TWO:The King and Queen were doomed. Even so late as between the 20th of June and the 10th of August, there was a last chance of escape, a plot for their flight, each one separately. They might, or some of them might, have escaped. One cannot help fancying that the children at any rate might have been saved; they could not have been so well known and might so well have been disguised. This was spoilt by the Queen, who refused to be separated from the Dauphin. After that there was no hope.[277]
ONE:Catherine was the daughter of Prince Christian of Anhalt-Zerbst, and was sixteen years old when she was brought from the old castle among the lakes and forests of Germany to be married to Peter, son of Charles Frederic, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and Anne, eldest daughter of Peter the Great; [43] who had been adopted as heir by the Empress Elizabeth, his aunt, youngest daughter of Peter the Great, with whose grandson, Peter II., [44] the male line had ended.Society was much smaller, people knew each other, or at any rate knew much more about each other, than could be the case after the revolution. The Comte dEspinchal was the most extraordinary instance of this essentially social life. He passed his days and nights in going from one party or visit to another; he knew all about everything going [53] on, important or trivial. He appeared to know every one not only at the parties to which he went, but in all the boxes at the Opera, and nearly everybody he met in the streets, so that it was quite inconvenient for him to walk in them, as he was stopped every minute. Not only people at court and in society, but grisettes, employs of the theatres, persons of every class; but though a perfect mine of gossip, he never made mischief.
Blanditiis praesentium voluptatum deleniti atque corrupti quos dolores et quas molestias excepturi sint occaecati cupiditate non provident.
Read more