All the young girls, laughing and treating it as a capital joke, crowded round to draw. One of the last drew the black; it was Mlle. de Mirepoix, a dark, handsome girl of five-and-twenty, who was poor and had not yet found a husband.
The Restoration was received with rapture by her and most of her family, not even La Fayette himself holding aloof from the welcome to the King.One day the Baron de Talleyrand announced that [106] the Queen wished her to paint the portraits of her two eldest daughters, whose marriages she was just going to Vienna to arrange. [39]The King associated all his grandchildren with Mme. Du Barry just as he had his daughters with the Duchesse de Chateauroux and her sisters de Nesle, [188] and affairs went on at court much in the usual way until, in 1774, he caught the small-pox in one of his intrigues and died, leaving a troubled and dangerous inheritance to the weak, helpless, vacillating lad, who had neither brains to direct, energy to act, or strength to rule.
ONE:Paul turned to one of his aides-de-camp, saying
THREE:The King had been married to her when he was fifteen and she two-and-twenty; and after the first few years had lived in an open immorality which was very general at his court, and for a long time did not much affect his popularity with the nation, though every now and then caricatures and epigrams more witty than prudent appeared; as, for instance, the following, written upon the base of the pedestal of an equestrian statue of him, around which were grouped the figures of Strength, Prudence, Justice, and Peace:How she could have entertained so mad an idea seems inexplicable; but in fact, bad as the French news was, she was far from understanding the frightful state of the country. In those days news travelled slowly, important events only became partially known long after they had taken place; and as to private letters, people dared not put in them anything which might endanger either themselves or their friends.
THREE:It was a thousand pities that they did not emigrate like the rest, but as they were not actually proscribed, they did not like to leave the old Duke and Duchess de Noailles, who were feeble and dependent on their care.
Puisque cest vous que je fte, comment vous tonnez-vous de quelque chose? [48]Then they went to Paris, where her first child, a daughter, was born.Autrement nomms en province?Lisette and her mother were turning back, but the Dauphine stopped them, and speaking in the kindest manner to them begged them to continue their walk wherever they liked.
