XXIV.

THE BASTILLE.

ITS HISTORY AND CONSTRUCTION.—THREE AMERICANS SEARCHING FOR IT.—A FRENCH JOKE AT THEIR EXPENSE.—HOW PRISONERS WERE RECEIVED AND TREATED.—HORRIBLE DUNGEONS.—THE OUBLIETTES.—CRUELTIES OF THE BASTILLE.—THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK.—HIS ROMANTIC STORY.—DESTRUCTION OF THE BASTILLE.

One of the most famous dungeons or prisons in the world was the Bastille of Paris.

It was a state prison and citadel of the city, was built in the year 1369, and destroyed by the mob in the beginning of the revolution of 1789, or more than four centuries after its construction.

It is a curious fact that no plan of the Bastille as originally constructed is in existence, neither is there any plan extant of the Bastille as it appeared at the time of its destruction. Somehow the kings of France were averse to giving the public much information about this famous prison of state. They appear to have been satisfied with the knowledge that the place existed, and that those who displeased them could be shut up there, and they never troubled themselves to know the exact plan or model of the concern.

There has been a great deal of exaggeration concerning the Bastille, and many stories have been told about it which had little or no foundation. After all, there was really no need of exaggeration, for the atrocities committed within the walls of the Bastille are quite horrible enough for all practical purposes.

THE GRAND HOTEL, PARIS.

In ordinary life the French are a quiet, harmless people, and they are the last in the world whom you would suspect ofatrocities; but every revolution in France has been full of horror, whether in past times or in the present. It has been said that you may take the mildest Frenchman in the world, give him a place of authority where his acts will not be called into question, and the chances are great that he will conduct himself in a very savage manner. I do not assert this of my own knowledge, but leave the reader to judge whether the history of the French prisons and French tyranny does not, in some degree at least, corroborate the statement.

The day after my arrival in Paris, a friend proposed that we should visit the Bastille. We were talking upon some topic, and I had actually stepped inside the carriage with him and given the order to the driver before it occurred to me that the Bastille did not exist, and had not existed for several scores of years. When I remembered this, and told my companion, he said,—

“I came very near selling you. I want to get even on selling myself.”

SEARCHING FOR THE BASTILLE.

Then he told me a story of his experience in searching for the Bastille. Bear in mind that he was an editor, familiar with history (editors of course know everything), and if he had given the subject a moment’s thought it would have occurred to him that there was no Bastille in Paris worth mentioning. Let me tell his story as he told it.

“There were three of us who came over in the steamer, landed at Brest, and came to Paris. We arrived here in the evening. We put up at the Grand Hotel, and the next morning started out to ‘do’ the city. The first thing we saw as we stepped out of the hotel door to the Boulevard was an omnibus, on which was the sign‘Place de la Bastille.’We mounted to the top of this omnibus, and away we rode down the Boulevard.

VERDANT AMERICANS.

“By and by we stopped near a large, open square, with a monument in the centre. The conductor motioned us to get off, and said something which we did not understand, but took to mean that this was the end of his route. Moreover, the omnibus turned round, and we understood pretty wellthat we must get ashore. I was the only one who could speak French, and I couldn’t speak much of it. As we left the omnibus, I said to the conductor, ‘Monsieur, où est la Bastille?’

“The conductor stared at us, smiled, and turned away. Then we stepped on the sidewalk and looked around. Close by us was a ‘Restaurant de la Bastille,’ and on the corner we could see the sign of ‘Place de la Bastille.’ There was a cake shop close by, and that had a sign which indicated that it was the cake shop ‘de la Bastille.’

“Then we stopped a well-dressed Frenchman, and said to him, ‘Monsieur, où est la Bastille?’ The fellow was too polite to laugh in our faces, as the conductor did, but he said not a word, and walked off. I saw, though, when his back was turned towards us, that he was shaking his sides, and evidently grinning.

