Que puisse faire aux arts la colre cleste!Mme. Le Brun returned home, but dared not stay there, so she accepted the invitation of her brothers father-in-law, M. de Rivire, in whose house she thought she would be safe, as he was a foreign minister. She stayed there a fortnight, treated as if she were a daughter of the house, but she had resolved to get out of France before it was too late.
ONE:CHAPTER IPlus dun baiser payait ma chansonette,
After her death the Marquis, who had no intention of either breaking his oath or foregoing his [316] vengeance, shut up his chateau and went to Paris, though it was in the height of the Terror; for he had heard that his enemy was there, and was resolved to find him. He was a cousin of the young Marquise, the Chevalier de , who had in the early days of their marriage stayed a good deal at the chateau of the Marquis de , and had requited the unsuspicious trust and hospitality of his host by making love to his wife. Then, influenced by the remorse and entreaties of the Marquise, he had gone to Paris, and not been heard of for some time, but was believed to be living there in concealment.The continual terror in which she now lived began to affect the health of Lisette. She knew perfectly well that she herself was looked upon with sinister eyes by the ruffians, whose bloodthirsty hands would soon hold supreme power in France. Her house in the rue Gros-Chenet, in which she had only lived for three months, was already marked; sulphur was thrown down the grating into the cellars; if she looked out of the windows she saw menacing figures of sans-culottes, shaking their fists at the house.My criticism, Madame, is this. It seemed to me just now that they accused you of having made the eyes too small and the mouth too large. Well, if you will believe me, you will slightly lower the upper eyelids and open imperceptibly the corner of the lips. Thus you will have almost the charm of that sculpturesque and expressive face. The eyes will be still brighter when their brilliance shines from between the eyelids like the sun through the branches.Jeanne Le Brun was, according to her mother, pretty, clever, extremely well-educated, charming in manner, and universally admired. Allowing for her infatuation, it was probable that her daughter was attractive. She was now seventeen, and went into society with her mother, whose foolish admiration and flattery encouraged all her faults.The same remarks apply equally to La Fayette, whom, by the bye, Napoleon could not bear, and would have nothing to do with.
