Then she went back to Hamburg, where she found her niece happy and prosperous, and where Lady Edward Fitzgerald, who was always devoted to her, came to pay her a visit, greatly to her delight.
The Comte dArtois had an affair with Mlle. [202] Duth, who had ruined numbers of people, and thought her liaison with a fils de France would open the Treasury to her rapacity. She contracted enormous debts at all the great shops in Paris, and very soon bills for plate, pictures, jewels, furniture, dresses, &c., &c., poured in upon the Prince, who, finding himself utterly unable to pay them, sent for Turgot, then Contr?leur-Gnral, and asked him to get him out of the difficulty.Most of the servants were bribed by the Jacobins to spy upon their masters, and knew much better than they what was going on in France. Many of [111] them used to go and meet the courrier who told them much more than was contained in the letters he brought. After having lived two years and a half in Italy, chiefly in Rome, Mme. Le Brun began to think of returning to France.
TWO:With much confusion she replied that she had not had time to have a proper dress made, but she was aware of the impossibility of explaining why, coming straight from Vienna, she had not brought one with her; and the dissatisfied looks of the Ambassadress increased her alarm when it was time to go to the Empress.
FORE:M. de Montagu, remembering his wifes proceedings with the former baby, insisted upon the others being brought up in the country, and Pauline again went out with her father-in-law, receiving a great deal of admiration which delighted him, but about which she cared very little. She was very pretty, considered very like what the Duchess, her mother, had been at her age, and perfectly at her ease in society, even when very young, and timid with her new relations; not being the least nervous [199] during her presentation at Versailles, which was rather a trying and imposing ceremony.
FORE:Another time she made a charcoal sketch of two heads on the door of a summer-house by the sea, lent to her by Sir William Hamilton. Years afterwards to her astonishment she saw them in England. He had cut them out of the door and sold them to Lord Warwick!
FORE:They found a farm, settled themselves in it, and after a time M. de Montagu was added to the household, [250] for he came to see his wife, and their joy at meeting so touched Mme. de Tess, that she said he had better stay altogether.
FORE:They concealed the calamity for five weeks, and then brought her a miniature of the child as an angel.And although she was undoubtedly maligned, like many persons who gave less opportunity for gossip; still it was the consequence of her own act in placing herself in such a position, and identifying herself with such a crew. Her futile attempts to whitewash Philippe-galit can deceive nobody: he was too well-known. When she lays all his faults to his being badly brought up and surrounded with bad companions, one recollects the numbers of men and of women too, who, brought up and living under the same conditions, suffered and died with a heroism and loyalty that redeemed the faults and follies of their past.
FORE: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.Not that M. de Montagu shared the opinions of his brothers-in-law, he saw to what they had led. But he thought as many others did and still do, that emigration was a mistake, at any rate for the present, [218] that precipitation in the matter would irritate moderate men and many who were still undecided, and drive them into the ranks of the Revolutionists, especially if they saw the emigrs preparing to return with a foreign army to fight against their countrymen. What he hoped for was a rapprochement between the royalists and the moderate constitutional party, who, if united, might still save both the monarchy and the reforms. M. de Beaune laughed at the idea, and events prove him to be right; finally, as he could not convince his son, he set off alone.
THREE:But she had not been more than twenty-four hours in the Russian capital when the French Ambassador was announced; his visit was succeeded by others, and that evening the Empress sent to say that she would receive Mme. Le Brun at Czarskoiesolo [42] the next day at one oclock.
One of Davids most rising pupils before the Revolution was young Isabey, son of a peasant of Franche Comt, who had made money and was rich.Mme. de Genlis had friends amongst old and new, French and foreign. The Vernets, Mme. Le Brun, Mme. Grollier, Gros, Gerard, Isabey, Cherubini, Halvy, all the great singers and musicians were among her friends. She lived to see the first years of the brilliant, too short career of Malibran. Pasta, Grassini, Talma, Garat, and numbers of other artistic celebrities mingled with [481] her literary friends. The household of Isabey was like an idyl. He had met his wife in the Luxembourg gardens, a beautiful girl who went there to lead about her blind father. They married and were always happy though for a long time poor. But the fame of Isabey rose; he was professor of painting at the great school of Mme. Campan, where every one under the Empire sent their daughters. He painted Josphine and all the people of rank and fashion, and received them all at his parties in his own h?tel. Mme. Isabey lived to be eighty-eight, always pretty and charming. Her hair was white, she always dressed in white lace and muslin, and had everything white in her salon, even to an ivory spinning wheel.I only care for power for the sake of mercy, she replied. But now I am not appealing to your clemency, but to your justice.Painted by herself