“I love, my dear friend, to confide to your bosom all these recollections of the past; for what else now remains, save recollections, of that adorable woman to whom I have owed during thirty-four years an ever-enduring and unclouded happiness? She was attached to me, I may say, by the most ardent feelings; yet never did I perceive in her the slightest shade of selfishness, of displeasure, or of jealousy. If I look back to the days of our youth, how many unexampled proofs of delicacy and generosity come across my mind! She was associated heart and soul with all my political wishes and opinions, and Madame de Tessé might well say that her devotion was a mixture of the catechism and the _declaration des droits_. I must again refer to an expression of her aunt’s, who said to me yesterday, ‘I never could have believed that it was possible to be so fanatic of your opinions, and at the same time so devoid of party spirit.’ “You know as well as I do all she was, and all she did during the Revolution. It is not for having come to Olmütz, as Charles Fox so elegantly expressed it, on the wings of duty and of love, that I mean to praise her now; it is for having remained in France until she had secured, so far as lay in her power, the material comforts of my aunt and the rights of my creditors; it is for having had the courage to send George to America. What noble imprudence to remain, the only woman in France endangered by the name she bore, but who always refused to change it! “Each of her petitions and declarations began by these words: _La femme La Fayette_. Indulgent as she was with respect to calumny and party hatred, never did she allow, even at the foot of the scaffold, a reflection upon me to pass without protesting against it. She had prepared herself to speak in that spirit before the tribunal, and we have all seen how good, simple, and easy in common life was that lofty-minded and courageous woman. Her piety was also of a peculiar nature. I may say that during thirty-four years I never once experienced from it the slightest shadow of inconvenience. No affectation in her religious practices, which were always subordinate to my convenience. I have had the satisfaction of seeing the least pious of my friends as well received, as much esteemed, and their virtues as fully acknowledged by her as if there had been no difference of religious opinions between her and them. Never did she express to me anything but hope, even conviction, that upon mature reflection, with the uprightness of heart she knew I possessed, I should end by being convinced. The recommendations which she has left me are in the same spirit, entreating me to read, for the love of her, several books which I shall examine again with the most solemn attention. She used to call religion sovereign liberty, to make me appreciate it more, and often repeated with pleasure these words of Abbé Fauchet: ‘Jesus Christ, my only master’ (_Jésus Christ, mon seul maître_).