Second Letter
“Dearest Love,—I write just one line to acquaint you that I have received assurance from your brother Edward of his determination to render every assistance and protection in his power; for which I have written to thank him most sincerely. Your sister has likewise sent me assurances of the same nature, and expressed a desire to see me, which I have refused, having determined to speak to no one of my friends, not even my father, from motives of humanity to them and myself. It is a very great consolation to me that your family are determined to support you; as to the manner of that assistance, I leave it to their affection for you, and your own excellent good sense, to settle what manner will be most respectable for all parties.
“Adieu, dearest love. Keep your courage as I have kept mine; my mind is as tranquil at this period as at any period of my life. Cherish my memory; and especially preserve your health and spirits for the sake of our dearest children.
“Yours ever affectionately.”
There still remained to Matilda Tone more than fifty years of painful pilgrimage on this earth, before she was re-united to the husband—who had never ceased to be the lover—of her youth. The story of twenty-eight of these years has been told by her son William, and we may fittingly leave the tale to his telling, only taking it up again when his voice, too, was silenced—and to use her own pathetic phrase, his mother was left widowed and childless for twenty years more,
“Lonely and desolate to mourn her dead.”
“At the close of this last expedition [i.e. Hardy’s], a strict embargo reigned on the coasts of England, and no news could reach to France but through the distant and indirect channel of Hamburg. It was not till the close of November that the report of the action of October 11th, of the capture, trial, defence and condemnation of Tone, and of the wound which he was reported to have inflicted upon himself, reached all at once to Paris. It was also stated at first that this wound which he was reported to have inflicted upon himself was slight, that the law courts had claimed him, that all proceedings were therefore stopped, and that there were strong hopes of his recovery. My mother, then in the most delicate and precarious state of health, a stranger in the land (of which she scarcely spoke the language) and without a friend and adviser (for she had ever lived in the most retired privacy) rallied, however, a courage and spirits worthy of the name she bore. Surmounting all timidity and weakness of body as well as of mind, she threw herself instantly into a carriage, and drove to the minister of foreign affairs (Tallyrand Perigord). She knew that he spoke English and had been acquainted with my father both in America and in France. He received her with the most lively interest. Cases of this kind did not belong to his department, but he promised all the support of his credit with the Government, and gave her an introduction to the Directory. She immediately called on La Reveilliere Lepaux, then president of the Directory, and met with a reception equally favourable and respectful. He gave the most solemn assurances that my father should be instantly claimed; and mentioned in the demand by the name of Tone, by that of Smith, and individually as a French officer, lest his assumed name should occasion any diplomatic delay; he added that the English officers then in the French prisons should be confined as hostages to answer for his safety; and that, if none were equal to him in rank, the difference should be made up in numbers. It was unfortunate that Sir Sidney Smith had then escaped from the Temple. As soon as these papers were drawn, La Reveilliere Lepaux addressed her with them to the minister of marine, Bruix, who assured her that preliminary steps had already been taken, and that these despatches should be forwarded in the course of the same day. From thence she called on Schimmelpennick, the Dutch ambassador, who gave her similar assurances that my father should be claimed in the name of the Batavian republic, in whose service he bore the same rank as in the French. She wrote for the same purpose to his friend, Admiral Dewinter, and to General Kilmaine, commander-in-chief of the army in which he served; they both gave the same promises in return.
“To the French ministers, my mother expressed, at the same time, her determination to join and nurse her husband in his prison, taking my young sister along with her, and leaving my brother and myself to the care of my aunt [i.e. Mary Tone, now Madame Giacque]. For she did not expect that even these efforts would obtain his release, but probably a commutation of his fate to a confinement which she wished to share. It may well be believed that these reclamations excited the most lively and universal interest. All the credentials and all the means which she could wish, were furnished to her, and she was already on her way to embark for Ireland, when the news of his death arrived and put a stop to all further proceedings. It would be needless to dilate upon, and impossible to express, her feelings on the occasion.
