ONE: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.For some years Mme. de Genlis had been dame pour accompagner la Duchesse de Chartres, though it was suggested that it was more the Duke than the Duchess whom she accompanied; but she now exchanged this designation for that of ��governess to the Princesses of Orl��ans.�� The Duchess, who had always longed for a daughter, was delighted with these two and Mme. de Genlis, who wished to have charge of them from the first. TWO:After the alarms of the Hundred Days and all the misfortunes involved, it took some time to restore order and security. For a long time the Champs-Elys��es were not safe to walk in after dark.

ONE:It was the h?tel de Genlis, which for fifteen years had been the residence of her brother-in-law. She did not recognise it, as all the ground floor was divided and turned into shops!Thus time passed on till she was six-and-twenty, when she formed an intimate friendship with the Marquise de Fontenille, a widow who had come to live in the convent. M. Ducrest, then de Champc��ry, a good-looking man of thirty-seven, who had lately left the army, was a relation of Mme. de Fontenille, and often came to the parloir to see her. He also saw Mlle. de M��zi��res, with whom he fell in love, and whom he proposed to marry. He had a few hundreds a year, the small castle of Champc��ry, and a little property besides; while Mlle. de M��zi��res had less than two thousand pounds, her mother having seized all the rest of the fortune of her father. But such was her unnatural spite against her daughter that she refused her consent for three months, and although she was at last obliged to give it, she would give neither dot, trousseau, nor presents, all of which were provided by the good Abbess.

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THREE:IN the histories of the four women whose lives are here related, I have tried, as far as is possible in the limited space, to give an idea of the various ways in which the Revolutionary tempest at the close of the eighteenth century and the eventful years which preceded and followed it, affected, and were regarded by, persons of the different parties and classes to which they belonged.There were a thousand prisoners in the Luxembourg alone, and strange romances, thrilling escapes, fearful tragedies, and touching stories could indeed be told of what passed within the walls of those gloomy prisons.