It was dearly bought, however. For some time, for prudence sake, the Marquis kept up his pretence of madness, but after the fall of Robespierre and the Terror he resumed the apparent use of his reason. But the next heir had taken possession of the estates of the family in consequence of the declared madness of its head. The Marquis appealed to the law, but his own notoriety and the last will and letter of the Chevalier decided the case against him. He was shut up in the asylum of Charenton, where [320] he lived for many years, resigning himself after a time to his fate, and dying in extreme old age.
Director
Trzia remained at Paris, which was soon transformed by the wonderful genius who rose to supreme power upon the ruins of the chimeras with which she and her friends had deluded themselves. The men of the Revolution, regicides and murderers, fled from the country. Napoleon was an enemy of a different kind from Louis XVI., and [344] he was now the idol of the people. His strong hand held the reins of government, his mighty genius dominated the nation and led their armies to victory; the fierce, unruly populace quailed before him. He scorned the mob and hated the Revolution.When the storm had subsided the peasants were crying and lamenting over the destruction of their crops, and all the large proprietors in the neighbourhood came most generously to their assistance. One rich man distributed forty thousand francs among them. The next year he was one of the first to be massacred.The Emperor desired her to paint the portrait of the Empress, whom she represented standing in full court dress, with a crown of diamonds. Lisette used to declare that she was like a woman out of the Gospel, and that she was the only woman she knew whom no calumny ever attacked. One day she brought her two youngest sons to the sitting, the Grand Dukes Nicolas and Michael, then children. Of the Grand Duke Nicolas, afterwards Emperor, Mme. Le Brun declared that she had never seen a more beautiful child, and that she could paint from memory his face, which had all the characteristic beauty of Greece.