CHAPTER III.THE DUNGEON OF VINCENNES.I.

Louis XI. strolled one day in the precincts of Vincennes, wrapped in his threadbare surtout edged with rusty fur, and plucking at the queer little peaked cap with the leaden image of the Virgin stuck in the band. There was a smile on the sallow and saturnine face.

At his Majesty's right walked a thick-set, squab man of scurvy countenance, wearing a close-fitting doublet, and armed like a hangman. On the King's left went a showy person, vulgar and mean of face, whose gait was a ridiculous strut.

Louis stopped against the dungeon and tapped the great wall with his finger.

"What's just the thickness of this?" he asked.

"Six feet in places, sire, eight in others," answered the squab man, Tristan, the executioner.

"Good!" said Louis. "But the place looks to me as if it were tumbling."

"It might, no doubt, be in better repair, sire," observed the showy person, Oliver, the barber; "but as it is no longer usedâ€”â€”"

"Ah! but suppose I thought of using it, gossip?"

"Then, sire, your Majesty would have it repaired."

"To be sure!" chuckled the Kingâ€”"If I were to shut you up in there, Oliver, you could get out, eh?"

"I think so, sire."

"But you, gossip," to his hangman, "you'd catch him and have him back to me,hein?"

"Trust me, sire!" said Tristan.

"Then I'll have my dungeon mended," said Louis. "I'm going to have company here, gossips."

"Sire!" exclaimed Oliver. "Prisoners so close to your Majesty's own apartments! But you might hear their groans."

"Ha! They groan, Oliver? The prisoners groan, do they? But there's no need why I should live in the chÃ¢teau here. Hark you both, gossips, I'd like my guests to groan and cry at their pleasure, without the fear of inconveniencing their King."

And the King, and his hangman, and his barber fell a-laughing.

From that day, in a word, Louis ceased to inhabit the chÃ¢teau of Vincennes, and the dungeon which appertained to it was made a terrible fastness for his Majesty's prisoners of State. It was already a place of some antiquity. The date of the original buildings is quite obscure. The immense foundations of the dungeon itself were laid by Philippe de Valois; his son, Jean le Bon, carried the fortress to its third story; and Charles V. finished the work which his fathers had begun.

All prisons are not alike in their origin. In the beginnings of states, force counts for more than legal prescripts, and ideas of vengeance go above the worthier idea of the repression of crime. Such-and-such a prison, renowned in history, is the expression in stone and mortar of the power or the hatred of its builders. Thus and thus did they plan and construct against their enemies. There was no mistaking, for example, the purpose of the architect of the Bastille,â€”it must be a fortress stout enough to resist the enemy outside, and a place fit and suitable to hold and to torture him when he had been carried a prisoner within its walls.

But Vincennes, in its origin, at all events, may be viewed under other and softer aspects. Those prodigious towers, for all the frightful menace of their frown, were not first reared to be a place of torment. The name of Vincennes came indeed, in the end, to be not less dreadful and only less abhorrent than that of the Bastille. A few revolutions of the vicious wheel of despotism, and the King's chÃ¢teau was transformed into the King's prison, for the pain of the King's enemies, or of the King's too valiant subjects. But the infancy and youth of Vincennes were innocent enough, a reason, perhaps, why it was always less hated of the people than the Bastille. Vincennes lived and passed scathless through the terrors and hurtlings of the Revolution; and presently, from its cincture of flowers and verdant forest, looked down upon that high column of Liberty, which occupied the blood-stained site of the vanquished and obliterated Bastille.

THE KEEP OR DUNGEON OF VINCENNES.

King Louis lived no more in the chÃ¢teau, and his masons made good the breaches in the dungeon which neglect, rather than age, had occasioned. When it stood again a solid mass of stone,â€”

"Gossip," said Louis to his executioner and torturer-in-chief, "if there were some little executions to be done here quietly and secretlyâ€”as you like to do them, Tristanâ€”what place would you choose,hein?"

"I've chosen one, sire; a beautiful chamber on the first floor. The walls are thick enough to stifle the cries of an army; and if you lift the stones of the floor here and there, you find underneath the most exquisiteoubliettes! Ah! sire, they understood high politics before your Majesty's time."

King Louis caressed his pointed chin, and laughed:

"I think it was Charlesthe Wisewho built that chamber."

"No, sire; it was Johnthe Good!"

"Ah, so! Go on, gossip. My dungeon is quite ready, eh?"

"Quite ready, sire."

"To-morrow, then, good Tristan, you will go to MontlhÃ©ry. In the chÃ¢teau there you will find four guests of mine, masked, and very snug in one of our cosy iron cages. You will bring them here."

"Very good, sire."

"You will take care that no one sees youâ€”or them."

"Yes, sire."

