Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/327

Rh In the council room and the library adjoining to it were four or five ladies. In the chapter house a family. In each room in the infirmary five or six ladies. In the novices' rooms seven bedsteads, one of iron for the Duke, who was so large a man that he could not enter at some of the room doors, and when the Duchess his daughter was ill he could not enter her chamber to visit her, because the doorway would not admit him. In the work-room were as many bedsteads as could stand. They were removed during the day, and all the gentlemen occupied it till late at night, when their beds were made. In the refectory as many beds were placed as could stand side by side; the same was the case in the cloisters and outhouses, and in this manner the whole enclosure was filled from top to bottom.

But it was a happy circumstance for the religious that their convent, being in a remote part of the city, was for that reason chosen as the more secure prison for the nobility; by which means there happened to be none in it but those from whom nuns experienced the best behaviour and on every occasion kindness and respect. And it is but justice to observe that the manner in which this portion of the French nobility behaved in such afflicting circumstances was truly Christian and edifying to those who were in prison with them. Several among them suffered death, and prepared themselves for it, having neither priests nor sacraments. A lady and her son eighteen years of age were brought in. She had lived too much in the dissipation of high life. She was observed to walk about alone and look very sad under her misfortunes. Sometimes she would cast up her eyes towards the windows of the nuns' cells when in the court, but as the religious kept themselves apart shut up in their cells, she could not speak to them as she seemed to wish to do. But one day she ventured to knock at one