“In the first moments after the death of my father the interest excited by his fate, and by the state of his family was universal. The Directory instantly passed a decree by which an immediate aid of 1,200 francs, from the funds of the navy, and three month’s pay from the war department, were assigned to his widow, and she was requested to produce her titles to a regular pension. At the same time, Bruix and Tallyrand (to the latter of whom, whatever character be assigned him in history, we certainly owe gratitude for the lively and disinterested part he took in our fate, on the few but important occasions on which we addressed him) proposed, the first, to take charge of my brother, and the other of me. Kilmaine, who had no children, proposed to adopt us both. But, grateful as my mother felt for those offers, she declined them, determined never to part from her children; and to fulfil, to the last, the solemn engagement under which she considered herself bound, to superintend their education; she did not wish them to be bred as favourites and dependants in great families; and trusted rather to the gratitude of the nation to give them a public, simple and manly education, as an homage to their father’s services. These gentlemen entered into her views; and on their demand, the Directory decreed that the sons of Theobald Wolfe Tone, adopted by the French republic, should be educated at the national expense, in the Prytaneum.
“The pensions which the executive had, constitutionally, a power to grant to the widows and families of officers killed on the field of battle, were limited by law according to the rank of these officers, and to the length of time during which they had served. According to this law, the pension to which my mother was entitled, amounted only to 300 francs, or little more than £12 sterling a year. This she refused either to demand or accept. But in special cases the legislature had reserved to itself the right of granting pensions to any amount. Ours was a very special case; but it was necessary to address the council of four hundred on the subject. Official delays intervened; it was difficult to collect at once all the legal proofs required; the business was therefore dropped for the present; and indeed in the varying and shifting movement of that most unstable of governments, no single object, however interesting at first, could fix the public attention for a period of any duration. In a few months three of the directors were expelled by their colleagues, and replaced by others; the affairs of Ireland, Tone and his family, and the fatal indiscretion of Humbert, who now returned from captivity, were all forgotten in the disasters of Italy and Germany, and the victories of Suwarrow and Prince Charles of Austria.
“In the meantime, withdrawing from the interest she had excited, my mother retired almost in the precincts of the university, to be near her children, and superintend their education. This was the most quiet and distant quarter of Paris, and farthest from the bustle of the great and fashionable world. On the style in which we lived, I will only observe, that we saw no company, English nor French; and that my mother, attending exclusively to the education of her daughter, and to the superintendence of her two boys, who dwelt in the college beneath her eyes, was under the protection of that body as much as if she had been a member of it. Such was the esteem, confidence and, I would almost say, veneration with which she inspired its director and professors, that contrary to the severe regulations of French discipline, they trusted us entirely to her care. Indeed, we were all so young and so helpless, that we were general favourites, and the whole of our little family seemed adopted by the establishment.
“It was nearly a year from my father’s fate; our permanent provision was yet unsettled, and our slender means could not last many months longer; when my mother, reading some old papers in her solitude, fell on a beautiful speech pronounced some months before in the council of five hundred, by Lucien Buonaparte. He proposed to simplify the forms of paying the pensions of the widows and children of military and naval officers; he represented in the most noble and feeling terms the hardship of high-spirited females and mothers of families, whose claims were clear and undoubted, obliged, in the affliction and desolation of their hearts, to solicit and go through numberless delays in the public offices. He also proposed to augment these pensions, which were too small. The sons of warriors killed on the field of battle ceased to receive them when they reached their fourteenth year; he proposed to extend this period to the age when they might, in their turn, enter the service.
“Several months had been necessary, to collect the proofs, certificates and documents required by law, for making an application to the legislature; or, indeed, before my mother was able to attend to it. Nor did she know one member of the Council of five hundred, to present them to when they were ready. In reading this speech of Lucien, she felt that he was the person she ought to address. My father had been known to his brother, when he commanded the army of England; and he was one of the representatives. She immediately wrote a note to him, to know when she might have the honour of waiting upon him on particular business? He answered that his public duties left only the hours of ten in the morning or seven in the evening, unemployed; but that at either of these, he would be happy to receive her. In consequence, next morning, taking with her, her children, her papers and the report of his speech, she called upon him and presented to him that speech as her letter of introduction. He was highly touched and flattered. She gave him all her papers and showed him her children. He was much moved, and said he knew the story well, and had been deeply affected by it, which sentiment he only shared in common with every one who had heard of it; that it was the duty of the French legislature to provide for the family of Tone honourably; and thanked her for the distinction conferred upon him, by choosing him to report on the case. My mother mentioned the difficulties she lay under, an unconnected stranger, scarcely understanding the language. He stopped her by requesting her to take no more trouble; that he would charge himself with it entirely, and get the permission of the executive which would be necessary; and if he wanted any particulars from her, would write to her for them. Nothing could be more delicate or generous than his whole manner.
