He was deeply touched when, scarce out of the school room, she tried to help him in the composition of his letters, and more than astonished to see how quick was her intelligence and how sharp her intuition. Instinctively, at first he took to explaining to her the various political questions of the day, listening with paternal good-humour, to her acute and sensitive remarks on several important questions.
Then gradually his confidence in her widened. Many chroniclers aver that it was Lydie d'Aumont who wrote her father's celebrated memoirs, and those who at that time had the privilege of knowing her intimately could easily trace her influence in most of her father's political moves. There is no doubt that the Duc himself, when he finally became Prime Minister of France, did very little without consulting his daughter, and even l'Abbé d'Alivet, in his "Chroniques de Louis XV," admits that the hot partisanship of France for the Young Pretender's ill-conceived expeditions was mainly due to Mlle. d'Aumont's influence.
When Vanloo painted her a little later on, he rendered with consummate and delicate skill the haughty look of command which many of Lydie's most ardent admirers felt to be a blemish on the exquisite purity and charm of her face.
The artist, too, emphasized the depth and earnestness of her dark eyes, and that somewhat too severe and self-reliant expression which marked the straight young brow.
Perhaps it was this same masterful trait in the dainty form before him that Gaston de Stainville studied so attentively just now; there had been silence for some time between the elegant cavalier and the idolized daughter of the Prime Minister of France. She seemed restless and anxious, even absent-minded, when he spoke. She was studying the various groups of men and women as they passed, frowning when she looked on some faces, smiling abstractedly when she encountered a pair of friendly eyes.
"I did not know that you were such a partisan of that young adventurer," said Gaston de Stainville at last, as if in answer to her thoughts, noting that her gaze now rested with stern intentness on Charles Edward Stuart.
"I must be on the side of a just cause," she rejoined quietly, as with a very characteristic movement of hers she turned her head slowly round and looked M. de Stainville full in the face.
She could not see him very well, for his head was silhouetted against the dazzling light beyond, and she frowned a little as she tried to distinguish his features more clearly in the shadow.
"You do believe, Gaston, that his cause is just?" she asked earnestly.
"Oh!" he replied lightly; "I'll believe in the justice of any cause to which you give your support."