is to explain the matter as
it really stood; but his candour, without availing Custine, drew
persecution on himself, and the only notice taken of his letter was an
order to arrest him. After being dragged from one town to another, like
a criminal, and often lodged in dungeons and common prisons, he was at
length deposited here.

I know not if the General's principles are republican, but he has a very
democratic pair of whiskers, which he occasionally strokes, and seems to
cherish with much affection. He is, however, a gentleman-like man, and
expresses such anxiety for the fate of his wife and children, who are now
at Paris, that one cannot but be interested in his favour.--As the agents
of the republic never err on the side of omission, they arrested Mons.
Laveneur's aid-de-camp with him; and another officer of his acquaintance,
who was suspended, and living at Amiens, has shared the same fate, only
for endeavouring to procure him a trifling accommodation. This gentleman
called on Dumont, to beg that General Laveneur's servant might be
permitted to go in and out of the prison on his master's errands. After
breakfasting together, and conversing on very civil terms, Dumont told
him, that as he concerned himself so much in behalf of his friend, he
would send him to keep the latter company, and at the conclusion of his
visit he was sent prisoner to the Bicetre.

Perhaps the greater part of between three and four hundred thousand
people, now imprisoned on suspicion, have been arrested for reasons as
little substantial.

--I begin to fear my health will not resist the hardship of a long
continuance here. We have no fire-place, and are sometimes starved
with partial winds from the doors and roof; at others faint and heartsick
with the unhealthy air produced by so many living bodies. The water we
drink is not preferable to the air we breathe; the bread (which is now
every where scarce and bad) contains such a mixture of barley, rye,
damaged wheat, and trash of all kinds, that, far from being nourished by
it, I lose both my strength and appetite daily.--Yet these are not the
worst of our sufferings. Shut out from all society, victims of a
despotic and unprincipled government capable of every thing, and ignorant
of the fate which may await us, we are occasionally oppressed by a
thousand melancholy apprehensions. I might, indeed, have boasted of my
fortitude, and have made myself an heroine on paper at as small an
expen