Many of the stories told and assertions made upon the subject are absolutely false, others greatly exaggerated; although nobody who has ever studied the history of any country would imagine that any prison ever existed anywhere, until within the last few years, without a record of crime, oppression, and cruelty.
When Manuel, one of the authors of the September massacres, was taken to the Conciergerie and stood before the tribunal, a group of prisoners standing by, regardless of the gendarmes, pushed him against a pillar, still stained with the blood shed on that fearful day, with cries of See the blood you shed, [106] and through applause and bravos he passed to his doom.Madame, do you know what it costs to wish for once in ones life to see the sun rise? Read that and tell me what you think of the poetry of our friends.I have said before, I think, that the Comte de Beaujolais did not share the opinions of his family, and I have pleasure in quoting a paragraph on this subject written by Marie Antoinette in a letter to her sister the Archduchess Christine, governess of the Low Countries.
Director
ALL the great artists, musicians, actors, and literary people who had returned to Paris after the Terror came to the salon of Mme. de Genlis; and many were the strange and terrible stories they had to tell of their escapes and adventures.