The King was very fond of his daughters, but had no idea of bringing them up properly. The four younger ones were sent to the convent of Fontevrault, in Anjou, to be educated, and as they never came home and were never visited by their parents, they were strangers to each other when, after twelve years, the two youngest came back. As to the others, Madame Victoire returned when she was fourteen, and Madame Thrse, who was called Madame Sixime, because she was the sixth daughter of the King, died when she was eight years old at Fontevrault.
FORE:M. de Puisieux was furious at being not only deceived and treated without consideration, but actually made a fool of, and that he was by no means a person to be trifled with the elder brother of the Comte de Genlis had found to his cost.Amongst other absurd inventions it was reported that she had given a supper in the Greek style which had cost twenty thousand francs. This story had been repeated first at Versailles, then at Rome, Vienna, and St. Petersburg, by which time the sum mentioned had risen to eighty thousand francs.
FORE:Nothing but my will! said Napoleon sternly. You will go at once to Mme. Campans school at Saint-Germain; on your arrival you will ask for your intended bride, to whom you will be presented by her brother, General Leclerc, who is now with my wife, and will accompany you.
ONE:The young princes and princesses, however, in spite of the disputes, jealousies, and quarrels that occurred amongst them, agreed in amusing themselves very well together. They gave balls, theatricals and ftes of all kinds; the Queen was very fond of cards, and gambling went on to an extent which, with the money spent on ftes and in other still more reprehensible ways, especially by the Comte dArtois, though it could have passed as a matter of course under former reigns, now increased the irritation and discontent which every year grew stronger and more dangerous. For the distress amongst the lower orders was terrible; for years marriages and the birthrate had been decreasing in an alarming manner; the peasants declaring that it was no use bringing into the world children to be as miserable as themselves.
TWO:CHAPTER III
THREE:As to the other daughter, Mme. de Valence, her marriage had turned out just as might have been [409] foretold by any one of common sense. M. de Valence did not change his conduct in the least, he was still one of the most dissipated men in Paris though he never stooped to the dishonour of Philippe-galit. He remained always the favourite of Mme. de Montesson, who at her death left her whole fortune to him.
FORE:Louis XVI. was the most unsuitable person to rule over the French, a nation more than any other alive to, and abhorrent of, any suspicion of ridicule or contempt. And to them the virtues and faults of Louis were alike ridiculous. When he interfered in the love affairs of the Prince de Cond, and ordered the Princesse de Monaco to retire into a convent, the Prince de Cond became his enemy, and people laughed. When he spent hours and hours shut up alone making keys and locks they shrugged their shoulders, and asked if that was a diversion for the descendant of Henri IV. and Louis le Grand.
Mme. de Montivilliers ordered the gates of the prison to be thrown open, which no one but herself would have dared to do against the orders of the Prioress. She gave shelter and a cordial to the brave farmer, and ordered her surgeon to examine the wounded robber, who was a young man dressed in womans clothes, and it was then learned from the farmer that the other criminal was that infernal beggar who had been sheltered beneath the porch of the abbey, before which he now lay on a litter waiting to be put in the dungeon. He had the torso of a giant, but no legs or arms, only a kind of stump of one arm. His head was enormous....The Chevalier was taken back to his cell, and, knowing that he had now only a few hours to live, he made his will and wrote the history of this terrible adventure, saying that he could not but forgive the Marquis as he was mad. These papers he confided to a fellow prisoner, and a few hours later was summoned to execution with a number of others.
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