The sailors and
soldiers are forbidden to speak to them; their food consists of a
sailor's ration, and this is spoilt; toward the end of the voyage they
are starved. In Guyanna they are allowed one candle to a mess, and no
table-linen; they lack water, or it is not drinkable; out of sixteen
taken to Sinnamary only two survive.
Those who are deported the following year, priests, monks, deputies,
journalists and artisans accused of emigration, fare worse. On all
the roads leading to Rochefort, sorrowful crowds are seen on carts or
tramping along in files, on foot, the same as former chains of
convicts. "An old man of eighty-two, Monsieur Dulaurent of Quimper,
thus traverses four departments," in irons which strangle him.
Following upon this, the poor creatures, between the decks of the
"D?cade" and the "Bayonnaise," crammed in, suffocated through lack of
air and by the torrid heat, badly treated and robbed, die of hunger or
asphyxia, while Guyanna completes the work of the voyage: out of 193
conveyed on board the 'D?cade," only 39 remain at the end of twenty-
two months, and of the 120 brought by the 'Bayonnaise," only one is
left. - Meanwhile, in France, in the casemates of the islands of Rh?
and Ol?ron, over twelve hundred priests become stifled or rot away,
while, on all sides, the military commissioners in the departments
shoot down vigorously.
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