XLVI.
DUNGEONS.
LIFE IN THEM.—ANCIENT DUNGEONS.—THE PRISON OF ST. PAUL.—THE DUCAL PALACE.—“SOTTO PIOMBI.”—THE POZZI.—SHUT UP IN THE DARK CELLS.—A NIGHT OF HORROR.—A GUIDE’S BLUNDER.—DUNGEONS OF ST. PETERSBURG.—PETER THE GREAT TORTURING HIS SON.—A PRINCESS DROWNED IN PRISON.
A great many people have at some time in their lives been in dungeons; some of their own accord, and others much against their wills. Those who have gone there voluntarily rarely stay long, as their visits are made out of curiosity; and curiosity in regard to dungeons is very speedily satisfied. I have been in a fair number of dungeons, but I generally made my way out of them with very little delay. They are not very agreeable places of residence; and if one of them were assigned to me as a spot to dwell in, I should get out at the earliest moment, when it was in my power to do so.
A dungeon is an old-fashioned institution, but it is not altogether out of date. If the history of all the dungeons in the world could be written, there would be many startling tales narrated, and many volumes could be made concerning what has transpired within them.
In the days of the ancient Romans, every emperor of good and respectable standing kept a private dungeon for his own use; and he had a good many public ones lying round loose for his friends to occupy. Some emperors kept their dungeons well stocked at all times, with an assorted lot of humanity. They were not particular as to age or sex, as long as they could have their dungeons liberally patronized. Nero did a fine business in the dungeon line, and successfully rivalled many of his competitors. He displayed great ingenuity in starvinghis prisoners, and occasionally in putting them to death; and so did others of the Roman rulers. Nero was a festive old fraud, and did not mind putting his friends to a good deal of trouble in order to amuse himself. I have elsewhere alluded to his fine array of gridirons, toasting-forks, racks, and thumb-screws with which he used to get up exhibitions of a very select character.
IN THE PRISON OF ST. PAUL.
Many of the old dungeons are now closed, partly for want of business, and partly for the reason that their present proprietors have a delicate regard for the reputation of their ancestors, and do not wish any prominence given to these old prisons. Other dungeons are kept open to visitors, but nobody is confined in them. One of the most celebrated dungeons of Rome, for instance, is that in which St. Paul was involuntarily lodged during a part of his stay in Rome. There are two dungeons, one below the other: the upper one is not altogether uncomfortable, though its space is rather restricted, and does not afford much room for exercise.
When I visited this place the guide pointed out several of its peculiar features: one of them is an impression of a human face in the solid rock, at the side of the staircase; and he related, with great solemnity, that while St. Paul was being led down the stairs his keeper pushed him, and pressed his face against the stone. An ordinary face, he explained, would have been injured by the operation, but a miracle was performed, in the instantaneous softening of the rock, so as to receive the visage of the apostle without injury. The impression thus made remains to this day.
Another curious feature is the spring of water from which St. Paul baptized one of his jailers. It is related that one of the jailers became converted, and desired Paul to baptize him. No water was at hand for the purpose; but a miracle was performed, by the opening of the rock in the floor of the dungeon and the appearance of a spring of water. This spring remains at this day, and contains water apparently fresh and sweet. The keeper of the place dipped a quantity of the water from the spring, and offered it to our party for drinking.
We were about to drink, when the guide who accompanied us shook his head, and intimated that the liquid was not good. We did not taste it; and therefore I cannot speak positively as to its character. A picture has been painted, and is preserved in the room above, showing the miraculous opening of the floor, the water rising like a fountain from the rock, and the apostle engaged in the act of baptizing the jailer, who is kneeling before him.
In the middle ages every owner of a feudal castle had a dungeon about his premises, though it was not always under ground. Sometimes it was hewn out of the solid rock which formed the foundation of the edifice, and sometimes it was in a high tower placed at one corner, where the occupant could look out and enjoy the scenery, though he was debarred from any practical knowledge of it other than what he could obtain through his eyes. Many a person has lived and suffered for years, shut up in a high tower where he could look out on the world around him with the consciousness that he was never more to enjoy his liberty.
“SOTTO PIOMBI.”
