Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/342

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Dame Margaret Burgess and Anne Pennington, lay sister. She had been of particular service in taking care of the sick. Her disorder was a gangrene in her arm, which from the first threatened her life. No resource could the prison afford, nor would the commissioner who was over us, though in the prison, and thoroughly acquainted with her distressing state, allow anything to be procured from the town, so that twenty-four hours had elapsed before any material service could be obtained, In the meantime the mortification had spread prodigiously, and her life was despaired of. She expired on the 6th of January, aged sixty.

Towards the beginning of March the same year, the surviving part of the community began to recover, though very slowly. The district of Compiègne now began to treat their prisoners with great severity; many had been sent from Cambray, their whole property had been seized, though no allowance was made towards their maintenance. On the 6th of March three of the members from the district of Compiègne came to the prison, escorted by a detachment of the National Guards. The prisoners were all ordered to assemble in a large room: part of our community were still confined by sickness, so that few only could attend. All the prisoners stood like condemned criminals. The procurator syndic made a long harangue, putting all in mind they had hitherto been served with one meal per day, but that nothing had been advanced for so liberal a treatment, that the people of Compiègne were resolved to reimburse themselves one way or other.

The prisoners alleged they had already been stripped of everything and their houses plundered, that to think of forcing more from them was cruel in the extreme. These expostulations, true as they really were, had not the least effect; the above procurator again and again repeated, that if the sum of French livres he demanded