THREE:
THREE:
THREE:The last time Marie Antoinette ever sat to her was at Trianon, when she painted her head for the great picture in which the Queen is represented with her children, the first Dauphin, [20] Madame Royale, [21] and the Duc de Normandie, [22] which was [48] hung in the Salon of 1788, and excited universal admiration. It was afterwards taken to Versailles and hung in one of the salons through which the Queen always passed on her way to mass.
THREE:At Cologne Pauline met her cousin, the Comtesse de Brissac, still in mourning for their relation the Duc de Brissac, late Governor of Paris, and Colonel of the Cent-Suisses, murdered in the streets of Versailles.Only a terrorist could speak so!
THREE:There were, of course, still those to be met with whose appearance, manners, and ways recalled that stately, magnificent court, which long afterwards was the beau ideal Napoleon vainly tried to realise. Amongst others was the Duc de Richelieu, one of the most brilliant, the most polished, the most dissipated, and the most heartless figures of the courts of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. His son, the Duc de Fronsac, was, though not equally attractive, quite as vicious as his father, and they entertained for each other a hatred they generally veiled, at any rate in public, under the most polished sarcasm.
THREE:
THREE:The troops marched to Oranienbaum, the Emperor fled and proposed to abdicate and retire to Holstein with the Countess Woronsoff, but he was persuaded to go to Peterhoff in order to make arrangements, was seized by the conspirators, thrown into prison, where six days afterwards he was murdered by the Orloff, who held the supreme power in their hands. [46] Whether or not Catherine was consenting to this is not certain, though very probable. She hated Peter, by whom she had been oppressed, threatened, and ill-treated, and who had purposed to divorce her and disinherit her son.For nothing was safe from her pencil: her books, her copy-books, even those of her schoolfellows, the walls of the dormitory, every available space was covered with heads, figures, and landscapes in crayon or charcoal, and when out in the playground she drew with a stick upon the sand.
THREE:Mme. de Genlis states that one evening while the States-General were sitting, the Duc dOrlans, who was in her salon, declared that they would be of no use and do nothing; not even suppress the lettres de cachet. Mme. de Genlis and the Duc de Lauzun were of a different opinion, and they bet each other fifty louis on the subject. The bet was put into writing and Mme. de Genlis showed it to more than fifty people of her acquaintance, all of whom declared a Revolution to be impossible. The Abb Cesutti, one of the free-thinking school, was editor of a paper called La feuille villageoise, intended for the people. He asked Mme. de Genlis to write for it, and she sent some papers called The Letters of Marie-Anne, in which she introduced doctrines and principles of religion. Soon after the Abb came and asked her in future only to speak of morality and never to mention religion. Knowing what that meant she declined to write any more for that paper.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.
THREE:The whole affair was an exact specimen of the mingled extravagance, folly, vice, and weakness which were leading to the terrible retribution so swiftly approaching.