She had only to choose amongst the great personages who wanted their portraits painted; and she spent the time when she was not working in wandering amid the scenes to visit which had been the dream of her life. Ruins of temples, baths, acqueducts, tombs, and monuments of the vanished Empire, gorgeous churches and palaces of the Renaissance, huge never-ending galleries of statues and pictures, the glories of Greek and of medi?val art; Phidias and Praxiteles, Raffaelle, Michael Angelo, and Leonardo; the picturesque beauty of Rome, as it was then, the delicious gardens, since swept away by the greedy vandalism of their owners; the mighty Colosseum; the solemn desolate Campagna; all filled her mind and imagination and distracted her thoughts from France and the horrors going on there. At Rome in those days there certainly seemed to be everything that could be wished for to make life a paradise upon earth. Besides the natural beauty, the historical and arch?ological interest, and the treasures of art, the magnificence of the ecclesiastical functions, church services, stately processions, and entrancing music were a perpetual delight to her. There is no city in the world, she wrote to a [96] friend, in which one could pass ones time so deliciously as in Rome, even if one were deprived of all the resources of good society.[57]
ONE:CHAPTER IIIThe Marquis de la Salle was more than eighty years old, and had been Lieutenant-General and Governor of Alsace; he was now looked upon with [240] the utmost deference by all the emigrs around. His whole family were with him, except one son, who was with the army of Cond; wife, children, single and married, and grandchildren. They received M. de Montagu with great kindness and affection and wanted also to keep Pauline; but as, though not beggared, they were poor and obliged to economise and work to gain sufficient money for so large a household, she would only stay there a fortnight; then, taking a sorrowful leave of her husband, she went on to her aunt, Mme. de Tess.
ONE:Madame Victoire was very pretty, all the rest except the two eldest, were plain; and her parents were delighted with her when she returned from the convent. The King and Dauphin went to meet her at Sceaux and took her to Versailles to the Queen, who embraced her tenderly. Neither she nor her younger sisters were half educated, but the Dauphin, who was very fond of them and had great influence over them persuaded them to study.
THREE:The Duc de Chartres wrote to his father saying that he never wished to return to France, and wanted to get leave from the Convention to expatriate himself, but the Duke replied that there was no sense in it, and forbade him to write.
THREE:Lisette was enchanted at this, as she knew that M. Le Brun had rooms full of the most splendid pictures of all the different schools, to which she would thus have constant access. And her anticipations were more than realised, for M. Le Brun was completely fascinated by her, and only too delighted not only to show her the pictures, but to lend her any she liked to copy.
