But Paine was discriminated. Barrère, long after, apologized to him for having signed "the warrant," by saying he felt himself in danger and was obliged to do it Paine accepted the apology, and when Barrère had returned to France, after banishment, Paine introduced him to the English author, Lewis Goldsmith.* As Barrère did not sign the warrant for Paine's imprisonment, it must have been a warrant for his death, or for accusation at a moment when it was equivalent to a death sentence. Whatever danger Barrère had to fear, so great as to cause him to sacrifice Paine, it was not from Robespierre; else it would not have continued to keep Paine in prison three months after Robespierre's death.
* "Mémoires de B. Barrère," t. i., p. 80. Lewis Goldsmith was the author of "Crimes of the Cabinets."
As Robespierre's memorandum was for a "decree of accusation" against Paine, separately, which might not have gone against him, but possibly have dragged to light the conspiracy against him, there would seem to be no ground for connecting that "demand" with the warrant signed by a Committee he did not attend.
Paine had good cause for writing as he did in praise of "Forgetfulness." During the period in which he was unconscious with fever the horrors of the prison reached their apogee. On June 19th the kindly gaoler, Benoit, was removed and tried; he was acquitted but not restored. His place was given to a cruel fellow named Gayard, who instituted a reign of terror in the prison.
There are many evidences that the good Benoit, so warmly remembered by Paine, evaded the rigid police regulations as to communications of prisoners with their friends outside, no doubt with precaution against those of a political character. It is pleasant to record an instance of this which was the means of bringing beautiful rays of light into Paine's cell. Shortly before his arrest an English lady had called on him, at his house in the Faubourg St. Denis, to ask his intervention in behalf of an Englishman of rank who had been arrested. Paine had now, however, fallen from power, and could not render the requested service. This lady was the last visitor who preceded the officers who arrested him. But while he was in prison there was brought to him a communication, in a lady's handwriting, signed "A little corner of the World." So far as can be gathered, this letter was of a poetical character, perhaps tinged with romance. It was followed by others, all evidently meant to beguile the weary and fearful hours of a prisoner whom she had little expectation of ever meeting again. Paine, by the aid of Benoit, managed to answer his "contemplative correspondent," as he called her, signing, "The Castle in the Air." These letters have never seen the light, but the sweetness of this sympathy did, for many an hour, bring into Paine's _oubliette_ the oblivion of grief described in the letter on "Forgetfulness," sent to the lady after his liberation.