General Mouton-Duvernet. Several were sentenced to death in their absence; some were acquitted on the singular plea that they had become subjects of the Empire of Elba, and so could not be guilty of treason to the King of France.
The sentence was commuted by the King to twelve years' imprisonment. General Chartran was actually shot. It is stated, though it appears not to be clear, that his prosecution began at the same late date. Duvergier de Hauranne, iii. 335.
The highest number admitted by the Government to have been imprisoned at any one time under the Law of Public Security was 319, in addition to 750 banished from their homes or placed under surveillance. No one has collected statistics of the imprisonments by legal sentence. The old story that there were 70,000 persons in prison is undoubtedly an absurd exaggeration; but the numbers given by the Government, even if true at any one moment, afford no clue to the whole number of imprisonments, for as fast as one person gets out of prison in France in a time of political excitement, another is put in. The writer speaks from personal experience, having been imprisoned in 1871. Any one who has seen how these affairs are conducted will know how ridiculous it would be to suppose that the central government has information of every case.
See, e.g., the Pétition aux Deux Chambres, 1816, at the beginning of P.L. Courier's works.
Journal des Débats, 19 Decembre, 1815.
Wellington, S.D., xi 309.
Despatch in Duvergier de Hauranne, iii. 441.
Pertz, Leben Steins, iv. 428.
Schmalz, Berichtigung, etc., p. 14.
Pertz, Leben Steins, v. 23.