These points of difference would alone have sufficed to
endanger their domestic peace; but time developed something that was
fatal to it. Their abode was the scene of contention for eight years;
at the expiration of which period Mrs. Girard showed such symptoms of
insanity that her husband was obliged to place her in the Pennsylvania
Hospital. In these distressing circumstances, he appears to have
spared no pains for her restoration. He removed her to a place in the
country, but without effect. She returned to his house only to render
life insupportable to him. He resumed his old calling as a mariner,
and made a voyage to the Mediterranean; but on his return he found his
wife not less unmanageable than before. In 1790, thirteen years after
their marriage, and five after the first exhibition of insanity, Mrs.
Girard was placed permanently in the hospital; where, nine months
after, she gave birth to a female child. The child soon died; the
mother never recovered her reason. For twenty-five years she lived in
the hospital, and, dying in 1815, was buried in the hospital grounds
after the manner of the Quakers.
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