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Updated: June 27, 2025
Sombreuil defended himself until a republican officer called on him to capitulate. He consented, for there was no hope; but no terms were made, and it was in truth an unconditional surrender. Tallien, who was in the camp, hurried to Paris to intercede for the prisoners. Before going to the Convention, he went to his home.
One was commanded by d'Hervilly, whom we have already seen, for it was he who took the order to cease firing on August 10; the other by young Sombreuil, whose father was saved in September in the tragic way you have heard.
M. de Sombreuil, as notable for his private virtues as for his military talents, was among the prisoners who were to be killed in their cells on the second of September.
Mademoiselle de Sombreuil was neither wife nor maid; she was and ever will be a living poem. Mademoiselle Salomon de Villenoix belonged to the race of these heroic beings. Her devotion was religiously sublime, inasmuch as it won her no glory after being, for years, a daily agony. Beautiful and young, she loved and was beloved; her lover lost his reason.
He paused, took a step away from the table, and came back again. Once more he dropped his finger on the map. "Tinteniac is gone, and at Quiberon Peninsula your friend Sombreuil was slain. And look you here," he added in a lower voice, "at Laval my old friend the Prince of Talmont was executed at his own chateau, where I had spent many an hour with him." Detricand's eyes flashed fire.
The murderers gave him his life at the tears of supplication of his heroic daughter, but, villainous even in granting pardon, they compelled Mlle. de Sombreuil to drink a glass of the blood that flowed in streams in front of the prison. For a long time afterward the sight of anything with red colour made this unfortunate young woman vomit horribly. I had made up my mind to leave France.
In every school and in every nursery of France the story continues to be told how Sombreuil, the governor of the Invalides, was acquitted by the judges, but would have been butchered by the mob outside if his daughter had not drunk to the nation in a glass filled with the warm blood of the last victim. They were taken home in triumph. Sombreuil perished in the Reign of Terror.
But I must acknowledge that even with the furthest stretch of my imagination I guessed only at a fraction of the crimes that were to be committed. I remember having supped at the Brongniarts's with His Excellence M. de Sombreuil, at that time governor of the Invalides.
We found that the Comte de Puisaye, with upwards of a thousand of his troops, and more than double that number of Royalists, had arrived there before us. The Comte had received intelligence of the attack on the fort and its capture, and believing that de Sombreuil and his companions inside had at once been cut to pieces, had considered it useless to go to his assistance.
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