CHAPTER I

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Original meaning of the word Bastile—Various Bastiles—Description of “The Bastile”—Officers of the fortress—Interior of it—The Garden—The Court where the prisoners took exercise—The Towers, Dungeons, Apartments, Furniture, Food, of the prisoners—The Library—The Chapel—Lettres de Cachet described—Advocate of them—Change in the treatment of prisoners—Narrative of a prisoner—Strict search of prisoners—Harshness to them—Artifices employed against them—Silence enjoined to the Guards, &c. of the prison—Mode of receiving visitors—Suppression of letters—Secrecy and mystery—Medical attendance—Wills—Insanity—Clandestine burial of the dead.

The word Bastile, which has now long been, and will ever remain, a term of opprobrious import, to designate the dungeons of arbitrary power, has, like many other words, deviated widely in the lapse of years from its original meaning. Its derivation is traced, somewhat doubtfully, to the Italian _bastia_ or _bastione_. In former times, it was applied to any fort, whether permanent or temporary. In our old writers, as well as in those of France, we find it repeatedly given to field works. The redoubts, for instance, by means of which, in the reign of the sixth Henry, the English blockaded Orleans, are so denominated by French chroniclers. The same is the case with respect to more durable works; there were, at an early period, no less than three bastiles at Paris, those of St. Denis, the Temple, and St. Anthony, all of which were situated to the north of the Seine. Eventually, the name was confined to the last of these buildings. The quadrangular castle of St. Denis was demolished in 1671; but the tower of the Temple, in which the unfortunate Louis the Sixteenth and his family were confined, outlasted the Bastile itself for nearly a quarter of a century, and was used as a state prison till 1811, when it ceased to exist.

The bastile of St. Anthony—which structure I shall henceforth mention only as The Bastile—is generally supposed to have been founded by Hugh Aubriot. This opinion is, however, erroneous. It is beyond a doubt, that the original plan and construction of it must be assigned to the celebrated Stephen Marcel, provost of the merchants of Paris. When, in 1356, after the disastrous battle of Poitiers, the English detachments were ravaging the vicinity of the French capital, and the citizens were filled with terror, Stephen undertook to repair the dilapidated bulwarks of the city, and add other defences. Among his additions was a gate, fortified with towers on each side, leading from the suburb of St. Anthony into the street of the same name. These towers must be considered as the first rudiments of the Bastile.

The haste with which, while an enemy was at hand, the walls had been constructed, had not allowed of giving to them that height and solidity which were requisite for effectually resisting an attack. In 1369, Charles the Fifth resolved to remedy this defect. The task of making the necessary improvements was committed to Hugh Aubriot, the provost of Paris. Among the changes which Aubriot made, was the adding of two towers to those which already existed at St. Anthony’s gate. They were erected parallel with those built by Marcel; so that the whole formed a square fort, with towers at the angles. In the reign of Charles the Sixth, after the Maillotin insurrection, in 1382, the Bastile was again enlarged, by the addition of two towers at each end of the fortress; thus presenting a front of four towers to the city, and as many to the suburb. To render more difficult any attempt to surprise the place, the road, which, as we have seen, ran through it, was turned to one side. The body of the fortress received no further accession; but, before the middle of the seventeenth century, a bastion was constructed on the side toward the suburb, and a broad dry ditch, about forty yards wide and twelve deep, faced with masonry, encircled the whole.

Along the summit of the exterior wall of the ditch, which was at an elevation of sixty feet above the bottom of the ditch, was a wooden gallery, called the Rounds, reached by two flights of steps. Day and night sentinels were constantly moving about in this gallery; every quarter of an hour they were visited by some of the officers or serjeants; and, more completely to secure their vigilance, each man had certain numbered pieces of copper pierced with holes, which, at stated times, he was to drop on the point of an instrument, fixed in a padlocked box. A bell was also rung upon the Rounds, every quarter of an hour, throughout the night.

The officers on the establishment of the Bastile consisted of a governor, the king’s lieutenant, a major, who officiated as secretary, and prepared the reports and monthly accounts for the minister, two adjutants to assist him, a physician, a surgeon and his assistant, a chaplain, two priests, and a confessor, a keeper of the records, clerk, superintendant of the buildings, engineer, four turnkeys, and a company of invalids. No soldier was allowed to sleep out of the place without leave from the governor; nor could any officer dine out or be absent all night, without permission from the minister. Originally only the governor and the king’s lieutenant were appointed by the king, the rest being nominated by the governor; and guard was mounted at the castle by a body of citizens, which bore the name of the Independent Company of Archers. The change was made about the middle of the eighteenth century.

The interior of the gloomy fabric must now be described. Having passed down St. Anthony’s-street, and arrived nearly at the city gate, leading to the suburb of the same name, he who wished or was compelled to visit the Bastile, turned to the right hand, in the direction of the Arsenal, where stood a sentinel, to warn off all idle gazers. Before, however, the main building could be entered, the visiter had to pursue his way along an approach, bent nearly into the form of three sides of a square, ⊐, flanked with buildings of various kinds, on the whole of one side, and a part of the other. Over the entrance gate was an armoury, and on the right of it a guard-room; on the left hand was a range of suttling-houses, and on the right were barracks. The road then made an abrupt turn, on the right of which were stables, coachhouses, and a door into a space which was called the Elm Court. This first division was named the Passage Court. At the extremity of it was a drawbridge, with a guard-house at its further end. This bridge led to a second court, taking its name from the governor’s house, which, with his garden, occupied one half of its circuit. Another abrupt turn brought the visiter opposite the portal of the fortress, which he at length reached, after having passed by the kitchens, and traversed the great drawbridge. Between the street and the interior of the fortress there were five massy gates, at all of which sentinels were posted.

