Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

20FAMILY MEMOIRS.

enquiring the eause, she learnt, to her inexpressible surprise, that it was owing to her husband having peremptorily refused to entertain any farther the projected plan of escape. My mother, fearing they had been betrayed, turned, without reply, to gain her husband's apartment. Louise followed her, and apprised her, in a low voice, that he had read the law. She immediately guessed the rest. She knew his inflexible character, and his high and delicate sense of honour: despair almost deprived her of all physical power. " Come with me," she said to Louise, " you will have more influence with him than I; for it is in order to avoid exposing your life that he is about to sacrifice his own."

They both entered together, and a scene commenced which may be better imagined than described. Never but on one single occasion did my mother summon sufficient fortitude to describe it to me. Suffice to say, that nothing could shake the stoical resolution of the young prisoner: the two women on their knees, the weeping wife, the agonized mother reminding him that his child would be an orphan, the stranger urging the utmost willingness to risk her life in his service, — all was unavailing. The sentiments of honour and of duty were stronger in the soul of this man than love of life, than love for a tender and exquisitely beautiful woman, than the impulses of paternal affection. The time accorded to my mother for her visit was passed in useless remonstrances. She had, at length, to be carried out of the ehamber. Louise conducted her into the street, where our friend M. Guy de Chaumont Quitry awaited her with an anxiety that may be easily imagined.