The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 4 of 5)Burney, Fanny
History
The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 4 of 5)
Burney, Fanny
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Refugees -- Fiction; Historical fiction; Refugees -- Fiction; War stories
The answer now was more civil, but evidently embarrassed, though
professing much respect for the motives which guided the charitable
Bishop; and a willingness to enter into some compromise for the young
person in question; provided she could be settled abroad, that so
strange a tale might not disturb his sister; nor involve his nephew and
niece, by coming before the public.
All compromise was declined by the Bishop, who now made known the whole
history to the old peer.
The answer, nevertheless, was again from Lord Denmeath, though written
by the desire, and in the name of the Earl; briefly saying, Let the
young woman marry and settle in France; and, upon the delivery of the
original documents relative to her birth, she shall be portioned; but
she shall never be received nor owned in England; the Earl being
determined not to countenance such a disgrace to his family, and to the
memory of his son, as the acknowledgment of so unsuitable a marriage.
The Bishop held his honour engaged to his departed friend, to sustain
the birth-right of the innocent orphan; he menaced, therefore,
accompanying her over to England himself, and putting all the documents,
with the direction of the affair, into the hands of some celebrated
lawyer.
Alarmed at this intimation, milder letters passed: but the result of all
that the Bishop could obtain, was a promissory-note of six thousand
pounds sterling, for the portion of a young person brought up at the
convent of ----, and known by the name of Mademoiselle Juliette; to be
paid by Messieurs ----, bankers, on the day of her marriage with a
native of France, resident in that country.
The conditions annexed to the payment were then detailed, of delivering
to the bankers the originals of all the MSS of which copies had been
sent over; with an acquittal, signed by the new married couple, and by
the Bishop, to all future right or claim upon the Melbury family. The
whole to be properly witnessed, &c. This promissory-note had the joint
seal and signature of the old Earl and of Lord Denmeath.
But the Bishop inflexibly insisted, that his ward should be recognized
as the Honourable Miss Granville; and share an equal portion with her
half-sister, Aurora; for whom, upon the premature death of Lord
Granville, the old peer had solicited and obtained the title and honours
of an earl's daughter.
All representation proving fruitless, the Bishop was preparing to attend
Miss Granville to England, when the French Revolution broke out. The
general confusion first stopt his voyage, and next destroyed even the
materials of his agency. The family chateau was burnt by the populace;
and all the papers of Juliet, which had been carefully hoarded up with
the records of the house, were consumed! The promissory-note alone, and
accidentally, had been saved; the Bishop chancing to have it in his
pocket-book, for the purpose of consulting upon it with some lawyer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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