“Then we stepped into the restaurant, and I said to a waiter, ‘Garçon, où est la Bastille?’ and that infernal waiter laughed in my face. I said to the other boys, ‘These confounded Frenchmen round the Bastille are all fools. I thought Frenchmen were polite, but these fellows have no politeness at all.’ We climbed out of that restaurant, and went out on the square on a Bastille hunt.

“There was no more sign of a prison than there is inside your boot. We walked round that square about ten minutes, when it got into one of our heads,—not into mine though,—that the Bastille had been destroyed in 1789. I had nothing more to say, except that we were the three biggest fools in all Paris. Here we had been hunting round, boring everybody, and asking them to show us a prison which was destroyed eighty years before, as we perfectly well knew, only we did not happen to recollect it. We went back to the Grand Hotel, and the next time we went out sight-seeing we made sure that the thing we inquired for was in existence.”

DESCRIPTION OF THE BASTILLE.

The Bastille was an irregular building in shape, as the original construction, in the time of Charles V. had been added to by each successive monarch. It had as its principalfeature eight round towers, connected by curtains of masonry, and was encircled by a ditch a hundred and twenty-five feet wide. This ditch was generally dry, and was surrounded on its outside by a wall sixty feet high, to which was attached a wooden gallery running round the whole inner circumference of the ditch opposite the castle. This gallery was called the “Rounds.” Sentinels were stationed on these Rounds, and it was their duty to be perpetually in motion, in order to discover any movement of the prisoners for escaping. The Bastille had a governor and a staff of assistants, and it had a garrison of one hundred men, with their proper officers.

Whenever a prisoner was brought to the Bastille, his trunks and clothing were carefully examined, in order to discover whether he had any concealed papers or weapons. The advocate Linguet, who had been detained there for three years, says,—

“The new comer is as much surprised as alarmed to find himself subjected to a personal examination by four men, whose appearance seems to belie their functions; men clad in uniforms, which leads one to look for a regard to decencies, and wearing decorations which presuppose a service which endures no stain. This man takes from him his money, that he may have no means of corrupting any one of their number, his jewelry on the same consideration, his papers for fear he should find any resource against the tedium to which he is henceforth devoted, and his knives and scissors are taken from him for fear he should commit suicide or assassinate his jailers.”

After this examination he was led to the cell intended for him to occupy. These cells were situated in all the towers. The walls were at least twelve feet in thickness at the top, and at the base they were thirty or forty feet. Each cell had a small window defended by three iron gratings, one within, the second without, and the third in the middle thickness of the masonry.

The bars of this grating were an inch thick. No fire wasallowed, and there was no glass in the windows, so that in winter these cells were like ice-houses, and in summer they were hot and damp.

CHARACTER OF THE DUNGEONS.

The dungeons were nineteen feet below the level of the court-yard, and five below that of the ditch. They had no openings but a narrow loophole communicating with the ditch. The inhabitant of these dungeons was deprived of air and daylight, and lived in a damp and infected atmosphere. Oftentimes the floor of his cell was covered with mud, and he found himself surrounded by reptiles, rats, and other disagreeable creeping or walking things.

The written history of the Bastille shows that these horrible cells were frequently used for the confinement of prisoners in order to make their existence as terrible as possible. There is a tradition that iron cages were used for the confinement of prisoners, but writers who have given their attention to this subject say that nothing of the sort was discovered at the time the Bastille was destroyed. There is also a tradition in regard to theOubliettes, which are described as holes into which condemned prisoners were lowered, where they should languish and die forgotten. There is also a tradition in regard to a Question Chamber, in which suspected prisoners were tortured to make them confess their guilt, or to reveal the names of their accomplices.

PLACE DE LA BASTILLE, PARIS.

THE BASTILLE.—ERECTED IN 1369.

