such conditions. Dolly Madison hated the
Democrats, and she had the satisfaction, even if she did not know her
full triumph, of giving the death-blow to some of their most cherished
and most impracticable theories in those days of experiment.

But Mrs. Madison had in her even better stuff than that required
satisfactorily to fulfil the onerous calls of her social position. She
dearly loved her husband; and when the storm of war again burst over the
land, she supported and encouraged him in noble manner. Indeed, she
presents a far more heroic picture than does the president, whose
conduct at the battle of Bladensburg and during his wanderings after the
flight from Washington, was not that for which we might look from one
whose title was that of Commander-in-Chief of the forces of the United
States. When Washington was threatened, Mrs. Madison gave a fine example
of cheerful bravery; and when the peril grew to its highest point we
find her thus writing to her sister: "Will you believe it, my sister, we
have had a battle or skirmish near Bladensburg, and I am still here
within sound of the cannon! Mr. Madison comes not. May God protect him!
Two messengers, covered with dust, come to bid me fly; but I wait for
him.... Our kind friend, Mr. Carroll, has come to hasten my departure,
and is in very bad humor with me because I insist on waiting until the
large picture of General Washington is secured, and it requires to be
unscrewed from the wall."

It was probably this latter incident which gave rise to a venerable
legend as to "Dolly Madison and the Constitution"; but the truth is
sufficient to make her name honored. At last she was compelled to fly
without her husband; and it is related that at the house where she
paused for rest, the "lady" there residing came to the steps and called
out: "Mrs. Madison, if that's you, come down and go out! Your husband
has got mine out fighting, and, damn you, you shan't stay in my house!"
To such straits was fallen "the first lady of the land"; and this
profane virago simply, if somewhat coarsely, expressed a sentiment that
was not confined to her or to a thousand like her.

The wanderings of the Madisons when they became reunited have passed
into general history and need not here be recalled. Finally they
returned to ruined Washington and watched it rise again from its ashes,
British vandalism being in this instance productive of final good; for
the new city was a vast improvement over t