The Venetian antiquarian prince Aldo Morosini, a connoisseur of jewelry and beautiful women, again finds himself in the thick of tragic events, this time connected with Napoleon's precious pearl. Put up for auction, it becomes the cause of more than one tragedy. The life and happiness of the prince himself are at stake. This mysterious story involves the strangest personalities: a criminal who considers himself Napoleon VI, Maria Rasputina, the gypsy Masha, and even the fabulously rich Maharajah, whose attractive appearance hides a real sadist.
The Venetian prince and world-famous antiquarian Aldo Morosini could not imagine into what abyss his search for ancient earrings and a ruby cross would plunge him - jewelry that he saw in a portrait by a famous artist. Step by step, restoring the history of these works of art, the prince himself becomes a participant in the bloody events
Magnificent ancient jewelry, beautiful women, ancient secrets There is no shortage of this in the life of Prince Aldo Morosini. However, his passion for adventure pushes him to a new adventure. He is looking for four gems stolen from the temple. The search for the famous Blue Star sapphire strangely connects his fate with the fate of a young girl, so mysterious and so beautiful that she is destined to become his secret torment for many years. The prince saves her from mortal danger, but the beauty is forced to become the wife of another. But their story is far from over.
The Venetian prince Aldo Morosini believed that the adventures in his life were over. He found four stones from the sacred pectoral, and most importantly, he found love. And so, at the very beginning of his honeymoon, his young wife is kidnapped. To save her, the prince must find two more sacred stones - emeralds, followed by a long trail of blood. In his search, he more than once finds himself on the brink of death: in a Turkish prison, in Dracula’s castle. But, deftly escaping danger, Morosini boldly moves from one amazing discovery to another.
Aldo Morosini, a Venetian prince and antiquities expert, is passionate about searching for four priceless stones from a sacred relic. The story of the third of them, a beautiful opal, turns out to be connected with the most romantic woman of the Austrian dynasty - Elizabeth, the wife of Emperor Franz Joseph. The prince's search for the stone leads him to a mysterious masked woman. Thanks to the help of the one whom the prince loved more than life itself, he finds an opal, loses his beloved, but not his love! Their story is not over yet...
The love of adventure and mystery pushes the young Venetian prince Aldo Morosini to search for four precious stones from a sacred relic. Having found the first of them, the Blue Star sapphire, the prince goes to London, where the mysterious trail of the Rose of York diamond leads him. Risking his life, the prince saves the woman he passionately loves from death, but the beauty eludes him again. However, the search fails finished, the prince has to find two more priceless stones. New adventures and the love of a beautiful woman await him.
The search for the sacred ruby lost from the temple brings the Venetian prince Aldo Morosini to the court of the Spanish king. The beautiful Lisa, who is in love with him, helps him find this stone and has mysteriously transformed from a modest secretary into a charming social beauty. Having emerged with honor from the last battle with a secret enemy, the prince fulfills his mission and finds happiness with the woman whom he has long and selflessly loved.
It cost the Venetian antiquarian prince Aldo Morosini dearly to find the jewels that sank twenty years ago on the Titanic. The prince is seriously wounded, his manager is kidnapped, and his wife Lisa is about to file for divorce. As always, his faithful friend Adalber comes to Aldo’s aid. Together they have to go through many tests: find the stolen family jewels, expose dangerous scammers... and return the love of the beautiful Lisa to the prince.
The Tomb of the Unknown Queen in Egypt has haunted archaeologists for many years. It was possible to penetrate it only with the help of the cross of life Ankh and the Ring, which belonged to the ancient Atlanteans.
Historical jewelry expert Aldo Morosini, having accidentally become the owner of the legendary Ring, goes on business to the land of the pyramids, where he meets his friend, archaeologist Adalbert Vidal-Pelicorne. They will have to go through many tragic trials before they can see with their own eyes that the Unknown Queen is not a mummy at all...
A unique exhibition opens in the magnificent Petit Trianon palace in Versailles, among the exhibits of which are things that belonged to Marie Antoinette, as well as her jewelry provided by private collectors. The grandiose success of the event is overshadowed by a series of mysterious murders, the kidnapping of innocent people, the theft and substitution of the famous jewelry - the queen’s diamond “tear”.
