in the hunting-lodge by its owner, under the impression that an individual who could not be moved without hazard to life, would escape the vengeance of village patriotism.  But the nurse, whom he had placed in charge of me, had no sooner ascertained that I was arrested, than she sent an express to the farm-house.  The consequence naturally followed in my liberty; and the night which I expected to have spent freezing on my way to the dungeon, presented me with the pleasant exchange of hospitable shelter, the society of a most accomplished man, and his graceful handsome daughter; and last, not least, a couple of kisses from my late nurse, according to the custom of the country, as glowing and remorseless as those of my portly landlady herself.

We sat for some hours, and scarcely felt them pass in the anxious topics which engrossed us; the perils of France, the prospects of the Allies, and the captivity of the unhappy Bourbons.  Now and then the conversation turned on their own hair-breadth escapes, and those of their relatives and friends.  Among the rest, the hazards of the De Tourville family were mentioned, and I heard the name of Clotilde pronounced with a sensation indescribable.  The name was connected with such displays of fortitude, nobleness of spirit, and deep devotion to the royal cause, that, if I had loved before, I now honoured her.  She had saved the lives of her household; she had, by an act of extraordinary, but most perilous affection, saved the life of her mother, at the moment when the first insurgency broke out; and, young as she was, she had exhibited so noble a union of generosity and strength of mind, that the Marquis’s eyes filled with tears as he told it, and Amalia buried her forehead in her hands to conceal her convulsive emotions:  what must have been mine!

Our conversation was not unfrequently interrupted by bursts of merriment from the outer room, where the peasants were at supper provided by the Marquis for his bold rescuers—­an indulgence which they seemed to enjoy with the highest zest imaginable.  Songs were sung with very various kinds of merit in the performer, but all well received.  Healths were proposed, in which the existing Government was certainly not much honoured; and, if the good wishes of the party could have sent the “Committee of Public Safety,” the butcher cabinet of France, to the darkest spot on earth, or under it, its time would have been brief.  But even this died away; the laugh subsided, the mirth grew silent, and at length the gardes-de-chasse went away, making the forest ring with their professional whoops and holloas, the remnants of their honest revel.  At length the Marquis and his daughter, who were to be on the wing at daybreak for the German frontier, and who had generously offered to take charge of my invalid frame in the same direction, retired; and wrapping myself up in a dark cloak, furnished by my mistress and formed to her showy proportions, I threw myself on the sofa, and was in the land of dreams.