FORE:Mme. de Genlis had friends amongst old and new, French and foreign. The Vernets, Mme. Le Brun, Mme. Grollier, Gros, Gerard, Isabey, Cherubini, Halvy, all the great singers and musicians were among her friends. She lived to see the first years of the brilliant, too short career of Malibran. Pasta, Grassini, Talma, Garat, and numbers of other artistic celebrities mingled with [481] her literary friends. The household of Isabey was like an idyl. He had met his wife in the Luxembourg gardens, a beautiful girl who went there to lead about her blind father. They married and were always happy though for a long time poor. But the fame of Isabey rose; he was professor of painting at the great school of Mme. Campan, where every one under the Empire sent their daughters. He painted Josphine and all the people of rank and fashion, and received them all at his parties in his own h?tel. Mme. Isabey lived to be eighty-eight, always pretty and charming. Her hair was white, she always dressed in white lace and muslin, and had everything white in her salon, even to an ivory spinning wheel.
FORE:Adrienne had brought Pauline a copy of their mothers will, and, not being an emigre, had taken possession of the castle and estate of Lagrange, left to herself. She only spent a short time at Altona, and started for Austria.The next time they met he was secretary to Alexandre de Lameth. Trzia was standing on the steps of their h?tel with Mme. Charles de Lameth when he came with his hands full of letters.
FORE:Mme. Le Brun was now virtually separated from her husband, with whom it would have been impossible for her to live unless she were prepared to allow him to spend her fortune, and reduce her to beggary. She soon collected round her a large society of friends, and resumed the soires at which they amused themselves as far as possible after their old fashion, acting tableaux vivants, &c.
THREE:The Queen had bad health and saw very little of them, although she loved them in her apathetic way, but she was too much occupied with her devotions, her nerves, and her health to trouble herself much about them. If there was going to be a thunder-storm, or she was nervous and could not go to sleep, she would make one of her ladies sit by her bed all night, holding her hand and telling her stories. On [168] one occasion, after the death of the Kings mistress, the Duchesse de Chateauroux, she was dreadfully afraid lest she should see her ghost, and so tormented the lady-in-waiting who sat by her, that she at last exclaimed
THREE:She could receive her friends as she pleased; her literary reputation stood very high; the Duchesse de Chartres was still infatuated about her; while the Duke
