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.
The history of Mme. de Genlis in the emigration differs from the other two, for having contrived to make herself obnoxious both to royalists and republicans her position was far worse than theirs.
ONE: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.
THREE:as she sang these words she laid her hand upon [61] her heart and, turning to the Queens box, bowed profoundly. As this was in the beginning of the Revolution, there were many who wished to revenge themselves in consequence, and tried to force her to sing one of the horrible revolutionary songs which were then to be heard constantly upon the stage. She refused indignantly, and left the theatre. Her husband, Dugazon, the comic actor, on the contrary, played an atrocious part during the Revolution. Although he had been loaded with benefits by the royal family, especially the Comte dArtois, he was one of those who pursued them to Varennes. Mme. Le Brun was told by an eye-witness that he had seen this wretch at the door of the Kings carriage with a gun upon his shoulder.[175]
THREE:Horror-stricken and frightened they hurried from the cottage, but the prophecies were all fulfilled. Marie Antoinette rejoiced at their parting as they were going to safety. The three rivers were apparently the Seine, Rhine, and Danube which Mme. de Polignac crossed on her way to Vienna. As to Mlle. Robert, she paid with her life for her faithful affection for her mistress. Insisting on remaining in Paris to look after her interests she was arrested on the 10th of August and perished in the September massacres.I replied to the King that this would be all the easier to me as I had no greater wish than to be on good terms with my brother and sister-in-law; adding: I know the respect which I owe your Majesty, and that which the heir to the throne has a right to expect from me; in which I hope never to be accused of having failed.
Have you then such a love of falsehood, Madame, that you must have it at any price? Poor woman! she has not the courage to say she believes and fears.Very often in the mornings the two girls went together to the artist Briard, who had a studio in the Louvre, and who, though an indifferent painter, drew well, and had several other young girls as pupils.The Chasseurs de Lorraine and regiment de Flandre having been sent to Versailles on account of the crimes and murders daily committed there, the gardes-du-corps gave them a splendid banquet in the Salle de Comdie, to which all the troops, including the gardes-nationales, were invited.
