ONE:The Comte dArtois had an affair with Mlle. [202] Duth, who had ruined numbers of people, and thought her liaison with a fils de France would open the Treasury to her rapacity. She contracted enormous debts at all the great shops in Paris, and very soon bills for plate, pictures, jewels, furniture, dresses, &c., &c., poured in upon the Prince, who, finding himself utterly unable to pay them, sent for Turgot, then Contr?leur-Gnral, and asked him to get him out of the difficulty.
ONE:From the care of the Dauphin and Dauphine, who had exercised the most affectionate supervision over them, their children passed to that of their grandfather, who, though he was fond of his daughters, cared very little about his grandchildren, never inquiring about their studies, conduct or habits. He only saw them at the hours required by etiquette, when he embraced them with ceremony; but he took care that they were treated with all the homage due to the Children of France, and gave orders that their wishes were always to be gratified.The marriage took place in February, 1755, when the cold was so intense that the navigation of the Seine was stopped by the ice, which at that time, when traffic was carried on chiefly by means of the rivers, was a serious inconvenience. [51] After the wedding the Comte and Comtesse dAyen went to live with his parents at the stately h?tel de [163] Noailles, now degraded into the h?tel St. James, while the vast, shady gardens that surrounded it [52] have long disappeared; shops and houses covering the ground where terraces, fountains, beds of flowers, and masses of tall trees then formed a scene of enchantment.
TWO:A fortnight after the marriage she no longer cared about her husband, and soon afterwards she caught the small-pox.
TWO:Tell her, said Mme. Tallien, that I am dsole not to be able to receive her, but I am never alone, because I am always surrounded by those to whom I have had the happiness to be of use.
THREE:Mme. de Genlis, though she did not go much into society, being now exceedingly royalist, was [476] presented at court, and must have recalled those far off days when she drove down to Versailles with Mme. de Puisieux to be presented to the magnificent Louis XV.She was constantly surrounded by perils and temptations which to many would have been irresistible. Admiring eyes followed her at the theatre, people crowded round her in the gardens and places of entertainment, men of rank who wanted an opportunity of making love to her had their portraits painted by her for that purpose; but she treated them all with indifference, and when she noticed that their looks and glances were too expressive she would coolly remark: I am painting your eyes now, or would insist on the portrait being done with the eyes looking in another direction.
THREE:When Lisette was about twenty, her step-father retired from business and took an apartment in the rue de Clry in a large house called h?tel Lubert, which had recently been bought by the well-known picture dealer, M. Le Brun.
