The last days of our stay at Arras were embittered by the distress of our
neighbour and acquaintance, Madame de B____.   She has lost two sons under
circumstances so affecting, that I think you will be interested in the
relation.—­The two young men were in the army, and quartered at
Perpignan, at a time when some effort of counter-revolution was said to
be intended.   One of them was arrested as being concerned, and the other
surrendered himself prisoner to accompany his brother.—­When the High
Court at Orleans was instituted for trying state-prisoners, those of
Perpignan were ordered to be conducted there, and the two B____’s,
chained together, were taken with the rest.   On their arrival at Orleans,
their gaoler had mislaid the key that unlocked their fetters, and, not
finding it immediately, the young men produced one, which answered the
purpose, and released themselves.   The gaoler looked at them with
surprize, and asked why, with such a means in their power, they had not
escaped in the night, or on the road.   They replied, because they were
not culpable, and had no reason for avoiding a trial that would manifest
their innocence.   Their heroism was fatal.   They were brought, by a
decree of the Convention, from Orleans to Versailles, (on their way to
Paris,) where they were met by the mob, and massacred.

Their unfortunate mother is yet ignorant of their fate; but we left her in a state little preferable to that which will be the effect of certainty.  She saw the decree for transporting the prisoners from Orleans, and all accounts of the result have been carefully concealed from her; yet her anxious and enquiring looks at all who approach her, indicate but too well her suspicion of the truth.--Mons. de ____’s situation is indescribable.  Informed of the death of his sons, he is yet obliged to conceal his sufferings, and wear an appearance of tranquillity in the presence of his wife.  Sometimes he escapes, when unable to contain his emotions any longer, and remains at M. de ____’s till he recovers himself.  He takes no notice of the subject of his grief, and we respect it too much to attempt to console him.  The last time I asked him after Madame de ____, he told me her spirits were something better, and, added he, in a voice almost suffocated, “She is amusing herself with working neckcloths for her sons!”—­When you reflect that the massacres at Paris took place on the second and third of September, and that the decree was passed to bring the prisoners from Orleans (where they were in safety) on the tenth, I can say nothing that will add to the horror of this transaction, or to your detestation of its cause.  Sixty-two, mostly people of high rank, fell victims to this barbarous policy:  they were brought in a fort of covered waggons, and were murdered in heaps without being taken out.*