In fact I have been denounced and, as there is still room for a few more in the prisons, I should have had a cell placed at my disposal, if I had remained there many more hours; so I thought that I should be safer, down here, till there was some change in the state of affairs." "And you brought madame down with you ?" "Assuredly.

I had only the choice open to me of sending her across to England, and of making my home there, or of coming here.

If there had been no prospect of trouble here, I might have joined the army of our countrymen who are in exile; but as, from all I heard, La Vendee was ready to take up arms, I determined to come here; partly because, had I left the country, my estates here would have been confiscated; partly because I should like to strike a blow, myself, at these tyrants of Paris, who seem bent on destroying the whole of the aristocracy of France, of wiping out the middle classes, and dividing the land and all else among the scum of the towns." Three or four months passed quietly.

There were occasional skirmishes between the peasants, and parties of troops in search of priests who refused to obey the orders of the Assembly.

At Nantes, the work of carrying out mock trials, and executing those of the better classes who had been swept into the prisons, went on steadily.