An amusing anecdote is related by Mme. de Bassanville [76] concerning the marriage of a certain Mlle. de Mirepoix, who belonged to that family, but apparently to a younger and poorer branch of it.
ONE:For the Duc dOrlans was aiming at the crown, and it is impossible to believe Mme. de Genlis was [414] not aware of it. He suggested to the Queen that Madame Royale should be married to his eldest son, which proposal Marie Antoinette decidedly refused, remarking afterwards that to marry her daughter to the Duc de Chartres would be to sign the death warrant of her son. [120]
Capital letter RPhilippe-galit was now Duc dOrlans, and his eldest son Duc de Chartres. That young prince was about seventeen, and like all the Orlans family, except the Duchess and the Comte de Beaujolais, was thoroughly indoctrinated with the detestable spirit that prevailed at the Palais Royal.Time passed only too quickly in the happy [20] sheltered life of the gifted child in her fathers house. The days were full of delight as she sat absorbed in the work which was a passion to her in the studio of the father she idolised. The evenings were full of pleasure, interest, and variety, as she listened to the brilliant conversation, artistic, intellectual, and political, of her father and the friends of many different ideas and opinions with whom he associated.Sire, when are these two pictures to be exhibited?