Pauline received a letter from Rosalie, written on the night of August 10th. They had left the h?tel de Noailles, which was too dangerous, and were living in concealment. My father, wrote Rosalie, only left the King at the threshold of the Assembly, and has returned to us safe and sound ... but I had no news of M. de Grammont till nine oclock in the evening.... I got a note from my husband telling me he was safe (he had hidden in a chimney). Half an hour later he arrived himself.... I hasten to write to you at the close of this terrible day....
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
ONE:But the next day passed and she was not called for. All day she waited in a feverish, terrible suspense that can well be imagined; night came and she was still spared. Morning dawned, the morning of the 9th Thermidor. The weather was frightfully oppressive, and in all the prisons in Paris they were stifling from the heat, for the late cruel restrictions had put an end, even in the more indulgent prisons, to the possibility of walks in garden or cloister and the chance of fresh air. But as the long, weary day wore on, there seemed to be some change approaching; there was an uneasy feeling about, for there had lately been rumours of another massacre in the prisons, and the prisoners, this time resolving to sell their lives dearly, had been agreeing upon and arranging what little defence they could make. Some planned a barricade made of their beds, others examined the furniture with a view to breaking it up into clubs, a few brought carefully out knives they had managed to conceal in holes and corners from the prison officials, some filled their pockets with cinders and ashes to fling in the faces of their assailants, and so escape in the confusion, while others, republicans and atheists, felt for the cabanis, a poison they carried about them, and assured themselves that it was all safe and ready for use.In April, 1794, they were sent to the Luxembourg where they found the de Mouchy, who had been there five months, and who were lodged in a room over the one in which the Marchale de Mouchy was born. They had also been married at that palace. The three de Noailles were put in the room above them.
TWO:The rest of her life was spent in peace amongst her family, by whom she was adored, in the practices [265] of charity and devotion, which had always made her happiness.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
ONE:
TWO:When presented to the Queen it was customary to bow low enough to appear to kneel in order to take up the edge of her dress, but her Majesty never allowed that to be carried to the lips of the lady presented, but let it fall with a slight movement of her fan, which Marie Antoinette always executed with singular grace. A duchess or grande dEspagne then seated herself before the Queen, but only for a moment, a privilege known as the tabouret. After retiring, of course backwards, with a mantle the train of which had to be eight ells on the ground, [200] people went to be presented to all the other princes and princesses of the royal family.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
TWO:
FORE:Avait il des chemises?Comtesse de Noailles, you forget the grand-aum?nier, to bless the rising sun after having exorcised the spirits of darkness.
FORE:The States-General were to open on May 5th, and the day before M. de Beaune and M. de Montagu went to Versailles to be present, Pauline remaining in Paris to nurse a sick servant.Her mother was extremely beautiful, of rather an austere character, and very religious. With her the children attended High Mass and the other offices of the Church, especially during Lent; and upon the sensitive, impressionable girl the solemn beauty of the music, and especially the deep notes of the organ, produced an almost overpowering effect. Often as she sat or knelt by her mother the rich, [17] melodious tones echoing through choir and nave in the dim, religious gloom would throw her into a kind of rapture, and end in a passion of tears which she could not always conceal. This intense feeling for music, especially religious music, lasted all her life.
FORE:Lisette was dreadfully afraid of him, for although [141] he liked her, and was always extremely polite and pleasant to her, she never felt that she could trust him.
FORE:Horror-stricken and frightened they hurried from the cottage, but the prophecies were all fulfilled. Marie Antoinette rejoiced at their parting as they were going to safety. The three rivers were apparently the Seine, Rhine, and Danube which Mme. de Polignac crossed on her way to Vienna. As to Mlle. Robert, she paid with her life for her faithful affection for her mistress. Insisting on remaining in Paris to look after her interests she was arrested on the 10th of August and perished in the September massacres.Mme. de Genlis never went to the Imperial court, but led a quiet literary life; quiet, that is to say, so far as the word can be applied to one whose salon was the resort of such numbers of people.
