<000005>There were a thousand prisoners in the Luxembourg alone, and strange romances, thrilling escapes, fearful tragedies, and touching stories could indeed be told of what passed within the walls of those gloomy prisons.
Louis Vige was neither in principles nor tastes at all in sympathy with the new philosophic party; on the contrary, he looked with disapproval and uneasiness upon the future, from which they were so eagerly expecting their millenium.
ONE:Three years later, under the rule of the apostles of liberty, fraternity, and equality, there were thousands of prisons of the State crammed with prisoners, besides the supplementary prisons hastily arranged in the ancient convents, palaces, and colleges of Paris.
Early in November the Duc dOrlans sent [430] M. Maret with a summons to Mme. de Genlis either to bring Mademoiselle back to France or to give her into his care as her escort. Mme. de Genlis, not liking to desert the young girl, though most unwilling to return to France, agreed to accompany her, and before they left, Sheridan, who had fallen violently in love with Pamela, proposed to her and was accepted. It was settled that they should be married in a fortnight, when Mme. de Genlis expected to be back in England.A post in one of the royal households was an object of general ambition. Durufl, though a poet and well-known literary man who had received a prize from the Academy, applied for and obtained the appointment of valet e chambre to the young Comte de Provence, second grandson of the King, afterwards Louis XVIII., and was in consequence obliged to put on his stockings, in doing which he accidentally hurt him.From the first moment of this interview Tallien was seized with an overpowering passion for her, which he was compelled to conceal by the presence of the gaoler, who waited to re-conduct the prisoner to her cell, and before whom if he showed either pity or sympathy, in spite of all his power as a leader of the Revolution, he would endanger his own safety and increase her danger. Therefore he only bowed, signed to her to sit down, and took a chair opposite her.About this time she arranged for her brother an excellent marriage which turned out very happily. She had the young people to live with her at first, and M. de Genlis was extremely kind to them; but at the end of some months Mme. de Montesson, in whom she had contrived to arouse an interest in them, took them to live permanently with her.