ONE:Her winters were spent at Paris, where her house was still the resort of all the most distinguished, the most intellectual, and the pleasantest people, French and foreign; the summers at her beloved country home at Louveciennes.As to the Comte de Beaujolais, he was fond of her, as all her pupils were, for she was extremely kind to them, but he hated and abhorred the principles which his father and she had succeeded in instilling into his brothers and sister, longed to fight for the King and Queen, and took the first opportunity when he met the Comte de Provence in exile to tell him so and make his submission; he had sent him messages of explanation and loyalty directly he could. For more than a year, then, there had been coldness and estrangement between the Duchess and Mme. de Genlis, who, of course, as usual, posed as an injured saint. What had she done? Why this cruel change in the affection and confidence of years? Had she not sacrificed herself to her pupils? Was she not the last person to alienate their affection from their illustrious and admirable mother? Did not all the virtues of her whole life forbid her being suspected or distrusted in any way?
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
Aenean commodo.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
Aenean commodo.
THREE:[287]
THREE:Paris without the wide streets of enormous houses, the broad, shady boulevards, the magnificent shops and crowded pavements, the glare and wealth and luxury of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; Paris of old France, of the Monarchy, with its ancient towers and buildings, its great h?tels and convents with vast gardens above whose high walls rose stately trees; its narrow, crooked, ill-paved [34] streets, mostly unsafe to walk in after dusk, through which troops of cavalry clattered in gay uniforms, scattering the foot-passengers right and left, and magnificent coaches drawn by four, six, or eight horses lumbered heavily along.
THREE:The French Ambassador, Count dEsterhazy, said that he would come at ten and take her to djeuner with his wife, who was just then living at Czarskoiesolo. For the first time during her wandering life from court to court, Lisette felt intimidated, and trembled. This was so different from any of her former experiences. At every other court she had been en pays de connaissance. Austrian society was very like Parisian, Rome was the centre of Christendom, the sovereigns of the lesser Italian states were the near relations of her own King and Queen, their religion was the same.
