THREE:
THREE:
THREE:In 1786 Mme. Le Brun received an invitation to paint the portrait of Mme. Du Barry, the once lovely and all powerful favourite of Louis XV. With great curiosity she went down to the chateau of Louveciennes, given to his mistress by the late King, where she still lived in luxury but almost in solitude, for of the courtiers and acquaintances who [74] had crowded round her in the days of her prosperity scarcely any remembered her now.
TWO:But Mme. de Genlis discovered, when too late, that by her attempts both to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, she had succeeded in making herself detested by both parties; and now [446] she waited in daily perplexity about money matters, and fear of the recognition which was not long in coming.
TWO:It was said by his illegitimate brothers, MM. de Saint-Far and Saint-Albin, to have begun on a certain evening when a quadrille arranged by Mme. de Genlis, in which each couple represented proverbs, went to the Opera ball, as the custom of those days permitted, and was suddenly disarranged by an enormous cat, which, mewing and clawing, rolled itself suddenly into the midst of the dancers. The cat proved to be a little Savoyard boy, dressed up in fur, dreadfully frightened at the abuse and kicks he received.