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an image of desolation from Ossian, "the fox might be seen looking out at the window," we sometimes heard the complaints of simple sorrow, unal lied to greatness; but like the notes of the starling, so true in time to nature were they chanted, that they seized irresitibly on the heart. Of this kind was a scene which passed sometimes between a poor English woman and her dog, which she had brought to keep her company in her captivity. She had been house-keeper in a French family, and, some months before she was imprisoned, had sent her daughter, who was her only child, to her friends in England. The poor woman often exclaimed while her face was bathed in tears, "Oh, Charlotte, Charlotte, I shall never see you again!" Whenever the dog heard the name of Charlotte, hé began to howl in so melancholy a note that it was impossible not to sympathise in his lamentation.

The most frightful circumstance which attended our arrestation were the visits of Henriot, the commandant of the military force at Paris. This wretch had been one of the executioners on the 2d of September, and was appointed by the commune of Paris, on the 31st of May, to take the command of the national guards, to point the cannon against the convention, to violate the representation of the people, and to act the prelude of that dark drama of which France has been the desolated scene, and Europe the affrighted spectator. Henriot perform ed his part so much to the satisfaction of his em ployers, that he was continued in his command and it was a part of his office to visit the prisons and take care that they were properly guarded The first time I saw him was the day after our con finement! He entered on a sudden our apartment brandishing his sword, and accompanied by twelve of his officers. There was something in his look which did not give you simply the idea of the ferocity

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ferocity which is sometimes to be found among civilized Europeans: his fierceness seemed to be of that kind, which belongs to a cannibal of New Zealand; and he looked not merely as if he longed to plunge his sabre in our bosoms, but to drink a libation of our blood. He poured forth a Volley of oaths and imprecations, called out to know how many guillotines must be erected for the English, and did not leave our chamber till one person who was present had fainted with terror. In this manner he visited every apartinent, spread

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consternation and dismay; and these visits were repeated three or four times in a week. Whenever the trampling of his horse's feet was heard in the court-yard, the first prisoner who distinguished the well-known sound, gave the alarm, and in one moment the public room was cleared; every person flying with the precipitation of fear to his own apartment. Every noise was instantly Kushed; a stillness like that of death pervaded the whole dwelling; and we remained crouching in our cells like the Greeks in the cave of Polyphemus, till the monster disappeared. The visits of the administrators of police, though not so terrific as those of Henriot, were nothing less soothing. Brutality, as well as terror, was the order of the day; and those public functionaries, whose business it was not only to see that the police of the prison was well regulated, but also to hear if the prisoners had any subject of complaint, used to make the enquiry in a tone of such ferocity, that, whatever oppressions might hang on the heart, the lips lost, the power of giving them utterance.

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visits of the police generally produced some additional rigour to our confinement; and in a short time all access to us whatever was forbidden except by letters, which were sent open, and delivered to us after being examined by the sentinels.

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There

There was sometimes room for deep meditation on the strange caprice and vicissitudes of fortune. We found the ex-minister, Amelot, a prisoner in the Luxembourg; he, who, during his administration, had distributed lettres de cachet with so much liberality. Tyranny had now changed its instru-. ments, and he was become himself the victim of despotism with new insignia: the blue ribband had given place to the red cap, and "de par le roi”, was transformed into par mesure de sureté générale.' By his order La Tube, whose history. is so well known, had been confined thirty years, in the Bastille. He was now enjoying the sweets of liberty; and, before the prison-doors were shut against strangers, came frequently to visit some of his friends in the very room where the minister was imprisoned.

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Amelot, in a comfortable apartment, and surrounded by society, did not bear his confineinent with the same firmness as La Tube had borne the solitude of his dungeon, cheered only by the plaintive sounds of his flute of reeds. He, was in a short time bereft of his reason; and, among the wanderings of his imagination, used to address letters to all the kings of Europe, and all the emigrant princes, inviting, them to sumptuous repasts, to, which he sometimes proposed admitting the national convention, to shew that he was above bearing malice.

Whenever any new prisoners arrived, the rest crowded round them, and hastened to calm their minds by the most soothing expressions of sympa thy. No such emotions were excited by the appearance of Maillard, who was one of the murderers on the 2d of September, and who had lately been appointed to a command in the revolutionary' army; from which, for some malversations, he was now dismissed, sent to prison, and ordered into

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close confinement. He had taken a very active part in the late transactions, and had, a few days before his own arrest, conducted to prison two fine boys, who were the sons of the ex-minister La Tour du Pin, together with their governor, who was a priest. They were stepping into a carriage, which was to convey them to school, when they were seized upon by Maillard, who taking the youngest, a child of eleven years of age, by the shoulder, said to him in a stern accent, "Il faut dire la verité, toute la verité, et rien que la verité*." No sooner was Maillard brought into the antichamber, while his room was preparing, than the little boy recognized his acquaintance, and running up to him cried, "Bon jour, citoyen Maillardil faut dire la verité, toute la verité, et rien que la verité."

Nothing could be more painful than the sensations excited by reading the evening papers, which the prisoners at this time were permitted to receive, and which were expected with that trembling anxiety with which, under present evils, we long to look into the promises of futurity. The evening paper seemed to us the book of our destiny; but there we could trace no soothing characters of hope or mercy. Every line was stamped with conspiracy, vengeance, desolation, and death; and the reading the events of the day left impressions on our minds which often deprived us of sleep. We sometimes quitted the crowd in the public room, and shutting ourselves up in our own apartment, endeavoured, amidst the evils of this world, like Sterne's monk, to look beyond it. If such meditation was calcu lated to wipe away our tears, it sometimes made them flow" Let the sighing of the prisoner come

* You must speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

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before Thee: according to the greatness of Thy power, preserve Thou those that are appointed to die !"

I am, &c.

· Miss Williams to a Friend, describing several cruel Executions, by Decrees of the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Paris:

A FEW weeks after our release from prison, Rabaut de St. Etienne was put to death. He was one of the most enlightened and virtuous men whom the revolution had called forth, and had acquired general esteem by his conduct as a legislator, and considerable reputation by his talents as a writer. He was the president of the famous committee of twelve, which was appointed by the convention, previously to the 31st of May, to examine into the conspiracies which threatened its existence, and which, as I have already related, hastened its partial dissolution. Rabaut, as often as he presented himself to make the report, was compelled by the interruptions of the conspirators and their agents to retire from the tribune, until that moment arrived, when he, together with the members of the commission, and the deputies of the Gironde, were expelled or torn from the convention! I saw him on this memorable day (for he took shelter for a few hours at our house) filled with despair, not so much for the loss of his own life, which he then considered as inevitable, as for that of the liberty of his country, now falling under the vilest despotism. He escaped arrest on the 2d of June, from 'not

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