"And you will be tender of them, gossip. You are not to kill them on the way. When we have them hereâ€”we shall see. Start early to-morrow, Tristan. As for friend Oliver here, he shall be my governor of the dungeon of Vincennes, and devote himself to my prisoners. If a man of them escapes, my Oliver, Tristan will hang you; because you are not a nobleman, you know."

"Sire," murmured the barber, "you overwhelm me."

"Your Majesty owed that place to me, I think," said Tristan.

"Are you not my matchless hangman, gossip? No, no! Besides, I'm keeping you to hang Oliver. Go to MontlhÃ©ry."

Thus was Vincennes advanced to be a State prison, in 1473, when Louis XI. held the destinies of France. From that date to the beginning of the century we live in, those black jaws had neither sleep nor rest. As fast as they closed on one victim, they opened to receive another. At a certain stage of all despotic governments, the small few in power live mainly for two reasonsâ€”to amuse themselves and to revenge themselves. One amuses oneself at Court, and a State prison-controlled from the Courtâ€”is an ideal means of revenging oneself. The tedious machinery of the law is dispensed with. There is no trouble of prosecuting, beating up witnesses, or waiting in suspense for a verdict which may be given for the other side. Thelettre de cachet, which a Court historian described as an ideal means of government, and which Mirabeau (in an essay penned in Vincennes itself) tore once for all into shreds, saved a world of tiresome procedure to the King, the King's favourites, and the King's ministers. For generations and for centuries, absolutism, persecution, party spirit, public and private hate used thelettre de cachetto fill and keep full the cells and dungeons of the Bastille and Vincennes. It was, to be sure, a two-edged weapon, cutting either way. He who used it one day might find it turned against him on another day. But, by whomsoever employed, it was the great weapon of its time; the most effective weapon ever forged by irresponsible authority, and the most unscrupulously availed of. It was this instrument which, during hundreds of years, consigned to captivity without a limit, in theoubliettesof all the State prisons of France, that "immense et dÃ©plorable contingent de prisonniers cÃ©lÃ¨bres, de misÃ¨res illustres."

Vincennes and the Bastille have been contrasted. They were worthy the one of the other; and at several points their histories touch. In both prisons the discipline (which was much an affair of the governor's whim) followed pretty nearly the same lines, and owed nothing in either place to any central, preconceived and ordered scheme of management. Prisoners might be transferred from Vincennes to the Bastille, and from the Bastille again to Vincennes. For the governor, Vincennes was generally the stepping-stone to the Bastille. At Vincennes he served his apprenticeship in the three branches of his callingâ€”turnkey, torturer, and hangman. Like the callow barber-surgeon of the age, he bled at random, and used the knife at will; and his savage novitiate counted as so much zealous service to the State.

But Vincennes wears a greater colour than the Bastille. It stood to the larger and more famous fortress as thenoblesseto thebourgeoisie. Vincennes was the great prison, and the prison of the great. Talent or genius might lodge itself in the Bastille, and often so did, very easily; nobility, with courage enough to face its sovereign on a grievance, or with power enough to be reckoned a thought too near the throne, tasted the honours of Vincennes. To be a wit, and polish an epigram against a minister or a madam of the Court; to be a rhymester, and turn a couplet against the Government; to be a philosopher, and hazard a new social theory, was to knock for admission at the wicket of the Bastille. But to be a stalwart noble, and look royalty in the eye, sword in hand; to be brother to the King, and chafe under the royal behest; to be a cardinal of the Church, and dare to jingle your breviary in the ranks of the Fronde; to be leader of a sect or party, or the head of some school of enterprise, this was to give with your own hand the signal to lower the drawbridge of Vincennes.

At seasons prisoners of all degrees jostled one another in both prisons; but in general the unwritten rule obtained that philosophy and unguarded wit went to the Bastille; whilst for strength of will that might prove troublesome to the Crown ...voilÃ le donjon de Vincennes!

Yes, Vincennes was theStateprison, the prison for audacity in high places, for genius that could lead the general mind into paths of danger to the throne. The fetters fashioned there were for a Prince de CondÃ© to wear, a Henri de Navarre, a MarÃ©chal de Montmorency, a Bassompierre or a Cardinal de Retz, a Duc de Longueville or a Prince Charles Edward, a La MÃ´le and a Coconas, a Rantzau or a Prince Casimir, a Fouquet or a Duc de Lauzun, a Louis-Joseph de VendÃ´me, a Diderot or a Mirabeau, a d'Enghien.

