r quarterly bills of twenty thousand
francs from Mdlle. Bertin, the Queen's milliner; but later to be famous
for her literary and religious vagaries, her influence on Mme. de Stael,
her strange influence on Alexander of Russia. Near her, doubtless, that
fascinating Suard, in the convent of whose sister Mme. de Kruedener was
wont to spend a month in religious exercises, thanking God, at the foot
of the altar, for giving her a sister like Mdlle. Suard, and a lover
like Suard himself. As yet but little noticed, except as the pet friend,
the "younger sister" of Mme. d'Albany, a Mme. de Flahault, later married
to the Portuguese Souza; a simple-natured little woman, adoring her
children and the roses in her garden, and who, if I may judge by the
letters which, many, many years later, she addressed to Mme. d'Albany,
would be the woman of all those one would rather resuscitate for a
friend, leaving Mmes. de Stael and de Kruedener quiet in their coffins.
Further on, the delicate and charming Pauline de Beaumont, who was to be
the Egeria of Joubert and the tenderly-beloved friend of Chateaubriand;
and a host of women notable in those days for wit or heart or looks,
wherewith to make a new Ballade of Dead Ladies, much sadder than the one
of Villon: "But where are the snows of yester-year?"

Round about these ladies an even greater number of men of what were, or
passed for, eminent qualities; political for the most part, or busied
with the new science of economy, like the Trudaines; and most notable
among them, as the typical victim of genius of the Reign of Terror, poor
Andre Chenier, his exquisite imitations of Theocritus still waiting to
be sorted and annotated in prison; and the typical blood-maniac of
genius, the painter David, who was to startle Mme. d'Albany's guests,
soon after the 10th August, by wishing that the Fishwives had stuck
Marie Antoinette's head without more ado upon a pike. Imagine all these
people assembled in order to hear M. de Beaumarchais, in the full glory
of his millions and his wonderful garden, give a first reading of his
_Mere Coupable_, after inviting them to prepare themselves to weep
(which was easy in those days of soft hearts) "_a plein canal_." Or else
listening to the cold and solemn M. de Condorcet, prophesying the time
when science shall have abolished suffering and shall abolish death;
little dreaming of those days of wandering without food, of those nights
in the quarries of Montrouge, of th