the morning we thought the
town had surrendered, but the gates were not opened, and we were obliged
to think of a retreat. We returned to our positions after a harassing
march of three days. While these drops of blood were shed under the
walls of Thionville, torrents were flowing in the prisons of Paris; my
wife and sisters were in greater danger than myself.

At Verdun, fever after my wound undermined my strength, and smallpox
attacked me. Yet I began a journey on foot of two hundred leagues, with
only eighteen livres in my pocket. All for the glory of the monarchy! I
intended to try to reach Ostend, there to embark for Jersey, and thence
to join the royalists in Brittany. Breaking down on the road, I lay
insensible for two hours, swooning away with a feeling of religion. The
last noise I heard was the whistling of a bullfinch. Some drivers of the
Prince de Ligne's waggons saw me, and in pity lifted me up and carried
me to Namur. Others of the prince's people carried me to Brussels. Here
I found my brother, who brought a surgeon and a doctor to attend to me.
He told me of the events of August 10, of the massacres of September,
and other political news of which I had not heard. He approved of my
intention to go to Jersey, and lent me twenty-five louis-d'or. We were
looking on each other for the last time.

After reaching Jersey, I was four months dangerously ill in my uncle's
house, where I was tenderly nursed. Recovering, I went in 1793 to
England, landing as a poor emigre where now, in 1822, I write these
memoirs, and enjoy the dignity of ambassador.

_V.--Letters from the Dead_

Several of my family fell victims to the Revolution. I learned in July,
1783, that my mother, after having been thrown, at the age of
seventy-two, into a dungeon, where she witnessed the death of some of
her children, expired at length on a pallet, to which her misfortunes
had consigned her. The thoughts of my errors greatly embittered her last
days, and on her death-bed she charged one of my sisters to reclaim me
to the religion in which I had been educated. My sister Julie
communicated my mother's last wish to me. When this letter reached me in
my exile, my sister herself was no more; she, too, had sunk beneath the
effects of her imprisonment. These two voices, coming as it were from
the grave--the dead interpreting the dead--had a powerful effect on me.
I became a Christian. I did not, indeed, yield to any great supernatural
light;