My mother, worthy to be the wife of the Dauphin ... was, like him, good, pious, indulgent, attached to her duties, caring only for the happiness of others, loving the French as her own family. Her character, naturally grave and melancholy, was not without a gentle gaiety, which lent her an additional charm.... With all the philosophy of which some narrow minds have accused me as of a crime ... I have sometimes found myself, in the midst of great calamities, invoking the holy spirit of my mother and that of my august father. [57]As they were talking one day on the subject to Father Carrichon, the Duchess asked him if he would promise to be with them at the foot of the scaffold. He did so, adding that he would wear a dark blue coat and a red carmagnole.
Director
Then the Comte dArtois insisted on having a [204] place of the same kind, and on its being made and finished in a week; which at enormous expense he succeeded in accomplishing, besides winning from the Queen a bet of 100,000 francs made upon the subject.La Fayette was still an exile. Too Jacobin for Austria, too royalist for France, he took a place near Wittmold. The wedding of his eldest daughter took place the following May, and a few days afterwards a daughter was born to Pauline and christened Stphanie.The young Comtesse de Genlis was very happy at Origny, and amused herself like a child amongst the nuns. She ran about the corridors at night [374] dressed like the devil, with horns; she put rouge and patches on the nuns while they were asleep, and they got up and went down to the services in the church in the night without seeing themselves thus decorated; she gave suppers and dances amongst the nuns and pupils to which no men were, of course, admitted; she played many tricks, and wrote constantly to her husband and mother, the latter of whom came to spend six weeks with her. When her husband came back they went to Genlis, where her brother, who had just gone into the Engineers, paid them a long visit, to her great joy.