THREE:M. Le Brun was just then building a house in the rue Gros-Chenet, and one of the reports spread was that M. de Calonne paid for it, although both M. and Mme. Le Brun were making money enough to afford themselves much greater expenditure than that.I have always been persuaded, she says in one of her letters, that if the victims of that time of execrable memory had not had the noble pride to die with courage, the Terror would have ceased much sooner. Those whose intelligence is not developed have too little imagination to be touched by silent suffering, and it is much easier to arouse the compassion than the imagination of the populace.
THREE:One of her new friends was the Countess Kinska, who, as she observed, was neither maid, wife, nor widow, for she and her husband had been married according to their parents arrangement, without ever having seen each other, and after the ceremony Count Kinska, turning to her, said
THREE:What nonsense?
TWO:On Sunday, April 19, 1795, therefore, she left Vienna and went by Prague to Dresden, where she was of course enraptured with the world-famed gallery, and above all with the chef d?uvre of Raffaelle, the Madonna di San Sistothat vision of beauty before which every other seems dim and pale. She spent five days at Berlin, stayed a few [123] days more at the castle of her old friend Prince Henry of Prussia, and arrived at St. Petersburg late in July, very tired and exhausted with the journey in an uncomfortable carriage over roads so bad that she was jolted and flung about from one great stone to another from Riga to St. Petersburg, until her only longing was to be quiet and rest.Lisette and her friend used to stay there all day, taking their dinner in a basket, and had an especial weakness for certain slices of excellent b?uf la mode which they bought of the concierge of one of the doors of the Louvre. Lisette always declared in after life that she could never get any so good.
TWO:THE time had now come when the friendly farm at Wittmold, which had sheltered them in adversity, must be given up. The emigrs were returning; Mme. de la Fayette and Mme. de Grammont urged their sister to do the same, and Mme. de Tess was longing to see Paris again.Even then they had a third chance of escape, for when the announcement of what was intended arrived, the King was out hunting, the horses were just being put into the carriage of the Dauphin who was going out for a drive, and if the Queen, her children, and Madame Elisabeth had got into the carriage and joined him, they could have fled together. But the idea did not occur to them; they waited till the King returned, and were taken prisoners to Paris next day, escorted by La Fayette, who, though able to protect them from personal violence, was powerless to prevent the horrors and crimes committed by his atrocious followers.