Now, perhaps, I can sleep.
March 16.
News from Honora. The distant relative who succeeded to the estates and the title of the Marquis de la Roche-Guyon has fallen a victim to the guillotine. Would this have been the fate of Honora's husband had he forsaken her and returned home? There is reason to believe it. At all events, she finds herself greatly comforted by this news for the sacrifice which her husband made to his love, and no longer regrets the exile to which he has been forced to submit for her sake. Wonderful, wonderful Providence! I view its workings with renewed awe every day.
September 5, 1795.
I have been from home. I have been on a visit to New York. I have tasted of change, of brightness, of free and cheerful living, and I can settle down now in this old and fast-decaying inn with something else to think about than ruin and fearful retribution.
I have been visiting Madame De Fontaine. She wished me to come, I think, that I might see how amply her married life had fulfilled the promise of her courtship days. Though she and her noble husband live in peaceful retirement, and without many of the appurtenances of wealth, they find such resources of delight in each other's companionship that it would be hard for the most exacting witness of their mutual felicity to wish them any different fate, or to desire for them any wider field of social influence.
The marquis—I shall always call him thus—has found a friend in General Washington, and though he is never seen at the President's receptions, or mingles his voice in the councils of his adopted country, there are evidences constantly appearing of the confidence reposed in him by this great man, which cannot but add to the exile's contentment and satisfaction.
Honora has developed into a grand beauty. The melancholy which her unhappy memories have necessarily infused into her countenance have given depth to her expression, which was always sweet, and frequently touching. She looks like a queen, but like a queen who has known not only grief, but love. There is nothing of despair in her glance, rather a lofty hope, and when her affections are touched, or her enthusiasm roused, she smiles with such a heavenly brightness in her countenance, that I think there is no fairer woman in the world, as I am assured there is none worthier.