There can be no doubt that, as always happens in these cases, a great deal was said that was neither true nor possible. It was inevitable that it should be so; but her way of going on, both politically and in other ways, was decidedly suspicious.
The Comtes de Provence and dArtois and their wives had got safely over the frontier to Brussels, but the news of the flight and capture of the King, Queen and royal family, came upon them like a thunderbolt. Again it was probable that the fiasco was caused by Louis XVI. Not only had he deferred the flight till it was nearly impossible to accomplish it, but he persisted in their all going together, instead of allowing the party to be divided; if he had consented to which, some of them at least might have been saved. It does not seem really at [221] all impossible that the Dauphin might have been smuggled out of the kingdom, but their being so many diminished fearfully their chance of escape. Then he kept the carriage waiting for an hour or more when every moment was precious. The whole thing was mismanaged. The time necessary for the journey had been miscalculated. Goguelat went round a longer way with his hussars; they ought to have been at a certain place to meet the royal family, who, when they arrived at the place appointed, found no one. After the arrest at Varennes a message might have been sent to M. Bouill, who was waiting further on, and would have arrived in time to deliver them. Such, at any rate, was the opinion of persons who had every opportunity of judging of this calamitous failure. [80] Madame Elizabeth, who might have been in security with her sister at the court of Turin, where their aunts had safely arrived, had stayed to share the captivity and death of the King and Queen.Lisette rejoiced at this announcement, for she fancied she would like to live in the country, at any rate for a part of the year.So after much hesitation she consented, but so reluctantly, that even on her way to the church where the marriage was to be celebrated, [19] she still doubted and said to herself, Shall I say Yes or No? The wedding, however, took place, and she even agreed to its being a private one, and being kept secret for some time, because M. Le Brun was engaged to the daughter of a Dutchman with whom he had considerable dealings in pictures, and whom he continued to deceive in this matter until their business affairs were finished.
ONE:From the horrors of the Revolution she had fled in time; with the Empire and its worshippers she had never had any sympathy; the episode of the Hundred Days was a new calamity, but when it was past and the King again restored her joy was complete.
TWO:All this is not of good omen, said the King, his grandfather, and I dont know how it can have happened that I have made him Duc de Berri; it is an unlucky name. [58]
THREE:Je ne suis quau printemps, je veux voir la moisson; [102]
TWO:They were staying with an uncle of hers at Bordeaux when she heard one day that an English ship with three hundred passengers, chiefly royalists of Bordeaux, but all of them persons flying from France, was on the point of sailing, but was detained because the captain, whose conduct in this matter one cannot help saying few Englishmen indeed would not have despised, refused to sail until he had received three thousand francs wanting to the sum owing by the emigrants.The Queen was in the habit of playing pharaon every evening, and on one occasion she noticed that M. de Chalabre, who kept the bank, whilst he was picking up the money of those who had lost, took advantage of a moment when he thought nobody was looking, to put a rouleau of fifty louis into his pocket.
TWO:So it was on a volcano that they feasted and sang and danced and made love, and Trzia was the life and soul of the pandemonium which had taken the place of the graceful, polished, cultivated society of the ancien rgime.
It was my husband; he is dead.Monsieur, I have just been hearing so much nonsense about this portrait, that really I dont know whether I have been working like an artist or a sign-painter.But the other relations of M. de Genlis would neither return his calls, answer his letters, nor receive him, with the exception of his elder brother, the Marquis de Genlis, who invited them to go down to Genlis, which they did a few days after their wedding.Ah! you, too, call me mad. It is an insult!
荣誉榜
THREE:She would not have her portrait done, saying that she was very sorry to refuse her aunts, but as she had renounced the world she could not have her picture taken. She had cut her hair short and her dress was very simple. The King looked nearly as pale and thin.Thus happily and peacefully the rest of her life flowed on; her interest in all political and social mattersart, science, and literatureremaining undiminished, her affection for old friends unaltered, while new ones were constantly added to the number, until on May 29, 1842, she died at the age of eighty-seven.
THREE:Capital letter V
