Verdun is famous for its female sacrifices. According to Gregory of Tours[115], Deuteric, to protect his daughter from the prosecution of Theodebert[116], placed her in a cart drawn by two untamed oxen and had her flung into the Meuse. The instigator of the massacre of the young girls of Verdun was the regicide poetaster Pons de Verdun[117], who was infuriated against his native city. The number of agents of the Terror supplied by the _Almanach des Muses_ is incredible; the unsatisfied vanity of the mediocrities produced as many revolutionaries as the wounded pride of the cripples and abortions: a revolt analogous to that of the infirmities of mind and body. Pons attached the point of a dagger to his blunt epigrams. Faithful, as it seemed, to the traditions of Greece, the poet was willing to offer none save the blood of virgins to his gods: for the Convention decreed, on his motion, that no woman with child could be put on her trial. He also caused the sentence to be annulled condemning Madame de Bonchamps to death, the widow of the celebrated Vendean general[118]. Alas, we Royalists in the train of the Princes attained the reverses of the Vendée without passing through its glory! We had not at Verdun, to pass the time, "that famous Comtesse de Saint-Balmont[119], who laid aside her female apparel, mounted on horseback, and herself served as an escort to the ladies who accompanied her or whom she had left in her chariot..." We had no passion for "old Gallic," nor did we write "notes in the language of Amadis[120]." The Prussian evil[121] communicated itself to our little army: I caught it. Our cavalry had gone to join Frederic William at Valmy. We knew nothing of what was happening, and were hourly expecting the order to march forward: we received the order to beat a retreat. [Sidenote: I am weakened by my wound.] Very greatly weakened, and prevented by my troublesome wound from walking without pain, I dragged myself as best I could in the wake of my company, which soon dispersed. Jean Balue[122], son of a miller at Verdun, left his father's house at a very early age with a monk, who burdened him with his wallet. On leaving Verdun, "Ford Hill" according to Saumaise[123], _ver dunum_, I carried the wallet of the Monarchy, but I did not become Comptroller of Finance, nor a bishop or cardinal. If, in the novels which I have written, I have drawn upon my own history, in the histories which I have told I have placed memories of the living history in which I took part. Thus, in my life of the Duc de Berry[124], I described some of the scenes which took place before my eyes: "When an army is disbanded, it returns to its homes; but had the soldiers of Condé's Army any homes? Whither was the stick to lead them which they were hardly permitted to cut in the forests of Germany, after laying down the musket which they had taken up in defense of their King?...