My apartments consisted of three rooms; the first for wood, water, etc.,
with an old fashioned closet chest, high enough to hang up clothes in;
the next was the bed room; and beyond it the sitting room, which looked
into the garden through a glass door; and on the outside there was a
small landing place railed in, and a flight of narrow stairs almost
hidden by the vines that grew over it, by which I could descend into
the garden, without going down stairs through the house. I am trying
by description to make you see the place in your mind, because it will
assist the story I have to tell; and which I think you can do, because
you once called upon me there on account of Sir [Robert Smyth], who was
then, as I was soon afterwards, in arrestation. But it was winter when
you came, and it is a summer scene I am describing.
*****
I went into my chambers to write and sign a certificate for them, which
I intended to take to the guard house to obtain their release. Just as I
had finished it a man came into my room dressed in the Parisian uniform
of a captain, and spoke to me in good English, and with a good address.
He told me that two young men, Englishmen, were arrested and detained
in the guard house, and that the section, (meaning those who represented
and acted for the section,) had sent him to ask me if I knew them,
in which case they would be liberated. This matter being soon settled
between us, he talked to me about the Revolution, and something about
the "Rights of Man," which he had read in English; and at parting
offered me in a polite and civil manner, his services. And who do you
think the man was that offered me his services? It was no other than the
public executioner Samson, who guillotined the king, and all who were
guillotined in Paris; and who lived in the same section, and in the same
street with me.
*****
As to myself, I used to find some relief by walking alone in the garden
after dark, and cursing with hearty good will the authors of that
terrible system that had turned the character of the Revolution I had
been proud to defend.
I went but little to the Convention, and then only to make my
appearance; because I found it impossible to join in their tremendous
decrees, and useless and dangerous to oppose them. My having voted and
spoken extensively, more so than any other member, against the execution
of the king, had already fixed a mark upon me: neither dared any of my
associates in the Convention to translate and speak in French for me
anything I might have dared to have written.
*****
Pen and ink were then of no use to me: no good could be done by writing,
and no printer dared to print; and whatever I might have written for
my private amusement, as anecdotes of the times, would have been
continually exposed to be examined, and tortured into any meaning that
the rage of party might fix upon it; and as to softer subjects, my heart
was in distress at the fate of my friends, and my harp hung upon the
weeping willows.(1)
As it was summer we spent most of our time in the garden, and passed it
away in those childish amusements that serve to keep reflection from the
mind, such as marbles, scotch-hops, battledores, etc., at which we were
all pretty expert.
In this retired manner we remained about six or seven weeks, and our
landlord went every evening into the city to bring us the news of the
day and the evening journal.
I have now, my "Little Corner of the World," led you on, step by step,
to the scene that makes the sequel to this narrative, and I will put
that scene before your eyes. You shall see it in description as I saw it
in fact.