The years of separation while he was in America were most trying, and her sister, Louise de Noailles, shared her anxiety, as the Vicomte de Noailles and Comte de Sgur joined the Americans in 1779.
La Fayette, accused and proscribed by his late admirers, had found himself so unwilling to trust [232] to their tender mercies that he fled to Lige. But having made himself equally obnoxious to both sides, he had no sooner escaped from the hands of his friends than he fell into those of his enemies, and was arrested by an Austrian patrol and detained, arbitrarily say his friendsbut why arbitrarily?was taken to Wesel, and had now to undergo a mild form of the suffering he had caused to so many others.Having decided to stop at Turin and wait for further news, she took a little house in a vineyard near the town. M. de Rivire lodged with her, and gradually recovered amongst the peaceful surroundings. [116] Even the sight of the honest, quiet, peaceable peasants did them good. They walked among the vineyards, or in a neighbouring wood, where steep paths led to little churches and chapels, in which they attended mass on Sundays; and Lisette resumed her work, painting amongst other things a picture, Une baigneuse, which she sold at once to a Russian prince, and a portrait of his daughter as a present to Signor Porporati.Old Isabey had a passion for art, and having two boys resolved to make one a painter, the other a musician; and as Louis, the elder one, was always scribbling upon walls and everywhere figures of all sorts, his father, regardless of the fact that the drawings were not at all good, assured his son that he would be a great artist, perhaps painter to the King; and as the younger boy, Jean-Baptiste, [34] was [71] constantly making a deafening noise with trumpets, drums, castagnettes, &c., he decided that he should be a musician.Pauline was almost in despair. Her child died, as all the others had done; letters from home had stopped, she did not know what had become of her mother, sisters, and grandmother; they were in the middle of winter and had only enough money for another month; more and more emigrs were crowding into Brussels, flying from the Terror, which had begun.