History, says a French historian, shews itself never at the Bastille but with manacles in one hand and headsman's axe in the other. At Vincennes, ever and anon, it appears in the rustling silks of a king's favourite, who finds within the circle of those cruel walls soft bosky nooks and bowers, for feasting and for love. Sometimes from the bosom of those perfumed solitudes, a death-cry escapes, and the flowers are spotted with blood: Messalina has dispensed with alettre de cachet. At one epoch it is Isabeau de BaviÃ¨re, it is Catherine de MÃ©dicis at another; what need to exhaust or to extend the list? Catherine made no sparing use of the towers of Vincennes. It was a spectacle of royal splendours on this side and of royal tyrannies on that; banquets and executions; the songs of her troubadours mingling with the sighs of her captives. Often some enemy of Catherine, quitting the dance at her pavilion of Vincennes, fell straightway into a cell of the dungeon, to die that night by stiletto, or twenty years later as nature willed. Yes, indeed, Vincennes and the Bastille were worthy of each other.

Two mysterious echoes of history still reach the ear from what were once the vaulted dungeons of Vincennes. The note of the first is gay and mocking, a cry with more of victory in it than of defeat, and one remembers the captivity of the Prince de CondÃ©. The other is like the sudden detonation of musketry, and one recalls the bloody death of the young Duc d'Enghien, the last notable representative of the house of CondÃ©.

The Prince de CondÃ©'s affair is of the seventeenth century. It was Anne of Austria, inspired by Mazarin, who had him arrested, along with his brother the Prince de Conti and their brother-in-law the Duc de Longueville. A lighter-hearted gallant than CondÃ© never set foot on the drawbridge of Vincennes. On the night of his arrival with De Conti and the duke, no room had been prepared for his reception. He called for new-laid eggs for supper, and slept on a bundle of straw. De Conti cried, and De Longueville asked for a work on theology. The next day, and every day, CondÃ© played tennis and shuttle-cock with his keepers; sang and began to learn music. He quizzed the governor perpetually, and laid out a garden in the grounds of the prison which became the talk of Paris. "He fasted three times a week and planted pinks," says a chronicler. "He studied strategy and sang the psalms," says another. When the governor threatened him for breaches of the rules, the Prince offered to strangle him. But not even Vincennes could hold a CondÃ© for long, and he was liberated.

Briefer still was the sojourn of the Duc d'Enghienâ€”one of the strangest, darkest, and most tragical events of history. In 1790, at the age of nineteen, he had quitted France with the chiefs of the royalist party. Twelve years later, in 1802, he was living quietly at the little town of Ettenheim, not far from Strasbourg; in touch with the forces of CondÃ©, but not, as it seems, taking active part in the movement which was preparing against Napoleon. A mere police report lost him with the First Consul. He was denounced as having an understanding with the officers of CondÃ©'s army, and as holding himself in readiness to unite with them on the receipt of instructions from England. Napoleon issued orders for his arrest, and he was seized in his little German retreat on March 15, 1804. Five days later he was lodged in the dungeon of Vincennes.

Here the prison drama, one of the saddest enacted on the stage of history, commences. "Tout est mystÃ©rieux dans cette tragÃ©die, dont le prologue mÃªme commence par un secret." (Everything is mysterious in this tragedy, the very prologue of which begins with a secret.)

The Duke had married secretly the Princess Charlotte de Rohan, who, by her husband's wish, continued to occupy her own house. The daily visits of the constant husband were a cause of suspicion to the agents of Napoleon. They said that he was framing plots; he was simply enjoying the society of his wife. He was engaged, they said, in a conspiracy with Georges and others against the life of Napoleon; he was but turning love phrases in the boudoir of the Princess.

The mystery accompanied the unfortunate prisoner from Ettenheim to Strasbourg, from Strasbourg to Paris, and went before him to Vincennes. Governor Harel was instructed to receive "an individual whose name is on no account to be disclosed. The orders of the Government are that the strictest secrecy is to be preserved respecting him. He is not to be questioned either as to his name or as to the cause of his detention. You yourself will remain ignorant of his identity."

As he was driven into Paris at five o'clock on the evening of March 20th, the Duke said with a fine assurance:

"If I may be permitted to see the First Consul, it will be settled in a moment."

That request never reached Napoleon, and the prisoner was hurried to Vincennes. His only thought on reaching the chÃ¢teau was to ask that he might have leave to hunt next day in the forest. But the next day was not yet come.

The mystery does not cease. The military commission sent hot-foot from Paris to try the case were "dans l'ignorance la plus complÃ¨te" both as to the name and the quality of the accused. An aide-de-camp of Murat gave the Duke's name to them as they gathered at the table in an ante-chamber of the prison to inquire what cause had summoned them. D'Enghien was abed and asleep.

"Bring in the prisoner," and Governor Harel fetched d'Enghien from his bed. He stood before his judges with a grave composure, and not a question shook him.

"Interrogated as to plots against the Emperor's life, taxed with projects of assassination, he answered quietly that insinuations such as these were insults to his birth, his character, and his rank."[4]

4.Histoire du Donjon de Vincennes.