Fighting ghosts, seances, blackmail - all this will have to be experienced by the famous jewelry expert Prince Morosini and his faithful friend Vidal-Pelicorne in order to discover the organizer of numerous crimes hiding under the guise of the “Queen’s Avenger”.
Part 1.
Aldo Morosini, a Venetian prince and antiquities expert, is passionate about searching for four priceless stones from a sacred relic. The story of the third of them, a beautiful opal, turns out to be connected with the most romantic woman of the Austrian dynasty - Elizabeth, the wife of Emperor Franz Joseph. The prince's search for the stone leads him to a mysterious masked woman. Thanks to the help of the one whom the prince loved more than life itself, he finds an opal, loses his beloved, but not his love! Their story is not over yet...
Magnificent ancient jewels... beautiful women... ancient secrets... There is no shortage of this in the life of Prince Aldo Morosini. However, his passion for adventure pushes him to a new adventure. He is looking for four gems stolen from the temple. The search for the famous Blue Star sapphire strangely connects his fate with the fate of a young girl, so mysterious and so beautiful that she is destined to become his secret torment for many years. The prince saves her from mortal danger, but the beauty is forced to become the wife of another. But their story is far from over...
Part 3.
Part 4.
The last missing stone of an ancient relic that Prince Aldo Morosini is trying to find is discovered in the treasury of the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs.
The Venetian antiquarian prince Aldo Morosini, a connoisseur of jewelry and beautiful women, again finds himself in the thick of tragic events, this time connected with Napoleon's precious pearl. Put up for auction, it becomes the cause of more than one tragedy. The life and happiness of the prince himself are at stake. This mysterious story involves the strangest personalities: a criminal who considers himself Napoleon VI, Maria Rasputina, the gypsy Masha, and even the fabulously rich Maharajah, whose attractive appearance hides a real sadist.
Repeatedly exposed to mortal danger, the fearless Venetian prince completes his responsible mission and finds long-awaited happiness with his beloved.
Part 6.
Part 7.
The Venetian prince and world-famous antiquarian Aldo Morosini could not imagine into what abyss his search for ancient earrings and a ruby cross would plunge him - jewelry that he saw in a portrait by a famous artist.
A unique exhibition opens in the magnificent Petit Trianon palace in Versailles, among the exhibits of which are things that belonged to Marie Antoinette, as well as her jewelry provided by private collectors. The grandiose success of the event is overshadowed by a series of mysterious murders, the kidnapping of innocent people, the theft and substitution of the famous jewelry - the queen’s diamond “tear”.
Fighting ghosts, seances, blackmail - all this will have to be experienced by the famous jewelry expert Prince Morosini and his faithful friend Vidal-Pelicorne in order to discover the organizer of numerous crimes hiding under the guise of the “Queen’s Avenger”.
Juliette Benzoni
Love and castles
ÉLYSEE PALACE. Madness in all genres
Paris... We will open the string of French castles with a story about the difficult fate of the famous Elysee Palace. After all, it was a palace before it turned into a stable! Let's hope for a better life for this beautiful building in the center of Paris.
So, the story...
It is useless to add that the general did not like Eliza. He found this house frivolous and poorly adapted to the demands of power. They say that he would prefer Vincennes a hundred times over, not comfortable and stern, but noble. However, he managed to settle down here, without dreaming of a time that would bring to the abode of bizarre things the greatness that he lacked and which could hardly be borrowed anywhere. Now let's delve into history. The construction of the Elysee Palace, the current Parisian residence of the President of the Republic, had two primary reasons, completely different and at the same time interconnected: marriage, essentially an unequal marriage, and the order of the Regent. One thing preceded the other.
In the first years of the 18th century, the dear Louis-Henrich de Latour d'Auvergne, Count d'Evreux, colonel general of the cavalry suddenly discovered that his service was penniless and, moreover, very burdensome. A major shortage of money led to the fact that his parents, the Duke de Bouillon and Maria Anna Mancini, who was the last niece of Cardinal Mazarin, instantly, through various follies, exhausted all the considerable fortune that they had inherited from their dear uncle.
