prisonment was more welcome than liberty—a gaol safer than any other refuge:
"My father and I, therefore, went in different directions after a fond embrace, and with hardly the strength of uttering a word. We were never to meet again. I returned to Champigny. My father hid himself at La Muette, where he had dwelt during the course of the previous summer. Two days later he gave himself up, fearing that my mother might be arrested in his stead. Hardly was he within the walls of his prison, which had as inmates M. de Malesherbes, all the members of the Rosambo family, and a large number of his friends, when he experienced a feeling of relief. Indeed, outside of prison, one dared not meet, see, speak, nay, almost look at anybody, so great was the fear of mutually betraying each other. Relatives and the most intimate friends dwelt apart in the most absolute isolation. A knock at the door, and one supposed at once that the commissioners of the Revolutionary Committee had come to take one away. When once behind the bolts it was different. One found oneself, in a certain sense, once more enjoying social life, for one was in the midst of one's relations, of one's friends, whom one could see without hindrance, and with whom one could freely converse. The great judicial massacres (I am speaking of the month of January, 1794) had