The Bastille could contain fifty state prisoners in solitary cells, and by putting two persons in one cell the number could be raised to a hundred. Sometimes as many as three hundred persons were in the Bastille at once, and in that case they were densely crowded. According to history the prisoners were wretchedly fed, but it should be said, in justice to the government, that this state of affairs was probably due to the frauds of the subordinates rather than to any intended cruelty on the part of the government, as the latter generally made liberal allowances for the support of the prisoners of state. One writer asserts that in his time the governor of the Bastille had a great number of prisoners, many of whom were paid for at twenty-five francs a day, and that theirsubsistence did not cost as many sous. There was a regular tariff for expenses for the table, lights, and washing of all prisoners, according to their rank. A prince was allowed fifty francs a day, a marshal of France thirty-six francs, a lieutenant general thirty-four francs, and so on down to the inferior prisoners, who were allowed two francs and a half.

TREATMENT OF PRISONERS.

A prisoner might be examined at the moment of his arrest, or not until weeks, months, or years afterwards. He had no mode of offering any defence, or of telling his friends where he was, or why he was detained; and sometimes he did not himself know these facts. He was allowed no books or papers; he could not communicate with anybody except by special permission. He could not be visited except on an order from the lieutenant of police, and at such visits all the conversation must be in the presence of an officer of the prison, and no allusion could be made to the cause of detention, the term of imprisonment, or any topic of that sort.

The treatment of prisoners varied greatly. Some, whom it was desired to kill by slow torture, without trial, or even without a hearing, were shut up in the horrible dungeons already described, where they were fed on the worst possible food until death relieved them from their suffering. Others, whom it was not designed to punish or destroy, but simply to detain, enjoyed every comfort, and a great deal of luxury. They had large rooms, fine furniture, excellent and abundant food, plenty of wine, books, and papers, could have their own servants, could be visited by their friends or families; in fact, could do pretty nearly as they pleased, except to go out of the Bastille.

Sometimes the Bastille was under governors who had a good deal of the milk of human kindness in their composition, and sometimes it was under the control of men who had as little feeling and sympathy as a stone. Prisoners were well or badly treated according as the governor was good or bad in character, and also according to the instructions which had been received concerning their treatment. The most horrible feature about the Bastille was the mode of sending personsto it. No man could be safe from imprisonment there, and he was subject to the whims and caprices of the minister of state, whom no appeals could reach, and by whom no call for justice would be heard or heeded. If any man incurred the displeasure of the minister, or of any one who had sufficient influence to secure an order for his arrest under the royal seal, he might be taken to the Bastille at any moment. If his accuser desired that he should never more go out into the world, and never hold communication with any one, the accuser’s will became law. Hundreds of men were sent to the Bastille without knowing the cause of their arrest or the names of their accusers, and without being allowed to communicate with family or friend. It was this uncertainty, this ever-present fear of injustice and cruelty, that made the name of the Bastille appalling, and led every Frenchman to regard it as a place full of horrors.

HORRORS OF THE BASTILLE.

It is said that some of the most barbarous cruelties ever inflicted within the walls of the Bastille were during the reign of Louis XI. Louis himself was the author and inventor of some of the worst barbarities. It is recorded in history, that he caused dungeons to be made in the Bastille surrounded with smooth and polished masonry, where the prisoners, who were lowered into them, were obliged to remain in an unnatural position, which they could not change. According to history, the princes of the house of Armagnac were shut up in these horrible pits, and were drawn out twice a week to be scourged in the presence of the governor, and once in every three months to have two of their teeth torn from their jaws. Sometimes split sticks of dry wood were placed on their fingers, and then the sticks would be set on fire and allowed to consume. Richelieu sent many of his enemies to the Bastille, some of whom were treated with extreme consideration, while others endured great severity. One of these men, the notorious Bassompierre, was immured there twelve years by the order of Richelieu.

MAN IN THE IRON MASK.

