When the Comtesse de Custine died, after a short illness, her husband was away with his regiment, and did not arrive in time to see her alive. During the first days of his despair, while looking over her papers, he came upon a packet of letters which proved beyond all doubt the infamous treachery of the Vicomte, who had made his pretended love for Mme. de Genlis a shield to hide his real passion for his brothers wife, which had been the horror and torment of her life, and which she had dreaded to reveal to her husband, whose temper was violent when aroused.Flicit soon managed to make friends with all her husbands relations. M. and Mme. de Puisieux not only got over their prejudice against her, but were devoted to her. She spent months together with them at Sillery, and was a great deal with them at Paris, where her great delight was to know every one who could remember the court of Louis XIV., for which she had the most ardent admiration.
TWO:His first question was for his son, and Pauline really dared not tell him where he was, but when he asked whether he would be long absent, replied No. She felt very guilty and unhappy because she was deceiving him; but fortunately he only stayed in London a short time during which he was out day and night; and suddenly he went away on business to another part of England. Meanwhile Pauline thought she would start for France, leaving a letter to M. de Beaune to confess the whole matter.
THREE:Eh! What! Then Athalie will never be played any more; that masterpiece will be lost to the French stage!
TWO:Lisette was at home with her daughter, who was just recovering from an illness, when the news was brought to her.She had painted 662 portraits, 15 pictures, 200 landscapes, many of them in Switzerland, and many pastels.
TWO:IT will not be possible in a biography so short as this, to give a detailed account of the wandering, adventurous life led by Mme. de Genlis after the severance of her connection with the Orlans family.Monsieur, you have killed your brother.
TWO:Another of her fellow-prisoners, equally fascinated by her and able to render her more practical service, was M. de Montrond, a witty, light-hearted sceptic, a friend of Talleyrand.Yes, yes! I know the way to the restaurant! and as he dragged him along in an iron grasp some guards, who had discovered the escape of the prisoner, recognised and seized him.
He was not, however, to live to see the realisation of his fears. Not much more than a year after Lisettes return from her convent, a terrible calamity befell her in the loss of the father whose love and protection had made the sunshine of her life, and by whose death her lot was entirely changed and her happiness ruined.After her brothers death she lost much of her prestige, and held her salon in the rue St. Honor, most of her habitus, after her death, transferring themselves to the house of Mme. Geoffrin.[31]Et tranquille je veille, et ma veille aux remords,But her household difficulties were serious. Any persons who have passed their youth in ease and comfort, and then find themselves obliged to arrange their lives upon a totally different scale, will understand this. The petty economies which their soul abhors, the absurd mistakes they continually make, often with disastrous results, the perplexity caused by few and incompetent servants, and the doubt as to whether, after all, their expenses will not exceed their resources, hang like millstones round their inexperienced necks in any case.The Comte dArtois had an affair with Mlle. [202] Duth, who had ruined numbers of people, and thought her liaison with a fils de France would open the Treasury to her rapacity. She contracted enormous debts at all the great shops in Paris, and very soon bills for plate, pictures, jewels, furniture, dresses, &c., &c., poured in upon the Prince, who, finding himself utterly unable to pay them, sent for Turgot, then Contr?leur-Gnral, and asked him to get him out of the difficulty.
荣誉榜
THREE:Capital letter T
THREE:
