Читать книгу Prisoners of War in Britain 1756 to 1815. A record of their lives, their romance and their sufferings онлайн

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Vous êtes, plus que nous, dignes de compassion!’

Speaking of the horrible moral effects of the bad treatment he says:

‘The ruin of their comrades and the depravities which were daily committed in public, impressed right thinking men with so frightful force that this place means a double suffering to them.’

In 1812 it was reported that a batch of incurables would be sent home to France, and Beaudouin resolved to get off with them by making himself ill. He starved himself into such a condition that he was sent into hospital, but the doctor would not pass him as an incurable. He swallowed tobacco juice, and at last, in a miserable state, turned up with the candidates. Then it was announced that no privateersmen, but only regular seamen, would be sent. Beaudouin, being a soldier, and being among the privateersmen, was in despair. However, a kindly English doctor pitied him, cured him of his self-inflicted illness, and got him leave to go.

On June 2, 1812, he was ready to sail, but was searched first for letters. Luckily none were discovered, although he had sixty sewn between the soles of his shoes, and 200 in a box with a double bottom. He sailed on June 4, the king’s birthday—that day eight years previously he had arrived at Greenock amidst the Royal salutes—arrived at Morlaix, and so home to Boiscommun (Loiret), canton of Beaune-la-Rolande, arrondissement of Pithiviers.