One of the greatest mysteries attending the Bastille is that of the Man in the Iron Mask. A great deal has been said andwritten about him, some of it being fact, and some of it fiction. Who he was is not positively known. It is very certain that he was a personage of great importance, whom it was desirable to keep out of the way, and at the same time very desirable not to kill. He was always treated with the utmost consideration. Every one of his attendants uncovered his head when in presence of the mysterious personage. His clothing was of the finest character, his food was of the best quality, and served on the choicest table-ware. He was rarely left alone, and then only in a place whence he could not escape; his face was always covered with a mask of black velvet, fastened behind his head with steel bands. His private governor was De Saint Mars, and it is supposed that he was answerable with his own life for the safety of the Man in the Iron Mask, and for the preservation of his incognito. When first heard of he was confined in the Marguerite Islands, in the Mediterranean. One day a fisherman, passing near the place of his confinement, saw a hand wave towards him from a window, and a moment after, a silver plate was thrown out. The fisherman picked up the plate and looked at it; saw that some words were engraved upon it, and immediately took it to the governor of the prison. The governor looked at it carelessly, and then asked the fisherman if he had shown it to any one, or had read it. The fisherman answered, “No, your excellency, I have shown it to no one, and as for myself I cannot read.”

“That is fortunate,” said the governor; and giving the fisherman a gold piece, he dismissed him.

The gold piece, however, did the fisherman very little good, as he was assassinated that night by some unknown person.

Every piece of linen, every scrap of paper, everything which in any way would convey information, was scrupulously examined. One day the mysterious man made some writing on one of his shirts which was going out to the wash. By some means this escaped the notice of the jailers, and was found by the washerwoman. She could not read, and when she returned the linen, she called the attention of the governor tothe writing. She was rewarded for her fidelity with a gold piece, and she, like the fisherman, was assassinated on the night after she had obtained her reward. After this, the Man in the Iron Mask was always furnished with new linen every day, and that which he had worn was immediately destroyed.

AN ILLUSTRIOUS PRISONER.

From the Marguerite Islands, he was moved to the Bastille, where he died on the 19th of November, 1703. He was buried the next day in the cemetery of St. Paul, under the name of Marchiatti.

In the Bastille he was waited upon at the table and at his toilet by the governor, and no one else. He was allowed to go to mass, and a file of soldiers always accompanied him. Their muskets were loaded, and their matches were lighted; they were ordered to kill him instantly in case he spoke to any one, or attempted to tear off his mask. Who he was, and what he was, will probably never be known. No person of sufficient note to justify such precautions as were taken in his case was absent from the stage of history at that time. The general impression is, that he was an elder brother of Louis XIV., the fruit of an adulterous intrigue between Anne of Austria and the Duke of Buckingham, or some other of those lovers for which Anne was famous. As he was born in wedlock, he could not have been dispossessed of his claim to the throne, if his existence had been admitted. Louis XIV. may have had some absurd prejudice against murdering his brother, though it was not the fashion of those days to be so very fastidious. A story was written by Dumas under the title of the Man in the Iron Mask, and it has been dramatized and given on the stage in Europe and America. The mystery which envelops the wearer of the mask gives an additional interest to all stories concerning him.

DESTRUCTION OF THE BASTILLE.

In talking about this historic individual, we have almost forgotten the Bastille. After the time of Louis XIV. the Bastille became a place of imprisonment, not alone of persons of honorable birth, but of common malefactors, and of persons of very low repute. The imprisonment of Beuzot, the king’s librarian, for obeying the king’s own directions, by the ministerDe Breteuil, brought to light the whole system of iniquity in which the prison was managed. On the 14th of July, 1789, the people arose in their fury, captured the Bastille, and ransacked and destroyed it. At the time of its capture only seven persons were found in its cells and dungeons, one of them having been there since his eleventh year. There was another who had been ten years in the Marguerite Islands, and thirty years in the Bastille; he appeared, on his liberation, bewildered and half idiotic, like a man waking from a sleep of forty years, and looking out upon a new world. The records of the prison reveal many cases as bad as this, and any lover of liberty, even to the smallest degree, cannot regret that the Bastille has passed away forever.

DESTRUCTION OF THE BASTILLE, JULY 14, 1789.—ITS KEY PRESENTED BY LA FAYETTE TO GEORGE WASHINGTON, AND NOW AMONG THE RELICS AT MOUNT VERNON.

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