The last time I asked him
after Madame de ____, he told me her spirits were something better, and,
added he, in a voice almost suffocated, "She is amusing herself with
working neckcloths for her sons!"--When you reflect that the massacres at
Paris took place on the second and third of September, and that the
decree was passed to bring the prisoners from Orleans (where they were in
safety) on the tenth, I can say nothing that will add to the horror of
this transaction, or to your detestation of its cause. Sixty-two, mostly
people of high rank, fell victims to this barbarous policy: they were
brought in a fort of covered waggons, and were murdered in heaps without
being taken out.*
* Perhaps the reader will be pleased at a discovery, which it would
have been unsafe to mention when made, or in the course of this
correspondence. The two young men here alluded to arrived at
Versailles, chained together, with their fellow-prisoners.
Surprize, perhaps admiration, had diverted the gaoler's attention
from demanding the key that opened their padlock, and it was still
in their possession. On entering Versailles, and observing the
crowd preparing to attack them, they divested themselves of their
fetters, and of every other incumbrance. In a few moments their
carriages were surrounded, their companions at one end were already
murdered, and themselves slightly wounded; but the confusion
increasing, they darted amidst the croud, and were in a moment
undistinguishable.
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