The young princes and princesses could not understand that the resources of the State were not inexhaustible, or that they might not draw whatever they liked from the Treasury when they had spent all their own allowances.Courage, Monsieur le Marchal!CHAPTER III
ONE:[302]La Fayette was still an exile. Too Jacobin for Austria, too royalist for France, he took a place near Wittmold. The wedding of his eldest daughter took place the following May, and a few days afterwards a daughter was born to Pauline and christened Stphanie.
ONE:Lisette and her mother were turning back, but the Dauphine stopped them, and speaking in the kindest manner to them begged them to continue their walk wherever they liked.
THREE:Their great stronghold was the salon of Mme. Geoffrin, where all the radical, atheist, and philosophic parties congregated. DAlembert, Condorcet, Turgot, Diderot, Morellet, Marmontel, and many other celebrated names were amongst the intimate friends of the singular woman, who although possessing neither rank, beauty, talent, nor any particular gift, had yet succeeded in establishing a salon celebrated not only in France but all over Europe. Owing to her want of rank she could not be presented at court, and yet amongst her guests were many of the greatest names in France, members of the royal family, strangers of rank and distinction. She knew nothing of art or literature, but her Monday dinners and evenings were the resort of all the first artists of the day, and her Wednesdays of the literary and political world.
THREE:Lisette was at home with her daughter, who was just recovering from an illness, when the news was brought to her.Monsieur has forgotten to tell me his name.
But neither her children nor her charitable and religious duties, absorbing as they were to her, could exclude her from intense excitement and interest in the political events going on around her. The questions discussed were so vital, and the changes so sweeping, that every phase of life was affected by them.The King, Queen, and Dauphin appeared, and there was an outburst of loyalty in which the gardes-nationales joined. The band struck up Richard o mon roi; the ladies of the Court who had come into the boxes tore up their handkerchiefs into white cockades, the young officers climbed up into the boxes to get them; the evening finished with a ball, and in a frenzy of loyalty.Amongst others who arrived were the Duchesse de Fleury and Princesse Joseph de Monaco. The latter was a gentle, charming woman, whose devotion to her children was the cause of her death. After having escaped from France and arrived safely in Rome, she was actually foolish enough to go back to Paris with the idea of saving the remains of her fortune for her children. The Terror was in full force; she was arrested and condemned. Those who wished to save her entreated her to declare herself enceinte, by which many women had been spared. She would anyhow have gained a reprieve, and as it happened her life would have been saved, as the ninth Thermidor was rapidly approaching. But her husband was far away, and she indignantly refused, preferring death to such an alternative.What for?
