ONE:The Comtesse dAdhmar, who held a post in the Queens household, received one day a note from the Duchesse de Polignac, Governess of the Children of France, asking her to go with her to consult a fortune-teller of whom every one was talking. For many persons who declined to believe in God were ready and eager to put confidence in witchcraft, fortune-telling, spiritualism, or any other form of occult proceedings.Although not a great painter he was absolutely devoted to his art, in which he would become so absorbed as to forget everything else. On one occasion he was going out to dinner and had already left the house, when he remembered something he wanted to do to a picture upon which he was working. He therefore went back, took off the wig he was wearing, put on a night-cap, and began to retouch the picture. Presently he got up, went out again, forgetting all about the night-cap which [14] he still had on, and which formed a singular contrast to his coat trimmed with gold braid, and the sword at his side; and would certainly have presented himself at the party to which he was going in this costume had he not fortunately met a neighbour, who stopped him and pointed out the strangeness of his appearance.
TWO:There was no time to lose; the furniture, &c., was sold at a loss, they packed up in haste, found a carriage with great difficulty, and on a cold, bright day in December they set off, they knew not whither.Et comme le soleil, de saison en saison,
ONE:But his position at Paris was too powerful and his friends too numerous to allow him to be at once attacked with impunity. It was Trzia who was to be the first victim. Robespierre dreaded her influence, her talents, her popularity, her opinions, and the assistance and support she was to Tallien.
TWO:It does not seem to occur to her that it was she herself who caused the destruction of all this purity and principle by giving her child to a man of notoriously bad character; but without taking any blame to herself she goes on to say that Pulchrie was, and always would be in her eyes, gentle, sweet-tempered, kind-hearted, and easy to live withwhich she probably was.
ONE:Pauline had another daughter in May, 1801, and after her recovery and a few weeks with Mme. de Grammont and at the baths at Louche, she went to the district of Vlay with her husband to see if any of the property of his father could be recovered. Their fortunes were, of course, to some extent restored by Paulines inheritance from her mother, and the fine old chateau of Fontenay [81] made them a charming home for the rest of their lives.With the same religious and political principles, the conditions of life which surrounded the Marquise de Montagu were totally different. A contrast indeed to the simple, artistic household, the early grief, poverty, and hard work, the odious step-father, the foolish mother, the worthless husband and daughter, the thousand difficulties and disadvantages which beset Mme. Le Brun, were the state and luxury, the sheltered life, the watchful care, and powerful protection bestowed upon the daughter of the house of Noailles; her mother, the saintly, [ix] heroic Duchesse dAyen, her husband the gallant, devoted Marquis de Montagu.
TWO:But time and circumstances were obliterating crimes and injuries by the side of which her faults were as nothing. Though it is satisfactory to think that numbers of the Revolutionists received the punishment due to their deeds, there were others who for some reason or other managed not only to escape but to prosper; and with Fouch in a place of power and authority, what, might one ask, had become of all ideas of justice and retribution?
