ONE:Those who had dreaded the summoning of the States-General at a time when the public were in so inflamed and critical a state, were soon confirmed in their opinions by the disputes between the three orders, and the general ferment. Disloyal demonstrations were made, the King sent for more troops and dismissed Necker, who, like La Fayette, was unable to quell the storm he had raised; everything was becoming more and more alarming. Just before the fall of the Bastille, Pauline, who was not well at the time, was sent to Bagnres again, where, after stopping at Toulouse to see her little orphan niece Jenny de Thsan, she arrived so dangerously ill that she thought she was going to die, and wrote a touching letter to her sister Rosalie, desiring that her children might be brought up by Mme. de Noailles, but commending them to the care of all her sisters.One evening, during his coucher, the conversation turning upon difficulties in the financial situation owing to the refusal of the parliaments of the different provinces to enregister certain taxes, a man highly placed in the Kings household remarked
FORE:For the first circulation had been traced to some of his household. He sent away two men in his service, but it was well known that he paid them their wages all the time and soon took them back again.
FORE:Ah, Madame! Comme vous tes belle!
FORE:The King had given le petit Trianon to the Queen, who delighted in the absence of restraint and formality with which she could amuse herself there, and if she had been satisfied with the suppers and picnics with her family and friends in the little palace and its shady gardens, it would have been better for her and for every one. But she gave ftes so costly that the King on one occasion, hearing that he was to be invited to one that was to cost 100,000 francs, refused to go, and on the Queen, much hurt at his decision, assuring him that it would only cost a mere trifle, he told her to get the estimates and look at them. However, as usual, he was persuaded to yield and be present at the fte.This was a severe disappointment to the Duke, who had already begun to occupy himself with his sons future, but the Duchess, whose saintly mind had been tormented with misgivings about the future life of the boy whose prospects then seemed so brilliant and so full of temptations, and who did not probably consider the Duke, her husband, a very promising or trustworthy guide and example, resigned herself to the loss of the heir, whom she had even in her prayers entreated God to take out of this world rather than allow him to be tainted by the vice and corruption with which she foresaw he would be surrounded in it.
