De Valence was very handsome and a brave soldier; he emigrated but refused to fight against France; returned, obtained the favour of Napoleon, and retained that of Mme. de Montesson, who more than once paid his debts. He was supposed to be the son of a mistress whom his father adored, and to have been substituted for a dead child born to his father��s wife, who always suspected the truth, never would acknowledge him as her son, nor leave him more money than she could help doing as she had no other children.
ONE:Plauzat was a stately and comfortable, besides being a picturesque abode, with its immense hall hung with crimson damask and family portraits, out of which opened Pauline��s great bedroom, the walls of which were covered with blue and white tapestry worked by M. de Montagu��s grandmother, Laure de Fitzjames, grand-daughter of James II. of England.
ONE:With these and all the different relations of her husband, Mme. d��Ayen lived in the greatest harmony, [176] especially with his sister, the Duchesse de Lesparre, a calm, holy, angelic woman after her own heart.
TWO:But the woods, the meadows, the Seine, and the general beauty of the landscape delighted Mme. Le Brun, who, after all her wanderings, began to have a longing for rest, became more and more attached to her home as the years passed, and spent more and more of her time there.
THREE:For the Duc d��Orl��ans was aiming at the crown, and it is impossible to believe Mme. de Genlis was [414] not aware of it. He suggested to the Queen that Madame Royale should be married to his eldest son, which proposal Marie Antoinette decidedly refused, remarking afterwards that to marry her daughter to the Duc de Chartres would be to sign the death warrant of her son. [120]
THREE:It was necessary to settle the succession to the estates of the Duchesse d��Ayen, and it was impossible to arrange this without the meeting of the family. The Vicomte de Noailles was in America, the Marquis de Th��san in Germany, Mme. de Montagu was on the list of emigr��es, and could not enter France. Her part of the inheritance had been confiscated, but M. Bert��my, the old family lawyer, had bought and transferred it to the rest of the family, to be given her in better times.
