The odious step-father, whose name by the by, was Jacques Fran?ois Le Svre, was annoyed at the universal admiration excited by the beauty of his wife and step-daughter. At one time he tried to [27] put a stop to their walks, and told them he had hired a country place where they would go from Saturday till Monday during the summer.
But as the size and grandeur of such a residence was no longer suitable to the altered fortunes of its master, he sold it, and only occupied the part called the petit h?tel de Noailles, where Mme. de Montagu also had an apartment.That the head of an excitable, thoughtless girl not sixteen, should be turned by the whirl of pleasure and admiration into which she was launched, cannot be surprising.IN 1779 Mme. Le Brun painted for the first time the portrait of the Queen, then in the splendour of her youth and beauty.
Director
In 1782 business took M. Le Brun to Flanders, and his wife, who had never travelled, was delighted to accompany him.A fashionable promenade was the boulevard du Temple, where every day, especially Thursdays, hundreds of carriages were to be seen driving up and down or standing under the shade of trees now replaced by houses, shops, and cafs. Young men rode in and out amongst them, notorious members of the demi-monde tried to surpass every one in the splendour of their dress and carriages. A certain Mlle. Renard had her carriage drawn by four horses, their harness studded with imitation jewels. It was not an age of imitation. In those days as a rule lace was real lace, jewels were real jewels, and if tawdry imitations and finery were worn it was by women of this class. Respectable people would never have dreamed of bedizening themselves with the sort of cheap rubbish with which the modern women of the lower classes delight to disfigure their houses and their dress.Les chemises de Marat, ou larrestation de Mesdames, tantes du Roi Arnay-le-Duc.Mme. de Saint-Aubin had found an old friend from her convent, Mme. de Cirrac, who introduced her to her sister, the Duchesse dUzs, and others, to whose houses they were constantly invited to supper, but the young girl, with more perception than her mother, began to perceive, in spite of all the admiration lavished upon her, that it was her singing and playing the harp that procured her all these invitations, and that she could not afford to dress like those with whom she now associated, and this spoilt her pleasure in going out. While her mother was in this way striving to lead a life they could not afford, her father, whose affairs grew more and more unprosperous, went to St. Domingo on business.He began at once to draw a horse so well and so boldly that murmurs arose.The strong affection between Alexander I. and his mother lasted as long as she lived.