Then one day, without the least previous warning, the bolts and bars of his cell creaked at an unusual hour; they were pushed back--and he looked into the faces of his wife and daughters. The authorities broke in upon the first instant of incredulous recognition to search their new charges; possessed themselves of their purses and the three silver forks in their modest luggage, and disappeared. The complaining bolts slid into place once more and a new prison routine began, difficult to bear in spite of the companionship, when he saw unnecessary hardships press cruelly upon these devoted women. Bit by bit he learned what had happened in the outside world: events of national importance of which [Pg 237]he had not heard in his dungeon, and also little incidents that touched only his personal history; for instance, the ceremonies with which the Commune publicly broke the mold for the Lafayette medal, and how the mob had howled around his Paris house, clamoring to tear it down and raise a "column of infamy" in its place. He forbore to ask questions at first, knowing how tragic the tale must be, and it was only after the girls had been led away that first night and locked into the cell where they were to sleep that he learned of the grief that had come to Adrienne about a week before the Terror came to an end--the execution on a single day of her mother, her grandmother, and her beloved sister Louise. In time he learned all the details of her own story: the months she had been under parole at Chavaniac, where through the kind offices of Gouverneur Morris she received at last the letter from her husband telling her that he was well. Her one desire had been to join him, but there was the old aunt to be provided for, and there were also pressing debts to settle; a difficult matter after Lafayette's property was confiscated and sold. Mr. Morris lent her the necessary money, assuring her that if she could not repay it Americans would willingly assume it as part of the far larger debt their country owed her husband.