The fate of Mme. Du Barry is well known. She escaped to England where she was kindly received, and where the great value of her diamonds enabled her to live quite well herself, and also to help many of the emigrs, to whom she was most generous. But the Duc de Brissac had remained concealed at Louveciennes, and she insisted on going back to him. The friends she made in England pointed out the danger of doing so, and did all they could to dissuade herthey even unharnessed the horses of her travelling carriage. It was all useless, she would go. Soon after her return to Louveciennes the Duc de Brissac was seized and carried away from her to be taken to Orlans. On the way he and his companions were attacked and murdered by the mob and his head brought to Mme. Du Barry. Then she herself was betrayed and denounced by a little negro named Zamore, who was in her service, and had been loaded with benefits and kindness by Louis XV. and by herself. In consequence of the denunciation of this wretch she was thrown into prison, tried, and executed at the end of 1793.
ONE:Never in the worlds history was a stranger mingling of generosity and folly, unpractical learning [212] and brutal ignorance, misguided talents and well-meaning stupidity, saintly goodness and diabolical wickedness, heroic deeds and horrible crimes, than in the years ushered in with such triumph and joy by the credulous persons so truly described in later years by Napoleon: Political economists are nothing but visionaries who dream of plans of finance when they are not fit to be schoolmasters in the smallest village.... Your speculators trace their Utopian schemes upon paper, fools read and believe them, every one babbles about universal happiness, and presently the people have not bread to eat. Then comes a revolution.... Necker was the cause of the saturnalia that devastated France. It was he who overturned the monarchy, and brought Louis XVI. to the scaffold.... Robespierre himself, Danton, and Marat have done less mischief to France than M. Necker. It was he who brought about the Revolution.Mme. de Genlis, however, found an opportunity of writing to the Duchess of Orlans in France; the Duke was by this time arrested.
TWO:Mme. Du Barry received Mme. Le Brun with the greatest politeness and attention; she was now about forty-two, and still extremely handsome. The brilliant beauty of her complexion had begun to fade, but her face was still charming, her features [75] beautiful, her figure tall and well-made, and her hair fair and curled like that of a child.
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ONE:Amongst other contrasts to be remarked between Louis XIV. and Louis XV., was the opposite way in which they treated their numerous illegitimate children.When it was too late he ordered a carriage and tried to leave, but was stopped by the gardes-nationales and servants. La Fayette on his white horse rode with the cavalcade, full of uneasiness, for he saw that he could not control the followers with whom he had imagined himself to be all-powerful, their crimes and cruelties were abhorrent to him, and the fearful position of the King and royal family alarmed and distressed him.
TWO:Mlle. Georgette Ducrest, a cousin of Mme. de Genlis, had emigrated with her family, who were [454] protected by Mme. de Montesson and Josphine, and now applied for radiation.She also was thrown very early into society; but she entered it as a member of one of the greatest families in France, surrounded by an immense number of relations of the highest character and position.
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ONE:
TWO:Neither of the young wives were altogether fortunate, for some years later two beautiful Polish girls, whose father had been killed in the Polish war, were brought by their mother to the Russian court. The eldest and prettiest was only sixteen, and was married to Prince Narischkin, but the overpowering passion which she inspired in the Emperor Alexander is well known; whilst her sister captivated the terrible Constantine.It having come to his knowledge that a plot was preparing for another massacre in the prisons on pretence of conspiracy among the prisoners, whose names and lives were at the mercy of the spies within and the police and gaolers without, he contrived by paying a hundred louis to get his own and Mme. de Coignys liberation, and after the Terror was over they married and went to England for their honeymoon. At the end of two months they were tired of each other, came back to Paris and were divorced, and the Baronne de Montrond again resumed the name of Coigny.
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TWO:Of everything, I suppose, since there is nothing they can bring against me.
FORE:Mon beau voyage encore est si loin de sa fin;The wedding took place in the spring of 1783, before her seventeenth birthday. The presents and corbeille were magnificent, and every day, between the signing of the contract and the marriage, Pauline, in a splendid and always a different dress, received the visits of ceremony usual on these occasions. As her family and her husbands were related to or connected with every one of the highest rank in France, all the society of Paris passed through the h?tel de Noailles on those interminable evenings, which began at six oclock and ended with a great supper, while Pauline sat by her mother, and was presented to every one who came.
FORE:Having no money young Isabey supported himself at Paris by making designs for snuff-boxes and buttons. The Comte dArtois saw the buttons, which had become very much the fashion, admired them, and desired that Isabey should be presented to him. He was also presented to the Comtesse dArtois, rapidly got commissions, painted portraits of different members of the royal family and court, and was becoming more and more prosperous when the Revolution broke out, and he was apparently ruined.
FORE:
FORE:There can be no doubt that, as always happens in these cases, a great deal was said that was neither true nor possible. It was inevitable that it should be so; but her way of going on, both politically and in other ways, was decidedly suspicious.
FORE:Then you know Mme. Le Brun very well, Monsieur?
FORE:By their affectionate and devoted love the rest of her life was made happy, even after the far greater loss in 1820 of the brother to whom she had always been deeply attached.
FORE:Mme. de Tess had managed to preserve part of her fortune and was comparatively well off. She had more than once suggested that her niece should come to her, but Pauline would not leave her husband and father-in-law as long as she was necessary to them. Now, she saw that it would, as they were in such difficulty, be better to do so. Mme. de Tess, suspecting that her niece was much worse off than she would tell her, sent her a gold snuff-box that had belonged to Mme. de Maintenon, which she sold for a hundred pounds. M. de Montagu decided to ask for hospitality with his maternal grandfather, the Marquis de la Salle who was living at Constance, and M. de Beaune said he would find himself an abode also on the shores of that lake.[25]
She was surrounded by those who talked of virtue, but practised vice; her husband was amongst the most corrupt of that vicious society; they soon ceased to care for each other; and she was young, beautiful, worshipped, with the hot Spanish blood in her veins and all the passion of the south in her nature, what but one result could be expected?Si vous les avez prises.But still, in all ages human nature is the same, and has to be reckoned with under all circumstances, and that people in general are much better than the laws which govern them is evident.Yes, Monsieur; you put it into the right-hand pocket of your coat.Mesdames Adla?de and Victoire set off early in 1791. Their whole journey was a perpetual danger. After getting their passports signed with difficulty by the Commune, they were denounced at Svres by a maid-servant, stopped by the Jacobins and accused of being concerned in plots and of taking money out of the country, and detained for a fortnight, when they managed to get permission to go on, and left at 10 oclock on a Saturday night, arriving on Sunday morning at Fontainebleau, where they were again stopped and threatened by the mob, who were just going to be joined by the gardes nationaux when a hundred Chasseurs de Lorraine, luckily quartered there, charged the mob, opened the gates, and passed the carriages on. At Arnay-le-Duc they were detained for eleven days, and only allowed to proceed when the Comte de Narbonne appeared with a permission extorted by [108] Mirabeau from the revolutionary government at Paris.
TWO:
