Unfortunately for us, Dumont happened to
be there himself, and on hearing we were sent from Arras by order of Le
Bon, declared most furiously (for our Representative is subject to choler
since his accession to greatness) that he would have no prisoners
received from Arras, and that we should sleep at the Conciergerie, and be
conveyed back again on the morrow. Terrified at this menace, we
persuaded the guard to represent to Dumont that we had been sent to
Amiens at our own instance, and that we had been originally arrested by
himself, and were therefore desirous of returning to the department where
he was on mission, and where we had more reason to expect justice than at
Arras. Mollified, perhaps, by this implied preference of his authority,
he consented that we should remain for the present at Amiens, and ordered
us to be taken to the Bicetre. Whoever has been used to connect with the
word Bicetre the idea of the prison so named at Paris, must recoil with
horror upon hearing they are destined to such a abode. Mad. de ___, yet
weak from the remains of her illness, laid hold of me in a transport of
grief; but, far from being able to calm or console her, my thoughts were
so bewildered that I did not, till we alighted at the gate, begin to be
really sensible of our situation. The night was dark and dreary, and our
first entrance was into a kitchen, such as my imagination had pictured
the subterraneous one of the robbers in Gil Blas.
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