ily had perished. I was once at Olmutz, and
saw the one room which they had inhabited. It was damp and dark. She
asked to be allowed to leave it for a time for better medical treatment
and change of air. It was granted only on the condition that she should
never return. She refused. The rheumatic attacks which the state of the
prison had produced, continued and increased: she was hopelessly ill when
they were released--and died soon afterwards. The sense of wrong
aggravated their sufferings, for their imprisonment was a gross and
wanton violation of all law, international and municipal. My grandfather
was not an Austrian subject; he had committed no offence against Austria.
She seized him simply because he was a liberal, because his principles
had made him the enemy of tyranny in America and in France; and because
his birth and talents and reputation gave him influence. It was one of
the brutal stupid acts of individual cruelty which characterise the
Austrian despotism, and have done more to ruin it than a wider
oppression--such a one, for instance, as ours, more mischievous, but more
intelligent,--would have done.'

'Freedom,' said Ampere, 'was offered to him on the mere condition of his
not serving in the French army. At that time the Jacobins would have
guillotined him, the Royalists would have forced duel after duel on him
till they had killed him. It seemed impossible that he should ever be
able to draw his sword for France. In fact he never _was_ able. America
offered him an asylum, honours, land, everything that could console an
exile. But he refused to give up the chance, remote as it was, of being
useful to his country, and remained a prisoner till he was delivered by
Napoleon.'

'He firmly believed,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'that if the Royal Family
would have taken refuge with his army in 1791 he could have saved them,
and probably the Monarchy. His army was then in his hands, a few months
after the Jacobins had corrupted it.'

'Two men,' said Ampere, 'Mirabeau and La Fayette, could have saved the
Monarchy, and were anxious to do so. But neither the King nor the Queen
would trust them.

'Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette are among the historical personages who
have most influenced the destinies of the world. His dulness, torpidity
and indecision, and her frivolity, narrow-minded prejudices and
suspiciousness, are among the causes of our present calamities. They are
among the causes of a state of things whi