ONE:But the most extraordinary and absurd person in the family was the Marchale de Noailles, mother of the Duc dAyen, whose eccentricity was such that she might well have been supposed to be mad. It was, however, only upon certain points that her delusions were so singularotherwise she seems to have been only an eccentric person, whose ideas of rank and position amounted to a mania.The life of luxurious splendour and open scandal Tallien led with his mistress irritated him nearly as much as the escape of the victims so frequently spared by his mercy, or rather by the all-powerful influence of the woman to whom all Bordeaux now looked for help and protection; besides which the popularity they both enjoyed at Bordeaux excited his jealous uneasiness.
TWO:Suddenly a shrill voice was heard from the altar, [178] saying, Mme. la Marchale, you will not have the eighteen hundred thousand francs that you ask for your husband, he has already one hundred thousand cus de rente, and that is enough; he is already Duke, Peer, Grandee of Spain, and Marshal of France; he has already the orders of the Saint-Esprit and the Golden Fleece; your family is loaded with the favours of the court; if you are not content it is because it is impossible to satisfy you; and I advise you to renounce becoming a princess of the Empire. Your husband will not have the garter of St. George either.
