ONE:So she took rooms in the Piazza di Spagna, which is, of course, one of the most convenient and animated situations in Rome; but the noise, which never seems to inconvenience Italians, was insupportable to her. Carriages and carts, groups of people singing choruses, lovely in themselves, but distracting when they went on all night, made sleep impossible, and drove her to another dwelling, a small house in a quiet street which took her fancy. The whole house was so charming that, with her usual carelessness about money, she hastened to pay [94] the ten or twelve louis for the months rent, and took possession. She went to bed rejoicing in the silence, only broken by the splash of a fountain in the little courtyard; but in the middle of the night a horrible noise began which woke them all up and prevented any more sleep till the morning, when the landlady explained that there was a pump fastened to the wall outside, which was constantly being used by the washerwomen, who, as it was too hot to work in the day, began the washing at two oclock in the morning. Accordingly Mme. Le Brun removed into a small palace, which she found damp and cold, as it had been uninhabited for nine years; it was also infested by armies of rats. She stayed there six weeks and then moved, this time on condition of sleeping one night in the house before paying the rent; but the beams of the ceilings were full of little worms, which gnawed all night long and made such a noise that she declared she could not sleep, and left the next day.From her first arrival they set themselves against the Dauphine, they exaggerated the faults and follies which were only those of a thoughtless, wilful child of fifteen, and by their unjustifiable spite gave colour to the infamous and false reports circulated by her enemies. They tried to sow dissension between her and the Comtesse de Provence, hoping by means of his wife to engage their second nephew in a party against her. The fault was chiefly that of Madame Adla?de, for Madame Victoire was far [201] more gentle and easygoing, and Madame Sophie so dreadfully shy and nervous that she was incapable of taking a leading part in anything.
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THREE:But her greatest love was for her father; it was almost adoration. Louis Vige was exactly opposite in disposition to his wife, to whom he was, however, devoted. Kindly, affectionate, light-hearted, and thoughtless, his love for her did not interfere with his admiration for other women; a pretty grisette was quite able to turn his head, and on New Years day he would amuse himself by walking about Paris, saluting the prettiest young girls he met, on pretence of wishing them a happy new year.
THREE:The walls and fortifications were demolished within the last fifty years, and before and since then many a beautiful historic tower and gateway, many a lovely old house and interesting bit of architecture has vanished before the destroying mania of a stupid town council devoid of either education to comprehend or taste to appreciate and preserve the characteristic beauty which, if they had carefully restored and maintained all that was possible of the old, and carried out the new buildings in harmony with them, would have made their city the pearl of Belgium, as Nuremberg is of Germany.
THREE:
