Both husband and wife were deeply
loaded with debts, a thing common enough with the nobility of the
time; these debts they never paid, another thing by no means unusual;
their creditors, whose flinty hearts were but little moved by the
considerations of their rank and high blood, sent officers to
enforce payment, when the Louernes opposed them with positive
force and violence, and the laws, thus outraged, condemned them
to suffer death. In vain did persons of the highest rank in the
kingdom intercede in their behalf, imploring of the chancellor to
interpose with the king; altho' deaf to every other entreaty he
instantly granted a reprieve at my solicitation, declaring I was
the only person who could have effected so much in behalf of the
distressed culprits, as well as being the only source thro' which
the king's mercy could be obtained.
Immediately upon this notification, I was waited upon by the
comtesse de Moyau, their daughter, and the baronne d'Heldorf,
their daughter-in-law; both these ladies came to me in the deepest
sorrow, and I mingled my sighs and tears with those they so
plentifully shed; but this was rendering poor service, and if I
desired to aid their cause it was requisite I should speak to the
king, who was little disposed to show any indulgence in such
cases, and was never known to pass over any attempts on the part
of the nobility to resist the laws; he looked with horror on
every prospect of the return of those times which he hoped and
believed were passed and gone never to return.
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