quently, the most watchful and cautious amongst us were liable to be entrapped. We fortunately escaped their unnatural and detestable snares.”
The desired and long wished for moment at length arrived, Messrs. O’Brien, Ashworth, Tuthill, and Easel (the latter a naval lieutenant, who wished to be off also), met agreeably to appointment. Every thing was favorable and quiet; and in a very few minutes, with the assistance of their rope and a friend, they got down the ramparts, about 72 feet high, with very little injury, except losing some of the skin off their hands. Each had his knapsack, &c. properly placed: their course was N.W. which they carefully followed, over ploughed fields, mountains, and marshes – nothing was allowed to interrupt their progress. The happiness they, even at this moment felt, was inexpressible; they considered themselves “literally as regenerated creatures.” Their stock of provisions principally consisted of light biscuit and sausages; their hats were destroyed before day-light in a wood near Varennes[1], and replaced with caps á la Française. Captain O’Brien thus describes a very serious accident he met with, on the morning of Sept. 1st., and his consequent sufferings.
- ↑ Captain O’Brien has seen the man who arrested Louis XVI. his queen, sister, and two children, in their flight from the Thuilleries, in 1791.