Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/240

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THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

chimney recess, it was found intact in 1815, and is now at Blairs College, Aberdeen.

At Dieulouard, near Pont-à-Mousson, was an English Benedictine monastery founded in 1609. The monks introduced hop-growing into the district, and themselves made beer on a considerable scale, supplying the Lorraine court, as long as there was a court, and exporting some to Germany. In 1790 the Assembly allowed the monks to remain as secular priests, and to retain all the property proved to have been bought with English benefactions; but in October 1793, after passports had been granted to the younger inmates, a mob broke into the monastery, and plundered and destroyed everything. Two monks and two lay brothers were arrested. The other inmates, warned in time, had escaped. The prior, Richard Marsh, has given a full account of his adventures—how he waded across rivers, avoided towns, was sheltered by friendly tenants, parried embarrassing questions, and at length got through a strictly guarded frontier to Treves. After three days' rest he walked on to Liège, where he was received with open arms by the English college, which supplied him with the means of getting to Ostend and thence to England. In May 1802 Marsh went to see what had become of the monastery. He heard how the prisoners had been kept eighteen months on bread and water, and found one of the survivors, tutor and chaplain to