In the latter part of the summer of 1792 she was in Paris, which, in spite of her revolutionary professions, was no safe abode even for her, certainly not for her husband. The slightest sympathy shown to an emigr, a priest, a royalist, or any one marked as a prey by the bloodthirsty monsters who were rapidly showing themselves in their true colours, might be the death-warrant of whoever dared to show it. So would any word or gesture of disapproval of the crimes these miscreants were ordering and perpetrating. Their spies were everywhere, and the least accusation, very often only caused by a private grudge, was enough to bring a person, and perhaps their whole family, to prison and the scaffold. In the early days of the Terror, the well-known actor Talma, hearing an acquaintance named Alexandre, a member of his own profession, giving vent in a benign voice to the most atrocious language of the Terrorists, indignantly reproached him.
ONE:Her dress was a caricature of the latest fashion, her manner was impertinently familiar. She first made a silly exclamation at being addressed as madame instead of citoyenne, then she turned [459] over the books on the table and when at length Mme. de Genlis politely explained that being very busy she could not have the honour of detaining her, the strange visitor explained the object of her visit.
ONE:She had bought a farm near Morat, which she managed herself, which paid very well, gave her the occupation she required, and supported several helpless people. Her husband, M. de Tess, grand dEspagne de premire classe, chevalier des orders, lieutenant-gnral des armes du Roi, premier cuyer de la Reine, &c., a quiet man, remarkably silent in society; M. de Mun, an old friend, whose wit and conversation she found necessary for her amusement, [241] and his son, had composed the family before the arrival of her niece; there were also three old exiled priests whom she supported by the produce of her kitchen garden.
I only care for power for the sake of mercy, she replied. But now I am not appealing to your clemency, but to your justice.The Prince de Ligne invited them to see his splendid gallery of pictures, chiefly Rubens and Vandyke; they also visited him at his beautiful country place, and after enjoying themselves in Brussels, which was extremely gay, they made a tour in Holland. Mme. Le Brun entered with enthusiasm into all she saw. The quiet, ancient towns of North Holland, with their quaint streets of red-roofed houses built along canals, with only such narrow pavements on each side that no carts or carriages could come there, traffic being carried on by the great barges and boats gliding down the [49] canals, or on foot and on horseback as the pavements permitted; and Amsterdam with its splendid pictures; after seeing which they returned to Flanders to look again at the masterpieces of Rubens in public and private collections.Here she finished the portrait of the young Princess von Lichtenstein, as Iris. As she was represented with bare feet, her husband told Mme. Le Brun that when it was hung in his gallery, and the heads of the family came to see it, they were all extremely scandalised, so he had placed a pair of little shoes on the ground under it, and told the grand-parents they had dropped off.The Marquise felt that she had gone too far.It was not altogether easy in those days for two women of their age and class to go out unattended and unseen, and if they had been discovered it would have caused gossip and scandal. So one dark night they disguised themselves as grisettes, put on large cloaks with hoods and let themselves out through a side door in the garden of the h?tel. After a long walk they arrived, very tired and rather frightened, at a dirty house in a bad quarter, on the fifth floor of which the wizard lived. They rang a dirty-looking bell, a dingy servant appeared with a smoky lamp, and led them into a dimly-lighted room adorned with deaths heads and other weird-looking symbols. As they looked round them with misgiving a concealed door suddenly opened and the wizard stood before them dressed in a long flame-coloured robe, with a black mask, and began to make passes in the air with an ivory wand, using strange words they could not understand, while blue sulphur flames played around him.Lisette and her mother were turning back, but the Dauphine stopped them, and speaking in the kindest manner to them begged them to continue their walk wherever they liked.
