It was so far from good that she asked leave to go to Vienna for a week for expert medical advice, but was told, after waiting long for an answer of any kind, that she had voluntarily put herself under the conditions to which her husband was subject, and that if she left Olmütz she could not return. "You know already that the idea of leaving M. de Lafayette could not be entertained by any one of us. The good we do him is not confined to the mere pleasure of seeing us. His health has been really better since we arrived. You know the influence of moral affections upon him, and however strong his character, I cannot conceive that it could resist so many tortures. His excessive thinness and his wasting away have remained at the same point since our arrival, but his guardians and he assure me that it is nothing compared to the horrible state he was in a year ago. One cannot spend four years in such captivity without serious consequences. I have not been able to see Messrs. Maubourg and Pusy, or even to hear their voices. Judging [Pg 243]from the number of years with which their so-called guardians credit them, they must have aged frightfully. Their sufferings here are all the harder for us to bear because these two loyal and generous friends of M. de Lafayette have never for an instant permitted their case to be considered separately from his own. You will not be surprised that he has enjoined them never to speak for him, no matter what may be the occasion or the interest, except in a manner in harmony with his character and principles; and that he pushes to excess what you call 'the weakness of a grand passion.'"