depart in safety if he wished. His secretary implored him to escape, and to provide against the future by carrying off the chest of the administration, which con- tained about 300*000 livres. Buonarroti, indignant at this advice, replied with firmness, "Why should I leave so base a stain upon my character ? Have I been guilty of any crime ? No— I yield to my destiny, and consent to go to prison ! !"
Buonarroti was accordingly seized by the gendarmerie, and carried to Paris. In the prison Du Plessis, where he was immured, " he suffered," says his biographer, u the greatest distress, and endeavoured to earn a sub- sistence by teaching music." "I find," said he, "that Rousseau was altogether right when he recommended to his Emilius the attainment of some art which might prove useful to him in time of want. I had studied music for my recreation; I am now obliged to have recourse to it for my subsistence."
Two circumstances occurred during his imprisonment at Du Plessis, both strikingly illustrative of the true mag- nanimity of his character. The National Convention, by whose orders he was arrested, came, by a just retri- bution of Providence, to feel the effects of the counter- Revolution it had commenced. The middle classes of Paris, who desired a more complete re-action in their favour than the Convention was disposed to promote, rose in insurrection against it on the memorable 13th Vendemiaire. This movement, which was decidedly Royalist, filled the Convention, and the Thermidorians in particular, with alarm and dismay. Buonarroti being asked whether he did not rejoice to see the Convention menaced by the same Royalists whom the Thermidorian faction had so basely caressed, in order to secure their co-operation against Robespierre ? He generously made answer — "I sacrifice all personal resentment to the public welfare. If the Convention be sincere in defending the Republic against the Royalists, and if it want a soldier to fight for the public cause, I am ready again to take up arms in its support, though I have experienced the grossest injustice at its hands."
The other trait I alluded to is this : During Buonarroti's confinement, the Prince Corsini, ambassador from
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