A very rich woman, named Madame de Combray, who lived near Caen, allowed her chateau to be occupied by a band of royalists, who seemed to think they upheld their cause worthily by robbing diligences on the highway.  She constituted herself treasurer of this band of partisans, and consigned the funds thus obtained to a pretended treasurer of Louis XVIII.  Her daughter, Madame Aquet, joined this troop, and, dressed in men’s clothing, showed most conspicuous bravery.  Their exploits, however, were not of long duration; and pursued and overcome by superior forces, they were brought to trial, and Madame Aquet was condemned to death with her accomplices.  By means of a pretended illness she obtained a reprieve, of which she availed herself to employ every means in her power to obtain a pardon, and finally, after eight months of useless supplications, decided to send her children to Germany to intercede with the Emperor.  Her physician, accompanied by her sister and two daughters, reached Schoenbrunn just as the Emperor had gone to visit the field of Wagram, and for an entire day awaited the Emperor’s return on the steps of the palace; and these children, one ten, the other twelve, years old, excited much interest.  Notwithstanding this, their mother’s crime was a terrible one; for although in political matters opinions may not be criminal, yet under every form of government opinions are punished, if thereby one becomes a robber and an assassin.  The children, clothed in black, threw themselves at the Emperor’s feet, crying, “Pardon, pardon, restore to us our mother.”  The Emperor raised them tenderly, took the petition from the hands of the aunt, read every word attentively, then questioned the physician with much interest, looked at the children, hesitated—­but just as I, with all who witnessed this touching scene, thought he was going to pronounce her pardon, he recoiled several steps, exclaiming, “I cannot do it!” His changing color, eyes suffused with tears, and choking voice, gave evidence of the struggle through which he was passing; and witnessing this, his refusal appeared to me an act of sublime courage.

Following upon the remembrance of these violent crimes, so much the more worthy of condemnation since they were the work of a woman, who, in order to abandon herself to them, was forced to begin by trampling under foot all the gentle and modest virtues of her sex, I find recorded in my notes an act of fidelity and conjugal tenderness which well deserved a better result.  The wife of an infantry colonel, unwilling to be parted from her husband, followed the march of his regiment in a coach, and on the days of battle mounted a horse and kept herself as near as possible to the line.  At Friedland she saw the colonel fall, pierced by a ball, hastened to him with her servant, carried him from the ranks, and bore him away in an ambulance, though too late, for he was already dead.  Her grief was silent, and no one saw her shed a tear.