The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX, No. 985, November 12, 1898

A TALE OF THE FRANCO-ENGLISH WAR NINETY YEARS AGO.
By AGNES GIBERNE, Author of Sun, Moon and Stars, The Girl at the Dower House, etc.
I WISH THEY WERE ENGLISH.
All rights reserved. ]

ON PAROLE.
If the shock of this abrupt arrest of the whole body of English travellers, who happened to be within reach of the First Consul, fell sharply on those at home, it fell at least no less sharply on those who were arrested.
An official notice was served upon all who could, by the utmost stretching, be accounted amenable to the act. In that notice, received alike by Colonel Baron and by Denham Ivor, they were informed that— All the English enrolled in the Militia, from the ages of eighteen to sixty, or holding any commission from His Britannic Majesty, shall be made prisoners of war; —the reason given being the same as was alleged in the version which speedily appeared in English papers.
The mention of the Militia was, however, additional; and there was something else also. It might fairly have been argued that professional men, men of business, and men of no particular employment, could not be included in the above statement. To guard against such reasoning the document went on to explain— I tell you beforehand that no pretext, no excuse, can exclude you; as, according to British law, none can dispense you from serving in the Militia.
This notion was made the basis for a far more sweeping arrest than had at first been supposed possible. Not only officers in the Army and Navy, who were then in France or in other countries under the dominion of Napoleon, not only men who had served or who might be called upon to serve in the Militia, but lawyers and doctors, clergymen and men of rank, men of business and men in trade, all alike were detained, all alike were forced immediately to constitute themselves prisoners of war upon parole, with only the alternative of becoming prisoners of war in prison, instead of upon parole.
Those who consented to give their word of honour not to attempt to escape were allowed to remain at large, and to lodge where they would, under certain limitations. That is to say, they had to live in specified places, where they were under the continual inspection of the gendarmerie, and where they had at regular intervals to report themselves. Whether they were soldiers, sailors, clergymen, or business men, they were thus at once cut off from their work in life, and many were debarred from their only means of livelihood.