La Muette—Sunrise—Italy—Nocturnal adventure—Governess to the children of Orléans—Scandalous reports—Marriages of her daughters—Death of the elder one—The Comte de Valence
Capital letter O

ONE of the Royal palaces was La Muette, and it was on one of the journeys there that the Queen took it into her head to see the sun rise. It appeared a harmless fancy enough, and she suggested it to the King.

“Indeed,” he said, “you have a strange fancy. Night is made to sleep in; however, if it amuses you I have no objection so long as you do not expect me to be of the party.”

Mme. de Noailles, to whom it was also necessary to speak of the proposed plan, was much perturbed.

“Really,” she said, “this question seems to me very difficult to solve. A Queen go to see the sun rise! I do not know whether in the days of Louis XIV. it would not have been thought——”

“Eh! Madame,” cried the Queen impatiently, “spare us ceremonial in the face of nature.”

“However, it is impossible to dispense with an escort of equerries, pages, valets de pieds to carry [398] torches, piqueurs, gardes du corps, and a detachment of the maison rouge.”

“Comtesse de Noailles, you forget the grand-aum?nier, to bless the rising sun after having exorcised the spirits of darkness.”

The Comtesse de Noailles frowned.

“Ah! Madame l’Etiquette,” cried Marie Antoinette, laughing, “God made patience the virtue of kings.”

Directly the Duc de Chartres heard of the project he came to ask to be of the party, and as he was not as yet the open enemy of the royal family, his request was granted.

On the night fixed upon the party, consisting of the Queen, the Comtes and Comtesses de Provence and d’Artois and some ladies and gentlemen of their households, started at three in the morning for Meudon, where a banquet was prepared, after which they went out on the terraces to see the sun rise. It was a lovely night, lamps were scattered about the gardens, guards were posted everywhere, the Queen’s ladies followed her closely. There was a splendid sun rise and all passed off well; but a few days afterwards came out an infamous libel called “l’Aurore,” containing accusations and statements so atrocious that the King, taking it to the Queen, said—

“Madame, do you know what it costs to wish for once in one’s life to see the sun rise? Read that and tell me what you think of the poetry of our friends.”

The Queen read it, burst into tears, and demanded justice and vengeance, which the King, throwing down and trampling on the infamous paper, [399] promised; but said it was difficult to find the persons guilty of writing and selling it—it seemed to have been printed in Holland and the authorship was guessed to be one of the Radical set: Voltaire, Brissot, or perhaps the Duc de Chartres.

Marie Antoinette spoke to the latter about it, and of course he indignantly denied all complicity, but confessed that the libel had been sent him in an envelope, adding that he had thrown it into the fire, and if any of his people had been more imprudent he would dismiss them at once.

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.

It was asserted by one person that she had seen the MS. of the “Aurore” on the table of Mme. de Genlis, but it is not likely that she would have been guilty of mixing herself in such an infamy; it was one of the slanders, probably, of which she complained, but was the result of associating intimately with such a man as the Duc de Chartres.
E. H. Bearne
NICE

The Count and Countess de Genlis accompanied the Duke and Duchess de Chartres to Bordeaux, where he embarked, after a naval review; and the Duchess proceeded on a tour in Italy. To Félicité this was a time of enchantment. The journeys at that time were adventurous, and the Cornice road was then an affair of difficulty if not danger. They went by sea to Nice, spent a week in that delicious climate, and determined to make what she called “the perilous journey” from Nice to Genoa. They [400] went on mules over the pass by Turbia, and found the Cornice as she says truly a corniche—so narrow that in some places they could hardly pass singly, and often they had to get down and walk. They slept at Ospedaletto, the Duchess, Félicité, and the Countess de Rully in one room; the Duchess on a bed made of the rugs of the mules, the others, on cloaks spread upon a great heap of corn. After six days of perils and fatigues, and what they called horrible precipices, they got to Genoa.

They went to Rome, Venice, Naples, and all the little Italian Courts, at which they were received with great honour.

