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'Whenever I am next in Paris, she said to him, when she perforce rose to go, with that pretty hesitation of manner which was so attractive in her, 'would you mind would Madame de Châteauvieux, if I asked you to introduce me to your sister? It would be a great pleasure to me. Kendal made a very cordial reply, and they parted knowing more of each other than they had yet done.
In that summer he was plotting to escape to Metz and join the army which had been collected there under the Marquis de Bouillé, while Bouillé himself, after the rising at Nancy, was busy in improving discipline by breaking on the wheel a selection of the soldiers of the Swiss regiment of Châteauvieux which had refused to march against Paris on the 14th of July, 1789.
The Duke of Brunswick was placed in command, and by the end of July perfected arrangements for marching on Paris with an Austro-Prussian army of 80,000 men. The breaking out of war inflamed still further the political excitement of France. In April a festival, or demonstration, was held in honour of the soldiers of Chateauvieux' Swiss regiment, now released from the galleys.
Naturally, she was in no want of suitors, for she was rich and her father was influential, but she said 'No' many times, and was nearly thirty before M. de Châteauvieux, the first secretary of the French Embassy, persuaded her to marry him. Since then she had filled an effective place in Parisian society.
The Swiss regiment of Chateauvieux he handed over to a court-martial of its officers, who ordered a great number of their men to be shot, or to be sent to the galleys. These events caused great excitement. The assembly, now alarmed at the result of its own work of disintegration, passed a formal vote of thanks to Bouillé.
James gave up his farm to the tenant who had been destined to replace him, and departed with his wife, his children and his uncle Croustillac for Chateauvieux. The three friends lived long and happily in their domain, and their children and grandchildren lived there after them. The chevalier never left Monmouth and his wife. Once a year Father Griffen came to pass some weeks at Chateauvieux.
The preparations for this ceremony gave rise to a still more exciting drama at the National Assembly. At the opening of the sitting, a member demanded that the forty soldiers of Châteauvieux should be admitted to pay their respects to the legislative body. M. de Jaucourt opposed it: "If these soldiers," said he, "are only admitted to express their gratitude, I consent to their being admitted to the bar; but I demand that afterwards they be not allowed to remain during the debate." The speaker was interrupted by loud murmurs, and cries of
Only one thing was unchanged the sweetness and spontaneity of that rich womanly nature. She gave a little cry as she saw Madame de Châteauvieux enter. She came running forward, and threw her arms round the elder woman and kissed her; it was almost the greeting of a daughter to a mother.
He came forward, and took her hand nervously and closely in his own. 'I have come to bring you sad news, he said gently, and seeking anxiously word by word how he might soften what, after all, could not be softened. 'M. de Châteauvieux sent me to you at once, that you should not hear in any other way. But it must be a shock to you for you loved her!
And now the English stage has laid its hold at last upon a great actress. Madame de Châteauvieux's smiling reply was broken by the reappearance of Wallace, round whom the buzz of congratulation closed with fresh vigour. 'How is she? asked Madame de Châteauvieux, laying a hand on his arm. 'Tired? 'Not the least! But, of course, all the strain is to come. It is amazing, you know, this reception.
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