The Countess de Belbouf.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 5477, 7 February 1885, Page 4

The Countess de Belbouf.

Thb Countess of Bolbouf, who died qujto recently, was one of tho Tory fow persons who could remember the old Reign of Terror in Paris, as an actual victim, and very nearly a martyr, in the cause of order and roligion. She was only seven years old when tho vossol in which she was being carried off by her parents as an "emigrant" to Spain was captured by the agents of the popular party. She was thrown with her mother, Madame de Ohabrillan, her .father, and her grandmother, tho Countess de Caumont Laforco, into the prison at Toulon, and the populace demanded, with loud cries, permission to massacre the whole family. The goal was invaded by a horde of these furies, who got an far as the staircases, and there caught two priests, whom they immediately murdered. General Bizann'ette, who 'was then in command at Toulon, was obliged to apply to an' officer on active service to aid him in effecting the escapo of the intended victims of lynch law. This officer was none other than General Bonaparte, then in command of the artillery, of' the Italian Army, who happened to be at Toulon arranging for the defence of tho arsenal. "If I only had some handbarrows," said the governor of tlie town, "I would get these fugitives safo out of France." "]Very well," replied Bonaparte, "send me in a requisition for tho barrows, and I will see that you have them." The required conveyances woro accordingly provided, and tho little Zoe do Chabrillari, with her parents and some other emigrants, was deposited in them, and despatched under' a strong escort out of the place. The girl afterwards married tho Count de Belbeuf, and lived to the good old age of ninety-five. But to her dying day she remembered more vividly than anything else the scene at the Toulon jprison when she was being carried to her barrow, and was able to descrihe tho circumstances as vividly as on tho day after they occurred,