“The soldiers contented themselves with running their bayonets through several pictures. My mother slipped away to give orders for my concealment. Then, with my sister, who would not leave her for a minute, and my aunt, then seventy-three years of age, they departed, followed by their servants, who hoped to make themselves useful by mixing with the soldiers. “The journey was most trying. They spent the night at Fix. The next morning, on arriving at Le Puy, my mother requested to be immediately conducted to the ‘Département.’ ‘I respect orders coming from the administration,’ she said to the commissary, ‘as much as I detest those coming from elsewhere.’ “The entrance into the town was perilous; a few days previously a prisoner had been massacred on his way through the suburbs. My mother said to my sister, ‘If your father knew you were here, how anxious he would be; but at the same time what pleasure your conduct would give him.’ “The prisoners arrived without injury, although several stones were thrown into the carriage. They alighted at the ‘Département,’ the members of which had been immediately convoked. As soon as the sitting began, my mother said that she placed herself with confidence under the protection of the ‘Département,’ because in it she beheld the authority of the people, which she always respected wherever it could be found. “‘You receive, Messieurs,’ she added, ‘your orders from M. Roland or from whomsoever you please. As for me, I only choose to receive them from you, and I give myself up as your prisoner.’ “She then requested my father’s letters should be copied before they were sent to Paris, observing that falsehoods were often brought before the Assembly; she asked leave to read these letters aloud. Some one having expressed the fear that doing so might be painful to her. ‘On the contrary,’ she replied, ‘I find support and comfort in the feelings they contain.’ She was listened to at first with interest, then with deep emotion. “After having read the letters and looked over the copies, she begged not to leave the house of the ‘Département’ as long as she remained at Le Puy. She exposed the injustice of her detention, how useless and perilous a journey to Paris would be, and concluded by saying that if they persisted in keeping her as a hostage, she would be much obliged to the ‘Département,’ were she allowed to make Chavaniac her prison, and in that case she offered her parole not to leave it. It was decided in the next sitting that the ‘Département’ should present her request to the minister. While awaiting the reply, the prisoners were to inhabit the building belonging to the administration.