FORE:Shortly after this he called upon the Comte de Vaudreuil at Versailles one morning just after he was up, and confided to him a financial scheme by which he expected enormous profit, ending by offering M. de Vaudreuil a large sum of money if he would undertake to make it succeed.However, the predictions were fulfilled. Mme. de Marigny, after many misfortunes, died young. The Comte de Flahault was guillotined during the Terror, and the Comtesse escaped with her son to England, where she lived in great poverty in a village near London, until a friend of hers, the Marquis , also an emigr, suggested to her that she should write a novel. That same night she began Adle de Senanges, which she sold for 100 to a publisher in London, and after which she continued by her writing to support herself and [44] educate her boy at a good English school. When she returned to France she lived at a small h?tel in an out-of-the-way part of Paris until she married M. de Souza, the Portuguese Ambassador.
FORE:Louis XV. stood leaning against a great inlaid bureau near the window. My grandfather was just then playing with a beautiful sporting dog of which he was very fond. I approached the King with timidity and embarrassment, but I soon perceived that he was in a good humour....
ONE:
TWO:Adieu, Madame! he said; and the changed tone of his voice so increased my agitation that I could not speak. I held out my hand which he took and pressed tightly in his; then, turning hastily to the postillions he signed to them, and we started.Very near this convent lived the sister of her father, the Marquise de Sercey, and her family, with whom she spent much of her time.
THREE:But nobody was afraid of Louis XVI., and when he did command he was by no means sure of obedience. He had ascended the throne with the most excellent intentions, abolished all sorts of abuses, and wanted to be the father of his people. But a father who cannot be respected is very likely not to be loved, and a ruler who cannot inspire fear cannot inspire respect either, and is not so fit to be a leader as one who possesses fewer virtues and more strength and courage.
FORE:
Who do you mean.With calmness they received the order to go to the Conciergerie, which was, they knew, their death sentence. When they were sent for, the Duchess, who was reading the Imitation of Christ, hastily wrote on a scrap of paper, My children, courage and prayer, put it in the place where she left off, and gave the book to the Duchesse dOrlans to give to her daughters if her life were spared. As she said their names, for once her calmness gave way. The book was wet with her tears, which left their mark upon it always.Meanwhile, she and M. de Genlis had fallen in love with each other, and resolved to marry. As he had neither father nor mother, there was nobody whose consent he was absolutely bound to ask; but a powerful relation, M. de Puisieux, who was the head of his family, had already, with his consent, begun to negotiate his marriage with a rich young girl. Instead of telling M. de Puisieux the state of the case while there was still time to retire without difficulty, M. de Genlis said nothing, but proposed that they should at once marry secretly, to which neither Flicit nor her relations seem to have made any objection. She had no money, and had [367] refused all the marriages proposed to her; here was a man she did like, and who was in all respects unexceptionable, only that he was not well off. But his connections were so brilliant and influential that they could soon put that right, and it was agreed that the marriage should take place from the house of the Marquise de Sercey.The order was given for every one to wear powder, but as Mme. Le Brun did not like it in portraits, and was painting that of Prince Bariatinski, she begged him to come without it. One day he arrived in her studio pale and trembling.There was also the salon of Mme. du Deffand, who, while more decidedly irreligious and atheistical than Mme. Geoffrin, was her superior in talent, birth, and education, and always spoke of her with the utmost disdain, as a bourgeoise without manners or instruction, who did not know [361] how to write, pronounce, or spell correctly, and saw no reason why people should not talk of des zharicots.She was, however, first sent to her mothers family in Austria, where she was received, of course, with great affection, but kept as much as possible from seeing even the French emigrs, of whom there were so many in Austria. The Austrian plan was to marry her to one of the archdukes, her cousins, and then claim for her the succession to Burgundy, Franche Comt, and Bretagne; to all of which she would, in fact, have had a strong claim if France could have been dismembered; as these provinces all went in the female line, and had thus been united to the kingdom of France.
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