n which she was now left, proved an unexpected trial.
Domestic affections constituted the object upon which her heart was
fixed; and she early felt, with an inward grief, that Mr. Imlay "did not
attach those tender emotions round the idea of home," which, every time
they recurred, dimmed her eyes with moisture. She had expected his
return from week to week, and from month to month, but a succession of
business still continued to detain him at Havre. At the same time the
sanguinary character which the government of France began every day more
decisively to assume, contributed to banish tranquillity from the first
months of her pregnancy. Before she left Neuilly, she happened one day
to enter Paris on foot (I believe, by the _Place de Louis Quinze_), when
an execution, attended with some peculiar aggravations, had just taken
place, and the blood of the guillotine appeared fresh upon the pavement.
The emotions of her soul burst forth in indignant exclamations, while a
prudent bystander warned her of her danger, and intreated her to hasten
and hide her discontents. She described to me, more than once, the
anguish she felt at hearing of the death of Brissot, Vergniaud, and the
twenty deputies, as one of the most intolerable sensations she had ever
experienced.

Finding the return of Mr. Imlay continually postponed, she determined,
in January 1794, to join him at Havre. One motive that influenced her,
though, I believe, by no means the principal, was the growing cruelties
of Robespierre, and the desire she felt to be in any other place, rather
than the devoted city, in the midst of which they were perpetrated.

From January to September, Mr. Imlay and Mary lived together, with great
harmony, at Havre, where the child, with which she was pregnant, was
born, on the fourteenth of May, and named Frances, in remembrance of
the dear friend of her youth, whose image could never be erased from
her memory.

In September, Mr. Imlay took his departure from Havre for the port of
London. As this step was said to be necessary in the way of business, he
endeavoured to prevail upon Mary to quit Havre, and once more take up
her abode at Paris. Robespierre was now no more, and, of consequence,
the only objection she had to residing in the capital, was removed. Mr.
Imlay was already in London, before she undertook her journey, and it
proved the most fatiguing journey she ever made; the carriage, in which
she travelled, being overturned no les