“I cannot do that, citoyen ministre, I have no papers to show you except an old passport under another name, which I bought for twelve francs at Hamburg. I have been away from France eleven years.”
“What! You have no means of proving to me that you have been unjustly placed on the list?”
“Mordieu! no.”
“Well in that case I will have you rayé immediately for I am persuaded you have never left your country. All those who emigrated have given me so many proofs to the contrary that I am sure you are imposing upon me in an opposite sense, and that you never left Paris. You will receive your radiation in two days.”
Even the proscribed arms and liveries were beginning here and there to appear, and the leader in this revival was Mme. de Montesson.
Far from being forced, as formerly, to keep in the background her marriage with the Duke of Orléans, it was for that very reason that she was high in the favour of the First Consul and the more en évidence she made it, the better it was for her.
She did not bear the title, which indeed would not then have been permissible; but the well-known arms and blue liveries of Orléans re-appeared on her carriages and in her hôtel, the royal arms of Orléans were embroidered on the fine Saxon linen of her household, the gold plate and delicate Sèvres china denounced by the Terrorists was to be seen at the princely entertainments at her hôtel in the rue de Provence, where everything was done with the stately magnificence of former days, and whither every one of the old and new society was eager to be presented.
The First Consul had restored her fortune to her, and treated her with more deference than he showed to any other woman; she assumed royal prerogatives, never returning visits or rising to receive them, in fact she was considered and often called in society, the Duchess Dowager of Orléans.
Mme. de Genlis went with M. de Valence to see her two days after her return, and was coldly received, but their relations to each other quickly returned to their usual terms.
Mme. de Genlis had taken rooms close to the Chaussé d’Antin, and began to look after her affairs, which were in a most dilapidated state. Nearly all the property she left at Belle Chasse had been confiscated, she could not get her jointure paid by the persons who had got hold of it, and though Sillery had been inherited by Mme. de Valence, to whom she had given up all her own share in it, Mme. de Valence had let her spendthrift husband waste the fortune and afterwards sell the estate to a General who married one of his daughters, and who partly pulled down the château and spoiled the place.