However, it is impossible to dispense with an escort of equerries, pages, valets de pieds to carry [398] torches, piqueurs, gardes du corps, and a detachment of the maison rouge.
But nothing would ever have induced him as long as he lived to allow the States-General to be summoned. He regarded them with an unchanging abhorrence which seems prophetic.The journeys of the court to the different country [394] palaces, Versailles, Compigne, Fontainebleau, Marly, &c., were affairs of enormous expense, and ceremony so preposterous, that, for instance, there was one sort of court dress for Versailles, and another, equally magnificent and uncomfortable, for Marly. On the 1st of January Louis XV. always arranged with care and consideration the journeys for the year to the different palaces, of which there were a great number. Mme. Campan [117] in her Mmoires, says that Marly, even more than Versailles, transported one vividly to the reign of Louis XIV.; its palaces and gardens were like a magnificent scene in an opera; fountains, pavilions, statues, marble basins, ponds and canals, thickets of shrubs, groups of tall trees, trellised walks and arbours, amongst which the ladies and gentlemen of the royal households and court walked about in full dress; plumes, paniers, jewels, and trains making any enjoyment of the country out of the question, but impressing with awe and admiration the crowds who were admitted to the gardens, and to the suppers and gambling at night. Every trace of this palace and gardens disappeared in the Revolution.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.
TWO:She emigrated early, and far from being, as in most cases, a time of poverty and hardship, her exile was one long, triumphant career of prosperity.The Marchale thought it was the Holy Child Himself speaking, and called out to Him to be quiet and let His Mother speak; when a burst of laughter was heard from behind the altar. It was the Vicomte de Chabrillan, one of the Queens pages, the little nephew of the coadjutrice of the Abbey, who had hidden there to play a trick.
TWO:Trzia was born at Madrid about the year 1772, and was the only daughter of Count Cabarrus, whose fortunes had rapidly risen, and who being a man of sense and cultivation was resolved to give his children the best possible education.
TWO:The tone of society was entirely different during the Restoration from that of the Empire. The lavish expenditure in entertainments, dress, and daily life was no longer the fashion. An expensive toilette at any but a very great festivity was no longer correct, and even at court the extravagant splendour of the costumes of the Imperial court was not encouraged. The principal people were no longer those who possessed enormous fortunes which they were eager to spend; the [477] nobles and gentlemen whose names were the most distinguished at the court of Louis XVIII. being most of them nearly if not quite ruined.
This was a severe disappointment to the Duke, who had already begun to occupy himself with his sons future, but the Duchess, whose saintly mind had been tormented with misgivings about the future life of the boy whose prospects then seemed so brilliant and so full of temptations, and who did not probably consider the Duke, her husband, a very promising or trustworthy guide and example, resigned herself to the loss of the heir, whom she had even in her prayers entreated God to take out of this world rather than allow him to be tainted by the vice and corruption with which she foresaw he would be surrounded in it.I was in an open carriage with Madame Royale by my side, [140] MM. de Cond were opposite; my brother and the Duc de Berri rode by us ... the Duc dAngoulme was still in the south.... I saw nothing but rejoicing and goodwill on all sides; they cried Vive le Roi! as if any other cry were impossible.... The more I entreated Madame Royale to control her emotion, for we were approaching the Tuileries, the more difficult [474] it was for her to restrain it. It took all her courage not to faint or burst into tears in the presence of all these witnesses.... I myself was deeply agitated, the deplorable past rising before me.... I remembered leaving this town twenty-three years ago, about the same time of year at which I now returned, a King.... I felt as if I should have fallen when I saw the Tuileries. I kept my eyes away from Madame Royale for fear of calling forth an alarming scene. I trembled lest her firmness should give way at this critical moment. But arming herself with resignation against all that must overwhelm her, she entered almost smiling the palace of bitter recollections. When she could be alone the long repressed feelings overflowed, and it was with sobs and a deluge of tears that she took possession of the inheritance, which in the natural course of events must be her own.Why?The Duc de Noailles, her father, finding he could not recover his h?tel, returned philosophically to Switzerland, and bought a house on the Lake of Geneva. He had married the Countess Golowskin, which at first was a grief to his daughters, but after a time they were reconciled to the idea, and got on very well together.
荣誉榜
THREE:Her mother having died in her early life, she was brought up by her father, the Comte de Coigny, at his chateau at Mareuil, an enormous place built by the celebrated Duchesse dAngoulme (whose husband was the last of the Valois, though with the bend sinister), who died in 1713, and yet was the daughter-in-law of Charles IX., who died 1574. [38]The news fell like a thunderbolt upon the little household. To Pauline it seemed as if this blow were a forecast of another still more terrible. It was long since she had heard anything of her mother, grandmother, and sisters, and she lived in a state of feverish suspense almost impossible to bear.
THREE:If a play was popular at Versailles it was sure to be hissed at Paris; a disgraced minister was the idol of the mob; the only liveries not insulted were those of Orlans.
