- THREE: ONE:The Abbess might receive in her apartment and at dinner whatever guests she chose, men or women, but no men might go to the cloisters or any other part of the abbey. She had a carriage, horses, and servants of her own, and might go out when and where she pleased, taking with her any nuns she chose. She often drove to see different farms, &c., belonging to the abbey, and to visit sick people.The Duchess sees nothing, or will not see anything, but even shows a strange predilection for Mme. de Genlis, which made Mme. de Barbantane say that it is a love [122] which would make one believe in witchcraft. GET AWESOME FEATURE LIST
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- THREE:The Comte de Genlis passed part of his time with her and the rest with his regiment, during which Flicit lived at Paris or stayed with his relations, chiefly the de Puisieux, leading a life of gaiety mingled with study and music, and going constantly into society, which has, perhaps, never been equalled in fascination and charm.Mme. de Genlis had friends amongst old and new, French and foreign. The Vernets, Mme. Le Brun, Mme. Grollier, Gros, Gerard, Isabey, Cherubini, Halvy, all the great singers and musicians were among her friends. She lived to see the first years of the brilliant, too short career of Malibran. Pasta, Grassini, Talma, Garat, and numbers of other artistic celebrities mingled with [481] her literary friends. The household of Isabey was like an idyl. He had met his wife in the Luxembourg gardens, a beautiful girl who went there to lead about her blind father. They married and were always happy though for a long time poor. But the fame of Isabey rose; he was professor of painting at the great school of Mme. Campan, where every one under the Empire sent their daughters. He painted Josphine and all the people of rank and fashion, and received them all at his parties in his own h?tel. Mme. Isabey lived to be eighty-eight, always pretty and charming. Her hair was white, she always dressed in white lace and muslin, and had everything white in her salon, even to an ivory spinning wheel. ONE:You are Mme. Le Brun, who paints with such perfection, and we are all very glad to know that you are far away from those wicked people.And they proceeded to tell her a number of stories, many of which she did not believe, until she found out to her cost that they were true; but which, nevertheless, filled her mind with uneasy suspicions; while her mother sat by with tears in her eyes, repenting of the new folly by which she had again ruined the happiness of her child. GET AWESOME FEATURE LIST
THREE:But the other relations of M. de Genlis would neither return his calls, answer his letters, nor receive him, with the exception of his elder brother, the Marquis de Genlis, who invited them to go down to Genlis, which they did a few days after their wedding.
THREE:Mme. Le Brun returned home and told the good news to her daughters governess. But while they were rejoicing over it they, in the evening, heard one of their servants singing below, a sullen, gloomy fellow who never used to sing, and whom they knew to be a revolutionist. Looking at each other in terror they exclaimed
THREE:Rosalie arrived, her pelisse all covered with snow; the wind raged and it was bitterly cold. Pauline gave her sister the letters for the Duchesse dAyen [226] and Vicomtesse de Noailles, neither of whom she was ever to see again, awoke her child who was astonished to be taken up and dressed by candle-light, and gave her to M. de Montagu, who took her to the carriage, and then came back and, saying Everything is ready, pressed the hand of his sister-in-law without any further leave taking than if they were going into the country, as the servants were standing about.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.
