ONE:Indignant at the avarice which risked the lives of the unfortunate passengers, Trzia, disregarding the remonstrances and warnings of her husband and uncle, ordered a carriage, drove to find the captain, paid him the three thousand francs, and returned in triumph with a list of the passengers which she had made the captain give her instead of the receipt he wished to write.
TWO:It was not altogether easy in those days for two women of their age and class to go out unattended and unseen, and if they had been discovered it would have caused gossip and scandal. So one dark night they disguised themselves as grisettes, put on large cloaks with hoods and let themselves out through a side door in the garden of the h?tel. After a long walk they arrived, very tired and rather frightened, at a dirty house in a bad quarter, on the fifth floor of which the wizard lived. They rang a dirty-looking bell, a dingy servant appeared with a smoky lamp, and led them into a dimly-lighted room adorned with deaths heads and other weird-looking symbols. As they looked round them with misgiving a concealed door suddenly opened and the wizard stood before them dressed in a long flame-coloured robe, with a black mask, and began to make passes in the air with an ivory wand, using strange words they could not understand, while blue sulphur flames played around him.Mme. du Deffand then occupied one in another [366] part of the building, but at that time they had no acquaintance with her. The philosophers and the atheistic set had never at any time in her life the least attraction for Flicit, who held their irreligious opinions in abhorrence.
THREE:Mme. de Puisieux was in tears on the staircase, and saw her come in with transports of joy. She had, for the first time since her widowhood, gone to supper with Mme. dEgmont, daughter of the Duc de Richelieu, close to whose h?tel there was a corps de garde, to which numbers of bodies had been brought. The next day was one of desolation, especially among the artisans and the people of the lower classes, most of whom had lost some relative or friend. Mme. de Genliss maid had to go to the [382] Morgue to identify the body of her sister; the ma?tre dh?tel lost a cousin. The place Louis XV., fated to be the scene of the murder of Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, and so many innocent victims, had been a scene of death and horror at the celebration of their wedding ftes. No wonder people said it was an unlucky beginning, especially those who were only too glad to find evils attending the Austrian marriage. [114]
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