ONE:
TWO:Lisette was enchanted at this, as she knew that M. Le Brun had rooms full of the most splendid pictures of all the different schools, to which she would thus have constant access. And her anticipations were more than realised, for M. Le Brun was completely fascinated by her, and only too delighted not only to show her the pictures, but to lend her any she liked to copy.Their first house in Paris was a sort of imitation cottage, after the execrable taste of the day, in the Champs-Elyses, from which they moved into a h?tel in the rue de la Victoire, which was for some time the resort of all the chiefs of their political party, and the scene of constant contention between the Thermidoriens and the remnants of the Montagne. The discussions were generally political, and often violent; they would have been abhorrent to the well-bred society of former days.
ONE:It was the only safeguard he could have found, as his rank and well-known opinions would have otherwise marked him for destruction.So she took rooms in the Piazza di Spagna, which is, of course, one of the most convenient and animated situations in Rome; but the noise, which never seems to inconvenience Italians, was insupportable to her. Carriages and carts, groups of people singing choruses, lovely in themselves, but distracting when they went on all night, made sleep impossible, and drove her to another dwelling, a small house in a quiet street which took her fancy. The whole house was so charming that, with her usual carelessness about money, she hastened to pay [94] the ten or twelve louis for the months rent, and took possession. She went to bed rejoicing in the silence, only broken by the splash of a fountain in the little courtyard; but in the middle of the night a horrible noise began which woke them all up and prevented any more sleep till the morning, when the landlady explained that there was a pump fastened to the wall outside, which was constantly being used by the washerwomen, who, as it was too hot to work in the day, began the washing at two oclock in the morning. Accordingly Mme. Le Brun removed into a small palace, which she found damp and cold, as it had been uninhabited for nine years; it was also infested by armies of rats. She stayed there six weeks and then moved, this time on condition of sleeping one night in the house before paying the rent; but the beams of the ceilings were full of little worms, which gnawed all night long and made such a noise that she declared she could not sleep, and left the next day.
TWO:They could not deny this; and to their astonishment the officer, hurriedly saying that he was born on their estate, pressed a purse of gold into the hand of one and marched off. The country was still in a state of anarchy and they never could discover who their benefactor was.The mania for education which characterised [358] Flicit through life began at an early age. While still a child she had a fancy to give instruction to the little boys who came to cut reeds growing by the pond or moat at the foot of the terrace of the chateau.
