He was deeply in love with Mme. dHarvelay, whose husband was the banker and intimate friend of M. de Vergennes, then Foreign Minister. Mme. dHarvelay, who returned his passion and carried on a secret liaison with him, used her influence with her husband to induce M. de Vergennes to push him on. The husband, who was fascinated by Calonne and did not know or suspect what was going on, was persuaded by his wife one day to write a confidential letter to Vergennes on the subject of the general alarm then beginning to be felt about the disastrous state of the finances and the peril threatening the Monarchy itself, in which he declared Calonne to be the only man who could save the situation. The Court was then at Fontainebleau, and it was contrived that this letter should be shown to the King in the evening, after he had retired to supper with his family.
TWO:She would not have her portrait done, saying that she was very sorry to refuse her aunts, but as she had renounced the world she could not have her picture taken. She had cut her hair short and her dress was very simple. The King looked nearly as pale and thin.
THREE:However, Mme. Le Brun was overjoyed to see Jeanne, and to keep her in Paris, although she refused to live with her, because the people with whom she persisted in associating were so objectionable that her mother would not meet them.
TWO:One cannot help seeing in the sentiments expressed and the manner of expressing them, the artificial, affected tone which with Mme. de Genlis had become her second nature, and which she had evidently inculcated into her daughter.
TWO:For La Fayette was neither a genius, nor a great man, nor a born leader; the gift of influencing other people was not his; he had no lasting power over the minds of others, and as to the mob, he led them as long as he went where they wanted to go. When he did not agree with all their excesses they followed him no longer.
TWO:David, Chardin, the celebrated genre painter, Van Loo, Grard, La Tour, Joseph Vernet, and many others were flourishing. Louis Vige was also an artist. He painted portraits in pastel, of which his daughter says that they were extremely good, many of them worthy of the famous La Tour; also charming scenes after the style of Watteau, in oil.
Ma Lise aimait se voir clbre.Society was much smaller, people knew each other, or at any rate knew much more about each other, than could be the case after the revolution. The Comte dEspinchal was the most extraordinary instance of this essentially social life. He passed his days and nights in going from one party or visit to another; he knew all about everything going [53] on, important or trivial. He appeared to know every one not only at the parties to which he went, but in all the boxes at the Opera, and nearly everybody he met in the streets, so that it was quite inconvenient for him to walk in them, as he was stopped every minute. Not only people at court and in society, but grisettes, employs of the theatres, persons of every class; but though a perfect mine of gossip, he never made mischief.Poppo, the celebrated violinist, was also seized and dragged before the bloodthirsty comit de salut public.In spite of all their engagements, Pauline and her sisters found time for an immense amount of charitable work of all sorts. They all took an active part in one way or another, and Pauline even managed to make use of the evenings she spent in society, for she collected money at the houses to which she went to help the poor during the hard winters. During that of 1788 she got a thousand cus in this way. M. de Beaune used to give her a louis every time he won at cards, which was, or he good-naturedly pretended to be, very often.Thus happily and peacefully the rest of her life flowed on; her interest in all political and social mattersart, science, and literatureremaining undiminished, her affection for old friends unaltered, while new ones were constantly added to the number, until on May 29, 1842, she died at the age of eighty-seven.I have always been persuaded, she says in one of her letters, that if the victims of that time of execrable memory had not had the noble pride to die with courage, the Terror would have ceased much sooner. Those whose intelligence is not developed have too little imagination to be touched by silent suffering, and it is much easier to arouse the compassion than the imagination of the populace.
荣誉榜
THREE:The Duc de Chartres wrote to his father saying that he never wished to return to France, and wanted to get leave from the Convention to expatriate himself, but the Duke replied that there was no sense in it, and forbade him to write.
THREE:It is difficult to understand how anybody who had escaped from France at that time should have chosen to go back there, except to save or help somebody dear to them.
