I have noted more than once on this blog that, despite having spent so many years trying to understand Macintosh’s world, there are some elements that remain stubbornly obscure. One such is the identity and role of two women who formed part of Macintosh’s household throughout his time in Avignon and later exile in Switzerland: B. Deleahy and E. Lee. I have long known that these women existed (their names appear often on receipts and invoices, for example), and I was aware that as I grew closer to writing about Macintosh’s time in Avignon I would eventually have to try to figure out who they were and what they were doing in his life.

Both women first appear in Macintosh’s archive in 1782, when they were living in Liège and had assumed —at least in the case of de Leahy—the role of guardian for Macintosh’s youngest daughter, Polly, during an 18-month stay on the Continent. How Macintosh had come to meet these women is currently unclear, as is almost everything else about them.

Following a lead I found in the 1935 book L‘Émigration Francaise dans le Canton de Fribourg (1789–1798), I was able to locate de Leahy and Lee in the Archives de l’Etat de Fribourg, where they appear (alongside Macintosh) in the Rathsmanual of the canton’s Petit Conseil—recent émigrés from France. The entry is extremely revealing; it gives the women’s first names (Bridget and Elisabeth, respectively), their religion (Catholic), and their place of birth (London).

The entry in the Rathsmanual concerns the sisters’ request to take up lodgings with Macintosh and their two servants in Estavayer, on the southern shore of Lake Neuchâtel. The Petit Conseil approved their request, but vetoed one of the servants, who was French. At this time there was a widespread concern that working-class French citizens posed a risk of spreading revolutionary sentiments in Switzerland.

Having Bridget and Elisabeth’s names is a helpful starting point, but there is a great deal more digging to do. I have found a reference to them both in a biography of the German novelist Sophie von La Roche that appears to connect them to the Catholic community of Frankfurt. I can hear a new rabbit hole calling me…