When the twin daughters of the Duc de Chartres were five years old, one of them caught the measles, got a chill and died, to the great grief of the Duchess and the remaining twin, Madame Adla?de dOrlans. One day the Duc de Chartres came to consult Flicit, as he was in the habit of doing on all occasions; and on this one he confided to her that he could not find a tutor he liked for his boys, that they were learning to speak like shop boys, and that he wished she would undertake their education as well as that of their sister; to which she agreed. It was arranged that the Duke should buy a country house at Belle Chasse, where they should spend eight months of the year; the Duchesse agreed to the plan, all was settled, and Mme. de Genlis embarked on the career of education, [402] which had always been a passion with her, and which she could now pursue with every advantage.
THREE:THE society of the Palais Royal was at that time the most brilliant and witty in Paris, and she soon became quite at home there. The Comtesse de Blot, lady of honour to the Duchesse de Chartres, was pleasant enough when she was not trying to pose as a learned woman, at which times her long dissertations were tiresome and absurd; she was also ambitious, and what was worse, avaricious.
In Mme. de Genlis we have a fourth and more complex type, a character in which good and evil were so mingled that it was often hard to say which predominated. With less beauty than the other three but singularly attractive, with extraordinary gifts and talents, with noble blood and scarcely any fortune, she spent a childhood of comparative poverty at her fathers chateau, where she was only half educated, and at seventeen married the young Comte de Genlis, who had no money but was related to most of the great families of the kingdom.M. de Sillery, M. Ducrest, and the Duc de Chartres went with them to the frontier of Belgium; and they arrived safely at Tournay, where they were followed by Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who was eager to marry Pamela. And now, as before, he was the successful rival of Sheridan, whom [435] she threw over for his sake. They were married at Tournay and departed to England, where she was received with great kindness by his family.Sil aime les honntes femmes,Thrusting him away she pulled out the list, held it up to the sans-culottes, and exclaimed with defianceHaving no money young Isabey supported himself at Paris by making designs for snuff-boxes and buttons. The Comte dArtois saw the buttons, which had become very much the fashion, admired them, and desired that Isabey should be presented to him. He was also presented to the Comtesse dArtois, rapidly got commissions, painted portraits of different members of the royal family and court, and was becoming more and more prosperous when the Revolution broke out, and he was apparently ruined.The mania for education which characterised [358] Flicit through life began at an early age. While still a child she had a fancy to give instruction to the little boys who came to cut reeds growing by the pond or moat at the foot of the terrace of the chateau.
