And amidst all the oppression, vice, and evil of which we hear so often in France of the eighteenth century, there was also much good of which [10] we hear little or nothing. The reason is obvious. Good people are, unfortunately, seldom so amusing to write or read about as bad ones. Has any one ever met with a child who wanted to be told a story about a good little girl or boy? And is it not true, though lamentable, that there are many persons who would rather read a book about a bushranger than a bishop?
FORE:As M. de Genlis was with his regiment, she went with a friend, the Marquise de Brugnon, who was also young and pretty, MM. de Bouzolle and de Nedonchel. A room had been lent them on the ground floor of a new house from which to see the fte, and, fearing there would be a great crowd, they arrived directly after dinner. There was some delay before the fireworks began, and Flicit, who was, with all her talents, very often extremely silly and affected, declared that she had waited so long she did not care to see the fireworks, and persisted in keeping her eyes shut until they were over.Mme. de Genlis, finding Paris too dear, moved to Versailles where she lived for a time, during which she had the grief of losing her nephew, Csar Ducrest, a promising young officer, who was killed by an accident.
It is therefore evident that at the time of which Mme. de Genlis is writing, the middle of May, the Duchess of Orlans was in prison. Also that the Marquis de Sillery, her husband, had not been detained in the Abbaye, as from his letter she had supposed, but was only under supervision till the 7th of April.Barbier, a lawyer and man of the world, whose journal of eight volumes gives a vivid impression of the life of that time, after remarking that the sentence was a very lenient one, [6] that the chateau was not so large as that of many a fermier gnral, and that the building thereof gave employment to many poor people, goes on to say, As for shame, ... if it is because the King has a mistress, why who has not? except M. le duc dOrlans. [7]... The Comte de Clermont, Abb de Saint-Germain-des-Prs, openly keeps Mlle. le Duc, who was an opera dancer; she spends three-quarters of the year at Berny, the Abbs country house, where she does the honours. She has a fine house in the rue de Richelieu, where the Prince often spends a week. The fathers of the abbey who have business with him go to him there in the morning, for he does not lodge in the palace of the abbey. This goes on in sight of every one, and nobody says a word about it.