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

16FAMILY MEMOIRS.

law, with whom her family had been for some years on bad terms, owing to a difference in political opinions.

It was a great trial to her to part with me, for she was a mother in the truest sense of the word ; but misfortune always had the first claim upon her heart.

Could General Custine have been saved, it would have been by the devotion and courage of his daughter-in-law. Their first interview was most touching. No sooner did the veteran recognise my mother than he believed himself safe. In fact, her youth, her extreme beauty, her mingled heroism and timidity, so interested the journalists, the people, and even the judges of the revolutionary tribunal, that the men who were determined on the death of the General, felt it necessary first to silence the most eloquent of his advocates, his daughter-in-law.

The government, however, at that time, had not thrown off all appearance of law; yet the men who hesitated to throw my mother into prison did not scruple to attempt her assassination. The Septem-briscurs, as these hired ruffians were called, were placed for several days about the precincts of the Palais de Justice; but though my mother was warned of her danger, nothing could deter her from daily attending the trial, and seating herself at the feet of her father-in-law, where her devoted mien softened even the hearts of his murderers.

Between each sitting of the court she employed her time in privately soliciting the members of the committees and of the revolutionary tribunal. A friend of my father's, in costume a la carmagnole, generally accompanied her, and waited for her in the anti-room.

In one of the last sittings of the tribunal her looks