La Mort d'un Père (Death of a Father)

Nights of 2nd September 1792

Nights of 19th and 20th January 1793

Historical Events: After 10th August 1792, the Assembly is replaced by the National Convention and Deputies are elected throughout France. Costly victories are gained against foreign invaders. La Fayette defects to Austria.

The Owl watches the people destroying the statues of the kings of France. He meets a young man of Huguenot ancestry who tells him how his forebears were slaughtered by Louis XIII.

That night he witnesses a house search in which a young actress is found to be hiding guns and ammunition in her bed. She is about to be arrested when an English lord appears from her wardrobe and hands the weapons over to the Guards, saying they were meant for the Revolution. Later, a priest with royalist sympathies, who has disguised himself as a woman, is discovered when a carpenter puts his hand up her skirts. He is handed over to the authorities and certain death. Restif himself does not escape having his printing shop searched and his pistols confiscated. He is somewhat amused by this, until the soldiers discover Marion making love to François.