ESCAPE OF THE EEPUBLICAN EXILES. 103 



they let them go away ; or why are they suffered to 

 take any of their things with them ? " 



At two in the morning of the 8th of September, 

 those men, to the number of sixteen, who were to be 

 speedily followed by 163 more, were put into four 

 cages, secured with iron bars on their four sides, and 

 the cages fixed on the frames of waggons, the whole 

 rough equipage somewhat resembling an artillery 

 tumbril. A guard sat in each cage, carrying the key 

 of the padlock that fastened the iron grating by 

 which it was entered. The galley-slave commandant 

 of the Temple was put at the head of their guard, 

 which consisted of 600 men, cavalry and infantry, 

 with two guns. The transit was miserable. The 

 winter had set in with unusual inclemency. As if 

 to add studied mortification to the natural evils of 

 the conveyance and the exile, the escort took a round 

 through the principal streets of Paris ; first carried 

 their wretched prisoners within sight of the Luxem- 

 bourg palace, the seat of their masters, which they 

 saw full of lights and apparent festivity, and then by 

 the Theatre of the Odeon, which had been converted 

 into a hall for the Council of Five Hundred, and 

 where the Council were sitting even at that hour, 

 several of whose members ran out to insult and 

 triumph over them, stopped the escort, gave money 

 and drink to the soldiers, made contemptuous offers 

 of mercy, drank to their good voyage, and sneered at 

 them to the last. 



