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

CONCEALING HER PAPEBS.27

with a name which, in the midst of a world torn by conflicting passions, represented the principle of impartiality, she was abandoned by all parties. Others had the consolation of mourning over their wrongs in company, my mother could only weep alone !

Soon after the catastrophe which rendered her a widow, she became aware of the necessity of leaving France. This, however, required a passport, which it was very difficult to obtain. By means of money she procured a false one, under the name of a dealer in lace about to visit Belgium. It was arranged that my nurse, a faithful servant of our family in Lorraine, and who had brought me to Paris, should proceed with me by way of Alsace to Pyrmont in Westphalia, where we were to meet my mother, and from thence journey together to Berlin, in which city she expected to join her own mother and her brother also. To no other servant but the nurse herself was this plan confided. All preliminary arrangements having been made, Nanette departed with me for the office of the Strasburg diligence, leaving my mother, who was to set out immediately after us on her journey to Flanders, at her lodging in the Rue de Bourbon. She was employing the last minutes that were to precede her departure, in her cabinet, assorting papers and burning such as might compromise others; for among these papers were letters from officers in the army, and from parties already suspected of being aristocrats, of a character that would have sufficed to bring to the guillotine, in four and twenty hours, herself and fifty other individuals.

Seated on a large sofa near to the fire-place, she was busy burning the most dangerous letters, and с 2