Her father, M. Phlipon, died during the winter of 1787. She had been ever a dutiful daughter to him, as an extract from her memoirs proves:
"My father," she writes, ‘neither married, nor made any very ruinous engagements. We paid a few debts he had contracted, and, by granting him an annuity, prevailed upon him to leave a business in which it had become impossible for him to succeed. Though suffering so much for his errors, and though he had reason to be highly satisfied with our behavior, his spirit was too proud not to be hurt at the obligations he owed us."
In 1789, events preceding the Revolution had thrown France into a state of ferment. Every one in whose soul one spark of the divine fire of liberty burned felt himself forced to take an interest and a part in the events and politics of the times. Political meetings were held over all France, and the slow-burning fires of insurrection and revolution broke out here and there into
