She and Mme. de la Fayette used also to visit the prisons, which in those days required no little courage, owing to the squalor, cruelty, and misery with which they were thus brought into contact.
FORE:The scarcity of women at that time and the enormous number of soldiers of all ranks gave that impression to one used to the brilliant Russian court.
FORE:She still lived in the rue de Clry, where M. Le Brun had a large, richly furnished apartment, but as he used nearly the whole of it as a picture gallery, his wife had only two simply furnished rooms for herself, which, however, on her at-home nights [51] were thronged with everybody of any distinction, either at court or in the town, in fact, so great was the crowd that people were to be seen sitting on the floor, from which, on one occasion, the Marchal de Noailles, being very old and fat, could hardly be got up again.
THREE:THE first family in France after the royal family, is evidently that of Lorraine; the second without dispute that of Rohan, and the third La Tour dAuvergne, or Bouillon-Turenne, after that La Trmoille, [66] and then come a whole string of illustrious names, Mailly-de-Nesle, Crquy, Harcourt, Clermont-Tonnerre, Saint Jean, Thoury; Sabran, La Rochefoucauld, Montmorency, Narbonne-Pelet, Bthune, Beauvoir, Beauffremont, Villeneuve (premier Marquis de France), and many others.
FORE:An old German baroness exclaimed
AS M. Arsne Houssaye truly remarks, the French Revolution was not made by the people. They imagine that they made it, but the real authors were Voltaire, Condorcet, Chamfort, the two Mirabeau, La Fayette and his friends, Necker, Talleyrand, Barras, Saint-Just, &c., nearly all gentlemen, mostly nobles; by Philippe-galit, Duke of Orlans and prince of the blood; by Louis XVI. himself.The Queen, Marie Leczinska, daughter of Stanislaus, ex-King of Poland, was a harmless, uninteresting woman, who had no ambition, no talent, no influence, and a great many children.