the morning, met her when she was going to hear mass at the Jacobins or at S. Roch; they dined with her at three o'clock, and afterwards she took them into her bedchamber. It was a great room, hung with crimson damask bordered with gold, with an immense bed. The duchess sat in her arm-chair near the fire, with her snuff-box, her books, and her needles close by her; her five daughters grouped themselves around her, the elder ones on chairs, the little ones on stools, disputing lovingly which should get nearest to her. They talked of the lessons of yesterday and the little events of the day. It was not like a lesson, yet it was one, and a lesson better remembered than any other. .. What eternal thanks are due from her daughters for having been brought by the prayers and instructions of such a mother to the happiness of knowing, serving, and loving God. "Non fecit taliter omni nationi."

There were peculiarities in Madame d'Ayen's mode of training which might have seemed of rather doubtful expediency, had they not been so fully justified by the result. She would point out to her children, as a warning, errors of judgment and mistakes in conduct into which she had herself fallen; nor was she ever satisfied till she had convinced their reason as well as secured their obedience. She one day observed that, in conse"That

quence, they were far less docile than other children. may very well be, mamma," replied Madame de Lafayette, one of the most independent of the party, "because you allow us to make objections and to reason with you; but you will see that at fifteen we shall be more, far more, docile than other girls." And so it came to pass; for we find her, in the last quiet days which she enjoyed before the storm desolated the happy and stately home, surrounded by her daughters, their husbands and children-all, spite of the political differences which divided some of her sons-in-law, forming one harmonious circle, of which the hotel de Noailles was the centre. Her youngest daughter, Madame de Grammont, who perhaps resembled her most closely in the fervour of her piety and her singular unworldliness of spirit, and who was married to a husband likeminded with herself, resided with her at the hotel de Noailles. The fourth, Madame de Montagu, also singularly happy in the affection of her excellent husband and his family, was separated only by the distance of a street from her maternal home, of which she still continued to be the joy and the ornament. Madame de Thésan, the third, had nearly reached the close of her short and holy life. She was snatched away in the course of the year of which we are now writing, 1788. "Her second daughter (it is Madame de Lafayette herself who writes), whose troubles" (on account of her husband's absence in the American war)" had long been an anxiety to her, was now almost as happy a mother as she was a happy wife. .. This second daughter,

whose fatiguiug activity was often inconvenient, was also able to be of use to my mother in the many cares which devolved upon her." Lastly, "Madame de Noailles, her eldest daughter (married to her cousin, the Viscount de Noailles), notwithstanding her deep and tender attachment to her husband, was able to give my mother all the care and dutiful attention which made her the repose of that anxious spirit by the clearness and calmness of her own, and the joy of her life by the exceeding sensibility of her heart. She was the unfailing resource of all her family, by whom she was especially beloved."

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The Viscount de Noailles fully participated in the political views of his celebrated brother-in-law and companion in arms, the Marquis de Lafayette, who was then in the zenith of his popularity, having brought back from his American campaigns military glory enough to intoxicate his fellow-countrymen, and republican enthusiasm enough to turn their heads and his own. All," says M. de Ségur, in his memoirs, "who lived in those days still remember the enthusiasm excited by the return of M. de Lafayette, an enthusiasm in which the queen herself partook. A splendid fête was given to celebrate the birth of the heir to the throne. Information reached the palace of the arrival of the conqueror of Cornwallis, and Madame de Lafayette, who was present, received a very signal mark of royal favour, for the queen insisted on taking her in her own carriage to the hotel de Noailles, where her husband had just arrived." Such was the fervour then excited by him whom Carlyle describes as the "constitutional pedant, clear, thin, inflexible as water turned to thin ice, whom no queen's heart can love." His influence, and that of M. de Noailles, was great with their young brothers-in-law, with the exception of the Marquis de Montagu, the noblest character presented to us in these memoirs, who withstood to the utmost of his power the visionary theories of the one party, and the hot haste with which too many of the other left their country to its fate, in the vain hope of bringing it to reason by the edge of a foreign sword.

All, however, was yet at peace. "Never," says Madame de Staël, who filled a foremost place in it, "was any society at once so brilliant and so much in earnest as that of Paris, during the three years from 1788 to 1791." "The enthusiasm," says another eyewitness," went to the length of blindness; lively imaginations flattered themselves with the hope of seeing the finest chimeras realized, or deprived themselves joyfully of privileges which they considered abuses, thinking in their

* Vie de la Princesse de Paix. Par la Vicomtesse de Noailles.

simplicity thus to rise to a moral height which the masses would have the generosity to understand or respect. In short, like the astrologer in the fable, they fell into a well while gazing at the stars."

