“My brother and I remained in the horrible room in which my mother was confined. We all three offered up our prayers to God. At twelve o’clock M. Gissaguer entered the room and said it was time to depart. My mother gave her last instructions to George and to myself, and made us promise to seek and to seize upon every means of joining my father. She grieved at seeing us undergo so young such cruel misfortunes. “My sister passed that day at Le Puy. In spite of innumerable obstacles she succeeded in seeing the _citoyen_ Guyardin. She conjured him to have an inquiry made with respect to my mother’s conduct and to forward it to Paris. He did not move, remained seated at his bureau, and continued writing, while she was addressing him in the most urgent manner. He refused to read a letter from my mother handed to him by Anastasie, saying that he could not trouble himself about a prisoner who was summoned to Paris, and adding most vulgar jokes to his refusal. My unfortunate sister left the room in a most violent state of despair and indignation. The cruel Guyardin did not grant her the necessary permission to travel out of the department and to follow my mother’s carriage, and my poor sister, in despair, was obliged to let M. Frestel set off without her. “My mother arrived in Paris on the 19th of _Prairial_, three days before the decree of the 22d, which organized _une terreur dans la Terreur_. At that time no less than sixty people were daily falling victims of the Revolutionary Tribunal. All seemed to forebode approaching death to my mother. You may fancy the anguish of mind in which we spent the two months which followed my mother’s departure for Paris. We were daily expecting to hear of the greatest misfortune which could befall us. Towards that time the château of Chavaniac and the furniture were sold. “The peasants of the _commune_ brought us with hearty good will all that was necessary for our subsistence. Every day it was reported that my aunt and my sister were to be sent to the prison of Brioude, whilst my brother and myself were to be taken to the hospital. As for my mother, the life she was leading at La Petite Force was dreadful. At the end of a fortnight my mother was transferred to Le Plesis. This building, formerly a college where my father had been educated, had been turned into a prison. “Since the law of the 22d of _Prairial_, the Revolutionary Tribunal sent each day sixty persons to the scaffold. One of the buildings of Le Plesis served as a depot to the Conciergerie, so every morning twenty prisoners could be seen departing for the guillotine. ‘The thought of soon being one of the victims,’ my mother wrote, ‘makes one endure such a sight with more firmness.’ Twice she fancied that she was being called to take her place amongst the victims.