ONE:��The tyrant is no more! Robespierre is dead!��The state and power of some of these abbesses, and the comfortable, cheerful security of their lives at that time made the position much sought after. It was a splendid provision for the daughters of great houses, and a happy life enough if they did not wish to marry. The following anecdote is given by Mme. de Cr��quy, and, although it happened rather earlier in the eighteenth century, perhaps forty or fifty years before the time now in question, it is so characteristic of the state of things that still prevailed that it may not be out of place to give it.
THREE:��She must come too,�� was the answer, ��she is on the list; I will go and tell her to come down.��Financially, in spite of the large sums she gained, Lisette was at first unfortunate. She placed 45,000 francs in a bank which broke immediately afterwards.
THREE:Mme. de Genlis states that one evening while the States-General were sitting, the Duc d��Orl��ans, who was in her salon, declared that they would be of no use and do nothing; not even suppress the lettres de cachet. Mme. de Genlis and the Duc de Lauzun were of a different opinion, and they bet each other fifty louis on the subject. The bet was put into writing and Mme. de Genlis showed it to more than fifty people of her acquaintance, all of whom declared a Revolution to be impossible. The Abb�� Cesutti, one of the free-thinking school, was editor of a paper called La feuille villageoise, intended for the people. He asked Mme. de Genlis to write for it, and she sent some papers called ��The Letters of Marie-Anne,�� in which she introduced doctrines and principles of religion. Soon after the Abb�� came and asked her in future only to speak of morality and never to mention religion. Knowing what that meant she declined to write any more for that paper.