Félicité flirted and amused herself as usual, and at the court of Modena, the Comte de Lascaris took a violent fancy to her. He was surintendant of the palace, and arranged the distribution of the different apartments, and Félicité found her room was at a great distance from that of the Comte de Genlis, and lined with mirrors.

After supper one evening she had retired to her room and was sitting up late, writing; when one of the mirrors moved, and from a door behind it entered M. de Lascaris, and threw himself at her feet. She sprang up with a cry, the table fell upon him, the lamp went out, her maid rushed in—alarmed by her mistress calling loudly for her—in her nightdress candle in hand, while M. de Lascaris disappeared through the door he had came in by, with a cut on his cheek from the table, which excited the curiosity and laughter of the court. To Félicité Italy was one long enchantment, and with reluctance she came back to France.

[401]

For some years Mme. de Genlis had been dame pour accompagner la Duchesse de Chartres, though it was suggested that it was more the Duke than the Duchess whom she accompanied; but she now exchanged this designation for that of “governess to the Princesses of Orléans.” The Duchess, who had always longed for a daughter, was delighted with these two and Mme. de Genlis, who wished to have charge of them from the first.

As, during the first years of their lives, even Félicité herself could not begin to instruct them, she paid a daily visit of an hour to them, and occupied herself in writing a book on education for their use and that of her own children. She also wrote “Adèle et Théodore,” and numbers of other books, novels, essays, plays, treatises on education, &c., which had great success.

When the twin daughters of the Duc de Chartres were five years old, one of them caught the measles, got a chill and died, to the great grief of the Duchess and the remaining twin, Madame Adéla?de d’Orléans. One day the Duc de Chartres came to consult Félicité, as he was in the habit of doing on all occasions; and on this one he confided to her that he could not find a tutor he liked for his boys, that they were learning to speak like shop boys, and that he wished she would undertake their education as well as that of their sister; to which she agreed. It was arranged that the Duke should buy a country house at Belle Chasse, where they should spend eight months of the year; the Duchesse agreed to the plan, all was settled, and Mme. de Genlis embarked on the career of education, [402] which had always been a passion with her, and which she could now pursue with every advantage.

The three young Orléans princes were, the Duc de Valois, afterwards Louis Philippe, the Duc de Montpensier, and the Comte de Beaujolais. The eldest was eight years old.

Besides, she educated her own two daughters, her nephew, César Ducrest, whose mother died and whose father (her brother) was given a post at the Palais Royal, a young cousin, Henriette de Sercey, and later on one or two other children she adopted. But what caused considerable speculation and scandal was the sudden appearance of a little girl, who was sent, she said, from England, to speak English with the other children amongst whom she was educated. On perfectly equal terms with the Princes and Princesses of Orléans, petted and made much of by every one, she was, and still is supposed by many, perhaps by most people, to have been really the daughter of Mme. de Genlis and the Duc de Chartres. At any rate, no English relations were ever forthcoming, and it was never clearly established where she came from, except that she was announced to have been sent over from England at the request of the Duc de Chartres. She was remarkably beautiful and talented, and Mme. de Genlis brought her forward, and did everything to make her as affected and vain as she had been made herself.

The life at Belle Chasse was, as she says, delicious. She had supreme authority, she was dispensed from the trouble of paying visits to any one but [403] Mme. de Puisieux; she had her mother and children to live with her; her husband and brother had posts in the household of the Duc de Chartres.

She could receive her friends as she pleased; her literary reputation stood very high; the Duchesse de Chartres was still infatuated about her; while the Duke——

Mme. de Genlis made a great display of disinterestedness, she refused the 20,000 francs a year offered her by the Duke as governess to his children, declaring that she would educate them for nothing; she refused also the diamonds sent by the Duke and Duchess as a wedding present to her daughter, neither of which refusals there was the slightest occasion to make, but theatrical, unnecessary things were always what she preferred to do. And at the same time she and her family were becoming very rich. Of course her books, bought by all her friends at court, in society, and everywhere, brought her a good deal, but she always had money for everything she wanted. She was promised for her eldest daughter on her marriage, her own former place at the Palais Roya............