THREE:The first personal encounter of Mme. de Genlis with the Revolution was one afternoon in 1790. She had driven with Mademoiselle dOrlans, the Comte de Beaujolais, Henriette de Sercey, and Pamela, to a village about twelve miles from Paris, where, unluckily, a fair was going on and a great many people collected together. They took it into their heads that the party were the Queen, Madame Royale, and the Dauphin trying to escape, and, surrounding them with anger, forced them to get out of the carriage and refused to believe their explanations.I particularly wished to see you, to warn you that you must take great care that your future wife never forgets what will be due from her to the Dauphine. Their two houses are divided, but all rivalry must be forgotten here, which would disturb the tranquillity of Versailles, and would supremely displease me. I know that you have sense beyond your age, therefore I flatter myself that you will not [278] do, nor allow to be done, anything with regard to the Dauphine which might displease her. Besides, your brother would not suffer it; he loves his wife, and is determined that she shall be respected as she deserves. Keep watch, therefore, upon yours; in fact, see that things go on in such a manner that I am not obliged to interfere.
THREE:The first great sorrow was the death of Mme. de la Fayette on Christmas Eve, 1808, at the age of forty-eight. Her health had been completely undermined by the terrible experiences of her imprisonments; and an illness caused by blood-poisoning during her captivity with her husband in Austria, where she was not allowed proper medical attendance, was the climax from which she never really recovered. She died as she had lived, like a saint, at La Grange, surrounded by her broken-hearted husband and family, and by her own request was buried at Picpus, where, chiefly by the exertions of the three sisters, a church had been built close to the now consecrated ground where lay buried their mother, sister, grandmother, with many other victims of the Terror.
THREE: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.
THREE: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.
THREE:Où les aurait-il prises?