the warnings of the Faculty.

Thanks to her constant care, this son had grown and developed so much,
and so gracefully, that at twenty years of age, he was thought a most
elegant cavalier at Versailles. Madame de Dey possessed a happiness
which does not always crown the efforts and struggles of a mother. Her
son adored her; their souls understood each other with fraternal
sympathy. If they had not been bound by nature's ties, they would
instinctively have felt for each other that friendship of man to man,
which is so rarely to be met in this life. Appointed sub-lieutenant of
dragoons, at the age of eighteen, the young Comte de Dey had obeyed
the point of honor of the period by following the princes of the blood
in their emigration.

Thus Madame de Dey, noble, rich, and the mother of an emigre, could
not be unaware of the dangers of her cruel situation. Having no other
desire than to preserve a fortune for her son, she renounced the
happiness of emigrating with him; and when she read the vigorous laws
by virtue of which the Republic daily confiscated the property of
emigres, she congratulated herself on that act of courage; was she not
guarding the property of her son at the peril of her life? And when
she heard of the terrible executions ordered by the Convention, she
slept in peace, knowing that her sole treasure was in safety, far from
danger, far from scaffolds. She took pleasure in believing that they
had each chosen the wisest course, a course which would save to _him_
both life and fortune.

With this secret comfort in her mind, she was ready to make all the
concessions required by those evil days, and without sacrificing
either her dignity as a woman, or her aristocratic beliefs, she