The inquiry finished, the Duke demanded with insistence to see the First Consul. Savary, Napoleon's aide-de-camp, whispered the council that the Emperor wished no delay in the affair,[5]and the prisoner was withdrawn.

5. It is moderately certain at this day that everyone representing Napoleon in this miserable affair of d'Enghienmis-represented him from first to last.

Some twenty minutes later a gardener of the chÃ¢teau, Bontemps by name, was turned out of bed in a hurry to dig a grave in the trenches against the Pavilion de la Reine; and the officer commanding the guard had orders to furnish a file of soldiers.

D'Enghien sat composedly in his room against the council-chamber, writing up his diary for his wife, and wondering whether leave would be given him to hunt on the morrow. Enters, once more, Governor Harel, a lantern in his hand. It was on the stroke of midnight.

"Would monsieur le duc have the kindness to follow?" It is still on record that the governor was pale, looked troubled, and spoke with much concern.

He led the way that conducted to the Devil's Tower. The stairs from that tower descended straight into the trenches. At the head of the staircase, looking into the blackness beyond, the Duke turned and said to his conductor: "Are you taking me to anoubliette? I should prefer,mon ami, to be shot."

"Monsieur," said Harel, "you must follow me,â€”and God grant you courage!"

"It is a prayer I never yet needed to put up," responded d'Enghien calmly, and he followed to the foot of the stairs.

"Shoulder arms!"

A lantern glimmering at either end of the file of soldiers shewed d'Enghien his fate. As the sentence of death was read, he wrote in pencil a message to his wife, folded and gave it to the officer in command of the file, and asked for a priest. There was no priest in residence at the chÃ¢teau, he was told.

"And time presses!" said the Duke. He prayed a moment, covering his face with his hands. As he raised his head, the officer gave the word to fire.

Volumes have been written upon this tragedy, but to this day no one knows by whose precise word the blood of the last CondÃ© was spilled in the trenches of Vincennes. That d'Enghien was assassinated seems beyond questionâ€”but by whom? Years after the event, General Hullin, president of the commission, asserted in writing that no order of death was ever signed; and that the members of the commission, still sitting at the council-table, heard with amazement the volley that made an end of the debate. Napoleon bore and still bears the opprobrium, but the proof lacks. Yet who, under the Consulate, dared shoot a d'Enghien, failing the Consul's word? The stones of Vincennes, wherein the mystery is locked, have kept their counsel.

Let the curtain be drawn for a moment on the last scene in the tragedy of La MÃ´le and Coconas. It is a lurid picture of the manners of the timeâ€”the last quarter of the sixteenth century, Charles IX. on the throne. The tale, which space forbids to tell at length, is one of love and jealousy, with the wiles of asoi-disantmagician in the background. The prime plotter in the affair was the Queen-Mother, Catherine de MÃ©dicis. La MÃ´le was the lover of Marguerite de Navarre; Coconas, the lover of the Queen's friend, the Duchesse de Nevers. Arrested on a dull and senseless charge of conspiring by witchcraft against the life of the King, the two courtiers were thrown into Vincennes. The first stage of the trial yielding nothing, the accused were carried to the torture chamber, and there underwent all the torments of the Question. After that, being innocent of the charge, they were declared guilty, and sentenced to the axe.

"Justice" was done upon them in the presence of all Paris, wondering dumbly at the iniquity of the punishment.

Night had fallen, and the executioner was at supper with his family in his house in the tower of the pillory. All good citizens shunned that accursed dwelling, and those who had to pass the headsman's door after dark crossed themselves as they did so. All at once there was a knocking at the door.

On his dreadful days of office the "Red Man" sometimes received the stealthy visit of a friend, brother, wife, or sister, come to beg or purchase a lock of hair, a garment, or a jewel.

"There's money coming to us," said the headsman to his wife. He opened the door, and on the threshold stood a man, armed, and two women.

"These ladies would speak with you," said the man; and as the headsman stood aside, the two ladies, enveloped in enormous hoods, entered the house, their companion remaining without.

"You are the executioner?" said an imperious voice from behind an impenetrable veil.

"Yes, madame."

"You have here ... the bodies of two gentlemen."

The headsman hesitated. The lady drew out a purse, which she laid upon the table. "It is full of gold," she said.

"Madame," exclaimed the "Red Man," "what do you wish? I am at your service."

"Shew me the bodies," said the lady.

"Ah! madame, but consider. It is terrible!" said the headsman, not altogether unmoved. "You would scarcely support the sight."

"Shew them to me," said the lady.

Taking a lighted torch, the headsman pointed to a door in a corner of the room, dark and humid.

"In there!" he said.

