she was detained for five months. She was then conveyed to London, where she was detained for eight months, at the end of which time she was set at liberty by the Act of Indemnity. During her confinement many persons of distinction visited her, who sympathised with her motives, and who would, doubtless, in similar circumstances, have acted as she had acted. On her departure from the metropolis she was presented with £1500, subscribed by ladies only. Flora became the wife of Alexander Macdonald of Kingsbury. A few years afterwards, owing to pecuniary embarrassments, they emigrated to America, purchasing and settling upon an estate in North Carolina. When the revolutionary war broke out, Macdonald sided with the Royalist party; on the Declaration of Independence he returned to Skye, where Flora died at the advanced age of seventy. Dr. Johnson was right, then, when he said that her name "will be remembered in history, and, if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour." "True valour Lies in the mind, the never-yielding purpose; THE Marchioness de Bonchamps. LACRETELLE, in his summary of the French Revolution, says: "If history shall one day direct its regards to the war of La Vendée, it will be able to oppose to many horrible details which rend the heart, some anecdotes that will move us even to tears." The incidents in the life of Madame de Bonchamps caused that remark. The Marchioness was born near Angers, and was one of eight children-six sons and two daughters. In one year she had the misfortune to lose both her parents. Her guardian then sent her to her relations, the Countess de la Tour d'Auvergne, and the lady of the Marshal d'Aubeterre, who both resided in Paris. After she had been three years at Belle-Chasse, where she was placed to complete her education, she was sent for by her guardian in order that she might be introduced to the Marquis de Bonchamps, a nobleman to whom he wished to unite her in marriagea union which was completed, and could not therefore have been to either party disagreeable. After the marriage, M. de Bonchamps and his wife proceeded to his estate, de la Baronnière, near the little town of Saint-Flo rent-le-de-Vieil. When they had arrived at the hamlet of le Meilleraie, which they did before night, they found the Loire so swollen and the weather so stormy that the watermen could with difficulty be persuaded to convey them to the opposite shore; and this they would only consent to attempt on condition that M. de Bonchamps would himself take the helm. The passage was, though with extreme difficulty, safely accomplished. M. de Bonchamps greatly praised his wife for the courage which she had manifested in the emergency. She wrote subsequently :-"My only thought was to deserve his praises; and this first trial of my bodily and mental powers convinced me that, with a desire to obtain the approbation of those whom we love, and a determination to repress the demonstrations of fear, we can easily bear the greatest dangers without sinking under them." 66 Months of unalloyed happiness gave the new wife the anticipation of a continuous life of joy and peace, a condition which most assuredly would have fallen to her lot had it not been for the dark clouds which even then were drawing over the peace and happiness of the country. The Revolution shortly after developed all its horrors under the name of Liberty. "A Revolution," says the Viscount de Castelbajac, "which threatened to destroy social order, and when, by a dreadful subversion of religious and moral principles, crime was transformed into virtue, and honour into a chimera; when the just man was forced to seek in foreign countries the asylum which he no longer found in his native land; when the God of our fathers was blasphemed; when the kings of our ancestors were forgotten and re pulsed." At the outset an oath from the army was demanded, which was contrary to the royal dignity and true interests of France. M. de Bonchamps at once sent in his resignation as an officer of the regiment in which he served. He and his wife, in the hope of staying in some degree the effects of the Revolution, were in Paris during the massacres of the 10th August and the 2d of September, from which with difficulty they escaped. From this time Bonchamps became an object of dread to the revolutionary party. On his return to his estate, he applied himself diligently to form companies of all the loyal inhabitants of the villages; upon the news of which, the Convention ordered the troops sent into La Vendée to exterminate men, women, children, even animals-even vegetation! When M. de Bonchamps assumed the command of the new forces, he earnestly exhorted them in the name of religion and humanity to abstain from those acts of cruelty which always stain civil war. To his wife, who was now suffering all the undefinable dread which the situation of her husband called for, he addressed these earnest and almost sublime words: "Arm yourself with courage, redouble your patience and resignation-you will have need of them. We must not deceive ourselves; we must not aim at worldly rewards-they would be below the purity of our motives and sanctity of our cause. We must not even pretend to human glory; civil wars give not that. We shall see our houses burned, we shall be plundered, persecuted, entrapped, calumniated, and perhaps sacrificed. Let us thank God that He has granted us this conviction, since our foreknowledge, in redoubling the merit of our actions, will enable us to anticipate the joy of that heavenly hope which unshaken constancy in danger, and true heroism in defeat, can bestow. Finally, let us elevate our souls and all our thoughts towards heaven, for it is there we shall find a Guide which cannot lead us astray, a strength which nothing can shake, and an infinite reward for the labours of a moment.” When Bonchamps put himself at the head of the troops, he directed his march towards Thouars, then defended by General Quétineau. Four hours sufficed him to attack and take the town, and Quétineau was indebted for his life to the noble and generous mind of Bonchamps, whose prisoner he was. Then advancing rapidly towards the enemy at Fontenay-le-Comte, and taking them by surprise, he effected a signal victory. At the gates of Fontenay, Bonchamps was the subject of a most infamous action. A soldier had thrown himself at his feet and prayed for his life: when it was granted, the base wretch actually turned round and fired upon the man who had given him his existence! The ball, grazing Bonchamps' bosom, tore the flesh and broke his breast-bone. He was carried on a litter to the Castle of Landebeandière, near Tiffanges; the soldiers disputing with each other for the honour of conveying him. While these events were being enacted, M. de Bonchamps sent word to his wife to repair with her children to Beanpreau, because the enemy was marching upon la Baronnière. She had scarcely time to make her escape. Her children were put into a pannier, with a few playthings to still their cries; another pannier, to balance it, was filled with gunpowder, pistols |