FORE:I was of no party, she writes, but that of religion. I desired the reform of certain abuses, and I saw with joy the demolition of the Bastille, the abolition of lettres de cachet, and droits de chasse. That was all I wanted, my politics did not go farther than that. At the same time no one saw with more grief and horror than I, the excesses committed from the first moments of the taking of the Bastille.... The desire to let my pupils see everything led me on this occasion into imprudence, and caused me to spend some hours in Paris to see from the Jardin de Beaumarchais the people of Paris demolishing the Bastille. I also had a curiosity to see the Cordeliers Club.... I went there and I saw the orators, cobblers, and porters with their wives and mistresses, mounting the tribune and shouting against nobles, priests, and rich people.... I remarked a fishwoman.... This pretty spectacle to which she was said to have taken her pupils, was, of course, approved of by the Duke of Orlans, who made the Duc de Chartres a member of the Jacobin Club, by the wish of the Duc dOrlans, assuredly not by mine; but, however, it must be remembered that that society was not then what it afterward became, [416] although its sentiments were already very exaggerated. However, it was a pretext employed to estrange the Duchess of Orlans from me.
FORE:When the Comtesse de Custine died, after a short illness, her husband was away with his regiment, and did not arrive in time to see her alive. During the first days of his despair, while looking over her papers, he came upon a packet of letters which proved beyond all doubt the infamous treachery of the Vicomte, who had made his pretended love for Mme. de Genlis a shield to hide his real passion for his brothers wife, which had been the horror and torment of her life, and which she had dreaded to reveal to her husband, whose temper was violent when aroused.
ONE:Eh! What! Then Athalie will never be played any more; that masterpiece will be lost to the French stage!
TWO:The Ambassador gave her his arm, told her to be sure to kiss the hand of the Empress, and they walked across the park to the palace, where, through a window on the ground floor, they saw a girl of about seventeen watering a pot of pinks. Slight and delicate, with an oval face, regular features, [125] pale complexion, and fair hair curling round her forehead and neck, she wore a loose white tunic tied with a sash round her waist, and against the background of marble columns and hangings of pink and silver, looked like a fairy.
Carefully disguising themselves, they set off togetherof course, at nighttaking only the Duchesss maid, Mlle. Robert, who, though devoted to her mistress, had been silly enough to persuade her to this folly, and by an old porter belonging to the palace, who knew the way.AT the end of seven weeks her husband went back to rejoin his regiment, and Pauline was left with her father-in-law and her new aunt, Mme. de Bouzolz, a very young, lively woman, whose husband had also just returned to the army. Both were very kind and fond of her, but their ideas were not so strict as those of the Duchesse dAyen.His Utopian government and state of society would have been all very well if they had been attainable, but he had no knowledge or comprehension of the instruments and materials of which they were to be composed, no insight into character, no correctness of judgment, no decision or promptitude in emergencies, and what he did or helped to do was that most dangerous of proceedings, to set in motion a force he could not control.If she had not got away in time there can be no [83] doubt as to what would have been her fate; fortunately her fears made her act with prudence. M. Brongniart, the architect, and his wife, friends of hers, seeing her so pale and altered, persuaded her to go and stay with them for a few days at the Invalides, where they had rooms; she gladly accepted and was taken there by a doctor attached to the Palais Royal, whose servants wore the Orlans livery, the only one that was now respected, and in whose carriage she consequently arrived safely. Her kind friends nursed and tried to comfort her; made her take Bordeaux and soup as she could eat nothing, and tried to reassure her, being amongst those who did not believe in the perils to come. It was no use. When they went out they heard the threats and violent talk of the mob, and the discussions they held with each other; by no means calculated to give comfort to those who were listening.
