He had therefore
travelled alone, and under a borrowed name, and it was at Lanzut
that he had given my mother the rendezvous. Having arrived there
before her, and not in the least suspecting that she would be
escorted by a commissary of police, he came out to meet her, full of
joy and confidence. The danger to which he was thus, insensibly,
exposing himself, transfixed my mother with terror, and she had
barely time to give him a signal to return back; and had it not been
for the generous presence of mind of a Polish gentleman, who
supplied M. Rocca with the means of escaping, he would infallibly
have been recognized and arrested by the commissary. Ignorant of
what might be the fate of her manuscript, under what circumstances,
public or private, she might ever publish it, my mother felt herself
under the necessity of entirely suppressing these details, to which
I am at present allowed to give publicity.
(End of Note of the Editor.)
After supper this commissary came up to my son, and said to him,
with that coaxing tone of voice which I particularly dislike, when
it is used to say cutting words, "I ought, according to my orders,
to pass the night in your mother's apartment, in order to be certain
that she has no communication with any one; but from regard to her,
I will not do it." "You may add also," said my son, "from regard to
yourself, for if you should dare to put your foot in my mother's
apartment during the night, I will throw you out of the window.
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