Mme. de Valence seems to have accepted the situation, but by no means with the Griselda-like “satisfaction” of her sister. Very soon her reputation much resembled that of her husband, and many were the anecdotes told to illustrate the manners and customs of their ménage.
Calling one day upon Mme. de Montesson, Mme. de Valence was told by a new servant who did not know her, that Mme. de Montesson could not be seen; she never received any one when M. de Valence was there.
“I am sorry for that,” she observed, as she gave her cards to the man, “especially as M. de Valence is my husband.”
De Valence was very handsome and a brave soldier; he emigrated but refused to fight against France; returned, obtained the favour of Napoleon, and retained that of Mme. de Montesson, who more than once paid his debts. He was supposed to be the son of a mistress whom his father adored, and to have been substituted for a dead child born to his father’s wife, who always suspected the truth, never would acknowledge him as her son, nor leave him more money than she could help doing as she had no other children.
Speaking of Pulchérie in her journal, Mme. de Genlis, it may be remarked, does not venture to lavish upon her the unstinted praises which she pours upon her sister; but remarks that when she left her care and entered society on her marriage, she had the most excellent ideas and sentiments, the purest mind, and the highest principles possible.
It does not seem to occur to her that it was she herself who caused the destruction of all this purity and principle by giving her child to a man of notoriously bad character; but without taking any blame to herself she goes on to say that Pulchérie was, and always would be in her eyes, gentle, sweet-tempered, kind-hearted, and easy to live with—which she probably was.
FOOTNOTE:
[119] “Souvenirs de Marie Antoinette,” t. ii. p. 164 (Ctsse. d’Adhémar).