They stayed at Schaffhausen till they were rested, after seven days journey, and then proceeded to Zurich, where they thought of establishing themselves. But directly the magistrates heard the now accursed name of Orlans, all negotiations were at an end; besides which the place was full of emigrs, and they could not go out without being insulted and annoyed.
FORE:Inheriting the cool head, calm judgment, and commonsense of her father and grandfather, she did not believe in these extravagant dreams of universal happiness and prosperity. On the contrary, her mind was filled with gloomy forebodings, and during a severe illness that she had, she called her daughters round her bed and spoke to them of [209] her fears for the future with a sadness and earnestness only too prophetic, and with which Pauline was more strongly impressed than her sisters.
I cant, he said. I am obliged to go to another village.Mme. de Verdun said no more, but went away and sent the doctor. Lisette dismissed him, but he [47] remained concealed in the house until night. The child was born about ten oclock, and Lisette was at once passionately fond of it, and as unfortunately foolish in her management of it as she was in the way she conducted all her affairs except her painting. She indulged and spoilt it in so deplorable a manner that she ruined her daughters disposition and her own comfort and happiness.In spite of his friendships with the leaders of the Revolution, his adoption at first of many of their ideas, and the fte Constitutionelle he gave in their honour, M. de Fontenay, like many others, began to see that things were going much further than he expected or wished. He was neither a young, foolish, generous enthusiast like La Fayette, de Sgur, de Noailles, and their set, nor a low ruffian thirsting for plunder and bloodshed, nor a penniless adventurer with everything to gain and nothing to lose; but an elderly man of rank, fortune, and knowledge of the world, who, however he might have tampered with the philosophers and revolutionists, as it was the fashion to do, had no sort of illusions about them, no sympathy whatever with their plans, and the greatest possible objection to being deprived of his title of Marquis, his property, or his life. In fact, he began to consider [289] whether it would not be more prudent to leave the country and join M. Cabarrus in Spain, for he was not separated from his wife, nor was there any open disagreement between them. They simply seem to have taken their own ways, which were not likely to have been the same. Trzia was then much more inclined to the Revolution than her husband, believing with all the credulity of youth in the happiness and prosperity it was to establish. Of her life during 1791 and the first part of 1792 little or nothing is known with any certainty, though Mme. dAbrants relates an anecdote told by a Colonel La Mothe which points to her being in Bordeaux, living or staying with her brother, M. Cabarrus, and an uncle, M. Jalabert, a banker, each of whom watched her with all the jealousy of a Spanish duenna, the brother being at the same time so disagreeable that it was almost impossible to be in his company without quarrelling with him.Much older than the unfortunate Queen of France, and possessing neither her beauty nor charm, Mme. Le Brun did not take a fancy to her, although she received her very well. She was a strange person, with masculine manners and habits; her great pleasure apparently was riding. Very pale and thin, wearing deep mourning for her brother, the Emperor Joseph II., even her rooms being hung with black, she gave the impression almost of a spectre or a shadow.Pauline also had something like what would now be called by us a district at Montmartre, not far from the rue Chantereine, where she lived; but she had poor pensioners all over Paris to whom she gave food, firing, clothes, doctors, everything [211] they wanted, and whom she visited constantly. Old and young, good and bad, beggars, prisoners, every sort of distress found a helper in her.
