THREE:The executioner? You have guessed it, Monseigneur, and that fearful name explains the state of mind in which you see me.
FORE:Her love for Tallien was beginning to wane. It had never been more than a mad passion, aroused by excitement, romance, and the strange circumstances which threw them into each others way; and kept alive by vanity, interest, gratitude, and perhaps above all by success. She wanted Tallien to be a great power, a great man; and she was beginning to see that he was nothing of the sort. If, when Robespierre fell, instead of helping to set up a government composed of other men, he had seized the reins himself, she would have supported him heart and soul, shared his power, ambition, [339] and danger, and probably her admiration and pride might have preserved her love for him. But Tallien had not the power to play such a part; he had neither brains nor character to sway the minds of men and hold their wills in bondage to his own. And now he was in a position which in any line of life surely bars the way to success: he was neither one thing or the other.
THREE:Her mother having died in her early life, she was brought up by her father, the Comte de Coigny, at his chateau at Mareuil, an enormous place built by the celebrated Duchesse dAngoulme (whose husband was the last of the Valois, though with the bend sinister), who died in 1713, and yet was the daughter-in-law of Charles IX., who died 1574. [38]But his position at Paris was too powerful and his friends too numerous to allow him to be at once attacked with impunity. It was Trzia who was to be the first victim. Robespierre dreaded her influence, her talents, her popularity, her opinions, and the assistance and support she was to Tallien.
Perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accu santium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo.
THREE:The Meuse was frozen and must be crossed on foot. Pauline, who was again enceinte, managed, leaning upon her husbands arm, slipping and stumbling, to get as far as the island in the middle. M. de Montagu insisted on her being carried the rest of the way by a sailor. M. de Beaune was helped by his only servant, Garden, a tiresome German boy of fifteen. They got to Helvoetsluys after dark, crossed next day, and after about a week found a cottage at Margate with a garden going down to the sea, which they took, and with which they were delighted. It stood between the sea and the country, and near them lived the family of M. Le Rebours, President of the Parliament of Paris, faithful Royalists who were happy enough all to have escaped, father, mother, grand-parents, six [235] children, and three old servants. He himself had just then gone to Paris to try to save some of his fortune. They had turned a room into a private chapel where mass was said by an old Abb; all attended daily, and, needless to say, the prayer for the King was made with special fervour.He continued the kindness of Catherine II. to Doyen, who was now very old, and lived prosperous and happy, and, as Mme. Le Brun said, if her fathers old friend was satisfied with his lot at St. Petersburg, she was not less so.
Perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accu santium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo.
THREE:La substance du peuple et la honte du Roi.But her first impressions were very painful, notwithstanding her emotion when first she heard the people around her speaking French, saw the towers of Notre Dame, passed the barrire, and found herself again driving through the streets of Paris.
Perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accu santium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo.
