"Come and take it!" said young Hotspur, flourishing the weapon.
In a moment he was seized from behind, his hands and arms bound, and the soldiers lifted him into another carriage, which was forthwith driven off at a gallop.
"Where are you taking me?" asked the Prince.
"Monseigneur, to the dungeon of Vincennes."
"Ah, indeed! Pray thank your King for having chosen for me the prison which was honoured by the great Condé. You may add that, whilst Condé was the subject of Louis XIV., I am only the guest of Louis XV."
M. du Châtelet, governor of Vincennes at that epoch, had received orders to make the Prince's imprisonment a rigorous one, and fifty men were specially appointed to watch him. But du Châtelet, a friend and admirer of the young hero, took his part, and counselled him to abandon a resistance which must be worse than futile, "You have had triumph enough," said the prudent du Châtelet, "in exposing the feebleness and cowardice of the King."
Prince Charlie's detention lasted but six days. He was liberated on December 16th, and left Paris in the keeping of an officer of musketeers to join his father in Rome.
Absolutism, l'arbitraire, all through this period was making hay while the sun shone, and playing rare tricks with the liberties of the subject. Vincennes was a witness of strange things done in the name of the King's justice. Take the curious case of the Abbé Prieur. The Abbé had invented a kind of shorthand, which he thought should be of some use to the ministry. But the ministry would none of it, and the Abbé made known his little invention to the King of Prussia, a patron of such profitable things. But one of his letters was opened at the post-office by the Cabinet Noir, and the next morning Monsieur l'Abbé Prieur awoke in the dungeon of Vincennes. He inquired the reason, and in the course of months his letter to the King of Prussia was shewn to him.
"But I can explain that in a moment," said the Abbé. "Look, here is the translation."