Mme. Le Brun painted the portraits and went to the parties of the chief Roman families, but did not form many intimate friendships amongst them, for most of her spare time was spent with the unfortunate refugees from France, of whom there were numbers in Rome during the years she lived there. Many of them were her friends who had, like herself, managed to escape. Amongst these were the Duke and Duchess de Fitz-James and their son, also the Polignac family, with whom Mme. Le Brun refrained out of prudence from being too much seen, lest reports should reach France that she was plotting with them against [97] the Revolution. For although she was out of the clutches of the Radicals and Revolutionists her relations were still within their reach, and might be made to suffer for her.As Saint-Aubin had long been sold, her brother now called himself M. Ducrest.Some misfortune has happened to the King.
ONE:All that country, Frascati, LAriccia, Castel Gandolfo, Albano, Gensano, is a dream of beauty and romance. Lakes, mountains, and forests, picturesque towns and villages perched high upon the steep sides of precipices, rocks crowned with ruined towers or convents, ancient villas like huge palaces, with colonnades, fountains, and loggie, buried among deep woods of ilex and chestnut, in whose cool shade they could spend the bright, hot, glowing days.The Chevalier tried in vain to escape. The apparent madman seized him by the arm.
THREE:Barbier, a lawyer and man of the world, whose journal of eight volumes gives a vivid impression of the life of that time, after remarking that the sentence was a very lenient one, [6] that the chateau was not so large as that of many a fermier gnral, and that the building thereof gave employment to many poor people, goes on to say, As for shame, ... if it is because the King has a mistress, why who has not? except M. le duc dOrlans. [7]... The Comte de Clermont, Abb de Saint-Germain-des-Prs, openly keeps Mlle. le Duc, who was an opera dancer; she spends three-quarters of the year at Berny, the Abbs country house, where she does the honours. She has a fine house in the rue de Richelieu, where the Prince often spends a week. The fathers of the abbey who have business with him go to him there in the morning, for he does not lodge in the palace of the abbey. This goes on in sight of every one, and nobody says a word about it.
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TWO:As the fatal car passed through the streets, for the third time his relentless enemy stood before him, and as a slight delay stopped the car close to him, he called out
TWO:It was impossible to spare much time to be absent from Paris, but Mme. Le Brun often spent two or three days at the magnificent chateaux to which she was invited, either to paint a portrait or simply as a guest.The Comit de salut public was composed of Barre, Carnot, Couthon, Billaud-Varennes, Collot-dHerbois, Robert Lindet, Prieur, Jean-Bon Saint-Andr, Saint-Just, and Maximilian Robespierre; as bloodthirsty a gang of miscreants as ever held an unfortunate country in their grip.
FORE:The next day they left Zug. M. de Chartres went to Coire, in the Engadine, where for fifteen months he gave lessons in mathematics in a college under an assumed name, while Mme. de Genlis and her two charges took refuge in a convent near the little town of Bremgarten, where they were admitted through M. de Montesquieu, another of the radical nobles obliged to flee from the tender mercies of his radical friends, of whom they had heard through M. de Montjoye, now living with his relations in Bale, when he had paid them a visit.
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FORE:The alliances with the House of Savoy were much more popular with the court than that with the House of Austria and Lorraine, [86] and caused continual jealousies and disputes. Foreseeing that such would be the case, Louis XV., before the marriage of the Comte de Provence, thought it necessary to caution him on the subject. Louis XVIII. gives in his memoirs [87] the following account of the interview:It is therefore evident that at the time of which Mme. de Genlis is writing, the middle of May, the Duchess of Orlans was in prison. Also that the Marquis de Sillery, her husband, had not been detained in the Abbaye, as from his letter she had supposed, but was only under supervision till the 7th of April.
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By caresses, by tyranny, by stratagems, Trzia opened prison doors, obtained pardons, delivered [311] victims from the guillotine. Immense numbers of people were saved by her exertions. Several times her influence dissolved the Revolutionary Committee; under her reign people began to breathe freely at Bordeaux, and the Terror for a time seemed nearly at an end.No; the people will not allow it.But when they saw the place, which was at Chaillot, it was a miserable little house in a still more miserable little garden, without a tree or any shelter from the sun except a deplorable looking arbour against which nothing would grow properly, while in the next plots of ground were shop boys shooting at birds according to the odious fashion one still sees in the south.
