Every one crowded to the studio of Mme. Le Brun on Sundays to see the portraits of the Grand Duchesses. Zuboff, seeing the crowd of [136] carriages which, after leaving the palace, stopped before her house, remarked to the Empress
FORE:The long galleries of pictures and statues, the lovely churches filled with gems of art, the stately palaces and gardens, the cypress-crowned heights of San Miniato, and the whole life there, were enchanting to Lisette. She had been made a member of the Academy at Bologna; she was received with great honour at Florence, where she was asked to present her portrait to the city. She painted it in Rome, and it now hangs in the Sala of the great artists in the Uffizi. In the evening she drove along the banks of the Arnothe fashionable promenade, with the Marchesa Venturi, a Frenchwoman married to an Italian, whose acquaintance she had made. Had it not been for her anxiety about what was going on in France she would have been perfectly happy, for Italy had been the dream of her life, which was now being realised.The journeys of the court to the different country [394] palaces, Versailles, Compigne, Fontainebleau, Marly, &c., were affairs of enormous expense, and ceremony so preposterous, that, for instance, there was one sort of court dress for Versailles, and another, equally magnificent and uncomfortable, for Marly. On the 1st of January Louis XV. always arranged with care and consideration the journeys for the year to the different palaces, of which there were a great number. Mme. Campan [117] in her Mmoires, says that Marly, even more than Versailles, transported one vividly to the reign of Louis XIV.; its palaces and gardens were like a magnificent scene in an opera; fountains, pavilions, statues, marble basins, ponds and canals, thickets of shrubs, groups of tall trees, trellised walks and arbours, amongst which the ladies and gentlemen of the royal households and court walked about in full dress; plumes, paniers, jewels, and trains making any enjoyment of the country out of the question, but impressing with awe and admiration the crowds who were admitted to the gardens, and to the suppers and gambling at night. Every trace of this palace and gardens disappeared in the Revolution.
FORE:Cazotte himself, after being saved by his daughter from the massacre, was re-arrested as he always foretold. His friends asked in vain why he did not hide, escape, save himself; he only replied
ONE:
TWO:M. de Montyon was furious, he flew into a rage, called till he succeeded in attracting attention, and then, discovering that the young man he had called an insolent rascal was his royal Highness, Monseigneur le Comte dArtois, hurried away in dismay.
THREE:She always kept this drawing, her foretaste of the brilliant success that began so early and never forsook her.
FORE:Ah! Chevalier de , where are you going in that carriage? Perhaps to see your mistress, the Marquise de ? and the look of triumph and hatred revealed the truth to the victim of his vengeance.
Their first house in Paris was a sort of imitation cottage, after the execrable taste of the day, in the Champs-Elyses, from which they moved into a h?tel in the rue de la Victoire, which was for some time the resort of all the chiefs of their political party, and the scene of constant contention between the Thermidoriens and the remnants of the Montagne. The discussions were generally political, and often violent; they would have been abhorrent to the well-bred society of former days.The young Comte de Beaujolais, in the innocence [427] of his soul, has always remained a Bourbon, and this amiable boy feels a tender sympathy for my misfortunes. The other day he sent me in secret a person named Alexandre, a valet de chambre of good education. This worthy man, whose open expression impressed me in his favour, knelt down when he came near me, wiped away some tears and gave me a letter from the young prince, in which I found the most touching words and the purest sentiments. The good Alexandre begged me to keep this a profound secret, and told me that the Comte de Beaujolais often talked of escaping from his father and dying in arms for the defence of his King.
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