Woman in France During the Eighteenth Century

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Smith, Elder & Company, 1864 - 491 Seiten

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Seite 173 - Versailles; gives suppers twice a week; has everything new read to her; makes new songs and epigrams, ay, admirably, and remembers every one that has been made these fourscore years. She corresponds with Voltaire, dictates charming letters to him, contradicts him, is no bigot to him or anybody, and laughs both at the clergy and the philosophers.
Seite 215 - This kingdom," said Mirabeau, " is in a deplorable state. There is neither national energy, nor the only substitute for it — money." " It can only be regenerated," said la Riviere, " by a conquest, like that of China, or by some great internal convulsion ; but woe to those who live to see that ! The French people do not do things by halves.
Seite 373 - Armont reared his family. As soon as they were of age, his sons entered the army ; one of his daughters died young; and he became a widower when the other two were emerging from childhood into youth. They remained for some time with their father, but at length entered the Abbaye aux Dames, in the neighbouring town of Caen. The greatest portion of the youth of Charlotte Corday — to give her the name by which she is generally known— was spent in the calm obscurity of her convent solitude. When...
Seite 259 - Whilst retracing," he observes at the conclusion of his work, " a portion of the charitable tasks prescribed by your majesty, let me be permitted, sire, to allude, without naming her, to a person gifted with singular virtues, and who has materially assisted me in accomplishing the designs of your majesty. Although her name was never uttered to you, in all the vanities of high office, it is right, sire, that you should be aware that it is known and frequently invoked in the most obscure asylums of...
Seite 260 - ... the designs of your majesty. Although her name was never uttered to you, in all the vanities of high office, it is right, sire, that you should be aware that it is known and frequently invoked in the most obscure asylums of suffering humanity. It is no doubt most fortunate for a minister of finances to find, in the companion of his life, the assistance he needs for so many details of beneficence and charity, which might otherwise prove too much for his strength and attention. Carried away by...
Seite 374 - Corday be seen, in her convent cell, thoughtfully bending over an open volume of Plutarch ; that powerful and eloquent historian of all heroic sacrifices. When the Abbaye aux Dames was closed, in consequence of the revolution, Charlotte was in her twentieth year, in the prime of life and of...
Seite 377 - Jacobins with whom she travelled. One of them, struck by her modest and gentle beauty, made her a very serious proposal of marriage : she playfully evaded his request, but promised that he should learn who and what she was at some future period. On entering Paris, she proceeded immediately to the Hotel de la Providence, Rue des Vieux Augustins, not far from Marat's dwelling. Here she rested for two days, before calling on her intended victim. Nothing can mark more forcibly the singular calmness of...
Seite 375 - ... notwithstanding her youth, the first feeling she invariably inspired was one of respect, blended with involuntary admiration for a being of such pure and touching loveliness. On leaving the convent in which she had been educated, Charlotte Corday went to reside with her aunt, Madame Coutellier de Bretteville Gouville; an old royalist lady, who inhabited an ancient-looking house in one of the principal streets of Caen. There the young girl, who had inherited a little property, spent several years,...
Seite 259 - ... a miserable-looking man, lying listlessly on the straw of his dungeon, scarcely clothed with a few tattered rags, and surrounded by rats and reptiles. Madame Necker soothed his fixed and sullen despair with promises of speedy relief ; nor did she depart until she had kept her word, and seen M.
Seite 411 - let me at least spare you the pain of seeing my blood flow." Turning to the executioner, she asked if he would consent to that arrangement ; he replied, " That his orders were that she should die the first."— "You cannot, I am sure...

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