Alexander, seeing the fearful danger hanging over his mother, his brother, and himself, was silent; and Pahlen, who was the director of the plot, took care that it should go much further than restraint.Well, I will come and live at your h?tel.
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ONE:AN abyss of separation lies between the two women whose life-histories have just been related, and the one of whose stormy career a sketch is now to be given.
ONE:But while Trzia congratulated herself that she had happened to be at Bordeaux, the story got [301] about, and the fierce populace were infuriated at the escape of their intended prey. Their first revenge was directed towards the captain, through whose unguarded talk about a beautiful woman who looked like a grande dame, and had suddenly appeared and paid him the money, was the cause of the mischief. They made a furious attack upon him, several of them rushing at him to drag him to the guillotine. But if he was avaricious the English captain was brave and strong, so, drawing his sword with shouts and threats he wounded three or four, drove back the rest, regained his ship, and set sail for England.Mme. de Montivilliers ordered the gates of the prison to be thrown open, which no one but herself would have dared to do against the orders of the Prioress. She gave shelter and a cordial to the brave farmer, and ordered her surgeon to examine the wounded robber, who was a young man dressed in womans clothes, and it was then learned from the farmer that the other criminal was that infernal beggar who had been sheltered beneath the porch of the abbey, before which he now lay on a litter waiting to be put in the dungeon. He had the torso of a giant, but no legs or arms, only a kind of stump of one arm. His head was enormous....
TWO:He carried on an open liaison with the Countess Woronsoff, while Catherine, who regarded him with dislike and repugnance, consoled herself with Prince Soltikoff, the hero of Russia from his victory over Frederic the Great, King of Prussia, and then with Prince Stanislas Poniatowski.
TWO:I have just had a letter from my husband, she said; he tells me that they have put me on the list of emigrs. I shall lose my eight hundred francs de rente, but I console myself for that, as there I am on the list of respectable people.
THREE:Madame, we have obeyed our parents. I leave you with regret, but I cannot conceal from you that for a long time I have been devoted to another woman. I cannot live without her, and I am going back to her.
THREE:The writer of these fascinating memoirs of the time proceeds, after speaking of various noble names and regretting many that were extinct, such as Lusignan, Coucy, Xaintrailles, Chatillon, Montgommery, &c., to say, One thing that has always given me the best opinion of the Noailles, is the protection they have never ceased to grant to all gentlemen who can prove that they have the honour [174] to belong to them, no matter what their position nor how distant the relationship. He (or she) [67] goes on to relate that a family of much less consideration, the Montmorin, being envious of the Noailles, asserted that they were not of the ancient noblesse, and pretended that they possessed a piece of tapestry on which a Noailles was depicted serving a Montmorin as a ma?tre dh?tel, with the date 1593.
