TWO:The chanoinesses all bore the title of Countess; that chosen for F��licit�� was Comtesse de Lancy, her father being Seigneur of Bourbon-Lancy.��Indeed,�� he said, ��you have a strange fancy. Night is made to sleep in; however, if it amuses you I have no objection so long as you do not expect me to be of the party.��

TWO:Although stupid, M. Geoffrin was harmless, good, and charitable. Their only child, the Marquise de la Fert�� Imbault, adored her father, whom she preferred to her mother. She was a pretty, high-spirited girl, an ardent Catholic, hated her mother��s atheist friends, and always declared that she had forced her into her marriage, which, although a great one, was not a happy one.And what could be more contradictory to the jargon about Nature, whose guidance, impulses, feelings, &c., were to be so implicitly obeyed, than the spectacle of a woman in the height of her youth and beauty, loving her husband, and yet amusing herself by writing in her pocket-book in this cold-blooded manner, a long list of his infidelities and ending by expressing her satisfaction?

TWO:But the condition of Pauline, brought up in all the luxury and magnificence of the h?tel de Noailles, and suddenly cast adrift in a country the language and habits of which were unknown to her, with very little money and no means of getting more when that was gone, was terrifying indeed. She did not know where anything should be bought, nor what it should cost; money seemed to her to melt in her hands. She consulted her husband, but he could not help her. If she tried to make her own dresses, she only spoilt the material, as one can well imagine. Their three servants, the German boy, a Dutch woman, and after a little while an English nurse, could not understand each other, but managed to quarrel perpetually and keep up the most dreadful chatter. Her child, this time a son, was born on March 30th, Easter Day. She had looked forward to celebrating that festival at [237] the new church then to be opened, at which many of the young people were to receive their first Communion. Pauline, like all the rest of the French community, had been intensely interested and occupied in the preparations. Flowers were begged from sympathising friends to decorate the altar, white veils and dresses were made for the young girls by their friends, all, even those whose faith had been tainted and whose lives had been irreligious, joining in this touching and solemn festival, which recalled to them their own land, the memories of their childhood, and the recollection of those they had lost.

TWO:Que puisse faire aux arts la col��re c��leste!G��rard

TWO:All the preliminaries were arranged by the families without anything being said upon the subject to the proposed bride, nor probably to the bridegroom either, and when everything was settled it was decided that now nothing was left to do but ��to consult the personal inclinations of the young [192] people,�� in preparation for which Pauline was informed in one of the usual family councils of her approaching introduction to her fianc��.But now she had an enemy, powerful, vindictive, remorseless, and bent upon her destruction. His object was that her trial should take place the next day; but her friends were watching her interests. M. de la Valette and M. Verdun managed to prevent this, and next day a friend of Tallien, meeting him wandering in desperation about the Champs-Elys��es, said to him��

TWO:The Louvre, then filled with works of art��the [148] plunder of the rest of Europe��was naturally a great attraction, in fact so absorbed was Lisette in the wonders it contained that she was shut in when it closed, and only escaped passing the night there by knocking violently at a little door she discovered. The aspect of Paris depressed her; still in the streets were the inscriptions, ��Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,�� which in France bore so horrible a meaning. Many of the friends for whom she inquired had perished on the scaffold; nearly all who survived had lost either parents, husband, wife, or some other near relation. The change in dress gave her a gloomy impression; the absence of powder, which she was accustomed to see in other countries, the numerous black coats which had displaced the gorgeous velvets, satin, and gold lace of former days��in her opinion made a theatre or an evening party look like a funeral; the manners and customs of the new society were astonishing and repulsive to her.

TWO:

TWO:Rosalie arrived, her pelisse all covered with snow; the wind raged and it was bitterly cold. Pauline gave her sister the letters for the Duchesse d��Ayen [226] and Vicomtesse de Noailles, neither of whom she was ever to see again, awoke her child who was astonished to be taken up and dressed by candle-light, and gave her to M. de Montagu, who took her to the carriage, and then came back and, saying ��Everything is ready,�� pressed the hand of his sister-in-law without any further leave taking than if they were going into the country, as the servants were standing about.