The Princesse de Ligne’s first visit was to her cousin. She there found the Prince-Bishop awaiting her arrival. After a long conversation and endless compliments on either side, it was settled that the Bishop should escort the Princess and her son to the Abbaye-aux-Bois.
Hélène, who had been warned the day before, was very much vexed at having to make her first appearance in her school dress; but no exception could be made to the rule. She went down to the parlour accompanied by Madame de Sainte Delphine, and very soon perceived that the plainness of her dress did not prevent the Prince from thinking her very pretty. Though she pretended to cast her eyes modestly down during the visit, she took care to see enough of her future husband to be able to say to her companions on returning: “He is fair, has a tall slight figure, and resembles his mother, who is very handsome; he has a noble mien, but he is too serious, and there is something German about him!”
The Prince’s father arrived three days later.
“I abandon M. de Ligne to your indignation, Princess,” his wife writes to their cousin; “you may prepare her for his arrival, which will certainly be either to-day or to-morrow; it fills me with the greatest joy!”
The Prince-father had his head completely turned by his future daughter-in-law, who did all she could to please him, intuitively feeling that he was the one with whom she could best sympathise.
Having no family in Paris, it was decided that Hélène’s marriage should be celebrated in the chapel of the Abbaye-aux-Bois, to the great delight of the pupils. The Bishop gave his niece an outfit worth a hundred thousand écus;[6] the wedding casket, offered by the Lignes, was provided by Léonard; the laces, ordered at Brussels and Mechlin, were real masterpieces of work. The jewels offered to Hélène, besides the family diamonds and the famous girandoles, were chosen by herself at Barrière’s and at Drey’s. She gave a trinket to each of her companions in the red class, and a magnificent luncheon, with ices, was given by the Prince-Bishop to all the pupils, including the little blues, who each received in addition a bag of sweetmeats.
The marriage-contract was signed at Versailles by their Majesties and the royal family, the 25th of July 1779. The wedding took place on the 29th at the Abbaye-aux-Bois.
It is needless to add that Hélène’s nurse, Mademoiselle Bathilde Toutevoix, took part in the festivities. She adorned her pretty mistress to the very best of her ability, and the poor girl’s head was so completely turned with joy that she even forgot her cockades.[7] She came down to the parlour after the bride, and modestly hid herself in a corner. Prince Charles approached her, and slipped into her hand his wedding present—an annuity of six hundred livres.[8] Hélène was much touched with this attention. “I thanked him,” she says, “by a smile and pressure of the hand, the first I had granted him.”
The bride was led to the altar by her uncle, and by the Marquise Wielopolska, who took the place of her mother. The Duchesses de Choiseul, de Mortemart, de Châtillon, de la Vallière, etc., were present at the ceremony. The young Princess, exquisitely lovely in her bridal dress, fully satisfied the company by her “decent attitude, which was full of feeling” (style of that day). After receiving the congratulations of the brilliant assembly, Hélène went up to her apartment to change her costume; but, instead of returning immediately to the parlour, she quickly made her way to the choir chapel, where Madame de Rochechouart was buried, and kneeling on the tomb of the one who had been to her as a mother, she offered up to God her last girlish prayer. When she returned to the parlour she was rather pale, and her eyes showed signs of tears; but at the gates of the Abbey a post-chaise, drawn by six chafing horses, was awaiting; the postilions, in the pink and silver livery of the Prince, being scarcely able to hold them; Hélène, after a rapid farewell, was hurried into the carriage by her young husband, and they started at full gallop for Brussels.