Could
the coaches of a King mean more than the ordinary carriage of an
abandoned girl?
Jeanne Vaubernier--known in the bagnios by the name of Mademoiselle
Lange--was born at Vaucouleurs, as was Jeanne d'Arc. Better still,
this later Jeanne said openly at Versailles--dared she say otherwise?--
that she was descended in a straight line from the illustrious,
the venerated, the august, sacred, national maid, Jeanne.* "Why did
Du Barry come to Paris?'" says Leon Gozlan in that account of the
Ch?teau de Lucienne which makes a brilliant and learned chapter in
the history of France. "Does one ever know precisely why things are
done? She obeyed the magnet which attracts to Paris all who in
themselves have a title to glory, to celebrity, or to misfortune.
Du Barry had a pretty, provincial face, bright and charming, a face
astonished at everything, hair soft and ash-colored, blue eyes,
veiled and half open, and a skin fair with rose tints. She was a
child of destiny. Who could have said, when she crossed the great
town in her basket cart, which rolled lazily along on its massive,
creaking wheels, that some day she would have equipages more
beautiful than any of those which covered her with mud in passing,
and on her arms more laces and diamonds than any of these ladies
attended by footmen in liveries?"
*A claim which blithely ignored the fact that Jeanne
d'Arc had no children.
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