But the
devastating torrent of the revolution at length reached them: they were
accused of bestowing a more tender solicitude on their aristocratic
patients than on the wounded volunteers and republicans; and, upon these
curious charges, they have been heaped into carts, without a single
necessary, almost without covering, sent from one department to another,
and distributed in different prisons, where they are perishing with cold,
sickness, and want! Some people are here only because they happened to
be accidentally at a house when the owner was arrested;* and we have one
family who were taken at dinner, with their guests, and the plate they
were using!
* It was not uncommon for a mandate of arrest to direct the taking
"Citizen Such-a-one, and all persons found in his house."
A grand-daughter of the celebrated De Witt, who resided thirty leagues
from hence, was arrested in the night, put in an open cart, without any
regard to her age, her sex, or her infirmities, though the rain fell in
torrents; and, after sleeping on straw in different prisons on the road,
was deposited here. As a Fleming, the law places her in the same
predicament with a very pretty young woman who has lived some months at
Amiens; but Dumont, who is at once the maker, the interpreter, and
executor of the laws, has exempted the latter from the general
proscription, and appears daily with her in public; whereas poor Madame
De Witt is excluded from such indulgence, being above seventy years old--
and is accused, moreover, of having been most exemplarily charitable,
and, what is still worse, very religious.
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