She was so talked about with the Duc de Chartres that the Queen would not receive her at her balls, [119] for Marie Antoinette was trying to bring some reform into the licence prevalent at court, where there was no end to the scandalous incidents that kept happening.
Mme. Vige, or rather Mme. le Svre, had certainly, by her obstinate folly, succeeded in ruining first her own life, then her daughters; for the two deplorable marriages she had arranged, both of them entirely for mercenary reasons, had turned out as badly as possible. Her own was the worst, as the husband she had chosen was the more odious of the two men, and she had no means of escaping from him; but Lisettes was disastrous enough.[31]
ONE:This was a severe disappointment to the Duke, who had already begun to occupy himself with his sons future, but the Duchess, whose saintly mind had been tormented with misgivings about the future life of the boy whose prospects then seemed so brilliant and so full of temptations, and who did not probably consider the Duke, her husband, a very promising or trustworthy guide and example, resigned herself to the loss of the heir, whom she had even in her prayers entreated God to take out of this world rather than allow him to be tainted by the vice and corruption with which she foresaw he would be surrounded in it.
TWO:The conversation was presently interrupted by a young man whom nobody seemed to know.
THREE:Shortly after this he called upon the Comte de Vaudreuil at Versailles one morning just after he was up, and confided to him a financial scheme by which he expected enormous profit, ending by offering M. de Vaudreuil a large sum of money if he would undertake to make it succeed.
TWO:Yes, my dear son, said the King, making use for the first time of that paternal expression; I know as well as you do that this abb is not well-disposed towards us; but can I take him away from [279] a young woman whom he has educated, [89] and who requires somebody to confide in? Besides, she might choose worse; he is a man without personal ambition, religious and upright, in spite of his leaning to the House of Austria. It will be the Dauphins business to keep him within proper limits; and now I have warned you about what made me most uneasy I feel more satisfied, for I desire above all things that the peace of my family should never be troubled.Countless were the inconsistencies of the faddists of the party to which she belonged, and in the crotchets of which she had educated her daughter, but what duty or reason or satisfaction could there be in such a calculation as this?
TWO:At the time of the expedition to St. Domingo he desired to send Leclerc, the husband of his second sister, Pauline. Leclerc hesitated, then said he should be glad to go, but he had a tie which bound him to France.
She also was overjoyed to meet the Comtesse de Brionne, Princesse de Lorraine, one of the earliest friends who had shown her unvarying kindness at the beginning of her careerand she resumed her old habit of going often to supper with her. The Polignac, too, had a place near Vienna, in fact, wherever she went Lisette met numbers of her unfortunate countrymen and acquaintance driven into exile, watching in despair the course of events in France.
荣誉榜
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