Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/157

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IMMIGRANTS AND EMIGRANTS.
137

pinioned, looked appealingly to him, "Sire, in this last insult I see only a last resemblance between your Majesty and the God who is about to be your recompense." When all was over, Edgeworth, rising from his knees, and bespattered by the King's blood as the executioner held up the head to the mob, looked to see where the crowd was least dense, and being in the lay dress then obligatory on the clergy, walked away unmolested.

He had promised Princess Elizabeth not to leave France till her death, and letters concealed in balls of silk occasionally passed between them. He had various disguises and several narrow escapes, his mother and sister being meanwhile prisoners, and the former dying in captivity. In 1796 he effected his escape to England, and conveyed to the Comte d'Artois (afterwards Charles X.) his sister's farewell message, the tenor of which is unknown. He was about to repair to Ireland when a mission to Louis XVIII. in Brunswick led to his becoming that prince's chaplain,[1] and he died in that post at Mittau in 1807. On the loss, through the dishonesty of the borrower, of the £4000 produced by the sale of Firmount, he accepted in 1806 the

  1. When Louis was expelled from Russia in 1801, the Duchesse d'Angoulême supported him on one side and Edgeworth on the other at a spot where he had to alight from his carriage and force his way through the snow. At a village inn at Ilmagen where he stayed a night, only two bedrooms being available, Edgeworth and Comte d'Avaray shared Louis's apartment, while the Duchesse d'Angoulême and her attendants occupied the other.