The lady who had not yet spoken broke into an hysterical sob. "I dare not! I dare not! I am terrified!" she cried.

"Who loves should love unto death ... and in death," said she of the imperious voice.

The headsman pushed open the door of a cellar-like apartment, held the torch above his head, and from the black doorway the two ladies gazed in silent horror upon the mutilated spoils of the scaffold. In the red ooze upon the bare stone floor the bodies of La MÃ´le and Coconas lay side by side. The severed heads were almost in their places, a circular black line dividing them from the white shoulders. The first of the two ladies, with heaving bosom, stooped over La MÃ´le, and raised the pale right hand to her lips.

"Poor La MÃ´le! Poor La MÃ´le! I will avenge you!" she murmured.

Then to the executioner: "Give me the head! Here is the double of your gold."

"Ah! madame, I cannot. I dare not! Suppose the Provostâ€”â€”"

"If the Provost demands this head of you, tell him to whom you gave it!" and the lady swept the veil from her face.

The headsman bent to the earth: "Madame the Queen of Navarre!"

"And the head of Coconas to me, maÃ®tre," said the Duchesse de Nevers.[6]

6. In effect, Margaret of Navarre bore away the head of La MÃ´le, and the Duchesse de Nevers that of Coconas. It is said that La MÃ´le on the scaffold bequeathed his head to the Queen.

Amongst Louis XV.'s State prisoners, a long and picturesque array, may be singled out for the present Prince Charles Edward, son of the Pretender. Under the wind of adversity, after Culloden, Prince Charles was blown at length upon French soil. Louis was gracious in his offer of an asylum, and courtly France was enthusiastic over the exploits and fantastic wanderings of the young hero. All went gaily with him in Paris until the signatures had been placed to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Then the wind began to blow from the east again.

One morning the visit was announced of MM. de Maurepas and the Duc de GÃ¨vres.

"Gentlemen," said Prince Charles to his friends, "I know what this visit bodes. His Majesty proposes to withdraw his hospitality. We are to be driven out of France."

His handful of followers were stupefied, but the Prince was right. M. de Maurepas announced himself as commanded by the King to request Prince Charles Edward's immediate departure from France.

"Sir," returned the Prince, "your King has given me shelter, and the title of brother."

"Monseigneur," said M. de Maurepas, "circumstances have changedâ€”â€”"

"To my advantage, sir! For over and above the rights which Louis XV. has acknowledged in me, I have those more sacred ones of misfortune and persecution."

"His Majesty, monseigneur, is beyond doubt deeply touched by your misfortunes, but the treaty he has just signed for the welfare of his people compels him now to deny you his succour."

"Does your King indeed break his word and oath so lightly?" said Prince Charles. "Is the blood of a proscribed and exiled prince, to whom he has but just given his hand, so trifling a matter to him?"

"Monseigneur," said de Maurepas, "I am not here to sustain an argument with you. I am only the bearer of his Majesty's commands."

"Then tell the King from me that I shall yield only to his force."

This was on December 10, 1748.

When Louis's emissaries had retired, Prince Charles announced his intention of going to the Opera in the evening. His followers feared some public scandal, and did their utmost to dissuade him.

"The more public the better!" cried the Prince in a passion.

In effect, he drove to the Opera after dinner. De Maurepas had surrounded the building with twelve hundred soldiers, and as the Prince's carriage drew up at the steps, a troop of horse encircled it, and he himself was met with a brusque request for his sword.

"Come and take it!" said young Hotspur, flourishing the weapon.

In a moment he was seized from behind, his hands and arms bound, and the soldiers lifted him into another carriage, which was forthwith driven off at a gallop.

"Where are you taking me?" asked the Prince.

"Monseigneur, to the dungeon of Vincennes."

"Ah, indeed! Pray thank your King for having chosen for me the prison which was honoured by the great CondÃ©. You may add that, whilst CondÃ© was the subject of Louis XIV., I am only the guest of Louis XV."

M. du ChÃ¢telet, governor of Vincennes at that epoch, had received orders to make the Prince's imprisonment a rigorous one, and fifty men were specially appointed to watch him. But du ChÃ¢telet, a friend and admirer of the young hero, took his part, and counselled him to abandon a resistance which must be worse than futile, "You have had triumph enough," said the prudent du ChÃ¢telet, "in exposing the feebleness and cowardice of the King."

Prince Charlie's detention lasted but six days. He was liberated on December 16th, and left Paris in the keeping of an officer of musketeers to join his father in Rome.