The principal drawbridge being passed, and the gate opened, the visiter stood within the Bastile itself. Leaving on his right a guard-room, he found himself in the Great Court of the Castle, a parallelogram of about a hundred and two feet long by seventy-two broad, containing six towers, three on the side looking towards the suburb, and as many on the city side: the former were named de la Comté, du Trésor, and de la Chapelle; the latter de la Bazinière, de la Bertaudière, and de la Liberté. Between the three left hand towers were rooms for the archives and other purposes, and the chapel; between the towers du Trésor and de la Chapelle was, in former times, the gate of St. Anthony, and the road into the city.

A pile of buildings, comparatively modern, extending across the shortest diameter of the fortress, from the Tour de la Chapelle to the miscalled Tour de la Liberté, divided this principal court from another, called the Well Court. This pile contained the council chamber, the library, the repository for the prisoners’ effects, and apartments for the king’s lieutenant, the major, and other officers, and, occasionally, for the sick, and captives of distinction.

The length of the Well Court was between seventy and eighty feet, the breadth between forty and fifty. At the angle on the right was the tower du Coin, on the left the tower du Puit. In this court were some lodgings for the drudges of the place; and, as the poultry were fed and the offal was thrown out here, it was always dirty and unwholesome.

The garden, formed out of what once was a bastion, on the suburb side of the castle, was laid out in walks, and planted with trees. It appears, that, till a period not long previous to the downfall of the Bastile, such prisoners as were not confined for flagitious crimes, or for the express purpose of being rendered supremely wretched, were permitted to walk there. To the last governor, M. de Launay, they were indebted for being deprived of this privilege. To increase his already enormous emoluments, he let it to a gardener, and he had interest enough with the minister to obtain his sanction for this encroachment on the scanty comforts of the prisoners—an order was issued by which they were excluded from it. Nor was this all, or the worst. The platforms, along the summit of the towers and connecting curtains, had hitherto afforded a pleasant and airy walk; but these, too, were shut up, at his desire, partly to save trouble to those who watched the prisoners, and partly to diminish the chance of conversation between the former and the latter. Such conduct is, however, not strange in the man who could meet the complaints of his oppressed inmates with obscenely vulgar language; and could add, that “people either ought not to put themselves in the way of being sent to the Bastile, or ought to know how to suffer when they got there.” Humanity deplores his subsequent fate, and execrates the brutality of his murderers; but, as far as regards him personally, M. de Launay appears to have been deserving of very little respect.

The only remaining spot in which exercise could be taken was the principal court. “The walls which enclose it,” says M. Linguet, “are more than a hundred feet high, without windows; so that, in fact, it is a large well, where the cold is unbearable in winter, because the north-east wind pours into it, and in summer the heat is no less so, because, there being no circulation of air, the sun makes an absolute oven of it. This is the sole lyceum where such of the prisoners as have permission (for all do not have it) can, each in his turn, for a few moments in the day, disencumber their lungs from the pestilential air of their dwelling.” But even this poor gratification, which seldom extended to an hour, was considerably abridged by circumstances. Any increase in the number of prisoners diminished the time which was allotted. Whenever, as was frequently the case, any stranger entered the court, the prisoner was obliged to hurry into a narrow passage, called the Cabinet, and shut himself in closely, that he might not be seen. M. Linguet states, that three quarters of an hour was often wasted in these compulsory retreats to the Cabinet. If they were not promptly made, or the captive displayed any curiosity, the least penalty inflicted was confining the delinquent within the limits of his cell.

The towers, which were at least a hundred feet high, were seven feet thick at the top, and the thickness gradually increased, down to the foundation. Lowest of all in them were dungeons, under the level of the soil, arched, paved, lined with stone, dripping with perpetual damps, the darkness of which was made visible by means of a narrow slit through the wall, on the side next the ditch. In this fetid den, swarmed newts, toads, rats, and every variety of vermin which haunt confined and gloomy spots. Planks, laid across iron bars fixed in the wall, formed the couch of the captive, and his only bedding, even in the most inclement season, was a little straw. Two doors, each seven inches thick, with enormous locks and bars, closed the entrance to each of these horrible abodes, over which might fitly have been inscribed the terrific line that shone dimly over the gate of hell, “All hope abandon ye who enter here!”

Above the dungeons were four stories, each consisting of a single room, with, in some instances, a dark closet scooped out of the wall. All were shut in by ponderous double doors; as were also the staircases. In three of the stories, the rooms, of an irregular octagonal shape, were about twenty feet in diameter, and eighteen in height. In many of the rooms the ceilings were double, with a considerable vacuity between them; the lower one was of lath and plaster, the upper of solid oak. The highest story of all, which was termed la Calotte, was neither so lofty nor so large as the others; it was arched to support the roof and platform, and its curvature prevented its inhabitant from walking in any part but the middle of the room. On the towers and curtains several pieces of cannon were mounted.

The light which was thrown into these chambers was broken and imperfect; prospect from them there was none. Each room had only one window; and, independent of the obstacle opposed to sight by the massiveness of the walls, there was another, in the double iron gratings, at the outside and middle, formed of bars as thick as a man’s arm, which closed the narrow aperture. In the lower stories, that there might be no chance of seeing or being seen, the opening was filled half way up with stone and mortar, or with planks fastened to the external grating. Three steps led up to some of the windows, if windows they may be called; in other cases they were level with the floor. A glass casement excluded the wind in the better apartments; the dungeons were left exposed to all the rigour of the elements.

The rooms were floored with tile or stone, and all of them, except the dungeons, had chimneys or stoves; the chimneys were secured, in several parts, by iron bars. In winter, six pieces of wood were allowed daily for firing. M. Linguet complains, in his Memoirs, that the quantity was insufficient, and the quality execrable. It is obvious that, to enhance his profits, an avaricious governor would purchase as cheaply, and deal out as scantily, as it was possible for him to do.

The rooms were designated from their situation in the towers, numbering from the bottom, and the prisoners were designated by the number of their room. Thus, for instance, the first chamber above the dungeon in the Bazinière tower was called the first Bazinière, and so on to the topmost, which was known as the Calotte Bazinière. The prisoner was consequently mentioned not by his name but by the number of his room—the first Bazinière, the first Bertaudière, the third Comté, &c. &c. In some cases it appears that the prisoner received another name instead of his own, which was never uttered or written. In this way De la Tude, of whom we shall have occasion to speak, was denominated Daury.

In what manner these pleasant abodes were furnished M. Linguet shall describe. “Two worm-eaten mattresses, a cane elbow chair, the bottom of which was held together by packthread, a tottering table, a water jug, two pots of delftware, one of which was to drink out of, and two flag stones, to support the fire; such was the inventory, at least such was mine. I was indebted only to the commiseration of the turnkey, after several months’ confinement, for a pair of tongs and a fire shovel. It was not possible for me to procure dog-irons; and, whether it arises from policy or inhumanity I know not, what the governor will not supply, he will not allow a prisoner to procure at his own expense. It was eight months ere I could obtain permission to buy a tea-pot, twelve before I could procure a tolerably strong chair, and fifteen ere I was suffered to replace by a crockery vessel the filthy and disgusting pewter vessel which is the only one that is used in the Bastile.

“The single article which I was at the outset allowed to purchase was a new blanket, and the occasion was as follows:

“The month of September, as every body knows, is the time when the moths that prey upon woollens are transformed into winged insects. When the antre which was assigned to me was opened, there arose from the bed, I will not say a number, nor a cloud, but a large and dense column of moths, which overspread the chamber in an instant. I started back with horror. ‘Pooh! pooh!’ said one of my conductors with a smile, ‘before you have lain here two nights, there will not be one of them left.’

“In the evening, the lieutenant of police came, according to custom, to welcome me. I manifested so violent a repugnance to such a populous flock bed, that they were gracious enough to permit me to put on a new covering, and to have the mattress beaten, the whole at my own cost. As feather beds are prohibited articles in the Bastile, doubtless because such luxuries are not suitable for persons to whom the ministry wishes above all things to give lessons of mortification, I was very desirous that, every three months at least, my shabby mattress should have the same kind of renovation. But, though it would have cost him nothing, the proprietory governor opposed it with all his might, ‘because,’ said he, ‘it wears them out.’”

Each prisoner was supplied with flint, steel, and tinder, a candle a day, a broom once a week, and a pair of sheets every fortnight.

Captives of rank were undoubtedly somewhat better accommodated, and, where there were no particular reasons for annoying them, they were favoured by being allowed to receive articles from their homes; but the common run of convenience and comfort appears not to have gone beyond what is described by M. Linguet.

The food of the prisoners was paid for by the king at so much per head, according to a graduated scale; but the supply and management of it were left, seemingly without controul, in the hands of the governor. By this arrangement the prisoners were placed at the mercy of their jailor, who, if he happened to have a great love of gain, and a scanty portion of humanity, might fill his purse by furnishing bad provisions, or not sufficient to sustain life. “There are prisoners in the Bastile,” says Linguet, “who have not more than four ounces of meat at a meal; this has been ascertained more than once by weighing what was given to them; the fact is notorious to all the under officers, who are grieved by it.” In estimating the amount of the wrong thus inflicted, it must be borne in mind, that the man who is in bonds requires more and better nourishment, to keep nature from sinking, than is necessary for the man who is a free agent. There was, in this instance, no excuse for stint. The sum allowed by the king for the maintenance of the captives was exceedingly liberal. It was nearly half a crown a day for an individual of the humblest class; four shillings for a tradesman; eight shillings for a priest, a person in the finance department, or an ordinary judge; twelve shillings for a parliament counsellor; twenty shillings for a lieutenant general in the army; one pound ten for a marshal of France; and two guineas for a prince of the blood. If the sovereign oppressed those who incurred his anger, he at least did not mean to starve them.

What was the fare which this high rate of remuneration obtained for the prisoners? It is thus described in a work, published in 1774, by one who had himself long tried it. I am not aware that the accuracy of the statement has ever been impeached; on the contrary, there is the testimony of other witnesses to the same effect.

“The kitchen is supplied by the governor’s steward, who has under him a cook, a scullion, and a man whose employment is to cut wood for fuel. All the victuals are bad, and generally ill-dressed: and this is a mine of gold to the governor, whose revenue is daily augmented by the hard fare of the prisoners under his keeping. Besides these profits, which are inconceivably great, the governor receives a hundred and fifty livres a day for fifteen prison rooms, at ten livres each, as a sort of gratification in addition to his salary; and he often derives other considerable emoluments.

“On flesh days the prisoners have soup with boiled meat, &c. for dinner; at night a slice of roast meat, a ragoût and salad. The diet on fast days consists, at dinner, of fish, and two other dishes; at night, of eggs, with greens. The difference in the quality of the diet is very small between the lowest rank of prisoners, and those who are classed at five or ten livres; the table of the latter is furnished with perhaps half a starved chicken, a pigeon, a wild rabbit, or some small bird, with a dessert; the portion of each rarely exceeds the value of twopence.

“The _Sunday’s_ dinner consists of some bad soup, a slice of a cow, which they call beef, and four little pâtés; at night a slice of roast veal or mutton, or a little plate of haricot, in which bare bones and turnips greatly predominate; to these are added a salad, the oil to which is always rancid. The suppers are pretty uniformly the same on flesh days. _Monday_: instead of four pâtés a haricot. _Tuesday_: at noon, a sausage, half a pig’s foot, or a small pork chop. _Wednesday_: a tart, generally either half warm or burnt up. _Thursday_: two very thin mutton chops. _Friday_: half a small carp, either fried or stewed, a stinking haddock or cod, with butter and mustard; to which are added greens or eggs; at supper eggs, with spinach mixed up with milk and water.—_Saturday_: the same. And this perpetual rotation re-commences on Sunday.

“On the three holidays, St. Louis, St. Martin, and Twelfth day, every prisoner has an addition made to his allowance, of half a roasted chicken, or a pigeon. On Holy Monday, his dinner is accompanied by a tart extraordinary.

“Each prisoner has an allowance of a pound of bread and a bottle of wine per day; but the wine is generally flat and good for nothing. The dessert consists of an apple, a biscuit, a few almonds and raisins, some cherries, gooseberries, or plums; these are commonly served in pewter, though sometimes they are favoured with earthen dishes and a silver spoon and fork. If any one complains of receiving bad provisions, a partial amendment may take place for a few days; but the complainant is sure to meet with some unpleasant effects of resentment. There is no cook’s shop in the kingdom, where you may not get a better dinner for a shilling than what are served in the Bastile. The cookery, in short, is wretchedly bad, the soup tasteless, and the meat of the worst quality, and ill dressed. All this must operate to injure the health of the prisoners; and, added to other grievances, excites frequent imprecations of vengeance from Heaven.”

With respect to the badness of the wine, Linguet corroborates the statement of this writer. The governor, it appears, in addition to the diet-money, had the privilege of taking into his cellars near a hundred hogsheads of wine, duty free. “What does he do?” says Linguet. “He sells his privilege to a Parisian tavern keeper, of the name of Joli, who gives him 250_l._ for it, and he takes in exchange from him the very cheapest kind of wine for the use of the prisoners; which wine, as may easily be imagined, is nothing but vinegar.” This was a fraud at once upon the government and the prisoners.

The sole mental recreation which the prison afforded was derived from a small library, consisting of about five hundred volumes. This collection is said to have been founded by a foreign prisoner, who died in the Bastile, about the beginning of the eighteenth century, and to have been enlarged by later sufferers. In some cases, prisoners were allowed to read in the library; but, generally, the works were taken to the cells of the captives, and the selection of them depended on the taste of the turnkeys. Few of the books were unmutilated; for the prisoners now and then indulged in writing bitter remarks on the blank spaces. As soon as a book was returned, every leaf was carefully examined, and woe be to the rash offender who had suffered passion to get the better of prudence! An epigram, or a sarcasm, on his persecutors, or on men in office, exposed him to the worst that irresponsible power could inflict. As to the volume, if the writing was on the margin, the piece was cut off; but when it chanced to be inserted between the lines, the page was torn out.

It seems to have been thought by no means necessary that a prisoner, who was deprived of all earthly comforts, should receive consolation from regular attendance on religious worship. The chapel was a miserable hole, of about seven or eight feet square, under the pigeon-house of the king’s lieutenant. “In this chapel,” says one who had been a captive, “are five small niches or closets, with strong locks, of which three are formed in the wall; the others are only wainscot. Every prisoner admitted to hear mass is put in by himself,[1] and can neither see objects nor be seen of any. The doors of these niches are secured by two bolts on the outside, and lined within by iron bars; they are also glazed; but before each is hung a curtain, which is drawn back at the Sanctus, and again closed at the concluding prayer. Five prisoners only being admitted at each mass, it follows that no more than ten can assist at that ceremony in a day. If there be a greater number than this in the Castle, they either do not go at all, or go alternately; because there are generally found some who have a constant permission.”

There was a confessor in the fortress; but it is scarcely possible that a prisoner could repose entire confidence in a spiritual director who was in the pay of his oppressors. Though it is going much too far to say, as M. Linguet does, that such a man is “a cowardly double-dealer who prostitutes the dignity of his character,” it must be owned that some doubts and suspicions as to him might naturally arise; it matters not that they would be unjust, the possibility of their being excited ought to have been carefully avoided.

Let us now turn to the concise but terrible instrument, by virtue of which an individual was consigned to captivity, perhaps for life. This was the _lettre de cachet_, or sealed letter, so called to distinguish it from the _patent_ or open letter, which was merely folded. In former days, such epistles were called _lettres closes_, or _clauses_. The name was not given to all sealed up missives, but only to those which contained some command or information from the sovereign. They were signed by the king, and countersigned by one of the secretaries of state. The same appellation was originally given to all letters of the kind described; but, in latter times, it was principally if not wholly applied, at least in common parlance, to royal orders of exile and imprisonment.

The oldest recorded mandate of this species is that which Thierry the Second issued, at the instigation of Brunehaut, against St. Columbanus, who had severely censured the vices of the mother and the son. It directed that he should be removed from the monastery of Luxeuil, and banished to Besançon, where he was to remain during the king’s pleasure. The saint yielded only to force, and, as soon as the guards were withdrawn, he retired to his convent. Violence, however, at length compelled him to quit the dominions of the licentious Thierry.

The _lettre de cachet_ was usually carried into effect by the officers of police; sometimes the arrest was made at the dwelling of the individual, sometimes on the roads or in the street by night; but, in all cases, it appears to have been accomplished with as much secrecy as possible, so that it was no uncommon thing for persons to be missing for years, without their friends being able to discover what had become of them. Men of rank were at times spared the disgrace of being taken into custody; they were favoured by being allowed to carry the letter themselves to the prison mentioned in it, and surrender to the governor. Here is a specimen of these obliging billets, which was addressed to the prince of Monaco, a brigadier in the French army.

“My Cousin,

“Being by no means satisfied with your conduct, I send you this letter, to apprise you that my intention is, that, as soon as you receive it, you shall proceed to my castle of the Bastile, there to remain till you have my further orders. On which, my cousin, I pray God to have you in his holy keeping. Given at Versailles, this 25th of June, 1748.

(_Signed_) “LOUIS.” (_Countersigned_) “VOYER D’ARGENSON.”

By such a scrap of paper as this might any man in France be doomed to close and hopeless imprisonment. Malice, wounded pride, rivalry, revenge, all the base and cruel passions, availed themselves of it to torment their enemies. The titled harlot, whose shame had excited laughter or reprobation, the minister, whose measures were unpopular, the frivolous courtier, whose folly had been satirised, the debauchee, who wished to remove an obstacle to his lust, the parent, who preferred ruling his offspring rather by fear than love, was eager to obtain one of these convenient scorpion scourges, and the wish was too often gratified.

There is scarcely any enormity so monstrous that it cannot find a defender. Even _lettres de cachet_ have not been without an apologist; and, to make the wonder the greater, an English apologist. Let us listen to his plea. “Perhaps (says he) it was the abuse of the _lettres de cachet_, rather than their institution, that merited the execration in which they were held; for however extraordinary it may seem, they were not unfrequently used to serve the purposes of humanity. There are many instances of persons, who, on account of private disputes, or affairs of state, would have been exposed to public punishment, that were shut up by a _lettre de cachet_, until the danger was past, or the matter accommodated or forgotten. It may undoubtedly be objected, that keeping a person from justice is itself a crime against the public; but in forming a judgment upon this subject, we ought to take into consideration the prejudices entertained in the country where this authority was employed. It should be remembered that, by an old and barbarous practice, the disgrace attending a capital punishment, inflicted by the laws, was reflected upon all the family of the criminal; and that in many instances it required a public act of the supreme power to wipe off the stain, and again enable them to serve their country. In as far, therefore, as the _lettres de cachet_ counteracted the effects of these prejudices, they were useful; _but though they were signed by the king, from the idea that it was proper to have them ready for cases of emergency, ministers, and governors of provinces, &c., were generally furnished with them in blank, to be filled up at their discretions; and the friends and favourites of those ministers sometimes obtained them from them, as is proved by the case of M. de Fratteaux, and in many other instances_.”[2]

This is, indeed, carrying to a ridiculous extent the determination to find “a soul of good in things evil!” Perhaps it would not be uncharitable to put a harsher construction on such language. Public justice is to be defrauded, thousands are to be plunged into misery, personal safety is to be hourly jeoparded, crime committed by the rich and powerful is to escape with all but complete impunity, and the motives which most influence individuals to bridle their unruly passions are to be weakened, merely “to counteract the effects of a prejudice” on a few ancient families! Never was an infinitely small benefit bought at a more extravagant price.

From certain particulars, which we find in various memoirs, it would seem that, generally speaking, more indulgences were granted to the inmates of the Bastile in former days, than during the last thirty years of its existence. At all times, however, much would undoubtedly depend on the personal character of the governor; if he chanced to be liberal-minded and humane, he would, as far as he could venture to do so, mitigate the sufferings of his captives; if, on the contrary, he were greedy of gain, and harsh in his disposition, he would stint and deteriorate their diet, wantonly deny them even the most trifling comforts, and, in short, do his best to make the management of the prison “render life a burthen,” which, with an impudent candour, one of the officers of the castle avowed to be its especial purpose.

It must be owned that, in some respects, modern times witnessed an improvement in the practice of the Bastile. The cages, which it is known once to have contained, were removed. The rack, also, and other instruments of torture, ceased to be called into use. At what period the change took place is not said. That, in the latter end of Louis the Thirteenth’s reign, the instruments still existed in the castle, we learn from the Memoirs of the faithful La Porte, who saw them, and was threatened with them to extort a confession.

What the Bastile was in its mildest form will appear from the following narrative, written by a person who was confined for eight months. “About five in the morning of the 2d of April, 1771,” says the narrator, “I was awakened by a violent knocking at my chamber door, and was commanded, in the name of the king, to open it. I did so, and an exempt of the police, three men who appeared to be under his orders, and a commissary, entered the room. They desired me to dress myself, and began to search the apartment. They ordered me to open my drawers, and having examined my papers, they took such as they chose, and put them into a box, which, as I understood afterwards, was carried to the police office. The commissary asked me my name, my age, the place where I was born, how long I had been at Paris, and the manner in which I spent my time. The examination was written down by him; a list was made of every thing found in the room, which, together with the examination, I was desired to read and sign. The exempt then told me to take all my body linen, and such clothes as I chose, and to come along with them. At the word _all_ I started; I guessed where they were about to take me, and it seemed to announce to me a long train of misery.

“Having shut and sealed the drawers, they desired me to follow them; and in going out, they locked the chamber door and took the key. On coming to the street, I found a coach, into which I was desired to go, and the others followed me. After sitting for some time the commissary told me they were carrying me to the Bastile, and soon afterwards I saw the towers. They did not go the shortest and direct road; which I suppose was to conceal our destination from those who might have observed us. The coach stopped at the gate in St. Anthony’s street. I saw the coachman make signs to the sentinel, and soon after the gate was opened: the guard was under arms, and I heard the gate shut again. On coming to the first drawbridge, it was let down, the guard there being likewise under arms. The coach went on, and entered the castle, where I saw another guard under arms. It stopped at a flight of steps at the bottom of the court, where being desired to go out, I was conducted to a room which I heard named the council chamber. I found three persons sitting at a table, who, as I was told, were the king’s lieutenant, the major, and his deputy. The major asked me nearly the same questions which the commissary had done, and observed the same formalities in directing me to read and sign the examination. I was then desired to empty my pockets, and lay what I had in them on the table. My handkerchief and snuff-box being returned to me, my money, watch, and indeed every thing else, were put into a box that was sealed in my presence, and an inventory having been made of them, it was likewise read and signed by me. The major then called for the turnkey whose turn of duty it was, and having asked what room was empty, he said, the Calotte de la Bertaudière. He was ordered to convey me to it, and to carry thither my linen and clothes. The turnkey having done so, left me and locked the doors. The weather was still extremely cold, and I was glad to see him return soon afterwards with firewood, a tinder-box, and a candle. He made my fire, but told me, on leaving the tinder-box, that I might in future do it myself when so inclined.[3]

“From the time the exempt of police came into my room, I had not ceased to form conjectures about the cause of my imprisonment. I knew of none, unless it were some verses and sketches, relative to the affairs of the times. Though they were indiscreet, they were of little importance. The only writing that might have seriously given offence to the government, I had never shown, but to one person in whom I thought I could confide. I found afterwards he had betrayed me.

“When I heard the double doors shut upon me a second time, casting my eyes round my habitation, I fancied I now saw the extent of all that was left to me in this world for the rest of my days. _Besides the malignity of enemies, and the anger of a minister, I felt that I ran the risk of being forgotten; the fate of many who have no one of influence to protect them, or who have not particularly attracted the notice of the public. Naturally fond of society, I confess I looked forward to the abyss of lonely wretchedness, that I thought awaited me, with a degree of horror that cannot easily be described. I even regretted now what I had formerly considered as the greatest blessing, a healthy constitution that had never been affected by disease._

“I recollect with humble gratitude the first gleam of comfort that shot across this gloom. It was the idea, that neither massive walls, nor tremendous bolts, nor all the vigilance of suspicious keepers, could conceal me from the sight of God. This thought I fondly cherished, and it gave me infinite consolation in the course of my imprisonment, and principally contributed to enable me to support it, with a degree of fortitude and resignation that I have since wondered at—I no longer felt myself alone.

“At eleven, my reflections were interrupted by the turnkey, who entered with my dinner. Having spread the table with a clean napkin, he placed the dishes on it, cut the meat, and retired, taking away the knife. The dishes, plates, fork, spoon, and goblet, were of pewter. The dinner consisted of soup and bouilli, a piece of roasted meat, a bottle of good table wine, and a pound loaf of the best kind of household bread. In the evening, at seven, he brought my supper, which consisted of a roast dish and a ragoût. The same ceremony was observed in cutting the meat, to render the knife unnecessary to me. He took away the dishes he had brought for dinner, and returned at eight the next morning to take away the supper things. Fridays and Saturdays being fast or _maîgre_ days, the dinner consisted of soup, a dish of fish, and two dishes of vegetables; the suppers, of two dishes of garden stuff, and an omelet, or something made with eggs and milk. The dinners and suppers of each day in the week were different, but every week was the same: so that the ordinary class of prisoners saw in the course of the first week their bill of fare for fifty years, if they staid so long.

“I had remained in my room about three weeks, when I was one morning carried down to the council chamber, where I found the commissary. He began by asking most of the questions that had been put to me before. He then asked if I had any knowledge of some works he named, meaning those that had been written by me;—if I was acquainted with the author of them;—whether there were any persons concerned with him;—and if I knew whether they had been printed? I told him that, as I did not mean to conceal any thing, I should avoid giving him needless trouble; that I myself was the author of the works he had mentioned, and guessed I was there on that account;—that they never had been printed;—that the work, which I conceived was the cause of my confinement, had never been shown to any but one person, whom I thought my friend; and having no accomplices, the offence, if there was any, rested solely with myself. He said my examination was one of the shortest he had ever been employed at, for it ended here. I was carried back to my room, and the next day was shaved for the first time since my confinement.

“A few days afterwards I wrote to the lieutenant of the police, requesting to be indulged with the use of books, pen, ink, and paper, which was granted; but I was not allowed to go down to the library to choose the books. Several volumes were brought to me by the turnkey, who, when I desired it, carried them back and brought others.

“After my last examination I was taken down almost daily, and allowed to walk about an hour in the court within view of the sentinel: but my walks were frequently interrupted; for if any one appeared, the sentinel called out ‘To the Cabinet!’ and I was then obliged to conceal myself hastily in a kind of dark closet in the wall near the chapel.

“The sheets of my bed were changed once a fortnight, I was allowed four towels a week, and my linen was taken to be washed every Saturday. I had a tallow candle daily, and in the cold season a certain number of pieces of firewood. I was told that the allowance of fire to the prisoners began the 1st of November, and ceased on the 1st of April, and that my having a fire in April was a particular indulgence.

“After being detained above eight months, I was informed that an order had come to discharge me. I was desired to go down to the council chamber: every thing I had brought with me was returned, together with the key of my apartment, which I found exactly in the state I left it on the morning of the 2nd of April, 1771.

“During my confinement I wrote many letters to several of my friends, which were always received with civility, but not one of them had been delivered.”

The aspect of captivity in the Bastile, even when stripped of a part of its horrors, is surely hideous enough. But there can be no doubt that, in a multitude of cases, an enormous degree of severity was exercised. Instead of being told, as in this instance, to give up the contents of his pockets, the prisoner was rudely searched by four men, who amused themselves with making vulgar jokes and remarks while they were performing the task; sometimes his own garments were taken from him, and he was clothed in rags. His sufferings from imprisonment might also be frightfully aggravated, by thrusting him into one of the humid and pestilential dungeons, or into a room which was in the vicinity of a nuisance. M. Linguet was confined in a chamber which fronted the mouth of the common sewer of St. Anthony’s street, so that the air which he breathed was never pure; but in hot weather, in the spring and autumnal floods, and whenever the sewer was cleaned, the mephitic vapours, which penetrated into his cell, and accumulated there for want of an outlet, were scarcely to be endured. What were the interior accommodations of this cell the reader has already seen.

The prisoner was not left to divine the motive for depriving him of all incisive and pointed instruments; he was bluntly informed that it was done to prevent him from cutting his own throat or the throats of his keepers. The reason assigned for the precaution shows sufficiently, that the officers of the Bastile rightly estimated the capability of exciting despair, which was possessed by their prison. This preventive system was carried to an almost ludicrous extent. Wishing to beguile the tedium of captivity, M. Linguet resolved to resume his geometrical studies, and he accordingly requested to be supplied with a case of mathematical instruments. After much demur, the case was obtained, but it was without a pair of compasses. When he remonstrated respecting the omission, he was told, that “arms were prohibited in the Bastile.” At length, his jailors hit upon the happy idea of having the compasses made of bone. Candour, however, requires the acknowledgment that their fears were not wholly groundless, instances having occurred in which prisoners were driven to desperation. It was with a pair of compasses that the unfortunate Count Lally endeavoured to put an end to his existence. His attempt was made in the year 1766, and, in the following year, a more fatal event took place. A captive, Drohart by name, contrived to secrete a knife, with which he first mortally wounded a turnkey, and then destroyed himself.

