from the Northern Prison.

But this was not all. When Arras fell into the hands of the
Revolutionary army, and a regular cordon was formed round the
town, so that not a single royalist traitor might escape, some three
score women and children, twelve priests, the old aristocrats
Chermeuil, Delleville and Galipaux and many others, managed to pass
the barriers and were never recaptured.

Raids were made on the suspected houses: in Paris chiefly where the
escaped prisoners might have found refuge, or better still where their
helpers and rescuers might still be lurking. Foucquier Tinville, Public
Prosecutor, led and conducted these raids, assisted by that
bloodthirsty vampire, Merlin. They heard of a house in the Rue de
l'Ancienne Comedie where an Englishmen was said to have lodged
for two days.

They demanded admittance, and were taken to the rooms where the
Englishman had stayed. These were bare and squalid, like hundreds of
other rooms in the poorer quarters of Paris. The landlady, toothless
and grimy, had not yet tidied up the one where the Englishman had
slept: in fact she did not know he had left for good.

He had paid for his room, a week in advance, and came and went as
he liked, she explained to Citizen Tinville. She never bothered about
him, as he never took a meal in the house, and he was only there two
days. She did not know her lodger was English until the day he left.
She thought he was a Frenchman from the South, as he certainly had
a peculiar accent when he spoke.