“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.