CHAPTER X.
"Alas! full oft on Guilt's victorious car The spoils of Virtue are in triumph borne, While the fair captive, marked with many a scar, In lone obscurity, oppressed, forlorn, Resigns to tears her angel form."-- BEATTIE.
A close prisoner in her own house, Madame de Fleury was now guarded by men suddenly become soldiers, and sprung from the dregs of the people; men of brutal manners, ferocious countenances, and more ferocious minds.
They seemed to delight in the insolent display of their newly-acquired power.

One of those men had formerly been convicted of some horrible crime, and had been sent to the galleys by M.de Fleury.

Revenge actuated this wretch under the mask of patriotism, and he rejoiced in seeing the wife of the man he hated a prisoner in his custody.

Ignorant of the facts, his associates were ready to believe him in the right, and to join in the senseless cry against all who were their superiors in fortune, birth, and education.

This unfortunate lady was forbidden all intercourse with her friends, and it was in vain she attempted to obtain from her gaolers intelligence of what was passing in Paris.
"Tu verras--Tout va bien--Ca ira," were the only answers they deigned to make; frequently they continued smoking their pipes in obdurate silence.
She occupied the back rooms of her house, because her guards apprehended that she might from the front windows receive intelligence from her friends.