THREE:In fact she had given her whole heart to her work. She thought and dreamed of nothing but painting, her career as an artist was her life, and her affection for her mother, her brother, and her friends sufficed for her domestic happiness; she wanted neither love intrigues nor even marriage to disturb the state of things she found so entirely satisfactory.
THREE:It was a change indeed from Louis XVI. Every one trembled before Napoleon except his brother Lucien; and perhaps his mother, who, however, never had the slightest influence over him. He required absolute submission; but if not in opposition to his will, he liked a high spirit and ready answer [463] in a young man, or woman either, and detested weakness, cowardice, and indecision.
THREE:The beautiful Comtesse de Brionne and her daughter, the Princesse de Lorraine, who was also very pretty, then came to call on her, and their visit was followed by those of all the court and faubourg Saint Germain. She also knew all the great artists [30] and literary people, and had more invitations than she could accept.DAlembert, one of the leading encyclop?dists, like most of them, intensely vain, and about whose origin nothing was known, claimed to be the illegitimate son of the Marquise de Tencin, of scandalous reputation. Mme. de Crquy, in her Souvenirs, scorns the idea, saying also that much of the evil spoken of Mme. de Tencin was untrue; but it is certain that many dark and mysterious rumours clung to the h?tel Tencin, the garden of which extended over what is now the rue de la Paix. Originally intended for the cloister, Mlle. de Tencin refused to take the vows at Grenoble, and was a conspicuous figure in the wild orgies of the Regency. An intimate friend of the notorious John Law, then controller-general of finance, she succeeded, partly by his influence, in getting her brother made Cardinal and Archbishop of Embrun, and during his lifetime did the honours of his h?tel, where, during the days of his power, John Law was a leading spirit. Fortunes were lost and won there in a night, but darker secrets than those of the gambling table were whispered concerning the h?tel Tencin, its inhabitants and guests. More than ordinary scandals, even in the days of the Regent Orlans and his shameless daughters, were circulated, and even the murder of one of her lovers was so far believed that Mme. de Tencin was arrested, though shortly afterwards acquitted.
THREE:
THREE:IL PONTE VECCHIO, FLORENCE
THREE:Can it be the Again that wretched madman! muttered the Chevalier. Is it Gods justice that puts him always in my way to destroy me?
THREE:Mme. de Valence, daughter of Mme. de Genlis came to them at Tournay, but very soon had to hurry back to France as the Austrian army was coming up.
THREE:Capital letter WMme. de Genlis, though she did not go much into society, being now exceedingly royalist, was [476] presented at court, and must have recalled those far off days when she drove down to Versailles with Mme. de Puisieux to be presented to the magnificent Louis XV.