cautiously below, the sight of the kitchen, with its array of bright pewter plates and polished saucepans, had convinced him that he must be in a more cleanly country than his native land. What had brought the Duke to Bury we are not informed: he certainly would not have been at home with Walpole’s friends, who seem to have been staunch adherents of the _ancien régime_. Some, though not all, of the strangers at Mickleham had advanced several degrees beyond the timid constitutionalism of the Duke de Liancourt. The origin and early history of this settlement were communicated to Fanny by the journalizing letters of her sister, Mrs. Phillips. Two or three families had united to take a house near the village, called Juniper Hall, while another family hired a cottage at West Humble, which the owner let with great reluctance, ‘upon the Christian-like supposition that, being nothing but French papishes, they would never pay.’ The party at the cottage were presided over by Madame de Broglie, daughter-in-law of the Maréchal who had commanded the Royalist troops near Paris. Among the first occupants of Juniper Hall were Narbonne, recently Constitutionalist Minister of War, and Montmorency, _ci-devant duc_, from whom had proceeded the motion for suppressing titles of nobility in France. When Mrs. Phillips made the acquaintance of her new neighbours, they had been reinforced by fresh arrivals, including an officer of whom she had not yet heard. This was M. d’Arblay,[111] who, Susan was told, had been Adjutant-General to her favourite hero, Lafayette, when that leader surrendered himself to the Allies. On the chief being sent prisoner to Olmutz, the subordinate was permitted to withdraw into Holland, whence he was now come to join his intimate friend and patron, Count Louis de Narbonne. ‘He is tall,’ wrote Mrs. Phillips to her sister, ‘and a good figure, with an open and manly countenance; about forty, I imagine.’ The letters from Mickleham were soon full of this General d’Arblay, who won the heart of good Mrs. Phillips by his amiable manners, and his attention to her children, while he fortified her in her French politics, which, to say the truth, were too advanced for Fanny’s acceptance. Both the General and Narbonne were attached to their unfortunate master, but considered that they had been very badly treated by Louis, and that it was impossible to serve him, because he could not trust himself, and in consequence distrusted everybody else. D’Arblay had been the officer on guard at the Tuileries on the night of the famous Flight to Varennes. He had not been let into the secret of the plan, but was left, without warning, to run the risk of being denounced and murdered for having assisted the King’s escape.