Sous le règne affreux des tyrans,
On chanta les despotes.
Sous celui de l’Egalité,
Des Lois et de la Liberté,
Chantons les Sans-Culottes.
The trial of the king aroused me to indescribable distress. My days rolled by in horror. One morning there was a knock at the door. I divined somehow that it proceeded from a gentle and friendly hand. I opened, and Madame Berthemet flung herself into my arms.
“Save me, save us!” she said. “My brother, Monsieur Eustance, my only brother, was scheduled as an émigré,[[19]] and came to seek shelter in my house. He was denounced and arrested. He has been in prison now for five days. Luckily the accusation which hangs over him is vague and ill-founded. My brother was never an émigré. To effect his release, all that is necessary is that some one who can vouch for his unbroken residence in France will give evidence in his favour. I begged the Chevalier de St. Ange to do me this service. He prudently begged to be excused. Well! my friend, my son, that service which it would be perilous to him to render me, to you will be still more perilous; yet I come to ask it of you.”
[19]. A person who had left France without a licence from the Government. (Trans.)