Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/325

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APPENDIX.
305

when the keeper informed them, that they could no longer have Mass, and that he expected the "Commissaires" from the section. They came and called for the superior to attend them in the church, there to give them an account of all the copper and brass belonging to the church. This was a mere ceremony, as they then began to strip both the church and the choir. Their looks, dress, and actions were equally dreadful, and can only be compared to our ideas of infernal beings. They tore down the shrines, pictures, and crosses. With joy mixed with fury they kicked up and down the church what they threw down. They acted in a similar manner in the sacristy and chapter-house, where all the ornaments were kept, so that all was taken away and the large cupboards pulled down. On the 1st of December 1793 our worthy and much respected confessor, the Rev. Father John Placid Nailor, was taken away from the community and placed with several others in the Scotch college, which was also made a prison.

He had been for a long time in a very bad state of health, and could not attend on the community for some weeks, or if he did, it was with the assistance of his man, who brought him downstairs to the parlour grate, that in this time of distress he might be able to speak to the nuns and they to him. But having found benefit from blisters on his legs, he recovered so far as to be able to walk, although the blisters were never properly healed. In this suffering state the keeper left him no peace till he got him transferred. In a few weeks he was again taken from the prison at the Scotch college, and carried to his own convent, which belonged to the Benedictine monks at St. Edmund's, which was also now made a prison.

The good prior, the Rev. Mr. Parker, rendered him all the service in his power, and he remained there until December 1794, when he was set at liberty, at which