You wouldnt believe, she said to Lisette, who came to see her at eight oclock one evening, and found her alone, that I have had twenty people to [153] dinner to-day? They all went away directly after the coffee.
Mme. Le Brun, speaking of Mme. de Genlis, says, Her slightest conversation had a charm of which [465] it is difficult to give an idea.... When she had discoursed for half an hour everybody, friends and enemies, were enchanted with her brilliant conversation.Many an abbess, many a chatelaine spent time and money amongst the rich and poor; and there were seigneurs who helped and protected the peasants on their estates and were regarded by them with loyalty and affection. To some extent under the influence of the ideas and prejudices amongst which they had been born and educated, yet they lived upright, honourable, religious lives, surrounded by a mass of oppression, licence, and corruption in the destruction of which they also were overwhelmed.A young lieutenant of the Garde-Nationale hurried up, harangued them, and with difficulty persuaded [419] the savage crowd to allow him to take them into his own house, around which a drunken, furious crowd kept guard while cries of A la lanterne! were every now and then heard. They would not believe anything they said; they threatened to hang any one who should go to Paris to make inquiries; they forced their way into the house and garden, but suddenly a friendly voice said in the ear of Mme. de Genlis: I was a gamekeeper at Sillery; dont be afraid. I will go to Paris. At last the crowd of ruffians dispersed, leaving a dozen to guard their prisoners; the mayor of the village gravely demanded that all her papers should be delivered to him, upon which Mme. de Genlis gave him four or five letters, and when she begged him to read them he replied that he could not read, but took them away.
FORE:Before parting, after a month spent together, the three sisters composed a beautiful litany to be said by them in remembrance of their mother, sister, and grandmother. It opened with that sublime passage of scripture beginning with the words, The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God; there shall no torment touch them.
One wonders what would have happened if the young people had not happened to like each other after all these arrangements; but it appears to have been taken for granted that they would not be so inconsiderate as to disappoint the expectations of their relations, who had taken so much trouble. They would have felt like an Italian lady of our own time, who, in reply to the question of an English friend as to what would happen should a young girl of her family not like the husband selected for her, exclaimed in a tone of horrorThe idea was suddenly suggested to the brother and sister by the book they were reading, and as she expected several people to supper, she arranged the rooms with draperies after the ancient Greek fashion, borrowed from the Comte de Parois, who lived in the house and had a collection of Greek things, all the vases, pitchers, pots, and cups she wanted, arranged the table in the same style, and as her friends arrived, proceeded to dress them one after another in Greek costumes, which she took from the mass of costumes and draperies in her studio.CHARLES ALEXANDRE DE CALONNE
