女人有幾多個三十？
一個。
我三十出頭，但我沒有白活，因為我開始能夠掌握並支配自己的生活。
正如別被時裝支配，是人穿衣服不是衣服穿人；是人在生活，不是生活迫人。
五天工作，一天work from home。在辦公室我堅持做自己相信的事，工餘時間我亦堅持過自己想要過的生活。
已婚並已經成為爸爸媽媽的同事叫我好好享受單身貴族的生活，因為結婚生子便是人生的另一個階段，快樂是昇華的快樂，但生活也多了責任和羈絆。
這「貴族」二字讓我想起法國大革命的貴族，而對我來說，nobility 是一種無論客觀環境順逆，都追求質感生活的人生態度。Melanie recaps:
...life carried on almost as normal with a court of sorts being formed at the Tuileries. In some ways the change of pace was good for the family as they saw more of each other and had more time to themselves, although guards were ever present. Finally and ironically, Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and Élisabeth had the low key, simple family life that they had always craved.
Marie Antoinette and Élisabeth spent many hours together, working at embroidery, reading and chatting about life just as they had always done. Touchingly, Élisabeth kept up with the news about Montreuil, where work carried on just as it had always done.
In private, Élisabeth enjoyed reading, having had over one hundred books sent to the Pavilion de Flore from her personal library. Her books included ‘the works of Cicero, Seneca, Horace and Plutarch. Treatise on Friendship by M. de Sacy. Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall’. Sacy’s Bible in 31 volumes. St Augustine’s ‘Confessions’. The bishop of Saint-Malo on the Holy Angels. Treatise on True and Solid Piety by St François de Sales. Fénélon on the Existence of God. Fénélon on the Education of Girls. The Spirit of St Teresa, culled from her writings. Mascaron’s funeral sermons. Mezenguy’s Lives of the Saints…’
She loved walking in all weathers in the still beautiful Tuileries gardens, as well as playing draughts with her niece and nephew and billiards with her brother, the King. Another favourite pastime was painting, which she did while seated at a window overlooking the Seine, writing to her friend, the Marquise de Bombelles: ‘This amuses, occupies and distracts me, and I assure you that one needs all that.’ Rather sadly, she was most fond of painting nature scenes, which must have reminded her of all that she was now missing.
However, life was not entirely untroubled. The royal family were troubled with the insults and impudent behaviour of not just the common people but also their own guards. Comte Ferrand wrote about Élisabeth that: ‘Nearly every afternoon, during her stay at the Tuileries, she went to the chapel. To get there she had to cross the guard rooms. Their remarks, their jokes, their sarcasms, often interspersed with impudence and impiety, did not stop her. Their spite increased when they saw she was indifferent to their derision; but their audacity was forced to lower its eyes before her. She seemed to vanquish them, less by the pride of her glance than by the influence of her virtue.’
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