"My name is Palamede de Tour la Roche. I was the third son of the Duc de Tour la Roche, who, with his wife, eldest son, and daughter, perished in the Revolution in '93. The earliest thing I remember was living in the Hôtel Tour la Roche in great luxury and splendor--'the curled darling' of my beautiful mother, and the spoiled pet and plaything of all the house and all the company who came to it. My youth took no heed of passing events; but one evening our hôtel was attacked, and from that day to this I saw no more of my father and brothers--but my mother and sister continued to live as before, only they were now continually weeping, clasping me to their bosoms in passionate fondness, and never going out of the great gates. Every thing was changed: we had no longer any servants except an old woman, her daughter, and a lame son, with whom I played in the garden, undisturbed by the cries which reached us there, because I attached no ideas that I can remember to them, and I was told not to be frightened, for it was only wicked, drunken people shouting. When I inquired after my papa, and Henri, and Philippe--they were called unexpectedly to England, and would be back again one of these days, was the answer, which contented me. Although full eleven years old, my mind had been kept so much under, and I had lived so entirely in the perfumed atmosphere of the drawing-room--where, being little of my age, people forgot it, and made a plaything of me--that many a boy of seven or eight knew more of the world than I did.