Charlotte Smith

“ The Abbé de St. Remi had long passed his fiftieth year; and at his time of life the fatigue of a long journey, and the uncertainty of what would be his reception when he arrived at the end of it, were likely to be considerations more oppressive than they were to younger men, who could more sanguinely indulge hopes of brightening prospects and better days: the Abbé, however, instead of being the most depressed, was the most cheerful of the three.
The Marquis de Touranges, one of the first order of nobility, was about four years older than D'Alonville. ”

“ A nobleman of the same name, as what he has been said to have assumed, is at Berlin; and on this slender hope, aided by the conviction that by returning to France he should throw away a life that may yet be useful to them, I have prevailed upon his to begin this journey; but I now doubt whether he will ever complete it. Tormented incessantly with the most dreadful fears for the fate of his wife, his infant, and his mother, he is now half resolved to execute his first resolution, and to rush upon certain destruction by returning to France ”

“ In these misfortunes, the most dreadful perhaps that humanity can suffer, every native of France who has refused to join in the system now called republican, must, more or less, have partaken.
Every man bears his share as he can. ”

“ Perhaps that of our friend may be rendered less supportable than that of the generality, by some circumstances to which I am a stranger, and which may well excuse that acute sensibility that you lament for otherwise, from what I have formerly known of Touranges, he must be greatly changed if he now shrinks from the common lot, without common fortitude. ”

“ Remi was enough fatigued to consider even such a resting place as considerable, D'Alonville, who cared not at any time where he lay down to sleep, readily consented. He was glad indeed of this opportunity to examine the contents of the box Madame de Rosenheim had given; he was now near forty miles from Vienna, and could open it without a breach of the promise which, though he had not given it, had been understood when it was left in his possession. De Touranges, who was not disposed to take any refreshment would have retired immediately and alone to one of the wretched rooms the house afforded ”

“ Inheriting an immense fortune, from a long line of illustrious ancestors, he had never till the period of the revolution known a wish he could not immediately gratify;—at that time he was rapidly approaching the highest posts of honor and profit that a military man could obtain about the court ”