Twenty-Five Years of My Life and Memoirs of My Mother (Volume 2); And Memoirs of My Mother (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1872. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... spected, even while driving her from her palace, and condemning her son to exile and her husband to the scaffold. M. and Madame des Roys were lodged in the Palais Royal in winter and at St. Cloud in summer. My mother was born there. She was brought up, in consequence, with the future king, Louis Philippe, in the affectionate yet respectful familiarity natural to two children of the same age, sharing in the same lessons and the same sports. How often used my mother to speak of this boy, whom one Revolution drove from his country, while another replaced him on the throne There was not a fountain, or an avenue, or a lawn in the gardens of St. Cloud which we did not know by heart, through the recollections of her childhood, long before we had seen them with our own eyes. St. Cloud had been to her what Milly was to me--the cradle of all her early thoughts and impressions, the spot where she had grown and developed both in body and mind, like the trees in the great park. All the famous names of the eighteenth century were graven in her heart, for she had lived with them at an' age when impressions are the strongest and the most lasting Madame des Roys, her mother, was a woman of great merit. Her functions as mistress in the house of the first prince of the blood, made her the centre and point of attraction to all the remarkable personages of that time. Voltaire, during his short and last journey to Paris (which was one succession of triumphs), came to pay a visit to the young princes. Although my mother was only seven or eight" years old at that time, she was sufficiently impressed by what passed around her to understand the remarkable character of their guest. Voltaire's manner and dress, his walking stick, peculiar habits, and words, remained graven on her childish...