The newly risen were uneasy and jealous of the emigrés, and not unnaturally irritated at the provocation they often gave them and the scorn with which they were not seldom treated.
Louis XVIII. had enough to do to hold the balance between those who wanted everything put back exactly as it was before ‘89, and those who were in continued fear of the revival of the old state of things. However, he managed to do so, and kept his crown, which unfortunately his successor could not.
It is a singular thing that all the three races, Capétien, Valois, and Bourbon should have ended with three brothers.
The Marquis de Boissy, a devoted Royalist with a long pedigree, went to one of the court balls in the dress of a Marquis of the court of Louis XV. On one of the princes of the blood observing to him—
“That is a curious dress of yours, Monsieur,” he replied, looking round the ball room:
“It is a dress that belonged to my grandfather, Monseigneur; and I think that if every one here had got on the dress of his grandfather, your Highness would not find mine the most curious in the room.”
Gérard
JUDITH PASTA
Mme. de Genlis had friends amongst old and new, French and foreign. The Vernets, Mme. Le Brun, Mme. Grollier, Gros, Gerard, Isabey, Cherubini, Halévy, all the great singers and musicians were among her friends. She lived to see the first years of the brilliant, too short career of Malibran. Pasta, Grassini, Talma, Garat, and numbers of other artistic celebrities mingled with her literary friends. The household of Isabey was like an idyl. He had met his wife in the Luxembourg gardens, a beautiful girl who went there to lead about her blind father. They married and were always happy though for a long time poor. But the fame of Isabey rose; he was professor of painting at the great school of Mme. Campan, where every one under the Empire sent their daughters. He painted Joséphine and all the people of rank and fashion, and received them all at his parties in his own hôtel. Mme. Isabey lived to be eighty-eight, always pretty and charming. Her hair was white, she always dressed in white lace and muslin, and had everything white in her salon, even to an ivory spinning wheel.