Indeed, he had too much society, for Amans, a mouton, as prison spies were called, reported his real or alleged conversations to Robespierre. He is said to have drunk too freely, and to have amused himself with backgammon. When Danton, Desmoulins, and others, were arrested, a prison plot was invented as a pretext for cutting short their sham trial. The sole foundation for this was that prisoners, Dillon among them, had resolved, in the event of another September massacre, to sell their lives dearly. Dillon had also written to Desmoulins' wife, enclosing 3000 francs, as was alleged, to be used in exertions for her husband's release, but the turnkey, on second thoughts, detained the letter. (He was guillotined for not having divulged the fact.) After eight months' confinement, Dillon, with Lucile Desmoulins, and nineteen other persons, was tried for this prison plot, his name heading the list. They were all guillotined on the 14th April, 1794.
Dillon was twice married, and had two daughters. One of them, Fanny, married General Bertrand,[1] and was with Napoleon at Elba and St. Helena. He was not, as is sometimes stated, the brother of General Theobald Dillon, who was murdered by his soldiers at Lille in 1792. Theobald was born at Dublin in 1745, entered Dillon's regiment in 1761, was at the attack on Grenada and the siege of
- ↑ "Altogether English, and adores her husband," says Stendhal's diary of her in 1809.
