ESCAPE OF THE REPUBLICAN EXILES. 121 



why those gentlemen are continually importuning me. 

 They ought to know that they have not been sent to 

 Sinamary to live there to all eternity" 



The advance of the year, the wretchedness of a 

 confinement which would probably lay them all in 

 the grave before another autumn, and probably offers 

 of help from some of the settlers at Cayenne, who 

 were of a different side in politics from the governor, 

 at last suggested the idea of escape. Eight entered 

 into the scheme. Of these Du Coudray was one. 

 But it was soon evident that he would never leave 

 the prison. Still he was anxious to share the at- 

 tempt. He would say, " I do not flatter myself with 

 the hope of living, but if you go, take me with you. 

 I Avould breathe my last outside this horrid place. 

 Take me with you, if possible." 



But the increase of his disorder put the possibility 

 out of the question. Towards the end of May, both 

 he and Laffond died, after a horrible and protracted 

 illness of nearly thirty days. Du Coudray, on the 

 night before his death, desired to see Pichegru and 

 the others who had agreed to make their escape, when 

 he gave them some of the wisdom that agony and the 

 deathbed force upon men. " Fly," said he, " fly 

 from Sinamary. May Heaven favour your flight ! 

 I shall soon be no more. But should you ever see 

 my friends, tell them my last sigh was for them and 

 my country, and forget not my children. Should 

 fortune ever smile on you again, oh, do not disturb 



