One day, while she was sitting to Mme. Le Brun, Mme. S asked her to lend her carriage to her that evening to go to the theatre. Mme. Le Brun consented, but when she ordered the carriage next morning at eleven oclock she was told that neither carriage, horses, nor coachman had come back. She sent at once to Mme. S, who had passed the night at the h?tel des Finances and had not yet returned. It was not for some days that Mme. Le Brun made this discovery by means of her coachman, who had been bribed to keep silent, but [68] had nevertheless told the story to several persons in the house.M. de Saint-Aubin, meanwhile, whose affairs, which grew worse and worse, were probably not improved by his mismanagement nor by the residence of his wife and daughter in Paris, stayed in Burgundy, coming every now and then to see them. Mlle. de Mars had left them, to the great grief of Flicit, who was now fourteen, and whom the Baron de Zurlauben, Colonel of the Swiss Guards, was most anxious to marry; but, as he was eighty years old, she declined his offer, and also another of a young widower who was only six-and-twenty, extremely handsome and agreeable, and had a large fortune.
ONE:He was not, however, to live to see the realisation of his fears. Not much more than a year after Lisettes return from her convent, a terrible calamity befell her in the loss of the father whose love and protection had made the sunshine of her life, and by whose death her lot was entirely changed and her happiness ruined.
Madame Vige Le BrunAs to her writings, then so much in vogue, they were mostly works intended either to explain, assist, or illustrate the system of education which was the hobby of her life and which, if one may judge by Adle et Thodore, one of the most important of her tales, can only be called preposterous.Birth of Flicit DucrestChateau de Saint-AubinMade chanoinesseStory of her uncle and her motherHer childhoodComes to ParisGoes into societyEvil reputation of the h?tel Tencin.And as to Mme. de Genlis, it appears more than probable that if she had followed the advice of Mme. de Custine, as she promised to do, and remained [393] at the h?tel de Puisieux she would still have been a great literary and social success and also a better and happier woman.One cannot help feeling intense satisfaction in reflecting that most of those who did all this mischief, at any rate, suffered for it, when the danger, ruin, and death they had prepared for others came upon themselves. One of the most abominable of the revolutionists, who had fallen under the displeasure of his friends and been condemned by them to be guillotined with his young son, begged to be allowed to embrace him on the scaffold; but the boy sullenly refused, saying, No; it is you who have brought me to this.
