Page:A French Volunteer of the War of Independence.djvu/14

vi was engaged, should have noted his impressions at the time. They were written down more than forty years later, but that will not detract from the value of a book which gives vivid pen-portraits of men about whom much has been written but of whom much yet remains to be written.

Concerning the author's life, little need be added to what he tells us, but I am indebted to his great-great-nephew, the Comte de Pontgibaud, for some details which are not to be found in the book. The Chevalier de Pontgibaud married—31 July, 1789—a daughter of Marechal de Vaux, and the widow of Comte de Fougieres, marechal de camp. He was deeply attached to her, and only survived her a few months. She died in 1836 and he in 1837. From the time of his return to France (1814) till his wife's death, he resided at 6, Place Royale, Paris, but afterwards removed to the residence of his nephew, Comte de Pontgibaud, 32, Rue des Tournelles, where he died.

He was a genial, kind-hearted man,