PRISON LIFE DURING THE
FRENCH REVOLUTION.
I was put under arrest, together with my father and mother, on August 23, 1793, at our ch�teau of Mouchy-le-Ch�tel, in the Department of the Oise. I was taken to the prison at Saint-Fran�ois � Beauvais, in the old convent, on the 6th of October of the same year and to that at Chantilly on the 20th of the same month. There I remained until the 5th of April, 1794, when I was transferred to Paris, to the Coll�ge du Plessis, from which I was liberated on the 19th of the following October.
PRISON LIFE DURING THE
FRENCH REVOLUTION.
WRITTEN IN 1801, THE YEAR IX. OF
THE REPUBLIC.
The period of my confinement in different prisons during the Reign of Terror was so harassing that the idea of writing out its details did not then occur to me; but when I had the consolation of seeing my son once more, he was desirous of learning all about it. I feared that I should be overcome by my feelings if I tried to relate the details to him, and consequently determined to write the following memoirs.
My parents retired to their estate of Mouchy-le-Ch�tel, in the Department of the Oise, in the month of September, 1792. I accompanied them thither, and was their sole companion. They resolved, from prudential motives, to receive visits from no one. This privation cost my father nothing, for he was naturally shy, though the positions he had occupied had forced him to live constantly in the great world. My mother, who loved him dearly, accustomed herself to retirement with submission to the will of Providence, with the naturally happy disposition maintained through all the events of her life.
She loved system in all things, and she introduced it so successfully into our daily life that it passed rapidly. Reading, work, play, and walking filled up every moment. My parents took pleasure in furnishing refreshment to the harvesters during their weary labour, in sympathizing with their troubles, and in helping them by kindnesses. In spite of the position in which the Revolution placed my father, and the natural repugnance which he declared he felt for those who were engaged in it, he gave volunteers the means of paying their way. My father had, if I may so express myself, a passion for charity. His hands were always ready to bestow, and whenever he received a sum of money he would in a few hours declare, with satisfaction, that he had none of it left.
He could keep nothing when he knew that others were suffering; hospital visiting, aid rendered in private, all sorts of kind deeds and comforting words,�in fact all good works were familiar to him; in these alone he found happiness.
