Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 15, 2025
While Kaunitz examined and took out his disgusting little utensils the ladies looked at Count Breteuil, who could scarcely credit the evidence of his senses. But as Kaunitz set a looking-glass before him, raised his upper lip, and closed his teeth, preparatory to a cleaning, the count rose indignant from his seat.
Thus strengthened, Breteuil returned to the attack, brought, while taking coffee, the conversation back again to the bet; and, after reproaching Madame de Pontchartrain for supposing him ignorant upon such a point, and declaring he was ashamed of being obliged to say such a trivial thing, pronounced emphatically that it was Moses who had written the Lord's Prayer.
But resolute as Breteuil was, the Parisian democracy acted with still greater quickness and decision, and with a not less certain aim. On the 12th it became known that Necker had been sent out of the country, and that the armaments were in the hands of men who meant to employ them against the people. Paris was in disorder, but the middle class provided a civic guard for its protection.
If that was her brother's policy, it was time to make a rush for freedom. The Jacobin yoke could be borne, not the yoke of the émigrés. Breteuil warned them to lose no time, if they would escape from thraldom to their friends. When Marie Antoinette resolved that flight with the risk of capture would be better than rescue by such hands, she knew but half the truth.
The Lord of Breteuil approached the dais, on which William sate alone, his great sword in his hand, and thus spoke: "My liege, I may well say that never prince has people more leal than yours, nor that have more proved their faith and love by the burdens they have borne and the monies they have granted." An universal murmur of applause followed these words.
His knights stood round, silent and perplexed, till a voice was heard humming a tune at a little distance, and the person entered who, more than any other, shared the counsels of Duke William, namely, William Fitzosborn, Count de Breteuil, son of that Osborn the seneschal who had been murdered in the Duke's chamber.
Breteuil saw the heavens open before him if he could but succeed in this enterprise, so delicate and so important. He had intelligence, and knew how to make use of it.
Who ventures to disturb him? It must be something very serious. For it is well known that the king very seldom goes to Trianon, and that when he is there he wishes to be entirely free from business. And yet he is disturbed today; yet the premier, Baron de Breteuil, is come to seek the miller of Little Trianon, and to beseech him even there to be the king again.
The Abbe de Vermond threw the whole blame of the imprudence and impolicy of the affair of the Cardinal de Rohan upon the minister, and ceased to be the friend and supporter of the Baron de Breteuil with the Queen.
Some of their advisers also, and especially the Baron de Breteuil and the Abbé de Yermond, fortified their decision with their advice; being, in truth, greatly influenced by a reason which they forbore to mention, namely, by their suspicion that the untiring malice of the queen's enemies would not have failed to represent that the suppression of the slightest particle of the truth could only have been dictated by a guilty consciousness which felt that it could not bear the light; and that the queen had forborne to bring the cardinal into court solely because she knew that he was in a situation to prove facts which would deservedly damage her reputation.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking