As a town Douai suffered less than many others at the beginning of the French Revolution and at first the university and its associated colleges held onto its Catholic character, but during the Reign of Terror it suffered the same fate as many similar establishments. When all the clergy of the town were called upon in 1791 to take the "Civic Oath", the members of the British establishments claimed exemption in virtue of their nationality. The plea was allowed for a time but, when Louis XVI was executed and Britain declared war, the superiors and students of most of the other British establishments realised their immunity was at an end and fled to England. The members of the English College, with their president, Rev. John Daniel, remained in the hope of saving the college. However, in October, 1793, they were taken to prison at Doullens in Picardy, together with six Anglo-Benedictine monks who had remained for a similar purpose, and Dr. Stapleton (President of St Omer) and his students. After suffering in prison, the English Collegians were allowed to return to Douai in November 1794 and a few months later Stapleton managed to gain their release and permission to return to England, though the college would never return to Douai. In England, the Penal Laws had recently been repealed, and they founded two colleges to continue the college's work, at Crook Hall, County Durham (afterwards removed to Ushaw College, County Durham) in the North and St Edmund's College, Old Hall, at Ware, Hertfordshire in the South. The Roman pension was divided equally between these two until the French occupied Rome in 1799, when it ceased to be paid. After the evacuation of the English students in 1793, the building that housed the college was converted to military barracks and named after Douai native and war hero Pierre François Joseph Durutte (1767–1827). It remained a military barracks until it was leveled in 1926. Subsequent excavation of the grounds revealed buried relics, including the body of Father John Southworth (1592–1654), an alumnus who had been martyred for his faith. After the Revolution, Bonaparte united all the British establishments in France under one administrator, Rev John Baptist Walsh, an Irishman, Rector of the Irish College in Paris. On the Bourbon Restoration, a large sum of money was paid to the British Government to indemnify those who had suffered by the Revolution, though none