[CHAPTER XXXIII]
THE JOURNEY
FOUR carriages, or, rather, four boxes on wheels, inclosed on all sides with iron bars, which bruised the prisoners at every jolt, received the exiles. Four of them were placed in each cage, and no attention was paid either to their weakness or their wounds. Some of them had received sabre cuts; others had been wounded, either by the soldiers who had arrested them or by the mob, whose opinions always will be that the conquered do not suffer enough.
There was a keeper for each wagon and each group of four men, who had the care of the key of the padlock which closed the grating which served in lieu of a door.
General Dutertre commanded the escort, which consisted of four hundred infantry, two hundred cavalry, and two cannon.
Every time the exiles got in or out of the cages, the two pieces were trained diagonally upon the carriages, while gunners stood ready, with lighted matches in their hands, to fire the cannon, should any of them attempt to escape, both upon those who made the attempt and upon those who did not.
The condemned men began their journey on the 22d Fructidor (8th of September) in the midst of a terrible storm. They had to cross the whole length of Paris, starting with the Temple, and leaving the city through the Barrière d'Enfer, to take the road to Orléans. But instead of following the Rue Saint-Jacques, the escort, after crossing the bridge, turned to the right and led the procession to the Luxembourg. Here the three directors, or rather Barras, who was the three in himself, was giving a ball.
Barras, when notified, hastened to the balcony, followed by the guests, and pointed out Pichegru, three days earlier the rival of Moreau, Hoche, and Bonaparte, and with him Barthélemy, his former colleague, Villot, Delarue, Ramel—in short, all those whom the turn of Fortune's wheel or the forgetfulness of Providence had put in his power. The exiles heard Barras, amid noisy bursts of laughter and joy enjoin Dutertre, Augereau's man, "to take good care of these gentlemen." To which Dutertre replied: "Never fear, general."