It would be difficult to describe the confusion caused by the unpacking of the many vehicles loaded with mattresses and other things belonging to the prisoners, all thrown haphazard in the court, without other order than to unload them, and that the bundles should not be taken upstairs till the next day, when there would be time to examine them. Consequently it was the custom to go to bed on a chair the first night, after a very scanty supper, or to accept the mattress of some prisoner willing to deprive himself of it. As we passed the iron grating at the entrance of the place, I recalled the 2d of September, and said to Monsieur de Reignac that it was quite probable that we were being gathered together to be made to submit to the same fate; he seemed to think so too. Several attempts had been made to invent conspiracies, which had in fact no real existence at Chantilly any more than in other prisons. In order to render the name prison less terrible, they were called houses of arrest, of justice, of detention, etc.; but as during the Reign of Terror these words were synonyms, I shall make use of them without distinction. The whole party was taken into a beautifully gilded chapel, where I had heard Mass in the time of the Prince de Condé. It was quite filled with bags of flour; I found one which was placed in a comfortable position, and seated myself on it. Then the steward of the house, by name Notté, member for the Department of the Oise, mounted on the altar steps to call the roll, holding in his hand the list of those who composed the party; he had on his right a man named Marchand (who was the son of a very respectable waiting-woman of my aunt, Madame la Maréchale de Noailles), an agent of the Revolutionary army, who was in the confidence of the Committee of Public Safety. He seemed to take pleasure, as the names of the priests and nobles were called, in saying the harshest and most cutting things to them. A village vicar from the environs of Beauvais, and I had the worst of it all. This poor priest was quite in a tremor; but as for me, I did not mind it at all. This man Marchand asked Notté if he had taken care to see that I was very poorly lodged, and he replied that he had selected for me the smallest room to be had. When the roll-call was over, Mademoiselle Dubois, my waiting-woman, asked permission to remain in prison with me. The commissioners refused her request, and declared their determination of sending away all those not prisoners who up to that time had remained in the place. She was much grieved at parting from me. I was not sorry to give her up, for I had been extremely worried to see her suffering and deprived of liberty on account of her attachment to me. I remember with gratitude the feeling she showed for me at that time, and I am very glad to record it in this memoir. After a very long and wearisome discussion we left the chapel, quite curious to see our new quarters. I was agreeably surprised when they conducted