Her mother was extremely beautiful, of rather an austere character, and very religious. With her the children attended High Mass and the other offices of the Church, especially during Lent; and upon the sensitive, impressionable girl the solemn beauty of the music, and especially the deep notes of the organ, produced an almost overpowering effect. Often as she sat or knelt by her mother the rich, [17] melodious tones echoing through choir and nave in the dim, religious gloom would throw her into a kind of rapture, and end in a passion of tears which she could not always conceal. This intense feeling for music, especially religious music, lasted all her life.
ONE:
TWO:This elegant trick was traced to the Duc de Chartres and his friends; and the good temper and general demeanour of Mme. de Genlis on this provoking occasion struck the Duke with [388] admiration and compunction. Philippe-galit, contemptible as his disposition undoubtedly was, had also been very badly brought up, and when he was fifteen his father had given him a mistress who was afterwards notorious as Mlle. Duth; he was always surrounded with a group of the fastest young men at court, the Chevalier de Coigny, MM. de Fitz-James, de Conflans, &c.
THREE:Diable! At once? You are in great haste, said he, smiling.
FORE:After her brothers death she lost much of her prestige, and held her salon in the rue St. Honor, most of her habitus, after her death, transferring themselves to the house of Mme. Geoffrin.
CHAPTER XThen they went to Paris, where her first child, a daughter, was born.The Abbess of the Abbaye-aux-Bois, hearing that a pilgrim was in the habit of coming into the Abbey Church during dinner time when nobody was there, had her watched, and discovered that it was the Duchesse de Noailles, who would stand for an interminable time before a statue of the Virgin, talking and even seeming to dispute with it.The dAguesseau, qualifis barons in 1683, were amongst the most respected of the noblesse de robe, but their position was not, of course, to be compared to that of the de Noailles, and Mlle. [162] dAguesseau was all the more pleased with the brilliant prospect before her, since her future husband was violently in love with her, and although a lad of sixteen, two years younger than herself, was so handsome, charming, and attractive, that she, in her calmer way, returned his affection.Never, she afterwards remarked, had she seen so many pretty women together as in the salon of Mme. de Thoum; but what surprised her was that most of them did needlework sitting round a large table all the evening. They would also knit in their boxes at the opera; but it was explained that this was for charity. In other respects she found society at Vienna very much the same as at Paris before the advent of the Revolution.Moi, je crois quil nen avait pas,But she was so ill that she could not stand, and as she lay delirious upon her pallet in a high fever, one of her fellow prisoners called to M. Cazotte, who was also imprisoned there, and was famous for having predicted many things which had always come true, especially for his prophecy at the notorious supper of the Prince de Beauvau, at which he had foretold the horrors of the Revolution and the fate of the different guests, now being, or having been, terribly fulfilled. [105]
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