“Some misfortune has happened to the King.”
Next morning they heard of the arrest of the royal family at Varennes.
Most of the servants were bribed by the Jacobins to spy upon their masters, and knew much better than they what was going on in France. Many of them used to go and meet the courrier who told them much more than was contained in the letters he brought. After having lived two years and a half in Italy, chiefly in Rome, Mme. Le Brun began to think of returning to France.
How she could have entertained so mad an idea seems inexplicable; but in fact, bad as the French news was, she was far from understanding the frightful state of the country. In those days news travelled slowly, important events only became partially known long after they had taken place; and as to private letters, people dared not put in them anything which might endanger either themselves or their friends.
Her mother, brother, and sister-in-law, to all of whom she was strongly attached, were in France, and she was anxious to see them; so, with deep regret and many tears, she left Rome and turned her steps northward, of course with her child and governess.
They left Rome late in April, 1792, and travelled slowly along by Perugia, Florence, Siena, Parma, and Mantova to Venice, where they arrived the eve of the Ascension, and saw the splendid ceremony of the marriage of the Doge and the Adriatic. There was a magnificent fête in the evening, the battle of the gondoliers and illumination of the Piazza di San Marco; where a fair as well as the illumination went on for a fortnight.
Venice was crowded with foreigners, amongst whom was one of the English princes; and Lisette’s friend, the Princesse Joseph de Monaco, whom she saw for the last time, she also being on her way to France, where she met her death.
She also met an acquaintance, M. Denon, who introduced her to the Comtesse Marini, of whom he was then the cavalière servente; and who at once invited her to go that evening to a café.
Lisette, to whom such an invitation was unfamiliar, accepted however; and the Countess then said—