Absolutism,l'arbitraire, all through this period was making hay while the sun shone, and playing rare tricks with the liberties of the subject. Vincennes was a witness of strange things done in the name of the King's justice. Take the curious case of the AbbÃ© Prieur. The AbbÃ© had invented a kind of shorthand, which he thought should be of some use to the ministry. But the ministry would none of it, and the AbbÃ© made known his little invention to the King of Prussia, a patron of such profitable things. But one of his letters was opened at the post-office by theCabinet Noir, and the next morning Monsieur l'AbbÃ© Prieur awoke in the dungeon of Vincennes. He inquired the reason, and in the course of months his letter to the King of Prussia was shewn to him.

A venerable and worthy nobleman, M. Pompignan de Mirabelle, was imprudent enough to repeat at a supper party some satirical verses he had heard touching Madame de Pompadour and De Sartines, the chief of police. Warned that De Sartines had filled in his name on alettre de cachet, M. de Mirabelle called at the police office, and asked to what prison he should betake himself. "To Vincennes," said De Sartines.

"To Vincennes," repeated M. de Mirabelle to his coachman, and he arrived at the dungeon before the order for his detention.

Once a year, De Sartines made a formal visit to Vincennes, and once a year punctually he demanded of M. de Mirabelle the name of the author of the verses. "If I knew it I should not tell you," was the invariable reply; "but as a matter of fact I never heard it in my life." M. de Mirabelle died in Vincennes, a very old man.

A Swiss, by name Thoring, in the service of Madame de Foncemargue, told a dream in which his mistress had appeared to him with this message: "You must assassinate the King, and I will save you. You will be deaf and dumb until the deed is accomplished."

The man was clearly of unsound mind, but weak intellects were not allowed to murder kings in their sleep, and he was cast into Vincennes. Twenty years later he was seen chained by the middle to the wall of his cell, half naked and wholly mad.

But we may leave the prisoners for a while, and throw a glance upon the great castellany itself. It is best viewed, perhaps, as it stood at the commencement of the eighteenth century. Nine gigantic towers composed the fortress. A tenth out-topped themâ€”the tower of the dungeon, distinguished as the royal manor. Two drawbridges gave access to the prison proper, the one small and very narrow, the other of an imposing size, to admit vehicles. Once beneath the wicket, the prisoner saw himself surrounded on every side by walls of prodigious elevation and thickness. He stood now immediately at the foot of the dungeon, which reared its vast height above him. Before beginning the ascent, three heavy doors must be opened for him, and that which communicated directly with the dungeon could be unfastened only by the joint action of the turnkey from within and the sergeant of the guard from without. Straight from this inner door rose the steep staircase which led to the dungeon towers. There were four of these towers, one at each angle, and communication between them was by means of immense halls or chambers, each defended by its own iron-ribbed doors.

To each of the four towers, four stories; and at each story a hall thirty feet long, and from fifteen to eighteen feet wide. At the four corners of the hall, four dismal chambersâ€”the prisoners' cells. These cells were like miniature fortresses. A solid outer door being opened, a second one presented itself. Beyond the second was a third; and the third, iron-plated on both sides, and armed with two locks and three bolts, was the door of the cell. The three doors acted upon one another in such a manner that, unless their secret were known, the second barred the first, and the third barred the second. Light entered the cells through four loopholes, of which the inner orifices were a foot and a half in width, and the outer only six inches.

In the great halls on which the cells opened, prisoners were exercised for a limited time (never more than an hour) on rainy days, or when the orders of the governor forbade them to descend to the walled garden of the dungeon.

The hall of the first floor, celebrated in the annals of barbarism, was called theSalle de la Question, or torture chamber. It had its stone benches, on which, the miserable creatures were placed to wait and watch the preparations for their torment; and great iron hoops or rings attached to the walls, to compress their limbs when the Question was to be put. Hard by this frightful chamberâ€”which was fitted with every contrivance for the infliction of bodily sufferingâ€”were certain diminutive cells, deprived of light and air, and furnished with plank beds, on which prisoners were chained for a moment of repose between the first and second applications of the torture.[7]

7. Up to the reign of Louis XVI., every prison in Paris and the principal courts of justice had a torture chamber, and precise rules existed as to the various kinds of torture that might be resorted to, the mode in which each was to be applied, the persons who were to be present during the Question, the preliminary examination of the prisoner by a surgeon, the manner of binding, stretching, etc., together with the minutest details respecting the several forms of the Question, and the means to be employed to restore the sufferer for a second application.

On the ground floor of the dungeon were the dark cells. These were in no way connected with theSalle de la Question, but served as the abodes for months, or even for years, of those unhappy prisoners against whom absolutism had a special grudge, or whom the governor took a pleasure in reducing to the last extremity of misery. Here was a bed hollowed in the stone wall, and littered with mouldy straw; and rings in the wall and floor for waist-chains and leg-irons. Such a dwelling as this might receive the unfortunate whoselettre de cachetbore the appalling legend:Pour Ãªtre oubliÃ©!â€”(To be forgotten!).

