Mme. Le Brun returned home and told the good news to her daughters governess. But while they were rejoicing over it they, in the evening, heard one of their servants singing below, a sullen, gloomy fellow who never used to sing, and whom they knew to be a revolutionist. Looking at each other in terror they exclaimedThe camp of Dumouriez lay close at hand, and he had been very good to them; but there would probably be fighting very shortly, and it was said that he and many of his officers had been proscribed by the Convention. It would, she thought, be safer for Mademoiselle dOrlans to go and give herself up at Valenciennes, when she would most likely only be exiled, if that; than to be taken with Mme. de Genlis, as they would then be sent prisoners to Valenciennes and to the scaffold. And it was a great chance if they could pass the French posts.
FORE:Married when a mere child to the Duc de Fleury, great-nephew of the Cardinal, there was no sort of affection between her husband and herself, each went their own way, and they were scarcely ever in each others society. He had also emigrated, but he was not in Rome, and Mme. Le Brun, who was very fond of her, foresaw with anxiety and [100] misgiving the dangers and difficulties which were certain to beset one so young, so lovely, so attractive, and so unprotected, with no one to guide or influence her. Full of romance and passion, surrounded with admiration and temptation, she was already carrying on a correspondence, which could not be anything but dangerous, with the Duc de Lauzun, a handsome, fascinating rou, who had not quitted France, and was afterwards guillotined.The emigrs were not likely to forget the murder of those dear to them, their long years of poverty and exile, and to see with patience their homes and possessions in the hands of strangers.
ONE:Capital letter I
TWO:The Queen read it, burst into tears, and demanded justice and vengeance, which the King, throwing down and trampling on the infamous paper, [399] promised; but said it was difficult to find the persons guilty of writing and selling itit seemed to have been printed in Holland and the authorship was guessed to be one of the Radical set: Voltaire, Brissot, or perhaps the Duc de Chartres.
THREE:After this, Mme. Le Brun went for a few days to Marly to stay with Mme. Auguier, sister of Mme. Campan, and attached like her to the Queens household.Hurrying away, the concierge soon re-appeared with the police and two soldiers. They proceeded to the pavilion; the door was locked, and just then a strange cry arrested their attention. They beat at the door ordering it to be opened, which it immediately was by a man, who said
FORE:
The chateau, built close to the river, was large, picturesque, and dilapidated, with immense court-yards and crumbling towers; on the opposite bank was the Abbaye de Sept-Fonts, where Flicit and her brother were often taken for a treat, crossing the Loire in a boat and dining in the guest-room of the abbey.The alliances with the House of Savoy were much more popular with the court than that with the House of Austria and Lorraine, [86] and caused continual jealousies and disputes. Foreseeing that such would be the case, Louis XV., before the marriage of the Comte de Provence, thought it necessary to caution him on the subject. Louis XVIII. gives in his memoirs [87] the following account of the interview:Thus happily and peacefully the rest of her life flowed on; her interest in all political and social mattersart, science, and literatureremaining undiminished, her affection for old friends unaltered, while new ones were constantly added to the number, until on May 29, 1842, she died at the age of eighty-seven.
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