TWO:Madame, we are your neighbours; we have come back to advise you to go, and to start as soon as possible. You cannot live here, you are so changed that we are sorry. But do not travel in your carriage; go by the diligence, it is safer.But although fully enjoying the amusement and admiration that fell to her lot, she passed unscathed through the temptations and dangers around her. The strength and devotion of her religious principles, the deep love of her art, which was the ruling passion of her life, her affection for her mother, who was always with her, and to whom she confided all her affairs, were her only safeguards.
TWO:It was Tallien.There she met many old friends, and saw many new beauties, amongst others Signora Visconti, the mistress of Berthier, and another by whom she was so attracted that she involuntarily exclaimed
TWO:Alas! Madame, the sight of you recalls to me a [472] recollection so fearful, that I would give my life to blot it out of my memory. I was one of those who beat the drums in the place de la Rvolution on the 27th January.
TWO:That she persistently refused proves how much all these professions were worth, and this time she does in her memoirs blame herself for her conduct; in fact, she declares that she felt ever afterwards a remorse that never left her, and that would be eternal; as she considered herself the cause of the death of her husband. If she had gone with him as he entreated her to do and as she acknowledged that she ought to have done, she could have induced him to leave France with her, he had sufficient money to enable them to live comfortably abroad, and his life would have been saved.When the twin daughters of the Duc de Chartres were five years old, one of them caught the measles, got a chill and died, to the great grief of the Duchess and the remaining twin, Madame Adla?de dOrlans. One day the Duc de Chartres came to consult Flicit, as he was in the habit of doing on all occasions; and on this one he confided to her that he could not find a tutor he liked for his boys, that they were learning to speak like shop boys, and that he wished she would undertake their education as well as that of their sister; to which she agreed. It was arranged that the Duke should buy a country house at Belle Chasse, where they should spend eight months of the year; the Duchesse agreed to the plan, all was settled, and Mme. de Genlis embarked on the career of education, [402] which had always been a passion with her, and which she could now pursue with every advantage.