The robbers, who were both executed, were father and son. Their plan was for the cripple to beg for money to be dropped into his hat, then with his stump he pulled down a heavy weight hung in the tree above him which stunned the victim, who was then finished by the other. The farmer had been too quick for them. In the hollow or small cellar under the arch where he slept were found gold, ornaments, hair cut off the nuns, which was always sold for the profit of the Order of the Saint-Rosaire, daggers, and knives. How he got them all was never discovered.
The young Comtesse de Genlis was very happy at Origny, and amused herself like a child amongst the nuns. She ran about the corridors at night dressed like the devil, with horns; she put rouge and patches on the nuns while they were asleep, and they got up and went down to the services in the church in the night without seeing themselves thus decorated; she gave suppers and dances amongst the nuns and pupils to which no men were, of course, admitted; she played many tricks, and wrote constantly to her husband and mother, the latter of whom came to spend six weeks with her. When her husband came back they went to Genlis, where her brother, who had just gone into the Engineers, paid them a long visit, to her great joy.
Then they went to Paris, where her first child, a daughter, was born.
[112] An office in the household of the eldest son of the heir to the throne, only given to young men of distinction. It was abolished after the death of the Duc de Bourgogne. It was the same as _les menins du Dauphin_ under Louis XIV.
[113] The Grenadiers de France had twenty-four colonels.
Presentation at Versailles—La Rosière—Father and son—Mme. de Montesson—A terrible scene—The Comtesse de Custine—Mme. de Genlis enters the Palais Royal.
After her confinement the Maréchale d’Etrée came to see Félicité, brought her a present of beautiful Indian stuffs, and said that her parents, M. and Mme. de Puisieux, would have the pleasure of receiving her when she was recovered. Also that Mme. de Puisieux would present her at Versailles.
To this she looked forward with some trepidation, being dreadfully afraid of Mme. de Puisieux, who at first did not like her, and was extremely stiff. She drove down to Versailles in her carriage alone with her, Mme. de Puisieux saying very little, but criticising the way she did her hair. They slept at Versailles, in the splendid apartment of the Maréchal d’Etrée, who was very kind and pleasant to Félicité, and with whom she felt more at home. The next day she was obliged to spend such an enormous time at her toilette that by the time they started she was nearly tired out. Her hair was dressed three times over; everything was the object of some tiresome fuss, to which policy obliged her to submit in silence.