ESCAPE OF THE KEPUBLICAX EXILES. 109 



farewell. She saw him at last, but with great diffi- 

 culty ; the officer of the guard giving her but a quar- 

 ter of an hour, during which he was present, holding 

 his watch in his hand. Their departure from Blois 

 was so unusually protracted, that it seemed to the 

 prisoners to have been a contrivance, usual enough 

 in the days of equality, to give them up to the mob. 

 The firmness of the municipal officer who had charge 

 of them, and who openly declared that the people 

 were at the moment tampered with by the officers 

 of the escort for the purpose, at length compelled 

 the commandant to move. The procession was fol- 

 lowed out of the town by the same retributive excla- 

 mations against them, as traitors stained with the 

 blood of their King. 



Their journey continued ; a course of hunger, 

 weariness, and insult. At Tours, they got each a 

 loaf and half a bottle of wine, their first meal after 

 a fast of thirty hours. The confinement of their 

 cages cramped their limbs, and put them to the 

 most miserable inconveniences ; for, from the time 

 when the iron grating was locked upon them in the 

 morning, it was seldom opened again till night. The 

 weather was stormy, wet, and cold, and the cages 

 gave them the full benefit of the exposure. They 

 were generally put into the town dungeon for the 

 night ; and in several instances, the poisoned air of 

 those deplorable places made them swoon imme- 

 diately on their entering. At Niort they passed the 



