Alfred; or, The Adventures of a French Gentleman — page 36: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

OF A FRENCH GENTLEMAN. 23. the bearer of the joyful tidings that awaited him. Hope then assumed brighter colours—five years would soon elapse—and the tender couple already saw a smiling future not far distant. Mr. Clayton wiped away tears of mingled joy and sorrow from his eyes. CHAPTER IV. THE CONVICTS, ir was on the twenty-seventh of April, 18390, in the reign of the good King Charles the Tenth, that a number of convicts left the walls of Bicétre, under a strong escort of Gendarmes, to be conducted to Brest. The rays of the rising sun had scarcely changed the dubious twilight mto a certain dawn—a cold breeze swept around the gloomy towers of the prison, which the criminals were nevertheless averse to quit—and the threatening appearance of the heavens seemed to give notice of an Impeirding storm. ‘The clanking of the martial weapons of the momnted police—the haggard faces and shivering forms of the malefactors—the rattling of their chains—the frowning pyramid of buiidings whence those unhappy beings had ere now issued—and_ the dreariness of the weather, all combined to strike terror to the hearts of two individuals, who stood at a short distance from the cavalcade, aud gazed upon the procession with more than common curiosity pictured in their anxious countenances. The chain of galley-slaves,* as it is called in France, was composed of about fifty or sixty men. The moment the doors of Bicétre were thrown open, they had issued forth two at a time, such being the manner in which they were fettered together—and paired off to their respective situations in the inglorious rank. FHighteen or twenty Gendarmes, bearing loaded carabines at their backs and pistols in the holsters attached to their saddles, guarded the prisoners with most scrupulous care, and offered an additional.guarantee for their safety. Of the impossibility of overcoming such a force the malefactors were wellaware; and ifthey cherished any scheme towards liberating them- selves from the ignominious shackles that confined them, it was pro- crastinated until their arrival at Brest should furnish them with a better opportunity of putting the design into execution, and a less distant prospect of success. For singular as it may appear to the reader, it is however a notorious fact, that few criminals have out- witted the cunning or defeated the diligence of the Gendarmes on their road to the walls of Brest and Toulon; whereas a month seldom passes without witnessing the escape of a convict from one of those towns. lew spectators were present on this occasion to glut their selfish curlosity with the sight of human degradation: there was but little noveity attached to the mournful ceremony; and in Francs the public iournals. seldom take notice of the days fixed for executing criminals, * La chaine des galeriens: we shall henceforth, with the permission of the cour- teous reader, anglicise this expression. . : ECONnniclooo SS (SO) 5}