TWO:The Dauphins eldest son, the Duc de Bourgogne, died in early childhood, leaving a fearful inheritance to his next brother, the Duc de Berri, afterwards Louis XVI. From his very birth ill-luck seemed to [167] overshadow him. The Dauphine was at Choisy-le-roy when he was born, and none of the royal family arrived in time to be present. The courier sent to Paris to announce the news fell from his horse at the barrire and was killed. The Abbe de Saujon, sent for to baptise him privately, was stricken with paralysis on the great staircase at Versailles. Of the three wet-nurses chosen for him two died within the week, and the third was seized with small-pox in six weeks.M. de Saint-Aubin, meanwhile, whose affairs, which grew worse and worse, were probably not improved by his mismanagement nor by the residence of his wife and daughter in Paris, stayed in Burgundy, coming every now and then to see them. Mlle. de Mars had left them, to the great grief of Flicit, who was now fourteen, and whom the Baron de Zurlauben, Colonel of the Swiss Guards, was most anxious to marry; but, as he was eighty years old, she declined his offer, and also another of a young widower who was only six-and-twenty, extremely handsome and agreeable, and had a large fortune.
THREE:
THREE:The first meeting of Trzia with the man who was to play the most important part in her life took place in the studio of Mme. Le Brun, to be painted by whom was then the height of fashion. Mme. Le Brun, enraptured with her beauty and dissatisfied with her own representation of it, was a long time altering and retouching, and every day saw some new improvement to make.
THREE:
