I could not describe the impression made on the happiest of men by this mysterious reply and the frightened appearance of the warden. I questioned him, but he disappeared in a passage. What had happened to my companions? What was going to happen to me?... I sought an explanation to this mystery—but it was beyond my comprehension. Suddenly a word, a single word, pronounced, I know not by whom, I know not where, resounded in my ear like a thunderbolt: “La Roquette!”... To this voice from without, an interior voice instantly replied: “La Roquette, the prison of those condemned to death!”...
This frightful thunderbolt, which precipitated me into an abyss a thousand times more fearful than that from which I thought I had issued, was enough to dismay a nature more strongly tempered than mine. I was dismayed and broken down, and yet, after the poignant griefs and enervating perplexities that had overwhelmed me for two months, I had at least the advantage of knowing my certain
fate. My conscience gave me the consoling testimony that I was a victim of my fidelity to duty; my courage revived at the thought of the numerous and illustrious captives who had suffered more than I, and whose examples I only had to follow to die as a priest and a Frenchman. I cried with the royal Psalmist: “But I have put my trust in thee, O Lord: I said: Thou art my God, my lot is in thy hands.” This lifting of my heart to God sufficed to give me firmness and the serenity of Christian resignation.
When they shut me up in one of the grated cages in the vestibule of Mazas, the warden charged with this painful task secretly pressed my hand, and informed me that the Archbishop of Paris, the curé of the Madeleine, and most of the other hostages had gone to La Roquette, where we were now to be taken. His pressure of my hand and the consternation of his face were more eloquent than all he could say. It was a comfort truly providential to find the Abbé Amodru again in the cage next mine. Our impressions were the same. Thanks to the signs we agreed upon when we left the préfecture de police, we could give each other absolution. We must find ourselves in the presence of death to comprehend the nothingness of all human things; there is then no longer any difficulty in praying, in repenting, in pardoning our fellow-men, and in trusting wholly in the mercy of God.
One by one the cages opened and shut with a lugubrious noise, and I was surrounded with hostages destined for La Roquette. I was surprised to find several under complete illusion respecting our situation. Some thought we were about to be restored to liberty, and others did not seem to comprehend the significance of
our being sent to La Roquette. It was not best to enlighten them yet, but I resolved to do so at a later moment. With almost certain death staring us in the face, I thought it proper, and especially more Christian, to modify my attitude. Until now I had taken an energetic stand against the agents of the Commune, and sometimes expressed my indignation. I now resolved to speak but little, to pray a great deal, to encourage those of my companions who should need it, and to arm myself with patience and meekness toward our persecutors.
The charitable young pharmacist of the prison, who, the night before, so gladly announced our approaching liberation, was stationed in a corner of the vestibule to give us a last proof of his sorrowful sympathy. This was not only a kind but a courageous act at a moment when a single smile of compassion might be regarded as treason. A week after, a young man, kneeling by the body of M. Deguerry in the lower chapel of the Madeleine, stopped me to express his joy and his grief. It was the pharmacist of Mazas.
An enormous cart, surrounded by armed national guards, awaited us in the first court. I at once bethought myself of the carts that during the Reign of Terror conveyed the victims of the committee of public safety to execution. And we too were to go in the same direction, toward the Barrière du Trône. Such coincidences could not fail to strike any one familiar with our revolutionary history. Fifteen prisoners mounted the cart, among whom I noticed M. Chevriaux, the principal of the Lycée at Vanves, who bravely wore his ribbon of the Legion of Honor; Père Bazin; M. Bacues, the director of St. Sulpice; an honest workman, and some members of the national guards,
guilty of not having sacrificed to the idol of the day. They were mostly ecclesiastics.
We were told that the reason we had not been sent to La Roquette the night before with the first hostages dispatched was that a third vehicle could not be procured. Mgr. Darboy, Mgr. Deguerry, Mgr. Surat, and M. Bonjean had suffered very much at Mazas: the prolonged severity of the prison discipline had, in particular, shaken the archbishop’s health. They had been obliged, only a few hours before his departure for La Roquette, to apply blisters to him. But they all showed themselves, by their firmness and patience, superior to their sad condition.