THREE:They were in the habit of spending part of every summer at tioles, with M. le Normand, fermier gnral des postes, husband of Mme. de Pompadour, then the mistress of Louis XV. After one of these visits, when Flicit was about six years old, it having been decided to obtain for her and for one of her little cousins admission into the order of chanoinesses of the Noble Chapter of Alix; the two children with their mothers travelled in an immense travelling-carriage called a berline, to Lyon, where they were detained for a fortnight, during which the Comtes de Lyon examined the genealogical proofs of their noble descent. Finding them correct and sufficient for their admission into the order, they proceeded to Alix, at some distance from Lyon; where, with the huge abbey and church in the centre were, grouped, in the form of a semi-circle, the tiny houses, each with its [353] little garden, which were the dwellings of the chanoinesses.Here is the family plate which I was able to secure for you, said he. I always kept it in hope of your return.
THREE:Why? answered she contemptuously; because I know to what fate you condemn kings!It was decided that the three sisters should meet at Viane, where Pauline and her husband went, with post-horses provided by Mme. de Tess. It was eight years since Pauline and Rosalie had met, and Pauline said it was a foretaste of Heaven.
THREE:Of the Dauphine, Marie-Josphe de Saxe, as well as of his father, their son the Comte de Provence, afterwards Louis XVIII., writes in his Memoirs as follows: His pure soul could not rest on this earth, his crown was not of this world, and he died young. France had to mourn the premature death of a prince, who, if he had lived might perhaps have saved the kingdom from the catastrophe of a blood-stained revolution, and his family from exile and the scaffold.The Count listened quietly to all he said, and then replied
THREE:The makers of the RevolutionFte la NatureTallienDangerous timesAn inharmonious marriageColonel la MotheA TerroristThe beginning of the emigrationA sinister prophecy.The Prince de Lambese had every reason to abhor Mme. de Genlis. He belonged to the house of Lorraine, was related to Marie Antoinette, and devoted to her. It was he, who, in July, 1789, at the head of the Royal Allemand Regiment, cleared the mob out of the place Louis XV., and galloped with his troops into the Tuileries Gardens. He emigrated and entered the Austrian service.
THREE:It is not I who am in haste; it is the guillotine, replied the stranger. To-day I am on the suspected list, to-morrow I shall no doubt be condemned. I have children. I wish to leave them a remembrance of me, that is why I come to ask you to paint my portrait. Will you?
THREE:I am an ouvrire, she replied, and am accustomed to walk.
THREE:Did you notice who put it on the table? she asked.But Lisette fretted and made herself unhappy, especially when a deliberate attempt was made to destroy her reputation by a certain Mme. S, who lived in the rue Gros-Chenet, to which she herself had not yet removed.
THREE:Monsieur de Beaumarchais, you could not have come at a more favourable moment; for I have had a very good night, I have a good digestion, and I never felt better than I do to-day. If you had made me such a proposal yesterday I should have had you thrown out of the window.The 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.
