But the time now arrived when the current of his domestic life was permanently diverted, and set in other channels. In May, 1789, he married Sophie Allegre, the daughter of William Allegre of a French Protestant family living at Richmond. The father was dead, and the mother took lodgers, of whom Gallatin was one. For more than a year he had addressed her and secured her affections. Her mother now refused her consent, and no choice was left to the young lovers but to marry without it. Little is known of this short but touching episode in Mr. Gallatin's life. The young lady was warmly attached to him, and the letter written to her mother asking forgiveness for her marriage is charmingly expressed and full of feeling. They passed a few happy months at Friendship Hill, when suddenly she died. From this time Mr. Gallatin lost all heart in the western venture, and his most earnest wish was to turn his back forever upon Fayette County. In his suffering he would have returned to Geneva to Mademoiselle Pictet, could he have sold his Virginia lands. But this had become impossible at any price, and he had no other pecuniary resource but the generosity of his family. Meanwhile the revolution had broken out in France. The rights of man had been proclaimed on the Champ de Mars. All Europe was uneasy and alarmed, and nowhere offered a propitious field for peaceful labor. But Gallatin did not long need other distraction than he was to find at home. CHAPTER II PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATURE Political revolutions are the opportunity of youth. In England, Pitt and Fox; in America, Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris; in Europe, Napoleon and Pozzo di Borgo, before they reached their thirtieth year, helped to shape the political destiny of nations. The early maturity of Gallatin was no less remarkable. In his voluminous correspondence there is no trace of youth. At nineteen his habits of thought were already formed, and his moral and intellectual tendencies were clearly marked in his character, and understood by himself. His tastes also were already developed. His life, thereafter, was in every sense a growth. The germs of every excellence, which came to full fruition in his subsequent career, may be traced in the preferences of his academic days. From youth to age he was consistent with himself. His mind was of that rare and original order which, reasoning out its own conclusions, seldom has cause to change. His political opinions were early formed. A letter written by him in October, 1783, before he had completed his twenty-third year, shows the maturity of his intellect, and his analytic habit of thought. An extract gives the nature of the reasons which finally determined him to make his home in America:--