The Ducal Palace of Venice was well provided in the dungeon line. There were prisons under the roof of the palace which were known amongst the Italians as the “Sotto Piombi,” or “Under the Leads.” They were so named from their position, directly under the roof. They were hot as ovens in summer, and as cold as refrigerators in winter, and they were connected with the room where the famous Council of Ten used to sit. From these prisons persons accused of crimes against the republic were taken before the Council, whose members sat with their faces covered with masks, and their bodies wrapped in cloaks and mantles, so that it was utterly impossible to identify them. To be dragged before the Council was equivalent to a sentence of death; and generally the trial of an offender would be very brief.
Any one could make an accusation against a person, who would be speedily arrested and taken to trial. He never knew who were his accusers; and very often he did not know what testimony was to be given against him.
THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS.
From the Council Chamber he was generally taken to execution, though not always; in either case he was led across the famous Ponte di Sospiri, or Bridge of Sighs; and according to tradition the bridge received its name because prisoners, weeping and sighing, were led across it for execution, or were taken from the prison for trial before the Council of Ten.
Byron has written,—
“I stood in Venice by the Bridge of Sighs,A palace and a prison on either hand.”
“I stood in Venice by the Bridge of Sighs,A palace and a prison on either hand.”
“I stood in Venice by the Bridge of Sighs,
A palace and a prison on either hand.”
Between the Ducal Palace and the prison proper of Venice there is a narrow canal. The bridge is elevated far above the water, and has two passages, each about four feet in width. In regard to these passages traditions differ: one tradition is, that the two were designed, one for noble prisoners, and one for plebeians, while another says that they were used indifferently, patrician or plebeian being allowed either passage without regard to the rank or position he held. The reader can accept whichever explanation suits him best.
Down beneath the palace was a real dungeon: it could never have been an inviting place, and it is very far from being so at this day. No effort is made to keep it in fine condition: it is not carpeted; its walls are not painted, neither are they frescoed. I remember on my first visit that, after we had wandered through the palace, our guide descended a series of stairways, and finally brought us to a place below the level of the water which surrounds Venice. “Here,” said he, “are the dungeons; and here is where many state prisoners, who offended the laws of Venice, passed the portion of their lives immediately preceding their deaths. You can enter them, gentlemen, and see how you would like them.”
IMPRISONED IN THE LOWEST DEPTH.
Torches were lighted, and we told the guide that we preferred to follow him. On we went, where not a ray of light from the outer world could reach us. Had our torches been extinguished we should have been in darkness as deep as that of the lowest and most elaborate mine in the world. Itdid not require a vivid imagination to roll back the centuries, and bring before us the thousands and thousands of men who had lain there, day after day, without hope, until led to trial, and thence to execution. What a world of mystery lies concealed in these prisons! Here is the cell where Marino Faliero was confined; and here is the cell where Jacopo Foscari passed the days preceding his execution; and here is the cell where dozens of men of noble birth and gentle rearing were kept day after day, till they died of starvation and for want of fresh air. The cells are little boxes, some of them not more than six or eight feet square, and not high enough to allow a tall man to stand erect. One cell is only four feet high; and it was said that a healthy man confined in this cell generally died on the sixth day, owing to the dampness and impurity of the air he was compelled to breathe.
To have a practical realization for a few moments of the horrors of imprisonment, we entered one of these cells, and told the guide to take away the torches and not to return for five minutes, whether we called him or not. He went away; the air had been chilly, damp, and disagreeable; and it seemed ten times more so as the light disappeared. The darkness was of the intensest blackness; we could not distinguish anything. With our faces turned towards the door of the cell it seemed the same; the finger held an inch before the eye was no more visible than if it had been cut off and buried a hundred feet deep in the earth.
One minute was quite enough of this sort of thing, and we were inclined to shout for the guide, when we remembered that we had told him to get out of hearing, and not to return even if we called.
I almost expected the ghost of one of the departed occupants to rise before me, and add to the discomfort of the occasion. A ghost is bad enough anywhere; but I always prefer to encounter him above ground, and where there is, at least, enough light to enable me to see him. Had one of those gentlemen made his appearance, it would have been necessary for him to bring a lantern, or rub his unearthly limbs with phosphorus, to enable us to see him.
