Couthon, St.-Just and David. With them and Foulquir-Tinville, Paris was like hell upon earth. Long lists of victims, numbers of whom were women, went every day to the guillotine; the populace were getting weary of blood and slaughter. Again Tallien [331] made an attempt to get the release of Trzia, even suggesting that it was time to stop the murder of women. Even David agreed; but Robespierre was inexorable.At a concert in Milan she made the acquaintance of the Countess Bistri, a beautiful Pole, who was also going to Vienna with her husband. They arranged to travel together, and this was the beginning of a long and intimate friendship.
FORE:Ah! Monseigneur! What an indignity! Do you see that man near that console? a man in a pink coat with a waistcoat of blue and silver, wearing spectacles?The King, after the death of Mme. de Pompadour, of whom he had become tired, lived for some years without a reigning favourite, in spite of the attempts of various ladies of the court to attain to that post. His life was passed in hunting, in the festivities of the court, and in a constant succession of intrigues and liaisons for which the notorious Parc aux cerfs was a sort of preserve. His next and last recognised and powerful mistress was Mme. Du Barry.
FORE:This was a severe disappointment to the Duke, who had already begun to occupy himself with his sons future, but the Duchess, whose saintly mind had been tormented with misgivings about the future life of the boy whose prospects then seemed so brilliant and so full of temptations, and who did not probably consider the Duke, her husband, a very promising or trustworthy guide and example, resigned herself to the loss of the heir, whom she had even in her prayers entreated God to take out of this world rather than allow him to be tainted by the vice and corruption with which she foresaw he would be surrounded in it.
FORE:
