consideration for us had no share. Alas! are we not miserable? is not
the country miserable, when our only resource is in the vices of those
who govern?--It is uncertain when we shall be ordered from hence--it may
happen when we least expect it, even in the night, so that I shall not
attempt to write again till we have changed our situation. The risk is
at present too serious, and you must allow my desire of amusing you to
give way to my solicitude for my own preservation.

Bicetre at Amiens, Nov. 18, 1793.

_Nous voila donc encore, logees a la nation;_ that is to say, the common
prison of the department, amidst the thieves, vagabonds, maniacs, &c.
confined by the old police, and the gens suspects recently arrested by
the new.--I write from the end of a sort of elevated barn, sixty or
seventy feet long, where the interstices of the tiles admit the wind from
all quarters, and scarcely exclude the rain, and where an old screen and
some curtains only separate Mad. de ____, myself, and our servants, from
sixty priests, most of them old, sick, and as wretched as men can be, who
are pious and resigned. Yet even here I feel comparatively at ease, and
an escape from the jurisdiction of Le Bon and his merciless tribunal
seems cheaply purchased by the sacrifice of our personal convenience. I
do not pretend to philosophize or stoicize, or to any thing else which
implies a contempt of life--I have, on the contrary, a most unheroic
solicitude about my existence, and consider my removal to a place where I
think we are safe, as a very fortunate aera of our captivity.

After many delays and disappointments, Fleury at length procured an
order, signed by the Representative, for our being transferred to Amiens,
under the care of two _Gardes Nationalaux,_ and, of course, at our
expence.--Every thing in this country wears the aspect of despotism. At
twelve o'clock at night we were awakened by the officer on guard, and
informed we were to depart on the morrow; and, notwithstanding the
difficulty of procuring horses and carriages, it was specified, that if
we did not go on the day appointed, we were not to go at all. It was, or
course, late before we could surmount the various obstacles to our
journey, and procure two crazy cabriolets, and a cart for the guards,
ourselves, and baggage. The days being short, we were obliged to sleep
at Dourlens; and, on our arrival at the castle, which is now, as it
always has been, a state-pris