But there were darker profundities yet in this Tartarus of the Kings of France. Almost as far as its towers rose above the ground, the dungeon plunged downwards in subterranean abysses, deep below deep. How many victims sank in those secure abysses, and were silently extinguished!

In a place which witnessed so many last earthly moments, a chapel was a necessity. Hasty absolution was often given for the crimes real or imaginary which were so rudely expiated within the royal manor; and sometimes prisoners were carried in a dying state from theSalle de la Questionto receive the last rites of the Church in one of the three small chapel cells with double doors. Here, on the very threshold of death, one lay in semi-darkness to hear the mass which was pronounced on the other side of the wall. Over the chaplain's apartment was the singular inscription,Carcer sacerdotis(Prison of the Priest), which allows the inference that the chaplain, whilst in the exercise of his functions, was not allowed to communicate with the outer world.

A narrow stone staircase of two hundred and sixty-five high steps, obstructed at frequent intervals by sealed doors, conducted to a small and well made terrace at the very top of the dungeon. It is probable that this terrace is still in existence.[8]It was little usedâ€”perhaps because it was the pleasantest place in the prison,â€”but tradition has represented Mirabeau as taking an occasional airing on that superb summit. The little lantern-shaped tower placed here contained the chapel which was once the oratory of the Kings of France. Some nerve must have been needed for Majesty to pray at ease, whilst crushing with its knees that mass of human wretchedness!

8. Vincennes is now a fort and artillery barracks, and may neither be sketched nor photographed.

The great court below was parcelled into little close gardens, where, under rigid surveillance, favoured prisoners took their dreary exercise.

Few prisons the like of Vincennes have been erected. Those tremendous towers, those almost impenetrable walls, those double and triple doors garnished with iron, the trenches forty feet in depth, those wide outer galleries to give the sentries command at every pointâ€”what more could genius and industry invent to combat the prisoner's passion for liberty? There were, indeed, few escapes from Vincennes. The prisoner who broke prison from the Bastille, and won his way into the trenches, nearly always made good his flight; but in the trenches of Vincennes, if he ever reached them, he was more helpless than a rat in a bucket. The architect of Vincennes was up some half-hour earlier than the architect of the Bastille.

Twice every hour of the twenty-four the patrol made a complete tour of the dungeon; and night and morning, before the closing and opening of the doors, the trenches (which were forbidden to the turnkeys except by express order) were surveyed from end to end, that no letters might be thrown there by prisoners upon whom the State had set a seal like that of theMasque de Fer.

Over and above all theseprÃ©cautions barbares, the sentries had orders to turn the eyes of every passerby from the dungeon towers. No one might stand or draw bridle in the shadow of Vincennes. It might be a relative or friend seeking to learn in what exact cell the captive was lodged! From light to dusk, the sentry reiterated his changeless formula:Passez votre chemin!

We have yet to see what life the prisoners led.

II.

The hour, the manner, and the circumstances of his reception at Vincennes were little adapted to lessen the apprehensions of a prisoner regarding the fate that awaited him. It was generally at night that the arrest was effected, and the dismal ceremony of admission lost nothing amid the general gloom of the scene, streaked here and there by the thin light of the warders' lanterns. It would have been distressing enough to pass into that black keep as the King's prisoner, after a fair trial in open court, and with full knowledge of the term of one's captivity; how much more so to find oneself thrust in there on some vague or fabulous charge, a victim not of offended laws but of some cold caprice of vengeance, to stay the pleasure of an enemy who might forget his prisoner before he forgot his wrath. At Vincennes as in the Bastille, prisoners lived on, hopelessly forgotten, years after the death of their accusers.

On arrival at the dungeon the prisoner was searched from head to foot, and all papers, money, or other valuables were taken from him. This was done under the eyes of the governor, who then, preceded by two turnkeys, led his charge up that steep, narrow and winding staircase which has been described. One vast hall after another was slowly traversed, with frequent halts for the unbarring of doors which creaked on their rusty hinges. The flicker of the lanterns amid that sea of shadows brought into dim evidence huge locks and padlocks, loopholes and casements, garnished with twisted iron bars; and every footfall found an echo in the vaulted ceilings.

At the end of this oppressive journey, the prisoner came to his den, a miserable place containing a wooden stump bedstead, a couple of rush chairs, and a table stained with the dishes of every previous occupant. If it were past the hour at which prisoners were served with supper, he would probably be denied a morsel of food; and the governor left him, after bestowing his first injunction: "I would have you remember, monsieur, that this is the house of silence."

