An officer named Saint Méard, who was confined in the Abbaye, has written, under the title, ‘Mon Agonie de trente–huit heures,’ an account of the feelings and conduct of the prisoners during the frightful period of suspense, which elapsed between the commencement of the massacres, and the moment when the fatal summons reached each of the sufferers. “Our most important occupation,” he says, “was to observe in what manner death might be met most easily when we should enter the place of slaughter. From time to time we sent one of our number to a turret–window, to let us know how the miserable men who were destroyed met their fate, and to consider, from what they told us, how it would be best for us to conduct ourselves. They said that those who stretched out their hands protracted their sufferings, because the sabre–strokes were deadened before they reached the head: that sometimes their hands and arms were even hewn off before they fell, and that those who placed their hands behind their backs would suffer least. It was on such horrid particulars as these that we had to deliberate. We calculated the advantages of this last–named position, and in turn advised each other to assume it when our turn should arrive.” It is hard to conceive a situation more trying to human fortitude. The prisoners generally met their fate with firmness, and in many instances boldly avowed and gloried in the principles and hereditary honours which were the sure passports to their fate. In some few instances the murderers relented. One or two men were preserved by the devoted interposition of female relatives. But very few of those who were imprisoned on political grounds lived to relate the horrors which they had passed through. Saint Méard, although he boldly avowed himself a royalist, was one of the number.[75] For four days did this frightful scene continue, unsanctioned by authority, save the instigation and half–expressed approbation of the Commune, perpetrated by an insignificant mob, who, with the smallest portion of energy, might have been overpowered at once. The Legislative Assembly sent some of their members to remonstrate; men known as Jacobins, who came back, and related that their interference had been ineffectual, and no further steps were taken. The National Guard remained quiet, waiting the orders of their superiors. Meanwhile, amid this fear or lethargy, for neither the Assembly nor the Guard viewed this butchery with favourable eyes, the judges and executioners ate, drank, and slept, and returned unmolested and with new vigour to their several functions.