or Emigres
who had taken refuge in London, and relieved their necessities. She also
requested Philip, who had charge of her property, never to refuse aid to
any of her countrymen or countrywomen who asked it of him; and in the
benefits she quietly conferred upon the needy around her she found some
consolation for her own sorrow and anxiety. As for Philip, he had
plunged into the active and feverish life led by most of the Emigres, as
if he desired to drown his own doubts and regrets in bustle and
excitement.

London was then the rendezvous of a great proportion of those who had
fled from the Reign of Terror. Princes, noblemen, prelates and ladies of
rank, who were striving to console themselves for the hardships of exile
by bright dreams of the future, had assembled there. They plotted
against the Republic; they planned descents upon France, attacks upon
Paris, movements in La Vendee, and the assassination of Robespierre and
his friends; but all these schemes were rendered fruitless by the spirit
of rivalry and of intrigue that prevailed. They were all united upon the
result to be attained, but divided as to the means of attaining it. In
this great party there were a thousand factions. They quarreled at a
word; they slandered one another; they patched up flimsy
reconciliations. French society had taken with it into exile all its
faults, vanities, frivolities and ignorance. Philip de Chamondrin did
not forsake this circle, though he inwardly chafed at the weakness of
purpose that was exhibited on every side; but here he could live in a
constant fever of excitement and could forget his personal griefs and
anxieties. This was not the case with Antoinette, however, and if Philip
had hoped that by living apart from him and seeing him only at rare
intervals she would soon cease to love him, he was mistaken.
Antoinette's heart did not change. She waited, and had it not been for
the events that hastened the solution of the difficulty, she would have
waited always; and though she suffered deeply, she concealed her grief
so carefully that even the friends with whom she lived and who loved her
as tenderly as if she had been their daughter were deceived. All
Philip's attempts to destroy her love for him proved fruitless. Her
heart once given was given irrevocably. Nor did she possess that
experience which would have enabled her to see that she was not beloved.
She attributed Philip's coldness to the successive misfortunes that had