Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/347

Rh Paris with the nuns. A servant who attended him seemed ready to die with grief, and the good old gentleman shed tears at parting. The above religious quitted the Compiègne prison in the most saint-like manner. We saw them embrace each other before they set off, and they took an affectionate leave of us by the motion of their hands and other friendly gestures. On their way to the scaffold itself (as we were informed by an eyewitness of respectability and credit), they behaved with a firm and cheerful composure which nothing but a spotless conscience could inspire, resulting from a joyful hope and confidence in the blessed recompense that attended their sufferings in the cause of virtue. They repeated aloud on the scaffold the Litanies of the Blessed Virgin, until the fatal axe interrupted the voice of the last of this holy company. They suffered the 16th of July 1794. One of the community happened to be absent when her sisters were taken to Paris; she concealed herself in different places during the life of the tyrant Robespierre. After he ceased to exist, which event took place on the 28th of July 1794, she returned to Compiègne and frequently visited us. She also favoured us with the names and ages of her deceased sisters, which are as follows:—

Two or three days after the Carmelites were gone to Paris, the mayor and two members of the district of