‘Tu veux, mon cher ami, que ranimant ma verve Je te peigne sans fard, sans crainte, et sans réserve, Le Tableau des tourmens et de l’affliction Sous lesquels sont plongés les captifs d’Albion. J’obéis à la voix, et ma muse craintive, Entonnant à regret la trompette plaintive, Va chanter sur des tons, hélas! bien douloureux, Les maux, les maux cuisans de bien des malheureux.’ LXIV ‘Je t’ai dépeint sans fard l’exacte vérité, Tels sont les maux cruels de la captivité. O vous qui de bonheur goûtez en paix les charmes, Si vous lisez mes vers, donnez-nous quelques larmes; S’ils n’impriment chez vous une tendre affection, Vous êtes, plus que nous, dignes de compassion!’ Speaking of the horrible moral effects of the bad treatment he says: ‘The ruin of their comrades and the depravities which were daily committed in public, impressed right thinking men with so frightful force that this place means a double suffering to them.’ In 1812 it was reported that a batch of incurables would be sent home to France, and Beaudouin resolved to get off with them by making himself ill. He starved himself into such a condition that he was sent into hospital, but the doctor would not pass him as an incurable. He swallowed tobacco juice, and at last, in a miserable state, turned up with the candidates. Then it was announced that no privateersmen, but only regular seamen, would be sent. Beaudouin, being a soldier, and being among the privateersmen, was in despair. However, a kindly English doctor pitied him, cured him of his self-inflicted illness, and got him leave to go. On June 2, 1812, he was ready to sail, but was searched first for letters. Luckily none were discovered, although he had sixty sewn between the soles of his shoes, and 200 in a box with a double bottom. He sailed on June 4, the king’s birthday—that day eight years previously he had arrived at Greenock amidst the Royal salutes—arrived at Morlaix, and so home to Boiscommun (Loiret), canton of Beaune-la-Rolande, arrondissement of Pithiviers.