For some time after his arrival at the Bastile, every thing seems to have been studiously contrived to shock a prisoner’s habits, insulate him from the human race, and deliver him up to squalid wretchedness and distracting thoughts. The manifest purpose of this was, to break his courage, and thereby induce him to make such confessions as would answer the ends of his persecutors. It was not till after he had undergone a second examination that he was allowed to be shaved; and months often elapsed before this favour was granted. Neither was he permitted to have books, pens, or paper, nor to attend mass, nor to walk in the court. He could not even write to the lieutenant of police, through whom alone any indulgence was to be obtained. The sight of the turnkey, for a few moments, thrice a day, was the sole link which connected him with his fellow beings.

Every stratagem which cunning could devise was put in practice to entrap a prisoner into an avowal of guilt, the betraying of his suspected friends, or, failing these, into such contradictions as might give a colour for refusing to believe him innocent. Threats, too, were not spared, nor even flatteries and promises. At one moment, papers were shown to him, but not put into his hands, which his examiners affirmed to contain decisive proof of his criminality; at another, he was told that his accomplices had divulged the whole, and that his obstinate silence would subject him to be tried by a special commission, while, on the contrary, if he would speak out frankly he should be speedily liberated. He who was seduced by this artifice was sure to repent of his folly. When the irrevocable words had passed his lips, he was informed that the power of his deluders did not extend to setting him free, but that they would exert all their influence, and hoped to succeed. It is scarcely necessary to say, that there was not a syllable of truth in their assurances, and that he who had confided in them was treated with increased severity. It was not only in official examinations that the captive was exposed to be thus circumstanced; the same system was pursued throughout. There was no one who approached him to whom he could venture to breathe a whisper of complaint. If he was visited by the lieutenant of police, the sole aim of the lieutenant was to draw forth something which might be turned against him. If he was allowed to be attended by one of the invalids, the attendant treasured up for his masters every word that was dropped. Sometimes, apparently as a matter of grace and kindness, a companion, said to be a fellow sufferer, was given to him; the companion was a police spy, who was withdrawn when he had wormed out the secret, or had become convinced that it was unattainable. To listen to that which seemed the voice of pity was dangerous; for the turnkeys and other officers, enjoined though they were to be mute on other occasions, had their tongues let loose for fraudulent ends, and were taught to lure the prisoners into indiscreet language, by feigned expressions of sympathy.

In general, a silence was maintained by the officers and attendants, which might rival that of the monks of La Trappe. “When a corporal or any other, (said the instructions) is ordered to attend a prisoner, who may have permission to walk in the garden, or on the towers, it is expressly forbidden that he speak to him. He is to observe his actions, to take care that he make no signs to any one without, and to bring him back at the hour fixed, delivering him over to an officer, or one of the turnkeys, as may have been ordered.”—“The sentinel in the court must constantly keep in view the prisoners who may be permitted to walk there: he must be attentive to observe if they drop any paper, letter, note, or anything else: he must prevent them from writing on the walls, and render an exact account of every thing he may have remarked whilst on duty. All persons whatsoever, except the officers of the staff and turnkeys, are forbidden ever to speak to any prisoner, or even to answer him, under any pretence whatever.” As it was supposed that strangers might chance to feel pity for the victims of despotism, and of course be disposed to express it, or to serve them, care was taken to guard against that evil. It was therefore ordered that, “if workmen should be employed in the castle, as many sentinels must be put over them as may be thought necessary, who must observe them with the same attention as they do the prisoners, in order that they may not approach these, nor do any thing that may be contrary to the rules of the place.”

Visits from without seem never to have been permitted except in minor cases of offence. No permission was granted till after the final examination, and not then till repeated requests had been made, and powerful interest employed. Even when the favour was obtained, its value was seriously diminished by the restrictions with which it was clogged. The prisoner was obliged to receive his relative or friend in the council chamber, on one side of which he was placed, and his visitor on the other, with two officers between them; nor were the parties suffered to converse on any subject which had the most remote reference to the cause or circumstances of the prisoner’s confinement. The same system was followed when one captive had an interview with another. There was but one case, in which incarcerated individuals could have a free interchange of thoughts; it was when the fullness of the prison, or the humanity of the governor, caused two of them to be located in the same chamber.

Intercourse by letters was equally shackled, though there was an insulting affectation of a readiness to facilitate correspondence. It has, indeed, been conjectured, that “this apparent indulgence to prisoners was one of the many artifices employed to discover their secrets, and the persons with whom they were connected;” and this supposition may not be far from the truth. There can be no doubt, that of the letters written by captives few arrived at their destination. We have seen, in the narrative of a prisoner, that the whole of those which he wrote were suppressed. M. Linguet tells us, that, knowing the king’s brothers, Monsieur and the Count d’Artois, (afterwards Louis XVIII. and Charles X.) to be favourable to him, he wrote to them, to solicit their intercession. “The letters,” says he, “were sealed. The lieutenant of police, some time after, told me he had read but not transmitted them; that he had not been allowed. When I observed to him that, since he knew the contents, he might make them known to the generous princes from whom he had detained them, he replied, that he had no access to such high personages. Thus the man, who was prohibited from approaching such high personages, had the privilege of breaking open and suppressing their letters, of rendering fruitless their good intentions and those of the monarch, and, in short, of raising round me ramparts more impenetrable than all the magic castles with which imagination has ever peopled our romances.”

Profound secrecy and mystery were among the most prominent features in the management of the Bastile. He who was fortunate enough to emerge from this den of Cacus, was previously compelled to swear that he would never reveal whatever he had seen or heard during his abode in it. He who was retained, to waste away life within its dreary limits, was sedulously shut out from all knowledge of what was passing in the world. The malignant enemy, by whom he had been deprived of freedom, might be gone to his last account, but to _him_ he still lived and tyrannized, for no whisper of his departure was suffered to reach him. When the fact of a person being in the Bastile was not so notorious as to preclude the possibility of denying it, his being there was unblushingly denied. When enquiry was made, the officers, the governor, the minister himself, would not scruple to affirm, and that, too, in the most solemn manner, that they knew nothing of any such individual. Thus were his friends discouraged, and led to slacken in their exertions for his relief, or wholly to discontinue them. If, however, they discovered the falsehood, and persisted in their efforts, there was still another resource for defeating them; slander was resorted to, the worst crimes were attributed to him, and he was held up as an abandoned miscreant, whom it was a disgrace to patronize, and mercy to confine. At last, weariness, disgust, or death, robbed him of all who had loved or pitied him, and, even though his original persecutor had ceased to exist, the victim was left to perish forgotten in his dungeon.

