Massareene found no obstacle to his leaving France, and on reaching Dover he jumped out of the boat, fell on his knees, and kissed the ground, exclaiming, "God bless this land of liberty!" The spectators thought him mad till they learnt who he was. He was present in August 1789, with "a French lady and her son," at Astley's representation of the capture of the Bastille. He was formally remarried to Marie Anne Barcier, on whose death in 1800 he made a second marriage, and he died in 1805, aged sixty-three, leaving no issue. His two brothers, who are said never to have written to him in captivity, succeeded him in turn, and on the decease of the second in 1826 the earldom became extinct, the viscounty passing to a daughter. Let us hope that if the steward had, as alleged, kept back half his £8000 a year, Massareene brought him to book.[1]
The day after this liberation another veteran prisoner recovered his liberty, but not, alas! his reason. Whyte, or Whyte de Malleville, one of the seven captives in the Bastille,[2] is described by
- ↑ James Swan, a Boston merchant, emulated Massareene by remaining twenty-two years in a Paris prison rather than pay what he considered an unjust claim. He was seventy-six when released in 1830 by the Revolution, and died three days afterwards. He had lived luxuriously, like Massareene, while at St. Pélagie.
- ↑ It should be borne in mind that the Bastille was not captured in order to release the prisoners, but to remove the cannon commanding that quarter of Paris, and to prevent its occupation by a foreign regiment.
