They were staying with an uncle of hers at Bordeaux when she heard one day that an English ship with three hundred passengers, chiefly royalists of Bordeaux, but all of them persons flying from France, was on the point of sailing, but was detained because the captain, whose conduct in this matter one cannot help saying few Englishmen indeed would not have despised, refused to sail until he had received three thousand francs wanting to the sum owing by the emigrants.
FORE:DIRECTLY M. and Mme. de Montagu got to London they heard of the death of Paulines aunt, the Duchesse de Lesparre, another grief for her; but really at that time for any one to die peacefully among their own people was a subject of thankfulness to them all.
THIS fearful shock brought on so violent an attack of illness that Paulines friends feared for her reason. Her aunt nursed her with the deepest affection, her husband arrived to comfort her with his love and sympathy, and the anxiety about Rosalie gave her a new object of interest. The Duke went to see the Princesse de Broglie, who had just come to the neighbourhood from France; she knew nothing; but a smuggler was found who knew all the paths of the Jura, and who was willing to go to Franche Comt, promising not to return without knowing the fate of Mme. de Grammont.Yes, sir.She had long renounced and repented of her proceedings of former days, and was now extremely royalist, but the daughter of Marie Antoinette was not likely to receive one who had been, if not implicated, at any rate hand-and-glove with the enemies of her mother.For more than a year she did not dare to pass the Palais Royal or to cross the place Louis XV., too many phantoms seemed to haunt and reproach her for the past.The hand of Charlotte Corday had sent Marat to his own place; Danton and Camille Desmoulins, beginning to have some slight glimmerings of mercy and humanity, had been denounced and executed; Robespierre was still triumphant, with his friends and satellites, Couthon, St.-Just and David. With them and Foulquir-Tinville, Paris was like hell upon earth. Long lists of victims, numbers of whom were women, went every day to the guillotine; the populace were getting weary of blood and slaughter. Again Tallien [331] made an attempt to get the release of Trzia, even suggesting that it was time to stop the murder of women. Even David agreed; but Robespierre was inexorable.
