Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-05-18


me at Oporto. and promise you that they
did not give such a formidable opponent
chance of slipping through their fingers.
1t was on the 10th of August that 1 was
escorted on bos.Id the transport which was
to take US 10 England, and behold me be-
fore the end of the month in the great
prison which had been built for us at Dart
moor. Il hotel Francois, ct Pension" we
used to call it, for you understand that We
were all brave men there, and that We did
not lose cur spirits because We were in adj
verSity.
1t was only those officers who refused to
give their parole who were confined at
Dartnoor. and most of the prisoners We're
seamen, or from the ranks. You ask me,
perhaps, why it was that l did not give
this parole, and so enjoy the same treat
ment as most of my brother officers Well,
had two reasons, and both of them were
sufficiently strong.
In the first place, 1 had so much conf
dence in myself that l was quite convinced
that l could escape. In the second. my
family, though OF good repute. has never
been wealthy, and l could not bring my
self to take anything from the small in
come of my mother. On the other hand. it
would never do for a man like me to be
outshone by the bourgeois society of an
English country town, or to be without the
means of showing courteSieS and attentions
to those ladies' whom L should attract. 1t
was for these reasons that L preferred to
he buried in the dreadful prison of Dart
moor. L wish now to tell you of my adj
ventures in England, and of how far Milor
Wellingtons words were true when he said
that his king would hold me-
And, first of all, | may say that If it were
not that | have set off to tell you about
what befell myself. 1 could keep you here
until morning with my stories about Dart
moor itself, and about the singular things
which occurred there. 1t was one OF the
very strangest places in the whole world
for there, in the middle of that great desc
late waste, We're herded together seven or
thousand
stand. men of experience and courage.
Around there were a double wall, and a
ditch, and warders and soldiers, but my
faith. you could not coop men Ike that up
like rabbits in a hutch They would es
cape by twos and tens and twenties, and
then the cannon would boom, and the
search parties run. and we, who were left
behind, would laugh and dance and shout
''Vive TEmpereur,' until the warders would
turn their muskets upon us in their pas
sion. And then we would have our little
mutinies, too, and up would come the in
fantry and the guns from Plymouth, and
that would set us yelling 'Five Temper
eur" once more, as though we wished them
to hear us in Paris. We had lively mo-
ments at Dartmoor. and we contrived that
these who were about us should be lively
also
You must know that the prisoners there
had their own courts of justice, in which
they tried their own cases. and inflicted
their own punishments Stealing and
quarreling were puniShed-but most of all
treachery. When l came there first there
was man, Meunier from Rheims. who
had given information OF some plot to es-
cape. Well, that night, owing to some
form or other which had to be gone
through, they did not take him out from
among the other prisoners, and though he
wept and screamed. and groveled upon the
ground, they left him there among the
comrades whom he had betrayed. That
night there was trial with a whispered
accusation and a whispered defense, a
gagged prisoner, and a judge whom none