Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/176

 December 20—was a rainy day, and, when I entered her ladyship's chamber, I saw it would be a melancholy one. She was seated in the comer of the room, her features indicating great suffering. She burst into tears the moment I approached her. She had not slept the whole night, and had passed the hours, from the time I left her, in getting up and walking about supported by her women, and then lying down again, seeking relief from the feeling of suffocation and oppression which so much distressed her. The floor of the bed-room was covered with plates, pots, and pans, turnips, carrots, cabbages, knives and forks, spoons, and all other appurtenances of the table and kitchen.

I must observe that, on the preceding day, at Lady Hester's request, I had ridden over to Mar Elias to see General Loustaunau, the decayed French officer, who had now lived on her bounty for a period of more than twenty years. And although, from being of a choleric and violent temper, he had, on more than one occasion, embroiled himself with her, yet the only difference it made in her treatment towards him was merely to keep him at a distance from herself: but she had never, for one day, ceased to occupy herself with his wants and to provide for his comforts. He was now, as I was told, eighty years old, and his mind was possessed with hallucinations, which he fell into from a belief that he could interpret the prophecies in