Memoirs of the Courts of Louis XV and XVI. Being secret memoirs of Madame Du Hausset, lady's maid to Madame de Pompadour, and of the Princess Lamballe — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 532 pages of information about Memoirs of the Courts of Louis XV and XVI. Being secret memoirs of Madame Du Hausset, lady's maid to Madame de Pompadour, and of the Princess Lamballe — Complete.

Memoirs of the Courts of Louis XV and XVI. Being secret memoirs of Madame Du Hausset, lady's maid to Madame de Pompadour, and of the Princess Lamballe — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 532 pages of information about Memoirs of the Courts of Louis XV and XVI. Being secret memoirs of Madame Du Hausset, lady's maid to Madame de Pompadour, and of the Princess Lamballe — Complete.

This ejaculation restored our courage, and we said he might drive us wherever he chose out of the sight of those horrors; and it was at length settled that he should take us to Passy.  “Oh,” cried he, “if you will allow me, I will take you to my father’s house there; for you seem more dead than alive, both of you, and ought to go where you can rest in quiet and safety.”

My companion, who was a German, now addressed me in that language.

“German!” exclaimed the driver on hearing her.  “German!  Why, I am a German myself, and served the good King, who is much to be pitied, for many years; and when I was wounded, the Queen, God bless her! set me up in the world, as I was made an invalid; and I have ever since been enabled to support my family respectably.  D——­ the Assembly!  I shall never be a farthing the better for them!”

“Oh,” replied I, “then I suppose you are not a Jacobin?”

The driver, with a torrent of curses, then began execrating the very name of Jacobin.  This emboldened me to ask him when he had left Paris.  He replied, “Only this very morning,” and added that the Assembly had shut the gates of the Tuileries under the pretence of preventing the King and Queen from being assassinated.  “But that is all a confounded lie,” continued he, “invented to keep out the friends of the Royal Family.  But, God knows, they are now so fallen, they have few such left to be turned away!”

“I am more enraged,” pursued he, “at the ingratitude of the nobility than I am at these hordes of bloodthirsty plunderers, for we all know that the nobility owe everything to the King.  Why do they not rise en masse to shield the Royal Family from these bloodhounds?  Can they imagine they will be spared if the King should be murdered?  I have no patience with them!”

I then asked him our fare.  “Two livres is the fare, but you shall not pay anything.  I see plainly, ladies, that you are not what you assume to be.”

“My good man,” replied I, “we are not; and therefore take this louis d’or for your trouble.”

He caught my hand and pressed it to his lips, exclaiming, “I never in my life knew a man who was faithful to his King, that God did not provide for.”

He then took us to Passy, but advised us not to remain at the place where we had been staying; and fortunate enough it was for us that we did not, for the house was set on fire and plundered by a rebel mob very soon after.

I told the driver how much I was obliged to him for his services, and he seemed delighted when I promised to give him proofs of my confidence in his fidelity.

“If,” said I, “you can find out my servant whom I left in Paris, I will give you another louis d’or.”  I was afraid, at first, to mention where he was to look for him.

“If he be not dead,” replied the driver, “I will find him out.”

“What!” cried I, “even though he should be at the Tuileries?”

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Memoirs of the Courts of Louis XV and XVI. Being secret memoirs of Madame Du Hausset, lady's maid to Madame de Pompadour, and of the Princess Lamballe — Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.