But no ghost made his appearance, possibly for the reason that the body in the flesh had had quite enough of that place, and had no wish to send his shadow back again. The five minutes’ absence of the guide seemed at least an hour, and when he returned we welcomed him with all the enthusiasm with which we would have welcomed a brother from whom we had been separated a dozen years. We told him that we thought he had been away much longer than the time stipulated, but he assured us he had not.
On narrating this incident afterwards to a party of gentlemen in Paris, I was told of a similar experience, only a great deal more so, of a couple of travellers, one an Englishman and the other an American, who tried the experiment which we did. It seems that the men wished for a little taste of imprisonment, and sent away their guide for half an hour.
It happened to be near the close of the day. Their guide was a stupid fellow, and thought he would improve his thirty minutes by retiring to aTrattoriato indulge in a bottle of cheap wine. So he came out of the palace and crossed the Piazzetta San Marco to a restaurant near the corner of the piazza. He took his wine, indulged himself for about twenty minutes, and then started on his return. He had not observed the hour of his departure from the palace, and when he returned to the entrance he found it closed. It was the time for closing, and the persons in charge of the premises had shut the doors and gone away.
SHUT UP ALL NIGHT.
Here was a predicament. He had left the two gentlemen down in the dungeon in total darkness, where he could not reach them, and where their shouts could not be heard. He tried to obtain an entrance to the palace, and to explain the matter, but the porters were obstinate, and did not believe his story. Italians are very suspicious, and the custodian of the palace suspected that he wished to get inside in order to steal something; so they turned him away, and he walked off sorrowing.
It was during the time Venice was under the rule of Austria. The Austrian officers were never inclined to showany favors to the Italians, and consequently the appeals of the guide to those in charge of the city were of no avail. So, finally, with Italian resignation to what could not be very well helped, he went home, wrapped himself in the bosom of his family, and slept the sleep of the innocent and conscientious.
MAKING A NIGHT OF IT.
Meantime the two travellers were having a good time of it down below. They stood it for a while very well, but the half hour appeared to them three or four times what it really was. Very soon the thing ceased to be a joke. They were well aware that the time might seem long to them, but they thought it was stretching itself out altogether too much for comfort. They were in a cell where they could not walk around, and where there was no chance to kill time by turning summersaults or playing leap-frog. They stood a while and talked; then they stood a while and swore; and then they had another period of standing still and shouting. The facilities for standing still were unlimited, but those for doing anything else were very much restricted.
They shouted themselves hoarse, and obtained no response. The result of their swearing was pretty nearly the same. They began to grow hungry and thirsty, but there was nothing to eat, and there were no materials at hand for quenching their thirst. The half hour extended to an hour, and then to two hours, and then they concluded to sit down and wait for the fellow to come back. They had no means of knowing how time was passing, as their watches were not of that peculiar kind that strikes the hours, and tells you how you are getting along.
They listened and listened, and finally they heard sounds; but they were not welcome ones, as they were caused by the rats that ran about the place. The rats seemed to have a fondness for the dungeon. They did not make much noise, and could only be heard when the strangers were perfectly still; but there they were in goodly numbers, and their presence was not consoling to the travellers.
From hungry and thirsty they began to grow sleepy, but thefacilities for sleeping were not good. The furniture of these prisons was never elaborate, even in the days of the glory of Venice. The rulers of that city never thought of providing their prisons with upholstered sofas, and four-post bedsteads. The furniture generally consisted of a bundle or two of straw, and possibly a chain. Sometimes a stool was added, but it was a luxury which every prisoner did not possess. There was neither straw nor sofa in the cell at the time these unhappy travellers were shut up there, and consequently, if they wished to sleep, they must lie down on the bare floor of stone and hard earth, at the risk of taking cold and spoiling their store clothes.
RATS AND THEIR FAMILIARITIES.
They compromised the matter by sitting down in the corners and taking occasional winks of sleep. Their slumbers were not of long duration, and were interrupted by the rats running over them, and making themselves remarkably free, considering that they had never been introduced.
Hour after hour passed away. One of the men said, “it seemed as if we were shut up a full month; and,” said he, “I suppose if I had been alone it would have seemed to me about six months.”
Finally, in the morning, as soon as the palace was opened, the guide returned with his torches, and rescued the prisoners from their confinement. He tried to make them believe that he had only been gone about half an hour, and he almost convinced them of the truth of his averment, by proceeding to show them, in a very mechanical way, the other curiosities of the place, and to tell them it would soon be sunset, when he would go home and prepare to show them the way to the theatre in the evening. He told them, “I suppose, gentlemans, it seemed to you as if you were there a good many hours. It always seem so to gentlemans; they say so always.”
The travellers admitted that it did seem as if they had been there a good many hours; and as they came up stairs, saw the sun rising, and saw the movements of the people indicating that it was morning, they perceived how they had beentreated. Without heeding the request of the guide to be paid for his trouble, they kicked him from the door of the Ducal Palace half away across the piazzetta, and left him to go home without any fee for his day’s services, and with the impression of an English and an American boot painfully evident on his person.
DUNGEON ON THE BANKS OF THE NEVA.
On the banks of the Neva, in St. Petersburg, there are some famous dungeons in which prisoners of state have been confined. Peter the Great ordered one of his sons imprisoned there, and treated him with great severity. Peter was a hard-hearted monarch, and with his love for Russia, he was as ready to visit punishment upon the members of his own family as upon any one else. The Empress Catherine is also said to have shut up some of her relatives in these prisons; but her cruelty never quite came up to that of Peter, who is said to have caused his son to be put to torture in his own presence, and to have stood calmly by and witnessed his dying agonies. But then she was a woman, and a good deal must be allowed to her in the way of womanly feelings.
A pleasant feature of these dungeons at St. Petersburg is that they are located under the level of the river. St. Petersburg was built originally on a marsh. There is not a hill in the whole city, and the level of the street is only a few feet above the banks of the Neva at high-water mark. Once or twice in a century, the city is inundated, and in such cases the prisoners in these underground cells are quietly drowned; at any rate, such has been their fate on two or three occasions. It is true they might have been saved, had the officers in charge of the prison been willing to open the doors, and allow them to leave their cells; but no one thought of an inundation, and as the prison-keepers had strict orders to keep the prisoners in their cells, unless otherwise commanded by their superiors, and as the superiors were away at the time of the flood, the poor victims were drowned like rats in cages.
There is a thrilling story about one of these dungeons, or rather about one of the prisoners confined there.
A Russian adventuress, said to be a princess, of greatbeauty and accomplishments, about the year 1822, was in the south of Europe, and claimed a relationship to the emperor’s family. Some persons at this day insist that her claim was well founded, while others say that it was purely fictitious. At any rate she made a great stir, and created so much trouble to the emperor and the Russian government, that an attempt was made to bring her back to the empire, where she could be properly dealt with.
A PRINCESS DECOYED.
Various traps were set, and various plans were laid, but none of them were successful, until one day—I think it was at Genoa or Leghorn—she was invited to visit some ships lying at anchor in the harbor. A party had been made up, and every one, including the princess, whose name I do not now recall, had partaken liberally of champagne.
A Russian officer in civilian dress was of the party, and adroitly managed to induce her to go on board a Russian ship of war then in the harbor. The instant she touched the deck the anchor was lifted, and she was invited below. The rest of the party were put ashore, and the ship sailed for Cronstadt.
She was kept in close confinement during the voyage, and on her arrival at St. Petersburg was consigned to one of the dungeons. There she was kept a close prisoner in the hands of the government to which she owed allegiance, and which she had deeply offended. While she was still in this dungeon there came the great inundation of 1824. The prison where she was kept was flooded, and the unhappy princess was drowned.
I heard the story of her unhappy fate while in St. Petersburg, and afterwards in Paris. It was recalled to me in the latter city by a painting in the Russian department of the great Exposition of 1867. The most attractive picture in the Russian collection was the one which represented her death. It was not a large picture, but fearfully realistic in its character.
DROWNED IN A CELL.
It showed the interior of her cell, and the torrent of water flowing in through a small grated window near its roof. Itwas pouring in like a miniature cascade. It had covered the floor up to the very edge of the rude pallet which formed her bed. Its sheep-skin covering was hanging over its edge; rats by the dozen were climbing up this coverlet and crouching around the unhappy woman, who knelt on the couch, her hands clasped, and her face turned upward. There was a dim light in the cell, just enough to render the scene as gloomy as possible. The attitude and features indicated agony and despair at the nearness of a horrible death, from which there was little hope of relief.