"tied the
hands" of the great potentate has never been revealed.

Her petition being granted, Madame de Lafayette continued her journey.
Two days more and she and her daughters were with her husband.

The day of their meeting was spent in trying to bear the joy of the
reunion. Not until the daughters were sent to their cell did she tell
Lafayette of the sad things that had happened. Her mother, her
grandmother, and her sister had, with many friends and relatives, been
led to the scaffold. These and many other facts of tragic interest to
the man so long deprived of any word from outside his prison were
shared with Lafayette.

It may go without saying that Lafayette's prison days were now far
easier to bear, except that to see Madame de Lafayette grow more and
more broken in health as days went on, in their close, unlighted, and
malodorous cells, must have caused an added sorrow. After a time she
was obliged to ask the emperor to allow her to go to Vienna for
medical attendance. He granted the request, but with the proviso that
she should never return. Then she decided to remain with her husband,
even at the risk of her life.

Shall the miseries of their prison life be dwelt upon? Their jailers
were the coarsest of human beings. They surpassed in brutality the
slave drivers of Constantinople. The food, which the family bought
for themselves, was coarse and miserably cooked. Tobacco floated in
the coffee. Lafayette's clothes were in tatters. When his shoes had
been soled fifteen times and resented the indignity any further, his
daughter Anastasie took it upon herself to make shoes for him out of
an old coat.

Lafayette's dingy cell was, however, now brightened by companionship
and by inspiring conversation. Even work was going on, for Madame de
Lafayette prepared a life of her mother while she was at Olmuetz. It
was written with a toothpick and a little lampblack on the margins of
a copy of Buffon which she succeeded in obtaining. One of the
daughters amused the family by making pencil sketches; one of the
burly old turnkey, with his sword, candle, and keys, and his hair in a
comical queue behind, amused the family very much and was carried with
them when they left their dismal abode.

Before the desolate prison of Olmuetz fades from our view, let one
laurel wreath be placed upon the head of young Felix Pontonnier,
sixteen years old when he became the servant of Lafayette, whom he
faithfully followed into prison. H