Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/148

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THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

acknowledging the Hanoverian dynasty. She and Alfieri left just after the attack on the Tuileries, but had almost to fight their way out at the gates. Their two carriages full of luggage and five servants attracted a mob, whom Alfieri harangued with his stentorian voice, while his wife (for she was by this time his wife) lay back frightened in the carriage. A presentiment is said to have made them start two days earlier than they originally intended. Two days afterwards the very section which had granted them passports ordered their arrest, and seized all their horses, furniture, and books. Alfieri, who had written a poem on the fall of the Bastille, never forgave the French this injustice, nor the loss of his own and the Countess's pension. For him they were "monkey-tigers," and he vented his wrath in verses entitled "Misogallo."

The Countess of Albany's—predecessor shall I say?—also witnessed the beginning of the Revolution. Clementine Walkingshaw bore a daughter to the Young Pretender at Liège in 1753. According to Dr. King, a non-juring clergyman, Gordon, gave the infant Protestant baptism. The parents then openly cohabited, but in 1760 Clementine secretly left the Prince, whose courtiers had vainly endeavoured to separate them.[1] She went to Paris, and placed the child in a convent. Mother and

  1. Her sister being housekeeper to Frederick, Prince of Wales, they suspected her fidelity.