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.

1 This allusion is to the Girondins.--_Editor._,

2 Yorke omits the description "from motives of personal
delicacy." The case was that of young Johnson, a wealthy
devotee of Paine in London, who had followed him to Paris
and lived in the same house with him. Hearing that Marat had
resolved on Paine's death, Johnson wrote a will bequeathing
his property to Paine, then stabbed himself, but recovered.
Paine was examined about this incident at Marat's trial.
(Moniteur, April 24, 1793.) See my "Life of Paine," vol.
ii., p. 48 seq.--_Editor._.

*****

He recovered, and being anxious to get out of France, a passage was
obtained for him and Mr. Choppin: they received it late in the evening,
and set off the next morning for Basle before four, from which place I
had a letter from them, highly pleased with their escape from France,
into which they had entered with an enthusiasm of patriotic devotion.
Ah, France! thou hast ruined the character of a Revolution virtuously
begun, and destroyed those who produced it. I might almost say like
Job's servant, "and I only am escaped."

Two days after they were gone I heard a rapping at the gate, and looking
out of the window of the bed room I saw the landlord going with the
candle to the gate, which he opened, and a guard with musquets and fixed
bayonets entered. I went to bed again, and made up my mind for prison,
for I was then the only lodger. It was a guard to take up [Johnson and
Choppin], but, I thank God, they were out of their reach.

The guard came about a month after in the night, and took away the
landlord Georgeit; and the scene in the house finished with the
arrestation of myself. This was soon after you called