You wouldnt believe, she said to Lisette, who came to see her at eight oclock one evening, and found her alone, that I have had twenty people to [153] dinner to-day? They all went away directly after the coffee.Returning home one day after dinner with Diderot, dAlembert, Helvetius, and others of their set, he seemed to be so out of spirits that his wife asked if anything were the matter.
TWO:Capital letter ATrzia CabarrusComes to ParisMarried to the Marquis de FontenayRevolutionary sympathiesUnpopularity of Royal FamilyThe wig of M. de MontyonThe Comte dArtois and his tutorThe Comte de Provence and Louis XV.
It consisted, at the death of Louis XV., of the King, aged nineteen; the Queen, eighteen; the Comte de Provence, eighteen; the Comtesse de Provence, twenty; the Comte dArtois, seventeen; and the Comtesse dArtois, eighteen. Of Mesdames Adla?de, Victoire, Sophie, and Louise, the last of whom was a Carmelite nun, and whose ages were from thirty-eight to forty-three.Next she went to Holstein with M. de Valence who left her in an old castle, with the owners of which she formed an intimate friendship, and after staying there some weeks she took rooms in a farm in the neighbourhood where she lived for a considerable time; she had with her then as companion a young girl called Jenny, to whom she was much attached, and who nursed her devotedly through an illness.All laughed at the vision, but the next day she was so ill that her execution was put off, she continued to be so ill that she could not be moved and was forgotten till the 9th Thermidor came and she was saved. She died, as Cazotte had predicted, in her own bed at a great age.Mme. de Tourzel asserts that La Fayette helped to irritate the mob against him, and that he was afraid of de Favras intrigues against himself, as he was accused of plotting to murder Necker, Bailly, and La Fayette.Whatever might be her private character, Catherine II. was a great sovereign, a wise ruler, and beloved by the Russian people. In her reign Tartary, Lithuania, the Caucasus, Courland, and part of Poland were added to the vast Muscovite Empire; the Russian share of Poland alone added six millions to her subjects. Every branch of the service, every corner of the empire, canals, mines, agriculture, commerce, received her consideration and supervision; art and literature were encouraged and advanced; the progress made by Russia under her rule was enormous.