She describes Santerre as released before Robespierre's fall, whereas he was released immediately after it. After this it is needless to discuss the cutting off of Mrs. Elliott's hair preparatory to execution, her offer of marriage from Bonaparte, and other marvels. All that is certain is, that she was in France from about 1786 to 1801, that she was Gem's fellow-prisoner at Versailles, and that she knew a Mrs. Myler or Miglia, widow of an Italian, who was really a prisoner in Paris, and whose experiences she has apparently appropriated and embellished. She was watched, as a suspected political intriguer, after the Terror was over; she returned to England in 1801, went back to France about 1816, and died there in 1823. Had Mrs. Elliott really been imprisoned at St. Pélagie, she might have made acquaintance with an Irishwoman, Maria Louisa Murphy, who, if not like herself the mistress of two princes, had been openly lodged at Versailles, and had borne a son to Louis XV. The daughter of an ex-soldier turned shoemaker, whose widow dealt in old clothes, she had, by Madame de Pompadour's contrivance, posed for a picture of the Virgin in the Queen's oratory, so that the King might send for her. She was divorced by her third husband, Dupont, a member of the Convention, in 1798.[1]
- ↑ The first inmate of the Pare aux Cerfs, she was succeeded by her sister, Mary Bridget. She was born at Rouen, had a pension of 12,000 francs till the Revolution, and died at Paris, 11th December 1814, aged seventy-seven.