FORE:The days were as happy as the evenings, for they were spent in her fathers studio, where he allowed her to paint heads in pastel and to draw all day long with his crayons.She wrote pages and pages to the Duchess, who would not answer the letters except by a few short lines, and refused to enter into the matter at all, but declined to receive Mme. de Genlis at the Palais Royal to dine as usual. Here is an example of what the Duchesse dAbrants and others have said about Mme. de Genlis having nothing of the dignity that she might have been expected to possess. Her behaviour contrasts strongly with that of the Duchesse dOrlans, who, however foolish and credulous she may have been, showed at any rate [422] that she was a Princess of France. It was not for her to discuss or dispute with Mme. de Genlis about her influence with her husband and children; it was for her to give orders and for the governess of her children to obey them. But these late proceedings were different and tangible, and Mme. de Genlis herself owns in her Mmoires, written long after, that the objections of the Duchess, which she then thought so exaggerated and unjust, were right and well-founded. She declares that she had no idea how far the Revolution would go, that she was strongly attached to the Monarchy and to religion, which latter was certainly true, and there is no reason to suppose she contemplated a Republic, while the horrors that took place were odious to her.
FORE:
FORE:
FORE:Autrement nomms en province?Je veux achever mon anne.
TWO:The King was very fond of his daughters, but had no idea of bringing them up properly. The four younger ones were sent to the convent of Fontevrault, in Anjou, to be educated, and as they never came home and were never visited by their parents, they were strangers to each other when, after twelve years, the two youngest came back. As to the others, Madame Victoire returned when she was fourteen, and Madame Thrse, who was called Madame Sixime, because she was the sixth daughter of the King, died when she was eight years old at Fontevrault.Mme. de Montesson had so far succeeded in her plan that she had, in 1773, been privately married to the Duke of Orlans. The marriage was celebrated at midnight in the presence of a small number of persons of high position. But the marriage, though known and recognised in society, was only a morganatic one. Louis XV. would never hear of her taking the rank and title of Duchess of Orlans, or any precedence that would have been the consequence. This was of course a continual grievance to her, but she was obliged to resign herself and make the best of the position, at any rate far more exalted than any to which she had the least pretension to aspire. She had an unbounded influence over the Duc dOrlans, in whose household and amongst whose friends she was always treated as a princess, and with whom she led a life of unbounded luxury and magnificence. Like Mme. de Maintenon after her morganatic marriage with Louis XIV. she renounced the title of Marquise and was known as Mme. de Montesson, possibly thinking like the hero of the well-known incident: Princesse je ne puis pas, Marquise je ne veux pas, Madame je suis.
TWO:You are quite wrong to go. I shall stay, for I believe in the happiness the Revolution will bring us.Mons was full of soldiers, they could only get bad rooms in the inn, and in the night Mademoiselle dOrlans, who slept in Mme. de Genliss room, did nothing but cough and moan. Going into the adjoining room to tell her niece, Mme. de Genlis found her in the same state; the girls had both got measles.
When Alexander heard of the assassination of his father his grief and horror left no doubt of his ignorance of what had been intended and carried out; and when, on presenting himself to his mother she cried out, Go away! Go away! I see you stained with your fathers blood! he replied with tearsMon beau voyage encore est si loin de sa fin;During her exile in England, she was in the habit of visiting and helping the French who were poor or sick, and one day being in a hospital, and seeing a French soldier evidently very ill, she spoke to him with compassion and offered him money, which he refused, with a strange exclamation, apparently of horror.In reply to her observation that she had a perfect right to go where she chose, they kept repeating
TWO:You are quite wrong to go. I shall stay, for I believe in the happiness the Revolution will bring us.Mons was full of soldiers, they could only get bad rooms in the inn, and in the night Mademoiselle dOrlans, who slept in Mme. de Genliss room, did nothing but cough and moan. Going into the adjoining room to tell her niece, Mme. de Genlis found her in the same state; the girls had both got measles.
