While Madame de Lafayette was in the prison in Paris, though treated with
the greatest severity by Robespierre and his party, she had the consolation
of sharing in the sympathetic kindness and assistance of many individuals,
who were willing to expose themselves to the hatred of her cruel
persecutors for her relief. A gentleman from Boston, Joseph Russel, Esq.
then a resident in Paris, made great efforts for her liberation; although
by this generous interference he hazarded his own life. It was through his
friendly assistance, that her son G. W. Lafayette, then about fourteen
years of age, was conveyed to the United States, where he remained till the
discharge of his parents from the dungeons of Olmutz.

About this period, and soon after the death of his amiable wife, General
Lafayette received a severe fracture in one of his legs, by a fall, which
occasioned his confinement for nearly twelve months, and was the cause of
his present lameness. He had been transacting business with the minister of
the marine; and in going from the office to his carriage, a distance of two
hundred paces, late in the evening, after a heavy rain and sleet, which had
rendered it dangerous walking, he fell suddenly and broke a bone.

For six or seven years, till 1814, when Louis XVIII. returned to France to
mount the throne of the Bourbons, Lafayette resided at his chateau of La
Grange, an inactive spectator of the political changes which took place. No
doubt he had a sufficient apology for this inaction and voluntary retreat
from public affairs. He was too honest and too candid, too much an enemy to
the anarchy of the jacobin factions, and to the despotism of the Emperor,
to support either, or to be received into their confidence. He would
probably have been satisfied with the restoration of a Bourbon to the
throne, if the throne could be founded in a constitution, admitting the
representatives of the people to a share in legislation, and defining the
extent and the measure of the executive authority. He was animated by the