r service, if he would divulge what he knew of the plans of
his Government, of its connections with the discontented in this country,
and of its means of keeping up a correspondence with them. He replied,
as might have been expected, with indignation, to such offers and to such
proposals, but as they were frequently repeated with new allurements, he
concluded with remaining silent and giving no answers at all. He was
then told that the torture would soon restore him his voice, and some
select gendarmes seized him and laid him on the rack; there he uttered no
complaint, not even a sigh, though instruments the most diabolical were
employed, and pains the most acute must have been endured. When
threatened that he should expire in torments, he said:
"I do not fear to die, because my country will avenge my murder, while my
God receives my soul." During the two hours of the first day that he was
stretched on the rack, his left arm and right leg were broken, and his
nails torn from the toes of both feet; he then passed into the hands of a
surgeon, and was under his care for five weeks, but, before he was
perfectly cured, he was carried to another private interrogatory, at
which, besides Desmarets, Fouche and Real were present.
The Minister of Police now informed him that, from the mutilated state of
his body, and from the sufferings he had gone through, he must be
convinced that it was not the intention of the French Government ever to
restore him to his native country, where he might relate occurrences
which the policy of France required to be buried in oblivion; he,
therefore, had no choice between serving the Emperor of the French, or
perishing within the walls of the prison where he was confined. He
replied that he was resigned to his destiny, and would die as he had
lived, faithful to his King and to his country.
The man in full possession of his mental qualities and corporeal strength
is, in most cases, very different from that unfortunate being whose mind
is, enervated by sufferings and whose body is weakened by wants. For
five months Captain Wright had seen only gaolers, spies, tyrants,
executioners, fetters, racks, and other tortures; and for five weeks his
food had been bread and his drink water. The man who, thus situated and
thus perplexed, preserves his native dignity and innate sentiments, is
more worthy of monuments, statues, or altars than either the legislator,
the victor, or the saint.
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