One night, as my mother was lying quietly in bed, with her four little cubs around her, she was awakened by an unusual noise to behold the house wrapped in flames, which had already almost reached the room in which we were. At this moment my father appeared, and took my eldest brothers in his arms, while my mother had charge of Nicholas and me, who were the two youngest. Never shall I forget this awful moment. The flames crackled and hissed around us, casting a livid hue over the pale faces of my father and mother, who boldly advanced through the fire. With great difficulty they gained the staircase. My father dashed bravely forward. Nicholas, whom my mother held by the hand, screamed violently, and refused to go a step further. She caught him up in her arms, but during the short struggle the staircase had given way, and for a few moments my mother stood paralyzed by despair. But soon the imminent danger roused all the energy of her heroic nature. Your grandmother was no common woman. She immediately retraced her steps, and firmly knotting the bedclothes together, fastened my brother and myself to them, and letting us down through the window, my father received us in his arms. Her children once saved, my mother thought but little of danger to herself, and she waited in calm self-possession, till a ladder being brought, she was rescued. This trial was but a prelude to many others. The loss of our house completed the ruin of which my father's illness was the beginning. He was obliged to dispose of his situation, and take refuge in small lodgings at Chaillot, and there set to work steadily and cheerfully to support his family, opening a kind of pleader's office for legal students; but his health soon failed, and he became dangerously ill. My noble-minded mother struggled hard to ward off the want that now seemed inevitable; but what availed the efforts of one woman to support a sick husband and four children? One night came when we had literally nothing to eat. I shall never forget my mother's face, and the tears which streamed down her cheeks, when one of us cried, "Mother, we are very hungry!" She now resolved to apply for help to the nuns of Chaillot; a step which, to her independent spirit, was a far greater trial than to brave the threats of the mob or the fury of the flames. But what is there too hard for a mother who has heard her children ask for food which she had not to give them? With sinking heart, and cheek now pale, now crimson from the struggle within her, she presented herself at the convent, and timidly made known her desire to speak with the superior. Her well-known character procured her instant admission, and her tale once told, obtained for her much kindly sympathy and some relief. As she was passing through the cloisters on her way back, she was startled by a voice suddenly demanding, "Art thou not Madeline Perrault?"