After many vicissitudes and hazards, Fitzgerald succeeded in making his escape from France, and reaching Coblentz, where a small knot of devoted Royalists lived, sharing their little resources in common, and generously contributing every aid in their power to their poorer brethren. This life, if one of painful and unceasing anxiety, was yet singularly devoid of incident. To watch the terrible course of that torrent that now devastated their native country; to see how in that resistless deluge all was submerged—throne, villa, home, and family; to sit motionless on the shore, as it were, and survey the shipwreck, was their sad fate.

According to the various temperaments they possessed did men bear this season of probation. To some it was like a dreary nightmare, a long half sleep of suffering and oppression, leaving them devoid of all energy, or all will for exertion. Others felt stimulated to be up and doing, to write and plot, and intrigue with their fellow-exiles in Italy and the north of Germany. The very transmission of the sad tidings which came from Paris became an accustomed task; while some few, half resigned to a ruin whose widespread limits seemed to menace the whole of Europe, began to weave plans for emigrating to a new world beyond the seas.

Gerald halted, and deliberated to which of these two latter he would attach himself. If the idea of a new colony and a new existence, where each should stamp his fate with his own impress, had its attractions, there was also much that fascinated in the heroism that bound men to a losing cause, and held them faithful and true where so many fell off in defection. Perhaps it was the personal character of the men who professed these opinions ultimately decided his choice; for D’Allonville, Caumartin, and Lessieux, who then lived at Coblentz, gave to these sentiments all the glowing ardour of a high and noble chivalry. Nor was it without a certain charm for a young mind to see himself, as it were, a participator and agent in the cause of great events. By zeal to encounter any difficulty, readiness to go anywhere, or dare any peril, Fitzgerald had won the esteem and confidence of men high in the exiled Prince’s favour. They grew to talk with him and confide in him, showing him private letters from exalted personages, and even at times to take his counsel in affairs which required prompt action. Young, active, able to endure fatigue without inconvenience, he offered himself for every charge where such qualities might be available; and thus he traversed Europe, from Hamburg to Italy, from the Rhine to the Vistula, bearing despatches, or as often himself charged with some special communication too delicate to commit to writing, and wherein his tact was intrusted with the details.

At last it was deemed essential to have a number of agents in France itself—men capable of watching and recording the changes of public opinion, who might note the rising discontents of the popular mind, and observe where they had their source. It was a rooted faith in the Royalist party that sooner or later the nation would react against the terrible doctrines of the anarchists, and welcome back to France the men whose very names and titles were part of her glory: the mistake was in supposing that the time for this reaction was at hand, and in believing that every passing shadow was its herald.

Gerald’s personal courage, his adroitness in the use of disguise, his unfailing resources in every difficulty, pointed him out as one well adapted for this employ; and he was constantly intrusted with secret missions to this or that part of France, occasions on which he as invariably distinguished himself by his capacity. The very isolation in which he stood, without family or connections, favoured him, removing him from the sphere of those jealousies which oftentimes marred and defeated the wisest plans of the Royalists. He was not a Rohan nor a Courcelles—a Grammont nor a Tavanne—whose family influence was one day or other to be dreaded. Let him win what fame he might, gain what credit, attract what notice, he carried with him no train of followers to profit by his success and bar up the avenues of promotion; for so was it—strange and scarce credible though it seems—men were already quarrelling over the spoils ere the victory was won; ere, indeed, the battle was engaged, or the enemy encountered.