“Next morning, Madame Lucien Buonaparte called upon my mother, and introduced herself.... An acquaintance commenced which only terminated at her death a few months afterwards.
“The report of Lucien Buonaparte was still delayed for some time. He had some papers to collect to prove my father’s services. Carnot was in banishment; Hoche was dead; poor Kilmaine, who ever since my father’s death had expressed a warm interest in our fate, was dying. In the ravings of fever he would insist on putting horses to his carriage, and driving with us to the Directory and council of five hundred, to reproach them with their delays in providing for the widow and children of Tone. General Simon ... gave the necessary attestations. The permission of the Directory was obtained; but Lucien, in order to produce a greater effect, still delayed till the period of his own Presidency....
“On the 9th of Brumaire, only nine days before the revolution which put an end to the Directory and placed his brother at the head of affairs, Lucien, then president of the council of five hundred, pronounced at length a beautiful speech, which may be called the funeral oration of my father. At the close of which a committee was immediately appointed, to report on the subject of a pension and permanent provision for the widow and family of General Tone.”
We will interrupt William Tone’s narrative, for a moment, in order to reproduce, in part, Lucien Buonaparte’s oration, and to show the reverence the name of Tone inspired in France, and the enthusiasm the lofty spirit and heroism, the conjugal and maternal devotion of Matilda aroused in generous Gallic breasts.
“Representatives of the People,—I rise to call your attention to the widow and children of a man whose memory is dear and venerable to Ireland and to France—the Adjutant-General Theobald Wolfe Tone, founder of the United Irish Society, who, betrayed and taken in the expedition to Ireland, perished in Dublin, murdered by the illegal sentence of a court-martial.
“Wolfe Tone only breathed for the liberty of his country. After attempting every means to break the chains of British oppression at home, he was invited by our Government to France, where from the beginning of the fifth year of the Republic, he bore arms under our colours. His talent and his courage announced him as the future Washington of Ireland; his arm, whilst assisting in our battles, was preparing to fight for his own country....
“It is precisely one year ago to the very day of the month that a court-martial was assembled in Dublin to try a general officer in the service of our Republic. Let us examine the papers of that day.” [Here the orator read the account of the trial and defence of General Tone. He then resumed.]
“You have heard the last word of this illustrious martyr of liberty. What could I add to them? You see him, dressed in your own uniform, in the presence of this murderous tribunal, in the midst of this awe-struck and affected assembly. You hear him exclaim: ‘After such sacrifices in the cause of liberty it is no great effort, at this day, to add the sacrifice of my life. I have courted poverty; I have left a beloved wife unprotected, and children whom I adored, fatherless.’ Pardon him, if he forgot, in those last moments that you were to be the fathers and protectors of his Matilda and his children.
“Sentenced amidst the tears and groans of his country, Wolfe Tone would not leave to her tyrants the satisfaction of seeing him expire by a death which the prejudices of the world call ignominious.... The day will yet, doubtless, come, when, in that same city of Dublin, and on the spot where the satellites of Britain were rearing that scaffold where they expected to wreak their vengeance on Theobald the free people of Ireland will erect a trophy to his memory, and celebrate, yearly, on the anniversary of his trial, the festival of their union, around his funeral monument. For the first time this anniversary is now celebrated within these walls. Shade of a hero! I offer to thee, in our name, the homage of our deep, of our universal emotion.
“A few words more—on the widow of Theobald, on his children. Calamity would have overwhelmed a weaker soul. The death of her husband was not the only one she had to deplore. His brother was condemned to the same fate, and perished on the scaffold.
