and the festivities
were confined to the family; none but Arthur, the abbe, Marcasse, and
Patience sat down to our modest banquet. What need had we of the outside
world to behold our happiness? They might have believed, perhaps, that
they were doing us an honour by covering the blots on our escutcheon
with their august presence. We were enough to be happy and merry among
ourselves. Our hearts were filled with as much affection as they could
hold. We were too proud to ask more from any one, too pleased with one
another to yearn for greater pleasure. Patience returned to his sober,
retired life, resumed the duties of "great judge" and "treasurer" on
certain days of the week. Marcasse remained with me until his death,
which happened towards the end of the French Revolution. I trust I
did my best to repay his fidelity by an unreserved friendship and an
intimacy that nothing could disturb.

Arthur, who had sacrificed a year of his life to us, could not bring
himself to abjure the love of his country, and his desire to contribute
to its progress by offering it the fruits of his learning and the
results of his investigations; he returned to Philadelphia, where I paid
him a visit after I was left a widower.

I will not describe my years of happiness with my noble wife; such years
beggar description. One could not resign one's self to living after
losing them, if one did not make strenuous efforts to avoid recalling
them too often. She gave me six children; four of these are still alive,
and all honourably settled in life. I have lived for them, in obedience
to Edmee's dying command. You must forgive me for not speaking further
of this loss, which I suffered only ten years ago. I feel it now as
keenly as on the first day, and I do not seek to find consolation for
it, but to make myself worthy of rejoining the holy comrade of my life
in a better world after I have completed my period of probation in this.
She was the only woman I ever loved; never did any other win a glance
from me or know the pressure of my hand. Such is my nature; what I love
I love eternally, in the past, in the present, in the future.

The storms of the Revolution did not destroy our existence, nor did the
passions it aroused disturb the harmony of our private life. We gladly
gave up a large part of our property to the Republic, looking upon
it, indeed, as a just sacrifice. The abbe, terrified by the bloodshed,
occasionally abjured this political faith, whe