I cannot do that, citoyen ministre, I have no papers to show you except an old passport under another name, which I bought for twelve francs at Hamburg. I have been away from France eleven years.The years of separation while he was in America were most trying, and her sister, Louise de Noailles, shared her anxiety, as the Vicomte de Noailles and Comte de Sgur joined the Americans in 1779.Well, yes! I believe and am afraid. Will you speak now?
At eleven years old Lisette was taken from the convent to live at home, after having made her first Communion. She had so outgrown her strength [18] that she stooped from weakness, and her features gave at present little promise of the well-known beauty of her after-life. Her brother, on the contrary, was remarkably handsome, full of life and spirits, distinguished at his college by his talents and intelligence, and the favourite of his mother, while the fathers preference was for the daughter whose genius was his pride and delight, and to whom his indulgence and tenderness made up for the strictness or inequality she observed in the dealings of her mother with her brother and herself. Speaking in her Souvenirs [10] of her deep affection for her father, she declares that not a word he ever said before her had she forgotten.The lavish, almost barbaric hospitality of the [131] great Russian nobles both at St. Petersburg and Moscow astonished Mme. Le Brun. Many of them possessed colossal fortunes and kept open house. Prince Narischkin, Grand Equerry, had always a table to sit five-and-twenty or thirty guests.Many of them occupied the old h?tels of the ruined families of the ancien rgime, in which their rough voices, strange language, manners and appearance contrasted as much with those of the former owners, as the new furniture, all gilding, costly stuffs and objects mixed incongruously together, did with the harmonious tapestries, ancient heirlooms, and family portraits which they replaced.They were thankful indeed to find themselves at Schaffhausen, where they were joined by the Duc de Chartres. It was fortunate for his sister that she did not remain with him; he had been obliged to [443] fly with Dumouriez two days after she left, through firing and dangers of all kinds; and what would have become of a girl of sixteen, in a violent illness, with no one to look after her?She felt that she had exchanged security, the protection of a beautiful and well-ordered home, and the society of those she loved and respected, for dependence and danger.
