“She then requested my father’s letters should be copied before they were sent to Paris, observing that falsehoods were often brought before the Assembly; she asked leave to read these letters aloud. Some one having expressed the fear that doing so might be painful to her. ‘On the contrary,’ she replied, ‘I find support and comfort in the feelings they contain.’ She was listened to at first with interest, then with deep emotion.
“After having read the letters and looked over the copies, she begged not to leave the house of the ‘Département’ as long as she remained at Le Puy. She exposed the injustice of her detention, how useless and perilous a journey to Paris would be, and concluded by saying that if they persisted in keeping her as a hostage, she would be much obliged to the ‘Département,’ were she allowed to make Chavaniac her prison, and in that case she offered her parole not to leave it. It was decided in the next sitting that the ‘Département’ should present her request to the minister. While awaiting the reply, the prisoners were to inhabit the building belonging to the administration.
“While in prison, my mother received touching marks of sympathy. She was often watched by friendly National Guards, who would ask to be employed on that duty in order to prevent its being entrusted to evil-disposed keepers. She sometimes received accounts of my brother, who still remained in the same place of refuge; and of me, for she had thought fit to have me also concealed at a few leagues from Chavaniac.
“At this time public affairs were most inauspicious. All honest officials took favorable opportunities for resigning, and were replaced by Jacobins. We learnt that my father, instead of being set free, had been delivered up by the coalition to the king of Prussia, and was on his way to Spandau. The impression produced on my mother by this news was dreadful. She was in despair at having given her parole to stay at Chavaniac; for notwithstanding the impossibility of leaving France, she could not bear the thoughts of pledging her word to give up seeking every means of rejoining my father.
“M. Roland’s answer came at the end of September. He allowed my mother to return to Chavaniac, a prisoner on parole, under the responsibility of the ‘administration.’ My mother thus received the permission she had asked for at the precise moment when she was struck with dismay by the situation my father was in, and by the dangers he was running now at the hands of foreign powers, as lately at those of the revolutionists at home.
“The ‘Département’ decided that the commune would each day supply six men to guard my mother, who went to the assembly-room immediately on hearing of this resolution.
“‘I here declare, gentlemen,’ she said, ‘that I will not give the parole I offered if guards are to be placed at my door.
“‘Choose between these two securities. I cannot be offended by your not trusting me, for my husband has given still better proofs of his patriotism than I have of my honesty; but you will allow me to believe in my own integrity, and not to add bayonets to my parole.’
“It was decided that no guard should be set, and that the municipality would every fortnight report my mother’s presence at Chavaniac. My mother, on learning that M. Roland had expressed his disapprobation of the massacres of September, and that he alone could free her from the engagement[engagement] she had contracted decided, notwithstanding her reluctance, on writing to him the following letter:—
“‘Sir: I can only attribute to a kind feeling the change you have brought about in my situation. You have spared me the dangers of a too perilous journey, and consented that my place of retirement should be my prison. But any prison whatever has become insupportable to me since I learnt that my husband has been transferred from town to town by the enemies of France, who were conducting him to Spandau. However repugnant to my feelings it may be to owe anything to men who have shown themselves the enemies and accusers of him whom I revere and love as I ought to do, it is in all the frankness of my heart that I vow eternal gratitude to whoever will enable me to join my husband, by taking all responsibility from the ‘administration,’ and by giving me back my parole, if in the event of France becoming more free it were possible to travel without danger.