But to continue--after a long confinement, the priest was brought to a trial with a number of other persons, and charged with conspiring against the Republic. He and they were all found guilty and condemned to public execution. But at that moment a courier arrived with news of the fall and death of Robespierre, and orders to suspend all carnage until further directions from the Committee of Public Safety. “What evidence was adduced against you?” I asked. “None, save that I was a _ci-devant_ minister of religion.” “You have suffered,” said I, “because you were a priest; and here,” pointing to de la Metherie, “is one who has suffered because he was a philosopher.” In the progress of the fiery Revolution, the different Governments of France must have been inspired by the spirit of a merry devil, for if such charges were sufficient to deprive a man of his liberty nine-tenths of the French people ought to have been locked up. But although de la Metherie was in no way interested in politics, he was suspected of being a suspicious man. When the ruling power wished to criminate or murder a man, every circumstance of his life from infancy was raked up and passed under review, and therefore no accused individual could hope to escape if his destruction was decided upon. The accusation against this philosopher was that of coolness, indifference and incivism, because, amidst the noise of arms and domestic slaughter, he continued to cultivate in the sequestered shade of private life, the philosophy of nature. By a miracle he escaped--the fall of the tyrant Robespierre calmed the fury of the Terror, and de la Metherie was more fortunate than Lavoisier[1]--after a few months’ rigorous confinement he was released from his prison. He was permitted to return to his house, the seals were taken off his library, his beautiful collections of plants and minerals, and his manuscripts. The _Journal de Physique_, which he had edited for above twenty years, again shone forth in all its wonted splendour. Monsieur de la Metherie assured me that during the time of the Revolutionary Tribunals, it was in serious contemplation to reduce the population of France to 14,000,000. Dubois Crouée[1] was a very distinguished and enthusiastic partisan of this humane and philosophical policy.