Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/25

 On the closing of Fort l'Evêque in 1780 Massareene had been transferred to La Force, magniloquently styled by Louis Blanc the "Bastille of usury." In May 1789, Richard-Lenoir, the future reviver of the cotton industry in France, became, at the age of twenty-four, his fellow-prisoner, and his memoirs, allowing for the lapse of nearly half a century and for possible embellishments by Herbinot de Mauchamps, to whom, being himself no scribe, he apparently dictated them, may be accepted as substantially accurate. I quote the passage in full from this long-forgotten book:—

"We had for companion in misfortune an English lord, Mazaren, eighteen years a prisoner. He had married in prison the sister of another prisoner, who had since recovered his liberty. Every morning his wife and brother-in-law arrived as soon as the gates were opened, and did not leave till evening. There was something touching in the felicity of this strange household. Through them we knew of everything that was going on in Paris, and could follow, step by step, the Revolution which was beginning. Lord Mazaren especially, who had no hope except in a general overturn, was quite absorbed by it, and almost electrified us for liberty, which, indeed, for us poor prisoners, was only natural. We were not ignorant of what had happened at Réveillon's, when, on July 13, 1789, just as we were about to assemble after the opening of the doors in a kind of garden or gravelled court. Lord Mazaren suggested to us the forcing of our way out. Whether he was beforehand certain of the impassiveness of the jailors and soldiers,