TWO:Amongst others who arrived were the Duchesse de Fleury and Princesse Joseph de Monaco. The latter was a gentle, charming woman, whose devotion to her children was the cause of her death. After having escaped from France and arrived safely in Rome, she was actually foolish enough to go back to Paris with the idea of saving the remains of her fortune for her children. The Terror was in full force; she was arrested and condemned. Those who wished to save her entreated her to declare herself enceinte, by which many women had been spared. She would anyhow have gained a reprieve, and as it happened her life would have been saved, as the ninth Thermidor was rapidly approaching. But her husband was far away, and she indignantly refused, preferring death to such an alternative.She had a great wish to see this Empress, whose strange and commanding personality impressed her, besides which she was convinced that in Russia she would soon gain enough to complete the fortune she had resolved to make before returning to France.
THREE:Je veux achever ma journe.Soon after his accession the young Marquise de Pracontal, who was very pretty, very dvote, and very timid, was presented to Louis XVI., who kissed her with such fervour on one cheek that she was dreadfully embarrassed and frightened; and was just going to kiss her other cheek, when the Duc dAumont threw himself between them, exclaiming in consternation that she was not a duchess.
THREE:Barras was the leading spirit in this society, and for some time he was at Trzias feet. But if [340] Tallien was not a great man, neither was Barras; amongst all the unscrupulous ruffians of the revolutionary party there did not appear to be one superior enough to his fellows to command or lead them.A man full of good qualities, brave, disinterested, honourable, a good husband, father, and friend, full of enthusiastic plans and aspirations for the regeneration of society and the improvement of everybody, La Fayette was a failure. He did more harm than good, for, like many other would-be popular leaders, he had gifts and capacity enough to excite and arouse the passions of the populace, but not to guide or control them.
THREE:
