back to France and hide in her château.

They accepted the correctness of this line of reasoning, ate and
drank and having burned the deeds in the centre of the courtyard,
they left without doing any further damage, shouting "Long live
France and citizen Marbot!" And charging my mother to write to him to
say that they liked him very much and that his family was quite safe
among them.

In spite of this assurance, my mother felt that her position as
the sister of émigrés might expose her to a great deal of
unpleasantness from which even her position as the wife of a defender
of the country would not protect her. She decided to go away for the
time being. She told me later that she took this step because she was
convinced that the revolutionary storm would last only for some
months. There were many people who thought this!

My grandmother had had seven brothers, all of whom, as was usual
in the Verdal family had been soldiers and knights of St. Louis. One
of them, a former battalion commander in the infantry regiment of
Penthièvre, had married, on retirement, the rich widow of counsellor
of the parliament of Rennes. My mother decided to go and stay with
her and was counting on taking me with her, when I was smitten by a
number of large and very painful boils. It was impossible to travel
with a child of eight in such a state, and my mother was in great
perplexity. She was extricated by a worthy lady, Mlle. Mongalvi, who
was much devoted to her and whose memory will always be dear to me.
Mlle. Mongalvi lived at Turenne and ran boarding establishment for
young ladies of which my mother had been one of the first occupants.
She offered to take me into her house for the few months of my