“The first news from M. de La Fayette arrived on the first of August, one month after Anastasie’s birth. The comfort it gave me was fully shared. My mother was indefatigable in her efforts to obtain some accounts of him, to send him news from us, and to make herself useful to him though separated by so great a distance. The few details which reached us respecting his arrival, and the favorable impression he had made on the public mind in America, did not surprise my mother, but renewed her courage and made her still more thankful to Providence who was so visibly protecting and guiding him. But shortly afterwards we heard that M. de La Fayette had been wounded at the battle of Brandywine. I need not say what were my mother’s feelings on hearing such intelligence. She succeeded in keeping from me the report of his death, which was spread about at that time, and to prevent false news from reaching my ear; she first took me to her father’s place in Burgundy, and then sent my sister and me on a visit to the Comtesse Auguste de La Marck, at Raismes. The Comte de La Marck was Mirabeau’s friend. “During the winter of 1778 my mother turned all her efforts towards obtaining intelligence from America. We heard occasionally from M. de La Fayette. The alliance between France and the United States caused my mother great satisfaction; I had never seen her take such interest in any political event.” Thus tenderly this young wife of eighteen was shielded by her mother’s care during this trying absence of the young husband whom she so adored. Regarding the unusual and ideal love existing between La Fayette and his devoted wife in their early married life, their daughter Virginie, afterwards the Marquise de Lasteyrie, thus writes:— “I do not think it is possible to have an idea of my mother’s way of loving. It was peculiar to herself. Her affection for my father predominated over every other feeling without diminishing any. It might be said she felt for him the most passionate attachment, if that expression was in harmony with the exquisite delicacy which kept her from any sort of jealousy, or, at least, from any of those evil impulses generally attendant upon that feeling. Neither had she ever a moment of _exigence_. Not only was it impossible for my father ever to perceive a wish that could be unwelcome to him, but, even in the depth of her heart, never did there lurk a bitter feeling. She was fourteen and a half when she married. At that time her mind was violently agitated by religious doubts. Notwithstanding the very tender feeling which drew her towards my father, she was much troubled by the thought of the solemn engagement she was taking at so early an age. All she felt appeared to her beyond her strength, and she placed herself under the protection of God, to whom in the midst of her disquietudes she never ceased to look for support.