So that five weeks, perhaps six, remain; but I dare not rely upon this, and I am in a cell in the Bicêtre, and it seems to me that Thursday has passed three days ago.
CHAPTER IX.
I am going to make my will; but no, it is useless. I am condemned to pay the costs of the trial, and all that I possess will hardly be sufficient to meet the expenses.
The guillotine is an expensive luxury.
I have a mother, a wife, and a child.
A little girl three years of age, gentle, rosy, and delicate, with large black eyes and long chestnut hair.
She was just two years and a month old when I last saw her.
Thus, after my death there will be three women without son, husband, or father; three orphans of different kinds, three widows made by the hand of the law.
I allow that I am justly punished; but what have these innocent creatures done? No; these are dishonoured and ruined for no fault of their own: and this is justice!
It is not the thought of my poor old mother that disquiets me; she is sixty-four; the blow will kill her at once, or even if she lingers on for a little while, as long as she has a little fire to warm her feet at she will not complain.