United States or Benin ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Long before he had reached manhood he counted his lady-loves by the score; and among them were at least three Royal Princesses, Mademoiselle de Charolais, and two of the Regent's own daughters, the Duchesse de Berry and Mademoiselle de Valois, later Duchess of Modena, who, in their jealousy, were ready to "tear each other's eyes out" for love of the Duc.
The Doctor gave her a little news of the neighbourhood, and of the country in general; amused her with an occasional anecdote of the Queen and the young Princesses, and always lent her the last number of 'Sylvanus Urban.
Lord Mahon alone among historians, so far as our knowledge goes, has done fit and full justice to the French parliaments, those assemblies which refused admission to the foreign armies which the nobles would gladly have summoned in, but fed and protected the banished princesses of England, when the court party had left those descendants of the Bourbons to die of cold and hunger in the palace of their ancestors.
"He is the Knight who changed us from swans into maidens, he is the Knight, for love of whom we left our father's home, and in search of whom we wandered, all forlorn, the world up and down, and with him alone do any of us wish to wed." "Well spoken, fair Princesses," observed the Emperor. "That much circumscribes the question, and decreases the difficulty.
Mademoiselle de Montpensier, who thought that she had more reason than any one else to be indignant at the match, tells us plainly that the Prince threw himself at the feet of his eminence to solicit from him both Mademoiselle de Brézé for the Duke d'Enghien, and M. de Brézé, her brother, for Mademoiselle de Bourbon, and that he only escaped from the disgrace of a double mésalliance through the Cardinal's clemency, who, in reply, told him that "he was quite willing to give untitled young ladies to princes, but not princesses to untitled young gentlemen."
Nevertheless prudent Joachim Friedrich himself, now a widower, age towards sixty, did farther, in the present emergency, marry another of these Princesses, a younger Sister of his Son's Wife, seven months after George Friedrich's death, to make assurance doubly sure, A man not to be balked, if he can help it. Good management was very necessary.
There was a castle by the sea, a "well at the world's end," a pool in a forest; princesses with names out of the "Morte d'Arthur" lost crowns of gold; and blind beggars without a name wandered in the darkness of eternal terror. Death was always the scene-shifter of the play, and destiny the stage-manager.
I felt ashamed that Her Majesty had given us so many presents and I had done nothing for her in any way. However, we thanked her most sincerely, and showed our appreciation. She said: "I look upon you as my own people, and the gowns I have made for you are the very best. I have also decided to let you wear the full Court dress, the same as one of the Princesses.
Or rather, to express the exact truth, there was no party for Marie Antoinette; there were only here and there devoted friends, who dared to encounter the odium which their position called down upon them dared face the calumnies which were set in circulation by the other parties: that of the people, the democrats; that of Orleans; that of the princes and princesses of the royal family.
Exceedingly pretty and shy, she seemed distressed by such an assembly of great personages, and quietly drew near to the widow of the grand seneschal, Philippa, surnamed the Catanese, the princesses' governess, whom they honoured as a mother.
Word Of The Day