To which she replied, “Comment donc! I have a horror of ingratitude. Of course I intend to go and see her. I owe her a great deal, and I will prove it by doing so. But you understand that I am obliged to consider appearances for the sake of my family, and her reputation forces me to show a reserve which I regret. If you will ask her when I shall find her alone I shall go and see her at once.”
“Tell her,” said Mme. Tallien, “that I am désolée not to be able to receive her, but I am never alone, because I am always surrounded by those to whom I have had the happiness to be of use.”
Mme. de Boufflers, Mme. de Sabran, and their families, on the other hand, were always assiduous in their attentions to her, and would refuse other invitations to go to her.
Joséphine, now the wife of Napoleon, and head of society in Paris, had not forgotten her, and was anxious to receive her at court, but this Napoleon would not allow, greatly to the disappointment and sorrow of them both.
Joséphine cried and entreated in vain, pointing out the ingratitude he was forcing her to display; but though he always retained his private friendship for Térèzia, he told Joséphine that only respectable women could be received by the wife of the First Consul.
In 1805 she again married, and this time her husband was in every respect the incarnation of all that she had hitherto opposed and objected to.
A royalist, an emigré, a Prince; but the only man she never ceased to love, and of whom she said, “He was her true husband.”
Joseph, Comte de Caraman, who soon after their marriage became Prince de Chimay, was the third son of the Duc de Caraman, Governor of Provence. He emigrated with the Princes, and, being an excellent musician, gained his living by his violin. He established himself at Hamburg, and there gave lessons.
After the Revolution he returned with the other emigrés, and soon after received the inheritance of his uncle, the fourteenth Prince de Chimay, and of the Holy Roman Empire and Grandee of Spain.
They went to live at the ancient castle of Chimay, [110] where they led an intellectual and splendid life, surrounded by the great artists, musicians, and literary men of the day, and by many devoted friends. They spent their winters in Brussels, but a bitter drop in Térèzia’s cup of happiness was the absolute refusal of the King and Queen to receive her at court. The Prince, who was the King’s Chamberlain, had to go without her.