Returning at one oclock one morning from some theatricals at the Princess Menzikoff, she was met by Mme. Charot in consternation announcing that she had been robbed by her German servant of 35,000 francs, that the lad had tried to throw suspicion upon a Russian, but the money having been found upon him he had been arrested by the police, who had taken all the money as a proof, having first counted the gold pieces.
Presentation at VersaillesLa RosireFather and sonMme. de MontessonA terrible sceneThe Comtesse de CustineMme. de Genlis enters the Palais Royal.Au banquet de la vie peine commenc
M. de Saint-Aubin, meanwhile, whose affairs, which grew worse and worse, were probably not improved by his mismanagement nor by the residence of his wife and daughter in Paris, stayed in Burgundy, coming every now and then to see them. Mlle. de Mars had left them, to the great grief of Flicit, who was now fourteen, and whom the Baron de Zurlauben, Colonel of the Swiss Guards, was most anxious to marry; but, as he was eighty years old, she declined his offer, and also another of a young widower who was only six-and-twenty, extremely handsome and agreeable, and had a large fortune.Among the numbers of men who made love to her more or less seriously, two were especially conspicuous, [271] the Prince de Listenay and the Marquis de Fontenay.The journeys of the court to the different country [394] palaces, Versailles, Compigne, Fontainebleau, Marly, &c., were affairs of enormous expense, and ceremony so preposterous, that, for instance, there was one sort of court dress for Versailles, and another, equally magnificent and uncomfortable, for Marly. On the 1st of January Louis XV. always arranged with care and consideration the journeys for the year to the different palaces, of which there were a great number. Mme. Campan [117] in her Mmoires, says that Marly, even more than Versailles, transported one vividly to the reign of Louis XIV.; its palaces and gardens were like a magnificent scene in an opera; fountains, pavilions, statues, marble basins, ponds and canals, thickets of shrubs, groups of tall trees, trellised walks and arbours, amongst which the ladies and gentlemen of the royal households and court walked about in full dress; plumes, paniers, jewels, and trains making any enjoyment of the country out of the question, but impressing with awe and admiration the crowds who were admitted to the gardens, and to the suppers and gambling at night. Every trace of this palace and gardens disappeared in the Revolution.AN abyss of separation lies between the two women whose life-histories have just been related, and the one of whose stormy career a sketch is now to be given.
