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ONE:With the Vernet family, too, she was on intimate terms. The landscape painter, Joseph Vernet, was always a kind friend to her. His son Charles, or Carle, as he was called, was also an artist, and his daughter ��milie, the wife of M. Chalgrin, was constantly at her house.Their property had been confiscated, their estates seized, and their h?tels and chateaux either burnt or sold.

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ONE:Between Mesdames and their nephews and nieces [180] there was always the most tender affection. They had adored their brother, were inconsolable for his loss, and devoted to his children, whom they spoilt to their hearts�� content, giving them everything they liked, and allowing any amount of noise, disturbance, and mischief to go on in their presence. Madame Ad��la?de, who was extremely fond of the eldest boy, would say to him, ��Talk at your ease, Berri, shout like your brother Artois. Make a noise, break my porcelaines, but make yourself talked about.��

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ONE:Vont changer de conduite, amen.

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ONE:��tale en ce chateau sans crainte et sans effroiThe marriages of her daughters which had so delighted her ambition, had not brought her all the happiness she expected.

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ONE:The Duc d��Ayen, though always retaining a deep affection for his wife, spent a great part of his time away from her. He was one of the most conspicuous and brilliant figures at the court, and besides entering eagerly into all its pleasures, dissipation, and extravagance, was a member of the Academy of Science; and although by no means an atheist or an enemy of religion, associated constantly with the ��philosophers,�� whose ideas [164] and opinions he, like many of the French nobles in the years preceding the Revolution, had partly adopted, little imagining the terrible consequences that would result from them.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 month��s 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 o��clock 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.

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ONE:And now she was dame pour accompagner to the Duchesse de Chartres, and her influence was soon felt in the society of the Palais Royal.