And Barras pleased her. His distinguished appearance and manners contrasted with those of her present surroundings, and recalled the days when she lived amongst people who were polite and well-bred, knew how to talk and eat and enter a drawing-room, and behave when they were in it; and who wore proper clothes and did not call each other citoyen, or any other ridiculous names, and conversation was delightful, and scenes and memories of blood and horror unknown. It may well have been at this time that she began to yearn after that former existence she had been so rashly eager to throw away.[114]
Director
The most important part of the tour to Mme. Le Brun was her visit to Antwerp, then a medi?val city of extraordinary beauty and interest, which have only, in fact, of comparatively recent years been destroyed by the vandalism of its inhabitants. So striking was its appearance, with its walls, gates, and forest of towers rising from the broad Scheldt, that Napoleon, enchanted with its beauty, said it looked like an Arab city, and he gazed upon it with admiration.But the sufferings of the last seven years had [256] terribly injured Adriennes health, and it was not till she had a little recovered that La Fayette moved, with all his family, to Viane, a small Dutch town near Utrecht, where they settled for a time to watch the course of events.The Comte dArtois did not hesitate to give 1,700 louis for a race horse, or to lose four or five hundred thousand francs in an evening at cards; and the Emperor Joseph II., when under the name of Count von Falkenstein he paid the celebrated visit to France and his sister, wherein he made himself so disagreeable and gave so much offence, was well justified in the contemptuous sarcasm with which he spoke of the squandering of the revenues in racing and gambling.By the King and royal family Mme. Le Brun was received with especial favour and kindness, most of the returned emigrs were her friends, and Paris was now again all that she wished.