ONE:Lisette at first wished to refuse this offer. She did not at all dislike M. Le Brun, but she was by no means in love with him, and as she could make plenty of money by her profession, she had no anxiety about the future and no occasion to make a mariage de convenance. But her mother, who seems to have had the talent for doing always the wrong thing, and who fancied that M. Le Brun was very rich, did not cease to persecute her by constant representations and entreaties not to refuse such an excellent parti, and she was still more influenced by the desire to escape from her step-father, who, now that he had no occupation, was more at home and more intolerable than ever.Cazotte himself, after being saved by his daughter from the massacre, was re-arrested as he always foretold. His friends asked in vain why he did not hide, escape, save himself; he only replied
ONE:Their carriage never came, so Mme. de Genlis had to take them home in hers, which appeared about two oclock, and it was half-past three when she arrived at the h?tel de Puisieux, where everybody was up and in a fever of anxiety, thinking she was killed, for they knew what she did not, that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of persons had perished.Mme. Vige, or rather Mme. le Svre, had certainly, by her obstinate folly, succeeded in ruining first her own life, then her daughters; for the two deplorable marriages she had arranged, both of them entirely for mercenary reasons, had turned out as badly as possible. Her own was the worst, as the husband she had chosen was the more odious of the two men, and she had no means of escaping from him; but Lisettes was disastrous enough.
TWO:What is that, M. le Marquis? asked his hostess.But she had not been more than twenty-four hours in the Russian capital when the French Ambassador was announced; his visit was succeeded by others, and that evening the Empress sent to say that she would receive Mme. Le Brun at Czarskoiesolo [42] the next day at one oclock.
TWO:With tears of joy Lisette witnessed the entry into Paris of the Comte dArtois on April 12th and of Louis XVIII. shortly afterwards. By his side sat the Duchesse dAngoulme, whose smiles mingled with sadness amidst the shouts of Vive le Roi; recalled the remembrance that she was traversing the route by which her mother had passed to the scaffold.
TWO:It was with difficulty that she tore herself away when, in March, 1801, she wished to return to St. Petersburg, and it was upon her journey thither that she heard of the assassination of Paul I.
