a man who had filled so many pages of real history, and of the history
which above all others I was most interested in. I felt as if a veil had
been suddenly lifted, and the great men I had read of and dreamed of
were passing before me. There were the features which, though changed,
had so often called up a smile of welcome to the lips of Washington;
there was the man who had shared with my grandfather the perils of the
Brandywine and Monmouth, the long winter encampment, and the wearisome
summer march; the man whom Napoleon had tried all the fascinations of
his art upon, and failed to lure him from his devotion to the cause of
freedom; whom Marat and Robespierre had marked out for destruction, and
kings and emperors leagued against in hatred and fear. It was more like
a dream than a reality, and for the first twenty minutes I was almost
afraid to stir for fear I might wake up and find the vision gone. But
when I began to look at him as a being of real flesh and blood, I found
that Ary Scheffer's portrait had not deceived me. Features, expression,
carriage, all were just as it had taught me to expect them, and it
seemed to me as if I had always known him. The moment I felt this I
began to feel at my ease; and though I never entirely lost the feeling
that I had a living chapter of history before me, I soon learned to look
upon him as a father.

As I was rising to go, a lady entered the room, and, without waiting for
an introduction, held out her hand so cordially that I knew it must be
one of his daughters. It was Madame de Lasteyrie, who, like her mother
and sister, had shared his dungeon at Olmütz. Her English, though
perfectly intelligible, was not as fluent as her father's, but she had
no difficulty in saying some pleasant things about family friendship
which made me very happy. She lived in the same street, though not in
the same house with the General, and that morning my good-fortune had
brought the whole family together at No. 6.