Lisette at first wished to refuse this offer. She did not at all dislike M. Le Brun, but she was by no means in love with him, and as she could make plenty of money by her profession, she had no anxiety about the future and no occasion to make a mariage de convenance. But her mother, who seems to have had the talent for doing always the wrong thing, and who fancied that M. Le Brun was very rich, did not cease to persecute her by constant representations and entreaties not to refuse such an excellent parti, and she was still more influenced by the desire to escape from her step-father, who, now that he had no occupation, was more at home and more intolerable than ever.
So after much hesitation she consented, but so reluctantly, that even on her way to the church where the marriage was to be celebrated, [19] she still doubted and said to herself, “Shall I say Yes or No?” The wedding, however, took place, and she even agreed to its being a private one, and being kept secret for some time, because M. Le Brun was engaged to the daughter of a Dutchman with whom he had considerable dealings in pictures, and whom he continued to deceive in this matter until their business affairs were finished.
The dishonourable nature of this transaction does not seem to have occurred either to her mother or to Lisette herself. She was rather glad to keep her own name a little longer, but not at all pleased when, it being rumoured that she was engaged to M. Le Brun, everybody began to warn her on no account to marry him.
M. Auber, jeweller to the Crown, said: “You had better fasten a stone to your neck and throw yourself into the river than marry Le Brun.”
The Duchesse d’Aremberg, Mme. de Canillac, and Mme. de Souza, then Ambassadress to Portugal, all young and pretty, all friends of Lisette’s, came to warn her not to marry the man whose wife she had already been for a fortnight.
“In Heaven’s name don’t marry him,” cried the Duchess. “You will be miserable.”
And they proceeded to tell her a number of stories, many of which she did not believe, until she found out to her cost that they were true; but which, nevertheless, filled her mind with uneasy suspicions; while her mother sat by with tears in her eyes, repenting of the new folly by which she had again ruined the happiness of her child.
However, there was no help for it. The marriage was shortly acknowledged, and Lisette, whose mind was full of her painting, did not allow her spirits to be depressed; more especially as M. Le Brun, although he gambled and ran after other women, was not disagreeable or ill-tempered like her step-father, from whose odious presence she was now set free. Her husband spent all the money she made, and even persuaded her to take pupils, but she did not much mind. She never cared about money, and she made great friends with her pupils, many of whom were older than herself. They put up a swing, fastened to the beams in the roof of the studio, with which they amused themselves at intervals during the lesson.
During the March that followed the marriage a kind of mission or religious revival went on at Paris; a sort of wave of religious devotion seemed to have arisen in opposition to the atheism and irreligion of the day. Notre Dame and most of the other churches were thronged during the frequent services, religious processions passed through the streets amidst excited crowds, friars preached and people knelt around them regardless of the bitterly cold weather. Strange to say, one of those who fell victims to their imprudence was Mme. Geoffrin, who, in spite of her infidel friends and surroundings, had never really abandoned her belief in God, or the practice of her religious duties, but had always gone secretly to mass, retained a seat in the Church of the Capucines, and an apartment in a convent to which she occasionally retired to spend a retreat. A chill she got at this mission brought on an attack of apoplexy, and she remained partly paralysed during the remaining year of her life. Her daughter, the Marquise de la Ferté Imbault, took devoted care of her, refusing to allow any of her infidel friends to visit her, and only admitting those whose opinions were not irreligious.