The prisoner had now to keep himself in patience until the governor decided on his lotâ€”that is to say, on the life that he should lead. There was no ordered system such as regulates the existence of an army of convicts undergoing sentence of penal servitude in these days. The power of the governor was all but autocratic, and though he made constant reference to "the rules," he interpreted those shadowy prescriptions entirely as it pleased him. "It is the rule," said the governor, when enforcing some petty tyranny. "It is not the rule," he said, when denying some petty favour. Sometimes the prisoner was forbidden by superior order the use of books and writing materials, but more frequently such an order issued from the lips of the governor himself. If permission to read and write were accorded, new difficulties arose. There was no special library attached to the dungeon, and as the governor's tastes were seldom literary, his store of books was scanty, and the volumes were usually in the keeping of those few prisoners whom he favoured. As for writing materials, little books of note-paper were sparsely doled, each sheet numbered and to be accounted for; and no letter could leave the prison without the governor's scrutiny.

As the prisoner read and wrote, so also did he eat and drink, by favour of the governor. An allowance sufficient for each prisoner's maintenance was authorised and paid by the State, but most of the King's bounty contributed to swell the governor's private fortune. The tariff allowed and paid out of the royal treasury was:

For a prince of the blood, about Â£2per diem.

For a marshal of France, about Â£1 10s.

For a lieutenant-general, about Â£1.

For a member of Parliament, about 15s.

For an ordinary judge, a priest, a captain in the army, or an official of good standing, about 7s.6d.

For a barrister or a citizen of means, about 2s.6d.

For a small tradesman, about 1s.6d.

At such rates as these, all prisoners should have been well cared for in those days; but the truth is that the governors who entered Vincennes with small means left it rich men. Not only the moneys allotted for food, but the allowances of wood, lights, etc., were shamelessly pilfered; and prisoners who were unable or forbidden to supplement the royal bounty from their own purses were often half-starved and half-frozen in their cells. As for the quality of the food, warders and kitchen-assistants sometimes tried to sell in Vincennes meat taken from the prison kitchen, but it had an ill name amongst the peasants: "That comes from the dungeon; it's rotten." On the other hand, wealthy prisoners who enjoyed the governor's favour, or who could bring influence to bear on him from without, were allowed to beguile the tedium of captivity by unlimited feasting and drinking. The inmate of one cell, lying in chains, dirt, and darkness, might be kept awake at night by the tipsy strains of his neighbour in the cell adjoining. Governors avaricious above the common generally had their dark cells full, so as to be able to feed on bread and water the prisoners for whom they received the regular daily tariff. Ordinarily, there were but two meals a day, dinner at eleven in the morning and supper at five in the evening; hence, if your second ration were insufficient, you must go hungry for eighteen hours. A privileged few were allowed a valet at their own charge, but the majority of the prisoners of both sexes were served by the turnkeys.

The turnkeys visited the cells three times a day, rather as spies, it seems, than as ministers to the needs of the prisoners. "They came like heralds of misfortune," says one. "A face hard, expressionless, or insolent; an imperturbable silence; a heart proof against the sufferings of others. Useless to address a question to them; a curt negative was the sole response. 'I know nothing about it,' was the turnkey's eternal formula."

Some prisoners, but by no means all, were allowed to walk for an hour a day in one of the confined gardens at the base of the tower; always in company with a warder, who might neither speak nor be spoken to. As the hour struck, the exercise ceased.

Such seems to have been the external routine of life at Vincennes. Beneath the surface was the perpetual tyrannous oppression of the governor and his subordinates on the one side, and on the other a weight of suffering, extended to almost every detail of existence, endured by the great majority of the prisoners; silently even unto death in some instances, but in others not without desperate resistance, long sustained against overwhelming odds.

The recital of Mirabeau's captivity throws into curious relief the inner life of the dungeon. The governor was a certain De Rougemont, of most unrighteous memory, whom Latude describes as having written his name in blood on the walls of every cell. Elsewhere the same narrator says that prisoners occasionally strangled themselves to escape the rage of De Rougemont, who was seventeen years in charge of Vincennes.

The fiery, impetuous Mirabeau was ceaselessly at variance with this "despotic ape," who delighted in trying to repress by the most contemptible annoyances that irrepressible spirit. Complaint was a fault in the eyes of De Rougemont, impatience a crime.

The future tribune,[9]whose head was always in the clouds, complained incessantly and was impatience incarnate. Night or day he gave his gaoler no peace. Mirabeau's lodging in the fortress was a small tower-chamber between the second and third story, rarely visited by the sun; it was in existence fifty years ago, and bore the number 28. De Rougemont began by submitting him to all the rigours of "the rules." Mirabeau demanded leave to write, it was refused; to read, it was refused; to take a daily airing, it was refused. He could not get scissors to cut his hair, nor a barber to dress it for him. He was four months in altercation with De Rougemont before he could obtain the use of a blunt table-knife. He could not get at his trunk to procure himself a change of linen.

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