We should doubtless have remained at Arras until some change in public
affairs had procured our release, but for the fortunate discovery of the
man I have mentioned; and the trifling favour of removal from one prison
to another has been obtained only by certain arrangements which Fleury
has made with this subordinate agent of tyranny, and in which justice or
consideration for us had no share. Alas! are we not miserable? is not
the country miserable, when our only resource is in the vices of those
who govern?--It is uncertain when we shall be ordered from hence--it may
happen when we least expect it, even in the night, so that I shall not
attempt to write again till we have changed our situation. The risk is
at present too serious, and you must allow my desire of amusing you to
give way to my solicitude for my own preservation.
Bicetre at Amiens, Nov. 18, 1793.
_Nous voila donc encore, logees a la nation;_ that is to say, the common
prison of the department, amidst the thieves, vagabonds, maniacs, &c.
confined by the old police, and the gens suspects recently arrested by
the new.--I write from the end of a sort of elevated barn, sixty or
seventy feet long, where the interstices of the tiles admit the wind from
all quarters, and scarcely exclude the rain, and where an old screen and
some curtains only separate Mad. de ____, myself, and our servants, from
sixty priests, most of them old, sick, and as wretched as men can be, who
are pious and resigned.
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