However, he stayed a year, much to the surprise of Mme. de Genlis, in the first place that he should have kept her in ignorance of his plans, and in the second that he should break his promise to her. His flight had also the result of preventing their journey, for it had irritated the mob, who were now, under their brutal and ferocious leaders, the rulers of France, and they watched with suspicion all the rest of the Orléans family; it would not have been safe for them to attempt to travel. Such was the freedom already achieved by the efforts of their father and his friends.
It was naturally impossible that Mme. de Genlis should be a conspicuous member of the Orléans household and yet not mix herself up with intimacies and friendships amongst the Revolutionists, especially as some of them at that time had not shown themselves in their true colours. She corresponded with Barèze, who wrote to her about her books, and whose letters were full of the simple life of the peasants and the beauties of nature in the Pyrenees, but who soon developed into one of the monsters of the Terror. She could not be blamed for that, as she did not know his real character; but the same cannot be said with regard to her friendship with Pétion, whom she received in her salon and for whom she declared that up to the time of the King’s murder she had “a true esteem.” Now Pétion was a vulgar, brutal ruffian, as any one knows who has read the account of his behaviour during the miserable affair of the return of the royal family from Varennes; and yet after that she accepted his escort to England, and said that she “remained persuaded that he had a most honest, upright soul, and the most virtuous principles.” There are some people who make the very names of virtue and duty obnoxious to one, and of this number was certainly Mme. de Genlis. In spite of her outcries about the injustice and falsehood of the suspicions and odium attached to her concerning her conduct at this time, and causing her afterwards considerable annoyance and difficulties, her friendships with and praises of such characters as Philippe-Égalité, Pétion, and others, added to the way in which she displayed her rejoicing in the earlier excesses of the Revolutionary party, and her constant association with the authors of the disgraceful libels and attacks upon the Queen and royal family, amply justified whatever might be said against her.
There can be no doubt that, as always happens in these cases, a great deal was said that was neither true nor possible. It was inevitable that it should be so; but her way of going on, both politically and in other ways, was decidedly suspicious.
At length the Duke of Orléans came back, and in consequence of the persuasions of Mme. de Genlis he arranged that his daughter should be ordered by the doctors to take the waters at Bath, and they set off; Mademoiselle d’Orléans, Mme. de Genlis, Pamela, and Henriette de Sercey, with their attendants, furnished with a passport permitting them to stay in England as long as the health of Mademoiselle d’Orléans required. They started October 11, 1791, slept at Calais, and remained a few days in London in the house the Duc d’Orléans had bought there; they went to Bath, where they stayed for two months.
They next made a tour about England, including Portsmouth, the Isle of Wight, Derbyshire, Cambridge, several visits to different country houses, and to the Ladies of Llangollen.
FOOTNOTES:
[120] It does not, however, appear why this should have been the consequence of the marriage, for Madame Royale would not have succeeded to the throne in any case.
[121] Her father, the Duc de Penthièvre, was the son of the Comte de Toulouse, illegitimate son of Louis XIV. by Mme. de Montespan.
[122] Talleyrand, “Mémoires,” t. 1, p. 164.