THREE:In Mme. de Genlis he recognised the woman who was supposed to have been concerned in the infamous libels against the Queen; and who, with the wretched galit and his children, was seen watching from the Palais Royal the procession, which, headed by the disloyal La Fayette, and surrounded by the drunken, howling ruffians, his followers, brought the royal family prisoners to Paris.
THREE:The Duc de Chartres now also looked with disapproval upon his fathers conduct. In his Mmoires Louis XVIII. quotes a letter of M. de Boissy, who says that the only republican amongst the sons of galit was the Duc de Montpensier. [128]
THREE:
TWO:She was constantly surrounded by perils and temptations which to many would have been irresistible. Admiring eyes followed her at the theatre, people crowded round her in the gardens and places of entertainment, men of rank who wanted an opportunity of making love to her had their portraits painted by her for that purpose; but she treated them all with indifference, and when she noticed that their looks and glances were too expressive she would coolly remark: I am painting your eyes now, or would insist on the portrait being done with the eyes looking in another direction.
TWO:She had far better have remained in her old home, poor and free; for directly they were married she discovered the real character of her second husband: an ill-tempered, avaricious man, who refused his wife and step-children even the necessaries of life, although Lisette was foolish enough to give him all she earned by her portraits. She hated him still more because he had taken possession of her fathers clothes, which he wore, to her grief and indignation. Joseph Vernet, who, like many of her old friends, still interested himself in her, was furious at all this, and represented to her that she ought to pay a certain pension to her odious step-father and keep the rest of the money herself; but she feared such a [24] suggestion might make matters worse for her mother, and therefore went on allowing herself to be robbed.Then she fled to her own room and gave way [225] to her grief, and to the forebodings which filled her mind, and still hung over her like a cloud, during the preparations and journey to Paris, where M. de Montagu soon wrote for his wife and child to join him without delay.