A MISSION ENTRUSTED To GENERAL D'ARBLAY.

On the 22nd of April opened a new source, though not an unexpected one, of inquietude, that preyed the more deeply upon my spirits from the necessity of concealing its torments. . . . The military call for M. d'Arblay arrived from Gand. The summons was from M. le Comte de Roch. The immediate hope in which we indulged at this call was, that the mission to which it alluded need not necessarily separate us, but that I might accompany my honoured husband and remain at his quarters. But, alas! he set out instantly for Gand . . . . .

April 23rd brought me a letter: the mission was to Luxembourg. His adjoint was the Colonel Comte de Mazancourt, his aide-de-camp M. de Premorel, and also that gentleman's son. The plan was to collect and examine all the soldiers who were willing to return from the army of Bonaparte to that of Louis XVIII. Eleven other general officers were named to similar posts, all on frontier towns, for the better convenience of receiving the volunteers. On the 24th April M. d'Arblay again joined me revived by his natively martial spirit, and pleased to be employed!

April 26, we left the Rue de La Montague, after, on my part, exactly a month's residence. Our new apartments in

Page 340

the March aux Bois were au premier,(275) and commodious and pleasant. One drawing-room was appropriated solely by M. d'Arblay for his military friends or military business ; the other was mine.

Here we spent together seventeen days; and not to harass my recollections, I will simply copy what I find in MY old memorandum-book, as it was written soon after those days were no more:—"Seventeen days I have passed with my best friend; and, alas ! passed them chiefly in suspense and gnawing inquietude, covered over with assumed composure . but they have terminated, Heaven be praised! with better views, with softer calm, and fairer hopes. Heaven realize them! I am much pleased with his companions. M. le Comte de Mazancourt, his adjoint, is a gay, spirited and spirituel young man, remarkably well bred, and gallantly fond of his profession. M. de Premorel, the aide-de-camp, is a man of solid worth and of delicate honour, and he is a descendant of Godefroy de Bouillon. To this must be added, that he is as poor as he is noble, and bears his penury with the gentlemanly sentiment of feeling it distinct from disgrace. He is married, and has ten or eleven children: he resides with a most deserving wife, a woman also of family, on a small farm, which he works at himself, and which repays him by its produce. For many days in the year, potatoes, he told me, were the only food they could afford for themselves or their offspring! But they eat them with the proud pleasure of independence and of honour and loyalty, such as befits their high origins, always to serve, or be served, in the line of their legal princes. As soon as Louis XVIII. was established on his throne, M. de Premorel made himself known to the Duc de Luxembourg, who placed him in his own company in the garde du corps, and put his son upon the supernumerary list. . . .."

This young man is really charming. He has a native noblesse of air and manner, with a suavity as well as steadiness of serene politeness, that announce the Godefroy blood flowing With conscious dignity and inborn courage through his youthful veins. He is very young, but tall and handsome, and speaks of all his brothers and sisters as if already he were chef de famille, and bound to sustain and protect them.. I delighted to lead him to talk of them, and the conversation on that subject always brightened him into joy and loquacity. He named every one of them to me in particular repeatedly,

Page 341

with a desire I should know them individually, and a warm hope I might one day verify his representations.