“‘Ah!’ said the savage, ‘I see my cook takes care you shall not grow too fat. I have to tell you that your friend, Collet d’Herbois, has taken care of your worthy mother and sister; the glorious guillotine has cut their dainty heads off!’
“I shrieked in agony, and maddened, flew at my gaoler, but, with a blow of the heavy keys he carried, he struck me bleeding to the ground. Oh, what I suffered! when a kind old man, one of the prisoners, restored me to life and sense by bathing my face with his scanty allowance of water.
“‘My poor boy! My poor boy!’ sobbed the old man, ‘just the age of my poor Philip!’
“‘Surely, surely!’ I exclaimed, ‘they could not murder a child. My loved sister was but a child!’
“‘Not murder a child!’ repeated the old man, hysterically; ‘Eh, mon Dieu! babes in the arms are butchered by those fiends Herbois and Ronsin. When they entered the city with two thousand of their blood-stained followers, did not those two wretches stand gazing with frightful exultation upon two hundred victims tied to trees, whom cannons loaded with grape tore to pieces? and when their soldiers bayoneted those that survived, they laughed madly with joy. Oh, merciful God!’ exclaimed the old man, waving his skeleton arms wildly in the air, ‘wilt thou permit such sin to triumph?’ The old man’s head sank upon his breast.
“The next day he was relieved from his misery by death. The third morning from that event half our number were led out, more dead than alive, to be shot down like dogs, and for no earthly crime. Thirty only, besides myself, remained five days afterwards, when one morning Marachat entered the cell with some turnkeys.
“‘Come, my beauties!’ said this wretch, ‘let me have a look at you all. I have cleared out my saloons, and they are getting tired of shooting and bayoneting. More’s the pity. Let me see how many more of you are fit to serve your country. Ah! my little aristocrat, have you escaped the guillotine and shooting? Lucky fellow; come, I think you will do for me, you’re young;’ and examining the rest, he selected nine. ‘Morbleu, only ten of you fit to smell powder, after all my care. Tonnerre de Dieu! I must discharge my chef de cuisine. There, garçons, take those fellows into the yard; the rest of these miserable wretches may be shot to-morrow, they are good for nothing else.’
“We were driven into a court-yard, there our arms were pinioned, and shortly afterwards we were put into a covered cart. I must have been blessed with a singularly strong constitution to have survived these trials, under which I beheld strong men die. I did live certainly, but I was greatly emaciated. Several other carts were filled with wretched-looking objects; and as soon as they had their complement they drove off, escorted by a troop of dragoons. We were taken to Brest, and were intended to supply the loss the French fleet had sustained by the guillotine. Many captains were beheaded, a rear-admiral imprisoned, and numbers of seamen declared disaffected were executed.
“After being in the hospital a fortnight, where I was tolerably well cared for, I was placed on board a guardship. There was a kind and humane surgeon in the hospital, to whom I told my story, stating I was an Englishman by birth.
“‘Mother and father English? Keep that to yourself, my lad,’ said the surgeon; ‘as surely as you say you are English, you will be shot.’