Explore "At the Mock Versailles" by Egerton Castle on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"_You are just a porcelain trifle, Belle Marquise! _ _Just a thing of puffs and patches,_ _Made for madrigals and catches,_ _Not for heart-wounds, but for scratches._" AUSTIN DOBSON.
Viennese Betty was in Cassel; and if ever the right person was in the right place, it was Betty in Cassel, the Frenchified Cassel at least of King Jerome. She breathed in its irresponsible, exciting, immoral atmosphere with rapture. Its tinfoil splendour was utterly satisfying to her eyes; its jests provoked her charmed laughter; its aims measured her utmost ambitions. To shine among these doubtful stars; to take the lead in frivolities, without fear of losing caste -- nay, with every prospect of being lifted upon giddy triumph as the newest and most influential "_pompadourette_" -- even in her dreams Betty had never devised for herself a more enchanting prospect! To make the thing complete, her Bluebeard was tame, absolutely at her mercy... and held relentlessly at a distance.