ONE:Balls were not then the crushes they afterwards became. The company was not nearly so numerous; there was plenty of room for those who were not [54] dancing to see and hear what was going on. Mme. Le Brun, however, never cared for dancing, but preferred the houses where music, acting, or conversation were the amusements. One of her favourite salons was that of the charg daffaires of Saxony, M. de Rivire, whose daughter had married her brother Louis Vige. He and her sister-in-law were constantly at her house. Mme. Vige acted very well, was a good musician, and extremely pretty. Louis Vige was also a good amateur actor; no bad or indifferent acting would have been tolerated in the charades and private theatricals in which Talma, Larive, and Le Kain also took part.And although she was undoubtedly maligned, like many persons who gave less opportunity for gossip; still it was the consequence of her own act in placing herself in such a position, and identifying herself with such a crew. Her futile attempts to whitewash Philippe-galit can deceive nobody: he was too well-known. When she lays all his faults to his being badly brought up and surrounded with bad companions, one recollects the numbers of men and of women too, who, brought up and living under the same conditions, suffered and died with a heroism and loyalty that redeemed the faults and follies of their past.
TWO:A gentleman of the court came home late one night, and could not get into his wifes room, because the maid, who slept in an ante-room, could or would not be awakened. As he was going very early in the morning to hunt, he [405] changed his clothes in a hurry without going to bed, and on arriving at the place of meeting was greeted by his friends with a shout of laughter, and inquiries if he wished to exchange his hunting dress for the costume of the Queens pages; as he had put on in haste and half-darkness the haut-de-chausse of one of them, which certainly had no business to be in his room.The grief of the Duchesse de Polignac was aggravated by the recollection of a sinister prophecy which, although at the time it seemed incredible, was apparently being fulfilled in an alarming manner. The circumstances were as follows:
THREE:The Queen was in the habit of playing pharaon every evening, and on one occasion she noticed that M. de Chalabre, who kept the bank, whilst he was picking up the money of those who had lost, took advantage of a moment when he thought nobody was looking, to put a rouleau of fifty louis into his pocket.At the barrier came the parting with those she was leaving in the midst of perils. When they would meet again, if they ever did at all, it was impossible to guess.
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