The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-06-14

they did not give such formidable op-
ponent a chance of slipping through
their fingers. It was on the 10th of
August that / was escorted on board the
transport which was to take us TO En-
gland, and behold me before the end of
the month in the great prison which
had been built for us at Dartmoorl
"L' hotel Francais, ct Pension,n we used
to call it, for you understand that we
were all brave men there, and that we did
not lose our spirits because we were in
adversity.
IT was only those officers who refused
to give their parole who were confined
at Dartmoor, and most of the prisoners
were seamen, or from the ranks You
ask me, perhaps, why 1t was that i did
not give this parole, and so enjoy the
same treatment as most of my brother
officers. Well, / had two reasons, and
both of them were sufficiently strong.
In the first place, i had so much con-
fidence in myself that / was quite con-
vinced that could escape. In the second,
my family, though of good repute, has
never been wealthy, and / could not
bring myself TO take anything from the
small income Of my mother. On the
other hand, IL would never do for a
man like me TO be outshone by the bour-
geois society of an English country
town, or TO be without the means OF
showing courtesies and attentions to
those ladies whom j should attract. 1t
was for these reasons that / preferred to
be buried in the dreadful prison OF the
Dartmoor. i wish now TO tell YOU of
my adventure in England, and of how
far Milor Wellington's words were true
when he said that his king would hold
me.
And the first OF all may say that, IL it
were not that i have set off to tell you
about what befell myself, / could keep
you here until morning with my stories
about Dartmoor itself, and about the sin
gular things which occurred there. 1t
was one of the very strangest places in
the whole world, for there, in the middle
of that great desolate waste, were
herded together seven or eight thousand
men-warrlors, you understand, men of
experience and courage. Around there
were a double wall, and a ditch, and
warders and soldiers, but, my faithl
you could not coop men like that up like
rabbits in a hutchl They would escape
by twos and tens and twenties and then
the cannon would boom, and then the
search parties run, and we, who were
left behind, would laugh and dance and
shout "Nive pEmpereur," until the
warders would turn their muskets upon
us In their passion. And then we have
our little mutinies, too, and up would
come the infantry and the guns from
Plymouth, and that would set US yelling
"Vive pEmperuer" once more as though
we wished them to hear US In Paris. We
had lively moments at Dartmoor, and
we contrlved that those who were about
US would 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 troachery. When / came
there first there Mon tnf
from Rheims, who had given information
OF some plot 10 escape. Well. that night,
owing 10 some form or other which had
10 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 a trial
with whispered accusation and a whis-
pered defense, gagged prisoner, and a
Judge whom none could see. In the
morning when they came for their man
with papers for his release, there was not
as much OF him left as you could put up-
on your thumb nail. They were ingeni-
Gus people, these prisoners, and they had
their own way OF managing.
We officers, however, lived i'm a separate
wing, and very singular group Of peo-
pie we were They had left us our uni
forms, 20 that there was hardly n corps
which had served under Victor or Mas
sena, or Ney, which was not represented
there, and some had been there from the
time when Junot was beaten at Nimiera.
We had chassours In their green tunics,
and hussars like myself, and blue-coated
dragons, and white-fronted lancers, and
voltigeurs, and grenadicrs, and men OF
the artillery and engineers. But the
greater part were naval officers, for the
English had had the better of US upon
the seas. i could never understand this