There was one object, besides the wish to elicit imprudent speeches or confessions, which had power to open the lips of the jailors; that object was the desire of tormenting, of making the prisoner feel how completely he was insulated from mankind, no less by its own baseness than by his prison walls. “I was daily told with a laugh,” says M. Linguet, “that I ought not to trouble myself any longer about what the world was doing, because I was believed to be dead; the joke was carried so far, as to relate to me circumstances which insane rage or horrible levity added to my pretended exit. I was assured, also, that I had nothing to hope from the warmth and fidelity of my friends; not so much because, like others, they were deceived with respect to my existence, as because they had become treacherous. This double imposture had for its purpose, not merely to torture me, but at once to inspire me with a boundless reliance on the only traitor whom I had reason to fear, and who was perpetually represented as being my only true friend, and to discover, from the manner in which I was affected by these tidings, whether I had really any secrets which could lay me open to a betrayer.”

Though the captive was not allowed to live with even a shadow of comfort, or to hasten his own end, a wide opening was left for death to accomplish his deliverance in one of the regular modes. From the evening meal till that of the morning, he was hermetically sealed up by massy, iron-lined double doors; in all that time no human being approached him. The turnkey slept in a distant chamber, where neither voice nor the sound of knocking could reach him. Bells seem to have been thought too great a luxury for the place. If illness suddenly came, there was no resource for the sufferer, but to call to the nearest sentinel, on the other side of the broad moat. If his voice were too weak, if his strength failed to carry him to the window, or if the wind drowned his cries, he must remain unaided. If his disorder were apoplectic, or he broke a blood-vessel, it is manifest that his fate was sealed. But, supposing him to be heard, prompt assistance was by no means to be expected. The sentinels gave the alarm to each other, till it reached the guard-house; the turnkey was then to be called, who, on his part, had to rouse the servant of the king’s lieutenant, that he might awake his master, and procure from him the keys. Two hours were thus spent before the surgeon was drawn from his bed, where, in truth, he might as well have continued, since, interdicted as he was from prescribing by himself, he could only make a report to the governor, and promise that the physician, who resided three miles off, and was overloaded with practice, should be sent to on the morrow.

If the disease was not immediately dangerous, some medicine was brought, and the sick man must help himself as well as he could, and be thankful if his malady were not thought to be simulated. “But when he was reduced to extremity, when he was so far gone that he could not rise from the worm-eaten couch on which he lay, a nurse was given to him. And who was this nurse? a stupid, coarse, brutal invalid soldier, incapable of attentions, little assiduities, every thing which is indispensable for a sick person. But a still worse thing is, that when this soldier is once fastened on you, he can never quit you; he himself becomes a prisoner. It is therefore necessary to begin by purchasing his consent, and prevailing on him to be shut up with you as long as your captivity lasts; and, if you recover, you must make up your mind to bear the bad temper, the discontent, the reproaches, the ennui, of this companion, who takes ample vengeance upon your health for the seeming services which he has lent to your sickness.”

There was yet another stab to be inflicted on those who were sinking into the grave, and by this the living could be wounded at the same time. To regulate the manner in which, after his death, his property shall be distributed, and, by so doing, to save a wife and offspring from the perplexity, endless trouble, expense, and perhaps ruin, which may arise out of a disputed succession, or the want of needful formalities, is a duty which every rational being will be anxious to perform. That the person is a captive, only renders more necessary the performance of the duty. But not so thought the myrmidons of the Bastile. It is on record that a prisoner, who was stretched for two months on a bed of sickness, expecting that each hour would be his last, repeatedly and vainly implored a French minister of state to grant him the customary legal aid for executing his will; his prayer was sternly refused, though there was a lawyer who belonged to the prison establishment. That this was a solitary instance it would be folly to imagine.

It was not of unfrequent occurrence in the Bastile, for the bodily faculties of a prisoner to survive his mental. Shut out from the beautiful forms of nature, the treasures of intellect, and the delights of social converse, from all that can animate or console; racked by a thousand remembrances, conjectures, passions, and fears; brooding in deep seclusion and silence over the past and the present, and vainly struggling to penetrate the darkness of the future; his mind at length gave way, and idiotism or madness ensued. Yet even that must be deemed a blessing, if it brought with it oblivion of his fate.

But the long and unbroken series of woes is at last ended; death has rent asunder the fetters of the captive, and he is “where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.” Is there yet a way left, by which his ingenious tormentors can make their vengeance reach beyond the grave, by which they can, in some measure, entail upon his kindred a share of suffering? There is. How was this important purpose effected in the Bastile? As soon as the breath was out of the body, a notice was sent to the minister of the home department and the lieutenant-general of police. The king’s commissary then visited the prison, to minute down the circumstances. This being done, orders were issued to inter the body. In the gloom of evening it was conveyed to the burying ground of St. Paul’s; two persons belonging to the Bastile attended it to sign the parish register; and the name under which the deceased was entered, and the description of the rank which he held, were fictitious, that all trace of him might be obliterated. Another register, containing his real name and station, was, in truth, kept at the Bastile; but it was almost inaccessible, a sight of it, for the purpose of making an extract, being never allowed, without a strict enquiry into the reason why the application was made. His family and friends, meanwhile, remained in profound ignorance of his having been released from his troubles. No mourning mother, wife, or child, followed his remains to their last abode; and even the poor consolation was denied them of knowing the spot where he reposed, that they might water it with their tears. Thus, in death, as in life, oppression and malice triumphantly asserted their absolute dominion over the captives of the Bastile.

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