Of course, the Duchess, charming, but grumpy and depraved, never knew how to save money. To top off all the misfortunes, she allowed herself to be compromised along with her sister Olympia, Countess de Soissons, in a dangerous case of poisoning and was forced to go into hiding. So her husband could not boast of a happy and cloudless life, moreover, fate provided him with a brother, a minister of the Church, but the position of the chief priest of France did not dampen his well-known taste for children from the choir.
Thanks to this competition of unpleasant circumstances, the heir of one of the best names in France, upon reaching the age of thirty, found himself forced to have recourse to intrigue.
To settle all these matters, the Count de Toulouse, the legitimized son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, once proposed to our hero a rich marriage, a fantastic marriage, on the condition that he would find enough common sense in himself to become related to his father-in-law of low birth. What kind of father-in-law? Rich Crozat, who had a younger brother, Poor Crozat, who, however, also already had decent capital.
Obviously, this name should have caused a grimace from the young Count d'Evreux, who probably did not read from Saint-Simon: “Crozat’s homeland was Languedoc, where he settled in Pennotier, almost as a lackey. Being an inconspicuous employee, Crozat rose to the rank of cashier. Having deposited money in a shipbuilding bank, this man became the first rich man in Paris. The king himself wished to make him the manager of the Duke of Vendôme. Glory followed wealth."
In fact, Crozat, being a shrewd financier and taking advantage of a fortunate opportunity, achieved privileges in trade with Louisiana. Here he turned into a philanthropist and filled a newly built mansion on Place Louis the Great (now Place Vendôme) with collections that included works by Titian, Tintoretto, Van Dyck and other important gentlemen - everything that was later bought by Catherine II.
The Marquis de Chastel made him royal secretary, so Crozat could compete with the shadow of the luxurious superintendent Fouquet. Unfortunately, he turned out to be not so sophisticated and was an inadmissible snob. Moreover, he desperately wanted to find his place in the world, although the latter did not show much zeal to accept him.
The idea of marrying off his daughter to one of de Latour d'Auvergne, a royal cousin, turned Crozat's head and caused a scene worthy of Moliere on the part of his wife. For, true to the example of the intelligent Madame Jourdain, Madame Crozat, who belonged to a good bourgeois family, did not support any noble claims husband, nor the expenses that he unquestioningly went to in order to “cajole” people who only wanted to take advantage of his money.
Positively, Madame Crozat did not want to become the mother-in-law of Comte d'Evreux. But although at that time they were already slandering the successes of feminists, the law was completely on the side of the father of the family, and in the spring of 1706, twelve-year-old Anna-Marie Crozat became the wife of Louis-Henrich, who was a little over twenty.
This marriage, marked by a luxurious wedding in his father's mansion, in fact turned out to be fictitious: in exchange for the royal dowry he received, Count d'Evreux awarded his wife only the dubious joy of being called a countess. He decided that she had nothing to do in this monetary story. In the evening, the young husband gave the one he nicknamed “my little gold bar” with a social greeting and went to spend the night with his former mistress.
One could argue that the young wife was still too young, but still age is not so important here. Besides, Anna Maria was not a freak at all. She was a beautiful brunette with luxurious black eyes, who was expected to become even prettier with age. She had the ability to cultivate her mind and her manners in the hope that the husband whom she quietly adored would one day pay attention to her. And so, by the age of twenty, Anna-Maria became not just a beautiful woman, but also a society lady.
Contrary to the custom of such spouses, Count d'Evreux, being a flighty and bad husband, was not wasteful. On the contrary. Assessing his luck, he began to increase her gifts, and, in order to avoid expenses, settled in his father-in-law's mansion, so as not to pay for the maintenance of his own house. In addition, he sought royal service in the hope of replenishing his wallet, which is why he pestered the Regent with requests to enroll him in the royal hunting district of Monceau.
For his part, Philippe d'Orleans, being a subtle psychologist, once confessed to the young Countess d'Evreux and, to his great surprise, discovered that her husband had never fulfilled his marital duty. The magnanimous Anna-Marie attributed such neglect to the fact that they continued to live in the house her financier father, which constantly pointed to her plebeian origin.
Encouraged by such Frankness, the Regent, calling on the stubborn husband, addressed him with approximately the following words: “You will receive the position you are seeking, moreover, I myself will hand you a paper confirming this after you settle in your own mansion.”
It sounded like an order. Evreux immediately went to the suburbs and bought one thousand two hundred toises of land on the site of the former “Gourdes swamp” from the financier Low for 77,090 livres. Nowadays these swamps are a beautiful area located between the Grand Court - the future Champs Elysees - and the village of Ruhl.
Through the efforts of the architect Mollet, by the end of 1718, the Evreux mansion arose on this site. A celebration was held in the halls of the lower floor. It did not occur to anyone to go higher and no one discovered that the owner, true to his stinginess, did not find it necessary to decorate the second floor. The desired paper ended up in his hands, but he never knocked on his wife’s door.
But on that memorable day she was able to realize how wrong she had once been: she finally saw her husband’s mistress, the Duchess of Lediguiere; however, she didn’t even think about hiding. Now she not only learned that she could never become the wife of her legal husband, but also realized that she no longer dreamed of it.
A few months later, demanding the division of property, Anna Maria returned to her father's house, where she died at the age of thirty-five, in 1729. Her husband, exhausted by debauchery, was killed by an apoplexy, but he, having fallen into childhood, managed to last a very long time in the same mansion, still indulging in his stinginess. Death came for him in 1753. A few months later, the d'Evreux mansion came into the possession of the Marquise of Pompadour.
By that time, the marquise was a favorite only in words. Health cooled her temperament and removed her from the royal embrace, but she remained a companion and indispensable friend of Louis XV. This would continue for more than ten years, but the marquise always understood how fragile platonic love is. Without a doubt, the king's heart is attached to her, but who can guarantee that one fine day his heart and feelings will not be captured by one of the clever young ladies like herself in her youth?
The Marquise knew very well that in the golden interiors of Versailles many eyes were watching her with contempt and envy. So, she found a nice house in Paris, which she herself bought with her own money and furnished according to the personal tastes of the marquise. This house became the Evreux mansion, which, however, still bears her name.
She immediately began to decorate the mansion, attracting the best artists of the time to this task, as was her custom. Then, finally, the second floor, badly neglected by the first owner, was decorated - the Marquise sought to make it worthy of royal visits. But she did not live long in this beautiful Parisian house of hers, since Louis XV did not remove her from him.
Her brother, the Marquis of Marigny, the chief manager of the royal buildings, settled in the mansion. Paris owes the Marquis the appearance of the boulevard, which now bears his name. He also came up with the final form of the future Champs Elysees, after Madame Pompadour’s idea of arranging vegetable gardens there failed. According to the Marquise’s calculations, this idea could surpass the scope of the royal Versailles, but from the very beginning it caused a storm of indignation among the Parisians: the Grand Court could suffer here. As a result, the already shaky popularity of the favorite suffered a lot.
After the death of the Marquise, the king inherited the building, but he only got the walls: the rest was scattered in the haze of auctions. (They would be the envy of any modern collector!)
Louis XV decided to provide the mansion for foreign embassies, and it became the house of ambassadors extraordinary. At the same time, the king decided to fill it with royal furniture, since a special building for this had not yet been built. Not a single ambassador could find a moment of rest among this rubbish - there was no more convenience there than in a junk shop.
When the architect Gabriel built the two colonnaded palaces that now adorn the Place de la Concorde, the Hotel Extraordinary Ambassadors lost both its name and its purpose as a repository for royal furniture. He was conscientiously cleared of everything. Louis XV, no longer knowing what to do with this building, sold it to the Abbot of Terre, the chief responsible for royal finances, a good tax collector, and therefore extremely unpopular. (This is connected with his name when one night a playful Parisian discovered a sign “Rue Bezdenezhnaya”.)
However, the beautiful palace, surrounded by trees, seemed too noticeable to him, and Terre hastily sold the house, without even having time to live in it. The abbot gave it to the richest financier Nicolas Beaujon, who gave a million livres for it and settled there as soon as possible.
If Count d'Evreux was only interested in the lower floor, then Beaujon took up his living quarters. During his time, the palace acquired a gloss that could not have been dreamed of even in the era of Madame Pompadour. This is the subject of the following passage of Mary Bromberger's book, which talks about the Elysee Palace in the era of the financier : “His bed resembled a flowerbed embroidered with roses; the play of mirror reflections reflecting the luxurious draperies of the room and the flowers of the parterre under the windows woke him up in the morning, surrounded by an extravaganza of illuminated trees and statues of the park, shimmering with golden lights. the bathroom with roses was so beautiful that the artist Vigée-Lebrun, who came to paint a portrait of the owner, definitely wanted to take a bath there.”
Let us add that one of the halls on the first floor bore the indicative name of the Salon of Money! I would like to imagine the owner of all these miracles as the once beautiful young man, the narcissistic Narcissus... Nothing like that. By a tragic mistake of nature, a fifty-seven-year-old disabled man lived there - that’s how old he was in the year he bought the mansion in 1775. Bojon was fat, damaged by rheumatism, and always fit in a small chair. He saw and heard poorly, his upset stomach did not allow him to touch the dishes that he treated his countless friends with royal generosity. As for women, he adored them, but he no longer touched them, but tried to surround himself with them like flowers.
So, leaving the feasting guests in the evening, he retired to his room with a whole bouquet of beautiful women who sat around his bed to chat, laugh, and sometimes even sing. He called them his nannies and always invited the same ones, among whom Madame Falbert was the favorite; in her arms he died on December 20, 1786, marking the beginning of a tradition, the unwitting victim of which later turned out to be one of the presidents of the Third Republic.
A generous patron of the arts, accepted at court, Bojon was also a generous man. Two years before his death, he built a huge shelter for the poor in the suburb of Roul, which later turned into the Beaujon Hospital.
The next mistress of his palace, before History settled there, turned out to be a woman with the scandalous name of Citizen of Pravda.
Buying a mansion after the disappearance of the financier's treasures at auction, Louise-Bathilde of Orleans, married Duchess of Bourbon, did not suspect that she would have such a strange name. She was celebrating the 37th spring and already knew that neither name nor money bring happiness.
Although she used to think the opposite. Then twenty years old, she married for love the eldest son of the Prince of Condé, the young Duke of Bourbon, and spent several happy months in the Bourbon palace, whose vaguely repulsive environment seems more suitable for the worries of the current deputies than for the tender word “happiness.”
But after the birth of her son, who was destined to become the young and unfortunate Duke of Enghien and be shot near Vincennes, her husband lost all interest in her, which he did not fail to report right away, bypassing any delicacy. One day, while preparing to leave for Chantilly, the family estate of the Dukes of Condé, a young woman received a note that literally said the following: “Madam, you should not take the trouble to come here, because you are disgusting both to my father and to me and to everything.” society." It is hardly possible to express it more rudely.
Deprived of a son, whom she had never seen, expelled from home, Louise-Bathilde sought a way to console herself by taking lovers: the Chevalier de Coigny, the Count d'Artois, who treated her in an unworthy manner, and several others, less famous. This continued until how she recognized true love in Alexandre de Roquefey, a young naval officer, from him she gave birth to a daughter, Adelaide Victoria, whom she raised, calling her goddaughter.
The Duchess was very happy about the purchase of the Beaujon Hotel and hastened to christen it Eliza - Bourbon. There she began to lead the uneventful life of a society woman. The death of young de Roquefeuil, who drowned in 1785 on a roadstead in Dunkirk, left a deep mark on her soul and turned her away from love adventures forever.
Without having any more lovers, she switched to platonic hobbies and turned to the occult sciences. Magnetism, in the name of which Father Mesme gathered all of Paris around his famous cauldron, found an admirer in the person of the Duchess of Bourbon. Then she became interested in the writings of the Unknown Philosopher, Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin, to whom descendants attributed the formula for a wonderful future: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Famous philosophers, and with them a crazy clairvoyant who called herself the Mother of God, filled the Elysee Palace and established their own order there. This continued until the Revolution.
Louise-Bathilde accepted this Revolution, especially since her brother, Duke Philippe of Orleans, was among its leaders. And when he donned the nickname “Citizen Equality,” his sister hurried to turn into “Citizen Pravda.”
Nevertheless, she had to flee to Petit Bourg Castle. There she was arrested and sent to De la Force prison. Only the fall of Robespierre saved her from the death sentence, but only in 1797 was she able to return to her Parisian palace. And in what form she found him!
Ragged and devastated by the invasions of the people, the Elysee Palace of the Bourbons needed huge money for restoration, which the owner no longer had. She rented the first floor to a couple of Orwin businessmen, who undertook to use it in their own way. Formerly almost a royal palace, the Elysee Palace became the site of public balls (let us clarify that during the Revolution it housed a printing house and a sales hall). And what kind of public balls they were! Ragged grisettes and soldiers danced there, drank and made love, and if not for the constant drafts, the palace could now be called a “closed house.”
The heavy hand of Napoleon I and his taste for order were needed to restore the ancient appearance and dignity of the ancient mansion of Evreux. On August 6, 1805, Joachim Murat, Marshal of France and son-in-law of the Emperor (husband of his sister Caroline), takes possession of... Napoleon's Elysee Palace. Percier and Fontaine, famous interior decorators from the Empire, set to work within these walls. The palace has regained its former splendor. It is now inhabited by lush plumes and sparkling boots of Murat and the emperor. Caroline (one must admit this without undue modesty) took advantage of her husband’s frequent absences to receive her lovers here.
Having become the lover of Junot, the governor of Paris, she once, after returning from the theater in his company, left the governor's carriage all night under her windows. At the same time, no one was mistaken about where Junot was and what he was doing. One evening, Junot’s wife Laura found herself forgotten in the carriage. For which she found a way to take revenge in the company of the Austrian Ambassador Metternich, who, by the way, had previously been Caroline’s lover.
The restless Murat became the King of Naples, and the palace passed to Napoleon. The latter handed it over to Josephine at the time of their quarrel, but the outcast hardly lived there and kept it for no more than two years.
In 1815, Tsar Alexander I lived in the Elysee Palace after Waterloo, while his soldiers were stationed around the palace.
Inspired by happiness and youth, the young spouses Duke of Beria and Maria Caroline of Naples, Duchess of Vif-Argents settle in the Elysee Palace. The Duchess organized her own small court there, cheerful, like herself. But happiness soon gave way to inconsolable grief, after the blow of Louvel’s dagger made the duchess too young a widow. She did not stay long in the palace.
Another fleeting owner of the palace: Prince Louis Napoleon. He was then the first president of the Second Republic. Having become emperor, he immediately left Eliza, moving to the Tuileries.
The Republic, having assumed its rights after Napoleon III, did not cede them again. The presidents took up residence in dusty, boarded-up interiors. Some met their death there: Sadi Carnot, who died at the hands of Caseiro, the stern and incorruptible Paul Dumais, killed by Gorgulov. Among them is the famous sun president Felix Faure, who died in the arms of his beloved, the beautiful Madame Stanay.
Others brought their kindness, intelligence, talent as statesmen to these walls... or their insignificance. President Pompidou spent the long days of his martyrdom there with admirable courage.
Now, thanks to Madame Vincent Oriol, the palace, having gotten rid of the ugly stained glass window, has regained all its former grace of the 18th century. It changed its color and appearance depending on its owners. Let us wish that its color does not change the tricolor, to which Emperor Napoleon I was once so inclined and which is now loved by all the French without exception.
AVOZH. Julie de Lespinas
I was going to see
You again, but you need to die.
What a cruel fate!..
Marquis de Mora
On November 9, 1732, in the house of Monsieur Bazillac, surgeon of the Marshal, on Place Douen in Lyon, an unknown lady secretly gives birth to a little girl. The next day, the child is brought to the Church of Saint-Paul: “On November 10, 1732, Julie-Jeanne was baptized - Eleanor de Lespinasse, born yesterday, the legitimate daughter of Claude Lespinasse, a Lyon tradesman, and Madame Julie Navard, his wife. The godfather is Louis Bazillac, a sworn surgeon of Lyon, the godmother is Madame Julie Lechaux, represented by the wife of the above-mentioned Mr. Bazillac, Madame Madeleine Ganivet. The father did not leave his painting, since he was absent at the time of the baptism. Two more witnesses are also added to the godparents..."
Apart from the names of the godfather and godmother, everything else in this document is fictitious. The Lyon tradesman and his wife never existed, and the mother of the child was actually Julie-Claude, Countess d'Albion, who usually lived in the ancient castle of Avozh, which is on the road between Lyon and Tarar. As for the father, there was no one other than Count Gaspard de Vichy, who had a very tender affair with the pretty Madame d'Albion...
The said lady inherited from her mother the charming name of Princess d'Hveto, which is rather reminiscent of an operetta. However, she came from a very famous family. Since the 12th century, the d'Albion family regularly supplied governors in Dauphine, among whom the most famous was Marshal de Saint-André , one of the heroes of the religious wars.
At the age of sixteen, Julie-Claude Hilaire d'Albion marries her cousin, Claude d'Albion, thus connecting two family branches: the Counts de Saint-Marcel and the Marquises de Saint-Forge, which provides them with a very large fortune.
The first years of their marriage can be called happy, because they were spared from any family dramas. They have four children, of whom only two will reach adulthood: their daughter Camilla-Diana and son Camille-Alex, who will continue the family. But, a strange thing: it was with the birth of this boy that misfortunes befall the Avozh castle.
No one knows exactly what happened, because the family shrouded the whole story in secrecy. What came out was that all the worst things came from the husband, who made a number of unforgivable mistakes, very serious mistakes, since the upbringing of the children was entrusted to the mother. The Count had no right to express the slightest protest. He left Avozh and settled in Rouen, where he remained “in the shadows and solitude, in ignorance, silently and, it seemed, not taking any part in the life of his family.”
On the contrary, Julie-Claude continued to live in Avozhe. At thirty years old, she was still young, beautiful, rich and free. Gaspard de Vichy was not slow to fill the loneliness of the poor heart that so longed to love. And little Julie becomes the fruit of this love. It should be noted that the name Lespinas, given to her at birth, was the name of one of the family lands.
Julie-Claude does not abandon her child; Unlike many women who did exactly this with their children, she takes her baby to Avozh, where the girl will be raised under her supervision.
It is necessary to say a few words about the castle itself. With its towers, ramparts and ditches, Avozh was a medieval fortress that would be “renovated” in the 19th century. The charming castle of Louis XV, located nearby, will be built only a few years after the arrival of little Julie. The child will love this austere house, the severity of which is softened by its magnificent location in the magical Valley of La Turdine. There the delightful panorama of the Forese Mountains stretches towards the horizon.
Julie spent the wonderful days of her childhood in this estate. The companion of her games was the young Camille d'Albion, for whom she always felt a feeling of tender friendship. Julie's eldest daughter, Claude, Diana, was much older. She was already an adult girl, and it was necessary to take care of the organization of her personal life. The year was 1739 a turning point for Julie and her mother. First, it was Camille’s departure to the army, which was the responsibility of a man of his rank. Then, Diana’s wedding. And who did Diana marry on November 18, 1739 under the arches of the Avozh castle?.. Gaspard de Vichy, her lover. her mother and father Julie de Lespinasse! Vichy managed to make young Diana fall in love with him, and the wedding took place despite the tears of Madame d'Albion, who was now forced to remain alone in a huge castle with little Julie.
The lonely woman was very concerned about her health, which by that time left much to be desired. What will happen to Julie if death comes to her? She could not even bequeath everything she wanted to Julie because of the noise that Gaspard de Vichy raised, concerned about the fate of part of his wife’s inheritance. And then what? Monastery? But Julie, although still very young, finds the courage to refuse this fate. She has too much life, love and freedom to agree to be imprisoned in a monastery. All that her mother, who at this time was especially tender with her daughter, could give her was to assign her a modest annuity. On the other hand, she handed her the key to the safe in which she kept money intended for her own needs. But proud and delicate Julie handed over this key to her brother Camille when the hour of her mother’s death struck.
This tragic event happened on April 6, 1748. Julie was almost 16 years old. The grief was enormous. The death of her mother could not help but touch her half-brother and sister. Touched so much that Diana invited her to move in with her, to the Champron castle, on the border of Macon and Lyon. They say that the sister’s offer was happily accepted by the young girl. But could she really feel joy at the hour when she left forever the dear home of her childhood?
However, Julie will not find happiness in Champron. The Vichy spouses will immediately notice her culture, education and extraordinary charm, which should have attracted so many hearts. But in all this the Vichys could only see an opportunity for its exploitation. They come up with the “magnificent” idea of making Julie a teacher for their children, without paying her a salary. Life here becomes so unbearable for her that Julie has no choice but to accept her mother’s advice: to go to a monastery. She had already written a letter to her brother, asking him to make a religious contribution for her, when suddenly everything changed. Simply because a dusty carriage once drove into the park of the Champron castle... In this carriage rode the Marquise du Defant, the younger sister of Gaspard de Vichy.
It is well known that among the bright minds of the 18th century there is hardly a more famous name than that of Madame du Defant, a friend of Walpole and Choiseul, a woman whose clever words became the talk of the town, and whose writings were in great demand, the one who was best able to gather around the whole of enlightened Paris from his chair. And it was with her that Voltaire met Madame Chatelet. As for lovers, she had plenty of them: from the Regent to President Hainault, with whom they represented something like an old, free couple, connected only by a feeling of deep tenderness and play of the mind.
The marquise immediately liked Julie and became interested in her. As her eyesight was failing, she needed someone to read for her. Thus, she talks with the girl for a long time and, having left Champron, writes to her repeatedly, since Julie could not decide for a long time to move to Paris, because she was afraid of being out of place there. But the life she led with Vichy was so unpleasant that she finally decided to leave for Lyon, where she planned to spend some time in a monastery.
Madame du Defant comes there to reason with her and convince her to move to live with her, despite the strong resistance of the Vichy, who began to fear the appearance of another heir.
And in the second half of April 1754, a Lyon stagecoach delivers to Paris a twenty-two-year-old girl “a little provincially dressed, a little excited and frightened...” And here Julie is in the house of Madame du Defant, who is actually her aunt, because she is her father’s sister.
Julie transforms amazingly. From the very first time they lived together, the Marquise found it very pleasant to turn the reading girl into a real Parisian and develop her artistic and literary abilities. The color of the intelligentsia often visits her: Diderot, d'Alembert, who at first sight will be forever fascinated by Julie's charm, President Hainault, Marshal de Luxembourg and many others. Everyone is interested in Julie, appreciates a conversation with her... and they get into the habit of seeing her secretly , since Madame du Defant’s blindness sometimes makes it difficult to communicate with her. Everyone gathers in Julie’s room for a while before entering the salon.
All this continues until one fine day in April 1764, Madame du Defant, visiting her niece, ends up at one of these secret gatherings. Seized with anger, she kicks Julie out, not wanting to listen to the slightest explanation. And here is a young woman on the street.
True, not for long. She managed to make so many friends that many people are ready to take an active part in her fate. The Marshal de Luxembourg furnishes an apartment for her, which she finds on the Rue Saint-Dominique, a stone's throw from Madame du Defant's house. Madame Geo-Fran grants her a pension, and d'Alembert becomes her mentor. It was he who took care of her and nursed her when she fell ill with smallpox, a disease that, unfortunately, left its traces. In turn, Julie becomes a nurse when misfortune befalls her friend. And even more: she takes him to her place, to two small rooms on the top floor that she owns, so that he can feel the warmth of the hearth. But, despite the fact that all of Paris considered them lovers, in reality they are. they were not, for Madame de Lespinasse’s heart ached for a completely different person.
