When people in Parisian society thought of the country, they thought of lambs with ribbons round their necks, shepherdesses in fanciful costumes with long crooks, or a rosire kneeling before the family and friends of the seigneur to be crowned with flowers and presented with a rose as the reward of virtue, in the presence of an admiring crowd of villagers; of conventional gardens, clipped trees, and artificial ruins; but wild, picturesque mountain scenery was their abhorrence.
The young princes and princesses could not understand that the resources of the State were not inexhaustible, or that they might not draw whatever they liked from the Treasury when they had spent all their own allowances.But she was left to live in the convent without [357] ever leaving it, and her lot would have been deplorable indeed but for the affection and sympathy she met with from every one, above all, from the good abbess, Mme. de Rossgnol, who had taken care of her education, and with whom she dined and spent the whole day.
ONE:Et comme le soleil, de saison en saison,CHAPTER I
THREE:
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FORE:It is a dress that belonged to my grandfather, Monseigneur; and I think that if every one here had got on the dress of his grandfather, your Highness would not find mine the most curious in the room.
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FORE:I will tell you, Madame, replied the young man, with an assurance that surprised every one present. They looked at him with astonishment, and he looked at the portrait, and still more earnestly at the Marquise de Fontenay, upon whom his long, ardent gaze made a strange impression. After a few moments silence, Mme. Le Brun said
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TWO:If the King had taken the opportunity on the night of the banquet at Versailles, gained the coast, and escaped to England, he would have saved himself and his family from misery and destruction, as his brothers did.
His was the leading salon of Paris at that time, and Mme. Tallien was the presiding genius there. Music, dancing, and gambling were again the rage, the women called themselves by mythological names and wore costumes so scanty and transparent that they were scarcely any use either for warmth or decency; marriages, celebrated by a civic functionary, were not considered binding, and were frequently and quickly followed by divorce. Society, if such it could be called, was a wild revel of disorder, licence, debauchery, and corruption; while over all hung, like a cloud, the gloomy figures of Billaud-Varennes, Collot dHerbois, Barre, and their Jacobin followers, ready at any moment to bring back the Terror.The characters of the four heroines form as strong a contrast as their circumstances, principles, and surroundings.It had been remarked that at the moment of the birth of this most unfortunate of princes, the crown which was an ornament on the Queens bed fell to the ground, which superstitious persons looked upon as a bad omen.They passed their time in all the amusements of the vie de chateau in those days.Madame?when Talleyrand heard and interposed.