But Tone had not yet gauged the depths of his wife’s heroic devotion to him—and to Ireland. It was only when he had reached New York and was on the eve of embarkation—too late to have his determination weakened by any anxiety for her condition—that she told him of the little life that stirred beneath her heart. * * * * * We have but a scanty record of the life of Matilda and Mary Tone and the children during the months when Theobald (having landed at Havre de Grace on February 1st, 1796) was making his way by the mere force of his will and personality to the cabinets of the most powerful ministers in France. But our thoughts are turned to them constantly. We know how as Tone came home from interviews with De La Croix, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, or the American Minister, Monroe, or Carnot, or Hoche, he was concerned above all for what his “dearest love” would think of how he had comported himself. “I mention these little circumstances because I know they will be interesting to her whom I prize above my life ten thousand times. There are about six persons in the world who will read these detached memorandums with pleasure; to every one else they would appear sad stuff. But they are only for the women of my family, for the boys if ever we meet again, and for my friend, P.P.” When he sees Lodoïska, wife of J. B. Loubet, and records her heroism when her husband was a fugitive from the vengeance of Robespierre, he wishes his dearest love could see her, too. “I think she would behave as well in similar circumstances. Her courage and her affection have been tried in some, very nearly as critical.” When in a fit of self-examination he seeks out his own motives, he finds it difficult to decide whether it is his country or his wife he must put first. “I hope (but I am not sure) my country is my first object, at least she is my second. If there be one before her, as I rather believe there is, it is my dearest life and love, the light of my eyes and spirit of my existence. I wish more than for anything on earth to place her in a splendid situation. There is none so elevated that she would not adorn, and that she does not deserve, and I believe that not I only, but every one who knows her, will agree as to that. Truth is truth! She is my first object. But would I sacrifice the interests of Ireland to her elevation? No, that I would not, and if I would, she would despise me, and if she were to despise me, I would go hang myself like Judas. Well there is no regulator for the human heart like the certainty of possessing the affections of an amiable woman, and, if so, what unspeakable good fortune is mine.”