The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Volume 1Edgeworth, Maria
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The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Volume 1
Edgeworth, Maria
Edgeworth, Maria, 1768-1849; Novelists, Irish -- 19th century -- Biography
Yesterday William Everard went with us to the Chapelle Royale, where we
saw Monsieur, the Duchesse d'Angoulême and all the court. In the evening
we were at a _fete de village_ at La Celle, to which Madame de Vindé had
invited us, as like an Irish _pattern_ as possible, allowing for the
difference of dress and manner. The scene was in a beautiful grove on
each side of a romantic road leading through a valley. High wooded
banks: groups of gaily-dressed village belles and beaux seen through the
trees, in a quarry, in the sand-holes, everywhere where there was space
enough to form a quadrille. This grove was planted by Gabrielle
d'Estrées, for whom Henry IV. built a lodge near it. Fanny and Harriet
danced with two gentlemen who were of our party, and they all danced on
till dewfall, when the lamps--little glasses full of oil and a wick
suspended to the branches of the trees--were lighted, and we returned to
La Celle, where we ate ice and sat in a circle, playing _trouvez mon
ami_--mighty like "why, when, and where"--and then played loto till
twelve. Rose at six, had coffee, and drove back to Paris in the cool of
the delicious morning. To-day we are going to dine again at Neuilly with
the other Duchess of Orleans, daughter-in-law of the good old Duchess,
who by the bye spoke of Madame de Genlis in a true Christian spirit of
forgiveness, but in a whisper, and with a shake of her head, allowed
_qu'elle m'avait causée bien des chagrins._
Among some of the most agreeable people we have met are some Russians
and Poles. Madame Swetchine, a Russian, is one of the cleverest women I
ever heard converse. At a dinner at the young and pretty Princess
Potemkin's, on entering the dining-room, we saw only a round table
covered with fruit and sweetmeats, as if we had come in at the dessert;
and so it remained while, first, soup, then cutlets, then fish, one dish
at a time, ten or twelve one after another, were handed round, ending
with game, sweet things, and ice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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