“If the services of Tone were not sufficient of themselves to rouse your feelings, I might mention the independent spirit and firmness of that noble woman, who, on the tomb of her husband and of his brother, mingles with her sighs aspirations for the deliverance of Ireland. I would attempt to give you an idea of that Irish spirit which is blended in her countenance with the expression of her grief. Such were those women of Sparta, who on the return of their countrymen from battle when, with anxious looks, they ran over the ranks, and missed amongst them their sons, their husbands, and their brothers, exclaimed: ‘He died for his country; he died for the republic.’”
Strangely enough, the revolution which placed Napoleon in power as First Consul, instead of helping the fortunes of Matilda Tone and her children, had an adverse effect on them. Lucien broke with his brother, as soon as he saw the true direction of the latter’s aims, and in consequence a cause to which he lent his support had little chance of finding favour with the First Consul. For the next five years Tone’s widow and orphans might have died of starvation had it not been for the generosity of Mr. Wilson, of Dullatur. “He was,” says William Tone, “to my mother a brother, an admirer and a friend; he managed her slender funds; and when sickness and death hovered over our little family, he was our sole support.” Lucien Buonaparte also did what he could out of his personal resources—and Theobald’s brother, William, who had cut a way for himself with his sword in India, sent his sister-in-law and nephews and niece a generous draft. He would have provided for them had not his death prevented the accomplishment of his plans.
The arrival of some of the Fort George prisoners in France, including Tom Russell, Thomas Addis Emmet, and Dr. MacNevin—all Tone’s dear friends—reminded Napoleon of the existence of Tone’s wife and children. As if in answer to Emmet’s reproachful question: “how could they trust that government when they saw the widow of Tone unprovided for?” Napoleon (who was anxious to use the Irish in his new war with England and was organising his Irish Brigade) granted Matilda a pension of 1,200 livres, and 400 to each of her three children until their twentieth year. In this same year a subscription was got up for the family in Ireland—to which John Keogh and the Earl of Moira, among others of Tone’s old friends, ostentatiously refused to subscribe.
So starvation was kept off a little longer. But the privations of the preceding years had told heavily on poor Maria Tone, now a beautiful girl of sixteen. In 1804, her mother had the great grief of losing her through consumption.
In 1806 poor little Frank died—and now no one was left to console his mother but William.
Mother and son were all in all to each other. As he moved from the Lyceum to the Imperial Cavalry School of Saint Germains, she moved her lodgings at the same time to be near him. All his academic successes were valued by him only in so far as they gave pleasure to his mother. In the essay with which, in leaving the Lyceum, he competed for the “Prize of the Institute,” he pays a noble and touching tribute to all he owes to her, to all she has done for him. On her part, her thoughts were occupied entirely by his advancement and his interests. For his sake she surmounted her natural timidity, and sought out an interview with the Emperor, in order to recommend her son to his favour.
Young Tone served under the Imperial Colours during three campaigns. On the fall of Napoleon he resigned his commission, and in the following year, passed over to America.
Before he left Paris he induced his mother to accept the offer of marriage made her by their faithful friend and benefactor of so many years, Mr. Wilson, of Dullatur. On August the 19th, 1816, they were married in the chapel of the British Ambassador at Paris; and shortly after set sail, via Scotland, for America.
Mr. Wilson bought an estate at Georgetown, near Washington, and here there was always a home for William when the duties of his military career allowed it—for he had been appointed to a captaincy in the United States Army. In 1825 he married the daughter of William Sampson, and after retiring from the army, his wife and he took up their abode with his mother in Georgetown. Mr. Wilson had died a little before.
Alas! Sorrow had not yet done with Matilda Tone, on October the 10th, 1828, she lost her son.
We know little of her for the twenty-one years of life that still remained to her. We learn from Madden that every year her daughter-in-law and grand-daughter paid her a visit; and we know that up to extreme old age she retained that strength and energy of mind, that vigour of intellect, that passionate devotion to the husband of her youth which had characterised her in the long ago. A letter she wrote to the Truth-Teller, on the appearance of the first edition of Madden’s United Irishmen (1842) gives evidence of this.
She died in Georgetown on March 18th, 1849.
Shall the day ever come when Ireland a Nation, remembering this woman and all she suffered for her, shall claim her remains from America, and lay them to rest in the place where her husband lies lonely: in his green grave in Bodenstown Churchyard?