“Annette was the child of Royalist parents. Both her father and mother had occupied places in the royal household; and she was accustomed from her earliest infancy to hear the praise of the Bourbons from lips which trembled when they spoke. Poor child! how well do I remember her little prayer for the martyred saint,--for so they styled the murdered king,--which she never missed saying each morning when the mass was over in the chapel of the château. It is a curious fact that the girls of a family were frequently attached to the fortunes of the Bourbons, while the boys declared for the Revolution; and these differences penetrated into the very core, and sapped the happiness of many whose affection had stood the test of every misfortune save the uprooting torrent of anarchy that poured in with the Revolution. These party differences entered into all the little quarrels of the schoolroom and the nursery; and the taunting epithets of either side were used in angry passion by those who neither guessed nor could understand their meaning. Need it be wondered at, if in after life these opinions took the tone of intense convictions, when even thus in infancy they were nurtured and fostered? Our little circle at Le Luc was, indeed, wonderfully free from such causes of contention; whatever paths in life fate had in store for us afterwards, then, at least, we were of one mind. A few of the boys, it is true, were struck by the successes of those great armies the Revolution poured over Europe; but even they were half ashamed to confess enthusiasm in a cause so constantly allied in their memory with everything mean and low-lived. “Such, in a few words, was the little party assembled around the supper-table of the château, on one lovely evening in June. The windows, opening to the ground, let in the perfumed air from many a sweet and flowery shrub without; while already the nightingale had begun her lay in the deep grove hard by. The evening was so calm we could hear the plash of the making tide upon the shore, and the minute peals of the waves smote on the ear with a soft and melancholy cadence that made us silent and thoughtful. As we sat for some minutes thus, we suddenly heard the sound of feet coming up the little gravel walk towards the château, and on going to the window, perceived three men in uniform leading their horses slowly along. The dusky light prevented our being able to distinguish their rank or condition; but my uncle, whose fears were easily excited by such visitors, at once hastened to the door to receive them.