remarkable talent for painting, but she gave up the pursuit
almost immediately after her marriage with M. Filleul, when the Queen
made her Gatekeeper of the Castle of La Muette. Would that I could
speak of the dear creature without calling her dreadful end to mind.
Alas! how well I remember Mme. Filleul saying to me, on the eve of my
departure from France, when I was to escape from the horrors I
foresaw: "You are wrong to go. I intend to stay, because I believe in
the happiness the Revolution is to bring us." And that Revolution took
her to the scaffold! Before she quitted La Muette the Terror had
begun. Mme. Chalgrin, a daughter of Joseph Vernet, and Mme. Filleul's
bosom friend, came to the castle to celebrate her daughter's
wedding--quietly, as a matter of course. However, the next day the
Jacobins none the less proceeded to arrest Mme. Filleul and Mme.
Chalgrin, who, they said, had wasted the candles of the nation. A few
days later they were both guillotined.

Among the favourite walks were the Temple boulevards. Every day,
though especially on Thursdays, hundreds of vehicles drove or stood in
the roads where the cafes and shows still are. The young men on
horseback caracoled about the carriages, as they did at Longchamps,
for Longchamps was already in existence and even very brilliant. The
side paths were full of immense throngs of pedestrians, enjoying the
pastime of admiring or criticising all the lovely ladies, dressed in
their best, who passed in fine carriages. At a certain spot, where the
Cafe Turc now stands, a spectacle was to be seen which many a time
made me burst into loud laughter. It was a long row of old women
belonging to the Marais quarter, sitting gravely on chairs, their
faces so thickly rouged that they looked precisely like dolls. As at
that date the right to wear rouge was only conceded to women of high
rank, these worthy ladies thought they must take advantage of the
privilege to its full limit. One of our friends, who knew most of
them, told us that their only employment at home was to play lotto
from morning till night. He also said that one day, after he had
returned from Versailles, some of them had asked him the news, that he
had replied M. de La Perouse was to make a journey round the world,
and that the hostess had thereupon exclaimed: "Gracious! What a lot of
time the man must have on his hands!"

Years later, long after my marriage, I saw various little shows on
this very boulevard.