While Precini locked up and cheated the prisoners, there were not wanting others to sport with their misery. I dare say you have often read, in extracts taken from the Paris news-papers, of a noisy speaker in one of the sections, distinguished by his ridiculous assumption of the name of Brutus. This man is now a private sentinel, although but a few months since he was a general officer, and commanded the troops here. He was (like Tribout) originally a barber. During his command he took great delight in harassing the prisoners, and adding to their distresses. In one of these freaks an unlucky prognostic occurred of the decline of this great man’s glory. Some Englishmen who had broken out of prison, in order to effect their escape, were retaken, and brought back. To amuse himself, Brutus ordered them to be shackled with the heaviest irons which could be procured, and in this condition marched them several times round the prison-yard; in the centre of which, encompassed by his satellites, he stood, enjoying their pain and aukward movements. A Guernsey-man, who was of the number, as they passed by the General, looked him full in the face, and cried, “_Chacun à son tour_.” At the moment it caused only an increase of the universal merriment; but the prediction seemed to be in some measure verified, when, soon after, Brutus’s truncheon was taken from him, and a musquet put in its place. This letter will be forwarded to you by Mr. Robinson, the gentleman whose name is so often mentioned in it. After a captivity of eighteen months, he has received permission, in consideration of his wounds, to return to England, on condition of sending back a French officer of equal rank to himself.-------- Adieu. LETTER X. Quimper, 30th April, 1795.