The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 5 of 5)Burney, Fanny
History
The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties (Volume 5 of 5)
Burney, Fanny
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Refugees -- Fiction; Historical fiction; Refugees -- Fiction; War stories
'Here, while rigidly retaining the same posture, and scarcely daring to
breathe any more than to move, I heard the house entered by sundry
police-officers, who were pursuing me with execrations. They came into
the very room in which I was concealed; and beat round the wainscot in
their search; touching even the board which covered the small aperture,
not door, by which I was hidden from their view! I was not, however,
discovered; nor was the search, there, renewed; from the adroitness of
the domestic by whom I had been saved, in having shewn himself in the
public streets before I had yet been missed.
'In this close recess, nearly without air, wholly without motion, and
incapable of taking any rest; but most kindly treated by the wife of the
good domestic, I passed a week. All search in that neighbourhood being
then over, I changed my clothing for some tattered old garments; stained
my face, throat, and arms; and, in the dead of the night, quitted my
place of confinement, and was conducted by my protector to a spot about
half a mile from the town. There I found Ambroise awaiting me, with a
little cart; in which he drove me to a small mean house, in the vicinity
of the sea-coast. He introduced me to the landlord and landlady as his
relation, and then left me to take some repose; while he went forth to
discover whether the pilot were yet sailed.
'He had delivered to me my work-bag, in which was my purse, generously
stored by the Marchioness, with all the ready money that she could
spare, for my journey. For herself, she held it essential to remain
stationary, lest a general emigration should alienate the family-fortune
from every branch of her house. Excellent lady! At the moment she thus
studied the prosperity of her descendants, she lived upon roots, while
deprived of all she most valued in life, the society of her only child!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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