“Madame Carew was, then, much admired at Court?”
“She was.”
“And a favorite guest, too?”
“We asked her on Wednesdays generally; they were the small dinners, but many thought them the pleasantest.”
“Her Grace noticed her particularly, you say?”
“She did so on one Patrick's night, and said she had never seen such lace before; and Madame Carew told her she would show her some still handsomer, for it had been given by the king to her grandmother, whom I think they called Madame Barry, or Du Barry, or something like that.”
Though little in reality beyond the gossiping revelation of a very old man, Cotterell's evidence tended to show that my mother had been a welcome and a favored guest in all the best houses of the day, and that, living as she did in the very centre of scandal, not the slightest imputation had been ever thrown upon her position or her conduct.
The counsel probably saw that, not having any direct proof of the marriage,—when, and how, and where solemnized,—it was more than ever necessary to show the rank my mother had always occupied in the world, and the respect with which she was ever received in society.
He had—I know not with what, if any, grounds—a little narrative of her family and birthplace in France, and most conveniently disposed of all belonging to her,—fortune, friends, and home,—by the events of “that disastrous Revolution, which swept away not only the nobles of the land, but every archive and document that had pertained to them.”
When he came to my own birth, he was fortunate enough to obtain all the evidence he wanted. The priest of Rathmullen, who had officiated at my christening, was yet alive, and related, with singular clearness of recollection, every circumstance of that sorrowful night when the tidings of my father's violent death reached the village beside Castle Carew. Of those present on this occasion, among whom were Polly Fagan and MacNaghten, he could not yet point to where one could be found.