The next person on whom the peasants cast their eyes possessed as true
and strong a heart, though he was too young to count the cost of
loyalty with the same calm spirit of self-devotion. The Marquis de la
Rochejacquelein, one of the most excellent of the nobles of Poitou, had
already emigrated with his wife and all his family, excepting Henri, the
eldest son, who, though but eighteen years of age, had been placed in
the dangerous post of an officer in the Royal Guards. When Louis XVI.
had been obliged to dismiss these brave men, he had obtained a promise
from each officer that he would not leave France, but wait for some
chance of delivering that unhappy country. Henri had therefore remained
at Paris, until after the 10th of August, 1792, when the massacre at
the Tuileries took place, and the imprisonment of the royal family
commenced; and then every gentleman being in danger in the city, he had
come to his father's deserted castle of Durballiere in Poitou.
He was nearly twenty, tall and slender, with fair hair, an oval face,
and blue eyes, very gentle, although full of animation. He was active
and dexterous in all manly sports, especially shooting and riding;
he was a man of few words; and his manners were so shy, modest, and
retiring, that his friends used to say he was more like an Englishman
than a Frenchman.
Hearing that he was alone at Durballière, and knowing that as an officer
in the Guards, and also as being of the age liable to the conscription,
he was in danger from the Revolutionists in the neighboring towns, his
cousin, the Marquis de Lescure, sent to invite him to his strong castle
of Clisson, which was likewise situated in the Bocage. This castle
afforded a refuge to many others who were in danger--to nuns driven from
their convents, dispossessed clergy, and persons who dreaded to remain
at their homes, but who felt reassured under the shelter of the castle,
and by the character of its owner, a young man of six-and-twenty, who,
though of high and unshaken loyalty, had never concerned himself with
politics, but led a quiet and studious life, and was everywhere honored
and respected.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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