This cell, where I have shivered through the
winter--the long passages, which I have so often traversed in bitter
rumination--the garden, where I have painfully breathed a purer air, at
the risk of sinking beneath the fervid rays of an unmitigated sun, are
not scenes to excite regret; but when I think that I am still subject to
the tyranny which has so long condemned me to them, this reflection, with
a sentiment perhaps of national pride, which is wounded by accepting as a
favour what I have been unjustly deprived of, renders me composed, if not
indifferent, at the prospect of my release.
This dreary epoch of my life has not been without its alleviations. I
have found a chearful companion in Mad. de M____, who, at sixty, was
brought here, because she happened to be the daughter of Count L____, who
has been dead these thirty years!--The graces and silver accents of
Madame de B____, might have assisted in beguiling severer captivity; and
the Countess de C____, and her charming daughters (the eldest of whom is
not to be described in the common place of panegyric), who, though they
have borne their own afflictions with dignity, have been sensible to the
misfortunes of others, and whom I must, in justice, except from all the
imputations of meanness or levity, which I have sometimes had occasion to
notice in those who, like themselves, were objects of republican
persecution, have essentially contributed to diminish the horrors of
confinement.
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