CHAPTER VIIIFlicit composed some verses all about flowers and friendship, which were pronounced to be very touching, and which she sang dressed up as a shepherdess, having first presented him with a bouquet. She next appeared in a Spanish costume singing a romance composed by her mother, and finally she played the harp, which seems to come in like a chorus throughout all her eventful life.
ONE:Pauline had another daughter in May, 1801, and after her recovery and a few weeks with Mme. de Grammont and at the baths at Louche, she went to the district of Vlay with her husband to see if any of the property of his father could be recovered. Their fortunes were, of course, to some extent restored by Paulines inheritance from her mother, and the fine old chateau of Fontenay [81] made them a charming home for the rest of their lives.After his death, in order to distract her mind from the sorrow of it, she made a tour to Orlans, Blois, Tours, Bordeaux, &c., accompanied by her faithful Adla?de; after which she returned home and resumed her usual life, a happy and prosperous one, continually occupied by her beloved painting, surrounded by numbers of friends and adored by the two nieces, her adopted children. Eugnie Le Brun was like herself, a portrait painter, and although not, of course, of world-wide fame like [158] her aunt, she was nevertheless a good artist, and made a successful career, which gave an additional interest to the life of Mme. Le Brun.
ONE:She met her daughters in a mountain village near Clermont, and the deep, fervent joy of their restoration to each other out of the shadow of death was increased by finding that the priest had just ventured to reopen the village church, where on the next day, Sunday, they again attended mass in that secluded place, and where Virginie, the younger girl, made her first Communion. And she had seen Rosalie, for Mme. de Grammont heard of her sisters release, and resolved to join her. Having very little money, and travelling by public conveyances being still unsafe, taking her diamonds she rode a mule with her three children in paniers, and her husband walking by her side. Thus they journeyed by steep mountain paths, or country lanes, but always by the most secluded ways possible. When they reached Paris, Adrienne was gone, but they resumed their primitive travelling, followed her to Auvergne, and came up with her at the little town of Brionde.
TWO:Neither Napoleon nor any of his family had at all the manners and customs suitable to the position in which he had placed them, and he was quite aware of the fact. His mother, as he said, could speak neither French nor Italian properly, but only a kind of Corsican patois, which he was ashamed to hear. He did everything he could to win over the emigrs and those of the old noblesse who had remained [460] in France; his great wish was to mingle the new noblesse he soon began to create with the faubourg St. Germain, and his great disappointment and anger was excited by the non-success of his attempts. From the time he rose to supreme power he contemplated a court and a noblesse for the country and a crown for himself. And that a court formed out of the materials supplied by his generals and their families would be ridiculous he knew, and meant to avoid.
TWO:For Gods sake, hold your tongue and let me pass, said the Chevalier in a low voice. My life depends upon it. Do you hear? do you understand? I have just escaped from prison; I am condemned to death. If you hold your tongue and let me pass I am saved, but if you keep me and call out my name you will kill me.They stood in astonishment looking after the soldiers, and then turning, walked sorrowfully back to the ruins, where a decently dressed working man who had been observing them, came up and again asked them the same question.
THREE:I have always been persuaded, she says in one of her letters, that if the victims of that time of execrable memory had not had the noble pride to die with courage, the Terror would have ceased much sooner. Those whose intelligence is not developed have too little imagination to be touched by silent suffering, and it is much easier to arouse the compassion than the imagination of the populace.
THREE:A new era of prosperity, though of quite a different kind from the luxury, excitement, and splendour of her earlier life, now began for Mme. de Genlis. She opened a salon which was soon the resort of most of the interesting and influential people of the day. In the society of the Consulate and Empire [457] her early opinions and proceedings were not thought about, and her literary reputation was now great; and besides countless new acquaintances many of her old friends were delighted to welcome her again.
