Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 22, 2025
This winter was fertile in balls at the Court; there were several, fancy- dress and masked, given by M. le Duc de Berry, by Madame la Duchesse de Berry, M. le Duc, and others. There were some also at Paris, and at Sceaux, where Madame du Maine gave many fetes and played many comedies, everybody going there from Paris and the Court M. du Maine doing the Honours.
My curiosity was thoroughly aroused, and scenting sport of a rare character I agreed to join the chase. It was judged best that we should make all things ready for an immediate journey to Versailles upon our return from Sceaux. Before we slept, my few serviceables were put in position for instant departure. When I arose in the morning Jerome had already left his bed.
The Duc du Maine has not been banished to the country, but has permission to go with his family wherever he pleases; he will not, however, remain at Paris, because he no longer enjoys his rank; he chooses rather to live at Sceaux, where he has an elegant mansion and a fine park.
One letter had reached her from Warkworth, a wild and incoherent letter, written at night in a little room of a squalid hotel near the Gare de Sceaux. Her telegram had reached him, and for him, as for her, all was over. But the letter was by no means a mere cry of baffled passion.
They spent their lives quietly at Sceaux during the Regency, and naught else of them concerns this history. Philip of Orleans possessed some of the virtues of a great man, and many of a good man, but these he kept ever locked within his own bosom.
In April, 1830, Madame Hanska, his future wife, read with delight, in her far-off chateau in Ukraine, the "Scenes de la Vie Privee," containing the "Vendetta," "Les Dangers de l'Inconduite," "Le Bal de Sceaux, ou Le Pair de France," "Gloire et Malheur," "La Femme Vertueuse" and "La Paix de Menage" two volumes which Balzac had published as quickly as he could, to counteract the alienation of his women-readers by the "Physiologie du Mariage."
Sainte-Aulaire, tired of the perpetual excitement at Sceaux, characterized this salon by a witty quatrain: Je suis las de l'esprit, il me met en courroux, Il me renverse la cervelle; Lambert, je viens chercher un asile chez vous, Entre La Motte et Fontenelle.
Such were Des Esseintes' reflections when the breeze brought him the faint whistle of the toy railroad winding playfully, like a spinning top, between Paris and Sceaux.
Favancourt himself took this moment to pay his compliments as best he might to the Duc du Maine, to which the Duke replied but little, and that in a civil and apprehensive manner. These proceedings conducted them to the end of the avenue of Sceaux, where the bodyguards appeared. The sight of them made the Duc du Maine change colour. Silence was but little interrupted in the coach.
Once, having confidence in a fine September sun, Marius had allowed himself to be taken to the ball at Sceaux by Courfeyrac, Bossuet, and Grantaire, hoping, what a dream! that he might, perhaps, find her there. Of course he did not see the one he sought. "But this is the place, all the same, where all lost women are found," grumbled Grantaire in an aside.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking