Forget-me-not by Marjorie Bowen — Read

That was a memorable season for Lucille Debelleyme, she felt herself in the forefront of those great events she had often regarded longingly from afar. She took a lively interest in all that was happening around her, herself a product of a new century she felt at one with all the manifestations of progress, She enjoyed it all, from the grand review at the Champs de Mars in honour of the Envoy of the Emperor of Morocco, to the ceremonious openings of two new railway stations, that from Paris to Tours and that ambitious line to the North. She was present at the marvellous experiment of the invention of M. Le Docteur Payerne when a submarine was sent under the Seine where it remained with its crew for two hours, she watched the Viceroy of Egypt's arrival at the Palais Élysée, heard from M. du Boccage an account of the brilliant reception given by Madame de Recamier in honour of Chateaubriand, she attended with the children the fete in the Champs Élysées given for the benefit of the Spanish refugees, she took the eldest boy, the Marquis Philippe Joseph, to see the great steeplechase at Croix de Berny, she was present at the fashionable parade at the Madeleine when the monstrous new organ by Cavaille was inaugurated, she listened with malice to the accounts of two attempts against the life of the King, one at Fontainebleau, one at the Tuileries, she watched the Due de Nemours, reviewing his troops and she read in the journals of the elaborate preparations for the marriage of the Due de Montpensier with a princess of Spain.

She was present in the Opera-Comique when Berlioz gave the first performance of La Damnation de Faust; she listened keenly to all the talk, the whispers of the salon, the hints in the press (that new power becoming every month more formidable), sometimes she even caught a word or a phrase in the streets which proved to her that the present dynasty was not so firm as it might seem, nor the King and his numerous family as beloved as they might appear, and the governess, like a butterfly flitting ahead of flames that could not overtake her, nor even scorch her wings, trembled with anticipation at the thought of yet another Revolution.