I did not wait long before the name of Madame de
Chasserades succeeded to that of my mother on the list. She passed
me on to Madame de Noytot; she, in her turn, to Mademoiselle de
Braye; and there were others. I was the one thing permanent; they
were all transient as clouds; a day or two of their care, and then
came the last farewell and--somewhere far off in that roaring Paris
that surrounded us--the bloody scene. I was the cherished one, the
last comfort, of these dying women. I have been in pitched fights,
my lord, and I never knew such courage. It was all done smiling,
in the tone of good society; belle maman was the name I was taught
to give to each; and for a day or two the new "pretty mamma" would
make much of me, show me off, teach me the minuet, and to say my
prayers; and then, with a tender embrace, would go the way of her
predecessors, smiling. There were some that wept too. There was a
childhood! All the time Monsieur de Culemberg kept his eye on me,
and would have had me out of the Abbaye and in his own protection,
but my "pretty mammas" one after another resisted the idea. Where
could I be safer? they argued; and what was to become of them
without the darling of the prison? Well, it was soon shown how
safe I was! The dreadful day of the massacre came; the prison was
overrun; none paid attention to me, not even the last of my "pretty
mammas," for she had met another fate.
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