As she drove with a friend down to Romainville to stay with the Comte de Sgur, she noticed that the peasants they met in the roads did not take off their hats to them, but looked at them insolently, and sometimes shook their sticks threateningly at them.
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 Comtesse de Provence was delighted to see Mme. Le Brun again, and arranged various excursions, which they made together into the mountains, in spite of the intense heat, for the summer was at its height. After spending some time in Turin, Signor Porporati offered to lend Mme. Le Brun a farm in the country, where he had a few rooms furnished for himself, and where he used often to go in hot weather. This exactly suited her, for the heat was overpowering, her little girl was made quite ill by it; and with joyful haste, she, with the governess, child, and servants, established themselves amongst the meadows, woods, and streams which surrounded the farm house.
ONE:In April, 1794, they were sent to the Luxembourg where they found the de Mouchy, who had been there five months, and who were lodged in a room over the one in which the Marchale de Mouchy was born. They had also been married at that palace. The three de Noailles were put in the room above them.M. Mnageot, the Director, came out to the carriage, offered her a little apartment for herself, her child, and governess, and lent her ten louis, for she had not enough left to pay her travelling expenses. Then having installed her in her rooms, he went with her to St. Peters.
TWO:She remained at La Muette until the Terror began. Mme. Chalgrin, of whom she was an intimate friend, came there to celebrate very quietly the marriage of her daughter. The day after it, both Mme. Chalgrin and Mme. Filleul were arrested by the revolutionists and guillotined a few days later, because they were said to have burnt the candles of the nation.Go and fetch the police! go quick! They are murdering some one. I heard cries, groans, and chains! Run, if you want to save him from these wretches!
THREE:The family of Noailles was a large and powerful one, and, as Louis XVIII. remarks in his Mmoires, Les Noailles ... etaient unis comme chair et ongle, [53] and having been loaded with favours by Louis XIV. and Louis XV., seemed to think they had a natural right to all the best posts and highest honours. [54]
TWO:Flicit Stphanie Ducrest de Saint-Aubin was born January 25, 1746, at Champcry, a small estate in Burgundy which belonged to her father, but which two years afterwards he sold, and bought the estate and marquisat [111] of Saint-Aubin on the Loire.
TWO:But however hard she worked, the family finances did not become sufficiently flourishing to satisfy Mme. Vige, who, driven to desperation by their poverty, and of course anxious about the future, everything depending upon the work of a delicate girl of fourteen, resolved to marry again, and unfortunately selected a rich jeweller of her acquaintance, to whose house in the rue St. Honor she removed with her children after the marriage.
[99]Rashly they went to Paris in September, 1793, and were soon detained as suspected in their own house, where Father Carrichon, a priest, who in disguise carried on the work of his sacred calling, succeeded in visiting them frequently; and from the news he brought them they were before long [245] convinced that their lives would be sacrificed, and prepared with courage and resignation to meet their death.
荣誉榜
THREE:The salon of the famous Mme. Geoffrin was the great resort of philosophers, literary men of different kinds, painters, musicians, and celebrities of various countries, people distinguished in the political world, or belonging to the court and the great noblesse, French and foreign.Everywhere was nothing but consternation, grief, and alarm; for all ranks and classes not only adored Catherine, but were terrified at the advent of Paul.
THREE:It was time. The day before they left a stone was thrown in at the window just where Mademoiselle dOrlans had been sitting; if it had struck her it might have killed her. It struck her hat which she had hung on the top of a chair. A shower of stones followed, breaking the windows and arousing the Duc de Chartres and their only manservant, who [447] had gone to bed, and who rushed out into the garden, but only in time to hear the hurrying foot-steps of the escaping rascals.Birth of Flicit DucrestChateau de Saint-AubinMade chanoinesseStory of her uncle and her motherHer childhoodComes to ParisGoes into societyEvil reputation of the h?tel Tencin.
