England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
“My lord was scandalized at Clément’s dress, which, after the first
moment of seeing him, I had forgotten, in thinking of other things, and
for which I had not prepared Lord Ludlow. He sent for his own tailor,
and bade him bring patterns of stuffs, and engage his men to work night
and day till Clément could appear as became his rank. In short, in a few
days so much of the traces of their flight were removed, that we had
almost forgotten the terrible causes of it, and rather felt as if they
had come on a visit to us than that they had been compelled to fly their
country. Their diamonds, too, were sold well by my lord’s agents, though
the London shops were stocked with jewellery, and such portable
valuables, some of rare and curious fashion, which were sold for half
their real value by emigrants who could not afford to wait. Madame de
Créquy was recovering her health, although her strength was sadly gone,
and she would never be equal to such another flight, as the perilous one
which she had gone through, and to which she could not bear the
slightest reference. For some time things continued in this state;--the
De Créquys still our honoured visitors,--many houses besides our own,
even among our own friends, open to receive the poor flying nobility of
France, driven from their country by the brutal republicans, and every
freshly-arrived emigrant bringing new tales of horror, as if these
revolutionists were drunk with blood, and mad to devise new atrocities.
One day Clément;--I should tell you he had been presented to our good
King George and the sweet Queen, and they had accosted him most
graciously, and his beauty and elegance, and some of the circumstances
attendant on his flight, made him be received in the world quite like a
hero of romance: he might have been on intimate terms in many a
distinguished house, had he cared to visit much; but he accompanied my
lord and me with an air of indifference and languor, which I sometimes
fancied, made him be all the more sought after: Monkshaven (that was the
title my eldest son bore) tried in vain to interest him in all young
men’s sports. But no! it was the same through all. His mother took far
more interest in the on-dits of the London world, into which she was far
too great an invalid to venture, than he did in the absolute events
themselves, in which he might have been an actor. One day, as I was
saying, an old Frenchman of a humble class presented himself to our
servants, several of whom understood French; and, through Medlicott, I
learnt that he was in some way connected with the De Créquys; not with
their Paris-life; but I fancy he had been intendant of their estates in
the country; estates which were more useful as hunting-grounds than as
adding to their income. However, there was the old man; and with him,
wrapped round his person, he had brought the long parchment rolls, and
deeds relating to their property. These he would deliver up to none but
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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