ESCAPE OF THE REPUBLICAN EXILES. 105 



jolting of their rough carriages along the paved roads 

 of France, which was peculiarly felt by those men, 

 some of whom were in advanced life, all mature, and 

 all accustomed, of late years at least, to something 

 of luxury. The stages, too, were mercilessly long ; 

 generally from morning till night. The prisoners, 

 on their arrival, were thrust into the vilest dungeon 

 of the place, and the best in France is a horror to 

 every sense. At the end of the first day's journey 

 they were driven to the door of the prison of Arpa- 

 jon, a miserable little town, where, however, patriot- 

 ism flourished even in the jail. The Director Bar- 

 thelemy, almost bruised to death, and afraid of being 

 poisoned by the mephitic air that rushed up from the 

 dungeon, stood en attitude, lifting his hands to 

 heaven, the insulted Heaven in which not one in a 

 hundred of fools like himself believed. Barbe Mar- 

 bois, one of the prisoners, formerly an officer of the 

 King, and Royal Intendant at St Domingo, but now 

 a democrat, in like terror of being poisoned, made a 

 speech to the galley-slave commandant, requesting 

 " that he might be shot, rather than thus compelled 

 to die by inches." The galley-slave did not con- 

 descend to give any other answer than a smile. But 

 the jailer's wife was more affable. Indignant at the 

 insult to her domicile, probably equally indignant at 

 hearing a republican complain of any cruelty, she 

 seized Barbe Marbois by the arm, and crying out, 

 with an oath, " You pretend to be very nice, for- 