Madame d'Ayen was far from dreading any curtailment of the state and privileges of her rank: her love of poverty was more than republican, it was religious. Not a personal indulgence did she ever allow herself; all which was not strictly required by the duties of her position was devoted to the poor. Her first trouble in early life was the inheritance of her grandfather's large fortune. She ever looked upon riches, and the responsibility attending them, as a heavy and most unwelcome burden, and the only serious breach which she ever had with her husband related to the marriage of Madame de Lafayette, which she long opposed, simply on account of the great wealth and influential position of the proposed bridegroom, which she feared would prove dangerous to a youth of sixteen, left his own master at so early an age. But, without a shadow of selfish or class interest, she trembled at the storm which began to threaten all that she held dearest and most sacred, and to disturb even the harmony of her home circle. In the autumn of 1791, Madame d'Ayen saw for the last time her two daughters, Mesdames de Montagu and de Lafayette, at their country homes. After the king's acceptance of the constitution, M. de Lafayette resigned the command of the national guard, and retired, Cincinnatus-like, to his country house at Chavaniac (Haute-Loire), exceedingly well satisfied both with the constitution and himself. His wife was delighted, believing that, as he told her, the revolution was finished, and that they were to grow old together at Chavaniac, busied in rustic labours, with no other cares than those of the peasants around them. "I enjoy," wrote the ci-devant general to a friend," as a lover of liberty and equality, the change which has placed all citizens on the same level, and which respects none but legal authorities. I cannot tell you with what delight I bow before a village mayor." His triumphal journey, impeded by popular ovations, led him through Auvergne, where Madame de Montagu was then lingering at Plauzat, a château of her father-in-law, M. de Beaune, making preparations to accompany her husband in his late and reluctant emigration to England. Madame de Lafayette wrote full of joy to her sister, to tell her that she and M. de Lafayette would stop at Plauzat, that they might rejoice together over the happy issue of public affairs. Madame de Montagu shed over this letter the bitter tears which we weep over the delusions of those we love. So far was the revolution from being at an end, that she trembled at the very idea of the

proposed visit. M. de Beaune was so ardent a royalist, and so highly incensed at the results of M. de Lafayette's political experiments, that he was likely, even in exile, to close his doors against her, should he hear that she had received him at Plauzat. Sadly, therefore, she wrote to her sister to appoint a meeting at a little wayside inn, where the two sisters bade a sad and hasty adieu to each other.

Madame d'Ayen soon afterwards arrived at Plauzat, where she spent a fortnight, long afterwards remembered by her daughter, who throughout the time never found courage to tell her of her approaching emigration. "It was then," says Madame de Lafayette, "that my sister received her last lessons and treasured up her last example, and my mother, when she parted from her, unconscious that it was on the threshold of eternity, carried with her the unspeakable consolation which she received from the sight of the gifts of God to her child." From Plauzat Madame d'Ayen proceeded to Chavaniac, and thence to Paris.

Meanwhile the revolution pursued its course, and each fresh step brought new danger and anxiety to the family of Noailles. On the fearful 20th of June, the venerable Maréchal de Mouchy, the father of the Viscount de Noailles, remained all day at the side of the unhappy king, defending him with his body against the rabble, which had invaded his palace. The Duke d'Ayen, who had retired to Switzerland in disgust, returned to resume his office as captain of the body-guard, which, although abolished, was in his eyes re-created by the peril of the king. Though he had been strongly impressed with the ideas of 1789, he mourned bitterly over the excesses to which they had led, and, with his son-in-law, M. de Grammont, faithfully followed their unhappy sovereign until he sought ignominious shelter on the threshold of the Assembly. After all was over, he again sought refuge in Switzerland.

M. de Noailles was now a proscribed exile in England; M. de Lafayette a prisoner in Austria; Madame de Lafayette a captive on parole at Chavaniac; Madame d'Ayen, her eldest daughter, and her mother-in-law, the aged Maréchale de Noailles, remained in their hotel at Paris, where they were soon to fall a sacrifice to the bloodthirsty faction which was now master of France.

The Maréchal de Mouchy, the head of the younger branch of the family of Noailles, had been already detained five months in the Luxembourg, together with his wife, who had been born in that palace, in the room under that where she was now imprisoned, and had also left it a bride. In the April of 1794 the aged Maréchale de Noailles, now a widow, and partly imbecile

from age, the Duchess d'Ayen, and the Viscountess de Noailles, were removed thither. The acts of their martyrdom, for such it may well be called from the spirit in which it was endured, are thus given by M. Carrichon, their confessor, a priest of the Oratory :

"I knew the Maréchale by sight, the two others well. I visited them once a week while they were still confined in their hotel. The terror was increasing with the crimes of the revolution, and the victims became daily more numerous. One day, when I was exhorting them to be prepared, I said to them, from a kind of presentiment: 'If you are sent to the guillotine, and God gives me strength, I will go with you.' They took me at my word, and said eagerly, 'You will promise.'? After a moment's hesitation I answered, Yes; and that you may be sure to know me, I will wear a dark blue coat and a red waistcoat.' They often afterwards reminded me of my promise."

After their removal to the Luxembourg, M. Carrichon often heard of his penitents through M. Grellet, the tutor of Madame de Noailles's children, who contrived to keep up a communication with the prisoners, and used to take the little boys daily to a spot whence their mother could see them from a window of the prison.

"He often reminded me," says M. Carrichon," of my promise, and on the 27th of June he came to beg me to render the same service to the Maréchal de Mouchy and his wife. I made my way into the court of the palace. I was long near them, and kept them in sight for a quarter of an hour, but M. and Madame de Mouchy, whom I had only seen once at their own house, and whom I knew better than they knew me, could not distinguish me. By the inspiration and help of God I did what I could for them. The Maréchal was singularly edifying, and was praying vocally with all his heart. He said, as he left the Luxembourg, to some who were showing sympathy for him, 'At seventeen I mounted the breach for my king, at seventy-seven I mount the scaffold for my God. My friends, I am not to be pitied.'”

One of the accusations brought against the Maréchal was, that he had sheltered priests, and that a ci-devant Christ had been found in his room.

"On the 22nd of July," continues M. Carrichon, "I was at home between eight and ten in the morning. I was just going out when I heard a knock at the door. On opening it, I saw M. Grellet and his two pupils, the children with the gaiety of their age, which overpowered their recent losses and the fear of those which were to come; the tutor sad, pale, and pensive. Let us go into your study,' he said, and leave the children in this room.' As I shut the door he threw himself into a chair. 'It is all over, my friend,' he said; 'those ladies are before the revolu