" "God
is good; God knows," they often said to me, when I had not a word to
cheer them.
THE WIFE AND MOTHER.[A]
Beneath the ruins of the Roman Republic, how many private fortunes
were buried! and among these victims was Margaret. In that
catastrophe, were swallowed up hopes sacredly cherished by her through
weary months, at the risk of all she most prized.
Soon after the entrance of the French, she wrote thus, to the resident
Envoy of the United States:
My dear Mr. Cass,--I beg you to come and see me, and give me your
counsel, and, if need be, your aid, to get away from Rome. From what
I hear this morning, I fear we may be once more shut up here; and I
shall die, to be again separated from what I hold most dear. There
are, as yet, no horses on the way we want to go, or we should post
immediately.
You may feel, like me, sad, in these last moments, to leave this
injured Rome. So many noble hearts I abandon here, whose woes I have
known! I feel, if I could not aid, I might soothe. But for my child, I
would not go, till some men, now sick, know whether they shall live or
die.
* * * * *
Her child! Where was he? In RIETI,--at the foot of the Umbrian
Apennines,--a day's journey to the north-east of Rome.
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